I first met my friend "Canada's Sweetheart of Swing" Alex Pangman when she was sixteen and just getting into 20's and 30's jazz.
Alex's devotion to the archaic style which I love has now blossomed for several decades, and it makes her unique among Canadian jazz singers.
In this April 3, 2021 livestream performance she is joined by Drew Jurecka, violin, and Nathan Hiltz, guitar... and all three of them are pretty damn wonderful!
The whole concert is great, but if you want to skip ahead to Drew and Nathan's version of "Black and Blue Bottom", it begins at 46:41.
If you are a Venuti fan, wait till you get a load of Drew wrapping the horsehairs around his fiddle to play in the seldom-seen "four string Joe" style... !
Will
Comments
Just started watching and wow, they're great!
Do you know what platform they use to stream, did they mention it in the video?
Yeah, Buco, they talk about that at about 46:00... they seem to have just moved from "Jam Kazam" to "Sync Space" as far as I can tell... and they also said that they had all upgraded to "Fibe", a brand new Bell Canada fibre optic internet system...
Just by coincidence, "Fibe" is also being installed in my neighbourhood so I hope to be able to give you a review of that soon...
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
Thanks man. They're amazing, great musicians.
A delight – thanks Will.
Nice repertoire, fun presentation and great interplay between guitar and violin.
Loved the seldom-seen "four string Joe" style which I hadn’t seen since I saw Venuti tear down a packed Hammersmith Odeon, London in 1967.
Yeah, Bill, I saw Venuti in Toronto a few times.
One night there was a loud drunk standing at the bar and between every tune he would yell something like:
"HEY JOE! WHO WAS THAT GUY THAT USED TO PLAY LEAD TRUMPET IN YOUR BIG BAND???"
Venuti would bite at his fingernail, as was his habit, and look daggers at the guy.
It went on and finally Joe could take it no more.
He put down his fiddle and picked up the microphone to bellow:
"Hey, you wanna get this c******r out of here? He's gettin' on my nerves!"
... to general applause...
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
Very cool, like that style. Anyone else interested in the sounds of the 20’s should you ok on youtube Janet Klein. She has been playing that era for some time and has a great professional band.
Thanks for telling me.
They have some cool stuff on YouTube!
Will
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
Well! I am chuffed! ... as some of our UK colleagues might say...
... my friend Alex Pangman laughed at my silly suggestion that since she is Canada's Sweetheart of Swing...
... so therefore, her guitar-violin backup duo should be called the "Sweet-Hots" of Swing...
... so........then guess what happened?....
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."