THEN AND LATER

Tonight a delightful presentation of before and afters of Jazz forced me out of my cocoon at home to a neighboring town library. In 1977 Peter Appleyard introduced a, then, 26 year old trumpet player from Canada (with a full head of hair) to an American audience. He played a very melodic When It's Sleepy Time Down South. In 2001, a second introduction at a Bern Festival shows him with his hair nought but a fringe around the lower edge of his scalp up and barely over his ears. Later, in 2005 you can hear him swinging with John Allred, the trombonist on Limehouse Blues. It's like time lapse photography!

We were later treated to Stephane Grappelli and Django Rinehart, who with three more musicians started the Hot Club of France. Since Django returned to his beloved France (because he was not happy in the USA) he may not be as familiar to Americans as Grappelli later became. Django died in France in1953.

We were also treated to Dave Brubeck, an example from 1961 playing what was an indescribable jazz form in 5/4 time can be heard here.. Having been classically trained as a student of the French Composer Darius Milhaud, he brought a wonderful new window to Jazz as New Orleans and Dixie merged with some of these new expressive musicians. Dave composed Take Five and played with the wonderful Alto Saxophonist, Paul Desmond, who died all too early at age 53 in 1977. Brubeck is now in his 80s is still playing beautifully. Here in 2005, on YouTube he plays Rondo a la Turk.

There is little out there in the cold, wide world to drag me out of the warm and fuzzy space in front of my computer on a cold night, but Jazz at Lincoln Library did it. To be with about 25 jazz lovers, near my age and older, who can listen to music that is melodic, rhythmic without the drums overpowering everything else, and not listen to music generated out of stoned heads, at decibels that permanently wipe out ear drums, is Heaven on Earth to me. I am learning to appreciate YouTube more than ever as I consider how much of my own interests of the past do I want to spend precious time in my life archiving.

For a treat, listen to Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald doing Summertime. An encore of the same tune demonstrates what a real voice, controlled and not wandering all around the tune as it was written, can be sung to move an audience. This was in Berlin in 1968 in concert.