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TODAY'S ARTISTS


Winard Harper


Winard Harper

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Drummer Winard Harper is passionate about jazz. "This music is powerful," he says. "It can do a lot of good for people. If they'd spend some time each day listening to it, we would see many changes in the world."



Come Into the Light

Come Into the Light





The EDGE


In Memory Of

Lena Horne,

1917 - 2010

Stormy Weather



Hank Jones,

1918 - 2010

Willow Weep For Me, a 1994 Carnegie Hall performance



Benjamin Hooks,

1925 - 2010



Gene Lees,

1928 - 2010



Dorothy Height,

1912 - 2010



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Think About It


"To some will come a time when change itself is beauty, if not heaven."

- Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1869 - 1935



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Today's Gift Idea

Lithographs and Giclees by Barbara Freeman

Chet Baker

 


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Recently Published


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James Gavin, author of Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne

Lena Horne

Stormy Weather, by Lena Horne


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Larry Tye, author of Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend


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David Robertson, author of W.C. Handy: The Life and Times of the Man Who Made the Blues

W.C. Handy

St. Louis Blues, by W.C. Handy's Memphis Blues Band


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If you could have dinner with three people, who would they be?

Among those participating in the twelfth edition of Reminiscing in Tempo: Memories and Opinion are Gary Bartz, John Scofield, Billy Cobham and Esperanza Spalding

Gary Bartz


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Graham Lock and David Murray, co-editors of Thriving on a Riff: Jazz and Blues Influences in African American Literature and Film and The Hearing Eye: Jazz and Blues Influences in African American Visual Art

The Death of Bessie Smith, by Rose Piper


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In the twenty-seventh edition of Great Encounters, David Robertson, author of W.C. Handy: The Life and Times of the Man Who Made the Blues, tells the story of Handy's first recording session, and his meeting with James Reese Europe

W.C. Handy
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Marybeth Hamilton, author of In Search of the Blues

Leadbelly


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Trudy Carpenter is the winner of the Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction contest. Her story is called "Bumps Out Then Bumps Back "


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Jazz: Through the Life and Lens of Milt Hinton: An online photo exhibit



Milt Hinton

Laughing At Life, by Milt Hinton


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Ben Ratliff, author of Coltrane: The Story of a Sound

John Coltrane

Giant Steps


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Ralph Ellison biographer Arnold Rampersad, on the complex life of the author of Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison


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In cooperation with The Jazz Image author Lee Tanner, Jerry Jazz Musician presents "Masters of Jazz Photography," this month featuring the work of Jerry Stoll

photo of Pee Wee Russell and Gerry Mulligan by Jerry Stoll


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Up From New Orleans: Life Before, During and After Katrina -- A conversation with transplanted New Orleans musicians Devin Phillips and Mark DiFlorio

Devin Phillips


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An Online Story of Jazz in New Orleans, with an introduction by Nat Hentoff

Jelly Roll Morton

New Orleans was a free and easy place, comments by Jelly Roll Morton


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Now in the Art Gallery

The Art of James Allen



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Test your wits! Subscribe to Quiz Show, which is delivered to your desktop every other Friday .



Play Quiz Show

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Heroes...We all had them. For years, we have been asking the guests we interview to talk about theirs. You can read them at our Heroes page. Now, we invite you to write about the person you recall being your own childhood hero. All submissions are published...



Willie Mays


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Coming Soon

Interviews with Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne author James Gavin, and Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Genius



...ensure you won't miss any of this (and much more in the works) by subscribing to our newsletter.

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"The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet."

- Mark Twain




JJM

 



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Jerry Jazz Musician Home Page
Jazz/Jerry Jazz Musician/Great Encounters: When Bing Crosby met Louis Armstrong

Great Encounters

When Bing Crosby met Louis Armstrong



photo courtesy Gary Giddins

Excerpted from

Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams:

by

Gary Giddins



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Listen to Crosby and Armstrong sing Gone Fishin'

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    To hip musicians in Chicago, scat had been the rage for months. Bing and some of the other adventurous musicians in Whiteman's band heard it that very week from the master himself, Louis Armstrong. If mobster Al Capone ruled the city, Armstrong ruled its music. Whatever he played was instantly picked up by other musicians. The previous spring Okeh issued his Hot Five recording of "Heebie Jeebies," and it caused a sensation, selling some 40,000 copies thanks to his inspired vocal chorus - a torrent of bristling grunts and groans in no known language. Pianist Earl Hines later claimed he knew musicians who tried to catch cold so they could growl like Louis; and Mezz Mezzrow, the marijuana-pushing clarinetist, recalled, "You would hear cats greeting each other with Louis's riffs when they met around town…scatting in each other's face." Before Louis, scat singing could be heard on records by Cliff Edwards (Ukelele Ike) and Red McKenzie (Mound City Blue Blowers); Bing and Al had admired and imitated them in Spokane. But the ad libs on those records were often disguised by kazoo or comb. They had little of Armstrong's rhythmic thrust and none of his melodic ingenuity.

  At the time Whiteman pulled into town, Louis was fronting the Sunset Café band, with Hines as his musical director. The place was run by Joe Glaser, a Capone acolyte who several years later would become Armstrong's manager, building the powerful Associated Booking Agency in the process. In Chicago he billed his star in lights as "The World's Greatest Trumpet Player." The Sunset was located on the main stem of black Chicago but served an integrated audience. Because its band played a good two hours after most others retired, the club became a second home to many of the best white musicians in town, among them Bix Beiderbecke, Hoagy Carmichael, Tommy Dorsey, and Frank Trumbauer.

      Whiteman introduced Bing and Al (Rinker) to the Sunset and other hot spots in Chicago. One can only imagine Bing's initial response to Louis's irrepressible genius, especially if Mildred Bailey had primed him for an experience bordering on the Second Coming. All his life Bing surrounded himself with people who made him laugh. In Armstrong, music and humor were inseparable. Bing was bowled over one evening when Louis revived a routine he had developed in New York in 1924, putting on a frock coat and dark glasses and preaching as the Reverend Satchelmouth. The Gonzagan found Armstrong's irreverence almost as revelatory as his music. He had a front-row pew and knew exactly what he was hearing. When asked in 1950 who had influenced him most, Bing replied, "I'm proud to acknowledge my debt to the Reverend Satchelmouth. He is the beginning and the end of music in America. And long may he reign."

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Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams

by

Gary Giddins

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From Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, by Gary Giddins, Little, Brown Publishing. Used by permission of Gary Giddins

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Conversations with Gary Giddins




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Great Encounters Archive




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