Everyone's photos, videos and docs, with the keywords: "Musicians"

Jam Session with Jazz Giants

nobody@ipernity.com (Kicha) — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 18:08:58 +0000

Kicha has posted:

Helen Oakley, in the light dress, then working for Irving Mills, organized this 1937 jam session at the Brunswick Recording Studio in New York to help launch the Master and Variety record labels. Chick Webb, Artie Shaw, and Duke Ellington all volunteered their time. Milt Gabler kneels behind Ellington; Oakley's British-born future husband, the jazz historian Stanley Dance, stands against the far wall. Jazz: A History of America's Music; by Geoffrey C Ward and Ken Burns

Members of the Billy Eckstine Band

nobody@ipernity.com (Kicha) — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 13:16:27 +0000

Kicha has posted:

On stage in Pittsburgh in 1944: Lucky Thompson, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Eckstine himself.

Source: "Jazz: A History of America's Music" by Geoffrey C Ward and Ken Burns

Dolphy and Coltrane

nobody@ipernity.com (Kicha) — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 13:10:13 +0000

Kicha has posted:

A 1961 set with Eric Dolphy far left and John Coltrane, now playing soprano sax, and bassist Reginald Workman reflected in a mirror at the Village Gate Jazz Club in Greenwich Village, New York.

Source: Jazz: A History of America's Music; by Geoffrey C Ward and Ken Burns

Soulful Voices Can Never Be Silenced

nobody@ipernity.com (Kicha) — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 13:08:51 +0000

Kicha has posted:

A 1966 photo shows Otis Redding along with his band mates, 'The Bar-Kays.' Lone survivor of the plane crash (Ben Cauley) stands in the back to the far left of Redding. Photographer unknown. [Bio: 'History of Rock]

Born in Dawson, Georgia. When Otis was five the family moved to the Tindal Heights Housing Project in Macon, Georgia. Otis Sr., worked at the Robins Air Force Base, one of the local places of employment for blacks, and preached on the weekends. Redding began singing in the choir of the Vineville Baptist Church. For much of his childhood his father was sick. Living for awhile in a shotgun house in west Macon known as Bellevue the family was forced to move back into the project after it burnt down.

Dropping out of Ballad Hudson High School in the tenth grade, Otis Jr., went on to work with Little Richard's former band, the Upsetters, and he'd send home $25 a week. Gladys Williams, a prominent local musician ran Sunday night talent shows that Otis began to compete in. After winning 15 times straight, he was no longer allowed to compete.

In 1959, Otis sang at the Grand Duke Club. In 1960 he began touring the South with Johnny Jenkins and The Pinetoppers. With this group he made his first recording in 1960 as Otis and The Shooters.

In 1962, Redding recorded a song he had written,"These Arms of Mine" at a Johnny Jenkins session at Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee. The song became a major R&B hit and a minor pop hit in early 1961 on the newly form Volt subsidiary of Stax, to which he was quickly signed. Now recording in Memphis with the Stax house band Booker T. and The MGs, Redding had a number of crossover hits for Volt that included "That's What My Heart Needs," "Pain In My Heart," and "Chained and Bound." His first moderate hit was "Mr. Pitiful" in early 1965. Redding toured regularly through 1967, accompanied by Booker T. and The MGs or The Bar-Kays, developing a greater initial following in Europe than in the U.S.

In the spring of 1965, Redding broke into the pop market with "I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)," co-written with Jerry Butler, and his "Respect." His Otis Blue album included two hits, Sam Cooke's "Shake" and "A Change is Gonna Come" and The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" which became a crossover hit. Redding's "I Can't Turn You Lose/"Just One More Day" became a Top 10 two-sided R&B hit at the end of 1965. His Dictionary of Soul album yielded crossover hits "My Lover's Prayer," Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)," and "Try a Little Tenderness."

In 1967 Arthur Conley had a Top 10 hit with the Conley-Redding "Sweet Soul Music" and Aretha Franklin had a Top 10 Pop and R&B hit with Redding's "Respect." Redding recorded King and Queen with Carla Thomas and the album yielded R&B and Pop hits "Tramp" and "Knock On Wood."

Appearing as the only soul act at The Monterey International Pop Festival gained Redding widespread recognition and began establishing him with pop audiences.

However, while touring, Redding, his manager, the pilot, and four members of his backup band, The Bar-Kays, were killed when his chartered plane crashed into Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin, on December 10, 1967. The two remaining Bar-Kays were Ben Cauley and James Alexander. Cauley was the only person aboard Redding's plane to survive the crash. Alexander was on another plane, since there were eight members in Redding's party and the chartered plane could only hold seven, and it was Alexander's turn in the rotation to take a commercial flight. Cauley reported that he had been asleep until just seconds before impact, and recalled that upon waking he saw bandmate Phalon Jones look out a window and say, "Oh, no!" Cauley said the last thing he remembered before the crash was unbuckling his seatbelt. He then found himself in the frigid waters of the lake, grasping a seat cushion to keep afloat.

Redding's body was recovered the next day when the lake bed was searched. The cause of the crash was never precisely determined.

In early 1968, Redding's recording of "(Sittin' On ) The Dock of the Bay," co-written with Steve Cropper, became a top pop and R&B hit. Posthumously hits continued in to 1969 with "The Happy Song (Dum Dum)," "Amen," "I've Got Dreams to Remember," "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," and "Love Man." Otis Redding was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.

Lone survivor of that fatal crash, Ben Cauley had struggled with health issues for years, including a stroke in 1989, but he persevered and continued to play his trumpet. He died at the age of 67, on September 21, 2015.

Sidney Bechet and the Jazz Kings

nobody@ipernity.com (Kicha) — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 13:05:30 +0000

Kicha has posted:

Bechet is on the far right.

Who was the New Orleans jazz pioneer who did most to make this music a unique art form? When this question is asked, the name of Louis Armstrong invariably comes to mind, and rightly so.

But there is another jazz musician whose name deserves to be coupled with Armstrong as the greatest of the New Orleans Jazz players. His name is Sidney Bechet.

Bechet was born in New Orleans in May 1897, just three years before his compatriot, Louis Armstrong. Although the two grew up in the same city, their home environments were worlds apart.

Armstrong grew up in dire poverty, living alternately with his mother and a succession of "stepfathers" and his grandmother, and spending time in a reform school.

Sidney Bechet, who was of Creole ancestry, grew up in a middle class environment. His father, Omar, who was a shoemaker, played the flute as a hobby. Indeed, music had an important role in the Bechet household, as Sidney's four brothers also played instruments.

His brother, Leonard, played the clarinet and trombone, and it was to the former instrument that eight-year-old Sidney was attracted. Leonard, whose main interest was the trombone, passed along his clarinet to his younger brother.

At first, Sidney played in the family musicals - waltzes, quadrilles, the polite music of the middle class. But as he grew into adolescence, Sidney was attracted to the syncopated music played in the dance halls and brothels in the Storyville District of New Orleans.

As a boy, he would watch the street parades in which jazz bands played. Young Sidney was so attracted to the music, that he often played hooky from school. And as he became more proficient on the clarinet, Sidney played in local jazz bands, such as the Young Olympians. His playing so impressed Bunk Johnson, the legendary cornet player, that Sidney was invited to join Johnson's band, the Eagle Band. Sidney gained much experience, playing in dance halls, and for picnics, and parties.

Bechet left New Orleans for the first time when he was 19, traveling to Chicago with pianist, Clarence Williams and his variety show. Bechet's big break came in 1919 when the composer-conductor Will Marion Cook asked him to join his Southern Syncopated Orchestra for an engagement in London.

Here Bechet came to the attention of the noted Swiss Conductor, Ernst Ansermet, who conducted the music of Stravinsky for the Ballets Russa. Ansermet wrote in a Swiss musical Journal, "The extraordinary clarinet virtuoso Bechet is an artist of genius!"

Sidney Bechet eventually became even better known as a virtuoso of the soprano saxophone. He first tried to play on a beat-up old soprano sax he purchased in a pawn shop. Such was the difficulty of the soprano sax, an instrument extremely difficult to play in tune, that Bechet gave up and obtained his money back from the pawnbroker.

A year latter in London, Bechet purchased a brand new instrument and tried again. This time he was successful and succeeded in making the soprano saxophone an important voice in jazz.

Bechet played both the clarinet and soprano saxophone with a broad vibrato, a characteristic that gave passion and intensity to his playing.

Much of Sidney Bechet's subsequent career was spent abroad. In 1925 he played in Claude Hopkin's band, which was accompanying a revue starring Josephine Baker. Bechet also played in bands led by Noble Sissle in London and Paris, and later, in the United States. Some of the numbers performed and recorded by Bechet with Nobel Sissle are Loveless Love, Polka Dot Rag, and Dear Old Southland.

In 1932, Bechet and his friend, trumpet player Tommy Ladnier, formed their own band, the New Orleans Feetwarmers. When engagements for the Feetwarmers became scarce, Ladnier and Bechet opened a dry cleaning shop in Harlem. Bechet became quite adept at pressing and altering clothes.

Sidney Bechet's association with Brooklyn began in 1945 when he moved into a house at 160 Quincy Street. To augment the unstable income of a jazz musician, Bechet began teaching music. The adolescent that became his star pupil and disciple was Bob Wilber, then still in high school. Bechet taught Wilber the rudiments of both the clarinet and soprano saxophone. When he finished high school, Wilber moved into the Quincy Street house with Bechet so that he could have longer and more frequent lessons. Today, Bob Wilber is a leading exponent of the soprano sax and clarinet, and with his own group, the Bechet Legacy, he plays in the Bechet tradition.

Much of the latter part of his life, Bechet spent in France. Many of his compositions are inspired by his love for that country. They include Petite Fleur, Rue des Champs Elysees, and Si tous vois ma mere. Other Bechet compositions include Chant in the Night, Blues in the Air, Bechet's Fantasy, and his ode to his Brooklyn home, Quincy Street Stomp.

Sidney Bechet died in Paris, May 14, 1959.

Bio and Photo: Jazz: A History of America's Music" by Geoffrey C Ward and Ken Burns

The Dizzy Gillespie All-Stars

nobody@ipernity.com (Kicha) — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 05:00:16 +0000

Kicha has posted:

Photographed here on May 16, 1945 at New York's Town Hall (photographer unknown). Gillespie listens as Charlie Parker solos. Harold 'Doc' West is on drums. Slam Stewart plays bass. Al Haig (not visible here) played piano that evening and Curley Russell, not Stewart, was on the bass for most of the concert.

Source: Jazz: A History of America's Music; by Geoffrey C Ward and Ken Burns

Buddy Bolden and his Orchestra

nobody@ipernity.com (Kicha) — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 05:04:26 +0000

Kicha has posted:

This is the only known photograph of Buddy Bolden and his Orchestra, taken in 1905. Standing left to right: William Warner, Willie Cornish, Buddy Bolden, and James Johnson; seated are Frank Lewis and Jefferson Mumford. (photographer unknown)

The person most often credited with inventing jazz is cornettist, Buddy Bolden (1877-1931). Since his career was over before the first jazz recording was made, all we have left of his playing career is legend.

Bolden was famous for his big bold cornet sound, as well as for his bold personality. His style had a solid blues form; however he played closer to ragtime than to jazz.

Legend has it that he was so popular that he had eight bands playing on the same night and he’d rush from one to the others. The Bolden Band(s) were playing ragtime with improvised embellishments by the late 1890s. His band featured cornet, clarinet, trombone, guitar, bass and drums. Its repertoire included a mix of popular dance numbers played in both ragtime and blues. By the turn of the century, many New Orlean’s bands had begun playing in the collective improvisational style pioneered by Buddy Bolden. One of those groups was the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the group which made the first ever jazz recording.

In 1906, Buddy began suffering periods of derangement. The following year he was committed to a mental hospital outside of New Orleans after an outburst in the streets which involved him attacking his mother and his mother-in-law. Bolden remained in that mental hospital for 24 years until his death.

While Buddy’s musical life was short, the impact he would have on music was not. According to Louis Armstrong, “He was just a one-man genius that was ahead of them all … too good for his time.”

Source: neworleans.com

The King & Carter Jazzing Orchestra

nobody@ipernity.com (Kicha) — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 05:05:39 +0000

Kicha has posted:

A 1921 photograph of the Houston based band. Robert Runyon, Photographer. [Robert Runyon Photograph Collection]

Texas Monthly
Jan. 4, 2016
by John Nova Lomax

Uncovering the mystery of The King & Carter Jazzing Orchestra. After years of trying to find out about the subject of the above photo clues emerge in an unlikely place.

Eight years ago, back when I was music editor of the Houston Press, I came across this picture of the King & Carter Jazzing Orchestra of Houston. It was some of the earliest proof of the existence of jazz in the Bayou City (or certainly the earliest photo of local practitioners I had seen), and just a dang cool picture all around. I was intrigued. What did that band sound like, with a bowed upright bass, a violin, trumpet, trombone, and drums? Who were those men under that amazing variety of boss period hats?

I Googled “King & Carter Jazzing Orchestra” and came up with nothing. I posted the photo on the Press music blog asking for more information, and I struck out again. Despite the fact that the picture itself was all over the Internet, apparently all details about the musicians had been lost to history.

All I knew was that one of them was likely named King, another was likely named Carter, that they were from Houston, that the photo was dated 1921, and that the snapshot had been taken (or belonged to) a man named Robert Runyon.

The photo would resurface during my Internet perusing every now and then, but any further digging left me empty handed. And though I still don’t know much more about the band, these phantoms of early Texas jazz did get a bit of a posthumous career boost from an unlikely and prominent source two years ago, one I just found about recently.

In “Spaghetti and Coffee,” episode two of the third season of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, a traveling jazz band by the name of King & Carter provides much of the backdrop to the episode’s plot, which revolves around African-American gangster (and Elgin, Texas native) Chalky White’s relationship with his young daughter Maybelle.

A saintly young medical student by the name of Samuel Crawford wants to marry Maybelle and wins Chalky’s permission. The trouble is, Maybelle—a hell-raising “flapper girl”—chafes at this more or less arranged marriage. She wants to write poetry about the dark side of life and finds the young man a dullard—someone not, as she puts it, as “interesting” as her father.

When Maybelle walks in on her brother, a classically trained pianist, playing Debussy, she demands to know if he is also keeping up with the times by playing jazz. “And you do that King & Carter number, don’t you?” she asks.

Her brother adopts the voice of the older generation: “Maybelle Anne, jazz is the devil’s music,” he says. “And no self-respecting Negro would go near it.” The two break into peals of laughter, mocking their elders. Spoilers follow, so I won’t go too much more into the plot, but much of it revolves around the role of jazz in delineating the generation gap in 1920s America, and for one brief, fictionalized moment, the King & Carter Jazzing Orchestra of Houston, Texas were posited as the apex of cool for bright, hip young African Americans on the East Coast.

That sent my fingers back to the keyboard for a fresh round of Googling and news archive searches, which revealed an extremely early use of the word “jazz” in Texas reportage. Lifting a piece from the Dallas Times-Herald in 1906, the Bryan Eagle reported: “We knew something was missing from the late primaries. Pat O’Keefe didn’t dance a jig over the results. Pat has gone the way of the vanquished in Dallas county [sic]. He was a spectacular figure and danced everywhere the bands were playing the jazz of political victory.” (The prominent Dallas Democrat was widely known for honoring his Irish ancestry with jig-dancing at political conventions, and went on doing so until 1932. It made national headlines when O’Keefe’s doctor told the 84-year-old to put away his dancing shoes.)

I also found King & Carter amid this alternately fascinating and hilarious collection of photos of early jazz bands, both obscure (if wonderfully named, as in the Scrap Iron Jazzerinos, the Eau Claire Normal Band, and the Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band) and famous (Armstrong, Ellington, King Oliver). But new information on King & Carter continued to elude me until I came across the Bronsbil Estacion blog, a site dedicated to the lore of Brownsville.

Here is the entry: The King Carter and Jazzing Orchestra is an early jazz band from Houston that may have been in Brownsville when Robert Runyon took this photograph. Their jazz ensemble includes a trombone, trumpet, drums, violin and bass.

If Brownsville Herald archives were searched for January 1921 (this photo is dated as that) might confirm it but I don’t think those years are available. These players were coming up around the same time as Louie Armstrong but there isn’t much info on them online so far.

The post also links to an mp3 of “Shine on You Harvest Moon” purportedly by King & Carter. Sad to report, that attribution is incorrect. On YouTube, that version is revealed to have been recorded in 1927 for New York’s Brunswick label by Carter’s Orchestra, a nine-piece (likely all-white) group featuring the vocals of one Eddy Thomas.

Few, if any, commercial recordings were being made in Texas as early as 1921. If King & Carter ever went in a studio anywhere, it seems that the 78s, just like the identities of the musicians, are lost.

But why did Bronsbil Estaction tentatively place the band in Brownsville? Well, that’s where the photographer Robert Runyon, who chronicled all aspects of Valley and northeastern Mexican life (including the ravages of revolution), captured history with his camera from 1910 to 1926. (He would later serve a term as Brownsville’s mayor and write two books on South Texas botany; his heirs donated more than 8,000 of his pictures to UT’s Dolph Briscoe Center in 1986.)

It seems highly unlikely that Runyon would have traveled to Houston or anywhere else to snap this posed indoor photo when he had his own studio at his disposal there at the tip of Texas. It also seems fairly certain that King & Carter must have toured some—otherwise, why would they have needed to rep “Houston, Tex.” on their big bass drum?

But why would they go to Brownsville? First, jazz was the rock and roll or hip-hop of its day. It was not a niche music, so jazz bands were in demand everywhere people wanted to dance. It’s also possible that the photo was taken in Matamoros, or that the band posed on their way there. Free of Jim Crow, Juarez was long a city where white audiences could enjoy black music, and it could be that Matamoros was another of these havens where white men and women could see black bands without risking a police raid.

In any event, Brownsville was booming in 1921, well on its why to quadrupling the 1900 population. At the peak of the land rush, as many as 200 migrants a day disembarked at the train station, dreaming of owning orange orchards in the winterless Rio Grande Valley. And there was booze—lots of it. Thanks to smugglers, liquor flowed almost as freely in Prohibition Brownsville as it did across the river in Matamoros, where prostitution flourished in Boy’s Town.

In other words, Brownsville/Matamoros was a lot like Nucky Thompson’s Atlantic City, the place where the ghosts in the King & Carter Jazzing Orchestra would grab ahold of their second fifteen minutes of fame.

At New York's Royal Roost

nobody@ipernity.com (Kicha) — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 05:10:44 +0000

Kicha has posted:

In 1948, a young Miles Davis, second from left, in the fastest possible company. Charlie Parker, Allen Eager, and Kai Winding.

Jazz: A History of America's Music; by Geoffrey C Ward and Ken Burns

McLean's Rhythm Boys

nobody@ipernity.com (Kicha) — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 04:46:28 +0000

Kicha has posted:

Connie McLean recorded something of a landmark blues song in 1936, titled "Sissy Man Blues," which had the lines "Lord, if you can't bring me no woman, bring me a sissy man." Blues songs had always been filled with sexual themes, but this was probably the first "out of the closet" blues song. There were four recorded versions but it was written and first sung by blues man, Kokomo Arnold, with his rendition being recorded in January of 1935. Versions by Josh White (then recording under the name Pinewood Tom) and George Noble also were released that year. Connie McLean's Rhythm Boys released their version in 1936.

McLean's Rhythm Boys 'Sissy Man Blues'
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lckRmBxEZlI

James Van Der Zee, Photographer

HBM!

nobody@ipernity.com (Eva Lewitus) — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 17:13:19 +0000

Eva Lewitus has posted:

Mértola, Musicians with traditional instruments, see video to listen.

nobody@ipernity.com (Xata) — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 09:56:51 +0000

Xata has posted:

VIDEO LIVE HERE (PREVIOUS POST) WHERE YOU WILL ALSO HAVE THE FULL INFO ABOUT THE INSTRUMENTS:

Mértola, Musicians

++++++

For Sunday Challenge, see other members contributions there: www.ipernity.com/group/daysincolour365

SC126: Black and White in Square Format

Argyle Street

nobody@ipernity.com (Joe, Son of the Rock) — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 15:21:35 +0000

Joe, Son of the Rock has posted:

Glasgow

"The Best Bad Influence"

nobody@ipernity.com (Joe, Son of the Rock) — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 13:30:41 +0000

Joe, Son of the Rock has posted:

Buchanan, Street, Glasgow

Skiffle Group

nobody@ipernity.com (Joe, Son of the Rock) — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 16:31:47 +0000

Joe, Son of the Rock has posted:

St Enoch Centre, Glasgow

Musicians

nobody@ipernity.com (Joe, Son of the Rock) — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 19:20:47 +0000

Joe, Son of the Rock has posted:

Buchanan Street, Glasgow

Tickling The Ivories

nobody@ipernity.com (HaarFager) — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 12:26:35 +0000

HaarFager has posted:

This was me playing the piano back in 2013. It's not mine, however. It belonged to some place in St. Louis near to where the Cardinal's new baseball stadium is. Taken on January 4th, 2013.

HMB from Toledo in 1974

nobody@ipernity.com (Eva Lewitus) — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 14:07:58 +0000

Eva Lewitus has posted:

Happy Man

nobody@ipernity.com (Dida From Augsburg) — Sat, 25 Sep 2021 09:54:30 +0000

Dida From Augsburg has posted:

➽ Happy ♫ ♪ ♪ ♫ ♩ ♬

Happy P❁lka Saturday... (◕‿-) + PiPs

nobody@ipernity.com (Dida From Augsburg) — Sat, 20 Mar 2021 06:15:48 +0000

Dida From Augsburg has posted:

...oder, wenn der kleine Hunger kommt! ❁ ❁ ...or, when the little hunger comes!

❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁❁

➽ Ein Lied für Poly! ♫ ♪ ♪ ♫ ♩ ♬