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Bob Dylan, folk, Jazz

10 fine Jazz Covers Of Bob Dylan Songs

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bob dylan jazz

 

10 fine Jazz Covers Of Bob Dylan Songs

“We all play folk music.”
– Thelonious Monk (to Dylan)

Jazz spans a period of over 100 years and encompasses a range of music from ragtime to the present day, and has proved to be very difficult to define. Jazz makes heavy use of improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation and the swung note, as well as aspects of European harmony, American popular music, the brass band tradition, and African musical elements such as blue notes and ragtime. The birth of Jazz in the multicultural society of America has led intellectuals from around the world to hail Jazz as “one of America’s original art forms”

Bob Dylan is Jazz at heart, what I mean is that he improvises, he elaborates on his own work. Sometimes his songs are unreckognisable to us. He goes with flow, he goes where the song takes him. He is very “jazzy”, but he does seldom sound like jazz.

I have had quite a few posts with Bob Dylan cover versions and today we are looking at Jazz artists doing their interpretations of his songs.

Cassandra Wilson – Lay Lady Lay (audio):

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Music Calendar

May 8 in music history

Robert Johnson (May 8, 1911 – August 16, 1938) – read more

“You think you’re getting a handle on playing the blues, and then you hear Robert Johnson — some of the rhythms he’s doing and playing and singing at the same time, you think, ‘This guy must have three brains!’ ”
~Keith Richards

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Favorite album? I think the Robert Johnson album. I listen to that quite a bit still.
~Bob Dylan (Rockline interview – June 1985)

 robert_johnson
 Bob Dylan: Love Minus Zero/No Limit, Savoy Hotel, London England 8 May 1965 (Video) – read more

The Bob Dylan England Tour 1965 (April 30 – May 10) was a concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan during late April and early May 1965. The tour was widely documented by filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, who used the footage of the tour in his documentary Dont Look Back.

  bob dylan savoy hotel 1965
 Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945, in Allentown, Pennsylvania) is an American pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music. Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music; as a group leader and a solo performer. His improvisations draw not only from the traditions of jazz, but from other genres as well, especially Western classical music, gospel, blues, and ethnic folk music.  keithjarrett
Let It Be is the 12th and final studio album released by the English rock band The Beatles. It was released on 8 May 1970 by the band’s Apple Records label shortly after the group announced their break-up.  let-it-be
 Richard Edward Arnold (May 15, 1918 – May 8, 2008), known professionally as Eddy Arnold, was an American country music singer who performed for six decades. He was a so-called Nashville sound (country/popular music) innovator of the late 1950s, and scored 147 songs on the Billboard country music charts, second only to George Jones. He sold more than 85 million records. A member of the Grand Ole Opry (beginning 1943) and the Country Music Hall of Fame (beginning 1966), Arnold ranked 22nd on Country Music Television’s 2003 list of “The 40 Greatest Men of Country Music.” He co-wrote the country and pop standard “You Don’t Know Me”.  Eddy_Arnold
Daniel Ray Whitten (May 8, 1943 – November 18, 1972) was an American musician and songwriter best known for his work with Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and for the song “I Don’t Want To Talk About It”, a hit for Rita Coolidge, Rod Stewart and Everything but the Girl. Danny_ray_whitten
Chris Frantz (born Charlton Christopher Frantz, May 8, 1951, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, United States) is an American musician and record producer. He was the drummer for both Talking Heads and the Tom Tom Club. chris-frantz
Gary Glitter (born Paul Francis Gadd on 8 May 1944) is an English former glam rock singer-songwriter and musician. Gary_Glitter_-_TopPop_1974_5

Spotify Playlist – May 8
Blues, Music Calendar

Today: The late Robert Johnson was born in 1911 – 102 years ago

“Just look at the picture of him with the acoustic guitar: His fingers are in the weirdest position. If you’re a guitar player looking at that, you know this is a guy who’s not even thinking; he’s just there. … The soul of his creative originality plays a huge part in music making for everyone who’s ever written a song and really known what they’re doing.”
~Neil Young

“You think you’re getting a handle on playing the blues, and then you hear Robert Johnson — some of the rhythms he’s doing and playing and singing at the same time, you think, ‘This guy must have three brains!’ ”
~Keith Richards

Favorite album? I think the Robert Johnson album. I listen to that quite a bit still.
~Bob Dylan (Rockline interview – June 1985)

Cross Road Blues:

From Wikipedia:
Birth name Robert Leroy Johnson
Born May 8, 1911
Hazlehurst, Mississippi
Died August 16, 1938 (aged 27)
Greenwood, Mississippi
Genres Delta blues, Country blues
Occupations Musician, songwriter
Instruments Guitar, vocals, harmonica
Years active 1929–38

Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911 – August 16, 1938) was an American blues singer and musician. His landmark recordings from 1936–37 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that have influenced later generations of musicians. Johnson’s shadowy, poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given rise to much legend, including a Faustian myth. As an itinerant performer who played mostly on street corners, in juke joints, and at Saturday night dances, Johnson enjoyed little commercial success or public recognition in his lifetime.

Johnson’s records sold poorly during his lifetime. It was only after the reissue of his recordings in 1961 on the LP King of the Delta Blues Singers that his work reached a wider audience. Johnson is now recognized as a master of the blues, particularly of the Mississippi Delta blues style. He is credited by many rock musicians as an important influence; Eric Clapton has called Johnson “the most important blues singer that ever lived.” Johnson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an “Early Influence” in their first induction ceremony in 1986. In 2003, David Fricke ranked Johnson fifth in Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

Me and the Devil Blues:

…Johnson’s major influence has been on genres of music that weren’t recognized as such until long after his death: rock and roll and rock. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included four of his songs in a set of 500 they deemed to have shaped the genre:

Johnson recorded these songs a decade and a half before the recognized advent of rock and roll, dying a year or two later. The Museum inducted him as an “Early Influence” in their first induction ceremony in 1986, almost a half century after his death. Marc Meyers of the Wall Street Journal wrote that, “His ‘Stop Breakin’ Down Blues’ from 1937 is so far ahead of its time that the song could easily have been a rock demo cut in 1954.

Playlist of the day:

Other May-08:

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