Ella Sophia!

Ella Fitzgerald and Sophia Loren

The Cecil Payne-Ron Carter Quintet: Slide's Blues

Cecil Payne Dossier#3 - An ongoing series of posts on one of the giants of baritone sax


The Cecil Payne-Ron Carter Quintet
Jazzfestival Bern, Switzerland, May 8, 1998
Slide's Blues

Eric Alexander(ts), Cecil Payne (bars), Stephen Scott (p), Ron Carter (b), Lewis Nash (d).

Cassavetes, Hadi and Mingus

John Cassavetes and Shafi Hadi

Cinephilia and Beyond has published a story on recording the soundtrack of John Cassavettes' debut film Shadows with Charles Mingus and Shafi Hadi. Read it here.

Just Hawk: Coleman Hawkins in Denmark

source

Someone opened that bloody book again this morning and Witney Balliett's words echoed in the room:

"Improvisation, the seat of jazz, is a remorseless art that demands of the performer no less than this: that, night after night, he spontaneously invent original music by balancing emotion and intelligence, form and content, and tone and attack, all of which must both charge and entertain the spirit of the listener. Improvisation comes in various hues and weights... Great improvisation is rare; bad improvisation, which is really not improvisation at all but a rerun or imitation of old ideas, is common. No art is more precarious or domineering. Thus, such consummate veteran improvisers as Armstrong, [Vic] Dickenson, Hawkins, Buck Clayton, and Monk are, in addition to be master craftsmen, remarkable endurance runners. One of the hardiest of these is Hawkins.

The Cecil Payne-Ron Carter Duo

Cecil Payne Dossier#2 - An ongoing series of posts on one of the giants of baritone sax  

I just returned from Switzerland, but my heart is still there. I spent four wonderful days in Fribourg, attending FIFF, meeting friends and doing some side activities, including a couple of interviews I gave (on cinema) which in case you are a German reader and interested in Iranian cinema, could be accessed here.

Trying to re-live the memory of the place, nothing serves me better than the Cecil Payne-Ron Carter duo, doing their Lover Man in Bern, Switzerland, May 8, 1998.

The video is from my VHS collection. Still more to come as a part of the Payne dossier.