GONE TOO SOON - Jazz Legends who died young

[Sean de Silva]

Wasn't Gina a bit old for you? By the way she's still living, at 93, single and waiting for the right man

If anyone can look half as good at 93...!!! Incredible

The thick Italian accent did it

Yep the original Italian sex siren.. Accent & Assets

 

[Jayant_S]

If anyone can look half as good at 93...!!! Incredible

Yep the original Italian sex siren.. Accent & Assets

And just like that, your thread turned into a throwback to our teenage fantasies, @Fiftyfifty

 

[Fiftyfifty]

Sandra Dee, the other female star in Come September, was no less a siren!

An interesting fact is that Bobby Darin never did drugs. And when Sandra Dee got addicted to pills and alcohol, Bobby divorced her, ending one of Hollywood's most admired love stories. Sandra was heartbroken and never remarried.

 

[Fiftyfifty]

And here's my favourite 'Usual Suspect' Kevin Spacey doing a Bobby Darin in the film Beyond the Sea. Amazing acting and singing by Spacey. As enjoyable as Bobby himself, perhaps even more:

 

[Sushant Sharma]

"Mack the Knife" maybe?

 

[Sushant Sharma]

Ignore my above post, off topic. Moving back (swiflty), Bobby Darin, great confidence and presence. He is the Guvnor.

 

[Hari Iyer]

JAAZ was introduced to me by my friend Aldrin around 2010 when he discovered that I am building speakers as a hobby. He told me to use these collections to voice my speakers as most are very good on recordings. Check out my JAAZ collection.

 

[Fiftyfifty]

"Mack the Knife" maybe?

Yeah, quite likely you'll find ol' Macheath sneaking in here! I'm sure Quentin Tarrantino loves this

 

[Fiftyfifty]

JAAZ was introduced to me by my friend Aldrin around 2010 when he discovered that I am building speakers as a hobby. He told me to use these collections to voice my speakers as most are very good on recordings. Check out my JAAZ collection.

Nice set of jazz standards! Is the recording good? Did you select any specific songs to voice your speakers? And how do you manage to voice them for both jazz and rock/pop, apart from classical, etc. I'm guessing the biggest challenge must be for western classical.

 

[Fiftyfifty]

Bobby Darin (1936 – 1973) (37) Singer, pianist, actor, composer, multi-instumentalist

• Started his career as a songwriter for Connie Francis
• Wrote and recorded pop songs, but after commercial success, started giving his songs a jazz-pop interpretation, like Mack and Beyond the Sea
• His co-star in Come September was the 18-year-old actress Sandra Dee. They first met during the production of the film, fell in love, and got married soon afterwards.
• In the 60's he became politically involved and travelled with Kennedy, wrote folk and protest music.
• Around 1968, he discovered that the girl he thought was his sister was actually his mother. This was kept a secret from him because of the scandalous nature of out-of-wedlock pregnancies. These events devastated him, as did Kennedy’s assassination, sending him into a long period of seclusion.
• His health was beginning to fail, as he had always expected, following bouts of rheumatic fever in childhood. This knowledge of his vulnerability had always spurred him on to use his musical talent while still young.
• Died in 1973, following a heart surgery

 

[Fiftyfifty]

 

[Beast_of_burden]

Wes Montgomery, perhaps the greatest jazz guitarist and my favourite jazz guitar album "incredible Jazz Guitar". Genius.

 

[Fiftyfifty]

Wes Montgomery, perhaps the greatest jazz guitarist and my favourite jazz guitar album "incredible Jazz Guitar". Genius.

Wes was indeed a legend. Did you know "Instead of using a guitar pick, Montgomery plucked the strings with the fleshy part of his thumb. He developed this technique not for technical reasons but to keep neighbours from complaining, he played quietly by using his thumb"

 

[Beast_of_burden]

Wes was indeed a legend. Did you know "Instead of using a guitar pick, Montgomery plucked the strings with the fleshy part of his thumb. He developed this technique not for technical reasons but to keep neighbours from complaining, he played quietly by using his thumb"

I knew about the first part but didn't know the part about keeping the neighbor's from complaining. One of the great regrets I have is that I lost the SACD of the Incredible Jazz Guitar. I need to get the vinyl copy of this album, definitely worth it. I do have the Wes Montgomery DVD that was presented to me my a relative who plays the guitar professionally. When I first discovered Wes I set out to collect as many of his CDs as possible. Wes is one of those guys where knowing the music is also about knowing the musician.

 

[Fiftyfifty]

A pity re the SACD

Just picked this up from a website. Very impressive!

QUOTE:

The Thumb
Wes was entirely self-taught and early on decided to sacrifice speed for tone by using the right-hand thumb instead of a plectrum. The fat, warm sound he was able to produce with the thumb created a very vocal, soulful 'voice' that's very difficult to obtain with a pick.

Most players who try this technique find it stifling, as upstrokes are so difficult to articulate. Jim Mullen, himself a thumb player, points out that Wes "had a double-jointed thumb, which meant he could play both up- and downstrokes like a pick player".

Ultimately, Wes became so good with the thumb that any drop in speed became irrelevant, as Steve Howe points out: "His technique seemed to allow him to play anything he wanted."

Listening now, over 50 years after some of his most celebrated recordings were made, the velocity Wes could generate when needed is still astonishing. A prime example is his solo on the John Coltrane tune Impressions, which he takes at a breakneck speed. In fact, there isn't a single moment in any Wes recording where you would think he'd do better with a pick!

UNQUOTE

 

[Beast_of_burden]

A pity re the SACD

Just picked this up from a website. Very impressive!

QUOTE:

The Thumb
Wes was entirely self-taught and early on decided to sacrifice speed for tone by using the right-hand thumb instead of a plectrum. The fat, warm sound he was able to produce with the thumb created a very vocal, soulful 'voice' that's very difficult to obtain with a pick.

Most players who try this technique find it stifling, as upstrokes are so difficult to articulate. Jim Mullen, himself a thumb player, points out that Wes "had a double-jointed thumb, which meant he could play both up- and downstrokes like a pick player".

Ultimately, Wes became so good with the thumb that any drop in speed became irrelevant, as Steve Howe points out: "His technique seemed to allow him to play anything he wanted."

Listening now, over 50 years after some of his most celebrated recordings were made, the velocity Wes could generate when needed is still astonishing. A prime example is his solo on the John Coltrane tune Impressions, which he takes at a breakneck speed. In fact, there isn't a single moment in any Wes recording where you would think he'd do better with a pick!

UNQUOTE

Although I have quite a few of Wes's I haven't really connected to the others. It's the same with Kenny Burrell, I gravitate towards midnight Blue and little else although I have a few others like Soul Call. These two albums are must haves in any music lovers collection, these two albums have cross over appeal and dot easily give themselves to easy categorisation. I am going to dustoff those other Wes albums and rediscover.

This is a great thread BTW, OP deserves kudos. I am a fan of Lee Morgan, I was introduced to a compilation early on and it wasn't until years later that I realised I had been grooving to a Hard bop pioneer. But albums have bit too much filler. Critics often accuse Blue Note of including one really good song in an album and include a ton of filler to sell more records.

 

[Sushant Sharma]

Jerry Lewis mimicking Count Basie.

Billy Crystal mimicking Maynard Ferguson

 

[Sushant Sharma]

WE INSIST! Max Roach"s Freedom Now Suite

"Forty-one years after the recording of the Freedom Now Suite, the work still sounds fresh, modern and haunting. A close look at the interplay between the social, the political and the musical that it embodies reminds us that jazz tradition has always been in dialogue with the social and cultural movements going on around it, and has often been at its most inspired when engaged in social commentary."

"The legacy of the spiritual is especially strong in “Triptych,” a movement that is itself divided into three parts: “Prayer,” “Protest” and “Peace.”
“Triptych” is a duet between Lincoln and Roach that moves from expressive interplay between wordless voice and percussion (on “Prayer”) to extended screaming (on “Protest”) and back to “Peace.”

Also beautiful is the song Drivaman.


Oh yeah, we fought. We never could finish it. It [still] isn’t finished.” The problem, he suggested is that “we don’t really understand what it really is to be free. The last song we did, ‘Freedom Day,’ ended with a question mark.”

Revisited! The Freedom Now Suite - JazzTimes

Ingrid Monson examines the music and the historical context of Max Roach and Oscar Brown Jr.'s Freedom Now Suite.

jazztimes.com

 

[Fiftyfifty]

WE INSIST! Max Roach"s Freedom Now Suite

"Forty-one years after the recording of the Freedom Now Suite, the work still sounds fresh, modern and haunting. A close look at the interplay between the social, the political and the musical that it embodies reminds us that jazz tradition has always been in dialogue with the social and cultural movements going on around it, and has often been at its most inspired when engaged in social commentary."

"The legacy of the spiritual is especially strong in “Triptych,” a movement that is itself divided into three parts: “Prayer,” “Protest” and “Peace.”
“Triptych” is a duet between Lincoln and Roach that moves from expressive interplay between wordless voice and percussion (on “Prayer”) to extended screaming (on “Protest”) and back to “Peace.”

Also beautiful is the song Drivaman.


Oh yeah, we fought. We never could finish it. It [still] isn’t finished.” The problem, he suggested is that “we don’t really understand what it really is to be free. The last song we did, ‘Freedom Day,’ ended with a question mark.”

Revisited! The Freedom Now Suite - JazzTimes

Ingrid Monson examines the music and the historical context of Max Roach and Oscar Brown Jr.'s Freedom Now Suite.

jazztimes.com

Great music and so relevant in the current context. And Abbey Lincoln looks gorgeous in the video!

 

[Sushant Sharma]

Great music and so relevant in the current context. And Abbey Lincoln looks gorgeous in the video!

My thoughts too on both counts, Kishore. I could try and make a comment on the beautiful music but also the perfect set of teeth, she has.