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Back in 1937, Jelly Roll Morton was part owner of a sleazy night club upstairs from a U Street hamburger stand in Washington, D.C. At the time, I was finishing high school and playing gigs around the city as often as they came my way. I was a good, proud, seventeen years old then, and quite naturally very little remained which I did not know about life and music. I used to hang around with
...August 29th, 2015
“Great Encounters” are book excerpts that chronicle famous encounters among twentieth-century cultural icons. In this edition, Horace Silver writes of five different occasions he played with Charlie Parker.
June 26th, 2015
“Great Encounters” are book excerpts that chronicle famous encounters among twentieth-century cultural icons. This edition tells the story of the importance Miles Davis placed on his friendship with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson in 1954, when he was trying to kick his drug addiction.
...May 5th, 2015
“Great Encounters” are book excerpts that chronicle famous encounters among twentieth-century cultural icons. This edition tells the star-crossed story of the 1964 recording session featuring Verve saxophonist Stan Getz and pianist Bill Evans, issued as Stan Getz and Bill Evans.
Excerpted from Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings by Peter Pettinger
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In 1961 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had purchased Verve Records from Norman Granz. Creed Taylor became the new executive director, and made a number of crucial policy decisions, including the sacking of the majority of Verve’s contract artists. One of a handful to survive was Stan Getz, who had been recording for the company since
...January 29th, 2015
“Great Encounters” are book excerpts that chronicle famous encounters among twentieth-century cultural icons
In this excerpt from Fever: The Life and Music of Miss Peggy Lee, author Peter Richmond writes about how singing in front of a boisterous Jack Benny and his entourage in a Palm Springs haunt led to her discovering the power of singing “softly, with feeling.”
...September 23rd, 2014
“Great Encounters” are book excerpts that chronicle famous encounters among twentieth-century cultural icons.
This edition:
When Clark Gable came to the aid of Billie Holiday
Excerpted from Lady Sings the Blues, by Billie Holiday
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One day in Hollywood I went out for a drive with this rich young blonde starlet. She was running around with Billy Daniels, whom I used to work with back at the Hotcha. Billy had loaned her his pretty Cadillac to drive around in. She was taking me to the aquarium, when boom, this brand-new fishtail stopped and we couldn’t start it.
July 31st, 2014
“Great Encounters” are book excerpts that chronicle famous encounters among twentieth-century cultural icons. This edition tells the story of the 1957 meeting of Billie Holiday and Maya Angelou, who at the time was a calypso singer/dancer, living with her son Guy in Los Angeles.
Excerpted from The Heart of a Woman, by Maya Angelou
...May 29th, 2014
“Great Encounters” are book excerpts that chronicle famous encounters among twentieth-century cultural icons. This edition tells the story of the 1925 recording session of Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong
Excerpted from Bessie, by Chris Albertson
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I’ve got the world in a jug;
The stopper’s in my hand.
“Down Hearted Blues”
When Bessie sang those words on her first recording date in 1923, her future looked promising, but by the onset of 1925, there was no longer any doubt — Bessie had “arrived.” She could look back on a year and a half of prominence and prosperity; her billing as “The Greatest and Highest Salaried Race Star in the World” was accurate; dreams of supporting her family had come true;
...April 20th, 2014
Graham Nash tells a story about how bandmate David Crosby reacted to Miles Davis’ cover of Crosby’s song “Guinivere,” which Davis recorded during the Bitches Brew sessions in 1970, and was subsequently released in 1979 on Circle in the Round (also released on The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions).
Excerpted from Graham Nash: Wild Tales, a Rock & Roll Life
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“Lady of the Island”…was a three-track record on an eight-track tape that we got on one take. Me singing and playing guitar, with Crosby sitting right next to me, blending in that beautiful cellolike fugue. We also got a gorgeous take of “Guinevere,”
...March 18th, 2014
Saxophonist Benny Golson describes what was, according to Clifford Brown biographer Nick Catalano, “probably the first meeting between Brown and Fats Navarro.”
Excerpted from Clifford Brown: The Life and Art of the Legendary Jazz Trumpeter, by Nick Catalano
...February 25th, 2014
As told by J.C. Thomas in Coltrane: Chasin’ the Trane
Bill Cosby used to hang out at Birdland in the days when he was known as the young black comic who didn’t tell racial jokes and specialized in comedy sermons such as his hilarious, poignant version of Noah.
When Cosby walked into the club, he’d often joke with manager Johnnie Gary; sometimes the two of them would still be talking when Coltrane arrived. The saxophonist then pulled out peanuts from his pocket, still in their shells, and offered them to both. Then Coltrane would continue on to the dressing room,
...January 28th, 2014
A 1928 story of Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines and Zutty Singleton
As told in Armstrong’s “Goffin Notebooks” memoirs, written in 1943 – 1944 and eventually published in 1947 as Horn of Plenty: The Story of Louis Armstrong, by Robert Goffin
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‘Earl – ‘Zuttie and ‘I – Stayed out of work so long until it was impossible for me to get my ‘Car out of the ‘Shop, ever after it was fixed. ‘Things gotten so ‘Tough with us until 15c (Fifteen cents) looked like $15.00 (Fifteen dollars). But we did not lose our Spirit. And we all kept that good ‘ol Clean Shirt ‘on everyday, and ‘ol ‘Earl Hines kept the Big Fresh ‘Cigar in his ‘mouth ‘everyday. Zuttie and ‘I both ‘admired that.
...December 31st, 2013
Luke Bergvist
Ed Coletti
Arlene Corwin
Steven Dalachinsky
Frank De Canio
Hannah Draper
Victor Enns
Freddington
Anggo Genorga
Bob Hecht
Lawrence J. Klumas
Arya Jenkins
Anisha Johnson
Erren Kelly
Mark Kerstetter
Michael Keshigian
John L. Stanizzi
Michael L. Newell
Aurora Lewis
paul morris
Robert Nisbet
Shan Richardson
Justin Short
Roger Singer
dan smith
John Stupp
Susandale
Phyllis Wax
Alan Yount
