Saturday is International Jazz Day!

**Serial_Apologist** · 29-04-16, 15:50

Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post

12.00 Geoffrey Smith's Jazz
Geoffrey Smith illustrates how 20th-century music giant Nat "King" Cole (1919-65) developed from a brilliant jazz pianist into a celebrated pop vocalist, [] surveying his keyboard hits, which inspired the likes of Oscar Peterson and Diana Krall.

I always think that this particular 1944 track, which I taped onto a reel-to-reel listening at home to a jazz programme at age 14, provided the model of all models for Oscar Peterson's 1950s trio's playing at its mid-tempoed most typical: always the fraction ahead of the beat emphasis, the left-hand minor second accents, the eventual block chords:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9PdlElDOwY

As a Canadian-born black jazz pianist, one has imv to respect what Oscar achieved with leading lights in US jazz in the late 1940s/50s, while seeing his style as limited to that time.

**Ian Thumwood** · 29-04-16, 17:40

The JRR selection is extremely varied and good to see some favourites like Jimmy Heath being chosen - probably the most under-rated of all the tenor players to come out of be-bop by jazz fans. It is also good to hear the Red Nichols track which is typical of the really off-the wall jazz being produced by a clique of white musicians in the 1920's. I always seem unfair that someone like Miff Mole is not almost entirely forgotten despite being one of the first real pioneers of jazz trombone and someone who was a prime example of a player who had totally by-passed the tail-gate style of playing. I don't think he was as good a Jack Teagarden but he deserves to be better known. The cadences used by these bands always strikes me as being peculiar and there does seem to be a bizarre juxtaposition with the early style of syncopation and more modern approaches to harmony. I suppose this is accountable to classically trained musicians who were savvy to the then contemporary classical styles being seduced by jazz which must also have seemed shocking and modern too. History has demonstrated that the future of the music was dictated by the likes of musicians who followed in the wake of Armstrong but I always wonder how the jazz audience at the time would have perceived these tracks and whether they would have put their money on the likes of Nichols and his cohorts advancing jazz. I have read accounts written in the early 1920's whereby musicians who were savvy to jazz envisaging that jazz's influence would be felt more strongly with composition and orchestration than with the improvisational / solo aspect. The timbre of the music and the more aggressive rhythms were seen as the principle attributes of jazz from those musicians looking outside. I find the contemporary perceptions of jazz to be fascinating especially as many critics in the US struggled to get to grips with the music to the same degree of serious analysis as was happening in Europe. The perceived wisdom seems to have relegated the likes of Red Nichols (just as I feel that it will ultimately relegate the reputations of musicians like Chet Baker and Dave Brubeck) whereas Armstrong's reputation continues to grow in stature and a swathe of the less familiar black bands from Henderson, Redman, Moten, Kirk, etc, etc now seem far more significant that they might have done 30 years ago. That said, the Janus quality of a lot of white jazz from the 1920's remains fascinating and it is a shame that the Depression of the 1930's saw these musicians seem succor in many of the dance bands of the period like Paul Whiteman. It is interesting to conject where this type of jazz might have led to and whether is would have had any bearing on the kind of innovations that took place outside of bebop in the late 40's and early 50's might have been brought about earlier, especially when you think of someone like Bud Freeman being a huge fan of Lennie Tristano.

**BLUESNIK'S REVOX** · 29-04-16, 18:58

Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post

I always think that this particular 1944 track, which I taped onto a reel-to-reel listening at home to a jazz programme at age 14, provided the model of all models for Oscar Peterson's 1950s trio's playing at its mid-tempoed most typical: always the fraction ahead of the beat emphasis, the left-hand minor second accents, the eventual block chords:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9PdlElDOwY

As a Canadian-born black jazz pianist, one has imv to respect what Oscar achieved with leading lights in US jazz in the late 1940s/50s, while seeing his style as limited to that time.

One who was very definitely influenced by Nat Cole was Ray Charles, vocally cloning him on his first sides along with a Charles Brown (also Cole-esque) style, and pianistically throughout. The one vivid thing I still remember about seeing Ray in 1963 was his piano cutting through the band, its economy and taste. Its interesting that so many who worked with Ray's later bands still had so much affection and respect for his piano, and its role, despite their equivocation about the man himself.

BN.

Saturday is International Jazz Day!

Saturday is International Jazz Day!

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