Jon the cocktail piano, in England

Hey, this guy's hilarious. I can build up lots of funny story concerning to his daily life. Here's one.

As Jon arrived home, a few minutes before midnight, his wife was standing at the entrance and blocking his entering to his home. As he's lots taller than his wife, he asked her why he could not enter.

She answered saying: "Oh, Jon, you have to smile at me with that silly empty smile first." Jon said　"Well, OK. but you cannot say it an empty smile, y'know" She said "Oh? I didn't know that".

Taking an advantage of this situation, well that was just that he was taller than she though, he said; "Her majesty didn't say that my smile was empty. You cannot argue with the Queen"

"Yeah, I know, That's why I'm arguing with you at this moment. Now you have to show me that silly smile so that I can . . . . . . "

Well, since I am not the native English speaker, I cannot complete this story with big laugh. But you can, right?

I was going through You tube searching with a keyword of "jazz pianist in England" and I got him. It's a kind of surprise that Her Majesty is present to make a comment. I have no idea how well he is known in England. So, I am not sure how famous he is.

Now, you sure will notice the way he look at camera, right? That's funny. And the piano play is so old and that reminds me of the good old cocktail piano, or champagne music. Besides, he should have tuned piano before he took this video.

I have noticed there's a lot of Tristano at U tube.

I have never picked up Lennie Tristano. I had only a couple of LPs of his. I had a lot of Bill Evans, Red garland, Wynton Kelly, Oscar Peterson and such. But never was fond of listening to Lennie. For one thing, his piano play sounded me not American. I mean, his sound is rather modest. It was not like Peterson. Well for that matter, Wyton Kelly did sound modest as well but he swings a lot.



Now I notice that there are many of his recording on You Tube. And along with him, I have noticed a guy named Dave Frank. I didn't know him but boy! he is nice. It sure indicates America is where the jazz has originated.

This webpage gives you splendid guides on Dave. Well, this is for my reference, tell you the truth.

Female Jazz Pianist

I was wondering how many female jazz pianist around. I searched You tube with this keyword. There seemed to be a lot, but was not that many. After about an hour research, I concluded that there was not many. And I finally picked three Japanese females. They satisfy the criteria of technicality as well as the perspective of jazz.

I have heard Carmen McCrae when I visited Newport Jazz Fes, in 1968, or was it 1967? I cannot be sure now. She is the only female jazz pianist I have known to this date. Well, she is rather a singer, don't you think? She passed away in 1995 at her age of 74.

I picked those three: Asako shirasaki, Yoko Miwa and Hiromi Uehara. All of them sound like having their base upon the mixture of Thelonious Monk, MacCoy Tyner and a little bit of Bill Evans. I just wanted to say they are pretty close in the way to look at jazz music.

Out of those three, if I dare to pick the most favorite, it could be Miwa. Here's her play at a Jazz fes in Japan.



I like her harmony. She has the punch in her left hand. Swings pretty nice.

Ms. Uehara is exceptional. This play with Chick Corea won't bother you at all. The tune is All Blues, yes that All Blues that played by Miles Davis in early 60es. or was it the late 50es? No player ever played this tune so excitingly as this play of Ms Uehara and Corea. I mean not exciting but thought provokingly. Check it out, you'd love it.



Why do I put Uehara over Miwa? Well, the jazz perspective of Uehara is much larger, or should it be wider? than Miwa. She really SWINGs!