| Sidewalk Blues | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 2009 | |||
| Genre | Jazz, folk, blues | |||
| Length | 52:50 | |||
| Label | Tonewood Records | |||
| Producer | Tim Sparks | |||
| Tim Sparks chronology | ||||
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Sidewalk Blues (subtitled Blues, Rags, Jazz & Spirituals) is an album by American guitarist Tim Sparks, released in 2009. It marks a return to 'roots' music for Sparks after three albums of klezmer and jazz recordings on the Tzadik Records label.
After three releases on the Tzadik Records label, Sparks decided to return to his musical roots of North Carolina. In a quote from a story in High Plains Reader , Sparks said “After Masada Guitars I wanted to revisit roots music. This record is something I’ve always wanted to make, but I needed the hindsight of thirty years to work on guitar to complete it... I reached a point where I realized I had a record here and that I had good arrangements of these songs.” [1]
Sparks used a variety of guitars for the recording, including Collings, a custom-made Hoffman, Lakewood, 1954 Martin 00-17, and a 1917 Gibson L-3. [2]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Guitar Player | (no rating) [2] |
| Minor 7th | (not rated) [3] |
Guitar Player noted the wonderful sound of the various guitars used and the "great arrangements and virtuoso performances" wrote "If you think you might go for swinging fingerstyle arrangements of blues tunes... you should take this disc for a spin." [2] Music critic Chip O'Brien praised the variety of the album, writing Sparks "plows, punctuates, and pulses his way through a well-chosen batch of ragtime, jazz, country blues, and gospel with an individual flair and spirit to burn... a master of the instrument. His arrangements and performances of Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Jelly Roll Morton, and Bix Beiderbecke compositions are flawless, at times playful, and always soulful... A must have for fans of Tim Sparks and for anyone who loves fingerstyle guitar playing." [3]
Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, pianist and composer.
The Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) was a Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their "Livery Stable Blues" became the first jazz record ever issued. The group composed and recorded many jazz standards, the most famous being "Tiger Rag". In late 1917, the spelling of the band's name was changed to Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
Gennett Records was an American record company and label in Richmond, Indiana, United States, which flourished in the 1920s and produced the Gennett, Starr, Champion, Superior, and Van Speaking labels. The company also produced some Supertone, Silvertone, and Challenge records under contract. The firm also pressed most Autograph, Rainbow, Hitch, Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Our Song, and Vaughn records under contract. Gennett produced some of the earliest recordings by Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke, and Hoagy Carmichael. Its roster also included Jelly Roll Morton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, and Gene Autry.
The New Orleans Rhythm Kings (NORK) were one of the most influential jazz bands of the early to mid-1920s. The band included New Orleans and Chicago musicians who helped shape Chicago jazz and influenced many younger jazz musicians.
Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be standards changes over time. Songs included in major fake book publications and jazz reference works offer a rough guide to which songs are considered standards.
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"Tiger Rag" is a jazz standard that was recorded and copyrighted by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917. It is one of the most recorded jazz compositions. In 2003, the 1918 recording of "Tiger Rag" was entered into the U.S. Library of Congress National Recording Registry.
Tim Sparks is an American acoustic guitar player, singer, arranger and composer.
Neshamah (Songs from the Jewish Diaspora) is the first solo recording by American guitarist Tim Sparks on the Tzadik Records label. "Neshamah" means "soul" in Hebrew. The arrangements adapt Ashkenazic klezmer, Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jewish music for the solo guitar.
Vince Giordano is an American saxophonist and leader of the New York-based Nighthawks Orchestra. He specializes in jazz of the 1920s and 1930s and his primary instrument is the bass saxophone. Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks have played on television and film soundtracks, including the HBO series Boardwalk Empire and Woody Allen's musical comedy film Everyone Says I Love You.
Martin Oliver Grosz is an American jazz guitarist, banjoist, vocalist, and composer born in Berlin, Germany, the son of artist George Grosz. He performed with Bob Wilber and wrote arrangements for him. He has also worked with Kenny Davern, Dick Sudhalter, and Keith Ingham.
The Wolverines were an American jazz band. They were one of the most successful territory bands of the American Midwest in the 1920s.
Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, fostered awareness of this new style of music.
Jazz is an album by the American musician and songwriter Ry Cooder, released in 1978 by Warner Bros. Records. The album was produced by Cooder and Joseph Byrd and was Cooder's seventh.
The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz is a six-LP box set released in 1973 by the Smithsonian Institution. Compiled by jazz critic, scholar, and historian Martin Williams, the album included tracks from over a dozen record labels spanning several decades and genres of American jazz, from ragtime and big band to post-bop and free jazz.
"For No Reason at All in C" is a 1927 jazz instrumental by Bix Beiderbecke, Frankie Trumbauer, and Eddie Lang. The song was released as a 78 single in 1927 on Okeh Records as by "Tram, Bix and Eddie ".
Copenhagen is a jazz standard composed in 1924 by bandleader Charlie Davis and first recorded in that year by the Wolverine Orchestra featuring Bix Beiderbecke in a foxtrot tempo. The title refers to Copenhagen tobacco, favored by Davis's bass player. Lyrics were added by Walter Melrose to the tune, which is a blues in B-flat.
Rags and All that Jazz is the third album by the London-based Swingle II singers released in 1975 on the CBS label. All tracks from this album were also included in the 2009 Sony Classical compilation, Swing Sing. The original Paris-based The Swingle Singers recorded regularly for Philips in the 1960s and early 1970s and the successor London-based group continued to record, for Columbia/CBS, Virgin Classics and other record labels from 1974 to the present.
Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development, by Gunther Schuller, is a seminal study of jazz from its origins through the early 1930s, first published in 1968. It has since been translated into five languages. When it was published, it was the first volume of a projected two volume history of jazz through the Swing era. The book takes an enthusiastic tone to its subject. A notable feature of the series is transcriptions of jazz performances, which increase its value for the musically literate.