Jazz and Classic Pop Music

available from:

CD Baby

Nowadays, most recordings are created in small studios using computers to both record and generate the music. This has freed us from the tyranny of the big music companies that care only about profits and little about art.
(more…)

I have revised and recorded three more of these numbers:

To make things a bit easier for those who might want access to more of this material, my Vintage Instrumentals or Christmas arrangements, I have added a link that connects to everything. Under “Links” click on “Free Music”.

One of my personality traits is interest in many things. It is likely both a blessing and a curse. Boredom is never a problem - but sometimes focus is. As this blog has shown, one of my interests is vintage instrumentals. I spent the better part of a year pursuing it. Another is jazz. - which takes many forms. Some of my blog posts have featured some of my smooth jazz work. I’ve spent a great deal of time on smooth jazz work. (more…)

Well, I decided to make an arrangement of “She’s Not There” as well:

The British invasion of the early 1960’s saw an incredible number of English musical artists attain considerable popularity in the United States. The list is huge - the following British artists all had a song make it to number one between 1964 and 1966: The Beatles, The Animals, Peter and Gordon, Cilla Black, The Dave Clark Five, Petula Clark, Donovan, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Freddie and the Dreamers, Herman’s Hermits, The Kinks, Manfred Mann, The New Vaudeville Band, The Rolling Stones, The Troggs, The Who, and The Yardbirds.

There were also an even larger number who didn’t quite make it to number one, but still enjoyed great success, like Gerry & the Pacemakers, The Searchers, Georgie Fame, the Hollies, Freddie &the Dreamers, Dusty Springfield, Marianne Faithful, Chad &Jeremy and the Tremeloes.

Included in the latter group are the Zombies. Led by Rod Argent on piano and Colin Blunstone on vocals, the band scored US hits in the mid- and late-1960s with “She’s Not There”, “Tell Her No,” and “Time of the Season.” Like the Yardbirds, the Zombies material was more progressive and sophisticated than many of their peers. The Zombies songs were characterized by interesting rhythmic interplay and jazzy harmonies. (more…)

I don’t always know where my musical experiments will take me. Over the weekend, as a nasty cold took hold of me, I hit on a little straight-ahead jazz chord riff that I thought sounded cool. It sort of reminded me of the types of chord voicings Kenny Burrell frequently uses. I have long been a great admirer of all aspects of his playing - the voicings, how he solos, his tone.

So I thought I’d try to expand it into an entire composition. The process went amazingly quickly. There was no doubt in my mind it had to be a guitar/bass/drums trio. Kenny Burrell is a master of that ensemble, and is the way I most like to hear him.

I’ve called the tune Feverish, since I was that when I wrote it (and still am, unfortunately). However, you’ll know I’m really sick when I don’t even want to play the guitar. I’d be interested in any comments you might have on it. Here are links to listen:

It’s been about 18 months since I released my last CD. It was titled “A Step Along the Way” and was firmly in the Smooth Jazz vein. I was - and still am - fairly pleased with it, and at the time actually invested a little money in promotion.

(more…)

I have always loved the rhythm and blues recordings from the Stax and Atlantic labels, featuring artists like Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd, Otis Redding, etc. These classic tracks featured outstanding, soulful vocalists backed up by the best session players in the business - like Booker T. and the MGs, and the Muscle Shoals house band. One of the many admirable things about this music is the color-blind nature of the musicians involved. Booker T. and MGs had two black and two white members. (more…)

Any examination of 1960’s instrumental popular music has to include a review of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. The only recording artists who outsold them in the 1960s were Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and the Beatles. Alpert was born March 31, 1935. He is also famous for being a recording industry executive - he is the “A” of A&M Records (a recording label he and business partner Jerry Moss founded and eventually sold). Alpert’s musical accomplishments include four top ten hits, thirty-six hot-100 singles, twenty-eight albums on the Billboard charts, eight Grammy Awards, fourteen Platinum albums and fifteen Gold albums. (more…)

I’ve prepared another new Christmas arrangement. This one is “The First Noel” and is done is a sort of “Smooth Jazz” style:

(more…)

This past week I added a new arrangement to my arsenal of Christmas tunes. It is the familiar, traditional carol, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”. If you listen to it, you will note the unmistakable influence of the great Wes Montgomery. (more…)

I’m really not sure why, but every year I still enjoy it when everyone starts playing the holiday music again. Not counting the traditional carols , there are hundreds of holiday songs - I have a fake book with 275. However, there are a relative few that seem to get the most attention year in and year out. So every year I start playing my arrangements of my favorites again. I never have written them down, so each year I need to remember and often reconstruct the arrangements. This actually works out well, as every year I seem to be able to add one or two enhancements to each.

Three of my consistent favorites are “The Christmas Song” (also known as “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”) with music written by Mel Torme, “Christmas Time is Here” with music written by Vince Guaraldi for the original “Charlie Brown Christmas” TV special from 1965, and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie.

(more…)

This past weekend I arranged and recorded “Sealed with a Kiss”. Written by Gerry Geld and Peter Udell, it went to three on the charts in 1962 for Brian Hyland. Bryan Hyland was another of the teen idols. Born in 1943 in Queens, his first hit was the novelty number “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” which hit number one in 1960 - when Hyland was just seventeen.

(more…)

Trying to target young teen and preteen girls is not new for the music industry. In recent years this has been the goal of the boy bands like New Kids on the Block, Menudo, ‘NSync, and the Backstreet Boys. While there are certainly examples of bands from the 50’s and 60’s with this type of appeal (Herman’s Hermits comes to mind, and the Beatles certainly appealed to this demographic as well), there are more numerous examples of individuals who fit this mold. For the purposes of this discussion, we can think of a teen idol as someone specifically created and groomed by a record company to sell records to this particular market.

(more…)