Wolfgang Lonien

Wow. Listen to Paul Chambers on bass on this one. If there ever was a cool dude on bass, this was him…

Has to be transcribed to be understood I guess. Ok, sigh, lots of work – but also lots of learning involved. 🙂

Without further words, here’s some inspiration for today:

Look up Joan Chamorro’s Youtube channel for more.

There – someone said what I thought already:

“I’d rather study jazz under Mr. Chamorro than in Berklee!” (Ashish Varughese)

He meant this one:

Enjoy…

A wonderful piece in Catalan, performed by Rita (v), Elisabeth (g), Joan (b), and Ignasi (p):

Graçias a todos. Enjoy.

Listen to Wilbur Ware (Wikipedia DE and EN), who according to JazzStandards.com “… virtually steals the show, however, with perhaps his most influential work on the bass.” in this piece of Sonny Rollins:

Here’s a transcription I found:

You’re welcome.

P.S.: here are two more versions of the same song I love. One is from 1979, the other one from 2014:

Enjoy.

P.P.S.: here’s a first recording from 1929 from Nat Shilkret and Franklyn Baur, as intended for the operetta “The New Moon” (which was the the name of a ship) by Sigmund Romberg (music), and Oscar Hammerstein (lyrics). Although the label says “Foxtrot”, the rhythm is played and intended to be like the one from an Argentinian tango:

Lyrics:

“Softly, as in a morning sunrise
The light of love comes stealing
Into a new born day
Flaming with all the glow of sunrise
A burning kiss is sealing
The vow that all betray
For the passions that thrill love
And lift you high to heaven
Are the passions that kill love
And let you fall to hell
So ends the story
Softly, as in an evening sunset
The light that gave you glory
Will take it all away”

What a nice and bittersweet song.

That headline is a comment on a video on Youtube which I just read, from Ray Cabarga.. And he’s wrong – Spain *is* leading already.

After looking up the English Wikipedia page on Antônio Carlos Jobim today, I found the first external link to a tribute site there. And if you scroll down on that tribute site (from Argentina as it seems), what do you find? Right – a video of the St Andreu singers and musicians Rita and Andrea, together with their teacher Joan and some other musicians, performing “So danço Samba”:

So the world *does* know already that today’s best interpretations of these old classics come from Spain.

But I was looking for other versions of Jobim’s “Triste”, and the tribute page not only has the Portuguese lyrics but also a link and an embedded video of the composer himself, together with Elis Regina:

“Triste é viver na solidão
Na dor cruel de uma paixão
Triste é saber que ninguém pode viver de ilusão
Que nunca vai ser, nunca vai dar
O sonhador tem que acordar
Tua beleza é um avião, demais prum pobre coracão
Que pára pra te ver passar
Só pra me maltratar
Triste é viver na solidão”

So nice. But here’s the version from St Andreu, Barcelona, Spain, which lead to the comment in my headline:

And if that music alone dooesn’t knock you off of your feet as it does with me, then go and read the rest of the comments. In my opinion you won’t find a better version today than this or this version to which I had linked and which I had embedded before. So the singer for this piece seems to be Alba Armengou.

Or, as another commenter said: “And the angels did sing.”

Here’s the lead sheet from my New Real Book in case you want to try and play it sourself:

Enjoy. And good luck.

Here’s that old Cole Porter classic, performed so nicely by the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, and sung – right to left – by Magalí Datzira, Andrea Motis, and Eva Fernandez. Joan Chamorro – school director and leader of the pack – took over Magalí’s job on the double bass for this lovely tune:

As with so many tunes, this is the best I’ve heard since a while. These kids swing like professionals, as I commented lately on their channel. Get more of their records, movies, and such at Jazz to Jazz.

Thanks for listening.