A Birthday for Gerry Mulligan (April 6) leads the Safari to his Music!!

Gerry MulliganSo last Sunday April 6th was the day in 1927 that saxophonist Gerry Mulligan was born. Mulligan is another in what is becoming a long line of jazz musicians whose name I am familiar with, but whose music I never really listened to.  As I try to figure our why, the only explanation that I have is that I’ve always associated Mulligan with Dave Brubeck and since I really don’t care that much for Brubeck, I have never explored the music of Mulligan.- Mistake! So I in my usual style I started my exploration of Gerry Mulligan at Wikipedia where I read…. Read More

This Day in Music – April 8, 1968 – Petulia and an Interracial Touch – Oh My!

PetulaiOn this date April 8th in 1968, (there’s that tumultuous year again only four days after the assassination of Martin Luther King) ) NBC aired Petula Clark’s TV Special, aptly named “Petula”. One of the guests on the show was the great Harry Belafonte. Belafonte and Clark were to perform a  duet on an antiwar song that Clark had written titled “On the Path to Glory” While they were taping the performance Clark spontaneously put her arm around Belafonte’s arm. This caused the show’s sponsor Chrysler to freak out! Chrysler feared that the interracial touch would be too much for their southern viewers! Petula and her husband (the show’s executive producer) Claude Wolff’s response to Chrysler was great!! They had all the other takes destroyed, so that they had to air “the touch”, which actually became the first interracial contact broadcast on American Television!! The show met with high ratings and critical acclaim. Clark was the hostess of two more specials, another one for NBC and one for ABC. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the original telecast of Petula, Clark and Wolff appeared at the Paley Center for Media in Manhattan on 22 September 2008, to discuss the broadcast and its impact, following a broadcast of the program! Way to Go Petula and Claude!! Read More about Petula at Wikipedia Here is the performance,….

Read More

Life’s Blues Soundtrack (a few days late) – Albert Castiglia’s Solid Ground (Video)

Albert CastigliaSo last Thursday was the first day that I ran since back in January. It was a good run and you can read more about it here. The soundtrack for the run was the new release from Albert Castiglia Solid Ground. Solid Ground is seventh release from Castiglia (pronounced ka-steel-ya) and his first on Ruf Records. I caught up with Castiglia’s career back in 2010 when I started this blog.In that year he released Keepin’ On. While writing the post, I listened to not only that album but also his 2008 release  These are the Days, which earned him a Blues Music Award nomination for “Song of the Year” for his original, “Bad Year Blues.”  as well as a nomination by the Illinois Blues Blast Awards for the same song. Albert won that award. Castiglia was also nominated for the “Sean Costello Rising Star Award.” Read More

The Safari Discovers Sahrawi singer Aziza Brahim and her No 1 album Soutak!

SoutakThe No 1 album on the April 2014 World Music Europe Chart is Soutak from Aziza Brahim, Aziza  is a Sahrawi singer and actress. From Wikipedia

She was born in 1976 in the Sahrawi refugee camps, where her mother had settled in late 1975, fleeing from the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. Her father remained in El Aaiun where he later died. Due to the Western Sahara War, Aziza never met him. Read More

This Day in Music – Jazz Organist – Jimmy McGriff was born!!

Jiimmy McGriff  born on April 3,1936 in the Germantown section of Philadelphia!

On this date April 3rd in 1936 James Harrell McGriff was born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia.His musical journey started at the age of five when he started to learn to play the piano. By the time he reached his teen years he had expanded the group of instruments that he could play to include:  vibes, alto sax, drums and upright bass. Growing up Jimmy Smith was a childhood friend. After a stint as an Army MP during the Korean War, McGriff returned to Philly and became a police officer. During that time his thoughts kept drifting towards music. By this time Jimmy Smith’s career was growing, after hearing Richard “Grove” Holmes’ organ playing at McGriff’s sister’s wedding McGriff was determined to learn to play the organ. Eventually Holmes became his teacher. In 1956 he bought his first Hammond B3 and spent six months learning to play, He ultimately studied at Julliard in New York City and privately with others including his friend Jimmy Smith! You can read his complete biography here at Wikipedia.
 Read More

The Safari goes “Down Under” and finds Hibernal’s Progressive Rock “Audio Movie” Replacements

The other day I was reviewing the latest albums on Progstreaming and the sci-fi looking album art for Replacements from Hibernal caught my eye….

Replacements_Cover_full_sm

So I made it available offline at Spotify, put it on the iPhone and it became the soundtrack for some work around the house. The album was to say the least very different. it surprised me, when I first heard the narration about “The synths”,. I figured it was just a part of the opening of the album, but then on the second track “The City Ebbs Away”, came the voice of Artemis and  I soon realized that the album was more than a just the atmospheric music, but was a well written audio movie. I became more and more intrigued as the story progressed, and was looking forward to a satisfying conclusion, which I guess I kinda’ got. So who has listened to the album and did you enjoy it??? Reading reviews of Hibernal’s music at Prog Archives most were positive, but the few that were negative really hated the albums. I don’;t know how many times you would want to listen to the whole album though,But I did see that there is an instrumental version of the album which I guess can be listened to over and over! Anyway let me tell those who are unfamiliar with Hibernal a bit about their music!! Read More

The Safari Visits RPWL (for real this time) – Wanted!!

RPWL 1RPWL is s neo prog rock band from Germany that was formed in 1997 as a Pink Floyd cover band. Three years after the band formed they started to make their own music. While their music was still rooted in the that  70s and 80s Pink Floyd Prog era their debut release God Has Failed met with positive reviews in most major progressive rock magazines. Since then the band has released five studio albums, three live albums and two DVDs! Read More

The Safari Discovers the Jazz Piano of Helen Sung – Anthem for a New Day – and is happy!

Helen sung 2Some people are born to play jazz and then others find jazz – at a Harry Connick, Jr concert?? Well at least one did! The one that did would be classically trained pianist Helen Sung!! Helen began her classical piano training in her hometown of Houston Texas at the age of five under the watchful eye of a teacher who did it her way and encouraged Helen to only listen to classical music. Helen walked the straight and narrow until that fateful day a friend took her to that Harry Connick, Jr. concert. It was there that Harry played a Tommy Flannagan solo and Helen’s world turned upside-down! She says this about the experience….. Read More