Saturday Jazz Performance - Terry Waldo Plays "12th Street Rag" and "Proctology"

Today for the Saturday Jazz Performance we have a two for one post! The first Saturday of the month is reserved for piano performances. Here we look at the much accomplished pianist Terry Waldo.

Terry Waldo was born in Ohio in 1944 and began studying classical piano at around the age of eight. He quickly changed direction and fell in love with jazz and ragtime.

He specializes in playing ragtime and early jazz, but he is also a composer, arranger and author. Waldo wrote the book This Is Ragtime and has  composed music for such productions as Storyville: The Naked Dance, Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson and The Tonight Show. He has recorded many CDs which are available at his website.

Here he performs at the piano in 2006. It's not known whether Proctology is a lament or a celebration, but, it is one of Waldo's  many compositions.





In this next video Waldo plays this classic piece 12th Street Rag in his own comic way!

12th Street Rag was written by Euday L. Bowman and published by the Jenkins Music Company in 1914.  It wasn't until 1919 that lyrics were added to the composition by James S. Sumner.

Over the years the tune has had many revivals and just about every jazz band imaginable has played it. 12th Street Rag is still popular to this day among jazz bands and fans alike.

So, without further ado... Terry Waldo in a performance from 2007...



Jazz Performance Saturday! - Doc Cheatham plays "Someday You'll Be Sorry"

Jazz Performance Saturday is here again. This Saturday will show a performance by Doc Cheatham and his band at the 1985 Chicago Jazz Festival as they play Someday You'll Be Sorry.

Someday You'll Be Sorry is a Louis Armstrong composition that became a jazz standard. Here Doc Cheatham plays with Bud Freeman's group at the Festival, although Freeman sat out. Doc plays trumpet and sings, while Stu Katz plays piano, Bobby Roberts is on guitar, John Bany is plucking the bass and Barrett Deems is playing drums. 

"Someday You'll Be Sorry" - 1985

Memories of a Jazz Journalist - Part Eight - Moshe Feldman by George A. Borgman

Here is a continuation of a series of entries that come from an article that George wrote in 2004 entitled Memories of A Jazz Journalist.

 

Pianist Moshe Feldman (Boston, MA), an immigrant from the Soviet Union, gave me the lowdown on the KGB's displeasure with Russian jazz musicians performing at the American Embassy in Moscow. Also, the players wanted to be paid in American beer instead of the worthless rubles.

Moshe Feldman known also by the moniker "Moishe from Russia" is a concert pianist and educator specializing in traditional jazz and Klezmer music. He often lectures and gives demonstrations on the early roots of jazz piano, and varying styles of piano playing techniques from the ragtime of  Scott Joplin, to Harlem Stride.

He continues to play with various jazz musicians including clarinetist Billy Novick. Watch him play Midnight in Moscow with The Last Minutemen in 2012!

 

CHECK OUT PART NINE