Jaws!

by | May 3, 2025 | Big Band, Quartet/Quintet

Virtually from the beginning of his career, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis achieved one of the primary goals of all jazz musicians: to have his own sound. Most jazz fans are able to identify “Jaws” within two or three notes. Was he a bop, swing, hard bop or early R&B improviser? Duke Ellington’s description of a “beyond category” perfectly fit “Jaws” because his highly individual voice always stood apart from everyone else. No one seems quite sure how Davis acquired the moniker “Lockjaw” (later shortened to “Jaws”) … it is thought that it either came from the title of a tune, or from his way of biting hard on the saxophone mouthpiece.

The top video, If I Had You, was recorded live in 1985 at the Jazzhus Slukefter Club in Copenhagen Denmark. Lockjaw was on tenor, Niels Jorgen Steen played piano, Jesper  Lundgaard was on bass, and Ed Thigpen was at the drums. In the middle is the jazz standard Green Dolphin Street from his Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis album … but there is nothing standard about his ‘saxy’ approach to this popular 1947 tune.  Finally, “Jaws” delivers an outrageous solo in this 1965 live performance of Jumpin’ at the Woodside … also featuring Rufus Jones on drums, Freddie Green on guitar and the rest of the Basie Band in its prime!

Green Dolphin Street

by Eddie Lockjaw Davis | Eddie Lockjaw Davis

Gambarini Carolina Style

by | Apr 20, 2025 | Big Band, Vocal

On April 12, 2025 three time Grammy nominated, international vocal powerhouse, Roberta Gambarini joined forces with eighteen of the most outstanding jazz musicians, soloists and band leaders from across the Carolinas at the Harbison Theater in Irmo, South Carolina. Together with the South Carolina Jazz Masterworks Ensemble she brought the house down … and I was lucky enough to be there!

Of eleven songs, in two sets, Roberta performed nine of them … ranging from uptempo scat to gentle classics straight from the heart. Meanwhile, the SCJME orchestra, and their uniquely creative arrangements, demonstrated why ‘the house’ is always packed when they play. I was able to record three of the numbers that evening from row G, seat #118. Since I was working only with my I-Phone, the audio and video quality isn’t as professional as I would have liked –– but all of it is most enjoyable, and the best I could do to put you in the seat next to me! The first tune is a Slide Hampton arrangement of Hammerstein/Romberg’s Lover Come Back to Me.

Next is a change of pace with Roberta and the orchestra tweaking our chordae tendineae with their rendition of Thelonius Monk’s 1943 jazz standard, ‘Round Midnight.

Finally some cool scat from Roberta as she joins the SCJME orchestra for a walk On the Sunny Side of the Street. Pay particular attention to her incredible vocal range!

Cute / Willow Weep for Me – Mel Lewis

by | Apr 11, 2025 | Big Band, Quartet/Quintet

Mel Lewis was an American jazz drummer, session musician, professor, and author, who received fourteen Grammy Award nominations. He did it all! Lewis’s cymbal work, in particular, was considered unique among many musicians … drummer Buddy Rich once remarked, “Mel Lewis doesn’t sound like anybody else. He sounds like himself.” In 1966 Mel teamed up with composer, arranger, trumpeter/cornetist Thad Jones to form the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra.

Topmost, At the 1984 Swiss “Jazz-In”, Mel Lewis teams up with Horst Jankowski at the piano, ‘Toots’ Thielemans playing harmonica, Mads Vinding on bass, and Pierre Cavalli on guitar to perform the bright and breezy Cute. Below that, Is rather non-standard arrangement of the standard Willow Weep for Me, typical of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Big band, which played primarily at the Village Vanguard in New York for the next twenty-four years.

Jazz Italian Style

by | Apr 6, 2025 | Big Band, Quartet/Quintet, Vocal

Funny, but she sounds awfully American! Roberta Gambarini came to America in 1998 from Turin, Italy, and took the jazz world by storm. Roberta has toured and sung with the greatest in the business … from Dizzy Gillespie to Jimmy Heath, from Clark Terry to Paquito D’Rivera.  I’ll be seeing her perform live for the first time next Saturday, with the South Carolina Jazz Masterworks Ensemble. Keep you posted. (Above) Gambarini is reflective with a heartfelt rendition of Every Time We Say Goodbye. She was recorded live in 2009 at Jazz A Vienne (France) with the Roy Hargrove Big Band. (Below) Roberta steps up the tempo with Joe Lovano (ts), Cyrus Chestnut (p), James Genus (b), and Antonio Sanchez (d) in 2021, singing When Lights Are Low at the 10th annual celebration of International Jazz Day, featuring top musicians from all over the world.

Maynard Ferguson with Sid Mark

by | Mar 22, 2025 | Audio, Big Band, Vocal

What’s in a name?  Well, The Mark Of Jazz is more than just a name it was an actual, living person.  It was also an upbeat song and a highly successful 1950’s radio show.  Specifically, the person’s name is Sid Mark and the song, written as a tribute to him, just happens to be called The Mark Of Jazz.  You can hear some of the Slide Hampton arrangement, performed by the Maynard Ferguson orchestra, in the podcast below. The (top) video offers a bit of banter between Mark and Ferguson before launching into I Can’t Get Started, with Maynard actually attempting a vocal!

Sid’s long running Mark of Jazz radio show was heard locally in Philadelphia, where he established himself as a popular disc jockey, before coming into widespread prominence with his nationally syndicated Sounds of Sinatra … a program which has run for more than half a century! He developed a close friendship with both Frank and Maynard that spanned nearly half-a-century. This website is intended as a salute, not only to jazz music, but to the man … The Mark Of Jazz..

Thanks to Sid Mark, the music of Francis Albert Sinatra has become an integral part of our lives.  I believe he is the only disc jockey with his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  A button on his studio wall pretty much said it all: “It’s Sinatra’s world.  We just live in it”. But the videos above are pure Maynard Ferguson.  On The (left) is a nearly signature Ferguson song––the theme from Rocky––Gonna Fly Now. To me, Maynard owns the definitive version of it. On the (right) the big band cuts lose on a tune called Got It … and below I’ve brought my Whydat Podcast forward from our Podcast Page, to explain why we named our website as we did, and what my own connection was to the man and the legend.

Whydat?

by Fred Masey | Podcast #002

Jam Session

by | Jan 5, 2025 | Big Band, Quartet/Quintet

Unlike most performances that have a fixed group –– like Duke Ellington and his Orchestra or the Oscar Petersen Trio –– with a jam session, jazz musicians improvise and do something different each time they play a tune.  Producer Norman Granz loved jam sessions, and in his Jazz At The Philharmonic shows during 1944-60, he presented the greatest of the swing and bop soloists, together onstage, in both the US and Europe.

In 1967, Granz had a brief revival of JATP, including a concert for television presented by the BBC in England … the videos below are from that concert.  The all-star lineup speaks for itself: trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, flugelhornist Clark Terry, tenors Zoot Sims, James Moody and Coleman Hawkins (past his prime but worth seeing), altoist Benny Carter, pianist Teddy Wilson, bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Louie Bellson.  Topmost is a 1947 Dizzy Gillespie composition called Ow.  Below that is Benny Carter with Duke and Gershwin’s I Can’t Get Started, seguing into Coleman Hawkins’ wistful solo of Body and Soul.

Fred

by | Dec 6, 2024 | Big Band, Stuff

Although not a jazz musician himself, jazz musicians dug Fred Astaire and the feeling was mutual.  His instruments were his feet and his voice … and his performances encompassed every type of music, from Vivaldi to Fats Waller. During his seven decades as dancer, actor, singer, musician, and choreographer, Fred was everything people wanted to be: smooth, suave, dapper, debonair, intelligent, witty, and wise. He worked with jazz bands whenever he could; with this mutual love affair in mind, plus his limitless talent and creativity, we felt Fred Astaire had to be included among the greats at Mark of Jazz.

For openers, here he is in 1940 with Eleanor Powell, one of his many dance partners during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

From the 1951 movie “Royal Wedding” here is Astaire dancing with a hat rack! It’s amazing how this great dancer can take the simplest prop and do something magical with it. Well before that, in 1937, he dazzled movie goers with his drum scene in “A Damsel in Distress.”

Finally, one of the more fun-loving routines called Too Hot To Handle … with his most frequent dance partner, Ginger Rogers. This is Fred and Ginger flirting a bit as they grace the stage in the 1935 film “Roberta.”

Heeere’s Doc Severinsen

by | Oct 4, 2024 | Big Band

Most people know Doc Severinsen as a nightly fixture on The Johnny Carson Show … fewer realize he is a highly talented and proficient trumpet player, Grammy winner, and the principal pops conductor for several American orchestras both during and after his time with Carson.  Under Severinsen’s direction, The Tonight Show Band –– a re-styled NBC Orchestra –– became, arguably, the best known big band in America! Doc has recorded more than 30 albums, from big band to jazz-fusion to classical … and at 96 is retired, but reportedly still going strong!

The (top) video is Dizzy Gillespie’s Night in Tunisia, with Doc and the University of North Texas One O’Clock Lab Band, at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in 2015. At the (bottom), Doc Severinsen performs September Song with The United States Army Blues Jazz Ensemble, at the 2012 National Trumpet Competition at George Mason University. In the (middle), Doc takes a mellow but powerful page from Hoagy Carmichael’s Georgia On My Mind … which Ray Charles pushed to the top of The Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1960.

Georgia On My Mind

by Doc Severinsen | Best of Doc Severinsen

Edward Kennedy Ellington Part 2

by | Sep 13, 2024 | Audio, Big Band

On his first trip to Africa, Duke Ellington wrote a piece of African music for the First International Festival of Art in Senegal, entitled La Plus Belle Africaine. The video (above) was later recorded at the Ellington Orchestra’s Norwegian concert in 1969. My three part interview with Mercer Ellington (below) took place a few years ago … back in my radio days.

As son of one of the most important and prolific composers of the 20th Century, not to mention his prowess as an arranger, musician and bandleader, it now fell to Mercer to continue and enhance Duke’s legacy. While their relationship was sometimes contentious, Mercer’s love and respect are evident, even as he struggled to emerge from a giant shadow and establish his own identity. I was privileged to sit down for an extended interview with Mercer Ellington in his Manhattan apartment, with a big pot of coffee and a New York size platter of Danish pastries.  For two hours I received an intimate look at the father through the eyes of his son … revealing many of The Duke’s opinions, philosophies, and foibles. I hope you’ll find my visit with Mercer as fascinating and fun as I did.

Music Was Their Mistress Pt. 1

by Fred Masey | JS #019

Music Was Their Mistress Pt. 2

by Fred Masey | JS #20

Music Was Their Mistress Pt. 3

by Fred Masey | JS #21

Edward Kennedy Ellington Part 1

by | Sep 6, 2024 | Big Band

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was one of the most important creative forces in the music of the twentieth century. His influence on classical music, popular music and, of course, jazz can’t be overstated. His childhood friends noticed that his casual, offhand manner and dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman, so they began calling him “Duke.” Though Ellington took piano lessons as a child, he also loved playing outdoors. In his memoir, Ellington recounts playing baseball with his friends in Washington D.C., where he was sometimes visited by President Theodore Roosevelt on horseback!

On November 3rd 1969, Duke Ellington and his orchestra held a concert in Bergen Norway. Below are just three excerpts from that concert, which featured a band that was nearly a who’s who of jazz legends: Cootie Williams, Cat Anderson, Mercer Ellington, Harold “Money” Johnson (t); Lawrence Brown (tb); Chuck Connors (btb); Russell Procope (cl,as); Norris Turney (fl,cl,as,ts); Johnny Hodges (as); Harold Ashby (ts,cl); Paul Gonsalves (ts); Harry Carney (cl,bcl,as,bar); Duke Ellington (p); Wild Bill Davis (o); Victor Gaskin (b); Rufus Jones (d). The first tune is the Ellington/Strayhorn classic, Take the A-Train, with a trumpet solo by Cootie Williams.

Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, another Ellington composition which became a standard, features a sax solo by the great Johnny Hodges.

Rufus Jones was new with Ellington at the time, having earlier been the drumming force driving the Basie band. This brief solo, called Coming Off the Veldt, shows why he was also known as Speedy Jones!