Missed It . . .

. . .  only by a month. . .


(from wikipedia.com)
The Newport Jazz Festival is a music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. It was established in 1954 by socialite Elaine Lorillard, who, together with husband Louis Lorillard, financed the festival for many years. The couple hired jazz impresario George Wein to organize the event to help them bring jazz to the resort town.

Most of the early festivals were broadcast on Voice Of America radio and many performances were recorded and have been issued by various record labels.

The Newport Jazz Festival moved to New York City in 1972 and became a two-site festival in 1981 when it returned to Newport and also continued in New York. The festival was known as the JVC Jazz Festival from 1984 to 2008. During the economic downturn of 2009, JVC ceased its support of the festival and was replaced by CareFusion.As of 2012 the festival is sponsored by Natixis Global Asset Management.

The festival is hosted in Newport at Fort Adams State Park, and is often held in the same month as its sister festival, the Newport Folk

In 1954 the first Newport Jazz Festival (billed actually as the "First Annual American Jazz Festival") was held at Newport Casino in the Bellevue Avenue Historic District of Newport, Rhode Island. It incorporated academic panel discussions and featured live musical performances. The live performances were set outdoors, on a lawn. These performances were given by a number of notable jazz musicians including Billie Holiday. The festival was hailed by major magazines and newspapers. Some 13,000 attended between the two days. In general, the festival was regarded as a major success.

In 1955 organizers were planning a second year for the festival but needed to find a new venue. The Newport Casino would not again host the festival since its lawn and other facilities did not stand up well to such a large event. Festival backer Elaine Lorillard, with her husband, purchased "Belcourt", a large estate which was available locally, in hopes of hosting the festival there. The neighborhood would disallow that plan, citing concerns about potential disturbance. The festival went forward at Freebody Park, an arena for sports near the casino. The workshops and receptions would be held at Belcourt, and the music presented at Freebody Park.

Some in upper-class Newport were opposed to the festival. Jazz appreciation was not common within the established upper-class community. The festival was organized mostly by younger members of the elite group populating Newport. The festival brought crowds of commoners to Newport. Many were students who, in the absence of sufficient lodging, slept outdoors wherever they could, with or without tents. Newport was at first not accustomed to this. And, many of the musicians and their fans were African American. Racism too was a factor in Newport as it commonly was across the land during that era. Traffic gridlock and other contention near the downtown venue were legitimate concerns, and were raised.

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The Real McCoy. . .

. . . or (in this case) Putman. . .


(from http://www.curlyputman.com/bio.html)

". . .Beginning with the unforgettable "Green Green Grass of Home", Curly Putman has written or co-written an endless stream of smashes, including the million air-play, "My Elusive Dreams", "D-I-V-O-R-C-E", "Blood Red And Going Down", "It Don't Feel Like Sinnin' To Me, "It's A Cheatin' Situation" and "He Stopped Loving Her Today", just to name the #1's.

Curly wasn't born and raised with "great future staring him in the face," like the TV Waltons. Curly was the son of a sawmill man, reared on a mountain that bore that family name. About six or eight families lived on Putman Mountain, mostly descendants of a one-armed Methodist preacher named Jesse Putman, who first brought the holy writ to the mountain. . .

. . . After his discharge (from the service), Curly started picking with a band in Hunstville, AL, and there during one of his gigs, he met his future wife, Bernice. Soon, they started going together and were married in 1956. Thus began a long odyssey of discouragement and frustration remarkably echoed in Curly's "My Elusive Dreams: (You Followed Me To Texas/You Followed Me To Utah/We Didn't Find It There So We Moved On). The places were changed, but the pain was the same. "We moved to Chicago, but I didn't like it there too well, so I moved back to Alabama, working in the sawmill with my dad and going to trade school in Decatur, tried to learn piano tuning…anything to stick to music in some way. "We were barely getting by, so we moved to Huntsville and I went to work for the Thom Mcan Shoe Co. Eventually, Curly had a couple of songs recorded by Marion Worth and Charlie Walker, so he jumped at the chance to sell shoes in Nashville. After a short time in Nashville, however, he was transferred to Memphis. "I was so discouraged about having to leave Nashville," Curly recalls, "that I quit Thom Mcan in Memphis and went back to Huntsville and took a job in a record shop owned by a local radio personality. At night I played steel in a local band.

In the fall of 1963 Curly's luck took an abrupt change for the better. While visiting Nashville, during the annual DJ convention, he ran into Tree Publishing company executive Buddy Killen, whom he had known slightly in earlier days. Buddy casually mentioned that Tree might have a song plugging job open after the first of the year. "I came to talk to Buddy and Jack Stapp (the owner of Tree) and started working for them in January of 1964

"I guess I learned as much about writing by plugging songs for Tree as anything else I've ever done," says Curly. Yet month after month was passing and nothing was happening save a few small, inconsequential records. Was the elusive dream about to become undone altogether?

Then, one day about a year later, a bit of sheer magic struck. "One Sunday afternoon, I came up to Tree's office. No one was around. I just started fooling around and suddenly it fell in place. The surprise ending about dreaming made the song. I guess I worked on it for about two hours. I felt like I really had something, because it touched me very deeply. But, I didn't know how commercial it was because it was such a down-home song." The down-home song was "Green Green Grass of Home.

"I played the song for bunches of people over five or six months before it was ever cut, first Johnny Darrell," said curly. Then things began to happen. Porter Wagoner covered the Darrell record and had a top five country hit. Then, Jerry Lee Lewis had a chart record on the song. Tom Jones heard Jerry Lee's cut and was so impressed that he recorded it. His record became a top five pop smash in the united stated and number one almost everywhere else. The Tom Jones record sold between ten and twelve million copies throughout the world. Since then, over four hundred other artists have recorded the song in most of the world's major languages.

Since "Green Green Grass of Home," Curly's songs have been recorded by multitudes, including Charlie Rich, Tammy Wynette, dean martin, Wayne Newton, George Jones, Charley Pride, Conway Twitty, Dolly Parton, Bobbie Gentry, Glen Campbell, Nancy Sinatra, Roger Miller, T.G. Sheppard, The Kendalls, Andy Williams, Jim Nabors, Issac Hayes and Millie Jackson, Johnny Duncan, Bobby Vinton, John Conlee, Roy Clark, Elvis Presley, George Jones and almost every other country artist of consequence. And still, he continues to write, patiently and well, unable to fill the melancholy hole in his heart that refuses to ever let him rest satisfied and content to rejoice in a job well done. . ."

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Family. . .

(from wikipedia.com)
The Bee Gees' career record sales total more than 220 million ranking them among the best-selling music artists of all time. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997; the presenter of the award to "Britain's first family of harmony" was Brian Wilson, historical leader of the Beach Boys, a "family act" also featuring three harmonising brothers. The Bee Gees' Hall of Fame citation says "Only Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks and Paul McCartney have outsold the Bee Gees."

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Fagin? . . .

. . . no. . .

Fagen, as in Donald. . .


Fagen met Becker at a college coffee house at Bard College in 1967. Responding to an ad in The Village Voice in the summer of 1970, Fagen and Becker met guitarist Denny Dias and started a musical partnership that formed the basis of what would eventually become Steely Dan. However, the original group's line-up would only be assembled in full around December 1971 in Los Angeles, California, to where Becker and Fagen had relocated, initially to work as staff song writers for ABC/Dunhill. Fagen and Becker formed the core of the band and co-wrote all the group's music; on tour and record, Becker played bass (and later lead guitar) and Fagen played keyboards, as well as performing almost all of the lead vocals on their recordings.

After releasing their third LP in 1974, the other members gradually left (or were fired from) the band, which gradually evolved into a studio project headed by Becker and Fagen. They scored their biggest success in 1977 with the platinum-selling album Aja.

After a lengthy period of inactivity as a band which began in the early 1980s, the duo of Becker and Fagen revived Steely Dan in the mid-1990s, and have since produced two more Steely Dan studio albums: 2000s Two Against Nature which won several Grammys, Everything Must Go (2003), as well as the live CD Alive in America (1995) and a live concert DVD entitled Two Against Nature, which included material spanning much of the band's history.

Fagen frequently uses aliases. He wrote the liner notes to Can't Buy a Thrill under the name Tristan Fabriani, which he would use on stage when he played keyboards for Jay and the Americans, (Becker would use Gus Mahler). On his solo albums, when he plays or programs a synthesizer part to replicate a real instrument (bass, vibraphone, horns, etc.) he will credit one of his aliases - Illinois Elohainu, Phonus Quaver, or Harlan Post.

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Walter . . .

. . . Becker. . .


(from wikipedia.com)
". . . Following Steely Dan's breakup, Becker moved to the Hawaiian island of Maui and ceased using narcotics. Shortly thereafter, he began a career as a record producer, overseeing records by Rickie Lee Jones, Michael Franks, and Fra Lippo Lippi, including the latter's 1987 Norwegian single, "Angel".

Some of Becker's most involved activity from this period came with the group China Crisis. He is credited as one of five official members of the band on the sleeve of their 1985 album Flaunt the Imperfection, which he produced. He also produced tracks on their 1989 album Diary of a Hollow Horse, although he is not credited as a band member on that release.

Becker reunited with Fagen briefly to collaborate on the debut album of singer Rosie Vela, 1986's Zazu. This led to several low-key and non-professional collaborations, including several aborted songwriting sessions and Becker's stint in 1991 with Fagen's New York Rock and Soul Revue, that would ultimately lead to their proper reunion two years later.

Their partnership properly resumed in 1993 when they undertook a new tour as Steely Dan, their first in 19 years. Becker also produced Fagen's album Kamakiriad in 1993. In turn, Fagen co-produced Becker's belated solo debut album 11 Tracks of Whack in 1994.

Steely Dan continued touring, and their work on new material resulted in their first studio album in two decades, Two Against Nature, released in 2000. The album won four Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. In 2001 the duo was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and also received Honorary Doctor of Music degrees from Berklee College of Music, which they accepted in person. The next Steely Dan record, Everything Must Go followed in 2003, featuring Becker's bass and electric guitar work, as well as the first studio Steely Dan track with a lead vocal by Becker, "Slang of Ages". The band spent the following years touring behind their back catalog.

In 2005, Becker co-produced and played bass on the Krishna Das album All One, and played solo guitar on the title track of Rebecca Pidgeon's album Tough on Crime from this same year. Madeleine Peyroux's 2006 album Half the Perfect World featured the single "I'm All Right", co-written by Becker, Peyroux and producer Larry Klein. Peyroux's 2009 album Bare Bones also contains two songs co-written by Becker, "You Can't do Me" and the title-track "Bare Bones". Becker was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2008.

His second solo album, Circus Money, was released on June 10, 2008, fourteen years after its predecessor. The album prominently featured Becker's bass playing, performances by much of the Steely Dan backing band, and work by producer Larry Klein, who received co-composition credits on all but one song. The songs were heavily inspired by reggae and other Jamaican music. . . "

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It's Not Easy. . .

. . . being a creative artist on a budget.

Like this weekend, I have discovered that my Canon ELPH can be easily used to take videos (I knew it could but never thought it through for music promotion).  But the problem herewith is the audio.  You know how the old recordings on 78rpm records always sounded like they were recorded in a rainshower?  Well that's what the audio sounds like on my Canon videos.  So I got the brilliant (my word) idea that I could record the audio portion in glorious, high-quality digital format with my Zoom H2 portable digital recorder, then sync everything together in Garageband for a fine video.  Well, necessity is the mother of invention you know.  What I didn't take into account was the file trail (and file naming etc.) task that would be required to keep it all straight.  For example, if I flubbed a take and chose to plow forward without stopping either machine, I had to remember how many false starts were on each take.  Attempting to record more that one song only complicated matters.  Then I also learned that since Garageband is specifically designed for audio, I could not edit the beginning of a video the way I could stop it at the end anywhere I wanted.  At least I haven't figured out how to do it.  So I re-recorded several pieces and edited the beginning on the Canon before uploading it to my laptop.

It's a lot of boring information granted.  But it's how I spent most of my weekend.  I did learn a lot about the process and now know how to avoid some of the earlier pitfalls.  I'm not too ashamed of the outcome though. . .

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ahh. . .

. . . those were the days. . .

". . . My Farfisa Fast Four and Leslie 145 were setup in a prominent location in the den of our apartment for quick and easy access.  Truth is, I'm not sure if I even played once a week at that time. But I was building my vinyl record album collection of my favorite jazz cats during the period and joyfully and effortlessly soaking in their music as often as I could.  My Coltrane, Dolphy, Adderley and McLean collections grew with much less reliance on the old Tull, Gentle Giant and Yes for musical satisfaction.  This too combined with sounds exemplifying the musical tastes of my significant other, sometimes not so willingly or graciously. 

My technique and creativity suffered during this period.  Whenever I played, generally on Sunday afternoons, I ran through the same several bebop arrangements of standards that I had learned from or through my elementary-school friend Bob. I was grateful for Bob's influence which led me into the direction of jazz, that combined with my exposure to a superb collection of jazz, vinyl LPs at the college radio station where I worked during my undergraduate years.

It wasn't until our eldest son, Spencer, was born that I began to crave more music-related activity. . ."

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Nat. . .

 

(from wikipedia.com)
". . . Nathaniel Adderley (November 25, 1931 – January 2, 2000) was an American jazz cornet and trumpet player who played in the hard bop and soul jazz genres. He was the brother of saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley.

Adderley was born in Tampa, Florida, but moved to Tallahassee, Florida, when both parents were hired to teach at Florida A&M University. He and Cannonball played with Ray Charles in the early 1940s in Tallahassee. In the 1950s Nat Adderley worked with his brother's original group, with Lionel Hampton, and with J. J. Johnson, then in 1959 joined his brother's new quintet and stayed with it until Cannonball's death in 1975. He composed "Work Song," "Jive Samba," and "The Old Country" for this group.

After his brother's death he led his own groups and recorded extensively. During this period he worked with, among others, Ron Carter, Sonny Fortune, Johnny Griffin, Antonio Hart, and Vincent Herring.

He also helped in the founding and development of the annual Child of the Sun Jazz Festival, held annually at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida.

Upon his death as a result of complications from diabetes, aged 68, in Lakeland, Florida, in January 2000, Adderley was interred near his brother in the Southside Cemetery in Tallahassee, Florida. His son, Nat Adderley, Jr. a keyboardist, was Luther Vandross's long-time musical director. . ."

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