Helen Humes was a fantastic singer with the Count Basie band, and here she shows that singing the Blues is absolutely no challenge for her. It makes sense since Basie was famous for swinging the blues. And really when you think of it, jazz comes out of the blues anyways. So in a way, no surprises here, but check out some masters at work in this amazing performance.
Photo by Lionel Decoster, via Wikimedia Commons
Given his nickname by that prolific creator of jazz slang, Lester Young, Harry "Sweets" Edison was a master of the jazz trumpet. He is another of the countless jazz players who was inspired by Louis Armstrong to take up the trumpet and he eventually played with such greats as the Mill Blue Rhythm Band, the Count Basie Orchestra, and Ben Webster and more.
I heard about this audio documentary from our pal Felix Berghäll at ILHC this year. And he said HE found it because of the NPR Jazz Profile of Illinois Jacquet that I've already shared here (another one to NOT miss). Such fun connections!
It is a truly pleasurable listen and you will likely learn a lot. Some highlights for Lindy Hoppers to listen for are:
The talk of "swing" in the Count Basie band. (Lindy Hoppers are mentioned!)
Basie's approach to band-leading and how the Basie band works as a musical entity
Albert Murray talking about anything - he is the greatest - check out some of his books if you haven't!
Edison's unique sensibilities in his playing
There are tons of gems in there and a lot that really got me thinking about great jazz and great dancing.
Check out the full audio doc for free here:
I just saw this brief documentary posted by a dance friend on Facebook (thanks to Dom Eagleton for the find!) and it was super interesting. It is about this amazing scene of dancers and musicians in London in the 80's who found their way to some amazing fast and furious hard bop jazz music and brought their own special influences and exuberance to the dancing they did to this music. It's a beautiful document of a real live scene, full of excitement and innovation.
I first brushed up against this dance while teaching with Naomi in Tokyo oddly enough. Turns our this London scene had some Tokyo dance connections that brought the same dancing to Tokyo where it still exists today. We were brought to a club in the basement in the middle of the city where great dancers threw down a mix of house and jazz, with obvious inspiration from the Nicholas Brothers and more, all to some amazing post swing-era jazz, while old dance clips including Hellzapoppin and featuring the likes of Al & Leon were projected on the wall. It was amazing and I always wanted to know more about this scene. This documentary is a treat (AND it's narrated by a young Hugh Laurie for the record).
I also stumbled upon a Yehoodi post from 2019 that I don't know how I missed that has some great info and resources about this scene. Of particular interest is the YouTube playlist that Rik put together with some great examples of this dancing.
I don't know how much that scene interacted with the Lindy Hop scene that grew up in London soon after this, but these videos offer an amazing snapshot of a fresh response to this amazing old music.
-P
