Posted in Jazz Notes, Videos on May 28th, 2008
Duke Ellington’s 1941 musical Jump for Joy was a cultural milestone, an assertive, satirical riposte to the servile depictions of African-Americans in both film and the theater, and a forerunner of later extended Ellington works such as Black, Brown and Beige. Though the show ran only in Los Angeles and never made Broadway, Ellington cited it as one of his proudest achievements, and in his lifetime it occasionally resurfaced in one way or another (Cannonball Adderley’s…
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Posted in Shows on May 26th, 2008
John Coltrane and pianist Red Garland, who both worked in Eddie Cleanhead Vinson’s late-1940s group, began playing together again in 1955 as part of Miles Davis’ quintet. Davis sought Garland out for his relaxed, block-chord style and his ability to impart an Ahmad Jamal-like sound; Coltrane, nearly 30 years old, was at a troubled juncture in his personal and professional life, still dogged by a drug addiction that would force Davis…
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Posted in WFIU Jazz Shows & Specials on May 24th, 2008
In part 2 of American Popular Song and World War II we’ll hear music from Louis Jordan (”You Can’t Get That No More”), Kitty Kallen with Jimmy Dorsey (”They’re Either Too Young or Too Old”), Sam Donahue’s Navy band (”Convoy”), a rare recording of Bing Crosby with Glenn Miller’s…
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Posted in WFIU Jazz Shows & Specials on May 24th, 2008
In honor of the holiday weekend, we’re posting both parts of last year’s “American Popular Song and World War II” Afterglow program, featuring special guest Michael McGerr, author, cultural historian, and Indiana University professor. We’ll hear some of the martial-spirited songs from the early months of America’s entry into the war (”Remember Pearl Harbor” and “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition”), as well as pre-war songs about the draft, songs about…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on May 22nd, 2008
Pianist Billy Taylor’s website has posted audio of a half-hour set at Boston’s Storyville club in 1951, featuring Charles Mingus on bass and Marquis Foster on drums, with Nat Hentoff doing between-song stage announcements. The sound is crystal-clear by 1951 radio-broadcast standards, with…
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Posted in Jazz Notes on May 22nd, 2008
The new Grand Theft Auto IV game has been rocking the country (not to mention the television airwaves–I’ve seen the ad countless times in the past couple of weeks), racking up millions of sales and even more millions of dollars. The commercial features a standard, pulsing rock-hiphop soundtrack sample, but Downbeat notes that the new edition has a jazz component as well, in the form of legendary…
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Posted in Books, Jazz Notes on May 20th, 2008
Brian Morton, co-author (along with the late Richard Cook) of numerous editions of the Penguin Guide to Jazz, will be publishing a biography of multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy in June 2009. Dolphy died from diabetic complications at the age of 36 in Berlin in 1964; as well as being an invaluable part of groups led by Chico Hamilton, John Coltrane…
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Posted in Shows on May 19th, 2008
In the early 1950s musicians Roy Harte and Harry Babasin, eager to document the ascending West Coast jazz scene, started a Los Angeles label called Nocturne Records. Babasin and Harte said they wanted to “broaden the nation’s views of our activities out here in Hollywood…
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