There has been a surge of new Nancy Wilson videos going up at YouTube this year, especially in past few months. The majestic magnificence of Nancy only grows with time—her jazz feel, her soulful swing, her signature phrasing and how she operated her mouth to produce notes that belonged to her and her alone. To read my five-part 2010 interview with Nancy combined into one post, go here.
Here are 10 newly posted Nancy Wilson videos taped between 1967 and 1985:
Here'sAlright, OK, You Win, on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967...
Here's Tom Jones with Nancy singing Ain't No Mountain High Enough, on The Tom Jones Show in 1968...
Here'sThe Folks Who Live on the Hill, on The Carol Burnett Show in 1968...
Here'sSpinning Wheel, on The Carol Burnett Show in 1970...
Here'sNow I Am Woman, on The Tom Jones Show in 1970...
Here'sMixed Up Girl, on The Tom Jones Show in 1970...
Here'sFor Once in My Life, on The Carol Burnett Show in 1971...
Here'sThe Man That Got Away, from the same show in 1971...
Here'sYesterday and On a Clear Day, on The Mike Douglas Show in 1971...
Here'sSatin Doll with the Count Basie Orchestra on tour in Japan in 1985...
Four Bill Evans live recordings have surfaced over the past few months on YouTube. Since the last two weeks of the year are often contemplative, these clips should be most welcome:
Here's the Bill Evans Trio, with Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen on bass and Alan Dawson on drums, playing Beautiful Love in Denmark in 1965. This went up last month...
Here's the Bill Evans Trio at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, R.I., on July 2, 1967, with Eddie Gomez on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums, with Billy Taylor announcing. They play Nardis, Very Early, Some Other Time, Who Can I Turn To and I'm Getting Sentimental Over You. This went up in August...
Here's Bill Evans playing solo piano at New York's Carnegie Hall, with Marian McPartland announcing, on June 30, 1974. He plays Since We Met, Two Lonely People and Turn Out the Stars. This went up last week...
And here's the Bill Evans Trio live in Bad Hönningen, Germany, on August 15, 1980, featuring Marc Johnson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums. It would be Evans's last concert in Germany. He died a month later, on September 15. The trio plays Letter to Evan, Yet Ne'er Broken, Laurie, Bill's hit Tune, Knit for Mary F., Days of Wine and Roses, Your Story, But Beautiful, If You Could See Me Now and Waltz for Debbie. This went up in June...
For The Wall Street Journal last week, I interviewed Italian-French actress Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu by Zoom for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Philippine talked about growing up in Rome (her father was a famous movie actor), her parents' divorce, her difficult move to Paris with her mother, her early films and her roles in the series Call My Agent! and Netflix's Emily in Paris, which resumes on December 21 with Season 3. [Photo above of Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, as Sylvie on the hit Netflix comedy Emily in Paris, by Carole Bethuel courtesy of Netflix]
Here's a montage of Philippine's executive power walk as boss Sylvie Grateau in Emily in Paris...
Santa says send my new book to family and friends. If you order this weekend, it will reach them before Christmas. Go here for fast delivery.
Steve Kraske, host of NPR's KCUR-FM in Kansas City asked me back on the air last week for a segment he was hosting on earworm songs, why they stick in your head and how to get rid of them. To listen for free, go here.
In terms of the earworm's history, one of the songs I mentioned was the Hut-Sut Song in 1941 and the craze that followed. Here's one of the many 78s released...
And here's a video from 1941 that will give you a sense of the song's popularity and why it became a maddening thing...
My sincere apologies if you can't stop whistling this song.
Erich Senich, host of the fabulous Booked on Rock podcast, had me on his Spotify show last week to talk about the book. I was episode 100! Go here.
Michael Causey, morning host on WOWD 94.3 in Takoma Park, Md., invited me on live to talk about my book. We covered five songs, with the hits played in full. Go here.
Dave Gajewski sent along his book photo below...
And a Los Angeles friend sent along this photo taken during his crawling commute home...
David Amram (above), who celebrated his 92nd birthday in November, performs here with Dizzy Gillespie at Washington D.C.'s DAR Constitution Hall in October 1986....
Pianist David Thompson last week sent along a SoundCloud rehearsing Alice in Wonderland in the style of Bill Evans. Go here...
Director Raymond De Felitta, who posts on all aspects of film and movie-making, found two fascinating videos on Santa Monica in the 1950s. You can e-subscribe for free to his daily posts by scrolling to the bottom of his site. The images above are just photos. To watch the videos and subscribe, go here.
Coming to your home screen. Starting December 26 and running through January 9, I will be hosting the third annual JazzWax Film Festival, a holiday tradition here as I offer up two weeks of my favorite rare films. What would this time of year be like without a few excellent foreign films and a bunch of few top-notch American ones.
And finally, here's Jo Stafford with an arrangement by husband-arranger-conductor Paul Weston. Dig how he uses the clarinet up top in the reed orchestration...
Bonus:Here's Jo Stafford in London with the Dots in 1961 using a three-camera format. Fascinating how her right hand keeps her on vocal balance, performs like a turntable stylus and even conducts the Dots...
I love British pop of the 1960s and early 1970s. For one, there's a seemingly endless supply of it. The teenage appetite for the music there and their chart knowledge was limitless. For another, most Brit pop songs and artists are completely unknown here because they never made the leap across the Atlantic. And third, the music provides cultural insight into the British youth culture at the time and what was popular there while the Beatles, the Dave Clark 5, the Rolling Stones, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, the Who and other top artists were conquering America. Melody and hooks ruled.
When it comes to Brit pop recordings from this period, it's hard to beat the U.K.'s Cherry Red label and its subsidiaries. Here are boxes I've been listening to lately:
Box of Pin-Ups: The British Sounds of 1965 (Grapefruit). At the height of Beatlemania, the U.K. was awash in all sorts of groups, from the Uprooted and the Eccentrics to the Wild Oats and Dave Berry. In addition, acts you do know were just getting started, such as Rod Stewart, Marc Bolan, the Moody Blues, the Zombies and the Kinks. There are 92 tracks on this three-CD set. Go here.
Miles Out to Sea: The Roots Of British Power Pop (1969-1975) (Grapefruit). This three-CD set with 74 tracks foreshadows the power pop movement of the 1970s, when the sound and instrumentation became more driving and louder. Bands here include Badfinger, Slade, the Move, Stealers Wheel, Pilot, Dave Edmunds, Brinsley Schwarz and Honeybus. Go here.
Here's Rupert Holmes's I Don't Want to Hold Your Hand...
Gotta Get A Good Thing Goin': The Music Of Black Britain in the Sixties (Strawberry). A four-CD set that's jammed with gems by groups that were influenced by black American singles and white British pop currents. The first two CDs focus on homegrown soul and R&B, the third looks at ska, rocksteady and reggae, and the fourth zooms in on a wider range of styles. Go here.
Here are the Flirtations singing Nothing But a Heartache...
And here's the Joe Harriott Quintet playing Liggin'...
Am I Dreaming? 80 Brit Girl Sounds of the '60s (Cherry Red). While some of these British girl groups and singers borrowed liberally from American artists with hits, many will be new to you. These include Cloda Rodgers' End of the Line, Beryl Marsden's I Only Care About You, Kim Davis's The Losing Kind and Barry St. James's Don't You Feel Proud.Go here.
Here's Lorraine Child's You with a faux Phil Spector Wall of Sound...
Climb Aboard My Roundabout!: The British Toytown Pop Sound 1967-1974 (Cherry Red). The toytown movement was a distinctly British genre that related to pop recorded with both an adolescent and psychedelic sound. As the liner notes state, "It is chiefly concerned with everyday life, shops, buses, swings in the park and has an obsession with being home in time for tea." My guess this music was geared to pre-teens, but it was no passing fad. The 87 tracks span eight years and can trace their roots to English music hall and novelty numbers. This three-CD box includes titles such as Dear Old Mrs. Bell, The Happy King, Uptight Basic, Lavender Popcorn and Lemon Pie Fair. One could argue that the birth of toytown was the Beatles' Sgt. Peppers and Yellow Submarine, which must have been an inspiration for many of the genre's songs. Go here.
Here's Timon's The Bitter Thoughts of Little Jane...
After I posted Tuesday on saxophonist Lucky Thompson, the emails poured in. So I decided to make my Backgrounder this week one of the Thompson albums I love dearly: Lucky Thompson Featuring Oscar Pettiford. The material was recorded in January and February 1956.
The four January tracks are Bo-Bi My Boy, OP Meets LT, Tricotism and Body and Soul. The trio was Lucky Thompson (ts), Skeeter Best (g) and Oscar Pettiford (b).
The four February tracks are Tom-Kattin, Old Reliable, Deep Passion and Translation. The group included Jimmy Cleveland (tb), who was listed as Jimmy Whatsmyname; Lucky Thompson (ts); Hank Jones (p); Oscar Pettiford (b) and Osie Johnson (d).
All of the songs were composed by Thompson, except Tricotism, which was by Pettiford. Thompson's first recording with Pettiford was in 1945 on four sides of two 78s. The group was billed as Estelle Edson with Oscar Pettiford & All Stars. The two recorded together fairly regularly in New York leading up to this album for ABC Paramount. The LP was one of the first produced for the label by Creed Taylor after he left Bethlehem Records.
Fresh Sound offers this LP and another by Thompson and Pettiford on one CD. Go here.
Here'sLucky Thompson Featuring Oscar Pettiford without ad interruptions...
On December 9, Eliane Elias visited NPR's offices in Washington, D.C., with Marc Johnson (b), Leandro Pellegrino (g) and Rafael Barata (d,percussion) to perform a Tiny Desk Concert. These concerts are a video series of live performances that began in 2008 and are hosted by NPR's Music near the desk of All Songs Considered's host Bob Boilen.
The three songs the group performed were Eliane's originals—At First Sight, An Up Dawn and The Time Is Now. A special thanks to Dave Thompson for sending along the link. Eliane’s latest album is Quietude.Here's Eliane...
In February 1960, Lucky Thompson led an octet at the Paris Blue Note. Featured on stage were Thompson (ts,ss) backed by Leonard C. Johnson (tp), Jimmy Cleveland (tb), Marcel Rasko, Joe Rasko and Sahib Shihab (saxes), Buddy Catlett (b) and Kenny Clarke (d), with Thelma Thompson on vocals. Thelma was Lucky's wife and would die three years later from a stroke. I'll show you their performance in a moment.
Lucky Thompson had moved to Paris in 1957 and would remain there until 1962. Then he returned to New York for six years before moving back to Europe in 1968 to live in Lausanne, Switzerland, until 1970. He taught at Dartmouth College in 1973 and then quit the music business. During his last years in the 1990s and early 2000s in Seattle, Thompson reportedly was homeless. He died from Alzheimer's disease in 2005.
Thompson was known for his soulful and sophisticated sound and his smooth, halting attack influenced by Don Byas. Among my favorites are his Paris recordings and his Lucky Thompson Featuring Oscar Pettiford, Vol.1 album for ABC Paramount in 1956.
Here's Part 1 of Thompson and his octet in Paris in 1960...
Bonus:Here's Thompson at the Paris Blue Note a month earlier, with Bud Powell on piano, in January 1960...
Here's the entire Tricotism CD, in parts at YouTube, starting with Bo-Bi My Boy...
And here are a bunch of his Paris sessions, these with Guy Lafitte (ts), Martial Solal (p), Benoit Quersin (b) and Roger Paraboschi (d) in April 1956...
Vibraphonist Gary McFarland was one of the most fascinating and freshest arranger-composers of the 1960s. Between 1961 and 1971, he recorded more than 30 albums, ranging from Anita O'Day's All the Sad Young Men and The Gary McFarland Orchestra: Special Guest Soloist—Bill Evans to Soft Samba,The October Suite, with Steve Kuhn, and America the Beautiful, his masterpiece. He also arranged for Gerry Mulligan's Concert Band. And then he died tragically in November 1971.
In 2006, producer-director Kristian St. Clair released his knockout documentary This Is Gary McFarland. Then in 2014, he issued a CD of McFarland's music plus a DVD of the documentary, but it soon went out of print. Kristian and I stayed in touch over the years, and I often wondered what happened to the documentary. I also said that if he ever wanted to make the film available via streaming at JazzWax, I would be overjoyed as would readers worldwide.
So imagine my excitement when Kristian wrote me last week with two pieces of great news. First, he was willing to let JazzWax readers view the documentary for free until year's end. And second, his new LP, Soft Samba Live!, recorded at Seattle's Penthouse club in 1965, is now available on his Light in the Attic label.
Because his label's warehouse is now in the process of moving, the LP won't be at Amazon until early next year, but you can find it now at Dusty Groove here. Here's Pecos Pete from Gary McFarland's Soft Samba Live!, featuring Sadao Watanabe on tenor saxophone and flute, Gabor Szabo on guitar, Eddie Gomez on bass and Joe Cocuzzo on drums...
As forThis Is Gary McFarland, one of the great jazz documentaries of all time, here's Kristian's and my holiday gift to JazzWax readers everywhere: Go here and use the password GaryMac. A big thank you to Kristian St. Clair. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!
JazzWax note: You'll find my earlier posts on Gary McFarland here and here.
For The Wall Street Journal last week, I interviewed actress Annabella Sciorra for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Annabella talked about her passion for acting at a young age, her determination to flatten her strong Brooklyn accent and her many roles. She's currently in Sylvester Stallone's Tulsa King, playing Stallone's sister. The two performed together in a terrific 1997 film, Cop Land. [Above, Annabella Sciorra and Sylvester Stallone in the new Paramount+ TV series Tulsa King; photo by Walter Thomson, courtesy of Paramount+]
Here's Annabella in The Sopranos. Study her face in this scene, as Sciorra, who plays a Mercedes-Benz car dealer, rides with a passenger who wanted to take the car for a test drive. Watch as her face shifts from bothered to worried to terrified and, finally, to shock. That is what superb acting is about, these subtleties in a character's portrayal (click "Watch on YouTube in the black box below)...
Also in the WSJ last week, my Opinion section essay on the moving music and tragic life of singer-songwriter Jim Croce (go here). Here's Croce singing Operator (It's Not the Way It Feels)...
Anatomy of 55 More Songs. Last week, I kicked off the publication of my book with a wave of interviews. The first was a TV segment on WGN in Chicago co-hosted by Patrick Elwood and Dina Bair. Go here...
Also last week, I was with Up to Date host Steve Kraske (above) on NPR's KCUR-FM (89.3) in Kansas City. What a great station. Listen here.
I also was gratified to learn last week that Anatomy of 55 More Songs reached #1 on three Amazon best-seller charts, including essays, above.
And remember, you can listen to the songs I wrote about in my book as you read by going here (scroll down slightly). On my home page, you'll find a Spotify playlist in which I assembled all the songs in order.
Several JazzWax readers sent along photos of my book just after it arrived in the mail. Below is Ernestine Sclafani's copy...
Below is the book that arrived at Dan Podkulski's home...
And below is the book fresh out of the box at the home of Jordan Frosolone, executive chef and partner at The Leopard at Des Artistes, a terrific restaurant near New York's Lincoln Center.
Send me a photo of your book resting comfortably on a chair or sofa and I'll include next week.
Chuck Israels. Following my post on Vince Guaraldi and my post on Shorty Rogers's The Swingin' Nutcracker, bassist, leader and composer Chuck Israels sent along a note:
Hi Marc. Just a friendly hello and a remark that Vince Guaraldi’s music is somehow easy to overlook in its simple directness, clarity and lack of excess embellishment, but it’s better than it has been given credit for. Not that it hasn’t been justifiably successful, but that it isn’t often considered as serious jazz among the cognoscenti. I think its ease and Mozartian balance is deceptive—and fooled me into thinking it was superficial for too long. Durability counts.
Also, regarding the extensive post on holiday music: I suggest listening to Dave Berger’s music for "The Harlem Nutcracker." I think it’s his best work, and some of it is stunningly good. This is specifically ballet music—expanded from what Ellington started and, I think, equally good. That’s an extraordinary accomplishment.
Bill Evans, the docudrama. Pianist Dave Thompson spotted a bit of news last week about a dramatic feature film planned in the U.K. on pianist Bill Evans. For more information, go here.
Vince Guaraldi memories. After my post on the San Francisco pianist, I heard from ethnomusicologist and guitarist/saxophonist Robert Garfias:
Hi Marc. A few years back, I was in a shopping mall during the holiday season and suddenly heard this beautiful song. I didn't know what it was and there was no way to find out. A year later, the same thing happened. but this time I Shazammed it. The song turned out to be Vince’s "Charlie Brown’s Christmas." I was overwhelmed with tears. I knew the sad story of Vince’s death, but it was still a shock hearing this tune.
We had been buddies in San Francisco. We often played together. Vince would take three buses out to the Mission District where we would jam at my uncle's house because he had a piano. Funny, in those days musicians would trek across town just to jam or to try out some new charts. My uncle told me that years later, he ran into Vince on the street somewhere in San Francisco and Vince shouted, “Uncle Bernard!" which was how I always referred to my uncle. He thought it was me.
I knew that Vince had stayed with music, but I became an ethnomusicologist, although at heart I was always a jazz musician and told people that if they asked. Vince established his trio and went on to fame. But coming upon him again that Christmas was a powerful blast for me. Good old Vince. Thanks so much for this.
On the radio. Last week, following my WSJessay on Steely Dan and my post on the new Freddie Hubbard box from Mosaic, I heard from Kim Paris at the FM Radio Archive:
Hi Marc. Thanks for your feature on the 50th anniversary of Steely Dan's "Can't Buy a Thrill." Although the original Steely Dan band toured selectively when they began, they also made rare live appearances on FM stations, including KMET in Los Angeles, Ca. To listen to a 1974 broadcast from KMET, go here.
As for Freddie Hubbard, we have five broadcast recordings of Freddie on the FM Radio Archive—two with the CTI All Stars, one with his own band, and one each with McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock's bands. All are from the 1970s and '80s. Go here.
Freddie Green. In the wake of my Freddie Green Backgrounder post, I heard from Jeroen de Valk in the Netherlands:
Hi Marc. Freddie Green did indeed record as a leader only once, but he recorded as a co-leader as well, with Herb Ellis for Concord Jazz. The album is "Rhythm Willie" (1975). Here's the full album...
Brad Terry, a superb clarinetist and whistler who recorded notable duet albums with several jazz artists, including guitarist Lenny Breau (above), wrote last week to let me know that many of his albums, including the one with Breau, are available at Bandcamp here.
Tammy Burdett released an album of original songs on Fresh Sound earlier this year (go here). From that album, here is Christmas Is Almost Here...
Lalah and Donny Hathaway. Lalah Hathaway, the Grammy-winning daughter of the late Donny Hathaway, released a single and video of her singing a duet with her father on his hit This Christmas.Here it is...
And finally, here are clips I feature every year—Andy Williams (above) and his brothers, Dick, Bob and Don, singing a few holiday classics in tight, effortless harmony:
Here they are on one of Andy Williams's Christmas TV shows...
Two sides of a single released in Brazil in 1953 by Johnny Alf set the stage for the bossa nova four years later. For those sides, Alf assembled a trio that featured him on piano, guitarist Garoto and bassist Vidal. The instrumentals were Alf's own Falseta (or Deceit) and Luiz Bonfa's De Cigarro em Cigarro (or From Cigarette to Cigarette). The recordings weren't hits, by any measure, but they would be celebrated later as the start of the bossa movement's relaxed and romantic sound.
Marc Myers writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and is author of "Rock Concert: An Oral History" (Grove), "Anatomy of a Song" (Grove) and "Why Jazz Happened." Founded in 2007, JazzWax has won three Jazz Journalists Association awards
