6/19/20 - The Universal Language of Jazz

George Kahn Quartet -

You And The Night And The Music

George Kahn grew up in New Rochelle, NY. Pat Kelley is from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Alex Acuña was born in Patavilca, Peru, a small city about 3 hours from the capital city of Lima. David Hughes was born in Säffle, Sweden.

These four individuals come from vastly different backgrounds, but they were all drawn to Los Angeles due to their desire to play music, and specifically due to their love of Jazz. Together, they are the George Kahn Quartet, bringing "classic" jazz into the 21st century.

Since moving to Los Angeles in 1976, George has had the pleasure to play with many amazing jazz musicians, and now during the last few years this quartet has been honing its craft in the jazz clubs of Los Angeles. With a successful Kickstarter campaign completed, it is now time to go back into the studio to finish their new album.

Here is the FOURTH single from the new album. "You and the Night and the Music" is a popular song composed by Arthur Schwartz with lyrics by Howard Dietz. The song was debuted in the Broadway show "Revenge with Music". The show opened in 1934 and ran for about 5 months. The musical yielded two enduring hits and a profit, although it was an artistic failure. The music lives on - Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/BWM5v0TiZ-U

6/12/20 Beyonce at Coachella

Beyoncé at Coachella -

Crazy In Love

This week Riverside County and Goldenvoice cancelled the 2020 Coachella Music Festival. This is not unexpected, as various arts organizations continue to push back their start dates in the wake of the spread of Covid-19. We may not have large live music concerts again before 2021...
So let's go back 2 years, to April 2018 when the reigning queen of American music, Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter, became the first black woman to headline Coachella for two sold out consecutive weekends. Here is three minutes from her two-hour show (You can see the her 3-hour documentary about the show on Netflix, or here: https://youtu.be/0QbgmQmbFtc it's worth a visit. 

By far the most complicated production ever seen at Coachella, the two-hour gig featured approximately 100 musicians and dancers — including a drum line, marching band and string players, and a baton twirler (Beyoncé got many of the band members from various Black colleges). Open your mind and lets return to a more joyous time, only two years ago.

https://youtu.be/sFl7OS3WmA0

6/5/20 - Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen play the blues

Oscar Peterson Trio -

C Jam Blues

I remember seeing Oscar Peterson play a solo concert at Carnegie Hall when I was in high school. At the end of his set, I was ready to go home and chop my piano into matchsticks. I had seen a mountain that I could never climb. Luckily I learned later that I did not need to climb Oscar's mountain, I could create my own path through the musical landscape.

That said, his mastery of piano technique,creativity and the essence of swing is on full display in this nine minute college dissertation in HOW TO PLAY THE BLUES.

After a 2 1/2 minute AWESOME solo piano intro Oscar finally has the band kick in. Ray Brown and Ed Thigpin (Ed is one of our Los Angeles jazz homeboys) support, cajole and prod the music forward from then on. But wait: at 7:30 Peterson wipes his brow and then launches into a two-handed big band solo. AMAZING

Peterson was born in Montreal, Quebec, to immigrants from the West Indies. At the age of five, Peterson began honing his skills on trumpet and piano. His father, Daniel Peterson, an amateur trumpeter and pianist, was one of his first music teachers. As a child, Peterson studied with Hungarian-born pianist Paul de Marky, a student of István Thomán, who was himself a pupil of Franz Liszt, so his early training was predominantly based on classical piano. But he was captivated by traditional jazz and boogie-woogie and learned several ragtime pieces.

At the age of nine Peterson played piano with a degree of control that impressed professional musicians. For many years his piano studies included four to six hours of daily practice. Only in his later years did he decrease his practice to one or two hours daily. In 1940, at fourteen years of age, he won the national music competition organized by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. By the age of 24 he was discovered by Norman Granz. In 1949 he introduced Peterson in New York City at a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert at Carnegie Hall. Granz remained Peterson's manager for most of his career. 

From a 1964 concert in Denmark: Please enjoy C JAM BLUES

https://youtu.be/NTJhHn-TuDY