Astrud Gilberto: Corcovado (Tokimonsta Remix)

Los Angeles based producer TOKiMONSTA has re-imagined the vocals of the lovely Astrud Gilberto from the "Corcovado" single taken from Getz/Gilberto (1964), a groundbreaking project that's considered one of the best Jazz albums of all time. "Corcovado" was originally composed by notable Jazz pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Friday Flashback: Lightnin' Hopkins

Sam John "Lightnin'" Hopkins
(March 15, 1912 – January 30, 1982)
Originally hailing from Centerville, Texas and gaining a deep appreciation for Blues music and musician Blind Lemon Jefferson at a young age. Eventually, after learning how to play guitar from his cousin, Hopkins would accompany Jefferson at church functions. Jefferson supposedly never let anyone play with him except for young Hopkins, who learned much from and was influenced greatly by Blind Lemon Jefferson. Several years later Hopkins came to Houston in hopes of breaking into the music scene. During his second attempt, while singing on Dowling St. in Houston's Third Ward, he was discovered by Lola Anne Cullum from the Los Angeles based record label, Aladdin Records. She convinced Hopkins to travel to Los Angeles where he accompanied pianist Wilson Smith. The duo recorded twelve tracks in their first sessions in 1946. An Aladdin Records executive decided the pair needed more dynamism in their names and dubbed Hopkins "Lightnin'" and Wilson "Thunder".

Hopkins recorded more sides for Aladdin in 1947. He returned to Houston and began recording for the Gold Star Records label. He performed regularly at clubs in and around Houston, particularly on Dowling St. where he had first been discovered. He recorded his hits "T-Model Blues" and "Tim Moore's Farm" at Sugar Hill Recording Studios in Houston. By the mid to late 1950s his prodigious output of quality recordings had gained him a following among African Americans and blues music aficionados. It has been estimated that he recorded between 800 and 1000 songs during his career. Houston's poet-in-residence for 35 years, Hopkins recorded more albums than any other bluesman. His distinctive fingerstyle playing often included playing, in effect, bass, rhythm, lead, percussion, and vocals, all at the same time. He played both "alternating" and "monotonic" bass styles incorporating imaginative, often chromatic turnarounds and single note lead lines. Tapping or slapping the body of his guitar added rhythmic accompaniment.

Happy Birthday: Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald
(April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996)
Ella Fitzgerald known by her fans as "The Queen of Jazz", "Lady Ella" and the "First Lady of Song", is by far my most favorite singer of all time. A complete singer who is the singer's singer, having a vocal range that spans more than three octaves. The following quote sums it up nearly perfectly for me as to how I view this vocal great.

Author and music critic Will Friedwald noted;

"Unlike any other singer you could name, Fitzgerald has the most amazing asset in the very sound of her voice: it's easily one of the most beautiful and sonically perfect sounds known to man. Even if she couldn't do anything with it, the instrument that Fitzgerald starts with is dulcet and pure and breathtakingly beautiful. As Henry Pleasants has observed, she has a wider range than most opera singers, and many of the latter, including Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, are among her biggest fans. And the intonation that goes with the voice is, to put it conservatively, God-like. Fitzgerald simply exists in tune, and she hits every note that there is without the slightest trace of effort. Other singers tend to sound like they're trying to reach up to a note - Fitzgerald always sounds like she's already there. If anything, she's descending from her heavenly perch and swooping down to whatever pitch she wants."

Ella Fitzgerald Official Website

DJ Shadow: Scale It Back ft. Little Dragon

Looks like Little Dragon has been putting in overtime, and this time it's with turntablist/producer DJ Shadow, who dropped his The Less You Know, The Better album at the end of September. As I have just gotten light of this release, I had been wondering if anything was in the works by him since it has been 5 years since he released an album.

A couple of weeks ago, he posted the official video for the "Scale It Back" single on Vimeo. It's quite interesting, to say the least. It was directed and produced by Ewan Jones Morris and Casey Raymond. Shadow has employed the help of Talib Kweli, Afrikan Boy, Posdnuos, and Tom Vek, and is also offering a few t-shirt and USB combo bundles centered around the album that features some nifty cartoon characters. Log on to DJShadow.com for more details. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday: Ella Fitzgerald & Huey Long

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was a Jazz vocalist and pianist with a vocal range spanning three octaves (Db3 to Db6). She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.

She is considered to be a notable interpreter of the Great American Songbook. Over a recording career that lasted 59 years, she was the winner of 13 Grammy Awards including one for Lifetime Achievement in 1967. Other major awards and honors she received during her career were the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Medal of Honor Award, National Medal of Art, first Society of Singers Lifetime Achievement Award, named "Ella" in her honor, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, UCLA Spring Sing.

EllaFitzgerald.com





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Huey Long (April 25, 1904 – June 10, 2009) was a singer, musician and composer who was the last living member of the Ink Spots, the legendary group that helped shape the musical genres of rhythm & blues, rock & roll and doo-wop.

Long was born in Sealy, Texas and grew up in a musical family with his brothers Jewell, Herbert and Sam, who all were active musicians. Huey started on piano, then moved to ukulele, to banjo and eventually guitar. In 1925, while working as a shoe shiner outside the Rice Hotel in Houston, opportunity knocked for Long to start a professional career as a musician when star trumpeter Punch Miller was in town to perform at the hotel with The Frank Davis Louisiana Jazz Band, who needed a banjo player to sit in.

After completing the summer with Davis' jazz band, Long played with a local band before moving to Chicago where he gained a foothold in Jazz. He changed to guitar with Texas Guinan's Cuban Orchestra at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. Long absorbed the Chicago jazz scene playing with several big bands and recording with New Orleans pianist Richard M Jones and pianist-vocalist Lil Armstrong, the former wife of Louis Armstrong.

When bandleader Fletcher Henderson came to Chicago to play the Grand Terrace supper club, he asked the local musicians union to send him a good guitarist who could sightread. Long played the first show and passed the "audition". Long toured with Henderson and ended up at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, New York. After Henderson's group disbanded, Long stayed in New York and joined up with Earl Hines' Orchestra, which had Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in the line-up. In early 1944, Long got the call from Bill Kenny, leader of the Ink Spots for a position with the group. His short lived tenure with the Ink Spots allowed Long to branch out as musician into other forms of entertainment.

While the Ink Spots were signed to Decca records, they recorded several tunes with label-mate Ella Fitzgerald.

Long moved back to Houston in 1996 and was cared for by his daughter Anita, who set up an Ink Spots museum featuring her father Huey. The museum is located in the Houston Heights area across the street from where his apartment was located. Huey Long was 105 years old when he passed away in 2009. For more info, log on to Ink Spots Museum and contact Anita Long.

Happy Birthday: Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is a pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet", Hancock helped redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section, and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound. He was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace synthesizers and funk. Hancock's music is often melodic and accessible; he has had many songs "cross over" and achieved success among pop audiences. His music embraces elements of funk and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz. In his jazz improvisation, he possesses a unique creative blend of jazz, blues, and modern classical music, with harmonic stylings much like the styles of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

Hancock's best-known solo works include "Cantaloupe Island", "Watermelon Man" (later performed by dozens of musicians, including bandleader Mongo Santamaría), "Maiden Voyage", "Chameleon", and the singles "I Thought It Was You" and "Rockit". His 2007 tribute album River: The Joni Letters won the 2008 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, only the second jazz album ever to win the award after Getz/Gilberto in 1965.

Happy Birthday: Nancy Wilson & Nina Simone

Nancy Wilson (born February 20, 1937) is a singer with more than 70 albums, and three Grammy Awards. She has been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, cabaret and pop; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer." The title she prefers, however, is song stylist. She has received many nicknames including "Sweet Nancy", "The Baby", "Fancy Miss Nancy" and "The Girl With the Honey-Coated Voice".

Wilson has worked with the likes of Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, Ramsey Lewis, Barry Manilow, Stanley Clarke and many others. She has also appeared on several popular television shows throughout her career.

Wilson received other numerous awards and honors, including the Whitney Young,Jr. Award from the Urban League, Playboy Reader Poll Award for best jazz vocalist. She was dubbed the Global Entertainer of the Year by the World Conference of Mayors. In 1993, she received an award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in 1993; the NAACP Image Award - Hall of Fame Award in 1998, and was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1999. She received the Trumpet Award for Outstanding Achievement in 1994. Nancy has received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, at 6541 Hollywood Blvd. She received honorary degrees from the Berklee School of Music and Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio.

Wilson was the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships award in 2004, the highest honors that the United States government bestows upon jazz musicians. The 2004 NAACP Image Awards for Best Recording Jazz Artist. In 2005, the UNCF Trumpet Award celebrating African-American achievement, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP in Chicago, and Oprah Winfrey’s Legends Award. In September 2005, Nancy was inducted on the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site.

MissNancyWilson.com



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Nina Simone (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) was a singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music. Simone aspired to become a classical pianist while working in a broad range of styles including classical, jazz, blues, soul, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop. Her original style arose from a fusion of gospel and pop songs with classical music, and accompanied with her expressive jazz-like singing in characteristic low tenor. She injected as much of her classical background into her music as possible to give it more depth and quality, and as she felt that pop music was inferior. Simone's music was highly influential in the fight black people faced for equal rights in America, regardless of race. Her powerful music was a source of inspiration and enjoyment for her generation, and continues to be for those that follow.

Simone's bearing and stage presence earned her the title "High Priestess of Soul". She was a piano player, singer and performer, "separately and simultaneously". On stage, Simone moved from gospel to blues, jazz and folk, to numbers with European classical styling, and Bach-style counterpoint fugues. She incorporated monologues and dialogues with the audience into the program, and often used silence as a musical element. Simone compared it to "mass hypnosis. I use it all the time" Throughout most of her life and recording career she was accompanied by percussionist Leopoldo Fleming and guitarist and musical director Al Schackman.

NinaSimone.com