Great Live Moments - Charles Brown

April 29, 2008. Posted by Joshua Jackson.

Add new comment | Filed under: ballad style, blues at sunrise, career track, civil service job, drifting blues, elvis presley, favorite records, high school science, ivory joe hunter, Listening Post, Live Music, lucky millinder, Masters, merry christmas baby, music party, pine bluff arkansas, second world war, sheraton hotel, sun studios, sweet slumber, toast of the nation, trouble blues, wbgo

Circumstances could have been completely different. Charles Brown was a chemist. He attended college, earned a degree in chemistry, taught high school science, and landed a civil service job in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. That would have been a career track for most. Brown had other ideas. He bristled at the racism he encountered each day. He volunteered to serve in the second world war, but was deemed unfit due to asthma. So Charles Brown packed his bags and headed to California.

Thank goodness. Can you imagine a holiday season without "Merry Christmas Baby?" Or a world without "Drifting Blues?" And who played the piano behind a fellow Texan, Ivory Joe Hunter, on "Blues at Sunrise?" How about "Trouble Blues," or "Black Night?" Mind you, most of those songs were hits before Elvis Presley had ever set foot in Sun Studios.

How about one of my all-time favorite records, Sam Cooke's Night Beat? If you simply listen to the way Cooke sings on that record, you might reach the same conclusion I did - would that record exist were it not for Charles Brown?

Brown celebrated New Year's Eve with WBGO, part of the Toast of the Nation coast-to-coast live music party. He welcomed 1994 from the Sheraton Hotel in Tacoma, Washington. His cool, bluesy ballad style was especially poignant on a song popularized by Lucky Millinder.
-Josh

Listen to "Sweet Slumber Till Dawn," from the WBGO Archives.

© 2008 WBGO

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Jazz Events This Summer

April 28, 2008. Posted by .

Add new comment | Filed under: Jazz Alive

Summer is just around the corner! I know I'm excited. So, you know what happens in summer... festivals, outdoor concerts, and all kinds of fun goings on.

I've recently posted up a new page with some of the biggest jazz events of the Summer. To make sure that you're not missing out on any of your favorites, visit the page!

The page includes information on the 11th Annual ORIS Spirit of Jazz Concert Series, The JVC Jazz Festival, The Smooth Cruises, and more.

Check it out.

~Vicky~

© 2008 WBGO

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Great Live Moments - Michel Petrucciani

April 28, 2008. Posted by Joshua Jackson.

Add new comment | Filed under: bassist, big sur, blue note records, bones disease, cerra, charles lloyd, death in 1999, eliot zigmund, glass bones, jazz world, jim hall, Listening Post, Live Music, michel petrucciani, montreux, morning sunrise, one of my favorites, ron mcclure, thon, three feet, wayne shorter, wbgo jazz

In 1985, Dorthaan Kirk presented Jazz-a-Thon, a marathon of live music that doubled as a fundraiser for WBGO. It attracted some of the jazz world's biggest talent.
Pianist Michel Petrucciani was both the smallest and largest that jazz had to offer that year. He was three feet tall and little more than fifty pounds, due to osteogenesis imperfecta, the rare "Glass Bones" disease. Yet he had one of the greatest commands of the piano - one that was classically virtuosic, effusively romantic, and heavily improvised. By this time, Michel had recently toured with Charles Lloyd, whom Petrucciani had nudged from retirement at California's Big Sur. Michel was now on the east coast, with his own band. Specifically, he was the Ritz in New York, with bassist Ron McClure and drummer Eliot Zigmund. Petrucciani had just signed with the recently revived Blue Note Records. In December of 1985, he recorded his extraordinary debut for the label, Pianism, followed by one of my favorites, Power of Three, a live concert from Montreux with Wayne Shorter and Jim Hall. Michel Petrucciani played until his death in 1999, age 36.
Listen to "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise," from the WBGO Jazz-a-Thon.

You can also read Steve Cerra's blog post about Michel Petrucciani here.
-Josh

© 2008 WBGO

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