[JPL] Marvin Gaye

Tue Aug 26 14:38:46 EDT 2008

Many didn't know that Marvin was basically a jazz drummer while his career was developing. That's what he did first. His first stint with Motown was as a drummer...playing on many sessions...including Stevie Wonder's "Fingertips" Pt 2. I think that was Stevie's first date. His first solo release on Motown was "The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye," which was bascially a jazz standards recording. Now that's one to try and find but I think it's been long out of print but may have be re-issued. Wonderful record but Gordy wanted him to deal with R&B. His heart...particularly during that time was in jazz. 

Jae Sinnett

--- On Tue, 8/26/08, Jackson, Bobby <Bobby.Jackson at ideastream.org> wrote:

> From: Jackson, Bobby <Bobby.Jackson at ideastream.org>
> Subject: RE: [JPL]  Marvin Gaye
> To: jazzproglist at jazzweek.com
> Date: Tuesday, August 26, 2008, 2:28 PM
> This week's sponsor:  Lisa Hilton
> 
> Composer/pianist Lisa Hilton's latest release,
> ''Sunny Day Theory'' is on your desk now. 
> Hilton is joined by top talent Lewis Nash on drums, Larry
> Grenadier on bass and Brice Winston on tenor sax.  Eighteen
> time Grammy winner, Al Schmitt recorded and mixed the 12
> track release.
> 
> What is the ''Sunny Day Theory''?  Hilton
> smiles, ''My engineer Larry Mah made me laugh
> recounting a 'Foggy Day Theory', so I countered with
> a 'Sunny Day Theory' which basically assumes that
> difficulties, if embraced honestly,  create opportunity for
> growth.  Life can be challenging: I've realized after a
> rough year that the complex can be dealt with one step at a
> time, that there can be depth in something as simple as a
> melody, beauty within the blues, and that with tomorrow
> there is always the hope for a sunny day.''
> 
> LisaHiltonMusic.com
> 
> ''Sunny Day Theory''/Ruby Slippers
> Productions promotion by Jane Dashow/Jazzzdog.com
> 
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 
> Ricky,
> 
> Truer words were never written.  Marvin's versions of
> "The Shadow of Your Smile," "I Wish I
> Didn't Love You So," "I Won't Cry
> Anymore" are my favorites on "Vulnerable".
> 
> Aloha,
> 
> Bobby Jackson
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jazzproglist-bounces at jazzweek.com
> [mailto:jazzproglist-bounces at jazzweek.com] On Behalf Of
> onthebeach at aol.com
> Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 1:26 PM
> To: jazzproglist at jazzweek.com
> Subject: Re: [JPL] Marvin Gaye
> 
> This week's sponsor:  Lisa Hilton
> 
> Composer/pianist Lisa Hilton's latest release,
> ''Sunny Day Theory'' is on your desk now. 
> Hilton is joined by top talent Lewis Nash on drums, Larry
> Grenadier on bass and Brice Winston on tenor sax.  Eighteen
> time Grammy winner, Al Schmitt recorded and mixed the 12
> track release.
> 
> What is the ''Sunny Day Theory''?  Hilton
> smiles, ''My engineer Larry Mah made me laugh
> recounting a 'Foggy Day Theory', so I countered with
> a 'Sunny Day Theory' which basically assumes that
> difficulties, if embraced honestly,  create opportunity for
> growth.  Life can be challenging: I've realized after a
> rough year that the complex can be dealt with one step at a
> time, that there can be depth in something as simple as a
> melody, beauty within the blues, and that with tomorrow
> there is always the hope for a sunny day.''
> 
> LisaHiltonMusic.com
> 
> ''Sunny Day Theory''/Ruby Slippers
> Productions promotion by Jane Dashow/Jazzzdog.com 
> 
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> Even after he'd won his creative independence with
> "What's Going On" and 
> commissioned a set of lush ballad orchestrations from
> pianist-composer 
> Bobby Scott, Gaye compulsively re-recorded his own
> performances, unsure 
> that he possessed the vocal maturity to get the job done.
> The results, 
> finally released in 1997 as the posthumous album
> "Vulnerable," show he 
> needn't have worried. 
> 
>  folks: if you've never heard this recording you are in
> for a SPECIAL treat.  not only will it fit nicely into most
> jazz programs, it ranks with his very finest work, and while
> not being the epic statement that the timeless
> "What's Going On" is, it is in its own way a
> timeless classic--and unfairly
> an overlooked and nearly forgotten recording that will make
> you say "wow!"  
> 
> if you are even slightly a marvin fan, run and get your
> hands on this one! 
> like the man from the suits store sez: "i guarantee
> it!"
> 
> 
> ricky schultz
> 
> www.jazzconsultant.com
> 
> www.ResonanceRecords.org
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dr. Jazz <drjazz at drjazz.com>
> To: Jazz Programmers Mailing List
> <jazzproglist at jazzweek.com>
> Sent: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 7:40 am
> Subject: [JPL] Jazz fest to honor Motown superstar Marvin
> Gaye
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This week's sponsor:  Lisa Hilton 
>  
> 
> Composer/pianist Lisa Hilton's latest release,
> ''Sunny Day Theory'' is on your desk now. 
> Hilton is joined by top talent Lewis Nash on drums, Larry
> Grenadier on bass and Brice Winston on tenor sax.  Eighteen
> time Grammy winner, Al Schmitt recorded and m
> ixed the 12 track release. 
>  
> 
> What is the ''Sunny Day Theory''?  Hilton
> smiles, ''My engineer Larry Mah made me laugh
> recounting a 'Foggy Day Theory', so I countered with
> a 'Sunny Day Theory' which basically assumes that
> difficulties, if embraced honestly,  create opportunity for
> growth.  Life can be challenging: I've realized after a
> rough year that the complex can be dealt with one step at a
> time, that there can be depth in something as simple as a
> melody, beauty within the blues, and that with tomorrow
> there is always the hope for a sunny day.'' 
>  
> 
> LisaHiltonMusic.com 
>  
> 
> ''Sunny Day Theory''/Ruby Slippers
> Productions promotion by Jane Dashow/Jazzzdog.com  
> 
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 
>  
> 
> 
>  Jazz fest to honor Motown superstar Marvin Gaye 
>  
> 
> BY BEN EDMONDS . FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER . August 26,
> 2008 
>  
> 
> 
> Somewhere, Marvin Gaye is smiling. 
>  
> 
> The singer was known as "the Prince of Motown"
> and became one of that 
> fabled label's most commercially successful artists on
> the strength of 
> hits like "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)"
> and "I Heard It Through 
> the Grapevine." 
>  
> 
> He turned musical revolutionary with "What's Going
> On," his 1971 
> masterpiece, following it with "Let's Get It
> On," a nearly equal 
> masterpiece of carnal desire. By the time of Gaye's
> tragic death in 
> 1984, not long after his dramatic comeback with
> "Sexual Healing," the 
> singer had scaled artistic heights few could have
> imagined. 
> =C
> 2
> 
> Yet for all his creative accomplishment and commercial
> validation, one 
> lifelong desire eluded him: More than anything, Gaye wanted
> to be a 
> serious jazz balladeer. The man Janet Jackson once called
> black 
> culture's John Lennon dreamed of being its Frank
> Sinatra. 
>  
> 
> So it is fitting that Friday's opening night of the
> 2008 Detroit 
> International Jazz Festival will close with a tribute to
> Marvin Gaye 
> arranged by this year's artist-in-residence, Christian
> McBride. The 
> celebrated bassist has programmed a set of Gaye's music
> to be performed 
> by a 19-piece orchestra plus singers Lalah Hathaway,
> Rahsaan Patterson, 
> José James and a trio of backing vocalists. 
>  
> 
> McBride responded immediately when festival executive and
> artistic 
> director Terri Pontremoli proposed the tribute. 
>  
> 
> "I grew up on rhythm and blues and I own nearly
> everything Marvin Gaye 
> ever recorded," enthuses the 35-year-old
> Philadelphian, whose quartet 
> will be surrounded by an impressive posse of Motor City
> musicians to 
> create a big band that incarnates the festival theme
> "A Love Supreme: 
> The Philly/Detroit Summit." 
>  
> 
> "I re-listened to all Marvin's music and it was
> interesting to hear his 
> growth from the early '60s to the mid '70s,"
> he says. "Man, what a time! 
> Everybody was really stretching, pushing themselves to the
> max. Marvin 
> always had a jazz attitude: 'I need to play the /real/
> stuff.' When they 
> didn't bring it to him, he took it upon himself to
> bring it to them. 
>  0A
> "I won't be presenting any particularly radical
> rearrangements. In this 
> festival setting, and in this city, I think people want to
> hear the 
> music and connect with their personal reminiscences. You
> don't want to 
> do too much to disguise that, so I'll stick reasonably
> close to the 
> original script. I have, however, written an overture of
> sorts, based on 
> a number of Marvin's themes. It will allow us to ease
> into the set and 
> work any butterflies out." 
>  
> 
> For those who knew Gaye personally, like former Detroit
> Lions great Lem 
> Barney, the tribute will be especially poignant. 
>  
> 
> "Oh, you couldn't keep him away from jazz,"
> testifies the pro football 
> Hall of Famer, who bonded with Gaye during the singer's
> highly 
> publicized tryout with the Lions in 1970 and was later
> invited to 
> contribute background vocals to "What's Going
> On." "Marvin would sit at 
> the piano and sing Sinatra and Nat King Cole for /hours/.
> They'd let him 
> do as much of that as he wanted on his own time, but he
> couldn't put it 
> on wax. That frustrated him greatly." 
>  
> 
> Gaye did release albums of standards early in his Motown
> career, but the 
> success of hard-edged R&B numbers like "Stubborn
> Kind of Fellow" and 
> "Hitch Hike" forced him to shelve any such
> ambitions. 
>  
> 
> Even after he'd won his creative independence with
> "What's Going On" and 
> commissioned a set of lush ballad orchestrations from
> pianist-composer 
> Bobby Scott, Gaye compulsively re-recorded his own
> performances, unsu
> re 
> that he possessed the vocal maturity to get the job done.
> The results, 
> finally released in 1997 as the posthumous album
> "Vulnerable," show he 
> needn't have worried. 
>  
> 
> "Marvin Gaye could sing anything he put his mind
> to," Jack Ashford, a 
> jazz vibraphonist whom Gaye brought to Motown, has said.
> Ashford's 
> tambourine became a signature element of the famous Funk
> Brothers studio 
> band. "In a way that many of the other producers did
> not, Marvin 
> understood and appreciated the fact that most of us came
> from jazz 
> backgrounds. He was no real threat instrumentally -- he
> could hold his 
> own on piano or drums, after a fashion -- but we loved him
> because he 
> possessed the soul of a jazz musician." 
>  
> 
> Saxophonist Diego Rivera was ideally suited to recruit the
> Detroit 
> musicians for McBride's tribute. His own jazz homage to
> "What's Going 
> On" has had several public performances, including one
> by the Michigan 
> State University Jazz Band at last year's festival. 
>  
> 
> "When I told the musicians what the project was,"
> he says, "they were 
> all excited, not only to work with Christian, but to play
> the music of 
> Marvin Gaye. Jazz is the music of the moment, and playing
> it is the art 
> of living fully in that moment. Marvin worked with emotion
> in much the 
> same way." 
>  
> 
> By investing himself so fully in his artistry, Gaye's
> music connected 
> popular culture to something eternal. "The key to life
> is the spirit 
> that leads," offers Lem Barney. These da
> ys Barney, who will act as 
> special guest emcee for this tribute to his departed
> friend, is director 
> of physician relations and recruitment for the Detroit
> Medical Center. 
> He also serves as associate pastor at Hope United Church. 
>  
> 
> "There are good spirits and bad spirits," he
> explains. "You have to 
> choose each day which spirits you're going to serve.
> Marvin had his 
> share of both, but when you hear his music, even after all
> this time, 
> you're hearing the spirit that leads." 
>  
> 
> /Contact freelance writer *BEN EDMONDS* at
> bedmonds5131 at comcast.net 
> <http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080826/ENT04/mailto:bedmonds5131@comcast.net>./ 
>  
> 
> http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080826/ENT04/808260334 
>  
> 
> -- 
> Dr. Jazz 
> 
> Dr. Jazz Operations 
> 
> 24270 Eastwood 
> 
> Oak Park, MI  48237 
> 
> (248) 542-7888 
> 
> http://www.drjazz.com 
> 
> SKYPE:  drjazz99 
>  
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