great pianist... great bassist... great camera shots!! May they both rest in peace. They will forever be the standard to which all others will be compared.
that hand gesture, at the end; the way, he played, it's always like he held the piano in his right hand, up, and placed it, down, like a smooth cup, on a counter, at the end of every piece.
It was strange that when I was searching for this tunes rendition by Oscar Peterson, his face wasn't shown. What's up with that? Niels is awesome but....
The time has come to protest late-night television's fixation on amateurish garage-band grunge. Never--not ever--is a jazz giant featured. (That's art! We'll lose our sponsors!) So it's hardly surprising that "swing"--walking-bass 4/4 (or ¾ or 5/4)--is vanishing as a phenomenon and even as a word! Adjective (Swing Era), noun (Age of Swing), verb (Oscar swings hard!). Today, they're all meaningless expressions--Martian language. When you see an audience of synchronized "bobble-heads" (on ONE and THREE), you're at a rock or pop latin concert. When you see hip listeners adjusting their body movements to the firm, solid, unfailing "chic" of a good drummer's hi-hat cymbals coming together on the off-beats, you're at a jazz concert. Swing is free, it's the vital pulse of the life-stream. Most drummers can no longer play it. A great drummer can do it all with just his left-foot (or right) and the high-hat (too bad this little-known fact about jazz wasn't employed in the movie "My Left Foot.") Forget the '60s, Bob Dylan, and the "historic" Woodstock concert. Instead, check out its predecessor: "Duke Ellington at Newport 1956." (The CD version is infinitely superior to the original LP, which was Duke's best-selling album) The concert garnered international headlines for the Ellington band when, after midnight, tenorman Paul Gonsalves played the most famous jazz solo in the history of outdoor jazz festivals. His 30 choruses on "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" led to a new first---the crowd on its feet (at a JAZZ concert!)--not staring at the band (as they did for Benny Goodman in 1935 and Frank Sinatra in 1941) but-dancing in the aisles and on the field. (Rock and country/western wouldn't begin playing outdoors until 10 years later--soon they were loading"gear" big semis with all of the artillery (P.A., amps, speakers) that occupies the stages of contemporary pop music. Duke's performance at the 3rd Newport Festival made these the most profitable venues for jazz musicians--and started the trend of outdoor music festivals. (Sadly, Duke's was one of the last times that "swing was king," though Oscar and Monty Alexander would burn outdoor stages with their sizzling swing for the next 4-5 decades.) The success of the Newport festival became the inspiration for the setting of the Cole Porter musical "High Society" (Sinatra, Crosby, Louis Armstrong).
great pianist... great bassist... great camera shots!! May they both rest in peace. They will forever be the standard to which all others will be compared.
that hand gesture, at the end; the way, he played, it's always like he held the piano in his right hand, up, and placed it, down, like a smooth cup, on a counter, at the end of every piece.
Phenomenal!
brilliant....... bravo oscar....
As usual quite wonderful.
druggyjuggy
bravo bravo bravo
how can you go double time on THAT tempo?!
wtf, godlike
It was strange that when I was searching for this tunes rendition by Oscar Peterson, his face wasn't shown. What's up with that? Niels is awesome but....
The time has come to protest late-night television's fixation on amateurish garage-band grunge. Never--not ever--is a jazz giant featured. (That's art! We'll lose our sponsors!) So it's hardly surprising that "swing"--walking-bass 4/4 (or ¾ or 5/4)--is vanishing as a phenomenon and even as a word! Adjective (Swing Era), noun (Age of Swing), verb (Oscar swings hard!). Today, they're all meaningless expressions--Martian language. When you see an audience of synchronized "bobble-heads" (on ONE and THREE), you're at a rock or pop latin concert. When you see hip listeners adjusting their body movements to the firm, solid, unfailing "chic" of a good drummer's hi-hat cymbals coming together on the off-beats, you're at a jazz concert. Swing is free, it's the vital pulse of the life-stream. Most drummers can no longer play it. A great drummer can do it all with just his left-foot (or right) and the high-hat (too bad this little-known fact about jazz wasn't employed in the movie "My Left Foot.")
Forget the '60s, Bob Dylan, and the "historic" Woodstock concert. Instead, check out its predecessor: "Duke Ellington at Newport 1956." (The CD version is infinitely superior to the original LP, which was Duke's best-selling album) The concert garnered international headlines for the Ellington band when, after midnight, tenorman Paul Gonsalves played the most famous jazz solo in the history of outdoor jazz festivals. His 30 choruses on "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" led to a new first---the crowd on its feet (at a JAZZ concert!)--not staring at the band (as they did for Benny Goodman in 1935 and Frank Sinatra in 1941) but-dancing in the aisles and on the field. (Rock and country/western wouldn't begin playing outdoors until 10 years later--soon they were loading"gear" big semis with all of the artillery (P.A., amps, speakers) that occupies the stages of contemporary pop music. Duke's performance at the 3rd Newport Festival made these the most profitable venues for jazz musicians--and started the trend of outdoor music festivals. (Sadly, Duke's was one of the last times that "swing was king," though Oscar and Monty Alexander would burn outdoor stages with their sizzling swing for the next 4-5 decades.) The success of the Newport festival became the inspiration for the setting of the Cole Porter musical "High Society" (Sinatra, Crosby, Louis Armstrong).