Music for the day: Piano Love

Today, a few videos *ing the amazing Bill Evans on the piano...

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My Foolish Heart

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Like Someone In Love

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Beautiful Love

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 I do it for Love

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Easy to Love

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Music for the day - Autumn Leaves and Spiritual

Music for this Wednesday: I don't pray but this is as close as it gets to spiritual, indeed!

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And though it ain't the right season, I feel the need to add a bonus track. I  ♥♥♥ the sound of Stan Getz's saxophone.... so, this version of the famous Autumn Leaves tune particularly delights!

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This song was originally composed by Joseph Kosma, a Hungarian-French composer, with the French lyrics by Jacques Prévert, & the latter day English lyrics by Johnny Mercer, set to music for Marcel Carné's 1946 film 'Les Portes de la Nuit', literally 'The Dead Leaves'.

The first time I heard Autumn Leaves was Miles Davis with Cannonball Adderley though... that version rocks! Ooo...listening to it now and WOW. Again! I came upon Getz's version much later and like that too... but this one does particularly delight and is one of my favorite jazz tracks! 

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Autumn Leaves has been recorded by many and I can't keep posting them all here but am going to leave you with this last video for the day ...another version that I love.  

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Music for the day: Sweet Georgia Brown

Different versions of Sweet Georgia Brown today, which is... 

.. a jazz standard and pop tune written in 1925 by Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard (music) and Kenneth Casey(lyrics). The tune was first recorded on March 19, 1925 by bandleader Ben Bernie, resulting in a five-week No. 1 for Ben Bernie and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra

;-)


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First up, the one and only Louis Armstrong:

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...followed quickly by the one and only, Ella Fitzgerald:

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Next up, this lovely version from Django Reinhardt with Coleman Hawkins and his All Star Jam Band, including such luminaries as Stéphane Grappelli, Benny Carter, and others, recorded in P:aris in April 1937. 

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And then there's this version from the great pianist, Oscar Peterson from the Mon­treux Jazz Fes­ti­val 1977 - look at his fingers flying on the piano!

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Then there is this lovely version sun by Anita O'Day at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival...

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And last but not least, the first ever version, as mentioned above.. by Ben Bernie & his Orchestra.

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Music for the day: Diz and Getz

Music for the day:

A playlist with all the tracks from an album by two Jazz greats - Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz.

Album: "Diz and Getz" (1955). (Buy it here.)

Personnel :
Dizzy Gillespie -- trumpet
Stan Getz - tenor saxophone
Herb Ellis - guitar
Oscar Peterson -- piano
Ray Brown -- double bass
Max Roach - drums

Fine and Mellow

Time for some jazz vocals this Sunday evening... Billie Holiday delights today! (Am tempted to link to my other two favorite jazz vocalists too - Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone - but links to their songs some other day.)






The lady CAN sing the blues! Delightful!

Take the A Train

Just read about a South African jazz pianist, Bheki Mseleku, who died earlier this month from complications from diabetes . He was only 53.

Here he is playing Duke Ellington's famous tune Take the A Train, with Joe Henderson and others. (I always thought that piece was composed by Ellington. Wiki enlightens that it "is a jazz standard by Billy Strayhorn that was the signature tune of the Duke Ellington orchestra. "

Hear the amazing piano playing by Mseleku around 3:45 to 5 minutes or so. Especially amazing considering it seems he " suffered the lose of the upper joints of two fingers in his right hand from a go- carting accident" during his childhood. RIP, Mseleku.



Love the sound of the bass, as always too.. and there is a great bass solo right after the piano.

Here's Brubeck's quartet playing the same piece



and of course, one of Ellington ...



Awesome, to say the least!