The Good Life (Willis Jackson Album)
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The Good Life (Willis Jackson Album)
''The Good Life'' is an album by saxophonist Willis Jackson which was recorded in 1963 and released on the Prestige label.Prestige Records discography
accessed February 25, 2013


Reception

awarded the album 2½ stars stating "IIt's pleasing, if unsurprising, early-'60s organ soul-jazz with a good balance between brass, organ, and guitar, perhaps more useful as club groove music than home listening".Unterberger, R
Allmusic listing
accessed February 25, 2013


Track listing

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Willis Jackson (saxophonist)
Willis "Gator" Jackson (April 25, 1928 – October 25, 1987) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Biography Born in Miami, Florida, and educated at the University of Miami, Jackson joined Cootie Williams's band in 1948 as a teenager, and was part of it on and off until 1955. Under his own name (Willis Jackson and His Orchestra) he recorded various rhythm-and-blues instrumentals for Atlantic Records. His most famous record for Atlantic is "Gator's Groove" (1952), with "Estrellita" as the B-side. Jackson toured as leader of the backing band for singer Ruth Brown. Publicly they were married, but privately they never married but lived together from 1950 to 1955.Dik de Heer, ''This Is My Story'' series, "Shakin' All Over" web articles Jackson joined Prestige Records in 1959, making a string of albums. Jackson died in New York City one week after heart surgery, in October 1987, at the age of 55. Discography As leader * ''Please Mr. Jackson'' (Prestige, 1959) * '' Cool "Gator"'' ...
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Bart Howard
Bart Howard (born Howard Joseph Gustafson, June 1, 1915 – February 21, 2004) was an American composer and songwriter, most notably of the jazz standard "Fly Me to the Moon", which has been performed by Kaye Ballard, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson, Della Reese, Bobby Womack, Diana Krall, June Christy, Brenda Lee, Astrud Gilberto, Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, and Sia, among others. It is played frequently by jazz and popular musicians around the world. Howard wrote the song for his partner of 58 years, Thomas Fowler. Biography Howard was born in Burlington, Iowa. He began his career as an accompanist at the age of 16 and played for Mabel Mercer, Johnny Mathis and Eartha Kitt, among others. "Fly Me to the Moon" was first sung in 1954 by Felicia Sanders at the Blue Angel nightclub in Manhattan, where the composer became M.C. and accompanist in 1951. The song received wide exposure when Peggy Lee sang it on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' several year ...
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Double Bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar in structure to the cello, it has four, although occasionally five, strings. The bass is a standard member of the orchestra's string section, along with violins, viola, and cello, ''The Orchestra: A User's Manual''
, Andrew Hugill with the Philharmonia Orchestra
as well as the concert band, and is featured in Double bass concerto, concertos, solo, and chamber music in European classical music, Western classical music.Alfred Planyavsky

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Leonard Gaskin
Leonard Gaskin (August 25, 1920 – January 24, 2009) was an American jazz bassist born in New York City. Gaskin played on the early bebop scene at Minton's and Monroe's in New York in the early 1940s. In 1944 he took over Oscar Pettiford's spot in Dizzy Gillespie's band, and followed it with stints in bands led by Cootie Williams, Charlie Parker, Don Byas, Eddie South, Charlie Shavers, and Erroll Garner. In the 1950s, he played with Eddie Condon's Dixieland band, and played with Ruby Braff, Bud Freeman, Rex Stewart, Cootie Williams, Billie Holiday, Stan Getz, J.J. Johnson, and Miles Davis. In the 1960s he became a studio musician, playing on numerous gospel and pop records. In the 1970s and 1980s he returned to jazz, playing with Sy Oliver, Panama Francis, and The International Art of Jazz. Gaskin became involved in educating young people later in his life. He performed and shared his knowledge with elementary students with the Good Groove Band (Leonard Gaskin, Melissa Lov ...
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Guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier. The guitar is classified as a chordophone – meaning the sound is produced by a vibrating string stretched between two fixed points. Historically, a guitar was constructed from wood with its strings made of catgut. Steel guitar strings were introduced near the end of the nineteenth century in the United States; nylon strings came in the 1940s. The guitar's ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four- course Renaissance guitar, and the ...
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Pat Martino
Pat Martino (born Patrick Carmen Azzara; August 25, 1944 – November 1, 2021) was an American jazz guitarist and composer. Biography Martino was born Patrick Carmen Azzara in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, to father Carmen "Mickey" Azzara (d. 1990) and mother Jean (née Orlando, d. 1989). He was first exposed to jazz by his father, who sang in local clubs and briefly studied guitar. Martino began playing professionally at the age of 15 after moving to New York City. He lived for a period with Les Paul and began playing at jazz clubs such as Smalls Paradise. He later moved into a suite in the President Hotel on 48th Street. He played at Smalls for six months of the year, and played summers at the Club Harlem in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Martino played and recorded early in his career with Lloyd Price, Willis Jackson, and Eric Kloss. He also worked with jazz organists Charles Earland, Richard "Groove" Holmes, Jack McDuff, Don Patterson, Trudy Pitts, Jimmy Smith ...
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Hammond Organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated sound by creating an electric current from rotating a metal tonewheel near an electromagnetic pickup, and then strengthening the signal with an amplifier to drive a speaker cabinet. The organ is commonly used with the Leslie speaker. Around two million Hammond organs have been manufactured. The organ was originally marketed by the Hammond Organ Company to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, or instead of a piano. It quickly became popular with professional jazz musicians in organ trios—small groups centered on the Hammond organ. Jazz club owners found that organ trios were cheaper than hiring a big band. Jimmy Smith's use of the Hammond B-3, with its additional harmonic percussion feature, inspired a g ...
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Trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B or C trumpet. Trumpet-like instruments have historically been used as signaling devices in battle or hunting, with examples dating back to at least 1500 BC. They began to be used as musical instruments only in the late 14th or early 15th century. Trumpets are used in art music styles, for instance in orchestras, concert bands, and jazz ensembles, as well as in popular music. They are played by blowing air through nearly-closed lips (called the player's embouchure), producing a "buzzing" sound that starts a standing wave vibration in the air column inside the instrument. Since the late 15th century, trumpets have primarily been constructed of brass tubing, usually bent twice into a rounded rectangular shape. There are many distinc ...
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Tenor Saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while the alto is pitched in the key of E), and written as a transposing instrument in the treble clef, sounding an octave and a major second lower than the written pitch. Modern tenor saxophones which have a high F key have a range from A2 to E5 (concert) and are therefore pitched one octave below the soprano saxophone. People who play the tenor saxophone are known as "tenor saxophonists", "tenor sax players", or "saxophonists". The tenor saxophone uses a larger mouthpiece, reed and ligature than the alto and soprano saxophones. Visually, it is easily distinguished by the curve in its neck, or its crook, near the mouthpiece. The alto saxophone lacks this and its neck goes straight to the mouthpiece. The tenor saxophone is most recognized for it ...
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Gus Cannon
Gustavus "Gus" Cannon (September 12, 1883 or 1884 – October 15, 1979) was an American blues musician who helped to popularize jug bands (such as his own Cannon's Jug Stompers) in the 1920s and 1930s. There is uncertainty about his birth year; his tombstone gives the date as 1874. Career Born on a plantation in Red Banks, Mississippi, Cannon moved a hundred miles to Clarksdale, then the home of W. C. Handy, at the age of 12. His musical skills came without training; he taught himself to play a banjo that he made from a frying pan and a raccoon skin. He ran away from home at the age of fifteen and began his career entertaining at sawmills and at levee and railroad camps in the Mississippi Delta around the turn of the century. While in Clarksdale, Cannon was influenced by two local musicians, Jim Turner and Alec Lee. Turner's fiddle playing in W. C. Handy's band so impressed Cannon that he decided to learn to play the fiddle himself. Lee, a guitarist, taught Cannon his first fol ...
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Walk Right In
"Walk Right In" is a country blues song written by musician Gus Cannon and originally recorded by Cannon's Jug Stompers in 1929. Victor Records released on a 78 rpm record and in 1959, it was included on the influential compilation album ''The Country Blues''. A revised version of the song by the Rooftop Singers, with the writing credits allocated to group members Erik Darling and Bill Svanoe, became an international hit in 1963. The Rooftop Singers In 1962, the American folk trio the Rooftop Singers recorded a version of the song. Group member Erik Darling recruited two friends to record a folk version of "Walk Right In" after hearing the original Cannon recording. Darling wanted the record to have a distinctive sound, so he and group member Bill Svanoe both played twelve string guitars on the song, although they had some difficulty in acquiring the instruments. Darling is quoted as saying that prior to the making of this record, "you couldn't buy a 12-string guitar... I orde ...
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William "Mickey" Stevenson
William "Mickey" Stevenson (born January 4, 1937) is an American former songwriter and record producer for the Motown group of labels from the early days of Berry Gordy's company until 1967. Life and career He was born William Stevenson and, after spending his formative years recording doowop and gospel music, joined Tamla/Motown in 1959, the year it was founded. He was head of the A&R department there during the company's "glory" years of the mid-1960s when artists such as the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Four Tops, Stevie Wonder and Martha & the Vandellas came to the fore. Stevenson was also responsible for organizing and establishing the company's in-house studio band, which came to be known as the Funk Brothers. He wrote and produced many hit records for Motown, some with co-writer and producer Ivy Jo Hunter. They included his biggest successes, "Dancing in the Street", which he co-wrote with Hunter and Marvin Gaye; " It Takes Two" (Gaye and Weston), " Ask the ...
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