Chesney Henry “Chet” Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988, Age 58) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations within the cool jazz subgenre leading him to be nicknamed the “prince of cool”. I have to admit, that while I know many of Chet recordings, I know very little about the man. […]
On This Day: Rhythmstick
Coincidentally, when I started turning my curiosity about Creed Taylor and his producing career into research, it was because I thought it would be fun to cover the event’s of 50-years ago, and the first releases of the startup of the independent CTI Records by Creed Taylor International. The juxtaposition of today and tomorrow’s posts couldn’t be more stark though. […]
We Knew What We Had – The Hill District
WE KNEW WHAT WE HAD: THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD This was too interesting not to pass along. I originally received a link from Marc Myers, @jazzwax , in his daily newsletter. I’d read about George Benson’s youth and development around the clubs in Pittsburgh from his autobiography, “Benson”. It’s a fascinating read, but without context, doesn’t reflect how remarkable […]
One Night With Blue Note
Strictly not a Creed Taylor produced effort, but a tribute to Blue Note founders, Alfred Lion, Max Margulis, and Francis Wolff. Notwithstanding that, the recordings here were recovered from laserdiscs, and feature many artists, both leaders and sidemen that were signed to, or performed for CTI, including Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter, Kenny Burrell, Grover Washington Jr, and many more. As […]
CTI on TV: Grover Washington, Jr.
Just a short post for this week to share this video. Thanks for the clue to the appearnce John. Grover Washington, Jr. Plays “In A Secret Place” the title song to his sixth and final studio album as a leader for CTI/KUDU, not including his 1977 album“Live At The Bijou”. Washington would return to CTI later in his career, as […]
CTI Artists on TV
Enjoy two great live performances from artists from CTI. Both comes from VHS tapes I managed to buy from ebay. I was hoping to avoid getting into converting VHS tapes, as they are often more trouble than they are worth. On the full length video of the 1976 awards, George Benson performs his hit “Breezin’” but his years of work […]
Live at the Village Vanguard
Label: Laser Vision – MJ122-15FLFormat: Laserdisc, 12″, Single Sided, Stereo, NTSC, CLVCountry: JapanReleased: 1983Genre:Jazz Another in the laserdisc series, again not produced by Creed Taylor, but featuring artists that earned their “chops” performing, writing, and recording with Creed, so of particular interest. Interestingly, when I was offered this laserdisc, I was unaware it existed. It wasn’t listed on discogs until […]
Happy Birthday Creed Taylor!
Today, May 13th, 2020 marks Creed Taylor’s 91st birthday. Hopefully Creed is still well and keeping safe during the current pandemic. I personally owe Creed a debt of gratitude for all the great music and musicians he enabled during his career. Creed is/was a controversial producer, and as Creed himself has said: The critics, that’s what they get paid for, […]
For The Record
Let’s Talk Laserdiscs I’ve been working through the process of curating, archiving, converting, call it what you will, laserdiscs. Between 1978 and the late 1990’s, laserdiscs, or MCA Discovision were digital media. [See my first effort, Ron Carter Live / Double Bass] While the video was almost always only the same quality as VHS tape, effectively analog rather than 4k, […]
Ron Carter Live
[I made a mistake and declared March 4th Ron Carter’s birthday, it wasn’t, it’s today, May 4th.] To mark Ron’s birthday, I’ve restored a laserdisc of performances played live by Ron Carter. Before we get to that, enjoy this short 2012 tribute to Ron. When I started filling out my Creed Taylor collection, I had no special appreciation for jazz […]