by Jonas Lohse
William P. Gottlieb’s photos document the jazz scene in New York City and Washington, D.C., from 1938 to 1948, a time recognized by many as the “Golden Age of Jazz”. More than 200 fantastic photos are now available in Flickr, and more photos will be added each month until all 1,600 are in Flickr. More about William Gottlieb at the Library’s Performing Arts Encyclopedia, Gottlieb Collection.
(By the way: the bassits shown in this photo is bassmaker and author Chuck Traeger …)
![[Portrait of Wilbur De Paris, Sammy Price, Sidney De Paris, Eddie (Emmanuel) Barefield, and Charlie Traeger, Jimmy Ryan's (Club), New York, N.Y., ca. July 1947] (LOC)](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4085/4843740198_d9c7c62404.jpg)
Unfortunately, I can’t afford and don’t have time to visit New York frequently.
So I was very happy to discover that the Smalls Club’s website features a live webcam with real time video and sound. Broadcasting times is from 7:30 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. Which is usually too late, or too early for me: due to the time shift, the shows end at my breakfast time.
The legendary Village Vanguard, world-known for many great recordings that have been made there, has a live radio show at WBGO. Some of the concerts are available for download as podcast.
100 years ago, on June 23., 1910, Milt “The Judge” Hinton was born. And 20 years ago, “a choir of first-call bassists canceled whatever to come together“ – and celebrate Milt’s 80. birthday at Town Hall, New York: Lynn Seaton, Lonnie Plaxico, Charnett Moffett, Jack Lesberg, Bob Haggart, Milt Hinton, John Clayton, Eddie Gomez, Richard Davis, Bill Crow, Major Holley, Ron Carter and Rufus Reid.
… photo and live recording at the WBGO weblog.
Today, Johannes has sent me the link to Daryl Johns’ website. Daryl is a 12-years-old double bassist from New Jersey/USA, and a real cat. Unbelievable!
More from Daryl and his great fellow musicians can be found at YouTube (this link is his pianist’s channel, scroll down for videos with Daryl on bass).
Jazz Bass Artists of the 1950s
Today, it’s Eberhard Weber’s 70. birthday. The German bassist, who lives in south of France, is best known for his work with Jan Garbarek (sax) and Wolfgang Dauner (p), and the exclusive use of an electric upright bass since the 1970ies.
Massimo Biolcati has started the iRealBook as iPhone App, but he recently launched an Android version, too. He also developped a web version of the Editor software. With the editor, you can easily change or edit existing songs and add new (or own) tunes to your iRealBook library on your Mac or Windows/Linux based PC.
I recently discovered an interesting music website, Wolfgang’s Vault. “The World’s Greatest Collection of Vintage Concert Recordings” has just acquired recordings from the Newport Jazz and Folk Festival.
Wolfgang’s Vault now offers concert recordings by artists like Ahmad Jamal Trio, Dizzy Gillespie, The Four Freshman, Gene Krupa Quartet, George Shearing, Herbie Mann Sextet, Horace Silver Quintet, Jimmy Smith Trio, The Mastersounds, Oscar Peterson Trio, Maynard Ferguson, Stan Kenton Orchestra, Thelonious Monk and others as a MP3 download, or free music stream.
Massimo Biolcati, double bassist from NYC and developper of the iRealBook iPhone-App has updated his iRealBook Editor software for Mac. Even if you don’t own a iPhone (or iPod touch), the iRealBookEditor is a really useful piece of software. You can put together leadsheets very fast, transpose the changes, and print them out or send as PDF. Besides this, Massimo has also launched a Forum – you can now send your tunes to the iRealBook Forum, and discuss and share your transcribed changes with other musicians. You can also find and download a couple of alternate versions and new tunes there, that don’t come with the iPhone app (yet). Massimo has solved this integration very simple, but elegant.
On Sunday night, bassist Ben Williams won the prestigous Thelonius Mink Competion in his hometown Washington. The six judges, including Ron Carter, Charlie Haden and Dave Holland, winnowed the list to three (Joe Sanders from Milwaukee, Matt Brewer of Albuquerque and Ben Williams) and those finalists performed Sunday with singer Dee Dee Bridgewater and a rhythm section of pianist Geoff Keezer and drummer Carl Allen.
“The crowd favorite was 24-year-old Ben Williams, who grew up in Northeast D.C. and graduated from Davey Yarborough’s jazz program at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. He pulled hard at the strings, building up a powerful rhythmic attack on Duke Ellington’s “Caravan,” locking eyes and trading musical ideas with the ebullient Bridgewater.” reports Matt Schudel/Washington Post.
More about Ben Williams at his MySpace page.
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