Shark Jazz and Blues

  On 1 October 1965, Horace Silver along with trumpeter Woody Shaw and tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson recorded, “Cape Verdean Blues.” It is a great song, one of Silver’s best. But one of my favorite recordings of it is from 2010 when the SFJazz Collective recorded it in front of a live audience. As the song progresses, you can sense the musicians interacting with one another and feeding off the energy of the crowd. It kicks off an hour of mostly live jazz on today’s show. Enjoy jazz as it was supposed to be heard: live.  In addition to the SFJazz Collective, we will take a listen to Thelonious Monk playing live in Japan in 1963, Duke Ellington recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, and Ella Fitzgerald recorded in 1957 at Newport. I have to admit any time I hear “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” invariably I am reminded of the film, Bringing Up Baby . In one of the most evocative tracks this week, we hear Illinois Jacquet, Nat “King” Cole, Les Paul, and J.J. John...

On today’s show we celebrate the birthday of saxophonist John Coltrane this coming Friday (23 September), who is one of the most interesting and influential figures in jazz.  Born in Hamlet NC, he moved to Philadelphia shortly after graduating from high school to study music. He served in the Navy during World War II, and his music career would run from 1946 until 1967, when he died of liver cancer at the age of 40. He was so prolific, and participated in so many recording sessions, that in recent years materials continued to be found and released. He was a deeply religious man, as well. After his death, Coltrane was venerated in the African Orthodox Church. We also have a tribute to Ramsey Lewis who died on 12 September at the age of 87. We listen to a couple of tracks, including the title track, from the album that reached number one on the R&B charts in 1965, The “In” Crowd, and made Lewis a household name. During the third segment today, we celebrate the first week of H...

  The death of Queen Elizabeth II last week reminded me of one of the great stories of jazz involving the great Duke Ellington. After meeting the Queen on a trip to Britain in 1958, during which they charmed each other, Ellington returned to the United States and thought about a way to express his gratitude to the young monarch. He began writing songs inspired by his trip and by nature. In 1959, he got his band together and began recording music at his own expense. Once the composition, entitled The Queen’s Suite , was complete he had a single gold record made and sent it to Elizabeth II with his compliments. During his lifetime the music was neither heard nor released to anyone else. It was only two years after Ellington’s death in 1974 that the music was released to the public. Today we listen to a couple selections from that recording. We have been a little heavy on the jazz side the last few weeks, so we are focusing on the blues in our second segment today. As we move into S...

  On September 10, 1956, the Miles Davis Quintet, along with John Coltrane, recorded the Thelonious Monk tune, “’Round Midnight.” It would be the first of Miles’s great quintets, Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor sax), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (double bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums). The song would be the first track on an outstanding album, Round About Midnight , which released in 1957. On today’s show we have a listen to music where the other members of the quintet are leader. Later this semester we will have a retrospective of Philadelphia’s own, Philly Joe Jones. We also honor a couple of legends’ birthdays during our second segment: Horace Silver (2 September 1928, Norwalk CT), Sonny Rollins (7 September 1929, New York City), and Elvin Jones (9 September 1927), playing drums on Coltrane’s “A Few of My Favorite Things.” On last week’s show we heard a couple of important black female singers from the 1950s who influenced Elvis Presley. Today, a curren...

  The duo played an evening concert at Main Street Park in Waynesboro.