Friday, June 22, 2018

Happy Feet Friday

Metronome was a music magazine that was published for 80 years before closing down in 1961. From the 1930s onward, the magazine focused on jazz, and in the 1940s and 1950s assembled all-star bands based on reader polls which recorded many classic jazz pieces. Here is a recording of "Bugle Call Rag" performed by a band that included, among others, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Goodman,Harry James, Cootie Williams, and one of my favorite trombone players, J.C. Higginbotham.

3 comments:

  1. I can recognise most of them, including Basie's plink plink style. Great trombone.

    My town library subscribed to Downbeat and as a teenager I read every issue. Especially liked to read Blindfold tests.

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  2. One of Basie's drummers (can't remember which one) once said of Basie "That man's the laziest piano player I've ever known", jokingly referring to Basie's typically spare style.

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  3. Haha, yes. But it was the birth of the cool (and the best way to be heard in Basie's big band). He played a few notes with authority.

    Then Ahmad Jamal made a career out of sparse rhythmic piano, with Nat Cole - Get my kicks on Route 66. I loved that 60s cool jazz r&b sound.

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