Slouching Towards Birdland (Will Friedwald's SubStack)

Articles

Remembering "Buddy" Strouse: PLAYBOY AFTER DARK May 14, 1970 - Part 2

1 week ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

continued from part 1A few years ago, my friend Katharine Kaplan - wife of the formidable Harvey Kaplan (“Psychoanalyst and Psychologist in Private Practice”) - informed me that the two of them were living immediately downstairs from Charles and Barbara Strouse. This was the instigation for a series of events that the Kaplans threw in honor of the Strouses, and to which I had the pleasure of being invited.
Remembering "Buddy" Strouse: PLAYBOY AFTER DARK May 14, 1970 - Part 1

2 weeks ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

A few years ago, my friend Katharine Kaplan - wife of the formidable Harvey Kaplan (“Psychoanalyst and Psychologist in Private Practice”) - informed me that the two of them were living immediately downstairs from Charles and Barbara Strouse. This was the instigation for a series of events that the Kaplans threw in honor of the Strouses, and to which I had the pleasure of being invited.
"Ballad of the Sad Young Men" Part 2

2 weeks ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

Before we go any further, just to refresh everyone’s memory, here again is the original cast performance, by Tani Seitz (listed as “Toni Seitz” in wiki) on the original cast album for The Nervous Set. A mini-mystery: the wiki entry on this show contradicts itself in that it refers to the show both as a Broadway musical and an Off-Broadway musical.
A Gil Evans Birthday Special: "Ballad of the Sad Young Men" Part 1

3 weeks ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

I have a few more ELLA FITZGERALD postings to get into, but I thought I would take a detour for this week’s Substack for three reasons:1 - There’s a great new CD out by Ryan Truesdell and the Gil Evans Project - Shades of Sound (Live at Jazz Standard, Vol. 2) which they are launching at Birdland (I hope to be there on Tuesday - oh wow that’s tonight!) I am also writing a full-length review of this excellent new release for the Wall Street Journal.
Ella Fitzgerald Sings "Post-Nuclear Show Tunes"

1 month ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

Pop! Goes The Ella - Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Great Hits of Today(SSS #144 2025-03-19)download: <or> play online:Ella Fitzgerald had a fascinating relationship with Broadway: she had come up during a curious age in which white popular singers, especially Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, frequently were assigned to record new show tunes - including virtually all the major new Rodgers & Hammerstein and Lerner & Loewe productions - but Black artists, not so much.
Ella Fitzgerald Sings Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and That "Ringo Beat!"

1 month ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

Pop! Goes The Ella - Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Great Hits of Today(SSS #144 2025-03-19)download: <or> play online:This was by far the most successful of Fitzgerald’s seven Beatle-centric numbers.
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Burt Bacharach Songbook

1 month ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

Pop! Goes The Ella - Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Great Hits of Today(SSS #144 2025-03-19)download: <or> play online:First, here is a note from KSDS listener Ms. Gloria Warren, who just heard my latest Sing! Sing! Sing! Program for KSDS San Diego - which is titled “Pop! Goes The Ella” and features a lot of the tracks I’m talking about here on Substack. She writes to me with the following words of encouragement:Ella gives a whole new sound to Bacharach. His songs never sounded so good.
"Pop! Goes the Ella," Part 1

1 month ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

One thing, out of many, that Judith Tick - latest and greatest biographer of Ella Fitzgerald - and I agree on is that Fitzgerald deserves more credit for her repertoire choices. We also agree that it was her two major producers - first Milt Gabler, and then, to a much greater extent, Norman Granz - who deserve credit for the Ella Fitzgerald songbook series.
Ella Fitzgerald & Nat King Cole Go "Crazy Over Horses!"

2 months ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

Here’s a 150-year-old lick that appears prominently in the “quote library” of both Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald - and, more recently, inspired by both of them, Diana Krall. “Horses” is a 1926 novelty song recorded by the New York-based hot dance orchestra, George Olsen and his Music. The song is credited to Byron Gay (lyrics), who wrote a number of novelty tunes (“The Vamp,” “Four or Five Times”) and Richard Whiting (music) who wrote a lot of everything.
"Night of the Living Ed"

2 months ago | willfriedwald.substack.com | Will Friedwald

When we talk about the great champions of musical and performance culture, we are making a serious omission if we don’t include Ed Sullivan who presented and preserved more great music than virtually anyone in American history. For 22 years he brought us the greatest in American vernacular music, sometimes opera, classical, and world music as well.