Jazz for aficionados

Sorry Savoy recordings!

Acman, thank you very much for that valuable information; now I'll be able to find the best of Tiny Grimes, playing with "Bird" says more than a mouthful.


Enjoy the music.

Yes,Tiny Grimes with Charlie Parker "Red Cross" on Savoy 1944.Early Bird and almost pre-Bop.Tiny with Art Tatum,look for the Capitol trio recordings.He made lots of sessions in the 40's as Jazz was in transition from small group Swing to Bop.Prior to that he was in the "Cats and the Fiddle" a string group that played hot Jazz.In the 50's he had a instrumental band called the Rockin' highlanders and made some hard driving Jazz flavored R&B sides for Atlantic.Through all this he kept at that 4 string tenor guitar.I was fortunate to hear him live and meet him when he came to L.A. in the early 80's for a concert with guitarist John Collins,who was Nat Cole's guitarist as well as an important 52nd st.Jazz player in the 40's.Too bad Collins didn't make more solo records,he was a real master.
     Tiny Grimes was not a Blues player as we would usually associate with that genre,but he always shined there and the relative uncomplicated nature of the Blues lent itself to the tenor guitar.He greatly enhanced those Prestige Swingsville sessions.
   One of the unsung heroes of the intersection of Jazz and Blues guitar was Teddy Bunn. Poorly represented on records but if you can find them you will hear some great playing in the T-Bone Walker meets Charlie Christian vein.He made a few sides for Blue Note in the 40's.
   Irving Ashby was another of those 40's guitarists who made a few records but had a great Christian influenced sound. 
   I would like to think that people still listen to and appreciate the innovations of Charlie Christian.Tiny Grimes might have been a footnote in Jazz,but Charlie Christian is a chapter.

Hi O-10 - as Frogman has tried a couple of times to explain to you, it is not the tune itself that sounds like elevator music.  It is the cheesy string arrangement backing up the piano in that particular Previn recording that sounds like elevator.  I guarantee you Previn himself performed it live in a much different fashion that would not have sounded like elevator music - probably many times, in many different versions, since he wrote the tune.  That's the thing about jazz - it is never the same twice, even from the same performer, unless you are listening to a recording.    Don't you remember that from your world class friend who lived with you that summer and never practiced who you heard perform a few times a week?  I wonder what he really thought about your proud ignorance of music?

And no, of course the Ella performance of that tune does not sound like elevator music - your conclusion that I must think so because I thought the other one did is completely illogical.  If you really cannot understand that, then it is truly hopeless to have any sort of intelligent conversation with you about jazz, let alone music in general; but I think you really do understand that, and are just pretending not to - so I am forced to wonder, as others have, why on earth did you start this thread when you are so resistant to anyone else's opinions?   You should start a blog if you want the floor to yourself - this is an open forum.  

 Great stuff, jazzcourier; thanks.  Understanding when and how it all came from is a beautiful thing.  No mention of Eddie Lang so far, going even further back:

http://youtu.be/ggJCrl9oEgQ

http://youtu.be/qgzAoDhzUJA