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Aretha Arriving: Young, Gifted and Black

Aretha Franklin, great American singer, songwriter and pianist, passed away on August 16th. As a tribute, New Directions In Music takes a look at her landmark 1972 recording Young, Gifted and Black and Ms. Franklin’s place in the movement for black equality in America.

by Marshall Bowden

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Aretha Franklin had already had a long career by 1972. She had recorded a number of records for Columbia Records in styles that were largely jazz and cabaret singer settings, with only smatterings of R&B and soul, with tepid results. Her move to Atlantic Records put her into the orbit of Jerry Wexler, Arif Martin, and Tom Down and Aretha’s subsequent Atlantic releases were largely R&B and soul affairs with pop covers and the occasional look back at an earlier style

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Too Cool For Words: June Christy and Something Cool

by Marshall Bowden

Read June Christy/Ballads for Night People

“Something cool…I’d like to order something cool” says the dame in the smoky, slightly seedy bar that is something out of a Raymond Chandler story. The kind of place where maybe there could be trouble at any moment; where maybe a couple of guys in raincoats with noses as crooked as a gerrymandered voting district come in and start asking questions. And that can’t be anything but trouble for you.

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Chet Baker & Crew

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Chet Baker and Crew has the distinction of being  recorded during a week of sessions that Baker recorded upon returning to the States after a disastrous year abroad. Baker had spent a great deal of time overseas in 1955, touring with a group that included bassist Jimmy Bond, drummer Peter Littman, and pianist Richard Twardzick. Twardzick never returned from that tour, a victim of a drug overdose. Bond left the group shortly thereafter, and Baker later fired Littman following a date at a U.S. military base.

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Flying Dutchman: A Survey

by Marshall Bowden

flying groove
Flying Grooves : Download or listen

Former John Coltrane producer and Impulse! Records A&R man Bob Thiele founded the Flying Dutchman record label with the express intention of producing a line of jazz-based records that would sell and be played on the radio. He also recorded a lot of favorite jazz artists, including a great many leading avant-garde players (Ornette Coleman, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp) and others (Oliver Nelson, Bud Freeman) who found themselves without recording contracts. In 1971 the label was acquired by Atco, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records.

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