PROGRESSIVE MUSIC COMPANY

AFRO-AMERICAN MUSIC INSTITUTE CELEBRATES 36 YEARS

BOYS CHOIR AFRICA SHIRTS
 
 
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/building-today-for-tomorrow/x/267428

 Pain Relief Beyond Belief

                         http://www.komehsaessentials.com/                              

 

PITTSBURGH JAZZ

 

From Blakey to Brown, Como to Costa, Eckstine to Eldridge, Galbraith to Garner, Harris to Hines, Horne to Hyman, Jamal to Jefferson, Kelly to Klook; Mancini to Marmarosa, May to Mitchell, Negri to Nestico, Parlan to Ponder, Reed to Ruther, Strayhorn to Sullivan, Turk to Turrentine, Wade to Williams… the forthcoming publication Treasury of Pittsburgh Jazz Connections by Dr. Nelson Harrison and Dr. Ralph Proctor, Jr. will document the legacy of one of the world’s greatest jazz capitals.

 

Do you want to know who Dizzy Gillespie  idolized? Did you ever wonder who inspired Kenny Clarke and Art Blakey? Who was the pianist that mentored Monk, Bud Powell, Tad Dameron, Elmo Hope, Sarah Vaughan and Mel Torme? Who was Art Tatum’s idol and Nat Cole’s mentor? What musical quartet pioneered the concept adopted later by the Modern Jazz Quartet? Were you ever curious to know who taught saxophone to Stanley Turrentine or who taught piano to Ahmad Jamal? What community music school trained Robert McFerrin, Sr. for his history-making debut with the Metropolitan Opera? What virtually unknown pianist was a significant influence on young John Coltrane, Shirley Scott, McCoy Tyner, Bobby Timmons and Ray Bryant when he moved to Philadelphia from Pittsburgh in the 1940s?  Would you be surprised to know that Erroll Garner attended classes at the Julliard School of Music in New York and was at the top of his class in writing and arranging proficiency?

 

Some answers  can be gleaned from the postings on the Pittsburgh Jazz Network.

 

For almost 100 years the Pittsburgh region has been a metacenter of jazz originality that is second to no other in the history of jazz.  One of the best kept secrets in jazz folklore, the Pittsburgh Jazz Legacy has heretofore remained mythical.  We have dubbed it “the greatest story never told” since it has not been represented in writing before now in such a way as to be accessible to anyone seeking to know more about it.  When it was happening, little did we know how priceless the memories would become when the times were gone.

 

Today jazz is still king in Pittsburgh, with events, performances and activities happening all the time. The Pittsburgh Jazz Network is dedicated to celebrating and showcasing the places, artists and fans that carry on the legacy of Pittsburgh's jazz heritage.

 

WELCOME!

 

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Duke Ellington is first African-American and the first musician to solo on U.S. circulating coin

    MARY LOU WILLIAMS     

            INTERVIEW

       In Her Own Words

Ramsey Lewis, NEA Jazz Master, Dies at 87

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​Three-time Grammy winner Lewis had tremendous success at crossing over from the jazz charts to the pop charts.

(Photo: Bob Richards)

Jazz pianist, three-time Grammy winner and NEA Jazz Master Ramsey Lewis, who successfully crossed over from the jazz charts to the pop charts, most notably with his smash hit “The In Crowd,” died at his home in Chicago on Sept. 12. He was 87.

Ramsey E. Lewis Jr. was born in Chicago on May 27, 1935. Growing up in the Cabrini Green housing project, he began taking piano lessons at age 4 and played piano at church, where his father was choir director. A jazz fan who played lots of Duke Ellington and Art Tatum at home and took his son to jazz concerts, Ramsey Lewis Sr. encouraged Ramsey to embrace that music.

When Lewis was a freshman at Wells High School, saxophonist and pianist Wallace Burton, a fellow church musician whose jazz ventures had enticed the young pianist, asked him to join his band, the Clefs, a septet of collegians that blended jazz and R&B. Lewis needed to familiarize himself with bebop and other jazz styles but learned on the run. After the outbreak of the Korean War, the military draft claimed several members of the Clefs, including Burton. The three members who didn’t get drafted — Lewis, bassist Eldee Young and drummer Redd Holt — formed what would become known as the classic Ramsey Lewis Trio.

In 1956, they released their first album, Ramsey Lewis And His Gentlemen Of Jazz, on the Chess label. Three years later, Lewis was invited to perform with the trio at Birdland in New York. Their three-week gig led to performances at the Newport Jazz Festival and the Village Vanguard, and recordings with Max Roach, Clark Terry and Sonny Stitt.

Lewis broke through in a big way in 1965 with the early crossover smash “The In Crowd.” The elegantly funky, Grammy-winning song (written by Dobie Gray) was followed by two more chart-toppers, “Hang On Sloopy” and “Wade In The Water.”

After Young and Holt left to form their own group, Lewis continued in the trio format with bassist Cleveland Eaton and future Earth, Wind & Fire eminence Maurice White on drums. He subsequently experimented on electronic keyboards in more expansive settings. A high point was his 1974 album Sun Goddess, produced by White and featuring members of Earth, Wind & Fire (whose falsetto specialist Philip Bailey he would tour with years later). The recording established Lewis as a fusion music icon with broad appeal.

Over the years, Lewis has performed and recorded in a remarkable variety of musical settings. Throughout the ’70s, he embraced R&B and Latin music without abandoning mainstream jazz. In 1983, on the album Reunion, he reconstituted his most famous trio.

In 1995, he introduced the crossover supergroup Urban Knights, featuring Grover Washington Jr., Earl Klugh and Dave Koz. Urban Knights I was the first of eight albums by the band. In 2005, returning to his gospel roots, Lewis recorded With One Voice, which earned him the Stellar Gospel Music Award for Best Gospel Instrumental Album.

Among his many honors were five honorary doctorate degrees and an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Artist. “The In Crowd” single was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and his personal memorabilia reside at the Smithsonian Institution. Lewis received a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Award, which placed him in the hallowed company of such piano legends as Ahmad Jamal, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Billy Taylor and Cecil Taylor.

In his late ‘80s, Lewis still connected with younger generations. His monthly Saturday Salon livestream series, produced during the pandemic by his wife, Jan, was critically acclaimed. His forthcoming album, The Beatles Songbook: The Saturday Salon Series, Volume One, which will be released Nov. 11 by Steele Records, was drawn from the livestream performances. Ramsey also spent the last year of his life working on his memoir Gentleman of Jazz with his co-writer Aaron Cohen. The book will be released via Blackstone Publishing next year.

In lieu of flowers, make donations to The Jazz Foundation of America. DB

To read a full-length interview with Ramsey Lewis and saxophonist Kirk Whalum from the May 2010 issue of DownBeat, click here.

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Ramsey Lewis 1935 – 2022

The eclectic and always swinging pianist, a 1960s pop sensation, has passed away at 87


Ramsey Lewis Ramsey Lewis (photo from JT archives)

Ramsey Lewis, a Chicago-born and -based pianist whose successful early career in jazz led him to surprising pop stardom, died September 12 at his Chicago home. He was 87.

His death was announced by his manager, Brett Steele. His son, Bobby Lewis, told the Associated Press that his father had passed away peacefully in his sleep.

Lewis initially established himself in music with a softer-toned “cool” sound reminiscent of the Modern Jazz Quartet or Chico Hamilton—an approach exemplified by the title of his 1956 debut recording, Ramsey Lewis and His Gentle-Men of Swing. That changed when “The In Crowd,” the Lewis trio’s instrumental cover of a pop-soul hit, was issued in summer 1965. The record surpassed its source material, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and propelling the trio to such fame that its other two members, bassist Eldee Young and drummer Isaac “Red” Holt, were able to maintain a high pop profile even after separating from Lewis.

The pianist, meanwhile, became a bona fide star, scoring three more hits (two with Young and Holt, one without) over the next year and continuing to pursue crossover success. He achieved it again with 1974’s Sun Goddess, a jazz fusion album featuring members of Earth, Wind & Fire that peaked at No. 12 on the album chart. Lewis continued to record, write, and perform for the rest of his life, becoming an accomplished composer in later years. However, he never stopped playing “The In Crowd” to appreciative audiences around the world.

“It was never a millstone,” he said of the song in a 2015 interview. “It doesn’t sound anything like the record anymore when we play it. But yes, it reminds me of the good times—when I was able to pay my bills on time.”

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In addition, Lewis was a longtime radio broadcaster, the host of the syndicated weekly show Legends of Jazz (which became a limited-run public television series in 2006) and The Ramsey Lewis Morning Show, which ran nationwide on the Smooth Jazz Network. He was also noted for his activities in jazz advocacy: He was artistic director of Jazz at Ravinia, where he helped organize the Chicago music festival’s Jazz Mentor program, and the founder of the Ramsey Lewis Foundation, which brought music education to underprivileged youth.

Ramsey Emmanuel Lewis Jr. was born May 27, 1935 in Chicago to Ramsey Sr., a laborer and choir director at Zion Hill Baptist Church, and Pauline Lewis, a housewife. When he was a child, his family moved into the notorious Cabrini-Green housing project, where he grew up. He began playing piano at the age of four, spending many years concentrating on the classical repertoire and the gospel music in which he accompanied his father’s choir—but his father also loved jazz, which informed his son’s ultimate musical choice. He performed in local bands, including the classical vocal ensemble the Knights of Music and the jazz band the Clefs, before graduating from Wells High School in 1954.

Lewis began attending Chicago Musical College that fall, aspiring to become a concert pianist, but he got married (to Geraldine Taylor) while he was still 18 and dropped out to work at a record store and play piano and organ at Zion Hill. Then, in 1955, Lewis formed his eponymous trio with Young and Holt. While the trio bore his name, it was actually a leaderless collective for its first decade. Initially the band was a weekend-only affair, something they did for a few extra dollars apart from their day jobs. However, Holmes “Daddy-O” Daylie, a disc jockey at WAIT radio, was impressed with their sound and recommended them to Chess Records owners Leonard and Phil Chess, who signed the Lewis trio to their new jazz subsidiary Argo Records.

In May 1965, while playing at the Bohemian Caverns in Washington, D.C., the Lewis trio made a spur-of-the-moment choice to play their own arrangement of “The In Crowd,” then a jukebox hit for Dobie Gray. (Lewis had first heard the song at breakfast that morning.) The crowd responded feverishly, and a recording of the tune soon began receiving commercial airplay. Argo pressed it as a single and it became a massive hit, enough so that it would later become a staple of the oldies radio format. It also won the trio a Grammy Award.

“The In Crowd” reset Lewis’ career trajectory. Later that year the trio would release two other singles, covers of the McCoys’ “Hang on Sloopy” and the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night.” Although both would become hits, the trio disbanded, with Lewis forming a new self-named trio to continue his pop-jazz pursuits. Another single, “Wade in the Water,” became a hit in 1966. He won two more Grammys but would not have another major pop success until Sun Goddess in 1974. (The drummer on that album, Earth, Wind & Fire founder Maurice White, had previously been Red Holt’s replacement in Lewis’ trio.)

Now fully electric, Lewis continued scoring jazz and soul hits, both major and modest, into the 1980s. In the 1990s he formed the smooth-jazz ensemble Urban Knights, but also began turning back toward traditional acoustic jazz, collaborating regularly with Dr. Billy Taylor and with Nancy Wilson. He became artistic director of Ravinia Jazz in 1993, and under those auspices was commissioned to compose two long-form pieces: To Know Her, a piece for the Joffrey Ballet, and Proclamation of Hope, in celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s bicentennial. He also recorded a highly acclaimed collection of original compositions, Songs from the Heart: Ramsey Plays Ramsey, in 2009. He received the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship in 2007.

Lewis was predeceased by two sons, Ramsey Lewis III and Kevyn Lewis. He is survived by his second wife Janet Lewis (his marriage to Geraldine Taylor ended in divorce in 1989); his daughters Denise Jeffries and Dawn Allain; his sons Kendall, Frayne, and Bobby Lewis; and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

At Home: Ramsey Lewis (May 2002)


MICHAEL J. WEST

Michael J. West is a jazz journalist in Washington, D.C. In addition to his work on the national and international jazz scenes, he has been covering D.C.’s local jazz community since 2009. He is also a freelance writer, editor, and proofreader, and as such spends most days either hunkered down at a screen or inside his very big headphones. He lives in Washington with his wife and two children.

From Philip Bailey of Earth, Wind, and Fire:

From friend and Latin jazz great Eddie Palmieri:

From Chicago’s current mayor: 

Here’s “Happiness,” from 2021’s Maha de Carnava!, the last Trio album released before Lewis’ death.

Let’s close on a high note with a taste of Lewis’ gospel roots. It was always a happy day when Ramsey Lewis sat down to a piano and rewarded the world with music. This rendition of “Oh Happy Day” was recorded live in 2005 at the J.W. James Memorial A.M.E. Church in Maywood, Illinois. The Rev. Lucille L. Jackson—Lewis’ older sister, the one who knew she wasn’t the family piano prodigy—was co-pastor.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Rest in joy.

Join me in the comments for lots more Ramsey Lewis—and be sure to share your own favorites.

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

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From Philip Bailey of Earth, Wind, and Fire:

From friend and Latin jazz great Eddie Palmieri:

From Chicago’s current mayor: 

Here’s “Happiness,” from 2021’s Maha de Carnava!, the last Trio album released before Lewis’ death.

Let’s close on a high note with a taste of Lewis’ gospel roots. It was always a happy day when Ramsey Lewis sat down to a piano and rewarded the world with music. This rendition of “Oh Happy Day” was recorded live in 2005 at the J.W. James Memorial A.M.E. Church in Maywood, Illinois. The Rev. Lucille L. Jackson—Lewis’ older sister, the one who knew she wasn’t the family piano prodigy—was co-pastor.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Rest in joy.

Join me in the comments for lots more Ramsey Lewis—and be sure to share your own favorites.

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

There are no unread comments at this time.
182 Comments

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