April 15, 2011
Phineas Newborn, Jr. - Baby grandiloquent jazz! (Brandon Shred shredded this)
Baby grandiloquent jazz!
Here is a video that is a favorite of the artist AND by no less than writers, Stanley Booth, NY Times critic, Robert Palmer, and Memphis musician and friend, Tav Falco.
In each I think you'll take away not only a piece of those who're playing, but of the writers, critics, and musicians who hold these performances above all others in the vacuum created by each of their respective deaths.
I hope you will enjoy a short journey into this hemisphere, and take something away which you had not known before.
I know that during the compilation of this extensively researched labor of love, I discovered not just something about the musicians represented, not previously known, but of the writers and musicians who I have been fortunate to call friends.
Thank you for taking the time to read (what for me is a very rare intrusion) this introduction.
GUK
(from intro to Tav Falco's Video of Phineas Newborn)
Imagine yourself a prodigy, a jazz virtuoso of the 1950s. You have played with everybody from Duke Ellington to Charlie Mingus. Then POW… you are lost for twenty years. Your achievements and talents put into chemical and canvas straitjackets. Living with your mother. Treated like a miscreant. Then you begin to rise to the top again. This is one of the man’s first public performances before a public eager and waiting so long for his return.
Phineas Newborn Jr., 57, Top Jazz Pianist
Phineas Newborn Jr., a leading jazz pianist, died at his home in Memphis, Tenn., Friday. He was 57 years old.
The cause of death has not been released. Irvin Salky, Mr. Newborn's agent and friend, said X-rays six weeks ago showed a growth on one of his lungs.
His albums included ''A World of Piano,'' ''The Newborn Touch,'' ''The Great Piano of Phineas,'' and ''Piano Artistry of Phineas Newborn.''
i couldn't top the master brandonshred but i gave it a good tribute.
Although Mr. Newborn was not a celebrity, he was highly regarded by jazz aficionados, especially in the 1950's and 60's. ''In his prime, he was one of the three greatest jazz pianists of all time, right up there with Bud Powell and Art Tatum,'' said Leonard Feather, a jazz critic for Downbeat magazine and The Los Angeles Times.
His father, Phineas Newborn Sr., led a big band that played on Memphis's celebrated Beale Street in the 30's and 40's. Mr. Newborn grew up playing saxophone, trumpet and vibraphone in the band, which included his brother Calvin, who played guitar.
Besides his brother, he is survived by his mother, daughters, a son and two grandchildren.
A racial attack took him out of the playing circuit in 1974. He was admitted to the Veteran’s Hospital with a cracked jawbone, broken nose and several broken fingers. The day Phineas was discharged from the hospital he went to Ardent recording studios and recorded a Grammy nominated album, ‘Solo Piano’.The tracks included a version of ‘Out of The World’ which contained stunning left-hand virtuosity.
Stanley Booth says that ‘hearing that performance while looking at the X-ray photos of Phineas’s broken hands is enough to make you think that Little Red (Phineas Newborn), like Jerry Lee Lewis is a little more than human.
'BRATO Ganib' i forgot i had this wonderful clip of Stanley Booth talks #OutsiderArt describing Col. #BruceHampton LEGENDARY rock critic | #StanleyBooth THE #ROLLINGSTONES favorite rock critic, all around great author, Memphis 'BRATO GANIb' * | |
Rhythm Oil: A Journey Through the Music
Phineas Newborn, Jr. - Web Essay
By ROBERT PALMER
Published: July 11, 1986
Phineas Newborn Jr., Sweet Basil, 88 Seventh Avenue South, below West Fourth Street (242-1785).
Phineas Newborn, Jr. - Web Essay
By ROBERT PALMER
Published: July 11, 1986
Phineas Newborn Jr., Sweet Basil, 88 Seventh Avenue South, below West Fourth Street (242-1785).
Born into a musical Memphis family and a pianist with his father's big band and on early B. B. King recordings while still in his teens, Phineas Newborn Jr. was in every sense a prodigy.
By the time he made his classic Atlantic, RCA and Contemporary jazz albums, in the 1950's and early 60's, that prodigious abundance of technique was getting him compared with the virtuosic Art Tatum, and dismissed by some as all fingers, no heart. That was never true, and certainly isn't now. In his maturity, Mr. Newborn is one of the masters of jazz piano, with an immediately identifiable tone and touch, great harmonic originality, and, as a kind of signature, octave runs that seem to fairly whip along the keyboard.
Shows are around 10 and 11:30 P.M. and 1 A.M. through Sunday, with a $10 music charge and $6 minimum.
tav falco
PHINEAS NEWBORN, Jr.
August 17, 1975 Memphis, Tennessee
3-min. excerpt 1/2 »
Open Reel Video original, B&W
Imagine yourself a prodigy, a jazz virtuoso of the 1950s. You have played with everybody from Duke Ellington to Charlie Mingus. Then POW… you are lost for twenty years. Your achievements and talents put into chemical and canvas straitjackets. Living with your mother. Treated like a miscreant. Then you begin to rise to the top again. This is one of the man’s first public performances before a public eager and waiting so long for his return.
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