The History Book Club discussion

André wrote: "G wrote: "still amazed that these rather geeky/nerdy looking guys could play such cool jazz..."

G - what do you imagine a great jazz player should look like?
Beethoven hmmm - the haircut reminds m..."
I guess it's just that guys with skinny ties in black and white photos remind me of my father! I'll just close my eyes, shut my mouth and listen ....

G wrote: "...shut my mouth and listen..."

Go ahead and tell folks what's on your mind. I thought it quite funny. I'm always amazed about the hurt some guitar players display when they're plucking their strings for a solo.
Also classic piano players (and many others of course) love to express themselves by showing off/displaying many different variations of ecstasy and pain and what not while hammering the keys...

Book about one of the all time jazz greats:

Coltrane: The Story of a Sound
by Ben Ratliff


A major work about the great saxophonist—and about the state of jazz.


What was the essence of John Coltrane’s achievement that makes him so prized forty years after his death? What was it about his improvising, his bands, his compositions, his place within his era of jazz that left so many musicians and listeners so powerfully drawn to him? What would a John Coltrane look like now—or are we looking for the wrong signs? The acclaimed jazz writer Ben Ratliff addresses these questions in Coltrane. First Ratliff tells the story of Coltrane’s development, from his first recordings as a no-name navy bandsman to his last recordings as a near-saint, paying special attention to the last ten years of his life, which contained a remarkable series of breakthroughs in a nearly religious search for deeper expression. In the book’s second half, Ratliff traces another history: that of Coltrane’s influence and legacy. This story begins in the mid-’50s and considers the reactions of musicians, critics, and others who paid attention, asking: Why does Coltrane signify so heavily in the basic identity of jazz? Placing jazz among other art forms and American social history, and placing Coltrane not just among jazz musicians but among the greatest American artists, Ratliff tries to look for the sources of power in Coltrane’s music—not just in matters of technique, composition, and musical concepts, but in the deeper frequencies of Coltrane’s sound.

John Coltrane

A Love Supreme (the entire album):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsxZu...

Alisa, great! Where would we be without John's fantastic music!

He had tremendous talent. Thanks for the link, listening to it now!

Alisa, most of his records are out on CD with very well done remasters.

There is a relatively new biography of Marian McPartland. If any one has read it, I'd be interested in your thoughts.

by Paul De Barros

Mario Biondi

Rio De Janeiro Blues:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdNFEL...

Mother Earth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K06pI...

Nature Boy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgn0iQ...

No Mo' Trouble:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVBY4A...

with Incognito & Chaka Khan: Lowdown (don't ask me what the @#$% he's doin' on that boat...:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKuLWl...

Randy Crawford and Joe Sample

Street Life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJDFBO...

Claude Nobs

famous initiator and director of the Montreux Jazz Festival died Jan. 10 from complications after surgery after a skiing accident.

I just found this tribute with photographs taken during his life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl90ZB...

Take any Montreux concert be it ZZ Top, Abdullah Ibrahim or Randy Crawford - none would have been possible without Claude.

Some Montreux impressions:

Abdullah Ibrahim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTk9GX...

Mandrill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUMwy6...

Dave Brubeck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dmfS8...

Eddie Harris
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MLxgc...

The Jazz Cadence of American Culture

by Robert G. O'Meally

This is something a little different regarding the effect of jazz on American society.
Taking to heart Ralph Ellison's remark that much in American life is "jazz-shaped," "The Jazz Cadence of American Culture" offers a wide range of eloquent statements about the influence of this art form. Robert G. O'Meally has gathered a comprehensive collection of important essays, speeches, and interviews on the impact of jazz on other arts, on politics, and on the rhythm of everyday life. Focusing mainly on American artistic expression from 1920 to 1970, O'Meally confronts a long era of political and artistic turbulence and change in which American art forms influenced one another in unexpected ways.

Donald Byrd

so diverse... magnificent!!!!!

Thank You for Funking Up My Life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w2BkT...

Slow Drag:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpDa0k...

Witch Hunt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCRJnR...

For your listening pleasure. The Red Norvo Octet, comprised of some of the greats....the incomparable Teddy Wilson, Bunny Berrigan, Johnny Mince, Chu Berry, Gene Krupa, George Van Eps and Red Norvo. One of the photos shows a singer in the background who I believe is Norvo's wife, Mildred Baily.

Blues in B Flat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=064E_D...

Wow all that jazz (smile)

The Jazz People of New Orleans

by Lee Friedlander

Synopsis
Lee Friedlander's reputation is founded upon an enormous diversity of work: his photographs range from landscapes to portraits, from street scenes to nudes, from industrial sites to flowers. This new book reflects another of his passionate interests - music - especially the musicians of New Orleans whom he has been photographing since 1957. New Orleans, birthplace of jazz, was once home to such legends as Louis Armstrong and King Joe Oliver. Friedlander has photographed most of them, musicians like Manuel "Fess" Manetta, who was playing with bands before World War I and who once tried to teach Louis Armstrong to play with two trumpets at once. Here are Johnny St. Cyr, George "Kid Sheik" Cola, Sweet Emma Barrett, Isidore Barbarin and Roosevelt Sykes, blues singers and guitarists Robert Pete Williams and Snooks Eaglin. From the portraits we move out into the streets, to the marching bands like Young Tuxedo and Eureka, following Friedlander's eye to the edge of funerals until, finally, we are immersed in the rhythm of the city itself. Many of Friedlander's subjects are encountered in an afterword by Whitney Balliett, America's foremost writer on jazz, who describes a visit he made to the city in the mid-sixties. The Jazz People of New Orleans is a remarkable testament, by a virtuoso photographer, to a city whose musical tradition is at the heart of American culture.

You say Jazz You say Louis Armstrong! Brings alive New Orleans and everything basic human emotion with his magical trumpet!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5TwT6...
This isn't considered a classic Traditional Pop song for nothing!

Heard about a Booker Irvin reissue today:

http://www.npr.org/2013/11/11/2445283...

Excerpts had good quality (for a car radio)

Thanks for the add, G.

One of the few women who made a name for themselves as a jazz icon, pianist Marion McPartland

Margaret Marian McPartland, was an English-born American jazz pianist, composer and writer. She was the host of Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz on National Public Radio from 1978 until 2011.

After her marriage to Jimmy McPartland in February 1945, she resided in the United States when not travelling throughout the world to perform. In 1969 she founded Halcyon Records, a recording company that produced albums for ten years. In 2000 she was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. In 2004 she was given a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement. In 2007 she was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. Known mostly for jazz, nonetheless, she composed other types of music as well, performing her own symphonic work A Portrait of Rachel Carson with the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra in 2007. In 2010 she was named a member of the Order of the British Empire.

McPartland died on 20 August 2013 of natural causes at her home in Port Washington, New York. She was 95 years old

I am in the middle of a great autobiography of Horace Silver: , by Horace Silver. Lots of funny and serious anecdotes from his life and a huge discography at the end.

Cool, Glynn. He is awesome.

Jill wrote: "One of the few women who made a name for themselves as a jazz icon, pianist Marion McPartland

Margaret Marian McPartland, was an English-born American jazz pianist, composer and writer. She was th..."

I loved her radio show, and I didn't know she died. Thanks.

I'm thinking of buying Art Tatum's Group Masterpieces box set (Pablo). It has been on my wish list for way too long.

You can't go wrong with that box set, Bryan!!!!

Wayne Henderson

Wayne Henderson and the Jazz Crusaders, live with Patrice Rushen, Ndugu Chandler, Tom Browne, Everette Harp,

Keep that Same Old Feeling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIkmM...

Same song by The Crusaders without Wayne but with Wilton Felder, Joe Sample and Stix Hooper:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q73Hk...

Wayne Henderson:
Behold the Day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5SMT...

Wayne Henderson:
Mysterious Maiden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW1VW...

Some great stuff Andre - thanks so very much.

As usual, Andre, you are coming up with some great recommendations. We have missed you.

Jill wrote: "As usual, Andre, you are coming up with some great recommendations. We have missed you."

Thanks, Jill, that's sweet of you. I'll be back but I just can't make it as regularly as before.

This book is a "must have" for the jazz fan as it contains some of the most famous photos of the jazz greats......and some that have not been released to the public until the publication of this book.

Jazz

by Herman Leonard (no photo)

Synopsis:

Since the 1950s, Herman Leonard's photographs of jazz musicians have been crucial in shaping the image of the music and the world in which it was created. Leonard's friendships with jazz greats such as Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis gave him rare access to the innovators who made modern jazz and the places in which they made it. Leonard took his camera into the smoky clubs and after-hours sessions, to backstage parties and musicians' apartments, to build an incomparable visual record of one of the twentieth century's most significant art forms. His luminous images of Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and many others, both in performance and "off duty," are at once supreme examples of the photographer's art and a unique record of a musical revolution. For this definitive collection of his work, Leonard has retrieved scores of previously unseen photographs, published here for the first time, alongside his most famous and widely recognized images. Accompanied by an essay exploring the stories behind the pictures, and an interview with Leonard revealing his techniques, Jazz captures and preserves the glory days of the music that has been called "the sound of surprise."

The man with the "sticks", he mentored some of the greats of jazz.

Art Blakey: Jazz Messenger

by Leslie Gourse (no photo)

Synopsis:

n the 1950s, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers introduced "hard bop", a of blend bebop, blues, gospel and Latin music that has defined that jazz mainstream ever since. Although his influence as a drummer and bandleader was enormous, his greatest contribution may have been as a mentor to younger musicians such as Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Jackie McLean and Wynton Marsalis. Biographer Leslie Gourse chronicles Blakey's colourful life and career, from his childhood in Pittsburgh to his final years as an international jazz icon.(

Jimmy Scott

Time After Time (incl. a few words/thoughts on lyrics):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRmUW...

Thanks, Andre.

Horace Silver

Senor Blues:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8jFG...

Song for my Father:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFjmW...

Nutville:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPrK1...

Idris Muhammad

Loran's Dance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZbE2...

See Saw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDEJf...

Turn This Mutha Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frLaT...

Crab Apple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XN00...

Say What
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlPht...

Wander
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uuIi...

Thanks, André. I hadn't even heard that he passed.

Joe Sample

Carmel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sK496...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/art...

Old Places, Old Faces
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8hoEk...

with Randy Crawford: Street Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJDFBO...

Thanks, Andre.

So sad to hear of his passing. He was a great musician and by all accounts a gracious person. RIP Joe Sample.

Alisa wrote: "He was a great musician and by all accounts a gracious person."

He sure was, Alisa. Carmel is one of my all time favorite albums.

Everything you ever wanted to know about that music that we call jazz!!

All That Jazz

by Jack Wheaton (no photo)

Synopsis

Jack Wheaton has provided an exhaustive and enlightening work designed to help nonmusicians understand and appreciate the excitement, originality, and historical significance of jazz. Through the study of this inspiring material, students should not only learn a great deal about America, about black Americans, and about contemporary art and music, but also a little bit about themselves. The book is divided into three parts. The first part provides historical background on the development of Afro-American music, examining, in particular, contributions from Africa, western Europe, and the United States. It examines the evolution of jazz in relation to its development as a folk art, commercial art, and fine art. The second part of the book is aimed at the development of listening skills. It explores rhythm, its importance to jazz, and what differentiates the rhythmic devices of jazz and classical music; explains the role of blue notes in jazz compositions; and defines improvisation and its different approaches. The third part deals with the relationships between aesthetics, technological advances, and social changes in this country and how they have affected jazz. Throughout the text Wheaton also offers many extra features -a New Orleans Parade, Jazz on Film, Jazz Festivals -that richly complement the material discussed. Also included are extensive lists of jazz musicians and groups -blues singers, big bands, bop musicians -to familiarize the student with some of the important names associated with jazz. Each chapter contains listening assignments that guide the student to an understanding and appreciation of the era, the style, the performer, or the instrument under discussion. A summary follows each chapter, as well as questions for review and discussion, topics for further research, suggestions for further reading and listening, and a listing of films and videos relevant to the chapter.

Thank you for the add

The Cannonball Adderley Quartet

From Live at the Lighthouse:

Sack O' Woe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR3rm...

Sextet live in Switzerland 1963:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBGhN...

Antonio Hart

Summer Jazz Workshops - Faculty Concert:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q5Xk...

Grover Washington Jr.

Take Me There (live):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf88F...

Album Version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwvRZ...

Grover Washington

In Concert 1981
after the Winelight album this was the tightest band Grover ever had (of course - they were the best studio musicians at the time, here they play live).
You can see the fun the guys have while getting ready to get on stage. Marcus Miller who played bass on the album was "replaced" by Anthony Jackson, a master bass player in his own right.

Grover Sax
Richard Tee Keys
Anthony Jackson Bass
Eric Gale Guitar
Steve Gadd Drums
Ralph MacDonald Percussion
Paul Griffin Synths


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOKlG...

Thanks so much Andre - all of us are taking part in the US Thanksgiving celebrations but appreciate all of these adds.

Bentley wrote: "Thanks so much Andre - all of us are taking part in the US Thanksgiving celebrations."

Anytime, Bentley. Happy Holidays - hoping you had a nice Thanksgiving!

I celebrated Thanksgiving by eating too much (as usual) and now I can't go to sleep until it digests!!!! Thanks so much for your adds to this thread, Andre.....and to all the music threads.

Sleep well, Jill! I'm sure Grover will make you have nice dreams no matter what you have going on in your stomach... that said maybe I should add Fred Wesley's Bloat by Bloat Backwards (smile) - check the Funk thread.

A biography of The Man himself!!

Chasin' the Bird: The Life and Legacy of Charlie Parker

by Brian Priestley (no photo)

Synopsis:

Charlie Parker has been idolized by generations of jazz musicians and fans. Indeed, his spectacular musical abilities--his blinding speed and brilliant improvisational style--made Parker a legend even before his tragic death at age thirty-four.
Now, in Chasin' The Bird, Brian Priestley offers a marvelous biography of this jazz icon, ranging from his childhood in Kansas City to his final harrowing days in New York. Priestley offers new insight into Parker's career, beginning as a teenager single-mindedly devoted to mastering the saxophone. We follow Parker on his first trip to New York, penniless, washing dishes for $9.00 a week at Jimmy's Chicken Shack, a favorite hangout of the great Art Tatum, whose stunning speed and ingenuity were an influence on the young musician. Priestley sheds light on Parker's collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Bud Powell, Mary Lou Williams, and Thelonious Monk, and he illuminates such classic recordings as "Salt Peanuts" and "A Night in Tunisia" and Parker's own compositions "Shaw 'Nuff" and "Yardbird Suite"--music which defined an era. Priestley also gives us an unflinching look at Parker's dark side--the drug abuse, heavy drinking, and tangled relations with women and the law. He recounts the death of Parker's daughter Pree, who was only two-and-a-half years old, and Parker's own death at thirty-four, in such wretched condition that the doctor listed his age as fifty-three.
With an invaluable discography that lists every recording of Charlie Parker that has ever been made publicly available, here is a must-have biography of a true jazz giant, one that helps us penetrate the dazzling surface to grasp the artistry beneath.