{"id":9491,"date":"2018-05-03T16:47:46","date_gmt":"2018-05-03T23:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=9491"},"modified":"2018-05-03T22:15:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T05:15:52","slug":"may-3-birthdays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2018\/05\/may-3-birthdays\/","title":{"rendered":"May 3 Birthdays"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is the birthday of two men who had significant effects on jazz and popular music. Bing Crosby was born on May 3, 1903 in Spokane, Washington, John Lewis seventeen years later in LaGrange, Illinois shortly before his family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he grew up.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-9492\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Unknown.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"204\" height=\"296\" \/>Crosby became the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best-selling recording artist, a title he holds 40 years after his death. According to his <em>Wikipedia<\/em> biography, Crosby has sold around the world more than one billion records, tapes, CDs and digital downloads. More important, his relaxed musicianship and charm&#8230;and his movie stardom&#8230;made him him one of the most influential performers during the period when jazz and American popular music were developing more or less in tandem.<\/p>\n<p>Pianist Lewis came under the influence of an aunt who exposed him to her collection of jazz<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-9493\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/John-Lewis-smiling.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"359\" height=\"202\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/John-Lewis-smiling.jpg 337w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/John-Lewis-smiling-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 359px) 100vw, 359px\" \/> recordings. He went on to major in music and anthropology at the University of New Mexico. During Army service in World War Two, drummer Kenny Clarke, a fellow soldier, convinced Lewis to move to New York when the war ended. Both men joined Dizzy Gillespie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s big band in 1945, and Lewis later recorded with vibraharpist Milt Jackson, Clarke and bassist Ray Brown when Jackson formed his own quartet. After Percy Heath replaced Brown on bass, the group changed its name to the Modern Jazz Quartet.<\/p>\n<p>Crosby and Lewis no doubt recorded many of the same songs in various contexts. Happily for our little birthday observance, the &#8221;\u00a0pieces include one of the Gershwin brothers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 most charming, durable and adaptable creations.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fbxeAhivEGs\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2QukuGYvZzU\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The Crosby recording is available as part of that classic Decca <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2I8GLTb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Gershwin Songbook<\/em> album<\/a>. The Modern Jazz Quartet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s version of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153But Not For Me\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is on their 1953\/54 <em><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2HLtDDY\">Django<\/a><\/em> album remastered in 2006 by the late Rudy Van Gelder.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the birthday of two men who had significant effects on jazz and popular music. Bing Crosby was born on May 3, 1903 in Spokane, Washington, John Lewis seventeen years later in LaGrange, Illinois shortly before his family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he grew up. Crosby became the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best-selling recording artist, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}