Mundell Lowe with Earl May - True Blue

http://www.billytaylorjazz.net presents Mundell Lowe with Billy Taylor's Trio performing True Blue, featuring Earl May on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums.


BORN IN LAUREL, Mississippi, Mundell left home at the age of thirteen. After working in Nashville, he found his way to Bourbon Street in New Orleans and the beginning of his jazz career. While serving in World War Il, he met the influential John Hammond, who introduced him to Ray McKinley. Mundell worked with McKinley's band for a year and a half, developing his distinctive instrumental style, and then moved on to work in New York at Café Society and stints at the Village Vanguard and The Embers, among others. Mundell worked with Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Helen Humes and Charles Mingus, to name but a few. These gigs overlapped with an early morning TV show at NBC with Cy Coleman, "A Date in Manhattan," and later "The Kate Smith Hour" with Stan Getz, Doc Severinsen, and Kai Winding.

FROM THE EARLY FIFTIES to the mid-Sixties, he was an active performer, working with George Duvivier on bass and Ed Shaughnessy on drums in Dave Garroway's "Today Show" studio band. He also played with the extraordinary pianist Hank Jones when they both worked in the NBC and CBS orchestras of the early Fifties. After seventeen years at NBC as a guitarist and arranger, Lowe was transferred to the News and Special Events Department to work as a composer.

MUNDELL MOVED TO LOS ANGELES, California, Christmas 1965—actually, he left to visit some friends, and never went back to New York! He met Jackie Cooper, then-head of Screen Gems, and began the West Coast phase of his career composing music for some of their television and film properties. Lowe augmented his TV and film work with making his own LPs as well as two successful projects with noted singers Sarah Vaughan ('After Hours") and Carmen McRae ('Bittersweet").

EVEN THOUGH HE HAD made special appearances with Peggy Lee and the White House, toured Japan with Benny Carter several times, and was a regular performer at the Monterey Jazz Festival, Mundell found he was spending more time writing than playing, which he found frustrating. He made up his mind to turn that around and, during the 1980s, he stepped out of the studio world of film and television and returned to performing, the first love of his long and rich musical career.

MUNDELL'S CURRENT SCHEDULE is no less active. In the last few years he has traveled the globe as a concert performer, worked the States with his own quintet, and has made several trips to New York to work with Ron Carter, Al Foster, Bill Mays, and Ray Drummond. He tours with the André Previn Trio (composed of Previn, the late Ray Brown, and Lowe), as well as the Great Guitars with the late Charlie Byrd, Herb Ellis, and Tal Farlow. Mundell also has been busy in recording studios lately, having recorded two albums for Telarc with the André Previn Trio, one for Phillips with Kiri Te Kanawa, and two albums for Fresh Sounds with Teté Montoliu.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Jazz
• guitar
• Mundell
• Lowe
• Billy
• Taylor
• Earl
• May
• Bourbon
• Street
• New
• Orleans
• Village
• Vanguard
• Lester
• Young
• Charlie
• Parker
• Charles
• MIngus
• Billie
• Holiday
• Stan
• Getz
• Manhattan
• NBC
• Kate
• Smith
• Doc
• Severinsen
• Kai
• Winding
• Hank
• Jones
• Dave
• Garroway
• Sarah
• Vaughan
• Carmen
• McRae
• White
• House
• Peggy
• Lee
• Benny
• Carter
• Japan
• Monterey
• Festival

[dreadtodred]

wow its weird watching earl may play the bass left and strung right,awesome!!

[JazzVideoGuy]

@dreadtodred We miss Earl May, a wonderful bassist and man.

[TBoblp]

how old is this video? by the way they're talking about the guitar and "bass violin" it makes me really wonder but glad to have a video like this out there.

[JazzVideoGuy]

from the Summer of 1958

[MARISHAMACRAE]

Thank you for posting this! (-:

[JazzVideoGuy]

And thank you for checking it out, for the important work you do.

[jgrodnik]

Race has nothing to do with it. Soul comes in all colors.

[polishbroadcast]

It is so bizarre to think this was 6 years before the Civil Rights act yet here is an almost all black band, busting out some amazing music on national TV. I love this country, but man we are weird sometimes.

[dreadtodred]

@JazzVideoGuy  thanks for the reply,peace.

[dreadtodred]

@JazzVideoGuy you have great videos that I watch all the time,Ibet you do miss him what an incredible muscian

[awfulguitarplucker]

im havin a veyr very hard time figuring out HOW STRANGER guitar must have been looked at those times in America...i mean...even as instruments as per se was seen as it it was..from another planet! thast shocking looking at it with nowadays eyes.--

[tuxguys]

I came upon this by accident... I knew about Mundy already from a PBS special in the early '70's about Roy Buchanan, and then, in 1979, as a result of a mutual acquaintance, got to meet him, pick his brains, hear him play, and hang with him on a plane trip back to the Northeast, he to NY, and me to Boston, from the Mobile Highschool Jazz Festival. Great Musician, Great Guitarist (not always the same thing), Great Educator, and Great Gentleman, Great Human.

[qz3bmz]

Fabulous music and performance. We're so fortunate to have had this in our time.

And, that it is still appreciated and available.

Thanks so much for posting

[peedutt]

Learning guitar " is pretty hazardous" GREEEAAAT.

[busessuck1]

if you pause right at the start the dude's face is hilarious