jazz – EcoSalon

The Love Letters Project #13: Charlie and Chan Parker

Mike Sowden — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:33:37 +0000

Who better to write the world’s greatest love letters than the world’s most famous writer…of music? This week we turn to the virtuosic tones of Charlie Parker, iconic father of up-tempo jazz and one of music’s most influential and tragic figures – and a man with a flair for words as well as musical notes:

To you;

The way I thought was wrong, having not known, it was right. Here is the proof of my feelings, Don’t hate me, love me forever: — — — —

Beautiful is the world, slow is one to take advantage. Wind up the world the other way. And at the start of the turning of the earth, lie my feelings for thou.

To you
Shame on me.
I love you.

Charlie is writing to his girlfriend Beverley Dolores Berg, later better known as Chan Parker (although they never formally married). She would stick by the jazz composer through his darkest years, as his early fascination with morphine turned to an addiction to heroin that would blight his talent and his career. Charlie and Chan were also an interracial couple at a time when America was still overtly segregated.

Charlie Parker died in 1955, at the terribly young age of 34 – but leaving an extraordinary legacy of composition and professional dedication that would far outlive the man himself.

Images: Kids Music Corner; SoulWalking. Letter via FastCoDesign.

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10 Songs for 10 Females

Frankie Cecchinelli — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 15:12:26 +0000

An exclusive EcoSalon playlist fueled by the ladies.

10 Songs for 10 Females is an entire playlist inspired by songs dedicated to women.

10 Songs for 10 Females from ecosalon on 8tracks.

Check out the music videos for some of the songs below, or go even further and listen to all of them by clicking “play” above.

1. Amanda – Aisha Duo

2. Veronica Sawyer – Summer Camp

3. Claudia Lewis – M83

4. Lindsey – Coma Cinema

5. Nicole Swan – Ruddy P

6. Ramona – RUN DMT

7. Lillian (Wont You Play Drums?) – White Fence

8. Maggie Mae – The Beatles

9. Lalita – The Love Language

10. Martha – Suckers

Like what you hear? Check out our entire 10 Songs series.

Image: mark sebastian

The post 10 Songs for 10 Females appeared first on EcoSalon.

25 Photos Celebrating Jazz History

Jessica Marati — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:01:41 +0000

Jazz through the ages.

“Jazz is restless,” trombonist J.J. Johnson once said. “It won’t stay put and it never will.” The history of jazz music reflects that restlessness and tumult, starting from the genre’s African American ragtime roots, through the height of the Jazz Age during Prohibition, the popularization of jazz during the 1950s and 60s, and the fusion and foreign influences that characterize jazz today. In honor of Jazz Appreciation Month, we celebrate the movers and shakers that helped shape one of music’s most dynamic genres.

Buddy Bolden’s Band, circa 1905

The Original Dixieland Jass Band, 1918

Ray Miller Orchestra, early 1920s

Bessie Smith, 1936

Duke Ellington and his band at the Hurricane cabaret, 1943

Count Basie’s band and Ethel Waters from the film Stage Door Canteen, 1943

Mary Lou Williams, 1946

Django Reinhardt and Duke Ellington, 1946

Sarah Vaughan at Café Society, 1946

Coleman Hawkins and Miles Davis at Three Deuces, 1947

Ella Fitzgerald with Dizzy Gillespie at Downbeat, 1947

Billie Holiday at Downbeat, 1947