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Virtually all recordings of this influential trumpet player are available, but the only known film footage of him is in a 1955 appearance on the Soupy Sales variety show, which was one year before his death. Who is he?
Booker Little
Clifford Brown
Donald Byrd
Lee Morgan
Freddie Hubbard
Art Farmer
Roy Eldridge
Fats Navarro
...June 30th, 2014
Breaking into the white market without losing his African-American vernacular identity was an amazing achievement for Louis Armstrong — particularly during his era. I talk about this in an excerpt from my recent interview with Thomas Brothers, author of Louis Armstrong: Master Of Modernism.
__________
JJM In the winter of 1925 – 26, while making a name for himself at classy venues like the Dreamland Café and the Vendome Theater, Armstrong was also extending his reputation thanks to the Hot Five series on OKeh Records. The recordings sold in Chicago, but the main target audience was African Americans in the Deep South, where “race records” were immensely popular. What was OKeh’s marketing strategy for this series?
TB Yes, they certainly sold in Chicago, and they sold in all northern cities where there were African-American communities from the Great Migration. The target of these “race records” was of course to appeal to the African-American mass audience, and to do so in a low-budget way. They were not interested in paying musicians any royalties – they would get a flat fee
...June 25th, 2014
Where would jazz be without New York’s “joints’ of the 1920’s – 1950’s? If Ellington hadn’t been hired to play the Cotton Club, what direction would his orchestra have taken? Without the Royal Roost, would Parker play with Miles and Max Roach, and would Miles have had a venue to perform “Birth of the Cool” in? And, where would Monk and Coltrane have played if not at the Five Spot?
I came upon this terrific history today, “Jazz Joints Through the Ages.” Written by noted jazz historian Ashley Kahn and originally published in Jazz Times in 2006, the feature provides short biographies of many of the most important clubs in jazz music’s past.
...June 24th, 2014
After joining Billy Eckstine’s band in 1944, Eckstine named this new band mate “Jug” when straw hats ordered for the band did not fit. Who is he?
Sonny Stitt
Sonny Clark
Jackie McLean
Gene Ammons
Dexter Gordon
Tadd Dameron
Fats Navarro
...June 23rd, 2014
Last night, CNN aired an episode of the Spielberg/Hanks/Goetzman-produced documentary “The Sixties” that focused on the Vietnam War. Lots of historic and horrific footage — some I have never seen before — that will hopefully serve as a blunt reminder about the cost of involving ourselves in an unnecessary war. So many wonderful young men of my generation paid the ultimate price…
Two of the key commentators on the program are Karl Marlantes, author of the essential Vietnam war novel Matterhorn that focused on the aims of the war — which was not about gaining territory but solely on the mass killing of the Viet Cong — and David Maraniss, author of They Marched Into Sunlight, an account of the war on the battlefield,
...June 20th, 2014
Concerning yesterday’s passing of the great pianist Horace Silver, others much more qualified than I will write of his musical brilliance, and communicate his importance to the music’s growth. (To that end, there is an excellent life remembrance of Silver by Peter Keepnews in today’s New York Times that you can read by going here). I would just like to devote a couple paragraphs to my own introduction to his music, and what it meant to me at the time.
When I moved from Berkeley to Portland in the summer of 1978, I was already a pretty passionate listener of jazz, but I was still in the “101” phase. I knew and loved the “A Team” — Basie, Ellington, some early Armstrong, Monk, Bird and Miles. Coltrane’s ballads were gorgeous, and I loved his playing on
...June 19th, 2014
Still tingling with Basie’s hard cooking,
between sets I stood at the bar
when the man next to me ordered
scotch and milk. I looked to see who had
this stray taste and almost swooned
when I saw it was the master.
Basie knocked his shot back,
then, when he saw me gaping,
raised his milk to my peachy face
and rolled out his complete smile
June 18th, 2014
In the mid-1950’s, after a failed audition for the Benny Goodman band, this drummer found work in New York, toured with Charles Mingus’s band, and performed on J.J. Johnson’s J Is for Jazz. Who is he?
Jimmy Cobb
Joe Morello
Clifford Jarvis
Philly Joe Jones
Jo Jones
Joe Chambers
Jack De Johnette
Elvin Jones
...June 16th, 2014
Besides doing his best to help raise three kids, during my 1960’s childhood my father worked his heart out at two jobs — one of which was as owner of a restaurant on Oakland’s Telegraph Avenue, and the other as a musician, playing trumpet and viola throughout the San Francisco Bay area, mostly on evenings and weekends in “casual” jobs. For years he was part of a strolling quartet that entertained San Francisco’s elite at the World Trade Club — an ensemble that at its peak toured the Philippines, playing to an audience that included “strongman” Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda.
Prior to that, in the 30’s he traveled the country and led his own band in Sacramento. In the 40’s, he spent the war years as a member of the Winged Victory Orchestra. And, in the late 40’s and 50’s, among many musical pursuits (although toned down once he married my mom in 1947), he played in the Jack Fina Orchestra, as well as in Ernie Heckscher’s orchestra, which famously played at the Fairmont Hotel atop Nob Hill.
He loved his music, and part of my own early appreciation for music came as a result of hearing his practice sessions. To this day I can still very clearly hear the sound of his viola
...June 15th, 2014
In Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism, Thomas Brothers picks up where he left off with the acclaimed Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans, following the story of the great jazz musician into his most creatively fertile years in the 1920s and early 1930s, when Armstrong created not one but two modern musical styles. Brothers wields his own tremendous skill in making the connections between history and music accessible to everyone as Armstrong shucks and jives across the page. Through Brothers’s expert ears and eyes we meet an Armstrong whose quickness and sureness, so evident in his performances, served him well in his encounters with racism while his music soared across the airwaves into homes all over America.
Brothers discusses his book with Jerry Jazz Musician publisher Joe Maita in an April, 2014 interview.
...June 15th, 2014
Before becoming a full time musician, this pianist was a welterweight boxer who once fought “Sugar” Ray Robinson. Who is he?
Red Garland
Mel Powell
John Lewis
Billy Taylor
Elmo Hope
Wynton Kelly
Barry Harris
Hank Jones
...June 9th, 2014
Coltrane
by Alan Patterson
His Voice
crying in the wilderness
sighing, screeching, singing,
of soul secrets and sufferings
stark, silent sound
invoking Heaven’s muse
and Purgatory’s cleansing fire.
Who, speaking in toungues
created new language
who captured Eternity’s essence
June 5th, 2014
“The Weary Blues” — a poem about the importance of music and the blues in everyday life — is a signature work of Langston Hughes, the Harlem Renaissance writer whose poetry helped change the way art created by African Americans was viewed, and influenced the writers of the beat generation. Written in 1925, the melancholy poem is set in a Harlem bar where a piano player plays the blues, and is one of the first poems to mix poetry and music.
Besides being a great writer, Hughes was an eloquent communicator, and it is a wonderful experience to hear him read his own poetry.. This 1958 film shows him reading “The Weary Blues” to the accompaniment of a Canadian group led by pianist Doug Parker.
...June 3rd, 2014
This bassist played with Charlie Barnet (pictured) in 1942, was on the recording session of Coleman Hawkins’ “The Man I Love,” appeared in a mystery movie called The Crimson Canary, “inadvertently” discovered Cannonball Adderley, and is considered the pioneer of the cello as a solo instrument in jazz. Who is he?
Milt Hinton
Jimmy Blanton
Oscar Pettiford
Charles Mingus
Charlie Haden
Red Callendar
Curly Russell
Walter Page
...June 2nd, 2014
Click here to read about plans for the future of Jerry Jazz Musician.
”Dance Naked with Your Poems and Howl at the Lilac Moon” by Namaya
The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work.... Namaya reads his poem at its conclusion
Click here to read previous editions of The Sunday Poem
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