GONE TOO SOON - Jazz Legends who died young

Sushant, if you haven't watched it yet, I highly recommend the Miles Davis documentary available right now on Netflix - its called Birth of the Cool.
Jayant, take a look at this. has a part 2 aswell. some good insight and slightly different from the netflix film. sorry i understand if the video doesn't match the description of the title of the thread and also the flow of the thread where it stands as of now. It's still about Miles Davis and I thought I"d share it.
 
Jayant, take a look at this. has a part 2 aswell. some good insight and slightly different from the netflix film. sorry i understand if the video doesn't match the description of the title of the thread and also the flow of the thread where it stands as of now. It's still about Miles Davis and I thought I"d share it.
Will watch both parts. Thanks Sushant
 
Billie Holiday is my favorite jazz singer.
Here is a beautiful Billie Holiday song. There was a magical chemistry between her and Lester Brown as evidenced from this beautiful saxophone solo break (1:36 - 2:07) in this song.
Lady Day’s singing , as with the singing of all jazz greats is very much about phrasing and in her case the ability to sing behind the beat - that sulking , silky smoldering, which make her songs so wispy and enigmatic.
Here is also an interesting vidéo on what singing behind , with and ahead of the beat mean.


Billie Holiday, as we all know, is another legend in the list of those who left us too soon. One of the greatest influences on American music, died of liver disease at 44. Cheated in love, cheated in business and addicted beyond repair - a tragic life that sometimes reminds me of our own star Meena Kumari, who too died of liver disease. As she lay dying, Billie's hospital room was raided and she was placed under police guard, arrested and handcuffed for drug possession. In her final years, she had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with $0.70 in the bank and $750, which was a tabloid fee, on her person. (@rikhav )

So it goes..........
 
Billie Holiday is my favorite jazz singer.
Here is a beautiful Billie Holiday song. There was a magical chemistry between her and Lester Brown as evidenced from this beautiful saxophone solo break (1:36 - 2:07) in this song.
Lady Day’s singing , as with the singing of all jazz greats is very much about phrasing and in her case the ability to sing behind the beat - that sulking , silky smoldering, which make her songs so wispy and enigmatic.
Here is also an interesting vidéo on what singing behind , with and ahead of the beat mean.
Thanks for posting that Moktan. This one by her has these songs and also helped.
 
Billie Holiday is my favorite jazz singer.
Here is a beautiful Billie Holiday song. There was a magical chemistry between her and Lester Brown as evidenced from this beautiful saxophone solo break (1:36 - 2:07) in this song.
This version of "The Man I love" is unbelievably beautiful @moktan! She's at her best here, and so is Lester Young. Billie said "I always try to sing like a horn - a trumpet or a sax, and I think Lester is just the opposite. He likes to play like a voice."

Here is also an interesting vidéo on what singing behind , with and ahead of the beat mean.

This girl Aimee Nolte is so good. I loved the happiness and simplicity with which she has presented this demo on phrasing in jazz. I then looked her up and loved her performances too.
 
"When you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the Dark side looks back"

Much like Anakin Skywalker becoming Darth Vader, many an innocent, talented, playful child with music in his veins has been consumed by the dark forces of substance abuse. What a pity, and what a loss to the jazz Force!

He was a child prodigy.

At age two:
He could play the piano, standing on his toes and reaching up to touch the keys.

At age twenty eight:
"His hysterical shouts brought me to his apartment on the run. He pulled me in and pointed to the bed. His whole body was trembling violently. He was screaming there were two Mexicans hiding under his bed with long daggers. To humor him, I looked under the bed and when I rose to assure him there was no one hiding there, he staggered and fell, a dead weight, in my arms."

I'll post more about the music of this genius Bix Beiderbecke, a white musician of German descent, a cornet player and composer. He wrote 8 compositions in his brief career, six of which went on to become standards.
 
Bix Beiderbecke:

He made jazz more accessible to curious, yet cautious white audiences with classical influences of jazz-loving French composers Debussy and Ravel.

With his smooth sound, purity of tone, his style contrasted sharply with that of the other soloist of that time - Louis Armstrong

"Beiderbecke's cornet style is often described by contrasting it with Armstrong's markedly different approach. Armstrong was deeply influenced by the blues, while Beiderbecke was influenced as much by modernist composers such as Debussy and Ravel as by his fellow jazzmen
Beiderbecke stared at his feet while playing Armstrong smiled and laughed."


He paired with Frankie Trumbauer, a C-melody saxophonist, for most of his career, recording hits like ‘Davenport Blues’. He also played on and influenced the jazz standards ‘Georgia on My Mind’ and ‘Stardust’. Helped define jazz ballads and what became ‘cool jazz’ of Chet Baker and Bill Evans 30 years later. Beiderbecke's most famous solo was on "Singin' the Blues", recorded in 1927, noted for the way its improvisations feel less improvised than composed.

Health declined from age 24 mainly on account of alcohol abuse until he died at 28. Official cause of death was pneumonia.

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A bit of a "what could have been" scenario but a good connection maybe.

Wow! Where did you dig out this gem from, Sushant? I watched it several times and enjoyed it without the law of diminishing marginal utility kicking in ;)
  1. It gave me more insights into Bix's work. It gave me more insights into orchestral jazz.
  2. I am keen to listen to the full recording of Gershwin's Concerto in F featuring Bix. Looks like it is available on amazon for download at $0.89 so I guess I'll do that.
  3. I loved what the interviewee (Richard Sudhalter) had to say about 'Singin the Blues' and I loved his solo on the video.
There's so much to discover in jazz. Thanks for posting!
 
Wow! Where did you dig out this gem from, Sushant? I watched it several times and enjoyed it without the law of diminishing marginal utility kicking in ;)
  1. It gave me more insights into Bix's work. It gave me more insights into orchestral jazz.
  2. I am keen to listen to the full recording of Gershwin's Concerto in F featuring Bix. Looks like it is available on amazon for download at $0.89 so I guess I'll do that.
  3. I loved what the interviewee (Richard Sudhalter) had to say about 'Singin the Blues' and I loved his solo on the video.
There's so much to discover in jazz. Thanks for posting!
Thank you Kishore since you led me to this discovery, which took me to Paul Whiteman and an introduction to Orchestral set ups and Rhapsody in Blue and European Classical music"s influence on jazz in this era. Just briefly flirting with these areas so far. Not familiar with his music but Bobby Hackett is called the second Bix.
That concerto in F, I heard on youtube and I kind of heard what Sudhalter was referring to as a jazz man playing a composed line but my novice ears could only connect a flourish or two to jazz style on Bix's cornet solo.
Richard M. Sudhalter seems to have written a biography on Hoagy Carmichael too. Yes, his solo is beautiful had the same romanticism and a laid back restrained style, I have associated with Bix"s playing (the little I have heard of him so far).
 
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I just love these lines and the way he sings them:

Now on the sidewalk, huh, huh, whoo sunny morning, un huh
Lies a body just oozin' life, eek
And someone's sneakin' 'round the corner
Could that someone be Mack the Knife?


Originally composed for the Threepenny Opera in 1928, it was introduced to the jazz world by Louis Armstrong in 1956. But it was this man, who in 1959, took the song by the scruff of the neck and turned it into the swing classic widely known today. Unlike the original, which remains in the same key throughout, his version changes key, chromatically, no fewer than five times, ratcheting up the tension. (Later Ella, with Duke Ellington, trumped him with 11 key changes)

It won Grammys for Best Record and Best Artist of the year and has been entered in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

He wasn't just a versatile singer, but could play several instruments, including piano, drums, guitar, harmonica and xylophone! An actor too, with a major role in the movie Come September, starring Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida.

Bobby Darin (1936 - 1973) does not always qualify as a jazz artiste, but listen to this blistering, swinging, foot tapping, finger snapping version of Mack the Knife by him and judge for yourself:

How I'd love to have been part of the audience! This is a live performance from 1970, around which time he was often administered oxygen during and after his performances on stage and screen. Ill from the time he was a child, he died 3 years later after a heart surgery. Would you believe this from the video? Often makes me wonder how people in the entertainment industry, including Michael Jackson, Irfan Khan or Rishi Kapoor strive to portray an energetic and healthy appearance when they appear in public, at a time when their personal lives or health is in shambles.

There's more to his story.....
 
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One of my favorite movies of all time and Bobby Darin stole the show for me - after I had finished drooling over Gina of course! :D
Reminded me of this song he performed in the movie.

Wasn't Gina a bit old for you? By the way she's still living, at 93, single and waiting for the right man ;)
 
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