Tony Bennett makes you want to slip on your galoshes and follow him into the snow with this rendition of Winter Wonderland. It features the Count Basie Orchestra and is certain to add Holiday spring to anyone’s step!
My Favorite Things is a classic song swung by a classic performer with a classic band. While the tune was written for a Broadway play, not as a Christmas song, the season wouldn’t be complete without it.
Her true versatility is on full display as Diana Ross moves seamlessly from R&B to jazz in the 1972 motion picture Lady Sings The Blues … the life story of the legendary Billie Holiday. My Man is one of the featured songs.
Riding atop the power of a big band, with All Of Me Diana shows she can swing with the best of them, in addition to melting your heart with her poignant approach to a ballad.
Give Me A Pig Foot And A Bottle Of Beer is a familiar Billie Holiday song that unquestionably distances Diana Ross far from her original Motown days with The Supremes.
God Bless The Child (That’s Got His Own) has been recorded by several top artists but NOBODY ever did it like Billie Holiday … although Diana comes pretty darn close. Another tune featured in Lady Sings The Blues.
Wesbound was written by Lee Ritenour as a tribute to the late, great guitarist Wes Montgomery. Lee is joined in this video by the very versatile Patrice Rushen playing keyboards and Terry Crews delivering a driving bass.
Ritenour’s guitar stylings are usually considered to be acid or club jazz, which for the uninitiated is a musical genre that combines elements of jazz, soul, funk, and even a smattering of disco. While it is a bit of a departure from our emphasis on more traditional, straight ahead jazz, I think you’re gonna like what you hear. Listen for an ear-popping solo by Patrice!
On March 2nd 2000, The Billy Taylor Trio played this soulful but swinging arrangement of “Body and Soul” live at the Manchester Craftsman’s Guild in Pittsurgh, Pennsylvania. Featured on piano was the great Dr. Billy Taylor, Chip Jackson was on bass and the amazing Winard Harper played drums. Dr. Taylor became the most prominent spokesman for the virtues of jazz and was the first to describe it as “America’s Classical Music”.
From virtually the beginning of his career, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis achieved one of the main goals of all jazz musicians: to have his own sound. One can always identify “Jaws” within two or three notes. Was he a bop, swing, hard bop or early R&B improviser? Duke Ellington’s phrase of “beyond category” perfectly fit “Jaws” because his highly individual voice always stood apart from everyone else.
S’ Wonderful was recorded in Copenhagen, 1985 with Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis (TS), Niels Jorgen Steen (P), Jesper Lundgaard (b) and Ed Thigpin (d).
The Sidewinder is a tune born in minutes, destined to last a lifetime! It became one of the defining recordings of the soul jazz genre … a jazz standard that set the tone for an entirely new style of funky jazz that is a driving force even today.
The session was being recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s famous Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey studio. Although the album was essentially finished, the musicians felt they needed one more song. Lee Morgan suddenly disappeared into the washroom and emerged about twenty minutes later, passing around a sheet of music with notes on it that turned out to be Sidewinder!
That original date included Lee Morgan playing trumpet, Joe Henderson on sax, Barry Harris at the piano, Bob Crenshaw on bass, and Billy Higgins playing drums. The album they recorded that day became Blue Note’s best-selling record ever, breaking the previous sales records roughly ten times over! In addition to the original, two other compelling arrangements of the title tune are presented here by Gene Harris and The Turtle Island String Quartet.
The Turtle Island String Quartet is an unconventional musical ensemble which plays jazz standards and original compositions that cross several styles, including blues, classical, jazz, and world music. Violinist David Balakrishnan got the idea for a jazz string quartet in 1985.
As a child, David was inspired by Jimi Hendrix and later discovered jazz through the music of the David Grisman Quartet. The group has performed with the likes of Billy Taylor, Manhattan Transfer, Modern Jazz Quartet, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and many others. Since its founding, TIQ has had many members come and go, but their uniqueness, intensity and musical integrity has always remained.
Moment’s Notice, a John Coltrane composition, was recorded live in Brussels featuring David Balakrishnan playing violin, Mark Summer on cello, Mateusz Smoczynski also on violin and Benjamin von Gutzeit on viola.
Roy Hargrove is known as one of the top trumpet players in jazz for the past quarter-century. As an incisive trumpeter, doubling on flugelhorn, Roy was discovered by Wynton Marsalis in the 1980s. He embodied the brightest promise of his jazz generation, both as a young steward of the hard bop tradition and a savvy bridge to both hip-hop and R&B. His assertive sound embodied a tone that could evoke either burnished steel or a soft, golden glow. Here we have both.
Angels (Above), features the quintet with Roy Hargrove on trumpet, Justin Robinson on alto sax, Tadataka Unno playing piano, Ameen Saleem on bass, and Quincy Phillips playing drums.
I Remember Clifford (Below) displays Hargrove’s softer side, with the flugelhorn as a contrast to his big band backing.
Blues On Sunday was recorded at the Philharmonic Hall in Munich during the Munich Piano Summer 1994. Joshua Redman is on saxophone, Brad Mehldau at the piano, Christian McBride on bass and Brian Blade plays drums.
The 1970 Beatles tune Let It Be was performed by the Joshua Redman Quartet in 2013 at Jazz In Marciac. It features Joshua Redman, saxophone; Aaron Goldberg, piano; Reuben Rogers, contrabass; and Gregory Hutchinson, drums.
How High The Moon is the top video in more than one way. Besides the fabulous June Christy doing the vocal, two other legendary singers don’t utter a solitary note! Instead, Mel Torme is on drums and Nat ‘King’ Cole plays piano, which of course was his original musical calling. Lower left is June in her prime with That Old Feeling and on the lower right she is featured with the Stan Kenton Orchestra Just A-Sittin’ And A-Rockin’. Christy, of course, was the replacement chanteuse for the incredible Anita O’Day after she left the Kenton band … one of the few singers who could have filled O’Day’s stylish ‘pumps’ fronting that powerful, creative Orchestra.
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