Jazz for aficionados
Today's Surprise!! World Saxophone Quartet -- DANCES AND BALLARDS Amazing!! I could not believe how much I enjoyed this. Every track a winner. This is supposed to be Avant-Garde / Free Jazz. This is the best example of that genre I have ever heard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ60abjwCPQ WSQ, another group I have 'Grown into'. Purchased several albums / CDs by WSQ based on positive reviews in "Stereo Review". They, SR, never steered me wrong. Sooner or Later, they were always proved right!! Cheers |
Kleiber was voted Best Conductor ever, by one classical magazine. I don't remember if the vote was by the Editorial staff or the readers. I guess you could say he had a 'flowing' style. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfbLpijCN3M Cheers |
We have discussed almost every genre of music and type of musician there is except one; that's a jazz musician who became primarily a classical musician. Wynton Marsalis doesn't quite fit that bill because he's still primarily a jazz musician. Andre Previn is the only musician who fits. In the mid-to-late 1950s, and more recently, Previn toured and recorded as a jazz pianist. In the 1950s, mainly recording for Contemporary Records, he worked with J.J. Johnson, Shelly Manne, Leroy Vinnegar, Benny Carter, and others. An album he recorded with Manne and Vinnegar of songs from My Fair Lady was a best-seller (see My Fair Lady (Shelly Manne album)). As a solo jazz pianist, Previn largely devoted himself to interpreting the works of major songwriters such as Jerome Kern (recorded in 1959), Frederick Loewe, Vernon Duke (recorded in 1958), and Harold Arlen (recorded in 1960). Previn made two albums with Dinah Shore as arranger, conductor, and accompanist in 1960, and another, "Duet", with Doris Day in 1961. He made appearances on The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford as well as The Dinah Shore Chevy Show. He collaborated with Julie Andrews on a collection of Christmas carols in 1966, focusing on rarely heard carols. This popular album has been reissued many times over the years and is now available on CD. His main influences as a jazz pianist include Art Tatum, Hank Jones, Oscar Peterson, and Horace Silver. Previn's more recent work also shows the influence of Bill Evans. Previn has recorded solo classical piano compositions by Mozart, Gershwin, Poulenc, Shostakovich, an album for RCA with violinist Erick Friedman of the Franck and Debussy violin sonatas, and many chamber works for piano. In 1967, Previn succeeded John Barbirolli as music director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. In 1968, he began his tenure as principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra , serving in that post until 1979. During his tenure, he and the appeared on the BBC Television programme André Previn's Music Night. From 1976 to 1984, he was music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and, in turn, had another television series with the entitled Previn and the Pittsburgh. He was also principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from 1985 to 1988. "Like Young" is my favorite by Previn, and I'll present two versions; a purely instrumental and a vocal. The vocal gives the time away by the language; it was "beatnik", they're the old hippys before the new hippys, "can you dig it". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZKzTMr1M5E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCZxvAG5wHg Enjoy the music. |
