Home of Musician and Educator David Marriott, Jr.
David Marriott, Jr. is a jazz trombonist, composer/arranger, educator, and blogger. A two-time Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Award recipient and winner of the 1999 National Jazz Trombone Competition, David is active in a variety of Seattle jazz groups, including the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, Zubatto Syndicate and his own critically-acclaimed groups Septology and Triskaidekaband.
If you grew up in the 1970s, The Muppet Show was a big part of growing up for you like it was for me. While collecting videos for my Charlie Parker birthday post, I stumbled indirectly onto this great video of Muppet Show saxophonist Zoot asking for Charlie Parker's forgiveness prior to his debut performance on the program, titled "Sax and Violence". Dig it!
I noticed this morning that I'd be hitting the "100 Post" mark here at this blog, and so I decided to take a little look back at those posts and highlight just a few for you, especially if you are a new reader to Red Raspus: Musician in Seattle. As I've got Labor Day weekend to spend a bit more time going through the archive and getting all the entries properly tagged/categorized, I'll be posting more of these entries in the days to come, but for now, here are the most popular posts to this site over the last couple of months:
I would have never discovered the great Dinah Washington if I hadn't been such a fan of Frank Rosolino. It must have been 1992 or 1993, when I was searching out every recording of Rosolino, that I came across his participation in some albums with Dinah Washington. At that time, I knew my jazz history, but I couldn't have told you much about her other than "she was a bluesy jazz singer in the 1950s". I went to Tower Records and bought Dinah! and I was immediately hooked; from there, The Fats Waller Songbook and The Bessie Smith Songbook. I've probably listened to her rendition of Fats Waller's "Christopher Columbus" more than any other vocal tracks I own, save a few by Ella, Sarah, Carmen, and Billie. In fact, I'm going to put it on right now - you should, too. Happy Birthday, Dinah!
Bird Lives! Like other greats in the jazz world I've talked about in the past, what more can be said about Charlie Parker that hasn't been said already? I first heard his music when I was 14, and I had just started beginning band on trumpet, as had my younger brother Thomas. We lived a few blocks from the library on Queen Anne and were regular visitors for books, but I remember the first time we checked out a record -- yes, it was mostly vinyl then (a few tapes) -- it was those classic Bird and Diz recordings of "All The Things You Are," "Dizzy Atmosphere", 'Shaw 'Nuff" and so many more. We checked out and rechecked out that album so many times I can't remember. It was one of the first CDs my brother ever bought as well, and that music still remains today some of the earliest seeds of my becoming a jazz musician, and at the very least got me interested in improvising. It had everything: excitement, virtuosity, depth, honesty, humor, romance -- I couldn't get enough, and still can't. I'm a sucker for Bird, what can I say -- put on "Bird with Strings" and I melt. Despite his death in 1955, people continue to use graffiti and many other medium to shout to the heavens: Bird Lives!
Due for release in October, Being Prez: The Life and Times of Lester Young by Dave Gelly is a new book on the great tenor saxophonist of the 1930s and 1940s, Lester Young - also known by his nickname, Pres. Not much more to say here as the book isn't out for a couple months, other than to mention that this book could be a real goldmine, or merely rehashing other books, like Prez: The Lester Young Story or You Just Fight For Your Life: The Story of Lester Young (both great books). It appears from this article on All About Jazz that the book spends a great deal of time looking at key recordings, which many biographies fail to do, so my excitement is starting to peak -- too bad I have to wait until October to read it!
I can't believe it's been two years since my first episode! So we're bringing you a jumbo-sized episode with new jazz and old jazz, but all from the Seattle area.
Track 1: Vern Sielert Dektet, From There for Here, "Matranga's Tonk"
Track 2: Dan Kramlich, "Demoralization"
Track 3: Cecil Young Progressive Quartet, "Sweet Georgia Brown"
Track 4: Cecil Young Progressive Quartet, "Too Marvelous"
Track 5: Cecil Young Progressive Quartet, "Who Parked the Car"
Track 6: Last Mile, "Broken Seal"
Seattle Jazzscene Podcast: http://www.redraspus.com/podcast
Seattle Jazzscene Podcast Feed: http://www.redraspus.com/podcast/rss.xml
Red Raspus: Music in Seattle (Blog): http://www.redraspus.com/blog
Seattle Podcasting Network: http://www.seattlepodcasting.net
Red Raspus at PodShow: http://redraspus.podshow.com
Send us your comments! Post them here or in the Discussion Section.
Bringing you more cool stuff for your home music setup, Boing Boing launched it's Gadgets blog last week and they featured a great story today about some VERY cool lantern-like speakers that come with a variety of options in terms of look-and-feel:
The company that makes them, Xount, is located in Switzerland, the site is in German (for now) and the base model costs 329 Euros, or about $450. The covers are very reasonable, and it will still be tough to get your hands on these until the site is easier for English-speaking audiences, but I'm starting to save now...
Newsday has a wonderful look back at the life and achievements of John Coltrane during the summer that marks the 40th anniversary of his death. Of particular note is the way he frames the article in the opening paragraph:
Given the enormous attention paid in recent weeks to the arrests of several troubled celebrities, from actress Lindsay Lohan to rappers Ja Rule and Foxy Brown, a milestone for a significant figure from the entertainment world has been largely glossed over. This summer marks 40 years since jazz legend John Coltrane passed away at the age of 40.
And while Coltrane is credited with musical contributions that influenced everyone from Carlos Santana and Fela Kuti to The Doors and Wynton Marsalis, his life is equally noteworthy for the indelible lessons it still provides.
Please take the time to read the entire article, as I couldn't do it any justice by summarizing or quoting further, other than to say that without question, John Coltrane is one of cornerstones of innovation in the history of jazz music, and to reaffirm his importance as an artist, musician, and human being is always time well spent. As a part-time hip-hop listener, I was excited to read the following:
While the hip-hop industry is being denounced for promoting artists who glorify pseudo-gangster narratives, it's worth noting that the latest album from one of the genre's most progressive voices, Common, whose lyrics regularly mention Coltrane, ranks among the top 10 albums on the Billboard charts.
Kudos to writer Curtis Stephen and Newsday.
Yet another pillar of innovation, Lester Young is one of those players that I didn't listen to until I was a bit older, and I realized I'd already been influenced by him through J. J. Johnson, who considered Lester Young one of his own role models as a young player. Once I started listening to those classic recordings with Nat Cole or Count Basie, I began to find out just how much vocabulary I'd stolen from J. J. that really belonged to Lester! Lester Young epitomized the concept of "cool" in jazz, way before there was any style or movement labelled as such, but also moved the style of improvisation away from the more dominant style of Coleman Hawkins. In two years, we will be celebrating what would have been Pres' 100th birthday -- I'm getting ready for it now! Here's some videos of the great Pres for your viewing pleasure:
We also celebrate the birthday of Alice Coltrane, who sadly died earlier this year, just seven months prior to her 70th birthday. I never got to hear her play live -- she lived largely outside of music since the 1970's when she became heavily involved with the Vedanta school of philosophy. I recently purchased her latest recording, Translinear Light, on my roommate's recommendation and was completely blown away, both by her musicianship, originality, and deep spirituality with the music. She is missed now more than ever, when "jazz music" seems to have become in many ways a surface definition with no depth, rather than containing the depth of concept that John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, and now Ravi Coltrane all seem to share regardless of style. Happy Birthday, Alice Coltrane.
While being recently interviewed about his role in Resurecting the Champ, actor Josh Hartnett stated his desire to play Chet Baker in a biopic of the trumpet player and singer. After a little research, this is something that seems to have been in the works for the last year or so, with Canadian production company Kingsborough Pictures at the helm of what is presently titled The Prince of Cool. Here are some of Hartnett's quotes regarding playing Chet Baker and the film itself.
"There's a lot of people interested in making the film, but we haven't signed a director, haven't finished the script," he says of The Prince of Cool, his dream Chet Baker project. "It'll get made. Just a question of time."
"I'd heard his music, you know, 'My Funny Valentine.' But his story got my interest ..... His career, what he went through, is so incredible and so dark that to tell his story honestly would blow people's minds, I think."
"He was severely beaten, which wrecked his teeth and lips and his embouchure," the lip- and facial-muscle formation required to play a wind instrument, Harnett marvels. And when the end came, it was sudden and unexpected, unusual in such tales. Baker fell out of a window. "It is wild to think of how much he squeezed into in his life," Hartnett says.
Director-turned-author Bruce Beresford even wrote a book and referred specifically to this project in the title of the book: Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants To Do This. Let's all hope for the best!