In “Keep on Keepin’ On” first-time documentarian Alan Hicks captures the moving relationship between a blind piano prodigy and jazz icon. The film opens on legendary performer Clark Terry, known as one of the most distinct horn players in the jazz world, tutoring 23-year-old Justin Kauflin, just starting out as a jazz pianist in New York City. For four years, Hicks follows the pair as the 93-year-old Terry shares his wisdom with the younger musician, while grappling with his own rapidly declining health. Terry is a key figure in the jazz world, loved not only for his joyous performing style but for a 70-year career during which he played with Charlie Barnet, Duke Ellington, and Count...
- 11/13/2014
- by Zeba Blay
- ShadowAndAct
In “Keep on Keepin’ On” first-time documentarian Alan Hicks captures the moving relationship between a blind piano prodigy and jazz icon. The film opens on legendary performer Clark Terry, known as one of the most distinct horn players in the jazz world, tutoring 23-year-old Justin Kauflin, just starting out as a jazz pianist in New York City. For four years, Hicks follows the pair as the 93-year-old Terry shares his wisdom with the younger musician, while grappling with his own rapidly declining health. Terry is a key figure in the jazz world, loved not only for his joyous performing style but for a 70-year career during which he played with Charlie Barnet, Duke Ellington, and Count...
- 10/3/2014
- by Zeba Blay
- ShadowAndAct
Trailer: 'Keep on Keepin’ On' (Captures Moving Relationship Between Blind Piano Prodigy & Jazz Icon)
In “Keep on Keepin’ On” first-time documentarian Alan Hicks captures the moving relationship between a blind piano prodigy and jazz icon. The film opens on legendary performer Clark Terry, known as one of the most distinct horn players in the jazz world, tutoring 23-year-old Justin Kauflin, just starting out as a jazz pianist in New York City. For four years, Hicks follows the pair as the 93-year-old Terry shares his wisdom with the younger musician, while grappling with his own rapidly declining health. Terry is a key figure in the jazz world, loved not only for his joyous performing style but for a 70-year career during which he played with Charlie Barnet, Duke Ellington, and Count...
- 8/21/2014
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Highly individual American drummer, bandleader and jazz visionary who toured with Lena Horne in the 1950s
A hundred years into its evolution, jazz incorporates ethnic and European classical instruments, drum machines and DJs spinning decks. A half-century or so ago, hardware habits were more cut and dried. A jazz big band had trumpets, trombones, saxes and a rhythm section. A small band had a rhythm section, a sax and trumpet, with maybe a guitar or a vibraphone. One that featured a (very quiet) guitarist, a flute or clarinet, a cellist, and a drummer who preferred mallets to sticks seemed like a strange beast in the jazz forest.
But the groups of the American drummer Chico Hamilton, who has died aged 92, did feature such instrumentation and, contrary to the jazz orthodoxies of the 1950s, they were for a time runaway successes. Hamilton led West Coast bands in that decade that came...
A hundred years into its evolution, jazz incorporates ethnic and European classical instruments, drum machines and DJs spinning decks. A half-century or so ago, hardware habits were more cut and dried. A jazz big band had trumpets, trombones, saxes and a rhythm section. A small band had a rhythm section, a sax and trumpet, with maybe a guitar or a vibraphone. One that featured a (very quiet) guitarist, a flute or clarinet, a cellist, and a drummer who preferred mallets to sticks seemed like a strange beast in the jazz forest.
But the groups of the American drummer Chico Hamilton, who has died aged 92, did feature such instrumentation and, contrary to the jazz orthodoxies of the 1950s, they were for a time runaway successes. Hamilton led West Coast bands in that decade that came...
- 11/26/2013
- by John Fordham
- The Guardian - Film News
Ralph Carney's Serious Jass Project: Seriously (Smog Veil)
One of the great things about recycling old jazz is that there are so many styles to choose from. On the evidence of this CD, saxman Ralph Carney (known as a member of Tin Huey and Oranj Symphonette as well as for his contributions to records by Tom Waits, the Black Keys, Black Francis, the B-52's, Bill Laswell, Elvis Costello, Galaxie 500, Allen Ginsberg, Marc Ribot, William Burroughs, Pere Ubu, and many more) has a great fondness for small-group swing and jump blues, but taps a few additional subgenres as well. He's even more versatile as an instrumentalist, credited on this album with six types of saxophone, two types of clarinet, and flute, trumpet, English horn, lap steel guitar, and vocals, with a moderate amount of overdubbing at times.
Of course, when Carney includes "serious" in the band and album names,...
One of the great things about recycling old jazz is that there are so many styles to choose from. On the evidence of this CD, saxman Ralph Carney (known as a member of Tin Huey and Oranj Symphonette as well as for his contributions to records by Tom Waits, the Black Keys, Black Francis, the B-52's, Bill Laswell, Elvis Costello, Galaxie 500, Allen Ginsberg, Marc Ribot, William Burroughs, Pere Ubu, and many more) has a great fondness for small-group swing and jump blues, but taps a few additional subgenres as well. He's even more versatile as an instrumentalist, credited on this album with six types of saxophone, two types of clarinet, and flute, trumpet, English horn, lap steel guitar, and vocals, with a moderate amount of overdubbing at times.
Of course, when Carney includes "serious" in the band and album names,...
- 11/29/2011
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Velvet-voiced singer, actor and activist who broke new ground for black performers
A handful of decades ago the roles for black performers in Hollywood movies were deliberately kept peripheral to the plots, so that their appearances could easily be edited out for screenings in the American south. Black singers and musicians were barred from taking rooms in the same hotels in which they were performing. Partners in an interracial marriage might decide to leave the Us and move to more hospitable locations, such as Paris, to avoid hate mail and threats. All this and more happened to the singer and actor Lena Horne, who has died aged 92.
Horne not only rose above it all, but also significantly contributed to changing the situation. The velvet-voiced, multi-talented Horne first negotiated, and then resisted, the worst that a racist entertainment industry could throw at her. She rose to its summit as an original...
A handful of decades ago the roles for black performers in Hollywood movies were deliberately kept peripheral to the plots, so that their appearances could easily be edited out for screenings in the American south. Black singers and musicians were barred from taking rooms in the same hotels in which they were performing. Partners in an interracial marriage might decide to leave the Us and move to more hospitable locations, such as Paris, to avoid hate mail and threats. All this and more happened to the singer and actor Lena Horne, who has died aged 92.
Horne not only rose above it all, but also significantly contributed to changing the situation. The velvet-voiced, multi-talented Horne first negotiated, and then resisted, the worst that a racist entertainment industry could throw at her. She rose to its summit as an original...
- 5/10/2010
- by John Fordham
- The Guardian - Film News
Throughout a career that brought international acclaim, the showbiz legend never softened her firm stance against racism
If she could have swallowed her pride, Lena Horne could have had an easy life. Born into a middle-class African-American family in New York in 1917, she was beautiful, talented and ambitious. At the age of 16, much to her family's disapproval, she auditioned as a chorus dancer at the famous Cotton Club, and got the job. She followed this up by taking voice lessons, sang with the black "society" band of Noble Sissle and appeared on Broadway in Blackbirds of 1939 and 1940.
The first jolt in her hitherto smooth showbiz career occured when she became the singer with the top-flight white band of Charlie Barnet and suffered the indignity of having to use the tradesmen's entrance and goods elevator when working at smart hotels. She left Barnet to concentrate on cabaret work and found herself...
If she could have swallowed her pride, Lena Horne could have had an easy life. Born into a middle-class African-American family in New York in 1917, she was beautiful, talented and ambitious. At the age of 16, much to her family's disapproval, she auditioned as a chorus dancer at the famous Cotton Club, and got the job. She followed this up by taking voice lessons, sang with the black "society" band of Noble Sissle and appeared on Broadway in Blackbirds of 1939 and 1940.
The first jolt in her hitherto smooth showbiz career occured when she became the singer with the top-flight white band of Charlie Barnet and suffered the indignity of having to use the tradesmen's entrance and goods elevator when working at smart hotels. She left Barnet to concentrate on cabaret work and found herself...
- 5/10/2010
- by Dave Gelly
- The Guardian - Film News
By The Wrap
Bud Shank, a flutist and alto saxophonist who worked with a variety of jazz greats as well as famous pop acts such as the Mamas and the Papas, has died. He was 82.
Shank died Thursday of pulmonary failure at his home in Tucson, Arizona, according to his Web site and JazzTimes magazine.
Shank first began working with saxophonist Charlie Barnet, trumpeter Shorty Rogers and then pianist Stan Kenton before gong on to lead his own groups. He was one of the first jazz musicians...
Bud Shank, a flutist and alto saxophonist who worked with a variety of jazz greats as well as famous pop acts such as the Mamas and the Papas, has died. He was 82.
Shank died Thursday of pulmonary failure at his home in Tucson, Arizona, according to his Web site and JazzTimes magazine.
Shank first began working with saxophonist Charlie Barnet, trumpeter Shorty Rogers and then pianist Stan Kenton before gong on to lead his own groups. He was one of the first jazz musicians...
- 4/6/2009
- by harley lond
- The Wrap
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