#60's jazz

[oopsl]

Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album by John Coltrane, 2018

[swedish-songs]

One of the best things about living in Sweden, are the long, light summer nights. A song that perfectly captures this is Sakta vi gå genom stan (Slowly strolling through town), a free translation by Swedish entertainer Beppe Wolgers of the jazz song "Walkin' My Baby Back Home". The Swedish version is about taking a stroll home through Stockholm on a warm summer night.

It was recorded by one of Swedens most famous jazz singers of all time, Monica Zetterlund, in 1961. Zetterlund was a vaudeville performer, a jazz performer, a stage and movie actress. She also performed with a range of world-famous jazz musicians such as Bill Evans, Louis Armstrong and Stan Getz. Together with Bill Evans, she released the album Waltz for Debbie in 1964.

Sakta vi gå genom stan became a huge hit in Sweden when it was released and has been ever since. Radio Stockholm dubbed it the no.1 song about Stockholm. I found a video of "Amerikanen reacts to svenska klassiker", a Youtube series where youtuber Jonathan Rollins reacts to Swedish hits. The song has been played so many times it almost feels cliché at this point, but watching someone else hear it for the first time made it feel brand new to me!

[histonics]

[simonlynch]

what kind of music does your f/o like? do they have a canon favorite song/band/etc & what is it? if not what do you headcanon them to enjoy?

[dankalbumart]

Underground by Thelonious Monk Columbia 1968 Jazz / Bop / Hard Bop / Post-Bop / Piano Jazz

[nocentis]

If anyone likes oldies, I have a playlist to offer you.

[jasonzsongs]

Nancy Wilson - (You Don't Know) How Glad I Am (c.1964)

In April 1965 "(You Don't Know) How Glad I Am" received the Grammy Award for Best Rhythm & Blues Recording: Wilson was surprised by the categorization of "…How Glad I Am" as R&B as she would have classified it as a pop record, and the track had not been a major R&B hit peaking at No. 45 on the Cash Box R&B chart (the Billboard R&B chart was dormant throughout 1964).

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Baseball's Greatest Hits 1989 Novelty / Swing / Pop / Jazz / Comedy / Folk / Singer-Songwriter

Well, folks, I gotta say that baseball and I really aren't on the greatest of terms right now. See, my Mets are currently in the fight of their life for a playoff wild card spot, and their MVP-caliber shortstop, Francisco Lindor, who prides himself on playing every day, is now nursing a back injury, and we don't yet know the severity of it, because as I'm currently writing this, me and this entire fanbase are awaiting the results of a very important MRI. And as a diehard Mets fan whose only really been raised on baseball heartbreak, I've been conditioned to only expect bad news at this point, knowing full well that even if his injury is minor and he's only out for a few games, that his absence at this highly critical point in the season has a pretty good chance of causing this club to miss the playoffs by a mere inch, even though they've been pretty much the best team in the league since Memorial Day, with a starting pitching staff that was not expected to be very good, but has somehow miraculously developed itself into the best one in the game, despite ace Kodai Senga only making a single appearance all season due to multiple injuries.

But even though I really don't wanna think too much about baseball right now (hah!), we still push on, because like it or not, this novelty album of baseball songs from Rhino Records—the first of its kind, they allege—happens to be the next album in my queue, and so here I am, regardless of my own mood and how I'm currently trying to cope in this moment, ready to write, objectively 😥.

So, first of all, and above all else, this is a fun album. Little of it consists of music that I would consider to be *good*, but that's not really the point of an album like this in the first place; we're here for goofy novelty, and boy, do we have a whole lot of it, from swingin' and showtuney and rockin' tunes about specific greats like Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, and Hank Aaron; to jazz pianist Dave Frishberg's "Van Lingle Mungo," a song that, according to this albums own liner notes, became his most requested, even though its lyrics are literally only names of baseball players that he'd found in a baseball encyclopedia once, including that of Van Lingle Mungo himself. What a song to have your career defined by 😂.

But the absurdity of this album really only begins there, because in addition to that, we've got some peak 80s cringe here as well. Like, you know how so many people in that decade mistakenly thought it'd be a good idea to try their hand at rapping? Well, have a listen to legendary Yankees announcer Mel Allen rap the words 'that ain't no jive' on "Baseball Dreams," by Allen and a group called The Naturals. This song is like if one of those horribly cheesy 'just say no to drugs' anthems was made about baseball instead. A complete atrocity that reminds you just how much of this awful type of cheap and generic, keyboard-dominated ~sound~ was really floating around out there at the time. Fun to point and laugh at now, but holy shit, what terrible, terrible music this was!

And up until that very song on this album, I was set to write about how this is a great release for families to listen to in their car while on the way to a ballgame, so long as they don't go to more than a few games a year. But then I heard the next song, "Baseball Card Lover" by Rockin' Richie Ray, and thought otherwise, because while Richie provides the thinnest of pretenses that this song is merely about his love of baseball cards, what it's actually clearly about instead are his own fantasies about having wild sex with the players on those cards 🥵. So, uh...fun for the whole family, this album certainly is not.

Still, though, there are a few genuinely good songs on here too, and the best among them, I'd say, is probably Philly soul group The Intruders' "(Love Is Like A) Baseball Game," which wasn't their biggest hit, but still managed to perform modestly well, reaching #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968. A quality piece of soul music that came courtesy of the legendary songwriting and production duo of Gamble and Huff, but I'm not too sure that I agree that the whole concept of love can really be equated to "three strikes, you're out" 😅.

So, all in all, it definitely did feel a little bit tormenting to have to listen to this album and then write up a post about it today, but now that I've done it, I won't have to do it again 👍. Worth a listen if you love the history of baseball and think you'd get a kick out of the wide variety of wacky music that this folkloric game has managed to yield since about the ~1940s, but if baseball's never really been your thing, you can probably skip this collection, because you probably wouldn't understand or appreciate much of what these songs are about anyway.

But seriously, how do you leave a song like "Meet the Mets," one of the single-catchiest baseball tunes ever written, off of an album like this?! 🤔 Tsk, tsk. The lesser known funkier and peppier 70s version of it goes pretty hard, as far as baseball songs go, too, I think.

Highlights:

The Intruders - "(Love Is Like A) Baseball Game" Steve Goodman - "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" Sister Wynona Carr - "The Ball Game"

P.S.: Since I've written this, Lindor's MRI has come back clean, which is definitely encouraging, but they really need him back ASAP. Time is definitely not on their side right now 😓.

[myvinylplaylist]

The Ramsey Lewis Trio: The In Crowd (1965)

Argo Records

[oopsl]

The Blues and the Abstract Truth, Oliver Nelson, 1961

[swedish-songs]

One of Swedens most famous authors is children's book author Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002). Her perhaps most famous character of all is Pippi Långstrump, Pippi Longstocking in English. The books about Pippi is one of the most translated books in the world, available in around 100 languages.

The books were released during the 40's, and in 1969 a TV-series adaption came out. In the 70's, two movies were released, with the same actors and director. The theme song Här kommer Pippi Långstrump (Here comes Pippi Longstocking) was composed by the incredibly well renowned jazz musician Jan Johansson and recorded sung by the actress playing Pippi, Inger Nilsson. Johansson died tragically in a car accident in 1968, before the series were released. Most subsequent Astrid Lindgren songs were written by Georg Riedel.

The song is sung from Pippi's perspective, describing herself and urging her friends to have a great time with her. The lyrics are also peppered with the nonsensical "tjolahopp tjolahej tjolahoppsansa". A couple of years ago, an "official music video" was published on Youtube, consisting of clips from the series and movies:

[metalcultbrigade]

The Mothers of Invention - Uncle Meat 21/04/1969

[i-am-against-being-touched]

does nina simone make any misses???? ever????

[ozkar-krapo]

JIMMY'S JAZZ QUARTET

"When the Saints go marchin' in"

(ss.7" flexi. Disques EMA. 196?) [FR]

[jourdepluie91]

Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe: Inside Their Surprising Friendship

The Hollywood starlet and jazz singer had a bond that defied the odds during a time of racial prejudice.

By Sara Kettler

When once asked about her favorite singers, Marilyn Monroe answered, "Well, my very favorite person, and I love her as a person as well as a singer, I think she's the greatest, and that's Ella Fitzgerald. Not only was Monroe a Fitzgerald fan, but she was also a friend who used her status as a Hollywood star to boost Fitzgerald's career. Their friendship would last until Monroe's untimely death. And even after Monroe had died, Fitzgerald remained grateful for the support the star had provided during her lifetime.

Monroe and Fitzgerald had many things in common, including traumatic childhoods

One reason for the connection between Monroe and Fitzgerald may have been the number of life experiences they had in common, beginning with their traumatic childhoods. Monroe grew up during the Great Depression unaware of who her father was and coping with a birth mother who was mentally unstable. She was moved among many different homes and was subjected to sexual abuse. Reflecting on her upbringing for a 1956 interview with Time magazine, she wondered, "How did I get through it?"

Fitzgerald was 15 when her mother's death in 1932 upended her world. Her stepfather became abusive, so she went to live with an aunt in Harlem. She left school to earn money, taking jobs, like brothel lookout, that skirted the law. Her truancy led to Fitzgerald being placed in a segregated reform school in upstate New York, where staff didn't hesitate to brutalize residents. The reformatory's last superintendent told The New York Times that during Fitzgerald's time there "she had been held in the basement of one of the cottages once and all but tortured."

Monroe was more open about her early life than Fitzgerald, who never wanted to discuss that period. Yet they each might have appreciated knowing someone who could understand some of that pain. Plus the similarities between Fitzgerald and Monroe didn't end with childhood: They'd both made early, unsuccessful marriages. And each had ultimately found success as a performer, while also encountering some of the pitfalls of stardom.

Monroe helped bring Fitzgerald's career to the next level

By the 1950s, Fitzgerald's enthralling singing voice had won her fans across the country. But the venues that hired her were often smaller clubs; some places weren't interested in having an overweight Black woman perform for them, no matter her talent. Fitzgerald reportedly once told her press agent, "I know I make a lot of money at the jazz clubs I play, but I sure wish I could play at one of those fancy places."

Movie star Monroe had spent hours listening to Fitzgerald's recordings (a music coach had recommended this to improve the star's own singing). In November 1954, she got to see Fitzgerald perform in Los Angeles. The two were soon friends, so when Monroe learned of Fitzgerald's inability to get a gig at the Mocambo, a famous L.A. nightclub, she decided to help.

Dorothy Dandridge and Eartha Kitt had already performed at the Mocambo, so Fitzgerald wouldn't have been the first African American to sing there. But the club's owner felt the heavyset Fitzgerald lacked the glamour to draw crowds. So Monroe approached him with a proposition — if he booked Fitzgerald, she promised to sit at the front of the house every night and to bring along other celebrities. Monroe made clear the amount of publicity this would garner, so the club owner agreed to hire Fitzgerald for a couple of weeks in March 1955.

During Fitzgerald's run, Monroe kept her word to sit up front, and Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland showed up on opening night. However, such celebrity firepower wasn't that necessary — Fitzgerald's shows sold out, and the owner even added a week to her contract. This successful engagement changed Fitzgerald's career trajectory. She later told Ms. magazine, "After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again."

Monroe supported Fitzgerald in battling prejudice

Following her success at the Mocambo, Fitzgerald got other jobs at big venues and also returned to the Mocambo. Yet not every location treated her equally due to the color of her skin — some expected Fitzgerald to enter through a side door or back entrance rather than the front.

When Monroe became aware of this, she again supported her friend. According to Fitzgerald biographer Geoffrey Mark, Monroe had traveled to Colorado to see Fitzgerald perform. Once there, she saw her friend ushered away from the front entrance, so Monroe refused to go inside unless both she and Fitzgerald were allowed through the front doors. The movie star got her way and soon all of Fitzgerald's performance spots were treating the singer with the respect she deserved.

Substance abuse became a barrier in Monroe and Fitzgerald's friendship

Monroe and Fitzgerald were friends for years. However, as Fitzgerald's longtime business manager revealed to Monroe biographer Lois Banner, Monroe's drug use kept the two from forging a deeper friendship.

Fitzgerald didn't drink or like cigarettes; she even shied away from songs that made reference to drugs. For her, an escape was watching soap operas when not on tour. But for Monroe, pills and alcohol were a way to cope with the stresses of her life and career. Her reliance on these substances deepened as the years went on until she died of a drug overdose at the age of 36 on August 5, 1962.

Fitzgerald never forgot how Monroe helped her career

Fitzgerald wasn't at Monroe's funeral. Joe DiMaggio, Monroe's second husband, had handled the arrangements, and he didn't want Monroe's celebrity friends and acquaintances to attend the small service.

However, Fitzgerald never forgot how Monroe had first helped her. In 1972, when she told Ms. magazine the story of Monroe's role in getting her that gig at the Mocambo, she noted, "I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt."

[randomvarious]

Today’s compilation:

Stand Up and Be Counted: Soul, Funk and Jazz from a Revolutionary Era 1999 Funk / Soul / Spoken-Word Poetry / Jazz

Today's an important history lesson, folks. I went back to a late 60s/early 70s era of US black revolutionary politics and awareness with this CD that was put out by UK label Harmless in '99. It's those pre-disco days when a lot of black-made music was politically righteous, with scathing lyrical critiques of a still racially unequal status quo, and carried poignant, urgent, and inspirational messages that would help to raise the consciousness among black folks nationwide, as well as anyone else who was willing to listen and learn. It was a time of riotous and fiery tumult, and while this release doesn't seem to fully encapsulate or present all the most prominent songs and musicians that ended up providing the soundtrack for this very volatile handful of pivotal years—where's Sly Stone?—it's still a phenomenal album.

This CD comes with fixtures you'd expect on a release like this: James Brown's "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud," Nina Simone's "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free," and perhaps the most iconic piece of spoken-word poetry that's ever been recorded, Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." Basically, if you're putting together an album that's trying to reflect the American black struggle from this specific time period, it'd be prudent to include this particular trio of songs.

But where this album truly shines is with its overwhelming majority of selections that aren't so obvious; songs that contain the same hunger and zeal for equality, but aren't as well known to a general audience. For example, The Last Poets, a spoken-word poetry trio whose early 70s pining for immediate revolution on their self-titled debut album would lay the foundation for the creation, development, and emergence of hip hop music and culture. Their song, "When the Revolution Comes," actually sparked a response from Gil Scott-Heron with "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," and 22 years after its initial release, a repeated line towards the end of the song would find itself repurposed as the title of The Notorious B.I.G.'s debut single, "Party and Bullshit."

And also on here is a solo track from one of those Last Poets as well, Gylan Kain, whose 1970 song, "Loose Here," off of his debut LP, The Blue Guerrilla, was actually co-written by none other than the legend Nile Rodgers himself, earning him one of his first ever credits, long before he'd *really* break out with a pair of #1s on the disco tip in '78 and '79, with Chic's "Le Freak" and then "Good Times."

Truth be told, though, The Last Poets weren't actually as obscure as you may think that I might be making them out to be here; their debut album managed to sell over 350,000 copies, and it peaked at #29 on Billboard's 200 album chart, and #3 on R&B as well. It's just that, knowing about them was spread pretty much purely through word of mouth; there was certainly no big commercial engine that was driving their sales, and if you weren't black and didn't have your ears tuned to any of this sound, the likelihood that you'd catch wind of them was pretty low.

So, the most obscure song on this album, then, appears to be a funk tune from an anonymous group called The Pace-Setters, whose only ever release, a 1971 7-inch, sings the praises of social activist Jesse Jackson and his then-recently formed PUSH organization on its chugging a-side.

The rest of this CD's tunes are pretty much made up of brilliant funk, soul, and jazz entities—The Impressions, Billy Paul, Archie Shepp, and ex-Temptation Eddie Kendricks—but the album doesn't use any of their singles. All the choices are still terrific, however, especially Kendricks' "My People... Hold On," the slow, earthy, heartfelt, and mantric title track off of his 1972 sophomore album. Interestingly, the name of that album, though, actually chops off the "My" in "My People," suggesting that Motown imprint Tamla didn't want to potentially alienate any parts of its audience with such a transparent appeal to black pride and solidarity 🤔.

Another well-known group on this album is James Brown's former one, The Famous Flames, who are just credited as The Flames here. And as The Flames, they never released an album, but did put out a handful of singles, including this CD's title track, which lives up to the name of the group who made it (it's scorching!), and was produced by James Brown and released on his own label, People, in 1971.

And before I close out, I gotta mention Chicago jazz ensemble The Pharaohs too, because the penultimate track from their 1971 debut album, The Awakening, makes for a tremendous song, with astonishing traded leads between saxophone and guitar, and a constantly thick amount of busy backing behind it all as well. It would still be an amazing tune, even if it didn't have any kind of messaging to go along with it.

So, in sum, Stand Up and Be Counted is an incredible release. It really channels a very important few years of palpably churning American black fervor, and it includes some unforgettable all-timers too, but its real uniqueness is found in its many selections of non-singles, deep cuts, & relative obscurities. I really don't think you'll ever find another late 60s/early 70s black empowerment retrospective that's quite like this one here. A stunningly superb and authentic collection of tunes.

Highlights:

The Flames - "Stand Up and Be Counted" Gil Scott-Heron - "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" The Impressions - "Mighty Mighty (Spade and Whitey)" Billy Paul - "East" Mike James Kirkland - "Hang On in There" James Brown - "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud, Parts 1 & 2" The Last Poets - "When the Revolution Comes" Pace-Setters - "Push on Jessie Jackson" Archie Shepp - "Blues for Brother George Jackson" Eddie Kendricks - "My People... Hold On" The Pharaohs - "Freedom Road" Kain - "Loose Here" Nina Simone - "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free"