Jazz Listening Session With Russ Gershon: Fletcher Henderson & Sun Ra at Zoom (anywhere, Earth)

Free; donations gratefully accepted.
Register here for the zoom session: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0lf-CpqT0vG9QXCW_50CvJDb0WxvZquG_X

For musicians and non-musicians: lots of history, lots of listening, a little bit of theory and analysis.

Fletcher Henderson laid down a blueprint for the jazz big band, influential to the present day. His emphasis on precision, elegance and top talent including Louis Armstrong, Don Redman and Coleman Hawkins was crucial in moving the center of gravity of jazz arranging from improvised polyphony to a more orchestrated approach....

read more

Free; donations gratefully accepted.
Register here for the zoom session: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0lf-CpqT0vG9QXCW_50CvJDb0WxvZquG_X

For musicians and non-musicians: lots of history, lots of listening, a little bit of theory and analysis.

Fletcher Henderson laid down a blueprint for the jazz big band, influential to the present day. His emphasis on precision, elegance and top talent including Louis Armstrong, Don Redman and Coleman Hawkins was crucial in moving the center of gravity of jazz arranging from improvised polyphony to a more orchestrated approach.

Sun Ra (née Herman "Sonny" Blount) led the Arkestra – the most far ranging large ensemble in jazz from the fifties through his passing in 1993. Ra was among the first and most committed jazz musicians to utilize electric keyboards, electric bass, African drums, group improvisation, DIY recording and more.

These two seemingly quite different men, seventeen years apart in age, were connected in at least two ways: as a young man in Birmingham AL, Sonny Blount was profoundly affected by Henderson's recordings and live appearances. And in 1946, he worked as a pianist and arranger for Henderson on an extended engagement at the Club DeLisa in Chicago.

Our session will explore the major innovations that these two brought to the big band (a topic much too large for one session!) listen to selected Henderson recordings, look at my transcriptions, and hear Sun Ra's take on the same material forty or more years later.

Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6waw81uOzQDPdHDskNlY1i...

show less