Archive for February, 2014

By February 14, 2014 0 Comments Read More →

Individuality: a case for Erroll Garner, part 1.

As we’ve lamented here ad nauseum, individuality has become a lost art in jazz and other improvisational music. We talked earlier about tenor sax and trumpet players in that narrow temporal window between the demise of Swing and the birth of modern jazz, and how an immediately recognizable, unique style seemed to be an essential […]

Posted in: Iconoclasts, Jazz, Videos
By February 12, 2014 0 Comments Read More →

Sid Caesar checks out.

Sid Caesar–who was NOT in our dead pool–left us today for that Borscht Belt in the sky. Sid’s “Your Show of Shows” on NBC in the early 1950’s was fairly edgy for its time, and the writers for that show–Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Mel Brooks and others—are all icons. Sid, in addition to using his […]

Posted in: Iconoclasts, Jazz, Videos
By February 7, 2014 0 Comments Read More →

Merv Griffin “auditions” Jim Hall.

In 1965, even with Johnny Carson already entrenched as the king of late night television, other networks kept trying to establish their own bedtime talk shows. One that had relative success was that of Merv Griffin. After a brief run on NBC, Griffin’s syndicated show began in May of 1965. Like all talk shows of […]

Posted in: Jazz, Odds & Ends, Videos