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By Robert Frank, London, early 1950's. Via.
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Showing posts with label Fifties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fifties. Show all posts
Jan 18, 2015
Dec 16, 2014
Sep 5, 2013
Apr 26, 2013
Movie of the Week - Johnny Kidd & The Pirates: Jukebox Heroes
Hugely influential in the UK, Johnny Kidd & The Pirates are perhaps best known for two singles, "Shakin' All Over" (covered by the Who, the Flamin' Groovies, Generation X, and many others), and "Please Don't Touch" (probably best known Stateside via the joint version by Girlschool and Motorhead). Not only did these guys rock, but they had a somewhat nasty image that Malcolm McLaren later took into consideration when forming all of his ideas for his clothing shop, and finding his own little rock & roll band to run.
Band leader & namesake, Johnny Kidd, died in a car crash in 1966, but the band has lived on in many permutations over the years earning some dough from their brief time in the spotlight.
Nov 26, 2012
Oct 30, 2012
Fred Perry Subculture Films by Don Letts
Mar 2, 2012
New Book Alert: The History of the NME: High Times and Low Lives at the World's Most Famous Music Magazine
Nov 3, 2011
New Jazz Icon Series: Coltrane, Monk, Griffin, Kirk, Blakey, Hubbard
Wow! Does this stuff sound good! Six new DVDs in one boxset of Stunning Performances & Historical Significance! Mosaic Records proudly presents these rare performances beautifully transferred from the original masters.
Features the Classic John Coltrane Quartet at the peak of their powers, including the only public performance of Ascension and of A Love Supreme. The set also includes Thelonious Monk Live In France 1969. Just Monk, a grand piano and two cameras -- no audience, no sidemen, no emcee, no clock-watching stage manager, no set list, no distractions. The result was an astonishingly intimate and revealing portrait of a man and his music. An extraordinary document of one of the most original composers of the 20th century.
Additonal artsist in this historic collection includes Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Freddie Hubbard, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Johnny Griffin. Note that DVD's are not available individually, and are 0 region. View & hear more, and order the set from Mosaic Records now!
John Coltrane- Live In France 1965
Features the Classic John Coltrane Quartet at the peak of their powers. Includes the only public performance of Ascension and of A Love Supreme which they’d recorded eight months earlier and had become an instant and influential hit in the jazz world. Every night this band played was a major event and spiritual experience for those who witnessed it.
Monk Alone: A Private
Recital
Thelonious Monk- Live In France 1969
Just Monk, a grand piano and two cameras – no audience, no sidemen, no emcee, no clock-watching stage manager, no set list, no distractions. The result was an astonishingly intimate and revealing portrait of a man and his music. The viewer can virtually see this usually impenetrable artist thinking in real time. An extraordinary document of one of the most original composers of the 20th century.
Wayne Shorter’s Baptism By Fire
Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers- Live In France 1959
In the fall of 1959, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers introduced newcomer Wayne Shorter whose sound and conception would forever change the sonic landscape of the Jazz Messengers. He, Lee Morgan and Walter Davis, Jr. are on fire throughout. This is inspired jazz with a volcanic swing.
Virtuoso At
WorkJohnny Griffin- Live In France 1971
Johnny Griffin was a tenor saxophone virtuoso. He possessed a magnificent, even tone throughout the range of the tenor saxophone and the ability to navigate the fastest tunes and the most sophisticated chord changes with seemingly effortless precision. Toss in his soulfulness and inventiveness and you have a recipe for genius. Art Taylor’s drumming here drive Griff and guest Dizzy Gillespie to incredible heights.
An Incendiary Hard Bop
Master
Freddie Hubbard- Live In France 1973
On this 1973 concert, he and his quintet with Junior Cook and George Cables stretch out on three of his greatest compositions of the period: Straight Life, The Intrepid Fox and First Light. Hubbard and Junior Cook share a common ground and deep empathy and the rhythm section led by Cables give the hormen all the push they crave. These performances are incendiary!
A Jazz Supernova: Prepare Thyself For A
Miracle
Rahsaan Roland Kirk- Live In France 1972
Seeing Rahsaan Roland Kirk live was a completely different experience from listening to his music on record. It was an overwhelming and joyous event; music just poured out of him like a gusher. He was an ever-thinking force of energy who swept the audience up into his orbit. This 1972 concert with an excellent band is a perfect example.
Oct 31, 2011
New books of note: Ahmet Ertegun, NYC in the 70's, Paul Nelson
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| The Last Sultan: The Life & Times of Ahmet Ertegun by Robert Greenfield |
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| Love Goes To A Building On Fire: Five Years In New York That Changed Music Forever by Will Hermes |
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| Everything Is An Afterthought: The Life & Writings of Paul Nelson by Kevin Avery |
Oct 6, 2011
New from Your Heart Out: Ghosts of Midnight
It's been a while since I've mentioned Your Heart Out - one of the hipper, and more thoughtful, music obsessive online publications available. I mean, Kevin really does have insanely good taste.Anyway, he has a brand new issue available all about one of my all time favorite record labels - the great & criminally underrated jazz label, Bethlehem Records. If it weren't for them, the world may have never found out about Nina Simone, and maybe Johnny Hartman or Chris Connor. Probably others as well. And not only that, but the artwork is just as worthy of a coffee table book collection as Blue Note or Verve. Evocative only begins to describe both the art and the music.
Click on over to Your Heart Out for the PDF issue on Bethlehem Records.
Official Bethlehem website.
Official Bethlehem Facebook.
Sep 14, 2011
Rebel Youth: the photography of Karlheinz Weinberger
Amazing images of a Swiss subculture of yore by Karlheinz Weinberger.
from 
Hat tip to How To Be A Retronaut
Jul 14, 2011
Jul 3, 2011
Movie of the Week - Les Tricheurs
with Des Femmes Disparaissent. All fantastic "modern" (at the time) jazz with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Stan Getz, Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, and Dizzy Gillespie. Fantastique!May 30, 2011
Watch the Closing Doors: A History of New York's Musical Melting Pot
Somewhat quietly, UK label Future Noise Music has been amassing a catalog of excellent reissues, and smart compilations that put the proper perspective on different musical genres. A big part of their efforts has been long time music writer, music maker & scene shaper, Kris Needs. After putting together two excellent volumes of Dirty Water: The Birth of Punk Attitude
, with liner notes worthy of a book, Needs and Future Noise subsidiary Year Zero have recently announced the release of a massive undertaking beginning on June 20th - the release throughout this year of a five volume, double album series entitled Watch the Closing Doors: A History of New York's Musical Melting Pot. This is surely the soundtrack equivalent to Tony Fletcher's 2009 book, All Hopped Up & Ready To Go
, and then some!
Needs, who lived in NYC during the 1980's, will be hopefully be sending along some exclusive tidbits to Stupefaction in the near future to put a bit more focus on his perspective. We worked together at Bleecker Bobs for a couple of years, and we certainly had a time of it.
Here's everything you need to know for a start...
WATCH THE CLOSING DOORS
A HISTORY OF NEW YORK’S MUSICAL MELTING POT VOL. 1: 1945 – 1959
YEAR ZERO
RELEASED JUNE 20TH
Watch The Closing Doors: A History of New York’s Musical Melting Pot is a five volume, double CD series, by renowned journalist and author Kris Needs. This ambitious project is released throughout 2011 via Year Zero and it is aiming to capture the fast-vanishing magic of New York City while documenting major musical landmarks and developments, decade –by-decade from post-war New York of the mid 1940s through to 2000s.
The first volume focuses on the 1940s and 50s, setting the scene for a further five sets, straddling the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s, each accompanied by a book containing the relevant musical and social history, artist biographies, illustrations and Needs’ own stories and recollections of the city that once never slept. For some local perspective and occasional advice on inclusions, Needs is pestering names he has encountered during his 35 years as a writer, starting with Suicide’s Martin Rev. For the distinctive artwork, he is applying the graffiti techniques he picked up in New York in the early 80s.
The first volume includes jazz giants such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Cozy Cole, Horace Silver, Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk, Machito the Mambo king, the burgeoning activism-fired folk and blues movements represented by Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers, Harry Belafonte, Josh White, Dave Van Ronk, New Lost City Ramblers, Allen Ginsberg heading up the Beats, John Cage and Raymond Scott the avant garde and Cab Calloway the Cotton Club street-slicker, before Big Joe Turner ushers in the rock ‘n‘ roll revolution along with Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters and the Honeycones. Singing the blues are Danny ‘Run Joe’ Taylor, Sonny Terry and Big Maybelle. The singers which the city became renowned for are beautifully here in the spine-tingling soul forms of Nina Simone, Faye Adams and Billie Holiday, while the mighty cavalcade of vocal groups who, for many, define New York City, include the Paragons, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Five Satins and the Embers.
Explains Needs, who recently compiled and annotated two volumes of the highly-successful Dirty Water; The Birth Of Punk Attitude, ‘I first became fascinated with New York City in the 60s through Dylan’s early albums and Phil Spector’s girl group sound spearheaded by the Ronettes, further stoked by anarcho-poets the Fugs and wild side narratives of the Velvet Underground. The 70s saw Latin hot sauce, before the whole CBGBs-fostered punk invasion and the parallel disco explosion plus, it has to be said, gritty TV programmes like Kojak adding fuel to a burning desire to experience New York’s evident buzz for myself. The early 80s erupted in a post-disco boogie wonderland, which couldn’t help spilling into post-punk’s wildly-disparate innovations and the hiphop explosion.
I finally got to visit New York in the early 80s. It was every bit as exciting, dangerous and artistically volcanic as I’d hoped for, so I spent a lot of time there, living there for nearly five years in which I experienced every aspect, from cathartic gigs and clubs to jail and hospital. Even when I became a victim of the city’s mercilessly savage dark side in the late 80s, I still got the same buzz from traversing the streets, riding cabs and the subway, listening to the 24 hour radio stations and hitting the bars and clubs.
Over the last decade this has grown into a more scholarly obsession, investigating everything from the history of the subway to the bottomless well of music to be found in genres that I’ve only recently really began to appreciate, such as jazz. During the course of this foraging, it often occurred that, while there have been many sets documenting the city’s groundbreaking artists and seismic musical scenes, they usually focus on one particular genre, scene or era. There hasn’t really been a project which brings together all the different ingredients in New York City’s musical melting pot as they happened in parallel neighbourhoods since the war. The sets will aim to reflect the different forms of music which gestated in local scenes, often before exploding onto the world stage; jazz, folk, mambo, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, avant garde, psychedelia, electronic, punk, hiphop, disco, electro, house and post-punk’
Since time immemorial, those who visit New York for the first time have come back reporting similar epiphanies, whether that first senses-blasting glimpse of the skyline from a yellow cab, or the unique energy coursing through the teaming streets and whichever gigs and clubs selected from the multiple choices available every night of the week. This century has seen those feelings increasingly tempered with a realisation that the funky New York of legend and infamy is vanishing as Times Square turns into Disneyland and once no-go Lower East Side streets become safe to navigate through the next trendy bar or café. The Downtown spirit which fired up so much great music has been smothered by sky-high rents, Mayor Giuliani’s ‘zero tolerance’ crime blitz and closing of long-running venues such as CBGBs. August Darnell, one of New York’s most celebrated exports in his Kid Creole persona, says he cries when he goes back to the city where he grew up. “New York has changed so drastically. The thing that bothers me most is the melting pot aspect is gone. Manhattan has become an island for the very wealthy.”
One of the aims of the series is to document and celebrate this lost world before it totally disappears, give it some unity and due respect, while striving to explain why the New York of the last half of the 20th century was the most exciting place on Earth. The buildings and individuals might be disappearing, but that indefinable spirit which affected so many has thankfully been captured for posterity on countless records, standing like snapshots of a bygone age, the tip of a mighty iceberg which will be gathered on these albums like an old photo album.
Like the subway system is the lifeblood artery of the city, we will pinball through neighbourhoods and boroughs, musical trends and styles, accompanied by a bit of local background to conjure something of a backdrop as, quite often, the music was born out of the environment, whether positive or negative. There will also be the odd incident which may prompt the age-old sigh, ‘Only in New York’.
, with liner notes worthy of a book, Needs and Future Noise subsidiary Year Zero have recently announced the release of a massive undertaking beginning on June 20th - the release throughout this year of a five volume, double album series entitled Watch the Closing Doors: A History of New York's Musical Melting Pot. This is surely the soundtrack equivalent to Tony Fletcher's 2009 book, All Hopped Up & Ready To Go, and then some!Here's what Suicide's Martin Rev has to say about this series: "No doubt this is a major work of total uniqueness and scholarship. I'm sure it's the first and definitely only of such depth and breath of knowledge.
The booklet is a major document in itself, an important historical volume. The notes from these releases should be printed together as a separate entity in book form.
Absolute congratulations. It's a rare sensibility that would and could put something like this together."
Needs, who lived in NYC during the 1980's, will be hopefully be sending along some exclusive tidbits to Stupefaction in the near future to put a bit more focus on his perspective. We worked together at Bleecker Bobs for a couple of years, and we certainly had a time of it.
Here's everything you need to know for a start...
A HISTORY OF NEW YORK’S MUSICAL MELTING POT VOL. 1: 1945 – 1959
YEAR ZERO
RELEASED JUNE 20TH
Watch The Closing Doors: A History of New York’s Musical Melting Pot is a five volume, double CD series, by renowned journalist and author Kris Needs. This ambitious project is released throughout 2011 via Year Zero and it is aiming to capture the fast-vanishing magic of New York City while documenting major musical landmarks and developments, decade –by-decade from post-war New York of the mid 1940s through to 2000s.
The first volume focuses on the 1940s and 50s, setting the scene for a further five sets, straddling the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s, each accompanied by a book containing the relevant musical and social history, artist biographies, illustrations and Needs’ own stories and recollections of the city that once never slept. For some local perspective and occasional advice on inclusions, Needs is pestering names he has encountered during his 35 years as a writer, starting with Suicide’s Martin Rev. For the distinctive artwork, he is applying the graffiti techniques he picked up in New York in the early 80s.
The first volume includes jazz giants such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Cozy Cole, Horace Silver, Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk, Machito the Mambo king, the burgeoning activism-fired folk and blues movements represented by Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers, Harry Belafonte, Josh White, Dave Van Ronk, New Lost City Ramblers, Allen Ginsberg heading up the Beats, John Cage and Raymond Scott the avant garde and Cab Calloway the Cotton Club street-slicker, before Big Joe Turner ushers in the rock ‘n‘ roll revolution along with Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters and the Honeycones. Singing the blues are Danny ‘Run Joe’ Taylor, Sonny Terry and Big Maybelle. The singers which the city became renowned for are beautifully here in the spine-tingling soul forms of Nina Simone, Faye Adams and Billie Holiday, while the mighty cavalcade of vocal groups who, for many, define New York City, include the Paragons, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Five Satins and the Embers.
Explains Needs, who recently compiled and annotated two volumes of the highly-successful Dirty Water; The Birth Of Punk Attitude, ‘I first became fascinated with New York City in the 60s through Dylan’s early albums and Phil Spector’s girl group sound spearheaded by the Ronettes, further stoked by anarcho-poets the Fugs and wild side narratives of the Velvet Underground. The 70s saw Latin hot sauce, before the whole CBGBs-fostered punk invasion and the parallel disco explosion plus, it has to be said, gritty TV programmes like Kojak adding fuel to a burning desire to experience New York’s evident buzz for myself. The early 80s erupted in a post-disco boogie wonderland, which couldn’t help spilling into post-punk’s wildly-disparate innovations and the hiphop explosion.
I finally got to visit New York in the early 80s. It was every bit as exciting, dangerous and artistically volcanic as I’d hoped for, so I spent a lot of time there, living there for nearly five years in which I experienced every aspect, from cathartic gigs and clubs to jail and hospital. Even when I became a victim of the city’s mercilessly savage dark side in the late 80s, I still got the same buzz from traversing the streets, riding cabs and the subway, listening to the 24 hour radio stations and hitting the bars and clubs.
Over the last decade this has grown into a more scholarly obsession, investigating everything from the history of the subway to the bottomless well of music to be found in genres that I’ve only recently really began to appreciate, such as jazz. During the course of this foraging, it often occurred that, while there have been many sets documenting the city’s groundbreaking artists and seismic musical scenes, they usually focus on one particular genre, scene or era. There hasn’t really been a project which brings together all the different ingredients in New York City’s musical melting pot as they happened in parallel neighbourhoods since the war. The sets will aim to reflect the different forms of music which gestated in local scenes, often before exploding onto the world stage; jazz, folk, mambo, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, avant garde, psychedelia, electronic, punk, hiphop, disco, electro, house and post-punk’
Since time immemorial, those who visit New York for the first time have come back reporting similar epiphanies, whether that first senses-blasting glimpse of the skyline from a yellow cab, or the unique energy coursing through the teaming streets and whichever gigs and clubs selected from the multiple choices available every night of the week. This century has seen those feelings increasingly tempered with a realisation that the funky New York of legend and infamy is vanishing as Times Square turns into Disneyland and once no-go Lower East Side streets become safe to navigate through the next trendy bar or café. The Downtown spirit which fired up so much great music has been smothered by sky-high rents, Mayor Giuliani’s ‘zero tolerance’ crime blitz and closing of long-running venues such as CBGBs. August Darnell, one of New York’s most celebrated exports in his Kid Creole persona, says he cries when he goes back to the city where he grew up. “New York has changed so drastically. The thing that bothers me most is the melting pot aspect is gone. Manhattan has become an island for the very wealthy.”
One of the aims of the series is to document and celebrate this lost world before it totally disappears, give it some unity and due respect, while striving to explain why the New York of the last half of the 20th century was the most exciting place on Earth. The buildings and individuals might be disappearing, but that indefinable spirit which affected so many has thankfully been captured for posterity on countless records, standing like snapshots of a bygone age, the tip of a mighty iceberg which will be gathered on these albums like an old photo album.
Like the subway system is the lifeblood artery of the city, we will pinball through neighbourhoods and boroughs, musical trends and styles, accompanied by a bit of local background to conjure something of a backdrop as, quite often, the music was born out of the environment, whether positive or negative. There will also be the odd incident which may prompt the age-old sigh, ‘Only in New York’.
Mar 26, 2010
Dec 6, 2009
The Beat Hotel documentary
"The Beat Hotel, a new film by Documentary Arts, goes deep into the legacy of the American Beats in Paris during the heady years between 1957 and 1963, when Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso fled the obscenity trials in the United States surrounding the publication of Ginsberg’s poem Howl. They took refuge in a cheap no-name hotel they had heard about at 9, Rue Git le Coeur and were soon joined by William Burroughs, Ian Somerville, Brion Gysin, and others from England and elsewhere in Europe, seeking out the “freedom” that the Latin Quarter of Paris might provide."
Visit the film's official website here. Read the book by Barry Miles: The Beat Hotel: Ginsberg, Burroughs & Corso in Paris, 1957-1963
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