Podcasts about duke ellington orchestra

This week on The Sound Kitchen you'll hear the answer to the question about the French wine crisis. There's “The Listener's Corner” with Paul Myers, Erwan Rome's “Music from Erwan”, and the new quiz and bonus questions too, so click the “Play” button above and enjoy!  Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday – here on our website, or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll hear the winners' names announced and the week's quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you've grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so be sure and listen every week.Erwan and I are busy cooking up special shows with your music requests, so get them in! Send your music requests to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr Tell us why you like the piece of music, too – it makes it more interesting for us all!Facebook: Be sure to send your photos to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr for the RFI English Listeners Forum banner!More tech news: Did you know we have a YouTube channel? Just go to YouTube and write “RFI English” in the search bar, and there we are! Be sure to subscribe to see all our videos.Would you like to learn French? RFI is here to help you!Our website “Le Français facile avec RFI” has news broadcasts in slow, simple French, as well as bilingual radio dramas (with real actors!) and exercises to practice what you have heard.Go to our website and get started! At the top of the page, click on “Test level”. According to your score, you'll be counselled to the best-suited activities for your level.Do not give up! As Lidwien van Dixhoorn, the head of “Le Français facile” service told me: “Bathe your ears in the sound of the language, and eventually, you'll get it.” She should know – Lidwien is Dutch and came to France hardly able to say “bonjour” and now she heads this key RFI department – so stick with it!Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!In addition to the news articles on our site, with in-depth analysis of current affairs in France and across the globe, we have several podcasts that will leave you hungry for more.There's Spotlight on France, Spotlight on Africa, The International Report, and of course, The Sound Kitchen. We also have an award-winning bilingual series – an old-time radio show, with actors (!) to help you learn French, called Les voisins du 12 bis. Remember, podcasts are radio, too! As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service. Please keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our journalists. You never know what we'll surprise you with!To listen to our podcasts from your PC, go to our website; you'll see “Podcasts” at the top of the page. You can either listen directly or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone.To listen to our podcasts from your mobile phone, slide through the tabs just under the lead article (the first tab is “Headline News”) until you see “Podcasts”, and choose your show. Teachers take note! I save postcards and stamps from all over the world to send to you for your students. If you would like stamps and postcards for your students, just write and let me know. The address is english.service@rfi.fr  If you would like to donate stamps and postcards, feel free! Our address is listed below. Another idea for your students: Br. Gerald Muller, my beloved music teacher from St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, has been writing books for young adults in his retirement – and they are free! There is a volume of biographies of painters and musicians called Gentle Giants, and an excellent biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., too. They are also a good way to help you improve your English - that's how I worked on my French, reading books that were meant for young readers – and I guarantee you, it's a good method for improving your language skills. To get Br. Gerald's free books, click here.Independent RFI English Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department in your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) when you write to her so that I know what is going on, too. N.B.: You do not need to send her your quiz answers! Email overload!We have new RFI Listeners Club members, Jocelyne D'Errico, a Frenchwoman who lives in New Zealand, and Alexander Konak from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.Welcome Jocelyne, welcome Alexander!  So glad you have joined us!You too can be a member of the RFI Listeners Club – just write to me at english.service@rfi.fr and tell me you want to join, and I'll send you a membership number. It's that easy. When you win a Sound Kitchen quiz as an RFI Listeners Club member, you'll receive a premium prize.This week's quiz: On 29 March, I asked you a question about RFI English journalist Jan van der Made's article “France's wine industry is in crisis. Can this Nigerian consultant save it?”Not only are people drinking less wine – sales are down and so are exports – but there are the 200 percent tariffs threatened by US President Donald Trump. But Chinedu Rita Rosa, whom Jan profiled in his article, thinks she has the solution.You were to send in the answer to this question: What is Chinedu Rita Rosa's solution for the troubled French wine industry?The answer is, as Rosa told Jan: “It's time to find alternatives to the US and China, in countries such as Brazil, India and Africa ... French wine producers should have a deep understanding of the culture and tastes of new markets and adjust their products and marketing strategies accordingly. ‘You have to meet people, learn about their tastes, and adapt accordingly.'”In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, suggested by Sadman Shihab Shahorier, the co-chairman of the Source of Knowledge Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh: “What is your most vivid childhood memory?” Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to us! The winners are: RFI English listener Tasmaul Akhter Nazma, the general secretary of the Sonali Badhan Female Listeners Club in Bogura, Bangladesh. Tasmaul is also this week's bonus question winner. Congratulations, Tasmaul, on your double win!Also on the list of lucky winners this week are Ferhat Bezazel, the president of the RFI Butterflies Club Ain Kechera in West Skikda, Algeria, and Abiha Fatima, a member of the RFI Online Visitors Club in Sahiwal, Pakistan. There's Naved Raiyan, the president of the RFI Fan Club in West Bengal, India, and last but not least, RFI English Listener Mampi Paul, also from West Bengal.Congratulations, winners!Here's the music you heard on this week's programme: “Wildlife of Tanzania” by Wuji; “Paris Cafe Ambience”; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children's Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “Mount Harissa” from the Far East Suite by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, performed by the Duke Ellington Orchestra.  Do you have a music request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.frThis week's question ... you must listen to the show to participate. After you've listened to the show, re-read our article “What happens now after the death of Pope Francis?”, which will help you with the answer.You have until 19 May to enter this week's quiz; the winners will be announced on the 24 May podcast. When you enter, be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.Send your answers to:english.service@rfi.frorSusan OwensbyRFI – The Sound Kitchen80, rue Camille Desmoulins92130 Issy-les-MoulineauxFranceClick here to learn how to win a special Sound Kitchen prize.Click here to find out how you can become a member of the RFI Listeners Club, or form your own official RFI Club.   

A look at the years Mercer Ellington led the Duke Ellington Orchestra (1974 to 1996). Continue reading →

The Trombone Corner Podcast is brought to you by Bob Reeves Brass and The Brass Ark.  Join hosts Noah and John as they interview Ed Neumeister, commercial and jazz trombonist from Oakland, California. About Ed: As a trombonist, composer-arranger and bandleader, Ed Neumeister is a musician's musician. Saxophone star Joe Lovano has valued Neumeister as a colleague for some four decades, praising him as a conductor of “infectious flair” as well as “a soloist of deep expressive passion.” Another renowned saxophonist, Dave Leibman, simply dubbed him “one of the best trombonists in the business.” Neumeister has five decades of experience on both sides of the Atlantic as an artist and an educator. Raised in the Bay Area, he was professional musician by his mid-teens. He backed such iconic vocal stars as Frank Sinatra and Sarah Vaughan there, performed in various symphony orchestras, and collaborated with Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia as well as such jazz notables as Jerry Granelli. Moving to New York City in 1980, Neumeister worked in the Duke Ellington Orchestra as both player and arranger for 15 years; he was simultaneously playing in the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, earning a Grammy nomination in 1992 for his arrangement of “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.” In 2000, Neumeister moved to Austria to serve as a professor for 17 years at the University of Music in Graz. He wrote for various jazz bands while in Europe and performed extensively, along with composing classical chamber pieces and largescale concert works. Following a stint scoring films in Los Angeles, Neumeister returned to the New York area where he has been active as an educator, currently teaching at the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music at The New School, New York University and City College of New York, as well as William Paterson University in New Jersey. As a leader, Neumeister has recorded nine albums, ranging from large ensembles to small groups to solo trombone. He has released many of them via his own label, MeisteroMusic, including his latest: 3 for the Road, presenting his trio with vocalist Jay Clayton and the late pianist Fritz Pauer. The current version of that trio includes Gary Versace on piano. Another Neumeister gem is Suite Ellington, an album showcasing his arrangements for an all-star sextet of works by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn; recorded in 2010 for Austrian Radio, Suite Ellington was hailed by Jazz Weekly as “a great tribute and intro to the world of Ellingtonia.” Neumeister's new working small band is a New York quartet featuring the trombonist alongside Versace, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Rainey. 

Pianist Mulgrew Miller, born August 13, 1955, toured with the Duke Ellington Orchestra for three years right out of college, later accompanying singer Betty Carter, then three year stints with trumpeter Woody Shaw followed by Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. He was already recording with his own groups when he joined drummer Tony Williams in quintet and trio settings, he also served as director of jazz studies at William Paterson college up unto his tragic death of a stroke at age 57. His playing never lost its roots as a church pianist, but he also incorporated the pyrotechnic technical influences of Oscar Peterson and the harmonic language of McCoy Tyner.

This episode of The Other Side of the Bell, featuring commercial trumpeter and vocalist, Ravi Best, is brought to you by Bob Reeves Brass. You can also watch this interview on Youtube.   About Ravi:   Ravi Best is a New York City based jazz and commercial trumpet player who has performed domestically and internationally for two decades. Most recently, he has been performing, recording, and touring with Kool & The Gang, Blood, Sweat and Tears, The Duke Ellington Orchestra, and Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul, where he had the chance to perform with Sir Paul McCartney, and Bruce Springsteen. He has performed with several Jazz, Rock, and R&B artists such as Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Lenny Kravitz, Queen Latifah, Annie Lennox, Robert Cray, ani difranco, Michael Buble, Clark Terry, Tony Bennett, and Herbie Hancock.  He has played in several Broadway shows such as The Heart of Rock and Roll, Merrily We Roll Along, Hell's Kitchen, Diana, The Color Purple, Chicago, 42nd St., Sweet Charity, Annie, and several others.  He has made several TV appearances playing in the house band on SNL, Jesus Christ Superstar Live, Jimmy Kimmel Live( Kool and The Gang), Good Morning America(Boyz II Men), The Today Show(Little Big Town), The Late Show(Rufus Wainwright), and The Sherri Show. Ravi was also featured in the Chris Colombus film The Christmas Chronicles.  He can also be heard on many recordings such as, Kenny Garrett's Pushing The World Away, Little  Steven and The Disciples of Soul's Soulfire Live, and Summer of Sorcery, David Byrne & St. Vincent's Love This Giant, David Murray Octet's Octet Plays Trane, Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy's The Odyssey of Funk & Popular Music, Sam River's Rivbea Orchestra's Culmination, Ani DiFranco's Evlolve, So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter, and Mya's Moodring, The Broadway cast recordings of Jesus Christ Superstar Live In Concert, Heart of Rock and Roll, Diana, Ain't Too Proud, 42nd Street, and Baby It's You.

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Bill Gibson began playing music at the age of seven. He found his passion for music when his father Ed Gibson, an architect by trade but a jazz drummer in his own right, began taking him to see such greats as The Count Basie Orchestra, The Duke Ellington Orchestra, and The Buddy Rich Big Band. Inspired by big band jazz and rock & roll styles, Bill got his first drum kit at age fourteen, and began playing drums with local bands the following year. He soon became the drummer for Sound Hole and played his first tour in 1974 backing up Van Morrison. Bill is a founding member of Huey Lewis and the News, which he and other members of Sound Hole and the band Clover formed in 1979. 33 years later, the band is still going strong and has enjoyed enormous success with over 30 million albums sold worldwide, 19 top ten hits including "The Power of Love", "Stuck With You", and "Hip To Be Square", and multiple awards and award nominations. Bill remains an integral part of the band, lending his writing and singing talents as well as providing drums and percussion. Bill has been a Yamaha Drum Artist since 1985. Bill currently resides in Marin County, California.   Some Things That Came Up:    -2:00 Jim's daughter singing at Carnegie Hall  -4:00 MTV!  -6:00 The untrained drummer is now focused and fascinated with lessons  -7:30 Metric Modulations and Ostinatos  -9:35 Drum Solos back in the day  -10:00 Yamaha drums for 40 years  -11:30 Music at the house 24 hours a day  -12:20 Broadway musicals and big band jazz  -12:45 Saxophone! -14:10 1964 Ed Sullivan Show. Parents took young Bill to TWO Beatles shows  -15:30 Parents installed CONFIDENCE  -16:45 Jim got a $75 drumset at 12 years old  -18:00 Huey Lewis origins story. The Fools, Clover, Soundhole, SVT, Sly Stone combined -20:00 Manager Bob Brown invested in the band  -23:10 SPORTS album celebrating 41 years  -24:00 Music on the TV show GHOSTS  -26:20 “We Are The World” Documentary  -27:20 The only full band invited by Quincy Jones  -28:00 TINA the musical! -29:00 Singing after gigs became a habit  -31:00 “The Heart of Rock n' Roll”, Huey Lewis tribute band  -34:00 Audio Clip! -35:20 Influenced by Donald Fagen's “The Nightfly” record  -36:00 Every record was self produced except for two.  Creative democracy in action -40:50 Big fan of Jeff Porcaro, Billy Cobham, Dennis Chambers, Dave Weckl, Vinnie  -42:00 Playing to arpeggiated synths as clicks  -42:40 No click on “Heart of Rock N' Roll” and The Linn drum was the heart beat  -44:00 “Soulsville” was recorded live at Ardent Studios in Memphis  -48:40 Gratitude in Action and Impacting lives  -51:40 A play opening on Broadway called “The Heart of Rock N' Roll”  -54:40 Light hearted, funny band with funny videos  -56:00 Enjoying international travel, especially Europe, Japan, and South America  -59:00 Thomas Lang's surprise meal! -1:00 Shark Fin Soup, Reindeer, Bear Steaks, Jelly Fish Quail Eggs -1:02 “Heart N' Soul” was a sleeper hit  -1:04 Be KIND to EVERYONE   -1:05 The tragedy of Huey's hearing issues  -1:06 “Frank Sinatra” LIVE at The Sands, 1958.  -1:09 Shout out to Rich's Dad  -1:10 “The Fave 5”   Follow: www.hueylewisandthenews.com   The Rich Redmond Show is about all things music, motivation and success. Candid conversations with musicians, actors, comedians, authors and thought leaders about their lives and the stories that shaped them. Rich Redmond is the longtime drummer with Jason Aldean and many other veteran musicians and artists. Rich is also an actor, speaker, author, producer and educator. Rich has been heard on thousands of songs, over 25 of which have been #1 hits!   Rich can also be seen in several films and TV shows and has also written an Amazon Best-Selling book, "CRASH! Course for Success: 5 Ways to Supercharge Your Personal and Professional Life" currently available at:   https://www.amazon.com/CRASH-Course-Success-Supercharge-Professional/dp/B07YTCG5DS/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=crash+redmond&qid=1576602865&sr=8-1   One Book: Three Ways to consume....Physical (delivered to your front door, Digital (download to your kindle, ipad or e-reader), or Audio (read to you by me on your device...on the go)!   Buy Rich's exact gear at www.lessonsquad.com/rich-redmond   Follow Rich: @richredmond www.richredmond.com   Jim McCarthy is the quintessential Blue Collar Voice Guy. Honing his craft since 1996 with radio stations in Illinois, South Carolina, Connecticut, New York, Las Vegas and Nashville, Jim has voiced well over 10,000 pieces since and garnered an ear for audio production which he now uses for various podcasts, commercials and promos. Jim is also an accomplished video producer, content creator, writer and overall entrepreneur.   Follow Jim:   @jimmccarthy www.jimmccarthyvoiceovers.com

Kenny Garrett has been playing for more than 40 years. Originally from Detroit, he joined the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the late 70s, when it was being run by Ellington's son Mercer. He also played with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, and with Donald Byrd, Woody Shaw, and Freddie Hubbard. He was a member of a young lions group put together by Blue Note Records in the 80s called Out Of The Blue that also included the late drummer Ralph Peterson, and he was already recording as a leader when he was invited to join Miles Davis's band in 1987. He played on the album Amandla, and was part of the Davis band all the way until the end of Miles's life in 1991. Miles Davis even made a very rare guest appearance on one of Garrett's albums, Prisoner Of Love, from 1989.Kenny Garrett's discography as a leader has taken him in a lot of really interesting directions. His 1995 album Triology, with Brian Blade on drums and either Charnett Moffett or Kiyoshi Kitagawa on bass, is a really intense, high-energy record that kind of marries bebop language to post-Ornette Coleman freedom, but the real key to the whole thing is the way he executes these really complex melodies on tunes like John Coltrane's "Giant Steps," Wynton Marsalis's "Delfeayo's Dilemma," and Mulgrew Miller's "Pressing The Issue." It's a tremendous showcase for his technical command of the saxophone. But the album that first got me interested in his work was Beyond The Wall, a 2006 release that was a collaboration with Pharoah Sanders that also featured Mulgrew Miller on piano, Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, Robert Hurst on bass, Brian Blade on drums, and on some tracks there were strings and harp and Chinese instruments and a six-member vocal ensemble. It's not spiritual jazz in the way that term is used now, and it's not world music, it's entirely its own thing, and it's particularly fascinating because you might not think of Kenny Garrett and Pharoah Sanders having that much in common, artistically speaking, but they really did. They also recorded a live album together that came out in 2008. Garrett talks about Pharoah a lot in the interview you're about to hear.And Kenny Garrett's latest album is going to surprise a lot of people. It's called Who Killed AI, and it's a collaboration with Svoy, an electronic music producer. Garrett plays alto and soprano sax on it, and all the rest of the music is made with synths and programmed drums. Even the horns are multi-tracked and fed through effects at times. It's structured as kind of a suite — the first track is called “Ascendence,” and there are also pieces called “Transcendence,” “Divergence” and “Convergence.” But there's also a really beautiful version of “My Funny Valentine,” which lays the ballad melody over these kind of shimmering keyboard sounds and a hard drum 'n' bass beat. It's not at all what I was expecting when I was told that there was a new Kenny Garrett album on the way.I'm really glad I had the chance to talk to Kenny Garrett. We discussed his history with Miles Davis and with Woody Shaw, his early musical upbringing, his work with Pharoah Sanders, his approach to synthesizing genres and musics from around the world, and much more. I think you're going to enjoy this conversation.

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Our featured performers tonight: Art Tatum And His Band, Thelonious Monk & Clark Terry Quartet, Duke Ellington Orchestra, Duke Ellington & John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald in concert, Mel Tormé, and Gerry Mulligan.

At the age of 16, he played with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. He went on to make landmark recordings with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. He's considered one of the most important drummers in history — and he would've turned 100 years old this week. Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes is a new film about the musician by award-winning filmmakers Sam Pollard and (our very own!) Ben Shapiro. Today on the podcast, we sat down with them to discuss the life and music of Max Roach, and the decades of work that went into creating the film. You can watch Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes on PBS, Amazon Prime and iTunes: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/max-roach-the-drum-also-waltzes-film/26469/. If you're enjoying Radio Diaries, tell a friend! Or share on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook @RadioDiaries.

Harvey Brownstone conducts an in-depth interview with Scotty Barnhart, Director, The Count Basie Orchestra About Harvey's guest: Today's special guest, Scotty Barnhart, is an internationally acclaimed music artist, especially in the world of jazz.   He's an iconic trumpet player, composer, arranger, educator and author.  For over 30 years, he's been a featured trumpet soloist with the legendary Count Basie Orchestra, AND for the past 10 years, he's been the Orchestra's Director.    He's a 2-time Grammy Award winner, and he's worked with some of the greatest music artists in the world, including Tony Bennett, Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Tito Puente, Wynton Marsalis, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, The Duke Ellington Orchestra, Diana Krall and dozens more.  In 2009, he released his highly acclaimed first solo album, entitled, “Say It Plain”, which reached #3 on the Jazz Charts.   Our guest is widely considered to be THE leading authority on the history of Jazz trumpet.   In 2005 he published his groundbreaking book, “The World of Jazz Trumpet – A Comprehensive History and Practical Philosophy”, which is THE definitive text on the subject.  He's a Professor at Florida State University, and he gives keynote lectures and seminars around the world.  He's also  profiled in Scott Yanow's groundbreaking book “Trumpet Kings:  The Players Who Shaped the Sound of Jazz”, which places him right up there with the most important Jazz trumpeters in history, from Louis Armstrong to Miles Davis and others.   AND NOW, he's here to discuss his monumental brand new album entitled, “The Count Basie Orchestra Swings the Blues”.   This is an exceptional and unprecedented collection of collaborations with some of the greatest living blues and jazz artists, including George Benson, Shemekia Copeland, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, Bettye LaVette, Bobby Rush and many more.  The album features spectacular versions of blues classics like “Stormy Monday,” “The Midnight Hour”, “Look What You've Done”, “Just for a Thrill” and “I'm A Woman” along side new instant classics like Mr. Sipp's “Let's Have A Good Time”, and our guest's inspired fusion of Charley Patton meets Count Basie, in “The Patton Basie Shuffle.”   The new album celebrates the deep-rooted connection between jazz and blues, and illuminates shared roots and reciprocal influence, reminding us that the boundaries between these genres are fluid and heartfelt.  The fabulous Count Basie Orchestra continues to carry on the rich musical legacy of Count Basie through their dynamic performances and dedication to the swing jazz tradition.  Our guest, as the orchestra's musical director, preserves Count Basie's unmistakable style, and ensures that his pioneering contributions to jazz, continue to be celebrated and enjoyed by audiences worldwide. For more interviews and podcasts go to: https://www.harveybrownstoneinterviews.com/ To see more about Scotty Barnhart, go to:http://www.scottybarnhart.com/https://www.facebook.com/scotty.barnhart/https://www.instagram.com/scottybarnhart/ https://twitter.com/ScottyBarnharthttps://www.youtube.com/scottybarnharthttps://www.thecountbasieorchestra.com/ #ScottyBarnhart   #TheCountBasieOrchestra   #harveybrownstoneinterviews

William Bing has recently retired as Director of Bands and Artist in Residence at the California Institute of Technology. During that time, he conducted over 250 concerts with the Caltech Jazz and Concert Band.    He also served on the undergraduate admissions committee and was named an outstanding teacher by the students from Caltech   Bill and his wife Delores have won many teaching awards including the Associated Students of Caltech Teaching Award, Pasadena Youth Music Council Teacher of the Year, and most recently Honorary Membership in the Caltech Alumni Association.  For ten years he was a member of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, and for five years he was a performer with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He has published two method books for trumpet.   Students that have studied with Bill have played with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Reel Big Fish, Poncho Sanchez, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and many other classical, rock, and jazz ensembles. His clinics and concerts  have received rave reviews by other band directors from junior high school through the college level.  For his clinic, Bill emphasizes sound, and from there, balance, intonation, and style.     Links Bill Bing Website Bill Bing YouTube Channel Sign Up for an Appointment with John in Boston at Virtuosity Music Gard Bags at trumpetmouthpiece.com

Multi-reedman Norris Turney became the first flute soloist featured with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. He was with the band for 4 years, leaving in 1973. Continue reading →

We tend to think of Duke Ellington and his orchestra as the epitome of cool, sophisticated jazz. “Mood Indigo.” “Caravan.” “Black And Tan Fantasy.” “Sophisticated Lady.”But Duke and the guys also could get down and party, especially when the festivities were organized by his lead trumpeter, Cootie Williams.Williams, a Mobile, Alabama, native, was just 18 when he joined Ellington's orchestra in 1929, rising to prominence when the group played in New York's famed Cotton Club. Despite his youth, Williams reached Ellington's aggregation with some pretty heady credentials. He already had played professionally for four years. He started with saxophonist Lester Young in The Young Family Band, working out of New Orleans and playing the black vaudeville and carnival circuits in the region.A year before joining Duke, Williams made his first recordings in 1928 with legendary pianist James P. Johnson in New York, where he also worked briefly in the bands of Chick Webb and Fletcher Henderson.The Ellington YearsBut it was his 11 years with The Duke Ellington Orchestra that made Cootie Williams internationally famous among jazz lovers. At first, Cootie's role in the band required him to play the so-called “jungle effects,” in the manner of Ellington's earlier trumpeter Bubber Miley and trombonist Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton. However, Williams' rich open horn sound and his distinctive plunger-muted playing quickly became an important part of the bigger palette with which Ellington worked. By the time of his last year with the band, 1940, Cootie was one of the most distinctive musicians in a group of highly individualistic players.Duke wrote “Concerto for Cootie,'' which became — after Bob (“Don't Get Around Much Anymore”) Russell added lyrics — “Do Nothing 'til You Hear from Me.” Williams was also featured on numerous other major Ellington works, ranging from “Echoes of Harlem” and “Harlem Air Shaft” to the religious piece ''The Shepherd Who Watches Over the Night Flock.”Sing It, Cootie!Beyond being a celebrated trumpeter, Cootie Williams also had mad skills as a vocalist and band leader in his own right. This he began to demonstrate in the late 1930s when he routinely headed up one of the small groups drawn from the Ellington ranks.“Cootie Williams and His Rug Cutters” — featuring reed men Barney Bigard, Johnny Hodges and Harry Carney — recorded more than a dozen tunes between 1937 and 1940.Notable among these releases was Williams' performance of Dave Heywood's novelty composition “Ain't the Gravy Good” in 1938. The song tells a sad story of a meal in which all the dishes in the main course go badly awry — “Your biscuits ain't hot, your cobbler ain't sweet” — but, lord, ain't the gravy good? Saucy!Our Take on the TuneTwenty years ago this summer, we were in the midst of planning our third studio album, I'd Rather Be Flooded, when our friend and producer, the late George Walker, showed up with that exact Cootie Williams recording. George thought the tune would be a good fit for us, and we immediately agreed. In fact, we fell in love with it and worked it up in time for the recording session. Ever since, whenever this song comes to mind — as it did at a recent Flood rehearsal — our thoughts race back to our good times with you, George. We miss you, buddy.These days that entire 2003 album is online and can be listened to for free on our Radio Floodango music streaming service. Click here to check it out.And for more back stories on the songs we sing and play, check out the “Song Stories” section of Flood Watch by clicking here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

The Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis, Missouri was designed by noted 1904 World's Fair architect Louis C. Spiering and built in 1912 as the home of the Ethical Society of St. Louis. Musicians and public speakers throughout the years have enjoyed the perfect acoustics of the Sheldon Concert Hall, earning The Sheldon its reputation as "The Carnegie Hall of St. Louis."[1][2] Well-known singers and ensembles have performed at The Sheldon, and speakers such as Albert Einstein, Dwight Eisenhower and Ernest Hemingway have spoken from its stage. The St. Louis Chapter of the League of Women Voters was founded in The Sheldon's Green Room. ——— When the Ethical Society relocated to St. Louis County in 1964, The Sheldon became primarily a music venue. Then, in 1974, a former singer with the Duke Ellington Orchestra purchased the facility, transforming The Sheldon into a church and the site for many jazz and gospel concerts. A California attorney with a love for chamber music purchased the building in 1984 at the urging of the Paganini String Quartet. He engaged Walter F. Gunn to restore the building and upon completion Gunn began operating The Sheldon in 1986 as a venue for concerts and community events. ———

Ernest Stuart attended Temple University in Philadelphia earning a B.A. in Jazz Performance. While attending Temple University Ernest became known as a versatile trombonist who could play various styles of music from jazz, salsa, R&B, neo-soul to hip-hop. After college Stuart moved to New York City, where he became a freelance jazz musician performing at clubs such as The Village Vanguard, The Iridium, Smoke and The Blue Note, among others.  A gifted musician, Stuart has shared the stage with legendary musicians such as The Duke Ellington Orchestra, Billy Paul, and Aretha Franklin. He has also played with The Roots, the house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon as well as The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Seal, Macklemore, John Legend, and Red Baraat, among others.In 2010 Stuart returned to Philadelphia to record his debut CD “Solitary Walker” which was released in 2011. Featuring nine tunes, with four original songs, the sophisticated jazz CD is steeped in the tradition of Philadelphia soul. In 2012, Stuart founded the Center City Jazz Festival in Philadelphia. The annual event has grown in popularity that it has become a “must attend” destination for jazz enthusiasts from Philadelphia and nearby cities. Beta-alanine can fuel the athlete in all of us. As the go-to ingredient for sports nutrition formulations, beta-alanine helps build better muscle, faster. It helps us gain focus, energy, and strength. When it comes to enhancing muscle strength, power, growth, and endurance, beta-alanine is the athlete's secret weapon.In 2014, Stuart released the EP “Love/Loss.”  The EP marks the first time Stuart has written and recorded from a genre-less perspective. His goal was to simply make music and not be tied down to a specific music style — jazz, R&B, hip-hop or rock. The three original tracks were arranged and composed by StuartSpring 2015, Stuart releases his second solo EP “Same Walking Animals.” The three original songs arranged by Stuart are inspired by people and events he's come across while touring.Creators & Guests Rob Lee - Host Ernest Stuart - Guest The Truth In This Art, hosted by Rob Lee, explores contemporary art and cultural preservation through candid conversations with artists, curators, and cultural leaders about their work, creative processes and the thinking that goes into their creativity. Rob also occasionally interviews creatives in other industries such as acting, music, and journalism. The Truth In This Art is a podcast for artists, art lovers and listeners interested in the creative process.To support the The Truth In This Art: Buy Me Ko-fiUse the hashtag #thetruthinthisartFollow The Truth in This Art on InstagramLeave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.THE TRUTH IN THIS ART IS SUPPORTED IN PART BYThe Gutierrez Memorial FundThe Robert W. Deutsch Foundation ★ Support this podcast ★

One of the jazz world's most acclaimed performers, possessing a potent combination of dynamic vocal abilities, impeccable phrasing, and powerful emotional resonance. Nicole's passionate, soulful voice and heartfelt charisma have earned her a Soul Train Award for “Best Traditional Jazz Performance," and four Top-10 jazz albums on U.S. Billboard, JazzWeek, HMV Japan and UK Sweet Rhythms charts. Heralded by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Japan Times, El Pais, Jazz Times, Essence, and more, Nicole tells real stories through peerless interpretations of repertoire from the American Songbook, classic and contemporary jazz, popular standards, blues, and originals. She has captivated audiences in 20 countries, headlining at venues in cities including New York, Tokyo, Madrid, Moscow, Paris, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas, Boston, San Francisco, and Miami at such venues as Blue Note; Jazz at Lincoln Center; Blues, Alley, The Smith Center; Kravis Center; Jazz St. Louis, Feinstein's; Madrid Jazz Festival; and more. Nicole has also recorded with some of today's musical greats including Kirk Whalum, Julian Lage, John Clayton, and Gerald Clayton and has performed with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, Pasadena Pops and Michael Feinstein. In late 2019, she returned to the theatrical stage and garnered critical praise in the musical version of The Bodyguard; in Dec. 2021, she starred in the new musical A Wonderful World, based on the life of Louis Armstrong; and in 2022, she portrayed ‘Brenda' in Smokey Joe's Cafe.

Geoff plays highlights from the Cote d'Azur Jazz Festival from July 1966 in the south of France featuring Ella Orchestra performing live with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Tracks include Thou Swell, Satin Doll, Something To Live For, Moment Of Truth, Jazz Samba, The More I See You, Lullaby Of Birdland, Wives And Lovers, How Long Has This Been Going On?, Goin' Out Of My Head, Cotton Tail, Let's Do It. GPE is produced by Ed Robertson.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Geoff plays highlights from the Cote d'Azur Jazz Festival from July 1966 in the south of France featuring Ella Orchestra performing live with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Tracks include Thou Swell, Satin Doll, Something To Live For, Moment Of Truth, Jazz Samba, The More I See You, Lullaby Of Birdland, Wives And Lovers, How Long Has This Been Going On?, Goin' Out Of My Head, Cotton Tail, Let's Do It. GPE is produced by Ed Robertson.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Geoff plays highlights from the Cote d'Azur Jazz Festival from July 1966 in the south of France featuring Ella Orchestra performing live with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Tracks include Thou Swell, Satin Doll, Something To Live For, Moment Of Truth, Jazz Samba, The More I See You, Lullaby Of Birdland, Wives And Lovers, How Long Has This Been Going On?, Goin' Out Of My Head, Cotton Tail, Let's Do It. GPE is produced by Ed Robertson.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Geoff plays highlights from the Cote d'Azur Jazz Festival from July 1966 in the south of France featuring Ella Orchestra performing live with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Tracks include Thou Swell, Satin Doll, Something To Live For, Moment Of Truth, Jazz Samba, The More I See You, Lullaby Of Birdland, Wives And Lovers, How Long Has This Been Going On?, Goin' Out Of My Head, Cotton Tail, Let's Do It. GPE is produced by Ed Robertson.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Alan Matheson is a much-admired jazz composer, trumpeter, pianist, and educator. He is an expert in jazz history, and leads his own big band, nonet, septet and trio. Alan has performed with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra,  Louis Bellson, and Phil Woods, and has taught at several music programs in the Vancouver area, including Vancouver Community College, and UBC. In this episode, Alan talks about studying with the world-renowned trumpeter and educator Vincent Chicowicz (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Northwestern University), how a solo by Bix Beiderbecke made him love jazz, and how Tchaikovsky's music sparked his desire to compose. He also recalls his friendship with the great trumpeter Clark Terry (Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson), and explains how a visit to Helsinki created a long-standing musical partnership with the Finnish bassist, Wade Mikkola.Throughout the episode you'll witness Alan's deep understanding of the language of improvised music, and be treated to his encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz from the last century and onward.Find out more about Alan at alanmatheson.comMusic samples in this episode:“Open Letter to Mingus” - Written by Alan Matheson, performed by the Alan Matheson Nonet“Ballad of the Fallen” - El Salvadorean folk song, performed by Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra “On the Sunny Side of the Street”  - Written by Jimmy McHugh/Dorothy Fields, performed by Diana Krall“Vernal Suite” - Written by Christin Jensen, performed by The Christine Jensen Jazz Orchestra“Concerto for 2 Trumpets in C Major” - Written by Antonio Vivaldi, performed by Vincent Cichowicz and Fred Herseth “Jackson Square” - Written by Alan Matheson, performed by the Alan Matheson Nonet“Love Nest” - Written by Otto Harbach and Louis Hirsch, performed by Bix Beiderbecke with Paul Whiteman “In A Mist” - Written and performed by Bix Beiderbecke“The Mooche” - Written by Duke Ellington and Irving Mills, performed by the Duke Ellington Orchestra (feat. Cootie Williams)“The Single Petal of a Rose” - Written by Duke Ellington, performed by The Duke Ellington Orchestra “April in Paris” - Written by Vernon Duke & Yip Harburg, performed by the Joe Williams Band (feat. Clark Terry)“Sheba” - Written by Clark Terry, performed by Clark Terry and his band“Riina's Ring” - Written by Alan Matheson, performed by Alan Matheson and Wade Mikkola“Sisu” - Written Support the showA Morning Run Productions ProjectMusic Buddy is nomated for a 2023 Canadian Podcast Award for "Outstanding Music Series", and "Outstanding Main Title Theme Music for a Series". Many thanks to the Canadian Podcast Awards, and congratulations to all the Nominees! You can see the full list of Nominees at canpodawards.ca Jane Gowan (host, producer, editor) Tim Vesely (co-producer/co-host) The show's theme song, "Human Stuff," is written by Jane Gowan and Tim Vesely, and performed by Jane and Tim, with additional vocals by Steve Wright and Connie KostiukEmail: jane@musicbuddy.caInstagram: @musicbuddypodcastFacebook: @musicbuddypodcastTwitter: @janegowanTikTok: @musicbuddypod

Welcome to a new edition of the Neon Jazz interview series with NYC-based Jazz Saxophonist Owen Broder on the 2022 CD Hodges: Front and Center Volume 1 .. We cover the the release of this album, COVID life, the overall jazz community and much more .. As influential as he's been on the history of the jazz saxophone, Johnny Hodges is usually discussed wholly in light of his key role in the Duke Ellington Orchestra. On this new album, Owen shifts the spotlight to focus more intently on the legendary altoist. Due out October 14, 2022 via Outside In Music, this album represents a new horizon and world to explore as live music begins and the world is anew. Enjoy this interview ..Click to listen.Thanks for listening and tuning into yet another Neon Jazz interview .. where we give you a bit of insight into the finest players and minds around the world giving fans all that jazz ..  If you want to hear more interviews, go to Famous Interviews with Joe Dimino on the iTunes store, visit the YouTube Neon Jazz  Channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/neonjazzkc, go The Home of Neon Jazz at  http://theneonjazz.blogspot.com/ and for everything Joe Dimino related go to www.joedimino.com When you are there, you can donate to the Neon Jazz cause via PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=ERA4C4TTVKLR4 or through Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/neonjazzkc - Until next time .. enjoy the music my friends ..

The AFRS broadcast a weekly show from NYC entitled "Date with the Duke" featuring the Duke Ellington Orchestra, vocalists Kay Davis and Joya Sherrill. Here is playlist: Theme - "Take the A Train," Orch: "Teardrops in the Rain. " Joya Sherrill sings "Everything But You. " Kay Davis sings "You Are But A Dream. " Orch: "Perdido " Orch and Vocalists: Medley of 3 original songs: "In A Sentimental Mood;" "It Don't Mean a Thing;" "In My Solitude." Orch: "C Jam Blues". Theme: "Take the A Train." - Outro AFRS broadcast. In "Big Band/Jazz" Playlist.

The Duke Ellington Orchestra with vocalists performed many broadcasts via the Armed Forces Radio Service during WW II. This program was broadcast in 1945. These shows were heard via shortwave radio were not available to the standard broadcast channels at the time. The Armed Forces Radio Service were experts at preserving the recordings of everything they did and we owe a lot to them for preserving so much of our artistic culture of the era. This track will be stored in the "Big Band/Jazz" Playlist on this Soundcloud originated podcast of Heirloom Radio.

Hacía tiempo que no se vivían las vísperas de un cita importante del Real Madrid con tanta paz, tranquilidad y sosiego. Y es raro, porque los acontecimientos extradeportivos podrían haber hecho saltar por los aires ese estado de calma. Y no es porque los ciudadanos periodistas no lo hayan intentado, no, que lo han hecho y con mucho entusiasmo. Min. 01 Seg. 44 - Intro Min. 07 Seg. 45 - Sin tiempo para animar Min. 13 Seg. 49 - Una sorpresa generalizada Min. 20 Seg. 56 - Son mejores sin duda Min. 25 Seg. 37 - Dos equipos con mítica europea Min. 29 Seg. 10 - Derrotado por la estadística Min. 33 Seg. 48 - Un rival mejor, pero cogido con pinzas Min. 39 Seg. 48 - A por la sexta final Min. 45 Seg. 04 - Por la boca muere el ciudadano periodista Min. 50 Seg. 21 - El enemigo común Min. 55 Seg. 46 - Despedida Dance Gavin Dance - We Own The Night (Phoenix 22/06/2017) Duke Ellington Orchestra & Ella Fitzgerald (Antibes 28/07/1966) Imagine My Frustration Cotton Tail The Moment Of Truth Misty Sweet Georgia Brown Medley: Black & Tan Fantasy > Creole Love Call > The Mooche Take The 'A' Train Skin Deep Sting - Shape Of My Heart (Montreux 11/07/2006)

On this episode of MC2MC Sup3r8 and the crew heads over to East Iris Studios in the Berry Hill region of Nashville. We talk with studio manager Kelly King about her history as a recording artist, her view on the Nashville scene, her transition over into the business side of the music industry, and the work she's involved with over at UMG's East Iris Studios. Kelly King: https://www.instagram.com/kellykingsings/ East Iris Studios: https://www.instagram.com/eastirisstudios/ https://eastirisstudios.com TIME STAMPS: Introduction (different areas of East iris) 00:00-5:52 Dolby Atmos Explanation and when it will be widely accessible 05:52-11:11 Kelly King Origins 11:11-12:14 Sup3r8 asks about her family history with music 12:14-13:22 Kelly King talks about her time in New York 13:22-16:00 Dillon speaks on his journey to Nashville and his view of the cities culture 16:00-16:33 difference and similarities between Nashville, LA, and New York 16:33-21:22 Sup3r8 ask Kelly King about her view on Nashville after leaving then coming back 21:22-25:00 Balance of Following gut feeling and intuition and listening to those around you 25:00-31:20 Sup3r8 asks how Kelly King got her record deal and her days as a fox news host 31:20-36:08 Sup3r8 ask Kelly King about how she got involved with the Duke Ellington Orchestra 36:08-46:36 Sup3r8 asks about Imposter Syndrome 46:36-52:30 Kelly King Wiki questions 52:30-56:17 Sup3r8 is curious why Kelly King's wiki is in Spanish lol 56:17-1:06:08 Kelly King talks transitioning to business side of music 1:06:08-1:14:30 Sup3r8 talks modern day A&Ring 1:14:30-1:35:09 Sup3r8 talks about the magic

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"...The key to everything is Gratitude..." "Feeling Good is a full time job..."  The spotlight is on Bill Easley. Bill Easley has had a diversified career as a professional musician. He joined the musicians union, Local 115 in 1959. 2022 marks the 63rd year of his professional career. Bill represents the fourth generation of a family dedicated to music. After military service Easley joined The George Benson Quartet in January of 1968 and traveled with the great guitarists for the remainder of the decade. This band worked in legendary jazz spots including Minton's Playhouse in New York, The Plugged Nickel in Chicago, The Jazz Workshop in Boston, and The Hurricane in Pittsburgh. Following a brief residence in Pittsburgh, PA, the internal voice (instinct) led him to Memphis, Tennessee. In Memphis he did a variety of things including: performing and recording with Isaac Hayes, other studio work, big bands, show bands, and jazz clubs. He also continued his formal education at Memphis State University. It was in the mid 1970's that Easley first toured with the Duke Ellington Orchestra under the direction of Mercer Ellington. In January of 1980, Bill moved back to New York City with the promise of a job on Broadway. Welcome to episode 80 of Roll With Peace, In Mind featuring another installment of 'Are You On The Right Train? Riding On The Urge' featuring folks who have chosen to follow their hearts, dreams and Intuition. They did not and do not listen to the nay-sayers or to the 'it can't be done-ners' but step out on Faith, Passion and Intention, not allowing fears to derail them. ----more---- Original Music by Sylvester "Sly" Scott, check him out on YouTube & Instagram *** And I've got upcoming events to tell you about-- 1) End of The Month ChillOut: StressBusters Guided Meditation January 30th at 1:00PM EST. This is my End of The Month virtual guided meditation group class geared to help you Cleanse, Refuel, Balance and Restore. Click title for more information. I hope you will join us, bring a friend and/or family member or a group of folk to the Wellness Party! 2) MEDITATION: It's Not What You Think Virtual Guided Meditation & Journaling Workshop If you have tried to meditate and can't, and/or am new to the idea of meditating, here's a workshop just for YOU. Four time slots to choose from Saturday February 5th and Sunday 6th 2022, I will be offering this 60 minute workshop. Click title for more information. A virtual workshop so you can join me from anywhere in the world!  Check out my website for testimonials! *** Please tell your friends and family about this podcast, word of mouth is da the bomb-diggedy! **Please consider becoming a Podcast Patron for my Roll With Peace, In Mind podcast. Your contribution would assist me in continuing to create this valuable free product of service that promotes empowerment, peace of mind, shares stress and anxiety relief tips, inspires mindfulness and positivity. Join my mailing list to keep up with new events, products and workshops  *** For more on my products and services, hit me up on my site Jacquie Bird, Spiritual Wellness  Your Wellness Guide, Thank you for listening!  

Email: audioofftheshelf@gmail.com. Instagram: @audioofftheshelf Twitter: @AOTS204 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/audioofftheshelf Pogues, The. “Fairytale of New York.” If I Should Fall From Grace With God. Island Records, 1988. CD. LP. Count Basie Orchestra, The. “It's the Holiday Season.” A Very Swingin' Basie Christmas! Concord Records, 2015. CD. LP. Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings “8 Days of Hanukkah.” It's A Holiday Soul Party Daptone Records, 2015. Vinyl. LP. Duke Ellington Orchestra, The. “Sugar Rum Cherry.” The Nutcracker Suite. Columbia Records, 1960. CD. LP. Moranis, Rick & Thomas, Dave. “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” The Great White North Album, Anthem 1981. Vinyl. LP. She & Him. “Happy Holiday.” Christmas Party. Columbia Records, 2016. Vinyl. LP. Fitzgerald, Ella. “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas. Verve Records, 1960. CD. LP. Copyright Disclaimer under Section 107 of the copyright act 1976, allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favour of fair use.

Synopsis The year 1960 marked the centenary of the birth of composer Gustav Mahler, and the British musicologist named Deryck Cooke hit upon the idea of preparing a performing edition of Mahler's Symphony No. 10, a work left unfinished at the time of Mahler's death in 1911. This was a daunting task for two reasons. First, Mahler's widow, Alma, had resisted efforts for a close examination of Mahler's manuscript for his 10th Symphony, as it was peppered with emotionally charged comments to her in Mahler's hand, painful reminders that her husband had just discovered she was having an affair with another man. Secondly, although Mahler had sketched out his symphony in full, most of it was not orchestrated. Now, Mahler was a master orchestrator, and many argued that only a similarly gifted composer could flesh out Mahler's sketches. Schoenberg and Shostakovich were both asked to do so, but both declined. Deryck Cooke, however, persisted, and completed his version of Mahler's Tenth in time for some excerpts to be broadcast in 1960. Even Alma was impressed, and eventually relented, and so, on today's date in 1964, the London Symphony gave the first complete concert performance of Cooke's arrangement of Mahler's Symphony No. 10. Music Played in Today's Program Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911) arr. Cooke — Symphony No. 10 (Berlin Philharmonic; Sir Simon Rattle, cond.) EMI 56972 On This Day Births 1879 - English composer John Ireland, in Inglewood (Bowdon), Cheshire; Deaths 1912 - French opera composer Jules Massenet, age 70, in Paris; Premieres 1841 - R. Schumann: "Concert Fantasy" for Piano and Orchestra, at a closed rehearsal of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Felik Mendelssohn, with Clara Schumann (8 and 1/2 months pregnant) as the soloist; This "Concert Fantasy" was revised as the first movement of Schumann's Piano Concerto in a, Op. 54, which Clara Schumann premiered in Dresden on December 4, 1845 at a concert conducted by Ferdinand Hiller; 1876 - First complete performance of Richard Wagner's "Ring" cycle begins at Bayreuth with a performance of "Das Rheingold" (this opera had received its premiere performance in Munich on Sept. 22, 1869); 1964 - Mahler: Symphony No. 10, arranged for performance by the English musicologist Deryck Cooke, is performed complete for the first time by the London Symphony conducted by Berthold Goldschmidt; With the assistance of Colin and David Matthews, Cooke revised his performing edition of Mahler's Tenth, and this revised version - known as "Cooke II" - was first performed on October 15, 1972, by the New Philharmonia under Wyn Morris; 1973 - Thea Musgrave: Viola Concerto at a London Proms Concert, with her husband, Peter Mark, the soloist; 1976 - Duke Ellington: ballet "Three Black Kings" (posthumously), at the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center in New York, by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Duke Ellington Orchestra conducted by Mercer Ellington.

Welcome to a new edition of the Neon Jazz interview series Veteran Composer and Arranger Mark Masters .. He opened up about his 2021 CD Masters & Baron Meet Blanton & Webster  .. He hired Duke Ellington Orchestra veteran Art Baron to reimagine the music of the iconic bandleader's most revered era transforming Ellington classics through a contemporary lens with special guest trumpeter Tim Hagans .. Mark stands as one of the great jazz arrangers of the last few decades and formed his first ensemble in 1982. He talked about his life in jazz and his non-profit American Jazz Institute, along with much more .. Enjoy…Click to listen.Neon Jazz is a radio program airing since 2011. Hosted by Joe Dimino and Engineered by John Christopher in Kansas City, Missouri giving listeners a journey into one of America's finest inventions. Listen to each show at https://www.mixcloud.com/neonjazzkc. Check us out at All About Jazz @ https://kansascity.jazznearyou.com/neon-jazz.php. For all things Neon Jazz, visit http://theneonjazz.blogspot.com/If you like what you hear, please let us know. You can contribute a few bucks to keep Neon Jazz going strong into the future. https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=ERA4C4TTVKLR4

Featuring the singing trumpeters of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Continue reading →

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Andrew Nemr is an internationally known performer, choreographer, educator, and speaker. Andrew has performed with Grammy award-winning musicians, Jazz icons such as Harry Connick Jr, Duke Ellington Orchestra, the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, and the legendary Les Paul. The  New York Times referred to Andrew as a "master tapper."  Nemr's work has been recognized with a TED Fellowship. Andrew founded the tap dance company Cats Paying Dues and co-founded the Tap Legacy Foundation, along with his mentor tap icon Gregory Hines. In this episode, Andrew shares his early motivation after watching Gregory Hines and Savion Glover in the movie Tap. Andrew shares his devastation at being excluded from his mentor's show. He shares his spiritual journey and pivot back from exhaustion and burnout. We are excited to welcome Andrew to this episode fo Intrinsic Drive®.  Intrinsic Drive® is produced by Ellen Strickler and Phil Wharton. Special thanks to Andrew Hollingworth, our sound engineer and technical editor.  For more information on this and other episodes visit us at www.whartonhealth.com/intrinsicdrive.   Follow us on socials including Instagram @intrinsicdrivelive

Songs include: It's Getting Chilly, Cold, Cold Heart, Baby It's Cold Outside, There's Frost On the Moon, Frosty Morning Blues, Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind and Out In the Cold Again. Performers include: Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, the Casa Loma Orchestra, Jame P. Johnson, Bob Crosby and the Bob Cats, Alberta Prime and the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

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059: Shareef ClaytonGood morning! This is Play It Like It’s Music. I’m Trevor, thanks for listening.On Wednesday, October 7th of 2020 Music is not content. It’s connection.Last weekend I got to spend a day at the beach chopping it up with a good friend. We’ve been friends since our 20’s, which is cool. Because on some level we get to be the same people we were back then. But we also get to share some of the ways we’ve both grown since our 20’s and consequently feel so much smarter than we used to. It was a trip, and it was also a beautiful day. We laughed about how we’ve both been reading some very heavy stuff lately, stuff we’d probably not have even thought to check out before. I told my friend how I’ve been reading a bunch of economic theory, and my friend told be how they’ve been reading some 13th and 14th Century history. It seems to be a common coping device for a lot of us: when you’re feeling powerless in the face of what’s going on in the world around you, knowledge is a form of power that remains more accessible than ever. So in between bouts of “taking action” we can seize a thick book and try to widen our lens. Away from constantly feeling the acuteness of our current array of crises.Cop a bit of perspective.So yeah, I’ve been reading up on some economic theory. Not because I hope to deeply understand it, but because I’m fascinated by the quest to understand things, and by how something you think you know for a fact can be seen in an entirely different light by someone just as smart as you or perhaps smarter. Finding out why can sometimes turn your world upside down in a good way.I’m lucky because I get to have this experience a lot. Very smart people like to tell me things, and I like to listen. I’m also super slow to understand things, including music. Folks laugh at how long it took me to start loving grunge, punk, hiphop, bluegrass etc. Before we learn to embrace sounds that come from beyond our own level of comprehension, it can feel like we’re drowning in information that doesn’t compute. For some of us, Music is not a sport. It’s a quest. We’re on it for our whole lives, and it keeps bringing us to new places. But in the meantime:Play me a melody that’s gonna open my heart. Hit me with a beat and a bass line that’ll move my ass. Everyone hears at their own speed.Our guest today is a supersonic musician.(Cat also likes to read.)Shareef Clayton is a jazz trumpeter, a native of Miami, FL and one of the most exciting and creative musicians I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. The sound and feel of his music is intense, with a repertoire that includes jazz, r&b, Afro­Cuban, funk and soul. He’s appeared with Macy Gray, Melody Gardot, Bobby Sanabria, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Stevie Wonder, The Roots, Michael Mcdonald, Ruben Blades, and many more. Once you see what this guy can do, you can never un-see it. He brings an incredible polish and showmanship to his performances, but the sophistication and personality underneath it all makes for a really satisfying trip. I’m glad to know the man, and to know about him. You will be as well.We get some of the story, but also go deep on the quest and some of the questioning that goes on when you reach new heights while also facing the same struggles year after year. The music life - no matter who you’re looking at - is full of curveballs. But Shareef is another example of a player who knows how to keep developing your talent while learning the mechanics of life and always moving forward.It’s an honor to have him on the show.Press PLAY above to ear my conversation with Shareef Clayton.Or subscribe in your podcast app: Apple Podcasts - Spotify- Stitcher - TuneIn - Overcast - PocketcastThanks for listening to Play It Like It’s Music. Thanks so much to Shareef Clayton for spending some very generous time with us. You can find him and his music at Shareef Clayton dot com.I can’t believe we’ve gotten to 59 shows! If you believe this show deserves a wider audience, please tell a friend:Follow me on twitter @trevorexter and talk to me on there if you have thoughts about the show.We're all contending with a mutating professional landscape, jacked revenue streams, a catastrophic global pandemic and plenty of other noise out in the culture.But you gotta keep playing.We don't draw any lines here between scenes or styles.As always, thank you for listening and remember to play it like its music.You can check out my music on bandcamp and other places. It’s all at my website, trevorexter.com. Sign the mailing list on substack to get this show sent right to you the very moment it comes out. Music is a beautiful thing and it makes the world go round.Big love to your ears.Trevor(Did you press play yet?)...If you like this stuff, help it spread by sharing it!Subscribe to the show directly in your podcast app: Apple Podcasts - Spotify - Stitcher - TuneIn - Overcast - PocketcastHear all of our guests in rotation on “Playlist It Like It’s Music” (Apple/Spotify)Hear my songs: the “Trevor Exter Playlist” (Apple/Spotify)Vibe out, here are 200 songs I like: (Spotify)Sign the mailing list!Take lessons with me online!Hire me to produce your podcast.Follow me on IG TW FBMore @trevorexter.compsst… sign up for emails: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit playitlikeitsmusic.substack.com

Our guest is singer Steven Maglio whose sound is reminiscent of the great Frank Sinatra. THE NEW YORK TIMES said of Steve, “Steven Maglio does not have blue eyes, but with his smooth croon & Rat Pack swagger, listeners just might imagine they were at the Copa Room at the Sands in 1963.” While Steven Maglio is a singer of standards. Although he is especially appreciated for his renditions of songs made popular by Frank Sinatra, he is NOT an impersonator. https://www.stevenmaglio.com/home THE BEGINNING I was born in East Harlem, N.Y. on December 25, 1958. In 1966, we moved to the Bronx, and being the new kid on the block, I walked back and forth to school alone for the first few weeks. I heard Frank Sinatra singing “My Kind Of Town,” and to pass the time on my new daily trek, I would sing the song to myself over and over. After a few days, I decided I needed another song and began to explore the only Sinatra album we owned at the time, “A Man And His Music.” This was the beginning of my addiction, not only to Sinatra, but to that whole world of standard songs and singers. It wasn't until age 43, after eight years of secretly taking voice lessons and one year of cruising the New Jersey karaoke circuit, that I made my professional debut at New York City's “Tavern On The Green,” as male vocalist with Joe Battaglia & The New York Big Band in June, 2002. Since then I've performed from Atlantic City to Las Vegas, from Cape Cod to Nashville, from Palm Beach to Beverly Hills, and from Brazil to Ecuador to Italy. In 2004, I started performing Frank Sinatra tribute shows at The Carnegie Club in New York, and I'm still singing there every Saturday evening. I've had the pleasure of entertaining President & Mrs. Donald Trump, Lisa Lampanelli, Vic Damone, Connie Francis, Jackie Mason, Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman, William Shatner, Brad Garrett, Dennis Farina, The Kennedy Family, and most of the cast of “The Sopranos,” just to name a few. As well as multiple sports figures, politicians, business moguls, and members of the press. I've had the honor of sharing the stage with The Duke Ellington Orchestra, Frankie Valli, Wayne Newton, Dionne Warwick, Deana Martin, Tony Danza, Danny Aiello, Steve Tyrell, Joe Piscopo, Bucky Pizzarelli, Pat Cooper, Norm Crosby, Larry King, Johnny Maestro & The Brooklyn Bridge, The Spinners, and on a few occasions with Frank Sinatra's former pianist/conductor, Vincent Falcone, among others. I've appeared in the movies, “Frank & Alice,” “Once Upon A Time In Brooklyn,” “Once More With Feeling,” and in the music video, “For One More Day.” I've also sung “The Tender Trap” on the soundtrack of “My Best Friend's Girl.” In the Off-Broadway play, “Playing Sinatra,” my recordings of 11 popular Sinatra songs were used to replace the originals. I've released three CDs, “You Belong To Me & other songs Sinatra never recorded,” “Songs For Sinatra Lovers,” and “Sinatra en Bossa Nova.” Special highlights in my career were being the co-writer and official singer of “The Danny DeVito Limoncello Song,” used to promote the lemon flavored liquore that bore Danny DeVito's signature. Joining the all-star cast of The Cannolis television show. Becoming a member of the most prestigious organization in show business, The Friars Club. It's been a wild ride, and I'm far from being finished. The most common compliment paid to me is, “If Frank Sinatra heard the way you sing his songs …. he'd be proud.” AND I HOPE THAT'S TRUE ….. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/RickLertzman/support

Welcome to "Between the Cracks" (or "the ones who got away").  Even though Community Keyboards has chatted with many organ and keyboard world celebrities, many more have avoided the probing questions of your host!  With the kind permission of THE ESSEX ORGAN MUSEUM (http://www.essexorganmuseum.com/links-Interest.html) we present an A to Z of those who never made it, for whatever reason, to the programme. The personality this time is Rosemary Bailey who began playing the piano at the age of five, performing strictly classical music. She soon diversified and incorporated jazz and traditional popular styles in her repertoire. By the time she was nine years old, Rosemary had begun touring throughout the United States . Concurrently, she maintained a weekly radio show, The Rosemary Bailey Show, broadcast from Chicago. In 1970 she played a key role in the launch of the new Hammond 'Piper' keyboard with the first automatic rhythm accompaniment. Rosemary has performed with many name artists including Victor Borge and Pete Nero as well as the Duke Ellington Orchestra. At home on electronic as well as pipe organs, her concert schedule has taken her all over the world. Rosemary plays ADIOS on Roland Atelier AT90S --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/communitykeyboards/message

Over an hour of jazz music from Ireland, America, South Africa and Brazil, wide ranging in style and mood. You can hear tracks from The Duke Ellington Orchestra, Basil Coatzee, Dianne Schuur, Count Basie Orchestras, Christine Tobin, Scott Flanagan and more.

This episode interviews James Williams, Jr., a freelance trumpet player, music contractor, arranger/writer and clinician who started his music career at 4 years of age. He was guided initially by his father, James Sr., a high school band director for Tyler ISD, VPA director for Tyler ISD and trumpet player and leader of the East Texas All Stars band.He prepared for a career in music at the University of North Texas. He was a member of the Houston Pops Orchestra for 14 years and served as Associate Director of the Community Music Center of Houston for 11 years. CMCH is a non profit organization that performs the music of African American composers and provides music education to youth and adults. Associate Director of the Jazz Institute of Houston which provides workshops for aspiring local jazz talents of Houston.Mr. Williams has performed with many of the great entertainers such as: The Duke Ellington Orchestra, the Lionel Hampton Big Band, Nancy Wilson, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Lena Horne, Dionne Warwick, B.B. King, Chi-Lites, The O’Jays, The Spinners, Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett, Joe Williams, Lou Rawls, Sammy Davis, Jr., and many more.Locally, he has worked with Milton Larkin, Calvin Owens, Pete Mays, Joe Hughes, TKOh!, Rick Marcel, The Liberty Baptist Church Ensemble and The Houston Pops Orchestra. Mr. Williams is married and has a son and daughter. He is a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. Mr. Williams is the musical director of the Conrad Johnson Orchestra and The James Williams and JusJazz ensemble.We are excited to welcome him home to Tyler!

I'm so happy to introduce my guest today, GRAMMY Award-winning Composer, Arranger, Keyboardist and Record Producer, Michael Abene! In a prolific career spanning decades, Abene has worked with the biggest names in music. He produced the Grammy winning projects “Digital Duke” featuring the Duke Ellington Orchestra and “The GRP All-Star Big Band-All Blues.” He also produced the Grammy nominated “The GRP All-Star Big Band” and “The GRP All-Star Big Band Live” and received nominations in the arranging category for all three big band recordings. Michael was also nominated for his arrangement of “America” from “Dave Grusin Presents West Side Story.” Some artists Michael has arranged, composed and/or produced for are Maynard Ferguson, Maceo Parker, Take 6, Billy Cobham, Eddie Daniels, Bireli Lagrene, Chick Corea, Buddy Rich, Dick Oatts, Dizzy Gillespie, The Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, Dave Taylor, Patti Austin, The Metropole Jazz Orchestra, The Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, New York Voices, Ronnie Cuber, UMO Jazz Orchestra (Helsinki), Jazz Big Band Graz and the BBC Big Band. In 2008, Abene arranged produced and conducted the music for singer Patti Austin's album “Avant Gershwin”, celebrating the music of George and Ira Gershwin and picked up his first GRAMMY award for best Jazz Vocal album. From 2004-2014, Abene was the chief composer and arranger for the WDR big band of Cologne, Germany. He is the author of the book “Jazz Composition and Arranging in the Digital Age”, a book co-authored with Richard Sussman and published by Oxford University Press. ----- 2:24 Family background 3:20 Do you have perfect or absolute pitch? 3:29 What records did you grow up listening to? 4:26 Self-teaching sight-reading 5:05 Band experiences as a youth 7:19 Did you have any mentors? 8:25 What sort of advice would they give to you? 9:22 Did you have a sound you wanted to copy or did you strive early on for an original sound? 11:04 Did you see a lot of live music growing up? 13:15 Did you visit NYC to watch the music scene there? 13:51 Describe a vivid musical experience that was formative to your development 15:22 On replacing Jaki Byard in the Maynard Ferguson Band 16:46 On not being happy with the recordings except for the “Blues Roar” 18:22 Was there a compulsion to be a modernist in the 60's? 19:59 How did you self teach yourself harmony? 21:16 Would you test out your arrangements on the piano? 22:39 On transposed scores 25:09 What is the Michael Abene arranging process? 27:08 How do you grapple with form? 28:39 On integrating great players into your arrangements 30:34 How do you determine if something swings? 31:39 On Drums and the Rhythm section 33:36 What are the common mistakes for new arrangers in the modern age? 36:27 How do you get a Big Band to get the flexibility of a small group like Bill Holman? 39:18 How have you grown as arranger vs 10-20 years ago? 40:37 What is your compositional process? 42:40 Odyssey for Brass 45:20 On Orchestration 46:48 PFP, a Piece for Paquito 48:54 How would you balance an arrangement and a virtuoso player? 51:10 Avant Gershwin 52:24 How long did it take to put all those arrangements together? 54:00 Top 3 Trumpet Players 54:27 Top 3 Saxophone Players 54:46 Top 3 Drummers 54:58 Top 3 Guitar Players 55:05 Top 3 Keyboard/Piano Players 55:34 Top 3 Big Bands 55:51 Top 3 Big Band Arrangers 55:59 Top 3 Classical Composers 56:12 Top 3 Jazz Composers 56:38 Who are some arrangers who are not popularly known but should be known 57:29 Favorite instrument or section to write for? 57:37 Biggest regret in music and proudest musical moment 57:58 If you could work with anyone in history, who would it be? 58:32 What 3 albums should new listeners of yours check out? 59:29 Best advice for a new arranger 1:00:31 Wrapping Up

Alphonso Johnson es un músico de jazz y jazz fusión estadounidense especializado en el uso del bajo eléctrico y del Chapman Stick. Nacido en Filadelfia, Pensilvania el 2 de febrero de 1950. Johnson inició su carrera musical como trombonista, pero a finales de su adolescencia se decantaría definitivamente por el bajo eléctrico, inscribiéndose en la Philadelphia Music Academy para seguir los cursos de John Lamb, por aquel entonces el bajista de la Duke Ellington Orchestra. Como él mismo precisó, su actividad profesional se inició en 1968, pero sus primeras actividades de cierta importancia datan de 1972, cuando con tan sólo 21 años recorrería el mundo con la orquesta de Woody Herman, participando al mismo tiempo en la grabación del álbum “The Raven Speaks” de este último. Para entonces, el músico mostraba una inusitada facilidad técnica en su instrumento y había desarrollado un estilo de ejecución muy personal. Su presencia en el grupo de Chuck Mangione atrajo la atención del gran saxofonista de jazz Wayne Shorter, quien en 1974 le propondría para la grabación del disco Mysterious Traveler en sustitución de Miroslav Vitous. El músico contribuiría con dos composiciones para el disco Scarlet Woman y Cucumber Slumber, con un corte funky que presentaba el bajo de Johnson situado preeminentemente en la mezcla. El bajista permaneció aún dos años en la banda, durante los que, además de participar en las giras mundiales del grupo, y registrar un segundo disco para Zawinul y Shorter, grabaría su primer disco de debut en solitario, Moonshadows. Sin embargo, en 1976 Johnson fue sustituido por Jaco Pastorius a mediados de la grabación de Black Market, un disco que cuenta, no obstante, con una fuerte presencia de Johnson en temas como Black Market, Gibraltar o su propia composición Herandnu. Tras abandonar Weather Report, Johnson decidió concentrarse en su propia carrera como solista, grabando Yesterday Dreams en 1976, un álbum que vería su continuación un año más tarde con Spellbound. En este último disco, Alphonso Johnson empleaba ya el Chapman Stick, un instrumento que había descubierto en 1976 y que seguiría utilizando en grabaciones y directos de manera intermitente desde entonces. En 1979 Johnson pasa a formar parte del supergrupo CBS All-Stars, una banda compuesta por el saxofonista Tom Scott, el guitarrista Steve Khan y el baterista Billy Cobham y con la que grabaría un solo álbum en directo. Con la entrada de la nueva década, Johnson iniciaría su actividad como productor con la presentación en 1983 de la banda sonora original de “Sound of Sunshine…Sounds of Rain”, un filme infantil que recibiría una nominación a los Oscar de ese mismo año. En 1984 el bajista se une a la banda de Carlos Santana en sustitución de David Margen. Johnson permaneció tres años en la banda, grabando dos discos (Beyond Appareances, de 1985 y Freedom, de 1987) y participando en una gira mundial con el guitarrista mexicano. Tras su paso por Santana, Alphonso Johnson continuó su actividad como músico de sesión acompañando a algunos de los más grandes nombres de la escena del jazz contemporáneo, como Wayne Shorter, Flora Purim, Quincy Jones, Lee Ritenour, The Crusaders, John McLaughlin o Sarah Vaughan. En 1997 Alphonso editó “Abraxas Pool”, con el grupo Abraxas, formado por antiguos miembros de Santana. Durante 1998 y 1999 formó parte del grupo Jazz Is Dead, junto a Billy Cobham. En el año 2000 participó en una gira con antiguos miembros de Grateful Dead en sustitución de Phil Lesh, antes de unirse de nuevo a Jazz is Dead y a la banda de Gregg Rollie, el organista original de Santana. A este impresionante curriculum de colaboraciones hay que añadir la intensa actividad docente que ha ejercido el músico desde la mitad de la década de 1980: Además de haber contribuido a la edición de varios métodos didácticos, Johnson ha impartido clases en algunas de las más prestigiosas academias de música moderna del mundo, incluyendo la Mesar Hause Institute of Music de Tokio, la Bass School of Music de Colonia, el Musicians Institute, o el Los Angeles Music Academy de cuyo departamento de bajo eléctrico es director desde 1997. Entre los numerosos artistas con quien Alphonso Johnson ha colaborado, podemos citar a: Chet Baker, Santana, Weather Report, The Crusaders, Bob Weir, Chuck Mangione, George Duke, En Vogue, Wayne Shorter, Sérgio Mendes, Tony Williams, Joe Williams, Gregory Hines, Neal Schon, Tom Coster, Dee Dee Bridgwater, Eric Gale, Ronnie Foster, Allan Holdsworth, Cannonball Adderley, Stanley Clarke, Woody Herman, Eddie Henderson, Flora Purim, Quincy Jones, Lee Ritenour, Phil Collins, Tom Scott, Steve Khan, The Whispers, John McLaughlin, Jeffrey Osborne, Sarah Vaughan, Dori Caymmi, Pino Daniele, Carl Anderson, Jeff Beck, Jan Hammer o Jimmy Page. Alphonso Johnson es uno de los bajistas más representativos de la escena internacional, y un músico que ha contribuido con su ejemplo al enorme crecimiento de la técnica instrumental del bajo eléctrico. Junto a figuras como Stanley Clarke, Steve Swallow, Francis “Rocco” Prestia, Anthony Jackson o Larry Graham forma parte de la generación de bajistas que posibilitaron -anticipándola- la gran revolución en el bajo eléctrico que trajo consigo la llegada de Jaco Pastorius. La entrada de Johnson en Weather Report sustituyendo al virtuoso contrabajista Miroslav Vitous, supuso un nuevo sonido para la banda, más moderno, afilado y funky. Sin embargo, su posición histórica como antecesor de Jaco en el grupo ha ejercido en Johnson una doble influencia que no siempre ha resultado positiva para el bajista, pues al tiempo que la asociación de ambos nombres ha contribuido a divulgar la obra de Johnson entre críticos y aficionados, ha empañado también sus contribuciones bajo la enorme sombra de Pastorius. Sin embargo, las aportaciones de Johnson van mucho más allá que el simple papel que ha jugado como predecesor de Jaco Pastorius en Weather Report: en su obra, el artista desarrolla una voz absolutamente diversa que merece, por méritos propios, un puesto de honor en la historia del bajo eléctrico.

Episode fifty of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Honky Tonk” by Bill Doggett, and uses his career to provide a brief summary of the earlier episodes of the podcast as we’re now moving forward into the next stage of the story. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford. —-more—- Resources  As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. There are many best-of collections of Doggett’s work available. This one seems to have the best sound quality and is a decent overview of his work. Information for this one comes from all over the place, including Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe by Gayle F Wald, Honkers & Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues by Arnold Shaw, and Inkspots.ca    Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Welcome to the fiftieth episode of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. We’re now ten percent of the way through our story, and also most of the way through 1956. I’m told that when history podcasts hit a big round number, it’s customary for them to do a jumping-on episode, perhaps a “story so far” which covers everything that’s been discussed up to that point, but in brief, so that new listeners can get up to speed. That’s sort of what I’m about to do here. This week, we’re going to look at a hit song from 1956, but by someone whose career interacted with almost everyone in the first twenty or so episodes of the podcast. We’re going to look again at some of that old music, not as isolated records by different artists, but as stages in the career of a single individual. We’re going to look at someone who was a jobbing musician, who’d take any job that was on offer, but who by virtue of just being a hard-working competent jobbing player and arranger managed to have an astonishing influence on the development of music. While rock and roll was primarily a vocal music, it wasn’t a completely clean break with the past, and for most of the decades from the 1920s through to the early 50s, if you wanted music for dancing you would want instrumental groups. The big bands did employ vocalists, of course, but you can tell who the focus was on from looking at the names of the bands — the Benny Goodman Orchestra, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, the Count Basie orchestra — all of the leaders of the big bands were instrumentalists. They played clarinet or trombone or piano, they didn’t sing. It was only with the musicians union strikes of the 1940s, which we’ve talked about before, that more through necessity than anything else the music industry moved from being dominated by instrumental music to being dominated by singers. But well into the 1960s we’ll still be seeing rock and roll hits that were purely instrumental. Indeed, we probably wouldn’t have rock and roll guitar bands at all without instrumental groups like the Ventures in the US or the Shadows in the UK who had hits with pure instrumental records. And one of the greatest of the early rock and roll instrumentals was by someone who didn’t actually consider himself a rock and roll musician. It’s a record that influenced everyone from James Brown to the Beach Boys, and it’s called “Honky Tonk”: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Honky Tonk”] There is surprisingly little information out there about Bill Doggett, for someone who had such an impact on the fields of rock and roll, blues, jazz, and soul. There are no books about his life, and the only website devoted to him is one designed by his nephew, which… has all the flaws one might expect from a website put together about someone’s uncle. Doggett was born in 1916 in Philadelphia, and he moved to New York in his late teens and formed his own band, for which he was the piano player. But in 1938, Lucky Millinder was looking for a new band — the way Millinder worked was that he bought out, and took over the leadership, of existing bands, which then became “the Lucky Millinder Orchestra”. This incarnation of the Lucky Millinder Orchestra, the one that was put together by Doggett before Millinder took the band over, is the one that got a residency at the Savoy after Chick Webb’s band stopped playing there, and like Webb’s band this group was managed by Moe Gale. Doggett stayed on with Millinder as his pianist, and while with the group he appeared with Millinder in the 1938 all-black film Paradise in Harlem, playing on this song: [Excerpt: Lucky Millinder, “I’ve Got To Put You Down”] Doggett was, from what I can tell, the de facto musical director for Millinder’s band in this period — Millinder was a frontman and occasional singer, but he couldn’t play an instrument and was reliant on the musicians in his band to work the arrangements out for him. Doggett was in the band when Moe Gale suggested that Sister Rosetta Tharpe would work well paired up with Millinder’s main singer, Trevor Bacon, in the same way that Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald had worked well together in the Chick Webb band. Doggett was the pianist during the whole of Tharpe’s time with the Millinder band, and he co-composed, with Millinder, the song that later gave its title to a biography of Tharpe, “Shout! Sister, Shout!”: [Excerpt: Rosetta Tharpe, “Shout! Sister, Shout!”] If you listen to any of Tharpe’s big band recordings from her time with Millinder, it’s Doggett on the piano, and I strongly suspect it was Doggett who came up with the arrangements. Listen for example to his playing on “Lonesome Road”, another song that the MIllinder band performed on film: [Excerpt: Rosetta Tharpe, “Lonesome Road”] The Millinder band were pivotal in the move from swing music to R&B, and Doggett was an important part in that move. While he’d left the band before they took on later singers like Wynonie Harris and Ruth Brown, he had helped set the band up to be the kind of band that those singers would feel comfortable in. Doggett was also in the band when they had their biggest hit, a song called “When the Lights Go on Again (All Over the World)”: [Excerpt: Lucky Millinder, “When the Lights Go on Again (All Over the World)”] That’s most notable now for being one of the first recordings of a young trumpeter who was just starting out, by the name of Dizzy Gillespie. Gillespie was quickly sacked by Millinder, who had a habit of getting rid of musicians before they reached their full potential. I’ve not been able to find out why Doggett left Millinder — whether he was one of those musicians who was sacked, or whether he just wanted to move on to other things — but whatever the reason, it can’t have been anything that put a stain on his reputation, because Doggett remained with Millinder’s manager, Moe Gale. We’ve mentioned Gale before several times, but he was the manager of almost every important black act based in New York in the late thirties and early forties, as well as running the Savoy Club, which we talked about in several of the earliest episodes of the podcast. Gale managed Millinder and Rosetta Tharpe, and also managed the Ink Spots, Ella Fitzgerald, Chick Webb, and Louis Jordan, and so whenever one of his acts needed a musician, he would tend to find them from his existing pool of talent. And so this is how, straight after leaving Lucky Millinder’s band, Doggett found himself working for another Gale act, the Ink Spots. He joined them as their pianist and arranger, and stayed with them for several years: [Excerpt: The Ink Spots, “I’ll Get By”] The Ink Spots, if you don’t remember, were a vocal quartet who became the most popular black act of the forties, and who stuck to a unique formula based around Bill Kenny’s high tenor and Hoppy Jones’ low spoken bass. They had hit after hit during the forties with songs that all sound remarkably similar, and in the mid forties those songs were arranged by Bill Doggett. He was with the group for two years — starting with the classic line-up of the group, and staying with them through Charlie Fuqua being drafted and Deek Watson being fired. While he was a sideman rather than a full member of the group, he was important enough to them that he now gets counted in lists of proper members put together by historians of the band. He ended up leaving them less than two weeks before Hoppy Jones died, and during that time he played on fourteen of their hit singles, almost all of them sticking to the same formula they’d used previously, the “top and bottom”: [Excerpt: The Ink Spots, “Ev’ry Night About This Time”] The different acts managed by Moe Gale all sat in with each other when needed, so for example Trevor Bacon, the male vocalist with Millinder’s band, temporarily joined the Ink Spots when Deke Watson got sick for a few weeks. And so during the times when the Ink Spots weren’t touring, Doggett would also perform with Ella Fitzgerald, who was also managed by Gale. [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald, “Time Alone Will Tell”] And indeed, during the end of Doggett’s time with the Ink Spots, Fitzgerald recorded a number of hit singles with the group, which of course featured Doggett on the piano. That included this one, which later went on to be the basis of “Train Kept A-Rollin'”, which we looked at a few episodes back: [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots, “Cow Cow Boogie”] Doggett moved over full time to become Ella’s arranger and pianist at some point during the couple of weeks between Deek Watson leaving the Ink Spots and Hoppy Jones dying, in early October 1944, and stayed with her for a couple of years, before moving on to Illinois Jacquet’s band, taking the same role again, in the band that introduced the honking tenor saxophone into R&B, and thus into rock and roll: [Excerpt: Illinois Jacquet, “Doggin’ With Doggett”] He also played on one of the most important records in forties R&B — Johnny Otis’ “Harlem Nocturne”, the first hit for the man who would go on to produce most of the great R&B artists of the fifties: [Excerpt: Johnny Otis, “Harlem Nocturne”] And he also led his own band for a while, the Bill Doggett Octet. They were the ones who recorded “Be-Baba-Leba” with Helen Humes on vocals — the song that probably inspired Gene Vincent to write a very similarly named song a few years later: [Excerpt: Helen Humes, “Be-Baba-Leba”] He then moved on to Louis Jordan’s band full time, and this is where his career really starts. Jordan was another act in Moe Gale’s stable, and indeed just like the Ink Spots he’d had hits duetting with Ella Fitzgerald, who he’d first worked with back in the 1930s in Chick Webb’s band. He was also, as you may remember from earlier episodes, the leader of the most popular R&B group in the late forties and early fifties — the one that inspired everyone from Chuck Berry to Bill Haley. And as with his tenure with the Ink Spots, Doggett was in Jordan’s band during its period of peak commercial success. The timeline for who Doggett played with when, as you can probably tell, is all over the place, because he seemed to be playing with two or three acts at any given time. And so officially, if you look at the timelines, so far as they exist, you see that it’s generally claimed that Bill Doggett joined Louis Jordan in 1949. But I’ve seen interviews with members of Jordan’s organisation that suggest he joined much earlier, but he would alternate with Jordan’s other piano player, Wild Bill Davis. The way they worked, according to Berle Adams, who was involved in Jordan’s management, was that Davis would spend a week on the road as Jordan’s piano player, while Doggett would spend the same week writing arrangements for the group, and then they would swap over, and Doggett would go out on the road while Davis would write arrangements. Either way, after a while, Doggett became the sole pianist for the group, as Davis struck out on his own, and Doggett once again basically became the musical director for one of the biggest bands in the R&B business. Doggett is often credited as the person who rewrote “Saturday Night Fish Fry” into one of Jordan’s biggest hits from its inauspicious original version, though Jordan is credited on the record: [Excerpt: Louis Jordan, “Saturday Night Fish Fry”] During his time with Jordan, Doggett continued playing on records for Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Kenny of the Ink Spots, and other artists, but he was paying close attention to Wild Bill Davis, who he had replaced in Jordan’s group. Davis had discovered the possibilities in a new musical instrument, the Hammond organ, and had formed a trio consisting of himself, a guitarist, and a drummer to exploit these possibilities in jazz music: [Excerpt: Wild Bill Davis, “Things Ain’t What They Used To Be”] Doggett was also fascinated by this instrument, especially when hearing it up close, as when Davis rejoined Jordan’s band to record “Tamburitza Boogie”, which had Doggett on piano and Davis on the Hammond organ: [Excerpt: Louis Jordan, “Tamburitza Boogie”] When Doggett left Jordan’s band, he decided to form an organ trio just like Davis’. The only problem was that it was just like Davis’. His group had the same instrumentation, and Doggett and Davis had very similar playing styles. Still, Henry Glover got him a contract with King Records, and he started recording Hammond organ blues tracks in the Davis style: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett Trio, “Big Dog”] Davis and Doggett between them gave the Hammond organ its prominence in the world of jazz, R&B, and soul music. The Hammond organ has an odd image, as most people associate it with the cheesiest sort of light entertainment — certainly for anyone in Britain of the generation older than mine, for example, the name it conjures up is Reggie Dixon, possibly the least funky man ever. But in that part of music which is the intersection of jazz and R&B — the part of music inhabited by Jimmy Smith, Booker T Jones, Ray Charles, Georgie Fame, Billy Preston and others — the Hammond organ has become an essential instrument, used so differently that one might almost compare it to the violin, where the instrument is referred to as a fiddle when it’s played on folk or country songs. And that comes from Davis and Doggett and their almost simultaneous invention of a new style of keyboards for the new style of music that was coming up in the late forties and early fifties. But after a year or two of playing in an organ trio, Doggett decided that he didn’t want to keep making records that sounded so much like the ones Wild Bill Davis was making — he didn’t want to be seen as a copy. And so to vary the style, he decided to take on a honking saxophone player to be the group’s lead instrumentalist, while Doggett would concentrate on providing a rhythmic pad. This lineup of his group would go on to make the record that would make Doggett’s name. “Honky Tonk, Parts 1 and 2” came about almost by accident. As Doggett told the story, his biggest hit started out at a dance in Lima, Ohio on a Sunday night. The group were playing their normal set and people were dancing as normal, but then in between songs Billy Butler, Doggett’s guitarist, just started noodling an instrumental line on his bass strings: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Honky Tonk” intro] This hadn’t been planned — he was just noodling around, as all guitarists will do when given five seconds silence. But the audience started dancing to it, and if you’re in a bar band and the audience is dancing, you keep doing what you’re doing. As Butler was just playing a simple twelve-bar blues pattern, the rest of the group fell in with the riff he was playing, and he started soloing over them: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Honky Tonk” guitar soloing] After three choruses of this, Butler nodded to Clifford Scott, the group’s saxophone player, to take over, and Scott started playing a honking saxophone version of what Butler had been playing: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Honky Tonk”, sax] After Scott played through it a few times, he looked over to Doggett to see if Doggett wanted to take a solo too. Doggett shook his head. The song had already been going about five minutes and what Butler and Scott had been playing was enough. The group quickly brought the song to a close using a standard blues outro: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Honky Tonk”, outro] And that would have been the end of that. It’s the kind of thing that bar bands have jammed a million times, the sort of thing that if you’re a musician you think nothing of. They laughed at the end of the song, happy that they’d pulled off something that spontaneous and the audience had been OK with it, and carried on with the rest of their planned set. But then, a couple of songs later, someone in the audience came up and asked them if they could play that hot new song they’d been playing before again, not realising it had just been a spur-of-the-moment jam. OK, you give the audience what they want, the band members could remember more or less what they’d been playing, so they played it again. And the crowd went wild. And they played it again. And the crowd went wild again. By the end of the night they’d played that new song, the one they’d improvised based on Billy Butler’s guitar noodling, ten times. Doggett immediately phoned Syd Nathan at King Records, his label, and told him that they had a hit on their hands and needed to get it out straight away. But there was one problem — the song was over five minutes long, and a shellac 78RPM disc, which was still the most popular format for R&B music, could only hold three minutes per side. It would have to be a double-sided record. Nathan hated putting out records where the song continued onto the other side, because the jukebox operators who were his main customers didn’t like them. But he eventually agreed, and Doggett and his band got together in the studio and recorded their new instrumental in a single take. It was released as “Honky Tonk Part One” and part two, and they pressed up five thousand copies in the first week. Those sold out straight away, so the next week they pressed up twelve thousand five hundred copies. Those also sold straight away, and so for the next few weeks they started pressing up a hundred thousand copies a week. The song went to number one on the R&B charts, and became the biggest selling R&B song of 1956, spending thirteen weeks in total at number one — dropping down the charts and then back up again. It also reached number two on the pop charts, an astonishing feat for an R&B instrumental. It became a staple for cover bands, and it was recorded by the obvious instrumental acts like the Ventures and Duane Eddy — and indeed Duane Eddy’s whole style seems to have come from “Honky Tonk” — but by other people you might not expect, like Buddy Holly: [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, “Honky Tonk”] The Beach Boys: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, “Honky Tonk”] And even James Brown: [Excerpt: James Brown, Honky Tonk”]  Doggett never had another hit quite as big as “Honky Tonk”, though his next few records, based on the “Honky Tonk” pattern, also made the top five on the R&B chart: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Slow Walk”] He had ten more R&B top thirty hits over the course of the 1950s. But Doggett was being promoted as a rock and roll act, and playing bills with other rock and roll stars, and he didn’t really feel comfortable in the rock and roll world. When “Honky Tonk” came out, he was forty years old — by far the oldest of the people who had rock and roll hits in the mid fifties — and he was a jazz organ player, not a Little Richard type. He was also stuck repeating a formula — over the decade after “Honky Tonk” parts one and two he recorded tracks like “Honky Tonk (vocal version)”, “Hippy Dippy”, “Blip Blop”, “Yocky Dock”, and “Honky Tonk Bossa Nova”. His career as a charting artist more or less stopped after 1960, when he made the mistake of asking Syd Nathan if he could have a higher royalty rate, given the millions of dollars his recordings had brought in to King Records, and King dropped him. But it didn’t stop his career as a working musician. In 1962 he teamed up again with Ella Fitzgerald, who wanted to go back to making music with a bit more rhythm than her recent albums of ballads. The resulting album, “Rhythm is my Business”, featured Doggett’s arrangements and Hammond organ very prominently: [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald, “Hallelujah I Love Him So”] He also teamed up in 1969 with James Brown, who around that time was trying to pay back his dues to others who’d been artists on King Records when Brown had started with them in the fifties. As well as recording his album “Thinking About Little Willie John and Other Nice Things”, Brown had also been producing records for Hank Ballard, and now it was Bill Doggett’s turn. For Doggett, Brown produced and wrote “Honky Tonk Popcorn”: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Honky Tonk Popcorn”] Doggett spent most of the rest of his life touring the oldies circuit, a respected organist who would play hundreds of shows a year, until his death in 1996 aged eighty. He played “Honky Tonk” at every show, saying “I just wouldn’t be Bill Doggett if I didn’t play ‘Honky Tonk’. That’s what the people pay to hear, so that’s what they get.”

Episode fifty of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Honky Tonk” by Bill Doggett, and uses his career to provide a brief summary of the earlier episodes of the podcast as we’re now moving forward into the next stage of the story. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford. —-more—- Resources  As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. There are many best-of collections of Doggett’s work available. This one seems to have the best sound quality and is a decent overview of his work. Information for this one comes from all over the place, including Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe by Gayle F Wald, Honkers & Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues by Arnold Shaw, and Inkspots.ca    Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Welcome to the fiftieth episode of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. We’re now ten percent of the way through our story, and also most of the way through 1956. I’m told that when history podcasts hit a big round number, it’s customary for them to do a jumping-on episode, perhaps a “story so far” which covers everything that’s been discussed up to that point, but in brief, so that new listeners can get up to speed. That’s sort of what I’m about to do here. This week, we’re going to look at a hit song from 1956, but by someone whose career interacted with almost everyone in the first twenty or so episodes of the podcast. We’re going to look again at some of that old music, not as isolated records by different artists, but as stages in the career of a single individual. We’re going to look at someone who was a jobbing musician, who’d take any job that was on offer, but who by virtue of just being a hard-working competent jobbing player and arranger managed to have an astonishing influence on the development of music. While rock and roll was primarily a vocal music, it wasn’t a completely clean break with the past, and for most of the decades from the 1920s through to the early 50s, if you wanted music for dancing you would want instrumental groups. The big bands did employ vocalists, of course, but you can tell who the focus was on from looking at the names of the bands — the Benny Goodman Orchestra, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, the Count Basie orchestra — all of the leaders of the big bands were instrumentalists. They played clarinet or trombone or piano, they didn’t sing. It was only with the musicians union strikes of the 1940s, which we’ve talked about before, that more through necessity than anything else the music industry moved from being dominated by instrumental music to being dominated by singers. But well into the 1960s we’ll still be seeing rock and roll hits that were purely instrumental. Indeed, we probably wouldn’t have rock and roll guitar bands at all without instrumental groups like the Ventures in the US or the Shadows in the UK who had hits with pure instrumental records. And one of the greatest of the early rock and roll instrumentals was by someone who didn’t actually consider himself a rock and roll musician. It’s a record that influenced everyone from James Brown to the Beach Boys, and it’s called “Honky Tonk”: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Honky Tonk”] There is surprisingly little information out there about Bill Doggett, for someone who had such an impact on the fields of rock and roll, blues, jazz, and soul. There are no books about his life, and the only website devoted to him is one designed by his nephew, which… has all the flaws one might expect from a website put together about someone’s uncle. Doggett was born in 1916 in Philadelphia, and he moved to New York in his late teens and formed his own band, for which he was the piano player. But in 1938, Lucky Millinder was looking for a new band — the way Millinder worked was that he bought out, and took over the leadership, of existing bands, which then became “the Lucky Millinder Orchestra”. This incarnation of the Lucky Millinder Orchestra, the one that was put together by Doggett before Millinder took the band over, is the one that got a residency at the Savoy after Chick Webb’s band stopped playing there, and like Webb’s band this group was managed by Moe Gale. Doggett stayed on with Millinder as his pianist, and while with the group he appeared with Millinder in the 1938 all-black film Paradise in Harlem, playing on this song: [Excerpt: Lucky Millinder, “I’ve Got To Put You Down”] Doggett was, from what I can tell, the de facto musical director for Millinder’s band in this period — Millinder was a frontman and occasional singer, but he couldn’t play an instrument and was reliant on the musicians in his band to work the arrangements out for him. Doggett was in the band when Moe Gale suggested that Sister Rosetta Tharpe would work well paired up with Millinder’s main singer, Trevor Bacon, in the same way that Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald had worked well together in the Chick Webb band. Doggett was the pianist during the whole of Tharpe’s time with the Millinder band, and he co-composed, with Millinder, the song that later gave its title to a biography of Tharpe, “Shout! Sister, Shout!”: [Excerpt: Rosetta Tharpe, “Shout! Sister, Shout!”] If you listen to any of Tharpe’s big band recordings from her time with Millinder, it’s Doggett on the piano, and I strongly suspect it was Doggett who came up with the arrangements. Listen for example to his playing on “Lonesome Road”, another song that the MIllinder band performed on film: [Excerpt: Rosetta Tharpe, “Lonesome Road”] The Millinder band were pivotal in the move from swing music to R&B, and Doggett was an important part in that move. While he’d left the band before they took on later singers like Wynonie Harris and Ruth Brown, he had helped set the band up to be the kind of band that those singers would feel comfortable in. Doggett was also in the band when they had their biggest hit, a song called “When the Lights Go on Again (All Over the World)”: [Excerpt: Lucky Millinder, “When the Lights Go on Again (All Over the World)”] That’s most notable now for being one of the first recordings of a young trumpeter who was just starting out, by the name of Dizzy Gillespie. Gillespie was quickly sacked by Millinder, who had a habit of getting rid of musicians before they reached their full potential. I’ve not been able to find out why Doggett left Millinder — whether he was one of those musicians who was sacked, or whether he just wanted to move on to other things — but whatever the reason, it can’t have been anything that put a stain on his reputation, because Doggett remained with Millinder’s manager, Moe Gale. We’ve mentioned Gale before several times, but he was the manager of almost every important black act based in New York in the late thirties and early forties, as well as running the Savoy Club, which we talked about in several of the earliest episodes of the podcast. Gale managed Millinder and Rosetta Tharpe, and also managed the Ink Spots, Ella Fitzgerald, Chick Webb, and Louis Jordan, and so whenever one of his acts needed a musician, he would tend to find them from his existing pool of talent. And so this is how, straight after leaving Lucky Millinder’s band, Doggett found himself working for another Gale act, the Ink Spots. He joined them as their pianist and arranger, and stayed with them for several years: [Excerpt: The Ink Spots, “I’ll Get By”] The Ink Spots, if you don’t remember, were a vocal quartet who became the most popular black act of the forties, and who stuck to a unique formula based around Bill Kenny’s high tenor and Hoppy Jones’ low spoken bass. They had hit after hit during the forties with songs that all sound remarkably similar, and in the mid forties those songs were arranged by Bill Doggett. He was with the group for two years — starting with the classic line-up of the group, and staying with them through Charlie Fuqua being drafted and Deek Watson being fired. While he was a sideman rather than a full member of the group, he was important enough to them that he now gets counted in lists of proper members put together by historians of the band. He ended up leaving them less than two weeks before Hoppy Jones died, and during that time he played on fourteen of their hit singles, almost all of them sticking to the same formula they’d used previously, the “top and bottom”: [Excerpt: The Ink Spots, “Ev’ry Night About This Time”] The different acts managed by Moe Gale all sat in with each other when needed, so for example Trevor Bacon, the male vocalist with Millinder’s band, temporarily joined the Ink Spots when Deke Watson got sick for a few weeks. And so during the times when the Ink Spots weren’t touring, Doggett would also perform with Ella Fitzgerald, who was also managed by Gale. [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald, “Time Alone Will Tell”] And indeed, during the end of Doggett’s time with the Ink Spots, Fitzgerald recorded a number of hit singles with the group, which of course featured Doggett on the piano. That included this one, which later went on to be the basis of “Train Kept A-Rollin'”, which we looked at a few episodes back: [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots, “Cow Cow Boogie”] Doggett moved over full time to become Ella’s arranger and pianist at some point during the couple of weeks between Deek Watson leaving the Ink Spots and Hoppy Jones dying, in early October 1944, and stayed with her for a couple of years, before moving on to Illinois Jacquet’s band, taking the same role again, in the band that introduced the honking tenor saxophone into R&B, and thus into rock and roll: [Excerpt: Illinois Jacquet, “Doggin’ With Doggett”] He also played on one of the most important records in forties R&B — Johnny Otis’ “Harlem Nocturne”, the first hit for the man who would go on to produce most of the great R&B artists of the fifties: [Excerpt: Johnny Otis, “Harlem Nocturne”] And he also led his own band for a while, the Bill Doggett Octet. They were the ones who recorded “Be-Baba-Leba” with Helen Humes on vocals — the song that probably inspired Gene Vincent to write a very similarly named song a few years later: [Excerpt: Helen Humes, “Be-Baba-Leba”] He then moved on to Louis Jordan’s band full time, and this is where his career really starts. Jordan was another act in Moe Gale’s stable, and indeed just like the Ink Spots he’d had hits duetting with Ella Fitzgerald, who he’d first worked with back in the 1930s in Chick Webb’s band. He was also, as you may remember from earlier episodes, the leader of the most popular R&B group in the late forties and early fifties — the one that inspired everyone from Chuck Berry to Bill Haley. And as with his tenure with the Ink Spots, Doggett was in Jordan’s band during its period of peak commercial success. The timeline for who Doggett played with when, as you can probably tell, is all over the place, because he seemed to be playing with two or three acts at any given time. And so officially, if you look at the timelines, so far as they exist, you see that it’s generally claimed that Bill Doggett joined Louis Jordan in 1949. But I’ve seen interviews with members of Jordan’s organisation that suggest he joined much earlier, but he would alternate with Jordan’s other piano player, Wild Bill Davis. The way they worked, according to Berle Adams, who was involved in Jordan’s management, was that Davis would spend a week on the road as Jordan’s piano player, while Doggett would spend the same week writing arrangements for the group, and then they would swap over, and Doggett would go out on the road while Davis would write arrangements. Either way, after a while, Doggett became the sole pianist for the group, as Davis struck out on his own, and Doggett once again basically became the musical director for one of the biggest bands in the R&B business. Doggett is often credited as the person who rewrote “Saturday Night Fish Fry” into one of Jordan’s biggest hits from its inauspicious original version, though Jordan is credited on the record: [Excerpt: Louis Jordan, “Saturday Night Fish Fry”] During his time with Jordan, Doggett continued playing on records for Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Kenny of the Ink Spots, and other artists, but he was paying close attention to Wild Bill Davis, who he had replaced in Jordan’s group. Davis had discovered the possibilities in a new musical instrument, the Hammond organ, and had formed a trio consisting of himself, a guitarist, and a drummer to exploit these possibilities in jazz music: [Excerpt: Wild Bill Davis, “Things Ain’t What They Used To Be”] Doggett was also fascinated by this instrument, especially when hearing it up close, as when Davis rejoined Jordan’s band to record “Tamburitza Boogie”, which had Doggett on piano and Davis on the Hammond organ: [Excerpt: Louis Jordan, “Tamburitza Boogie”] When Doggett left Jordan’s band, he decided to form an organ trio just like Davis’. The only problem was that it was just like Davis’. His group had the same instrumentation, and Doggett and Davis had very similar playing styles. Still, Henry Glover got him a contract with King Records, and he started recording Hammond organ blues tracks in the Davis style: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett Trio, “Big Dog”] Davis and Doggett between them gave the Hammond organ its prominence in the world of jazz, R&B, and soul music. The Hammond organ has an odd image, as most people associate it with the cheesiest sort of light entertainment — certainly for anyone in Britain of the generation older than mine, for example, the name it conjures up is Reggie Dixon, possibly the least funky man ever. But in that part of music which is the intersection of jazz and R&B — the part of music inhabited by Jimmy Smith, Booker T Jones, Ray Charles, Georgie Fame, Billy Preston and others — the Hammond organ has become an essential instrument, used so differently that one might almost compare it to the violin, where the instrument is referred to as a fiddle when it’s played on folk or country songs. And that comes from Davis and Doggett and their almost simultaneous invention of a new style of keyboards for the new style of music that was coming up in the late forties and early fifties. But after a year or two of playing in an organ trio, Doggett decided that he didn’t want to keep making records that sounded so much like the ones Wild Bill Davis was making — he didn’t want to be seen as a copy. And so to vary the style, he decided to take on a honking saxophone player to be the group’s lead instrumentalist, while Doggett would concentrate on providing a rhythmic pad. This lineup of his group would go on to make the record that would make Doggett’s name. “Honky Tonk, Parts 1 and 2” came about almost by accident. As Doggett told the story, his biggest hit started out at a dance in Lima, Ohio on a Sunday night. The group were playing their normal set and people were dancing as normal, but then in between songs Billy Butler, Doggett’s guitarist, just started noodling an instrumental line on his bass strings: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Honky Tonk” intro] This hadn’t been planned — he was just noodling around, as all guitarists will do when given five seconds silence. But the audience started dancing to it, and if you’re in a bar band and the audience is dancing, you keep doing what you’re doing. As Butler was just playing a simple twelve-bar blues pattern, the rest of the group fell in with the riff he was playing, and he started soloing over them: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Honky Tonk” guitar soloing] After three choruses of this, Butler nodded to Clifford Scott, the group’s saxophone player, to take over, and Scott started playing a honking saxophone version of what Butler had been playing: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Honky Tonk”, sax] After Scott played through it a few times, he looked over to Doggett to see if Doggett wanted to take a solo too. Doggett shook his head. The song had already been going about five minutes and what Butler and Scott had been playing was enough. The group quickly brought the song to a close using a standard blues outro: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Honky Tonk”, outro] And that would have been the end of that. It’s the kind of thing that bar bands have jammed a million times, the sort of thing that if you’re a musician you think nothing of. They laughed at the end of the song, happy that they’d pulled off something that spontaneous and the audience had been OK with it, and carried on with the rest of their planned set. But then, a couple of songs later, someone in the audience came up and asked them if they could play that hot new song they’d been playing before again, not realising it had just been a spur-of-the-moment jam. OK, you give the audience what they want, the band members could remember more or less what they’d been playing, so they played it again. And the crowd went wild. And they played it again. And the crowd went wild again. By the end of the night they’d played that new song, the one they’d improvised based on Billy Butler’s guitar noodling, ten times. Doggett immediately phoned Syd Nathan at King Records, his label, and told him that they had a hit on their hands and needed to get it out straight away. But there was one problem — the song was over five minutes long, and a shellac 78RPM disc, which was still the most popular format for R&B music, could only hold three minutes per side. It would have to be a double-sided record. Nathan hated putting out records where the song continued onto the other side, because the jukebox operators who were his main customers didn’t like them. But he eventually agreed, and Doggett and his band got together in the studio and recorded their new instrumental in a single take. It was released as “Honky Tonk Part One” and part two, and they pressed up five thousand copies in the first week. Those sold out straight away, so the next week they pressed up twelve thousand five hundred copies. Those also sold straight away, and so for the next few weeks they started pressing up a hundred thousand copies a week. The song went to number one on the R&B charts, and became the biggest selling R&B song of 1956, spending thirteen weeks in total at number one — dropping down the charts and then back up again. It also reached number two on the pop charts, an astonishing feat for an R&B instrumental. It became a staple for cover bands, and it was recorded by the obvious instrumental acts like the Ventures and Duane Eddy — and indeed Duane Eddy’s whole style seems to have come from “Honky Tonk” — but by other people you might not expect, like Buddy Holly: [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, “Honky Tonk”] The Beach Boys: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, “Honky Tonk”] And even James Brown: [Excerpt: James Brown, Honky Tonk”]  Doggett never had another hit quite as big as “Honky Tonk”, though his next few records, based on the “Honky Tonk” pattern, also made the top five on the R&B chart: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Slow Walk”] He had ten more R&B top thirty hits over the course of the 1950s. But Doggett was being promoted as a rock and roll act, and playing bills with other rock and roll stars, and he didn’t really feel comfortable in the rock and roll world. When “Honky Tonk” came out, he was forty years old — by far the oldest of the people who had rock and roll hits in the mid fifties — and he was a jazz organ player, not a Little Richard type. He was also stuck repeating a formula — over the decade after “Honky Tonk” parts one and two he recorded tracks like “Honky Tonk (vocal version)”, “Hippy Dippy”, “Blip Blop”, “Yocky Dock”, and “Honky Tonk Bossa Nova”. His career as a charting artist more or less stopped after 1960, when he made the mistake of asking Syd Nathan if he could have a higher royalty rate, given the millions of dollars his recordings had brought in to King Records, and King dropped him. But it didn’t stop his career as a working musician. In 1962 he teamed up again with Ella Fitzgerald, who wanted to go back to making music with a bit more rhythm than her recent albums of ballads. The resulting album, “Rhythm is my Business”, featured Doggett’s arrangements and Hammond organ very prominently: [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald, “Hallelujah I Love Him So”] He also teamed up in 1969 with James Brown, who around that time was trying to pay back his dues to others who’d been artists on King Records when Brown had started with them in the fifties. As well as recording his album “Thinking About Little Willie John and Other Nice Things”, Brown had also been producing records for Hank Ballard, and now it was Bill Doggett’s turn. For Doggett, Brown produced and wrote “Honky Tonk Popcorn”: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, “Honky Tonk Popcorn”] Doggett spent most of the rest of his life touring the oldies circuit, a respected organist who would play hundreds of shows a year, until his death in 1996 aged eighty. He played “Honky Tonk” at every show, saying “I just wouldn’t be Bill Doggett if I didn’t play ‘Honky Tonk’. That’s what the people pay to hear, so that’s what they get.”

Episode fifty of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Honky Tonk" by Bill Doggett, and uses his career to provide a brief summary of the earlier episodes of the podcast as we're now moving forward into the next stage of the story. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford. ----more---- Resources  As always, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. There are many best-of collections of Doggett's work available. This one seems to have the best sound quality and is a decent overview of his work. Information for this one comes from all over the place, including Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe by Gayle F Wald, Honkers & Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues by Arnold Shaw, and Inkspots.ca    Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Welcome to the fiftieth episode of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. We're now ten percent of the way through our story, and also most of the way through 1956. I'm told that when history podcasts hit a big round number, it's customary for them to do a jumping-on episode, perhaps a "story so far" which covers everything that's been discussed up to that point, but in brief, so that new listeners can get up to speed. That's sort of what I'm about to do here. This week, we're going to look at a hit song from 1956, but by someone whose career interacted with almost everyone in the first twenty or so episodes of the podcast. We're going to look again at some of that old music, not as isolated records by different artists, but as stages in the career of a single individual. We're going to look at someone who was a jobbing musician, who'd take any job that was on offer, but who by virtue of just being a hard-working competent jobbing player and arranger managed to have an astonishing influence on the development of music. While rock and roll was primarily a vocal music, it wasn't a completely clean break with the past, and for most of the decades from the 1920s through to the early 50s, if you wanted music for dancing you would want instrumental groups. The big bands did employ vocalists, of course, but you can tell who the focus was on from looking at the names of the bands -- the Benny Goodman Orchestra, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, the Count Basie orchestra -- all of the leaders of the big bands were instrumentalists. They played clarinet or trombone or piano, they didn't sing. It was only with the musicians union strikes of the 1940s, which we've talked about before, that more through necessity than anything else the music industry moved from being dominated by instrumental music to being dominated by singers. But well into the 1960s we'll still be seeing rock and roll hits that were purely instrumental. Indeed, we probably wouldn't have rock and roll guitar bands at all without instrumental groups like the Ventures in the US or the Shadows in the UK who had hits with pure instrumental records. And one of the greatest of the early rock and roll instrumentals was by someone who didn't actually consider himself a rock and roll musician. It's a record that influenced everyone from James Brown to the Beach Boys, and it's called "Honky Tonk": [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, "Honky Tonk"] There is surprisingly little information out there about Bill Doggett, for someone who had such an impact on the fields of rock and roll, blues, jazz, and soul. There are no books about his life, and the only website devoted to him is one designed by his nephew, which... has all the flaws one might expect from a website put together about someone's uncle. Doggett was born in 1916 in Philadelphia, and he moved to New York in his late teens and formed his own band, for which he was the piano player. But in 1938, Lucky Millinder was looking for a new band -- the way Millinder worked was that he bought out, and took over the leadership, of existing bands, which then became "the Lucky Millinder Orchestra". This incarnation of the Lucky Millinder Orchestra, the one that was put together by Doggett before Millinder took the band over, is the one that got a residency at the Savoy after Chick Webb's band stopped playing there, and like Webb's band this group was managed by Moe Gale. Doggett stayed on with Millinder as his pianist, and while with the group he appeared with Millinder in the 1938 all-black film Paradise in Harlem, playing on this song: [Excerpt: Lucky Millinder, "I've Got To Put You Down"] Doggett was, from what I can tell, the de facto musical director for Millinder's band in this period -- Millinder was a frontman and occasional singer, but he couldn't play an instrument and was reliant on the musicians in his band to work the arrangements out for him. Doggett was in the band when Moe Gale suggested that Sister Rosetta Tharpe would work well paired up with Millinder's main singer, Trevor Bacon, in the same way that Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald had worked well together in the Chick Webb band. Doggett was the pianist during the whole of Tharpe's time with the Millinder band, and he co-composed, with Millinder, the song that later gave its title to a biography of Tharpe, "Shout! Sister, Shout!": [Excerpt: Rosetta Tharpe, "Shout! Sister, Shout!"] If you listen to any of Tharpe's big band recordings from her time with Millinder, it's Doggett on the piano, and I strongly suspect it was Doggett who came up with the arrangements. Listen for example to his playing on "Lonesome Road", another song that the MIllinder band performed on film: [Excerpt: Rosetta Tharpe, "Lonesome Road"] The Millinder band were pivotal in the move from swing music to R&B, and Doggett was an important part in that move. While he'd left the band before they took on later singers like Wynonie Harris and Ruth Brown, he had helped set the band up to be the kind of band that those singers would feel comfortable in. Doggett was also in the band when they had their biggest hit, a song called "When the Lights Go on Again (All Over the World)": [Excerpt: Lucky Millinder, "When the Lights Go on Again (All Over the World)"] That's most notable now for being one of the first recordings of a young trumpeter who was just starting out, by the name of Dizzy Gillespie. Gillespie was quickly sacked by Millinder, who had a habit of getting rid of musicians before they reached their full potential. I've not been able to find out why Doggett left Millinder -- whether he was one of those musicians who was sacked, or whether he just wanted to move on to other things -- but whatever the reason, it can't have been anything that put a stain on his reputation, because Doggett remained with Millinder's manager, Moe Gale. We've mentioned Gale before several times, but he was the manager of almost every important black act based in New York in the late thirties and early forties, as well as running the Savoy Club, which we talked about in several of the earliest episodes of the podcast. Gale managed Millinder and Rosetta Tharpe, and also managed the Ink Spots, Ella Fitzgerald, Chick Webb, and Louis Jordan, and so whenever one of his acts needed a musician, he would tend to find them from his existing pool of talent. And so this is how, straight after leaving Lucky Millinder's band, Doggett found himself working for another Gale act, the Ink Spots. He joined them as their pianist and arranger, and stayed with them for several years: [Excerpt: The Ink Spots, "I'll Get By"] The Ink Spots, if you don't remember, were a vocal quartet who became the most popular black act of the forties, and who stuck to a unique formula based around Bill Kenny's high tenor and Hoppy Jones' low spoken bass. They had hit after hit during the forties with songs that all sound remarkably similar, and in the mid forties those songs were arranged by Bill Doggett. He was with the group for two years -- starting with the classic line-up of the group, and staying with them through Charlie Fuqua being drafted and Deek Watson being fired. While he was a sideman rather than a full member of the group, he was important enough to them that he now gets counted in lists of proper members put together by historians of the band. He ended up leaving them less than two weeks before Hoppy Jones died, and during that time he played on fourteen of their hit singles, almost all of them sticking to the same formula they'd used previously, the "top and bottom": [Excerpt: The Ink Spots, "Ev'ry Night About This Time"] The different acts managed by Moe Gale all sat in with each other when needed, so for example Trevor Bacon, the male vocalist with Millinder's band, temporarily joined the Ink Spots when Deke Watson got sick for a few weeks. And so during the times when the Ink Spots weren't touring, Doggett would also perform with Ella Fitzgerald, who was also managed by Gale. [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald, "Time Alone Will Tell"] And indeed, during the end of Doggett's time with the Ink Spots, Fitzgerald recorded a number of hit singles with the group, which of course featured Doggett on the piano. That included this one, which later went on to be the basis of "Train Kept A-Rollin'", which we looked at a few episodes back: [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots, "Cow Cow Boogie"] Doggett moved over full time to become Ella's arranger and pianist at some point during the couple of weeks between Deek Watson leaving the Ink Spots and Hoppy Jones dying, in early October 1944, and stayed with her for a couple of years, before moving on to Illinois Jacquet's band, taking the same role again, in the band that introduced the honking tenor saxophone into R&B, and thus into rock and roll: [Excerpt: Illinois Jacquet, "Doggin' With Doggett"] He also played on one of the most important records in forties R&B -- Johnny Otis' "Harlem Nocturne", the first hit for the man who would go on to produce most of the great R&B artists of the fifties: [Excerpt: Johnny Otis, "Harlem Nocturne"] And he also led his own band for a while, the Bill Doggett Octet. They were the ones who recorded "Be-Baba-Leba" with Helen Humes on vocals -- the song that probably inspired Gene Vincent to write a very similarly named song a few years later: [Excerpt: Helen Humes, "Be-Baba-Leba"] He then moved on to Louis Jordan's band full time, and this is where his career really starts. Jordan was another act in Moe Gale's stable, and indeed just like the Ink Spots he'd had hits duetting with Ella Fitzgerald, who he'd first worked with back in the 1930s in Chick Webb's band. He was also, as you may remember from earlier episodes, the leader of the most popular R&B group in the late forties and early fifties -- the one that inspired everyone from Chuck Berry to Bill Haley. And as with his tenure with the Ink Spots, Doggett was in Jordan's band during its period of peak commercial success. The timeline for who Doggett played with when, as you can probably tell, is all over the place, because he seemed to be playing with two or three acts at any given time. And so officially, if you look at the timelines, so far as they exist, you see that it's generally claimed that Bill Doggett joined Louis Jordan in 1949. But I've seen interviews with members of Jordan's organisation that suggest he joined much earlier, but he would alternate with Jordan's other piano player, Wild Bill Davis. The way they worked, according to Berle Adams, who was involved in Jordan's management, was that Davis would spend a week on the road as Jordan's piano player, while Doggett would spend the same week writing arrangements for the group, and then they would swap over, and Doggett would go out on the road while Davis would write arrangements. Either way, after a while, Doggett became the sole pianist for the group, as Davis struck out on his own, and Doggett once again basically became the musical director for one of the biggest bands in the R&B business. Doggett is often credited as the person who rewrote "Saturday Night Fish Fry" into one of Jordan's biggest hits from its inauspicious original version, though Jordan is credited on the record: [Excerpt: Louis Jordan, "Saturday Night Fish Fry"] During his time with Jordan, Doggett continued playing on records for Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Kenny of the Ink Spots, and other artists, but he was paying close attention to Wild Bill Davis, who he had replaced in Jordan's group. Davis had discovered the possibilities in a new musical instrument, the Hammond organ, and had formed a trio consisting of himself, a guitarist, and a drummer to exploit these possibilities in jazz music: [Excerpt: Wild Bill Davis, "Things Ain't What They Used To Be"] Doggett was also fascinated by this instrument, especially when hearing it up close, as when Davis rejoined Jordan's band to record "Tamburitza Boogie", which had Doggett on piano and Davis on the Hammond organ: [Excerpt: Louis Jordan, "Tamburitza Boogie"] When Doggett left Jordan's band, he decided to form an organ trio just like Davis'. The only problem was that it was just like Davis'. His group had the same instrumentation, and Doggett and Davis had very similar playing styles. Still, Henry Glover got him a contract with King Records, and he started recording Hammond organ blues tracks in the Davis style: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett Trio, "Big Dog"] Davis and Doggett between them gave the Hammond organ its prominence in the world of jazz, R&B, and soul music. The Hammond organ has an odd image, as most people associate it with the cheesiest sort of light entertainment -- certainly for anyone in Britain of the generation older than mine, for example, the name it conjures up is Reggie Dixon, possibly the least funky man ever. But in that part of music which is the intersection of jazz and R&B -- the part of music inhabited by Jimmy Smith, Booker T Jones, Ray Charles, Georgie Fame, Billy Preston and others -- the Hammond organ has become an essential instrument, used so differently that one might almost compare it to the violin, where the instrument is referred to as a fiddle when it's played on folk or country songs. And that comes from Davis and Doggett and their almost simultaneous invention of a new style of keyboards for the new style of music that was coming up in the late forties and early fifties. But after a year or two of playing in an organ trio, Doggett decided that he didn't want to keep making records that sounded so much like the ones Wild Bill Davis was making -- he didn't want to be seen as a copy. And so to vary the style, he decided to take on a honking saxophone player to be the group's lead instrumentalist, while Doggett would concentrate on providing a rhythmic pad. This lineup of his group would go on to make the record that would make Doggett's name. "Honky Tonk, Parts 1 and 2" came about almost by accident. As Doggett told the story, his biggest hit started out at a dance in Lima, Ohio on a Sunday night. The group were playing their normal set and people were dancing as normal, but then in between songs Billy Butler, Doggett's guitarist, just started noodling an instrumental line on his bass strings: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, "Honky Tonk" intro] This hadn't been planned -- he was just noodling around, as all guitarists will do when given five seconds silence. But the audience started dancing to it, and if you're in a bar band and the audience is dancing, you keep doing what you're doing. As Butler was just playing a simple twelve-bar blues pattern, the rest of the group fell in with the riff he was playing, and he started soloing over them: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, "Honky Tonk" guitar soloing] After three choruses of this, Butler nodded to Clifford Scott, the group's saxophone player, to take over, and Scott started playing a honking saxophone version of what Butler had been playing: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, "Honky Tonk", sax] After Scott played through it a few times, he looked over to Doggett to see if Doggett wanted to take a solo too. Doggett shook his head. The song had already been going about five minutes and what Butler and Scott had been playing was enough. The group quickly brought the song to a close using a standard blues outro: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, "Honky Tonk", outro] And that would have been the end of that. It's the kind of thing that bar bands have jammed a million times, the sort of thing that if you're a musician you think nothing of. They laughed at the end of the song, happy that they'd pulled off something that spontaneous and the audience had been OK with it, and carried on with the rest of their planned set. But then, a couple of songs later, someone in the audience came up and asked them if they could play that hot new song they'd been playing before again, not realising it had just been a spur-of-the-moment jam. OK, you give the audience what they want, the band members could remember more or less what they'd been playing, so they played it again. And the crowd went wild. And they played it again. And the crowd went wild again. By the end of the night they'd played that new song, the one they'd improvised based on Billy Butler's guitar noodling, ten times. Doggett immediately phoned Syd Nathan at King Records, his label, and told him that they had a hit on their hands and needed to get it out straight away. But there was one problem -- the song was over five minutes long, and a shellac 78RPM disc, which was still the most popular format for R&B music, could only hold three minutes per side. It would have to be a double-sided record. Nathan hated putting out records where the song continued onto the other side, because the jukebox operators who were his main customers didn't like them. But he eventually agreed, and Doggett and his band got together in the studio and recorded their new instrumental in a single take. It was released as "Honky Tonk Part One" and part two, and they pressed up five thousand copies in the first week. Those sold out straight away, so the next week they pressed up twelve thousand five hundred copies. Those also sold straight away, and so for the next few weeks they started pressing up a hundred thousand copies a week. The song went to number one on the R&B charts, and became the biggest selling R&B song of 1956, spending thirteen weeks in total at number one -- dropping down the charts and then back up again. It also reached number two on the pop charts, an astonishing feat for an R&B instrumental. It became a staple for cover bands, and it was recorded by the obvious instrumental acts like the Ventures and Duane Eddy -- and indeed Duane Eddy's whole style seems to have come from "Honky Tonk" -- but by other people you might not expect, like Buddy Holly: [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, "Honky Tonk"] The Beach Boys: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Honky Tonk"] And even James Brown: [Excerpt: James Brown, Honky Tonk"]  Doggett never had another hit quite as big as "Honky Tonk", though his next few records, based on the "Honky Tonk" pattern, also made the top five on the R&B chart: [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, "Slow Walk"] He had ten more R&B top thirty hits over the course of the 1950s. But Doggett was being promoted as a rock and roll act, and playing bills with other rock and roll stars, and he didn't really feel comfortable in the rock and roll world. When "Honky Tonk" came out, he was forty years old -- by far the oldest of the people who had rock and roll hits in the mid fifties -- and he was a jazz organ player, not a Little Richard type. He was also stuck repeating a formula -- over the decade after "Honky Tonk" parts one and two he recorded tracks like "Honky Tonk (vocal version)", "Hippy Dippy", "Blip Blop", "Yocky Dock", and "Honky Tonk Bossa Nova". His career as a charting artist more or less stopped after 1960, when he made the mistake of asking Syd Nathan if he could have a higher royalty rate, given the millions of dollars his recordings had brought in to King Records, and King dropped him. But it didn't stop his career as a working musician. In 1962 he teamed up again with Ella Fitzgerald, who wanted to go back to making music with a bit more rhythm than her recent albums of ballads. The resulting album, "Rhythm is my Business", featured Doggett's arrangements and Hammond organ very prominently: [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald, "Hallelujah I Love Him So"] He also teamed up in 1969 with James Brown, who around that time was trying to pay back his dues to others who'd been artists on King Records when Brown had started with them in the fifties. As well as recording his album "Thinking About Little Willie John and Other Nice Things", Brown had also been producing records for Hank Ballard, and now it was Bill Doggett's turn. For Doggett, Brown produced and wrote "Honky Tonk Popcorn": [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, "Honky Tonk Popcorn"] Doggett spent most of the rest of his life touring the oldies circuit, a respected organist who would play hundreds of shows a year, until his death in 1996 aged eighty. He played "Honky Tonk" at every show, saying "I just wouldn't be Bill Doggett if I didn't play 'Honky Tonk'. That's what the people pay to hear, so that's what they get."

A look at some of the outside projects done by Johnny Hodges during his second tenure with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Continue reading →

The legendary Sam Pilafian on Empire Brass, Leonard Bernstein, and life-threatening pedagogy. We talk about his life as a tubist, arranger, composer, educator, performer, producer, and mentor (and countless other descriptors) on our 100th episode. Sam Pilafian is perhaps best known as a founding member of the internationally renowned Empire Brass Quintet (1971-1993). He has also recorded and performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Lionel Hampton, and Pink Floyd among others. His long career has earned him an Emmy for Excellence in Instructional Video Production, the Walt Disney Award for Imagination and Innovation in Design, the Walter Naumberg Chamber Music Award, the Harvard Music Association Prize, the University of Miami’s Distinguished Alumni Award, the Brevard Music Center Distinguished Alumni Award, the Robert Trotter Visiting Professorship at the University of Oregon and the annual Outstanding Teacher Award from Arizona State University. Sam is the co-author, with Patrick Sheridan, of the best selling pedagogy texts and DVD’s “Breathing Gym” and “Brass Gym”. Professor Pilafian previously served for 44 years on the faculties of Boston University, the Tanglewood Institute, Berklee College of Music, Frost School of Music at the University of Miami and is Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University.  In this fun and lively (and tearful) discussion, we cover: The meaning of J Andrew as a student of Sam "Up an octave" story Life-threatening pedagogy The amazing story of Sam's recent battle with cancer Beating 3+ Million to 1 odds How studios turn into family Meeting Lance part 1, Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic Meeting Lance part 2, Army Band Conference Brass Band of Battle Creek Scott Hartman fruit salad Meeting Andrew, Andrew was 12 at Tanglewood Meeting Andrew, Andrew was 14 at BUTI The amazing array of young players Sam heard, coached and taught at Tanglewood Hearing Michael Sachs as a young player Leonard Bernstein and the beginnings of Empire Brass Oak trees Gunther Schuller, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Bernstein inspiring the beginnings of Empire Brass Gunther Schuller and Eugene Goossens playing name that tune Parallels with the Emerson String Quartet and how that inspired Empire Brass Finding the nucleus in the music Playing bass lines Working onstage with Alvin Ailey Dance Company at the opening of the Kennedy Center (in brown pajamas) Being Bernstein's daughter's bodyguard at the Kennedy Center reception How Empire Brass become a full-time gig Rolf Smedvig's playing A major Empire Brass blowup at Tanglewood witnessed by Andrew in 1993 How Andrew got the gig with Dallas Brass while in a lesson with Sam The line between obnoxious and oblivious Scrapshoot Winning the 1976 Naumburg Chamber Music Prize, the first brass group to do so, leading to being picked up by Columbia Artists The Empire Brass recordings Bernstein "Always go towards growth" Seeing America on tour Learning to talk on stage His teacher, Connie Weldon Coming up in Miami Frederick Fennell encouraging Sam to diversify his career LINKS: Sam's site Want to help the show? Here are some ways: Help others find the show by leaving a rating and review on iTunes. Show us some love on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Help us pay the bills (and get regular bonus episodes!) by becoming a Patreon patron. Show some love to our sponsors: The brass program at The Mary Pappert School of Music at Duquesne University and Parker Mouthpieces (including the Andrew Hitz and Lance LaDuke models.) Tell your friends! Expertly produced by Will Houchin with love, care, and enthusiasm.

Comedian and writer Adam Hills is also the host of Channel 4's taboo busting comedy satire The Last Leg. He joins Richard and Aasmah along with: Georgina Lawton who grew up thinking she was white like her parents, then she found out about her black heritage. Claire de Lune is a ceramicist who recently found that her family had been working with clay for 700 years. And composer Shirley J Thompson on how modern history inspires her work. We have your thank you and the inheritance tracks of Manfred Mann's Paul Jones who chooses My Babe performed by Little Walter and Come Sunday performed by Mahalia Jackson with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Producer: Corinna Jones Editor: Eleanor Garland

Scarlet Rivera is one of the world's foremost violinists, a performing and recording artist and a composer. Her recordings feature her original style and compositions. Scarlet Rivera has performed in front of audiences in the United States, Eruope and Asia. She has toured with a diverse number of artists: Bob Dylan, Tracy Chapman, The Duke Ellington Orchestra and others. As a contributing recording artist, she has been featured on albums such as Bob Dylan's records "Desire" and "Hard Rain," Dee Dee Bridgewater's album "Just Family" or Tracy Chapman's album "Crossroads." Her own discography features styles that would include New Age, World and Celtic music. It's a pleasure to present an interview with a world renowned artist. Scarlet Rivera is on The Paul Leslie Hour. Support The Paul Leslie Hour by donating to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/the-paul-leslie-hour

Today we have the distinct pleasure to talk with someone who we think it’s fair to say is one of the top jazz musicians in the world today and who has played with and learned from some of the true masters: Marshall McDonald, who has been playing for 20 years with the legendary Count Basie Orchestra, and currently plays lead alto sax in that band. He’s also performed in the Duke Ellington Orchestra and with Lionel Hampton and Paquito D’Rivera.   We'll admit that we were a bit nervous going into this interview. Marshall has had an amazingly impressive career, and although we're jazz fans we're not jazz musicians ourselves - and we know that jazz cats often have an encyclopedic knowledge of jazz records, jazz history and the jazz musicians behind it all. And Marshall's certainly no exception! But fortunately he is also the most kind and humble guy and it was an absolute pleasure to chat with him - and he certainly didn't hold back on the amazing stories and insights on teaching and learning jazz - and music in general.   One might assume that a world-leading alto sax player would talk mostly about the specifics of jazz and sax - but as you’ll hear, Marshall’s got a breadth of wisdom and insight that cuts right across music itself. There is a ton in here for any musician to learn from.   In this conversation we talk about:   • Talent, and how he and the amazing musicians he's worked with and learned from think about talent • We ask him about learning to improvise, and the balance of preparation versus spontaneity to improvise in a way that moves the listener • And he helps Christopher shrug off a grudge he's been harbouring for 20 years and realise some advice that he got back then was actually pretty solid!   Marshall’s a natural story-teller, so this is a really fantastic interview - and we take no credit for that! He’s also a skillful educator, offering private lessons online and giving masterclasses, so he really knows how to explain what he does. Between the stories and the insights, we know you’re going to love this one.   Subscribe For Future Episodes! Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | RSS   Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 094   Links and Resources • Marshall McDonald’s website • Study with Marshall McDonald - all levels of saxophones, clarinet, and flute • Contact Marshall McDonald     Enjoying the show? Please consider rating and reviewing it! Click here to rate and review

La ville de New Orleans, affectueusement dénommée Crescent City, fête cette année son tricentenaire. Cette ville qui a subi les influences française (il suffit de noter les noms à consonance française de Bechet, de Blanchard…), espagnole, anglaise, caribéenne et plus particulièrement haïtienne respire la musique. Ses habitants ne la quittent que contraints et forcés ; Fats Domino n’a jamais voulu partir, Terence Blanchard, malgré ses contraintes professionnelles est venu se réinstaller malgré les stigmates laissés par le passage de l’ouragan Katrina Cap donc sur Crescent City et son histoire musicale à forte connotation afro-américaine (60% de la population), du mythique trompettiste Buddy Bolden aux jeunes musiciens de Rebirth Grass Band. Notre invité est Claude Carrière. Il se fera le témoin de la musique de Crescent City, ville où il se rend régulièrement, hébergé et guidé - le veinard - par sa belle- famille afro-américaine . Longtemps producteur à France Musique, président de l’association Maison du Duke, préfacier de la biographie de Duke Ellington (Music Is My Mistress) et concepteur du coffret The Extravagant Mr Gillespie, Claude Carrière nous présentera des artistes emblématiques de la ville quoique méconnus chez nous comme la chanteuse Germaine Bazzle, les pianistes Ellis Marsalis et David Torkanowski et la formation Rebirth Brass Band. C’est évident, on aurait aussi aimé vous parler de Jelly Roll Morton, de Fats Domino, de Lee Dorsey, de Professor Longhair, des Neville Brothers, des Meters ; on se contentera d’Allen Toussaint et de Dr John, faute de temps. Hélène nous donnera sa chronique autour de la Stretch Music de Christian Scott mais nous parlerons aussi de la Suite composée par Terence Blanchard (illustrée dans l’émission par «  Funeral Dirge ») sans oublier « Congo Square » tiré de la Suite A Drum Is A Woman d’Ellington parce que c’est à Congo Square que les esclaves africains se réunissaient et firent éclore une musique qui allait embraser le monde : le Jazz.   Liste des titres : Rebirth Brass Band ; "Blackbird Special" de l'album The Main Event: Live At The Maple Leaf : https://www.discogs.com/fr/Rebirth-Brass-Band-The-Main-Event-Live-At-The-Maple-Leaf/release/1679817 Duke Ellington And His Orchestra ; "Congo Square" de l'album A Drum Is A Woman : https://www.discogs.com/fr/Duke-Ellington-And-His-Orchestra-A-Drum-Is-A-Woman/master/466893 Terence Blanchard ; "Funeral Dirge" de l'album A Tale Of God's Will (A Requiem For Katrina) : https://www.discogs.com/fr/Terence-Blanchard-A-Tale-Of-Gods-Will-A-Requiem-For-Katrina/release/2443140 The Ellis Marsalis Quintet, de l'album Plays The Music Of Ellis Marsalis : https://www.discogs.com/fr/The-Ellis-Marsalis-Quintet-Plays-The-Music-Of-Ellis-Marsalis/release/11804434 Germaine Bazzle, "You’ve Gone" Jazz Chamber Quintet, "Pretty Girl" de l'album For All We Know : http://chamberjazzquintet.com/for-all-we-know/ Duke Ellington Orchestra, "Harlem Airshaft " : https://www.discogs.com/fr/Duke-Ellington-His-Orchestra-Harlem-Air-Shaft-Five-Oclock-Drag/release/11239477 Duke Ellington And His Orchestra, "U.M.M.G." de l'album Ellington Jazz Party : https://www.discogs.com/fr/Duke-Ellington-And-His-Orchestra-Ellington-Jazz-Party/release/1915666 Dr. John, "My Buddy" de l'album In A Sentimental Mood : https://www.discogs.com/fr/Dr-John-In-A-Sentimental-Mood/master/193821 David Torkanowsky, "Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most" de l'album Steppin' Out : https://www.discogs.com/fr/David-Torkanowsky-Steppin-Out/master/1264780 Louis Armstrong And His Orchestra, "Perdido Street Blues" de l'album Perdido Street Blues : https://www.discogs.com/fr/Louis-Armstrong-And-His-Orchestra-Perdido-Street-Blues-219-Blues/release/11461246 Allen Toussaint, "Working In The Coal Mine" de l'album Toussaint : https://www.discogs.com/Allen-Toussaint-Toussaint/release/1574769  

Episode Notes Episode 2: Shareef Clayton Trumpet player & composer:Shareef Clayton, a jazz trumpeter, is a native of Miami, Florida. In 2012 Shareef recorded the album "Multiverse" with the “Bobby Sanabria Big Band” which got nominated for a Grammy. Clayton performs regularly with Macy Gray, Melody Gardot, Bobby Sanabria, and the Duke Ellington Orchestra. In the past he has performed with artists such as Stevie Wonder, The Roots, Michael Mcdonald, Ruben Blades, and many more.http://mintonsharlem.com: Arguably, America’s greatest cultural contribution to the world has been jazz music. It may be argued with equal force that one of the most important shrines in the history of jazz was Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem.Wynton Marsalis: (born October 18, 1961) is a trumpeter, composer, teacher, music educator, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, United States.  Mo’ Betta Blues is a 1990 musical drama film starring Denzel Washington, Wesley Snipes, and Spike Lee, who also directed. It follows a period in the life of fictional jazz trumpeter Bleek Gilliam (played by Washington) as a series of bad decisions result in his jeopardizing both his relationships and his playing career.How to be your own booking agent:The award-winning, How To Be Your Own Booking Agent THE Musician’s & Performing Artist’s Guide To Successful Touring is one of the top selling music and performing arts business books. Princess Lalla Salma of Morocco: Princess Lalla Salma (born Salma Bennani (Arabic: سلمى بناني‎, Amazigh: ⵍⴰⵍⵍⴰ ⵙⵍⵎⴰ); 10 May 1978) is the princess consort of Morocco. She is the wife of King Mohammed VI and the first wife of a Moroccan ruler to have been publicly acknowledged and given a royal title.Gloria Gaynor (born September 7, 1949) is an American singer, best known for the disco era hits "I Will Survive" (Hot 100 number 1, 1979), "Never Can Say Goodbye" (Hot 100 number 9, 1974), "Let Me Know (I Have a Right)" (Hot 100 number 42, 1980) and "I Am What I Am" (R&B number 82, 1983).San Sebastián: San Sebastián (Spanish: [san seβasˈtjan]) or Donostia (Basque: [doˈnos̺tia])[3] is a coastal city and municipality located in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain.Milo Z: Carson Daly dubbed him a "New York Institution!" For nearly 3 decades, Milo Z has been bringing his own original style of music , "Razzamofunk" (a blend of Rock, Rap, R&B, Jazz, and Funk) to the Big Apple and the world.Brockett Parsons: Brockett Parson is known for his work on Lady Gaga Presents: The Monster Ball Tour at Madison Square Garden (2011), Mona Lisa - Leonardo's Earlier Version (2013) and Lady Gaga & the Muppets' Holiday Spectacular (2013). Tamir Muskat:(in Hebrew תמיר מוסקט) is an Israeli musician/producer-sound engineer who was born and raised in Petach Tikva, Israel as son of a Romanian immigrant. His father was the manager of Anzeagi Conservatorion for music in Petach Tikva.Jon “Shemz” Ashton: "Jonny Shemz (aka. Blacklighter). This man obviously grew up listening to old soul/funk records because whichever style the music ventures his vocal performance always gives a slight nod to singers of past generations.Indofunk Satish: Professional musician, alternative process photographer, former scientist.(Le) Poisson Rouge: (Le) Poisson Rouge is a multimedia art cabaret founded by musicians on the site of the historic Village Gate. Dedicated to the fusion of popular and art cultures in music, film, theater, dance, and fine art, the venue’s mission is to revive the symbiotic relationship between art and revelry; to establish a creative asylum for both artists and audiences.Village Gate:The Village Gate was a nightclub at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Streets in Greenwich Village, New York. Art D'Lugoff opened the club in 1958, on the ground floor and basement of 160 Bleecker Street. The large 1896 Chicago School structure by architect Ernest Flagg was known at the time as Mills House No. 1 and served as a flophouse for transient men. In its heyday, the Village Gate also included an upper-story performance space, known as the Top of the Gate.The Niagaras: Take a dash of Herb Albert, a pinch of David Bowie, add a handful of Andy Kaufman, and you’ve got Comic Tales of Tragic Heartbreak – and their new album, One Car Crash. Added bonus? The Leonard Cohen/Tom Waits/Frank O’Hara-inspired lyrics, and tunes like something found on Stiff Records in 1979.Mariah Carey: Mariah Carey is an American singer and songwriter. Referred to as the "Songbird Supreme" by the Guinness World Records, she is noted for her five-octave vocal range, vocal power, melismatic style, and signature use of the whistle register. Shrinking Orchestras: Dark clouds loom over American symphony orchestras. Changes in audience behavior, demographic shifts, and the impact of technology are all threatening to leave musicians out in the cold.Steve Hass: Steve Hass (born May 11, 1975) is an American drummer based in Los Angeles. Originally from Island Park, New York, born to Greek immigrant parents from Athens. He is notable for his technical skill, time feel, and his musical versatility, having played with many artists from a wide variety of genres. Game of Death: The Game of Death is an incomplete 1972 Hong Kong martial arts film directed, written, produced by and starring Bruce Lee, in his final film attempt. Lee died during the making of the film. Over 100 minutes of footage was shot prior to his death, some of which was later misplaced in the Golden Harvest archives.Will Connell: Saxophonist/bass clarinetist/composer Will Connell, Jr., came of age in the 1960s as an invaluable part of Horace Tapscott’s organization and the Los Angeles Black Arts Movement, and stood as an underground giant of New York’s Free Jazz and New Music circle since 1975.Ornette Coleman: Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer.David Murray Big Band: David Murray Big Band conducted by Lawrence "Butch" Morris is an album by David Murray released on the DIW/Columbia label.Benny Russell:  (NOT Benny Green!): Born February 21, 1958 in Baltimore, Maryland, Russell started clarinet lessons at age 7 under the instruction of Mr. James H. Holliman. At 12 he began playing tenor. And by the time he was 15, sitting in with the Morgan State bands, Russell was playing tenor, alto and soprano saxophones as well as clarinet, bass clarinet and flute.The Message (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five song): "The Message" is a song by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. It was released as a single by Sugar Hill Records on July 1, 1982 and was later featured on the group's first studio album, The Message. Bach Stradivarius Trumpet:  Born Vincent Shrotenbach in Vienna in 1890, he initially received training on violin, but subsequently switched to trumpet when he heard its majestic sound.Josh Landress: ​J. Landress Brass is owned and operated independently by Master Brass Technician Josh Landress. Josh's love for music began at an early age of 6 with the guitar.Shires Trombone: S.E. Shires Co. was founded in 1995 for the sole purpose of building custom brass instruments of unparalleled professional quality. em·bou·chureˌämbo͞oˈSHo͝or/noun1.MUSICthe way in which a player applies the mouth to the mouthpiece of a brass or wind instrument.Phil Woods: Philip Wells "Phil" Woods was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, and composer.Steel Drum: Steel Pans (also known as steel drums or pans, and sometimes, collectively with other musicians, as a steel band or orchestra) is a musical instrument originating from Trinidad and Tobago. Steel pan musicians are called pannists.Melton Mustafa: Melton Mustafa-Trumpet player extraordinaire, arranger/composer, producer, and educator.Support Foxes and Hedgehogs by donating to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/foxes-and-hedgehogsThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

A look at the music of Ben Webster after his tenure with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Continue reading →

Erroll Garner, Jane Monheit, Fats Waller and Ella Fitzgerald headline this week’s Radio Munson, along with Stan Kenton’s famous recording of “September Song” and the Duke Ellington Orchestra playing “Things Ain’t What The Used To Be.” It’s radio the way IT used to be with Radio Munson.

Award winning trumpeter and composer Kenyatta Beasley began playing the trumpet at the age of three under the tutelage of his father. A New Orleans native, Kenyatta has recorded and performed with a wide range of internationally renowned artists ranging from Shakira, Wynton Marsalis, Matchbox 20, and Jay Z to Ben Harper, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Mary J. Blige, the Saturday Night Live Band and countless others. A graduate of New York University, he has written musical underscores to over 20 short films, 3 feature films and has written music for countless TV and radio ads. Under the direction of Quincy Jones, Kenyatta contributed to the underscore to "Get Rich Or Die Tryin’", and won Best Original Score at the 2007 Brooklyn Arts Council Film Festival for the short film, "Heroes Wanted." Join him and host Wes Jackson in studio for a night of music and storytelling, on this episode of B-Side. •••• The B-Side Podcast is produced by Charlie Hoxie, Kecia Cole, Ro Johnson and Sachar Mathias; recorded by Onel Mulet; and edited by Khyriel Palmer. For more information on B-Side and all BRIC RADIO podcasts, visit www.bricartsmedia.org/radio

For most Columbia students and alumni, when you hear the words “jazz at Columbia” it's almost impossible not to think of Christopher Washburne '92GSAS, '94GSAS, '99GSAS. Washburne is an Associate Professor of Music and the Director of the Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance program at Columbia. In addition to being a jazz scholar, he's a jazz musician in his own right. He has performed with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Tito Puente, Justin Timberlake, Marc Anthony, Celine Dion, and the list goes on. His most common instrument of choice is the trombone, though he also plays the tube, the didjeridu, and percussion. In this episode, we play you a mashup of two talks that Washburne gave at Columbia. One he gave as part of the School of Professional Studies (SPS) T@lks Columbia series. The other was delivered to Columbia staff members. In both talks, Washburne explores the creative process of jazz, paying particular attention to the role that collaboration and improvisation plays. And in this exploration, he delves into how this process can inform your everyday decisions in the workplace, from leadership and adaptability to innovation and risk management. Who knew jazz was so useful? Well...Washburne did. --- To watch Washburn's full presentation on Why Jazz Matters and to hear more great talks from Columbia's diverse faculty, visit https://talks.sps.columbia.edu. MORE COLUMBIA NEWS: https://alumni.columbia.edu http://thelowdown.alumni.columbia.edu

Rita Graham’s career as a jazz vocalist was jump-started when Ray Charles produced an album of lush standards for her in 1969. The album, Rita Graham Vibrations is the only major project that Ray Charles produced for a female artist on his label Tangerine Records (TRC-1507). As the lead vocalist in Rita and the Tiaras, Ms. Graham recorded the UK Northern Soul Classic, Gone with the Wind is My Love (Rita and the Tiaras). A stint as one of Ray Charles’ Raelettes was followed by a two-year featured spot with the Harry James Orchestra, on European and Far East tours, and a series of recordings produced by TV composer Mike Post. Rita was featured with jazz great Oscar Peterson, Mercer Ellington and the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and comedian Redd Foxx.  She originated the role of Coretta Scott King in Woodie King Jr.’s production of the Martin Luther King, Jr. documusical, Selma, off-Broadway. Read more at www.ritagraham.com www.wijsf.org  

Acclaimed singer and actress Etta Moten Barnett was born in Weimar, Texas, in 1901. By the age of ten, she was singing in the choir of her father’s church. Thirty-three years later, at the invitation of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, she became the first African American woman to sing at the White House. Barnett starred on Broadway, most notably as Bess in a revival of Porgy and Bess. She charmed audiences around the world singing in concerts with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. She was also deeply involved in civic affairs, women’s issues, and causes such as African independence.

Musicians who played in the Duke Ellington Orchestra, including: Johnny Hodges, Rex Stewart, Ivy Anderson, Jimmy Blanton, Billy Strayhorn and Jaun Tizol.  Songs include: It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing, Warm Valley, Plunked Again., Rexations, Mood Indigo and Black and Tan Fantasy.

To celebrate the 92nd birthday of George Avakian, the veteran record producer joins Alyn Shipton to pick his personal favourites from a long career in supervising record sessions, starting in 1939. From the Chicago jazz of Eddie Condon and Jimmy McPartland, the programme covers a vast stylistic range including Erroll Garner, Miles Davis's quintet and his Gil Evans collaborations, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Dave Brubeck's most famous quartet and the Louis Armstrong All Stars.

Songs with blue in the title, including Blue Moon, Little Girl Blue, Blue Yodel #3, Blue Tango and Once In a Blue Moon.  Performers include: Margaret Whiting, Bing Crosby, Bill Monroe, Jimmie Rodgers and the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

Hot Music Tonight © 2009 by Spider Robinson Music: Tom Rush, Swamp Valley Ladybugs, Women's Chain Gang (1939), Tres Femmes, James Taylor & Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Bobby Gentry & Donovan, Jim Croce, Django Reinhardt playing electric guitar w/ Duke Ellington Orchestra, Nobutake Ito and the Swing Niglots of Tokyo, Celso Machado, Todd Butler, Todd Butler w/ Spider Robinson, Spider Robinson folkaoke tracks, Todd Butler & Doug Cox, Dori Legge & Kathy Rubbico.

The Guy With the Eyes © 2008 by Spider Robinson EXPLICIT WARNING. Reading: "The Guy With the Eyes"; music: Duke Ellington Orchestra, CSNY.