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Speaker 3: My goodness, Being Frank, where the only way to be
Speaker 3: is Frank. Hello everyone, and welcome to Being Frank. We're
Speaker 3: the only way to be is, of course, Frank. I'm
Speaker 3: your host, Frank. We're going and I'd like to thank
Speaker 3: you for joining us on what we like to call
Speaker 3: the Intelligent Conversation podcast, where no conversation is out of
Speaker 3: bounds and all points of view are welcome. Our listeners
Speaker 3: are familiar with our routine. We record live to tape,
Speaker 3: and I give you the date for context and relevance.
Speaker 3: It is the fourth of March. Being Frank kicks off
Speaker 3: March with a special edition of our program to celebrate
Speaker 3: Women's History Month. We're going to feature some of the
Speaker 3: great women from the world of jazz music. Generally, when
Speaker 3: we think of the great names and the history of
Speaker 3: that music, we tend to come up with only men.
Speaker 3: But that does a disservice to the many great women
Speaker 3: who added so much to that uniquely American music. Well,
Speaker 3: my guests and I intend to fix that. Welcome back
Speaker 3: for some intelligent conversation and a little bit of great music.
Speaker 3: He's a musician educator and jazz historian and a contributor
Speaker 3: here at Being Frank Welcome back, Eric Devido, Thanks again
Speaker 3: for joining us.
Speaker 1: Eric glad to be here. How's it calling?
Speaker 3: It's going well. So, you know, before we get into
Speaker 3: and you gave me a wonderful list of fifteen women,
Speaker 3: some who might be familiar to our listeners, some not
Speaker 3: certainly that was my case. But before that, you know,
Speaker 3: in my lead and I mentioned generally speaking, when we
Speaker 3: think of jazz, we tend to think of men Charlie Parker,
Speaker 3: Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and etc. Etc. But yet there
Speaker 3: are as a pantheon of women as well. Why do
Speaker 3: you think the men got the lieon's share of the
Speaker 3: headlines in the jazz world.
Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, that's a great question. Well, I'd say it's
Speaker 1: not that uncommon. You know, throughout history. I think there's
Speaker 1: always been an overrepresentation of male figures in the arts.
Speaker 1: I mean, you see it in classical music for sure.
Speaker 1: In fact, I was, you know, because it's Women's History Month.
Speaker 1: I'm teaching this now in my classroom and we're doing
Speaker 1: this month all female composers, and people always say, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: mister Davido. Why do we study so many male composers?
Speaker 1: And you know, so you see it when we study
Speaker 1: Beethoven in Mozart. If I ask people to name, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty composers, more people will probably name Bach and Beethoven
Speaker 1: and Mozart before thinking of maybe Fanny Mendelssohn or Clara
Speaker 1: Schumann or the women. So, you know, I just think
Speaker 1: it kind of falls in line with the overrepresentation of
Speaker 1: of you know, male figures, and that's just kind of
Speaker 1: something that I think is kind of dominated society throughout time.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think it's initially you know, it
Speaker 1: probably started out kind of unconscious maybe, but you know,
Speaker 1: the more that people champion for women's rights, the more
Speaker 1: we started to see representation by women. And of course
Speaker 1: that's more of a fairly modern thing. So it's funny
Speaker 1: as you move from classical music, which you know, especially
Speaker 1: from the earlier periods you know, the Baroque and the
Speaker 1: Romantic or the classical period. In the Romantic period, you
Speaker 1: see less female composers. When you get to jazz, which
Speaker 1: is more modern, you start seeing more. And then when
Speaker 1: you move into later in the twentieth century with pop music,
Speaker 1: and you start to see even more, you know, so
Speaker 1: I think it really just kind of shows as we
Speaker 1: progress throughout the time and we champion more equal rights,
Speaker 1: we see you know, more women being celebrated and contributing,
Speaker 1: no different than we've seen, you know, when it comes
Speaker 1: to African American representation amongst you know, the different genres.
Speaker 1: As we kind of champion towards more equality, we see
Speaker 1: them represented more. There's a lot of there's there tends
Speaker 1: to be, just like anything else, a lot of systemic
Speaker 1: you know, inequality that exists that we're kind of breaking down.
Speaker 1: So now bringing it, you know, per se to jazz,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's and I think if you
Speaker 1: ask any jazz musician, especially one that you know from
Speaker 1: a while ago or somebody that went to school for jazz,
Speaker 1: you know, you it's it's always been common to see
Speaker 1: have more male peers than females. I think that by
Speaker 1: its nature, jazz tends to be a bit competitive. It
Speaker 1: has a little bit more maybe male traits associated with
Speaker 1: some of it. I don't want to say all of it,
Speaker 1: because you know, there's a lot of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: if we're talking about feminimity, feminimity in terms of musical
Speaker 1: characteristics that's certainly present in jazz, as you know, But
Speaker 1: there's a lot of kind of like alpha male things
Speaker 1: that I think have traditionally been associated with jazz it
Speaker 1: can you know it bebop, especially as a tradition of
Speaker 1: being cutthroat and being kind of maybe more having some
Speaker 1: more male alpha qualities. That's not to say that there
Speaker 1: weren't females though that we're going to talk about today,
Speaker 1: that we're really champions of the genre, and in many
Speaker 1: cases there were many females that were leaders and really
Speaker 1: innovated the genre. But I feel, like anything else, when
Speaker 1: it comes to women, this often happens quietly behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, my wife always reminds me
Speaker 1: of this. Women have a funny way of kind of
Speaker 1: leading from behind the scenes and sometimes fooling men into
Speaker 1: thinking they're in charge when they're Often maybe women are
Speaker 1: a little more savvy that way in many cases. So
Speaker 1: there have been some really great women who when it
Speaker 1: comes to the early the blues and jazz, and then
Speaker 1: of course more so in in rock and roll. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the genre itself is very much associated anyways
Speaker 1: with some more you know, male types of stereotypes, you know,
Speaker 1: and jazz especially being born in underground clubs and speakeasies
Speaker 1: and places that you know, during prohibition, maybe we're kind
Speaker 1: of thought out as being not so uh, you know,
Speaker 1: family friendly and things like that, and I feel like
Speaker 1: women were kind of not you know, it was more
Speaker 1: unexpected maybe during that time to see women and being associated.
Speaker 3: It was a start of sexuality. And we've discussed this
Speaker 3: in a previous show. I mean that's part of the
Speaker 3: of the of the attraction, I guess, if you will,
Speaker 3: in jazz, so again, as you mentioned, depending on the time,
Speaker 3: that was frowned upon, certainly in feminine circles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree, and I think I think, you know,
Speaker 1: average listeners I think tend to of course, you know, know,
Speaker 1: more of the male jazz figures because they're may be
Speaker 1: more you know, they're more popular, or they're more historically noted.
Speaker 1: But it's funny, you know, I think back to when
Speaker 1: I was in school studying jazz, and there were so
Speaker 1: many of my peers you know, were male, but there
Speaker 1: was a few you know, women, and it's almost it's
Speaker 1: almost like sometimes they have a harder you know, like
Speaker 1: in many cases with females and societies when to make
Speaker 1: it to the top is even harder for many of
Speaker 1: the females because they have to push through such a
Speaker 1: male dominated society. So when you see them there, there
Speaker 1: tended to be a lot of respect, and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe that was misplaced respect, or maybe that's a bit stereotype,
Speaker 1: but I remember all of the women really gaining a
Speaker 1: lot of respect because they had to sift through a
Speaker 1: lot of men's crap to kind of get to the
Speaker 1: spot that they were and earn that respect, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think you see that in a lot of fields,
Speaker 1: not just jazz or music in general.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I always appreciate that research you do
Speaker 3: for this program America and give us such a great perspective,
Speaker 3: and you gave us fifteen names in a kind of
Speaker 3: a chronological order. Yeah, it was interesting as it developed.
Speaker 3: So let's go and against As I mentioned in the beginning,
Speaker 3: some might be somewhat familiar, some not at all. But
Speaker 3: I'm going to leave it up to you to help
Speaker 3: us understand these women and what impact they had on
Speaker 3: not only music, but on culture. And we started in
Speaker 3: eighteen eighty six with my RAINI tell us, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I put my Raini first on the list. And
Speaker 1: by the way, any jazz musician will who's listening or
Speaker 1: is going to hear this list and probably want to
Speaker 1: be like, why did you leave this person out?
Speaker 3: And how could you We were going to invite people
Speaker 3: at does your list match with?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 1: Apologies because I'm sure I left plenty of people out,
Speaker 1: but obviously it's good. But My Rainy is kind of
Speaker 1: you know, we're really going back to the blues here
Speaker 1: before jazz, you know, the roots of jazz, and my
Speaker 1: Rainie is often called the mother of the blues. You know,
Speaker 1: she was one of among the first professional blues singers
Speaker 1: to record and tour nationally. She started her career in
Speaker 1: like nineteen twenty three, and she really helped transition the
Speaker 1: rural Southern blues into these like more urban vaudeville kind
Speaker 1: of circuits and the emerging recording industry. So she really
Speaker 1: helped kind of elevate this very you know, folk like
Speaker 1: southern blues thing into this more national, you know, culture
Speaker 1: and form of entertainment. And for that, you know, I
Speaker 1: think we really owe a lot of just elevating the
Speaker 1: art form of the blues to her, but also her
Speaker 1: unique style, you know, was a She had this powerful
Speaker 1: contra alto voices, deep low voice. She was very theatrical
Speaker 1: and dramatic, and her lyrics are very candid, you know,
Speaker 1: and again going back to what we kind of expect
Speaker 1: from men versus women in society. When you hear My
Speaker 1: Rainy sing and you hear her deep, you know, voice
Speaker 1: and her guttural sounds and then the candid lyrics that
Speaker 1: she's singing, you know, things that were you know, maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit taboo and things like that. I think
Speaker 1: it really spoke about her ability to kind of transcend
Speaker 1: genre and also her phrasing, her emotion that she brought
Speaker 1: to the music that really kind of laid the foundation
Speaker 1: later for you know, everything that blues and jazz musicians
Speaker 1: were looking to do to take their having their own
Speaker 1: unique voice and interpretation. She was doing that, you know,
Speaker 1: very early in her career.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, we can't listen to clips of all the women.
Speaker 3: We do have some, but we can make suggestions, and
Speaker 3: again I appreciate you for compiling this. So if you
Speaker 3: want to listen to Ma Rainey and again available through
Speaker 3: YouTube and you can google et cetera and see c
Speaker 3: writer that's see see Writer Blues a good example of
Speaker 3: my Rainey's music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's also a great movie that came out a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago called Ma Raini, Ma Rainey's Black
Speaker 1: Bottom Stomp, I think it was called. And it's a
Speaker 1: really great movie, and it's very fictional. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of it is you know, you know, Hollywood magic
Speaker 1: and things. But I think it really did a great
Speaker 1: job of kind of portraying a lot of what was
Speaker 1: happening during that time in the music industry and what
Speaker 1: life was like for her, you know, as a woman
Speaker 1: in the recording industry. So it's a great movie if
Speaker 1: you want to check it out. But it's not like
Speaker 1: a horse historical portrayal per se.
Speaker 3: All Right, let's move up to eighteen ninety four. A
Speaker 3: name that many people might be familiar with, if not
Speaker 3: necessarily all her work, but kind of a familiar name,
Speaker 3: Bessie Smith. Tell us about her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues. You know,
Speaker 1: when I think of women in jazz, I really first
Speaker 1: think of, you know, starting with Bessie Smith, even though
Speaker 1: we really need to go back to Ma Raini, but
Speaker 1: I feel like she is maybe more, maybe more recognizable
Speaker 1: to a lot of you know, blues and jazz musicians
Speaker 1: or maybe non musicians. Even she was probably the most
Speaker 1: successful black recording artist of the nineteen twenties. She had
Speaker 1: a very commanding projection, and she you know, had this
Speaker 1: dramatic storytelling through her music, and that also really kind
Speaker 1: of shaped jazz phrasing. And also I think, you know,
Speaker 1: something that popped up a lot in that I think
Speaker 1: of a lot both with Maraini and Bessie Smith, is
Speaker 1: this kind of idea and then you see it later
Speaker 1: with other singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, this
Speaker 1: idea of like vocal authority where it's that you're commanding
Speaker 1: this presence and you're clearly like leading, you know, and
Speaker 1: this and the music is revolving around your presence. And
Speaker 1: you know, these these women were doing that at a
Speaker 1: very early time and something I think wasn't easy for
Speaker 1: a woman woman to do is in the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 1: But Bessie Smith really had also this great vocal authority
Speaker 1: and she recorded. You know, she did a lot of
Speaker 1: recording sessions with all these great leading jazz musicians at
Speaker 1: the time, including Lewis Armstrong and her work, I think
Speaker 1: also really helped solidify the vocalists the singer as kind
Speaker 1: of this central interpretive force in jazz. A lot of
Speaker 1: people later, you know, on their instruments would emulate singers,
Speaker 1: you know, people initially Now it's funny now with more
Speaker 1: modern jazz, voices often emulate instruments, but initially instrument like
Speaker 1: Louis Armstrong when he was first solo, he was emulating singers,
Speaker 1: you know, he was trying to phrase his trumpet how
Speaker 1: he would sing in other singers, and I think Bessie
Speaker 1: Smith is one of his examples of these singers is vocal,
Speaker 1: you know, presence that instrumentalists were trying to emulate.
Speaker 3: Now we're able to play a clip, so we're going
Speaker 3: to hear Saint Louis Blue. Set it up briefly for us.
Speaker 3: Eric set up the song for us a little bit.
Speaker 1: What well, So Sat Louis Blues is just a very
Speaker 1: classic blues you often hear, you know, sometimes we'll associate
Speaker 1: it with early jazz, even though it is a you know,
Speaker 1: it's blues in the title, but it's kind of been
Speaker 1: recorded by everybody, you know. But if you're in a
Speaker 1: New Orleans jazz group or an early jazz group, you know,
Speaker 1: everyone from Lewis Armstrong. Kind of a central early jazz standard.
Speaker 1: But it's still you know, it's still a very popular
Speaker 1: tune and irrelevant tune today.
Speaker 3: Great tune, and it's also available via YouTube. But let's
Speaker 3: check out a bit here.
Speaker 5: We go, nme.
Speaker 6: Make me.
Speaker 3: Wow. You know, I don't know if it's the right word,
Speaker 3: but it comes pops into my mind is syrup. It's
Speaker 3: just so rich and thick and yeah, moves moving slowly
Speaker 3: but deliciously. I guess if that makes sense to anybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think you know you heard, if you
Speaker 1: if you go back and let's do it. You really
Speaker 1: hear the trumpet player there, and I'm not sure who
Speaker 1: that is. I don't I don't think that was Lewis Armstrong,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure who it was. Really kind of
Speaker 1: using the singer, you know, really playing off the singer,
Speaker 1: you know, trying the trumpet lines and the improvisation is
Speaker 1: really kind of trying to emulate and do this call
Speaker 1: and answer or with the vocalists in a very similar manner.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great example of that. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny with these really old blues recordings of course,
Speaker 1: and early jazz of course. Like the technology back then
Speaker 1: and the recording technology was you know, so you know crude.
Speaker 1: So there's often this kind of like out of tune
Speaker 1: warbleness that you always hear with these old recordings, And
Speaker 1: sometimes I feel like not that it does it a disservice.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it has a nice vibe to it, you know,
Speaker 1: it has this vintage vibe, but you know, I'm always
Speaker 1: thinking like it's it definitely would have sounded much different
Speaker 1: in person, just because you're not you know, you're hearing
Speaker 1: it through this dated recording technology that in a way
Speaker 1: has become associated with the time period.
Speaker 3: Now, you know, yeah, live, they wouldn't necessarily sound like that.
Speaker 3: That had a lot to do with the recording process. Yeah,
Speaker 3: an interesting point of view. Yeah, Or let's let's move
Speaker 3: on in chronological order. Born in eighteen ninety eight. Woman
Speaker 3: I'm not furoreamiliar with, but you're gonna help us to
Speaker 3: become more familiar with her. Lil Hardened Armstrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Lil Harden Armstrong right, married to Lewis Armstrong.
Speaker 1: Behind every great man is a great woman. Wow, That's
Speaker 1: what my wife always tells me. Anyways, regularly they do
Speaker 1: so little Harden Armstrong. So she was a classically trained pianist,
Speaker 1: but she was a great composer and arranger and a
Speaker 1: band leader, and she really helped kind of shape a
Speaker 1: lot of the you know, she played a pivotal role
Speaker 1: in the kind of shaping early Chicago jazz. And she
Speaker 1: encouraged Louis Armstrong to begin his solo career. And I
Speaker 1: didn't know that part actually when I was when I
Speaker 1: was looking up some of this stuff, how influential she
Speaker 1: was in terms of his solo career. You know, I
Speaker 1: know Louis Armstrong was course big, and you know, I
Speaker 1: think maybe his his you know, he went from being
Speaker 1: this great famous musician to being this like mega icon,
Speaker 1: you know, the equivalent of a superstar as a soloist,
Speaker 1: of course. And I guess she had sure I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, Taylor Swift and okay, right now, keep it
Speaker 1: in the woman the women's theme going here, But you know,
Speaker 1: I guess she had really a lot to do with
Speaker 1: that influence, you know. So so anyways, but this was
Speaker 1: also a time when women band leaders were very rare,
Speaker 1: you know, as we said, especially and you know, when
Speaker 1: you're talking about being a band leader. There's more than
Speaker 1: just being a great musician. You know, there's dealing with
Speaker 1: clashing personalities and annoying men and annoying people, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, I could tell you being a band
Speaker 1: leader comes with his own its own set of headaches.
Speaker 1: You know. Sometimes it might pay more, but sometimes it's
Speaker 1: nice to just show up, play and go home and
Speaker 1: all the headaches or somebody else's problem. So, you know,
Speaker 1: she was doing that in a time when when doing
Speaker 1: it were kind of rare. But also she really played
Speaker 1: a big role.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Lewis Armstrong was in these groups, the Five and the
Speaker 1: Hot Seven, these kind of smaller groups you know, that
Speaker 1: were very successful, and she was kind of an important
Speaker 1: influence in the structuralate development of the small jazz group,
Speaker 1: you know, and how small group jazz would operate, you know,
Speaker 1: and jazz kind of early jazz took on this kind
Speaker 1: of standard instrumentation, right of having a trumpet, a clarinet,
Speaker 1: a trombone and then the rhythm section, and that development,
Speaker 1: you know, has more or less been kind of associated
Speaker 1: that instrumentation is associated with the genre and we often think,
Speaker 1: you know, Lewis Armstrong being central to that, and you know,
Speaker 1: according to what I'm learning about here, also Lil Harden Armstrong,
Speaker 1: who was doing a lot of maybe arranging on her
Speaker 1: own time or maybe behind the scenes too, so just
Speaker 1: as important, another great example I think of the kind
Speaker 1: of the quiet, behind the scenes influence that women often
Speaker 1: had in music.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, people are interested again YouTube doing the
Speaker 3: Susie Q that's right of her music. Okay, let's move
Speaker 3: on now again we're chronologically speaking in nineteen ten born
Speaker 3: Mary Lou Williams. Tell us about Mary.
Speaker 1: Look, Mary Lou Williams. Yeah, so you know, there's this
Speaker 1: very very famous photograph. A lot of people, you know, musicians,
Speaker 1: especially jazz musicians, they probably all have it somewhere. It's
Speaker 1: a I'm trying to remember of the name of the photographer,
Speaker 1: but it's this big photograph. Is it by Art Kane?
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know. It's this big photograph of all
Speaker 1: of these great jazz musicians and they're standing in front
Speaker 1: of a brownstone building.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yeah, it is Art Kane, I believe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, And I used to have it for so
Speaker 1: long and I can't even remember if I still have
Speaker 1: it or not. But anyways, Mary the Williams is in there,
Speaker 1: and there's so few women in it, you know, there's
Speaker 1: like Mary and McPartland's in there. I think I put
Speaker 1: on this list, But Mary the Williams is in there,
Speaker 1: and she's kind of like one of I think, one
Speaker 1: of jazz's most versatile musicians. She began in the Swing era.
Speaker 1: She was an arranger and a piano player, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know this, you know, I knew how involved she
Speaker 1: kind of was and how she kind of transitioned into bebob,
Speaker 1: but she actually was a mentor to these bebop pioneers
Speaker 1: like Dizzy Gillespie and Delonious Monk, which I didn't I
Speaker 1: wasn't that aware of, you know, So she really is
Speaker 1: starting to kind of you know, maybe maybe we could
Speaker 1: think of her as one of the first well known
Speaker 1: women to really bridge from the swing period into more
Speaker 1: modern jazz or bebop, you know, where all these giants
Speaker 1: came out of, like Charlie Parker and Disney Gillespie and
Speaker 1: Delonious Monk and all these people like that. So she
Speaker 1: had such a great presence and these guys were giants,
Speaker 1: and so, you know, learning that she mentored these guys,
Speaker 1: I think says a lot. Again, behind all these great
Speaker 1: men was this woman, like, you know, being so influential
Speaker 1: and Mary the Williams. Also she composed the cool, like
Speaker 1: large scale works which could almost like quasi you know,
Speaker 1: orchestral classical, you know, genre bending kind of stuff. She
Speaker 1: had something called the Zodiac Suite and these sacred jazz masses.
Speaker 1: So she was really bridging multiple errors kind of jazz evolution,
Speaker 1: you know, not unlike people like Duke Ellington would do
Speaker 1: later and even you know soun Ron, these like modern
Speaker 1: kind of musicians that were blending and transcending genre. Well,
Speaker 1: she was kind of pioneering some of that way back when.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and there's a great tune called Rollam that
Speaker 1: you're listening to.
Speaker 3: Again on YouTube. Yeah it's great. Okay. Now, next up
Speaker 3: a name that's familiar, I would think to most not
Speaker 3: only jazz and Feshonado's, but such a strong presence not
Speaker 3: only musically but culturally. Born in nineteen fifteen, Billie Holiday.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Billie Holiday, you know, is in some ways maybe
Speaker 1: the you know, quintessential jazz vocalist. To me, she's the
Speaker 1: perfect blend of the blues and jazz. She for her
Speaker 1: whole life, no matter how. You know, as she got
Speaker 1: older and as the music modernized, she she never left
Speaker 1: the blues out of her music and almost like she
Speaker 1: was cursed with it. I always say to my students,
Speaker 1: and you know, if you really dig into her life,
Speaker 1: she had a really troubled life. You know, from abuse
Speaker 1: to drugs and prostitution and all of these things. Society really,
Speaker 1: you know, dealt her a tough hand, a tough deck,
Speaker 1: and so you know, she she dealt with it through music.
Speaker 1: And to me, lots of people play the blues, but
Speaker 1: they don't all have the blues. They don't all experience
Speaker 1: the blues. You know, some people are good at faking
Speaker 1: it and things. But Billy Holliday really encompassed the blues,
Speaker 1: and it was almost like she couldn't help. Every note
Speaker 1: she plays is dripping with the blues. And that's one
Speaker 1: of the things that always stood out with me. And
Speaker 1: you know, compared to Ma Rainey and compared to Bessie Smith,
Speaker 1: I don't always think of her as having this commanding,
Speaker 1: powerful voice. She kind of had this, you know, she
Speaker 1: had this very unique voice. You know, whether it was
Speaker 1: the elements of life taking a toll on her physically
Speaker 1: and things like that. But she had this very nuanced
Speaker 1: voice and it was to me maybe more introverted, almost
Speaker 1: like there was she always left, there was always something unsaid.
Speaker 1: You can always feel this kind of emotional distress in
Speaker 1: my opinion coming out of Billie Holly, and it was
Speaker 1: like she couldn't help but be so authentic. There was
Speaker 1: no way she was faking anything, even when she was
Speaker 1: singing a happy song, you know, in a your key
Speaker 1: and an upbeat standard. To me, it was like it
Speaker 1: was always the Blues, and it was always had this
Speaker 1: element of sadness to it, and I think that really
Speaker 1: encompasses what the blues is, you know. You know, of
Speaker 1: course she has her epic recording of Strange Truth, and
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know anybody's not familiar with
Speaker 1: Strange Fruit. I don't want to give it a spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: but it's a pretty dark song that really ties into
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, a lot of symbolism and
Speaker 1: compared to you know, correct a lot of really racial
Speaker 1: and racially terrible things, and it's you know, it's a
Speaker 1: poem and it's a really to me, it's a poem
Speaker 1: with this beautiful hauntingly terrible ending, but at the same
Speaker 1: time it's kind of like this beautifully weaved poem. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like you're seeing it through the eyes of the singer.
Speaker 1: It's and it's haunting and it's terrible and beautiful and
Speaker 1: horrible all at the same time, which to me is
Speaker 1: you know, that's what this music does at its best.
Speaker 1: And also her you know, she has this famous version
Speaker 1: of God Blessed the Child. It was one of the
Speaker 1: standards she always sing would sing and it's it's almost
Speaker 1: like she's singing to you know, to you in a
Speaker 1: way more so I feel like than a lot of
Speaker 1: other singers. It was like she could have been singing
Speaker 1: to nobody, or she could have been singing to everybody,
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't really change how how you hear it.
Speaker 1: So I just think her music is some of the
Speaker 1: most kind of commanding, but not in a overly uh
Speaker 1: in an extroverted way. It's almost like in an introverted way,
Speaker 1: she draws you in and you can't help but you know,
Speaker 1: intently listen to every every nuance that she's singing.
Speaker 3: We've going to listen to a clip of the of
Speaker 3: the legendary strange fruit.
Speaker 6: Sun trees.
Speaker 7: Bears strange.
Speaker 2: Fruit, blood on leaves and blood at the roots. Black
Speaker 2: bodies swinging.
Speaker 6: In the side, then breathe.
Speaker 2: Strange fruit hanging from the popular trees.
Speaker 3: Well, she gives you goose bumps. And her voice is
Speaker 3: so full, it's so rich.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I always find her music like just
Speaker 1: her interpretations just be so unique, you know, very dark,
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, her repertoire, but also just
Speaker 1: the way she's sung, Like I said, it's just everything
Speaker 1: to me, was so dripping with the blues, you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's a great tune. Every time I teach
Speaker 1: that tune, it's always interesting, you know, I give the
Speaker 1: lyrics out and it takes people a long time to
Speaker 1: kind of come to the conclusion of what the song
Speaker 1: is actually about. It kind of you could see it
Speaker 1: in their eyes when it kind of clicks, and it's
Speaker 1: very kind of like transformative in a way. Yeah, Billy
Speaker 1: Holidays to me kind of the the giant of you know,
Speaker 1: jazz and blues singing, but in a very reserved, genuine way.
Speaker 1: I guess the word I like to use very is
Speaker 1: like authentic. That's authentic. There was it was just so
Speaker 1: real exactly. She wasn't interested in the in you know,
Speaker 1: when you look at somebody like Bessie Smith or Ella Fitzgerald,
Speaker 1: who were very theatrical, and that's not in any way
Speaker 1: to devalue the showmanship part of it, but I feel
Speaker 1: like that wasn't Billie Holiday's concerned intent. It's just about authentic,
Speaker 1: you know, communication, and it's perfect.
Speaker 3: You mentioned Elia Fitzgerald. She's next on our list. Born
Speaker 3: in nineteen oh, yeah, just a couple of years after
Speaker 3: Billie Holiday, and of course again a very familiar name
Speaker 3: to most people are familiar with music, not only jazz music,
Speaker 3: but music in general. El Fitzgerald.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Ela Fitzgerald. I feel like she was probably not,
Speaker 1: I'm sure not the first, but she's really well known
Speaker 1: for her technical mastery, you know, of her voice as
Speaker 1: an instrument, and I also feel like she really helped well,
Speaker 1: she really made popular you know, she was a virtuosix
Speaker 1: scat improviser with her voice. And you know, we talked
Speaker 1: earlier about instrumentalists really mimicking the voice in jazz, right,
Speaker 1: because when you try to find your voice on your instrument,
Speaker 1: you're really going back to you know, trying to mimic
Speaker 1: the voice. But I feel like Ella Fitzgerald's really popularized
Speaker 1: using her voice to imitate instruments, you know, because now
Speaker 1: you know, she she's coming from a time you know, earlier,
Speaker 1: during the swing period, but she was performing all the
Speaker 1: way into you know, the later part of the twentieth
Speaker 1: century with modern jazz and and of course bebop earlier on,
Speaker 1: and she was playing with a lot of bebop musicians
Speaker 1: who were playing these very fast, technically dazzling bebop phrases
Speaker 1: with you know, chromatic harmony, and she was doing those things.
Speaker 1: She was emulating that on her voice, which is technically,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty amazing. Sometimes vocalists, I feel like, get
Speaker 1: a bad rap. Sometimes it's warranted about you know, not
Speaker 1: being as maybe knowledgeable when it comes to harmony and theory,
Speaker 1: because you know, and sometimes jazz instrumentalists kind of are
Speaker 1: really more into that, and a lot of vocalists don't
Speaker 1: need to be into that or aren't. But Elifitzgerald's was
Speaker 1: really acutely aware of, you know, a lot of these
Speaker 1: more advanced harmonic things that bebop musicians were doing, and
Speaker 1: she would emulate them with her voice. And I always
Speaker 1: thought that was really cool. You know, when I think
Speaker 1: of some of my favorite scat singers, I think of
Speaker 1: Lewis Armstrong, of course, and then I think of Ella Fitzgerald.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: So she really elevated this jazz singing into this virtuosic thing. Also,
Speaker 1: she really helped preserve the Great American Songbook, you know,
Speaker 1: this thing that jazz musicians kind of hold sacred as
Speaker 1: canon of tunes that were constantly interpreting and reinterpreting forever.
Speaker 1: You know, she really brought her audience to those tunes
Speaker 1: kind of all the time. You know, she was always
Speaker 1: playing those songs, and you know, a lot of them
Speaker 1: more so than others became she could be associated. Of course,
Speaker 1: I think the example I gave you was how High
Speaker 1: the Moon? You know, it's probably she probably did that,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say at every gig, but the
Speaker 1: crowd kind of expected Ella fitzgeral version of how High
Speaker 1: the Moon, and she would just you know, go take
Speaker 1: it way out and really go, you know, go lots
Speaker 1: of places with her scatsing. But she really helped that
Speaker 1: established a Great American Songbook too, as this, you know,
Speaker 1: such a popular thing, and I think she helped elevate
Speaker 1: you know, in general, helped jazz kind of come out
Speaker 1: of the I don't you know folk music category or
Speaker 1: maybe the you know, she helped bring it to I
Speaker 1: think art, you know, the level of an art music.
Speaker 1: I think she had a lot to do with that too,
Speaker 1: where audiences who weren't musicians really understood how technically and
Speaker 1: musically superior it was.
Speaker 3: Well, we're not going to disappoint you said, you know,
Speaker 3: how High the move as standard, so we have clip
Speaker 3: of it. This is Ella Fitzgerald with how High the Moon?
Speaker 2: Thank you?
Speaker 5: So we're ahead.
Speaker 7: There's music.
Speaker 2: I'll thank the Taha.
Speaker 5: Where head there's heather, A.
Speaker 8: High the moon.
Speaker 9: There is no love when love it's.
Speaker 8: Far away too.
Speaker 7: Till it comes true that you love me as I
Speaker 7: love you so God, Where heather's heather, it's where you are, Sah.
Speaker 5: Where here there's music.
Speaker 8: High far.
Speaker 3: The darkest night would shine.
Speaker 7: If you would come to me soon, until you will,
Speaker 7: I steal my Hi the Moon, Hi, Hi the Moon
Speaker 7: is the name of it song, Hi High the Moon.
Speaker 7: Though the words may be wrong, we're singing it because
Speaker 7: you asked for it, so we're swinging it.
Speaker 1: For you.
Speaker 7: Ah the mod dow to touch the star the moon
Speaker 7: now to reach up to Mars.
Speaker 8: Though the words may be wrong to the.
Speaker 7: Song We're reds gonna Hi, Hi, You didn't they.
Speaker 2: You you neddy oh bully ba by Bobby by ba
Speaker 2: ba Bobby you.
Speaker 7: Siby wa.
Speaker 2: Bobby did.
Speaker 5: But yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. Neil left that last part in the
Speaker 3: scat part uh specifically because of of what you were saying.
Speaker 3: How and it does it sounds like an instrument, it
Speaker 3: really does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And she was kind of a you know, I
Speaker 1: was waiting for that time when they go into double
Speaker 1: time and then all of a sudden, she you know,
Speaker 1: takes it like you think it would be that that
Speaker 1: would be where the trumpet solo would come in or something,
Speaker 1: But no, it was El Fitzgerald.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: You know it's funny. I when I was younger, in
Speaker 1: early in my career, I had just you know, we
Speaker 1: I always have these couple of really influential jazz albums.
Speaker 1: In one of them was with my my absolute favorite
Speaker 1: guitar players, Joe passed and he did these great duo
Speaker 1: records with Ella Fitzgerald. And you know, as you can
Speaker 1: hear in that recording Ella's bands were always just so swinging.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: It was about the swing. You know, hear the bass
Speaker 1: player there, that's a great bass player. I got to
Speaker 1: see who's the bass player on that recording. It's probably
Speaker 1: like Keeter Bits or something. But she was always swinging,
Speaker 1: and she was all about the swing. And Joe Passed
Speaker 1: was the same way. And and so I really kind
Speaker 1: of got a lot of the sound of jazz and
Speaker 1: in my head listening to these records with Joe passing
Speaker 1: Ella Fitzgerald, and it's just so good as a duo.
Speaker 1: So yeah, great, great record. And you could hear you know,
Speaker 1: she she had that thing that Louis Armstrong had, that showmanship.
Speaker 1: She had the crowd in the palm of her hand.
Speaker 1: You know, she would joke with the crowd. You know,
Speaker 1: she wasn't worried about messing up. You loved when Ella
Speaker 1: Fitzgerald messed up. You loved when there was a mistake
Speaker 1: because it was like funny. She would joke and play
Speaker 1: it off and she would turn it into something great
Speaker 1: and every yeah, and it was like anything could happen.
Speaker 1: It was very I think people people went to see
Speaker 1: that too. Just as great as she was, it was fun.
Speaker 1: You know, you didn't. Sometimes you watch these jazz conscious
Speaker 1: and it's a little bit serious and oh and don't
Speaker 1: clink your glass and Ella like when you go here, Ella,
Speaker 1: it was fun. I mean she was having fun. She didn't.
Speaker 1: She just wanted to see where it was gonna go.
Speaker 1: And she you know, you could. You felt that you
Speaker 1: got that energy off of her.
Speaker 3: All right, So let's move a few years later, born
Speaker 3: in nineteen twenty four and get a name that many
Speaker 3: people might be familiar with, Saravaon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Saravon. So I feel like a lot of people
Speaker 1: know Ela Fitzgerald unless maybe know Sarah von She's probably
Speaker 1: my favorite jazz vocalist, although it's kind of hard to
Speaker 1: pick one, but Sara von there was something about her.
Speaker 1: I feel like she was maybe very influenced by what
Speaker 1: Ela Fitzgerald was doing, but also just really had her
Speaker 1: own unique style and she had this like operatic range.
Speaker 1: I mean her range was really, I think, really big
Speaker 1: and flawless. You know, when you listen to Ela Fitzgerald,
Speaker 1: she's great and technically the thing she was doing, but
Speaker 1: I feel like sarahvon On just had this more beautiful instrument,
Speaker 1: almost like an opera singer might, but she also had
Speaker 1: this great knowledge of bebop kind of fluency. So she
Speaker 1: was doing these things and she had this beautifully rich
Speaker 1: kind of a I feel like maybe her phrasing was
Speaker 1: more sophisticated in a way, not to say that other
Speaker 1: singers were less sophisticated, but she was really thinking, I think,
Speaker 1: a little bit more harmonically sophisticated and tone wise, more
Speaker 1: like maybe an opera singer might, but it was so
Speaker 1: very you know, beautifully you know, in beautiful jazz music.
Speaker 1: But I think she was a little more you know,
Speaker 1: using more modern jazz harmony and really mastering or show
Speaker 1: showcasing the technical mastery and tone of her voice. And
Speaker 1: she just had this amazing range. When you hear a
Speaker 1: sing like her recording of Misty, if you if you
Speaker 1: hear the listeners, check it out. Just you got to
Speaker 1: check out her rain and her the depth of where
Speaker 1: she goes with it is really intense. She's just kind
Speaker 1: of always been one of my favorite jazz singers and
Speaker 1: she's just a great one to check out.
Speaker 3: All right, let's move up to nineteen twenty six, born
Speaker 3: and actually in nineteen twenty six, a new name for me,
Speaker 3: but you were going to educate us Melba Liston.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Melburisten is this is, you know, one of
Speaker 1: one of these people that I learned a lot about,
Speaker 1: didn't really know anything about. So Melbura Listen was one
Speaker 1: of the first female jazz trombonists and an influential arranger.
Speaker 1: And I thought she was so interesting because this is
Speaker 1: kind of one of those examples of like women who
Speaker 1: were in a time in a place that was dominated
Speaker 1: by men. But she was just so brilliant and so good,
Speaker 1: but in such a quiet way. She wasn't She was
Speaker 1: not a household name. She was not somebody that probably
Speaker 1: the audience even necessarily came to see.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: She collaborated and worked with all these other great musicians.
Speaker 1: She was kind of this behind the scenes but you know,
Speaker 1: arranger and super influential arranger. She worked with a musician
Speaker 1: named Randy Weston who integrated a lot of like African
Speaker 1: rhythms and big, large scale orchestrations and brought it into
Speaker 1: modern jazz. She also worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Hines
Speaker 1: and Quincy Jones, and she arranged for Billie Holliday, Max
Speaker 1: Roach and Quincy Jones, which I didn't know, and she's
Speaker 1: just really like, it's like, who is this person? And
Speaker 1: yet she's so influential and so important, And I just
Speaker 1: love that. I love when people do that. I love
Speaker 1: people who are these kind of quiet, unsung heroes. And
Speaker 1: it's great to kind of learn about somebody new. And
Speaker 1: then as you start going down the rabbit hole being like, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, I started finding these cool recordings and like
Speaker 1: I said, I don't even know, I've never I had
Speaker 1: never heard of her name and heard a jazz musician
Speaker 1: speak her name. But yet she so right there in
Speaker 1: the mix with all of these jazz giants, and so
Speaker 1: I found her very inspirational.
Speaker 3: And an example of her music is with the Quincy
Speaker 3: Jones Big Band. If you want to listen to more
Speaker 3: of Melbow Listen's work a gat available on YouTube. All Right,
Speaker 3: moving on to nineteen twenty nine, and unusual for an
Speaker 3: Asian Japanese Toshiko aki Yoshi.
Speaker 1: Yeah you nailed It to Hiko Akiyoshi. Yeah to Hiko Akiyoshi.
Speaker 1: It was one of the first big bands that I
Speaker 1: remember listening to as a kid. When I first got
Speaker 1: into big bands, I always thought big bands were other
Speaker 1: than like the swing bands of Count Basie. And I
Speaker 1: heard Tshiko Akiyoshi's and I was blown away. I was like, whoa,
Speaker 1: where is this from? What planet is from? This is
Speaker 1: so hip, this is so modern, This arranging is so
Speaker 1: interesting and sophisticated at the same time, so swinging, but
Speaker 1: great use of advanced harmony. And but also you know,
Speaker 1: she blended bebop with all these Japanese musical influences, and
Speaker 1: she had this like acclaimed big band. She really helped
Speaker 1: expand jazz to this kind of globe, have this global voice.
Speaker 1: And you know, she worked with I think she was
Speaker 1: married right to Lou Tobaccan. I think they're they're married
Speaker 1: and she so they would work together. And Lu Tobaccan
Speaker 1: is this great woodwind player. He play all the horns
Speaker 1: and flute, and they collaborated a lot, but Tichiko was
Speaker 1: the piano player and writing most of the compositions. And
Speaker 1: her band is just phenomenal. I mean, if it's like
Speaker 1: I remember just from hearing it being totally drawn in,
Speaker 1: that's I think how I really got into the modern
Speaker 1: big band. And I like a lot of these modern
Speaker 1: big bands, like Maria Schneider Orchestra, who I think we'll
Speaker 1: mention later the Village Band Guard Orchestra, and you know,
Speaker 1: they come from that tradition, the older bands, from the
Speaker 1: Count Basie Band to the Thad Jones Meluspan. But I
Speaker 1: feel like to Shiko Aki Yoshi's work really influenced a
Speaker 1: lot of these modern band sounds and arranging and she's
Speaker 1: just so unique and I love it.
Speaker 3: And her work could be heard in Coogan Ko g
Speaker 3: U n also available for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but just go Google to Shikaaki Yoshi and hit
Speaker 1: play on anything that comes up, and it's awesome. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, all right, keep.
Speaker 3: Moving along here. We got one more before the break,
Speaker 3: and then a few more after. This has just been
Speaker 3: absolutely terrific, fascinating against some names you know, some you know,
Speaker 3: but all with tremendously interesting stories. Right next up board
Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty, Abby Lincoln.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Abby Lincoln. I feel like as a you know,
Speaker 1: for many vocalists, kind of like a quintessential influence. She
Speaker 1: fused jazz and of course civil rights activism was this
Speaker 1: powerful voice with you know, with social justice and civil rights,
Speaker 1: and you know, her songwriting really emphasized social justice. It
Speaker 1: was very emotionally authentic. She's almost is like kind of
Speaker 1: this interesting storyteller and singer at the same time poet,
Speaker 1: and I feel like when I listen to her music,
Speaker 1: it's part jazz, part poetry, part freestyle, you know, impromptu storytelling.
Speaker 1: She also you know, going back and forth between using
Speaker 1: her voice like an instrument. So just really really important.
Speaker 1: I think influence and so so such a strong voice,
Speaker 1: you know, during the Civil rights era and uh, which
Speaker 1: jazz you know, was a central part of you know,
Speaker 1: when I think of musicians like Charles Mingus or At Coleman,
Speaker 1: musician Eric Dolphie, you know, musicians that were also using
Speaker 1: jazz kind of as a platform to make political statements,
Speaker 1: I feel like Abby Lincoln really also belongs in that category.
Speaker 3: Wow, this has been terrific. We've got a few more
Speaker 3: to go. We're gonna take a quick break. We come back,
Speaker 3: go down a list, moving up art in time chronologically.
Speaker 3: And there's a name on there that I think some
Speaker 3: people are going to recognize and final interesting, particularly in
Speaker 3: the in within the jazz genre. Anyway, my very special guest,
Speaker 3: and we're having some really intelligent conversation, is educated musician
Speaker 3: and jazz historian mister Eric Davido. This is Being Frank.
Speaker 3: We're honoring the women of jazz for Women's History Month
Speaker 3: right here on Being Frank. Don't go anywhere. Got a
Speaker 3: brief commercial break. We're back with more, so don't go
Speaker 3: anywhere yet.
Speaker 4: This is Hudson River Radio dot com, Hudson Riverradio.
Speaker 1: Dot com, Hudson Riverradio.
Speaker 8: Dot com, Hudson Riverradio dot com. This is Hudson River
Speaker 8: Radio dot com.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Being Frank, the Intelligent conversation podcast. Thanks
Speaker 3: for sticking with us. I'm your hosts, Frank Lubono and
Speaker 3: as always our engineer as the mailman, mister Neil Richter.
Speaker 3: We bring our audience a fresh topic every week and
Speaker 3: we stream from Hudson River Radio, located and beautiful and
Speaker 3: historic Stony Point, New York. But remember, you can catch
Speaker 3: Being Frank anywhere you get your favorite podcasts like Apple, Spotify,
Speaker 3: iHeart Radio and all the others. And because every Being
Speaker 3: Frank is archived, you can listen to any of our
Speaker 3: programs anytime you like. You can find a link to
Speaker 3: Being Frank on the Hudson River Radio Facebook page or
Speaker 3: at our website Hudsonriverradio dot com. Just click and you're there. Okay,
Speaker 3: we're back with our very special guest, Eric DeVito, and
Speaker 3: we are honoring the women of jazz for Women's History Month.
Speaker 3: And we've gone through a rather extensive list so far
Speaker 3: and we're going to continue. And next up is Carla Blay.
Speaker 3: Tell us about Carla Eric.
Speaker 1: Yes, so, Carla Blay is this just fantastic jazz composer?
Speaker 1: And I really feel like this is kind of you know,
Speaker 1: she's very influential in avant garde jazz. And you know,
Speaker 1: some people love avant garde jazz and some people it's
Speaker 1: not their favorite kind of jazz, and however you feel.
Speaker 1: But I really feel like she's this key composer of
Speaker 1: this genre. And she had these very innovative orchestral works,
Speaker 1: and her work and her compositions I think really helped
Speaker 1: redefine kind of the role of the modern jazz composer.
Speaker 1: You know, she's this beautiful, beautiful piano player, and she's
Speaker 1: very kind of I always found her music to be
Speaker 1: full of all these great surprises, and she's kind of
Speaker 1: unassuming and very quiet. You know, she wasn't this big personality,
Speaker 1: maybe compared to somebody like Ella Fitzgerald or some of
Speaker 1: these other, you know, really personality forward personas. But Carla Blair,
Speaker 1: I just think her music is so beautiful and different
Speaker 1: and she just unique, you know, and avant garde jazz
Speaker 1: is a very you know, acquired taste for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and I think she really does it, did it?
Speaker 1: You know, she really put her own stamp on the music.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite tunes actually is this tune of
Speaker 1: hers called Lawns and It's and it's actually just the
Speaker 1: recording I have from it. I used to do it
Speaker 1: at gigs. After I heard it, I was so inspired
Speaker 1: by It's ah and It's. It's one of the more
Speaker 1: less avant garde things actually that I recall listening of hers.
Speaker 1: But it's just really beautiful and kind of like this
Speaker 1: understatedly sophisticated. I don't know if that's a weird. If
Speaker 1: that's a weird, what do you call it? Dichotomy understatedly
Speaker 1: sophisticated things. The piece of music, you know, it's beautiful,
Speaker 1: there's so many more layers to it than you actually notice,
Speaker 1: and then you know, especially when you start digging into
Speaker 1: the music. But also she had some very app on
Speaker 1: guard you know, things too that she did and you
Speaker 1: didn't see a lot of or I didn't always know
Speaker 1: when I think of avant garde jazz, you know, you
Speaker 1: always might think of late Coltrane and Burnette Coleman and
Speaker 1: Eric Dolphie and uh Son Raw and things like that,
Speaker 1: and you don't always think of women. But Carla Blay
Speaker 1: was really influential in the with her avant garde jazz.
Speaker 1: She has a great, great composition called sing Me Softly
Speaker 1: of the Blues. So it's a really great women women
Speaker 1: women composer that I think maybe also like a lot
Speaker 1: of jazz musicians know, but not a lot of non
Speaker 1: jazz musicians are as familiar.
Speaker 3: With all Right, born in nineteen forty three. Again name
Speaker 3: that will be familiar to many, but not necessarily for
Speaker 3: this genre. But she made your list. Joni Mitchell, Yes,
Speaker 3: so Joni Mitchell is.
Speaker 1: Maybe my top If I to pick five musicians or
Speaker 1: composers actually, which would be a very hard thing to pick,
Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell would be on that list. Probably be like
Speaker 1: Wayne Shorter, Joni Mitchell, maybe maybe even Maria Schneider, who's
Speaker 1: another woman on this list. But Joni Mitchell. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: everybody knows Joni Mitchell for her you know, feel work
Speaker 1: in folk and rock and pop music, but you know,
Speaker 1: her music transcended genres, and I think that's why people
Speaker 1: loved her so much. And it just as much as
Speaker 1: it as it went in and out of all these genres,
Speaker 1: it did so with jazz. It's funny, my first experience
Speaker 1: with Joni Mitchell was through her recordings with jazz musicians,
Speaker 1: so I kind of heard that first, and maybe in
Speaker 1: a way that's what kind of got me interested in her.
Speaker 1: And then I sort of explored all of the amazing,
Speaker 1: you know, genius that she was and all the other things.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so she's known as this singer songwriter of course,
Speaker 1: but you know, every one of Joni Mitchell's songs to
Speaker 1: me is this very unique composition and part of that
Speaker 1: As a guitarist, I'm always fascinated because she used so
Speaker 1: many unique guitar non standard guitar tunings, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's like you can't play a lot of her music
Speaker 1: correctly if you don't know the different tunings that she
Speaker 1: used and they're not these standard obvious tunings and a
Speaker 1: lot of that, you know, after if you read some
Speaker 1: of her some of her biographies and things, you learned
Speaker 1: that she had polio as a child, and she had
Speaker 1: a physical issue with her hand, and she couldn't play
Speaker 1: the guitar conventionally without pain. So she learned to change
Speaker 1: the tunings around to get make it easier for her
Speaker 1: to get a lot of these harmonies and chords. But
Speaker 1: in doing so, she discovered and invented all of these
Speaker 1: new interesting tunings that are far more interesting, and they're
Speaker 1: just as an important part of her songs as the
Speaker 1: songs herself, like these beautiful tunings. So anyways, she's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I like to think for she's a composer
Speaker 1: when her songs are just as compositional to me, whether
Speaker 1: it's just her by herself with a guitar or with
Speaker 1: all these other musicians. And her music always encompassed to me,
Speaker 1: even if it wasn't something that was traditionally jazz, she
Speaker 1: approached it to me like a jazz musician in terms
Speaker 1: of improvisation, in terms of structure and form, in terms
Speaker 1: of collaboration with other musicians. So I always found that
Speaker 1: she I felt her music was very much drawn to jazz,
Speaker 1: but she also collaborated with these jazz giants, Charles Mingus,
Speaker 1: Wayne Shorter, some of my you know, Pat Mactheney, Jocko Pastorius,
Speaker 1: Michael Brecker. And that's actually how I kind of got
Speaker 1: into listening to her. And you know, it's funny. When
Speaker 1: I was in college, I remember this masterclass with Michael Brecker,
Speaker 1: one of the you know, the greatest saxophonists. He died
Speaker 1: in the early two thousands, but I remember him coming.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was like nineteen ninety nine and two thousand
Speaker 1: and he came and gave this masterclass and it was cool.
Speaker 1: We had a chance after listening to him play, you know,
Speaker 1: he gave a great concert. We had this like he
Speaker 1: had like a Q and A and I remember him
Speaker 1: saying some of the most challenging and rewarding experiences he
Speaker 1: had was working with Joni Mitchell, and she would tell
Speaker 1: and he was a giant, you know, even back you know,
Speaker 1: he was a jazz giant, of course, but when he
Speaker 1: was younger working with Joni Mitchell, he was telling I
Speaker 1: remember him telling us how she would always remind him,
Speaker 1: you know, because she had a lot she was working
Speaker 1: with people like Michael Brecker, who was technically amazing and
Speaker 1: was doing all these sophisticated things, but it would always
Speaker 1: remind him, don't forget about the melody, don't forget about
Speaker 1: the words. And I remember him saying, like Joniy Mitch
Speaker 1: would always remind him, you know, you make sure you
Speaker 1: know the lyrics to this tune that you're playing over
Speaker 1: and to keep him kind of grounded to I just
Speaker 1: always remember that story about how influential Joni Mitchell was
Speaker 1: to this, you know, modern giant of jazz, Michael Brecker.
Speaker 1: But she was certainly not a traditional anything. Joni Mitchell
Speaker 1: certainly not a traditional jazz vocalist. I can't really recall
Speaker 1: her singing many jazz standards at all. The some of
Speaker 1: the jazz tunes she did were, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: more esoteric, and she was very harmonically sophisticated. She had
Speaker 1: this very improvisational approach. And some of my favorite works
Speaker 1: that she's done are her interpretations of jazz tunes, for instance,
Speaker 1: and I put this one on the listening list. This
Speaker 1: is one of the first tunes I ever heard Joni
Speaker 1: Mitchell sing was Charles Mingus's Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, and
Speaker 1: that in itself is a very kind of not so
Speaker 1: standard jazz tune. You know, all of Mingus's tunes are
Speaker 1: very unique, often kind of being very politically charged, and
Speaker 1: it has this There's a lot of famous recordings of
Speaker 1: this tune. And Joni Mitchell took the outdo saxophone solo
Speaker 1: on the on the on his recording, I think it's
Speaker 1: on Mingus. It is the name of the album. And
Speaker 1: she took it like note for note and set words
Speaker 1: to it, and then she sings it and and that
Speaker 1: a lot of other vocalists have done that, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if Joni Mitchell was the first to do that,
Speaker 1: but I remember hearing that for the first time and
Speaker 1: already having the saxophone solo memorize this improvised saxophone soul,
Speaker 1: and then hearing Joni Mitchell's version of Goodbye pork by
Speaker 1: Hat where she then sings and put words to that
Speaker 1: saxophone solo and sang it. And you know, for her
Speaker 1: to be able to do that, you know, it almost
Speaker 1: gave her a lot of, like we call it jazz cred.
Speaker 1: I guess this like street cred of she really did
Speaker 1: her homework. She really knew these jazz you know, the
Speaker 1: ins and outs of this jazz music. Even though she
Speaker 1: wasn't maybe associated with it, and that's kind of one
Speaker 1: of the things I just love about her. And and
Speaker 1: I think through that, it was kind of through her
Speaker 1: work in jazz that really made me appreciate her and
Speaker 1: then go explore all the other things that she'd done.
Speaker 1: So to me, she has to be on this list.
Speaker 3: Interesting, very interesting. All right, Moving on to next up
Speaker 3: the list in terms of chronological water born in nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty seven, Jerry Allen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Jerry Allen was just such an important jazz
Speaker 1: musician period. But I think especially for you know, women
Speaker 1: in jazz, and also we're getting a little more modern here,
Speaker 1: and so I think people like Jerry Allen really helped
Speaker 1: it be a little bit more acceptable, you know. And
Speaker 1: I think these women, you know, we're talking about women
Speaker 1: standing on the shoulders of the ones that came before them,
Speaker 1: you know. So I think Jerry Allen really did a
Speaker 1: lot too for making it like not so such a
Speaker 1: big deal. And I think she had to be you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about this earlier. You kind of had to
Speaker 1: be a lot more together. I think when you're the
Speaker 1: you know, quote unquote underdog, you really have to have
Speaker 1: it together because you're gonna go through a lot more scrutiny,
Speaker 1: you know. I think women have to deal with that,
Speaker 1: whether it's in the workplace or in the professional artistic
Speaker 1: field and professionally, and so you know, Jerry Allen was
Speaker 1: just this phenomenal musician. She really you know, she blended
Speaker 1: gospel music with bebop avant garde traditions, and I think
Speaker 1: she really helped get greater recognition for women in jazz history.
Speaker 1: And she's you know, played with every all these giants,
Speaker 1: of course, and I feel like I often hear a
Speaker 1: lot of more modern women in jazz talk about and
Speaker 1: refer back to Jerry Allen and kind of her influence
Speaker 1: on them and.
Speaker 3: On her listening list is feed the fire. Okay, moving
Speaker 3: on next nineteen sixty. When you have a woman Maria Schneider,
Speaker 3: tell us about Maria.
Speaker 1: Ah marias Schneider might be also, like I said in
Speaker 1: my top three, she might be my favorite composer, definitely
Speaker 1: in the jazz genre. But I think much like Joni Mitchell,
Speaker 1: and her music often reminds me of I often hear
Speaker 1: like similar conceptual things and approaches. Maria Schneider.
Speaker 2: To me, really.
Speaker 1: Her music is just so beautiful, and it's also just
Speaker 1: so it transcends genres. So she has this big jazz
Speaker 1: orchestra and it's funny many I've heard her her orchestra
Speaker 1: play so many times. One of my you know, my
Speaker 1: wife and I it's one of the few musical musicians
Speaker 1: that we both love equally. Like a lot of times
Speaker 1: I'm dragging my wife to jazz concerts and she's like,
Speaker 1: well does that I don't. I don't get it or whatever.
Speaker 1: She doesn't, it's not her thing, but we both so
Speaker 1: look forward to going. Whenever Maria Schneider's like got Birdland
Speaker 1: or she always gets me tickets, like for my birthday.
Speaker 1: It's like it's she knows like that that's a great
Speaker 1: gift because we love it. She works with. Her band
Speaker 1: has so many of these great New York musicians in
Speaker 1: it that are in other bands.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: She guys like Steve Wilson and Ben Mander and Donnie
Speaker 1: McCaslin and Rich Perry and just all these you know,
Speaker 1: iconic New York jazz musicians that I, you know, grew
Speaker 1: up listening to and love. And you know, Steve Wilson's actually,
Speaker 1: you know, he was on my last record. Actually he's
Speaker 1: just this you know, phenomenal voice. So these are all
Speaker 1: people that I found, you know, I'm always listening to
Speaker 1: and they're like all in her band all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, they're like part of her working man. And
Speaker 1: the way they transform her music, you know, or take
Speaker 1: her music off the page is amazing. And she to
Speaker 1: me is just this like beautiful soul to even watching
Speaker 1: her conduct, you know, she she's almost like part. Her
Speaker 1: conducting to me, is like just as important to the
Speaker 1: music that's going on. She's such a great interpreter of
Speaker 1: her own music, and it's so sophisticated. Her music. It's
Speaker 1: so complicated, you know, but it's also so simplistic at
Speaker 1: the same time. You know, one of some of my
Speaker 1: favorite records are she has a record called sky Blue,
Speaker 1: and you know, you hear elements of classical music, and
Speaker 1: she's also done some great work more in the classical genre,
Speaker 1: you know, collaborating with you know, classical vocalists and classical
Speaker 1: instrumentalist and you just kind of it's almost like her
Speaker 1: music just weaves in and out of all these genres,
Speaker 1: and I just that's what I love that, you know,
Speaker 1: That's why I like musicians and composers like that that
Speaker 1: kind of transcend genres, like Joni Mitchell does, or like
Speaker 1: Pat Metheny does. And she has this lush orchestration, tons
Speaker 1: of improvisational freedom. She really like all the great composers,
Speaker 1: especially jazz composer, she writes with her musicians in mind,
Speaker 1: so she knows, you know, when she writes a song,
Speaker 1: she's thinking, oh, Rich Perry's gonna play a solo and
Speaker 1: this this is going to feature him, or this is
Speaker 1: going to feature Ben Mandra on guitar, This is going
Speaker 1: to feature you know, the late Frank Kimbro who was
Speaker 1: her piano player for many years, who passed away a
Speaker 1: few years ago. And and so there's such this connection
Speaker 1: between the styles of the musicians. And by the way,
Speaker 1: Duke Ellington did that, and Count Basie did that. You know,
Speaker 1: they wrote for those musicians, Coody Williams, you know, they
Speaker 1: was written for you know, those those composers wrote for
Speaker 1: those people in mind. That was part of the sound
Speaker 1: of their band. But Maria Schneider's music, to me, it's
Speaker 1: so large scale, you know. She you might listen to
Speaker 1: a piece of hers and it's like a suite. In fact,
Speaker 1: she's written some of these suits and the places it
Speaker 1: takes you. It's just like this journey and man, I
Speaker 1: just disappear into it, and it's like, it's just as
Speaker 1: as much as I love listening to my eyes closed,
Speaker 1: I love watching the band play and watching her conduct,
Speaker 1: and you know, she shilled. Sometimes she'll conduct without her
Speaker 1: shoes on, and she's she's this very organic, beautiful kind
Speaker 1: of soul. And so it's just her music's phenomenal. One
Speaker 1: of my favorite songs in the entire world. And I
Speaker 1: don't often call jazz music songs. When I do that,
Speaker 1: usually it kind of hits me in a different way.
Speaker 1: But this is this track called the Pretty Road, and
Speaker 1: it's really long. The thing about Maria Snayer's music is
Speaker 1: you can't really get anything at it. Not that you
Speaker 1: can't get anything out of it, but you can't really
Speaker 1: do it justice with a thirty or a sixty second clip,
Speaker 1: of course, although you know you have to, but where
Speaker 1: you end up is so much different from where you
Speaker 1: start and the journey it takes, and I just think
Speaker 1: that that's just so important, you know, in her music.
Speaker 1: So yeah, she's one of my all time favorite composers.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we have two of our ladies left. Next up,
Speaker 3: born in nineteen sixty five, Terry Lynn Carrington Chelso, Terry Lynn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Terry Lyn Carrington. She's such a powerful force. So
Speaker 1: she's a Grammy winning drummer percussionist, and I love that too,
Speaker 1: because there's another feel that's kind of underrepresented maybe in
Speaker 1: by women in jazz, especially as drums, although some of
Speaker 1: my best friends and musicians are female percussionists. But Terry
Speaker 1: Lynn Carrington is this She's so man, is she powerful?
Speaker 1: I just love I love her music, and she's you know,
Speaker 1: she's an educator too, and she always advocates, you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like for gender equity when it comes to
Speaker 1: jazz performance and education. I think she's done a lot
Speaker 1: to help bring awareness to help women be more represented
Speaker 1: in jazz. But when you listen to her, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't just hear traditional jazz, but you hear you know,
Speaker 1: rock and roll, you hear R and B and funk
Speaker 1: and even you know, hip hop and and and a
Speaker 1: very you know, she has brings a lot of modern
Speaker 1: influence to jazz and at the same time really being
Speaker 1: a voice for women, you know, being represented in jazz.
Speaker 1: So she's just so great.
Speaker 3: And you recommend Money Jungle Provocative in Blue for listening.
Speaker 1: For Yeah, check that out, Money Jungle Provocative and Blue.
Speaker 1: It's very cool. It's very different than if I don't
Speaker 1: know if your listeners are gonna go check all these
Speaker 1: things out, but very different than you know, what you
Speaker 1: might expect. So definitely a cool track.
Speaker 3: All right. Our final and youngest of our women jazz greats.
Speaker 3: Born in nineteen eighty four, Esperanza Spaulding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Esperanza Spaulding. What a great musician. Yeah. So it's funny,
Speaker 1: you know, I remember she. I can't remember when she
Speaker 1: won her first Grammy, you know, years back. But Esperanza
Speaker 1: Spaulding has become you know, uh, she's she's older now.
Speaker 1: But when she first came out and I first kind
Speaker 1: of when she first came on the scene, you know,
Speaker 1: she I remember, she was very young and she just
Speaker 1: kind of took off. And I think one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that she's been so popular is not unlike Terry
Speaker 1: Lynn Carrington actually, but she really is blending more modern
Speaker 1: styles of music, you know, and jazz does kind of
Speaker 1: get sometimes a bad rap maybe as being old, even
Speaker 1: though you know, we don't think that way as jazz musicians.
Speaker 1: But you know, jazz is certainly not mainstream popular music
Speaker 1: like it was in the nineteen thirties and forties. But
Speaker 1: Esperanz's Faulding really brought in elements of also funk and
Speaker 1: hip hop and soul, and I think really helped resonate
Speaker 1: jazz with a younger audience. And I think that's not
Speaker 1: only been so important for her career, but for the
Speaker 1: genre itself. But at the same time, she's worked with
Speaker 1: traditional jazz giants like Wayne Shorter and all of these,
Speaker 1: you know, amazingly you know, amazing influential jazz musicians from
Speaker 1: the past. Also, ess Of Spaulding is a bass player,
Speaker 1: so kind of like Terry Terry Lynn Carrington, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: not always what you might think of, you know, often
Speaker 1: we often we think of jazz women in jazz as
Speaker 1: being vocalists, and so many of them have been vocalists.
Speaker 1: But Terry Lynn Carrington being a percussionist, Esperanto Spaulding being
Speaker 1: a bassist, I think that's so important. I think it
Speaker 1: really helped women's uh say like, hey, you know that
Speaker 1: that could be me. And I think it really did
Speaker 1: a lot to bring women into to celebrate them more
Speaker 1: and have them more represented and instrumental jazz also Esperans Spaulding.
Speaker 1: One of the things I love about her is she's
Speaker 1: this amazing vocalist, and it's it's there's a lot of
Speaker 1: great vocalists who are pretty good musicians on an instrument,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of fantastic instrumentalists who are really
Speaker 1: great vocalists, but there's not There hasn't in too many
Speaker 1: that are equal. I can only think of a couple
Speaker 1: that jump out, like Lewis Armstrong. I think of Nat
Speaker 1: king Cole. A lot of people don't realize, you know,
Speaker 1: Nat king Cole was marketed to be a vocalist, but
Speaker 1: he was meant to be a piano player. But you know,
Speaker 1: commercially they said, well, as a vocalist, you're going to
Speaker 1: make more money. That was never even his intent from
Speaker 1: what I researched. But Esbroan des Spaulding is another one.
Speaker 1: When you hear her sing, she's not a bass player
Speaker 1: who also sings. She's not a vocalist who also plays
Speaker 1: the bass. She's both. And what I find amazing is
Speaker 1: she does them at the same time. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've been playing the guitar a long time, and I
Speaker 1: struggle to sing. I don't really sing at all, but
Speaker 1: man is it hard to do both? She does both
Speaker 1: so well, it's like amazing to hear. And well we
Speaker 1: have a part of her sound. Oh you have a clip? Great?
Speaker 3: Do you have a clip? Yes? I know you know right?
Speaker 3: So yeah, so let's listen to Esperanza Spalding.
Speaker 4: Mm hm, so are you look at me?
Speaker 9: Why do you then looking tails me?
Speaker 7: Y'all have to sweep me dying on the botom?
Speaker 9: Why do you learn it before me? I see you're
Speaker 9: scared and convinced Bower, and I've tried to say that
Speaker 9: Dian was and that the last thing won't take me away.
Speaker 9: You are already enough.
Speaker 5: I love you.
Speaker 9: I know that's your loough. I love you non me away,
Speaker 9: though You're always gonna be with some question in the
Speaker 9: just because that was on them.
Speaker 3: Too soon. So well, the phenomenal bass and voice we're
Speaker 3: very much on display in that clip. Also, the voice
Speaker 3: stylings kind of reminded me a little bit of Ella.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I think you you hear her kind
Speaker 1: of seamlessly use her voice, you know, her technique and
Speaker 1: her mastery in an instrumental way. You know, of sounding
Speaker 1: like an instrument. So yeah, I think there's a you know,
Speaker 1: there's that influence there. You know. One of the one
Speaker 1: of the things that always jumps out when I listened
Speaker 1: to es Franz's Folding is I think, you know, jazz
Speaker 1: is full of you know, jazz purists, right, and sometimes
Speaker 1: you know, my wife likes to call it jazz snobs.
Speaker 1: She's probably right, but and a lot of times there's
Speaker 1: a resistance to moderniz you know. Miles Davis noticed that,
Speaker 1: and that's part of the rea. You know, he alienated
Speaker 1: a lot of his fans because he modernized, because he
Speaker 1: was trying to appeal to a younger crowd, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the more purists thought, oh he's sold out,
Speaker 1: or his music isn't as sophisticated anymore. It's it's dumbing
Speaker 1: down or whatever people wanted to call it. But I
Speaker 1: feel like Esbron's Spaulding really is helping take jazz to
Speaker 1: a different place where there's a lot more interest, and
Speaker 1: not doing it in a way that sells out, and
Speaker 1: not doing it in a way that devalues it or
Speaker 1: makes it less sophisticated. You know, you hear such an
Speaker 1: influence there of soul and R and B and funk,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't make it not jazz, you know. I
Speaker 1: think some jazz purists will say, oh, it's not jazz.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you just listening to the piano, the
Speaker 1: harmony and the rhythms, and that's jazz, you know. But
Speaker 1: I think it's really important that younger jazz musicians are
Speaker 1: starting to do that because you know, sure it's great
Speaker 1: to if you want to just keep sounding like, you know,
Speaker 1: playing bebop and playing post pop and all that stuff
Speaker 1: is great you could set in your whole life, but
Speaker 1: you know, the music is changing and we want to
Speaker 1: keep it. We want to keep our audience engaged in it.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of musicians like Esperanza Spalding
Speaker 1: have realized that, you know, jazz is not it's still jazz,
Speaker 1: but and we can blend it with these other styles
Speaker 1: that are going to bring more of a wider audience
Speaker 1: and a global appeal to it. And I just think
Speaker 1: she kind of struck that balance so perfectly well.
Speaker 3: Eric, you have a lot of things going on in
Speaker 3: your world, and I want to spend a little time
Speaker 3: talking about that before we end our program. So tell
Speaker 3: us what's new with Eric DeVito? What can we look
Speaker 3: forward to coming up?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Cool, thanks, So I've you know, I've been fortunate
Speaker 1: over the last few years to get some very cool
Speaker 1: funded projects through the Arts Council of Rockland and the
Speaker 1: Arts Westchester organizations and things like that, and I recently
Speaker 1: got there's actually two grants that I'm using to do
Speaker 1: a project. One is through the Nayak Tourism Grant through
Speaker 1: Visit Nayak, and the other is through ACRE the Arts
Speaker 1: Council of Rockland. And so I'm going to be producing
Speaker 1: a monthly jazz concert series and it's very very new
Speaker 1: in the works, so I don't even have one hundred
Speaker 1: percent of the details or some of the details I
Speaker 1: might and could end up changing, but as far as
Speaker 1: we know, we're looking to do it on the second
Speaker 1: Friday of every month at Mora's Kitchen in Nyack, and
Speaker 1: this would start April tenth, the second Friday in April.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you're familiar with Morri's Kitchen,
Speaker 1: it's a great place. You know, it often features great
Speaker 1: music and often Latin music and Latin American music. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna look to bring a lot of Latin jazz
Speaker 1: influence there as we do it for sure, and I
Speaker 1: don't even have the exact time. It could be six
Speaker 1: to nine pm, it could be seven to ten. I'm
Speaker 1: not even one hundred percent sure. We haven't even nailed
Speaker 1: down the exact instrumentation. I can tell you as much
Speaker 1: as I can make it. It's going to feature myself
Speaker 1: on guitar, maybe some other you know. It might could
Speaker 1: be a quartet, could be a trio, different weeks, different things.
Speaker 1: We want to kind of see how it goes. So
Speaker 1: this grant, I'm very grateful to visit Nayak Inc. And
Speaker 1: Acre for having faith in me and helping me fund
Speaker 1: projects like this where we can bring a regular jazz
Speaker 1: concert series to the local community in Rockland County. And
Speaker 1: I you know, you might remember last year I was
Speaker 1: promoting that Jazz Evolution series I did, which was kind
Speaker 1: of scattered throughout the year. To go with this project
Speaker 1: is I really wanted to get something that was regular
Speaker 1: because I felt that, first of all, when it's something
Speaker 1: is occurring regularly, it builds up a buzz and it
Speaker 1: becomes part of the culture and the fabric of the community.
Speaker 1: So I really it was important to me that we
Speaker 1: could try to get something monthly, you know, at least,
Speaker 1: so that'll help people like you know, oh yeah, the
Speaker 1: second Friday, there's always you know, this jazz happening at
Speaker 1: this venue, So a place that to help it kind
Speaker 1: of become a destination that people can kind of set
Speaker 1: their calendars around and set their watches around. So that
Speaker 1: was part of it. And also something that's very accessible,
Speaker 1: so that you know, Morris Kitchen is a place, you know,
Speaker 1: it's family friendly, it's you know, we want us to
Speaker 1: do it at a time when we can you know,
Speaker 1: maximize how many people can come experience. There were still
Speaker 1: in the works we might add a jam session component
Speaker 1: to it where we can have local musicians come and
Speaker 1: sit in and jay and make it a place to
Speaker 1: just bring more participation and awareness and increase public's enjoyment
Speaker 1: and appreciation for jazz. So right now we're looking at
Speaker 1: Friday April tenth, and then every month the second Friday
Speaker 1: after that at Morris Kitchen and Nayak And there'll be
Speaker 1: certainly more information on that on my website at www
Speaker 1: dot Ericdivito dot com, and of course, Frank, I'll keep
Speaker 1: you updated if any of that information change as it's
Speaker 1: kind of like I said, it's very much in the
Speaker 1: development stages right now. We're hoping to get everything sorted
Speaker 1: out for April tenth when we start.
Speaker 3: Eric Tavito, we really want to thank you for being
Speaker 3: frank with us again your intelligent conversation. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: You work so hard, you do such extensive research. It
Speaker 3: shows and I'm sure our audience appreciation I know I do.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. I always love being here and thanks
Speaker 1: for having me.
Speaker 3: Of course, we offer special thanks to our listeners. They
Speaker 3: take time to give us a voice in their life. Remember,
Speaker 3: you offer a fresh topic just about every week. Catch
Speaker 3: us wherever and whenever you get your favorite podcasts. Check
Speaker 3: us out on the Hudson River Radio Facebook page. Like
Speaker 3: us and leave us a comment. Okay, two last little bits.
Speaker 3: Don't go anywhere yet. Eric, We're going to have you
Speaker 3: introduce your song coming up in just a bit. But
Speaker 3: since we spoke of Ella Fitzgerald and she made our list,
Speaker 3: I thought it appropriate to get a quote from her,
Speaker 3: and she said, just don't give up trying to do
Speaker 3: what you really want to do where there is love
Speaker 3: and inspiration. I don't think you can go wrong. Okay, Eric,
Speaker 3: what are we going to hear music wise?
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna hear an original composition of mine
Speaker 1: called Her and Him. I believe then that would be
Speaker 1: from my debut album, which from back in twenty twelve
Speaker 1: called Breaking the Ice. And so this tune is called
Speaker 1: Her and Him and it features myself on guitar, my
Speaker 1: good friend and amazing horn player Jake Saslow on soprano saxophone.
Speaker 1: I believe, Nadav sneer Zelniker on drums, and Moto Fukushima
Speaker 1: on the bass. And yeah, it's just an original composition
Speaker 1: of mine that I've always loved. I revisited it often
Speaker 1: and it's Her and Him. By the way, h y
Speaker 1: m n. It's a little play on words. The beginning
Speaker 1: is supposed to kind of sound like a hymn. The
Speaker 1: way it's kind of a voiced and orchestrated terrific.
Speaker 3: For our engineer, Neil Richter. He's the male man. I'm
Speaker 3: your host, Frank Lubono, and we hope to have you
Speaker 3: join us the next being Frank, We're the only way
Speaker 3: to be is Frank. Thanks everyone of the.
Speaker 5: B TAB back count first but.
Speaker 6: Very presentable.
Speaker 3: No, this is Hudson River Radio dot com.