June 2011
Welcome to the Georgia Straight Jazz Society Newsletter, keeping you up to date on the local and Vancouver Island jazz scene and informed about your Society.
AT THE JAZZ CLUB
Thursday Jazz in June
The spring Jazz Club season is coming to a close, with 3 great performances to come:
- June 2 - StreetLife
- June 9 - Arrowsmith Big Band (no jam this evening)
- June 16 - Little Big Band (no jam this evening)
7:30 pm Thursday evenings at the Courtenay Elks' Hall, 231 6th Streeet, September through June. No cover. Musicians welcome to sit in on the final set jam.
Schedule subject to change.
SOCIETY NEWS
First turn the crank, then listen to the jazz . . .
My Victrola has been working overtime the past few weeks, playing the music of Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Earl Hines, Ike Quebec, Gene Krupa and Dodo Marmarosa, all on 78 rpm vinyl. They're just a tiny sampling of the jazz greats included in a set of over 490 78 rpm records collected by Mr. Bill Smith of Saanichton and recently given to the Georgia Straight Jazz Society by his daughter, to whom we are extremely grateful.
There's something magical about hearing these recordings in their original format. In the mid 1930s countless trumpeters listened to the 78 disk of Clyde McCoy's Sugar Blues, trying to copy his great sound. Sax players wore out the stylus on their Victrolas, playing along with Coleman Hawkins' 1939 iconic version of Body and Soul.
You can see the full list of records on the GSJS web site at georgiastraightjazz.com/78s. The details for each disk will be filled in over the coming year, and eventually we hope to have digitized versions (or samples, depending on copyright) available for listening.
Handling and listening to the 78s is a treat, always full of surprises. Cataloging the collection and making it accessible is a big job! If you have an interest in helping preserve these disks, please contact Rick.
Volunteers
If you're at the Jazz Club to hear Streetlife on June 2, you may notice a lot of people sporting Volunteer tags. The Jazz Society Board of Directors is using the evening to thank all the people that make the Thursday evenings and Sunday concerts happen - who organize, set up, do sound, look after money, look after the performers, emcee the evenings and much much more behind the scenes.
We hope you'll take a moment to thank the folk sporting the tags, and consider becoming a volunteer to make it all happen!
JAZZ NEWS
Love It or Hate It, It Made a Difference
Miles Davis' album Bitches Brew was released in April of 1970. While not the first 'electric' jazz album, or arguably the most extreme, it was hugely influential. The musicians, including such luminaries as Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, John McLaughlin and Joe Zawinul, were or became the flag bearers of the crossover between jazz and rock known as fusion.
But it was 'only' a studio album, and jazz is a living art. Now, thanks to the Sony Legacy label, we can hear concert performances from that seminal album. Bitches Brew Live, released this past February, combines live performance from the Newport and Isle of Wight festivals of 1967/70. An amazing rendering of the music that set the standard for decades to come..
For an in-depth look at both the original and live recordings, you can't do better than Carl Hager's article at Jazz News and Jazz Jazzers Jazzing.