How Sweets it is! This complete album feature is all about Harry “Sweets” and his orchestra. This 1956 recording was Sweets 2nd album and features the great Ben Webster on tenor. A great album to introduce a novice Jazz Con Class listener to Sweets bluesy trumpet sound. “Sweets” will be featured for a week or so, check the schedule link for play times.
About the album:
Neither an innovator nor an iconoclast, trumpeter Harry “Sweets” Edison is simply one of the bluesiest, hardest-swinging, and downright tastiest jazz musicians of the 20th century. A consummate sideman who worked steadily throughout his career (even getting gigs recording soundtracks in the ’50s), Edison created music that always reflected his journeyman aesthetic and unerring sense of swing. Recorded in 1956, Sweets is one of the quintessential Edison albums showcasing the former Count Basie bandmember at the height of his abilities with a stellar ensemble of other Basie-ites, including tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, guitarist Barney Kessel, pianist Jimmy Rowles, bassist Joe Mondragon, and drummer Alvin Stoller. Rolling from blues to standards and back to blues, the album is a…Read More
Biography of Harry “Sweets” Edison:
Harry “Sweets” Edison got the most mileage out of a single note, like his former boss Count Basie. Edison, immediately recognizable within a note or two, long used repetition and simplicity to his advantage while always swinging. He played in local bands in Columbus and then in 1933 joined the Jeter-Pillars Orchestra. After a couple years in St. Louis, Edison moved to New York where he joined Lucky Millinder and then in June 1938, Count Basie, remaining with that classic orchestra until it broke up in 1950. During that period, he was featured on many records, appeared in the 1944 short Jammin’ the Blues and gained his nickname “Sweets” (due to his tone) from Lester Young. In the 1950s, Edison toured with……..Read More
