DAY 15.
Tito Puente      Dance Mania, Vol 1.



When Tito Puente passed away in 2000, at the age of 77, he was known to younger generations as the author of the Santana-covered classic rock/r&b radio staple "Oye Coma Va" and also for appearing on a season ending cliffhanger episode of The Simpsons ( Who Shot Mr Burns)
But prior to that, the timbales master-bandleader-composer enjoyed life as the king of Mambo.
And Dance Mania, his best selling album -- and his first devoted wholly to dance music---shows why.
 

PatReilly wrote:

Without Little Richard there would be no Prince....... or Cliff Richard (he'd have chosen another name).

That album was rrrrrrrockin'. But I couldn't listen to it very often.

While Tito Puente is okay, compared to many that have been on in the first fortnight.

"I salute your indefatigability".



 

Thanks Pat but I've still got 986 to go
I didn't know that about Cliff, cheers
That is what I'm enjoying as much as the music
I do like a bit of trivia and even after only 15 albums, I've picked up quite a bit of shit I hadn't previously known!
Hope you and anyone else who's looking in stay on this journey, as It's not about the albums you know you like, it's about finding the albums you didn't know you liked  imho.
If anybody else has any comments feel free to join in.
 

shedboy wrote:

wow ive skipped some - so many classics and early stuff i am now hooked on.

Amazing thread thank you

SRYB

Thanks shedboy, glad you're enjoying it.

 

DAY 16
Billie Holiday    Lady in Satin (1958)









Can't say i really enjoyed this much, but got to say she did have one horrible life, but to be honest the tail end was self inflicted.
I didn't mind some of her earlier stuff, but wont be adding this one to my collection.

Watch the mini bio below for a little insight.


 

Last edited by arabchanter (10/9/2019 10:56 pm)

scarpia wrote:

arabchanter wrote:

DAY 16
Billie Holiday    Lady in Satin (1958)


This was the last album released in her lifetime
Is Lady in Satin merely a voyeuristic portrait of an artist in decline or actually a seminal slice of soul baring from one of jazz's most gifted interpreters of song? Granted, the vivacious "Lady Day" siren call of her 1930s Verve recordings have long gone, now replaced by the ravaged, bittersweet rasp of a singer struggling with a serious heroin habit. With Holiday now sounding more like a 70 year old than a 40 something starlet making a comeback, arranger Ray Ellis was  initially less than happy with her faltering timbre.

 
Not keen on this one - early stuff much better - has some interest but suspect it only made the list cos they start in the fifties and wanted to include her

We must have been on at the same time, almost identical.
I make you bang on the money about her inclusion.

 

Last edited by arabchanter (25/8/2017 8:11 pm)

DAY 17
Ramblin' Jack Elliott    Jack Takes The Floor



A cracking album cover, but to be honest it wasn't bad but it wasn't great.
If somebody put it on the record player, I wouldn't walk out of the room but certainly wouldn't put it in my collection.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott (born Elliott Charles Adnopoz, 1 August 1931) is a Grammy Award winning American folk performer.Originally from New York, Elliott grew up in a Jewish family and had always wanted to be a cowboy. Pressured by his parents to follow in his father's footsteps and become a doctor, Elliott resisted and inspired by the rodeos he attended at Madison Square Garden, he ran away from home at the age of 15 and joined the J.E. Ranch Rodeo. Although he was only with the rodeo for three months (before his parents tracked him down and he was sent home), Elliott was exposed to his first singing cowboy, a rodeo clown who played guitar and banjo and sang songs.
Returning home, Elliott taught himself to play guitar and started busking for a living. Eventually he hooked up with Woody Guthrie and lived with him as a kind of student.
On first meeting Dylan:
"I met Bob when Woody was in the hospital. He was this funny little kid. He told me he had all my recordings. He rattled off the names of all the songs I did on those albums. I didn't remember them myself. He was kinda weird, and a lot of people were making noises about what a terrible voice he had. He did have kind of a screechy voice. But he was like a son to me. For his first gig at Gerde's Folk City. I took him down to the Musicians Union because you had to be in the union to work that gig. I was a member myself, and I vouched for him. Said he was a very good guitar player.
"Elliott's musical style influenced Bob Dylan so heavily that Dylan's first gig in New York City was billed as "Son of Jack Elliott."
While Dylan rose to prominence through his compositions, Elliott continued as an interpretive troubadour, bringing old songs to new audiences in an idiosyncratic manner.
Elliott appeared on Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and played Longheno de Castro in Dylan's Renaldo and Clara.Jack

Elliott's style is distinctive in its use of excellent guitar technique matched with laconic, humorous storytelling and an emotional intensity in the singing.

Elliott's nickname is due not to his travel habits, but rather to the countless stories he would relate before answering the simplest of questions. Folk singer Odetta claims that it was her mother who gave him the name by remarking, "Oh Jack Elliott, yeah, he can sure ramble on!"

"Nobody I know—and I mean nobody—has covered more ground and made more friends and sung more songs than the fellow you're about to meet right now. He's got a song and a friend for every mile behind him. Say hello to my good buddy, Ramblin' Jack Elliott."[2]Johnny Cash, The Johnny Cash Television Show 1969

Ramblin' Jack Elliott isn't a favourite, and it's doubtful if Sarah Vaughan and her Trio will cut much ice.

DAY 18
Sarah Vaughan At Mr Kelly's (1958)


Started to think this book was beginning  to brainwash me, I actually enjoyed the first 7 tracks then track 8,  "Just a Gigalo" she absolutely murdered it, then track 9 she started all that dooby wooby doo wee dooba ba crap and that was enough.
The woman has a great voice to be fair,  but for her crimnal rendition of " Just a Gigalo" alone, her album will not be coming near my collection.

In 1942 at the Apollo Theater's weekly Amateur Night Sarah won first prize for a rendition of "Body and Soul" that so impressed jazz singer Billy Eckstine that he persuaded his bandleader, Earl Hines, to hire her. In 1944 Eckstine left Hines's band to form his own and took Sarah (as well as jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker) with him. Vaughan stayed with the band for a year, and then in late 1945 she began her long solo career.
For the next 45 years she was to record virtually every jazz and pop standard against backgrounds that varied from small and big jazz ensembles to large studio bands and symphonic orchestras
.Beginning in 1957, when she first recorded it with Quincy Jones' band, "Misty" was the song most associated with Vaughan and most often requested by live audiences, but by the mid-1970s Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns" had become her showpiece, the closing musical signature of her concerts.
 

 DAY 19
Ella Fitzgerald          Sings The Gershwin Songbook

 

Can't believe I'm about tosaythis but I really enjoyed listening to the first hour of this, great voice.


I don't think I could listen to the other 4 hours back to back, but whether I've become brainwashed, attuned to or even beginning to respect jazz I'm not too sure.

It's could be when I was a kid, on rainy Sundays all you could watch were black and white movies which were usually a good cowboy or a musical, probably similar tunes,maybe familiarity?


I have noticed that I can handle the jazz singers but not the instumentals,  and I can use the first two tracks on this album as a perfect example, are  just noise imho.


I did like it, but not enough to put in my collection.

 Here are 10 facts about the life of the Queen of Jazz
1. Ella Fitzgerald was born on 25 April 1917 in Newport News, Virginia
2. Her first stage performance was at Amateur Night at the Apollo Theatre, Virginia, in 1934. She sang Hoagy Carmichael's "Judy”, one of her mother’s favourite songs
3. This was followed by her first recording in 1935, with Chick Webb called Love and Kisses
4. Fitzgerald shot to fame at the age of 21 after recording a playful version of the nursery rhyme "A-Tisket, A-Tasket”. The album sold 1 million copies, hit number one and stayed in the charts for 17 weeks
5. Dubbed “The First Lady of Song” she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums
6. Ella worked as a runner for local gamblers, picking up their bets and dropping off money, in order to help support her mother and step father when she was younger
7. While in Dallas, Texas, touring for the Jazz at the Philharmonic tour, Fitzgerald faced discrimination. Police barged backstage and arrested the whole band
8. By the 90s, Ella had recorded over 200 albums. She gave her last concert in 1991 at New York’s famous Carnegie Hall, the 26th time she had performed there
9. Ella suffered several health problems. In 1986, she underwent a quintuple coronary bypass and was diagnosed with diabetes. She stayed strong and powered through her intense performance schedule. But the effects of the illness worsened over the next few years
10. On June 15, 1996, Ella Fitzgerald died in her Beverly Hills home
 

Last edited by arabchanter (28/8/2017 9:42 pm)

I thought I had lost the musical snobbishness of my youth, when I looked down my nose at the likes of the Bay City Rollers.

But it seems I'm still a snob when it comes to stuff I don't like!

PatReilly wrote:

I thought I had lost the musical snobbishness of my youth, when I looked down my nose at the likes of the Bay City Rollers.

But it seems I'm still a snob when it comes to stuff I don't like!

Glad to hear you're still trying them anyway
 

DAY 20 Ray Charles   The Genius of Ray Charles




 




I tried to like this one, I listened to the whole album but can't say I enjoyed many of the tracks.
This his sixth studio album, sold less than 500,000 copies, which really doesn't surprise me.
So although I like Ray Charles this paticular album won't be in my collection.

Famed musician and singer Ray Charles began losing his sight at an early age and was completely blind by the time he was seven due to glaucoma. However, he never relied on a cane or guide dog. He navigated direction by the sound of his hard-soled shoes instead. Many know that he played the piano. But he also was able to play the saxophone, trumpet, clarinet and organ.

He experimented first with marijuana, and later became addicted to heroin, which he struggled with for sixteen years.Another interesting fact about Ray Charles many do not know is that playing chess was one of his favorite pastimes. He used a special board with raised squares and holes for the chess pieces. In 2002, he played against chess Grand Master Larry Evans, a match that he lost.Twice married, Charles was also the father of 12 children with 10 mothers

Statue by Andy Davis in Ray Charles Plaza in Albany, Georgia: On December 7, 2007, the Ray Charles Plazawas opened in his hometown of Albany, Georgia, featuring a revolving, lighted bronze sculpture of Charles seated at a piano. The plaza's dedication was attended by his daughter Sheila Raye Charles.

In 1981 he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was one of the first inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural ceremony in 1986.

In 2003, he died at his home  in Beverley Hills, California of complications resulting from acute liver disease.
 

Last edited by arabchanter (10/9/2019 11:00 pm)