Art Blakey Celebration and a Dual Film Presentation

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Art Blakey Celebration and a Dual Film Presentation

Posted on:October 9, 2019

Tune in ALL DAY TODAY, as we celebrate Art Blakey’s 100th birthday. KSDS is featuring Art Blakey and Jazz Messenger Alumni exclusively up until 6pm. Special giveaways, interviews and of course, music, relating to Art Blakey and his Messengers throughout the years will be played all day long. TONIGHT we have a live Blakey celebration at the Saville with a film showing at 730PM. The film will also celebrate 80 Years of Blue Note Records. The presentation will be given by Station Manager, Ken Poston and will feature rare film clips including Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Horace Silver, Clifford Brown, Jimmy Smith, Stanley Turrentine, Sonny Rollins, Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd, Benny Golson, Cannonball Adderley, James Moody, J.J. Johnson and more. It is open to the public and NO parking permit is required (Lot 8). We will see there!

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jazmanralph@yahoo.com:

10/12/2019 5:50:38 PM

A hearty big-time Jazz lovers’ shout out to Ken Poston for that great, informative and above all swingin’ tribute last night to the inimitable Art Blakey and the iconic Blue Note Records, both in film and lecture. Although the “crowd” was small, we made up for it in appreciation of the show. I learned a lot – I was transported back in time in a Jazz time machine via those old kinescopes and film, nearly all from European television, of those great artists, the inimitable artistry of Blakey and his Messenger bands. I didn’t know the Jazz Messenger bands were originally just named “The Messengers” until Blakey paid a moke of an announcer, was it “Petey”? $5 or so bucks to announce his name correctly or he’d mess up your name in a most vile way! The kinescopes of the editions of the Messengers that had Lee Morgan up front caused me to realize in greater depth how huge a loss Morgan’s death was to Jazz and a irreparable loss to the art of Mankind! Likewise the very bad kinescope of Clifford Brown, playing “Lady Be Good”, Clifford Brown, the trumpet player who got the greatest of praise from Miles Davis in his Autobiography of Miles Davis where Miles said that if Clifford had lived, “he would’ve sat me on the bench!” That was Miles being honest and not an A-hole, which we fans know he could sometime be. Thanks Ken, my brother, for all the hard work I could tell you put into the historical text of your lecture (the story of Sidney Bechet shooting a woman in a “duel” outside a club after a fight in the club was pure gold! I knew Bechet was a bad-ass but that one took the cake, man! But those guys back then, our fathers and grandfathers, as a Black man I must say, they were iron men and didn’t take no s**t. Billy Eckstine was a “pretty boy” and he carried a .32 automatic! I do wish I didn’t hear laughter from the rather smallish audience when you mentioned Soupy Sales in introducing the Clifford Brown kinescope which was pretty bad technically, but anything of the inimitable Clifford Brown is all right with me. Again, like Lee Morgan, a massive loss to the art and humanity when Clifford died way too young in that tragic car accident. Getting back to Soupy, a lot of people don’t know Soupy, from and based in Detroit (a city that had once could brag of 25 Jazz clubs, great artists like Donald Byrd and Vi Redd are reputed to be from NYC, but are native Detroiters) had a Jazz TV show on local Detroit television called “Soups On” which I think the “Lady Be Good” track we saw last night was from. A great friend and Native Detroiter, San Francisco Fire Dept. (retired) Captain Kenny Ferris, once told me Soupy had all the greats on his “Soups On” show and it wasn’t laughable, sounds more like Soupy’s “Soups On” was sublime for a Jazz lover like me. Thanks so much, Ken. You should make that show an annual thing. Ralph M. Semien, Jazz 88 member and volunteer. PS: Attached below is a link to a tribute to Art Blakey NPR radio did yesterday that I wanted to tell everyone about, particularly Ken, for the archives. There’s a great interview with Blakey at the end of which Blakey said of his life and career: "You can't just think about making money. Because you ain't never going to see an armored car following a hearse. The only thing that follows you to the cemetery is respect. And you must earn it. So that's where I'm at: I chose respect." https://www.npr.org/2019/10/11/769311659/art-blakeys-legacy-a-rallying-cry-and-a-gathering-place There are some more viewable kinescopes, tape/film of Clifford Brown online. Here’s a link. https://www.google.com/search?q=clifford+brown+video&oq=Cliffor&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0j69i57j35i39j0j69i61.6207j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8