Tribute to Jan Johansson

19 Dec, 2017 at 18:48 | Posted in Varia | 1 Comment


A great pianist’s tribute to another great pianist. Absolutely magnificent !

1 Comment

  1. I watched for awhile. It’s very refined and gentle, precise, classical … the swing is light, to my ears. My own tastes run to what Adorno probably considered music in support of capitalist atrocities: Count Basie’s Pennies From Heaven for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j_c3gW2Wdo where Basie starts out by accelerating the “pennies from heaven” phrasing, putting four beats into two, or something … I’ve also been listening to a tune I don’t know the name of from a CD of my Dad’s old 78 collection. I lost the key so I don’t know the name of the song or the artist, and I can’t find it on youtube. It sounds like Bix Beiderbecke because the tone of the cornet is “like a girl saying yes”. I can’t stop listening to it because the cornet beautifully sets up the final chorus by playing on the beat and ahead of the beat, then on the final bar he lays off for three beats. I’m trying to learn it but most times I end up coming in too soon at the end because Bix set it up that way! It takes genius to wait as long as he does before playing on the final bar of the final chorus, when everything else in the song indicates you should play hard on the one. But Bix (?) waits for the three, or the and of three …

    Upon repeated listenings though I can hear that Bix is playing with the beat throughout, subtly. On the very first chorus he plays on or ahead of the beat except one bar where he lays back. And the swing is impeccable, raucous, rambunctious …

    Rather than support capitalism, what I hear in Bix is his ability to put all the sadness of life into one note in one solo chorus, just a Bb with a momentary tone of despair, quickly returning to the characteristic smoothness. He slips it in there, and it’s like saying “life sucks”, it’s very honest and true, at least to me, an entire story told in one note lasting a few milliseconds …

    Comment by Robert Mitchell— 20 Dec, 2017 #


Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

Blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and Comments feeds.