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Stanley Clarke Trio- Jazz In The Garden EPK Video



BASSIST STANLEY CLARKE RECORDS FIRST ACOUSTIC JAZZ TRIO ALBUM
FEATURING HIROMI AND LENNY WHITE

In a career that spans nearly four decades and includes gigs with Return to Forever, Rite of Strings and a variety of other solo and collaborative projects along the way, bassist Stanley Clarke one of the most prominent voices in electric jazz and fusion had seemingly covered every possible corner of the jazz landscape. But there was one avenue he had yet to explore.

I had never done an acoustic bass record, ever, he says. Theres a long list of people on whose records Ive played acoustic bass Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Joe Henderson and many others but Id never done an acoustic jazz trio record of my own. So I wanted to record one that would just feature the piano and the acoustic bass in a way that you could really hear the bass.

This long-overdue dream project becomes a reality with the May 12, 2009, worldwide release of Jazz In The Garden (HUCD 3155) on Heads Up International, a division of Concord Music Group. For his first straightahead acoustic jazz trio recording, Clarke assembles two brilliant collaborators at the top of their respective games: pianist Hiromi Uehara and drummer Lenny White. Each represents a distinctly different generational and cultural perspective, but given the range and versatility of both, the net effect is superb. Indeed, the synergy resulting from all three of these luminaries makes for one of the most refreshing Stanley Clarke recordings in recent years.

Victor Feldman Trio - Swinging On A Star (1965)



The Victor Feldman Trio (Featuring: Rick Laird on bass, Ronnie Stephenson on drums)

Trombone Shorty Quotes

"Bourbon Street is like playing, a tourist, you know? It's just a tourist attraction ... those musicians on Bourbon Street, they play all day. They might start at 12 noon and end at 3 in the morning, like, it's like sets, like a job. You go play, take a break, play again, take a break, then later on that night, the club gets busier, then you play some more. There's pride. They're a group of great musicians- and they're holding it down." - Trombone Shorty

source: Interview with NPR (May 2, 2010)

Trombone Shorty Quotes

"Those type of people [in New Orleans] keep me happy and just smiling, you know? I just go hang out and talk with them and they tell me all types of old stories, and sometimes I might even pull my horn out in the middle of the block, and they're playing on beer bottles and different things, and we just do a little second line type thing, just us, four or five people, who are just having fun. That makes me day to be able to do that and go hang out with the people in the (Treme) neighborhood, and to do some shows around town, you know?" - Trombone Shorty

source: Interview with NPR (May 2, 2010)

Trombone Shorty Quotes

"I'm a big fan of music, I'm a student of music, and I just wanna learn and keep enhancing my education about the music." - Trombone Shorty

source: Interview with NPR (May 2, 2010)

Trombone Shorty Quotes

"As I was a kid, I had a bunch of musicians, they always told me that I should listen to all styles of music and try to play all styles and be authentic at it, if I can, because you never know who's gonna call you. This was coming from fellow horn players who would get the call to play with different types of people. Since I was a kid, that was just something I was always interested in." - Trombone Shorty

source: Interview with NPR (May 2, 2010)

Trombone Shorty Quotes

"I started off playing by ear, and being around a bunch of musicians and playing in the streets and in the different parades and, then, I got accepted to go to New Orleans Center for Creative Artists ... it's where Wynton Marsalis, Harry Connick, Jr. and all those guys went out." - Trombone Shorty

source: Interview with NPR (May 2, 2010)

Trombone Shorty Quotes

"As soon as I was born, my mom said I was humming 'When the Saints Go Marching In,' or something like that, you know? It's in the family. And in that neighborhood [Treme, in New Orleans], I think everybody in the neighborhood has some type of musical influence, even if they don't play instruments or anything. It's the way they talk to you, the way they say your name — it's all musical." - Trombone Shorty

source: Interview with NPR (May 2, 2010)

Harry Connick, Jr. Quotes

"It was horrific, it was really ugly. You're talking about tens of thousands of people – the elderly, infants, normal citizens, who were told, 'wait here we’ll come get you’ and nobody came. It's not like it's Haiti, this is the United States for crying out loud." - Harry Connick, Jr. (about New Orleans, following hurricane Katrina)

source: The Daily Telegraph (October 23, 2009)

Harry Connick, Jr. Quotes

"[My mother is] a half-Chinese, half-Jamaican woman, who grew up the ninth of nine kids, getting a law degree from Harvard. Academically brilliant, but also incredibly strong-willed and ethical. My mother was like that, my sister is, and my wife is too." - Harry Connick, Jr. Quotes

source: The Daily Telegraph (October 23, 2009)

Harry Connick, Jr. Quotes

"It was a house full of rules. You couldn't walk around the house barefoot. Whenever anyone older than you came into the room, you stood up. You didn't speak until you were spoken to, you had to say, Sir or Ma'm." - Harry Connick, Jr.

source: The Daily Telegraph (October 23, 2009)

Harry Connick, Jr. Quotes

"I was no Miley Cyrus. I had tons of friends, played ball with my friends on the street, and did the normal things." - Harry Connick, Jr.

source: The Daily Telegraph (October 23, 2009)

Harry Connick, Jr. Quotes

"You basically have to play everything (in New Orleans), because you’re getting calls to play gigs of all different styles, from classical to R&B to funk; modern jazz to traditional jazz." - Harry Connick, Jr.

source: The Daily Telegraph (October 23, 2009)

Harry Connick, Jr. Quotes

"I just liked the feeling of being on stage. My parents weren't pushing me, they didn't have to, I was obsessed." - Harry Connick, Jr.

source: The Daily Telegraph (October 23, 2009)

Harry Connick, Jr. Quotes

"I'm gay, it’s all a big scam. My kids don't even know who their mother is." - Harry Connick, Jr.

source: The Daily Telegraph (October 23, 2009)

Chris Botti a hit at Vuitton salon

The Louis Vuitton store on Union Square was transformed into a salon one recent balmy evening. No hairdressers in sight (though the crowd was well coiffed indeed), the 250 or so invited guests gathered for a modern-day take on the centuries-old French tradition of mingling with artists, sipping fine wines and Champagne and savoring delightful food (on this night, an array of hors d'oeuvres from Michael Mina).

On the evening before his sold-out appearance with the San Francisco Symphony, Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Chris Botti played a lively 20-minute set with...

Read More:
http://www.sfgate.com/06/22/chris-botti/

Jamie Cullum cooks up new batch of songs

During a performance at the Algonquin Hotel’s famed Oak Room recently, Jamie Cullum disappeared.

No, this wasn’t a magic show. But it certainly felt like one when the diminutive singer-songwriter dropped to the floor and slid beneath the piano.

A confused gentleman sitting in one of the intimate venue’s dimly lit corners asked his wife, “Where did he go?” But soon enough, the sound of Cullum beating the base of the piano like a bongo let everyone know that the musician indeed hadn’t checked out of the show.

If you’ve seen Cullum in concert, you’re familiar with his antics: He’s a piano DJ of sorts, making the instrument his drum, bass and turntable … even a launch pad. (He’s been known to jump off the piano at times.)

The gig was a celebration for the Londoner. His new album, “The Pursuit” (Verve Forecast), had just come out. And he was in a familiar place, having enjoyed a monthlong run at the...

Read More:
http://therfw.com/jamie-cullum-new-songs/

Singer Melody Gardot tantalizes in Fillmore show

How does one explain what Melody Gardot does and what makes it so compelling?

A knockout in her SFJAZZ debut last year, the singer proved to be even more irresistibly confounding in a lightly publicized appearance Thursday at The Fillmore.
From her airy, sensual vocal style to her sizzling appearance to the few physical concessions she must still make to the accident that nearly killed her (a walking stick for support and sunglasses to ward off photosensitive headaches), Gardot was an enigma wrapped in a firecracker. She has the kind of stage presence you might get from...

Read More:
http://www.examiner.com/Singer-Melody-Gardot-Fillmore

Stanley Clarke pays tribute to pioneering fusion bands

Nearly 40 years after forming the pioneering fusion act Return to Forever, Stanley Clarke and Chick Corea remain good friends—and sometimes friendly rivals, most recently for the sonic favours of the young Japanese pianist Hiromi Uehara. Corea wooed her first, recording the live Duet in 2008. But it didn’t take long for his bass-playing counterpart to add Uehara, whose own band was a surprise hit at the 2009 edition of the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, to his long list of musical partners.

“Chick turned me on to Hiromi, although I’d met her in London many, many years ago,” Clarke explains, on the line from his L.A. home. “I knew she was a very good pianist. But then Chick told me about...

Read More:
http://www.straight.com/stanley-clarke-fusion-bands

Teen Nikki Yanofsky already a prodigious jazz musician

Last week, Nikki Yanofsky couldn't come to the phone because she was home in Montreal studying for her high-school exams.

"I know that school is just as important," she explains simply.

So while she's writing exams, her blossoming career as a jazz singer has been put on hold.

"I don't talk about it in school," adds Yanofsky. "There's not much jealousy. Everything is great. Everyone is supportive."

This week, she almost didn't come to the phone because she had a TV appearance in New York that...

Read More:
http://www.theprovince.com/Teen+Nikki+Yanofsky+jazz+musician

Portland's 2010 Blues Festival: Troy 'Trombone Shorty' Andrews blows into town with his fusion of jazz, funk, rock and soul

Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews is in the middle of making a point about growing up in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans when his voice is drowned out by a gate agent with a lot to say and a particularly loud speaker through which to speak.

"Hold on a second," Andrews says.

Not a problem, and since we're on the subjects of airports and Andrews' home turf, there was a wonderful scene in HBO's "Treme" featuring an airport and Andrews that serves as a nice introduction, if one is needed.

Wendell Pierce's character, the trombone-playing, forever-short-of-cab-fare, always-in-need-of-a-gig Antoine Batiste found one playing at...

Read More:
http://www.oregonlive.com/music/index.ssf/2010/06/2010_blues_festival_troy_tromb.html

Herbie Hancock Celebrates Seventieth Birthday At Carnegie Hall In New York

Among a number of high-ranking pianists in New York this week — McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett, Junior Mance, Cyrus Chestnut, Eric Reed, Gerald Clayton, Hiromi — Herbie Hancock commanded the biggest ticket prices. But then, he's so much more than a pianist. To say the least, this was a game of two halves, with an almost unbridgeable gulf between the first set and the largely vocal follow-up based on his new album, The Imagine Project.

A token comedy bit by Bill Cosby with Herbie as straight-man led to an hour honouring the Miles era. The rotating personnel including Jack DeJohnette, both Terence Blanchard and Wallace Roney, both Wayne Shorter and Joe Lovano, both Ron Carter and Dave Holland played in different line-ups — unusually, remaining on stage when not performing — and nailed Shorter's 'Footprints' and Carter's ‘81’. But it wasn’t until a short ‘Funny Valentine’ featuring Roney (of course) and a free-ish collective ‘Eye Of The Hurricane’ that things really took off.

Lionel Loueke looked distinctly out of place here, but was the only one to stay on for the second set, anchored by keyboardist Greg Phillinganes, bassist Tal Wilkenfeld (she also sang ‘Times They Are A-Changing’) and Vinnie Colaiuta — notably more sensitive than with the McLaughlin/Corea band. One of the strengths was all-purpose vocalist Kristina Train, who did a Joni on ‘Court And Spark’ and, if I'm not mistaken, sang in Irish as well as playing fiddle in a brief reference to the Chieftains. The even briefer contribution of India.Arie on ‘Imagine’ and a longer dose of Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks with ‘Learning To Live Together’ took us into feel-good territory, while an a cappella ‘Happy Birthday’ (for Herbie’s 70th two months before) underlined the slightly self-congratulatory air of the exercise.

Harry Connick, Jr., finds joy in jazz classics at Chicago Theatre

No one in jazz idealizes the past as effectively as Harry Connick, Jr.

Depending on your point of view, that's either a great achievement or a dubious one.

To the crowd that packed the Chicago Theatre on Tuesday evening, Connick's celebration of music of the swing era was nothing less than a jolt of electricity, prompting thunderous ovations. Whether he crooned, played the piano, led his band or simply conversed with the audience, he drew heated response.

For good reason, too. The sheer craft of this concert – with its sterling orchestral arrangements, brilliant lighting design and charismatic vocal performance – stands apart from anything else in...

Read More:
http://chicagotribune.com/2010-06-23/harry-connick-music

Michael Bublé has Crazy Love for Tulsa

Tulsa, was the first stop for Michael Bublé’s Crazy Love North American tour, after a series of sold out European shows. He now starts the second leg of his tour with Naturally 7 the opening act. Running late, I still loved Naturally 7’s music - an a cappella band, but what a surprise. The band calls their style “Vocal Play” and uses the same name for their newest album (coming late summer). It sounds like a full band, but the only instruments are their voices. Eyes closed you hear guitars, drums, bass, even a harmonica, but all made with the human voice. I highly recommend them and they were just the opening act.

Nearly packed; the arena crowd was standing in eager anticipation for Michael Bublé. As he appeared, the crowd went wild in cheers and...

Read More:
http://www.tulsatoday.com/michael-buble-has-crazy-love-tulsa

Top 100 jazz songs, The 100 great jazz songs of all time

By: illminatus

1. “So What” – Miles Davis

Miles. Trane. Cannonball. Evans. Chambers. Cobb. The greatest lineup in jazz history. ‘Nuff said.

2. “My Favorite Things” – John Coltrane

This interpretation of the Rodgers/Hammerstein classic tune turned on a whole new audience to the brilliance of John Coltrane. It also offered a glimpse of the path that Trane was about to embark upon.

3. “Take Five” – Dave Brubeck

The first jazz instrumental to sell a million copies. A song everyone, jazz fans or not, have heard. Timeless.

4. “Acknowledgement” – John Coltrane

Trane’s spiritual awakening and the start of his ultimate quest. One of the most powerful, transcendent songs ever. This is true gospel.

5. “Birdland” – Weather Report

An excellent introduction to the late Jaco Pastorious. This tune pushed Weather Report to the forefront of the fusion movement and into the mainstream.

6. “Freddie Freeloader” – Miles Davis

Another stone-cold classic from the best jazz album (Kind of Blue) of all time. Never to be duplicated, this is jazz at its highest form.

7. “Psalm” – John Coltrane

Closes out one of the most important albums ever, regardless of genre, on a plateau others could never hope to scale. Monumental.

8. “Strange Fruit” – Billie Holiday

One of the most chilling and haunting, yet utterly compelling, songs of all time. Lady Day poured her heart, soul and every fabric of her being into this cut.

9. “Salt Peanuts” – Dizzy Gillespie

If there were a Mount Rushmore of jazz, Dizz would be carved in stone. And this tune would be playing in the background. Go cat, go!

10. “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” – Cannonball Adderley

Proving their was life after Miles Davis, Cannonball hooked up with then little-known composer/keyboardist Joe Zainwaul and churned out this soulful masterpiece. Who says jazz ain’t got no soul?

11. “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” – Charles Mingus

One of the cornerstone songs of jazz from one of its most covered composers. Mingus could do it all. And he influenced them all.

12. “Chameleon” – Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters

Funk. Funky. Funkiest. This cut molded jazz into something different. Something more urban and more groovy.

13. “Straight Life” – Freddy Hubbard

After the triumph that was Red Clay, Hubbard proved that he had plenty more left in his trick bag on this 17-minute cut. He swung for the fences and hit a grand-slam with this one.

14. “The Creator has a Master Plan” – Pharaoh Sanders

Thirty-two and a half minutes of pure, free form bliss. Enough to induce a deep, fulfilling trance-like state. An under-appreciated artist and song.

15. “Blue in Green” – Miles Davis

More from one of the most incredible pieces of art ever fashioned – Kind of Blue. Miles at his most inventive.

16. “One O’Clock Jump” – Count Basie

Superb joint from one of the masters of swing. Many were the imitators, yet none could touch the magic of Count Basie and his Orchestra. Then or now.

17. “Bumpin’ on Sunset” – Wes Montgomery

The one, the only, Wes Montgomery burning up the fretboard without a pick. Set the standard for those who chose to follow.

18. Naima” – John Coltrane

A powerfully-beautiful and tender ballad, named for Trane’s then wife. This is where Coltrane started to come into his own, composition-wise. As this one proved, the sky was the limit.

19. “Back at the Chicken Shack” – Jimmy Smith

A slice of sweaty, Hammond B-3 heaven from the best of the bunch. Created a template that a thousand jambands would follow 40 years after the fact.

20. “Mister Magic” – Grover Washington, Jr.

Gone way before his time, this cut is a prime example of the way Grover Washington, Jr. could create a wave and ride it all the way to the sunset. Smooth jazz that was anything but smooth.

21. “Giant Steps” – John Coltrane

22. “In a Silent Way” – Miles Davis

23. “Dolphin Dance” – Herbie Hancock

24. “In N’ Out” – Joe Henderson

25. “Resolution” – John Coltrane

26. “Alone Together” – Grant Green

27. “St. Louis Blues” – W.C. Handy

28. “Rocket Number Nine Take off for the Planet Venus” – Sun Ra and his Arkestra

29. “Tipitina” – Professor Longhair

30. “Breakfast Feud” – Charlie Christian

31. “Naguine” – Django Reinhardt

32. “It Might as Well be Spring” – Sarah Vaughan

33. “Captain Fingers” – Lee Ritenour

34. “Science Funktion” – Donald Byrd

35. “Blue Rondo A La Turk” – Dave Brubeck

36. “A Remark You Made” – Weather Report

37. “Black Satin” – Miles Davis

38. “Just the Two of Us” – Grover Washington, Jr.

39. “Minnie the Moocher” – Cab Calloway

40. “Aerial Boundaries” – Michael Hedges

41. “Red Clay” – Freddie Hubbard

42. “Round Midnight” – Thelonious Monk

43. “Bright Size Life” – Pat Metheny

44. “Maiden Voyage” – Herbie Hancock

45. “Portrait of Tracy” – Jaco Pastorious

46. “Mood Indigo” – Duke Ellington

47. “Body & Soul” – Coleman Hawkins

48. “Moanin’” – Art Blakey

49. “Straight, No Chaser” – Thelonious Monk

50. “Right Off” – Miles Davis

51. “Jelly Roll Blues” – Jelly Roll Morton

52. “Stratus” – Billy Cobham

53. “(They call me) Dr. Professor Longhair” – Professor Longhair

54. “Sun Goddess” – Ramsey Lewis

55. “Miles Beyond” – Mahavishnu Orchestra

56. “Fables of Faubus” – Charles Mingus

57. “Room 335” – Larry Carlton

58. “Epistrophy” – Thelonious Monk

59. “The Girl From Ipanema” – Getz/Gilberto

60. “Lonely Woman” – Ornette Coleman

61. “The Perfect Man” – Sun Ra and his Arkestra

62. “Hello, Dolly” – Louis Armstrong

63. “Chasin’ the Bird” – Charlie Parker

64. “Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy” – Return to Forever

65. “God Bless the Child” – Billie Holiday

66. “Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers” – Jeff Beck

67. “Tea for Two” – Art Tatum

68. “Volunteered Slavery” – Rahsaan Roland Kirk

69. “Pharoah’s Dance” – Miles Davis

70. “A Night in Tunisia” – Sonny Rollins

71. “Pursuance” – John Coltrane

72. “Satin Doll” – Duke Ellington

73. “Speak no Evil” – Wayne Shorter

74. “Chitlins Con Carne” – Kenny Burrell

75. “Potato Head Blues” – Louis Armstrong

76. “My Feet Can’t Fail Me Now” – Dirty Dozen Brass Band

77. “Cover Girl” – Larry Coryell

78. “Willow Weep for Me” – Wes Montgomery

79. “A Long Drink of the Blues” – Jackie McLean

80. “Three Views of a Secret” – Jaco Pastorious

81. “Places and Spaces” – Donald Byrd

82. “When you’re in Love” – Horace Silver

83. “Lazy River” – Pete Fountain

84. “Tones for Elvin Jones” – John McLaughlin

85. “Icarus” – Winter Consort

86. “Bemsha Swing” – Thelonious Monk

87. “Moon Tune” – Bob James/David Sanborn

88. “Eternal Child” – Chick Corea’s Elektric Band

89. “Out of the Night” – Brian Melvin Trio

90. “School Days” – Stanley Clarke

91. “Five Hundred Miles High” – Stan Getz

92. “Hog Callin’ Blues” – Charles Mingus

93. “My Funny Valentine” – Gerry Mulligan/Chet Baker

94. “Race with Devil on Spanish Highway” – Al DiMeola

95. “Moritat” – Sonny Rollins

96. “Son of Mr. Green Genes” – Frank Zappa

97. “Big Chief” – Professor Longhair

98. “Anonymous Skulls” – Medeski, Martin & Wood

99. “The Hong Kong Incident” – Jing Chi

100. “Hamp’s Hump” - Galactic

Michael Buble Quotes

"When I went to New York to work with the Dap Kings, we actually recorded the 8 track. In Vancouver, we did 'StarDust' and we did 'Somebody Loves You' and it was live on the floor, we did three takes. And we took the best one. And while it wasn't as perfect as some of my previous records -it wasn't as slick, or as flawless- to me, there was such presence and such energy, and I felt that -for me- that had been lacking a little bit, and I was really really happy that I could feel this record, as opposed to sounding good, it felt good." - Michael Buble

source: Interview with Inside Thirteen (March 1, 2010)

Michael Buble Quotes

"I'm not a jazz musician, because, I mean, firstly, I can't play anything. I'm not bad on the tamborine. I have a certain way with the triangle. But I'm not a jazz musician ... my band, they always joke, they always say that I'm a disposable, pop, jazz superstar." - Michael Buble

source: Interview with Inside Thirteen (March 1, 2010)

Michael Buble Quotes

"I had this strange belief, perhaps naively, that somehow, if I kept working hard, and I kept doing it with integrity, that I would get my chance." - Michael Buble

source: Interview with Inside Thirteen (March 1, 2010)

Michael Buble Quotes

"I was about a ten year overnight success. From 16 through 26 I moved throughout Canada and the U.S., and I did everything from theater to singing in restaurants or shopping malls, or basically anything that would help me to have that break, or take a step, or learn my craft, and I lived on my potential every day for ten years." - Michael Buble

source: Interview with Inside Thirteen (March 1, 2010)

Michael Buble Quotes

"I think that—and I believe very strongly about this—but I know that if I concentrate, and I work hard, I know that I can take this world on, two women at a time." - Michael Buble

Michael Buble Quotes

"You can try to trick the people and me come out wearing a fedora and a tuxedo but that's not me. I was born in the late 70's, I wear jeans. I don't hang out in casinos. The lifestyle isn't my thing. I don't drink martinis and I don't smoke cigars." - Michael Buble

Michael Buble Quotes

"Most people are like, 'I'd die for chocolate'. Fuck chocolate, give me bacon and cheese!" - Michael Buble

Michael Buble Quotes

"It's scary. You go out there and your knees are shaking and you try to hold onto the microphone and not look like your hands are shaking. And at some point I just settle in and think to myself, how wonderful is this?" - Michael Buble

Michael Buble Quotes

"We’re jazz nerds." - Michael Buble

Michael Buble Quotes

"You know for a long time, I thought that I was crazy. I remember thinking, am I the only one my age that loves this stuff? Maybe there’s just a wire that isn’t quite connecting in my brain but it comes down to the basics, that this is good music." - Michael Buble

Michael Buble Quotes

"I've been singing this crap since I was 16!" - Michael Buble

Michael Buble Quotes

"It's a bit shocking when you show up in Africa or you're in the middle of Spain and there are people that know the words and the young kids singing along." - Michael Buble

Bill Cosby Quotes

"...among the guitarists, Wes Montgomery is fantastic. He's always good to let you know what the art form is all about. It's the same still life that everybody is painting, but in comes Wes Montgomery, and it's right there!" - Bill Cosby

source: Interview with Victor L. Schermer of AAJ (June 2, 2010)

Bill Cosby Quotes

"I don't see why my fans wouldn't know about my interest in jazz. First of all, if you look at 'The Huxtables,' I had Art Blakey, Tito Puente, Bobby Sanabria, and the Mario Bauza Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra. I had Nancy Wilson. There's one show with Cliff down in the cellar trying to teach Malcolm or Theo about the music. Then we had Big Maybelle [R&B singer Maybelle Louise Smith] do her classic version of 'Candy,' and had Claire lip synch to it. [laughter] Wonderful things you can do when your show is number 1." - Bill Cosby

source: Interview with Victor L. Schermer of AAJ (June 2, 2010)

Stanford Jazz Festival goes global

Since 1972, Stanford has celebrated the most American of art forms – now it looks to jazz's African forebears and its cousins in Brazil, Europe and around the world.

America's most undisputed legacy to world arts is jazz.

So it's fitting that Stanford University celebrates it – every year – with a world-class jazz festival. But though jazz was born in America, its forebears and cousins also will have a share in this year's Stanford Jazz Festival, which begins its 39th six-week season on Friday, June 25, and continues through Aug. 7.

The festival kicks off at 8 p.m. Friday in Dinkelspiel Auditorium with an event that has a distinctly international feel: "A Night of Brazilian Jazz" with Grammy Award-winning vocalist Luciana Souza, guitarist Romero Lubambo and saxophonist Harvey Wainapel and his all-Brazilian jazz quartet Alegritude.

"Most people think that jazz began in New Orleans – but, no, this music began thousands of years ago," says the 84-year-old National Endowment for the Arts master Randy Weston, a Moroccan-based American jazz pianist and composer of Jamaican parentage. The festival will honor jazz's African roots with...

Read More:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/june/stanford-jazz-festival-062210.html

Michael Max Fleming Quotes

"I still practice, in the hope of continually developing. I practice the things I can do well, and I push myself to find a way to do things different, in a world in which nothing is new under the sun. That’s what I have strived for. That’s called innovation." - Michael Max Fleming

source: Interview with the New York Times (June 23, 2010)

Michael Max Fleming Quotes

I came to New York City in 1963, and the place was really jumping. I worked at the Five Spot with Rahsaan. That’s when they would book two bands playing together for four-week stints. I played with Rahsaan opposite Sonny Rollins. There was a lot of great music in the city then. I didn’t come here to be famous, I came here to play with famous people. There was a time in New York when you could play six days a week, every week of the year. I feel sorry for the younger musicians now, because there’s something to be said about playing every day in front of an audience." - Michael Max Fleming

source: Interview with the New York Times (June 23, 2010)

Michael Max Fleming Quotes

"I started playing the piano at six. I made my television debut at 9 years old on Coco the Clown’s show in Cincinnati, singing “Rag Mop” and accompanying myself on the accordion. Later, I sang doo wop. By the time I was 16, I toured all over the Midwest singing with the Charms." - Michael Max Fleming

source: Interview with the New York Times (June 23, 2010)

Paul Smoker Quotes

"Once I leave the studio I'm ready to do the next thing. There are records I made that I haven't heard." - Paul Smoker

source: Interview with Ron Netsky / Rochester City Newspaper (June 22, 2010)

Paul Smoker Quotes

"I go down to New York, do the project, and leave. I have no interest in participating in the rat race down there. Hip jazz fans know who I am. There's a generation of musicians in New York who know my records better than I do." - Paul Smoker

source: Interview with Ron Netsky / Rochester City Newspaper (June 22, 2010)

Paul Smoker Quotes

"I don't really have a career as a jazz musician. I don't really have a career as a classical musician. I don't really have a career as a college professor, and yet I did all those things and I did them well. I put out some records in the 1980's and 1990's that changed the way some trumpet players played." - Paul Smoker

source: Interview with Ron Netsky / Rochester City Newspaper (June 22, 2010)

Paul Smoker Quotes

"I don't know if the music moves forward anymore. I haven't heard anything for years - except refinement - coming out of the jazz world." - Paul Smoker

source: Interview with Ron Netsky / Rochester City Newspaper (June 22, 2010)

Paul Smoker Quotes

"I use a lot of double-tonguing [using the tongue to control airflow]; that allows me to play as fast as if I was slurring, but with clean articulation on every note." - Paul Smoker

source: Interview with Ron Netsky / Rochester City Newspaper (June 22, 2010)

Paul Smoker Quotes

"There was a time, in my early 20s, when I picked up the trumpet and said, ‘I've got to change what I'm doing.' I wasn't putting enough air through the horn. The tone I wanted was bigger than what I had. I was out of control." - Paul Smoker

source: Interview with Ron Netsky / Rochester City Newspaper (June 22, 2010)

Paul Smoker Quotes

"When I was in high school I made the discovery that if I was playing in a jazz club, and there were black people in the club, if I could get the black people to like what I was doing, I was on the right track. So I began to play to those people because they knew what the authentic music was. I've always had that in the back of my head." - Paul Smoker

source: Interview with Ron Netsky / Rochester City Newspaper (June 22, 2010)

The Jazz Capital of the World: Festival International de Jazz de Montreal

Montreal has been the summertime jazz capital of the world for the past 31 years as the city opens its arms to music lovers for the annual Festival International de Jazz de Montreal. Fans of the festival - who number well into the millions when you add up the attendance for the past three decades - will tell you that while "jazz" may be in the title, the festival organizers pride themselves on presenting a wide variety of musical acts designed to make sure that there's something for everyone to enjoy during the event.

"Of course, we love jazz music, but it's just as important to step back and look at the different styles of music that have been influenced by jazz, be it rock and blues or world music," said Laurent Saulnier, vice president of programming for the Festival. "We have visitors who don't make plans for the festival until the schedule comes out so they can make sure they see the specific artists that they are interested in, and then we have those people who...

Read More:
http://www.colormagazineusa.com/jazz-festival-intl-de-jazz-de-montreal

Wendell Logan, Composer of Jazz and Concert Music, Dies at 69

Wendell Logan, a composer of jazz and concert music who more than two decades ago founded the jazz department at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, long a bastion of high-level classical training, died on June 15 in Cleveland. He was 69 and lived in Oberlin, Ohio.

Professor Logan died after a short illness, Marci Janas, a conservatory spokeswoman, said. At his death he was chairman of the jazz studies department and professor of African-American music at the conservatory, which is part of Oberlin College.

Though Oberlin had been turning out world-caliber classical soloists, conductors and orchestral performers for generations, jazz there had long been an extracurricular subject at best.

Professor Logan, who played soprano saxophone and trumpet, joined the faculty in 1973 and began offering jazz classes soon afterward. But it was not until...

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/arts/music/23logan.html

Bud Shank Quotes

"One of the big things that was a great help to me, at fifteen or sixteen, was the fact that a lot of black bands came through North Carolina on the road at that time, playing dances for black people only. Some great bands—one of the best I ever remember was Billy Eckstine's band, that had people like Dizzy Gillespie and Dexter Gordon on it. He came through there several times, and there were a few white guys who were permitted to be way up in the top balcony, looking down on the thing. I learned more, I think, from those circumstances than anything else. There were many other bands other than B's band—Ellington, Basie and a lot of lesser–known black bands—but that's the one that always stuck in my mind." - Bud Shank

source: Interview with Les Tomkins (1979)

Bud Shank Quotes

"Jazz musicians are making records and working clubs now; guys who, like myself, had been buried during the 'sixties, are coming back out again. A whole bunch of born–again beboppers!" - Bud Shank

source: Interview with Les Tomkins (1979)

Bud Shank Quotes

"Ronnie's is quite a delightful club; our early shows have been very well attended, which has made us feel good. The second show, which started about 1.30 a. m., tended to get a little noisy sometimes; in our particular kind of group, that can be disturbing. But these are the things that happen in nightclubs. Other than that, everything has been great. Ronnie and Pete take very good care of the people who work there; all the facilities on and off the stand could not be better. It compares very well with clubs in the States; it's better than a lot of them. And we've had a very nice reception from the people at all times." - Bud Shank

source: Interview with Les Tomkins (1979)

Gary Giddins Quotes

"No one in jazz history—including Armstrong, Ellington, Gillespie, Parker, you name him or her—was more universally admired by his brethren." - Gary Giddins (on Benny Carter)

source: The Village Voice (August 20, 2003)

Ben Webster Quotes

"I had the chance to play with Benny 'The King' Carter here in Copenhagen for three days in the Montmartre, and two days in Paris. 'What a Thrill.' He knows so much music, and he is the only person that I get the shakes trying to play my horn behind or with him (smile). However, it was a ball." - Ben Webster

source: A letter to Mary Lou Williams (postmarked: Copenhagen, September 16, 1971)

Wynton Marsalis Quotes

"He [Benny Carter] is all that every jazz musician the world over wants to be. He's performed 20,000 nights. How many shoes have been shined? How much mascara put on? Rouge? How many of those impossible bowties have been tied? How many love songs have been sung? How many dances have been danced? How many have passed to the sound of his music? It's been said that a man should not be forced to live up to his art. Benny Carter is one of the rare instances when we wonder whether the great art that a man has created can live up to him." - Wynton Marsalis

source: Excerpt from remarks at Kennedy Center Honors program (December 3, 1996)

Bill Clinton Quotes

"From the small clubs of the Harlem Renaissance where he began playing saxophone to world tours for the biggest of the big bands, Benny Carter redefined American jazz. From the start, his fellow musicians said the way he played the sax was amazing. They say that about me, too. (Laughter.) But I don't think they mean it in quite the same way." - Bill Clinton

source: Excerpt from remarks at Kennedy Center Honors reception (December 8, 1996)

Dizzy Gillespie Quotes

"When I grow up I want to be just like Benny Carter!" - Dizzy Gillespie

source: Concert, Princeton University (November 11, 1979)

Quincy Jones Quotes

"Benny [Carter] opened the eyes of a lot of producers and studios, so that they could understand that you could go to blacks for other things outside of blues and barbecue. He's a total musician. He was the pioneer, he was the foundation. He made it possible for that doubt to be taken away." - Quincy Jones

source: 'Benny Carter: Symphony in Riffs', a film by Harrison Engle, 1991

Ella Fitzgerald Quotes

"He's everything a musician would want to be." - Ella Fitzgerald (on Benny Carter)

source: 'Benny Carter: Symphony in Riffs', a film by Harrison Engle, 1991

Miles Davis Quotes

"Everybody ought to listen to Benny [Carter]. He's a whole musical education." - Miles Davis

source: Interview with Leonard Feather, Down Beat (May 25, 1961)

Louis Armstrong Quotes

"You got Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and my man, the Earl of Hines, right? Well, Benny's right up there with all them cats. Everybody that knows who he is calls him 'King.' He is a king! -- Louis Armstrong (on Benny Carter)

source: 'A Call to Assembly' by Willie Ruff, Viking, 1991.

Duke Ellington Quotes

"The problem of expressing the contributions that Benny Carter has made to popular music is so tremendous it completely fazes me, so extraordinary a musician is he." - Duke Ellington

source: Metronome (November, 1943)

Benny Carter Quotes

"In all honesty, I think I just played what I felt was right for me. And I think I would have done the same thing, even if I'd been born later, when Charlie Parker was influencing everybody. The truth is, I never gave it much thought. I just played what I had to play." - Benny Carter

Benny Carter Quotes

"I didn't know Charlie Parker well, but I spent some time with him, and he was articulate and well-spoken with a lot of curiosity about music and the world. But the only way he seems to be depicted is as a junkie. And that's not the full picture." - Benny Carter

Benny Carter Quotes

"And you know, Doc Cheatham could play saxophone too. A lot of people don't know about that. There's also someone down at the University of Miami who made a big-band recording in which he played all the parts, except for the drums." - Benny Carter

Benny Carter Quotes

"I took the eye test and passed it on the spot. Then, when he asked me to sign something, I pulled out my reading glasses." - Benny Carter

Benny Carter Quotes

"At my age, I realize that my most precious possession is time, and I've got too much unfinished work to do to spend even a minute talking about myself." - Benny Carter

Art Pepper Quotes

"I guess it's like James Joyce when he was a kid, you know. He hung out with all the great writers of the day, and he was a little kid, like, with tennis shoes on, and they said 'Look at this lame!' They didn't use those words in those days. They said 'God, here comes this nut.' And he told them, 'I'm great!' And he sat with them, and he loved to be with them, and it ended up that he was great." — Art Pepper

Art Pepper Quotes

"If I have a drink, she [Art's wife, Laurie Pepper] can tell immediately, She'll be sitting at a table or something ... this happened just recently in this club; she was sitting with these friends of mine, I started playing a tune, and all of a sudden she turned round, looked at me, looked back at them and said: "Art's been drinking." And they didn't hear anything different at all than the first set. I played a couple of notes, and she knew. She went up to the bar, asked for the tab, and she saw that I'd had two drinks." - Art Pepper

source: Interview with Les Tomkins (1979)

Art Pepper Quotes

"Without (my wife) Laurie, I would never be here right now, I know that. I would either be in a coffin, or stashed away doing a life sentence some place. Or running and hiding some place, if I was still alive. I'm certain I wouldn't be playing music. She's just been perfect for me. And she's a protector also; she protects me from myself, from temptations, and bad associations. She's constantly shielding me from walking the red hot coals of existing as a game." - Art Pepper

source: Interview with Les Tomkins (1979)

Art Pepper Quotes

"I tried to stay out of it [drugs] for a long time, knowing what it might do. I think that, in my searching for something—for love, acceptance or whatever it is, to be a real man, to relate to my father, and all those things—going to prison was a help. It was part of my evolution, as a human being and as a musician. I feel that I have much deeper feelings now than I would have had, had I just been a musician all that time, which would have been a very dull existence. You know, I wanted something more than just being thought of as a musician, period. To be labelled 'Art Pepper, musician', period, would just be awful—what a boring life that would be." - Art Pepper

source: Interview with Les Tomkins (1979)

Art Pepper Quotes

"I enjoy playing with a big band occasionally, but it's too restricting; you really don't have a chance to stretch out and do what you want to do. Getting that thing of relating to a large band is great experience; I relate much better, though, if it's a small band." - Art Pepper

source: Interview with Les Tomkins (1979)

Art Pepper Quotes

"Alto (saxophone) is just a very hard instrument; there's so few people that play it really well. I feel it's the best one, too, now. At first I didn't feel that way; I wanted to be a tenor player. It took a long time for me to feel that alto was the most expressive of the saxophones." - Art Pepper

source: Interview with Les Tomkins (1979)

Art Pepper Quotes

"The way so many musicians slavishly imitated Coltrane, that's the way it was with Charlie Parker — only even more so, if that can be imagined. Everyone that I knew changed totally. But they took the worst things of his playing—that harsh sound; it just didn't come off the way they did it. The way he did it was great, Their way wasn't good at all. I just would listen to 'em, say: 'That's a Bird imitator', and that would be it; I would never care to listen to them again." - Art Pepper

source: Interview with Les Tomkins (1979)

Thelonious Monk - Blue Monk



Thelonious Monk on piano, Charlie Rouse on tenor. Larry Gales on bass, and Ben Riley on drums.

Bill Crow Quotes

"We sailed to Italy on the Andrea Doria, a year before it sank, and Zoot (Sims) and I played a lot of ping-pong on deck during that trip. Zoot sparked that [Gerry Mulligan's] sextet in an extraordinary way, soloing with joyous abandon and infusing the ensemble parts with his special brand of swing." - Bill Crow

source: Interview with Jazz Profiles (January 17, 2009)

Bill Crow Quotes

"I recorded with Hank (Jones) a number of times, usually on dates where Milt was unavailable, and I thought he was the perfect pianist. He had a beautiful touch, knew all the best ways around the chord changes, and swung mightily. And he brought an air of cheerful competence to every date, making us all feel that it would be possible to make some very good music that day." - Bill Crow

source: Interview with Jazz Profiles (January 17, 2009)

Bill Crow Quotes

"Roger (Kellaway) amazed us all. Blessed with great technique, he could play any style, from ragtime to space music. Whatever style he chose to play at the moment would be filled with wonderful surprises that kept the rest of us continually delighted." - Bill Crow

source: Interview with Jazz Profiles (January 17, 2009)

Bill Crow Quotes

"(Joe) Morello had developed what he called his finger technique, in which he could keep his left stick tapping the drumhead with just the pressure of his left forefinger, and then he could add accents by rotating his wrist at the same time. Sitting with him at a back booth in the Hickory House, where he always had a pair of drumsticks and practiced on a folded napkin on the table, I borrowed a stick and figured out his finger trick, and I could keep it going pretty well. Joe loved to tell admiring students who visited us at the club, “There’s nothing to the finger technique. Anybody can do it. Here, look, even my bass player can do it!” And he would hand me a stick and have me demonstrate." - Bill Crow

source: Interview with Jazz Profiles (January 17, 2009)

Bill Crow Quotes

"My reading was good enough to play big-band charts, but I ran into trouble with Claude (Thornhill)’s theme song “Snowfall,” which had a repeating bass line in D-flat that was very difficult for me to finger using my self-taught technique. I spent one morning figuring out an alternate fingering, and that started me on the way to learning a better use of the fingerboard." - Bill Crow

source: Interview with Jazz Profiles (January 17, 2009)

Stan Getz Quotes

"I never have any trouble playing anything I can think of. The trouble is in thinking of what to play." - Stan Getz

Bill Crow Quotes

"I found a guy in the Bronx who had an old plywood Kay bass that he wanted $75 for. He held it for me, and I gave him a few dollars every time I could scrape some extra money together. Meanwhile I borrowed or rented basses for jam sessions and paying jobs. It was a great thrill when I finally took possession of my Kay." - Bill Crow

source: billcrowbass.com

Bill Crow Quotes

"My school music teacher, Al Bennest, introduced me to jazz by playing Louis Armstrong's record of "West End Blues" for me. I found more jazz on the radio, and began looking for records. My paper route money, and later, money I earned working after school in a print shop and a butcher shop went toward buying jazz records. I taught myself the alto saxophone and the drums in order to play in my high school dance band." - Bill Crow

source: billcrowbass.com

John Coltrane Quotes

"Tone wise, I would like to be able to produce a more beautiful sound, but now I'm primarily interested in trying to work what I have - what I know - down, into a more lyrical line - that's what I mean by beautiful - more lyrical, so it'll be, you know, easily understood." - John Coltrane

source: Interview with Carl-Erik Lindgren (1960)

John Coltrane Quotes

"The reason I play so many sounds, maybe it sounds angry, is because I'm trying so many things at one time, you see? I haven't sorted them out. I have a whole bag of things that I'm trying to work through and get the one essential." - John Coltrane

source: Interview with Carl-Erik Lindgren (1960)

Carlos Santana Quotes

"John Coltrane represented getting to the Promised Land without the needle. He took the keys from hell with his sound, telling us that we don't have to do drugs in order to be connected anywhere from the microcosm to the top of the galaxy. He made a different kind of commitment with music." - Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana Quotes

"I've known for a long time that John Coltrane and Bob Marley re-arrange your molecular structure." - Carlos Santana

Reggie Workman Quotes

"You will get the message (of 'A Love Supreme') if you are ready for it, as Hindu philosophy teaches us, if you're not ready for it, you got to go back and prepare and come that way again. OK?" - Reggie Workman

Patti Smith Quotes

"I cant say why it's so popular, but perhaps it fulfills people's need for prayer. 'A Love Supreme' has a feeling of moral authority in the most humble and spiritual way. - Patti Smith

Bono Quotes

"I was at the top of the Grand Hotel in Chicago (on tour 1987) listening to 'a Love Supreme' and learning the lesson of a lifetime. Earlier i had been watching televangelists remake God in their own image: tiny, petty and greedy. I knew from my earliest memories that the world was winding in a direction away from love, and I too was caught in it's drag. There is so much wickedness in this world but beauty is our consolation prize ... the beauty of John Coltrane's reedy voice, it's whispers, it's knowingness, it's sly sexuality, it's praise of creation. And so Coltrane began to make sense to me. I left the music on repeat and I stayed awake listening to a man facing God with the gift of his music." - Bono

Maurice White Quotes

"I remember when 'A Love Supreme' was released - I heard it at a friends house. Man, it was incredible. That record sounded different than the rest. I was trying to gather my spirituality together, trying to get an understanding of life ... I felt [John] Coltrane was the first musician who made a transition from one side to the other." - Maurice White (of 'Earth, Wind and Fire')

Robby Kreiger Quotes

"The chords in ‘Light My Fire’ are based on [John] Coltrane’s version of this song. He just solos over A minor and B minor, which is exactly what we did. Coltrane had played with Miles on Kind of Blue and took the idea of modal soloing over one or two chords farther out than anybody. He was a real pioneer - he just kept evolving, going where no one had ever gone. He could always attain this state of ecstasy when he played. Live, there was so much energy, you couldn’t believe it. He would play for hours. It was indescribable." - Robby Kreiger (guitarist of 'The Doors')

Carlos Santana Quotes

"John Coltrane is still probably one of the greatest musicians of this century. His tone truly puts demons on a leash. His gift is directly from the mind of God and is very powerful. ..... The first time I heard A Love Supreme, it was really an assault. It could've been from mars as far as i was concerned, or another galaxy. I remember the album cover and the name, but the music didn't fit into the patterns of my brain at that point. It was like someone trying to tell a monkey about spirituality or computers, you know, it just didn't compute." - Carlos Santana

Sam Andrew Quotes

"I took LSD and listened to Coltrane a lot; a lot of people did." - Sam Andrew (guitarist and founding member of Janis Joplin's Big Brother & the Holding Company)

Oscar Peterson - Piano Jazz

Charlie Parker - Celebrity (Featuring Buddy Rich, Ray Brown & Hank Jones)

Artie Shaw - Nonstop Flight

Pat Metheny Quotes

"I met Gary (Burton) at the Wichita Jazz Festival when I was 18 -- he was one of my favorite musicians and I got to play a few tunes with him there. Shortly after that, I joined his band, which was the equivalent of joining the Beatles for me! He was, and still is, one of the greatest musicians I have ever been lucky enough to be around." - Pat Metheny

source: digitalinterviews.com

Pat Metheny Quotes

"1962 to 1965, where suddenly the guitar became this icon of youth culture all over the world, thanks mostly to the Beatles. Add to that, that I saw A Hard Day's Night 12 or 13 times, and that the guitar was the one instrument that my parents absolutely refused to let in the house. So you add it up and see that irresistible forces led me to the guitar." - Pat Metheny

source: digitalinterviews.com

Pat Metheny Quotes

"..my older brother Mike is an excellent trumpet player. By the time he was 12, he was playing around Kansas City in various classical situations and he was already an amazing talent. The comparisons of being his little brother and also playing the trumpet -- and, I have to add, I was not a naturally gifted trumpet player -- didn't feel that good. I thought my name was "Mike Metheny's little brother." - Pat Metheny

source: digitalinterviews.com

Christian McBride Quotes

"Watch your attitude. I don’t mean to sound like so much of an old head, but there is another generation behind me, out there, doing it now. I find that, with the whole hip-hop generation, there’s a lot of attitude. Whether it’s confidence or arrogance or whichever, I will always say to a young guy, “Nobody wants to work with an asshole.” You know, you can still be a great player. You can still play all of the baddest licks in the world. But if you don’t have a good attitude, nobody’s going to work with you." - Christian McBride

source: digitalinterviews.com

Christian McBride Quotes

"I’ve always felt that most jazz artists don’t need producers .. most jazz artists know what kind of sound they want. They don’t need a producer to come in there and tell them, “Oh, I think you should do this.” I’ve always found it very strange that there’s been such a thing as producers in jazz." - Christian McBride

source: digitalinterviews.com

Christian McBride Quotes

"When you think of diversity, George Duke fits that bill better than a lot of people. He’s played a lot of straight-ahead jazz with people like Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley; he’s played a lot of fusion with his own groups, with Stanley Clarke; and, you know, he did the rock thing with Frank Zappa. He’s written all kinds of big arrangements for people like Burt Bacharach. So, he’s covered the board. He’s still a great pianist." - Christian McBride

source: digitalinterviews.com

Christian McBride Quotes

"I’m really not this jazz traditionalist guy you’ve been making me out to be all of these years." - Christian McBride

source: digitalinterviews.com

Christian McBride Quotes

"Had it not been for musicians like Wynton, his brother Branford, Kenny Barron, Bobby Watson and all kinds of guys, taking time out of their busy schedules to come and teach us when we were in high school, I don’t know how serious I would have become about being a jazz musician. So, I totally believe that it’s my duty to give it back." - Christian McBride

source: digitalinterviews.com

Christian McBride Quotes

"Out of nowhere, I get this commission to write a piece for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. I remember asking Wynton, “Man, are you sure you want to do this? I’ve never written for a big band before.” He said, “I bet you can do it.” That was my first chance to write for a large ensemble, and that turned out well." - Christian McBride

source: digitalinterviews.com

Christian McBride Quotes

"For my money, Ray Brown is the greatest living bass player. Every great thing that’s happened on bass since Ray Brown -- all of us point back to him. That’s where it started, you know. Ray Brown is definitely a walking master, and to get to play with him is obviously an opportunity that no one should ever pass up." - Christian McBride

source: digitalinterviews.com

Christian McBride Quotes

"The most significant bands I played in when I first got to New York were Bobby Watson’s band, Roy Hargrove’s first band, Benny Golson’s band, Benny Green’s trio, and probably the most significant out of all of those, for me personally, was playing in Freddie Hubbard’s band." - Christian McBride

source: digitalinterviews.com

Christian McBride Quotes

"That’s when I left Philly, to move up here to New York City. I learned a lot at Juilliard. It was actually my original intention to have a dual career. I wanted to have a career playing as much music as possible. I wanted to try to play jazz if I could. I wanted to play classical. I wanted to play R&B. I wanted to try to play everything but, obviously, that would be really hard to do. I went to Juilliard, obviously on a classical scholarship. I figured I was in New York City, so I would get to go to jam sessions and play with all of the jazz cats at night, and I could study classical in school during the day. But, you know, one thing led to another, and I wound up getting a lot of gigs on the jazz scene, and I had to temporarily hang up my classical career." - Christian McBride

source: digitalinterviews.com

Christian McBride Quotes

"The active jazz scene bled into what became the "Philadelphia era" and the "national era" of soul music, which hit their peak right around the time I was born -- 1972. Billy Paul had his first major hit with “Me & Mrs. Jones.” The O'Jays had “Back Stabbers.” Man, there was lots of stuff goin’ on. Hal Melvin and the Blue Notes, with a young Teddy Pendergrass as their lead singer. So, that went all the way through the ‘70s. Then, toward the late ‘70s, Grover Washington started getting gold records, and the jazz scene resurfaced in Philly. There was always lots of stuff going on. That was a really great place to grow up. In the early ‘80s, when the Philadelphia “international” scene started to die out, Grover became the national hero of Philadelphia. Then Pieces of a Dream came out. They emanated out of Grover’s band. They really were hot in the early ‘80s. By the time I graduated from high school, little did I know that half of the graduating class was going to turn out to be superstars -- Boyz II Men; Ahmir Thompson, who’s better known to the hip-hop world as ?uestlove -- he runs the group called the Roots; organist Joey De Francesco, my good buddy; guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel; and Amel Larrieux, who used to sing with Groove Theory, who now has her own thing happening in the R&B world. There was so much stuff going on in Philly growing up." - Christian McBride

source: digitalinterviews.com

T Lavitz Quotes

"I started lessons down in the neighborhood from the local piano teacher when I was seven. The first thing I did was learn to read, and then study classical piano for ten years before I did anything else - about learning blues or how to jam. I had a really good structured background first." - T Lavitz

source: digitalinterviews.com

Alphonso Johnson Quotes

"When I went to school to learn how to play, they didn't teach me jazz or classical or rock. They taught me how to play music, and the notes are the same. When Keith Richards plays a G-flat minor, minor 7 chord, it's the same chord Bach uses, it's the same chord Miles uses. It's just music." - Alphonso Johnson

source: digitalinterviews.com

Johnny Frigo Quotes

"Oh, yeah. You know, the bus. It’s that same old thing. I never “took” anything, you know. I’ve yet to smoke a normal cigarette in my entire life. It was very strange. All kids that are young want to emulate their peers, and, luckily, I never got into that bag. I’m not bragging. I’m just lucky." - Johnny Frigo

source: digitalinterviews.com

Johnny Frigo Quotes

"I met some old Italian guy who had a beat-up string bass. I remember distinctly it had only three strings on it, and the G-string, which was a gut string, was tied in a knot. I didn’t know anything about bass, so I just started slapping around. But, for the next half century, I was a bass player. I made 90 or 95 percent of my living playing bass." - Johnny Frigo

source: digitalinterviews.com

Don Alias Quotes

"If you're really digging in -- soul to soul, skin on skin -- you're going to do damage to your hands [playing the Conga drum]. It's an occupational hazard. You're going to be playing, and it's going to hurt. You're really going to have to love to play in order for you to do this kind of work, because it's going to hurt you." - Don Alias

source: digitalinterviews.com

Don Alias Quotes

"I just read an article in a drum magazine, and I won an award as being the jazz percussionist. I really like that terminology -- jazz percussionist. They had different headings, like Latin percussionist and Salsa percussionist. I was the jazz percussionist. For me, that's a tremendous compliment, because it covers all the music." - Don Alias

source: digitalinterviews.com

Don Alias Quotes

"At the end of the night, I'm sweating. I feel as though I have played. That's what I am -- I'm a player. I like to play out. With this [David Sanborn's] band, I get the opportunity to do that -- to play. That's why I'm here." - Don Alias

source: digitalinterviews.com

Don Alias Quotes

"She [Joni Mitchell] wanted to have that (jazz) element in her music. Of course, when she heard Jaco's [Jaco Pastorius'] music and met him, that floored her -- really grabbed her. She decided that Wayne Shorter was really conducive to her music. She would speak metaphorically about things. "I want this to sound like a taxicab driver, or a taxi in New York," or "I want this to sound like a telephone ringing." She would speak to musicians like that, and we really tuned into what she would want our music to be." - Don Alias

source: digitalinterviews.com

Don Alias Quotes

"We're talking about an extremely prolific poet and songwriter and lyricist. That stuff comes off the top of her head. She [Joni Mitchell] will write exactly what she lives. If she puts some money in the soda machine, she'll write about putting money in the soda machine. "Dry Cleaner from Des Moines," on the Shadows & Light album, was about sitting next to a dry cleaner from Des Moines, playing a slot machine." - Don Alias

source: digitalinterviews.com

Don Alias Quotes

Sometimes I found myself playing, and turning over to my left, and I would see Miles Davis standing there, looking to see what was happening. I got a call to come down to this recording session. I walked into the studio and saw all of these musicians. Everybody knew it was going to be a monumental session -- it turned out to be Bitches Brew. Most of the songs we'd done were first and second takes. Miles counted off one particular tune. I was playing percussion, and somehow or another it didn't gel. Lenny White and Jack DeJohnette were both playing drums. He counted it off a second time, and it didn't gel. I couldn't take it any longer. I had been practicing this one rhythm that I had gotten from a drummer, and I knew it was perfect for what he was playing. I just kind of just took it upon myself to say, "Miles, I've got this rhythm." He said, [raspy Miles Davis voice] "Well, just go play it." I played it, and he said, [raspy] "Show Jack." It's one of these kinds of rhythms that doesn't require a bunch of technique. An accomplished drummer like DeJohnette probably had no problem doing it, but at that moment it was a little hard to get. He just said, [raspy] "Stay there." So I got a chance to play drums on that." - Don Alias

source: digitalinterviews.com

Don Alias Quotes

"Then, on my way to California, I decided to stop in New York to do some research. I couldn't leave, because that's where the music was!" - Don Alias

source: digitalinterviews.com

Don Alias Quotes

"Mom did not want me to have anything to do with playing music. Being from a middle-class Black family in that particular era, everybody wanted you to have a profession -- a doctor, a lawyer, and so forth. So she sent me to school to study medicine." - Don Alias

source: digitalinterviews.com

Don Alias Quotes

"I grew up learning this stuff on the streets of New York. My brother and I used to play in the subway for money." - Don Alias

source:digitalinterviews.com

Don Alias Quotes

"If they [the crowd at The Apollo Theater] don't like you, they will let you know. When you didn't have any talent, they would let you know about it -- and not kindly. There'd be things like "Get off the stage!" and certain expletives we won't say here. It was a rough audience." - Don Alias

source: digitalinterviews.com

Don Alias Quotes

"I grew up in New York. We were all diversified, as far as music was concerned. I grew up liking just about everything. So I tried to incorporate that into my playing, although the original school where I came from was Afro-Cuban music. But I liked all kinds of music -- I tried to bring that into everything." - Don Alias

source: digitalinterviews.com

Chick Corea Quotes

"As a musician, I don't have one thing that's "my thing." I like to create, and have a lot of outlets for it. Dustin Hoffman is one of the guys that sets a model for me, because of how good he is at being such different characters. Every time you see DeNiro, he's pretty much DeNiro -- great, but DeNiro. Hoffman is different every time, depending on his character. That's how I see myself as a performer." - Chick Corea

source: digitalinterviews.com

Chick Corea Quotes

"Risk is one of those factors that goes on a monitor, up and down. Even if you have the same program with the same band, the risk factor changes performance to performance, depending on how much risk the musicians are taking with what they're playing. Even a free-form ensemble can play it safe." - Chick Corea

source: digitalinterviews.com

Chick Corea Quotes

"A quality; an unexplainable, spiritual quality that creative people have, that is just inspiring, and there's no way to really describe it, except that you feel invigorated, and you want to create yourself. The arts, I feel in general, are the last bastion of that on planet Earth anyway. It's like a pinhole left on planet Earth -- of the arts, which is the idea of creativity, which is the idea of the use of the imagination in order to make up things that you present to other people, for only the purpose of wanting them to experience it. And experience the pleasure of it." - Chick Corea

source: digitalinterviews.com

Chick Corea Quotes

"I feel fortunate to have been able to be with such great musicians. I feel that's really the way I developed my own music and art form; by getting continually inspired by great musicians, and also learning various musicians' approaches -- and their way. It's the standard way anyone learns a skill, which is apprenticeship. You work with someone who does what you want to do very well, and you learn the basic ideas and then take it where you want to go." - Chick Corea

source: digitalinterviews.com

Chick Corea Quotes

"My dad was all about music. He was a musician, leading a band when I was born. His band was active all through the 40s. He'd started it in the late 20s and 30s. According to the scrapbook, his band was doing quite well around the Boston area. During the Depression they were on radio. It was a jazz-oriented band. He was a trumpet player, and he wrote and arranged for the band. He taught me how to play the piano and read music, and taught me what he knew of standard tunes and so forth. It was a fantastic way to come up in music." - Chick Corea

source: digitalinterviews.com

Dave Brubeck Trio spec. Guest Paul Desmond & Gerry Mulligan part 2 Truth

Allen Ginsberg Quotes

"From it's inception Beat poetry was hailed as "something NEW" and "like all good spontaneous jazz, newness is acceptable and expected - by hip people who listen." But the newness of jazz has in it the echoes of J. S. Bach." - Allen Ginsberg

source: On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg (by Allen Ginsberg)

Jack Kerouac Quotes

"... and up on the stand [Charlie] Bird Parker with solemn eyes who'd been busted fairly recently and had now returned to a kind of bop dead Frisco but had just discovered or been told about the Red Drum, the great new generation gang wailing and gathering there, so here he was on the stand, examinign them with his eyes as he blew his now-settled-down-into-regulated-design "crazy" notes ... whom I saw distinctly digging Mardou several times also myself directly into my eye looking to search if really I was that great writer I thought myself to be as if he knew my thoughts and ambitions or remembered me from other night clubs and other coasts, other Chicagos - not a challenging look but the king and founder of the bop generation at least the sound of it in digging his audience digging the eyes, the secret eyes him-watching, as he just pursed his lips and let great lungs and immortal fingers work, his eyes separate and interested and humane, the kindest jazz musician there could be while being and therefore naturally the greatest - watching Marldou and me in the infancy of our love and probably wondering why, or knowing it wouldn't last, or seeing who it was would be hurt..." - Jack Kerouac

source: The Subterraneans (by Jack Kerouac)

Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

"What has been America's most nurturing contribution to the culture of this planet so far? Many would say jazz. I, who love jazz, will say this instead: Alcoholics Anonymous." - Kurt Vonnegut

source: War Preparers' Anonymous, Essay in The Nation (January 7, 1984)

Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

"Foreigners love us for our jazz. And they don't hate us for our purported liberty and justice for all. They hate us for our arrogance." - Kurt Vonnegut

source: A Man Without a Country

Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

"What I would really like to have been, given a perfect world, is a jazz pianist. I mean jazz. I don't mean rock and roll. I mean the never-the-same-twice music the American black people gave the world." - Kurt Vonnegut

source: Hocus Pocus

Joe Pass Quotes

"I'm a little tired. I haven't been out for more than five or six weeks in the States, and that's really a lot for me. You know, to me, music is important, it's the way I make my living and I like it and I enjoy playing. But it's not the most important thing in my life - that's my family." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

"Using drugs didn't help me to play, all it did was to hang me up for about fifteen years." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

"It [drinking] all started when I split from home. I got the opportunity to go on the road and I went off with groups and trios. And I got introduced to drinking and all that. I was rebelling really and although I wasn't influenced by knowing that other jazz players were onto it, there was a point where there was a definite identifying with that, because it was part of the whole scene. It's just part of the environment and still is; but that doesn't mean that you have got to get caught up in it. But I thought that was the way to go, and I went from one thing to another and that's how I got started. I got heavily involved and people were saying, 'You'd better cool it, you'd better stop.' But I mean - I couldn't hear anything they said. Everybody, people close to me, my family; I didn't hear them; you never do." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

"Well I never copied [Django Reinhardt]. I don't remember that I copied any guitar player note-for-note. But I remember copying Charlie Parker note for note." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

"My father would say, 'Play a scale,' and I'd play one and he'd say, 'What about the rest? There must be one above,' so we'd figure them out. I'd start the scale on the root of the chord and I'd go as far as my hand would reach without going out of position, say, five frets, and then I'd go all the way back. So when ! practised I'd start right away on scales. As well as the usual ones, I'd play whole tone scales, diminished, dominant sevenths, and chromatic scales. Every chord form, all the way up, and this took an hour." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

[My father] didn't know anything about music, he didn't play an instrument; but he wanted us to become something more than a steel-worker like himself." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

"I grew up playing the guitar. I started when I was nine, and by the time I was nine and a half or ten, I was doing seven or eight hours' practice every day. I did two hours' practice at six o'clock in the morning before I went to school, and another two hours as soon as I got home from school in the afternoon. Then I did four hours at night before I went to bed. I did that until I was fourteen or fifteen." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

"Guitarists should be able to pick up the guitar and play music on it for an hour, without a rhythm section or anything." - Joe Pass

Joe Pass Quotes

"If you hit a wrong note, then make it right by what you play afterwards." - Joe Pass

Tal Farlow Quotes

"For something to gain so much popularity and appeal for so many people, it has to be either musically valid or so commercial that you can't ignore it, especially if your living depends on it. Jazz has never really reached that kind of popularity and I don't think it ever will, because you're actually playing for musicians and musicians are not a good crowd to play for. If you are going to try and make some money, you've got to appeal to a wider area than that. But I think that it's the musicians that determine who's good, who goes to the top, and who gets work. I guess the enthusiasts who are not involved in it, just take the musicians word for it." - Tal Farlow

Wes Montgomery Quotes

"I don't know whether it was his [Charlie Christian's] melodic lines, his sound or his approach, but I hadn't heard anything like that before. He sounded so good and it sounded so easy, so I bought me a guitar and an amplifier and said now I can't do nothing but play! Really, welding was my talent, I think, but I sort of swished it aside." - Wes Montgomery

Larry Coryell Quotes

"Barney Kessel was 'Mr. Guitar,' the foremost jazz guitarist of his generation. He had an amazing imagination, his solos were incredible, he swung his tail off, he was a heck of an arranger and could out-read anybody..." - Larry Coryell

Barney Kessel Quotes

"Charlie Christian showed me a lot, and was a great help, but even then, I realised that if I was going to make it, it was no use copying Charlie." - Barney Kessel

Barney Kessel Quotes

"When I joined the [Oscar Peterson] Trio, it was as if I was capable of driving a sports car at 60, but Ray Brown and Oscar Peterson just kept pressing the pedal down, and I was trying to control the car at 80!" - Barney Kessel

Kenny Burrell Quotes

"My inspiration comes from the message Duke Ellington gave - you are unique, be yourself, put out that thing that is you, then use your work ethic and produce great music." - Kenny Burrell

Larry Coryell Quotes

"Over the years I hope I've become more of a musican and less of a guitarist." - Larry Coryell

Larry Carlton Quotes

"Back in the day in my teens I was listening to Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery a lot; before that I was listening to what I would call now the more 'simple' jazz players (but still very valid), like Barney Kessel or Johnny Smith; I learnt a lot of voicings from Johnny Smith records. Now, I listen to the old blues players; that's what you'd hear in my house if there was music on. It would be Albert Collins or Albert King." - Larry Carlton

George Benson Quotes

"People who love jazz musicians love us when we play what we want to play and we're starving. But as soon as you commercialize your sound like Wes Montgomery did, the jazz fans and the critics are down on you!" - George Benson

Howard Roberts Quotes

"I've come up with the theory that the music is within. We don't bring it in; it's already there. We have to figure out how to get it out." - Howard Roberts

Kenny Burrell Quotes

"My audience has developed so that they come to listen and are quiet, Thus I can work in a limited volume range and explore all the subtleties that can happen, which is my favorite part of the music." - Kenny Burrell

George Benson Quotes

"Lenny Breau dazzled me with his extraordinary guitar playing... I wish the world had the opportunity to experience his artistry." - George Benson

Wes Montgomery Quotes

"I got a standard box. I don't never want nothing special. Then if I drop my box, I can borrow somebody else's." - Wes Montgomery (his "standard box" was the hollowbody Gibson L5-CES - cutaway electric Spanish)

Lenny Breau Quotes

"I started playing jazz by slowing down Tal Farlow records and analyzing his runs." - Lenny Breau

Barney Kessel Quotes

"Playing scales is like a boxer skipping rope or punching a bag. It's not the thing in itself; it's preparatory to the activity." - Barney Kessel

Jeff Beck Quotes

"... by far the most astonishing guitar player ever has got to be Django Reinhardt ... Django was quite superhuman, There's nothing normal about him as a person or a player." - Jeff Beck

B.B. King Quotes

"Charlie Christian had no more impact on my playing than Django Reinhardt or Lonnie Johnson. I just wanted to play like him. I wanted to play like all of them. All of these people were important to me. I couldn't play like any of them, though ..." - B.B. King

Charlie Byrd Quotes

"Usually, no one quite knew where Django Reinhardt was going to be, but I met his brother and about an hour later in walks Django with an entourage of friends. He always traveled with a large group--carried his own admirers with him, the most sinister-looking bunch of hoodlums you've ever seen. I walked up and offered to buy him a drink. That seemed to be the right thing to do... he was the first really brilliant solo guitarist I ever became aware of, I had records of his when I was 10 years old. It just blew my mind that anyone could play a guitar like that. Still does." - Charlie Byrd

Theodor W. Adorno Quotes

"The aim of jazz is the mechanical reproduction of a regressive moment, a castration symbolism. 'Give up your masculinity, let yourself be castrated,' the eunuchlike sound of the jazz band both mocks and proclaims, 'and you will be rewarded, accepted into a fraternity which shares the mystery of impotence with you, a mystery revealed at the moment of the initiation rite." — Theodor W. Adorno

Theodor W. Adorno Quotes

"Jazz is the false liquidation of art — instead of utopia becoming reality it disappears from the picture." — Theodor W. Adorno

Billy Collins Quotes

"At home, the jazz station plays all day, so sometimes it becomes indistinct, like the sound of rain, birds in the background, the surf of traffic. But today I heard a voice announce that Eric Dolphy, 36 when he died, has now been dead for 36 years. I wonder - did anyone sense something when another Eric Dolphy lifetime was added to the span of his life, when we all took another full Dolphy step forward in time, flipped over the Eric Dolphy yardstick once again? It would have been so subtle -
like the sensation you might feel as you passed through the moment at the exact center of your life or as you crossed the equator at night in a boat. I never gave it another thought, but could that have been the little shift I sensed a while ago as I walked down in the rain to get the mail?" — Billy Collins

source: "Tipping Point"

Joe Strummer Quotes

"As the floods of God wash away sin city, they say it was written in the page of the Lord. But I was looking for that great jazz note that destroyed the walls of Jericho, the winds of fear, whip away the sickness." - Joe Strummer

source: The Clash - The Sound of the Sinners

Augusten Burroughs Quotes

"The Schnauzer listens to jazz. I listen to jazz because he likes it, and I have even gone to jazz concerts with him, but truthfully I would rather listen to retarded children pounding on pan lids with wooden spoons." — Augusten Burroughs

source: Magical Thinking: True Stories

Elmore Leonard Quotes

"I'm very much aware in the writing of dialogue, or even in the narrative too, of a rhythm. There has to be a rhythm with it … Interviewers have said, you like jazz, don’t you? Because we can hear it in your writing. And I thought that was a compliment." — Elmore Leonard

Bob Kaufman Quotes

"Streets paved with opal sadness, Lead me counterclockwise, to pockets of joy, And jazz." — Bob Kaufman

source: Cranial Guitar

John A. Kouwenhoven Quotes

"The structure of a jazz performance is, like that of the New York skyline, a tension of cross-purposes. In jazz at its characteristic best, each player seems to be—and has the sense of being—on his own. Each goes his own way, inventing rhythmic and melodic patterns which, superficially, seem to have as little relevance to one another as the United Nations building does to the Empire State. And yet the outcome is a dazzlingly precise creative unity." — John A. Kouwenhoven

Gerald Early Quotes

"There are only three things that America will be remembered for 2000 years from now when they study this civilization: The Constitution, Jazz music, and Baseball. These are the 3 most beautiful things this culture's ever created." — Gerald Early

G.K. Chesterton Quotes

"Do not enjoy yourself. Enjoy dances and theaters and joy-rides and champagne and oysters; enjoy jazz and cocktails and night-clubs if you can enjoy nothing better; enjoy bigamy and burglary and any crime in the calendar, in preference to the other alternative; but never learn to enjoy yourself." — G.K. Chesterton

Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

"And what gift of America to the rest of the world is actually most appreciated by the rest of the world? It is African American jazz and its offshoots. What is my definition of jazz? "Safe sex of the highest order." — Kurt Vonnegut

source: Armageddon in Retrospect

Dave Hickey Quotes

"Jazz presumes that it would be nice if the four of us--simpatico dudes that we are--while playing this complicated song together, might somehow be free and autonomous as well. Tragically, this never quite works out. At best, we can only be free one or two at a time--while the other dudes hold onto the wire. Which is not to say that no one has tried to dispense with wires. Many have, and sometimes it works--but it doesn't feel like jazz when it does. The music simply drifts away into the stratosphere of formal dialectic, beyond our social concerns." - Dave Hickey

source: Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy

Boris Vian Quotes

"There are only two things: love, all sorts of love, with pretty girls, and the music of New Orleans or Duke Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly." — Boris Vian

Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

"Comedians and jazz musicians have been more comforting and enlightening to me than preachers or politicians or philosophers or poets or painters or novelists of my time. Historians in the future, in my opinion, will congratulate us on very little other than our clowning and our jazz." — Kurt Vonnegut

source: Palm Sunday

Thomas Pynchon Quotes

"I am the twentieth century. I am the ragtime and the tango; sans-serif, clean geometry. I am the virgin's-hair whip and the cunningly detailed shackles of decadent passion. I am every lonely railway station in every capital of Europe. I am the Street, the fanciless buildings of government. the cafe-dansant, the clockwork figure, the jazz saxophone, the tourist-lady's hairpiece, the fairy's rubber breasts, the travelling clock which always tells the wrong time and chimes in different keys. I am the dead palm tree, the Negro's dancing pumps, the dried fountain after tourist season. I am all the appurtenances of night." — Thomas Pynchon

source: V.

Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

"I will say, too, that lovemaking, if sincere, is one of the best ideas Satan put in the apple she gave to the serpent to give to Eve. The best idea in that apple, though, is making jazz." - Kurt Vonnegut

source: Timequake

Donald Miller Quotes

"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked jazz music. Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself." - Donald Miller

source: Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

Miles Davis Quotes

"Philly Joe [Jones] was a bitch. If he'd been a lawyer and white, he would have been president of the United States, because in order to get there you gotta talk fast and carry a lot of bullshit with you; Philly had it all and a lot to spare." - Miles Davis

Miles Davis Quotes

"I remember one time - it might have been a couple times - at the Fillmore East in 1970, I was opening for this sorry-ass cat named Steve Miller. Steve Miller didn't have his shit going for him, so I'm pissed because I got to open for this non-playing motherfucker just because he had one or two sorry-ass records out. So I would come late and he would have to go on first and then we got there we smoked the motherfucking place, everybody dug it." — Miles Davis

'Sopranos' actor supports NY school's jazz program

NEW YORK – Actor Michael Imperioli is in tune with the times — starring in a new thriller set in a foreclosed house and off-screen supporting a school jazz program led by recession-squeezed musical greats.

"To be inspired by the energy and mystique surrounding these older artists fills gaps in young people's relationship to the world," says Imperioli, who gained fame in the HBO mob series "The Sopranos" and now is shooting the Richard Ledes-directed film "Foreclosure" in Queens.

The 44-year-old actor was at Manhattan's Claremont Preparatory School recently for a concert featuring the veteran musicians with the students, including his 11-year-old son, Vadim, on trumpet.

Each week since January, the jazz artists have been showing the kids a thing or two — about music and...

Read More:
http://news.yahoo.com/imperioli_jazz_school

Jeff Beck honors Les Paul with special club gig

NEW YORK (AP) -- Jeff Beck honored his late friend and mentor, Les Paul, with an intimate performance Wednesday night at his favorite haunt, the Iridium Jazz Club.

The legendary Paul played there every Monday night until his death last August, so it was an appropriate place for a celebration on the night he would have turned 95.

The small basement club was packed with an invitation-only crowd that included...

Read More:
http://hosted.ap.org/JEFF_BECK

NYC seeks developer for jazz museum in Harlem

(AP) – May 24, 2010

NEW YORK — New York City is seeking a developer to build a new home for the National Jazz Museum in Harlem at a city-owned lot across the street from the Apollo Theater.

The 10,000-square-foot site also will house the ImageNation Sol Cinema, an art house movie theater.

The city's Economic Development Corp. on Monday issued a request for proposals seeking a developer for the project.

The site was the former home of Mart 125, a market where vendors rented space. The market closed in 2001.

The developer will be responsible for demolishing the existing structure and leasing the rest of the building once it's completed.

Submissions are due July 30.

Sweets Edison Quotes

"New York was a school, it was a lesson .. I had so much fun in New York that when I first went there, I never went to bed. I fell out one night and went to the hospital. I couldn't go to sleep. I was afraid I'd miss something." - Sweets Edison

Sweets Edison Quotes

"That's the one part about that movie, 'The Cotton Club,' that's true. They didn't allow blacks in there. I couldn't even go there to pick up my wife. I had to stand on the corner and wait for her to come out. So I finally got to the point I wouldn't even go down and pick her up. Cause I was having too much fun in Harlem, anyway." - Sweets Edison

Lewis Nash Quotes

"For me, I got two real mentors in my early career, two musicians who took care of me, who were all the time there to respond to all my questions, to show me every thing I wanted to know about this music and life, all problems about travelling, business, being myself and be a real true musician. My two mentors are Sweets Edison and Ray Brown- I was so blessed to have them with me." - Lewis Nash

Ray Brown Quotes

"The amazing thing about Sweets [Edison] was that he exactly spoke the way that he played! He was really unique, the one and only. He was one of the greatest Blues players that I ever heard and played with. Nobody can play like Sweets man, nobody! Most of us, musicians, frequently quote Sweets' phrases in our solos. Like Lester Young, Sweets had a big influence on us musicians, especially when we play some Blues." - Ray Brown

Ella Fitzgerald Quotes

"Nobody else even approaches the trumpet like [Sweets Edison] does: Never too much and always plenty. He's the greatest trumpet player to play along with singers. He exactly knows how to play with you, how to answer you about what you just sang … On top of that, he has some great sense of humor, both as a musician and as a man. Every time I see him, I’m laughing so much. Sweets is impeccable and incomparable." - Ella Fitzgerald

Sweets Edison Quotes

"Billie [Holiday] was a fantastic singer and a beautiful Lady. One of the highlights of my career was when she sang “Lover Man” and asked me to play with her. Can you imagine that? I was certainly the youngest cat in the band. Wow!" - Sweets Edison

Sweets Edison Quotes

"I should have paid him [Count Basie] to be in the band because I was having so much fun. You couldn’t pay for that kind of education." - Sweets Edison

Sweets Edison Quotes

"Oh yes sure (I practice)! Even more than 10 years ago. The older you get, the more difficult you have to keep your level at the top of your game. Trumpet is a very difficult instrument." - Sweets Edison

Sweets Edison Quotes

"You have to have lived the Blues to play the Blues, You have to feel it." - Sweets Edison

Freddie Hubbard Quotes

"A very few musicians passed across all decades. In terms of trumpet playing, Louis Armstrong does it of course but Sweets [Edison] is right up there too. He is unique, in every sense of the term." - Freddie Hubbard

Wynton Marsalis Quotes

"The originality of Sweets [Edison's] sound lay not only in his rhythmic choices, but also in a direct, full tonal quality. So when the [Count] Basie band broke up in 1950, he was well-equipped to strike out on his own and go further in his musical adventures. Still today, he inspires me so much and all my colleagues I assume". - Wynton Marsalis

Dizzy Gillespie Quotes

"Many critics always saw and heard that my style comes from Roy Eldridge, which is true. But for many things, not only how to play the trumpet but the way to choose the notes, how to play them and how to phrase all of them, I took that from Sweets [Edison]. He really brought something new to the trumpet." - Dizzy Gillespie

Clark Terry Quotes

"[Sweets Edison] was one of the greatest stylists in Jazz of all time. And on top of that, when you listen to him, you say 'yes, that's Sweets' and you automatically smile. This is really unique. He changed the way how to play this instrument." - Clark Terry

Frank Wess Quotes

"You hear two notes and you know that's Sweets [Edison]. He was the only one, both as a musician as a man." - Frank Wess

Sweets Edison Quotes

"[Count] Basie was my mentor, my father and brother. He did it so much to me … So every time I got the opportunity to play again with him, I immediately did it. I remember one time, in the 50’s, that I had a gig with my group in a small town in about 200 km in the north of Miami, Florida. Basie played from 2:00 am to 6:00 am! Yes! That was like that in those days! When I finished my gig, I took a car, went down to Miami and played with him for the rest of the night! All the members of the band were so happy to see me there that they gave me all the trumpet solos in the band! I was sitting just near by the great drummer Sonny Payne. Good God that was really something! A great early morning to remember to!" - Sweets Edison

Oscar Peterson Quotes

"Sweets [Edison] can say more with one note than any other Jazz player alive... an approach that stresses simplicity, glorious tone, natural potency and an unmatched affinity. He is a unique stylist in our music." - Oscar Peterson

Miles Davis Quotes

"You can't compete with Sweets' sound and time feel. It's impossible." - Miles Davis (on Sweets Edison)

Sweets Edison Quotes

"[Frank Sinatra] was a fantastic and a marvellous guy, to be around and to work with. He (was so) impressed in fact that he funded music lessons for me to learn to read music. Since this, I regularly accompanied Frank for so many years: every where, in every studio recording sessions, TV shows, movies, concert halls. He was Sensational!" - Sweets Edison

Sweets Edison Quotes

"If you messed with us, you found your hindquarters on the floor at the end of the night. We didn't play around. We swung, and we kept swinging ... you were in a big natural mess if you came up against us." - Sweets Edison

Sweets Edison Quotes

"That was in June 1938 [when he joined Count Basie's band and was given his nickname]. When Lester [Young] loved somebody's in the band, he gave you a nickname like Lady and your first name or your family name. But for me, he found something else: 'Sweetie Pie' and I still don’t know why he gave me this." - Sweets Edison

Sweets Edison Quotes

"I remember listening to a lot of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. They right away made a huge impact on me!" - Sweets Edison

Billie Holiday, “Lady Day: The Master Takes and Singles” (Sony, 2007; tracks recorded 1933-44)

Review:
If you're a fan of Lady Day, you probably already know that these Columbia recordings are weighted almost as heavily as Louis Armstrong's Hot 5s and 7s in the jazz heavy weight arena. Their unique aural beauty is a foregone conclusion.

Coleman Hawkins, “The Bebop Years” (Proper, 2001; tracks recorded 1939-49)

Review:
This is an excellent compilation of Hawkins' work between 1939 and 1949. Most of the selections date from 1943 to 1947 and were recorded for several record labels, including Victor, Bluebird, Okeh, Brunswick, V-Disc, Commodore, Signature, Keynote, Apollo, Savoy, Clef, Regis, Capitol, Aladdin, Joe Davis, and Selmer. Sidemen include Roy Eldridge, Benny Carter, Cootie Williams, Count Basie, Art Tatum, Oscar Pettiford, Teddy Wilson, Dizzy Gillespie, Budd Johnson, Ben Webster, Earl Hines, Don Byas, John Kirby, Jonah Jones, Buck Clayton, Thelonious Monk, Howard McGhee, Milt Jackson, Hank Jones, Harry Carney and Miles Davis. As you would expect with such a wide variety of source material, the sound quality varies a bit. However, it ranges from good to excellent and in most cases is on par (or identical:)) with the best previous CD issues of the same music. The set comes with a 56 page booklet that includes a lengthy essay with analysis of each session, several photographs, and a very thorough discography (you can read the complete essay and discography at Proper's website). The essay is good, though it could have used some editing. Also, the photos look like they were duplicated from printed sources. The most important thing, however, is that the music is consistently excellent. These discs show Hawkins at his absolute best, whether in a small group, big band, or solo. For the price the set is an astounding value!

Tracklist:
Disc: 1
1. Body and Soul
2. Dinah
3. When Day Is Done
4. Smack
5. I Surrender, Dear
6. I Can't Believe That You're in Love With Me
7. Dedication
8. Rocky Comfort
9. One O'Clock Jump
10. 9-20 Special
11. Feedin' the Bean
12. Esquire Bounce
13. My Ideal
14. Voodte
15. How Deep Is the Ocean?
16. Hawkins Barrel House
17. Stumpy
18. Lover, Come Back to Me
19. Blues Changes
20. Crazy Rhythm
21. Get Happy
22. Man I Love

Disc: 2
1. Sweet Lorraine
2. My Ideal
3. I Only Have Eyes for You
4. 'S Wonderful
5. I'm in the Mood for Love
6. "Bean" at the Met
7. Woody 'N You
8. Bu-Dee-Daht
9. Yesterdays
10. Flame Thrower
11. Imagination
12. Night and Day
13. Cattin' at Keynote
14. Disorder at the Border
15. Feeling Zero
16. Rainbow Mist
17. Blue Moon
18. Father Co-Operates
19. Just One More Chance
20. Through for the Night
21. On the Sunny Side of the Street
22. Three Little Words

Disc: 3
1. Battle of the Saxes
2. Louise
3. Pick-Up Boys
4. Porgy
5. Uptown Lullaby
6. Salt Peanuts
7. Make Believe
8. Don't Blame Me
9. Just One of Those Things
10. Hallelujah
11. Stompin' at the Savoy
12. On the Sunny Side of the Street
13. All the Things You Are
14. Every Man for Himself
15. Look Out Jack!
16. Under a Blanket of Blue
17. El Salon de Gutbucket
18. Undecided
19. Recollections
20. Drifting on a Reed
21. Flyin' Hawk
22. On the Bean
23. Hawk's Variations, Pts. 1 & 2

Disc: 4
1. April in Paris
2. Rifftide
3. Stuffy
4. What Is There to Say?
5. Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (And Dream Your Troubles Away)
6. Bean Soup
7. It's the Talk of the Town
8. Say It Isn't So
9. I Can't Get Started
10. Cocktails for Two
11. Sweet Lorraine
12. Nat Meets June
13. How High the Moon
14. Bean-A-Re-Bop
15. Isn't It Romantic?
16. Way You Look Tonight
17. Phantomesque
18. Angel Face
19. Picasso
20. It's Only a Paper Moon
21. Bah-U-Bah

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