In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed French chef Daniel Boulud, owner of 13 restaurants, five of which are New York, including Daniel (go here). Chef talked about growing up on his family farm near Lyon in the late 1960s and early '70s. He also mentioned the food item he dreams about most but can't get it in the States. His most recent book is Letters to a Young Chef.
Also in the WSJ, I interviewed Time Warner executive vice president Olaf Olafsson on living in Iceland as a child and trying to make sense of the Beatles' Norwegian Wood (go here). He didn't speak English then and had to run off to use his father's dictionary to figure out the lyrics. Olaf's new novel is One Station Away.
Don't forget, the holidays are closing in fast. Order your paperback copy of my book, Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop. You'll find it in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here. Or order my book, Why Jazz Happened, here. If you love JazzWax, support the writer behind the posts.
Terry Teachout is many things. He's the Wall Street Journal's drama critic; culture critic for Commentary; author of biographies of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, among others; writer of an opera libretto (The Letter); and a playwright (Satchmo at the Waldorf). Now Terry has written his second play, Billy and Me, which had its opening night on December 8. If you plan to be down in Palm Beach, Fla., be sure to catch the show ("Tennessee Williams and William Inge: two great American playwrights, one turbulent friendship"). For more information, go here.
Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All Stars. Richard Salvucci sent along this clip of bassist Howard Rumsey leading his Lighthouse All Stars on Frankly Jazz, an early 1960s Los Angeles TV jazz show hosted by Frank Evans. The players here in 1962 are Bobby Bryant (tp); Bob Cooper (ts); Forrest Westbrook (p); Howard Rumsey (b) and Douglas Sides (d)...
Two noteworthy albums...
Bianca Rossini's Vento do Norte (Apaixonad). Born in Rio de Janeiro, the singer-songwriter currently lives in Los Angeles. This album features Rossini's sultry voice and original songs, all sung beautifully in Portuguese. A beach vacation without ever leaving home. Go here or listen at Spotify.
Adam Rudolph's Morphic Resonances (Meta). Adam defies categorization. To me, he carries on the spiritual work of Yusef Lateef and Rahsaan Roland Kirk while charting his own path forward. As Adam says for the album's liner notes, "Everything is vibrating in the universe. So, we're sitting on this planet. We're sitting on these chairs. We're bodies, but when you move into the finer elements of vibration, we can talk about it as thought or even feeling or spirit." To Adam, spirit isn't religion but mystery. His new album has a classical feel and is abstract in the finest sense of the word. I love his music. Go here or listen at Spotify. Here's Adam's Orbits, performed by the Odense Percussion Group...
Jon Hendricks. Sid Gribetz sent along a link to an hour-long clip of the Duke Ellington Orchestra playing A Concert of Sacred Music at the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco on September 16, 1965. Catch Jon Hendricks on In the Beginning God...
What the heck. How hip was the late Mundell Lowe? Dig his score for Love on a Rooftop, a TV sitcom that aired from September 1966 to April 1967. Whoever uploaded it to YouTube disabled the embed feature. So, to access, please go here.
Oddball album cover of the week.
Why schlep a real harp onto the set of a photo shoot when someone can just draw one badly, on sheetrock. Not sure why there are exclamation points on the illustrated harp, why some woman is pictured with a real harp inside the "o" in Harpo, or why Harpo has flowers tucked behind his ear. Mercury wasn't big on cover design other than making sure the word "stereo" was as large as possible.
from JazzWax http://ift.tt/2y9tZL3
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