duaneiac

Wow , I am sorry to hear that. There had been reports that he was in poor health and he had retired from performing a few years ago. He certainly had his own style, like it or not (and even though I generally do like his music, there were times when he went a bit extreme even for me), and what more can you ask for? I only saw him perform once, as part of the Stanford Jazz Festival several years ago. After intermission, I'd guess almost half the audience had disappeared, so he wasn't a singer to every one's taste. At his best, his style was singular and really quite amazing. RIP Mr. Murphy.

Recently posted to YouTube, a documentary about the annual jazz parties hosted by Dick & Maddie Gibson. A number of jazz legends are seen performing including Phil Woods, Zoot Sims, Joe Venuti, Clark Terry, Bob Wilber, Ruby Braff, Ralph Sutton, Milt Hinton, Tommy Flanagan, Sir Roland Hanna and Eubie Blake among others.

I saw the Wayne Shorter Quartet there tonight, BFrank. They are obviously a very cohesive group playing challenging music with much sincerity and commitment, and I'm glad to have seen them perform, but I must admit the music did not always connect with me. It was the first concert I'd seen in the Miner Auditorium. A very nice venue, indeed, with very good acoustics. Even the cheap seats in the balcony are good. I will be back there next week to see the SF JAZZ Collective's concert featuring the music of Michael Jackson.

Not a boxed set, but the Deep Discount website is having a sale on Wounded Bird titles, many starting as low as $3.99. Some of the jazz artists included are Dave Pike, Clifford Jordan, Herb Ellis, MJQ, Ira Sullivan, Ramsey Lewis, Chico Freeman. They also will take an additional 15% off until noon on 10/15/15 if you use the codeword "mummy". https://www.deepdiscount.com/search?q=wounded+bird&mod=LA

Well, if not Los Lobos, perhaps they can settle for the singular and just induct Lobo. "Me And You And A Dog Named Boo" -- what's not to love? And if not The Smiths, perhaps Huey "Piano" Smith. "Don't You Just Know It"!

Even though I stopped following baseball after "The Year Without A World Series", I still have this CD and recommend it to any baseball fan.

Have a Very Happy Birthday, MG!!

I'll toss this one into the discussion. Don Randi is perhaps best known as part of the group of L.A. studio musicians called "The Wrecking Crew" who backed scores of pop & rock musicians on records made in the 1960's, but he started out as a jazz musician with some classical training. The 2 albums combined on this Fresh Sound CD are from 1960 and 1962. In the liner notes to the latter album, Mr. Randi said as a developing musician he listened to Horace Silver "more than anybody else", Red Garland, Freddie Redd, Andre Previn, Russ Freeman. I can certainly hear some influence of the first 2 musicians in his playing on these albums.

OMG, that's a shocker. He pretty much managed to play right to the end then, as it turned out, retirement or no. He certainly did things his way and he and his music will be long remembered. May he Rest In Peace.

Where did this album fall in Mr. Garner's time with Columbia Records? Wasn't he still fairly new with the label (although certainly not new to recording)? Jimmy Lyons mentions that he had already recorded the Music For Tired Lovers album with Woody Herman. Some one (George Avakian?) must have gone to the trouble of pursuing Mr. Garner & Ms. Glaser and convincing them to join the Columbia roster of artists, so one would suppose they all had some idea what they hoped to gain from this collaboration. Perhaps a "live" album was an idea at the time, but why then not make a legitimately produced "live" album? Mr. Garner at the time of this recording was appearing at the Black Hawk in San Francisco, so Columbia could have easily brought their equipment into that club and made an Erroll Garner In San Francisco! album, for example -- but they didn't. Instead they relied upon this material which just kind of fell in their laps because Will Thornbury decided to and received permission to record this performance at some unheard of venue in little Carmel. Granted, when they heard these tapes, they must have realized this was a really good performance even if the audio quality was less than pristine. And perhaps they would not have captured a similar performance if they had brought a truckload of recording equipment into the Black Hawk -- perhaps Mr. Garner would have played differently if he knew Columbia was spending a bunch of money recording him there and then. I don't know. It just seems odd that Columbia Records -- the Tiffany's and Rolls Royce combined of record companies -- would rely on this semi-pro recording to produce an album for one of their major jazz artists.

Not to get off tops, but to address your original point, I would argue that many of the traditional standards are no longer known by broad audiences. The people who know "All the Things You Are" and "Body and Soul" are dead or dying. The songs are still considered standards among jazz musicians. I think there is still an audience for the "classic" standards. One need only look at the millions of CDs Rod Stewart managed to sell "singing" that material. At least going back to the 1970's when Ringo Starr and Harry Nilsson each recorded albums of standards, rock stars have been recording this material. Linda Ronstadt had a period of success recording/performing it in the 1980s. Paul McCartney, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Boz Scaggs, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, Willie Nelson, Crystal Gayle, Ronnie Milsap, Merle Haggard, -- these are just a few of many post rock and roll era performers who have recorded albums of "classic" standards. So the songs must still have meaning both to the singers who choose to perform them and the audiences who choose to buy these out-of-the-ordinary CDs by their favorite performers. It's quite likely that a broad audience is not overly familiar with the repertoire of "classic" standards, but I'm sure many people today would still be able to recognize the melody of say "My Funny Valentine" or "Over The Rainbow" or "September Song" even if they could not identify those songs by title.

An interesting article/review here: http://www.jazzhistoryonline.com/Concert_By_The_Sea.html

Van Morrison, on a good night, is probably the best performer on earth right now. I've seen him a few times and have never witnessed one of his"bad" nights that one hears about. He is a versatile performer, able to handle rock, blues, jazz, country, folk music and handle them all with his personal style. The way he reinterprets his own body of work is just as impressive as the way Bob Dylan keeps reworking his classics. And Van Morrison definitely "works" during a concert. There are no backup dancers or costume changes or fabulous light shows. All the energy and drama emanates from him and on his best nights, it can be a soul enriching experience. Sounds like you caught him on a very good night!

Each year, the SFJAZZ Collective explores the music of a selected composer for their concert performances. Previous years have seen them focus on Horace Silver, Chick Corea, Joe Henderson, John Coltrane, etc. This year it is Michael Jackson. I never realized he wrote (or at least took a writer's credit) on so many of his tunes. I think there is a lot of snobbery in the jazz world (at least among some fans, if not the musicians) regarding pop music nowadays. "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper is a perfectly good tune, yet how many people rolled their eyes when Miles Davis recorded it -- not necessarily because of his performance of the tune, but simply because it was a Cyndi Lauper tune? (Another very good ballad which should be picked up by some jazz musician is "Take A Bow" by Madonna and Babyface.) Certainly some of Elton John's songs have become standards ("Your Song", "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word"). Maybe Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" might be well enough known to be a standard.

Actually, it's on Saturday this year -- in fact, avast, it be today, arrrrrrrrr!

I wonder if he had told any one else -- particularly the musicians performing with him that night -- that this would be his final performance? I'm guessing he didn't because surely it would have leaked out on some one's Twitter account beforehand if he had. Imagine the emotions that must have been going thorough him, knowing that his was his last time at bat, so to speak, and knowing that he was the only one who knew it. I wonder, when was his last performance with his regular group? As prolifically as he recorded, I'm sure there must still be several albums worth of material in the vaults that will be released in the coming years. I wish Mr. Woods well and hope he has the means and security to do what he wishes in his retirement years.

An article this week in the San Jose Mercury News touched on this release as well as Geri Allen's performance at MJF this weekend commemorating the original performance by Erroll Garner: On Sept. 19, 1955, Lyons brought pianist Erroll Garner and his trio to Carmel's Sunset Auditorium for a concert that was captured by a recording engineer for Armed Forces Radio. Quickly released by Columbia as "Concert by the Sea," the album was a huge hit, establishing Garner as one of the most popular pianists in jazz. The Monterey Jazz Festival celebrates the 60th anniversary of that fateful performance on Friday with "The Erroll Garner Project: Concert by the Sea," a project spearheaded by pianist Geri Allen. A brilliant and probing improviser, Allen decided to explore Garner's music and legacy with a multigenerational cast, including pianists Jason Moran and Christian Sands, guitarist Russell Malone, bassist Darek Oles and 86-year-old drum legend Jimmy Cobb. Read the full piece at: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_28831372/monterey-jazz-fest:-remembering-a-watershed-concert

I believe he also hated some of the albums that were in the studio sessions box set. He was wrong as they are all great. I'm still optimistic that we will get the complete live box. Well, some are a good bit greater than others. But I agree, no real dogs in that box. And doubt there would be in a live box either. I have Jackpot on vinyl, but it has been years since I listened to it. I think Mr. Brubeck's complaint there was the piano was out of tune. I think the story was that the casino in which the album was recorded had taken a perfectly good piano and slapped a coat of white paint on it to make it look all ritzy and fancy-schmancy like. It apparently also ruined the sound of the instrument. I don't know why a major record label like Columbia and a major recording artist like Mr. Brubeck would have agreed to record on such an instrument unless some Vito & Luigi guys made them an offer they couldn't refuse. I have never heard the Paris album. I think Mr. Brubeck's dislike for that album were more personal than musical. It was made during the classic quartet's final tour. Mr. Brubeck had already announced he would be ending the quartet so he could pursue other musical interests. This apparently caused some tension within the group. Musically, the album may be good (I honestly don't know), but it reflected a period of time he did not like to recall, so he declined to have it reissued.

I would not hold my breath waiting for a complete "live" set of the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Word was that Mr. Brubeck strongly disliked the albums Jackpot and The Last Time We Saw Paris and refused to have them reissued on CD during his lifetime. Assuming that one or more of his offspring are now in charge of his musical legacy, I would fully expect that they would honor their father's desires not to have those two albums in particular reissued legitimately.