The ol' GMC is five years old, and anyone who has spent some time here has probably noticed that I enjoy shining a spotlight on some of the less-remembered musical stars of the past. Of course, I've devoted plenty of space to the big names too, but I especially like to dig into artists who were tremendously respected in their day but might be a little forgotten now - guys like Lester Young, who was also known as 'Prez'. He's generally considered to be one of the top three tenor saxophonists of all time (along with Coleman Hawkins and John [...]
As I write this, I am sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Guelph and feel highly culturalized. I would like to share some of this ambient culture with the rest blogging world. The group that has my ears burning on this particular day is Thievery Corporation , a Washington D.C. based DJ duo consisting of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, as well as supporting artists featured on their tracks. The Corporation takes on a wide range of musical styles from Brazilian bossa nova, reggae, jazz, Indian classical, dub and African to name but a few. The [...]
"This mature tragic awareness is what distinguishes Lester in the fifties from Lester in the thirties, and with the advantage of hindsight it's easy to understand how the magical, buoyant optimism of the early years could not last, given the man Lester was and the society he lived in." -Graham Colombé, from Time and Tenor: Lester Young in the Fifties Lester Young's post-war recordings have been widely disputed among historians and jazzbos as being sub-par or lacking the punch of his earlier recordings as a soloist with [...]
Swinging blues with the Count Basie big band.
Joni Mitchell's early career was marked by confessional songs about her relationships. It wasn't hard to find out who each song was about, and people did. But, at that point, Mitchell never dropped a name in her songs. For this reason, these early songs possess a universal quality that makes them just as relevant to listeners today as they were then. So what was it that inspired Mitchell to drop a name later in her career? It happened twice. Joni [...]
"When Charlie speaks of Lester, you know someone great has gone... The sweetest swingin´ music man, had a Porkie Pig hat on..." Here´s three versions of Goodbye Pork Pie Hat , the immortal ´59 tribute to recently deceased tenor great Lester ´Pres´ Young by ´angry man of jazz´ Charles Mingus. The bassist´s original, which became a jazz standard over the years, simply flows and flows. In ´68 British folk experimentalists Pentangle - featuring the dual guitar wizardry of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn - tackled [...]
by Chris O' Leary . It's the first and only record I ever heard of that all the squares dig as well as the jazz people, and I don't understand how and why, because I was making notes all the way. I wasn't making a melody for the squares. -Coleman Hawkins "Body and Soul," jazz standard of standards, turns eighty years old in 2010. It is jazz's benchmark, warhorse, rite of passage, litmus test: I can't think of a single major jazz musician, post-1930, who hasn't taken it on, from Roy [...]
![Remembering Lester Young (1909-1959) [Things We Actually Like]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/1590463_lg.jpg)
Sunday will be the 50th anniversary of the death of Lester Young , one of the great saxophonists of all time. I'm not going to pretend to be a jazz expert, but Young's cool, relaxed style of play has always been one of my favorite things, while his hard luck story (including a brief and disastrous stay in the Army) is depressing even in a sea of heartbreaking jazz tales. The selections of Young's music available on YouTube are a little limited (and skewed towards his later, more troubled work), and while it's far less than a talent of [...]
Tired of the goings on in Denver? Do you feel like you're watching an MTV sponored high school pep rally? Do you feel like kicking a hole in your TV everytime you hear the pundits on CNN talk about the convention? Do you frequently ask yourself "Is this the best we can do?" Are you mad as hell and can't take it anymore? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, then you may have a soul. In which case, I direct you to immediately listen to today's musical selections. Lester Young, AKA [...]
This is part one of a three-part series in which guest contributor Yvonne Georgina Puig visits her grandmother in Houston. Warning: playing the track "Audrey's Dance" may cause you to lose a giant part of your life to rewatching Twin Peaks. Enjoy. Are You My Granddaughter? by Yvonne Georgina Puig Right now I feel like am sitting in my grandmother's living [...]
Photo: James Moody, 1951 © Herman Leonard When I was a teenager, whiling away in my lonely purgatory waiting 'til I could get the fuck out of St. Louis, I used to hang out at a record store called Vintage Vinyl . It was a small place back then with records everywhere, from the floor to ceiling. The proprietors must have taken pity on me. Everyday I was in there looking through the stacks of used records seeing what came in, what I had never heard, asking stupid questions, listening and learning. [...]
Okay, time to shift gears. Two examples of vocalese (lyrical vocal interpretation a jazz solo) and an R & B record by a jazz singer. King Pleasure wrote these lyrics to Lester Young's solo on "Jumpin' With Symphony Sid". Annie Ross interprets Wardell Gray, and Billie Holiday makes a rocking record with Tiny Grimes. Set your dial to "right there close to eighty on the dot". [...]
IT'S THE TALK OF THE TOWN Lester Young Available on: The Complete Lester Young Studio Sessions on Verve Polygram : 1999 [Buy It] I started working at The New Yorker just before I graduated from college, in 1996; I'd prepped for it by reading a shelf's worth of books about the place, and when I got there, I was surprised to find that a few of the people I'd been reading about were still alive and around: Joe Mitchell still came in every day, but [...]
Hero and maverick Robert Altman passed on to the great multi-tracked brothel in the sky. To paraphrase some famous line by some famous critic, dude could make a one hell of a beautiful pipe dream of a movie. In his honor, here's a song from his classic film Nashville and a Kansas City number that'll make any jazz-loving KC native smile. So smoke a doobie for Robert and enjoy...
Geezer Music Club
SpacePack
Boogie Woogie Flu
Music @ Blogcritics.org
Star Maker Machine
For The Sake Of The Song
Idolator
This Recording
Moistworks
BadmintonStamps
Diplo x Usher: ‘Climax’
A-Trak - "Round of Applause" / "Where My Money At" (MP3 Download)
Skrillex Uses Satanic and Homosexual Influence to Win Grammys
SHOCKING NEWS: Ben Gibbard turns to pills in wake of Zooey Deschanel divorce
Diplo - "Climax" (MP3 Stream)
