Tag Archives: video

Young Jazz Stars from Russia and India

In December 2019 the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz held its International Guitar Competition in Washington D.C.   The Institute, named for Thelonious Monk until this past year, has held competitions going back to 1987 honoring young singers and musicians.   This year’s winner was 30-year old Russian phenom Evgeny Pobozhiy.

A few years ago Evgeny recorded this performance of his composition “the Aether”.  Joining him were two fellow Russian jazz artists and Italian bassist Federico Malaman.

In this more recent recording of his composition “Calumet”, Evgeny starts to show off his chops at about 2:00.  Later in the track you’ll hear a sax solo by Brandon Fields, a session man who’s played with dozens of stars from Ray Charles to Stanley Clarke to Earth Wind and Fire.

In this video we add another young jazz powerhouse, 24-year old bassist Mohini Dey from Mumbai   Oh my goodness.   Rolling Stone wrote Mohini up as an artist to watch in 2012 when she was 15.

And check out this amazing duet with the aforementioned Federico Malaman.

Artists at Home

There have been a zillion at home performances created over the last several weeks by artists famous and undiscovered, young and old, solo and synced-up with bandmates.   Stripped down as they are, the performances reveal just how good – or not so good – voices and musicianship are.  Below are a few performances that succeed on both counts – for the most part.

Pink begins this clip by admitting that playing piano is a new part of her repertoire.  Bob Dylan wrote “Make You Feel My Love” for his 1997 album Time Out of Mind.  A cover of the song by Garth Brooks was a huge hit for him in 1998, as it was for Adele a decade later.  Pink gives us a very pretty version for this decade, showing off her fantastic voice and the fruits of all those hours of piano practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3N4cFUJBL8

The Doobie Brothers prove they still have it on both counts with this performance of “Black Water” Live in Isolation.  I’m just sorry I didn’t get tapped for the amateur harmonies at the end.  And Patrick Simmons is as cool a grandpa as a kid could have.

This one is a comical group effort (I’ve never seen air drumming, and I have no idea what the heck Keith is doing).  But Mick is incredible!  His voice hasn’t lost anything, and he even anchors the guitar work.

 

Prince – Four Years Gone

April 21st marked the fourth anniversary of the untimely passing of Prince Rogers Nelson.  I’ve been learning a lot about Prince recently, finishing the 2019 book “The Beautiful Ones” and now part way through the biography “Prince, Inside the Music and the Masks”.   To mark the anniversary the Grammy organization aired a tribute concert on network television this week, filmed in January after the Grammy Awards show.

In the same vein as last week’s post on artists who have made covers their own, I did not know till I watched the TV tribute that the Bangles’ hit “Manic Monday” was penned by Prince.  When the Bangles released the song in 1985, it rose to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, just behind Prince’s “Kiss”.  What we wouldn’t give for a Manic Monday right about now.

Here’s the steamy video from “Kiss”.  The guitarist in the video, Wendy Melvoin, was a member of Prince’s band, The Revolution, at the time.  She performed at the Grammy tribute concert: “Mountains”

When Prince’s early promotor and collaborator, Chris Moon, was trying to get Prince his first record deal in 1976, he called Atlantic Records and told the receptionist he represented Stevie Wonder.  When the receptionist put the call through Moon said, “This is Chris Moon, and I’m representing Prince.  If you like Stevie Wonder, you’re gonna love my artist.  He’s only eighteen, he plays all the instruments …”.   Prince got an audition but not the contract.   That came in 1977 with Warner Records, and Prince released his debut For You in 1978 – playing all the instruments, singing all the vocals, and doing pretty much everything else.  Here’s Prince’s first single from his first album, “Soft and Wet”.

If you want even more Prince, check out my blog post from 2016 featuring his guitar shredding skills.

Who Owns That Song?

On occasion a singer-songwriter becomes so identified with a song written by another singer-songwriter that the ownership of the song seems to transfer.  This came to mind when John Prine passed away a couple of weeks ago.  Early in her career, Bonnie Raitt made Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery” her own.  Enjoy this early performance by Bonnie and take a look at this poignant duet from just a few months ago.

Another classic example is Patti Smith’s version of “Because the Night”, written by Bruce Springsteen.  You get the same feeling watching Patti and Bruce perform the song together that you do when watching Raitt and Prine – this is Patti’s song.

And then there’s Elvis Costello’s cover of Nick Lowe’s “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding”.   A Costello performance staple for decades, the history of the song is particularly interesting.  Lowe originally released it with his band Brinsley Schwarz in 1974.    Lowe became Costello’s producer a couple of years later, working on his first five albums, and Costello’s version of the song was first released as the B-side of a Nick Lowe 1978 single.  When it became a hit, the track was added to the American release of Armed Forces.  Lowe generally performs softer acoustic versions of the song these days, but when he gets on stage with Elvis, it’s the Costello version they’ll do (drop into this video at 3:00).  Enjoy Costello’s comic intro below, or go straight to the song at about 1:00.

Netflix and Cool

My personal style of Netflix binging is working my way through its catalog of music documentaries.  Recently I watched 2019’s “Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool”.   It’s an interesting trip through the entire arc of his career, and I highly recommend it.

I’m among those who consider Davis’ 1959 Kind of Blue one of the greatest albums ever (Rolling Stone slots it in at #12, two ticks above Abbey Road).  Its consistent sales over many decades have also made it the best selling jazz album of all time.   In addition to being a defining work for Miles, the group that recorded it included sax players John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, pianists Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly, drummer Jimmy Cobb, and bassist Paul Chambers.  Davis and Coltrane were the gray hair in the group at age 33.

Here’s the second track from Kind of Blue, and please listen to the rest of the album when you have some time.

A few weeks after the sessions for Kind of Blue ended in April 1959, John Coltrane began to record his masterpiece Giant Steps, drawing on Cobb, Chambers and Kelly to help out.   While most of the album features the up tempo compositions Coltrane became known for, “Naima” was a dreamy departure that became a jazz standard.

Just after Cannonball Adderley walked out of the Kind of Blue sessions, he began recording Them Dirty Blues, which featured “Jeannine”.