Posts Tagged ‘jazz’
“Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can’t explain it”*…
Charlie Parker at Jimbo’s Bop City in the Fillmore, 1950s. Photo: Steve Jackson
Lewis Watts collaborated with the film maker and writer Pepin Silva to tell the story of the Fillmore music scene in the 1940s and 50s. During this era, one square mile of the Fillmore contained more than two dozen nightclubs and music venues, including well-known spots like Jimbo’s Bop City. Its significant place in African-American musical and cultural history led to the Fillmore district being compared to New York’s Harlem. Few people today know of its rich history, which was thoroughly erased during the district’s redevelopment in the 1960s.
Fundraising is in progress to reprint Lewis Watts and Elizabeth Pepin Silva’s 2006 jazz and blues history, Harlem Of The West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era, in an extended form that includes a multimedia website and a traveling museum.
Billie Holiday and Mel Tormé in the Fillmore, 1950s. Photo: Steve Jackson Jr
More images at “Harlem of the West“; more on the fundraising campaign here.
* Bill Evans, on jazz
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As we follow the lead sheet, we might send rhythmic birthday greetings to Charles Mingus; he was born on this date in 1922. Raised in Watts, Mingus came to music in high school, where he picked up the cello, and then the double bass. After a few years of intense study, he became known as a bass prodigy (touring as a very young man with the likes of Louis Armstrong and Lionel Hampton, then Charlie Parker); at the same time, he had begun composing. In 1952 Mingus co-founded Debut Records with Max Roach so that he could control his own recording career. Over the next decade he released thirty albums on his own label and on several others– a pace unmatched in the field (except perhaps by Ellington). He slowed a bit in the 60s, but was by any objective measure remarkably productive. But in the early 70s he was diagnosed with ALS; his once-formidable bass technique declined, until he could no longer play the instrument. He continued composing, however, and supervised a number of recordings before his death. At the time of his death, Mingus was working on an album named after him with Joni Mitchell, which included lyrics added by Mitchell to Mingus compositions, including “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.” The album featured performances by Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and another influential bassist and composer, Jaco Pastorius. Mingus died, at 56, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he had traveled for treatment; his ashes were scattered in the Ganges River.
“Synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have eyes to see”*…
When pilgrims were landing on Plymouth Rock, you could already visit what is now Santa Fe, New Mexico to stay at a hotel, eat at a restaurant and buy Native American silver.
1912 saw the maiden voyage of the Titanic– as well as the birth of vitamins, x-ray crystallography, and MDMA.
More curious coincidence at Reddit’s “What are two events that took place in the same time in history but don’t seem like they would have?”
[via Kottke]
* Carl Jung
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As we peer closely for patterns, we might recall that it was on this date in 1930 that Cab Calloway and His Orchestra recorded their scat-jazz classic, “Minnie the Moocher,” the first jazz record to sell 1 million copies.
The Museum of Talents Past…
Ability to draw easily and well on the blackboard is a power which every teacher of children covets. Such drawing is a language which never fails to hold attention and awaken delighted interest.
From Blackboard Sketching (1908), a book by Massachusetts based artist and teacher Frederik Whitney (1858-1949) on the lost art of blackboard drawing.
Via the fabulous Public Domain Review, which is currently also featuring such glorious arcana as what is probably the first animated film, produced by Emil Cohl, considered the “father of animation” also in 1908 (readers may recall Cohl’s influence, as seen in “Meet the Beetles“)…
email readers click here for video
And also a series of animated GIFs like the one below excerpted by Okkult Motion Pictures from Max Fleischer’s Bubbles, part of his “Out of the Inkwell” series, which also includes The Tantalizing Fly.
Many more treasures at Public Domain Review.
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As we pay retrospective respect, we might improvise some birthday greetings for Thelonious Sphere Monk; he was born on this date in 1917. A jazz pianist and composer, Monk contributed an incisively-improvisational style and a number of beloved compositions to the jazz canon (e.g., “Round Midnight,” Straight, No Chaser”). Indeed, Monk is the second-most recorded jazz composer (after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed over 1,000 songs while Monk wrote about 70). Monk is one of five jazz musicians (so far) to have been featured on the cover of Time (after Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, and Duke Ellington, and before Wynton Marsalis).
“All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.”
Imitation is the sincerest form of…
Canadian/French/Moroccan photographer and performer 2Fik considers himself a stateless person; his work is a self-described “soap opera” of mashed-up cultures, in which he plays all the roles, darting and weaving through questions of identity.
His newest exhibition, “2Fik’s Museum” (through May 18 at The Invisible Dog in Brooklyn), is a collection of photos that feature the artist in re-creations of some of European art history’s best-known works.
[TotH to CH, from whence the photos above]
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As we imagine that we were there, we might send melodious birthday greetings to Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington; he was born on this date in 1899. A composer, pianist, and bandleader, Ellington composed over 1,000 works. And while he created and performed in genres that ranged from blues and gospel to film scores and classical, he is best remembered a titan of jazz (though Ellington himself much preferred the label “American music”). Ellington was recommended by the judges panel for the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1965, but was denied it by the Board. In 1999, after his death, the Pulitzer Board awarded him a special posthumous prize.
In the century since his birth, there has been no greater composer, American or otherwise, than Edward Kennedy Ellington.
– Bob Blumenthal, Boston Globe, April 25, 1999
The Golden Age of Television…
Your correspondent is headed (way) west again– this time to the tundra-like steppes of Mongolia– where it’s so cold that electrons just sit around shivering in copper and photons don’t even try to traverse fiber… Consequently, regular service will be interrupted until on or about February 11. Meantime, a blast from the past…
From 1978, a full hour of cable access staple Efrom Allen’s Underground TV— featuring the Ramones.
[TotH to Pop Loser]
As we wanna be sedated, we might whistle jaunty birthday ditties to Stephane Grappelli; he was born on this date in 1908. In 1934, Grappelli founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France, one of the first all-string jazz bands (and probably the best), with guitarist Django Reinhardt; they disbanded in 1939, as World War overtook the continent. After the war, Grappelli did session work with Jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Peterson, with pop artists like Paul Simon and Pink Floyd, with classical musicians including Andre Previn and Yo Yo Ma, and with Indian classical violinist L. Subramaniam. He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997, and was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.
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