Tag Archives: jazz

Café Mouffe: Don Byron’s New Gospel Quintet

Don Byron is one of the jazz artists I hope to hear this week. He has a gig at Jazz Standard on Thursday-Sunday. For now, here is Hide Me In Thy Bosom and Precious Lord. Continue reading






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Café Mouffe: The Vocal Pyrotechnics of Jon Hendricks

Scat singing started as an improvisation by Louis Armstrong in the 1920s . Jon Hendricks took it to the level of pyrotechnic virtuosity in the 1950s by crafting words to fit soaring instrumental solos. Hendricks turns 90 today, and NPR paid him tribute.






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An American Arc from Emerson to Ellington

One of my great joys in listening to Radio Open Source is Christopher Lydon’s reliable insight into the cultural resonance of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I never imagined a connection between Emerson and Duke Ellington until Lydon traced it in an interview with Ellington biographer Harvey Cohen.






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Duke Ellington’s “Black, Brown and Beige” Suite

After listening to an Open Source interview with biographer Harvey Cohen, I wanted to hear Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige Suite. It’s one of Ellington’s longest and most ambitious compositions. It’s had a complicated and incomplete recording history since its premiere at Ellington’s first Carnegie Hall concert in 1943. I believe I have a vinyl record of that legendary performance, first released in 1977, somewhere in my house. But even if I dug it out of storage, I no longer have a stereo turntable to play it.






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Café Mouffe: Mary Lou Williams at 100

Jazz composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams was born 100 years ago today NPR had an excellent story about her pioneering influence – and not just on women in jazz. Maybe this year the annual festival held in her honor at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., will change its name to the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival.






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