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.

The Annual New Year’s Show

by | Dec 28, 2024 | Audio, Holiday, Video

While it’s okay to look back, be careful not to stare. Remember we are celebrating “out with the old” and “in with the new.” To set the mood for The Holiday, I’ve brought Days of Auld Lang Syne forward from our Jazz Scene Podcast page. It features everything from a peek at the great dance bands of the 30s and 40s, to my interview with Fay Wray –– the lady who did all that screaming in the classic horror film “King Kong” –– and, at last, a reasonable explanation of just what the heck Auld Lang Syne actually means. All this is to offer my sincerest wishes for a most Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year!

Days Of Auld Lang Syne

by Fred Masey | Podcast #018

First, I’ve blended together some wintry pictures to accompany the spirited New York Voices rendition of the classic Let It Snow … written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne during a heatwave in July 1945! Next, Kenny G returns with Auld Lang Syne as the background for an historical retrospective, to which I’ve added an opening door to infinity that signals the perpetual changing of the calendar.

Manhattan Transfer Christmas II

by | Dec 14, 2024 | Holiday, Orchestral, Vocal Group

In 1969, Tim Hauser formed a vocal group in New York City called The Manhattan Transfer. The videos below feature the fourth edition of the group, consisting of Tim Hauser, Alan Paul, Janis Siegel, and Cheryl Bentyne, who performed mostly cool and smooth jazz, tinged with pop, soul, funk, and even acappella. These cuts are from The Transfer’s 2005 DVD, “The Christmas Concert.” (For more Manhattan Transfer Christmas, see our MOJ post of December 21,2018)

A special MHT arrangement of Mel Torme’s The Christmas Song.  Listen to the rich blend of mellow harmonies, smoothly combining all four voices into one.

Happy Holidays adds some upbeat flavor to the Christmas season that celebrates all the magic and merriment of the jolly old elf himself … and it’s all just ’round the corner!

The foursome captures the warmth of a cozy fire against the backdrop of a cold wintry night with their uniquely gentle version of Let It Snow. Oh … the song was written during a California heatwave!

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!

The Christian Thing

by | Aug 24, 2024 | Big Band, Trio

He blazed an extraordinary trail as one of the most preeminent jazz musicians of our time. As a dynamic musician, composer and arranger, as well as a dedicated educator and mentor, bassist Christian McBride has an exceedingly wide wingspan! He has appeared on more than 300 recordings as a sideman, and is an eight-time Grammy Award winner.

The upper video, Fried Pies, features pianist Christian Sands, drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr. and McBride, of course, on bass. It was recorded in 2012 at the KNKX performance studios in downtown Seattle, Washington. The lower video, Black Narcissus Part 2 recorded in 2019, represents a sequel to Black Narcissus Part 1 written in the early 70s by George Duke for Cannonball Adderley … and is something of a departure for McBride into big band territory.