jazz – Page 3 – Greatest Recording Artists

Ella Fitzgerald (1917 – 1996)

May 22nd, 2023

Ella Fitzgerald first struck gold with a children’s nursery rhyme (“A-Tisket, A-Tasket”) in 1938, became a master of scat singing, a mode of vocal improvisation such that the human voice takes on sounds like another musical instrument (listen to 1947’s “Flying Home”), became a giant with her recordings of the “Great American Songbook” (compositions by the likes of Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Rodgers & Hart, Irving Berlin, and the Gershwins), and earned the nickname “First Lady of Song”.

Blessed with a pure, clear tone and wonderful vocal control, Ella, over time, worked with all her heroes, Louis Armstrong, Ellington, Count Basie, and Frank Sinatra. A giant of jazz, swing, bebop, and pop, Fitzgerald sang 26 times at Carnegie Hall and has been honored by the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, the U.S. Postal Service, and inclusion in the jazz and Women’s halls of fame; she is the recipient of 14 Grammy awards and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

-Steve Williams (5/22/23) – Blog Post #12

1930s – 5 Classic Records

May 11th, 2023

Despite the near fatal slump that the recording industry suffered during the Great Depression, a number of classics stand out from the era including two Cole Porter compositions, “Night and Day” (Fred Astaire singing with Leo Reisman’s Orchestra) and Artie Shaw’s “Begin the Beguine”; but I’ve limited myself to five, so here goes —

Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo”, released in 1931 for the first time and subsequently rerecorded and played for decades by the Duke thereafter, is famous for its reverse harmonization, putting the trombone at the top and the clarinet at the bottom. This melancholy, bluesy jazz piece later added lyrics. “Mood Indigo” has been honored by the Grammy Hall of Fame and National Public Radio.

“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” tells the story of an Everyman who fought for his country, tilled its fields, and built its skyscrapers – he bought into the American Dream – yet, here he is reduced to standing in a breadline, fearful, angry, forgotten, maybe a little despairing, a victim of the Great Depression. Though Rudy Vallee also recorded it, Bing Crosby’s 1932 version is the gold standard.

In 1939 one of the most popular films in movie history, The Wizard of Oz, starring 16-year-old Judy Garland, was released. Though the song “Over the Rainbow” was nearly cut from the film, with its yearning heart and balanced mix of hope and doubt, Judy’ s prayerful cry struck a deep chord in millions. She sang it differently over the years, but in 2001 it was chosen the #1 Song of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 1939, 23-year-old jazz pioneer Billie Holiday began closing her nightclub act with a harrowing poem turned song, “Strange Fruit” which graphically yet movingly described the abomination of the lynching of African-Americans. It became her biggest song though she had to go to another record label to record it, and she sang it for the rest of her life though she was persecuted mercilessly for refusing to drop it from her act. Time magazine, in 1999, labeled it the Song of the Century.

Finally, Glen Miller’s inimitable swing classic, the bouncy, joyous “In the Mood”, released in September 1939 just as World War II was getting underway in Europe, may have represented America’s last gasp of innocence before the darkness of war descended in full.

-Steve Williams (5/11/23) – Blog Post #9

Benny Goodman (1909 – 1986)

May 8th, 2023

The son of Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Benny Goodman grew up in one of Chicago’s toughest, gang riddled neighborhoods, but by his teenage years he was already a virtuoso jazz clarinetist. Eventually he had his own band, The Benny Goodman Orchestra, and was at the center of two key moments in popular music history. Playing the syncopated rhythms they’d learned from Fletcher Henderson and with a current radio hit “King Porter Stomp”, his band kick-started the swing era when they were enthusiastically received by a huge crowd at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, 1935 at the start of a three week run. Before too long, Goodman was dubbed “The King of Swing”.

On January 16, 1938 Goodman and his orchestra again made history by bringing jazz to New York’s famed classical music temple, Carnegie Hall, an event that critic Bruce Elder called “the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history.” Among the players that night were members of Duke Ellington and Count Basie’s bands. Indeed, the white Goodman is rightly regarded as a racial pioneer, including celebrated black musicians Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton in his 1930s trio and quartet at a time when this simply wasn’t done.

Among his best-loved recordings are “Moonglow”, “Stompin’ at the Savoy”, and the number that brought down the house at Carnegie Hall, “Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)”.

-Steve Williams (5/8/23) – Blog Post #8

Tag: jazz

Ella Fitzgerald (1917 – 1996)

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1930s – 5 Classic Records

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Benny Goodman (1909 – 1986)

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