Jazz for aficionados

Today's Listen:

Betty Carter & Ray Bryant -- MEET BETTY CARTER AND RAY BRYANT

Ray Bryant Trio: Bryant(p), Wendell Marshall(b), Philly Jo Jones(d).

This CD consists of three different recording dates. !9 tracks in all. 1-4 Carter backed by a large group, these tunes are from her album 'Social Call', 5-11, she is backed by Bryant's group, and on 12-19, Bryant's Trio without Carter.

Recorded in 1955-56. Very young players. Nice photos. They look like they looked in Nica's book.

Very good performances. I liked the tunes by the Trio without Carter the best. Nothing against her, she was great, but Bryant could really do his thing better without the vocals. This player is really steeped in the Blues. Very dynamic player. One of my favorites. Never makes a bad record.

Mostly standards. Very nice 'Moonlight in Vermont', but, as good as she did it, Billie has made that tune hers and hers alone. Good sound quality. Perfect for late night listening.

The liner notes say this is Bryant's first recording. This was sort of like an introduction to the Jazz public. Recorded the same year the 12" LP was introduced.

My first Jazz Album, if memory serves, was Ray Bryant's 'Slow Freight'. Still have the LP, but no CD!!

Recommended.

Cheers

O-10:

I agree about Christmas music. I am not into all these pop / Rock singers, and their "Christmas" albums. I prefer the traditional carols from England, Germany and the U.S.

There are a few secular exceptions to the sacred music. They are Johnny Mathis, Nat Cole and Fiedler/Williams and the Pops.

You can listen to Mathis in Texas, in August, and you will still look outside to see if it is snowing. He can really convey the Christmas season and Spirit.

I have the CD of that clip you sent. His version of 'O Holy Night' is awesome!! Nat Cole is in the same category. Love his 'Tannenbaum' For the fun, sleigh riding, modern stuff I reach for the Boston Pops.

I must confess I have two Jazz 'Christmas' CDs. One by Wynton Marsalis and the other by Oscar Peterson. Both very good for what they are.

Cheers

*******Jessye Norman was too operatic********

Lets just say she was teetering on the fence. :)

******kathleen Battle and Fredrica Von Stade; they made me long for the magabuck system I don't have in order to hear everything, or to have been there in the flesh.******

Mega buck system not required. People have been enjoying this great recorded music since Edison and his player. Sounded great on my Yorx setup! Now being there, I agree! I have since ordered and received, all DVD:

Richard Strauss Gala: New Year's Eve Concert 1992 , also with Battle and von Stade and others. Berlin/Abbado.

New Year's Concert Vienna 1987: Also with Kathleen Battle. Wiener / Karajan

Rossini: IL Barbiere di Siviglia with Battle and others.
MET Opera Orch and Chorus / Weikert

Love her singing. Her beauty has nothing to do with it.

Cheers

Speaking of photos in Nica's book, can you believe Lee Morgan was a giant among giants at that young age. In the compilation "The 100 best tunes of the 50's", he appears as a sideman on: Moanin, Blue Train, The Sermon; plus lead on "I Remember Clifford".

Lee was shot by a jealous woman at Slug's Saloon, a jazz club in New york city's East Village where his band was performing, and bled to death because the ambulance took so long getting there; it seems they were reluctant to go into that neighborhood. Can you imagine an ambulance being reluctant to go into a neighborhood where Nica "The jazz baroness" went in her Bentley and fur coat after midnight; what a contrast.

I checked Ray Bryants "Slow Freight" and it's on my list.

Enjoy the music.

Nica's story is the most fascinating jazz story I've ever encountered and she never wrote a tune or played an instrument; she was even too busy living her story to write about it. Since all I had to go by were the slanderous rumors, I believed them up until now.

Clint Eastwood made some disparaging remarks about her beauty after she had gotten older, and I believe he was truly jealous; with all his fame and fortune, he was nobody in the jazz world compared to Nica.

She was super cool and hip without making any effort what so ever to be that way. I've met people like her, and I wish I could be that way. One such person gave me some sage advice, "Be true to thine self", he told me, in his naturally hip manner; and so he was.

Nica lived for the moment, and her life after she became "The Jazz Baroness" was one continues set. She told one of her nieces to meet her at a club: "How will I recognize the club"?

"Look for the car" was Nica's response. The niece instantly recognized the club, it was the the one with the badly parked Bentley in front, that had two winos lolling around on the leather seats. "They keep anyone from stealing the car", she was told after finding Nica. This was in a tiny basement club, where Nica was the only white person in the joint.

"Smoking a cigarette in a long black filter, her fur coat draped over the back of a spindly chair, Nica gestured to an empty seat, and picking up a teapot from the table, poured something into two chipped china cups. We toasted each other silently. I'd been expecting tea. Whisky bit into my throat; I choked and my eyes watered. Nica threw back her head and laughed."

"Thanks", I croaked. She put her finger to her lips, and nodding at the pianist on stage, said "Sssh, just listen to the music Hannah, just listen", as she swayed to the sounds.

After that soaks in, you can begin to percieve Nica; no wonder "Nica's Dream" is my favorite tune.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDrxzKYdwsA

Enjoy the music.