The Quarantined Jazz Voyager
Taking the high road and staying safe, socially distanced and listening to great music. This week I am choosing A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing is the second studio album by pianist Vince Guaraldi, credited to the Vince Guaraldi Trio. It was recorded at Fantasy Recording Studios in San Francisco, California on April 16, 1957 and released in the U.S. the following year on the Fantasy Records label. Ralph J. Gleason wrote the liner notes and in 1994, Phil De Lancie produced the digital remastering.
Track Listing | 34:40 Side One- A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing (Billy Strayhorn) ~ 5:37
- Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise (Oscar Hammerstein II, Sigmund Romberg) ~ 3:28
- Yesterdays (Jerome Kern) ~ 4:00
- Like A Mighty Rose aka Room At The Bottom (Vince Guaraldi) ~ 4:30
- Looking For The Boy (George & Ira Gershwin) ~ 4:06
- Autumn Leaves (Joseph Kosma) ~ 4:21
- Lonely Girl (Bobby Troup) 3:23
- Willow Weep For Me (Ann Ronell) ~ 5:14
- Vince Guaraldi – piano
- Eddie Duran – guitar
- Dean Reilly – double bass
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Andile Yenana was born on August 9, 1968 in King William’s Town, South Africa. His love of music was triggered at an early age and he grew up in a household where music was really loved. His father, Felix Thamsanqa Yenana, had a huge collection of music, ranging from jazz to Motown, and other forms of urban black music and this had a huge influence in his life.
Andile began music studies under Darius Brubeck at the University of Natal’s School of Jazz and Popular Music It was here that he became friends with saxophonist Zim Ngqawana and trumpeter Feya Faku.
Joining the Zim Ngqawana Quartet and worked with Zim on all five of his albums, including San Song recorded with Bjorn Ole Solburg and his Norwegian San Ensemble. He also worked on the Pan-African music project Mahube with saxophonist Steve Dyer and others. He has also worked as arranger for Sibongile Khumalo, Gloria Bosman and Suthukazi Arosi. In 2005 he was selected as the 2005 Standard Bank Young Artist for Jazz.
Pianist Andile Yenana, who made an indelible mark on the industry by switching from teaching to studying jazz, continues to perform and record.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Luckey Roberts was born Charles Luckyth Roberts on August 7, 1887 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was playing piano and acting professionally with traveling Negro minstrel shows in his childhood. Settling in New York City about 1910 he became one of the leading pianists in Harlem, and started publishing some of his original rags.
Roberts toured France and the UK with James Reese Europe during World War I, then returned to New York where he wrote music for various shows and recorded piano rolls. With James P. Johnson, he developed the stride piano style of playing about 1919.
His reach on the keyboard was unusually large and Luckey could reach a fourteenth, leading to a rumor that he had the webbing between his fingers surgically cut. Those who knew him and saw him play live denounced it as false, he simply had naturally large hands with a wide finger spread.
By the 1920s Roberts teamed up with lyricist Alex C. Rogers, co-wrote three Broadway musicals, Go-Go and Sharlee in 1923, and My Magnolia in 1926, the latter starred Adelaide Hall, a major black revue star.
Hisnoted compositions include Junk Man Rag, Moonlight Cocktail, Pork and Beans, and Railroad Blues. The Glenn Miller Orchestra recorded Moonlight Cocktail, and was the best selling record in the United States for ten weeks in 1942.An astute businessman, he became a millionaire twice through real estate dealings. Pianist and composer Luckey Roberts, who recorded piano solos with Willie “the Lion “ Smith, passed away on February 5, 1968 in New York City.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Kamil Hala was born on August 1, 1914 in Most, Czechoslovakia. During the late Fifties he led his own orchestra. He was a member of the Czechoslovak Radio Dance Orchestra beginning in 1960, starting as a pianist and later as its arranger and conductor. After the orchestra split in 1963 he was the conductor of the Czechoslovak Radio Jazz Orchestra until the 1990s.
Pianist composer, arranger, and conductor Kamil Hala passed away on October 29, 2014 in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jef Gilson was born on July 25, 1926 as Jean~François Quiévreux in Guebwiller, France. As a clarinetist he began playing with Claude Luter in the Boris Vian band. After that stint he switched to the piano. The experience of the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band led him to become an arranger and big band leader. In his band played, among others Bill Coleman, Bernard Vitet, Jean-Louis Chautemps, François Jeanneau, Michel Portal, Jean-Luc Ponty, Bernard Lubat, Lloyd Miller and Henri Texier.
For a time he was musical director of the vocal sextet Les Double Six. Gilson’s free jazz recordings did not materialize into success, and in 1968 he temporarily went to Madagascar. His 1971 return saw him concentrating first on ethno jazz, then total improvisation. In 1973 he founded his label Palm, and released recordings with his orchestra Europamerica, and with Butch Morris. For this more arranged record, which started reflecting his achievements of free jazz, he was awarded the 1978 Prix Boris Vian.
Up to his final days he lived withdrawn in Ardèche, France. Pianist, arranger, composer and big band leader Jef Gilson passed away on February 5, 2012.
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