Swift Jazz

by | Jul 21, 2024 | Big Band, Orchestral, Vocal

Veronica Swift (no relation to the popular diva) is an amazing 23-year-old jazz and bebop chanteuse, who has already appeared with some of the biggest names in the idiom.  From a family of musicians, she cut her first album, Veronica’s House of Jazz, at the age of 9 and her second at 13! She has a most amazing voice and exciting style … as evidenced by the topmost video with Chris Botti and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, There Will Never Be Another You.  Bottom left, she appears with the Steven Feifke Big Band, rehearsing an unusual treatment of On The Street Where You Live, while bottom right Veronica stretches out with the Feifke band on the time honored standard, Until the Real Thing Comes Along.

A Horn Named Shirley

by | Jun 15, 2024 | Orchestral, Quartet/Quintet, Trio

Shirley Horn was both a jazz singer and pianist.  She formed her first jazz trio at the age of 20, and collaborated with many legendary musicians, including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Toots Thielemans, Ron Carter, Carmen McRae, Wynton Marsalis, and others. She was most noted for her ability to accompany herself with near-incomparable musical independence on the piano as she sang.  This was an ability described by arranger Johnny Mandel as “like having two heads.”  Her rich, lush voice, a smoky contralto, was once described by noted producer and arranger Quincy Jones as “like clothing, as she seduces you with her voice.”

The video above is Nice and Easy, recorded in concert at the 1990 International Bern Jazz Festival in Switzerland … and, as the title indicates, it swings comfortably.  Below [left] Shirley  performs an uptempo Just In Time, at the 1992 Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island … while below [right] she eases back with a haunting rendition of How Insensitive.

Finally, [bottom-most] Shirley Horn reaches for your heartstrings and tugs a bit with a quiet look at life, as she performs Here’s to Life at the 1994 North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands.  She is backed by the Metropole Orchestra and a sea of lush strings.

The Old and The New – Lionel Hampton

by | May 25, 2024 | Big Band, Orchestral

Lionel Leo Hampton was an iconic jazz musician and bandleader, known for the rhythmic vitality of his playing and his showmanship as a performer. Best known for his work on the vibraphone, Hampton was also a skilled drummer (his original instrument), pianist, and singer.  During a recording session in 1930, while accompanying Louis Armstrong, Satchmo asked Lionel to play a vibraphone that had been fortuitously left in the studio. The results were “Memories of You” and “Shine,” the first jazz recordings to feature improvised vibraphone solos. From that point on, the vibes became Hampton’s main instrument.  Above, you’ll hear an excitingly different treatment of In The Mood, –– like Glenn Miller never played it –– featuring the St. Petersburg State Orchestra and Lionel Hampton, still at his finest in 1994.

Midnight Sun was originally an instrumental composed by Lionel Hampton and Sonny Burke in 1947; it is now considered a jazz standard. This performance was around 1948.

This Kennedy Center performance of Air Mail Special is from a 1982 tribute to Benny Goodman.  You’ll probably recognize several well-known dignitaries in the audience.

The Shearing Sound – Pt. 1

by | Aug 26, 2023 | Orchestral, Solo/Duo

George Shearing was a British born pianist who led a popular jazz group that took the country by storm for many years.  Born blind, the youngest of nine children, he started learning to play at the age of three … and went on to compose more than 300 titles during his illustrious career, including the jazz standard Lullaby of Birdland (Uppermost video).  He had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 60s, 80s, and even the 1990s.

Shearing emigrated to the U.S. and founded the first George Shearing Quintet in 1949, which saw a number of permutations over the years and finally led to solo and trio performances later in his career.  He drew upon classical music and the records of Teddy Wilson and Fats Waller for his influences, eventually developing a harmonically complex style––mixing swing, bop and modern classical into his playing.  His technique became known as Shearing’s Voicing … a type of double melody block chord, with an additional fifth part that doubles the melody an octave lower.  This style of playing is also known as Locked Hands.

Henry Mancini’s Dreamsville, like the video above, was recorded in 1992 at the Munich Philharmonie … with Neil Swainson on bass.

George goes solo with John Williams at the Boston Pops with his performance of Look At That Face.  The picture quality is a bit compromised, but the music is near perfect!

 

Her Honey-Coated Voice

by | Mar 3, 2023 | Orchestral, Trio, Vocal

Nancy Wilson was a singer and occasional actress whose career spanned over five decades, from the mid-1950s until her retirement in early 2010.  During her performing career, she was called a singer, a consummate actress and “the complete entertainer.”  The title she preferred, however, was “song stylist”.  She received many nicknames including “Sweet Nancy”, “The Baby”, “Fancy Miss Nancy” and “The Girl With the Honey-Coated Voice.”  Proof positive of those laurels can be found in the performances below, as you listen to Nancy’s tender rendition of For Once In My Life and her energetic 1998 serenade of Quincy Jones at his 50th birthday tribute with the Ellington/Russell tune Do Nothin’ ‘Til You Hear From Me.

She walked into my studio wearing a floor length, white ermine coat.  It was real.  So was she.  Nancy Wilson was known as a singer’s singer, boasting more than 70 albums and 3 Grammy Awards.  While she has been recognized for her excellence in blues, jazz, R&B, pop and soul, for my money her greatest strength lies with jazz.  Nancy is “the complete entertainer”.  Here’s an interview from a few years back you can also find, along with many others, on our Jazz Scene Podcast page.

Meet Nancy Wilson

by Fred Masey | Podcast 005

A Tony Bennett Christmas

by | Dec 17, 2021 | Big Band, Orchestral, Vocal

After Tony Bennett’s recent retirement form a stellar career spanning more than half-a-century, here are two Christmas-themed performances I’d like to share with you from one of his three or four ‘primes’ … as well as an interview with Tony from my Jazz Scene Podcast page.  In 1989 I had the pleasure of peeling back a couple of outer layers and speaking with him about more than just his music.

The first video is a typically smooth Bennett blend of I Love The Winter Weather and I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm from A Family Christmas.  Then Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, together with the Count Basie Orchestra, from A Swingin’ Christmas, moves us just a bit closer to the big day when the jolly old elf himself makes his rounds.

Talkin' With Tony

by Fred Masey | JS Podcast

Locksley Wellington ‘Slide’ Hampton

by | Oct 30, 2021 | Big Band, Orchestral, Septet/Octet

If some of the video images look as though they were reversed, they weren’t.  It’s only that Slide Hampton has the trombone slung over his right shoulder instead of his left.  As a child, he acquired a trombone set up for left handed musicians and continued to play it for the rest of his life … even though he was right handed!  In 1971, Slide was invited to Italy by Franco Cerri, one of the greatest Italian jazz guitarists of the time.  He was featured on an episode of the Italian TV variety show “No Network” and the result was the topmost video Night Never Come, which also appeared on his 1975 album Jazz From Italy with the Slide Hampton Quartet.

The Lower video is Side’s Blues.  It’s part of an 85th birthday celebration for Slide on April 22, 2017 at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola.  It’s a Slide Hampton Original featuring Slide Hampton (trombone) with: Sam Dillon (tenor saxophone); Frank Basile (baritone saxophone); Marshall Gilkes & Ryan Keberle (trombones); Tony Kadleck & Fabien Mary (trumpets); David Wong (bass) and Charles Ruggiero (drums).

The two audio cuts below are both from Hampton’s album “Something Sanctified” recorded in 1960. His Octet was comprised of Slide Hampton (tb, b-horn, arr), Charles Greenlee (tb, b-horn), Richard Williams & Hobart Dotson (tp), George Coleman (ts), Jay Cameron (bs,b-cl), Larry Ridley (b) and Pete La Roca (ds).  In 1962 a revised ensemble, maintaining the same full-throated sound, toured the U.S. and Europe featuring the horns of Booker Little, George Coleman and Freddie Hubbard.

On The Street Where You Live

by Slide Hampton Octet | Somethin' Sanctified

Milestones

by Slide Hampton Octet | Somethin' Sanctified

Bossa Nova – Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim

by | Jul 9, 2021 | Orchestral, Vocal

In 1967 Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim recorded a spectacular album together that was nominated for an album of the year Grammy, best male pop vocal and best vocal performance.  The music was arranged and conducted by Claus Ogerman, accompanied by a studio orchestra.  Here is a medley from that album by the two artists in a wonderfully relaxed setting … exactly the way Bossa Nova is most naturally presented:  Corcovado, Change Partners, I Concentrate On You, and Jobim’s own The Girl From Ipanema.

Moonglow And Theme From Picnic – (Soundtrack)

by | Nov 28, 2020 | Orchestral, Soundtrack

Take the 1933 song “Moonglow”, popularized by The Benny Goodman Quartet, blend it carefully with the theme from a 1955 Academy Award winning movie … then add Kim Novak and William Holden, and you have the recipe for a genuine box office blockbuster!  This is the famous dance scene from “Picnic” that was considered so daring and erotic for a movie of that day.

While not strictly a jazz tune, the music [written by George Dunning and scored by Morris Stoloff] became highly popular, and to this day remains one of my favorite songs … and the movie one of my favorite films.. By merging the two songs a truly unique sound was achieved and the combination was successfully recorded by a variety of artists from both the pop and jazz idioms.

Tribute To Benny Goodman

by | Oct 10, 2020 | Big Band, Orchestral

The Kennedy Center Honors is an annual honor given to those in the performing arts for their lifetime of contributions to American culture.  In 1982, Lionel Hampton and Peggy Lee paid tribute to that year’s honoree Benny Goodman.  Lionel performed “Air Mail Special” and “Sing, Sing, Sing” while Peggy performed “Where or When” in a star-studded gala at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, D.C.  Master of ceremonies Andre Previn introduces the segment.