Watch Online The Best Jazz Movie

Jazz on a Summer's Day

Features one of the rare film appearances of two of the greatest jazz artists of all times: New Orleans-born trumpeter Louis Armstrong and Texas-born trombonist Jack Teagarden. When Armstrong formed his six-piece All Stars in 1946 Jack, who was white, was asked to join. The obvious affection these two great performers felt for each other's singing, clowning and playing is particularly evident in their classic performance of "Old Rocking Chair." After Armstrong was invited to return his home town after many years away, he insisted Teagarden join him on the stage. The city refused to let a white man and a Negro play together. Armstrong vowed never to return to New Orleans and kept his word until the day he died.

"Louis Armstrong and his band kitted out in matching blazers with Mother of Pearl buttons. Anita O'Day in her marvelous hat and white gloves. Thelonious Monk and his bamboo sunglasses. In the audience there's the beautiful girl in the red sweater chewing gum. Ascots. Bermuda shorts. Straw hats. Capri pants. And young couples having some real fun. I felt like crying."

"I caught this film about 10 years ago while idly flipping around the cable minefield. It had already started as I began to watch, so I didn't know anything about it till it was over. Like you, I was mesmerized. And suddenly clued in to the magic of my parents' heyday. This was their milieu - jazz, cocktails, effortless style, genuine optimism. All the moments you site in the film are priceless. The juxtaposition of the America's Cup trials, crowd shots and epic performances is very unique and more than holds up today. It was very near the end of an era. The end of jazz as more or less mainstream entertainment. The end of an era of populist panache. The end of optimism. This film filled in a lot of gaps for me. It gave me a window into the world of my parents, at a time when they were just becoming my parents. I've been urging people to see it ever since - and everyone who does see seems sincerely grateful. I wish I'd been able to see the restored print at Lincoln Center. That must have been a treat. "

Cast (in credits order)
Jimmy Giuffre ... Himself
Thelonious Monk ... Himself
Henry Grimes ... Himself
Sonny Stitt ... Himself
Sal Salvador ... Himself
Anita O'Day ... Herself
George Shearing ... Himself
Dinah Washington ... Herself
Gerry Mulligan ... Himself
Big Maybelle ... Herself
Chuck Berry ... Himself
Chico Hamilton ... Himself


Louis Armstrong ... Himself
Jack Teagarden ... Himself
Mahalia Jackson ... Herself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
David Baily ... Himself
Danny Barcelona ... Himself
Bob Brookmeyer ... Himself
Buck Clayton ... Himself
Willis Conover ... Interviewer
Bill Crow ... Himself
Eric Dolphy ... Himself
Eli's Chosen Six ... Themselves
Art Farmer ... Himself
Harold Gaylon ... Himself
Nathan Gershman ... Himself
Terry Gibbs ... Himself
Urbie Green ... Himself
Jim Hall ... Himself
Peanuts Hucko ... Himself
Jo Jones ... Himself
Ray Mosca ... Himself
Armando Peraza ... Himself
Max Roach ... Himself
Rudy Rutherford ... Himself
Martin Williams ... Jazz Critic in Audience
Patricia Bosworth ... Disgruntled redhead in audience (uncredited)
Directors:Aram Avakian
Bert Stern
Writers:Albert D'Annibale (writer)
Arnold Perl (writer)

Ain't that a bitch?

"You know people have tried to put me off as being crazy," said Thelonious Sphere Monk. "Sometimes it's to your advantage for people to think you're crazy." He ought to have known. Monk was one of only a few jazz musicians to appear on the cover of Time magazine (others include Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington and Wynton Marsalis) and was celebrated as a genius by everyone who mattered. Bud Powell, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins could not have imagined (or transmuted) the language of jazz without him. Yet the pianist was also constantly underpaid and underappreciated, rejected as too weird on his way up and dismissed as old hat once he made his improbable climb. Performer and composer, eccentric and original, Monk was shrouded in mystery throughout his life. Not an especially loquacious artist (at least with journalists), he left most of his expression in his inimitable work, as stunning and unique as anyone's in jazz--second only to Duke Ellington's and
perched alongside Charles Mingus's.

He did leave a paper trail, though, and Robin D.G. Kelley's exhaustive, necessary and, as of now, definitive Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original offers a Baedeker of sorts
Kelley has created a lush portrait of the private, off-camera Monk, one it would have been difficult to paint without the unprecedented access he had to the Monk family, including Nellie, Monk's widow, who provided substantial information before her death in 2002, and their son, Toot (otherwise known as TS), who opened up the archives once trust had been established. Kelley shows us the man who, when he wasn't getting work in the early 1950s, played Mr. Mom. He shows us the musician who, when he wasn't at home, needed some sort of neighborhood watch to make sure he didn't drift in the wrong direction. It took a village. He had a family who tolerated his eccentricities and never pressured him to take a day job. Mingus had to work at the post office when freelance work was hard to come by; no matter how lean things got, Monk was
able to work at the eighty-eight keys in his living room.

Born in North Carolina in 1917 and raised in the predominantly African-American San Juan Hill neighborhood on what is now Manhattan's Upper West Side, Monk went from obscurity to notoriety to seclusion--from glorious, hard-fought music to inscrutable silence. At times he boomeranged from Bellevue to the Village Vanguard to Rikers Island to the 30th Street Studios of Columbia Records and back again. But one thing was for sure: in a certain scene, among a certain set, in boho corners of the 1950s, crazy was that year's model. "Crazy, man!" was the rallying cry of the Beats, parodied by Norman Mailer, who nevertheless believed, as a Bellevue alum himself, the hype about hip. Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath did stints in McLean Hospital; Allen Ginsberg, who saw the best minds of his generation starving, hysterical, naked, possessed a Bellevue pedigree; and John Berryman proclaimed himself a demented priest. Sanity was supposedly for squares.

Yet for all its colloquial power, crazy (or even "Crazy, man!") is not in the DSM-IV. We have not a shopworn adjective but a clinical diagnosis for what ailed Monk. He suffered, as Kelley explains, from bipolar disorder, although his illness was misdiagnosed and mistreated throughout the latter part of his career. Like other black jazz musicians (Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus), Monk was more likely to be called schizophrenic, or just plain nuts, than were blue bloods like Cal Lowell. Monk took "vitamin shots" from a "Doctor Feelgood" who dosed his patients with amphetamines. Kelley ventures that Monk, who alluded to his enigmatic psyche in songs like "Nutty" and "Misterioso," eventually stopped playing entirely a few years after he began taking lithium in 1972; after his final concert at Carnegie Hall (and an impromptu Fourth of July performance at Bradley's) in 1976, he hardly played or spoke until his death in 1982.

There is a much-quoted line in Charlotte Zwerin's 1988 documentary Straight, No Chaser in which Monk is told that he is in an encyclopedia alongside popes and presidents, and is therefore famous. As he absorbs this information he is patently aware that he is being filmed. His response? "I'm famous. Ain't that a bitch?"
It was indeed often a bitch to be Thelonious Monk. Because of a law that was eventually struck down by New York City Mayor John Lindsay in 1967, Monk repeatedly lost his "cabaret card." The card was a prized possession because it permitted musicians to play in establishments serving alcohol, and any cardholder who was arrested had to forfeit the golden ticket. Monk lost his repeatedly, once when he was arrested while sitting in a car with his dear friend Bud Powell, who was, according to Kelley, the one carrying heroin, but each was too loyal to the other to snitch; and once because he had the temerity, as a Negro in Jim Crow America, to demand service at a hotel in Delaware. (Monk took many police beatings for that one.) This was no way to treat a genius; it was no way to treat a human being.
"You know people have tried to put me off as being crazy," said Thelonious Sphere Monk. "Sometimes it's to your advantage for people to think you're crazy." He ought to have known. Monk was one of only a few jazz musicians to appear on the cover of Time magazine (others include Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington and Wynton Marsalis) and was celebrated as a genius by everyone who mattered. Bud Powell, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins could not have imagined (or transmuted) the language of jazz without him. Yet the pianist was also constantly underpaid and underappreciated, rejected as too weird on his way up and dismissed as old hat once he made his improbable climb. Performer and composer, eccentric and original, Monk was shrouded in mystery throughout his life. Not an especially loquacious artist (at least with journalists), he left most of his expression in his inimitable work, as stunning and unique as anyone's in jazz--second only to Duke Ellington's and perched alongside Charles Mingus's.
Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
by Robin D.G. Kelley
And suddenly, it was over.Did he just go too far within himself and never return? Did his treatment for bipolar disorder somehow cure him of the music bug as well? Did he have new musical ideas trapped in a recal citrant body? Kelley suggests the more prosaic possibility that he was suffering from an enlarged prostate.
Monk had already moved into the spacious home of the Baroness Pannonica "Nica" de Koenigswarter (Parker's old patron) in Weehawken, New Jersey, with a spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline and an even more spectacular number of cats. Monk had become too much for his wife to handle, and Nellie didn't object to his relocating to a mansion across the Hudson. Pannonica inspired a Monk ballad of the same name, but there is no evidence that they were lovers. Nica kept a piano by Monk's room, but Monk almost never touched it. "If his health improved and his manic-depressive cycles were under control," Kelley writes, "why did he stop playing? Having spent the better part of fourteen years tracing Monk's every step, I was not surprised by his decision. In fact, I wondered why he did not retire earlier." Kelley is a judicious biographer, but I find this conclusion difficult to accept. Monk told Sonny Rollins that when all else failed, there was always music. Music was not to be let go, no matter how unsteady things got, and by all accounts in the book, the later performances, except for the final one, were still filled with magic. Maybe with more equilibrium, though, Monk was not inspired to sit down at the piano and feign his most inspired moments--which came, at least in part, from a place of serious illness.
(from David Jaffe article...read more}

Thelonious Monk : Straight, No Chaser (1988) is a documentary about the life of Thelonious Monk. Produced by Clint Eastwood, and directed by Charlotte Zwerin, it features live performances by Monk and his group, and posthumous interviews with friends and family. The film was created when a large amount of archived footage of Monk which was found in the 1980s.

From Heebster to Hipster

The first dictionary to list the word is the short glossary "For Characters Who Don't Dig Jive Talk," which was included with Harry Gibson's 1944 album, Boogie Woogie In Blue. The entry for "hipsters" defined it as "characters who like hot jazz."[5] Initially, hipsters were usually middle-class white youths seeking to emulate the lifestyle of the largely-black jazz musicians they followed(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The song was "Handsome Harry the Hipster," and the performer was Harry 'The Hipster' Gibson. Harry sang of things I had vaguely heard discussed by my ex-hipster elders - "chicks," "mellowness" (being stoned), and of that mysterious thing called "jive." That's the way I had been told that "vipers" (drug users) talk. "Handsome Harry" - described in the song not only as a "hipster" but as a "flipster" and a "clipster" - "digs those mellow kicks." He's a gangsta who'll "hype you for your gold," is "the ball with all the chicks," and is "frantic and fanatic, with jive he's an addict." And with an addict's natural evasiveness, Harry ended each verse with a shrug and verbal denial: "Well, I don't know, I
was only told."



I learned later that Harry, like my own relatives, was a Jewish New Yorker who discovered and melded with the jazz-fueled world of hipsterdom. His guide into that alternate reality was supposedly saxophone great Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, who played with such greats as Basie, Louis Armstrong, Cootie Williams, and Lucky Millinder. Harry started playing piano at a speakeasy run by Lockjaw, who became his jive mentor.



The former Harry Raab was soon cranking out tunes like "Get Your Juices at
the Deuces," "Stop That Dancing Up There," and the future Dr. Demento favorite, "Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine." To think of him as just a novelty act, however, is to do him an injustice. He was, like many artists, a breaker of taboos and a shatterer of invisible walls. His life was part of his art, and excess was part of that life. It wasn't just the tunes that made Harry Gibson a star, it was the new and fashionable anarchy they - and he - represented.(read more...)



Mrs. Murphy couldn't sleep
Her nerves were slightly off the bean
Until she solved her problem
With a can of Ovaltine
She drank a cupful most every night
And ooh how she would dream
Until something rough got in the stuff
And made her neighbors scream. OW!
Who put the Benzedrine, in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?
Sure was a shame, don't know who's to blame
Cause the old lady didn't even get his name
Where did she get that stuff?
Now she just can't get enough
It might have been the man who wasn't there
Now Jack, that guy's a square
She never ever wants to go to sleep
She says that everything is solid all reet
Now Mr. Murphy don't know what it's all about
Cause she went and threw the old man out, Clout
Who put the Benzedrine, in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?
Now she wants to swing, the Highland Fling
She says that Benzedrine's the thing that makes her spring.

This is the second chorus you know
The name of this chorus is called, "Who put the Nembutals in Mr. Murphy's overalls?
I don't know
She bought a can of Ovaltine, most every week or so
And she always kept an extra can on hand
Just in case that she'd run low
She never never been so happy, since she left old Ireland
'Till some one prowled her pantry, and tampered with her can. Wham!
Who put the Benzedrine, in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?
Sure was a shame, don't know who's to blame
Cause the old lady didn't even get his name
Where did she get that stuff
Now she just can't get enough
It might have been the man who wasn't there
Now Jack, that guy's a square
She stays up nights making all the rounds
They say she lost about 69 pounds
Now Mr. Murphy claims she's getting awful thin
And all she says is, "Give me some skin." Mop!
Who put the Benzedrine, in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?
Now she wants to swing the Highland Fling
She says that Benzedrine's the thing that makes her spring.
Spring it now, Gibson

Note: This song is Harry's adaptation of the old Irish folk song "Who put the
overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder." Two different versions of it can be found at:
http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiMRPHCHOW;ttMRPHCHOW.html
http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics/w057.html

Late Night Groove Series: J. VIEWZ at Blue Note

Venue: Blue Note
Performer: LATE NIGHT GROOVE SERIES: J. VIEWZ
Start Time: Saturday, Feb 21, 12:30 am
Price: BAR: $8.00 TABLE:$8.00
Description: FEATURING:
Jonathan Dagan, compositions/beats/electronics/guitar
Noa Lembersky, vocals
Urijah, vocals/trumpet/guitar
Yonadav Halevy, drums
Daniel Koren, keyboards
Israeli producer Jonathan Dagan's award winning project arrives for one late night set at the Blue Note. Going from Breakbeat to Jazz, Electro & Reggae - Jonathan and the the 4-piece Live act of J.Viewz features unique combination of live instruments, Vocals, electronic drumbeats, live drums and Turntables.(from Gothamjazz)

Double Entendre - Raunchy, Risque, Ribald, Rude and Racy

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Double-entendre \Dou"ble-en*ten"dre\, n. [F. double double +
entendre to mean. This is a barbarous compound of French
words. The true French equivalent is double entente.]
A word or expression admitting of a double interpretation,
one of which is often obscure or indelicate.

She was Born Odetta Holmes

Odetta she was born Odetta Holmes sang at coffeehouses and Carnegie Hall and released several albums, becoming one of the most widely known and influential folk-music artists of the 1950s and 60s.
Her voice was an accompaniment to the black-and-white images of the freedom marchers who walked the roads of Alabama and Mississippi and the boulevards of Washington in quest of an end to racial discrimination.
Rosa Parks, the woman who started the boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama, was once asked which songs meant the most to her. She replied, "All of the songs Odetta sings."
Odetta sang at the August 1963 march on Washington, a pivotal event in the civil rights movement. Her song that day was "O Freedom," dating back to slavery days.
(read more..)

Anita O'Day : Newport 1958

The iconic image of Anita O'Day is from “Jazz on a Summer's Day," shot at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, where she showed up for her afternoon set in heels, an audacious bonnet and a slinky black dress, treating the crowd (some of whom looked somnambulistic) to a white-hot “Sweet Georgia Brown." O'Day was high as a kite - probably, she says, in one of the many interviews that punctuate “The Life of a Jazz Singer." Despite her substance abuse, there was an incredible strength to O'Day, who refused to compromise her art (while never calling it such) and lived a jazz life at a time when women didn't. (read more...)

The Creeper in Israel

Blues Harmonica legend James Cotton plays Tel Aviv and Hertzeliya
Thursday Sept 4th and Friday 5th at Zappa Tel Aviv - two show per night
Saturday Sept 6th at Zappa Hertzeliya - two shows
James Cotton and his band Superharp are in Israel this weekend,
this is one of the last of the Blues Harmonica legends still alive,
James Cotton had some mighty big shoes to fill when he replaced Muddy Water's harmonica player, Little Walter, in 1954. Having learned how to wail from none other than Sonny Boy Williamson himself, Cotton was well prepared, and over the next 12 years, he played an integral role in Muddy Water's music as well as the Chicago blues scene in general. By 1966, he was prepared to make it on his own and formed the James Cotton Blues Band, (read more...)

Montreux 1969: Ella

In 1967, the first Montreux Jazz Festival opened its doors. The festival was held at Montreux Casino, which burned down in December 1971 during Frank Zappa's performance. ("Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple tells that story.)
It lasted for three days and featured almost exclusively jazz artists. The highlights of this era were Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, Bill Evans, Soft Machine, Weather Report, Nina Simone, Jan Garbarek, and Ella Fitzgerald.
Originally a pure jazz festival, it opened up in the 1970s and today presents artists of nearly every imaginable music style. Jazz remains an important part of the festival. Today's festival lasts about two weeks and attracts an audience of more than 200,000 people.

Wild Women Don't Have the Blues

The blues women rarely accompanied themselves. Instead of singing to a lone guitar or banjo as the folk singers did, women were accompanied by jazz bands that now were becoming popular, music hall professionals like themselves who were veterans of the theatrical circuit.
Ida Goodson was an African American Floridian whose career as a musician began when she was three years old. By the age of sixteen she began playing the blues, jazz, and gospel songs that are a part of her musical repertoire. Goodson was one of six daughters of a Baptist deacon—all of whom pursued careers playing blues and jazz piano.
In 1927 and 1928, she played regularly as an accompanist at the Belmont Theater, Pensacola’s main black music hall. In the early l930s, she began traveling with a New Orleans band which had relocated in Pensacola. Among her accomplishments, Goodson accompanied blues legend Bessie Smith in a performance available on the video Wild Women Don't Have the Blues. In the late l930s and 1940s big band swing replaced the earlier New Orleans jazz that she had played. From the1950s onward, Goodson turned her attention to gospel and played organ for several churches in Pensacola. Goodson’s performing style and repertoire reflected the many influences in her life. Her work appeared on an album issued by the Florida Folklife Program, Ida Goodson: Pensacola Piano Florida Gulf Blues, Jazz, and Gospel.

J. Views and Ein Hod Ties

The J.Viewz project was established by Jonathan Dagan mid 2002. Whilst working with the band Violet Vision on their 2nd album, Jonathan used his spare time to record a solo project. Taking many diverse musicians into the studio, The J.Viewz project started to metamorphosize into ‘freestyle chill’ – blending elements of soft breakbeat, trip-hop, 2 step, jazz and more, all in a mellow groove.
The first J.Viewz track was released on the “Chillout sessions 2” compilation by Blanco y Negro Music of Spain (alongside Sinead O’Connor, Sneaker Pimps, Mike Oldfield, Paul Oakenfold, Massive Attack, and more)
The Live act performs with the following line-up:
Noa Lembersky - Vocals
David Adda - Piano & Keyboards
Danni Makov - Drums & Percussions
Urijah - Trumpet, Guitars, Vocals
Jonathan Dagan - Programming, turntables, guitars
These days the second J.Viewz album is in the making, not much can be revealed at this stage other than this album will feature some interesting guests (Big-bands, orchestras) including the Three-time Grammy award winning master drummer Glen Velez, and will be well worth the wait!
A new EP by J.Viewz, called “The Besides” was released early 2008, this EP also includes a new edit of the Nina Simone remix, and a couple of live recordings.
The captivating experience of J.Viewz Live features new interpretations of their tunes with a unique combination of live instruments, Vocals, electronic drumbeats, live drums and Turntables.(read more...)

Dan Cahn and Bud Powell Dreaming Cleopatra's Dream in Ein Hod

Live performance on February 2008 at Ein Hod, Israel. Dan Cahn on piano, Valerie Lipitz on contrabass and Danny Benedikt on drums.

I dream'd there was an Emperor Antony;
O, such another sleep, that I might see
Such another man!
His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm
Crested the world: his voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas
That grew the more by reaping: his delights
Were dolphin-like; they show'd his back above
The element they lived in: in his livery
Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were
As plates dropp'd from his pocket.

In November 1947, Powell was admitted to Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, where he stayed for more than a year, receiving electroconvulsive therapy which caused severe memory loss. The young Jackie McLean and Sonny Rollins became friendly with Powell on his release from the hospital, and Powell recommended McLean to Miles Davis. Powell suffered from mental illness throughout his life, possibly triggered by a beating by the police in 1945 after disorderly behavior. (Although he had a prior reputation for strange behaviour, the beating certainly exacerbated his problems.) He was also an alcoholic, and even small quantities of alcohol had a profound effect on his character, making him aggressive. Powell's continued rivalry with Charlie Parker, while essential to the production of brilliant music, was also the subject of disruptive feuding and bitterness on the bandstand, as a result of Powell's troubled mental and physical condition.(read more...)

Her Handy Man: Alberta Hunter's 86th Birthday

"A good example of a double-entendre song is 'Handy Man,' which Alberta Hunter recorded. Several people recorded it, Ethel Waters included, but Alberta Hunter's rendition is wonderful. It really is just one double-entendre after another, and some of them are very clever. And as she sang it, even in later years, she kept adding new lines to it. It's the kind of song that doesn't stay the same. Nobody really knows who started that song."
MY HANDY MAN
(Andy Razaf / Eubie Blake)
Ethel Waters - 1928
Victoria Spivey & The Clarence Williams Blue Five - 1928
Helen Humes - 1973
Carmen McRae - 1987
- 1989
Also recorded by: Elsie Carlisle.

Whoever said a good man is hard to find
Positively, absolutely sure was blind
I've found the best man there ever was
Here's just some of the things that my man does

Why he shakes my ashes, greases my griddle
Chimes my butter and he strokes my fiddle
My man is such a handy man (oh yes he is)

He threads my needle, creams my wheat
Heats my heater and he chops my meat
My man is such a handy man

Now I don't care if you believe it or not
He's so good to have around
And when my furnace gets too hot
He's right there and turns my damper down

Why for everything he's got a scheme
You oughta see that new stuff he uses on my machine
That man is such a handy man (he's God's gift girls)

Why he flaps my flapjacks, cleans off my table
Feeds my horses out in my stable
That man is such a handy man, mmm yeah

Sometimes he's up long before the dawn
Busy trimmin' the rough edges off my front lawn
Yeah that man is such a handy man

Why you know he never has a single word to say
No, not while he's working hard
And I wished that you could see the way
He handles my front yard

Yeah you know my ice don't get a chance to melt away
Cause he sees that I get that fresh piece every day
My man, my man is such a handy man
And I ain't kiddin'!

(read more...)

Dunkin' Bagels o'Voutee Mac Vootee

Slim Gaillard with Bam Brown and Scatman Crothers at Billy Berg's in Hollywood 1946
Jack Kerouac, On The Road(excerpt)

'... one night we suddenly went mad together again; we went to see Slim Gaillard in a little Frisco nightclub. Slim Gaillard is a tall, thin Negro with big sad eyes who's always saying 'Right-orooni' and 'How 'bout a little bourbon-arooni.' In Frisco great eager crowds of young semi-intellectuals sat at his feet and listened to him on the piano, guitar and bongo drums. When he gets warmed up he takes off his undershirt and really goes. He does and says anything that comes into his head. He'll sing 'Cement Mixer, Put-ti Put-ti' and suddenly slow down the beat and brood over his bongos with fingertips barely tapping the skin as everybody leans forward breathlessly to hear; you think he'll do this for a minute or so, but he goes right on, for as long as an hour, making an imperceptible little noise with the tips of his fingernails, smaller and smaller all the time till you can't hear it any more and sounds of traffic come in the open door. Then he slowly gets up and takes the mike and says, very slowly, 'Great-orooni ... fine-ovauti ... hello-orooni ... bourbon-orooni ... all-orooni ... how are the boys in the front row making out with their girls-orooni ... orooni ... vauti ... oroonirooni ..." He keeps this up for fifteen minutes, his voice getting softer and softer till you can't hear. His great sad eyes scan the audience.

One of the most eccentric vocalists ever to hit the jazz scene, Slim Gaillard became a legendary cult figure thanks to his own privately invented jive dialect "vout," a variation on hipster slang composed of imaginary nonsense words ("oreenie" and "oroonie" being two other examples). Gaillard's comic performances, laid-back cool, and supremely silly songs made him a popular entertainer from the late '30s to the early '50s, especially on the West Coast, and several of his compositions became genuine hits, including "Flat Foot Floogie" and "Cement Mixer." Versatility was not Gaillard's stock-in-trade, but he was highly effective at what he did, and his musical ability as a singer, Charlie Christian-style guitarist, and boogie-woogie pianist was perhaps a bit overlooked in comparison to the novelty value of his music
(read more...) via PCL LinkDump

Tell all the cats ...

When not pressing the valves on his trumpet or the record button on his tape recorder, Armstrong’s fingers found other arts with which to occupy themselves. One of them was collage, which became a visual outlet for his improvisational genius. The story goes that he did a series of collages on paper and tacked them up on the wall of his den, but Lucille, who had supervised the purchase and interior decoration of their house in Corona, Queens, objected. Armstrong decided to use his extensive library of tapes as a canvas instead, and the result is a collection of some five hundred decorated reel-to-reel boxes, one thousand collages counting front and back.. The collages feature photographs of Armstrong with friends (like the snapshot captioned “Taken at Catherine and Count Basie’s swimming pool, at his birthday party, August 1969”) and with fans (Armstrong seems never to have refused a photo op or an autograph); congratulatory telegrams and clippings from reviews of his performances; a blessing from the Vatican (as reassembled by Louis, the first lines read: “Mr. and Mrs. Most Holy Father Louis Armstrong”); and cutouts from packages of Swiss Kriss herbal laxatives, which, judging from the label’s ubiquity in these pieces, were as much a staple of Armstrong’s daily life as playing the horn. Only occasionally do the collages indicate the musical content within; usually there is no correlation.(read more in Paris Review)

Warm Beer And Cold Women

Nighthawk n 1: a person who likes to be active late at night [syn: {night owl}, {nightbird}] 2: mainly nocturnal North American goatsucker [syn: {bullbat}, {mosquito hawk}] (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, WordNet (r) 1.6 (wn) interface)

Night-hawk (Heb. tahmas) occurs only in the list of unclean birds (Lev. 11:16; Deut. 14:15). This was supposed to be the night-jar (Caprimulgus), allied to the swifts. The Hebrew word is derived from a root meaning "to scratch or tear the face," and may be best rendered, in accordance with the ancient versions, "an owl" (Strix flammea). The Revised Version renders "night-hawk". (Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary)

now the moon's rising
ain't got no time to lose
time to get down to drinking
tell the band to play the blues
drink's are on me, I'll buy another round
at the last ditch attempt saloon

Waits's manager, Herb Cohen, suggested that he do a live album. One that would showcase the compelling Waits stage persona... Waits himself had some reservations about embarking on the live album project, but he eventually agreed to do it. Bones Howe was enthusiastic from the outset, and he knew just how the job should be done. I said I didn't want to go into a club. I'd seen Tom live and we could make a much better record if ... we made a recording studio into a club. There was a room at the back of the Record Plant. It's a big recording studio, almost a soundstage. We put a little stage over in the corner. There was a booth with glass, so we didn't need to be in the room." Howe scheduled the Record. Plant shows for the last two days of July 1975, and everyone got to work creating the appropriate ambiance. "We put tables in the room and we had a guest list," says Howe. "We had beer and wine and potato chips on the tables. And we sold out four shows ... two nights in a row. Tom got this stripper named Dwana to be the opening act." Dwana was an old-time burlesque queen whom Tom had met on one of his jaunts to the Hollywood underworld. She warmed up the crowd - which was largely made up of friends and acquaintances of Waits and crew - and everyone was primed for a drunken voyage into an Edmund Hopper painting or a Charles Bukowski poem

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Jammin' The Blues-1944

Jammin' the Blues is a 1944 short film in which several prominent jazz musicians got together for a rare filmed jam session. It features Lester Young, Red Callender, Harry Edison, Marlowe Morris, Sid Catlett, Barney Kessel, Joe Jones, John Simmons, Illinois Jacquet, Marie Bryant, Archie Savage and Garland Finney. For some, this is their only known appearance in a theatrical film. Barney Kessel is the only white performer in the film. He was seated in the shadows to shade his skin, and for closeups, his hands were stained with berry juice. Lindy Hop legends Archie Savage and Marie Bryant do the Lindy Hop (Jitterbug) on this footage. Directed by Gjon Mili and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Norman Granz: The Conscience of Jazz

Charlie Parker - Saxophone
Coleman Hawkins - Tenor saxophone
Hank Jones - Piano
Ray Brown - Double bass
Buddy Rich - Drums
Bill Harris - Trombone
Lester Young - Tenor saxophone
Harry Edison - Trumpet
Flip Phillips - Tenor saxophone
Ella Fitzgerald - Vocals, Scatting
The Lineup:
0:18 - Coleman Hawkins,
Hank Jones, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich.
2:53 - Charlie Parker,
Hank Jones, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich.
5:15 - Hank Jones,
Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich.
7:12 - Bill Harris, Lester Young,
Hank Jones, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich.
10:43 - Flip Philips, Harry Edison,
Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Harris, Lester Young,
Hank Jones, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich.
14:56 - The End
Although he never contributed a note of music to jazz, Norman Granz played a major role in the history of the music. He instituted the famous Jazz At The Philharmonic concerts, launched and ran four record labels, including one of the most significant imprints in jazz, Verve Records, and managed the careers of two of its most widely known performers, Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson.
In the process, he became jazz's first official millionaire, a fact held against him in some quarters. At the same time, he fought tirelessly on behalf of both his artists and audiences, demanding the same treatment for jazz musicians as accorded to classical performers, and refusing to book his JATP tours into segregated concert halls in the 1940s, long before the major civil rights breakthroughs of subsequent decades.
Granz was of Ukranian-Jewish descent. His family had lost their business in the Depression, and he worked his way through college, then joined MGM as a film editor after his wartime military service. His passion was jazz, and he began a long involvement with the music by persuading Billy Berg, a well-known Los Angeles club owner, to allow him to promote a jam session at his club, the Trouville, on Sunday nights. One of the conditions he imposed was that Berg abandon entirely his whites-only audience policy.

As long as we're in a democracy, I have to give what I think the majority of people will enjoy.
I allowed artists to play for as long as they felt they could justifiably continue to create.
I don't say that the supposed Civil Rights development is a myth, but it's a matter of dealing with reality. It's purely peripheral and, in many cases, it's just a facade.
I don't think that jazz, as any kind of an art form, has any permanence attached to it, apart from the practitioners of it.
I don't want to sound as if I'm doing something tremendously special. But I am a jazz fan.
I'm concerned with trend. I don't know where jazz fans will come from 20 years from now.
Of the newer people I would like to display to the public, I find it almost impossible to get them to agree to the jam session form.
The history of all big jazz bands shows was, first they played for dancing, and then they played for singing.
The public, hearing pop music, is, without knowing it, also soaking up jazz.
You will always find a few people in any area that would like things done completely their way

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Verve: Norman Granz: The Conscience of Jazz By Tad Hershorn
A portrait of the legendary jazz producer and manager explores the history of music throughout the past sixty years as it was reflected by Granz's career and contributions, documents his work as a civil rights activist, and describes his founding of the Verve record label. 25,000 first printing.

Hello, Pearl Bailey!

Never formally trained in music, Pearl Bailey credited her love of music to growing up in a "Holy Roller" evangelical church where her father was the minister. In her early career in amateur shows and nightclubs she developed her throaty style, embellished with asides and ad libs.
Pearl Bailey sang with bands, later on stage and in films. The all-black version of Hello, Dolly! is one of her best-known roles; she played that role from 1967 to 1969 and in a later revival. Pearl Bailey was a frequent guest on television variety shows and had her own show on ABC in 1970-71.
At age 67, Pearl Bailey graduated from Georgetown University with a bachelor's degree in theology. In 1968, 1971, 1973 and 1989 she published books on her life, cooking, and educational experiences. In 1975 Pearl Bailey served as a special ambassador to the United Nations and in 1988 received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Pearl Bailey was married three times. The last marriage, to drummer Louis Bellson, lasted 40 years. Together they adopted a daughter and a son.(from Aboutcom)

With a Dxie Touch

Out on the plains down near santa fe
I met a cowboy ridin the range one day
And as he jogged along I heard him singin
The most peculiar cowboy song
It was a ditty, he learned in the city
Comma ti yi yi yeah
Comma ti yippity yi yeah

Now get along, get hip little doggies
Get along, better be on your way
Get along, get hip little doggies
He trucked em on down that old fairway
Singin his cow cow boogie in the strangest way
Comma ti yi yi yeah
Comma ti yippity yi yeah

(chorus)

Now singin his cowboy songs
Hes just too much
Hes got a knocked out western accent with a dixie touch
He was raised on local ways
Hes what you call a swingin half breed
Singin his cow cow booogie in the strangest way
Comma ti yi yi yeah
Comma ti yippity yi yeah

(repeat chorus)

(read more...)