..and, incredibly, she is 75 today!
Happy Birthday, Dame Shirley Bassey!
And on the basis that you can have too much of a good thing, here she is in 1966 singing Leonard Bernstein’s lovely song Somewhere from West Side Story.
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She is what she is….
Posted in Music with tags 75th Birthday, Shirley Bassey on January 8, 2012 by telescoperBackwater Blues
Posted in History, Jazz with tags Backwater Blues, Bessie Smith, Blues, James P. Johnson, Mississippi Flood of 1927 on January 5, 2012 by telescoperAlthough the risk of flooding has abated somewhat in these parts, the various alerts reminded me that I should post this classic piece of music. It’s not only a definitive example of the art of the blues, sung by the incomparable Bessie Smith with James P. Johnson on piano, but also an important piece of American social history, as it documents the Mississippi River flood of 1927, which brought death and devastation to seven southern states, including Tennessee and Arkansas as well as Mississippi. It’s mistitled “Black Water” on the clip – it should be “Backwater”, but whatever its name it’s definitely the Blues.
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Stormy Weather
Posted in Biographical, Jazz with tags Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Pass, Stormy Weather on January 3, 2012 by telescoperThe weather has been inclement since New Year’s Eve, but today it got even worse. Things are even more scary elsewhere in the UK; I heard from friends in Edinburgh that gusts of 102 mph have been recorded at the Royal Observatory, for example. I hope they’ve battened down the hatches. Here in Cardiff its pretty windy too, but the main problem has been heavy rain. There are flood alerts all across South Wales, including on the River Taff very close to my house as I write this. Since I’ve got a few things to do I think I’ll go and take a peek. The last time such a thing happened, the city’s flood defences held but the Taff did break its banks on Pontcanna Fields (which is actually meant to happen, to take the strain off the flood barriers nearer the city). Anyway I’ve got a few things to do so I think I’ll take a walk to the river and see how it looks. If I don’t come back please send a lifeboat.
In the meantime, here’s a piece of music to calm the storms, by the great Ella Fitzgerald accompanied by the equally great Joe Pass on guitar. ..
Well, back from a short trip down the Taff Embankment, here are a few pics of the scene…
The SWALEC Stadium is to the left, water level about 2m above the pitch right now, but protected by the embankment
The trees are usually above the water level, the nursery beyond is about 2m above current water level
I have seen the Taff higher than this, but only once!
White Water with Weeping Willow
The Millennium Stadium is just beyond the Bridge
Wanderlust
Posted in Jazz with tags Coleman Hawkins, Duke Ellington, Humphrey Lyttelton, Jazz on December 29, 2011 by telescoperI saw that someone posted this on Youtube, so couldn’t resist putting it on here. For a long time in the 70s and 80s this was used by Humphrey Lyttelton as the theme tune for his BBC Radio programme The Best of Jazz so it’s full of nostalgia for me as I used to listen to it every Monday night when I was school. Although quite a traditionalist in terms of his own music, Humph played all kinds of Jazz on his programme and in so doing introduced me to a great deal of music that I still love, thirty odd years later. The only problem with using this as his theme tune was that I never got to hear the whole thing all the way through, until I finally got around to buying the LP (which I still have).
This track, Wanderlust, is taken from the album Duke Ellington meets Coleman Hawkins and it features star performers from the Ellington Band of the early sixties, with the great Coleman Hawkins sitting in on tenor saxophone. It’s a fairly basic blues composition, of the type often played at jam sessions like this; Ellington himself doesn’t play a solo, but provides wonderful piano accompaniment throughout. The rest of the rhythm section comprises Aaron Bell (bass) and Sam Woodyard (drums). Soloists in order are: Johnny Hodges (alto sax), typically relaxed; Ray Nance on trumpet; Harry Carney (baritone sax); Lawrence Brown (trombone); and finally a longer contribution by the star of the show, Coleman Hawkins, whose climactic solo is superbly constructed around the simple blues chords, taking it into another dimension entirely, before an ensemble chorus after which Sam Woodyward whips it up in sixths and takes them home. A great record by a bunch of great musicians that manages to be simultaneously very typically Duke Ellington and very typically Coleman Hawkins.
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Posted in Biographical, Music with tags Kathryn Tickell, Northumberland, Northumbrian Smallpipes on December 22, 2011 by telescoperWell the old batteries are very nearly flat and I’ll shortly be heading up North for a Christmas break, after just one more meeting this afternoon about our consolidated grant application which is due in the new year. I can’t help getting a bit sentimental about the land of my birth at this time of year, especially the lovely countryside of Northumberland, so I thought I’d leave you for the holidays with this little clip I found on Youtube which also features the evocative sound of the Northumbrian Smallpipes played by Kathryn Tickell and her band.
Air is blown through the smallpipes using bellows under the arm rather than the mouth. The chanter – that’s the bit you finger to produce the notes – has a completely closed end, combined with the unusually tight fingering style (each note is played by lifting only one finger or opening one key) so that the style of playing is staccato; there are no grace notes in the Northumbrian smallpipes tradition. Their sound is also far quieter than most other bagpipes because the bores on both chanter and drones are very narrow. Anyway, I think it’s a beautiful sound and one that’s redolent with nostalgia, for me.
I don’t think I’ll be blogging while I’m up North, so let me take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy holiday!
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Out to Lunch!
Posted in Jazz with tags Eric Dolphy, Free Jazz, Out to Lunch on December 19, 2011 by telescoperToday’s the day for our infamous annual departmental Christmas Lunch, which last year started at 12.30 and carried on until 3.30 the following morning (at least for me and a few other diehards). I thought I’d mark the occasion this year with an appropriate piece of music featuring one of my favourite jazz artists, saxophonist Eric Dolphy. This is the title track of the pioneering free jazz album Out to Lunch. This album is without doubt one of the high points of 1960s avant-garde jazz, primarily because of Dolphy’s extraordinary playing but also because of the brilliance of the other musicians. It’s a virtuoso performance all round, and it’s especially hard to believe that the superb drummer Tony Williams was only 18 when this track was recorded!
Unfortunately the original track is a bit too long for Youtube so this is in two parts; you’ll have to click through for the second bit.
Anyway, this would definitely be one of my Desert Island Discs and it probably also serves as an accurate musical illustration of the state my brain will be in later today. Enjoy!
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Posted in Jazz with tags Albert Ayler, Bye Bye Blackbird, Jazz on December 16, 2011 by telescoperI’ve posted about Albert Ayler before, but the excuse for posting this remarkable track is that it is preceded by a rare recording of him talking. It dates back to January 1963 and was recorded in Copenhagen; Ayler had relocated to Sweden in 1962 in the hope that he would find a freer artistic environment than was available in the USA at the time. In the spoken segment, he comes across as a very quiet and thoughtful young man and gives little hint of his troubled character, but his life was a constant struggle against depressive illness and critical disdain for his music. Especially moving is the phrase he utters at the end “One day, everything will be as it should be”. Sadly that wasn’t to be the case for him, and in 1970 he took his own life. The track is a standard tune, Bye Bye Blackbird, on which he uses his extraordinary saxophone tone to give voice to some of the pain he obviously couldn’t express in words.
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Posted in Music with tags Jussi Bjorling, O Holy Night on December 15, 2011 by telescoperI’m struggling to get into the festive spirit this year, but this should help. Here’s a Christmas song that even Ebenezer Scrooge himself would find hard to resist. It’s the old carol “O Holy Night” sung in magnificent style (and in Swedish) by the wondrous Swedish tenor, Jussi Björling.
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In the Dark 