Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - This Is for Albert (1962)
Personnel: Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Curtis Fuller (trombone), Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Cedar Walton (piano), Reggie Workman (bass), Art Blakey (drums)
From the album 'CARAVAN' (Riverside Records)
The album was recorded on October 23rd and 24th, 1962, and released in early 1963.
From Bret "Jazz Video Guy" Primack. A little over a year before he passed in 1967, John Coltrane played at the Newport Jazz Festival. The music he played that day was so different, so outrageous, so spiritual, that most listeners simply couldn't hear it. Today, more than fifty years later, if Trane had survived, what would he be playing today?
This band and this tune, Bachman Turner Overdrive with their hit song "Taking Care of Business" really epitomizes what the "classic rock" genre of music is all about. Wild, raucous, loud, in-your-face jamming. BTO played it as their encore at this 1975 concert. Check it out.
This week's Sunday Special.
This number is called 'A Reggy Waltz". This recording is from July 14, 1979, at the PWA Zaal, North Sea Jazz Festival. Dave Brubeck, born on December 6, 1920, in California, was an influential American jazz pianist and composer known for his innovative approach to time signatures and his role in popularizing modern jazz. In 1951, he formed the Dave Brubeck Quartet, a groundbreaking ensemble. The quartet, featuring Paul Desmond on alto saxophone, Eugene Wright on bass, and Joe Morello on drums, gained widespread acclaim for their distinctive sound and complex, polyrhythmic compositions.
One of the quartet's most iconic albums, "Time Out" (1959), showcased Brubeck's fascination with unusual time signatures. The album's signature track, "Take Five," composed by Paul Desmond in 5/4 time, became a jazz standard and a crossover hit, reaching a broad audience and introducing many listeners to the world of modern jazz. Brubeck received numerous accolades, including a Kennedy Center Honor, Grammy Awards, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Dave Brubeck's legacy includes a vast discography of over a hundred albums, collaborations with jazz luminaries, and a profound influence on the evolution of jazz. He passed away on December 5, 2012. Dave Brubeck dedicated the song Take Five to Paul Desmond who died in 77.
From Bret "Jazz Video Guy" Primack. Another solo performance from Tommy Flanagan as part of Billy Taylor's "Jazz Counterpoint".
From Bret "Jazz Video Guy" Primack.
Billy Taylor and Tommy Flanagan playing in a piano duo, from Billy Taylor's Jazz Counterpoint. About Tommy, the superb Jazz writer, Scott Yanow, wrote in the All Music Guide: "Known for his flawless and tasteful playing, Tommy Flanagan received long overdue recognition for his talents in the 1980s. He played clarinet when he was six and switched to piano five years later. Flanagan was an important part of the fertile Detroit jazz scene (other than 1951-1953 when he was in the Army) until he moved to New York in 1956. He was used for many recordings after his arrival during that era; cut sessions as a leader for New Jazz, Prestige, Savoy, and Moodsville; and worked regularly with Oscar Pettiford, J.J. Johnson (1956-1958), Harry "Sweets" Edison (1959-1960), and Coleman Hawkins (1961). Flanagan was Ella Fitzgerald's regular accompanist during 1963-1965 and 1968-1978, which resulted in him being underrated as a soloist. However, starting in 1975, he began leading a series of superior record sessions and since leaving Fitzgerald, Flanagan has been in demand as the head of his own trio, consistently admired for his swinging and creative bop-based style. Among the many labels he has recorded for since 1975 are Pablo, Enja, Denon, Galaxy, Progressive, Uptown, Timeless, and several European and Japanese companies. For Blue Note, he cut Sunset and Mockingbird in 1998, followed a year later by Samba for Felix. Despite a heart condition, Flanagan continued performing until the end of his life, performing two-week stints at the Village Vanguard twice a year, recording and touring. He died on November 16, 2001, in Manhattan from an arterial aneurysm."
From Bret "Jazz Video Guy" Primack.
Tommy Flanagan, a compact, easy-going and self-effacing man, provoked that kind of interest. His fluent, quick-witted and elegant sound graced innumerable sessions of far bigger stars through the classic records of the late 1950s and the 1960s. He was the sideman who consistently stopped you from going to make the tea when the main attraction wasn't playing. His shrewd and fast-moving phrasing counterbalanced Sonny Rollins' abrasive and fragmented tenor-sax lines on the celebrated Saxophone Colossus session of 1957; it sensed and reflected the mood of a bop-driven music that was relaxed and intense on the late Wes Montgomery's Incredible Jazz Guitar album of 1960; it kept up with the hurtling John Jazz Video Guy Recommends Audioengine A2+ Wireless Speakers https://amzn.to/3GVZrTJ John Coltrane - His Life and Music https://amzn.to/3vTG72Z Michael Brecker - Ode to a Tenor Titan https://amzn.to/3CDQ5JK Saxophone Colossus - The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins https://amzn.to/3CDQ5JK on Giant Steps; and constantly - and most famously - it curled around the jubilant vocal lines of Ella Fitzgerald, whose musical director Flanagan eventually became. Working with Fitzgerald was his most prestigious and demanding job. He kept up with a hectic touring schedule as her regular partner in two stretches, between 1962 and 1965, and for a decade from 1968, until a heart attack occasioned a reassessment. Flanagan was one of a group of formidable jazz pianists to emerge from the postwar Detroit scene. Elvin Jones' pianist brother, Hank, was one, Roland Hanna and Barry Harris were significant others - and, with Flanagan, they shared an enthusiasm for a number of late-swing and early-bop keyboard artists, including Teddy Wilson, Nat "King" Cole, Errol Garner and Bud Powell. The wit, lyricism and accessible song-patterns of 1930s jazz thus cohabit in their work with the more irrregular and arrhythmic phrasing of bop. Flanagan was born on the north-east side of Detroit, the youngest of five boys and a girl. His father was a postman, his mother - who had taught herself to play piano and guided Tommy and his older brother, Jay, on the instrument - was in the garment business. Flanagan first took up the clarinet, then the piano from the age of 11 - listening to Fats Waller and Art Tatum, and later to his contemporary, Hank Jones, to Bud Powell and the graceful Nat Cole. Jay helped Tommy gain a foothold, and he became a regular member of the house band at Detroit's Blue Bird Inn. He was playing his first club gigs while still in high school, carrying on his homework between sets. The young Flanagan frequently worked in local bands with the other Jones brothers - drummer Elvin and trumpeter Thad - and vibraharpist Milt Jackson. But in 1956, increasingly fascinated by bebop, he left for New York, where he quickly won attention from the idiom's most acclaimed practitioners - including Bud Powell himself, for whom Flanagan was sometimes to deputise at the Birdland club. Like many bop-oriented players, he often seemed to phrase in the shapes of saxophone lines. But, like Sonny Rollins, he never allowed the improvisational possibilities of that approach to distract him totally from the original theme, which would fitfully resurface in varying forms. He liked unfolding a melody in chords, suspending the thematic momentum before a solo with a gleeful, single-line prevarication, then sweeping into a series of choruses full of glossy, tumbling arpeggios, his most explicit references to the inspiration of Tatum. Whatever Flanagan did, it always fitted the moment, and the dispositions of the players around him. He first accompanied Ella Fitzgerald at the 1956 Newport jazz festival. He also worked for Tony Bennett, and on classic recordings by Dexter Gordon, Coleman Hawkins and many others. Following the 1978 heart attack, Flanagan opted to develop the solo career he had always self-deprecatingly concluded he had insufficient technique for. The result was a series of highly regarded trio albums - featuring powerful partners like bassist George Mraz and drummer Elvin Jones - displaying his affectionate insights into standard material, the legacy of bebop as refracted by Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and drawing on an encyclo- paedic knowledge of fine songs, from evergreens to the overlooked. Generous and open-minded, Flanagan appreciated many younger pianists. For his contribution to many varieties of jazz, he was awarded the prestigious Danish Jazzpar Prize in 1993. He played extended seasons at New York's Village Vanguard, and his diary was full for gigs in 2002. He leaves his wife, Diane, a son, two daughters and six grandchildren. Tommy Flanagan, pianist, born March 16 1930; died November 16 2001
We have lost another blues legend. Rest In Peace, composer, bandleader, singer, keyboardist (organ and piano), blues harp harmonica player, and much more, John Mayall. Mayall pioneered the British blues music revival in the 1960s with The Bluesbreakers which was a launchpad for guitar legends Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Walter Trout, and many others.
https://www.spin.com/2024/07/john-mayall-legendary-british-blues-guitarist-dies-at-90/
Here are a couple of songs made famous by Mayall with Clapton on lead guitar. "Hideaway", the cover of Freddie King's instrumental blues guitar classic, and, "Steppin' Out" which Clapton later played also with his power trio Cream with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker.
HIDEAWAY (1966) by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers- featuring Eric Clapton
STEPPIN' OUT (1966) by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers
Rest In Peace, John Mayall. You will be missed. Your music lives on in the hearts of blues fans, worldwide.
From Bret "Jazz Video Guy" Primack.
Billy Taylor plays his most famous composition, "I Wish I Knew How It Felt To Be Free," with fellow pianist Monty Alexander on his Brave show "Jazz Counterpoint. Billy Taylor was a living refutation of the stereotype of jazz musicians as unschooled, unsophisticated and inarticulate, an image that was prevalent when he began his career in the 1940s, and that he did as much as any other musician to erase. Dr. Taylor probably had a higher profile on television than any other jazz musician of his generation. He had a long run as a cultural correspondent on the CBS News program “Sunday Morning” and was the musical director of David Frost’s syndicated nighttime talk show from 1969 to 1972. Well educated and well spoken, he came across, Ben Ratliff wrote in The New York Times in a review of a 1996 nightclub performance, as “a genial professor,” which he was: he taught jazz courses at Long Island University, the Manhattan School of Music and elsewhere. But he was also a compelling performer and a master of the difficult art of making jazz accessible without watering it down. His “greatest asset,” Mr. Ratliff wrote, “is a sense of jazz as entertainment, and he’s not going to be obscure about it.” A pianist with impeccable technique and an elegant, almost self-effacing style, Dr. Taylor worked with some of the biggest names in jazz early in his career and later led a trio that worked regularly in New York nightclubs and recorded many albums. But he left his mark on jazz less as a musician than as a proselytizer, spreading the gospel of jazz as a serious art form in high school and college lectures, on radio and television, on government panels and foundation boards. He also helped bring jazz to predominantly black neighborhoods with Jazzmobile, an organization he founded in 1965 to present free outdoor concerts by nationally known musicians at street corners and housing projects throughout New York City. “I knew that jazz was not as familiar to young blacks as James Brown and the soul thing,” he told Barbara Campbell of The Times in 1971. “If you say to a young guy in Harlem, Duke Ellington is great, he’s going to be skeptical until he has seen him on 127th Street.” Dr. Taylor had the technique, the knowledge and the temperament to straddle the old and the new; his adaptability made him a popular sideman with both swing and bebop musicians and led to his being hired in 1949 as the house pianist at Birdland. In 1951 he formed his own trio, which was soon working at clubs like the Copacabana in New York and the London House in Chicago. Within a few years he was lecturing about jazz at music schools and writing articles about it for DownBeat, Saturday Review and other publications. He later had a long-running concert-lecture series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He also became one of the few jazz musicians to establish a successful separate career in radio and television. In 1958 he was the musical director of an NBC television show, “The Subject Is Jazz.” A year later the Harlem radio station WLIB hired him as a disc jockey; in 1962 he moved to WNEW, but he returned to WLIB in 1964 as both disc jockey and program director, and remained in those positions until 1969. He was later a founding partner of Inner City Broadcasting, which bought WLIB in 1971. Commercial radio became increasingly inhospitable to jazz in the 1960s, but Dr. Taylor found a home at National Public Radio, where he was a familiar voice for more than two decades, first as host of “Jazz Alive” in the late ’70s and most recently on “Billy Taylor’s Jazz at the Kennedy Center.” That series, on which he introduced live performances and interviewed the performers, made its debut in the fall of 1994 and remained in production until the fall of 2002. Dr. Taylor wrote more than 300 compositions. They ranged in scope and style from “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,” a simple 16-bar gospel tune written with Dick Dallas that became one of the unofficial anthems of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, to the ambitious “Suite for Jazz Piano and Orchestra” (1973). As much energy as his other activities required, Dr. Taylor never lost his enthusiasm for performing — or his frustration with audiences that, as he saw it, missed the point. “Most people say, ‘Hey, let’s go to the nightclub and have a few drinks, and maybe we’ll even listen to the music,’ ” he once said. “It’s a lack of understanding of the musicians and of the discipline involved. “This is not to say that playing jazz is all frowning and no fun at all. But because you make it look easy doesn’t mean you didn’t spend eight hours a day practicing the piano.”
From Bret "Jazz Video Guy" Primack.
http://www.billytaylorjazz.com presents illy Taylor with Special Guest Vincent Herring: Billy Taylor, piano; Chip Jackson, bass; Steve Johns, drums; Vincent Herring alto saxophone. Billy wrote this tribute to Bebop legend Dizzy Gillespie for an appearance Dizzy did on TV's Sesame Street.
Yet another Sunday Special post. A continuation on a series, thought of on a whim, about Dr. Billy Taylor, jazz pianist and composer, and some of his best or most well-known performances. From Bret "Jazz Video Guy" Primack.
Billy Taylor Solo Piano https://amzn.to/2PMOMh3 Billy Taylor and Gerry Mulligan Live https://amzn.to/2Rb3uid Billy Taylor Piano Transcriptions https://amzn.to/2q8KSEa Bebop by Dizzy Gillespie featuring Billy Taylor, piano; Chip Jackson, bass; Steve Johns, drums; Vincent Herring, alto. This is an encore from a televised concert, it appears.
Join music legends Al Jarreau and Tom Jones for an unforgettable performance of "Bring Me A Little Water, Sylvie" from the June 13, 1992 episode of "Tom Jones: The Right Time." In addition to the mesmerizing duet, watch their engaging interview where they discuss their careers and the magic of this collaboration. Relive this classic moment from music history!
Footage licensed from ITV Archive. All rights reserved.
Full Concert Friday this week features the Jimmy Smith Trio at the 1962 Antibes Jazz Festival in France, ironically, on the 62nd anniversary of the very show they played! Wow. Symmetry happens, doesn't it.
The set list:
Unknown 00:00 The Champ 04:14 Jimmy Blues 09:09 Original 12:52 It's allright for me 22:02 The champ 28:40 Willow weep for me 34:50 Walking 42:22
The band lineup:
Jimmy Smith (organ), Quentin Warren (guitar on 1, 2) Roy Montrell (guitar on 4, 5, 6, 7) Donald Bailey (drums)
A celebration, from July 24th, 2020, of what was then the 99th birthday of Dr. Billy Taylor. So, soon (in a few days), Taylor would have been 103 years old. From Bret "Jazz Video Guy" Primack. Today we are celebrating the 99th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Billy Taylor.
From Bret "Jazz Video Guy" Primack.
Ronald Edward Cuber (born December 25, 1941 in New York City) is a jazz saxophonist. He has also played in Latin, pop, rock and blues sessions. In addition to his primary instrument, baritone sax, he has also played tenor sax, soprano sax, clarinet and flute, the latter on an album by Eddie Palmieri as well as his own recordings. As a leader, Cuber is known for hard bop and Latin jazz. As a side man, he has played with numerous musicians, such as B. B. King, Paul Simon, and Eric Clapton.[1] Furthermore, Cuber can be heard on Freeze Frame by the J. Geils Band, and one of his most spirited performances is on Dr. Lonnie Smith's 1970 Blue Note album Drives. He was also a member in Saturday Night Live Band. Cuber was in Marshall Brown's Newport Youth Band in 1959, where he switched from tenor to baritone sax. His first notable work was with Slide Hampton (1962) and Maynard Ferguson (1963–1965). Then from 1966 to 1967, Cuber worked with George Benson. He was also a member of the Lee Konitz nonet from 1977 to 1979.[2] He can be heard playing in Frank Zappa's group in the mid-1970s, including the album Zappa in New York. He has been a member of the Mingus Big Band since its inception in the early 1990s. He was an off-screen musician for the movie Across the Universe.
A rare concert performance from the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival of Mike Bloomfield & The Electric Flag from their debut performance, with their song "Over Lovin' You". The band lineup is Mike Bloomfield on lead guitar, Nick Gravenites on rhythm guitar, Barry Goldberg on Hammond organ, Harvey Brooks on bass, and Buddy Miles on drums and vocals.
During his career, the legendary jazz trumpeter Chet Baker released several recordings on many record labels and imprints. Here is a track called "El Morro" released in 1977 on his "You Can't Go Home Again" record released on A&M and Horizon. "El Morro" is the final track on the record, composed by Don Sebesky. Sebesky arranged and conducted the string section on the record as well. A who's who of legendary jazz musicians also played on it. On this track, "El Morro", the band lineup is:
A couple versions of Cuban jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval's tribute to the one and the only Dizzy Gillespie. These are his takes on the tune "Be Bop".
The first live performance of the track is from Jamz in Jakarta, Indonesia, filmed on June 14th, 1995. The band lineup includes Arturo Sandoval on trumpet, Kenny Anderson on tenor saxophone, Otmaro Ruiz on piano, Dave Enos on bass, Aaron Serfaty on drums, and Eguie Castrillo on congas.
The second live performance is from his 2011 record "Dear, Diz. Every Day I Think of You".
Another Full Concert Friday. The Cedar Walton Quartet featuring George Coleman at the 1976 Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy. July 20th, 1976.
The set list.
1. Bolivia 0:00 2. Naima 14:22 3. Seven Minds 25:56 4. Blue Monk 38:29 5. Firm Roots 46:41
The band lineup (a quartet)
Take 1 is almost at a million views and was Gambale's first choice. Take 2 we think is just as good because he takes more chances in his improvised solos.
All Frank's Latest in one link http://www.linktr.ee/frankgambaleguit... so much there to learn and be inspired.
Extract of the Ron Carter "Foursight" Quartet concert Opéra Garnier Monte-Carlo Saturday, 18 November 2023 Ron Carter, bass Renée Rosnes, piano Jimmy Greene, saxophone Payton Crossley, drums Special guest : Marcus Miller, bass FULL CONCERT ON MEZZO TV AND MEDICI !!! -- 17th Monte Carlo Jazz Festival in collaboration with the administrative and technical teams of the Artistic Direction of the Société des Bains de Mer Monte Carlo. Artistic Director, Gilles Marsan Deputy Artistic Director, Alfonso Ciulla Programming Consultant Reno di Matteo Film Directed by Amos Rozenberg for Paramax Films in 8K
Check out a great composition by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers. Blakey of course, is one of the best of the best jazz drummers, and a great bandleader. This composition is entitled "Wheel Within a Wheel". The performance is taken from a concert on January 24th, 1980. The featured soloists include Art Blakey on drums, James Williams on piano, Robin Eubanks on trombone, and Bill Pierce on tenor saxophone.
The original version of a rather goofy, but good, tune celebrating the summertime. From 1970, this is Mungo Jerry with "In The Summertime". Musicians, we don't always take ourselves too seriously. Trust me.
This week's Sunday Special post. From back when Fleetwood Mac was a stone-cold blues band, led by guitarist and vocalist, Peter Green, here is their medley of "Please Find My Baby" and Elmore James' via Robert Johnson and others, "Dust My Broom" from a performance on New Years' Eve, 1968, in Paris, France.
From "Live at The Sydney Opera House" in Sydney, Australia, here is Joe Bonamassa and his band with the song "No Good Place for The Lonely".
Full Concert Friday once again this week featuring Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, in Paris, France, on November 15th, 1959.
Blues March 00:00 Are You Real 08:45 A Night in Tunisia 19:42 Close Your Eyes 28:47 Goldie 41:03 Drum solo 52:18 Bouncing with Bud 55:47 No problem 01:04:59
The band lineup includes Art Blakey on drums, Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Lee Morgan on trumpet, Walter Davis Jr. on piano, and Jymie Merritt on bass.
From Bret "Jazz Video Guy" Primack.
Nutville (Silver) - Horace Silver, piano; John Williams, bass; Billy Cobham, drums; Bill Hardman on trumpet and Bennie Maupin on tenor saxophone. Drummer Billy Cobham's first regular gig when he was discharged from the Army was with Horace Silver's Quintet in 1968. Two years later, he would join the Mahavishu Orchestra and make a dramatic impact on the percussionists worldwide.
From the 1965 American Folk Blues Festival in England, here are a couple of encore performances with blues and blues harmonica legends Big Mama Thornton, Big Walter Horton, and Dr. Ross are jamming with John Lee Hooker on guitar, on the instrumental blues "Down Home Shakedown".
From a concert in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1992, here is Frank Gambale on guitar with the Alain Rieder Band and the tune "Spending Sunday With You". A great band featuring Gambale on guitar, Tom Coster of Carlos Santana fame on keyboards, Mike Fahn on valve trombone, Jimmy Earl on bass, the bandleader, Alain Rieder, on drums.
Released way back in March, and now, I finally find out. Better late than never, I suppose. Here is the latest single from blues rock band Robert John & The Wreck. This one is called "Dragging Me Down".
