Saturday, January 06, 2007

StLJN Saturday at the Movies: "Just Friends" featuring Oliver Nelson with Art Farmer and Lee Konitz, plus Brubeck's "St. Louis Blues"



This week's videos feature, respectively, a St. Louis-born performer and the most famous song ever written about our city, and to provide a little contrast with last week's clips of a performance less than a month old, both are of the vintage variety. These performances were recorded in the Netherlands, and have recently resurfaced thanks to a Dutch TV program called Jazz Cellar that mines archival material recorded in the 1950s and 1960s in the Netherlands.

The first clip, filmed in 1966, is from a 20th anniversary concert for a Dutch TV station, is of an ensemble directed by St. Louis native Oliver Nelson and featuring Lee Konitz on alto sax, Art Farmer on fluegelhorn, Swedish trombonist Ake Persson, and a Dutch rhythm section led by pianist Pim Jacobs. The second clip is from 1961, and features pianist Dave Brubeck and his famous quartet with Paul Desmond on alto sax performing "St. Louis Blues."

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