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1962dude420-blog · 3 years

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Today we remember the passing of Johnny Thunders who Died: April 23, 1991 at the Inn on St Peter in New Orleans, Louisiana.

John Anthony Genzale (July 15, 1952 – April 23, 1991), known professionally as Johnny Thunders, was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He came to prominence in the early 1970s as a member of the New York Dolls. He later played with the Heartbreakers and as a solo artist.

Thunders was born John Anthony Genzale in Queens, New York, the second child to Josephine Genzale (née Nicoletti, 1923–1999), who was of Italian descent, and Emil Genzale (1923–1982), who was of Italian, Russian-Jewish, and German-Jewish ancestry. He had an older sister, Mariann (1946–2009). He first lived in East Elmhurst and then Jackson Heights.

His first musical performance was in the winter of 1967 with The Reign. Shortly thereafter, he played with Johnny and the Jaywalkers, under the name Johnny Volume, at Quintano's School for Young Professionals, around the corner from Carnegie Hall, on 56th Street near 7th Avenue.

In 1968, he began going to the Fillmore East and Bethesda Fountain in Central Park on weekends. His older sister, Mariann, started styling his hair like Keith Richards. In late 1969, he got a job as a sales clerk at D'Naz leather shop, on Bleecker Street in the West Village, and started trying to put a band together. He and his girlfriend, Janis Cafasso, went to see The Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden in November 1969, and they appear in the Maysles' film, Gimme Shelter.

Dolls bass guitarist Arthur "Killer" Kane later wrote about Thunders' guitar sound, as he described arriving outside the rehearsal studio where they were meeting to jam together for the first time: "I heard someone playing a guitar riff that I myself didn't know how to play. It was raunchy, nasty, rough, raw, and untamed. I thought it was truly inspired...", adding "His sound was rich and fat and beautiful, like a voice."

The New York Dolls were signed to Mercury Records, with the help of A & R man Paul Nelson. Thunders recorded two albums with the band, New York Dolls and Too Much Too Soon. They were managed by Marty Thau, and booked by Leber & Krebs. Subsequently, they worked with Malcolm McLaren for several months, later becoming a prototype for the Sex Pistols.

In 1975 Thunders and Nolan left the band, Thunders later blaming McLaren for the band's demise. Johansen and Sylvain continued playing, along with Peter Jordon, Tony Machine (an ex-assistant agent at Leber & Krebs) and Chris Robison, as the New York Dolls until late 1978.

Thunders formed The Heartbreakers with former New York Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan and former Television bassist Richard Hell. Walter Lure, former guitarist for the New York City punk band The Demons joined them soon after. After conflict arose between Thunders and Hell, Hell left to form Richard Hell and the Voidoids and was replaced by Billy Rath. With Thunders leading the band, the Heartbreakers toured America before going to Britain to join the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned on the 'Anarchy Tour'. The group stayed in the UK throughout 1977, where their popularity was significantly greater than in the U.S., particularly among punk bands. While in Britain they were signed to Track Records and released their only official studio album, L.A.M.F., an abbreviation for "Like A Mother Fucker". L.A.M.F. was received positively by critics and fans alike, but was criticised for its poor production. Displeased with the production, the band members were soon competing with one other, mixing and remixing the record, culminating in drummer Jerry Nolan quitting in November 1977. Shortly thereafter, the Heartbreakers officially disbanded.

Thunders stayed in London and recorded the first of a number of solo albums, beginning with So Alone in 1978. The notoriously drug-fuelled recording sessions featured a core band of Thunders, bassist Phil Lynott, drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones, with guest appearances from Chrissie Hynde, Steve Marriott, Walter Lure, Billy Rath and Peter Perrett. The CD version of the album contains four bonus tracks, including the single "Dead or Alive" and a cover of the early Marc Bolan song "The Wizard". Soon afterwards, Thunders moved back to the US, joining former Heartbreakers Walter Lure, Billy Rath and sometimes Jerry Nolan for gigs at Max's Kansas City. Around this time Thunders played a small number of gigs at London's Speakeasy with a line up including Cook and Jones, Henri Paul on bass and Judy Nylon and Patti Palladin (Snatch) as back up vocalists.

In late 1979, Thunders moved to Detroit with his wife Julie and began performing in a band called Gang War. Other members included John Morgan, Ron Cooke, Philippe Marcade and former MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer. They recorded several demos and performed live several times before disbanding. Zodiac Records released an EP of their demos in 1987. In 1990 they also released an album titled Gang War, which was credited to Thunders and Kramer.

During the early 1980s, Thunders re-formed The Heartbreakers for various tours; the group recorded their final album, Live at the Lyceum, in 1984. The concert was also filmed and released as a video and later a DVD titled Dead Or Alive.

In the 1980s, Thunders lived in Paris and Stockholm with his wife and daughter. In 1985 he released Que Sera Sera, a collection of new songs with his then band The Black Cats, and "Crawfish", a duet with former Snatch vocalist Patti Palladin. Three years later he again teamed up with Palladin to release Copy Cats, a covers album. The album, produced by Palladin, featured a wide assortment of musicians to recreate the 1950s and 1960s sound of the originals, including Alex Balanescu on violin, Bob Andrews on piano, The Only Ones John Perry and others on guitar, and a horn section.

From August 1988 until his death in April 1991, Thunders performed in The Oddballs, with Jamie Heath (saxophone), Alison Gordy (vocals), Chris Musto (drums), Stevie Klasson (guitar) and Jill Wisoff (bass). From April–May 1990, Johnny performed an acoustic tour of the UK and Ireland joining up occasionally with John, Sam & Peter of The Golden Horde, whom he had met and played with previously in 1984 at the TV Club, and were concurrently on tour (of the UK & Ireland) at that time also, for full-band electric performances and TV appearances. On May 8, 1990, recording sessions in London for a joint EP-single cover version with The Golden Horde of "Sugar, Sugar" by The Archies, and original material, had to be cancelled when Johnny experienced "health problems" following his performances in Wakefield, UK while on tour.

His final recording was a version of "Born To Lose", with German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen, recorded 36 hours before his death in New Orleans.

Rumors surround Thunders' death at the St. Peter House in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 23, 1991. Thunders apparently died of drug-related causes, but it has been speculated that it was the result of foul play. According to his biography Lobotomy: Surviving The Ramones, Dee Dee Ramone took a call in New York City the next day from Stevie Klasson, Johnny's rhythm guitar player. Ramone said, "They told me that Johnny had gotten mixed up with some bastards... who ripped him off for his methadone supply. They had given him LSD and then murdered him. He had gotten a pretty large supply of methadone in England, so he could travel and stay away from those creeps – the drug dealers, Thunders imitators, and losers like that."

An article in the Orlando Sentinel states that he died of an overdose of cocaine and methadone, according to the coroner's office in New Orleans. Chief investigator John Gagliano said "tests completed last week found substantial amounts of both drugs."

While other sources state: An autopsy was conducted by the New Orleans coroner, but served only to compound the mysteries. According to Thunders' biographer Nina Antonia as posted on the Jungle Records web site, the level of drugs found in his system was not fatal. According to the book Rock Bottom: Dark Moments in Music Babylon by Pamela Des Barres, who interviewed Thunders' sister, Mariann Bracken, the autopsy confirmed evidence of advanced leukemia, which would explain the decline in Thunders' appearance in the final year of his life. This also sheds light on the interview in Lech Kowalski's documentary Born To Lose: The Last Rock and Roll Movie, where Thunders' brother-in-law says, "Only Johnny knew how sick he really was."

In a 1994 Melody Maker interview, Thunders' manager Mick Webster described the family's efforts to get New Orleans police to investigate the matter further: "We keep asking the New Orleans police to re-investigate, but they haven't been particularly friendly. They seemed to think that this was just another junkie who had wandered into town and died. They simply weren't interested."

Thunders was survived by his wife Julie Jourden and four children: sons John, Vito, and Dino, and daughter Jamie Genzale by Susanne Blomqvist.

#april 23 #1991 #johnny thunders #new york dolls #heartbreakers #r.i.p.

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blackkudos · 4 years

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Count Basie

William James "Count" Basie (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, Basie formed his own jazz orchestra, the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two "split" tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, and others. Many musicians came to prominence under his direction, including the tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, the guitarist Freddie Green, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison and singers Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes, Thelma Carpenter, and Joe Williams.

Biography

Early life and education

William Basie was born to Lillian and Harvey Lee Basie in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father worked as a coachman and caretaker for a wealthy judge. After automobiles replaced horses, his father became a groundskeeper and handyman for several wealthy families in the area. Both of his parents had some type of musical background. His father played the mellophone, and his mother played the piano; in fact, she gave Basie his first piano lessons. She took in laundry and baked cakes for sale for a living. She paid 25 cents a lesson for Count Basie's piano instruction.

The best student in school, Basie dreamed of a traveling life, inspired by touring carnivals which came to town. He finished junior high school but spent much of his time at the Palace Theater in Red Bank, where doing occasional chores gained him free admission to performances. He quickly learned to improvise music appropriate to the acts and the silent movies.

Though a natural at the piano, Basie preferred drums. Discouraged by the obvious talents of Sonny Greer, who also lived in Red Bank and became Duke Ellington's drummer in 1919, Basie switched to piano exclusively at age 15. Greer and Basie played together in venues until Greer set out on his professional career. By then, Basie was playing with pick-up groups for dances, resorts, and amateur shows, including Harry Richardson's "Kings of Syncopation". When not playing a gig, he hung out at the local pool hall with other musicians, where he picked up on upcoming play dates and gossip. He got some jobs in Asbury Park at the Jersey Shore, and played at the Hong Kong Inn until a better player took his place.

Early career

Around 1920, Basie went to Harlem, a hotbed of jazz, where he lived down the block from the Alhambra Theater. Early after his arrival, he bumped into Sonny Greer, who was by then the drummer for the Washingtonians, Duke Ellington's early band. Soon, Basie met many of the Harlem musicians who were "making the scene," including Willie "the Lion" Smith and James P. Johnson.

Basie toured in several acts between 1925 and 1927, including Katie Krippen and Her Kiddies (featuring singer Katie Crippen) as part of the Hippity Hop show; on the Keith, the Columbia Burlesque, and the Theater Owners Bookers Association (T.O.B.A.) vaudeville circuits; and as a soloist and accompanist to blues singer Gonzelle White as well as Crippen. His touring took him to Kansas City, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Chicago. Throughout his tours, Basie met many jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong. Before he was 20 years old, he toured extensively on the Keith and TOBA vaudeville circuits as a solo pianist, accompanist, and music director for blues singers, dancers, and comedians. This provided an early training that was to prove significant in his later career.

Back in Harlem in 1925, Basie gained his first steady job at Leroy's, a place known for its piano players and its "cutting contests." The place catered to "uptown celebrities," and typically the band winged every number without sheet music using "head arrangements." He met Fats Waller, who was playing organ at the Lincoln Theater accompanying silent movies, and Waller taught him how to play that instrument. (Basie later played organ at the Eblon Theater in Kansas City). As he did with Duke Ellington, Willie "the Lion" Smith helped Basie out during the lean times by arranging gigs at "house-rent parties," introducing him to other leading musicians, and teaching him some piano technique.

In 1928, Basie was in Tulsa and heard Walter Page and his Famous Blue Devils, one of the first big bands, which featured Jimmy Rushing on vocals. A few months later, he was invited to join the band, which played mostly in Texas and Oklahoma. It was at this time that he began to be known as "Count" Basie (see Jazz royalty).

Kansas City years

The following year, in 1929, Basie became the pianist with the Bennie Moten band based in Kansas City, inspired by Moten's ambition to raise his band to the level of Duke Ellington's or Fletcher Henderson's. Where the Blue Devils were "snappier" and more "bluesy," the Moten band was more refined and respected, playing in the "Kansas City stomp" style. In addition to playing piano, Basie was co-arranger with Eddie Durham, who notated the music.Their "Moten Swing", which Basie claimed credit for, was widely acclaimed and was an invaluable contribution to the development of swing music, and at one performance at the Pearl Theatre in Philadelphia in December 1932, the theatre opened its door to allow anybody in who wanted to hear the band perform. During a stay in Chicago, Basie recorded with the band. He occasionally played four-hand piano and dual pianos with Moten, who also conducted. The band improved with several personnel changes, including the addition of tenor saxophonist Ben Webster.

When the band voted Moten out, Basie took over for several months, calling the group "Count Basie and his Cherry Blossoms. "When his own band folded, he rejoined Moten with a newly re-organized band. A year later, Basie joined Bennie Moten's band, and played with them until Moten's death in 1935 from a failed tonsillectomy. When Moten died, the band tried to stay together but couldn't make a go of it. Basie then formed his own nine-piece band, Barons of Rhythm, with many former Moten members including Walter Page (bass), Freddie Green (guitar), Jo Jones (drums), Lester Young (tenor saxophone) and Jimmy Rushing (vocals).

The Barons of Rhythm were regulars at the Reno Club and often performed for a live radio broadcast. During a broadcast the announcer wanted to give Basie's name some style, so he called him "Count." Little did Basie know this touch of royalty would give him proper status and position him with the likes of Duke Ellington and Earl Hines.

Basie's new band which included many Moten alumni, with the important addition of tenor player Lester Young. They played at the Reno Club and sometimes were broadcast on local radio. Late one night with time to fill, the band started improvising. Basie liked the results and named the piece "One O'Clock Jump." According to Basie, "we hit it with the rhythm section and went into the riffs, and the riffs just stuck. We set the thing up front in D-flat, and then we just went on playing in F." It became his signature tune.

John Hammond and first recordings

At the end of 1936, Basie and his band, now billed as "Count Basie and His Barons of Rhythm," moved from Kansas City to Chicago, where they honed their repertoire at a long engagement at the Grand Terrace Ballroom. Right from the start, Basie's band was noted for its rhythm section. Another Basie innovation was the use of two tenor saxophone players; at the time, most bands had just one. When Young complained of Herschel Evans' vibrato, Basie placed them on either side of the alto players, and soon had the tenor players engaged in "duels". Many other bands later adapted the split tenor arrangement.

In that city in October 1936, the band had a recording session which the producer John Hammond later described as "the only perfect, completely perfect recording session I've ever had anything to do with". Hammond had heard Basie's band by radio and went to Kansas City to check them out. He invited them to record, in performances which were Lester Young's earliest recordings. Those four sides were released on Vocalion Records under the band name of Jones-Smith Incorporated; the sides were "Shoe Shine Boy", "Evening", "Boogie Woogie", and "Lady Be Good". After Vocalion became a subsidiary of Columbia Records in 1938, "Boogie Woogie" was released in 1941 as part of a four-record compilation album entitled Boogie Woogie (Columbia album C44). When he made the Vocalion recordings, Basie had already signed with Decca Records, but did not have his first recording session with them until January 1937.

By then, Basie's sound was characterized by a "jumping" beat and the contrapuntal accents of his own piano. His personnel around 1937 included: Lester Young and Herschel Evans (tenor sax), Freddie Green (guitar), Jo Jones (drums), Walter Page (bass), Earle Warren (alto sax), Buck Clayton and Harry Edison (trumpet), Benny Morton and Dickie Wells (trombone). Lester Young, known as "Prez" by the band, came up with nicknames for all the other band members. He called Basie "Holy Man", "Holy Main", and just plain "Holy".

Basie favored blues, and he would showcase some of the most notable blues singers of the era after he went to New York: Billie Holiday, Jimmy Rushing, Big Joe Turner, Helen Humes, and Joe Williams. He also hired arrangers who knew how to maximize the band's abilities, such as Eddie Durham and Jimmy Mundy.

New York City and the swing years

When Basie took his orchestra to New York in 1937, they made the Woodside Hotel in Harlem their base (they often rehearsed in its basement). Soon, they were booked at the Roseland Ballroom for the Christmas show. Basie recalled a review, which said something like, "We caught the great Count Basie band which is supposed to be so hot he was going to come in here and set the Roseland on fire. Well, the Roseland is still standing". Compared to the reigning band of Fletcher Henderson, Basie's band lacked polish and presentation.

The producer John Hammond continued to advise and encourage the band, and they soon came up with some adjustments, including softer playing, more solos, and more standards. They paced themselves to save their hottest numbers for later in the show, to give the audience a chance to warm up. His first official recordings for Decca followed, under contract to agent MCA, including "Pennies from Heaven" and "Honeysuckle Rose".

Hammond introduced Basie to Billie Holiday, whom he invited to sing with the band. (Holiday did not record with Basie, as she had her own record contract and preferred working with small combos). The band's first appearance at the Apollo Theater followed, with the vocalists Holiday and Jimmy Rushing getting the most attention. Durham returned to help with arranging and composing, but for the most part, the orchestra worked out its numbers in rehearsal, with Basie guiding the proceedings. There were often no musical notations made. Once the musicians found what they liked, they usually were able to repeat it using their "head arrangements" and collective memory.

Next, Basie played at the Savoy, which was noted more for lindy-hopping, while the Roseland was a place for fox-trots and congas. In early 1938, the Savoy was the meeting ground for a "battle of the bands" with Chick Webb's group. Basie had Holiday, and Webb countered with the singer Ella Fitzgerald. As Metronome magazine proclaimed, "Basie's Brilliant Band Conquers Chick's"; the article described the evening:

Throughout the fight, which never let down in its intensity during the whole fray, Chick took the aggressive, with the Count playing along easily and, on the whole, more musically scientifically. Undismayed by Chick's forceful drum beating, which sent the audience into shouts of encouragement and appreciation and casual beads of perspiration to drop from Chick's brow onto the brass cymbals, the Count maintained an attitude of poise and self-assurance. He constantly parried Chick's thundering haymakers with tantalizing runs and arpeggios which teased more and more force from his adversary.

The publicity over the big band battle, before and after, gave the Basie band a boost and wider recognition. Soon after, Benny Goodman recorded their signature "One O'Clock Jump" with his band.

A few months later, Holiday left for Artie Shaw's band. Hammond introduced Helen Humes, whom Basie hired; she stayed with Basie for four years. When Eddie Durham left for Glenn Miller's orchestra, he was replaced by Dicky Wells. Basie's 14-man band began playing at the Famous Door, a mid-town nightspot with a CBS network feed and air conditioning, which Hammond was said to have bought the club in return for their booking Basie steadily throughout the summer of 1938. Their fame took a huge leap. Adding to their play book, Basie received arrangements from Jimmy Mundy (who had also worked with Benny Goodman and Earl Hines), particularly for "Cherokee", "Easy Does It", and "Super Chief". In 1939, Basie and his band made a major cross-country tour, including their first West Coast dates. A few months later, Basie quit MCA and signed with the William Morris Agency, who got them better fees.

On February 19, 1940, Count Basie and his Orchestra opened a four-week engagement at Southland in Boston, and they broadcast over the radio on 20 February.On the West Coast, in 1942 the band did a spot in Reveille With Beverly, a musical film starring Ann Miller, and a "Command Performance" for Armed Forces Radio, with Hollywood stars Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Carmen Miranda, Jerry Colonna, and the singer Dinah Shore. Other minor movie spots followed, including Choo Choo Swing, Crazy House, Top Man, Stage Door Canteen, and Hit Parade of 1943. They also continued to record for OKeh Records and Columbia Records. The war years caused a lot of members turn over, and the band worked many play dates with lower pay. Dance hall bookings were down sharply as swing began to fade, the effects of the musicians' strikes of 1942–44 and 1948 began to be felt, and the public's taste grew for singers.

Basie occasionally lost some key soloists. However, throughout the 1940s, he maintained a big band that possessed an infectious rhythmic beat, an enthusiastic team spirit, and a long list of inspired and talented jazz soloists.

Los Angeles and the Cavalcade of Jazz concerts

Count Basie was the featured artist at the very first Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field on September 23, 1945 which was produced by Leon Hefflin Sr. Al Jarvis was the Emcee and other artists to appear on stage were Joe Liggins and his Honeydrippers, The Peters Sisters, Slim and Bam, Valaida Snow, and Big Joe Turner. They played to a crowd of 15,000. Count Basie and his Orchestra played at the tenth Cavalcade of Jazz concert also at Wrigley Field on June 20, 1954. He played along with The Flairs, Christine Kittrell, Lamp Lighters, Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five, Ruth Brown, and Perez Prado and his Orchestra.

Post-war and later years

The big band era appeared to have ended after the war, and Basie disbanded the group. For a while, he performed in combos, sometimes stretched to an orchestra. In 1950, he headlined the Universal-International short film "Sugar Chile" Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet. He reformed his group as a 16-piece orchestra in 1952. This group was eventually called the New Testament band. Basie credited Billy Eckstine, a top male vocalist of the time, for prompting his return to Big Band. He said that Norman Granz got them into the Birdland club and promoted the new band through recordings on the Mercury, Clef, and Verve labels. The jukebox era had begun, and Basie shared the exposure along with early rock'n'roll and rhythm and blues artists. Basie's new band was more of an ensemble group, with fewer solo turns, and relying less on "head" and more on written arrangements.

Basie added touches of bebop "so long as it made sense", and he required that "it all had to have feeling". Basie's band was sharing Birdland with such bebop greats as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis. Behind the occasional bebop solos, he always kept his strict rhythmic pulse, "so it doesn't matter what they do up front; the audience gets the beat". Basie also added flute to some numbers, a novelty at the time that became widely copied. Soon, his band was touring and recording again. The new band included: Paul Campbell, Tommy Turrentine, Johnny Letman, Idrees Sulieman, and Joe Newman (trumpet); Jimmy Wilkins, Benny Powell, Matthew Gee (trombone); Paul Quinichette and Floyd "Candy" Johnson (tenor sax); Marshal Royal and Ernie Wilkins (alto sax); and Charlie Fowlkes (baritone sax). Down Beat magazine reported, "(Basie) has managed to assemble an ensemble that can thrill both the listener who remembers 1938 and the youngster who has never before heard a big band like this." In 1957, Basie sued the jazz venue Ball and Chain in Miami over outstanding fees, causing the closure of the venue.

In 1958, the band made its first European tour. Jazz was especially appreciated in France, The Netherlands, and Germany in the 1950s; these countries were the stomping grounds for many expatriate American jazz stars who were either resurrecting their careers or sitting out the years of racial divide in the United States. Neal Hefti began to provide arrangements, notably "Lil Darlin'". By the mid-1950s, Basie's band had become one of the preeminent backing big bands for some of the most prominent jazz vocalists of the time. They also toured with the "Birdland Stars of 1955", whose lineup included Sarah Vaughan, Erroll Garner, Lester Young, George Shearing, and Stan Getz.

In 1957, Basie released the live album Count Basie at Newport. "April in Paris" (arrangement by Wild Bill Davis) was a best-selling instrumental and the title song for the hit album. The Basie band made two tours in the British Isles and on the second, they put on a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II, along with Judy Garland, Vera Lynn, and Mario Lanza. He was a guest on ABC's The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, a venue also opened to several other black entertainers. In 1959, Basie's band recorded a "greatest hits" double album The Count Basie Story (Frank Foster, arranger), and Basie/Eckstine Incorporated, an album featuring Billy Eckstine, Quincy Jones (as arranger) and the Count Basie Orchestra. It was released by Roulette Records, then later reissued by Capitol Records.

Later that year, Basie appeared on a television special with Fred Astaire, featuring a dance solo to "Sweet Georgia Brown", followed in January 1961 by Basie performing at one of the five John F. Kennedy Inaugural Balls. That summer, Basie and Duke Ellington combined forces for the recording First Time! The Count Meets the Duke, each providing four numbers from their play books.

During the balance of the 1960s, the band kept busy with tours, recordings, television appearances, festivals, Las Vegas shows, and travel abroad, including cruises. Some time around 1964, Basie adopted his trademark yachting cap.

Through steady changes in personnel, Basie led the band into the 1980s. Basie made a few more movie appearances, such as the Jerry Lewis film Cinderfella (1960) and the Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles (1974), playing a revised arrangement of "April in Paris".

During its heyday, The Gong Show (1976–80) used Basie's "Jumpin' at the Woodside" during some episodes, while an NBC stagehand named Eugene Patton would dance on stage; Patton became known as "Gene Gene, the Dancing Machine".

Marriage, family and death

Basie was a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity. On July 21, 1930, Basie married Vivian Lee Winn, in Kansas City, Missouri. They were divorced sometime before 1935. Some time in or before 1935, the now single Basie returned to New York City, renting a house at 111 West 138th Street, Manhattan, as evidenced by the 1940 census. He married Catherine Morgan on July 13, 1940 in the King County courthouse in Seattle, Washington. In 1942, they moved to Queens. Their only child, Diane, was born February 6 1944. She was born with cerebral palsy and the doctors claimed she would never walk. The couple kept her and cared deeply for her, and especially through her mother's tutelage Diane learned not only to walk but to swim. The Basies bought a home in the new whites-only neighborhood of Addisleigh Park in 1946 on Adelaide Road and 175th Street, St. Albans, Queens.

On April 11, 1983, Catherine Basie died of heart disease at the couple's home in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island. She was 67 years old.

Count Basie died of pancreatic cancer in Hollywood, Florida on April 26, 1984 at the age of 79.

Singers

Basie hitched his star to some of the most famous vocalists of the 1950s and 1960s, which helped keep the Big Band sound alive and added greatly to his recording catalog. Jimmy Rushing sang with Basie in the late 1930s. Joe Williams toured with the band and was featured on the 1957 album One O'Clock Jump, and 1956's Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings, with "Every Day (I Have the Blues)" becoming a huge hit. With Billy Eckstine on the album Basie/Eckstine Incorporated, in 1959. Ella Fitzgerald made some memorable recordings with Basie, including the 1963 album Ella and Basie!. With the New Testament Basie band in full swing, and arrangements written by a youthful Quincy Jones, this album proved a swinging respite from her Songbook recordings and constant touring she did during this period. She even toured with the Basie Orchestra in the mid-1970s, and Fitzgerald and Basie also met on the 1979 albums A Classy Pair, Digital III at Montreux, and A Perfect Match, the last two also recorded live at Montreux. In addition to Quincy Jones, Basie was using arrangers such as Benny Carter (Kansas City Suite), Neal Hefti (The Atomic Mr Basie), and Sammy Nestico (Basie-Straight Ahead).

Frank Sinatra recorded for the first time with Basie on 1962's Sinatra-Basie and for a second studio album on 1964's It Might as Well Be Swing, which was arranged by Quincy Jones. Jones also arranged and conducted 1966's live Sinatra at the Sands which featured Sinatra with Count Basie and his orchestra at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. In May 1970, Sinatra performed in London's Royal Festival Hall with the Basie orchestra, in a charity benefit for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Sinatra later said of this concert "I have a funny feeling that those two nights could have been my finest hour, really. It went so well; it was so thrilling and exciting".

Basie also recorded with Tony Bennett in the late 1950s. Their albums together included In Person and Strike Up the Band. Basie also toured with Bennett, including a date at Carnegie Hall. Other notable recordings were with Sammy Davis Jr., Bing Crosby, and Sarah Vaughan. One of Basie's biggest regrets was never recording with Louis Armstrong, though they shared the same bill several times. In 1968 Basie and his Band recorded an album with Jackie Wilson titled Manufacturers of Soul.

Legacy and honors

Count Basie introduced several generations of listeners to the Big Band sound and left an influential catalog. Basie is remembered by many who worked for him as being considerate of musicians and their opinions, modest, relaxed, fun-loving, dryly witty, and always enthusiastic about his music. In his autobiography, he wrote, "I think the band can really swing when it swings easy, when it can just play along like you are cutting butter."

In Red Bank, New Jersey, the Count Basie Theatre, a property on Monmouth Street redeveloped for live performances, and Count Basie Field were named in his honor.

Received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in 1974.

Mechanic Street, where he grew up with his family, has the honorary title of Count Basie Way.

In 2009, Edgecombe Avenue and 160th Street in Washington Heights, Manhattan, were renamed as Paul Robeson Boulevard and Count Basie Place. The corner is the location of 555 Edgecombe Avenue, also known as the Paul Robeson Home, a National Historic Landmark where Count Basie had also lived.

In 2010, Basie was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

In October 2013, version 3.7 of WordPress was code-named Count Basie.

In 2019, Basie was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Count Basie among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Asteroid 35394 Countbasie, discovered by astronomers at Caussols in 1997, was named after him. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 8 November 2019 (M.P.C. 118220).

Representation in other media

Jerry Lewis used "Blues in Hoss' Flat" from Basie's Chairman of the Board album, as the basis for his own "Chairman of the Board" routine in the movie The Errand Boy.

"Blues in Hoss' Flat," composed by Basie band member Frank Foster, was used by the radio DJ Al "Jazzbeaux" Collins as his theme song in San Francisco and New York.

In Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), Brenda Fricker's "Pigeon Lady" character claims to have heard Basie in Carnegie Hall.

Drummer Neil Peart of the Canadian rock band Rush recorded a version of "One O'Clock Jump" with the Buddy Rich Big Band, and has used it at the end of his drum solos on the 2002 Vapor Trails Tour and Rush's 30th Anniversary Tour.

Since 1963 "The Kid From the Red Bank" has been the theme and signature music for the most popular Norwegian radio show, Reiseradioen, aired at NRK P1 every day during the summer.

In the 2016 movie The Matchbreaker, Emily Atkins (Christina Grimmie) recounts the story of how Count Basie met his wife 3 times without speaking to her, telling her he'd marry her someday in their first conversation, and then marrying her 7 years later.

The post-hardcore band Dance Gavin Dance have a song titled "Count Bassy" that is included on their 2018 album Artificial Selection.

Discography

Count Basie made most of his albums with his big band. See the Count Basie Orchestra Discography.

From 1929–1932, Basie was part of Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra:

Count Basie in Kansas City: Bennie Moten's Great Band of 1930-1932 (RCA Victor, 1965)

Basie Beginnings: Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra (1929–1932) (Bluebird/RCA, 1989)

The Swinging Count!, (Clef, 1952)

Count Basie Presents Eddie Davis Trio + Joe Newman (Roulette, 1958)

The Atomic Mr. Basie (Roulette, 1958)

Memories Ad-Lib with Joe Williams (Roulette, 1958)

Basie/Eckstine Incorporated with Billy Eckstine ( Roulette 1959)

String Along with Basie (Roulette, 1960)

Count Basie and the Kansas City 7 (Impulse!, 1962)

Basie Swingin' Voices Singin' with the Alan Copeland Singers (ABC-Paramount, 1966)

Basie Meets Bond (United Artists, 1966)

Loose Walk with Roy Eldridge (Pablo, 1972)

Basie Jam (Pablo, 1973)

The Bosses with Big Joe Turner (1973)

For the First Time (Pablo, 1974)

Satch and Josh with Oscar Peterson (Pablo, 1974)

Basie & Zoot with Zoot Sims (Pablo, 1975)

Count Basie Jam Session at the Montreux Jazz Festival 1975 (Pablo, 1975)

For the Second Time (Pablo, 1975)

Basie Jam 2 (Pablo, 1976)

Basie Jam 3 (Pablo, 1976)

Kansas City 5 (Pablo, 1977)

The Gifted Ones with Dizzy Gillespie (Pablo, 1977)

Montreux '77 (Pablo, 1977)

Basie Jam: Montreux '77 (Pablo, 1977)

Satch and Josh...Again with Oscar Peterson (Pablo, 1977)

Night Rider with Oscar Peterson (Pablo, 1978)

Count Basie Meets Oscar Peterson – The Timekeepers (Pablo, 1978)

Yessir, That's My Baby with Oscar Peterson (Pablo, 1978)

Kansas City 8: Get Together (Pablo, 1979)

Kansas City 7 (Pablo, 1980)

On the Road (Pablo, 1980)

Kansas City 6 (Pablo, 1981)

Mostly Blues...and Some Others (Pablo, 1983)

As sideman

With Harry Edison

Edison's Lights (Pablo, 1976)

Filmography

Hit Parade of 1943 (1943) – as himself

Top Man (1943) – as himself

Sugar Chile Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet (1950) – as himself

Jamboree (1957)

Cinderfella (1960) – as himself

Sex and the Single Girl (1964) – as himself with his orchestra

Blazing Saddles (1974) – as himself with his orchestra

Last of the Blue Devils (1979) – interview and concert by the orchestra in documentary on Kansas City music

Awards

Grammy Awards

In 1958, Basie became the first African-American to win a Grammy Award.

Grammy Hall of Fame

By 2011, four recordings of Count Basie had been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."

Honors and inductions

On May 23, 1985, William "Count" Basie was presented, posthumously, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan. The award was received by his son, Aaron Woodward.

On September 11, 1996 the U.S. Post Office issued a Count Basie 32 cents postage stamp. Basie is a part of the Big Band Leaders issue, which, is in turn, part of the Legends of American Music series.

In 2009, Basie was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

In May 2019, Basie was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Memphis, TN, presented by The Blues Foundation.

National Recording Registry

In 2005, Count Basie's song "One O'Clock Jump" (1937) was included by the National Recording Preservation Board in the Library of Congress National Recording Registry. The board selects songs in an annual basis that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

#08/21 #04/26

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onestowatch · 3 years

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Jo MacKenzie Explores the Full Range of Being a ‘Tourist’ [Q&A]

Once in a while we stumble across something from our inbox that stalls our purge-like behavior (insert your favorite overwhelmed meme here; also why is everyone still dressed as the Tiger King in promo shots?) and puts our tired ears on notice. Jo MacKenzie, has done that not once but twice, first with her work in Baby and the Brain and now again with her latest EP. Wanting to know more about this mysterious prodigy of both electronic communication and music, we reached out to dig into her latest EP, Tourist.

Ones to Watch: Who is Jo MacKenzie?

Jo MacKenzie: Jo MacKenzie is an 18-year-old self-produced AAPI indie-pop artist, who creates relatable tunes in her bedroom studio in Kansas. Her music has been featured on Live Nation's Ones To Watch, BMI's official #MusicMonday playlist, The CW drama Batwoman, and the theme of Amazon-charting podcast, "Don’t Tell My Mother." She was selected as a 2022 YoungArts Voice Winner and a nominee for the 2022 U.S. Presidential Scholars in the Arts Program.

What is this lovely Tourist EP all about?

The new collection of songs provides a fresh perspective on familiar topics, all loosely connected by the theme of “tourism” – whether that be as a literal tourist in a new city (e.g. “Tourist”) or metaphorically touring a new identity (e.g. “Strange Babies”).

“Afterparty” explores the internal struggles of teenagers on the outside of the high-school party scene, grappling with feelings of loneliness. “Arcade Song” is about the regret of going out. “Kinda Wrong Kinda Right” is a love story about finding a balance between rebellion and safety. “Strange Babies” explores teenage insecurity, and “Tourist” is about the disillusionment of big-city promises and the realization that everyone is a tourist.

What made you settle on this sound for the EP?

A lot of the sounds on this EP feel dark and moody with the exception of “Kinda Wrong Kinda Right,” but even that has a tinge of angst. I think this has to do with a lot of the stories. For me, the vignettes of going to parties, getting stuck on the subway, and leaving home feel dark and dramatic. This is demonstrated by the filtered drums of “Afterparty,” acoustic guitars of “Arcade Song,” and room-y piano of “Strange Babies.”

Any collaborators? Who produced the EP?

I got to write with some wonderful people for this EP! “Kinda Wrong Kinda Right” was written by me and my friends Aimee Felise and Hayes Kramer. We started the tune in LA, and then I finished it back in Kansas. “Arcade Song,” “Tourist,” and “Afterparty” were all co-written in New York with my friend Josie Carmichael. I wrote “Strange Babies” all by myself.

I largely produced this EP by myself in my bedroom using Ableton Live. However, I did collaborate with the wonderful Harper James of the indie-pop band Eighty Ninety on the productions of “Kinda Wrong Kinda Right,” “Tourist,” and “Strange Babies.” After lots of remote sessions, we actually finally got to meet up in person (for the second time ever) in Brooklyn for the release of Tourist!

We loved your work in Baby and the Brain, how’s this different?

Thanks so much! Making BrainBaby was a blast and taught me a lot about producing, mixing, writing, and engineering. Both are similar in that I produced both of them largely when I was 17, so there are similar sonic and emotional inspirations. However, I think the Jo MacKenzie project is different because I’m singing all the songs, and the songs are slightly more personal — a scary endeavor but definitely exciting and worth it!

Can we expect more of this style in the future, potentially on an upcoming album?

Yes, definitely! Especially the pop sounds of “Kinda Wrong Kinda Right.” There may be a new collection coming soon that is reminiscent of those sounds.... :)

Besides this excellent EP, what else should we be on the lookout for?

New music (see previous question)! Also, I have merchandise for sale! Fans can buy them here. There are pins and stickers right now and hopefully there’ll be t-shirts soon. (I get to make all my merch at my school. It’s really cool, and I’m super grateful!)

What’s inspiring you right now outside of music?

The natural world and airports. I love to take walks to just think about things (usually song lyrics crop up during these times). Regarding the airports, I’ve been traveling a lot and have had some long layovers–luckily conducive to people watching and lyrical sparks.

Its Women’s History Month, what’s that mean to you?

It means shining a spotlight on the women that are doing amazing things and keeping up with them for the other 11 months. I am so inspired by the other amazing women in the industry: songwriters like Maude Latour, the women of HAIM, and my dear friend Sadie Duca; producers like Alex Hope; music industry superstars like Roxy King and Barbara Cane.

Who are your Ones To Watch?

Right now, I am digging the bands Sawyer and Eighty Ninety and artists Maude Latour and Sadie. And...Taylor Swift. Does that count? :)

#jo mackenzie #tourist #interview #album reviews

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orbemnews · 3 years

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Bob Koester, Revered Figure in Jazz and Blues, Dies at 88 Bob Koester, who founded the influential Chicago blues and jazz label Delmark Records and was also the proprietor of an equally influential record store where players and fans mingled as they sought out new and vintage sounds, died on Wednesday at a care center in Evanston, Ill., near his home in Chicago. He was 88. His wife, Sue Koester, said the cause was complications of a stroke. Mr. Koester was a pivotal figure in Chicago and beyond, releasing early efforts by Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton, Jimmy Dawkins, Magic Sam and numerous other jazz and blues musicians. He captured the sound of Chicago’s vibrant blues scene of the 1960s on records like “Hoodoo Man Blues,” a much admired album by the singer and harmonica player Junior Wells, featuring the guitarist Buddy Guy, that was recorded in 1965. “Bob told us, ‘Play me a record just like you played last night in the club,’” Mr. Guy recalled in a 2009 interview with The New York Times, and somehow he caught the electric feel of a live performance. In 2008 the record was named to the Grammy Hall of Fame. About the same time, Delmark was recording early examples of the avant-garde jazz being promulgated by the pianist Muhal Richard Abrams and other members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, an organization formed in Chicago in 1965. The company’s recordings were not, generally, the kind that generated a lot of sales. “If he felt something was significant, he wasn’t going to think about whether it would sell,” Ms. Koester said by phone. “He wanted people to hear it and experience the significance.” As Howard Mandel, the jazz critic and author, put it in a phone interview: “He followed his own star. He was not at all interested in trends.” For decades Mr. Koester’s record store, the Jazz Record Mart, provided enough financial support to allow Delmark to make records that didn’t sell a lot of copies. The store was more than an outlet for Delmark’s artists; it was packed with all sorts of records, many of them from collections Mr. Koester bought or traded for. “The place was just an amazing crossroads of people,” said Mr. Mandel, who worked there for a time in the early 1970s. Music lovers would come looking for obscure records; tourists would come because of the store’s reputation; musicians would come to swap stories and ideas. “Shakey Walter Horton and Ransom Knowling would hang out there, and Sunnyland Slim and Homesick James were always dropping by,” the harmonica player and bandleader Charlie Musselwhite, who was a clerk at the store in the mid-1960s, told The Times in 2009, rattling off the names of some fellow blues musicians. “You never knew what fascinating characters would wander in, so I always felt like I was in the eye of the storm there.” Mr. Mandel said part of the fun was tapping into Mr. Koestel’s deep reservoir of arcane musical knowledge. “You’d get into a conversation with him,” he said, “and in 10 minutes he was talking about some obscure wormhole of a serial number on a pressing.” Ms. Koester said the store held a special place in her husband’s heart — so much so that when he finally closed it in 2016, citing rising rent, he opened another, Bob’s Blues and Jazz Mart, almost immediately. “He loved going into the studio in the days when he was recording Junior Wells and Jimmy Dawkins,” she said, “but retail was in his blood.” He especially loved talking to customers. “Often they came into the store looking for one thing,” she said, “and he pointed them in another direction.” Robert Gregg Koester was born on Oct. 30, 1932, in Wichita, Kan. His father, Edward, was a petroleum geologist, and his mother, Mary (Frank) Koester, was a homemaker. He grew up in Wichita. A 78 r.p.m. record by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in his grandfather’s collection intrigued him when he was young, he said in an oral history recorded in 2017 by the National Association of Music Merchants. But, he told Richard Marcus in a 2008 interview for blogcritics.com, further musical exploration wasn’t easy. “I never liked country music, and growing up in Wichita, Kansas, there wasn’t much else,” he said. “There was a mystery to the names of those old blues guys — Speckled Red, Pinetop Perkins — that made it sound really appealing. Probably something to do with a repressed Catholic upbringing.” College at Saint Louis University, where he enrolled to study cinematography, broadened his musical opportunities. “My parents didn’t want me going to school in one of the big cities like New York or Chicago because they didn’t want me to be distracted from my studies by music,” he said. “Unfortunately for them, there were Black jazz clubs all around the university.” He also joined the St. Louis Jazz Club, a jazz appreciation group. And he started accumulating and trading records, especially traditional jazz 78s, out of his dorm room. The rapidly growing record business crowded out his studies. “I went to three years at Saint Louie U,” he said in the oral history. “They told me not to come back for a fourth year.” His dorm-room business turned into a store, where he sold both new and used records. “I’d make regular runs, hitting all the secondhand stores, Father Dempsey’s Charities, places like that, buying used records,” he told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1993 for an article marking the 40th anniversary of the founding of his record label. “And I’d order records through the mail. Then I’d sell records at the Jazz Club meetings. That was the beginning of my retail business.” He had started recording musicians as well. He originally called his label Delmar, after a St. Louis boulevard, but once he relocated to Chicago in the late 1950s he added the K. He acquired a Chicago record shop from a trumpeter named Seymour Schwartz in 1959 and soon turned it into the Jazz Record Mart. His label not only recorded the players of the day but also reissued older recordings. “He loved obscure record labels from the ‘30s and ‘40s, and he acquired several of them,” Mr. Mandel said. “He reissued a lot of stuff from fairly obscure artists who had recorded independently. He salvaged their best work.” Mr. Koester was white; most of the artists he dealt with were Black. “He was totally into Black music,” Mr. Mandel said. “Not only Black music, but he definitely gave Black music its due in a way that other labels were not.” That made Mr. Koester stand out in Chicago when he went out on the town sampling talent. “When a white guy showed up in a Black bar, it was assumed he was either a cop, a bill collector or looking for sex,” Mr. Koester told blogcritic.com. “When they found out you were there to listen to the music and for no other reason, you were a friend. The worst times I had were from white cops who would try and throw me out of the bars. They probably thought I was there dealing drugs or something.” It was the atmosphere of those nightclubs that he tried to capture in his recording studio. “I don’t believe in production,” he said. “I’m not about to bring in a bunch of stuff that you can’t hear a guy doing when he’s up onstage.” In addition to his wife, whom he met when she worked across the street from his store and whom he married in 1967, Mr. Koester is survived by a son, Robert Jr.; a daughter, Kate Koester; and two grandchildren. Ms. Koester said their son will continue to operate Bob’s Blues and Jazz Mart. Mr. Koester sold Delmark in 2018. Mr. Koester’s record company played an important role in documenting two musical genres, but his wife said that beyond playing a little piano, he was not musically trained himself. “He would say his music was listening,” she said. Source link Orbem News #Blues #Bob #Dies #figure #Jazz #Koester #Revered

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andrewmcmahonmusic · 7 years

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I am both pleased and terrified to announce The Pen and the Piano Tour. An acoustic evening with me and my friends, Allen Stone, Zac Clark and bob oxblood (formerly of Jack’s Mannequin). I’m pleased because I’ll be boarding a bus with three dear friends, all gifted singer/songwriters to play 6 weeks of intimate shows around the United States. I’m terrified because I want this to be a totally unique concert experience, and the truth is I’m not exactly sure what that looks like yet. In my mind's eye it’s equal parts VH1 Storytellers and Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. A stage where I can perform and tell stories about the songs I’ve written over the last two decades and where my friends can perform and tell their stories too. It will be weird and fun and honest. An exploration of the moments in between, that make a song worth writing.

Pre-sale tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10am local! You can purchase yours with the code PIANO

The general on sale is happening Friday at 10am local.

April 10 - Kansas City, MO @ The Truman April 11 - St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant April 13 - Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity April 14 - Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave April 15 - Chicago, IL @ House of Blues April 17 - Detroit, MI @ St. Andrew’s Hall April 19 - Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues April 20 - Pittsburgh, PA @ The Palace Theatre April 21 - Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom April 23 - Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club April 24 - Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts April 26 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club April 29 - New York, NY @ Irving Plaza May 1 - Charlottesville, VA @ The Jefferson Theater May 2 - Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre May 4 - Nashville, TN @ Top Golf Live May 5 - Charlotte, NC @ Underground May 6 - Orlando, FL @ The Beacham May 8 - New Orleans, LA @ House of Blues May 9 - Austin, TX @ Scoot Inn May 10 - Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater May 12 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren May 13 - San Diego, CA @ Humphreys May 15 - Los Angeles, CA @ Ford Theaters* May 16 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore May 18 - Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades May 19 - Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theatre* May 20 - Spokane, WA @ Bing Crosby Theater May 22 - Salt Lake City, UT @ The Complex May 24 - Denver, CO @ Gothic Theatre

*no Allen Stone

#andrew mcmahon in the wilderness #andrew mcmahon

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vanguardpiano · 5 months

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Vanguard Piano Service | Piano Repair Service Kansas city

Vanguard Piano Professional Piano Technicians In Saint Louis, Kansas City, and surrounding areas.

"Professional Piano Technicians" "Vanguard Piano Service" "Piano Technicians In Saint Louis" "Piano Technicians near me" "Piano repair kansas city" "Piano for sale kansas city" "Kansas city piano tuner"

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection Brings Clarity to Underground Film

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s films are confounding, grotesque, beautiful and healing, often within the same frame. The post-violence images of the opening sequence of El Tropo are made more horrific as they are reflected through the eyes of a seven-year-old boy, still naked from a rite of passage. Jodorowky’s films are a gateway drug. The Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection of his cult classics Fando y Lis, El Topo, and The Holy Mountain, as well as his new Psychomagic, A Healing Art, are a first taste. The most surrealistic of the psychedelic filmmakers had no special effects, or even fancy cameras in his earliest days. He had visions, and created a physical world to capture those visions inside of a camera.

No stranger to psychedelics, it was John Lennon who first brought Jodorowsky out of the after-hours circuit and into the daylight, which colored the films. Jodorowsky became the “father of midnight movies” because his 1970 spiritual western epic, El Topo, played at midnight or 1 am every night at the Elgin Theater in Manhattan’s Chelsea district. Lennon and Yoko Ono caught it a few times and advised their advisor, manager Alan Klein, to buy it. The ex-Beatle went on to fund The Holy Mountain, and ABKCO Films went on to have as problematic a relationship with Jodorowsky as the British quartet had with Klein. It was patched up, of course, by evidence of this brilliantly restored set of films.

The Holy Mountain was deemed controversial at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival because of its sacrilegious imagery but Fando y Lis, Jodorowsky’s first feature, caused a riot when it premiered in Acapulco, Mexico in 1968. Jodorowsky escaped hidden in a limousine as he was chased out of town by an angry mob, but the film established the Chilean-born son of Russian immigrants as an auteur of surrealist cinema. He became one of the most influential and creative forces on mainstream science fiction when the script, notes, storyboards, and concept art to his mid-70s would-be adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel, Dune, made it to major film studios. You can see their shadows over Star Wars, Flash Gordon, the Terminator series, The Fifth Element, and 1979’s Alien.

You can feel shadows in this collection as well. You don’t need to look in Dune notes to find as diverse a gathering as the bar scene in Star Wars. There are enough varied character looks in the black and white film Fando y Lis, which has cannibals, zombies, vampires, freaks, horny old ladies, an army of transvestites, a man playing a burning piano, and a degenerate Pope played by Tamara Garina.

Jodorowsky made the film on weekends with nothing but a one-page outline. The film, which is an adaptation of the absurdist play by Spanish-born French author Fernando Arrabal, is Jodorowsky’s transition from live theater. Jodorowsky created a theater company while still at the University of Santiago. Alternating between Paris and Mexico City, he collaborated with Marcel Marceau for his mimeograms like “The Cage,” directed Maurice Chevalier’s comeback, and directed staged works of surrealistic and absurdist playwrights like Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett, launching the Panic Movement, which staged shocking theatrical events.

Jodorowsky had staged Fando y Lis, a story about young Fando (Sergio Klainer) and his paraplegic lover Lis (Diana Mariscal) as they quarrel their way to the magical city of Tar. But on film, the sparse natural landscapes and its vibrant and varied population take on surrealistic qualities by the very grain of the filmstock.

The real-life mime, which is being rehearsed at one point, is a microcosm of the varied worlds and the boxes they come in. Set in some post-apocalyptic rubble, the film travels through a world of perversions, murders, pedophilia, and sadomasochistic narcissism to make the viewer conclude the real world is an illusion.

El Topo is a Robin Hood western and Jodorowsky’s band of thieves are very merry men. They laugh at death. They also laugh at pain, suffering and any number of weapons. The film is told in the mixed styles of Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, and Spaghetti Western auteur Sergio Leone, who found himself impressed by the work. “Sergio Leone, he went to see El Topo,” Jodorowsky told Den of Geek while promoting Psychomagic, a Healing Art. “And I cannot believe he appreciated it. I admired him a lot. He was a real artist of industrial movies. He understood what’s in industrial movies. You need to be very intelligent to do that, and he did it. The picture, all of his pictures, I love these pictures.”

Jodorowsky plays the enigmatic master-gunfighter whose nickname, “The Mole,” supplies the title for the film. His son is played by the director’s real life twelve-year-old son Brontis Jodorowsky, who spends the entire film nude and half of it either on a horse or collecting arms. It is the boy’s seventh birthday. His first day as a man, and he has to bury his first toy and a photograph of his mother, then he has the entire world washed away as The Mole goes off to duel only to be left to die in the sun. El Topo doesn’t die though, he wakes up 20 years later to find himself worshipped by a cult of dwarves in a subterranean community. They raise the cash to tunnel out of the cave only to find the world a vastly different and darker place.

The Holy Mountain (1973) opens with the fly-covered Thief (Horacio Salinas) who is hung on a cross by a gang of young, naked boys and a deformed man who lights cigarettes with his elbows. Jodorowsky plays the Alchemist, who transmutes the Thief’s shit into gold. The film is a satire of capitalism, consumerism, and militarism. Tourists pour into the central town to film public executions while chameleons and toads reenacts the Spanish conquest of Mexico. There are “Christs for sale” signs on display throughout the streets. Jodorowsky’s work is about transformation, and the Alchemist, the Thief, and seven wealthy thieves from seven different planets go on a metamorphic pilgrimage to kill the Nine Masters of the Summit in exchange for eternal life.

Producer Allen Klein wanted Jodorowsky to follow The Holy Mountain with an adaptation of Pauline Réage’s S&M classic novel Story of O, but Jodorowsky threw himself into the Dune adaptation. For the comic allegory The Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky cast transvestite actors he found at Max’s Kansas City in New York. He famously avoids working with stars, but for the science fiction adaptation, he assembled a cast which included Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, Mick Jagger, and David Carradine; he brought in Pink Floyd and the prog band Magma to do the score; and Swiss artist H.R. Giger and French comic book artist Moebius for design. He would try his hand at a mainstream film, with mainstream stars with his 1990’s The Rainbow Thief, which starred Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif. But his greatest works are his most intimate.

Jodorowsky developed a form of personal therapy he called “psychomagic” in the 1980s. The practice combined Jungian psychology, the tarot and confrontational art. In 1965, Jodorowsky’s avant-garde “Movement Panique” gave a four-hour long performance called “Sacramental Melodrama,” in which he got whipped, symbolically castrated a rabbi, slit the throats of two geese, and nailed a cow’s heart to a cross. He is no less confrontational when faced with trauma. For Psychomagic, A Healing Art, the director escaped his emotion prison to enter the pain of the world.

The film contemporaneously breaks the wall between reality and performance. The documentary is intercut with scenes from some of Jodorowsky’s films. In a revealing clip from his movie The Dance of Reality, a mother teaches her son not to be afraid of the dark by having him strip nude and be painted black to match the hue of darkness. The healing concepts of Psychomagic are personal yet universal, and the film continues themes Jodorowsky has explored since he began making movies.

Jodorowsky supervised the color correction of the restorations. The Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection also contains the 1957 short film Le Cravate, a mime adaptation of a Thomas Mann story about a young man, played by Jodorowsky, who falls in love with a French woman who owns a shop where you can buy human heads. In all these films, you see why he has been cited by everyone from Steven Spielberg to Marilyn Manson, to Kanye West, whose “Yeezus” tour was inspired by The Holy Mountain.

The Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection is essential viewing for visual artists and fans of the visual arts. The images may have lost the full power of their brutality because of the subsequent works they inspired, but the messages are all applicable today, and will be tomorrow. Art can heal or destroy, Jodorowsky shows how it can do both and still be a work in progress.

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The Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection is available on Blu-Ray now. Psychomagic, A Healing Art is also available on Alamo on Demand.

The post Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection Brings Clarity to Underground Film appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/33OZVWS

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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cirifletto · 4 years

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11 Curiosità Che Forse Non Conoscete Su Arancia Meccanica

Ecco 11 curiosità che forse non conoscevate su Arancia Meccanica di Stanley Kubrick. Quando si parla di Arancia Meccanica di Stanley Kubrick, si parla di un film capolavoro controverso, osteggiato e oscurato per molte ragioni. La prima cosa che mi salta alla mente, se vogliamo parlare di curiosità, è la polemica che, a suo tempo, esplose tra Kubrick e Gene Kelly. Il divo se la prese infatti col geniale regista, che usò la canzone Singin' In The Rain in una celebre sequenza di Arancia Meccanica senza avergli pagato i diritti d'autore. È buffo come i colori del vero mondo divengano veramente veri soltanto quando uno li vede sullo schermo.Alexander de large Ovviamente, questa non è l'unica curiosità riguardo la mitica pellicola targata 1971: eccone altre 11 , di cui forse non siete a conoscenza. Inizialmente Kubrick non era proprio interessato a girare il film. A passargli il romanzo originale, scritto da Anthony Burgess, fu lo sceneggiatore Terry Southern. Ma al cineasta non piacque per nulla, ritenendo il linguaggio usato da Burgess poco idoneo per la propria visione cinematografica. Per nostra fortuna, avrebbe poi cambiato idea qualche anno dopo, iniziando a considerare il protagonista Alex come una sorta di moderno Riccardo III.Il primo montaggio preparato dal regista durava ben 4 ore. Come già sappiamo, la versione odierna è invece di 136 minuti. Kubrick fece bruciare il resto della pellicola tagliata da un suo assistente.Il cineasta ha sempre pensato a Malcolm McDowell come interprete ideale per il suo Alex. Peccato che l'attore non avesse nemmeno la più pallida idea di chi fosse lui, tanto da scambiarlo per Stanley Kramer, regista di Vincitori e vinti e Indovina chi viene a cena? La scena dove McDowell canta Singin' In The Rain fu totalmente improvvisata. In pratica Kubrick disse al suo attore: “Prova a ballare e a cantare”. E in quello stesso istante, l'unica canzone che venne in mente a McDowell fu proprio la hit ri-lanciata da Gene Kelly.L'attore si fece un gran male sul set. Durante la scena della cura Ludovico, ad esempio, finì per tagliarsi un occhio diventando temporaneamente cieco. In un'altra scena invece, si spaccò addirittura delle costole. Insomma, possiamo dire che lavorare su Arancia Meccanica non sia stata proprio una vacanza per lui..La pellicola scatenò le reazioni più furiose. Kubrick dichiarò addirittura di aver ricevuto delle orribili minacce di morte, le quali lo costrinsero a chiedere alla Warner Bros. di ritirare il film dalle sale inglesi. Ciò avvenne prontamente, e Arancia Meccanica non fu più proiettato in una sala della Gran Bretagna fino alla morte del regista avvenuta nel 1999.Nonostante la decisione delle censure locali di non mostrare il film, che poi obbligò Kubrick al ritiro in Gran Bretagna, Arancia Meccanica venne premiato e riconosciuto in ogni modo. Venne invitato a Venezia, ricevette numerosi premi: Premio Hugo alla miglior rappresentazione drammatica (1972), New York Film Critics Circle Award al miglior film (1971), Nastro d'argento al regista del miglior film (1973), Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award per il miglior film straniero (1973). Senze contare le candidature ad Oscar e Golden Globe!Tra le semi-comparse del film, c'era anche David Prowse nel ruolo di un infermiere. Non sapete chi sia? Beh, da lì a poco sarebbe passato sul set di un certo Guerre Stellari, indossando una maschera nera per interpretare un tale chiamato Darth Vader. LEGGI ANCHE... 16 Cose Curiose Da Sapere Su Star Wars

Dopo l'esperienza di 2001: Odissea nello spazio, Kubrick voleva dimostrare alla Warner Bros di saper fare ottimi film anche con poco budget. Per questo, optò per delle riprese in luoghi veramente esistenti. L'unico posto totalmente ricostruito era il Korova Milk Bar.Diversi problemi nacquero durante la scena dello stupro. La prima attrice coinvolta cedette per lo stress, regalando la parte ad Adrienne Corri, che continuò a lamentarsi del perfezionismo esagerato di Kubrick, il quale proseguiva a rigirare la sequenza all'infinito.Il regista chiese ai Pink Floyd di poter utilizzare la canzone Atom Heart Mother Suite. E loro diedero il permesso per alcune porzioni. Ma Kubrick esigeva di avere un controllo illimitato, in quanto non sapeva bene, nemmeno lui, quali parti del brano avrebbe utilizzato. Stanco di queste pretese, la band britannica decise di rifiutare. Non vi sto a dichiarare, che la 6 è quella che mi coinvolge più di tutte. Mette direttamente in relazione il cattivo di Star Wars con il cattivo di Stanley Kubrick. I quali, in entrambi i film si riscatteranno e riveleranno questa loro personalità fatta da luci e ombre, bene e male. Meraviglioso! Per concludere, non una curiosità ma una certezza. Arancia Meccanica è 'storia dell'occhio'. Dall'occhio truccato che Alex usa per il suo teatro di violenza, fino all'occhio nudo tenuto aperto per la tortura. Quindi l'occhio, lo sguardo, gli sguardi. Perciò una moltitudine di sguardi. Sguardi in primo piano tanto intensi quanto inquietanti, così potenti che sembrano quasi distruggere la 'quarta parete'. Sguardi ‘da sopra’ del regista e sguardi che vanno decisamente ‘oltre’, quelli dei personaggi. Ecco a voi, una carrellata di… overlook! https://vimeo.com/156863405 E adesso godetevi qualche fermo immagine del film e alcune foto del dietro le quinte. Ciao da Tommaso!! Vieni a visitarci sulla nostra pagina Facebook e Metti il tuo MiPiace! Read the full article

#AranciaMeccanica #film #Kubrick

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televinita · 5 years

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The Music of 2019

As long as I'm bringing everything else over to a Tumblr audience these days...this is a tradition I've had running for over a decade, ever since I decided that tracking my books read and movies watched each year simply wasn't enough to cover my media consumption.

Behold: a list of (almost*) every new-to-me song I fell in love with this year, sorted by artist so you can get a snapshot idea of my general taste to complement the Spotify Wrapped version.

*Full albums I've fallen in love with can be found at the end, with my top 3-6 tracks included in the list as representatives to avoid totally unbalancing it, unless it is a multi-artist album and then all limits are off.

Abra Moore – Your Faithful Friend

Alanis Morissette – A Man

Alanis Morissette – Crazy (Seal cover)

Alanis Morissette -- Precious Illusions

Alanis Morissette – Princes Familiar

Alanis Morissette – Sister Blister

Alanis Morissette – So Unsexy

Alanis Morissette – You Owe Me Nothing in Return

Allison Pierce – Evidence

Aofie Scott -- Another Reason

Aofie Scott -- Building Up and Tearing England Down

Aofie Scott -- Fuel I Need

Aofie Scott -- Homebird

Aofie Scott -- Ireland's Hour of Need

Aofie Scott -- Irish Born

Aurora – Runaway

Avril Lavigne -- Head Above Water

Avril Lavigne -- Dumb Blonde (clean/solo version)

Avril Lavigne – Goddess

Avril Lavigne – Souvenir

Avril Lavigne – Warrior

Betty Who – The Reunion

Betty Who – The Valley

Children in Need Cast Recording – It Must Be Love (Madness cover)

Christy Altomare – I Let It Slip

Chxrlotte - Come With Me

Clairo – Alewife

Clairo – Bags

Clairo – North

Clairo – Sofia

Clairo – White Flag

The Corrs – Hurt Before

Daddy Yankee ft. Snow -- Con Calma

Daddy Yankee ft. Katy Perry & Snow -- Con Calma remix

Dasko – New Day

David Tennant – Sunshine on Leith (Pretenders cover)

Destiny's Child – Independent Woman

The Dragonz – Dragonz Rap (a.k.a. We Are the Dragonz)

The Dragonz – On The Dance Floor

The Dragonz – Soul is Bare

Eisley – A Song For The Birds (acoustic)

Elbow – Red

Eleanor Tomlinson – Hushabye Mountain (cover)

Erutan – Jabberwocky

Erutan – The Willow Maid

Gareth Gates – Any One Of Us (Stupid Mistake)

Halsey/Khalid – Eastside [vocalists are the only artists to me unless there are no vocals]

Humbird – Kansas City, MO

Imogen Heap – Speeding Cars

Isabelle – Unlabeled

Jillian Jacqueline – Sad Girls

Jodie Whittaker – Yellow (Coldplay cover)

Josh Groban/Jennifer Nettles – 99 Years

Josh Groban/Sarah McLachlan – Run (Snow Patrol cover)

Josh Groban – Bigger Than Us

Josh Groban – Won't Look Back

Josh Radin – I'd Rather Be With You

Katherine Cordova -- Applause (Lady Gaga, piano solo arrangement)

Katherine Cordova -- Miracles (Coldplay, piano solo arrangement)

Katie Melua – Nine Million Bicycles

Katy Rose – Overdrive

Katy Rose – Snowflakes

Katy Rose – Teaching Myself to Dream

Katy Rose – Watching The Rain

Kimberly Locke – 8th World Wonder

Lana Del Rey – Doin' Time (Sublime cover)

Lana Del Rey – Young and Beautiful

Lauren Alaina – Doin' Fine

Lauren Aquilina – Talk to Me

Lil' Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus -- Old Town Road

Lizzo – Juice

Lizzo – Truth Hurts

Lucy Spraggen ft. Scouting For Girls – Stick the Kettle On

Mackenzie Johnson – Fast Car (Tracy Chapman cover)

Maddie Zahm – Beautifully Human

Malinda – Music Box

Mandikat – Minnesota

Matt Wertz – Carolina

Matt Wertz – Everything's Right

Melanie C – I Turn To You

Michelle Branch – Texas in the Mirror

Michelle Branch – Through the Radio

Nicole Richie – Dandelion

Noah Cyrus – July

Noah Cyrus – Topanga

One Bit ft. Noah Cyrus – My Way (Acoustic)

Phoebe Bridgers -- Funeral

Phoebe Bridgers -- Georgia

Phoebe Bridgers – Motion Sickness

Phoebe Bridgers – Smoke Signals (and reprise)

Rae Morris – Dancing With Character

Rob Thomas – One Less Day

Roberto Cacciapaglia - Oceano (instrumental)

Sammy Ward – Two Sides

Sharon Van Etten – Seventeen

Stephanie Mabey – Glorious

Suranne Jones – Symphony (Clean Bandit cover)

Talis Kimberly – Goodnight, Sarah Jane

Taylor Swift – New Romantics

Taylor Swift – Wonderland

Taylor Swift – You Are In Love

Taylor Swift – You Need to Calm Down

ZOEGirl -- About You

ZOEGirl -- Dead Serious

ZOEGirl -- Good Girl

ZOEGirl -- Let It Out

ZOEGirl -- Reason to Live

ZOEGirl -- Scream

FULL ALBUM RECS: Aofie Scott, “Homebird” (2020 - available early on tour) Avril Lavigne, "Head Above Water" (2019) Clairo, "Immunity" (2019) Phoebe Bridgers, "Stranger in the Alps" (2017) Alanis Morissette: The Collection (2005) Alanis Morissette, "Jagged Little Pill (acoustic)" (2005) ZOEGirl, "Room to Breathe" (2005) Katy Rose, “Because I Can” (2004)

UPDATE: OTHER FUN FACTS

I analyzed where/how I first heard of each song/album (all songs from the same album count as 1, under whatever brought the first song to my ears), and Spotify has a comfortable lead as the top source, but that stake only accounts for 33% of the total. Second place is YouTube, 3rd is the radio, and 4th is ONTD on Livejournal.

But remaining sources (less than 5 apiece) include all of the following: secondhand CDs at garage sales/used bookstores, the library, Tumblr, Instagram, a DVD, Goodreads, a book, Soundcloud, my fiance, Wikipedia, and a concert tour.

#this year is a lot like any other:#mostly women and mostly singer songwriters #a smattering of pop radio hits and country #some rep from actors I like #Christian music is a surprisingly dependable genre #and some Celtic frosting on top #Groban's Bridges album was recced last year and so were the first songs #but I dawdled on listening to them all #the music of 2019

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tixtm-blog · 5 years

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2019 Upcoming Top Performers Concerts in the USA

As the drip, drip, drip of event lineups begins leaking, we should not fail to remember that there are more than one means to capture a program this year. Events are the best scene to load up buffet style on new and old songs alike. It's additionally an opportunity to see a musician you enjoy get to strut their stuff in front of a large, new group of potential followers.

Still, if you just can see a favorite act when, maybe the tour route-- be it a dark, dingy (they call it intimate) club, a festival-size exterior phase, or a company field with ice below the floorboards-- makes even more sense. In any case, here are 30 artists, bands, comedians, and personalities that we'll be checking out in 2019 when their tours roll via our areas.

Taylor Swift

The first round of dates for Taylor Swift's reputation Stadium Tour was announced this morning simply days after the ten-time GRAMMY winner done "... Ready for It?" and "Call It What You Want" from the all critically-acclaimed cd, credibility, on "Saturday Night Live." Taylor Swift's credibility Stadium Scenic tour will certainly be generated and promoted by the Messina Touring Team (MTG) as well as AEG Offers in The United States and Canada, as well as Live Country overseas, as well as kicks off on May 8, 2018, in Arizona.

Taylor Swift's reputation Arena Tour will certainly be generated as well as advertised by the Messina Touring Team (MTG) and AEG Offers in North America, and also Live Nation overseas, and also kicks off on May 8, 2018, in Arizona.

TAYLOR SWIFT'S CREDIBILITY STADIUM EXCURSION

Lady Gaga

For all of her Little Monsters out, there are currently no strategies for Gaga to travel around the country on a scenic tour. However, there is a way for you to see the vocalist reside in concert if you want to travel, that is. Gaga is presently in the center of her residency in Las Vegas, in which she's executing her hits for 2 various sorts of performances. Not just is the "Just Dancing" vocalist executing much of her pop-friendly hits for the Lady Gaga Enigma show, she also has a couple of jazzy, disrobed performances called Lady Gaga Jazz & Piano. There are still tickets readily available for a few of Gaga's upcoming performances, with the next one getting on Might 30. As well as while you have some time delegated purchase tickets for several of her 2019 programs (which are set up with November), you'll likely wish to act fast, as a few of her programs are currently sold out (particularly the bundles for the complete Lady Gaga Las vegas Experience i.e. both Enigma and Jazz shows).

Justin Timberlake

Pop star Justin Timberlake introduced new excursion dates along with the previously introduced concert routine introduced the day after his Super Dish Half Time performance. Just a week as well as a fifty percent after the Super Bowl, according to Variety. Timberlake has added 16 programs in Europe as well as the UK and 31 new shows in The United States and Canada.

He has included shows to the concerts currently revealed in 10 North American cities, including Chicago, New York City, Toronto, Los Angeles, Philly, Boston, Washington, Dallas, Houston, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Cleveland, as well as Memphis. New cities have additionally been included in the tour, consisting of Kansas City, Denver, Milwaukee, St. Paul, Oklahoma City, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Omaha, Charlette, Lexington, New Orleans, Buffalo, San Antonio, Rose City, Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa, as well as Quebec City.

Tickets to pick programs are readily available on AXS. Click the links listed below to acquire tickets to see Justin Timberlake during his Guy of the Woods tour.

Ed Sheeran

Followers in North America really hoping for a 2019 Ed Sheeran tour might be out of luck. The Suffolk, England native has a slew of 2019 European trip days on the docket, making a stateside excursion unlikely. With this tour, he has damaged a handful of records in tickets sales, e.g. by mid-2018 he has already sold 2,624,148 tickets.

Elton John

Elton John has currently announced a goodbye trip that will stretch right into 2019 and also past. Fans will certainly get a final opportunity to see Sir Elton John together as a component of his Goodbye Yellow Block Road excursion. Sir Elton John has said his "Farewell Yellow Block Road Scenic tour" will span over 300 dates, including stops in nearly every continent. Today, the Rocket Guy has detailed a brand-new leg of North American concerts to occur in late 2019.

Covering 25 days, the recently introduced leg includes numerous Canadian days in Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and Toronto. He'll also be going to Salt Lake City, Las Vega, Philly, Boston, and Memphis on this certain run.

Tickets for the programs revealed today to go on sale Friday, October 5th.

See John's total scenic tour schedule listed below. He just recently launched his first leg of North American shows, which will maintain him when traveling with February. After a quick breather, he'll head to Europe for more visiting. More days are anticipated to be revealed quickly; John formerly stated he plans to see Asia in November 2019; Australia in December 2019; and South American in March 2020. He intends, in conclusion, the scenic tour with one more leg of European/UK days in late 2020 before finishing up in North American in 2021.

Know More: https://www.tixtm.com/

#2019_upcoming_concerts #cheap_concert_tickets #discount_concert-tickets

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avanneman · 6 years

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Sphericity

youtube

Thelonious Sphere Monk probably did not drink as much bourbon as William Faulkner. He probably did not shoot as much heroin as William Burroughs, or smoke as much marijuana as Norman Mailer, or get as many “vitamin shots” from feel-good Manhattan doctors as John F. Kennedy. But he had his share. He had his measure. And the wonder is perhaps, not that he died so young, but that he lived so long. Born in 1917, Monk outlived many of his contemporaries, like Charlie Parker, Fats Navarro, Serge Chaloff, and John Coltrane, dying in 1982, though spending the better part of the last decade of his life in deep emotional and physical decline.

Nine years ago (nine long years) Robin D. G. Kelley wrote Thelonious Monk The Life and Times of an American Original, one of the best books on jazz that I’ve ever read.1 At the time, I conceived a plan to write a long (or longish) piece on Monk, but I was, naturally, distracted, not perhaps from distraction but by distraction, for quite some time. Last year, 2018, proved to be a very auspicious year for Monk fans, and for myself in particular, first of all because I learned of a fascinating project that I could have/should have learned about long ago, the commissioning of 21 contemporary composers by Italian pianist Emanuele Arciuli to create compositions inspired by Monk’s most famous tune, Round Midnight. I posted a video of Spanish pianist Ricardo Descalzo playing the longest of these, “Eine Kleine Mitternacht Musik”, a nine-part suite/“rumination” by George Crumb.2

Equally exciting (if not more so) was the release in 2018 of two complete sets of all of Monk’s compositions, one an extraordinary solo triumph by guitarist Miles Okazaki, called simply Work, available from his own website and the other, equally impressive, from a group led by pianist Frank Kimbrough, Monk’s Dreams. So if the whole world wasn’t telling me to get my act together and write that Monk piece, enough of it was for me to get the hint.

Naturally, my first impulse, after reading Kelley’s book, was to complain about all that Kelley left out! Yes, critics are ridiculous parasites, with all the dignity of a horse fly. If only authors had tails to swat them!

Anyone who is familiar with, and appreciative of, all of jazz (a dwindling few, I am sure) must be struck by the similarities, and the differences, between Monk and the other great “contrarian” of jazz, Lester Young. Just as Monk went out of his way to be the opposite of all the boppers on the scene in the forties, Young went out of his way to be as unlike as possible as the greatest saxophonist on the scene in the thirties, Coleman Hawkins. Both Monk and Young began their recording careers quite late (27 for both), yet both were, among musicians, already famous. Young in particular managed to have an extraordinary reputation even though he was largely based in Kansas City rather than the Big Apple. While still unrecorded, Young was invited to fill the most famous sax chair in all of jazz, that of Coleman Hawkins himself, with the Fletcher Henderson band, even though Young’s style was the precise opposite of Hawkins’.3

But the differences are significant as well. Young did not record with the Henderson band, making his first recordings with a small group drawn from the Basie band, which he joined in 1935. Young’s solos on “Shoeshine Boy” and “Lady Be Good” are among his very best, and among the very best in all of jazz.

Monk’s first recorded solos, in 1943 with a small group led by Coleman Hawkins, are, in contrast, entirely unremarkable, and even his first recordings under his own name, in 1947, sound awkward, though that may be more the fault of the band than Monk. It isn’t until the next year, in the session with Milt Jackson that produced the first recordings of both “Misterioso” and “Evidence”, that we begin to hear the “real” Thelonious, and the “real” Thelonious doesn’t emerge in quantity until 1951, when he recorded with Jackson again.

Yet Monk was already “famous” among the musicians of New York. He was mentor to Bud Powell, who became the first famous bop pianist, even though Monk was seven years older and had been the house pianist at Minton’s, the Harlem night club forever famous as ground zero of the bop revolution. Powell instantly realized, as Monk refused to do, that the way to become famous in the bop scene was to become “the Charlie Parker of the piano” (or whatever instrument one played).

Monk, of course, was not interested in being the Charlie Parker of the piano. He wanted to be the Thelonious Monk of the piano, which he already was, so, in effect, his work was complete. He expected the world to come to him and, when it did come to him, to accept him as the genius he indubitably was.4 He disdained entirely the cult of virtuosity, the surest ticket to recognition for any musician, and the virtuosity of the early boppers—the early famous boppers, like Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell—was legendary.

Charlie Parker was, of course, Monk’s great rival. While Parker was alive, at least, Monk’s attitude seems to have one of jealousy, that Parker was getting credit for all of Monk’s innovations. The contrasts between the careers of the two men could scarcely have been more complete. Parker, starting out in Kansas City, like Young, was a featured soloist with Jay McShann’s “territory” band (i.e., not nationally recognized) at age 18. At age 20, in a private recording session, he produced two brilliant solos on two tunes closely associated with Lester, “Honeysuckle Rose” and “Lady Be Good”, sounding very much like Lester on the alto. By age 25, Parker had made some of the most important records in jazz.

Still, Monk had his chances. Despite their rivalry—for Monk felt that Gillespie had “stolen” from him as well—Monk took the job as pianist in Dizzy Gillespie big band, formed in 1945 (live recordings of the band exist, available on the CD Dizzy Gillespie Showtime at the Spotlite, though Monk is rarely featured). In true Monkish fashion, he messed everything up, almost invariably skipping the first set of each performance, a “habit” that persisted even for the most important date of his life, the legendary engagement at the Five Spot Café with John Coltrane in 1958.5

Monk was replaced with John Lewis, who had all the discipline Monk lacked, though little of his genius, and who took the opportunity to employ three of his bandmates–Milt Jackson (vibes), Ray Brown (bass), and Kenny Clarke (drums), all three the leading bop musicians on their instruments–to form what was originally called the Milt Jackson Quartet, later morphing into the famous Modern Jazz Quartet, a group that could have been Monk’s.

Monk’s suspicions and resentments plagued him throughout his career. He was almost always on bad terms with his labels, first Blue Note and then Prestige. Blue Note was probably just disappointed in the poor sales of his records, but Prestige seems to have been actively trying to push Monk off the label, frequently using him as a sideman. Yet, again, Monk himself often didn’t seem to be paying attention. He recorded one of his most striking works, an elaborate arrangement of Jerome Kerns’ “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” for Prestige, an almost guaranteed crowd pleaser, yet never, so far as I am aware, performed it live or ever recorded it again. In the famous Dec. 24, 1954 session led by Miles Davis, he recorded his legendary solo on the Milt Jackson composition “Bag’s Groove”, which he thereafter consciously excluded from his repertoire.

Even when Monk signed with Riverside Records, teaming him with a producer, Orrin Keepnews, convinced of Monk’s genius and determined to bring Monk the recognition he deserved, there was endless friction. Keepnews believed that the combination of Monk’s unorthodox compositions and his unorthodox piano style was too much for the masses, a theory which he “explained” (probably to excess) in the copious liner notes that were the fashion of the day and which led him to devote Monk’s first two albums to compositions of other composers. The first, a salute to Duke Ellington, was a success, and a fascinating album, for Ellington, unsurprisingly, was one of Monk’s heroes. The second, The Unique Thelonious Monk, devoted to (white) standards, was less successful. When “forced” to play other people’s music, Monk would almost invariably play the melody straight, perform a brief, perfunctory improvisation, and then conclude with random dashes at the keyboard to express his disdain for such trivial fare.

Since Keepnews “wasn’t interested” in his own compositions, Monk took four of them with him when he served as a sideman on a session led by saxophonist Gigi Gryce, which surely irritated Keepnews. When Monk was finally allowed to play his own music by Keepnews, the results were excellent, but the bloom quickly faded from the rose. There were endless delays, failed sessions, and missed dates. Monk was “offended” by the success of other musicians in Riverside’s stable, like pianist Bill Evans and saxophonist “Cannonball” Adderley. The fact that Adderley, an excellent musician and a serious student of jazz, aggressively courted popularity meant nothing to him, nor did he think that Evans’ “exquisite” renditions of Gershwin and other Broadway composers might prove both more accessible and more popular than his own mysterious compositions, not to mention his patented counter-intuitive virtuosity, which consciously discarded everything that appealed to the untutored sensibility.

Despite a large number of classic recordings, by 1960 Monk had lost interest in working with Riverside, providing, to Keepnews’ increasing frustration, nothing but “live” recordings, using the same format over and over again, a quartet featuring the always excellent Charlie Rouse as the only other solo voice, a format that, in fact, Monk retained for the rest of his career.

By the early 60s, Monk was far more famous than he had ever been, recording with one of the biggest labels in the country, Columbia. He put a great deal of effort into his first album for Columbia, Monk’s Dream. Like many jazz musicians, Monk very often insisted on “first take, best take,”6 but on Monk’s Dream he was willing to pursue as many as eight. Thereafter, however, his energy declined. Throughout his years with Columbia, he refused to take any advantage of the many opportunities his long-delayed fame offered him, clinging to the same performing format and repertoire and very rarely offering any new compositions. His passivity was such that he even complied with Columbia’s insistence on a big band album, Who’s Afraid of the Big Band Monk?, with utterly abysmal arrangements by a totally clueless Oliver Nelson. It’s more than painful to hear Monk striving against Nelson’s syrupy settings, even worse than the “Parker with Strings” and “Parker With Voices” albums cooked up for Charlie Parker by the well-meaning (but stupid) Norman Granz for the great Bird.7 Yet even here Monk managed to wrest greatness from the wreckage: his solo on “Brilliant Corners”, the famously “impossible” tune that he never recorded after its premiere on the Riverside album of the same name,8 is magnificent.

Many years ago, I heard Charlie Mingus say in an interview that Monk and Duke Ellington were the only two “compers” (accompanists) he admired.9 Every other pianist in jazz, Mingus said, simply played the same chords over and over. Only Ellington and Monk showed thought in their accompaniment, only they understood that a solo is supposed to show development. But the differences between Ellington and Monk are, if anything, even more pronounced than their similarities. Ellington was fascinated by listening to his soloists, understanding their capabilities and sensibilities–which he understood better than they did–and leading them where in effect they wanted to go, bringing out the best in them in harmony with his own overarching conceptions.

Monk, in contrast, played the accompaniment that his soloists ought to have wanted, if they had Monk’s sensibility. Not only did Monk want what he wanted, he never bothered to explain what it was he wanted, and he frequently changed his mind. Monk wanted everything to happen both the way he wanted it and of its own accord.

Monk composed a mere handful of pieces, somewhere between 70 and 75, depending on how you count them, while Ellington wrote over 1,000. At the same time that Monk was struggling to be recorded, “establishment” composers like Irving Babbitt and Ned Rorem received massive subsidies and prestigious critical recognition. Yet Amazon lists over a hundred albums each for Babbitt and Rorem, but over a thousand for Monk, an unfair comparison indeed, but one I’ll make nonetheless.10 Many of Monk’s compositions were reworkings of popular tunes of little consequence, yet almost fifty years after his death his reputation seems to grow with each passing year, and recordings of his work are almost without number. The wind bloweth where it listeth.

Afterwords Hundred of jazz videos, most of them performances of Monk’s tunes, are available from my website here. “Mostly Monk” has hundreds more and is a wonderful source. Ten years ago I wrote a piece about “Salute to Thelonious” albums, discussing about 30 of them. A few years later I added four more but then gave up, a little overwhelmed. I also reviewed The Jazz Baroness, a documentary on the life of jazz patron Pannonica de Koenigswarter, who cared for Monk during his last years, for the Bright Lights Film Journal.

Another is Scott DeVeaux’s Bebop A Social and Musical History, a near-microscopic study of developments in jazz from about 1940 through 1945, published in 1997. ↩︎

You can get an album from Amazon, ’Round Midnight, of Arciuli playing all of the variations except Crumb’s, and you can get Arciuli playing “Eine Kleine Mitternacht Musik” on another album, Complete Crumb Edition 9; Ancient Voices of Children, Madrigals Books I-IV, Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik. (I say “album” instead of “CD” because it’s a lot cheaper to download these.) ↩︎

Young’s first influence, apparently, was Frankie Traumbauer, a white musician who played a very obscure instrument, the C-melody sax, falling mid-way in size between an alto and tenor. Trambauer’s “fame” was closely tied to that of once-legendary cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, who is still something of a name (go here to download his music). ↩︎

Monk often refused to answer interviewers’ questions. Why speak with ignorant people? Yet with musicians he trusted, he could be compulsively, though no doubt elliptically, voluble, in conversations that ran all through the night. ↩︎

Live footage of this session exists, though unfortunately you won’t find it on YouTube. Multiple ironies are involved. In 1957, Monk appeared on a CBS special “The Sound of Jazz” (available on YouTube, with the Monk footage mysteriously deleted). In 1958, CBS did another special, on “Youth”, and took their cameras to the Five Spot. No one associated with the production seemed to have the least idea of who Monk or Coltrane was. The Five Spot was apparently chosen because that’s where “the kids” were going. The kids, in this case, were Ivy Leaguers, the guys in suits and the Seven Sisters gals in little black dresses and pearls, all of them smoking and drinking up a storm, while the “adult” narrator talks all over the great music we’re hearing, absolutely bewildered as to how or why anyone could or should listen to such “noise”. I saw this footage in a Monk documentary, probably The Jazz Baroness, about Monk’s patron (one of them, at least), Pannonica de Koenigswarter, which I reviewed here ↩︎

However, this was not always the case. The CD reissue of the great Riverside solo album, Thelonious Himself, features a 25-minute cut of Monk struggling to get “Round Midnight” to come out the way it ought to. ↩︎

These hopeless monsters—arrangements of standards whose chord changes, in many cases, served as the basis for Parker’s own compositions—are, at least, “funny” (for those possessing unusually jaundiced sensibilities), particularly the “voices” album, as Parker, who adopts a “golden’ tone for the occasion (the “real” Parker always played sharp), swoops and swirls his way around the pathetically square arrangements. But Oliver Nelson was desecrating not Gershwin but Monk, and it’s far too ugly to laugh. ↩︎

According to the liner notes of the latest reissues of this classic album, most of the musicians on the date found the tune incomprehensible. Monk, in classic Monk fashion, refused to offer any explanation, simply yelling at them whenever they got it “wrong”. After hours of takes and retakes (and yelling), Keepnews had to splice together two takes to produce what’s heard on the album. Now, of course, there are any number of excellent performances available. ↩︎

Dizzy Gillespie said that Ellington was “the best comper ever.” ↩︎

I am no judge of “establishment” music, whatever that is, but I’ve listened to several albums of Rorem’s “songs”—musical settings of classic poems like Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”—and felt the music only distracted from the poetry. However, I am very much indebted to Rorem for a very odd reason. His diaries, which began to be published sometime in the late sixties (I believe) gave most of us straights our first peek into the swinging life of a gay man about town, enjoying all the pleasures that Paris had to offer, anonymous sex in particular. The diaries prompted the funniest parody I ever read, appearing in the New Yorker. I’ve forgotten the author’s name, but I haven’t forgotten the following passage: “Happened to run into X, who told me I’m the handsomest man alive. Catching sight of myself in a store window, I had to agree. How often are beauty and genius allied! How they will hate me when they read this, and I only speak the truth! How few can say as much!” ↩︎

#Thelonious Monk #Miles Okazaki #Frank Kimbrough #Robin D. G. Kelley

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blackkudos · 7 years

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Fats Waller

Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations to the Harlem stride style laid the groundwork for modern jazz piano. His best-known compositions, "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Honeysuckle Rose", were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1984 and 1999.

Early life

Waller was the youngest of 11 children (five of whom survived childhood) born to Adeline Locket Waller and the Reverend Edward Martin Waller in New York City. He started playing the piano when he was six and graduated to playing the organ at his father's church four years later. His mother instructed him when he was a youth. At the age of 14 he was playing the organ at the Lincoln Theater, in Harlem, and within 12 months he had composed his first rag. Waller's first piano solos ("Muscle Shoals Blues" and "Birmingham Blues") were recorded in October 1922, when he was 18 years old.

He was the prize pupil and later the friend and colleague of the stride pianist James P. Johnson.

Career

Against the opposition of his father, a clergyman, Waller became a professional pianist at the age of 15, working in cabarets and theaters. In 1918 he won a talent contest playing Johnson's "Carolina Shout", a song he learned from watching a player piano play it.

Waller became one of the most popular performers of his era, finding critical and commercial success in the United States and Europe. He was also a prolific songwriter, and many songs he wrote or co-wrote are still popular, such as "Honeysuckle Rose", "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Squeeze Me". Fellow pianist and composer Oscar Levant dubbed Waller "the black Horowitz". Waller is believed to have composed many novelty tunes in the 1920s and 1930s and sold them for small sums, attributed to another composer and lyricist.

Standards attributed to Waller, sometimes controversially, include "I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby". Biographer Barry Singer conjectured that this jazz classic was written by Waller and lyricist Andy Razaf and provided a description of the sale given by Waller to the New York Post in 1929—he sold the song for $500 to a white songwriter, ultimately for use in a financially successful show (consistent with Jimmy McHugh's contributions to Harry Delmar’s Revels, 1927, and then to Blackbirds of 1928). He further supports the conjecture, noting that early handwritten manuscripts in the Dana Library Institute of Jazz Studies of "Spreadin' Rhythm Around" (Jimmy McHugh ©1935) are in Waller's hand. Jazz historian P.S. Machlin comments that the Singer conjecture has "considerable [historical] justification". Waller's son Maurice wrote in his 1977 biography of his father that Waller had once complained on hearing the song, and came from upstairs to admonish him never to play it in his hearing because he had had to sell it when he needed money. Maurice Waller's biography similarly notes his father's objections to hearing "On the Sunny Side of the Street" playing on the radio. Waller recorded "I Can't Give You…" in 1938, playing the tune but making fun of the lyrics; the recording was with Adelaide Hall who had introduced the song to the world at Les Ambassadeurs Club in New York in 1928.

The anonymous sleeve notes on the 1960 RCA Victor album Handful of Keys state that Waller copyrighted over 400 songs, many of them co-written with his closest collaborator, Andy Razaf. Razaf described his partner as "the soul of melody... a man who made the piano sing... both big in body and in mind... known for his generosity... a bubbling bundle of joy". Gene Sedric, a clarinetist who played with Waller on some of his 1930s recordings, is quoted in these sleeve notes recalling Waller's recording technique with considerable admiration: "Fats was the most relaxed man I ever saw in a studio, and so he made everybody else relaxed. After a balance had been taken, we'd just need one take to make a side, unless it was a kind of difficult number."

Waller played with many performers, from Nathaniel Shilkret (on Victor 21298-A) and Gene Austin to Erskine Tate, Fletcher Henderson, McKinney's Cotton Pickers and Adelaide Hall, but his greatest success came with his own five- or six-piece combo, "Fats Waller and his Rhythm".

On one occasion his playing seemed to have put him at risk of injury. Waller was kidnapped in Chicago leaving a performance in 1926. Four men bundled him into a car and took him to the Hawthorne Inn, owned by Al Capone. Waller was ordered inside the building, and found a party in full swing. Gun to his back, he was pushed towards a piano, and told to play. A terrified Waller realized he was the "surprise guest" at Capone's birthday party, and took comfort that the gangsters did not intend to kill him. It is rumored that Waller stayed at the Hawthorne Inn for three days and left very drunk, extremely tired, and had earned thousands of dollars in cash from Capone and other party-goers as tips.

In 1926, Waller began his recording association with the Victor Talking Machine Company/RCA Victor, his principal record company for the rest of his life, with the organ solos "St. Louis Blues" and his own composition, "Lenox Avenue Blues". Although he recorded with various groups, including Morris's Hot Babes (1927), Fats Waller's Buddies (1929) (one of the earliest multiracial groups to record), and McKinney's Cotton Pickers (1929), his most important contribution to the Harlem stride piano tradition was a series of solo recordings of his own compositions: "Handful of Keys", "Smashing Thirds", "Numb Fumblin'", and "Valentine Stomp" (1929). After sessions with Ted Lewis (1931), Jack Teagarden (1931) and Billy Banks' Rhythmakers (1932), he began in May 1934 the voluminous series of recordings with a small band known as Fats Waller and his Rhythm. This six-piece group usually included Herman Autrey (sometimes replaced by Bill Coleman or John "Bugs" Hamilton), Gene Sedric or Rudy Powell, and Al Casey.

Waller wrote "Squeeze Me" (1919), "Keepin' Out of Mischief Now", "Ain't Misbehavin'" (1929), "Blue Turning Grey Over You", "I've Got a Feeling I'm Falling" (1929), "Honeysuckle Rose" (1929) and "Jitterbug Waltz" (1942). He composed stride piano display pieces such as "Handful of Keys", "Valentine Stomp" and "Viper's Drag".

He enjoyed success touring the United Kingdom and Ireland in the 1930s. He appeared in one of the first BBC television broadcasts. While in Britain, Waller also recorded a number of songs for EMI on their Compton Theatre organ located in their Abbey Road Studios in St John's Wood. He appeared in several feature films and short subject films, most notably Stormy Weather in 1943, which was released July 21, just months before his death. For the hit Broadway show Hot Chocolates, he and Razaf wrote "(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue" (1929), which became a hit for Ethel Waters and Louis Armstrong.

Waller performed Bach organ pieces for small groups on occasion. Waller influenced many pre-bebop jazz pianists; Count Basie and Erroll Garner have both reanimated his hit songs. In addition to his playing, Waller was known for his many quips during his performances.

Between 1926 and the end of 1927, Waller recorded a series of pipe organ solo records. These represent the first time syncopated jazz compositions were performed on a full-sized church organ.

Death

Waller contracted pneumonia and died on a cross-country train trip near Kansas City, Missouri, on December 15, 1943. His final recording session was with an interracial group in Detroit, Michigan, that included white trumpeter Don Hirleman. Waller was returning to New York City from Los Angeles, after the smash success of Stormy Weather, and after a successful engagement at the Zanzibar Room, in Santa Monica California, during which he had fallen ill. More than 4,000 people attended his funeral in Harlem, which prompted Dr. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who delivered the eulogy, to say that Fats Waller "always played to a packed house." Afterwards he was cremated and his ashes were scattered, from an airplane piloted by an unidentified World War I black aviator, over Harlem. One of his surviving relatives is former Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket and current Baltimore Ravens tight end Darren Waller, who is Fats' paternal great-grandson.

Revival and awards

A Broadway musical revue showcasing Waller tunes entitled Ain't Misbehavin' was produced in 1978. (The show and a star of the show, Nell Carter, won Tony Awards.) The show opened at the Longacre Theatre and ran for more than 1600 performances. It was revived on Broadway in 1988. Performed by five African-American actors, the show included such songs as "Honeysuckle Rose", "This Joint Is Jumpin'", and "Ain't Misbehavin'".

Recordings of Fats Waller were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame which is a special Grammy Award established in 1973 to honour recordings that are at least 25 years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance".

Probably the most talented pianist to keep the music of "Fats" Waller alive in the years after his death was Ralph Sutton, who focused his career on playing stride piano. Sutton was a great admirer of Waller, saying "I've never heard a piano man swing any better than Fats – or swing a band better than he could. I never get tired of him. Fats has been with me from the first, and he'll be with me as long as I live."

Actor and band leader Conrad Janis also did a lot to keep the stride piano music of "Fats" Waller and James P. Johnson alive. In 1949, as an 18-year-old, Janis put together a band of aging jazz greats, consisting of James P. Johnson (piano), Henry Goodwin (trumpet), Edmond Hall (clarinet), Pops Foster (bass) and Baby Dodds (drums), with Janis on trombone.

In popular culture

Waller is the subject of the Irish poet Michael Longley's "Elegy for Fats Waller".

Robert Pinsky's poem, "History of My Heart," opens with Waller walking into the 34th St. Macy's at Christmastime

He was caricatured in several Warner Brothers animated shorts, most notably Tin Pan Alley Cats.

In the 2008 film Be Kind Rewind, Waller was a major theme and influence for the storyline.

Italian comics book artist Igort published a comic book about Waller entitled Fats Waller on Coconino Press in 2009.

His song "Inside This Heart of Mine", is used in the queuing areas of the ride The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

Some of Waller's music ("Jitterbug Waltz") is used in the video game series BioShock.

Waller's version of "Louisiana Fairytale" was used for many years as the theme song to the American television series This Old House.

Waller's church organ music featured prominently in David Lynch's breakthrough film Eraserhead in 1977.

Irish rock band Thin Lizzy, wrote the song "Fats" in their album Renegade. It is inspired in the figure of Waller.

Wikipedia

#Fats Waller #05-21 #12-15

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