Word: jazzing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...meld a dozen or more idiosyncratic instrumentalists into a single, pulsing organism with a voice of its own, which was always somehow his voice. The bluesy, stomping bands he led from the mid-1930s until his death in 1984, at age 79, were among the best in jazz history. Not that Basie makes any such claims in Good Morning Blues. On the page as in life, he is a modest man, given to understatement and sly humor, deft in turning the spotlight on others. He fondly evokes such colleagues as Thomas ("Fats") Waller and Lester Young...
...FABULOUS THUNDERBIRDS: Tuff Enuff (CBS Associated Records). There is a long tradition of honky-tonking in American music that runs way back, considerably before rock, to the blues bars, jazz joints and love parlors where rag and Dixie got going from the turn of the century on. These days, call a group a bar band and you mean they play rock with no fuss and maybe a little sloppiness that can pass for funk. The Fabulous Thunderbirds, who made their first album in 1979 and have opened concerts for the Rolling Stones, still have the true chugalug spirit...
...player comes forward with a heroin or cocaine problem, he is suspended with pay, treated at the team's expense and reactivated. The second time, he is suspended without pay; the third time, banned for a minimum of two years and possibly for life. John Drew of the Utah Jazz has achieved the last plateau; New Jersey's Micheal Ray Richardson and Chicago's Quintin Dailey teeter on the edge. Moreover, an independent narcotics expert carries both the owners' and the players' license to order spot checks...
...frog tart. Other attractions were a 4-ft. 5-in. candied Eiffel Tower, a 10-ft. vegetarian paella dish and a gigantic cooking pot 10 ft. in diameter and 5 ft. deep. The buffet organizers topped off the pot presentation with a pinch of culinary cuteness: they had a jazz band called Haricots Rouges (translation: Red Beans) play music...
...actors that steal the show. Consistently well-developed as characters--from Alma and Gwen to Abby--they also create a first-rate ensemble. Given a head start with a richly diverse score by Davity Chase--who provides everything from Arab theme music to fight-song melodies to torchy jazz with consistent finesse--and staging and choreography that are energetic but simple but enough to handle (usually) with grace and flair they take the ball and run with...