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http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-savory-collection-volume-2jumpin-at-the-woodside-the-count-basie-orchestra-featuring-lester-young-review-1482348786#livefyre-comment
 
‘The Savory Collection, Volume 2—Jumpin’ at the Woodside: The Count Basie Orchestra Featuring Lester Young’ Review
Previously unreleased live recordings of two jazz titans are charged with intimate immediacy.
By Will Friedwald Dec. 21, 2016 2:33 p.m. ET

[if ! lte IE 8] ENLARGE [endif]
Lester Young and Count Basie Photo: The Savory Collection
W.C. Fields famously described Charlie Chaplin as “the best ballet dancer that ever lived.” Chaplin’s lightness on his toes—his agility darting in and out between pursuers and adversaries, his narrow escapes from cliffs, cars and menacing heavies—surely elevated slapstick into a Nijinsky-like feat.
Listening to the “The Savory Collection, Volume 2—Jumpin’ at the Woodside: The Count Basie Orchestra Featuring Lester Young, ” produced by the National Jazz Museum in Harlem and released on Apple Music/iTunes, makes one wonder what Fields would have thought of the tenor saxophonist Lester Young. As the central soloist with the first great Count Basie Orchestra, Young is constantly aloft—he’s like an interpretive dancer flying both in front of and high above other musicians who constitute the chorus. Woody Allen, recognizing this, used Young’s agility in the Basie classic “Taxi War Dance” as recurring underscoring for the comic capers in his most recent film, “Café Society.”
Considering the scarcity of live recordings by Basie with Young, the new release is of considerable historical importance. The 22 tracks were originally performed in ballrooms and nightclubs between 1938 and 1940, and taken down from live radio by Bill Savory, a professional recording engineer. Although the band’s commercial studio recordings exerted a huge influence on subsequent generations of musicians across genres—from Stan Getz to Ray Charles —these live performances, with copious crowd noises and occasional snippets of announcements, provide a much more immediate and intimate feeling.
 
 
 
 
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They bring us back to the instant of Basie and Young’s breakthrough, and underscore the continuing relevance of their achievement. Together, the pianist-bandleader and saxophonist created a sound that was unprecedentedly light yet driving; before then, Louis Armstrong, for instance, played with an opulent grandeur partly inspired by grand opera, Art Tatum improvised with the harmonic profundity of a jazz Chopin, and Young’s tenor sax predecessor, Coleman Hawkins, soloed with a big robust tone reminiscent of a Russian basso profondo. Basie and Young pioneered the idea that lightness could swing in a way that not only propels soloists like Young, as well as his tenor cohort Herschel Evans and the distinctive trumpeter Harry Edison, but was also the perfect beat to inspire lindy-hopping dancers to attain new heights.
In later decades, particularly in the hi-fi era, the Basie band was famous for its brilliantly exaggerated dynamics, the accentuated contrast between loud louds and soft softs, but at this point the music is all about pure swing and the irresistible energy of the blues. “Roseland Shuffle” (heard here in two different versions) finds “Prez,” as Young was nicknamed by colleague Billie Holiday, sending himself steadily skyward by means of a series of exchanged phrases with Basie himself; each time he responds to the Count’s piano, Prez projects himself ever more aloft.
The collection abounds with remarkable new discoveries, such as two versions of “Every Tub”; normally regarded as a vehicle for Young and the band’s other soloists (including Edison), the number is here a transcendent example of collective ensemble swing.
One particular find is “Texas Shuffle,” heard here in two extended performances—rare since the technology of the time made releasing long recordings difficult. The great tenor saxophonist delivers one of his most inspired solos on his other instrument, the clarinet, and, in the coda, he dodges the tumbling riffs from the horn ensemble in a manner that makes a perfect musical accompaniment to the famous scene of Chaplin on roller skates in “Modern Times” (released two years earlier, in 1936). Even backward, blindfolded and coming perilously close to the edge of a precipice, both Chaplin and Young dance with a gracefulness nothing short of majestic.
—Mr. Friedwald writes about music and popular culture for the Journal.
 

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http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-savory-collection-volume-2jumpin-at-the-woodside-the-count-basie-orchestra-featuring-lester-young-review-1482348786#livefyre-comment
 
‘The Savory Collection, Volume 2—Jumpin’ at the Woodside: The Count Basie Orchestra Featuring Lester Young’ Review
Previously unreleased live recordings of two jazz titans are charged with intimate immediacy.
By Will Friedwald Dec. 21, 2016 2:33 p.m. ET

[if ! lte IE 8] ENLARGE [endif]
Lester Young and Count Basie Photo: The Savory Collection
W.C. Fields famously described Charlie Chaplin as “the best ballet dancer that ever lived.” Chaplin’s lightness on his toes—his agility darting in and out between pursuers and adversaries, his narrow escapes from cliffs, cars and menacing heavies—surely elevated slapstick into a Nijinsky-like feat.
Listening to the “The Savory Collection, Volume 2—Jumpin’ at the Woodside: The Count Basie Orchestra Featuring Lester Young, ” produced by the National Jazz Museum in Harlem and released on Apple Music/iTunes, makes one wonder what Fields would have thought of the tenor saxophonist Lester Young. As the central soloist with the first great Count Basie Orchestra, Young is constantly aloft—he’s like an interpretive dancer flying both in front of and high above other musicians who constitute the chorus. Woody Allen, recognizing this, used Young’s agility in the Basie classic “Taxi War Dance” as recurring underscoring for the comic capers in his most recent film, “Café Society.”
Considering the scarcity of live recordings by Basie with Young, the new release is of considerable historical importance. The 22 tracks were originally performed in ballrooms and nightclubs between 1938 and 1940, and taken down from live radio by Bill Savory, a professional recording engineer. Although the band’s commercial studio recordings exerted a huge influence on subsequent generations of musicians across genres—from Stan Getz to Ray Charles —these live performances, with copious crowd noises and occasional snippets of announcements, provide a much more immediate and intimate feeling.
 
 
 
 
<div class=”player-unavailable”><h1 class=”message”>An error occurred.</h1><div class=”submessage”><a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpz8Rl00KDE” target=”_blank”>Try watching this video on www.youtube.com</a>, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser.</div></div>
They bring us back to the instant of Basie and Young’s breakthrough, and underscore the continuing relevance of their achievement. Together, the pianist-bandleader and saxophonist created a sound that was unprecedentedly light yet driving; before then, Louis Armstrong, for instance, played with an opulent grandeur partly inspired by grand opera, Art Tatum improvised with the harmonic profundity of a jazz Chopin, and Young’s tenor sax predecessor, Coleman Hawkins, soloed with a big robust tone reminiscent of a Russian basso profondo. Basie and Young pioneered the idea that lightness could swing in a way that not only propels soloists like Young, as well as his tenor cohort Herschel Evans and the distinctive trumpeter Harry Edison, but was also the perfect beat to inspire lindy-hopping dancers to attain new heights.
In later decades, particularly in the hi-fi era, the Basie band was famous for its brilliantly exaggerated dynamics, the accentuated contrast between loud louds and soft softs, but at this point the music is all about pure swing and the irresistible energy of the blues. “Roseland Shuffle” (heard here in two different versions) finds “Prez,” as Young was nicknamed by colleague Billie Holiday, sending himself steadily skyward by means of a series of exchanged phrases with Basie himself; each time he responds to the Count’s piano, Prez projects himself ever more aloft.
The collection abounds with remarkable new discoveries, such as two versions of “Every Tub”; normally regarded as a vehicle for Young and the band’s other soloists (including Edison), the number is here a transcendent example of collective ensemble swing.
One particular find is “Texas Shuffle,” heard here in two extended performances—rare since the technology of the time made releasing long recordings difficult. The great tenor saxophonist delivers one of his most inspired solos on his other instrument, the clarinet, and, in the coda, he dodges the tumbling riffs from the horn ensemble in a manner that makes a perfect musical accompaniment to the famous scene of Chaplin on roller skates in “Modern Times” (released two years earlier, in 1936). Even backward, blindfolded and coming perilously close to the edge of a precipice, both Chaplin and Young dance with a gracefulness nothing short of majestic.
—Mr. Friedwald writes about music and popular culture for the Journal.
 

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

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http://nodepression.com/article/memoriam-2016-0
 
In Memoriam: 2016
by Hyperbolium
December 26, 2016

Dr. Ralph Stanley, 1927-2016
 
Some of the musicians, songwriters, producers, engineers, managers, agents, broadcasters, journalists, industry executives, and studio and club owners who passed away in 2016. Please contribute any missing entries in the comments.
Listen to a selection of these artists on Spotify
January
Tony Lane, art director (Rolling Stone) and album cover designer
Brad Fuller, composer and music director (Atari)
Paul Bley, jazz pianist
Jason Mackenroth, rock drummer (Mother Superior, Rollins Band)
Long John Hunter, blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter
Georgette Twain Seiff, hall-of-fame banjo player
Robert Stigwood, manager and film producer
Nicholas Caldwell, R&B vocalist (The Whispers) and songwriter
Elizabeth Swados, writer, composer and theater director
Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros, jazz and salsa trumpeter
Pat Harrington Jr., actor and comedy recording artist
Kitty Kallen, vocalist (“It’s Been a Long, Long Time”)
Troy Shondell, pop vocalist (“This Time (We’re Really Breaking Up)”)
Otis Clay, soul vocalist (“Trying to Live My Life Without You”)
Red Simpson, country vocalist and songwriter
Brett Smiley, glam rock vocalist (“Va Va Va Voom”)
Ed Stewart, television presenter (Top of the Pops)
David Bowie, vocalist and songwriter
Joe Moscheo, gospel vocalist (The Imperials) and industry executive
Giorgio Gomelsky, club owner, manager, producer and label owner
Hoyt Scoggins, country and rockabilly vocalist and songwriter
René Angélil, impresario and manager (Celine Dion)
Noreen Corcoran, actress (Bachelor Father) and vocalist
Pete Huttlinger, guitar virtuoso
Gary Loizzo, pop vocalist and guitarist (The American Breed)
Clarence “Blowfly” Reid, musician, songwriter and producer
Mic Gillette, brass player (Tower of Power)
Dale Griffin, rock drummer (Mott the Hoople)
Ramblin’ Lou Schriver, radio broadcaster and concert promoter
Glenn Frey, vocalist, songwriter and guitarist (The Eagles)
Andrew Johnson, album cover artist (The The)
Jimmy Bain, rock bassist (Dio, Rainbow)
Joe Esposito, road manager (Elvis Presley)
Colin “Black” Vearncombe, vocalist and songwriter
William E. Martin, songwriter, screenwriter and voice actor
Signe Toly Anderson, vocalist (Jefferson Airplane)
Paul Kantner, vocalist, songwriter and guitarist (Jefferson Airplane)
Billy Faier, banjo player
February
Maurice White, vocalist, songwriter and producer
Leslie Bassett, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer
Bobby Caldwell, keyboardist (Terry Knight and the Pack)
Joe Dowell, pop vocalist (“Wooden Heart”)
Jimmy Haskell, arranger, composer, producer and bandleader
Ray Colcord, film and television composer, producer and musician
Dan Hicks, vocalist and songwriter
Sam Spence, composer (NFL Films)
Obrey Wilson, soul vocalist (“Hey There Mountain”)
Rick Wright, country guitarist (Connie Smith)
Roy Harris, British folk vocalist
Kim Williams, country songwriter (“Three Wooden Crosses”)
L.C. Ulmer, blues musician
Denise “Vanity” Matthews, vocalist (Vanity 6), actress and evangelist
Ray West, Emmy and Oscar-winning sound engineer (Star Wars)
Paul Gordon, keyboardist and composer
Brendan Healy, actor and musician (Goldie, Lindesfarne)
Vi Subversa, vocalist and guitarist (Poison Girls)
Charlie Tuna, radio broadcaster (KHJ, KROQ, KIIS, KBIG)
Sonny James, country vocalist and songwriter
Lennie Baker, vocalist and saxophonist (Sha Na Na)
John Chilton, jazz trumpeter and music historian
Craig Windham, radio broadcaster (NPR)
March
Gayle McCormick, vocalist (Smith ”Baby It’s You”)
Martha Wright, vocalist and actress (South Pacific)
Gavin Christopher, R&B vocalist and songwriter
Joey Feek, country vocalist (Joey + Rory)
Chip Hooper, agent (Phish, Dave Matthews Band)
Ireng Maulana, jazz guitarist
Joe Cabot, jazz trumpeter
Bruce Geduldig, synthesist and filmmaker (Tuxedomoon)
Timothy Makaya, jazz guitarist
Ross Hannaford, rock guitarist (Daddy Cool)
Ron Jacobs, radio broadcaster (Boss Radio KHJ, American Top 40)
Sir George Martin, producer
Jon English, musician and actor
Ray Griff, country vocalist
John Morthland, music journalist
Naná Vasconcelos, Latin jazz percussionist
Ernestine Anderson, jazz vocalist
Keith Emerson, progressive rock keyboardist
Gogi Grant, pop vocalist
Ben Bagdikian, educator, journalist and media critic
Ben Edmonds, music journalist
Louis Meyers, promoter (co-founder of SXSW) and manager
Tommy Brown, R&B vocalist (The Griffin Brothers)
Lee Andrews, doo-wop vocalist and father of Questlove
Frank Sinatra Jr., vocalist and actor, son of Frank Sinatra
Steve Young, country vocalist and songwriter (“Seven Bridges Road”)
David Egan, songwriter and pianist
Terry James Johnson, drummer (Bar-Kays) and clinical psychologist
Phife Dawg, rapper (A Tribe Called Quest)
James Jamerson Jr., R&B bassist (Chanson)
Jimmy Riley, reggae musician (The Sensations and the Uniques)
David Baker, symphonic jazz composer, musician and educator
Wally Crouter, Canadian radio legend (CFRB)
Patty Duke, actress and vocalist
Andy Newman, pianist (Thunderclap Newman)
Larry Payton, drummer (Brass Construction)
April
Gato Barbieri, jazz saxophonist
Don Francks, jazz musician and actor
Bill Henderson, jazz vocalist and actor
Carlo Mastrangelo, doo-wop and progressive rock vocalist
Dorothy Schwartz, pop vocalist (The Chordettes)
Leon Haywood, soul and funk vocalist
Dennis Davis, rock drummer (David Bowie)
Merle Haggard, country vocalist, guitarist and songwriter
Jimmie Van Zant, southern rock musician, cousin of Ronnie Van Zant
Earl Solomon Burroughs, songwriter (“Great Balls of Fire”)
Jim Ridley, editor, critic and journalist (Nashville Scene)
Tony Conrad, experimental musician
Doug Banks, radio broadcaster (KDAY, KFI, KDIA)
Emile Ford, pop musician and sound engineer
David Gest, producer and former husband of Liza Minnelli
Gib Guilbeau, country-rock musician (Nashville West)
Filthy McNasty, nightclub owner
Mariano Mores, Argentine tango composer, pianist and conductor
Phil Sayer, British voice artist (“Mind the Gap”)
Vandy Anderson, radio broadcaster (KULF, KGBC)
Elliot Spitzer, radio executive (WLIR-FM)
Lord Tanamo, ska and mento musician
Richard Lyons, culture jammer (Negativland)
Pete Zorn, multi-instrumentalist (Richard Thompson Band)
Victoria Wood, actress, vocalist and songwriter
Lonnie Mack, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter (“Wham”)
Prince, vocalist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist
Billy Paul, R&B vocalist (“Me & Mrs. Jones”)
Remo Belli, jazz drummer and inventor of the synthetic drumhead
Harrison Calloway, musician and bandleader (Muscle Shoals Horns)
May
Candye Kane, blues and swing vocalist and songwriter
John Stabb, punk rock vocalist (Government Issue)
Peter Behrens, drummer (Trio)
Tony Gable, percussionist and graphic designer
Julius La Rosa, pop vocalist
Buster Cooper, jazz trombonist
Bill Backer, jingle writer (“I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”)
Tony Barrow, press officer (The Beatles)
Emilio Navaira, tejano and country vocalist, guitarist and songwriter
Guy Clark, singer and songwriter
John Berry, punk rock guitarist (Beastie Boys)
James King, bluegrass musician
Nick Menza, rock drummer (Megadeth)
Marshall Jones, bassist (Ohio Players)
Floyd Robinson, country vocalist and songwriter (“Makin’ Love”)
June
Alan Wise, promoter and manager (Factory Records)
Muhammed Ali, boxer and spoken word artist (“I Am the Greatest”)
Mac Cocker, radio broadcaster (Australia’s Double J)
Mark Parenteau, radio broadcaster (WBCN)
Dave Swarbrick, violinist, vocalist and songwriter
Bobby Curtola, Canadian teen idol (“Hand in Hand With You”)
Dan Sorkin, radio broadcaster (WCFL, KFRC, KSFO)
Brian Rading, rock bassist (Five Man Electrical Band)
Christina Grimmie, vocalist and songwriter (The Voice)
Chips Moman, songwriter and producer
Henry McCullough, rock guitarist (Spooky Tooth, Wings)
Charles Thompson, jazz pianist and organist
Attrell Cordes, hip-hop, soul and R&B artist (P.M. Dawn)
Tenor Fly, rapper and ragga vocliast
Bill Ham, manager, producer and songwriter (ZZ Top)
”Dandy” Dan Daniel, radio broadcaster (WMCA, WYNY, WCBS)
Wayne Jackson, R&B trumpeter (Mar-Keys, Memphis Horns)
Freddy Powers, country songwriter and producer
Leo Brennan, Irish musical patriarch
Harry Rabinowitz, conductor and composer (I, Claudius)
Dr. Ralph Stanley, mountain music banjoist, vocalist and songwriter
Bernie Worrell, keyboardist and composer (Parliament-Funkadelic)
Mack Rice, songwriter (“Mustang Sally” “Respect Yourself”)
Scotty Moore, rock ‘n’ roll guitarist
Rob Wasserman, bassist
Don Friedman, jazz pianist
July
Teddy Rooney, actor, musician and son of Mickey Rooney
Bob Goldstone, music industry executive (Thirty Tigers)
William Hawkins, poet and songwriter
Danny Smythe, rock drummer (The Box Tops)
Vaughn Harper, radio broadcaster (WBLS “The Quiet Storm”)
Carole Switala, vocalist and puppeteer (Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood)
Steve Young, musician (Colourbox, MARRS) and songwriter
Johnny Craviotto, rock drummer and drum maker
Charles Davis, jazz saxophonist
Bonnie Brown, country vocalist (The Browns)
Alan Vega, vocalist, songwriter (Suicide) and visual artist
Claude Williamson, jazz pianist
Gary S. Paxton, vocalist, songwriter and producer
Fred Tomlinson, vocalist and songwriter (“The Lumberjack Song”)
John Pidgeon, rock music writer and BBC radio executive
Lewie Steinberg, R&B bassist (Booker T. & the M.G.’s)
George Reznik, jazz pianist
Marni Nixon, playback vocalist (West Side Story) and actress
Roye Albrighton, vocalist and guitarist (Nektar)
Allan Barnes, jazz saxophonist (The Blackbyrds)
Sandy Pearlman, writer, producer and manager (Blue Oyster Cult)
Lucille Dumont, vocalist, songwriter and television star
Nigel Gray, record producer (The Police, Siouxsie and the Banshees)
Penny Lang, folk musician
August
Ricci Martin, musician, entertainer and son of Dean Martin
Patrice Munsel, coloratura soprano
Richard Fagan, country songwriter
Pete Fountain, jazz clarinetist
B.E. Taylor, pop vocalist and songwriter (“Vitamin L”)
Ruby Winters, soul vocalist (“Make Love to Me”)
Padraig Duggan, folk musician (Clannad, The Duggans)
Glenn Yarbrough, vocalist and songwriter
David Enthoven, manager and record label executive
Ruby Wilson, blues vocalist
Connie Crothers, jazz pianist
Bobby Hutcherson, jazz vibraphonist
Preston Hubbard, bassist (Roomful of Blues, Fabulous Thunderbirds)
Lou Pearlman, producer and manager (Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC)
Irving Fields, pianist, composer and bandleader (Bagles and Bongos)
Matt Roberts, rock guitarist (3 Doors Down)
Tom Searle, guitarist (The Architects)
Louis Stewart, jazz guitarist
Headley Bennett, reggae saxophonist
Derek Smith, jazz pianist
Gilli Smythe, vocalist (Gong)
Toots Thielemans, harmonica player, guitarist and whistler
Rudy Van Gelder, recording engineer (Bluenote)
Monty Lee Wilkes, sound engineer (The Replacements, Nirvana)
Hubert Dwane “Hoot” Hester, country and bluegrass fiddler
September
Fred Hellerman, folk singer, songwriter and guitarist (The Weavers)
Kacey Jones, singer, songwriter and humorist
Jerry Heller, agent, promoter and manager (N.W.A.)
Bud Isaacs, steel guitarist
Lewis Merenstein, producer (Van Morrison, Gladys Knight)
Clifford Curry, R&B vocalist (“She Shot a Hole in My Soul”)
Prince Buster, ska singer-songwriter and producer
”Crazy” Eddie Antar, electronics retailer
Chris Stone, studio owner (The Record Plant)
Leonard Haze, rock drummer (Y&T)
Don Buchla, pioneering synthesizer designer
Jerry Corbetta, vocalist, keyboardist and songwriter (Sugarloaf)
Trisco Pearson, R&B vocalist (Force M.D.’s)
Charmian Carr, actress and vocalist (The Sound of Music)
Micki Marlo, vocalist (“What You’ve Done To Me” “Little By Little”)
John D. Loudermilk, songwriter and vocalist (“Tobacco Road”)
Richard D. Trentlage, jingle writer (Oscar Mayer, McDonald’s)
Rob Meurer, vocalist and songwriter (Christopher Cross)
Stanley “Buckwheat Zydeco” Dural Jr, zydeco accordionist
Kashif, R&B vocalist, instrumentalist, producer and songwriter
Jean Shepard, country vocalist and songwriter
Joe Clay, rockabilly vocalist and guitarist
Royal Torrence, soul vocalist (Little Royal and the Swingmasters)
Nora Dean, reggae and gospel vocalist (“Barbwire”)
Oscar Brand, folk vocalist and songwriter, radio host (WNYC)
Michael Casswell, session guitarist (Brian May)
October
Joan Marie Johnson, pop vocalist (The Dixie Cups)
Caroline Crawley, vocalist (Shelleyan Orphan, This Mortal Coil)
Rod Temperton, keyboardist and songwriter (“Thriller”)
Peter Allen, radio broadcaster (Metropolitan Opera)
Don Ciccone, pop vocalist (The Critters) and songwriter
Leo Beranek, acoustic engineer and co-founder of BB&N
Robert Bateman, songwriter and vocalist (Satintones)
Sonny Sanders, songwriter, arranger and vocalist (Satintones)
Robert Edwards, R&B vocalist (The Intruders)
Ted V. Mikels, filmmaker and record label owner
Phil Chess, producer and record company executive
Chris Porter, americana vocalist, songwriter and guitarist
Mitchell Vandenburg, americana bassist and songwriter
Dave Cash, radio broadcaster (Radio London, BBC Radio 1)
Herb Kent, radio broadcaster (WVON, WJJD and V103)
Pete Burns, vocalist and songwriter (Dead or Alive)
Bobby Vee, pop vocalist
Hazel Shermet, actress and singer (Henrietta Hippo)
John Zacherle, TV host, recording artist and radio broadcaster
Ron Grant, film and television composer (Knot’s Landing)
Tammy Grimes, actress and vocalist (The Unsinkable Molly Brown)
Curly Putman, country songwriter (“Green, Green Grass of Home”)
November
Bap Kennedy, vocalist and songwriter
Bob Cranshaw, jazz bassist
Kay Starr, pop and jazz vocalist
Jean-Jacques Perrey, electronic music producer
Laurent Pardo, bassist (Elliott Murphy’s Normandy All-Stars)
Sir Jimmy Young, radio host (BBC Radio 1 and 2) and vocalist
Al Caiola, guitarist, composer and arranger
Leonard Cohen, vocalist, songwriter, poet and novelist
Raynoma Gordy Singleton, songwriter and ex-wife of Barry Gordy Jr.
Billy Miller, magazine publisher (Kicks) and label owner (Norton) 
Leon Russell, vocalist, pianist and songwriter
Holly Dunn, country vocalist and songwriter
David Mancuso, disc jockey and private party host (The Loft)
Mose Allison, jazz pianist, vocalist and songwriter
Cliff Barrows, musical director (Billy Graham crusades)
Milt Okun, producer, arranger, conductor and publisher
Don Waller, music journalist and vocalist
Mentor Williams, songwriter (“Drift Away”), producer and engineer
Sharon Jones, soul vocalist (The Dap Kings)
Hod O’Brien, jazz pianist
Craig Gill, rock drummer (Inspiral Carpets)
Al Broadax, television and film producer (Yellow Submarine)
Florence Henderson, actress and vocalist
Pauline Oliveros, composer, educator and accordionist
Tony Martell, record industry executive (CBS Records)
Ray Columbus, vocalist, songwriter, manager and television host
Carlton Kitto, jazz guitarist
December
Mickey Fitz, punk rock vocalist (The Business)
Mark Gray, country vocalist and songwriter (“Take Me Down”)
Herbert Hardesty, saxophonist (Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew)
Wayne Duncan, bassist and vocalist (Daddy Cool)
Mohamed Tahar Fergani, Algerian vocalist, violinist and composer
Greg Lake, vocalist, bassist and songwriter (King Crimson, EL&P)
Palani Vaughan, Hawaiian vocalist and songwriter
George Mantalis, pop vocalist (The Four Coins)
Valerie Gell, rock ‘n’ roll vocalist and guitarist (The Liverbirds)
Bob Krasnow, record executive and co-founder of the R’n’R HOF
Joe Ligon, gospel vocalist (Mighty Clouds of Joy)
Barrelhouse Chuck, blues vocalist, songwriter and pianist
Jim Lowe, songwriter (“The Green Door”) and radio broadcaster
Ahuva Ozeri, Israeli singer-songwriter
Betsy Pecanins, blues singer and songwriter
Päivi Paunu, vocalist and Eurovision contestant (“Muistathan”)
Bunny Walters, Maori pop vocalist (“Brandy”)
Fran Jeffries, vocalist, dancer and actress (The Pink Panther)
Bob Coburn, radio broadcaster (“Rockline,” KLOS)
Léo Marjane, French vocalist (“Seule ce soir”)
Gustavo Quintero, Columbian singer-songwriter
Gordie Tapp, radio broadcaster and television performer (Hee Haw)
Andrew Dorff, country songwriter (“My Eyes”)
Dick Latessa, actor and Tony winner (Hairspray)
Sam Leach, concert promoter (The Beatles)
Betty Loo Taylor, jazz pianist
Frank Murray, manager (The Pogues) and tour manager
Mick Zane, rock guitarist (Malice)
Rick Parfitt, vocalist, songwriter and guitarist (Status Quo)
George Michael, pop vocalist and songwriter
George S. Irving, musical theater and voice actor
Alphonse Mouzan, jazz drummer
Pierre Barouh, lyricist (A Man and a Woman), composer and actor
Debbie Reynolds, actress and vocalist
 
 

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http://nodepression.com/article/memoriam-2016-0
 
In Memoriam: 2016
by Hyperbolium
December 26, 2016

Dr. Ralph Stanley, 1927-2016
 
Some of the musicians, songwriters, producers, engineers, managers, agents, broadcasters, journalists, industry executives, and studio and club owners who passed away in 2016. Please contribute any missing entries in the comments.
Listen to a selection of these artists on Spotify
January
Tony Lane, art director (Rolling Stone) and album cover designer
Brad Fuller, composer and music director (Atari)
Paul Bley, jazz pianist
Jason Mackenroth, rock drummer (Mother Superior, Rollins Band)
Long John Hunter, blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter
Georgette Twain Seiff, hall-of-fame banjo player
Robert Stigwood, manager and film producer
Nicholas Caldwell, R&B vocalist (The Whispers) and songwriter
Elizabeth Swados, writer, composer and theater director
Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros, jazz and salsa trumpeter
Pat Harrington Jr., actor and comedy recording artist
Kitty Kallen, vocalist (“It’s Been a Long, Long Time”)
Troy Shondell, pop vocalist (“This Time (We’re Really Breaking Up)”)
Otis Clay, soul vocalist (“Trying to Live My Life Without You”)
Red Simpson, country vocalist and songwriter
Brett Smiley, glam rock vocalist (“Va Va Va Voom”)
Ed Stewart, television presenter (Top of the Pops)
David Bowie, vocalist and songwriter
Joe Moscheo, gospel vocalist (The Imperials) and industry executive
Giorgio Gomelsky, club owner, manager, producer and label owner
Hoyt Scoggins, country and rockabilly vocalist and songwriter
René Angélil, impresario and manager (Celine Dion)
Noreen Corcoran, actress (Bachelor Father) and vocalist
Pete Huttlinger, guitar virtuoso
Gary Loizzo, pop vocalist and guitarist (The American Breed)
Clarence “Blowfly” Reid, musician, songwriter and producer
Mic Gillette, brass player (Tower of Power)
Dale Griffin, rock drummer (Mott the Hoople)
Ramblin’ Lou Schriver, radio broadcaster and concert promoter
Glenn Frey, vocalist, songwriter and guitarist (The Eagles)
Andrew Johnson, album cover artist (The The)
Jimmy Bain, rock bassist (Dio, Rainbow)
Joe Esposito, road manager (Elvis Presley)
Colin “Black” Vearncombe, vocalist and songwriter
William E. Martin, songwriter, screenwriter and voice actor
Signe Toly Anderson, vocalist (Jefferson Airplane)
Paul Kantner, vocalist, songwriter and guitarist (Jefferson Airplane)
Billy Faier, banjo player
February
Maurice White, vocalist, songwriter and producer
Leslie Bassett, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer
Bobby Caldwell, keyboardist (Terry Knight and the Pack)
Joe Dowell, pop vocalist (“Wooden Heart”)
Jimmy Haskell, arranger, composer, producer and bandleader
Ray Colcord, film and television composer, producer and musician
Dan Hicks, vocalist and songwriter
Sam Spence, composer (NFL Films)
Obrey Wilson, soul vocalist (“Hey There Mountain”)
Rick Wright, country guitarist (Connie Smith)
Roy Harris, British folk vocalist
Kim Williams, country songwriter (“Three Wooden Crosses”)
L.C. Ulmer, blues musician
Denise “Vanity” Matthews, vocalist (Vanity 6), actress and evangelist
Ray West, Emmy and Oscar-winning sound engineer (Star Wars)
Paul Gordon, keyboardist and composer
Brendan Healy, actor and musician (Goldie, Lindesfarne)
Vi Subversa, vocalist and guitarist (Poison Girls)
Charlie Tuna, radio broadcaster (KHJ, KROQ, KIIS, KBIG)
Sonny James, country vocalist and songwriter
Lennie Baker, vocalist and saxophonist (Sha Na Na)
John Chilton, jazz trumpeter and music historian
Craig Windham, radio broadcaster (NPR)
March
Gayle McCormick, vocalist (Smith ”Baby It’s You”)
Martha Wright, vocalist and actress (South Pacific)
Gavin Christopher, R&B vocalist and songwriter
Joey Feek, country vocalist (Joey + Rory)
Chip Hooper, agent (Phish, Dave Matthews Band)
Ireng Maulana, jazz guitarist
Joe Cabot, jazz trumpeter
Bruce Geduldig, synthesist and filmmaker (Tuxedomoon)
Timothy Makaya, jazz guitarist
Ross Hannaford, rock guitarist (Daddy Cool)
Ron Jacobs, radio broadcaster (Boss Radio KHJ, American Top 40)
Sir George Martin, producer
Jon English, musician and actor
Ray Griff, country vocalist
John Morthland, music journalist
Naná Vasconcelos, Latin jazz percussionist
Ernestine Anderson, jazz vocalist
Keith Emerson, progressive rock keyboardist
Gogi Grant, pop vocalist
Ben Bagdikian, educator, journalist and media critic
Ben Edmonds, music journalist
Louis Meyers, promoter (co-founder of SXSW) and manager
Tommy Brown, R&B vocalist (The Griffin Brothers)
Lee Andrews, doo-wop vocalist and father of Questlove
Frank Sinatra Jr., vocalist and actor, son of Frank Sinatra
Steve Young, country vocalist and songwriter (“Seven Bridges Road”)
David Egan, songwriter and pianist
Terry James Johnson, drummer (Bar-Kays) and clinical psychologist
Phife Dawg, rapper (A Tribe Called Quest)
James Jamerson Jr., R&B bassist (Chanson)
Jimmy Riley, reggae musician (The Sensations and the Uniques)
David Baker, symphonic jazz composer, musician and educator
Wally Crouter, Canadian radio legend (CFRB)
Patty Duke, actress and vocalist
Andy Newman, pianist (Thunderclap Newman)
Larry Payton, drummer (Brass Construction)
April
Gato Barbieri, jazz saxophonist
Don Francks, jazz musician and actor
Bill Henderson, jazz vocalist and actor
Carlo Mastrangelo, doo-wop and progressive rock vocalist
Dorothy Schwartz, pop vocalist (The Chordettes)
Leon Haywood, soul and funk vocalist
Dennis Davis, rock drummer (David Bowie)
Merle Haggard, country vocalist, guitarist and songwriter
Jimmie Van Zant, southern rock musician, cousin of Ronnie Van Zant
Earl Solomon Burroughs, songwriter (“Great Balls of Fire”)
Jim Ridley, editor, critic and journalist (Nashville Scene)
Tony Conrad, experimental musician
Doug Banks, radio broadcaster (KDAY, KFI, KDIA)
Emile Ford, pop musician and sound engineer
David Gest, producer and former husband of Liza Minnelli
Gib Guilbeau, country-rock musician (Nashville West)
Filthy McNasty, nightclub owner
Mariano Mores, Argentine tango composer, pianist and conductor
Phil Sayer, British voice artist (“Mind the Gap”)
Vandy Anderson, radio broadcaster (KULF, KGBC)
Elliot Spitzer, radio executive (WLIR-FM)
Lord Tanamo, ska and mento musician
Richard Lyons, culture jammer (Negativland)
Pete Zorn, multi-instrumentalist (Richard Thompson Band)
Victoria Wood, actress, vocalist and songwriter
Lonnie Mack, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter (“Wham”)
Prince, vocalist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist
Billy Paul, R&B vocalist (“Me & Mrs. Jones”)
Remo Belli, jazz drummer and inventor of the synthetic drumhead
Harrison Calloway, musician and bandleader (Muscle Shoals Horns)
May
Candye Kane, blues and swing vocalist and songwriter
John Stabb, punk rock vocalist (Government Issue)
Peter Behrens, drummer (Trio)
Tony Gable, percussionist and graphic designer
Julius La Rosa, pop vocalist
Buster Cooper, jazz trombonist
Bill Backer, jingle writer (“I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”)
Tony Barrow, press officer (The Beatles)
Emilio Navaira, tejano and country vocalist, guitarist and songwriter
Guy Clark, singer and songwriter
John Berry, punk rock guitarist (Beastie Boys)
James King, bluegrass musician
Nick Menza, rock drummer (Megadeth)
Marshall Jones, bassist (Ohio Players)
Floyd Robinson, country vocalist and songwriter (“Makin’ Love”)
June
Alan Wise, promoter and manager (Factory Records)
Muhammed Ali, boxer and spoken word artist (“I Am the Greatest”)
Mac Cocker, radio broadcaster (Australia’s Double J)
Mark Parenteau, radio broadcaster (WBCN)
Dave Swarbrick, violinist, vocalist and songwriter
Bobby Curtola, Canadian teen idol (“Hand in Hand With You”)
Dan Sorkin, radio broadcaster (WCFL, KFRC, KSFO)
Brian Rading, rock bassist (Five Man Electrical Band)
Christina Grimmie, vocalist and songwriter (The Voice)
Chips Moman, songwriter and producer
Henry McCullough, rock guitarist (Spooky Tooth, Wings)
Charles Thompson, jazz pianist and organist
Attrell Cordes, hip-hop, soul and R&B artist (P.M. Dawn)
Tenor Fly, rapper and ragga vocliast
Bill Ham, manager, producer and songwriter (ZZ Top)
”Dandy” Dan Daniel, radio broadcaster (WMCA, WYNY, WCBS)
Wayne Jackson, R&B trumpeter (Mar-Keys, Memphis Horns)
Freddy Powers, country songwriter and producer
Leo Brennan, Irish musical patriarch
Harry Rabinowitz, conductor and composer (I, Claudius)
Dr. Ralph Stanley, mountain music banjoist, vocalist and songwriter
Bernie Worrell, keyboardist and composer (Parliament-Funkadelic)
Mack Rice, songwriter (“Mustang Sally” “Respect Yourself”)
Scotty Moore, rock ‘n’ roll guitarist
Rob Wasserman, bassist
Don Friedman, jazz pianist
July
Teddy Rooney, actor, musician and son of Mickey Rooney
Bob Goldstone, music industry executive (Thirty Tigers)
William Hawkins, poet and songwriter
Danny Smythe, rock drummer (The Box Tops)
Vaughn Harper, radio broadcaster (WBLS “The Quiet Storm”)
Carole Switala, vocalist and puppeteer (Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood)
Steve Young, musician (Colourbox, MARRS) and songwriter
Johnny Craviotto, rock drummer and drum maker
Charles Davis, jazz saxophonist
Bonnie Brown, country vocalist (The Browns)
Alan Vega, vocalist, songwriter (Suicide) and visual artist
Claude Williamson, jazz pianist
Gary S. Paxton, vocalist, songwriter and producer
Fred Tomlinson, vocalist and songwriter (“The Lumberjack Song”)
John Pidgeon, rock music writer and BBC radio executive
Lewie Steinberg, R&B bassist (Booker T. & the M.G.’s)
George Reznik, jazz pianist
Marni Nixon, playback vocalist (West Side Story) and actress
Roye Albrighton, vocalist and guitarist (Nektar)
Allan Barnes, jazz saxophonist (The Blackbyrds)
Sandy Pearlman, writer, producer and manager (Blue Oyster Cult)
Lucille Dumont, vocalist, songwriter and television star
Nigel Gray, record producer (The Police, Siouxsie and the Banshees)
Penny Lang, folk musician
August
Ricci Martin, musician, entertainer and son of Dean Martin
Patrice Munsel, coloratura soprano
Richard Fagan, country songwriter
Pete Fountain, jazz clarinetist
B.E. Taylor, pop vocalist and songwriter (“Vitamin L”)
Ruby Winters, soul vocalist (“Make Love to Me”)
Padraig Duggan, folk musician (Clannad, The Duggans)
Glenn Yarbrough, vocalist and songwriter
David Enthoven, manager and record label executive
Ruby Wilson, blues vocalist
Connie Crothers, jazz pianist
Bobby Hutcherson, jazz vibraphonist
Preston Hubbard, bassist (Roomful of Blues, Fabulous Thunderbirds)
Lou Pearlman, producer and manager (Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC)
Irving Fields, pianist, composer and bandleader (Bagles and Bongos)
Matt Roberts, rock guitarist (3 Doors Down)
Tom Searle, guitarist (The Architects)
Louis Stewart, jazz guitarist
Headley Bennett, reggae saxophonist
Derek Smith, jazz pianist
Gilli Smythe, vocalist (Gong)
Toots Thielemans, harmonica player, guitarist and whistler
Rudy Van Gelder, recording engineer (Bluenote)
Monty Lee Wilkes, sound engineer (The Replacements, Nirvana)
Hubert Dwane “Hoot” Hester, country and bluegrass fiddler
September
Fred Hellerman, folk singer, songwriter and guitarist (The Weavers)
Kacey Jones, singer, songwriter and humorist
Jerry Heller, agent, promoter and manager (N.W.A.)
Bud Isaacs, steel guitarist
Lewis Merenstein, producer (Van Morrison, Gladys Knight)
Clifford Curry, R&B vocalist (“She Shot a Hole in My Soul”)
Prince Buster, ska singer-songwriter and producer
”Crazy” Eddie Antar, electronics retailer
Chris Stone, studio owner (The Record Plant)
Leonard Haze, rock drummer (Y&T)
Don Buchla, pioneering synthesizer designer
Jerry Corbetta, vocalist, keyboardist and songwriter (Sugarloaf)
Trisco Pearson, R&B vocalist (Force M.D.’s)
Charmian Carr, actress and vocalist (The Sound of Music)
Micki Marlo, vocalist (“What You’ve Done To Me” “Little By Little”)
John D. Loudermilk, songwriter and vocalist (“Tobacco Road”)
Richard D. Trentlage, jingle writer (Oscar Mayer, McDonald’s)
Rob Meurer, vocalist and songwriter (Christopher Cross)
Stanley “Buckwheat Zydeco” Dural Jr, zydeco accordionist
Kashif, R&B vocalist, instrumentalist, producer and songwriter
Jean Shepard, country vocalist and songwriter
Joe Clay, rockabilly vocalist and guitarist
Royal Torrence, soul vocalist (Little Royal and the Swingmasters)
Nora Dean, reggae and gospel vocalist (“Barbwire”)
Oscar Brand, folk vocalist and songwriter, radio host (WNYC)
Michael Casswell, session guitarist (Brian May)
October
Joan Marie Johnson, pop vocalist (The Dixie Cups)
Caroline Crawley, vocalist (Shelleyan Orphan, This Mortal Coil)
Rod Temperton, keyboardist and songwriter (“Thriller”)
Peter Allen, radio broadcaster (Metropolitan Opera)
Don Ciccone, pop vocalist (The Critters) and songwriter
Leo Beranek, acoustic engineer and co-founder of BB&N
Robert Bateman, songwriter and vocalist (Satintones)
Sonny Sanders, songwriter, arranger and vocalist (Satintones)
Robert Edwards, R&B vocalist (The Intruders)
Ted V. Mikels, filmmaker and record label owner
Phil Chess, producer and record company executive
Chris Porter, americana vocalist, songwriter and guitarist
Mitchell Vandenburg, americana bassist and songwriter
Dave Cash, radio broadcaster (Radio London, BBC Radio 1)
Herb Kent, radio broadcaster (WVON, WJJD and V103)
Pete Burns, vocalist and songwriter (Dead or Alive)
Bobby Vee, pop vocalist
Hazel Shermet, actress and singer (Henrietta Hippo)
John Zacherle, TV host, recording artist and radio broadcaster
Ron Grant, film and television composer (Knot’s Landing)
Tammy Grimes, actress and vocalist (The Unsinkable Molly Brown)
Curly Putman, country songwriter (“Green, Green Grass of Home”)
November
Bap Kennedy, vocalist and songwriter
Bob Cranshaw, jazz bassist
Kay Starr, pop and jazz vocalist
Jean-Jacques Perrey, electronic music producer
Laurent Pardo, bassist (Elliott Murphy’s Normandy All-Stars)
Sir Jimmy Young, radio host (BBC Radio 1 and 2) and vocalist
Al Caiola, guitarist, composer and arranger
Leonard Cohen, vocalist, songwriter, poet and novelist
Raynoma Gordy Singleton, songwriter and ex-wife of Barry Gordy Jr.
Billy Miller, magazine publisher (Kicks) and label owner (Norton) 
Leon Russell, vocalist, pianist and songwriter
Holly Dunn, country vocalist and songwriter
David Mancuso, disc jockey and private party host (The Loft)
Mose Allison, jazz pianist, vocalist and songwriter
Cliff Barrows, musical director (Billy Graham crusades)
Milt Okun, producer, arranger, conductor and publisher
Don Waller, music journalist and vocalist
Mentor Williams, songwriter (“Drift Away”), producer and engineer
Sharon Jones, soul vocalist (The Dap Kings)
Hod O’Brien, jazz pianist
Craig Gill, rock drummer (Inspiral Carpets)
Al Broadax, television and film producer (Yellow Submarine)
Florence Henderson, actress and vocalist
Pauline Oliveros, composer, educator and accordionist
Tony Martell, record industry executive (CBS Records)
Ray Columbus, vocalist, songwriter, manager and television host
Carlton Kitto, jazz guitarist
December
Mickey Fitz, punk rock vocalist (The Business)
Mark Gray, country vocalist and songwriter (“Take Me Down”)
Herbert Hardesty, saxophonist (Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew)
Wayne Duncan, bassist and vocalist (Daddy Cool)
Mohamed Tahar Fergani, Algerian vocalist, violinist and composer
Greg Lake, vocalist, bassist and songwriter (King Crimson, EL&P)
Palani Vaughan, Hawaiian vocalist and songwriter
George Mantalis, pop vocalist (The Four Coins)
Valerie Gell, rock ‘n’ roll vocalist and guitarist (The Liverbirds)
Bob Krasnow, record executive and co-founder of the R’n’R HOF
Joe Ligon, gospel vocalist (Mighty Clouds of Joy)
Barrelhouse Chuck, blues vocalist, songwriter and pianist
Jim Lowe, songwriter (“The Green Door”) and radio broadcaster
Ahuva Ozeri, Israeli singer-songwriter
Betsy Pecanins, blues singer and songwriter
Päivi Paunu, vocalist and Eurovision contestant (“Muistathan”)
Bunny Walters, Maori pop vocalist (“Brandy”)
Fran Jeffries, vocalist, dancer and actress (The Pink Panther)
Bob Coburn, radio broadcaster (“Rockline,” KLOS)
Léo Marjane, French vocalist (“Seule ce soir”)
Gustavo Quintero, Columbian singer-songwriter
Gordie Tapp, radio broadcaster and television performer (Hee Haw)
Andrew Dorff, country songwriter (“My Eyes”)
Dick Latessa, actor and Tony winner (Hairspray)
Sam Leach, concert promoter (The Beatles)
Betty Loo Taylor, jazz pianist
Frank Murray, manager (The Pogues) and tour manager
Mick Zane, rock guitarist (Malice)
Rick Parfitt, vocalist, songwriter and guitarist (Status Quo)
George Michael, pop vocalist and songwriter
George S. Irving, musical theater and voice actor
Alphonse Mouzan, jazz drummer
Pierre Barouh, lyricist (A Man and a Woman), composer and actor
Debbie Reynolds, actress and vocalist
 
 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/arts/music/alphonse-mouzon-jazz-and-fusion-drummer-dies-at-68.html?emc=edit_tnt_20161228
 
Alphonse Mouzon, Jazz and Fusion Drummer, Dies at 68
By NATE CHINEN DEC. 28, 2016
 

 
Alphonse Mouzon performing at the Blue Note in 2015. Alan Nahigian
 
Alphonse Mouzon, a powerful jazz drummer who made his greatest contributions with a funk backbeat, forging a standard for 1970s fusion, died on Sunday at his home in the Granada Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 68.
 
The cause was cardiac arrest, his son Jean-Pierre Mouzon said. Alphonse Mouzon learned this fall that he had neuroendocrine cancer and used a crowdfunding platform to help pay for treatment.
Few other drummers were as integral to the development of fusion as Mr. Mouzon, who combined volcanic intensity with a brisk attunement to dynamic flow. He played in the first edition of Weather Report, and was a charter member of another defining jazz-rock band, the Eleventh House, led by the guitarist Larry Coryell.
 
Mr. Mouzon had a productive association with the pianist McCoy Tyner, playing in a volatile acoustic setting on albums like “Sahara” (1972) and “Song for My Lady” (1973). He also served as the propulsive engine on notable fusion albums by the keyboardist Herbie Hancock, the flutist Bobbi Humphrey and the guitarist Al Di Meola, among others.
 
Outside of jazz, Mr. Mouzon worked with major touring acts including Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder. The drummer John Bonham of Led Zeppelin acknowledged him as an influence.
A capable keyboardist and vocalist as well as a drummer, Mr. Mouzon released more than two dozen albums of his own, starting in the early 1970s. Some of them are considered jazz-funk touchstones — notably “Mind Transplant” (1975), which features a front line of dueling electric guitarists: Tommy Bolin and Lee Ritenour.
 
As the leader of a disco group called Poussez, Mr. Mouzon also had several club hits in the late ’70s and early ’80s, including “Come On and Do It” and “Boogie With Me.” And his music proved irresistible to crate-digging hip-hop producers: “Funky Snakefoot,” the title track of his second album, provides the indelible opening drum fill for the Beastie Boys’ “Shake Your Rump.”
 
Alphonse Lee Mouzon was born on Nov. 21, 1948, in Charleston, S.C. He had little contact with his father, Flagner Mouzon, and was raised by his mother, the former Emma Washington, who worked as a cook.
 
He began banging on the drums as a child, and though he learned to play a number of other instruments, including trumpet and flute, it was as a drummer that he started working professionally, at 12.
 
Mr. Mouzon had early experience in rhythm and blues and pop, including a stint with Chubby Checker. He moved to New York at the urging of the alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, whom he had met at a jazz camp in Florida. He quickly found work with a society big band, the Ross Carnegie Orchestra; he also played in the band for the Burt Bacharach-Hal David Broadway musical “Promises, Promises.”
 
Mr. Mouzon played on a 1970 recording session by the saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter, who then brought him into Weather Report; he appeared on the band’s debut album, “Weather Report,” released in 1971.
 
But he found a more muscular platform with Mr. Coryell, whose album “Introducing the Eleventh House With Larry Coryell,” released in 1974, opens with a thunderous barrage of triplets on Mr. Mouzon’s toms and snare.
 
In addition to his son Jean-Pierre, Mr. Mouzon, who was divorced, is survived by another son, Alphonse Philippe Mouzon; a daughter, Emma Alexandra Mouzon; two sisters, Cherry Pickney and Elvina Jarvis; and two granddaughters.
 
Mr. Mouzon played straight-ahead jazz as well as fusion throughout his career, making a point of fluency in both styles. His most recent release, “Angel Face,” released in 2011, is a swinging combo outing with, among others, the pianist Kenny Barron. More recently, he joined Mr. Coryell in a reunion of the Eleventh House. The band’s album “Seven Secrets” was released in August.
 
“Because my mind is open, I don’t want to always be identified as just a jazz drummer,” Mr. Mouzon told Modern Drummer magazine in 1979. “I got my start through jazz, and I’m not putting it down. But there are other things I do.”
 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/arts/music/alphonse-mouzon-jazz-and-fusion-drummer-dies-at-68.html?emc=edit_tnt_20161228
 
Alphonse Mouzon, Jazz and Fusion Drummer, Dies at 68
By NATE CHINEN DEC. 28, 2016
 

 
Alphonse Mouzon performing at the Blue Note in 2015. Alan Nahigian
 
Alphonse Mouzon, a powerful jazz drummer who made his greatest contributions with a funk backbeat, forging a standard for 1970s fusion, died on Sunday at his home in the Granada Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 68.
 
The cause was cardiac arrest, his son Jean-Pierre Mouzon said. Alphonse Mouzon learned this fall that he had neuroendocrine cancer and used a crowdfunding platform to help pay for treatment.
Few other drummers were as integral to the development of fusion as Mr. Mouzon, who combined volcanic intensity with a brisk attunement to dynamic flow. He played in the first edition of Weather Report, and was a charter member of another defining jazz-rock band, the Eleventh House, led by the guitarist Larry Coryell.
 
Mr. Mouzon had a productive association with the pianist McCoy Tyner, playing in a volatile acoustic setting on albums like “Sahara” (1972) and “Song for My Lady” (1973). He also served as the propulsive engine on notable fusion albums by the keyboardist Herbie Hancock, the flutist Bobbi Humphrey and the guitarist Al Di Meola, among others.
 
Outside of jazz, Mr. Mouzon worked with major touring acts including Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder. The drummer John Bonham of Led Zeppelin acknowledged him as an influence.
A capable keyboardist and vocalist as well as a drummer, Mr. Mouzon released more than two dozen albums of his own, starting in the early 1970s. Some of them are considered jazz-funk touchstones — notably “Mind Transplant” (1975), which features a front line of dueling electric guitarists: Tommy Bolin and Lee Ritenour.
 
As the leader of a disco group called Poussez, Mr. Mouzon also had several club hits in the late ’70s and early ’80s, including “Come On and Do It” and “Boogie With Me.” And his music proved irresistible to crate-digging hip-hop producers: “Funky Snakefoot,” the title track of his second album, provides the indelible opening drum fill for the Beastie Boys’ “Shake Your Rump.”
 
Alphonse Lee Mouzon was born on Nov. 21, 1948, in Charleston, S.C. He had little contact with his father, Flagner Mouzon, and was raised by his mother, the former Emma Washington, who worked as a cook.
 
He began banging on the drums as a child, and though he learned to play a number of other instruments, including trumpet and flute, it was as a drummer that he started working professionally, at 12.
 
Mr. Mouzon had early experience in rhythm and blues and pop, including a stint with Chubby Checker. He moved to New York at the urging of the alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, whom he had met at a jazz camp in Florida. He quickly found work with a society big band, the Ross Carnegie Orchestra; he also played in the band for the Burt Bacharach-Hal David Broadway musical “Promises, Promises.”
 
Mr. Mouzon played on a 1970 recording session by the saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter, who then brought him into Weather Report; he appeared on the band’s debut album, “Weather Report,” released in 1971.
 
But he found a more muscular platform with Mr. Coryell, whose album “Introducing the Eleventh House With Larry Coryell,” released in 1974, opens with a thunderous barrage of triplets on Mr. Mouzon’s toms and snare.
 
In addition to his son Jean-Pierre, Mr. Mouzon, who was divorced, is survived by another son, Alphonse Philippe Mouzon; a daughter, Emma Alexandra Mouzon; two sisters, Cherry Pickney and Elvina Jarvis; and two granddaughters.
 
Mr. Mouzon played straight-ahead jazz as well as fusion throughout his career, making a point of fluency in both styles. His most recent release, “Angel Face,” released in 2011, is a swinging combo outing with, among others, the pianist Kenny Barron. More recently, he joined Mr. Coryell in a reunion of the Eleventh House. The band’s album “Seven Secrets” was released in August.
 
“Because my mind is open, I don’t want to always be identified as just a jazz drummer,” Mr. Mouzon told Modern Drummer magazine in 1979. “I got my start through jazz, and I’m not putting it down. But there are other things I do.”
 

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    The passings I am aware of this year, mostly jazz & blues. Sadly, a long list but by no means complete, and I may have lost a few files earlier this year in a computer switch – or maybe I was hacked by the Russians. In any case, RIP all.
   
    George Klein
    ================================================
   
    •Natalue Cole 1/1 Famed pop, r&b, jazz vocalist; 65
   
    •Dal Richards 1/1 Vancouver-based bandleader; 97
   
    •Paul Bley 1/3 Renowned pianist; 83
   
    •Long John Hunter 1/4 Texas blues guitarist; 84
   
    •Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros 1/6 Cuban trumprter; 87
   
    •Pierre Boulez 1/6 French composer; 90
   
    •Otis Clay 1/8 Blues vocalist; 73
   
    •David Bowie 1/10 British rock star, actor; 69
   
    •Mic Gillette 1/17 Trumpeter with Tower of Power Horns; 64
   
    •Glenn Frey 1/19 Co-founder of the Eagles; 67
   
    •Joe Harris 1/27 Longtime bop drummer; 89
   
    •Maurice White 2/3 Founder of Earth, Wind & Fire; 74
   
    •Bob Elliott 2/3 Half of the Bob & Ray comedy tram; 92
   
    •Leon Henderson 2/5 Saxophonist with Contmporary Jazz
            Quintet, brother of Joe Henderson; 75
   
    •Dan Hicks 2/6 Leader of folk-rock band Hot Licks; 74
   
    •John Chilton 2/25 British trunpeter & jazz researcher; 83
   
    •George Martin 3/8 British music producer, “5th Beatle”; 90
   
    •Nana Vasconcelos 3/8 Influential Brazilian percussionist; 71
   
    •Claus Ogernan 3/8 Composer, arranger & bandleader; 85
   
    •Ernestine Anderson 3/10 Lonttime jazz singer; 87
   
    •Keith Emerson 3/11 Keyboardist of Emerson, Lake & Palmer; 71
   
    •Frank Sinatra Jr. 3/16 In his father’s footsteps; 72
   
    •David Baker 3/26 Renowned jazz educator; 84
   
    •Merle Haggard 4/6 Country music legend, on his 79th birthday
   
    •Jeremy Steig 4/13 Jazz-rock flutist; 73
   
    •Prince 4/21 Innovative pop legend; 57
   
    •Doug Raney 5/1 Guitarist, son of guitarist Jimmy Raney; 59
   
    •Joe Temperley 5/11 Baritone saxophonist with JALC; 86
   
    •Buster Cooper 5/13 Trombonist with Ellington, others; 87
   
    •Sir Charles Thompson 6/16 Pianist from swing to bop; 98
   
    •Ralph Stanley 6/23 High lonesome bluegrass; 89
   
    •Bernie Worrell 6/24 Keyboardist w/Parluament Funk, Talking Heads; 72
   
    •Scotty Moore 6/28 Guitarist for young Elvis Presley; 84
   
    •Don Friedman 6/30 Versatile pianist; 81
   
    •Charles Davis 7/15 Adventurous baritone saxophonist; 83
    
    •Jo “Cool” Davis 8/5 New Orleans gospel singer’ 63
   
    •Pete Fountain 8/6 Lefendary New Orleans clarinetist; 86
   
    •Connie Crothers 8/13 Pianist and didciple of Lennie Tristano; 75
   
    •Bobby Hutcherson 8/15 Premier vibraphonist; 75
   
    •Louis Smith 8/20 Longtine bop trunorter & educator; 85
   
    •Jean-Baptisre “Toots” Thielemans 8/22 Master of jazz harmonica; 94
   
    •Rudy Van Gelder 8/25 THE recording engineer for Blue Note; 91
   
    •Buckwheat Zydeco (Stanley Doral) 9/24 Zydeco master; 68
   
    •Phil Chess 10/18 Co-foumder of Chess Records in Chicago; 91
   
    •Bhumibol Adulyadej 11/20 Saxophonist & King og Thailand; 88
   
    •Bob Cranshaw 11/2 Bassust on many Blue Note recordings; 83
   
    •Al Caiola 11/9  Longtime guitarist; 96
   
    •Victor Bailey 11/10 Bassist w/ Weather Report, others; 56
   
    •Leonard Cohen 11/10 Influential singer-songwriter; 82
   
    •Leon Russell 11/12 Soul-rock singer-instrumentalist; 74
   
    •Mose Allison 11/15 Unique jazz-blues singer & pianist; 89
   
    •Sharom Jones 11/17 Powerful soul singer; 60
   
    •Hod O’Brien 11/20 Versatile pianist; 80
   
    •Edgar “Dooky” Chase 11/22 New Orleans activist, trumpeter & chef; 88
   
    •Herb Hardesty 12/5 Saxophonist with Fats Domino; 91
   
    •George Michael 12/25 British pop star; 53
   
    •Alphonse Mouzon 12/25 Composer, bandleader, drummer; 68
   
    —
    —
 

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    The passings I am aware of this year, mostly jazz & blues. Sadly, a long list but by no means complete, and I may have lost a few files earlier this year in a computer switch – or maybe I was hacked by the Russians. In any case, RIP all.
   
    George Klein
    ================================================
   
    •Natalue Cole 1/1 Famed pop, r&b, jazz vocalist; 65
   
    •Dal Richards 1/1 Vancouver-based bandleader; 97
   
    •Paul Bley 1/3 Renowned pianist; 83
   
    •Long John Hunter 1/4 Texas blues guitarist; 84
   
    •Alfredo “Chocolate” Armenteros 1/6 Cuban trumprter; 87
   
    •Pierre Boulez 1/6 French composer; 90
   
    •Otis Clay 1/8 Blues vocalist; 73
   
    •David Bowie 1/10 British rock star, actor; 69
   
    •Mic Gillette 1/17 Trumpeter with Tower of Power Horns; 64
   
    •Glenn Frey 1/19 Co-founder of the Eagles; 67
   
    •Joe Harris 1/27 Longtime bop drummer; 89
   
    •Maurice White 2/3 Founder of Earth, Wind & Fire; 74
   
    •Bob Elliott 2/3 Half of the Bob & Ray comedy tram; 92
   
    •Leon Henderson 2/5 Saxophonist with Contmporary Jazz
            Quintet, brother of Joe Henderson; 75
   
    •Dan Hicks 2/6 Leader of folk-rock band Hot Licks; 74
   
    •John Chilton 2/25 British trunpeter & jazz researcher; 83
   
    •George Martin 3/8 British music producer, “5th Beatle”; 90
   
    •Nana Vasconcelos 3/8 Influential Brazilian percussionist; 71
   
    •Claus Ogernan 3/8 Composer, arranger & bandleader; 85
   
    •Ernestine Anderson 3/10 Lonttime jazz singer; 87
   
    •Keith Emerson 3/11 Keyboardist of Emerson, Lake & Palmer; 71
   
    •Frank Sinatra Jr. 3/16 In his father’s footsteps; 72
   
    •David Baker 3/26 Renowned jazz educator; 84
   
    •Merle Haggard 4/6 Country music legend, on his 79th birthday
   
    •Jeremy Steig 4/13 Jazz-rock flutist; 73
   
    •Prince 4/21 Innovative pop legend; 57
   
    •Doug Raney 5/1 Guitarist, son of guitarist Jimmy Raney; 59
   
    •Joe Temperley 5/11 Baritone saxophonist with JALC; 86
   
    •Buster Cooper 5/13 Trombonist with Ellington, others; 87
   
    •Sir Charles Thompson 6/16 Pianist from swing to bop; 98
   
    •Ralph Stanley 6/23 High lonesome bluegrass; 89
   
    •Bernie Worrell 6/24 Keyboardist w/Parluament Funk, Talking Heads; 72
   
    •Scotty Moore 6/28 Guitarist for young Elvis Presley; 84
   
    •Don Friedman 6/30 Versatile pianist; 81
   
    •Charles Davis 7/15 Adventurous baritone saxophonist; 83
    
    •Jo “Cool” Davis 8/5 New Orleans gospel singer’ 63
   
    •Pete Fountain 8/6 Lefendary New Orleans clarinetist; 86
   
    •Connie Crothers 8/13 Pianist and didciple of Lennie Tristano; 75
   
    •Bobby Hutcherson 8/15 Premier vibraphonist; 75
   
    •Louis Smith 8/20 Longtine bop trunorter & educator; 85
   
    •Jean-Baptisre “Toots” Thielemans 8/22 Master of jazz harmonica; 94
   
    •Rudy Van Gelder 8/25 THE recording engineer for Blue Note; 91
   
    •Buckwheat Zydeco (Stanley Doral) 9/24 Zydeco master; 68
   
    •Phil Chess 10/18 Co-foumder of Chess Records in Chicago; 91
   
    •Bhumibol Adulyadej 11/20 Saxophonist & King og Thailand; 88
   
    •Bob Cranshaw 11/2 Bassust on many Blue Note recordings; 83
   
    •Al Caiola 11/9  Longtime guitarist; 96
   
    •Victor Bailey 11/10 Bassist w/ Weather Report, others; 56
   
    •Leonard Cohen 11/10 Influential singer-songwriter; 82
   
    •Leon Russell 11/12 Soul-rock singer-instrumentalist; 74
   
    •Mose Allison 11/15 Unique jazz-blues singer & pianist; 89
   
    •Sharom Jones 11/17 Powerful soul singer; 60
   
    •Hod O’Brien 11/20 Versatile pianist; 80
   
    •Edgar “Dooky” Chase 11/22 New Orleans activist, trumpeter & chef; 88
   
    •Herb Hardesty 12/5 Saxophonist with Fats Domino; 91
   
    •George Michael 12/25 British pop star; 53
   
    •Alphonse Mouzon 12/25 Composer, bandleader, drummer; 68
   
    —
    —
 

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2016/12/27/your-la-la-land-cheat-sheet/95602260/
 
Your ‘La La Land’ cheat sheet
Carly Mallenbaum , USA TODAY 3:39 p.m. EST December 27, 2016

Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) perform their ‘A Lovely Night’ song and dance in ‘La La Land.’ The scene was shot near Griffith Observatory. (Photo: Dale Robinette)
cxenseparse_start
If you’re not a native Angeleno with a vast knowledge of old Hollywood and jazz, chances are you’ll have some questions about the locations and pop-culture references in La La Land.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
That’s where we come in. Here’s the backstory on a few insidery nods in the acclaimed movie, which is bound to boost tourism to Los Angeles and inspire new movie-musical fans.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
How does Rebel Without A Cause figure into this movie?
cxenseparse_end

‘La La Land’ pays homage to ‘Rebel Without A Cause,’ the 1955 movie that stars James Dean and Natalie Wood. (Photo: Warner Bros.)
cxenseparse_start
If you’re like Mia (Emma Stone), and you’ve never seen Rebel Without A Cause, it’s helpful to know that her trip with Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) to the Griffith Observatory is an homage to the classic film.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
The shot of the couple driving up to the astronomy facility is the same one that’s used in Rebel, says location manager Robert Foulkes. Their gravity-defying waltz was meant to look like another location from the 1955 film — the Samuel Oschin Planetarium — though it’s since been renovated. Production designer David Wasco, who worked on the film with his wife, Sandy Reynolds-Wasco, says the dreamy dance scene was shot on a set so they could give it art deco style and use wires to lift the actors.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
What’s the deal with the pool parties?
cxenseparse_end

British artist David Hockney shows off one of his L.A. pool paintings in the oversized Sumo publication ‘A Bigger Book.’ The artist’s work inspired the set design of a pool party in ‘La La Land.’ (Photo: Arne Dedert, EPA)
cxenseparse_start
“Pool parties are synonymous with Los Angeles,” says Wasco. Mia attends two in the film: an upscale schmooze-fest at night and a swimsuit-filled party during in the day with Sebastian’s ’80s cover band. The former party was filmed in Encino, but meant to feel like a party in the Hollywood Hills. The latter soirée was based on ’60s pop art paintings of L.A. swimming pools like David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash (that giant yellow diving board outside of what looks like Don Draper’s house).
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
Is The Rialto a real place?
cxenseparse_end

Sebastian takes Emma to see ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ at The Rialto, a real theater in South Pasadena. (Photo: Dale Robinette, Lionsgate via AP)
cxenseparse_start
Yes, the theater where Mia and Sebastian see Rebel Without A Cause is a historic movie palace in South Pasadena. Today, however, it’s only available for private parties. Director Damien Chazelle “loved the old red velvet seats that are still in there,” says Foulkes.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
What inspired the bright clothing?
cxenseparse_end

The clothing in ‘La La Land,’ including what’s worn in the opening scene on the freeway, has plenty of bright greens, blues, reds and yellows. (Photo: Dale Robinette)
cxenseparse_start
Chazelle screened classic films for his cast and crew, including Jacques Demy’s Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a romantic and colorful French musical that depicts a blue city block and a yellow fire hydrant, says Wasco. That film influenced the primary-colored clothing and vibrant art direction of La La Land. 
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
Do those jazz clubs in the movie really exist?
cxenseparse_end

Sebastian takes Mia to see some “real jazz” at the Lighthouse Cafe, a music venue in Hermosa Beach. (Photo: Dale Robinette)
cxenseparse_start
The Lighthouse Cafe, where Sebastian takes Mia to listen to jazz, is a legendary club that plays more than just jazz music these days, and is located at the Hermosa Pier.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
Van Beek Studios, Sebastian’s favorite jazz club that turns into a Samba/tapas restaurant, never existed. The fictional “Van Beek” is a nod to jazz producer Rudy Van Gelder. What did exist in that Burbank space? A studio where Barbra Streisand recorded her hits.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
Other music venues that get screen time, but with different names, include Club Fais Do-Do on Adams Boulevard, El Rey on Wilshire Boulevard and The Blind Donkey in Long Beach, which becomes Seb’s in the film.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
The interior where Sebastian plays Christmas songs on the piano is of a Burbank restaurant called Smoke House.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
Why does Mia have a giant Ingrid Bergman poster?
cxenseparse_end

Ingrid Bergman shares a scene with Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca.’ Bergman is a favorite actress of Mia’s in ‘La La Land.’ (Photo: Turner Entertainment)
cxenseparse_start
Mia looks up to the Swedish actress who was nominated for seven Oscars and won three, for Gaslight,Anastasia and Murder on the Orient Express. Mia, an aspiring actress, is such a fan that she writes her one-woman play about the star. No, you didn’t didn’t miss that part of the movie: The content of Mia’s play was cut out of La La Land for length, but “may end up in the DVD extras,” says Wasco.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
What’s with Sebastian’s chair?
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
One of Sebastian’s most prized possessions is a stool that once belonged to Hoagy Carmichael. Why the fascination? It was to “show Sebastian’s reverence to the jazz greats,” says Wasco. In real life, the stool did not actually belong to the musician who composed Stardust and Georgia on My Mind.

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2016/12/27/your-la-la-land-cheat-sheet/95602260/
 
Your ‘La La Land’ cheat sheet
Carly Mallenbaum , USA TODAY 3:39 p.m. EST December 27, 2016

Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) perform their ‘A Lovely Night’ song and dance in ‘La La Land.’ The scene was shot near Griffith Observatory. (Photo: Dale Robinette)
cxenseparse_start
If you’re not a native Angeleno with a vast knowledge of old Hollywood and jazz, chances are you’ll have some questions about the locations and pop-culture references in La La Land.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
That’s where we come in. Here’s the backstory on a few insidery nods in the acclaimed movie, which is bound to boost tourism to Los Angeles and inspire new movie-musical fans.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
How does Rebel Without A Cause figure into this movie?
cxenseparse_end

‘La La Land’ pays homage to ‘Rebel Without A Cause,’ the 1955 movie that stars James Dean and Natalie Wood. (Photo: Warner Bros.)
cxenseparse_start
If you’re like Mia (Emma Stone), and you’ve never seen Rebel Without A Cause, it’s helpful to know that her trip with Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) to the Griffith Observatory is an homage to the classic film.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
The shot of the couple driving up to the astronomy facility is the same one that’s used in Rebel, says location manager Robert Foulkes. Their gravity-defying waltz was meant to look like another location from the 1955 film — the Samuel Oschin Planetarium — though it’s since been renovated. Production designer David Wasco, who worked on the film with his wife, Sandy Reynolds-Wasco, says the dreamy dance scene was shot on a set so they could give it art deco style and use wires to lift the actors.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
What’s the deal with the pool parties?
cxenseparse_end

British artist David Hockney shows off one of his L.A. pool paintings in the oversized Sumo publication ‘A Bigger Book.’ The artist’s work inspired the set design of a pool party in ‘La La Land.’ (Photo: Arne Dedert, EPA)
cxenseparse_start
“Pool parties are synonymous with Los Angeles,” says Wasco. Mia attends two in the film: an upscale schmooze-fest at night and a swimsuit-filled party during in the day with Sebastian’s ’80s cover band. The former party was filmed in Encino, but meant to feel like a party in the Hollywood Hills. The latter soirée was based on ’60s pop art paintings of L.A. swimming pools like David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash (that giant yellow diving board outside of what looks like Don Draper’s house).
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
Is The Rialto a real place?
cxenseparse_end

Sebastian takes Emma to see ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ at The Rialto, a real theater in South Pasadena. (Photo: Dale Robinette, Lionsgate via AP)
cxenseparse_start
Yes, the theater where Mia and Sebastian see Rebel Without A Cause is a historic movie palace in South Pasadena. Today, however, it’s only available for private parties. Director Damien Chazelle “loved the old red velvet seats that are still in there,” says Foulkes.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
What inspired the bright clothing?
cxenseparse_end

The clothing in ‘La La Land,’ including what’s worn in the opening scene on the freeway, has plenty of bright greens, blues, reds and yellows. (Photo: Dale Robinette)
cxenseparse_start
Chazelle screened classic films for his cast and crew, including Jacques Demy’s Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a romantic and colorful French musical that depicts a blue city block and a yellow fire hydrant, says Wasco. That film influenced the primary-colored clothing and vibrant art direction of La La Land. 
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
Do those jazz clubs in the movie really exist?
cxenseparse_end

Sebastian takes Mia to see some “real jazz” at the Lighthouse Cafe, a music venue in Hermosa Beach. (Photo: Dale Robinette)
cxenseparse_start
The Lighthouse Cafe, where Sebastian takes Mia to listen to jazz, is a legendary club that plays more than just jazz music these days, and is located at the Hermosa Pier.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
Van Beek Studios, Sebastian’s favorite jazz club that turns into a Samba/tapas restaurant, never existed. The fictional “Van Beek” is a nod to jazz producer Rudy Van Gelder. What did exist in that Burbank space? A studio where Barbra Streisand recorded her hits.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
Other music venues that get screen time, but with different names, include Club Fais Do-Do on Adams Boulevard, El Rey on Wilshire Boulevard and The Blind Donkey in Long Beach, which becomes Seb’s in the film.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
The interior where Sebastian plays Christmas songs on the piano is of a Burbank restaurant called Smoke House.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
Why does Mia have a giant Ingrid Bergman poster?
cxenseparse_end

Ingrid Bergman shares a scene with Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca.’ Bergman is a favorite actress of Mia’s in ‘La La Land.’ (Photo: Turner Entertainment)
cxenseparse_start
Mia looks up to the Swedish actress who was nominated for seven Oscars and won three, for Gaslight,Anastasia and Murder on the Orient Express. Mia, an aspiring actress, is such a fan that she writes her one-woman play about the star. No, you didn’t didn’t miss that part of the movie: The content of Mia’s play was cut out of La La Land for length, but “may end up in the DVD extras,” says Wasco.
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
What’s with Sebastian’s chair?
cxenseparse_end cxenseparse_start
One of Sebastian’s most prized possessions is a stool that once belonged to Hoagy Carmichael. Why the fascination? It was to “show Sebastian’s reverence to the jazz greats,” says Wasco. In real life, the stool did not actually belong to the musician who composed Stardust and Georgia on My Mind.

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/12/27/bartender-pivitol-figure-in-citys-jazz-scene.html
 
Ron Yednock | 1937-2016: Dick’s Den bartender pivotal figure in Columbus jazz scene

Ron Yednock began bartending at Dick’s Den in 1970 and over the years helped create a niche for jazz at the campus-area venue. Will Shilling/Dispatch
 
A popular bartender at Dick’s Den in the University District credited with boosting Columbus’ jazz scene died on Christmas Day, three days after he was struck by a car whose driver told police she was trying to avoid a bicyclist who ran a red light.
 
Ron Yednock, 79, of West Norwich Avenue died at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. His daughter, Sarah Yednock, said he was walking back from a local laundry when he was struck.
“Everyone knew him as a great believer of jazz music, really committed to creating a space for jazz in the city,” Sarah Yednock said.
 
According to Columbus police, Yednock was walking in the crosswalk across North High Street from east to west at Patterson Avenue about 4:15 p.m. Thursday. A car driven by Suzanne Robinson, 21, of Clintonville, was turning from eastbound Patterson to northbound High Street.
 
According to the report, Robinson told police that there was a northbound bicycle on High that didn’t stop for the light. She was watching the bicycle and didn’t see Yednock in the crosswalk. Police cited Robinson for failure to yield.
Yednock was taken to the hospital in stable condition, but his conditioned worsened.
 
Yednock began working at Dick’s Den, 2417 N. High St., in 1970. Aaron Snyder, one of the bar’s co-owners, said Yednock loved jazz, and while Columbus had many venues for rock bands, Yednock helped create a niche for jazz at Dick’s.
 
“There was no place for jazz. That’s why he supported it,” Snyder said. “He was a total beatnik, man.”
 
Snyder called Yednock “probably the greatest mentor of my life” when Snyder began working at the bar two decades ago, when he was a 22-year-old from Nelsonville in Hocking County.
“Amazing, sophisticated, a well-rounded, common kind of man,” Snyder said.
 
Former Dick’s Den co-owner John Sondej roomed with Yednock from 1968 to 1977 on Norwich Avenue. He said Yednock booked acts during the 1970s and ‘80s.
 
“We started with jazz on Sunday. He was instrumental in getting some other jazz performers Friday and Saturday,” Sondej said.
 
Curtis Schieber, who hosts a local radio program and writes free-lance reviews for The Dispatch, said many Ohio State students got their first taste of jazz 20 to 30 years ago when visiting Dick’s Den. “The beers were cheap, the music was great,” he said.
 
Yednock was scheduled to work on Friday. Sondej said he and others celebrated Yednock’s birthday Wednesday; Yednock turned 79 four days before, on Dec. 17.
Sarah Yednock said her father was planning to throw his annual New Year’s Eve party. In past years, people would stop by his place before heading to Dick’s Den.
“He had many, many friends. He loved to party,” she said.
 
She said there are no funeral plans for her father, other than to throw that New Year’s Eve party at his house in his honor.
mferenchik@dispatch.com
@MarkFerenchik

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http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/12/27/bartender-pivitol-figure-in-citys-jazz-scene.html
 
Ron Yednock | 1937-2016: Dick’s Den bartender pivotal figure in Columbus jazz scene

Ron Yednock began bartending at Dick’s Den in 1970 and over the years helped create a niche for jazz at the campus-area venue. Will Shilling/Dispatch
 
A popular bartender at Dick’s Den in the University District credited with boosting Columbus’ jazz scene died on Christmas Day, three days after he was struck by a car whose driver told police she was trying to avoid a bicyclist who ran a red light.
 
Ron Yednock, 79, of West Norwich Avenue died at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. His daughter, Sarah Yednock, said he was walking back from a local laundry when he was struck.
“Everyone knew him as a great believer of jazz music, really committed to creating a space for jazz in the city,” Sarah Yednock said.
 
According to Columbus police, Yednock was walking in the crosswalk across North High Street from east to west at Patterson Avenue about 4:15 p.m. Thursday. A car driven by Suzanne Robinson, 21, of Clintonville, was turning from eastbound Patterson to northbound High Street.
 
According to the report, Robinson told police that there was a northbound bicycle on High that didn’t stop for the light. She was watching the bicycle and didn’t see Yednock in the crosswalk. Police cited Robinson for failure to yield.
Yednock was taken to the hospital in stable condition, but his conditioned worsened.
 
Yednock began working at Dick’s Den, 2417 N. High St., in 1970. Aaron Snyder, one of the bar’s co-owners, said Yednock loved jazz, and while Columbus had many venues for rock bands, Yednock helped create a niche for jazz at Dick’s.
 
“There was no place for jazz. That’s why he supported it,” Snyder said. “He was a total beatnik, man.”
 
Snyder called Yednock “probably the greatest mentor of my life” when Snyder began working at the bar two decades ago, when he was a 22-year-old from Nelsonville in Hocking County.
“Amazing, sophisticated, a well-rounded, common kind of man,” Snyder said.
 
Former Dick’s Den co-owner John Sondej roomed with Yednock from 1968 to 1977 on Norwich Avenue. He said Yednock booked acts during the 1970s and ‘80s.
 
“We started with jazz on Sunday. He was instrumental in getting some other jazz performers Friday and Saturday,” Sondej said.
 
Curtis Schieber, who hosts a local radio program and writes free-lance reviews for The Dispatch, said many Ohio State students got their first taste of jazz 20 to 30 years ago when visiting Dick’s Den. “The beers were cheap, the music was great,” he said.
 
Yednock was scheduled to work on Friday. Sondej said he and others celebrated Yednock’s birthday Wednesday; Yednock turned 79 four days before, on Dec. 17.
Sarah Yednock said her father was planning to throw his annual New Year’s Eve party. In past years, people would stop by his place before heading to Dick’s Den.
“He had many, many friends. He loved to party,” she said.
 
She said there are no funeral plans for her father, other than to throw that New Year’s Eve party at his house in his honor.
mferenchik@dispatch.com
@MarkFerenchik

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df2IrFCICpY

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df2IrFCICpY

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1XGZmXpIZE

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1XGZmXpIZE

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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/jazz-saxophonist-charles-lloyd-lifelong-intoxication-music/
 
For the latest installment in our music series, the NewsHour’s Frank Carlson caught up with jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd. Lloyd reflects on his lifelong love of music, his childhood in the musical haven of Memphis and why he believes jazz is the genre of “freedom and wonder.”

 

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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/jazz-saxophonist-charles-lloyd-lifelong-intoxication-music/
 
For the latest installment in our music series, the NewsHour’s Frank Carlson caught up with jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd. Lloyd reflects on his lifelong love of music, his childhood in the musical haven of Memphis and why he believes jazz is the genre of “freedom and wonder.”

 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/26/arts/music/newvelle-records-jazz-label-vinyl.html?emc=edit_tnt_20161226
 
Streams? What Streams? For Newvelle Records, Vinyl Is the Future
By GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO DEC. 26, 2016
 

 
Elan Mehler, a founder of Newvelle Records, at a performance space near his home in Cambridge, Mass. Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times
 
PEEKSKILL, N.Y. — The jazz pianist Elan Mehler hovered over a vinyl-cutting lathe at Masterdisk studios as a mastering engineer laid a blank disc onto the plate and paused for a moment, listening for hints of interference as the blade sliced across the surface.
 
The men were here, an hour north of New York City, to cut master recordings for Newvelle Records, the small label that Mr. Mehler, 37, founded two years ago with his business partner, Jean-Christophe Morisseau. The discs will be sent to France to be replicated en masse and mailed to Newvelle’s subscribers.
Well, sort of en masse. Like everything at Newvelle, these records will be released only on vinyl, in small releases of 500. No CDs, no digital downloads, no streaming.
It’s all part of Mr. Mehler’s plan to produce first-rate jazz recordings in the digital age. That the music will reach only a small handful of listeners, at least initially, is a necessary downside, Mr. Mehler said.
 
“It’s a model that sustains the music,” he said. “I came to this idea of how to record because of how difficult it is to make a record as a jazz musician.”
 
Jazz accounted for just 1 percent of all record sales in the United States in 2015, according to Nielsen’s year-end report. But jazz buyers do purchase actual albums: Almost half of those jazz records were bought in physical form. And across all genres, vinyl sales continue to rise; according to Nielsen’s midyear report, in the first half of 2016, vinyl accounted for 12 percent of physical album sales, up 3 percent over the same period a year ago.
 
Mr. Mehler first had the idea to start a label that would marshal the appeal of vinyl a few years ago, while living in Paris. He mentioned it to Mr. Morisseau, 48, a French businessman who was taking piano lessons from him. They started meeting regularly and sketched out a plan.
 
Musicians would receive a flat fee to record their albums, with Newvelle fronting the cost of production at a world-class studio in Lower Manhattan. The label would retain exclusive rights to the music for two years, offering it only on elegantly packaged vinyl and only to subscribers, who would pay $400 for a year’s worth of recordings: six in all, sent at two-month intervals.
After two years, the artists would have the right to release the music independently, as long as Newvelle retained exclusive vinyl-distribution privileges.
 
Mr. Mehler and Mr. Morisseau released their first season over the past year, reaching about 200 subscribers, and in November they completed a Kickstarter campaign to finance the second. That drive signed up about 50 subscribers and raised over $25,000.
 
Newvelle’s records adhere to the kind of gossamer, “chamber jazz” aesthetic that characterizes most of Mr. Mehler’s work as a pianist, but they feature a range of musicians, from jazz’s nobility to its rising stars.
 

 
Jean-Christophe Morisseau, a founder of Newvelle Records, at his Paris home. Alex Cretey-Systermans for The New York Times
 
For the first season, the pre-eminent drummer and sometime keyboardist Jack DeJohnette recorded his first solo piano album, “Return,” a collection of gentle but austere compositions, often in a plaintive minor key. Noah Preminger, a young tenor saxophonist with a dusted and blossoming tone, made a ballads record with an all-star quartet.
 
Each album in the first season featured images by the French photographer Bernard Plossu, and poems from the Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith were printed in the liner notes. This season, which is priced at $360, the albums will feature photos by the French collective Tendance Floue. The novelist Douglas Kennedy is writing a short story that will be serialized across the six records, with a different portion on each album cover.
 
Rufus Reid, an esteemed bassist, has recorded an album for the coming season, featuring his jazz trio alongside the Sirius String Quartet. He said he was grateful for the opportunity to produce a graceful product and to see his ambitions encouraged rather than resisted. “I think there’s been a longing for people to listen more intently, and the vinyl kind of makes you do that,” he said, adding, “Other labels aren’t really putting out any cash for the whole kit and caboodle of recording an album.”
 
In its focus on vinyl and its distinctive, brand-coherent album art, Newvelle is a kind of throwback to jazz’s midcentury glories. But it’s also timely. Vinyl is becoming the quintessential luxury item for a music business in transition. And across industries, small companies like Newvelle are using subscription services to market niche products.
 
“The vinyl form, for Elan, really represented this idea of a pure sound, something that’s very high-quality and that every artist is very keen on,” Mr. Morisseau said. “So my idea was to say, ‘O.K., let’s treat the vinyl and the music like a luxury good.’”
 
For Newvelle’s musicians, the studio does not serve as a conduit to a broad audience so much as a site for the celebration of their craft. It does little to emulate the bandstand, jazz’s onetime breeding ground, but it does suggest a survival technique for jazz in lean times. And it signals that when jazz becomes a luxury item, product may matter more than populism.
 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/26/arts/music/newvelle-records-jazz-label-vinyl.html?emc=edit_tnt_20161226
 
Streams? What Streams? For Newvelle Records, Vinyl Is the Future
By GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO DEC. 26, 2016
 

 
Elan Mehler, a founder of Newvelle Records, at a performance space near his home in Cambridge, Mass. Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times
 
PEEKSKILL, N.Y. — The jazz pianist Elan Mehler hovered over a vinyl-cutting lathe at Masterdisk studios as a mastering engineer laid a blank disc onto the plate and paused for a moment, listening for hints of interference as the blade sliced across the surface.
 
The men were here, an hour north of New York City, to cut master recordings for Newvelle Records, the small label that Mr. Mehler, 37, founded two years ago with his business partner, Jean-Christophe Morisseau. The discs will be sent to France to be replicated en masse and mailed to Newvelle’s subscribers.
Well, sort of en masse. Like everything at Newvelle, these records will be released only on vinyl, in small releases of 500. No CDs, no digital downloads, no streaming.
It’s all part of Mr. Mehler’s plan to produce first-rate jazz recordings in the digital age. That the music will reach only a small handful of listeners, at least initially, is a necessary downside, Mr. Mehler said.
 
“It’s a model that sustains the music,” he said. “I came to this idea of how to record because of how difficult it is to make a record as a jazz musician.”
 
Jazz accounted for just 1 percent of all record sales in the United States in 2015, according to Nielsen’s year-end report. But jazz buyers do purchase actual albums: Almost half of those jazz records were bought in physical form. And across all genres, vinyl sales continue to rise; according to Nielsen’s midyear report, in the first half of 2016, vinyl accounted for 12 percent of physical album sales, up 3 percent over the same period a year ago.
 
Mr. Mehler first had the idea to start a label that would marshal the appeal of vinyl a few years ago, while living in Paris. He mentioned it to Mr. Morisseau, 48, a French businessman who was taking piano lessons from him. They started meeting regularly and sketched out a plan.
 
Musicians would receive a flat fee to record their albums, with Newvelle fronting the cost of production at a world-class studio in Lower Manhattan. The label would retain exclusive rights to the music for two years, offering it only on elegantly packaged vinyl and only to subscribers, who would pay $400 for a year’s worth of recordings: six in all, sent at two-month intervals.
After two years, the artists would have the right to release the music independently, as long as Newvelle retained exclusive vinyl-distribution privileges.
 
Mr. Mehler and Mr. Morisseau released their first season over the past year, reaching about 200 subscribers, and in November they completed a Kickstarter campaign to finance the second. That drive signed up about 50 subscribers and raised over $25,000.
 
Newvelle’s records adhere to the kind of gossamer, “chamber jazz” aesthetic that characterizes most of Mr. Mehler’s work as a pianist, but they feature a range of musicians, from jazz’s nobility to its rising stars.
 

 
Jean-Christophe Morisseau, a founder of Newvelle Records, at his Paris home. Alex Cretey-Systermans for The New York Times
 
For the first season, the pre-eminent drummer and sometime keyboardist Jack DeJohnette recorded his first solo piano album, “Return,” a collection of gentle but austere compositions, often in a plaintive minor key. Noah Preminger, a young tenor saxophonist with a dusted and blossoming tone, made a ballads record with an all-star quartet.
 
Each album in the first season featured images by the French photographer Bernard Plossu, and poems from the Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith were printed in the liner notes. This season, which is priced at $360, the albums will feature photos by the French collective Tendance Floue. The novelist Douglas Kennedy is writing a short story that will be serialized across the six records, with a different portion on each album cover.
 
Rufus Reid, an esteemed bassist, has recorded an album for the coming season, featuring his jazz trio alongside the Sirius String Quartet. He said he was grateful for the opportunity to produce a graceful product and to see his ambitions encouraged rather than resisted. “I think there’s been a longing for people to listen more intently, and the vinyl kind of makes you do that,” he said, adding, “Other labels aren’t really putting out any cash for the whole kit and caboodle of recording an album.”
 
In its focus on vinyl and its distinctive, brand-coherent album art, Newvelle is a kind of throwback to jazz’s midcentury glories. But it’s also timely. Vinyl is becoming the quintessential luxury item for a music business in transition. And across industries, small companies like Newvelle are using subscription services to market niche products.
 
“The vinyl form, for Elan, really represented this idea of a pure sound, something that’s very high-quality and that every artist is very keen on,” Mr. Morisseau said. “So my idea was to say, ‘O.K., let’s treat the vinyl and the music like a luxury good.’”
 
For Newvelle’s musicians, the studio does not serve as a conduit to a broad audience so much as a site for the celebration of their craft. It does little to emulate the bandstand, jazz’s onetime breeding ground, but it does suggest a survival technique for jazz in lean times. And it signals that when jazz becomes a luxury item, product may matter more than populism.
 

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http://www.soultracks.com/story-alphonse-mouzon-dies
 
 
Legendary drummer Alphonse Mouzon dies at age 68

(December 26, 2016) We are sad today to inform SoulTrackers of the death of legendary jazz drummer Alphonse Mouzon, after a battle with Neuroendocrine Carcinoma, a rare form of cancer. He was 68. It was just over two months ago that Mouzon was informed of the severity of his illness, and was hospitalized.
 
During his career, Mouzon was known as one of the world’s greatest drummers, and he worked with many of the most notable artists in both soul and jazz.
 
Mouzon was born on November 21, 1948 in Charleston, South Carolina, and received his first musical training at Bonds-Wilson High School. He then moved to New York City upon graduation, and studied drama and music at the City College of New York as well as medicine at Manhattan Medical School. Mouzon continued receiving drum lessons from Bobby Thomas, the drummer for jazz pianist Billy Taylor, and played percussion in the Broadway show “Promises, Promises.” He then worked with pianist McCoy Tyner, and spent a year as a member of the jazz fusion band, Weather Report. After that Mouzon signed as a solo artist to the Blue Note label in 1972.
 
Mouzon’s visibility increased with his tenure with guitarist Larry Coryell’s Eleventh House fusion band from 1973 to 1975, working on such albums as Introducing the Eleventh House, and Level One. From 1972-76, he recorded a series of R&B albums on Blue Note Records, including The Essence Of Mystery, Funky Snakefoot and The Man Incognito, returning in the 1980s with By All Means, featuring Herbie Hancock, Lee Ritenour, Seawind Horns and Freddie Hubbard.
 
Alphonse Mouzon also played and/or recorded with many of the active musicians of the jazz-fusion genre. In 1991, he performed with Miles Davis on the movie soundtrack album entitled Dingo. Mouzon composed the song “The Blue Spot” for the jazz club scene and appeared as an actor and drummer in the Tom Hanks-directed film, That Thing You Do in 1996. Alphonse Mouzon played the role of “Miles” in the film The Highlife, which was exhibited at a film festival in Houston in 2003. He also can be seen with Michael Keaton and Katie Holmes in the film First Daughter, and as ‘Ray” in the movie The Dukes, along with Robert Davi, Chazz Palminteri and Peter Bogdanovich.
 
Mouzon has also played with Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana, Patrick Moraz, Betty Davis and Chubby Checker. Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin), during his acceptance speech for induction into the 1995 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, listed Alphonse Mouzon as one of the band’s influences from American music.
 
In 1992 Alphonse Mouzon formed Tenacious Records and, also in 1992, released his CD entitled The Survivor. Subsequent releases on Tenacious Records include On Top of the World, Early Spring, By All Means, Love Fantasy, Back to Jazz, As You Wish, The Night is Still Young, The Sky is the Limit, Distant Lover, Morning Sun, and Absolute Greatest Love Songs and Ballads.
 
Alphonse Mouzon last contacted us a few months ago to tell us in advance about his planned album called High Noon. He remained both active and engaged in the music community throughout 2016, even as he battled the dreaded illness. His legacy of greatness will remain and will be celebrated by soul, R&B and jazz fans for years to come. Rest in peace, Alphonse.
 
 
Alphonse Mouzon Jams on Drum Channel
 
 
MILES DAVIS & CEDAR WALTON TRIBUTE – “A LABOR OF LOVE” BY ALPHONSE MOUZON
 

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http://www.soultracks.com/story-alphonse-mouzon-dies
 
 
Legendary drummer Alphonse Mouzon dies at age 68

(December 26, 2016) We are sad today to inform SoulTrackers of the death of legendary jazz drummer Alphonse Mouzon, after a battle with Neuroendocrine Carcinoma, a rare form of cancer. He was 68. It was just over two months ago that Mouzon was informed of the severity of his illness, and was hospitalized.
 
During his career, Mouzon was known as one of the world’s greatest drummers, and he worked with many of the most notable artists in both soul and jazz.
 
Mouzon was born on November 21, 1948 in Charleston, South Carolina, and received his first musical training at Bonds-Wilson High School. He then moved to New York City upon graduation, and studied drama and music at the City College of New York as well as medicine at Manhattan Medical School. Mouzon continued receiving drum lessons from Bobby Thomas, the drummer for jazz pianist Billy Taylor, and played percussion in the Broadway show “Promises, Promises.” He then worked with pianist McCoy Tyner, and spent a year as a member of the jazz fusion band, Weather Report. After that Mouzon signed as a solo artist to the Blue Note label in 1972.
 
Mouzon’s visibility increased with his tenure with guitarist Larry Coryell’s Eleventh House fusion band from 1973 to 1975, working on such albums as Introducing the Eleventh House, and Level One. From 1972-76, he recorded a series of R&B albums on Blue Note Records, including The Essence Of Mystery, Funky Snakefoot and The Man Incognito, returning in the 1980s with By All Means, featuring Herbie Hancock, Lee Ritenour, Seawind Horns and Freddie Hubbard.
 
Alphonse Mouzon also played and/or recorded with many of the active musicians of the jazz-fusion genre. In 1991, he performed with Miles Davis on the movie soundtrack album entitled Dingo. Mouzon composed the song “The Blue Spot” for the jazz club scene and appeared as an actor and drummer in the Tom Hanks-directed film, That Thing You Do in 1996. Alphonse Mouzon played the role of “Miles” in the film The Highlife, which was exhibited at a film festival in Houston in 2003. He also can be seen with Michael Keaton and Katie Holmes in the film First Daughter, and as ‘Ray” in the movie The Dukes, along with Robert Davi, Chazz Palminteri and Peter Bogdanovich.
 
Mouzon has also played with Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana, Patrick Moraz, Betty Davis and Chubby Checker. Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin), during his acceptance speech for induction into the 1995 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, listed Alphonse Mouzon as one of the band’s influences from American music.
 
In 1992 Alphonse Mouzon formed Tenacious Records and, also in 1992, released his CD entitled The Survivor. Subsequent releases on Tenacious Records include On Top of the World, Early Spring, By All Means, Love Fantasy, Back to Jazz, As You Wish, The Night is Still Young, The Sky is the Limit, Distant Lover, Morning Sun, and Absolute Greatest Love Songs and Ballads.
 
Alphonse Mouzon last contacted us a few months ago to tell us in advance about his planned album called High Noon. He remained both active and engaged in the music community throughout 2016, even as he battled the dreaded illness. His legacy of greatness will remain and will be celebrated by soul, R&B and jazz fans for years to come. Rest in peace, Alphonse.
 
 
Alphonse Mouzon Jams on Drum Channel
 
 
MILES DAVIS & CEDAR WALTON TRIBUTE – “A LABOR OF LOVE” BY ALPHONSE MOUZON
 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/nyregion/a-fancy-guitar-to-sell-but-hard-to-play-in-handcuffs.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion
 
A Fancy Guitar to Sell, but Hard to Play in Handcuffs
By MICHAEL WILSON DEC. 25, 2016
close story-meta

 
Alex Skolnick, the guitarist for the thrash metal band Testament, with the prototype of his signature guitar from Heritage Guitars, which was once stolen from him, at his home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, on Friday. Mr. Skolnick was able to retrieve at least five stolen guitars with the help of the employees of Sam Ash music store. Christopher Lee for The New York Times
The system that prevents the employees of the Sam Ash Music store in Midtown from buying stolen guitars begins before the case is even opened.
“First thing I say is, ‘What do you got there?’” said Ian Goldrich, a store manager.
If the seller’s answer is something like, “It’s a 1953 Fender Telecaster with an Esquire neck,” then it is probably legitimate.
But if the answer is “a guitar,” that’s something altogether different.
A new seller who entered Sam Ash on Sept. 28 had a plausible explanation for not knowing much about the contents of the guitar case he carried that day and, later, other cases. “His father moved to North Carolina and left him the guitars,” said Jeremy Kolmin, another manager. The store bought his Gibson that day, and $4,300 worth of other instruments, mostly guitars, in the weeks that followed.
“He’s a nice guy,” Mr. Kolmin recalled.
The staff at Sam Ash knows a lot about guitars. So when that same seller entered in late November with an electric guitar, Mr. Kolmin did a double take. He was sure he had seen it before.
close story-body close supplemental
close story-body-supplemental
Like many guitar enthusiasts, Mr. Kolmin visits the “gear pages” of musicians — links that display an artist’s favorite guitars. The seller was carrying a Heritage guitar — specifically, a Heritage Signature Skolnick, part of a limited series designed by a specific artist, Alex Skolnick. It was a unique instrument, and it made Mr. Kolmin suspicious because he followed Mr. Skolnick and recognized it from his gear page.
Then he flipped it over and saw the serial number, Z20001, and his suspicions were all but confirmed. He asked something like, “Where did you get this again?” and the seller gave the same answer about his father, he recalled.
The end digits, 001, indicated the guitar was a series prototype, not one sold by the company. It would have belonged to the artist, Mr. Skolnick.
Mr. Skolnick, 48, leads a jazz outfit, the Alex Skolnick Trio and, at this time of year, has played holiday shows with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. But to a large and loud segment of his audience, Mr. Skolnick, with his long black hair and its telltale streak of white, is best known as lead guitarist of the thrash metal band Testament.

 
Jeremy Kolmin at the Sam Ash Music store in Manhattan, where he recognized that one of the guitars was a Heritage Signature Skolnick. Christopher Lee for The New York Times
The band gained fame in the late 1980s and was known in part for the melodic style Mr. Skolnick brought to his solos within a genre that favored raw intensity. He left in the 1990s, but the band has reunited over the years and continues to perform, as they will, with more than 60 other bands on a heavy metal cruise from Florida to Haiti in February, “70,000 Tons of Metal.”
The store emailed Mr. Skolnick about the Heritage guitar. He lived in Brooklyn, but was in Berlin, wrapping up a tour with Testament.
Months earlier, in May, he had placed a lot of equipment that was piling up at home — he estimates he owns 40 guitars, along with amplifiers and other gear — in a new CubeSmart storage facility near his apartment in Park Slope. The Heritage was among the stored guitars, and he had no idea it was not in the locker.
“Indeed,” he wrote to Sam Ash in an email, “I might not have noticed for another year or so, as I’m on tour often and there are long gaps between my going through all the instruments I’m not using.”
He promised to visit his locker upon his return that week. Before that happened, on Dec. 1, the seller returned to Sam Ash with another Skolnick signature-series guitar, this one from the ESP Guitar Company.
“We called the cops and said, ‘What are we supposed to do?’” said another manager, Bobby Colonna. Officers arrived and questioned the man briefly, but without a complaint from a victim, they could not arrest him, and he left. Still, Mr. Colonna urged the man to come back in a day, pretending he needed the time to research the guitar’s worth.
At the same time, Mr. Skolnick visited his locker. It did not appear to have been tampered with, and the contents of the unit looked untouched, but some guitars were indeed absent. He swore out a complaint.
The managers at Sam Ash were sure that after the previous day’s police scrutiny, the man would not return. But return he did.
Officers returned, too, and in front of the store staff, they were able to handcuff the seller, John Olds, 51, of Harlem. “My father passed away two years ago and left me the guitars,” he told officers, according to court documents. He added, “I can’t incriminate myself.” He is in jail awaiting trial on several counts of possession of stolen property.
Mr. Skolnick got his guitars back, including the Heritage No. 1, which is again being kept where it was before the move in May: in his crowded living room, in plain sight.

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/nyregion/a-fancy-guitar-to-sell-but-hard-to-play-in-handcuffs.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion
 
A Fancy Guitar to Sell, but Hard to Play in Handcuffs
By MICHAEL WILSON DEC. 25, 2016
close story-meta

 
Alex Skolnick, the guitarist for the thrash metal band Testament, with the prototype of his signature guitar from Heritage Guitars, which was once stolen from him, at his home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, on Friday. Mr. Skolnick was able to retrieve at least five stolen guitars with the help of the employees of Sam Ash music store. Christopher Lee for The New York Times
The system that prevents the employees of the Sam Ash Music store in Midtown from buying stolen guitars begins before the case is even opened.
“First thing I say is, ‘What do you got there?’” said Ian Goldrich, a store manager.
If the seller’s answer is something like, “It’s a 1953 Fender Telecaster with an Esquire neck,” then it is probably legitimate.
But if the answer is “a guitar,” that’s something altogether different.
A new seller who entered Sam Ash on Sept. 28 had a plausible explanation for not knowing much about the contents of the guitar case he carried that day and, later, other cases. “His father moved to North Carolina and left him the guitars,” said Jeremy Kolmin, another manager. The store bought his Gibson that day, and $4,300 worth of other instruments, mostly guitars, in the weeks that followed.
“He’s a nice guy,” Mr. Kolmin recalled.
The staff at Sam Ash knows a lot about guitars. So when that same seller entered in late November with an electric guitar, Mr. Kolmin did a double take. He was sure he had seen it before.
close story-body close supplemental
close story-body-supplemental
Like many guitar enthusiasts, Mr. Kolmin visits the “gear pages” of musicians — links that display an artist’s favorite guitars. The seller was carrying a Heritage guitar — specifically, a Heritage Signature Skolnick, part of a limited series designed by a specific artist, Alex Skolnick. It was a unique instrument, and it made Mr. Kolmin suspicious because he followed Mr. Skolnick and recognized it from his gear page.
Then he flipped it over and saw the serial number, Z20001, and his suspicions were all but confirmed. He asked something like, “Where did you get this again?” and the seller gave the same answer about his father, he recalled.
The end digits, 001, indicated the guitar was a series prototype, not one sold by the company. It would have belonged to the artist, Mr. Skolnick.
Mr. Skolnick, 48, leads a jazz outfit, the Alex Skolnick Trio and, at this time of year, has played holiday shows with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. But to a large and loud segment of his audience, Mr. Skolnick, with his long black hair and its telltale streak of white, is best known as lead guitarist of the thrash metal band Testament.

 
Jeremy Kolmin at the Sam Ash Music store in Manhattan, where he recognized that one of the guitars was a Heritage Signature Skolnick. Christopher Lee for The New York Times
The band gained fame in the late 1980s and was known in part for the melodic style Mr. Skolnick brought to his solos within a genre that favored raw intensity. He left in the 1990s, but the band has reunited over the years and continues to perform, as they will, with more than 60 other bands on a heavy metal cruise from Florida to Haiti in February, “70,000 Tons of Metal.”
The store emailed Mr. Skolnick about the Heritage guitar. He lived in Brooklyn, but was in Berlin, wrapping up a tour with Testament.
Months earlier, in May, he had placed a lot of equipment that was piling up at home — he estimates he owns 40 guitars, along with amplifiers and other gear — in a new CubeSmart storage facility near his apartment in Park Slope. The Heritage was among the stored guitars, and he had no idea it was not in the locker.
“Indeed,” he wrote to Sam Ash in an email, “I might not have noticed for another year or so, as I’m on tour often and there are long gaps between my going through all the instruments I’m not using.”
He promised to visit his locker upon his return that week. Before that happened, on Dec. 1, the seller returned to Sam Ash with another Skolnick signature-series guitar, this one from the ESP Guitar Company.
“We called the cops and said, ‘What are we supposed to do?’” said another manager, Bobby Colonna. Officers arrived and questioned the man briefly, but without a complaint from a victim, they could not arrest him, and he left. Still, Mr. Colonna urged the man to come back in a day, pretending he needed the time to research the guitar’s worth.
At the same time, Mr. Skolnick visited his locker. It did not appear to have been tampered with, and the contents of the unit looked untouched, but some guitars were indeed absent. He swore out a complaint.
The managers at Sam Ash were sure that after the previous day’s police scrutiny, the man would not return. But return he did.
Officers returned, too, and in front of the store staff, they were able to handcuff the seller, John Olds, 51, of Harlem. “My father passed away two years ago and left me the guitars,” he told officers, according to court documents. He added, “I can’t incriminate myself.” He is in jail awaiting trial on several counts of possession of stolen property.
Mr. Skolnick got his guitars back, including the Heritage No. 1, which is again being kept where it was before the move in May: in his crowded living room, in plain sight.

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http://slippedisc.com/2016/12/a-principal-oboe-plays-jingle-bells-through-her-nose/?utm_source=feedburner

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http://slippedisc.com/2016/12/a-principal-oboe-plays-jingle-bells-through-her-nose/?utm_source=feedburner

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http://www.travelchannel.com/shows/mysteries-at-the-museum/video/singing-convict

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http://www.travelchannel.com/shows/mysteries-at-the-museum/video/singing-convict

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgaOdiDK7hA

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‘Give Me A Klue’ by Kluet the Orangutan at the Adelaide Zoo – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdE3ligLu5U

In other fake news president elect Donald J. Trump has just announced the following appointments:
 
Dog The Bounty Hunter will head up the US Border Patrol.
Chris Christie will head up the Department of Weights and Measures.
And finally the CEO of The Home Shopping Network will head up the Department of Consumer Affairs.
 

Don’t Know What To Watch This Weekend Try This:

Rod Serling’s Patterns – (1955) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEUHl8RGrpk&t=1926s

A famous teleplay starring Ed Begley, Everett Sloane and Richard Kiley (who used to live in Warwick, NY btw). Elizabeth Montgomery has a bit part. It aired live on January 12, 1955. The New York Times critic Jack Gould, hailed it as a breakthrough and suggested a second showing. On February 9, NBC again broadcast the play live with the same cast. This was the first time and perhaps the only time in history that a performance was repeated live on American television. This kine-scope is from the first broadcast because the second broadcast did not have commercials.
 
Directed by Fielder Cook, the intense big-business drama starred Richard Kiley as up-and-coming vice-president Fred Staples. Ruthless corporate boss Walter Ramsey (Everett Sloane) attempts to edge out aging employee Andy Sloane (Ed Begley) to make room for newcomer Staples. Ramsey uses every opportunity to humiliate the fragile Sloane, while Staples sees Sloane as a professional who makes valuable contributions to the firm.

Serling’s celebrated script tore apart the dynamics of the business world and earned Serling his first of his six Emmys for dramatic writing.

Here’s The Film Version (Wiki Info)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3ycVdWqsEA&list=FLqvQOa9YNT4vpfp-08nWsLg&index=3
 
Jump To 52:42 For Great Scene With Ed Begley and Van Heflin

And Now For Something A Little Lighter (I Think):
 
Steve Adubato talks with Frank DiMatteo, author of “The President Street Boys: Growing Up Mafia,” to discuss his book and what it was really like to grow up in the mob.
http://steveadubato.org/frank-dimatteo-describes-growing-up-mafia.html

Merry Christmas Everybody!
 
 
Jim Eigo
Jazz Promo Services
272 State Route 94 South #1
Warwick, NY 10990-3363
Ph: 845-986-1677 / Fax: 845-986-1699
Cell / text: 917-755-8960
Skype: jazzpromo
jim@jazzpromoservices.com
www.jazzpromoservices.com
“Specializing in Media Campaigns for the music community, artists, labels, venues and events.”

 

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO

‘Give Me A Klue’ by Kluet the Orangutan at the Adelaide Zoo – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdE3ligLu5U

In other fake news president elect Donald J. Trump has just announced the following appointments:
 
Dog The Bounty Hunter will head up the US Border Patrol.
Chris Christie will head up the Department of Weights and Measures.
And finally the CEO of The Home Shopping Network will head up the Department of Consumer Affairs.
 

Don’t Know What To Watch This Weekend Try This:

Rod Serling’s Patterns – (1955) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEUHl8RGrpk&t=1926s

A famous teleplay starring Ed Begley, Everett Sloane and Richard Kiley (who used to live in Warwick, NY btw). Elizabeth Montgomery has a bit part. It aired live on January 12, 1955. The New York Times critic Jack Gould, hailed it as a breakthrough and suggested a second showing. On February 9, NBC again broadcast the play live with the same cast. This was the first time and perhaps the only time in history that a performance was repeated live on American television. This kine-scope is from the first broadcast because the second broadcast did not have commercials.
 
Directed by Fielder Cook, the intense big-business drama starred Richard Kiley as up-and-coming vice-president Fred Staples. Ruthless corporate boss Walter Ramsey (Everett Sloane) attempts to edge out aging employee Andy Sloane (Ed Begley) to make room for newcomer Staples. Ramsey uses every opportunity to humiliate the fragile Sloane, while Staples sees Sloane as a professional who makes valuable contributions to the firm.

Serling’s celebrated script tore apart the dynamics of the business world and earned Serling his first of his six Emmys for dramatic writing.

Here’s The Film Version (Wiki Info)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3ycVdWqsEA&list=FLqvQOa9YNT4vpfp-08nWsLg&index=3
 
Jump To 52:42 For Great Scene With Ed Begley and Van Heflin

And Now For Something A Little Lighter (I Think):
 
Steve Adubato talks with Frank DiMatteo, author of “The President Street Boys: Growing Up Mafia,” to discuss his book and what it was really like to grow up in the mob.
http://steveadubato.org/frank-dimatteo-describes-growing-up-mafia.html

Merry Christmas Everybody!
 
 
Jim Eigo
Jazz Promo Services
272 State Route 94 South #1
Warwick, NY 10990-3363
Ph: 845-986-1677 / Fax: 845-986-1699
Cell / text: 917-755-8960
Skype: jazzpromo
jim@jazzpromoservices.com
www.jazzpromoservices.com
“Specializing in Media Campaigns for the music community, artists, labels, venues and events.”

 

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO

It’s Ahmad Jamal – Snowfall (Live At The Alhambra) – YouTube
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht2La_IhFvQ
 
With Israel Crosby, Vernell Fournier 

Boots Randolph – Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ausf2tAkLV4

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO

It’s Ahmad Jamal – Snowfall (Live At The Alhambra) – YouTube
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht2La_IhFvQ
 
With Israel Crosby, Vernell Fournier 

Boots Randolph – Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ausf2tAkLV4

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/arts/music/popcast-year-in-jazz.html?emc=edit_tnt_20161223
 
After a Robust 2016, Jazz’s Center Is Up for Grabs
By JON CARAMANICA DEC. 23, 2016

 
Joey Alexander, performing last year at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola. Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
This was a strong year in jazz, especially in the genre’s various avant-garde wings, with outstanding releases from Henry Threadgill, the Mary Halvorson Octet, Steve Lehman, and Wadada Leo Smith. And Joey Alexander performed a duet with Kelsea Ballerini!
At the same time, jazz found ways to continue to seep out into the cultural mainstream, from David Bowie’s final album, “Blackstar,” to the film “La La Land,” to the way Kendrick Lamar’s extended musical ecosystem has embraced the Los Angeles jazz world.
 
Which maybe means that jazz’s center, such as it exists, is more up for grabs than ever. Though given the way individual artists are self-releasing albums — pulling away from the old traditional-label ecosystem — the could be a promising development.
To talk about this year’s jazz happenings, I spoke with Nate Chinen, a critic who covers the genre for The New York Times; Seth Colter Walls, who writes for Pitchfork and The Guardian; Kyla Marshell, a poet and writer who’s contributed to The Guardian and Revive Music; and Ben Ratliff, former don of the Popcast, returning for a victory lap.
Related articles
Mary Halvorson on Guitar: Unflinching and Full of Grace
Review: Wadada Leo Smith and Vijay Iyer Share Their Influence Through Duets
On David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar,’ Turning to Jazz for Inspiration
 
 

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/arts/music/popcast-year-in-jazz.html?emc=edit_tnt_20161223
 
After a Robust 2016, Jazz’s Center Is Up for Grabs
By JON CARAMANICA DEC. 23, 2016

 
Joey Alexander, performing last year at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola. Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
This was a strong year in jazz, especially in the genre’s various avant-garde wings, with outstanding releases from Henry Threadgill, the Mary Halvorson Octet, Steve Lehman, and Wadada Leo Smith. And Joey Alexander performed a duet with Kelsea Ballerini!
At the same time, jazz found ways to continue to seep out into the cultural mainstream, from David Bowie’s final album, “Blackstar,” to the film “La La Land,” to the way Kendrick Lamar’s extended musical ecosystem has embraced the Los Angeles jazz world.
 
Which maybe means that jazz’s center, such as it exists, is more up for grabs than ever. Though given the way individual artists are self-releasing albums — pulling away from the old traditional-label ecosystem — the could be a promising development.
To talk about this year’s jazz happenings, I spoke with Nate Chinen, a critic who covers the genre for The New York Times; Seth Colter Walls, who writes for Pitchfork and The Guardian; Kyla Marshell, a poet and writer who’s contributed to The Guardian and Revive Music; and Ben Ratliff, former don of the Popcast, returning for a victory lap.
Related articles
Mary Halvorson on Guitar: Unflinching and Full of Grace
Review: Wadada Leo Smith and Vijay Iyer Share Their Influence Through Duets
On David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar,’ Turning to Jazz for Inspiration
 
 

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO

http://forward.com/culture/210719/how-an-okie-named-woody-guthrie-became-our-best-ha/
 
How an Okie Named Woody Guthrie Became Our Best Hanukkah Tunesmith
Thomas ConnerDecember 20, 2016Kurt Hoffman
For 20 years, I was a pop music critic. Every year as the calendar wound down, here came one of music journalism’s over-roasted chestnuts: the annual roundup of new Christmas albums. I never groaned. I’m one of those Christmas music people. As soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is down my gullet, I’m trotting out the tinseled tunes. And each year, somehow, the same old songs are rechristened, rearranged, repackaged anew. It’s the big catalog that could. It’s the lamp that you’d think should have burned out a long time ago.
Likewise, each year I make a holiday music mixtape (sigh, it’s a playlist now) for friends and family. Again, I keep worrying the well will run dry, that a new generation of young indie rockers couldn’t possibly have an interest in filling us up with more fa-la-la-la fluff, and each year I’m amazed at the sheer regenerative power of all that holiday hegemony.
 
 
The Art Lover’s Guide to Israel
Sponsored
Of course, I’ve tried to include the occasional Hanukkah song. All these years along and I’m still asking — any suggestions?
There are some handsome pop renditions of “Ma’oz Tzur” (Marc Cohn, Ben Kweller), and Beck’s funked-out “The Little Drum Machine Boy” is a wonderfully wacky celebration of being a “Hanukkah pimp.” (I’ve never been able to bring myself to include comedian Adam Sandler’s sophomoric ode to the eight days.) But countless Jewish songwriters have bedecked the halls with Christmas classics — “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Song,” “Let It Snow,” “Sleigh Ride,” on and on — meanwhile, no real Hanukkah hits? Not even in the ’60s from swingin’ Tikva Records?
An unlikely songwriter once tried to change that. A fellow Okie, no less. He wasn’t successful, either, but the rediscovered trove of his Hanukkah hootenannies — polished nicely by acclaimed klezmer band the Klezmatics for the album “Happy Joyous Hanukkah” — remains a bright light for the season’s celebration.
TAG START { player: “19825-858232-forward desktop outstream”, owner: “ONE Video by AOL”, for: “ONE Video by AOL” – BEINJS }
Woody Guthrie blew into New York City in February 1940 and literally knocked the dust off his shoes. Guthrie was not just a native of Oklahoma, he’d come to symbolize the plight of all “Okies,” an initially pejorative term that tagged Dust Bowl migrants from any state. Set adrift as his family fell apart, Guthrie set out alone from Okemah, Oklahoma, as a teen, got married in Pampa, Texas, and stayed put a short while in the early ’30s. He then succumbed to the allure of the road as he watched boxcar after boxcar of desperate, destitute farm families roll through town on their way out west to a different kind of promised land.
He spent the next few years hitching on highways and riding on rails. During these travels, at first passing time by idly strumming his guitar, Guthrie learned that music was more than an escape; it was a conduit of cultures. His first biographer, Joe Klein, wrote of the epiphany in “Woody Guthrie: A Life”:
“The whiny old ballads his mother had taught him were a bond that all country people shared; and now, for the migrants, the songs were all that was left of the land. Singing for these people was a totally different experience from playing a barn dance with the Corncob Trio. It wasn’t just entertainment; he was performing their past.”
Guthrie would channel these empathies from many cultures he encountered, but this first transformation was significant: Guthrie ceased being a mere Okie and became a citizen of the world.
He took that new insight to the airwaves in his first radio gig in Los Angeles — performing those folk songs on a daily show and honing what became a carefully crafted persona as a wise but feisty hillbilly — before taking off for New York. Guthrie would forever ramble about the country, but the man we know as the quintessential Okie boy was based in the five boroughs of New York for the majority of his life, and much of that was in Coney Island.
JavaScript General Redirect Tag // Tag for network 9955: Marketplace: Forward // Website: Forward 100% Fill // Page: Forward // Placement: Forward 300×250 ROS 100% Fill (3474958) // created at: Dec 15, 2016 5:11:53 PM


Guthrie took right away to the colorful culture of bustling Coney Island in the ’40s. As Vivien Goldman writes in the liner notes to “Wonder Wheel” — the other album of (non-Hanukkah) Guthrie lyrics by the Klezmatics — Woody would take his daughter on “morning walks down the boardwalk to have breakfast at Nathan’s… The affable fruit peddler tossed her a plum as she passed, and greetings were exchanged with the owner of the corner store, whose phone was used by the whole neighborhood. It was all enchanting to Woody — the old men playing chess and arguing in Yiddish, the Jewish meydeles splashing in the chilly waves.”
 

getty images
Roll on, Woody: Guthrie, circa 1960.
Settled here for a time (or as settled as a rambler like Guthrie could get) in the mid-’40s, Guthrie began doing what he could never stop himself from doing: writing songs about everything around him. With kids appearing at his feet, he began writing songs for them (“Take me riding in the car, car…”). Off the road, he turned to the newspapers for topical inspiration, producing a whole album of songs about Sacco and Vanzetti. He’d married into a Jewish family, so songs about Jewish culture began coming, too, such as “The Many and The Few” (a whopping 20 historical verses, ending with “Eight candles we’ll burn and a Ninth one too/ Every New Year that comes and goes/ We’ll think of the many in the hands of the few/ And thank God we are seeds of the Jews”) and an adaptation of the Carter Family’s “Little Moses.”
The Klezmatics’ Lorin Sklamberg, in preparation for recording the band’s renditions of Guthrie’s songs, recalls picking through “not just Hanukkah songs but songs about the cultural life in Coney Island, anti-fascism things, other stuff.” In an interview with me when “Wonder Wheel” was released, Sklamberg, himself a sound archivist at New York’s YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, said, “One song I was interested in was called ‘Headdy Down,’ a lullaby for Arlo and the other brother Joady. It has these Yiddishisms in the song that are really cool. You don’t expect to see Yiddishized words in a Woody Guthrie song, but there they were.”
Joady becomes, in the song, “Jodulah.” “Lay your head down,” the song goes, “Keppy down, Kepula.”
Guthrie knew the sounds and rhythms of Jewish life before reaching Coney Island. The man probably most responsible for activating Guthrie as a political person was Ed Robbin, a Jewish editor at The People’s World newspaper in L.A. Guthrie’s manager was Harold Leventhal, born to Orthodox immigrants. Moe Asch, who besides Alan Lomax was the chief folklorist to capture Guthrie on record, specialized in Jewish liturgical music before Guthrie bounded into his life.
Then there was his mother-in-law. Guthrie’s second wife was Marjorie Mazia, daughter of Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt. The matriarch of a learned family, Greenblatt must have been mystified by her daughter’s scruffy find, but Klein says the two poets “hit it off rather well.” As a folk songwriter, Guthrie rarely wrote his own tunes, preferring to knit his words into existing melodies people already knew. He allegedly bonded with Greenblatt over lunch, discovering that she, too, had applied her own words (“Du, Du”) to an older Palestinian tune.
Either way, Guthrie brightened up family life in Coney Island considerably.
“Most people think he’s the Dust Bowl balladeer, and his songs have this color associated with them — everything in sepia,” Sklamberg said. “It makes me think of how Jews have been represented in films. From ‘Yentl’ to ‘A Stranger Among Us’ and ‘The Chosen,’ Jews are always lit with this eerie, brownish, golden glow. A friend of mine talked about how every time she opens a book in ‘Yentl’ 10,000 watts of light comes out… These songs of Woody’s are more Technicolor.”
The song “Mermaid’s Avenue,” the lead track on “Wonder Wheel,” celebrates the colorful, carnival-like atmosphere of Coney Island, describing people eating German, Jewish and American food all along the historic boardwalk.
“Jewish to us meant eating!” Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter, told me in 2006. “Friday night Sabbath, home-cooked dinners at Bubbie’s, their nickname for grandma Greenblatt, with blintzes, latkes, sweet and sour meatballs, herring, matzoh… So we knew about the food, the holidays. We celebrated Hanukkah with the ‘Hanukkah fairy,’ which my parents made up. She went around with Santa delivering the presents. We would leave a large plate of cookies and milk for Santa, and a teeny-tiny little plate with a cookie for the Hanukkah fairy… and we had a Hanukkah Tree, aka, a Christmas tree.”
The Hanukkah songs came next. Lots of them: “Hanuka Bell,” “Hanuka Dance,” “Hanuka Gelt,” “Hanuka Tree,” “Hanuka’s Flame,” “Happy Joyous Hanuka,” “Honeyky Kanuka,” “(Do the) Latke Flip-Flip,” “Spin Dreydl Spin.” Guthrie wrote them naturally around the house but also with a mission in mind: to counter the Christmas glut.
“One time, for instance, I told him, ‘Look, we have a problem,’” Moe Asch recalls in Ronald D. Cohen’s book “Woody Guthrie: Writing America’s Songs.” “There are a lot of things written about Christmas, a lot of things written about the holidays, but there is nothing written about the Jewish holidays that is popular. Why don’t you do a Chanukah song, one complete with its social meaning?”
Guthrie’s response was “The Ballad of Chanukah.” Asch comments, “he got the complete story of Chanukah — with the candles and the Maccabees and everything else — and he sang it in terms of an American legend.”
“He turned one version of the Christmas song ‘Children Go Where I Send Thee’ into ‘Happy Joyous Hanuka,’ taking all these characters from the Bible — some having to do with Hanukkah, others having absolutely nothing to do with it — and he puts them all into this song. ‘One for Moses on the Mount,’ he wrote, which has nothing to do with Hanukkah… It’s this funny, endearing kind of outsider’s attempt at making a Jewish song.”
Thomas Conner is the former pop music critic at the Chicago Sun-Times. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in communication at UC-San Diego
 

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO

http://forward.com/culture/210719/how-an-okie-named-woody-guthrie-became-our-best-ha/
 
How an Okie Named Woody Guthrie Became Our Best Hanukkah Tunesmith
Thomas ConnerDecember 20, 2016Kurt Hoffman
For 20 years, I was a pop music critic. Every year as the calendar wound down, here came one of music journalism’s over-roasted chestnuts: the annual roundup of new Christmas albums. I never groaned. I’m one of those Christmas music people. As soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is down my gullet, I’m trotting out the tinseled tunes. And each year, somehow, the same old songs are rechristened, rearranged, repackaged anew. It’s the big catalog that could. It’s the lamp that you’d think should have burned out a long time ago.
Likewise, each year I make a holiday music mixtape (sigh, it’s a playlist now) for friends and family. Again, I keep worrying the well will run dry, that a new generation of young indie rockers couldn’t possibly have an interest in filling us up with more fa-la-la-la fluff, and each year I’m amazed at the sheer regenerative power of all that holiday hegemony.
 
 
The Art Lover’s Guide to Israel
Sponsored
Of course, I’ve tried to include the occasional Hanukkah song. All these years along and I’m still asking — any suggestions?
There are some handsome pop renditions of “Ma’oz Tzur” (Marc Cohn, Ben Kweller), and Beck’s funked-out “The Little Drum Machine Boy” is a wonderfully wacky celebration of being a “Hanukkah pimp.” (I’ve never been able to bring myself to include comedian Adam Sandler’s sophomoric ode to the eight days.) But countless Jewish songwriters have bedecked the halls with Christmas classics — “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Song,” “Let It Snow,” “Sleigh Ride,” on and on — meanwhile, no real Hanukkah hits? Not even in the ’60s from swingin’ Tikva Records?
An unlikely songwriter once tried to change that. A fellow Okie, no less. He wasn’t successful, either, but the rediscovered trove of his Hanukkah hootenannies — polished nicely by acclaimed klezmer band the Klezmatics for the album “Happy Joyous Hanukkah” — remains a bright light for the season’s celebration.
TAG START { player: “19825-858232-forward desktop outstream”, owner: “ONE Video by AOL”, for: “ONE Video by AOL” – BEINJS }
Woody Guthrie blew into New York City in February 1940 and literally knocked the dust off his shoes. Guthrie was not just a native of Oklahoma, he’d come to symbolize the plight of all “Okies,” an initially pejorative term that tagged Dust Bowl migrants from any state. Set adrift as his family fell apart, Guthrie set out alone from Okemah, Oklahoma, as a teen, got married in Pampa, Texas, and stayed put a short while in the early ’30s. He then succumbed to the allure of the road as he watched boxcar after boxcar of desperate, destitute farm families roll through town on their way out west to a different kind of promised land.
He spent the next few years hitching on highways and riding on rails. During these travels, at first passing time by idly strumming his guitar, Guthrie learned that music was more than an escape; it was a conduit of cultures. His first biographer, Joe Klein, wrote of the epiphany in “Woody Guthrie: A Life”:
“The whiny old ballads his mother had taught him were a bond that all country people shared; and now, for the migrants, the songs were all that was left of the land. Singing for these people was a totally different experience from playing a barn dance with the Corncob Trio. It wasn’t just entertainment; he was performing their past.”
Guthrie would channel these empathies from many cultures he encountered, but this first transformation was significant: Guthrie ceased being a mere Okie and became a citizen of the world.
He took that new insight to the airwaves in his first radio gig in Los Angeles — performing those folk songs on a daily show and honing what became a carefully crafted persona as a wise but feisty hillbilly — before taking off for New York. Guthrie would forever ramble about the country, but the man we know as the quintessential Okie boy was based in the five boroughs of New York for the majority of his life, and much of that was in Coney Island.
JavaScript General Redirect Tag // Tag for network 9955: Marketplace: Forward // Website: Forward 100% Fill // Page: Forward // Placement: Forward 300×250 ROS 100% Fill (3474958) // created at: Dec 15, 2016 5:11:53 PM


Guthrie took right away to the colorful culture of bustling Coney Island in the ’40s. As Vivien Goldman writes in the liner notes to “Wonder Wheel” — the other album of (non-Hanukkah) Guthrie lyrics by the Klezmatics — Woody would take his daughter on “morning walks down the boardwalk to have breakfast at Nathan’s… The affable fruit peddler tossed her a plum as she passed, and greetings were exchanged with the owner of the corner store, whose phone was used by the whole neighborhood. It was all enchanting to Woody — the old men playing chess and arguing in Yiddish, the Jewish meydeles splashing in the chilly waves.”
 

getty images
Roll on, Woody: Guthrie, circa 1960.
Settled here for a time (or as settled as a rambler like Guthrie could get) in the mid-’40s, Guthrie began doing what he could never stop himself from doing: writing songs about everything around him. With kids appearing at his feet, he began writing songs for them (“Take me riding in the car, car…”). Off the road, he turned to the newspapers for topical inspiration, producing a whole album of songs about Sacco and Vanzetti. He’d married into a Jewish family, so songs about Jewish culture began coming, too, such as “The Many and The Few” (a whopping 20 historical verses, ending with “Eight candles we’ll burn and a Ninth one too/ Every New Year that comes and goes/ We’ll think of the many in the hands of the few/ And thank God we are seeds of the Jews”) and an adaptation of the Carter Family’s “Little Moses.”
The Klezmatics’ Lorin Sklamberg, in preparation for recording the band’s renditions of Guthrie’s songs, recalls picking through “not just Hanukkah songs but songs about the cultural life in Coney Island, anti-fascism things, other stuff.” In an interview with me when “Wonder Wheel” was released, Sklamberg, himself a sound archivist at New York’s YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, said, “One song I was interested in was called ‘Headdy Down,’ a lullaby for Arlo and the other brother Joady. It has these Yiddishisms in the song that are really cool. You don’t expect to see Yiddishized words in a Woody Guthrie song, but there they were.”
Joady becomes, in the song, “Jodulah.” “Lay your head down,” the song goes, “Keppy down, Kepula.”
Guthrie knew the sounds and rhythms of Jewish life before reaching Coney Island. The man probably most responsible for activating Guthrie as a political person was Ed Robbin, a Jewish editor at The People’s World newspaper in L.A. Guthrie’s manager was Harold Leventhal, born to Orthodox immigrants. Moe Asch, who besides Alan Lomax was the chief folklorist to capture Guthrie on record, specialized in Jewish liturgical music before Guthrie bounded into his life.
Then there was his mother-in-law. Guthrie’s second wife was Marjorie Mazia, daughter of Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt. The matriarch of a learned family, Greenblatt must have been mystified by her daughter’s scruffy find, but Klein says the two poets “hit it off rather well.” As a folk songwriter, Guthrie rarely wrote his own tunes, preferring to knit his words into existing melodies people already knew. He allegedly bonded with Greenblatt over lunch, discovering that she, too, had applied her own words (“Du, Du”) to an older Palestinian tune.
Either way, Guthrie brightened up family life in Coney Island considerably.
“Most people think he’s the Dust Bowl balladeer, and his songs have this color associated with them — everything in sepia,” Sklamberg said. “It makes me think of how Jews have been represented in films. From ‘Yentl’ to ‘A Stranger Among Us’ and ‘The Chosen,’ Jews are always lit with this eerie, brownish, golden glow. A friend of mine talked about how every time she opens a book in ‘Yentl’ 10,000 watts of light comes out… These songs of Woody’s are more Technicolor.”
The song “Mermaid’s Avenue,” the lead track on “Wonder Wheel,” celebrates the colorful, carnival-like atmosphere of Coney Island, describing people eating German, Jewish and American food all along the historic boardwalk.
“Jewish to us meant eating!” Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter, told me in 2006. “Friday night Sabbath, home-cooked dinners at Bubbie’s, their nickname for grandma Greenblatt, with blintzes, latkes, sweet and sour meatballs, herring, matzoh… So we knew about the food, the holidays. We celebrated Hanukkah with the ‘Hanukkah fairy,’ which my parents made up. She went around with Santa delivering the presents. We would leave a large plate of cookies and milk for Santa, and a teeny-tiny little plate with a cookie for the Hanukkah fairy… and we had a Hanukkah Tree, aka, a Christmas tree.”
The Hanukkah songs came next. Lots of them: “Hanuka Bell,” “Hanuka Dance,” “Hanuka Gelt,” “Hanuka Tree,” “Hanuka’s Flame,” “Happy Joyous Hanuka,” “Honeyky Kanuka,” “(Do the) Latke Flip-Flip,” “Spin Dreydl Spin.” Guthrie wrote them naturally around the house but also with a mission in mind: to counter the Christmas glut.
“One time, for instance, I told him, ‘Look, we have a problem,’” Moe Asch recalls in Ronald D. Cohen’s book “Woody Guthrie: Writing America’s Songs.” “There are a lot of things written about Christmas, a lot of things written about the holidays, but there is nothing written about the Jewish holidays that is popular. Why don’t you do a Chanukah song, one complete with its social meaning?”
Guthrie’s response was “The Ballad of Chanukah.” Asch comments, “he got the complete story of Chanukah — with the candles and the Maccabees and everything else — and he sang it in terms of an American legend.”
“He turned one version of the Christmas song ‘Children Go Where I Send Thee’ into ‘Happy Joyous Hanuka,’ taking all these characters from the Bible — some having to do with Hanukkah, others having absolutely nothing to do with it — and he puts them all into this song. ‘One for Moses on the Mount,’ he wrote, which has nothing to do with Hanukkah… It’s this funny, endearing kind of outsider’s attempt at making a Jewish song.”
Thomas Conner is the former pop music critic at the Chicago Sun-Times. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in communication at UC-San Diego