Out of all of sites that I’ve been using to update myself on today’s jazz world, the one that I constantly return to is NPR’s Jazz & Blues Page. Not only do they keep updating, but their writers and speakers all share this dedication and genuine love for music — which is one of the things that keeps me writing. If you’re as excited about jazz as I am, then you’ll definitely appreciate all the articles and podcasts at NPR.
My two favorite features on the Jazz & Blues Page: Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz (it’s the oldest running jazz program ever produced on public radio!) & Take Five: A Weekly Jazz Sampler.
I’ll talk about Marian McPartland and her Piano Jazz podcasts (although you should go check out a recent interview she did with Keith Jarrett — it’s a mix of him talking about his sound and playing his piano in his studio; you’ll also be able to hear McPartland play a little bit too) in a later post.
I just wanted to quickly let you guys know about a recent Take Five post with five jazz tunes covering five Beatles songs — in a nutshell, Take Five basically gives you a set of five songs every five days (clever, yeah?) to give you a taste of whatever jazz theme they’ve picked (they’ve done things like Canadian jazz, African jazz, blues harmonica in jazz, and in this case, Beatles-plus-jazz). It’s one thing to provide a small selection of tunes to represent a generic jazz subgroup like bebop or free jazz, but the creative, original, and sometimes quirky groups that Take Five comes up with (they’ve even got selections for the broke and the heartbroken) really gives you a memorable taste of today and yesterday’s jazz. Besides, it’s nearly impossible to pick only five songs to represent a subgroup like bebop anyways.
Last week’s selection was pretty fantastic — I’ve always heard that it’s impossible to cover the Beatles, but what do you think?
1. Ramsey Lewis/Hard Day’s Night
2. Count Basie/All My Lovin’
3. Lena Horne & Gabor Szabo/Rocky Raccoon
4. Jaco Pastorius/Blackbird
5. Herbie Hancock/Norwegian Wood (The Bird Has Flown)
6. Shirley Horn/Yesterday (okay, just kidding, there’s six.)
All tracks are available for listening here.
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Sugar Foot Stomp/Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra/Ken Burns Jazz (Disk 1)
P.S. Thanks to Seis Cuerdas for mentioning The Jazz Post on their website! (We’re not really The Jazz Spot, but close enough. :]) Check out the wonders at www.seiscuerdas.net.
