Jazz for aficionados

New York-ish  --    When a Jazz and Broadway Ballad singer can get the award for Best R&B Recording, and, on the Capitol Label to boot.   I bet that surprised the heck out of the guys at Capitol.

The votes , so they say, came from her peers, fellow musicians, most of whom would be in NYC and LA(same thing just more to the West).

 Great, but not representative of the music scene of NY “at its best“; certainly not exclusively so.

And exactly what music scene in NY outshines JALC?  As long as Wynton keeps the noise makers at bay, Jazz lives!

Unless, of course, for someone for whom “the best” only existed in the past.

Depend on the subject at hand.   The best computers are the ones being made today.   The best cameras.   The best cars.   All tech.

The Arts, that is a different question.   Just think about it.  All the best was / is, in the past, for all genres in music.

The musical tech is better, the gear is better, the speakers are better, BUT the performers?   Not so much.

Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso,  Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Armstrong, Ellington, Miles, Coltrane, Mingus, Basie and the many many many more.  All long dead.   All still the best at their craft.

Today, we have paint splattered on canvases, Pictures of Soup cans, and non-musical noise makers.   The Emperor and his new outfits are back with us.

 And, to use 1964 Grammy’s as an example?! 1964?! The thick of the civil rights movement and all its implications?!

Look at the list again.  If anything, it shows the need for a movement, not the implications of one ongoing.

Cheers

@alexatpos 

here is another singer that perhaps did not get much attention, aldo she sang with the Duke

I have a CD, "EBONY RHAPSODY The Great Duke Ellington Vocalists".   On it, Joya Sherrill sings "It don't mean a thing" and "I'm beginning to see the light". 
 
Very nice singer.   Apparently, just not having major faults is not enough.  You gotta have that certain 'something'.

The vast majority of Ellington's singers were male.  I read somewhere, that big band members did not like singers.  Took the spotlight away from them I guess.   They must have hated Sarah and Ella.

I see they used a picture of my 'system' on the LUSH LIFE clip.   That's where I do my 'critical' listening.   I need a new needle.

Cheers

Trying to find my favorite Classical Magazine, found this instead. Sign of the times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOHBEaLb4UY


Maskless:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_FX2gnV8NE

Cheers

Nancy Wilson:

Sorry, I overlooked these gems. Fab - u - lous!! In her niche, she is better than anyone who ever was. I have the Cannonball CD. She is also good looking and kept her figure and weight. Another one I lusted over back in the day.

My favorite by her is, "Guess Who I Saw Today". Now that is what I call sophisticated music / Jazz. Well written, you have to listen to the lyrics, you have to have lived a little in order to understand the song, and the bands are always top notch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFbDj5RBouE

In a word, New York. So it’s not a bad word, just a statement of fact. Now, it could be the New York that Hollywood has instilled in us all, but New York nevertheless.

Imagine Etta James or Millie Jackson, doing "Guess who I saw Today". They would have shot the boy in the first verse! Song over.

Excellent Clips. But sad in way. Jazz has lost so much over the years.

Cheers

Btw, Nancy is one of the few I have seen live. At Constitution Hall in D.C., back in the 70s.

**** just a statement of fact. ****

You certainly have your opinions, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. Speaking of songs, I guess that song was wrong; time does NOT heal everything.

I’m done jousting.