Central Park. By Paul Goldfinger © NYC Street Series. Summer, 2014
REBECCA LUKER
Archive for the ‘Blogfinger Jazz Corner’ Category
Something to remember you by
Posted in Blogfinger Jazz Corner, Photography: New York City Street Series, tagged Warren Vaché on Blogfinger on August 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »
America the Beautiful, but less so after the Aurora gets remodeled into condos.
Posted in Blogfinger Jazz Corner, Photography by Bob Bowne, tagged America the beautiful on Blogfinger in Ocean Grove, Bob Bowné on August 18, 2019| 10 Comments »
This is the Aurora in Ocean Grove in 2014. It is a former hotel, and later a single family (albeit a big one) home, and now on its way to becoming 4 condos.
Many have photographed this scene, but no one produces a unique image like Bob Bowné. Bob, a professional fine art photographer, is a regular contributor to Blogfinger. Re-post from July 4, 2014.
The Aurora by Bob Bowné of Ocean Grove. © Special to Blogfinger. 2014.
RUBY BRAFF (trumpet) AND DICK HYMAN (organ.) From their album America the Beautiful.
Schmatta* in Paris–perhaps you were expecting “April in Paris” or “I Love Paris” by Cole Porter.
Posted in Blogfinger Jazz Corner, Blogfinger Presents on August 10, 2019| Leave a Comment »
By Paul Goldfinger Blogfinger music and women’s fashion editor.
The Avalon French Hot Jazz Band brings back music from the hot jazz scene in the 30’s and 40’s in Paris. It reminds me of the Gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt of that era.
Also, in 1998, Woody Allen made a film called Sweet and Lowdown, and Shawn Penn played a Reinhardt sort of musician. It’s geat fun
Cole Porter wrote “I Love Paris,” and in this video Tatiana Eva-Marie does a nice job with the band, but I have to say, “That dress is ugly–a genuine schmatta.” But I also have to say, “Tatiana would look good dressed in your mother’s table cloth.”
But, perhaps Tatiana might consider a wardrobe consultation with Storm Large who sings with Pink Martini.
——–Schmatta*: a Yiddish word meaning “rag.”
Storm Large with Pink Martini singing “Amado Mio” A link below from Blogfinger
Sunny south beach in October.
Posted in Blogfinger Jazz Corner, Music from the stage, Photographic Gallery: Ocean Grove, Photography by Paul Goldfinger, Photography: Jersey Shore Gallery, tagged Ocean Grove beach in October on July 16, 2019| 1 Comment »
Ocean Grove. October 3, 2014. By Paul Goldfinger © Click to enlarge.
Count Basie orchestra. “Flight of the Foo Birds” from Woody’s movie Scenes from a Mall
Every Time We Say Goodbye
Posted in Blogfinger Jazz Corner, Jersey Shore gallery, Photographic Gallery: New Jersey, Photography: Jersey Shore Gallery, tagged Every Time We Say Goodbye on July 12, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Sunset Avenue in Wanamassa (Ocean Township). Paul Goldfinger photo © 2014. JOHN GOLDSBY: “Every Time We Say Goodbye”
BF Jazz Corner: Marian McPartland, Jazz Pianist.
Posted in Blogfinger Jazz Corner, Blogfinger News, tagged Marian McPartland--jazz pianist on May 14, 2019| 1 Comment »
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger. Re-post from 2013.
Marian McPartland, jazz pianist, died last week at the age of 95. She was born in Britain and came to New York in the 1940’s as a young musician. Critics said that she had three strikes against her: she was British, white, and a woman. Upon hearing her play, some said, “You sound just like a man.”
She eventually became known among the underground 1950’s jazz community in New York and she got to know all the greats in the jazz world. She married one of them— a jazz cornetist, Jimmy McPartland.
In the 1960’s, jazz lost ground as the rock and roll invasion began. In addition to teaching at the college level, she continued to perform and to work as a disc jockey . She soon developed the idea of an interview show coupled with live performances. In 1979 she began her famous NPR show “Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz.” I listened to that show often. It was wonderful. She would bring on musicians—mostly piano players—discuss jazz theory and music–and then she and her guest would improvise solos and duets.
We heard her play live a few times, including once in a small theatre in Southhampton, New York. She was so warm and friendly, and her playing was melodic and interesting.
Below is an NPR link about her sent to us by Lee Morgan of Ocean Grove who emailed, ” Just read that you are going to do a piece on Marian. Curiously, I had recently bookmarked an NPR item on her. (See link below). I loved to listen to her on Piano Jazz.”
Birdland was a fabled jazz club in mid-town Manhattan where my friends and I often went. We didn’t see her there, but here is Marian McPartland playing that jazz favorite:” Lullaby of Birdland.” Following that is a beautiful ballad called “Blackberry Winter,” from her album “Twilight World.” Grab a tissue, it’s about a cold snap bringing spring to an unexpected halt.
An undeniable advantage—-having a boardwalk
Posted in Asbury Park Connection Photo Gallery, Blogfinger Jazz Corner, Photography by Paul Goldfinger, tagged Broadway Rose and Rose of WAshington Square, Rose of Washington Square in ASbury Park on March 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »
JAZZMEN TOO NUMEROUS TO COUNT: Warren Vaché, Randy Sandke, Wyclif Gordon, Ken Peplowski, Joe Temperley, Howard Alden, Eric Reed, Rodney Whitaker, Joe Ascione and Scott Robinson at the JVC Jazz Festival.
Bradley Beach, our neighbor to the south.
Posted in Blogfinger Jazz Corner, Jersey Shore gallery, tagged Bradley Beach June 2014, When it's sleepy time down south on November 19, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Southern exposure. June 3, 2014. By Paul Goldfinger ©
LOUIS ARMSTRONG (live performance:)
A quixotic search for a fine coffee shop near OG? Try Café Volan (510 Bangs Avenue) in A. Park.
Posted in Asbury Connection, Asbury Park Connection Photo Gallery, Blogfinger Jazz Corner, Blogfinger Presents, Blogfinger restaurant review, tagged Café Volan, coffee houses, coffee shop on January 8, 2018| 1 Comment »
Café Volan. A.P. Paul Goldfinger photo. Re-posted from July 15, 2015. Ocean Grove still lacks an authentic coffee shop, and that is a real missing link for our community. ©
Eileen Goldfinger at Volan sampling a scone from Balthazar’s * in SoHo. Paul Goldfinger ©
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger. There are a few minor revisions in this 2015 re-post.
Some of you might wonder about the persistent search for a coffee shop near OG, since there are several places in the Grove where you can buy coffee. The reason is, for some of us, we seek more than just coffee. In our culture, and in Europe, the coffee shop is a comfortable gathering place where one can appreciate the best coffees from around the world.
Such shops are not general practitioners, they are specialists, and they know how to create a first rate cappuccino or latte. Coffee is of primary interest in such places, not an afterthought. The Barbaric Bean was beginning to be like that, but the Grove’s only true coffee shop has vanished.
A real coffee shop is a welcoming place which has seating and where you can savor the barista’s drinks while reading the paper, having a fascinating conversation, people watching, or enjoying a special snack. It tends to be where the local characters go. Wi-Fi is often available for those who are working on the next great American novel. After all, J.K. Rollings wrote Harry Potter while sipping some brew in a local coffee shop.
In Asbury Park today an Ocean Grove friend introduced me to a real coffee shop; in fact, Café Volan seems like a throwback to old Soho or Greenwich Village in the ’60’s. Café Volan on Bangs Avenue, just off Cookman near the Brick Wall, is so laid back that you can imagine Bob Dylan singing unamplified on a stool, or Lenny Bruce doing shtick.
It is a dumpy place, but that’s fine because it feels like home—–like cafés I visited when my friends and I would wander around Bleeker or Christopher Streets in “The Village.” It is the sort of coffee house where the locals and regulars wander in.
My impression from the moment I walked in was: “I am going to like this place.” It resonated at a very personal level and felt like somewhere you might re-visit again and again.
A visit to Café Volan is like time travel, but there is one thing that doesn’t spell nostalgia—it is the delicious high quality of their coffee. They also serve some unique snacks and toasted exotic breads. They get their coffee from North Carolina, and their breads and pastries are brought in from Brooklyn. I haven’t been to Williamsburg for many years, but this entire place seems to have been shipped intact from there.
If you like places that seem authentic and live up to it, try Café Volan —within walking distance of the Grove.
*Link to our post about Balthazar’s from 2013:
Blogfinger post on Balthazar 2013
CHARLIE PARKER. He got his start in New York, but this jazz great didn’t play in coffee houses. Mostly he was up in Harlem in jazz clubs. The folk singers were in the Village coffee houses in the ’60’s, but there were jazz venues in the Village which my friends and I visited often, growing up in a Jersey bedroom community, 20 minutes from downtown.
This is “All the Things You Are.” It was written by Jerome Kern (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics) We recently posted a Miles Davis version, and the song holds up even without those magnificent poetic lyrics.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger
Soon It’s Gonna Rain….
Posted in Blogfinger Jazz Corner, Jersey Shore gallery, tagged Allenhurst New Jersey on October 23, 2017| 2 Comments »
Paul Goldfinger © Allenhurst, New Jersey. 2014. Click to enlarge
JULIE RAFFERTY. Music from The Fantasticks. From her album No Finer Place.
PS It will rain tomorrow—Tuesday.
