Tag: Jazz
Jazz Soundtrack for a Busy Highway!!
November 11, 2015 Soundtrack a Random Mix of Jazz from My iPod!
So this morning on the drive to Paulsboro, I decided that the soundtrack would be a random mix of jazz from my iPod. Typically, when I get done I write down the tracks that I listened to so that I can post them later on a post like this, duh!! Anyway, when I got to Andrew’s to babysit Oliver, I didn’t get to write down the songs before I gave the iPod to Oliver to carry around. Hey, it’s less breakable than the iPhone! By the time I looked at the iPod again the random list was gone.
Bosch and Art Pepper Perfect Together!
Watching Bosch leads to the Music of Art Pepper
Last night my wife and I finished watching the first season of Bosch on Amazon Prime. The series is based on the books of Michael Connelly featuring LA Detective Harry Bosch. If you haven’t seen it do, because it’s really, really good. I have not read many of the Harry Bosch books, but what I have read I have enjoyed, and there are three of them on my TBR shelves! Michael Connelly is the executive producer of the show and I’m sure he has a lot of say over the way Harry is portrayed, which makes the series that much better!
Wajdi Cherif – Jazz Pianist
Wajdi Cherif – Tunisian Born Jazz Pianist – Born May 20, 1975
So May 20th is a holiday in several nations including, Cambodia, East Timor and Cameroon. It was also the birthday of a Tunisian jazz piano player, Wajdi Cherif!! Knowing nothing about his music, other than that he played piano, I went to Spotify and listened to his 2009 release Fuzzy Colours and I didn’t have to listen long to become intrigued by and enjoy his music. Returning to All About Jazz, I discovered that at five years of age Wajdi was learning to play tunes he heard on the radio in his homeland of Tunisia on his little piano. Wajdi never lost his love for music and along his life’s journey, he earned his BA in English Literature, but more importantly he discovered jazz!! At the American cultural center in Tunis, he watched live performance videos of pianists Chick Corea, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans. He soon decided to make jazz music his career, and set out exploring it on his own. He made his professional debut in 1998. In 2003, he released his first album Phrygian Istikhbar in Paris. Accompanying Wajdi on the album were Diego Imbert on acoustic bass, Jeff Boudreau on drums and Habib Samandi on Arabic percussion. The album went on to become a finalist in the Indie Acoustic Awards in the USA in 2004!! From All About Jazz:
Ambrose Akinmusire – a glistening trumpeter emerges!
Ambrose Akinmusire – Trumpet – May 1, 1982
Ambrose Akinmusire (ah-kin-MOO-sir-ee) was born on May 1st, 1982 in Oakland California. His latest release The Imagined Savior is Far Easier to Paint has been in my listening rotation and I have enjoyed it! This was not my first meeting with Mr. Akinmusire, winner of the 2007 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition, two of the most prestigious jazz competitions in the world. No, I first listened to his trumpet back in August of last year when I spent A Night of Exploration – Contemporary Jazz Trumpeters! Since then I have listened to his second album on Blue Note records,When the Heart Emerges Glistening and I like it more and more with each listen. The New Yorker calls Ambrose: “a thrilling young trumpeter and astute bandleader [with a] unique spark in his playing”
Exploring Birthdays on October 14th leads to Jazz Guitarist Garrison Fewell and Blues Artist Chris Thomas King!
Over the last several years that I have written this blog, I have used the lists of birthdays that I have found at several sites as a source to find new music. What I do is read down the lists, find names of musicians that I don’t know then go to Spotify listen and if I like the music I go and read more about the artist, then I write about them. Here is a post I wrote last year on October 14th, when I discovered Garrison Fewell, and Chris Thomas King…….
Exploring the Jazz Piano of Jaki Byard – One Two Five…..
So yesterday I had some office work to do, typing the soil logs for the test pits that were excavated on Thursday. Since I need to 
stay focused while I complete the logs, the soundtrack for the morning became jazz. There are two jazz albums on the iPhone that I’ve been listening to over the last few weeks, so they became the soundtrack! The first was an album titled One, Two Five from Jaki Byard and the second Why? from former rock drummer Ginger Baker.
That PI Day in Music 3.14.34 – “The Queen of the Organ” – Shirley Scott was born!!
So the other morning, after I woke up from the crash that was a result of having had virtually no sleep the night before, as we waited for the birth of grandson,Oliver, I was looking at the jazz birthdays. Now if you remember, the night before I had posted about saxophonist Jeff Hackworth, and how his sax sounds like Stanley Turrentine and how like Stanley, Jeff often plays in an organ trio setting and how I thought that was neat because Stanley had played so often with Jimmy Smith. Well what the un-jazz educated Edward didn’t know was that in the 1960s Stanley Turrentine was married to and recorded a series of albums with jazz-organist Shirley Scott! (They divorced in 1969) From AllMusic:
This Day in Music – January 30, 1930 – Wes’ baby brother – Buddy Montgomery was born!
On this day in 1930, Charles “Buddy” Montgomery, the youngest of the Montgomery Brothers was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. Buddy was nine years younger than Monk, the oldest of the three musical brothers and seven years younger than Wes, the most famous of th brothers. Buddy played both piano and vibes, but is primarily known for playing vibes. His career started in 1948 and in 1949 he played with Big Joe Turner followed by a stint with Slide Hampton. In 1957, after serving several years in the Army, he joined older brother Monk, Richie Crabtree (piano) and Benny Barth (drums) in the Mastersounds over the next several years they produced ten recordings.
