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Ring dem' bells Peplowski 1995
Ken Peplowski at the Bern Jazz Festival in 1995
Ken Peplowski has been compared to Goodman--favorably. The noted New York
Times music critic John S. Wilson called him "a clarinetist with a
Goodman tone and a Buddy DeFranco style." It is not surprising,
because Peplowski was a member of Goodman's last working orchestra. But
truly Peplowski plays the music that he likes, his own way. He does not
try to play like Goodman or anyone else.
Peplowski was born May 23, 1959 in Cleveland, Ohio, and began his
professional career at age nine, making local jazz radio and television
appearances. He played orchestral and jazz arrangements in the Cleveland
area before joining the Tommy Dorsey Band under the direction of Buddy
Morrow in 1979. He met saxophonist Sonny Stitt while on the road and soon
became one of his pupils.
In 1980, Ken moved to New York and was soon playing in such musical
settings as traditional Dixieland bands, avant-garde jazz ensembles, and
symphony orchestras. He was also involved in making movie sound tracks and
commercial recordings.
Ken has recorded and performed with musicians as diverse as Mel Torme,
Charlie Byrd, Peggy Lee, George Shearing, Warren Vache Jr., Hank Jones,
Dan Barrett, Leon Redbone, Jimmy McPartland, Max Kaminsky, Dick Hyman,
Ruby Braff, Scott Hamilton, Howard Alden, Rosemary Clooney, and Steve
Allen .
He has been a featured performer with the American Jazz Orchestra and has
performed regularly in New York's major clubs such as the Blue Note, Fat
Tuesday's, Eddie Condon's and Jimmy Walker's. He has appeared at Carnegie
Hall and Lincoln Center. Peplowski's own group performs on a regular basis
at J's on 97th and Broadway in New York City. Ken has made numerous
extensive tours of Europe, Brazil, England, Mexico, and Japan. In the fall
of 1993, he led the Great American Jazz Orchestra at the Fujitsu-Concord
Jazz Festival, appearing in several cities in Japan.
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Lady be Good Stewart 1979
Leroy "Slam" Stewart was the most recorded jazz bassists of the
1940s. He was born September 21, 1914 in Englewood, New Jersey. He started
on violin but switched to bass, studying at Boston Conservatory.
Stewart, who had perfect pitch, mastered the technique of playing his
solos with a bow while humming along simultaneously at an octave higher,
which made him a very popular showman, and made him very famous in the
jazz world. He got his nickname from the percussive "slapping"
or "slamming"sound his strings made when they hit the neck of
his bass while plucking.
In 1937, he moved to New York and met Slim Gaillard. Together they became
very popular as "Slim and Slam" on radio and records. Their song
Flat Foot Floogie was a huge hit. During the 1930s and 1940s he worked
mostly in small groups, playing with Art Tatum, Lester Young, Goodman,
Parker, Gillespie, and others. He also led his own group which for a
period featured the up-and-coming pianist Erroll Garner, and he performed
a couple of stunning duets with tenor saxophonist Don Byas at a 1945 Town
Hall concert. He won many awards including Down Beat's Best Bassist of the
Year (1945) and Berklee's Highest Achievement Honor Award. Although
accepted as a pioneer on the bass, he didn't influence a large number of
future bassists, because he was too difficult to emulate.
In the 1950s, he played with Tatum, Roy Eldridge, and he regularly
accompanied singer Rose Murphy.
In the 1960s, he added classical music to his repertoire. He frequently
toured in the 1970s and 80s playing with a variety of artists, usually in
mainstream jazz.
Stewart died in 1987.
In this clip he plays with Peter Appleyard, Zoot Sims, Hank Jones and some
local Canadian musicians.
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The Girl from Ipanema Newport All Stars 1969
In 1969 George Wein brings his Newport All Stars to Copenhagen, Denmark.
In the band are Ruby Braff cornet, Joe Venuti violin, Barney Kessel
guitar, Red Norvo vibraphone, Larry Ridley bass, Don Lamond drums and of
course George Wein piano.
This tune features Red Norvo in the Girl from Ipanima
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I want to be Happy Venuti 1969
In 1969 George Wein brings his Newport All Stars to Copenhagen, Denmark.
In the band are Ruby Braff cornet, Joe Venuti violin, Barney Kessel
guitar, Red Norvo vibraphone, Larry Ridley bass, Don Lamond drums and of
course George Wein piano.
Joe Venuti is featured in "I want to be Happy". One of Joe's
specialties was to loosen the hairs on his bow and play with the hairs
over the strings with the bow underneath the violin
Giuseppe (Joe) Venuti (September 16, 1903 -- August 14, 1978) was a U.S.
jazz musician and violinist. Venuti claimed to have been born aboard a
ship as his parents emigrated from Italy, though many believe he was
simply born in Philadelphia. Considered the father of jazz violin, he
pioneered the use of string instruments in jazz along with the guitarist
Eddie Lang, a childhood friend of his. Through the 1920s and early 1930s,
Venuti produced many recordings. He worked with Goodman, the Dorsey
Brothers, Bing Crosby, the Boswell Sisters and most of the other important
white jazz and semi-jazz figures of the late 1920s and early 1930s.
However, following Lang's early death in 1933, he began to slip off the
radar. After a period of relative obscurity in the 1940s and 1950s, he was
'rediscovered' in the late 1960s and established a musical relationship
with tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims, that was almost as fruitful as his
previous collaboration with Lang. Venuti and Sims produced a number of
very exciting recordings in 1974/75: an appropriate coda to the great
violinist's career.
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