The autumnal equinox and first day of fall is being celebrated Sunday, and I’ve bought autumn tunes working by way of my head. Although there may be music that celebrates the pagan vacation and harvest pageant of Mabon, I’ll be exploring tunes which have change into jazz requirements, in each instrumental and vocal types right now. A few of them are wistful, others are celebratory. They’re all evocative of change.
”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly sequence highlighting all issues Black music, with over 225 tales overlaying performers, genres, historical past, and extra, every that includes its personal vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll discover some acquainted tunes and maybe an introduction to one thing new.
Like many jazz lovers, I’m an enormous fan of John Coltrane’s music, and his influence on the jazz style. I’ve written about him incessantly over time right here, together with his affect on me personally rising up near the place he lived, and being befriended by his spouse Naima. It was due to Coltrane that I used to be uncovered to the vocal artistry of Johnny Hartman.
Dr. Gregg Akkerman, director of jazz research and business music at USC Upstate, profiled him at JazzStandards.com.
John Maurice Hartman was a critically acclaimed, although by no means extensively recognized, baritone jazz singer who specialised in ballads. Born in Louisiana, however raised in Chicago, he started singing and enjoying the piano by age eight. … He sang as an Military personal throughout WWII however his first skilled work got here in September 1946 when he gained a singing contest awarding him a one-week engagement with Earl Hines. Seeing potential within the singer, Hines employed him for the following 12 months. Though Hartman’s first recordings have been with Marl Younger in February 1947, it was the collaboration with Hines that supplied notable publicity. After the Hines orchestra broke up, Dizzy Gillespie invited Hartman to hitch his huge band in 1948 throughout an eight-week tour in California. Dropped from the band about one 12 months later, Hartman labored for a short while with pianist Erroll Garner earlier than going solo by early 1950.
Author, educator, and artist Karen D. Brame continues his biography at BlacklistedCulture, which she based. She outlines his struggles to attain business recognition, which continued to elude him till his collaboration with Coltrane.
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman was heralded an unlimited music success by critics and listeners, inflicting the label, Impulse, to decide to 4 extra recordings of Hartman. Johnny Hartman can be the one singer with whom John Coltrane would collaborate. Whereas this labeled Hartman as a “jazz” singer, it additionally allowed him better leverage in being a singer of extra numerous types, together with classical, gospel and pop, backed by orchestras. … In 1981, Hartman was nominated for a Grammy Award for “Best Male Jazz Vocalist” for his album, As soon as in Each Life. His final album of newly-recorded materials, This One’s for Tedi, celebrated his love for his spouse.
Cultivating a musical profession that spanned 5 a long time, Hartman handed away from lung most cancers on September 15, 1983; he was sixty years outdated. … The inclusion of his songs within the Clint Eastwood-helmed movie, Bridges of Madison County, launched Hartman to a brand new viewers of listeners. Jazz singer and songwriter, Kurt Elling created an album, Devoted to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman in honor of the unique Hartman and Coltrane collaboration. Kevin Mahogany recorded an LP, To Johnny Hartman … Reside in Birdland, in salute to the quintessential balladeer.
In 1984, the New York Metropolis Council designated the site visitors triangle, fashioned by Amsterdam Avenue, Hamilton Place and W. 143rd Road, in Hamilton Heights of the Manhattan borough as “Johnny Hartman Plaza”.
From the album, right here’s “Autumn Serenade.” The music was written by Peter De Rose, lyrics written by Sammy Gallop and it was first launched in 1945. Coltrane and Hartman’s cowl is from July 1963.
Any combo of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald is a assured basic, and their duet of “Autumn in New York” is not any exception. It was written by Russian immigrant composer Vernon Duke (Vladimir Dukelsky) for a Broadway revue in 1934. Armstrong and Fitzgerald launched their model in 1957.
Every time we discuss autumn or fall, the dialogue turns to which a part of the nation has essentially the most magnificent leaf show of adjusting colours. Some of the recorded tunes about this seasonal change is “Autumn Leaves.”
Tom Schnabel at KCRW-FM provides some background on the unique “Autumn Leaves”:
“Autumn Leaves“ has been covered many times by different singers. The 1945 French original was called “Les Feuilles Mortes” (as in “Dead Leaves,” which is perhaps extra appropriately translated to “Dry Leaves” or “Still Leaves”), with lyrics penned by Jacques Prévert. The French poet and screenwriter ran with the bohemian left financial institution set after World Battle II and located fame writing the screenplay of Marcel Carné’s epic movie, Les Enfants du Paradis (Kids of Paradise). Yves Montand, amongst different French chansonniers, recorded complete albums of Prévert’s poems. “Les Feuilles Mortes” was initially set to music written by Joseph Kosma for an additional one in all Carné’s movies, Les Portes de la Nuit (The Gates of the Night time).
Curiously, many English variations of the lyrics exist as unfastened translations of the unique poem. Johnny Mercer penned the preferred English model, recorded by Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and others.
Discogs has a listing of 1,793 recorded variations, each the French and English! Right here’s Nat King Cole’s hit model:
An instrumental model of ”Autumn Leaves” on the Hammond organ is a should hear. It was recorded by Trudy Pitts, a feminine instrumentalist whose keyboard abilities have typically been neglected.
AllAboutJazz has this background introduction to Pitts, written earlier than she joined the ancestors:
Trudy is a local Philadelphian who started enjoying piano at age six. Her mom, too, was a musician and impressed this household custom. “My family was deeply involved in the church community,” says Trudy, “and I started playing piano for Sunday school when I was about nine or ten. As time went on, I was introduced to the church organ, and I played organ in Sunday school.”
[…]
Incomes a level in music schooling was solely pure for this proficient prodigy. She studied at Philadelphia’s Musical Academy, Temple College, and Julliard, amongst different establishments. Throughout these years she reached out to the classics and constructed a base from which future compositions and preparations would spring.
[…]
Trudy grew to become a sensation on the Hammond organ, and everyone who’s anyone is aware of why: she has a powerful basis on which to construct her new sound and a musical genius that’s matched solely by her willpower to succeed. …Trudy and Mr C on the 1992 Organ Jam in Philadelphia Trudy Pitts emerged on this planet of Jazz organ and was quickly swinging away with Mr. C alongside such greats as Ben Webster, Gene Ammons, and Sonny Stitt. She recorded 4 albums for Status, showing with Willis Jackson, Pat Martino, and later Rahsaan Roland Kirk. She dealt with herself formidably in an area of musicians made up largely of males. Her musical prowess would have taken her a lot additional down the halls of fame, some have speculated, have been it not for her noble choice to keep up the integrity of her household.
“It’s not easy to be a wife, a mother, and a career person at the same time. That is no harder today than it was yesterday.” Trudy’s choice was a supreme dedication to the household.
Right here’s her 1968 rendition of “Autumn Leaves.”
One more jazz normal is “Early Autumn” which was composed by Ralph Burns and Woody Herman with the lyrics written by Johnny Mercer, recorded for the primary time in 1952. As an enormous vocalese fan right here’s one in all my favourite variations, recorded in 1962 by The Double Six of Paris.
Johnny Mathis crooned it on his second album, ”Fantastic, Fantastic,” which was launched in 1957.
One more basic autumn normal, “Autumn Nocturne,” with music written by Joe Myrow and lyrics from Kim Gannon, was first recorded in 1941, and has gone on to be coated by an entire host of musicians. It’s laborious to select one, however I made a decision to go along with Lou Donaldson’s 1958 cowl, since I haven’t featured him right here earlier than. He’ll quickly be celebrating his 98th birthday.
Right here’s a little bit extra about Donaldson:
Born on November 1, 1926, Lou is the second of 4 youngsters born to father, Louis Sr., a minister and graduate of Livingstone School, and mom, Lucy, a graduate of Cheney College. Lucy was a music trainer, music director and live performance pianist who acknowledged Lou’s knowledgeable ear for music and launched him to the clarinet. At age 15, he matriculated to North Carolina A&T School in Greensboro NC the place he was a member of the marching band enjoying clarinet. His schooling was interrupted by World Battle II when in 1945 he was drafted and entered the US Navy. He was accepted into the Nice Lakes Navy Band at Camp Robert Smalls the place he performed clarinet and commenced enjoying alto saxophone. …. Whereas within the Navy, Lou took liberty in Chicago on a number of events and, after listening to Charlie Parker, embraced this model of enjoying and made the saxophone his instrument. He went on to develop his personal sound, turning into recognized for his candy ballads and incomes him his legendary nickname ― “Sweet Poppa Lou,” an honorific first bestowed upon him by famend jazz producer and broadcaster Bob Porter.
When Lou was launched from the Navy, he returned to Greensboro to finish his research and acquired a Bachelor of Science diploma in Might 1948. His thesis titled The Change from Swing to Bebop was integrated right into a e book that grew to become required studying for college kids finishing the music main program. In 1972 his alma mater established the Lou Donaldson Award for Excellence in Instrumental Efficiency, awarded to essentially the most gifted jazz musician pupil. Whereas in faculty, Lou performed membership dates all through North Carolina with the Rhythm Vets, a combo that consisted of North Carolina A & T alumni who have been Navy veterans. They recorded the soundtrack to the musical comedy titled Pitch a Boogie Woogie in Greenville, NC in 1947. … All have been impressed with Lou’s enjoying, and Illinois Jacquet and members of Dizzy Gillespie’s band particularly suggested him to maneuver to New York to propel his profession. Lou took the recommendation of those luminaries and moved to New York in late 1949 the place he attended the Darrow Institute of Music…. In New York, Lou bought to listen to all of the celebrated jazz musicians of the day and is proud to have had the chance to play with lots of them, together with his idol, Charlie Parker…. In 1963, he moved to “The Valley” neighborhood within the Bronx the place up-and-coming rappers who lived there have been impressed by his soul-jazz, jazz-funk tunes and name “The Valley” their music’s birthplace. Lou’s music has been sampled quite a few instances. It’s stated that he’s Blue Notice Document’s most sampled musician ever…. He continued to please audiences around the globe together with his soulful, totally swinging, and steeped-in-the-blues performances till after his 90th birthday when he later retired to South Florida.
This impeccable vocal efficiency of “Autumn Nocturne” from Samara Pleasure, which was carried out in St. Paul’s Chapel in 2022, have to be heard.
I’ll shut with a little bit humor. Right here’s Pink Foxx and Smiley Rodgers singing “‘Tis Autumn” on “Sanford and Son.”
Be part of me within the feedback beneath for extra, and I hope you’ll put up a few of your favorites.
Blissful fall!
