Anita O'Day Live at Ronnie Scott's 1986

Legendary jazz vocalist Anita O'Day (1919-2006) performs with, among others, her life-long musical partner, John Poole on drums. Acknowledged by many as the world's most inventive jazz singer, she performs a number of classics such as "On Green Dolphin Street," "My Funny Valentine" and "They Can't Take That Away from Me."

Tracklisting

Wave
You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To
On Green Dolphin Street
I Can't Get Started
It Don't Mean a Thing
The Street of Dreams
'S Wonderful
They Can't Take That Away from Me
Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby
My Funny Valentine
I Cried for You
Four Brothers
Wave (Reprise)

Les McCann & M'Jobi - Jazz Open Stuttgart 2004

Pianist - vocalist Les McCann (born September 23, 1935, Lexington, Kentucky) in performance live in Germany in 2004 accompanied by German band M'Jobi led by guitarist Jo Ambros. Primarily a piano player (self-taught and a terrific one at that, in the vein of Bud Powell), after the success of his 1969 "Swiss Movement" album recorded during the Montreux jazz festival of that year containing the huge, strongly political hit "Compared To What" criticizing the Vietnam war, he became a soul jazz pioneer, one of the first jazz musicians to introduce electric pianos and made history during the 70s with collaborator sax player Eddie Harris on subsequent albums. His singing has a rasp, gospelish quality all of its own, enjoy.

1. Cold Duck Time
2. What's Going On?
3. Little Blue Volkswagen
4. A little 3/4 for God & Co
5. Sunny
6. Ignominy
7. Someday We'll Meet Again

Joey DeFrancesco Trio - Jazz Festival Bern 1999

Virtuosic artistry by three Italian-American jazz musicians, Joey DeFrancesco on Hammond B-3, Frank Vignola on guitar and Joe Ascione on drums captured live at the International Jazz Festival in Bern/Switzerland, 1999. Material is mostly from the Goodfellas CD these guys recorded in 1998 based on Italian tunes.
NB: this is the original vid posted back in 2007 on my now defunct channel itsartolie in 10 min chunks some of which can be found on other youtube channels albeit with inferior quality.

01. Just In Time
02. Fly Me To The Moon (starts around 5:10)
03. See What I'm Sayin' (starts around 12:00)
04. Speak Softly Love (starts around 18:10)
05. Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu/Volare (starts around 25:25)
06. All The Way (starts around 31:20)
07. Evidence (starts around 36:35)
08. Mala Femmina (starts around 42:35)
09. Watch Em' (starts around 50:40)

Joey DeFrancesco, organ
Frank Vignola, guitar
Joe Ascione, drums

Shelly Manne, Ray Brown, Hampton Hawes & Bob Cooper Live at Shelly's Manne Hole L.A. 1970

Shelly Manne Quartet: Shelly Manne (drums), Ray Brown (bass), Hampton Hawes (piano) and Bob Cooper (sax) perform 'Stella by Starlight' and 'Milestones' at Shelly's Manne Hole Club in L.A., 1970.

1. Blues Improvisation
2. Stella By Starlight
3. Milestone

Kenny Barron - Jazz in Marciac 2010

Mesmerizing Kenny Barron set filmed in 2010 at the renown Jazz in Marciac Jazz Festival in France. Kenny is surrounded by young lions David Sanchez on tenor sax, Darryl Hall on bass and Jonathan Blake on drums.

Tracklisting:
1. Body and Soul (0-17:50)
2. Well, you Needn't (17:51-34:26)
3. Ellington - Strayhorn medley (34:27-41:39)
4. Theme No 1 (Barron) (41:40-53:28)

Zoot Sims Quartet Live at Donte's, LA, 1970

Tenor sax giant Zoot Sims joined by pianist Roger Kellaway, bassist Chuck Berghofer and drummer Larry Bunker, is seen at the late lamented Donte's in Los Angeles, 1970. The quartet jams on a cooking 'Zoot's Piece' (based on 'Doxy'), a tender 'My Old Flame' and a medium-tempo 'On the Trail.' Sims is in typically brilliant form, Kellaway is particularly creative on a fast blues piece, 'Motoring Along.'

The Sound Of Jazz

The Sound of Jazz, considered by many to be the best jazz TV program ever, was part of CBS Seven Lively Arts series. The program aired December 8, 1957 live from CBS Studio 54, aka the Town Theater, located at 851 9th Avenue in New York City - now demolished. The show was hosted by John Crosby and produced by Irving Townsend, George Avakian and Michael Brooks.

It featured a stellar cast of the top East Coast Jazz musicians of the day, playing styles from dixieland to bebop and twelve-tone. This dazzling array of musicians included Count Basie, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Lester Young, Jimmy Rushing, Red Allen, Roy Eldridge, Gerry Mulligan, 'Papa' Jo Jones, Jimmy Giuffre to name but a few.

Performances were mostly improvised, but then again these musicians were no strangers at doing this, what is interesting here is that the direction of this show was improvised as well, with odd camera angles etc.

According to noted jazz critic Nat Hentoff who was present, during the Billie Holiday number, everyone was crying.

So, to put it in a nutshell, great musicians, great performances, great TV days, sadly not with us anymore, because, and make no mistake, that was mainstream TV.

Miles Davis: Isle of Wight 1970 - Repost

Miles Davis passed away 20 years ago today, so some kind of tribute is in order. Here's mine.

Upturn every jazz stone after the 1940s and chances are that you will see the name Miles Davis written underneath more often than not.

He started his meteoric musical career as a young trumpet player beside Charlie Parker, and it has been upwards ever since.

His Birth Of The Cool sessions of 1949 with his nonet first introduced jazz audiences to the notion of cool jazz. His subsequent quintet of the mid fifties featuring John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb et al, showed the world how hard bop should be.

As if these were not enough, his 1958 "Kind Of Blue" album, THE most successful jazz album of all time, gave the world modal jazz.

His second great quintet with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams of the 1960s explored the new territory of post and freebop.

And finally, his 1969 Bitches Brew album, turned the jazz world on its head with its reckless electric experimentalism, and fusion music was born, not to mention that musicians in the caliber of Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Joe Zawinul and many others won instant recognition. Not bad at all.

The 1970 Isle of Wight festival was by far the largest and most famous of these early festivals indeed it was said at the time to be one of the largest human gatherings in the world surpassing the attendance at Woodstock. The most notable of over fifty performers were The Who, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Ten Years After, Joni Mitchell, Melanie, Donovan, Free, Chicago, Richie Havens, John Sebastian, Leonard Cohen, Jethro Tull and Tiny Tim. The unexpected level of the attendees (tickets holders accounted only for 50.000) was beyond that which the festival organizers and local authorities could supply adequate amenities and guarantee public safety for. Such concerns led in 1971, to Parliament passing the "Isle of Wight Act" preventing gatherings of more than 5,000 people on the island without a special license.

The festival was revived only in 2002.

A piece of music history then, Miles Davis in the company of jazz superstars to-be Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, Airto Moreira and Gary Bartz, in a 35 minute free form improvisation which Miles, after being asked the title famously replied "oh, call it anything".

Miles Davis At The Isle Of Wight '70 - Call It Anything 1/2
Uploaded by Delta_Mike

Miles Davis At The Isle Of Wight '70 - Call It Anything 2/2
Uploaded by Delta_Mike

Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and Special Guests - Leverkusen Jazz Fest Oct. 9 1989

German 1989 TV special celebrating Bu's 70th birthday. Stellar lineup including Terence Blanchard, Freddie Hubbard, Brian Lynch (tp) Curtis Fuller, Frank Lacy (tb) Donald Harrison, Jackie McLean (as) Benny Golson, Javon Jackson, Wayne Shorter (ts) Walter Davis Jr., Geoff Keezer (p) Essiet Okon Essiet, Buster Williams (b) Art Blakey, Roy Haynes (d) Michelle Hendricks (v).

Tracklisting:

Two of a Kind
Moanin'
Along Came Betty
Lester Left Town
Mr. Blakey
Drum Duo
Blues March
Buhaina's Valediction
Interview

Louis Armstrong - Body and Soul (1930) + You Can Depend on Me (1931) [Parlophone UK 78 R1355]

Beginning in about 1929 or 1930, Parlophone started a series of American jazz records on their "Rhythm Style Series". Edgar Jackson was the director of this series, which was issued within the existing R- series (the first issue was R-448). Culled from the American OKeh label, artists like Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer, Duke Ellington, Miff Mole, and other major artists who recorded for OKeh. These records were usually "split-coupled" (the top and bottom side of each record was usually by different artists and did not correspond with the original American coupling). The "Second New Rhythm-Style" series replaced the first series in about 1931, and there was a separate series for each year from 1934 through 1941, as well as some miscellany series. These 78's were popular and remained in print for years. Even though these records were never licensed for sale in the U.S., they were heavily imported through jazz shops like Commodore and Liberty in the late 1930s and were sold through the 1940s and into the early 1950s. They are treasured by collectors because they are pressed from the original stampers and usually sound much better than the worn and usually rare U.S. OKeh original records.

Side A

Louis Armstrong And His New Sebastian Cotton Club Orchestra
October 9, 1930, Los Angeles, CA

Body And Soul (Heyman, E.; Sour, R.; Eyeton, F.; Green, J.) [master W.404411-D] -- OKeh 41468

Armstrong, Louis (Trumpet, Vocal)
Hite, Les (Conductor, Saxophone)
Orendorff, George (Trumpet)
Scott, Harold (Trumpet)
Graven, Luther (Trombone)
Johnson, Marvin (Alto Saxophone)
Jones, Charlie (Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet)
Prince, Henry (Piano)
Perkins, Bill (Banjo, Steel Guitar)
Bailey, Joe (Tuba, Bass)
Hampton, Lionel (Vibraphone, Drums)

A completely new lineup for the Orchestra (except for the great Hampton).

Side B

Louis Armstrong And His Orchestra
November 5, 1931, Chicago, IL

You Can Depend On Me (Dunlap; Hines; Carpenter) [master W.405062-2] -- OKeh 41538

Armstrong, Louis (Trumpet, Vocal)
Randolph, Zilner (Trumpet)
Jackson, Preston (Trombone)
Boone, Lester (Clarinet, Alto Saxophone)
James, George (Reeds)
Washington, Albert (Clarinet, Tenor Saxophone)
Alexander, Charlie (Piano)
McKendrick, Mike (Banjo, Guitar)
Lindsay, John (Bass)
Hall, Tubby (Drums)

78rpm shellack transfer from my personal collection, enjoy