Professor David Newquist sent this kind note after I identified Lester Young as the sax player in the photo challenge he posted. I did not identify the man standing next to The Prez, though my wife recognized him. David fills us in.
The man singing, more likely vocalizing a riff, is Count Basie. That goes far back into the 1930s.
Whenever I visit my daughter in Denver, I haunt a used CD shop within walking distance of her house. I found a CD The Prez made in a Washington, D.C., club shortly after he returned from his lengthy sojourn in Paris in the mid-1950s. When he was sober, which he must have been for that recording, he was the master.
By the way, I also found a CD of Bill Evans and Stan Getz with multiple takes on “Night and Day,” “My Heart Stood Still,” “Grandfather’s Waltz,” among others. Alvin Jones plays some of the best drums in jazz. This from someone who took his first trumpet lessons in Louis Belson’s dad’s music store.
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On the topic of Jazz music stores, I chanced upon one in Chicago last April. It was the Jazz Record Mart. You can shop using that link. It is almost certainly the best jazz store I have ever seen. Professor Schaff and I wandering into it while we were searching for a place to eat off of Michigan Avenue.
I don't know the Bill Evans/Stan Getz cd that David mentions, but I have other works by both artists. I seem to remember a friend of mine in grad school telling me that she lived next to Stan Getz, and once saw him in his pajamas. Wow. As for Bill Evans, seen above, I was first introduced to modern jazz by Mead Harwell, an English professor of mine back at Arkansas State University. Professor Harwell also introduced me to good wine. He was a big fan of Bill Evans, and I have been so ever since I heard Evan's piano in Professor Harwell's apartment. No one can squeeze more nectar out of a melody than he could, and I regard him as one of the greatest jazz keyboard players of his generation.
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