SongTrellis
Music and Musical Know-how For You

Author:  David Luebbert Posted:  4/26/02; 2:44:37 AM Msg#:  2528 (top msg in thread) Prev/Next:  2527/2529 Reads:  6206

Newest changes

Here's what's new in The Changes  since the home page was last rolled over:

• Harold Arlen's As Long As I Live
• Antonio Carlos Jobim's Triste and Dindi
• The Algiers Stompers' Algiers Strut
• Michel Legrand's The Summer Knows
• Irving Berlin's All By Myself and Alexander's Ragtime Band
• Ralph Rainger's If I Should Lose You
• Malneck and Signorelli's I'll Never Be The Same
• F.W. Meacham's American Patrol
• Hank Williams' Cold, Cold Heart
• Kenny Barron's Voyage
• Leon Russell's This Masquerade
• Quincy Jones' The Midnight Sun Will Never Set
• George L. Cobb's Alabama Jubilee
• Nacio Herb Brown's All I Do Is Dream Of You

I've added two links towards the top of The Changes that will allow you to discover the newest work added to that department of the site. One of them will list the last 100 submissions to The Changes from newest to oldest. The other will list from newest to oldest all of the chord progressions that are available there. We have 685 listed now, by the way.

The NPR Basic Jazz Record Library

This is an interesting part of NPR's jazz section  (http://www.nprjazz.org). This is "its educational series on "must have" jazz albums, featuring recommendations from Murray Horwitz, NPR's vice president for cultural programming, and from poet and jazz critic A.B. Spellman."

I agree with many of their recommendations. A.B. Spellman is an excellent critic and commentator. He wrote one of the best jazz biographies in the 60s "Four Lives In The Bebop Business", which profiled Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Herbie Nichols and Jackie McLean. His publisher got second thoughts about the title after awhile and boringly retitled it "Black Music: Four Lives". It's apparently out of print now but is available online through several Amazon zShops under either title.

Recommended jazz biographies

I followed a Google link for A.B. Spellman an found this nice list of jazz biographies on the New York Times site.

Despite the writer's disappointment, Duke Ellington's "Music Is My Mistress" is worth reading. Ellington's voice and personality come through loud and clear. My favorite story from the book is of Ellington standing in a receiving line next to Richard Nixon at the White House during a celebration of Ellington's 70th birthday . He was giving the ladies four small kisses. When Nixon asked him why, Duke said "one for each cheek".

  I would also have added Dizzy Gillespie's "To Be Or Not To Bop" and Lewis Porter's biography of John Coltrane, "John Coltrane: His Life And Music".

Pat Metheny's website

Metheny seems to spend quite a lot of time on his site. This is one of the better musician run websites I've seen. He apparently has a book available "The Pat Metheny Songbook" that has music for 167 of his tunes. Maybe this will give me incentive to add better support for slash chords to the editor.

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