According to Sandy

During the past  holiday season, record companies seemed intent on creating a  “Box Set” for anything that wasn’t nailed down.  The good news for Jazz lovers is that there are lots of new packages of Jazz greats in a box. Abundance!

* “The Complete Miles Davis Columbia Album Collection” – 70 CD set (yes, 70) with DVD)

* “Ella Fitzgerald: Twelve Nights in Hollywood” – 4 CD set from Ella’s 1961 engagement at the Crescendo Club in Los Angeles

* John Coltrane’s, “Giant Steps”

*And there are also new compilations of early live recordings from Billie Holiday and Oscar Petersen.

“I Bring What I Love” – is a documentary film about Youssou N’Dour, the pop music superstar from Senegal, West Africa.

N’ Dour is revered all across Africa for his “remarkable range and poise and for his prodigious musical intelligence as a writer, bandleader and producer. He absorbs the entire Senegalese musical spectrum in his work, often filtering it through the lens of genre-defying rock or pop music from outside his culture. N’Dour has made “mbalax”—a blend of Senegal’s traditional griot percussion and praise-singing with Afro-Cuban music—famous throughout the world during more than 20 years of recording and touring outside of Senegal with his band, The Super Étoile”.

The director of  “I Bring What I Love”,  Elizabeth Chai Vasahelyi, followed the singer for 2 years through Africa, Europe and the U.S. to bring us a picture of this super talented and complex man that spread  the music and rhythms of his homeland worldwide.

Watching the “In Memoriam” segment of the Grammy Awards, I was shocked to see the name of singer/guitarist “Kenny Rankin” roll by. He passed away in June 2009.

Listening to NYC rock station WPLJ in the 70’s, Kenny Rankin was a staple on their play list. He sang mostly Jazz, but the DJ’S had eclectic tastes and would play the Beatles, James Brown, Frank Sinatra, etc. regardless of their music category.

Smooth and laid back, Kenny had a very distinctive sound and sang beautifully. He had, what I guess today would be called a “cult” following and would appear frequently on the Tonight Show (Johnny Carson).  I lost track of him over the years, but I still have the memory of feeling so cool because I enjoyed his music – I loved “When Sunny Gets Blue”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrt8Y-F3U14

Kenny Rankin– thank you for your music and for nice memories.

I seem to be going thru a stage where I’m admiring “longevity”. Artists, entertainers, anyone who just keeps going (like that obnoxious TV bunny).  I look at people of a certain age and think, “still doing good work, still chasing”. One of my favorites, Chaka Khan, is still out there taking risks.

Like the name of one of her biggest hits from the 70’s, “Once You Get Started”, once Chaka Khan started pursuing her dream or need to be, she never really stopped. There have been ups and downs in her career, but, she keeps “reaching” with new people, new things.

She did something different and joined a Prince tour a few years ago, (one of her biggest R&B hits from 1984, “I Feel For You”, was a Prince song). She debuted on Broadway in January ‘08 when she took over the role of “Sofia” in the play “The Color Purple” and her latest album is called “Funk This”.

It’s been awhile since the successful “Chaka Khan and Rufus” 70’s – 80s hits, “Ain’t Nobody” “Tell Me Something Good “, etc. but, her music – whether ballad or dance tune – is still fun and soulful.

Chaka Khan – “I’m Every Woman” indeed.

Yes, I love PBS.  They seem to keep the art of the “documentary” alive with their programs: American Masters, Great Performances, American Experience etc.

This week, the filmed version of the play, “Passing Strange” is coming to the Great Performances series.  Spike Lee documented the last 3 days of the musical’s Broadway run (it won the 2008 Tony for Best Book) originally for HBO, but it will be released in DVD next week and also be shown on PBS.

I saw the play 2 years ago and loved it.  It is clever, funny and has great music.  The terrific band, whose members, along with the few actors, tell the story of a black young man, “Stew”, trying to look for the “real” by moving from middle class L.A, where he feels he doesn’t fit in and everything is a fraud, to Amsterdam and Germany.

In Europe, he is more “American”, than he was in California. To gain friends and acceptance in the avant garde scene, his new girl friend is only impressed with the oppressed, he “passes” as the stereotype of a ghetto youth and writes songs about the “struggle”. After doing this for a few years, he wonders what if the only thing real is your “art” and “reality” is phony?

He eventually returns to America to pursue his art and just be himself. He is amazed that the direction of his life was decided by the decisions he made as a teenager.

Serious questions, but told with humor and music. Hard to describe, a different type of musical, but, very entertaining.

“Passing Strange”, Book and lyrics by Stew, Music by Stew and Heidi Roderwald

Directed by Spike Lee

Coming to a local Public Television Station near you this week is a new documentary about Sam Cooke (January 1931 – December 1964).

The contribution of the legendary singer/song writer will be explored in the PBS “American Masters” series “Sam Cooke: Crossing Over”. It includes some performance scenes and interviews with family and musicians to illuminate the short career that lifted our spirits with  traditional Gospel music, but also gave us songs like “You Send Me” and the classic “A Change is Gonna Come” (rumor has it that he wrote this in 1963 after hearing Dylan’s  “Blowin’ in the Wind”.)

“Sam Cooke: Crossing Over” – Amazing talent, not forgotten.

The song “Because of You”, number #1 pop single of 1951, was my introduction to Tony Bennett. My mother loved that song and when my mom loved a song, she would play it over and over. (I occasionally shock myself when I hear something on the radio or in a movie and I start to hum/sing along to a song from the 40’s or 50’s and not remember why I know it. Its like I heard them in my crib and the words and melodies of Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Sinatra, Nat “King” Cole, and a few Broadway show tunes, are in my bones)

But, back to Mr. Bennett, I received a DVD of his called “Duets: An American Classic“awhile back and I listened to it again. He sings with assorted pop stars like John Legend, Elton John, Christina Aguilera (He sings “Because of you” with K.D. Lang, “Smile” with Barbra Streisand, “For Once in My Life” with Stevie Wonder)
Fun to see these youngsters work at holding their own
with this octogenarian – who btw, just seems to be having a great time
with it all. I enjoyed it.

“BECAUSE OF YOU” (Written in 1940 by Arthur Hammerstein and Dudley Wilkinson for the movie “I Was An American Spy”)

Because of you there’s a song in my heart
Because of you my romance had its start
Because of you the sun will shine
The moon and stars will say you’re mine
Forever and never to part…

“Tosca”, one of Puccini’s most popular operas is scheduled for a PBS station near you this week. (Part of the holiday special programming/fund raising, etc.)

I like Puccini – “La Boheme”, (1896) “Tosca”, (1900), “Madama Butterfly”, (1904), “Turandot”, (1924). Though not really an opera person, I find his work accessible with its universal love themes, high drama and the music is just lovely.

When I was younger, I embraced “La Boheme”: boy meets girl, they sing, girl meets boy’s friends, everybody sings, everybody is cold together, and everybody sings. Girl loses boy, boy loses girl – permanently – everybody sings. Loved it. (If you’ve seen “Rent”, the play or the movie, you‘ll know what I mean. All very moving.)

As I’ve gotten older, I have come to appreciate another popular Puccini work, “Tosca”. This opera is a real “bodice ripper”. Political intrigue, assassination, attacks on female virtue, firing squads and suicide – just too full!
Should the singer, Floria Tosca (our heroine), succumb to the unwanted advances of a powerful man (Scarpia- the evil chief of police) to save her poor artist lover (Mario Cavaradossi), who has been accused of harboring a political dissident? (This was a super serious offense in the time of Napoleon.)

Lots of costumes, passionate thrashing about, great singing and the ending is appropriately tragic.
Tosca, defends herself and then chooses to make the ultimate defiant gesture against authority. (After all, this is opera – pure drama to the very end.)

Catch “Tosca” if you can – very entertaining!

Giacomo Puccini (Dec.1858 – Nov. 1924)