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The All Star Indie Band makes you wonder…

The All Star Indie Band covers Stairway to Heaven
The All Star Indie Band covers Stairway to Heaven

Stairway to Heaven is a classic. Frederick Alexander Abraham sings in his own style and he “hits” it. What a treat! It is wonderful and the band is awesome as well. If you love this song you will be amazed by how well they perform it.

This cover of Stairway to Heaven reaches the soul just like the original does.
Band Members include: Frederick Alexander Abraham (vocals), Guitars- Jon Cody Davis “The Cali Kid” and Jerry Morin, Bass Guitar – Tommy Whitten, Keyboards – “The” Billy Townes, Drums – Joe Seltzer

Moms in the Sacramento Area can sign up for Red Cross Safety Training

First Aid training now.
Red Cross first response training could save your family member

Lowell Health Care is now offering a discount for their online and in class training programs.  The class is suitable for both parents and caring adults, as well as health care professionals.  The company was founded by the Wright Family.  After serving in the military and heavy training on how to deal with any number of medical emergencies Ms. Wright decided to reach out to her home community to pass on her crucial knowledge.

Know what to do when it counts - sign up for the class.
Know what to do when it counts – sign up for the class.

The Wright Family team offers:

Monday-Wednesday: Basic Life Support –9AM
Thursday& Friday: Adult & Pediatric Training– 9AM
Saturday& Sunday: Pediatric Training– 10AM
On-line Blended Learning 7 days a week

Also Available with appointments ONLY:
Family Safety (non-certification): Enter for YOUR FAMILY to WIN A FREE PIZZA ? PARTY!!!
CPR / First Aid ONLY
All certified class participants will be entered into a monthly raffle!

AMERICAN RED CROSS ADULT- PEDIATRIC- INFANT FIRST AID CPR & AED both ON-LINE & IN CLASS TRAINING~ BLS for Healthcare Professionals

2 Year Certification
JUNE 2016: $65 for all certifications (reg. $90)

THIS MONTHS RAFFLE CONTAINS A SPEAKER! ?????

To sign up visit the website or you may reach Ms. Wright by calling: (916)226-0353

http://www.lovelldothealthcare.com/

Fikorus Jewelry delights customers around the world.

Anoinetta's Earrings by Fikorus.
Anoinetta’s Earrings by Fikorus.
Niina Karlsson’s jewelry designs delight women the world over.

A Brief History of FIKORUS

Fikorus was established in February 2010 by a couture designers Niina Karlsson and her husband Kalervo Karlsson.The name is a combination of FI like Finland and KORU which means Jewelry in finnish and then Ikaros, the white horse who flew too close to the sun.

Fikorus is all about hand made luxury fashion accessories. All Fikorus items are designed and hand made in our studio in Helsinki, Finland. Every piece is meticulously made of high quality materials. Fikorus Jewelry and accessories are elegant, feminine, sophisticated and distinctive – bold and poetic at the same time.

Find out about more of her amazingly gorgeous designs by visiting:  www.fikorus.com

Rolando Morales and Omar Ledezma appear at San Jose Fairmont on Thursday, June 16

Rolando Morales and Omar Ledezma at Fairmont San Jose June 16

Thursday June 16, The San Jose Fairmont, Lobby Lounge, 170 South Market St., San Jose CA, 9pm-MidnightRolando returns for you South Bay fans to this elegant venue.  Enjoy fine wines, unique martinis, appetizers and sushi along with the Rolando Morales Duet, this time featuring the Grammy-wining Latin percussionist/vocalist from Venezuela, Omar Ledezma; and Rolando Morales leading the way on guitar and vocals and his magic pedal board.   Free!  See www.fairmont.com/sanjose/ for info, or call (408) 998-1900.

Rolando Morales at Maria Maria Walnut Creek Sunday afternoon and Tuesday evening.

RolandoMoralesoutdoors

Sunday June 5Maria, Maria Cantina, 1470 North Broadway, Walnut Creek, approx 1-4pm.  Rolando returns for the Maria, Maria Tardeadaseries.  Enjoy a Mexican brunch outdoors and Rolando performing on the newly renovated front patio on solo guitar and voice by the creek.  www.mariamariarestaurants.com, or call (925) 946-1010.

Tuesday June 7, Maria, Maria Cantina, 1470 North Broadway, Walnut Creek, approx 6:30-9:30pmRolando returns to Carlos Santana’s Walnut Creek restaurant for Taco Tuesday.  $1 tacos, baby! Enjoy Rolando on solo guitar and voice with his huge repertoire and big sound on the front patio.  See www.mariamariarestaurants.com; (925) 946-1010.

Muhammad Ali died after a 32-year battle with Parkinson’s Disease with his family by his side

Muhammad Ali engaging in some of his famous trash poetry talks

Cassius Marcellus Clay was born in the West End district of Louisville on January 17, 1942. His father Cassius, was a sign-writer with artistic ambitions and his mother, Odessa, a domestic servant. His father, who was told to be a womanizer and heavy drinker, was named after his great-grandfather’s slave owner. His father owned a home and Cassius Clay had only one sibling, his brother Rudy Clay. As a result Cassius Clay grew up in a middle class home, which was unusual in those days.

His mother’s grand father was an Irish man, Abe Grady, who had married her African American grandmother. When Cassius was only 12 years of age he saw someone steal his Schwinn bicycle and he reported it to the police. He told the officer he was going to “whup” the thief. The kind officer told him he better learn how to box first. The police man, Joe Martin, took a liking of the talkative young boy and persuaded him to join his boxing club. Six weeks later, Clay won his first bout in a split decision. Cassius Clay trained with him for six years after which Joe Martin turned professional.

Cassius Clay, just like his father, was named after Cassius Marcellus Clay, a 19th-century farmer who did not believe in slavery. He became an anti-slavery crusader. Although he inherited 40 slaves from his father he emancipated them once he had a chance to do so. This abolitionist edited an anti-slavery newspaper, he commanded troops in the Mexican-American War and served as minister to Russia under President Abraham Lincoln. Even though he was a second cousin to the Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, he put himself in considerable danger with his abolitionist attitudes. Clay faced death threats, beatings, and was stabbed and shot by political opponents. Despite the ordeal he lived to the ripe old age of 92.

The young boxer, Cassius Clay was academically challenged as he spent most of his time in school day dreaming instead of focusing on his academics. Atwood Wilson, the school’s principal, had a soft spot for the entertaining young Cassius and introduced him to the school assembly: ‘Here he is, ladies and gentleman, Cassius Clay! The next heavyweight champion of the world. This guy is going to make a million dollars.” Their shared dream came true with a glorious beginning of Mohamed Ali’s illustrious boxing career. For the last four years of Clay’s amateur career he was trained by boxing cut man, Chuck Bodak. Clay went on to win six Kentucky Golden Gloves titles, two national Golden Gloves titles, an Amateur Athletic Union National Title, and the Light Heavyweight gold medal. Clay’s amateur record was 100 wins with five losses. At the young age of 18 Clay won gold as a light-heavyweight amateur at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.

After he took gold in Rome’s Olympic games, Cassius Clay immediately took the opportunity to go professional since he was offered to financially backed by a local Kentucky Millionaire. This relationships was short lived since Cassius Clay did not enjoy being treated with contempt as a slave by that man and his ill mannered family. He left and chose the backing of a small consortium of eleven business man in Louisville, KY. He tried to be trained by Sugar Ray Robinson but was rebuffed due to his boisterous personality and refusal to participate in the training duties such as cleaning dishes and washing the floors. More

Cassius Clay successfully recruited Angelo Dundee who ran the legendary Fifth Street Gym in Miami Beach. Dundee encouraged Cassius Clay to freely express himself as did the assistant trainer, Drew ‘Bundini’ Brown. Bundini came up with the phrase ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’, and started Clay’s habit of forecasting the round in which he would fell his opponent.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

While he had a string of successes in beating many of his opponents he annoyed many boxing fans with his belligerent psychological war fare and insults of the opponents before entering the ring. He won his first professional fight against Tunney Hunsaker in October 1963. Thereafter Clay amassed a record of 19–0 with 15 wins by knockout. He defeated boxers including Tony Esperti, Jim Robinson, Donnie Fleeman, Alonzo Johnson, George Logan, Willi Besmanoff, Lamar Clark, Doug Jones and Henry Cooper. Clay also beat his former trainer and veteran boxer Archie Moore in a 1962 match.

Cassius Clay had been greatly moved by his father’s enraged account of the lynching of a 14-year-old black boy, Emmett Till, in Mississippi in 1955. And it was his father who was encouraged by the political leader Marcus Garvey to be proud of and retrace their ancestral roots. Growing up he was upset by segregation in Louisville, especially when his mother was refused a drink of water in a whites-only café. He started going to the rallies of religious leader Elijah Muhammad from 1959 and befriended Malcolm X in 1962. He secretly converted to Islam at age 18.

During that time he was attended by Ferdie Pacheco, his doctor, who said of Clay: ‘In 1961, 1962, 1963, he was the most perfect physical specimen I had ever seen … perfectly proportioned, handsome, lightning reflexes and a great mind for sports.’

Cassius Clay was a devout Muslim and dedicated member of the Nation of Islam, having fallen under the tutelage of Malcolm X in 1962.

Columbia Records released a 1963 spoken word album called “I Am the Greatest” in which the 21-year-old rising star performed his poetry, backed my musical accompaniment, before an audience. The album also included two songs by the boxer, including a cover of the Ben E. King hit “Stand by Me.”

By late 1963 he was qualified to challenge Sonny Liston for the title. Cassius Clay wanted to announce that he had converted to Islam but what asked to wait after the fight with Sonny Liston to prevent a back lash that was sure to happened before the fight. The fight was set for February 25, 1964, in Miami. Liston was an intimidating personality, a dominating fighter with a criminal past and ties to the mob. Cassius Clay was blinded during the fight by ointment that Liston put on his gloves. Liston had been accused previously by two other fighters of “burning” eyes. But, Cassius Clay won the fight and was declared champion. Liston claimed he had an injured shoulder and others rumored that Liston had bet against himself to pay of his own debts. By winning this fight, Clay became at age 22 the youngest boxer to take the title from a reigning heavyweight champion.

By 1964 Clay had won 19 straight fights, all but four of them by knockouts, and was ready to challenge for the world title.

In March 1964 Cassius Clay was bestowed the name Mohammad Ali by his religious teachers. He was initially inspired by Malcolm X, choosing to change his last name to X for a while during his religious Muslim training. He stayed with the Nation of Islam, despite the rift between the founder and Malcolm X following the Kennedy assassination. Malcolm X was expelled and started his own competing Islamic organization. When rumors began circulating that year that Cassius Clay had joined the Nation of Islam, one of his bouts was nearly canceled, and when he officially joined in 1964, he had his boxing titles stripped from two organizations, including the WBA.

When Cassius Clay announced that he had changed his name for religious reasons the press reacted strongly. The Saturday Evening Post wrote: “For a time, when he was confining himself to bad poetry, Cassius was a loudmouth but a likable character who seemed to be harmless in or out of the ring. Then he won the championship and became, in his own estimation, “The Greatest.” After the fight, he acknowledged that he was a Black Muslim, converted by the arch-extremist, Malcolm X, the man who crowed that President Kennedy’s assassination was “a case of the chickens coming home to roost.” Malcolm X was separated from the Black Muslim movement after that remark and is now attempting to organize his own black nation. He wants to arm all the Negroes in the U.S. and ultimately take them back to Africa.” It went on to say: “Clay’s history of calculated deceptions now prompts the suspicion, of course, that his present case of galloping religion is but another decoy to serve who knows what end. Clay himself strengthened the suspicion when he declared, “Just by my being a Muslim, that should draw a bigger gate…” In actuality his commitment to Islam has cost him roughly two million dollars in commercial endorsements.

In July 1964 he met a cocktail waitress named Sonji Roi and they married after a one month courtship. But the pair separated when she refused to conform to the strict edicts by which the group thought women should live. They were divorced by January 1966.

April 28, 1967 Mohammad Ali reported to the Military Entrance Processing Station in Houston. As officials called his name for induction to the Army to fight in the Vietnam War he wouldn’t step forward. He was eventually arrested, but that wasn’t even close to the end of his legal woes. A week before appearing in Houston, he told reporters in his home town of Louisville, Kentucky, that he planned to not accept induction in military service. He stated to the press: “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”

Two months later, a jury took just 20 minutes to convict Ali of draft evasion. He was given a five-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine; he was stripped of his passport and his heavyweight title, and was banned from fighting in the United States. It took four years to eventually settle the case after he had taking it all the way to the Supreme Court. Ali would remain out of jail on posted bail while his case was being appealed, he would not fight again until October 1970. The following year, the US Supreme Court overturned his conviction in a unanimous 8-0 ruling. Full Transcript

Between February 25, 1964 and September 19, 1964 Muhammad Ali reigned as the undisputed heavyweight boxing champion. Nicknamed “The Greatest”, Ali was involved in several historic boxing matches. Notable among these were the first Liston fight, three with rival Joe Frazier, and one with George Foreman, in which he regained titles he had been stripped of seven years earlier. After the Superior Court reversed the ruling of the lower courts and agreed that he refused military service legally as a conscientious objector he finally was able to fight again. At last he was able to fight again. After being prevented from fighting for four years he lost the first fight against Joe Frazier.

Joe Frazier wins over Mohammad Ali

After Joe Frazier lost the title to George Foreman Mohammad Ali urged George Foreman to a fight which organized by Don King in Africa.

Mohammad Ali fights George Foreman to regain ‘his’ world champion title.

His doctor, Freddie Pacheco, resigned when Mohammad Ali was in his 30s and starting to show the effects of taking too many punches, yet refusing his advice to retire before he suffered permanent injury.

He was then married to Belinda Boyd from 1967 until 1975. During his relationship with Belinda, Muhammad started seeing Veronica Porsche in 1975. He converted to Sunni Islam in 1975. The affair ruined his second marriage with Belinda Boyd by 1977. In 1977 he married Veronica that summer who was already pregnant with their daughter, Hana. Their second daughter, Laila, was born in Dec. 1977, and the couple split up in 1986. Muhammad then married Yolonda Williams in Nov. 1986, and they adopted a son, Assad Amin. He was married to Yolonda, who he’d been friends with since 1964, at the time of his death on June 3. Yolonda took care of him throughout his very difficult 40 years while he suffered from Parkinson Disease.

In 1986 he began adhering to Sufism a rather peaceful and mature religion.  It helped him live his life out gracefully despite the fact he suffered from Parkinson Disease.  He was a true blessing to many people and raised the awareness about the beauty of grace, personal commitment to truth and ones’ own convictions.  Mohammad Ali was a great man and he will be truly missed.

Phillip Sossou honors every class mate of Boston Latin School Class of 2016 with a drawing

Phillip Sossou, 18, drew portraits of every member of the class of 2016.  He hung all 411 pictures in the hallways of his school as his classmates were getting ready to say goodbye, The Boston Globe reported.

His motive was to reunite the Class after several complaints about racism were placed against the faculty. He wanted everyone in his class to realize that while each was unique they all were special. “Our class has been kind of divided,” said Sossou. “Having these pictures helps us to embrace our diversity.”

Young artist, Phillip Sossou (18) brings students together with his gift of art.
Young artist, Phillip Sossou (18) brings students together with his gift of art.

Phillip Sossou has been accepted by Bunker Hill Community College and plans to attend University of Massachusetts at Amherst in the future. I suspect we will see much more art created by this amazing young man in the future. Full Article

Rolando Morales tonight at Don Pico’s with Pirate Patch Tonight

Rolando Morales with Pirate Patch. Hope his site returns.
Rolando Morales with Pirate Patch. Hope his site returns.

After a visit to ER right after the sold out Rolando Morales Group Seahorse gig last Saturday night, a laser session of over 700 laser blasts to his retina and painful follow-up visit.  We are all still hopeful his vision will return to his right eye. So far, nothing… It could turn around in 3 weeks to 2 months.

So now with Pirate Patch to cover the newly operated on eye Rolando will appear at:

Friday June 3, Don Pico’s Mexican Bistro, 461 El Camino Real, San Bruno, 6 to 9 pm.  The place The Examiner and Independent have proclaimed has the “Best Seafood and Best Mexican Food” anywhere, on solo guitar and voice in the Restaurant Room. Call (650) 589-1163, www.donpicosbistro.com.

Women could use their power to make America great again.

NateSilverMarch2016

Vanity Fair wrote an interesting article about what would happen if American women refused to vote for Trump. Nate Silver thinks the entire country would become democratic. Maybe it is time for women to use those women’s cards imposed on women by the likes of Trump.

Trump is famous for his terrible attitudes and lack of respect for women. These attitudes are rooted in his upbringing. His family has a long multi-generation horrid attitude toward women.

He comes from a family that looked at women as objects. His grandfather, Frederick Trump, moved to New York City in 1885 where he worked as a barber for six years.   Later on he joined the gold rush and moved to the red light district in Seattle, Washington, where he made his money in a “decadent restaurant” he called “Poodle Dog. ” He practiced plagiarism and took the name and the concept from another “Poodle Dog” red-light district “establishment” that then operated in San Francisco.

A Yukon Sun Newspaper writer described his business: “For single men the Arctic has excellent accommodations as well as the best restaurant in Bennett, but I would not advise respectable women to go there to sleep as they are liable to hear that which would be repugnant to their feelings – and uttered, too, by the depraved of their own sex”. Full article

Grandfather Fred Trump did not have respect for the military either, he left for Germany despite being a US citizen to get out of the service to his country. An article published this year by Politico, explains that Frederick Trump sold off his investments and returned to Germany in 1901, as he sensed the end of the gold rush and a subsequent end to prostitution. Full Article

Like the grandfather, the Republican Presidential candidate does not get along well with others.  USA Today reported on June 2, 2016: “An exclusive USA TODAY analysis of legal filings across the United States finds that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his businesses have been involved in at least 3,500 legal actions in federal and state courts during the past three decades. They range from skirmishes with casino patrons to million-dollar real estate suits to personal defamation lawsuits.” Many of the lawsuits were gambling debt related.  The USA Today’ research shows that Trump and his enterprises have been named in almost 700 personal-injury claims and about 165 court disputes with government agencies. Full article

When looking into Trump’s childhood you don’t have to look far as to where his racist views come from.  The Washington Post reports: “On Memorial Day 1927, brawls erupted in New York led by sympathizers of the Italian fascist movement and the Ku Klux Klan. In the fascist brawl, which took place in the Bronx, two Italian men were killed by anti-fascists. In Queens, 1,000 white-robed Klansmen marched through the Jamaica neighborhood, eventually spurring an all-out brawl in which seven men were arrested.  One of those arrested was Fred Trump of 175-24 Devonshire Rd. in Jamaica.”   Fred Trump is Donald Trump’s father. Full article

Women are regularly insulted, treated as objects. Trump is said to be terrified by the fact that women are becoming self reliant and financially supportive of their husbands. He wants to turn back the clock to when his mother was relegated to housekeeping duties by his racist brawling father. Now look at the map above again. If all women were to decide that they don’t wish to have a President who is too busy dealing with lawsuits, offending other nations, ruining the world’s economy and safety with his misguided policies, his wish could become true. This country could be great again and democratic for ALL Americans.

Artist Highlight – John Handy

John Handy

"Music elevates the human spirit"
 -- John Handy

John Handy is a performer and composer who continues to sweep audiences into ecstasy with his vast range of creative, emotional, and technical inventiveness. With a superb knowledge and practical experience with music of several cultures, he fuses, with each selection, a musical genre that is coherent, provocative, logical, and enjoyable. As a singer, he brings a kind of storytelling narrative to the blues that is entertaining, educational, and moving; while his up tempo scat vocals could be compared to the best scat singers anywhere. He sings ballads with inventiveness that is rare among singers.

John Handy has written a number of highly acclaimed, original compositions. “Spanish Lady” and “If Only We Knew” both earned Grammy nominations for performance and composition. The popular jazz/blues/funk vocal crossover hit, “Hard Work“, brought him fame in another realm; while “Blues for Louis Jordan” displayed his talents in rhythm and blues. He has written many compositions of various sizes for both instrumental and vocal groups. His more extensive works include Concerto for Jazz Soloist and Orchestra which was premiered by the Parnassus Symphony Orchestra; and Scheme Number One which was lauded as a fine example of fixed and improvised music by the great composer, Igor Stravinsky.

John Handy at Lincoln Center in 2016

John Handy has performed in the world great concert halls including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Berlin Philharmonic Auditorium, San Francisco Opera House, Davies Hall; the major performance venues including Tanglewood, Saratoga (NY), and Wolf Trap; and the pre-eminent jazz festivals including the Monterey Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, Playboy Jazz Festival, Chicago Jazz Festival, Pacific Coast Jazz Festival; and international jazz festivals at Montreaux (Switzerland), Antibe (France), Berlin (Germany), Cannes (France), Yubari (Japan), Miyasaki (Japan), among others. His album and CD covers read like a who’s who of record labels – Columbia, ABC Impulse, Warner Brothers, Milestone, Roulette, Boulevard, Quartet (Harbor), MPS Records and many others.

His most recent recordings are “John Handy Live at Yoshi’s” and “John Handy’s Musical Dreamland” (available only on Boulevard Records, Stuttgart, Germany), “Centerpiece“, and “Excursion in Blue“. Some of his earlier works have been reissued on CD – “John Handy: Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival“, “The Second John Handy Album“, “New View“, and “Projections“. He recorded with Sonny Stitt, and recorded nine albums with Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop.

His album and CD covers read like a who’s who of record labels – Columbia, ABC Impulse, Warner Brothers, Milestone, Roulette, Boulevard, Quartet (Harbor), MPS Records and many others.

For the best and most updated information visit John Handy’s website:  www.johnhandy.com

Artist Highlight – Ella Fitzgerald

“Music comes out of her. When she walks down the street, she leaves notes.” — Jimmy Rowles

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald is considered one of the very best singer in the world. She is admired by her fans, young and old alike and she inspires her fellow artists and musicians. She performed at top venues all over the world. Her audiences were as diverse as her vocal range. They were rich and poor, made up of all races, all religions and all nationalities. In fact, many of them had just one binding factor in common – they all loved her.

Dubbed The First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums.

Her voice was flexible, wide-ranging, accurate and ageless. She could sing sultry ballads, sweet jazz and imitate every instrument in an orchestra. She worked with all the jazz greats, from Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Nat King Cole, to Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Goodman.

Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald sing Cole Porter

She toured all over the world, sometimes performing two shows a day in cities hundreds of miles apart. In 1974, Ella spent a legendary two weeks performing in New York with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. She was inducted into the Down Beat magazine Hall of Fame, and received Kennedy Center Honors for her continuing contributions to the arts. 1958 the first Grammy awards were held and Ella Fitzgerald won Best Female Vocal Performance for The Irving Berlin Songbook (album) and Best Individual Jazz Performance for The Duke Ellington Songbook (album) 1959 Grammy awards, Best Female Vocal Performance for But Not For Me and Best Individual Jazz Performance for Ella Swings Lightly.

Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Va. on April 25, 1917. Her father, William, and mother, Temperance (Tempie), parted ways shortly after her birth. Together, Tempie and Ella went to Yonkers, N.Y, where they eventually moved in with Tempie’s longtime boyfriend Joseph Da Silva. Ella’s half-sister, Frances, was born in 1923 and soon she began referring to Joe as her stepfather. Their apartment was in a mixed neighborhood, where Ella made friends easily. She considered herself more of a tomboy, and often joined in the neighborhood games of baseball. Sports aside, she enjoyed dancing and singing with her friends, and some evenings they would take the train into Harlem and watch various acts at the Apollo Theater.

In 1934 Ella’s name was pulled in a weekly drawing at the Apollo and she won the opportunity to compete in Amateur Night. Ella went to the theater that night planning to dance, but when the frenzied Edwards Sisters closed the main show, Ella changed her mind. “They were the dancingest sisters around,” Ella said, and she felt her act would not compare. Once on stage, faced with boos and murmurs of “What’s she going to do?” from the rowdy crowd, a scared and disheveled Ella made the last minute decision to sing. She asked the band to play Hoagy Carmichael’s Judy, a song she knew well because Connee Boswell’s rendition of it was among Tempie’s favorites. Ella quickly quieted the audience, and by the song’s end they were demanding an encore. She obliged and sang the flip side of the Boswell Sister’s record, The Object of My Affections. Off stage, and away from people she knew well, Ella was shy and reserved. She was self-conscious about her appearance, and for a while even doubted the extent of her abilities. On stage, however, Ella was surprised to find she had no fear. She felt at home in the spotlight. “Once up there, I felt the acceptance and love from my audience,” Ella said. “I knew I wanted to sing before people the rest of my life.” In the band that night was saxophonist and arranger Benny Carter. Impressed with her natural talent, he began introducing Ella to people who could help launch her career. In the process he and Ella became lifelong friends, often working together.

In January 1935 she won the chance to perform for a week with the Tiny Bradshaw band at the Harlem Opera House. It was there that Ella first met drummer and bandleader Chick Webb. Although her voice impressed him, Chick had already hired male singer Charlie Linton for the band. He offered Ella the opportunity to test with his band when they played a dance at Yale University. If the kids like her she can stay, Chick announced.

Shortly afterward, Ella began singing a rendition of the song, (If You Can’t Sing It) You Have to Swing It. During this time, the era of big swing bands was shifting, and the focus was turning more toward bebop. Ella played with the new style, often using her voice to take on the role of another horn in the band. You Have to Swing It was one of the first times she began experimenting with scat singing, and her improvisation and vocalization thrilled fans. Throughout her career, Ella would master scat singing, turning it into a form of art. In 1938, at the age of 21, Ella recorded a playful version of the nursery rhyme, A-Tisket, A-Tasket. The album sold 1 million copies, hit number one, and stayed on the pop charts for 17 weeks. On June 16, 1939, Ella mourned the loss of her mentor Chick Webb. In his absence the band was renamed Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Band, and she took on the overwhelming task of bandleader.

Ella Fitzgerald sings April in Paris with her husband Ray Brown on bass

While on tour with Dizzy Gillespie’s band in 1946, Ella fell in love with bassist Ray Brown. The two were married and eventually adopted a son, whom they named Ray, Jr. At the time, Ray was working for producer and manager Norman Granz on the “Jazz at the Philharmonic” tour. Norman saw that Ella had what it took to be an international star, and he convinced Ella to sign with him. It was the beginning of a lifelong business relationship and friendship.

Under Norman’s management, Ella joined the Philharmonic tour, worked with Louis Armstrong on several albums and began producing her infamous songbook series. From 1956-1964, she recorded covers of other musicians’ albums, including those by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, the Gershwins, Johnny Mercer, Irving Berlin, and Rodgers and Hart. The series was wildly popular, both with Ella’s fans and the artists she covered.

“I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them,” Ira Gershwin

Ella Fitzgerald on the Dean Martin Show

Ella also began appearing on television variety shows. She quickly became a favorite and frequent guest on numerous programs, including “The Bing Crosby Show,” “The Dinah Shore Show,” “The Frank Sinatra Show,” “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Tonight Show,” “The Nat King Cole Show,” “The Andy Willams Show” and “The Dean Martin Show.”

Ella Fitzgerald received so many awards that they are too numerous to mention in this article, some of the highlights which included:

• 13 Grammy awards
• A-Tisket, A-Tasket entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame
• Kennedy Center for Performing Arts’ Medal of Honor Award
• The Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award
• Pied Piper Award
• American Society of Composers
• Women at Work organization’s Bicentennial Woman
• Authors and Publishers’ highest honor
• George And Ira Gershwin Award for Outstanding Achievement
• National Medal of Art
• Honorary chairmanship of the Martin Luther King Foundation
• Received first ASCAP award in recognition of an artist
• Honorary doctorate degrees from Dartmouth, Talladega, Howard and Yale Universities
• Peabody Award for Outstanding Contributions in Music
• The first Society of Singers Lifetime Achievement Award, named “Ella” in her honor
• NAACP Award for lifetime achievement

Ella continued to work as hard as she had early on in her career, despite the ill effects on her health. She toured all over the world, sometimes performing two shows a day in cities hundreds of miles apart. In 1974, Ella spent a legendary two weeks performing in New York with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. Still going strong five years later, she was inducted into the Down Beat magazine Hall of Fame, and received Kennedy Center Honors for her continuing contributions to the arts.

Outside of the arts, Ella had a deep concern for child welfare. Though this aspect of her life was rarely publicized, she frequently made generous donations to organizations for disadvantaged youths, and the continuation of these contributions was part of the driving force that prevented her from slowing down.

To learn more or to watch a few videos about Ella Fitzgerald major performances visit:  www.ellafitzgerald.com

Ella Fitzgerald started a non-profit organization in 1993 that is still going strong. http://www.ellafitzgeraldfoundation.org/news.html

Artist Highlight – Thelonious Monk

theloniusmonk

Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire (including his classic works Round Midnight and Blue Monk). He is often regarded as a founder of bebop, although his playing style evolved away from the form.

“Everyone is influenced by everybody but you bring it down home the way you feel it.”

Thelonious Monk

Round Midnight

His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, and are impossible to separate from Monk’s unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations. Round Midnight is a 1944 jazz standard by jazz musician Thelonious Monk. It is thought that Monk originally composed it sometime between 1940 and 1941, however Harry Colomby claims that Monk may have written an early version around 1936 (at the age of 19) with the title Grand Finale. This song has also been performed by many artists such as Bobby McFerrin, Chick Corea and Hermeto Pascoal.

Blue Monk

Bebop or bop is a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos and improvisation based on harmonic structure rather than melody. It was developed in the early and mid-1940s. It first surfaced in musicians’ argot some time during the first two years of the Second World War. Hard bop later developed from bebop combined with blues and gospel music. Melodically the predominating contour of improvised bebop is that it tends to ascend in arpeggios and descend in scale steps. While a stereotype, an examination of Charlie Parker solos will show that this in fact is a key quality of the music. Ascending arpeggios are frequently of diminished seventh chords, which function as 7b9 chords of various types. Typical scales used in bebop include the bebop major, minor and dominant (see below), the harmonic minor and the chromatic. The half-whole diminished scale is also occasionally used, and in the music of Thelonious Monk especially, the whole tone scale.

Charlie Parker, Well You Needn’t

He was born on October 10, 1917 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the son of Thelonious and Barbara Monk, two years after a sister named Marian. A younger brother, Thomas, was born a couple of years later. His parents moved to New York when young Thelonious was five years of age. A year or so later he was picking out tunes on the family piano. Monk started playing the piano at the age of nine; although he had some formal training and eavesdropped on his sister’s piano lessons, he was essentially self-taught. By the time he was 12 he was accompanying his mother at the local Baptist church as well as playing at “rent parties”, those informal gatherings where tenants who were behind with their payments to the landlord would hold a party in the hope that visitors would contribute to the debt clearance!

Thelonious Monk started his first job touring as an accompanist to an evangelist. He was inspired by the Harlem stride pianists (James P. Johnson was a neighbor) and vestiges of that idiom can be heard in his later unaccompanied solos. However, when he was playing in the house band of Minton’s Playhouse during 1940-1943, Monk was searching for his own individual style. Private recordings from the period find him sometimes resembling Teddy Wilson but starting to use more advanced rhythms and harmonies.

He worked with Lucky Millinder a bit in 1942 and was with the Cootie Williams Orchestra briefly in 1944 (Williams recorded Monk’s “Epistrophy” in 1942 and in 1944 was the first to record “‘Round Midnight”), but it was when he became Coleman Hawkins’ regular pianist that Monk was initially noticed. He cut a few titles with Hawkins (his recording debut) and, although some of Hawkins’ fans complained about the eccentric pianist, the veteran tenor could sense the pianist’s greatness.

Fortunately, Alfred Lion of Blue Note believed in him and recorded Monk extensively during 1947-1948 and 1951-1952. He also recorded for Prestige during 1952-1954, had a solo set for Vogue in 1954 during a visit to Paris, and appeared on a Verve date with Bird and Diz.

In 1955, he signed with Riverside and producer Orrin Keepnews persuaded him to record an album of Duke Ellington tunes and one of standards so his music would appear to be more accessible to the average jazz fan. In 1956 came the classic Brilliant Corners album, but it was the following year when the situation permanently changed. Monk was booked into the Five Spot for a long engagement and he used a quartet that featured tenor saxophonist John Coltrane. Finally, the critics and then the jazz public recognized Thelonious Monk’s greatness during this important gig. He came to Europe to play at the Paris Jazz Fair and played in the audiences at the Salle Pleyel and the Club St. Germain, joining in the loud applause for this true jazz original. Towards the end of the Fifties, with riverside records setting up all manner of interesting studio sessions, he formed his own quartet, first with tenor saxist John Coltrane, then Johnny Griffin and, in 1959, Charlie Rouse. It was Rouse who probably had more experience of Monk’s music than any other horn player, for Charlie remained with Thelonious from 1959 until 1970. In the autumn of 1967 Monk’s quartet was booked to take part in a touring extravaganza under the title “Jazz Expo ’67”; along with men such as Dave Brubeck, Herbie Mann etc. It was decided to enlarge Thelonious’s working group of Charlie Rouse, Larry Gales and Ben Riley with the addition of some additional frontline players and the so-called Nonet made its appearance in the Odeon Hammersmith, in London, just a week before the Salle Pleyel date presented here.

Thelonious Monk, who was criticized by observers who failed to listen to his music on its own terms, suffered through a decade of neglect before he was suddenly acclaimed as a genius; his music had not changed one bit in the interim. In fact, one of the more remarkable aspects of Monk’s music was that it was fully formed by 1947 and he saw no need to alter his playing or compositional style in the slightest during the next 25 years. After his death it seemed as if everyone was doing Thelonious Monk tributes. There were so many versions of Round Midnight that it was practically a pop hit! He played with the Giants of Jazz during 1971-1972, but then retired in 1973. He passed away on February 17, 1982.

By Ranie Smith