August 31: Happy 75th Birthday Van Morrison

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]“Van Morrison is interested, obsessed with how much musical or verbal information he can compress into a small space, and, almost, conversely, how far he can spread one note, word, sound, or picture. To capture one moment, be it a caress or a twitch. He repeats certain phrases to extremes that from anybody else would seem ridiculous, because he’s waiting for a vision to unfold, trying as unobtrusively as possible to nudge it along…It’s the great search, fuelled by the belief that through these musical and mental processes illumination is attainable. Or may at least be glimpsed.”
~Lester Bangs [/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Van Morrison, OBE (born George Ivan Morrison; 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are described as transcendental, while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance and the live album It’s Too Late to Stop Now, are critically acclaimed and appear at the top of many greatest album lists.

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July 15: Happy 73rd Birthday Linda Ronstadt

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]I have always believed that one learns more from failure than from success.
~Linda Ronstadt, Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir

The essential elements of singing are voice, musicianship, and story. It is the rare artist that has all three in abundance.
~Linda Ronstadt

Ronstadt is Blessed with arguably the most sterling set of pipes of her generation … rarest of rarities – a chameleon who can blend into any background yet remain boldly distinctive … It’s an exceptional gift; one shared by few others.
~Christopher Loudon (Jazz Times, 2004)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Ronstadt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2014.

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September 23: Jazz Legend John Coltrane Birthday

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]“My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being…When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups…I want to speak to their souls.”
~John Coltrane

All a musician can do is to get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws.
~John Coltrane[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

John Coltrane Quartet – Impressions (video)
McCoy Tyner:Piano
Jimmy Garrison:Bass
Elvin Jones:Drums:

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August 19: Happy 78th Birthday Ginger Baker

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]“They credited us with the birth of that sort of heavy metal thing. Well, if that’s the case, there should be an immediate abortion.”
~Ginger Baker

If I am playing any music at all it is jazz music.
~Ginger Baker

There are a lot of great drummers. But Ginger Baker is an inspiration because of a certain almost relaxing quality that he brings to the drums. While a lot of drummers are putting speed and power first, Baker put rhythm first.
~bgamall.hubpages.com[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Ginger Baker Biography – youtube video:

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August 16: The Late Jazz Legend Bill Evans was Born in 1929

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]”My creed for art in general is that it should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise…a part of yourself you never knew existed.”
~Bill Evans

“To the person who uses music as a medium for the expression of ideas, feelings, images, or what have you; anything which facilitates this expression is properly his instrument.”
~Bill Evans[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Bill Evans – Complete Last Performance’79:

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August 4: Late Jazz Legend Louis Daniel Armstrong Birthday

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]“If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.”
― Louis Armstrong

“Seems to me it ain’t the world that’s so bad but what we’re doing to it, and all I’m saying is: see what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love, baby – love. That’s the secret.”
― Louis Armstrong

“Louis Armstrong was the first important soloist to emerge in jazz, and he became the most influential musician in the music’s history.”
~William Ruhlmann (allmusic.com)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

When The Saints Go Marching In:

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