"There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible." -Auberon Waugh
Thursday, May 20, 2021
Happy Feet Friday
Mary
Osborne was a guitarist who played with some of the biggest names in
jazz, including Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie and Art Tatum, to
mention just a few. Here she is with "Mary's Goodbye Blues".
How many other female musicians of that era are waiting to be rediscovered? I finally caught up with The Wrecking Crew, the documentary about the legendary studio band, and learnt that a woman, Carol Kaye, had been their principal bass player. And highly respected by the men too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEH-wfo7nPo
Ah, Gregory, you should note that Carol Kaye says there was no 'wrecking crew' as there were dozens of on-call studio musicians, different ones each night. And she says this story was a PR stunt by Hal Blaine.
If you look at the Wikipedia 'wrecking crew' page you'll see they are trying to preserve Blaine's myth but conceding that it had dozens of players with no fixed members, in other words the story is falling apart now that Blaine has passed away.
I followed Kaye on facebook and first heard this from her, but many others confirm it now. Carol Kaye's book on electric bass guitar was the first for the instrument, which we bought 1970 like everyone forming bands then. They were all great but like Blaine they had to work and promote themselves, and they weren't paid much for the original sessions so had to do PR later in life if they had no savings. Carol still teaches young bass players, maybe she needs the money. She's a feisty old thing and brooks no dissent, God bless her. She started as a jazz guitarist too.
Gregory: I confess, until fairly recently I had never heard of Mary Osborne, but having listened to several of her recordings (including some taped live on TV back in the fifties), she is now one of my favorite jazz guitarists.
You can watch Carol Kaye's videos on Youtube. She blew my mind by revealing the 'secret' of jazz guitar - Don't play scales, she says. Play 'chordal notes'. I'd noticed that the best sounding jazz runs were notes of chords, but everyone kept saying 'learn scales'. Kaye shows in her videos how that works, not just a theory but you can see plainly that she's right, and she makes it simple.
Both these women have interesting backgrounds. Mary Osborne apparently began playing 'hillbilly' country music.
How many other female musicians of that era are waiting to be rediscovered? I finally caught up with The Wrecking Crew, the documentary about the legendary studio band, and learnt that a woman, Carol Kaye, had been their principal bass player. And highly respected by the men too.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEH-wfo7nPo
Ah, Gregory, you should note that Carol Kaye says there was no 'wrecking crew' as there were dozens of on-call studio musicians, different ones each night. And she says this story was a PR stunt by Hal Blaine.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the Wikipedia 'wrecking crew' page you'll see they are trying to preserve Blaine's myth but conceding that it had dozens of players with no fixed members, in other words the story is falling apart now that Blaine has passed away.
I followed Kaye on facebook and first heard this from her, but many others confirm it now. Carol Kaye's book on electric bass guitar was the first for the instrument, which we bought 1970 like everyone forming bands then. They were all great but like Blaine they had to work and promote themselves, and they weren't paid much for the original sessions so had to do PR later in life if they had no savings. Carol still teaches young bass players, maybe she needs the money. She's a feisty old thing and brooks no dissent, God bless her. She started as a jazz guitarist too.
Gregory: I confess, until fairly recently I had never heard of Mary Osborne, but having listened to several of her recordings (including some taped live on TV back in the fifties), she is now one of my favorite jazz guitarists.
ReplyDeleteYou can watch Carol Kaye's videos on Youtube. She blew my mind by revealing the 'secret' of jazz guitar - Don't play scales, she says. Play 'chordal notes'. I'd noticed that the best sounding jazz runs were notes of chords, but everyone kept saying 'learn scales'. Kaye shows in her videos how that works, not just a theory but you can see plainly that she's right, and she makes it simple.
ReplyDeleteBoth these women have interesting backgrounds. Mary Osborne apparently began playing 'hillbilly' country music.