Don Shor's blog

Jazz After Dark April 25, 2017

Happy Birthday to Ella!

April 25 2017 is the 100th anniversary of Ella Fitzgerald’s birth. The First Lady of Song, as she was called, had a career that spanned five decades. Jazz After Dark will honor our favorite vocalist with a retrospective of her career.

Her first big hit was the nursery rhyme A Tisket, A Tasket. After fronting Chick Webb’s band, and then her own, she then gracefully moved through the bebop era as perhaps the best jazz scatting vocalist of all time. Her Songbook series, studio albums that were comprehensive and definitive presentations of the works of Gershwin, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, and others, left a legacy that is unrivalled: an essential compilation of what has become known as the Great American Songbook.

Ella was in many ways a pop singer at a time when jazz was America’s pop music. She was always willing to add new numbers to her repertoire (“the now sound,” she would call it during her live concerts), so she did Jobim, and Bacharach, and even the Beatles. She could make any song swing.

Jazz After Dark April 04, 2017

An hour of jazz legends tonight! 

  • Louis Armstrong & Earl Hines
  • Jelly Roll Morton
  • Fats Waller & His Rhythm
  • Mildred Bailey & Red Norvo and His Orchestra
  • Count Basie with Billie Holiday
  • Billie Holiday
  • Nat King Cole
  • Charlie Parker
  • Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
  • Duke Ellington/Johnny Hodges
  • Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
  • Leo Wright
  • Earl "Fatha" Hines
  • Lionel Hampton & Axel Zwingenberger
  • Stanley Jordan

Jazz After Dark March 28, 2017

Jazz standards by great performers tonight!

  • Duke Ellington with Peggy Lee --  I'm Gonna Go Fishin'
  • Peggy Lee & Hal Mooney and His Orchestra -- What Can I Say After I Say I'm Sorry
  • Jimmy Giuffre & Jim Hall -- Two Kinds of Blues
  • Lou Levy -- Black Coffee
  • Johnny Hodges -- Take the "A" Train
  • Louis Armstrong & Oscar Peterson -- I Get a Kick Out of You
  • Ella Fitzgerald with Duke Ellington & His Orchestra -- Caravan
  • Lorraine Geller -- Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You
  • Bud Shank  -- Round About Midnight ~
  • Cal Tjader -- Fried Bananas
  • Earl "Fatha" Hines -- Tosca's Dance
  • Cannonball Adderley -- Plenty, Plenty Soul
  • Erena Terakubo -- Take the "A" Train