John Coltrane

“Then I’ll Be Tired of You”: Keith Jarrett, John Coltrane, Fats Waller

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In its original form, Then I’ll Be Tired of You is the quintessential catchy popular song from America’s jazz age. The composer Arthur Schwartz (1900-1984) wrote the song in 1934 with lyricist Yip Harburg. It was first recorded on August 9, 1934 by Freddy Martin and His Orchestra. The same year, the legendary jazz musician “Fats” Waller, exponent of the Harlem stride style of piano playing, made his own recording. Recordings by singers such …

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Bartók’s Surprising Influence on Jazz

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There are some fascinating connections between jazz and the music of Béla Bartók. Both have a pristine, highly-ordered sense of structure. Both are built on complex rhythmic grooves which grow out of a folk tradition. Jazz pianist Dániel Szabó delves into this subject in a recent article where he writes, Whenever I hear the second movement of Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, the extraordinarily tight rhythm, the shifts in emphasis, inserting 3/8 phrases …

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Jason Vieaux: “In a Sentimental Mood”

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American guitarist Jason Vieaux is our guest soloist for this weekend’s Richmond Symphony concerts. His Grammy-winning 2014 album, Play, includes this beautifully atmospheric performance of Duke Ellington’s In a Sentimental Mood: An interesting story surrounds the 1935 composition of this famous jazz standard. According to Ellington, We had played a big dance in a tobacco warehouse, and afterwards a friend of mine, an executive in the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company, threw a party for …

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