MUSIC. That’s all folks…
BACK. BIGGER. BETTER. BOLDER
A Mellow Monday with the wonderful Fenne Lily
From her new album Big Picture here’s Pick
Photo: Michael Tyone Delaney
Jazz on a Summer’s Day
JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY
They say that 1959 was the year that changed jazz. It was the period when the music broke away from its traditional modes to create new forms, specifically allowing soloists to break free and express themselves. It was year that America: the found its groove with jazz leading the charge. The list of albums that were released that year is just incredible - check them out.
However when scholars and aficionados talk about music in that year four jazz albums are cited, each a high point for the artists concerned and a real soundtrack of the times and all four stand up to this day and somewhat. They are:
Miles Davis, Kind of Blue
Dave Brubeck, Time Out
Charles Mingus, Mingus Ah Um
Ornette Coleman, The Shape of Jazz to Come
All four may be different but they are equally sublime. They are timeless and to have heard them contemporaneously must have been something else. The albums, jazz and that period of time has established itself as an integral part of American history and it quickly found itself an audience and voice in the jazz clubs, nightclubs and parties on this side of the Atlantic as well. Jazz - especially Trad Jazz - was huge in the UK at the end of the 1950s and the aficionados, beatniks and modernists quickly lapped up this modern jazz creating friction - that led to numerous verbals and fist fights between the Trads and Moderns. For this was modern and new. Frightening, exciting, exhilarating and refreshing.
Like the music the shift was rapid and the records soon found their way into the stores the length and breadth of the country. The kids snapped them up, played them, danced to them and nodded their heads to them. And whilst ding this they studied the album covers of all these new imported sounds on the Verve, Blue Note and Capitol labels. See, it was more than the music. It was also about the style, the clothes, the colours, the modernist art, architecture and furniture, and the graphic design. It was Hollywood PLUS! Britain was looking west. Cigarettes, glamour, bourbon, Ivy League clothing and jazz. As the legendary retailer and original modernist John Simons says on his company’s website: “I came to art really through record covers, I was extremely interested in the Bebop revolution in America in the post-war years. I would always find myself in record stores looking at the covers. They were very often done by interesting modern artists, which reflected the music. As a fourteen and fifteen-year-old that drew me to it. To me the Bebop revolution made the Punk revolution look like right wing conservatives! So far out man… I can’t even tell you.”
Then in August 1959 a small independent film was released that gave the UK modernists a visual interpretation of their new-found music. Entitled Jazz On A Summer’s Day the film is a dazzling documentary of the Newport Jazz Festival held a year earlier on Rhode Island, USA. The festival was founded in 1954 and soon became the hippest event in the country. It wasn’t long before Bert Stern, a young New Yorker specialising in “still” advertising photography, had the bright idea of filming the Newport Jazz Festival, in which 50 top-flight American jazz musicians and vocalists took part and to which jazzanistas in their legions flocked from all over. Stern has a wonderful gift for capturing the colour, style and panache of the venue, artistes and audience. He then intersperses this with film of the city of Newport from the harbour with its racing yachts skimming gracefully over the sparkling and shimmering water to shots of kids paying on the beach and onto the cool cats arriving at the event.And “cool” is the word.
The music featuring the Jimmy Giuffre 3, Thelonious Monk Trio, Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong and Mahalia Jackson to name just a few is scintillating. The multi-racial crowd has never been hipper and as day turns to night Stern and co-director Aram Avakian capture a vibe that is like nothing anybody had seen, heard or felt before in America or at one of the few cinemas that showed it in the UK. The reviews were superb, those that saw it had now bought into this whole new scene and Britain edged that little bit closer to the 1960s…
FOOTNOTES
In 2020 the film was given a new 4K restoration by IndieCollect, and premiered at the 57th New York Film Festival - the trailer looks fantastic . It was meant to have a cinema and Netflix release but due to Covid this doesn’t seem to have happened. You can however watch the pre-restored version on Vimeo and Youtube.
Meanwhile the photos that accompany this piece are from the incredible book Jazz Festival by Jim Marshall and released by Reel Art Press. The book includes photos from the 1958 festival - amongst other years - and Marshall can actually be seen on the film. If you haven’t done so already then check out the book!
Ian Hunter as defiant and brilliant as ever
Ian Hunter will be 84 years old in a few weeks time yet here he is rocking like a 24-year-old.
And how he rocks. Defiance Part 1 is a proper belter of an album as Hunter, The Rant Band and his famous mate shake the place to the rafters. As ever the songwriting is first-class, the couple of ballads Guernica and Angel hit a gorgeous groove while the Hunter voice is as unique as ever.
So take a bow Todd Rundgren, Slash, Johnny Depp, Taylor Hawkins, Joe Elliott, Jeff Beck and many more and there in the middle of the stage is Ian Hunter. Still a bona-fida rock and roll star!
Wintergrace
Folk artist Kate MacLeod’s longterm project of study, performance, and recordings of Jean Ritchie are coming into focus with The Jean Ritchie Experience. There are four new renditions of songs to be released as singles, and plans for more. Most will include special guest musicians on the recordings.
The first recorded song of the project, Wintergrace, was released on December 30th, 2022, with Appalachian musicians John Bryant and Morgan Morrison lending their talents.
Here’s what Kate has to say about the project and this first release:
“Wintergrace is a song written by the American Folk musician, Kentucky-born Jean Ritchie. Jean is one of the few artists lauded by both the popular music world (Rolling Stone Magazine’s 1977 Critic’s Choice Award) and the traditional folk music world (Folk Alliance International’s 1998 Lifetime Achievement Award). She has been one of the primary inspirations for my own love of American Folk Music. Through her original songs, her modifications of traditional songs, her instrumental playing, and her collaborations with other musicians, she’s represented the spirit of American folk music with both authenticity and innovation. In a life that spanned 1922-2015, Jean bridged the world of families who sang on their porches in mountain hollers, to those who took that music to the rest of the world. During her lifetime, she became a well respected performer, songwriter, and folklorist. She was a Fulbright Scholar, a co-director of the very first Newport Folk Festival in 1959, and was instrumental in introducing the Appalachian Mountain Dulcimer to a wide listenership. I hope to share her legacy with those who already know of her work, but more importantly, to introduce her beautiful music to some who might not be familiar with her. I have sung this song for many years. This studio version of the song was recorded in 2022. I invited Appalachian musicians John Bryant (acoustic bass) and Morgan Morrison (harmony vocals) to add their talents to the recording process.”
Five songs that you may not hear this Christmas
The classics are the classics for a reason but here are five lesser known Christmas songs.
First up is Chip Taylor being Chip. And Chip being absolutely magnificent…
Phoebe Bridgers can do little wrong at the moment and her rendition of Merle Haggard’s song is just beautiful.
Bridgers - along with Fiona Apple and Matt Berninger - also recently covered 7 O'Clock News / Silent Night but here’s the original by Simon & Garfunkel.
More seasonal than Christmas here are Smith & Burrows with their own emotional winter’s tale.
Finally let’s go skating with Vince and the Charlie Brown gang.
