Johannes in retroland

Archive for the ‘platenhoezen’ Category

The most famous and probably greatest jazz baritonist of all time, Gerry Mulligan was a giant. A flexible soloist who was always ready to jam with anyone from Dixielanders to the most advanced boppers, Mulligan brought a somewhat revolutionary light sound to his potentially awkward and brutal horn and played with the speed and dexterity of an altoist.

Among Mulligan’s compositions were “Walkin’ Shoes,” “Line for Lyons,” “Bark for Barksdale,” “Nights at the Turntable,” “Utter Chaos,” “Soft Shoe,” “Bernie’s Tune,” “Blueport,” “Song for Strayhom,” “Song for an Ufinished Woman” and “I Never Was a Young Man” (which he often sang). He recorded extensively through the years for such labels as Prestige, Pacific Jazz, Capitol, Vogue, EmArcy, Columbia, Verve, Milestone, United Artists, Philips, Limelight, A&M, CTI, Chiaroscuro, Who’s Who, DRG, Concord and GRP.

Bron: gerrymulligan.info

Celebrated jazz singer Lena Horne began her career at the Cotton Club in Harlem when she was only 16 years old. Her first show there headlined Cab Calloway and his band and kicked off an illustrious career that included associations with such legendary figures as Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Harry Belafonte and earned her a place among the great performers of jazz. In 1981, her electrifying one-woman show on Broadway, “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music,” was honored with a special Tony Award.

Bron: kenyada.com/lena.htm

On June 7, 1943, Frank Sinatra began his career as a singing star at Columbia Records. Over the course of the next ten years the singer and the label would make musical history together: Sinatra would establish himself as the greatest popular singer of all time, and Columbia would help create a priceless legacy of the breakthrough recordings of a 20th-century legend.

Bron: sinatraarchive.com

Pianist Sonny Clark enjoyed only a short career as a performing and recording musician. His premature death at age 31 due to drug abuse was a major blow to the Jazz fraternity, but unfortunately incidents like these were not uncommon among Jazz musicians of the 40s 50s and 60s. Sonny Clark’s style as a pianist owed much to Bud Powell and for the duration of his career he has maintained a bop-inspired sound which was much in demand in New York in the mid 50s.

Bron: thejazzfiles.com

From his emergence in the 1950s—when an uncannily beautiful young man from Oklahoma appeared on the West Coast to become, seemingly overnight, the prince of “cool” jazz—until his violent, drug-related death in Amsterdam in 1988, Chet Baker lived a life that has become an American myth. Now, drawing on hundreds of interviews and previously untapped sources, James Gavin gives a hair-raising account of the trumpeter’s dark journey.

Bron: chetbaker.net

He was born Arthur Blakey, 11 October 1919, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Blakey was a pianist first; the move to drums has been variously attributed to Erroll Garner appearing on the scene, the regular drummer being off sick and (Blakey’s favourite) a gangster’s unarguable directive. Whatever, Art Blakey drummed for Mary Lou Williams on her New York debut in 1942, Fletcher Henderson’s mighty swing orchestra (1943-4) and the legendary Billy Eckstine band that included Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davisand Thelonious Monk (1944-7).

Bron: duke.edu

She wasn’t called “The Singing Rage” for nothing. And 57 years after the “raging” began in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on a little known radio show on which she was the featured singer, Patti Page remains an icon, a beloved singer who changed the face of pop music and the way it was recorded. Her accomplishments in music and television remain unparalleled even today.

Bron: misspattipage.com