Rock Evolution – The History of Rock ’n’ Roll - Pop pre-1960 (pg 38)

[BimboBob]

I've just listened to "St. Louis Blues". What a fantastic tune. I'm familiar with the name and the main section but it was just one of those songs where I'd never connected the two in my head. This is a real ededucation.

A pleasure.

I'm getting immense pleasure from both firing up my Dad's old vinyl/ likes and playing other people's choices.

At the back of my big bad book of vinyl is a "might need that album if I find it" page. It's been peppered with albums from this thread. Luckily I'm in Chichester this weekend, home to four record shops, two of which have a fair bit of jazz in them.

Tally ho!!

 

[Bill Walker]

Ok...lets face it...can't discuss the golden era of the Jazz greats, without mentioning ....heroin...Why did so many feel the need...Chet, Bird, Miles, 'trane...in fact pretty much all of Miles 'kind of Blue' combo...Was it pressure of gigging? did it inspire creativily...'No Junk, No soul?...

The deeply creative and innovative mind seeks peace, joy, and further creativity.

Most of us that have jobs, don't have any pressure to create great art.
Just do your job.

 

[OB1]

I enjoyed the jazz playlist. Again, preferred the later stuff to earlier but a good listen from start to finish.

I don’t know a right lot about jazz although I have a decent number of “Jazz Rock” albums, but that’s very much post-60’s.

I do own “Kind of Blue” but it’s not had many airings.

It’s a form of music I am usually happy to listen to but don’t seek out. Went to a Jazz club in NYC once because people we were with (at a conference my wife was attending) were going and that was very good. I do enjoy seeing musicians who can really play their instruments.

 

[Saddleworth2]

What a fantastic playlist Jazz has been. I can see myself going back to it repeatedly. Favourite has to be So What. Although I own Kind of Blue, its an album that never stops giving and is as fresh today as when I first listened.

I am a big fan of female vocalists and I'm sure there is room on the playlist for Sarah Vaughn, Billie Halliday and Nina Simone. I will look out a track or three in the next day or so and add them unless someone beats me to it. I never took to Cleo Lane's work as not a great fan of scat singing.

This thread is turning out even richer than I dared hope.

 

[Saddleworth2]

This track is especially for Rob as he doesn't much care for vocalists ;-)
Its the music that counts.
The devine Sarah Vaughan - September Song.

 

[RobMCFC]

This track is especially for Rob as he doesn't much care for vocalists ;-)
Its the music that counts.
The devine Sarah Vaughan - September Song.

I do like a lot of vocalists, others not so much.

I’ve never listened to a song and appreciated just the vocals - I’m always more interested in the arrangement and what the individual instruments are doing and this song is no different. Nothing wrong with her voice, but it’s the trumpet solo that grabbed my interest here.

 

[Saddleworth2]

I do like a lot of vocalists, others not so much.

I’ve never listened to a song and appreciated just the vocals - I’m always more interested in the arrangement and what the individual instruments are doing and this song is no different. Nothing wrong with her voice, but it’s the trumpet solo that grabbed my interest here.

people are so different in what they like in music - thats what makes this thread so interesting. Honestly, what did you make of her voice?
She is classed amongst the greatest three female jazz vocalists. - Ella, Billie and Sarah. Love them all + Nina Simone is wonderful too, both as a vocalist and musician.

 

[threespires]

This track is especially for Rob as he doesn't much care for vocalists ;-)
Its the music that counts.
The devine Sarah Vaughan - September Song.

Could easily fill a playlists full of these wonderful standards. Strange Fruit, God Bless The Child, Someone to Watch Over Me, What A Wonderful World, The Very Thought of You, Let's Do it the list just goes on and one covering the whole spectrum of human experience and emotion.

I do like a lot of vocalists, others not so much.

I’ve never listened to a song and appreciated just the vocals - I’m always more interested in the arrangement and what the individual instruments are doing and this song is no different. Nothing wrong with her voice, but it’s the trumpet solo that grabbed my interest here.

It's a cliché, but the way I look at it the voice is the greatest instrument of all, it's certainly the most complex and the most expressive IMO. I was going to be deliberately fatuous and say the 'correct' instrument order is Voice, Bass (acoustic & electric), Single Reeds, Hollow-Bodied Guitars and then everything else after them, but instrument wars is for another thread!! More seriously, I do agree that most of the great vocal performances are in the context of great arrangements and accompanists

 

[RobMCFC]

people are so different in what they like in music - thats what makes this thread so interesting. Honestly, what did you make of her voice?
She is classed amongst the greatest three female jazz vocalists. - Ella, Billie and Sarah. Love them all + Nina Simone is wonderful too, both as a vocalist and musician.

It’s OK. It doesn’t stop me in my tracks in a way that makes me think it’s better than 100 other singers. That’s not putting her voice down, or your love of it, it’s just not a thing that grabs my attention as much as the sound of a guitar or a Hammond B-3 or a mandolin.

 

[threespires]

What a fantastic playlist Jazz has been. I can see myself going back to it repeatedly. Favourite has to be So What. Although I own Kind of Blue, its an album that never stops giving and is as fresh today as when I first listened.

I am a big fan of female vocalists and I'm sure there is room on the playlist for Sarah Vaughn, Billie Halliday and Nina Simone. I will look out a track or three in the next day or so and add them unless someone beats me to it. I never took to Cleo Lane's work as not a great fan of scat singing.

This thread is turning out even richer than I dared hope.

I don't know if it was a TV impressionist or someone who cemented the vision of Laine scatting away in the public mind but I think it does her a disservice. I was thinking about this when @mancity111 mentioned her and her hubby, though we have never produced anyone quite as iconic as the four you mention, Laine is the best of British in many ways and was very versatile and worked on her craft throughout her career.

I'm sure I read somewhere that Ella Fitzgerald had a soft spot for her which seems a pretty good reference to me. I was going to suggest her version of Stormy Weather precisely because it's very 'unshowy' and laid back compared to more iconic versions. Quite different I think to the way lots of people think of her.