Airborne: Sunshower

Since we are in the midst of celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month, there's no doubt that I had to make mention of New Haven, CT's own Contemporary Jazz Band by the name of Airborne. These guys have been passing out much love to me by giving me promos of their music that I have been spinning at happy hour and lounge sets, along with setting festive moods for special occasions.

Currently, they are kicking things into high gear for a very special full length release of Silver Skies to celebrate their 25th anniversary. Their first single off the album is "Sunshower", a light, melodic tune that will lift your spirit and help put a smile on your face. As vivid as my imagination is, I can picture a white linen gathering in your backyard with friends with their music to compliment some fine wine and cheeses, along with plenty of laughter.

Be sure to visit their website and feel free to purchase their previous works, as well as read and listen to music samples on their Jazz Education page. Let's help to ensure a 50th anniversary celebration of doing what they love. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday: Erroll Garner & Ice Cube

Jazz pianist and composer Erroll Garner (June 15, 1923 – January 2, 1977) was known for his distinctive orchestral approach to swing, but open to the innovation of bop. His most well known composition is a ballad titled "Misty" (1954) that has since become a standard. Originally composed as an instrumental, lyrics were later added by songwriter Johnny Burke and became a signature song for Johnny Mathis. The song plays a key role in the plot of the movie Play Misty for Me (1971). Clint Eastwood and Universal paid $25,000 to use the song in the film.





Ice Cube (born O'Shea Jackson), during the course of his career that spans more than 20 years, he continues to reinvent himself. Starting off as a rapper in the group C.I.A., he would later join N.W.A. After a contract dispute, he left the group to pursue a solo career and start producing some of his own material. Eventually, he turned to acting, directing, became a movie producer and screenwriter.

Happy Birthday: Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was a composer, pianist, and big band leader who wrote over 1,000 compositions, is widely regarded as the most important composer in Jazz.

A prominent figure in the history of jazz, Ellington's music stretched into various other genres, including blues, gospel, film scores, popular, and classical. His career spanned more than 50 years and included leading his orchestra, composing an inexhaustible songbook, scoring for movies, composing stage musicals, and world tours. Several of his instrumental works were adapted into songs that became standards. Due to his inventive use of the orchestra, or big band, and thanks to his eloquence and extraordinary charisma, he is generally considered to have elevated the perception of jazz to an art form on a par with other traditional genres of music. His reputation increased after his death, the Pulitzer Prize Board bestowing a special posthumous honor in 1999.

Ellington won 12 Grammy Awards (nine while still alive) and inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2009, the U.S. Mint featured him on the back of the Washington D.C. quarter.

Happy Birthday: Scott Joplin & Coleman Hawkins

Scott Joplin
(November 24, 1868 - April 1, 1917)
Composer/pianist Scott Joplin achieved fame for his unique ragtime compositions, and was dubbed the "King of Ragtime." During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag.

Joplin's music was rediscovered and returned to popularity in the early 1970s with the release of a million-selling album of Joplin's rags recorded by Joshua Rifkin, followed by the Academy award–winning movie The Sting which featured several of his compositions, such as "The Entertainer".



Coleman Hawkins
(November 21, 1904 – May 19, 1969)
Coleman Randolph Hawkins was a Jazz tenor saxophonist who was the first important Jazz musician to use the instrument. Hawkins is most strongly associated with the swing music and big band era, he had a role in the development of bebop in the 1940s. After an unsuccessful attempt to establish a big band, he led a combo at Kelly's Stables on Manhattan's 52nd Street with Thelonious Monk, Oscar Pettiford, Miles Davis, and Max Roach as sidemen. He was leader on what is generally considered the first ever bebop recording session with Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach in 1944.

On October 11, 1939 he recorded a two chorus performance of the pop standard "Body and Soul", which he had been performing at Kelly's Stables. A landmark recording of the Swing Era, recorded as an afterthought at the session, it is notable in that Hawkins ignores almost all of the melody, only the first four bars are stated in a recognizable fashion. In its exploration of harmonic structure it is considered by many to be the next evolutionary step in Jazz recording from where Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" in 1928 left off.