Increasingly, for the last decade and a half or so, jazz artists from Israel have culled items from the Great Israeli Songbook, feeding off Israeli folk and pop as well as from more traditional and even liturgical songs.
The 21 Club is the sole surviving club on 52nd Street that also existed during the 1940’s. The venue for the original Birdland at 1674 Broadway (between 52nd & 53rd), which came into existence in 1949, is now a “gentlemen’s club.” The current Birdland is on 44th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues´.
´With few exceptions, every major pop singer in the US during her generation has been touched in some way by her genius. It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me. Lady Day is unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last twenty years.´ FRANK SINATRA
Gil Evans wanted to get the feeling of what Berendt called ‘a cloud through sound, pierced by rays of sunshine which struck the listener as on an autumn morning, through the gentle veil of fog.’
She has been a primary influence for countless female vocalists, including the afore mentioned Billie Holliday, (subject of a later instalment of our jazz festival special here at sidetracks & detours) Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin and has been immortalized in numerous works.
´the first comprehensive statement of Coltrane’s spiritual concerns and the cornerstone of many Coltrane collections´.
Every student ought to have the opportunity to act, paint, dance, sing–whatever artistic impulse that helps them discover who they are and who they want to become.
When this is over, will there be the same number of brass bands as there were 12 months ago? When you feel so passionately about something, it is important. The youth members are our future. Keeping the academy and training bands going is good for all brass bands.´
I am not being facetious, nor seeking to abuse the powers of my platform here at sidetracks & detours, when I say I would rather see our tomorrow´s history placed in the hands of today´s artists.
Even writer Norman Mailer, a contemporary who was not without ego himself, was forced to admit, ‘(Truman Capote) wrote the best sentences of anyone in our generation’.
