News and Reviews
Straight No ChaserPerformance of Straight No Chaser By Shaukat Husain
Jan 19, 2011 |
Nick Drake's Pink MoonPink Moon By Shaukat Husain
Sep 12, 2010 |
Nicholas Rodney "Nick" Drake (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974) was an English singer-songwriter and musician. Best known for the sombre pieces composed on his primary instrument, the guitar, Drake was also proficient at piano, clarinet and saxophone. Although he failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, Drake's work has gradually achieved wider notice and recognition; 50 years.[2][3][4] Drake signed to Island Records when he was 20 years old and released his debut album, Five Leaves Left, in 1969. By 1972, he had recorded two more albums—Bryter Layter and Pink Moon. None of the albums sold more than 5,000 copies on their initial release.[5] His reluctance to perform live or be interviewed further contributed to his lack of commercial success. Despite this, he was able to gather a loyal group of fans who would champion his music. One such person was his manager, Joe Boyd, who had a clause put into his own contract with Island Records that ensured Drake's records would never go out of print. Drake suffered from depression and insomnia throughout his life, and these topics were often reflected in his lyrics. Upon completion of his third album, 1972's Pink Moon, he withdrew from both live performance and recording, retreating to his parents' home in rural Warwickshire. On 25 November 1974, Drake died from an overdose of amitriptyline, a prescribed antidepressant; he was 26 years old.A personal favourite
By Shaukat Husain McCorkle was born in Berkeley, California. She studied modern languages at the University of California, Berkeley. McCorkle began singing professionally after hearing recordings of Billie Holiday in Paris in the late 1960s. She nearly became an interpreter at the European Commission in Brussels, but moved instead to London in 1972 to pursue a career in singing. While in the UK, she made two albums which, although well received, enjoyed only limited circulation.
In the late 1970s, McCorkle returned to the United States and settled in New York City, where a five-month engagement at the Cookery in Greenwich Village brought her to wider public attention and elicited rave reviews from critics.
During the 1980s, McCorkle continued to record; her maturing style and the darkening timbre of her voice greatly enhanced her performances. In the early 1990s, two of the albums McCorkle made for Concord Records, No More Blues and Sábia, were enormously successful and made her name known to the wider world. She was recorded by the Smithsonian Institution which at the time made her the youngest singer ever to have been included in its popular music series. McCorkle played Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls five times and Carnegie Hall three times, and was featured soloist with Skitch Henderson and the 80-piece New York Pops in a concert of Brazilian music.
Thanks to her linguistic skills, McCorkle translated lyrics of Brazilian, French, and Italian songs, notably those for her Brazilian album Sabia. She had a special affinity for Bossa Nova and often cited Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Waters of March" as her personal favorite. McCorkle also had several short stories published and, in 1991, began work on her first novel. She published fiction in Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan Magazine, and non-fiction in the New York Times Magazine and in American Heritage, including lengthy articles on Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith, Irving Berlin and Mae West.
A survivor of bron so deep -- and so well hidden -- that a year after her suicide, even some in her most intimate circle wonder how they missed the cries for help."
Haunted Heart, a biography of Susannah McCorkle written by Linda Dahl, was published in September 2006 by University of Michigan Press. Jul 07, 2010 |
Most Requested SongsBill Evan's Portrait in Jazz
By Shaukat Husain At the turn of the decade, Evans led a trio with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. This group was to become one of the most acclaimed piano trios—and jazz bands in general—of all time. With this group, Evans's focus settled on traditional jazz standards and original compositions, with an added emphasis on interplay among the band members that often bordered on collective improvisation, blurring the line between soloist and accompanist. The collaboration between Evans and the young LaFaro was particularly fruitful, as the two achieved a remarkable level of musical empathy. The trio recorded four albums: Portrait in Jazz (1959); and Explorations, Sunday at the Village Vanguard, and Waltz for Debby, all recorded in 1961. The last two albums are live recordings from the same recording date, and are routinely named among the greatest jazz recordings of all time. In 2005, the full sets were collected on the three-CD set The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961. There is also a lesser-known recording of this trio, Live at Birdland, taken from radio broadcasts in early 1960, though the sound quality is poor.
In addition to introducing a new freedom of interplay within the piano trio, Evans began (in performances such as "My Foolish Heart" from the Vanguard sessions) to explore extremely slow ballad tempos and quiet volume levels, which had been virtually unknown in jazz. His chordal voicings became more impressionistic, reminiscent of classical composers such as Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, and Satie, and he moved away from the thick block chords he had often used with Davis. His sparse left-hand voicings supported his lyrical right-hand lines, reflecting the influence of jazz pianist Bud Powell. May 12, 2010 |
Portrait in JazzChet Baker at his best
By Shaukat Husain Baker was born and raised in a musical household in Yale, Oklahoma; his father was a professional guitar player. Baker began his musical career singing in a church choir. His father introduced him to brass instruments with a trombone, which was replaced with a trumpet when the trombone proved too large for him.
Baker received some musical education at Glendale Junior High School, but left school at age 16 in 1946 to join the United States Army. He was posted to Berlin where he joined the 298th Army band. Leaving the army in 1948, he studied theory and harmony at El Camino College in Los Angeles. He dropped out in his second year, however, re-enlisting in the army in 1950. Baker once again obtained a discharge from the army to pursue a career as a professional musician. Baker became a member of the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio in San Francisco, but was soon spending time in San Francisco jazz clubs such as Bop City and the Black Hawk.Nov 18, 2009 |
Chet Baker at his BestSteely Dan's AJA - A Classic AlbumAja By Shaukat Husain
Jan 12, 2009 |
Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop.[1] Rolling Stone magazine has called them "the perfect musical antiheroes for the Seventies."[2] The band's music is characterized by complex jazz-influenced structures and harmonies played by Becker and Fagen along with a revolving cast of rock and pop studio musicians.[1] Steely Dan's "cerebral, wry and eccentric"[1] lyrics, often filled with sharp sarcasm, touch upon such themes as drugs, love affairs,[3][4][5][6] crime,[6] and their true-to-life "contempt of west coast hippies."[5][6] The pair are well-known for their near-obsessive perfectionism in the recording studio,[7][8] with one notable example being that Becker and Fagen used at least 42 different studio musicians, 11 engineers, and took over a year to record the tracks that resulted in 1980's Gaucho — an album that contains only seven songs. Steely Dan toured from 1972 to 1974, but in 1975 became a purely studio-based act. The late 1970s saw the group release a series of moderately successful singles and albums. They disbanded in 1981, and throughout most of the next decade, Fagen and Becker remained largely inactive in the music world. During this time, the group steadily built and maintained "a cult following."[1] In 1993, the group resumed playing live concerts; the early 21st century saw Steely Dan release two albums of new material, the first of which earned a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. They have sold more than 30 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2001.One 4 All at the Cellar
By Shaukat Husain ONE FOR ALL is a New York-based band comprised of six talented and successful musicians. Collectively, they have been sidemen to jazz greats Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey, Chick Corea, Ray Charles, Louis Hayes, George Coleman, Benny Golson, Chet Baker, Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, Jackie McLean, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Barron, and Cecil Payne, among others. Having achieved exceptional musicianship individually,.each member of this jazz sextet possesses his own singular style and together they have created a rare, unique sound that has become the signature of ONE FOR ALL. In 1988, trumpeter Jim Rotondi met drummer Joseph Farnsworth and tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander.It was Farnsworth's association with the renowned New York jazz club, Augie's (now called Smoke), that eventually brought them to, former Art Blakey Jazz Messenger, trombonist Steve Davis. In the fall of 1996, the quartet joined forces with pianist David Hazeltine and bassist Peter Washington for a weekend gig at Smalls in Greenwich Village, NYC. In February of 1997, the newly formed sextet, now known as ONE FOR ALL, recorded their first CD, Too Soon To Tell, for the Sharp Nine Label at Rudy Van Gelder's Studio. They went on to record their critically acclaimed second project, Optimism, for Sharp Nine Records in February of 1998. Sep 12, 2008 |
