…just because it’s Saturday night. You want to feel good as you fall asleep and even better when you wake up on Sunday morning. Fats will help. He always does

A jazz version of “June Is Busting Out All Over”? you might ask. Who would think of such a thing? Finding the right tempo might be possible, but how about those Richard Rodgers harmonies?  Well, Bill Holman-or maybe it was Stan Kenton-thought it would work. From the period, presumably in the mid-1950s, when Holman was doing a good deal of arranging for Kenton’s band, let’s listen to his arrangement of the tune that has been welcoming  this month since the song debuted in the Broadway musical Carousel in 1945. Youtube provides no information about when it was recorded or who plays the solos. Sam Noto may be the trumpeter. The alto saxophonist? Possiby Charlie Mariano. Despite the claim of the unoriginal album cover, we do not hear a solo from Bob Cooper or Frank Rosolino. We do hear some nice writing by Holman.  As the song’s lyric famously declares, it’s June, June, June.

Wishing you a perfect June.

If only they were still with us, two major artists would be celebrating their birthdays this weekend. They were Peggy Lee (1920-­­2002) and Miles Davis (1926-1991). She was of major significance in popular music and he in jazz, but their wide appeal to audiences of many kinds makes it difficult to assign either to a strict category. Staff research has turned up no recording, radio broadcast or television program in which they performed together. In fact, as far as we can discover, there were few songs that each recorded. In tribute, however, we can offer their versions of the same piece. It is “Bye Bye Blackbird,” a song written in 1926 by Mort Dickson and Ray Henderson. It became famous by way of Gene Austin’s recording soon after it was published. It was one of the songs that Peggy Lee sang on the sound track of the 1955 motion picture Pete Kelly’s Blues, starring Jack Webb.

Denny Zeitlin Solo Piano: Remembering Miles

For the most recent of his annual solo concerts at the Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland, California, pianist Denny Zeitlin’s subject was Miles Davis. The recital before the Piedmont’s customary audience of close listeners covered several eras of the trumpeter’s career. Davis composed few major jazz standards, and he had collaborators for some of those. In the recording, Zeitlin’s repertoire begins with one of the most famous pieces attributed to Davis. “Solar” was in fact written in 1947 by guitarist Chuck Wayne as “Sonny” and named for trumpeter Sonny Berman. It is one of Davis’s most famous appropriations. Zeitlin eases into it, but soon employs his formidable left hand to fill out the sound and roll into minor-key explorations, to  the advantage of its harp-like qualities, then modulates into a series of commentaries that come in fragments of left-hand flourishes and, ultimately, in final thoughts that incorporate a stunning decrescendo.

It is all but certain that Bill Evans was a major contributor to the composition of “Flamenco Sketches,” a modal masterpiece that was a highlight among highlights in Davis’s amazingly successful Kind Of Blue, which remains one of the best-selling jazz albums ever. Zeitlin is relaxed and harmonically subtle throughout this piece, which is welcome as one of the album’s longer tracks.”Tomaas,” a Davis collaboration with bassist Marcus Miller, finds Zeitlin at first reaching inside the piano to take advantage of its harp-like qualities, then modulating into series of commentaries that come in fragments of left-hand comments and, ultimately, in final thoughts that incorporate a stunning decrescendo.

Finally, I must mention that Zeitlin concludes with a pair of performances based in the heart and lifeblood of jazz: first, the energy  that he applies to the “I Got Rhythm” changes of Davis’s “The Theme;” second, the drive, pzazz and humor with which he invests the good old b-flat blues, in this case a piece that Davis recorded in 1954 and titled “Weirdo.” Zeitlin wraps it up in keeping with the title. The ending is ever so slightly weird.

Permit me to tell you how my yesterday went. It went badly. Here’s why. I prepared a Rifftides post that included a video. After the preliminary work and I was ready to post, I got a “video unavailable” notification. I settled on another post, put it together and got a second “video unavailable” message.

So, I decided to bring you a couple of videos that I was reasonably certain would be available. They were. They contain recordings that are part of the basic repertoire, pieces with solos that all good Rifftides readers should be able to sing along with. Please do, and we’ll both feel better about the whole day. First: Louis Armstrong’s “West End Blues” (1928). Second: Charlie Parker’s and Lester Young’s “Lady Be Good” (1946).       

                                 

Now,  don’t you feel better?

The exact date is uncertain, but we know who was with Hubbard in this L.A. all-star band:

Freddie Hubbard, featured trumpet soloist. Saxes & Flutes: Bud Shank (alto), Bill Perkins (tenor), Bob Tricarico (baritone sax). Trumpets: Chuck Findley and Gary Grant. Trombone: Bill Watrous. Horn: Vince DeRosa, Tuba: Tommy Johnson. Rhythm: Dan Ferguson (guitar), Bill Mays (piano), Abe Laboriel (bass), Bill Maxwell (drums) and Joe Porcaro (percussion). They play “Ride With The Wind.”

Have a good Thursday.