John Coltrane and Stan Getz together is a rare find … especially when performing with a who’s who on the other instruments. Recorded in Germany in 1960, here is just such a combo with Oscar Peterson on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb rounding out the rhythm section on drums. The tune Hackensack is a Thelonious Monk composition, as if you couldn’t tell from the note structure.
Red Cross is a Charlie Parker tune performed live by The Art Farmer Quartet at the Smithsonian in 1982. The group includes Art on flugelhorn, Fred Hersch on piano, Denis Irvin playing bass and Billy Hart is the drummer.
The Summer Knows is a beautiful, romantic song from the motion picture “Summer of ’42.” Here, Art Farmer does it gentle justice on his flugelhorn, along with Cedar Walton on piano, Sam Jones at the bass, and Billy Higgins on drums.
Here’s some rare footage of 3 of the top jazz guitarists of all time, Kenny Burrell, Barney Kessel and Grant Green. The videos were recorded in 1969 for a French TV show that never aired … along with Burrell, Kessel and Green, are Larry Ridley on bass and Don Lamond on drums. The video TO THE RIGHT features all 3 guitarists with an easy swinging tune of “Rhythm Changes”.
BELOW on the upper left all 3 men again collaborate on the familiar blues theme “Blue Mist”. Although the performance is incomplete, I included it because of some great guitar licks that’ll make you glad you have ears! Upper right Kenny steps forward with “Imagination.” Lower left offers Barney with “I’m Glad There Is You”, while at the lower right Grant dazzles with his virtuosity on “I Wish You Love.”
“Night In Tunisia”, a Dizzy Gillespie tune, was recorded in Holland in 1964. It features Dex on tenor sax, George Gruntz as the piano man, Guy Pedersen playing bass and Danaiel Humair at the drums. As for the song itself, “A Night in Tunisia” was one of the signature pieces of Gillespie’s bebop big band and has become a jazz classic in its own right.
This rare performance of A-Train is from the Legends of Jazz, Piano Masters series with Ramsey Lewis hosting. For the first time in more than forty years, a American national network, PBS, aired a weekly program devoted to jazz. The series aired in 2006 and lasted only 13 weeks, but has become available on both DVD and CD for continuing enjoyment by jazz buffs everywhere.
It’s always a beautiful day in this neighborhood when Wynton Marsalis is in town. A young Wynton lends his trumpet to the mix as he joins the great jazz pianist Johnny Costa, guitarist Joe Negri and drummer Bobby Rawsthone for a memorable rendition of a Mister Rogers classic tune, “Its You I Like,” plus a straight ahead trumpet rendition of “Blue Monk”. Few people realize that Fred Rogers was a hard core jazz buff, composer and actually played the drums quite well!
Henry Jones Jr.(You probably know him as Hank) was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer. He has been described by critics and musicians alike as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. Hank recorded more than 60 albums under his own name and countless others as a sideman. Few realize that he was the pianist on May 19, 1962 who played as actress Marilyn Monroe sang her famous “Happy Birthday, Mr. President“ song to President John F. Kennedy.
At the Tokyo Jazz Festival in 2006, he featured fantastic live performances of both old and new stars, including Sadao Watanabe, Chick Corea, Hiromi Uehara, and Austin Peralta, who joined Hank’s trio in a ‘perfect storm’ of past, present and potential future legends of jazz.
On Some Day My Prince Will Come, The Hank Jones Trio consists of John Patitucci on bass and Omar Hakim on drums, with Hank, of course, coaxing the warmth of the piano’s tones from the keyboard.
The addition of Hiromi Uehara, Austin Peralta, Chick Corea and Sadao Watanabe provides a new dimension to Blue Monk, one of Thelonious Monk’s most popular and enduring tunes.
Charles Mingus was an American jazz double bassist, pianist, composer and bandleader, and truly one of the most creative musicians in the business, right down to the titles of his tunes! Who else could have come up with names like “Don’t Be Afraid, The Clown’s Afraid Too” or “The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers”? The latter composition is featured in this post. A major proponent of collective improvisation, Mingus was a man ahead of his time. Whether big band or small, one listen to his orchestrations and arrangements is all the proof anyone needs.
Celia is a Mingus original from his quintet’s live 1972 performance in Berlin. It features Charles Mingus on bass, Joe Gardner on trumpet, Hamiet Bluiett playing barry, John Foster at the piano, and Roy Brooks on drums.
Pianist Gene Harris (Remember The Three Sounds?) delivers a slightly different treatment of the jazz classic, “Sweet Georgia Brown”. Along with guitarist Jim Mullen, bassist Andrew Clayndert and drummer Martin Drew, Gene infuses a touch of his early boogie-woogie background into the music at the 1998 Berne Jazz Festival resulting in a very crowd pleasing effect.
On my “What About Dat?” page, I talk about the development of jazz and its shared influences with other types of music. Pianist Claude Bolling and flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal provide classic — or should I say classical — examples of just such a blending of genres in these two ‘grab your socks’ pieces. Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano was Rampal’s first non-classical recording, although he had been an avid jazz enthusiast for years. The two friends’ intricate performances raised a few eyebrows at CBS records at first, but the result was a popular album with universal appeal.
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