New Catallaxy

Rabz’ Radio Show Spring 2023 – Jazz

Many people would describe this as the perfect music when one would like to kick back and relaxatrate (or Relaxin’).

They would not be incorrect.

Jazz, by its very nature, is unpredictable, with the emphasis on the concept of “improvisation”.

Jazz is “a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime”, according to that impeccable source, Wikipedia.

Since its popular peak in the 1920s and 1930s Jazz has carved out its own unique niche. There are many variations, but a personal favourite would be “Bebop”.

The Mods were gifted their name due to their love of “Modern Jazz”, i.e. Modernists.

The most legendary Jazz artists are known for their use of three instruments in particular, the Saxophone, Trombone and Trumpet.

That said, my three favourite Jazz artists are:

Charlie Parker

Louis Armstrong

Miles Davis

However, Miles, was “The Man”.  

From his legendary last album, Doo-Bop

Enjoy and consume some Martinis while relaxin’ in your pad with an aesthetically pleasing woman, Cats.

You know you want to. 

Rabz

,

47 responses to “Rabz’ Radio Show Spring 2023 – Jazz”

  1. Rabz Avatar
    Rabz

    Enjoy and consume some Martinis while relaxin’ in your pad with an aesthetically pleasing Alpha Male, Kittehs.

    You know you want to.

  2. Rabz Avatar
    Rabz

    Bitches Brew

    Better than any Pink Floyd you may have heard …

  3. P Avatar
    P

    Joe Pass – “Ain’t Misbehavin’”

  4. Bruce of Newcastle Avatar
    Bruce of Newcastle

    Jazz is so far from anything I know that I can’t much contribute.

    Ok a tiny bit. I’ll get in with this remarkable track before anyone else does. 😀

    Rhapsody in Blue (1945)

    I saw somewhere that Gershwin originally intended to play it at pace, like a twenties music hall track. Then for some reason they played it really really slowly for a lark. The rest was history!

  5. Bazinga Avatar
    Bazinga

    something about hating jazz

  6. Mark from Melbourne Avatar
    Mark from Melbourne

    Joe Zawinul’s tribute to an Austrian grandfather, His Last Journey.

  7. Roger Avatar
    Roger

    Bitches Brew

    Better than any Pink Floyd you may have heard …

    A regular on my turntable for nigh on 40 years.

    From there I worked back to his more traditional jazz albums and also John Coltrane.

  8. Rabz Avatar
    Rabz

    Rog – you are a way too logical personage.

    But thanks for dropping by.

    Have you heard Doo-Bop?

  9. Boxcar Avatar
    Boxcar

    I fell in love with jazz in the beer garden at the Dicko in Canberra in 1969, and the memory still endures.
    Then it was all night in Bourbon St for the American Bi-Centenary in 4 July 1976. Once in a lifetime.
    But, Bruce, right with you on “Rhapsody in Blue” Could listen forever.

  10. miltonf Avatar
    miltonf

    St Louis blues

  11. Roger Avatar
    Roger

    Have you heard Doo-Bop?

    His last album?

    No.

    Might be a bridge too far for me but I’ll give it a try if it’s on Spotify.

    Over and out for the night.

  12. Rabz Avatar
    Rabz

    I’ll give it a try if it’s on Spotify

    Rog – do it – it is magnifique. Listen to it for more than a second and you’re hooked.

  13. P Avatar
    P

    After You’ve Gone – Joe Venuti – Eddie Lang & Their All-Star Orchestra (Benny Goodman, JTeagarden)
    New York, October 22, 1931

  14. Bruce of Newcastle Avatar
    Bruce of Newcastle

    Nah I’m defeated. I just can’t do jazz. I tried Eric Clapton, I tried John Williams, Taj Mahal, John Lee Hooker, Mark Knopfler and Ian Ritchie. Nope blues, instrumental, rock, but not jazz. Sadly jazz is a totally different language for me.

  15. Bruce of Newcastle Avatar
    Bruce of Newcastle

    Ok not quite defeated (just hanging on by fingernails)…Ian Ritchie who did the awesome Lonely Planet theme does have a jazz album. So here’s the first track.

    Greene Street (2013)

    Nice sax!

  16. thefrolickingmole Avatar
    thefrolickingmole

    Similar, I just can appreciate jazz, have stepped in it before though.

  17. Christine Avatar
    Christine

    “After You’ve Gone”
    Sort of superb
    I’m going to hang on to that

    Thank you

  18. thefrolickingmole Avatar
    thefrolickingmole

    Can’t…
    I know it’s by talented people, etc, but leaves me cold most of the time.

  19. Nelson_Kidd-Players Avatar
    Nelson_Kidd-Players

    Was lead clarinet on this one at Blacky Tech, including a short solo. No idea how it sounded on the floor between year-end school awards being handed out…

    Swingin’ Safari

  20. Alamak! Avatar
    Alamak!

    Miles does jazz plus classical based on flamenco.

    A real byatshes brew of music by the master of the trumpet

  21. Bruce of Newcastle Avatar
    Bruce of Newcastle

    Oh dear. I talked about Gershwin slowing down the original Rhapsody in Blue. Browsing I found this…

    Bill Bailey – Belgian Jazz (2021)

    The Dr Who theme as you’ve never it heard before. Superb.

    (Warning: this might be too comedic for this thread.)

  22. Nelson_Kidd-Players Avatar
    Nelson_Kidd-Players

    Dad’s been gone for a few years now but his record collection still sits in the K-Tel record rack (in caramel) with a few of Mum’s favourites, although they tend to classical.

    This is among the collection, and I recognise the album cover as part of the YT screen. Joe Loss plays Glenn Miller.

    Pennsylvania 6-5000

  23. Nelson_Kidd-Players Avatar
    Nelson_Kidd-Players

    Artie Shaw is another name in my Dad’s collection. I didn’t fine one I recognised, but this might have you moving around the room rhythmically!

    Softly, as in a morning sunrise – Artie Shaw

  24. GreyRanga Avatar
    GreyRanga

    I play Kind of Blue album once a week. Dave Brubeck more often.

  25. Nelson_Kidd-Players Avatar
    Nelson_Kidd-Players

    I totally don’t play like this:

    Benny Goodman

  26. WolfmanOz Avatar
    WolfmanOz

    I have to admit I’m not a big fan of jazz . . . but my favourite jazz album, influenced by my father’s love of Errol Garner, is his album Concert By The Sea which is simply amazing.

  27. Rabz Avatar
    Rabz

    Thanks Peoples, this is good. 🙂

    Jazz – you cannot help but like it.

  28. Nelson_Kidd-Players Avatar
    Nelson_Kidd-Players

    One more from my parents’ collection to finish off. Not strictly jazz, but when it’s time to slow it down a bit…

    Mrs. Mills’ Music for anytime (whole album)

    And no, she didn’t live in Koo Wee Rup, despite what my Dad answered to my question regarding a particular name on a farm gate.

  29. P Avatar
    P

    Django Reinhardt – Honeysuckle Rose

  30. Alamak! Avatar
    Alamak!

    And for anyone not quite into Jazz, try these two versions of “favourite things”

    Julie Andrews
    John Coltrane

    For myself, I was never a Jazz nerd despite friends being mad keen on all the classics but found the Jazz singers, especially the ladies, impossible to resist

    Billie Holiday
    Ella Fitzgerald sings Cole Porter

  31. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare Avatar
    Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare

    Dave Brubeck with Take Five played around with 5/4 time, a fantastic drum interlude and a sax which was like salted chocolate. Brubeck holding it all together. I was young and amazed. And on the same LP, Blue Rondo a la Turk. Beautiful, urgent, and now so very redolent.

    Full of memories for me at seventeen, being an artist’s muse half-naked, drawn in swift charcoal outlines, in the twilight, as the harbour shrugged and lights glistened across from the bridge. That dark bridge with its receding moon, as it became, later, whenever Blue Rondo played. He’s dead now.

  32. Crossie Avatar
    Crossie

    Does George Benson qualify?


    Give Me The Night

  33. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare Avatar
    Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare

    And then there’s the essential weepie for a lost love. We’ve all been there.

    Billie Holliday, from Lady in Satin. “I get along without you very well”.

  34. Crossie Avatar
    Crossie

    What about some Boz Scaggs?

    Lowdown

  35. Crossie Avatar
    Crossie

    I love this one from Dave Brubeck.

    Unsquare Dance

  36. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare Avatar
    Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare

    Conclude on some Glen Miller and bit of swing. To keep us In the Mood

    If it wasn’t bedtime I’d put in some Dixieland trad jazz too. Blues and soul.
    Someone else maybe will come in and do the best of that.

    I like some jazz, but I can’t take too much of it.
    Never been able to stand Ella Fitzgerald for instance. All that booby–beep stuff.

  37. Alamak! Avatar
    Alamak!

    Nice one by Boz Scaggs, Crossie.

    Ella singing one of Cole Porters best – Night & Day

  38. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare Avatar
    Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare

    Sorry Alamak, my feelings about Ella cross over yours.

    But Cole Porter’s good no matter who sings his stuff.

    Back when America was great, in music and in its heart of song.

  39. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare Avatar
    Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare

    That rendition of Night and Day isn’t too bad. OK after a few drinks I suppose.

    Hairy and I sing that to each other some evenings with a hug and a dance.
    As silly old married couples can do.

  40. Alamak! Avatar
    Alamak!

    Elizabeth> I’m not a great fan of scat singing either. Cole Porter songs can’t be beat – no matter who sings them …

    Nice to hear the songs work as intended 😉

  41. Bruce Avatar
    Bruce

    Jazz is not just derived from Louisiana plantation Blues.

    The other big bit of the story is the instrumental and “stylistic” influence of Klezmer, an entire genre that originated in the Jewish enclaves of eastern Europe..

    Hence the wailing clarinet solos, classical-style modulations and the “pick-up” and improvisational style. Note also the associated influence of “Gypsy” styles which drove French Jazz, the “digitally challenged” Django Rheinhardt being the most obvious.

    In a further extension, check out the music scene on New Caledonia”Gypsy Jazz” meets Polynesian rhythms and harmonies and then there are those who wind in some avant garde influences.

    And, in a grim twist:

    Vale Jimmy Buffett, the clown prince of ‘Beach-Bum” music. The only time I caught one of hid gigs was in Brisbane in 1987. The QPAC Concert Hall was full to capacity for one show. A slick and joyous night out as he worked his way over to Fremantle for the “return-bout” of the Americas Cup. No BS, no fancy light show, no politics, just a big barn full of people having fun, on and off the stage.

  42. Bruce Avatar
    Bruce

    Jazz is not just derived from Louisiana plantation Blues.

    The other big bit of the story is the instrumental and “stylistic” influence of Klezmer, an entire genre that originated in the Jewish enclaves of eastern Europe..

    Hence the wailing clarinet solos, classical-style modulations and the “pick-up” and improvisational style. Note also the associated influence of “Gypsy” styles which drove French Jazz, the “digitally challenged” Django Rheinhardt being the most obvious.

    In a further extension, check out the music scene on New Caledonia”Gypsy Jazz” meets Polynesian rhythms and harmonies and then there are those who wind in some avant garde influences.

    And, in a grim twist:

    Vale Jimmy Buffett, the clown prince of ‘Beach-Bum” and nautical songs. The only time I caught one of hid gigs was in Brisbane in 1987. The QPAC Concert Hall was full to capacity for one show. A slick and joyous night out as he worked his way over to Fremantle for the “return-bout” of the Americas Cup. No BS, no fancy light show, no politics, just a big barn full of people having fun, on and off the stage.

  43. P Avatar
    P

    My easy2C Calendar on Sunday September 3 shows:
    Father’s Day
    Australian National Flag Day

    It was a Liberal state govt that allowed the Aboriginal flag to fly on our Sydney Harbour Bridge.

  44. Rabz Avatar
    Rabz

    Does George Benson qualify?

    Crossie, he most certainly does, given that he’s invariably described in the braindead lamestream meeja as a “Jazz Artist” 😕

    His Masterwork.

  45. Rabz Avatar
    Rabz

    Bird and Miles …

    Legends.

  46. Bruce Avatar
    Bruce

    I haven early George Benson album entitled, IIRC, “The shape of things to come”, recorded in the 1960s, when he wa just a pup. Not at all like his later, “successful” stuff..

    Either way, no slouch on the guitar!

  47. johanna Avatar
    johanna

    Yes indeed, Bruce, the origins of jazz are much more complicated than just Louisiana blues.

    Gypsy music, Hungarian folk, and numerous other strands are relevant.

    Anyway, not seeing a lot of love for Australian artists here. A fave of mine is Vince Jones.

    Body and Soul.

    And a wonderful rendition of the classic

    Nature Boy.

    If you want just one Australian jazz album, I highly recommend Vince’s On the Brink of It. I’ve had it for a long time, never get tired of it, it transcends fashion.

    BTW, from people I know in the jazz world, as is typical, Vince is personally a bit of a trainwreck. But, he’s a great artist.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *