Jimmy's Favorite Musicians-Still More...


	Jimmy Winokur
Page 3 ...Still More of My Favorite Musicians and some personal background Website Home/Index Musical Index My favorite Musicians: Page 1 Page 2





Page 3: Still More... Gibson Jazz Concerts Sting Milt Jackson & the Modern Jazz Quartet Joni Mitchell	Chet Baker Paul Simon Karla Bonoff & Terence Boylan Mark Knopfler & Dire Straits Richard Wagner Little Feat Paul Brady Bob Marley	Women Singer-Songwriters The Beatles Composers for Musical Theater : Gershwin, Rogers, Romberg, Kern Dave Holland Mainstream Jazz

Dick Gibson ('Gibson') After the concert series wound down, the Gibsons divorced, and 'Gibson' -- who'd injured his hip in an early Rose Bowl game -- died not long after,.	Gibson Jazz Concerts Denver The Gibsons have been Denver's premiere Jazz impresarios. Dick assembled the line-ups and Maddie made it all happen logistically (while keeping 'Gibson' in line when possible). Among the great performers I saw play were Zoot Sims, Bob Haggart, Ray Brown, Doc Cheatham, Jake Hannah, Paul Smith, Phil Woods, Joe Newman, Sir Roland Hanna, Scott Hamilton, Joe Wilder, Benny Carter, Ray Brown , 'Sweets' Edison, 'Lockjaw' Davis, Bill Watrous, Emily Remler, Milt Hinton, Plas Johnson, Ross Tompkins, Warren Vache Their 15 year Gibson Jazz concert series at the Paramount was the finest concert series I've heard of any kind. Most of what I know of jazz I learned in the front row of these concerts, six times a year through the 70s and 80s. Each concert featured about 10 of the finest, often very senior, mainstream jazz players at each concert, often playing together for the 1st time, jamming in larger and smaller ensembles . On a grander scale, the Gibsons' Rocky Mountain Jazz Parties ran 'round the clock through Labor Day weekend for many years.	Maddie Gibson In buying my current Garfield St. townhouse, I had the privilege of having Maddie as my real estate broker. What good fortune! We would talk jazz while the sellers tried to show their houses! A lovely step up from the norm in the difficult real estate brokerage profession!

Sting I'd avoided this guy, because...who would want to hear music by someone names "Sting"! (Duh!) Then, Kevin Shea introduced me in '87-'88 to the live double album Bring on the Night (with Branford Marsalis & the late, great Kenny Kirkland), -- in the odd setting of Holme Roberts and Owen. I was visiting HRO as Special Counsel , on leave from DU for a year. Rock music was the last benefit I imagined receiving there.!	Soon, I had the joy of seeing him live at Fiddler's Green, then under attack from neighbors disturbed by the noise and crowds. (By luck, I ended up doing some legal work in this controversy!) The concert was in Sting's tour for Nothing Like the Sun , his most lyrical and literate album. This was an all-time favorite concert.	At concert's end, Sting returned for his encore reporting a neighbor's phone complaint tabout the loudnoise! "Can't you play anything else?", he quoted her. "How about some Gershwin? "Sure. we can do that" Sting had replied. And Kenny Kirkland's lovely intro launched them into an exquisite performance of the Gershwin classic, "Someone to Watch Over Me"...which... eventually segued into a country version of 'The Police' super-hit, "I'll Be Watching You"! Amazing! Now, October 2003, I have seen Sting and his lady love discuss... tantric sex on Oprah! He should stick to music.

Milt 'Bags' Jackson .	and the Modern Jazz Quartet...	top

	Joni Mitchell Most original and finest woman singer-songwriter of the counter-culture generation, from the likes of The Circle Game &I Think I Understand, to A Case of You, Mingus & Hissing of Summer Lawns


Chet Baker Along with Gerry Mulligan and Paul Desmond, Chet Baker was quintessentially West Coast Cool Jazz, from the '50s on. His rendition with Mulligan of My Funny Valentine is the classic version, and their best known number. The "& Strings" album featured the late Zoot Sims) became a classic of the genre (of note), and was another of those choice morsels that mysteriously ended up in my boyhood home, was ignored by whoever had brought it in, and was pinched by me. In liner notes to the terrible "Jerry Jeff Jazz," Jerry notes that - in an odd coincidence - he first came upon Chet's music in much the same way! Anyway, "& Strings" holds special meaning for me as my 1st exposure to jazz (along with Ahmad Jamal's Poinciana, which since faded as a favorite).	Chet's style was as lyrical as any player in jazz, his tone exquisitely buttery, his trumpet sounding often like a flugelhorn, even when playing trumpet. He is one player whose music is accessible enough to become a wonderful entry point for those wanting to understand jazz better. Beginning as a 50s good looking bad boy a la James Dean, Chet went on to tragic involvement in drugs.	Drugs ended up costing him his original front teeth and a badly broken jaw, destroyed in a mid-60s drug deal gone bad. Amazingly Baker fought his way back, redeveloping his embouchure to the point where he later created some of his most beautiful work. It has been speculated whether his 1988 fatal fall from a 2nd story Amsterdam hotel window was a drug induced fall, or suicide; his body was loaded with cocaine and heroin at the time. top

	Paul Simon is, for me, the great singer-songwriter of his time -- with music ranging from the folk-infused music of the late 60s, to the controversial (thus courageous) introduction of African and some South American sensibility into pop music,to the courageous undertaking of the ill-fated but musically brilliant boradway musical, The Capeman


Singer-Songwriters...and Notorious Exam Characters: Karla Bonoff &Terence Boylan Each is a superb singer songwriter of the '70s, though neither has really escaped obscurity. Bonoff , who still plays at the Boulder Chautauqua each summer, his the better known of the two, and is equally known as the writer of several Linda Ronstadt hits of the 70s (which Karla performs better than Linda, to my ear).	Bard College classmate of Walter Becker & Donald Fagan, Boylan released two superb but little known albums in the 70s, backed by several of the sidemen who played with Steely Dan in that era. "Boona" Boylan then disappeared from the recording scene until the late 90s, when he re-released the best tracks from the two 70s albums on a truly wonderful new, self-titled collection. (Through the original of this website, I actually got an email from Terence around that time, when he stumbled across my site via Google because it contained his name.)	In the 70s and 80s, I used Bonoff and Boylan as names for characters in an ambitious real estate transaction problem in my DU Law Property courses: "Turgid and Hedda Boylan," and "Dean Carla Bonoff". With months to discuss & work on these problems, some students reported anxiously dreaming about these characters. So it's probably a close call whether this exposure marginally increased or marginally decreased their album sales!


	Mark Knopfler & Dire Straits


^ The Ride of the Valkyries ^ 2nd in The Ring cycle, was a prominent musical theme -- Wagner's most aggressive -- used by the Nazis	Tristan & Isolde Along with The Ring cycle of 4 operas, Tristan & Isolde is the culmination of Wagner's work. Wagner's egotism & idealism were reflected in his concept of the 'Total Artwork' or Gesamtkunstwerk, synthesis of Arts with opera served as a vehicle for a single, integrated, multimedia artistic expression	Richard Wagner, social philosopher & despicable Anti-Semite , was nonetheless the the 19th century's most revolutionary and influential composer. His sensibility inclined toward the archetypal of mythology, and his music was celebrated years later by the Third Reich. His soaring harmonies broke dramatically with classical rules, and opened the way to Mahler and the great High Romantic and Modern composers who followed. Nowhere are his exquisite harmonies more profoundly moving than in <-- Tristan & Isolde. My love of his music is focused on the orchestral preludes, infused with Wagner's revolutionary harmonies, introducing his musical themes rather than the vocalized core of the operas. top
	Little Feat

	Paul Brady


Bob Marley

	Special Women Singer-Songwriters <--Ferron Cheryl Wheeler--> The British VVV
Sandy Denny	Mary Black	June Tabor top

	The Beatles
	Songwriters for Musical Theater: George Gershwin, Richard Rogers, Sigmund Romberg, Jerome Kern Porgy & Bess

	Page 4: Mostly Mainstream Jazz
Zoot Sims	Mainstream Jazz: Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan	Lee Konitz, Doc Cheatham, Ellis Marsalis,
Website Home/Index My favorite Musicians: Page 1 Page 2	Bill Evans	Ben Webster top