The Lounge Lizards
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The Lounge Lizards
The Lounge Lizards were an eclectic musical group founded by saxophonist John Lurie and his brother, pianist Evan Lurie, in 1978. Initially known for their ironic, tongue-in-cheek take on jazz, The Lounge Lizards eventually became a showcase for John Lurie's sophisticated compositions straddling jazz and many other genres. They were active until about 1998 with the Lurie brothers as the only constant members, though many leading New York City based musicians were members of the group. The group's name was borrowed from American slang. A lounge lizard is typically depicted as a well-dressed man who frequents the establishments in which the rich gather with the intention of seducing a wealthy woman with his flattery and deceptive charm. History At its founding, the band consisted of John Lurie and Evan Lurie, guitarist Arto Lindsay, bassist Steve Piccolo, and percussionist Anton Fier. They released a self-titled album on EG Records in 1981. The album included two Thelonious Mon ...
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Avant-garde Jazz
Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz and experimental jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Originally synonymous with free jazz, much avant-garde jazz was distinct from that style. History 1950s Avant-garde jazz originated in the mid- to late 1950s among a group of improvisors who rejected the conventions of bebop and post bop in an effort to blur the division between the written and the spontaneous. Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor led the way, soon to be joined by John Coltrane. Some would come to apply it differently from free jazz, emphasizing structure and organization by the use of composed melodies, shifting but nevertheless predetermined meters and tonalities, and distinctions between soloists and accompaniment. 1960s In Chicago, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians began pursuing their own variety of ...
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John Lurie
John Lurie (born December 14, 1952) is an American musician, painter, actor, director, and producer. He co-founded the Lounge Lizards jazz ensemble; has acted in 19 films, including '' Stranger than Paradise'' and '' Down by Law''; has composed and performed music for 20 television and film works; and he produced, directed, and starred in the '' Fishing with John'' television series. In 1996 his soundtrack for ''Get Shorty'' was nominated for a Grammy Award, and his album ''The Legendary Marvin Pontiac: Greatest Hits'' has been praised by critics and fellow musicians. Since 2000, he has suffered from symptoms attributed to chronic Lyme disease and has focused his attention on painting. His art has been shown in galleries and museums around the world. His primitivist painting '' Bear Surprise'' became an internet meme in Russia in 2006. His new television series, '' Painting with John'', debuted on HBO in January 2021. Robert Lloyd of Los Angeles Times wrote, "''Painting With Jo ...
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Ornette Coleman
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation''. His pioneering performances often abandoned the chordal and harmony-based structure found in bebop, instead emphasizing a jarring and avant-garde approach to improvisation. AllMusic called him "one of the most important (and controversial) innovators of the jazz avant-garde". Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Coleman began his musical career playing in local R&B and bebop groups, and eventually formed his own group in Los Angeles featuring members such as Ed Blackwell, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins. In 1959, he released the controversial album ''The Shape of Jazz to Come'' and began a long residency at the Five Spot jazz club in New York City. His 1960 album ''Free Jazz'' would profoundly influence the di ...
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Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including " 'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", " Straight, No Chaser", "Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington. Monk's compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists and are consistent with his unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of switched key releases, silences, and hesitations. Monk's distinct look included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He also had an idiosyncratic habit during performances: while other musicians continued playing, Monk would stop, stand up, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano. Monk is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cover of ...
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Lounge Lizards (album)
''Lounge Lizards'' is the first album by The Lounge Lizards. It features hectic instrumental jazz. The songs are mostly composed by band leader and saxophone player John Lurie. The album artwork was designed by the English graphic designer Peter Saville. Track listing All songs written by John Lurie, except where noted. #"Incident on South Street" – 3:21 #"Harlem Nocturne" (Earle Hagen) – 2:04 #"Do the Wrong Thing" (John Lurie, Steve Piccolo) – 2:39 #"Au Contraire Arto" – 3:22 #"Well You Needn't" (Thelonious Monk) – 1:53 #"Ballad" – 3:22 #"Wangling" – 2:58 #"Conquest of Rar" (John Lurie, Evan Lurie, Anton Fier) – 3:12 #"Demented" – 2:01 #"I Remember Coney Island" – 3:27 #"Fatty Walks" – 2:51 #" Epistrophy" (Thelonious Monk, Kenneth Clarke) – 4:12 #"You Haunt Me" – 3:40 Personnel ;Lounge Lizards * John Lurie – alto saxophone * Evan Lurie – keyboards * Steve Piccolo – bass * Arto Lin ...
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Lounge Lizard
A lounge lizard is a man who frequents social establishments with the intention of seducing a woman with his flattery and deceptive charm. The term is reported to have arisen around 1915 in New York. A 1931 book described them as men " nthe habit of lounging in different dance resorts from tea time on, on a chance of picking up a few dollars; or they might be habitués of the place or of an outer room, described as a 'lounge', for the purpose of picking up girls and women. In Europe, he subsequently evolved into what is now known as the gigolo." In the 1919 Charlie Chaplin film ''Sunnyside'' the term appears as a title card, describing a group of men reading newspapers in a hotel lobby. In Buster Keaton's 1924 film ''Sherlock Jr.'', Keaton plays a projectionist at a movie theater where the movie showing is ''Hearts & Pearls or The Lounge Lizard's Lost Love''. The movie within a movie has a character who is good looking and well dressed who is romantically involved with a wealth ...
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Slang
Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-groups in order to establish group identity, exclude outsiders, or both. The word itself came about in the 18th century and has been defined in multiple ways since its conception. Etymology of the word ''slang'' In its earliest attested use (1756), the word ''slang'' referred to the vocabulary of "low" or "disreputable" people. By the early nineteenth century, it was no longer exclusively associated with disreputable people, but continued to be applied to usages below the level of standard educated speech. In Scots dialect it meant "talk, chat, gossip", as used by Aberdeen poet William Scott in 1832: "The slang gaed on aboot their war'ly care." In northern English dialect it meant "impertinence, abusive language". The origin of the word is ...
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Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. But jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisationa ...
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Steven Bernstein (musician)
Steven Bernstein (born October 8, 1961) is an American trumpeter, soprano trombone, slide trumpeter, arranger/composer and bandleader from New York City. He is best known for his work in The Lounge Lizards, Sex Mob (band), Sex Mob, Spanish Fly (band), Spanish Fly and the Millennial Territory Orchestra.Layman, Will (2006)A Reluctant 'Jazz' Hero: An Interview with Trumpeter, Composer, and Arranger Steven Bernstein, PopMatters, November 1, 2006. Retrieved November 8, 2014 Sex Mob's 2006 CD ''Sexotica'' was nominated for a Grammy. Bernstein has been the musical director for the Kansas City Band (from Robert Altman's film Kansas City (1996 film), ''Kansas City''), Jim Thirlwell's Steroid Maximus and Hal Wilner's Leonard Cohen, Doc Pomus and Bill Withers projects. Bernstein has released four albums under his own name on John Zorn's Tzadik Records: ''Diaspora Soul'', ''Diaspora Blues'', ''Diaspora Hollywood'' and ''Diaspora Suite''. He has performed with jazz giants including Roswel ...
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Steve Piccolo
''yes'Steve is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Steven or Stephen Notable people with the name include: steve jops * Steve Abbott (other), several people * Steve Adams (other), several people * Steve Alaimo (born 1939), American singer, record & TV producer, label owner * Steve Albini (born 1961), American musician, record producer, audio engineer, and music journalist * Steve Allen (1921–2000), American television personality, musician, composer, comedian and writer * Steve Armitage (born 1944), British-born Canadian sports reporter * Steve Armstrong (born 1965), American professional wrestler * Steve Antin (born 1958), American actor * Steve Augarde (born 1950),arab author, artist, and eater * Steve Augeri (born 1959), American singer * Steve August (born 1954), American football player * Stone Cold Steve Austin (born 1964), American professional wrestler * Steve Aylett (born 1967), English author of sat ...
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Roy Nathanson
Roy Jay Nathanson (born May 17, 1951) is an American saxophonist, composer, bandleader, actor and teacher. He became the leader and principal composer of the Jazz Passengers, a six piece group that he founded with Curtis Fowlkes in 1987. They have toured Europe many times and played at major festivals in Finland, Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland, as well as the J.V.C. Festival in New York, the Du Maurier Festival in Canada and toured throughout the United States and Canada. The band has recorded eight albums since their debut release. Life and work In 1994, Nathanson composed a variety of songs for an original vocal album, ''Jazz Passengers in Love'', produced by Hal Willner and Huge Dwyer. A number of guest vocalists were featured, including Jimmy Scoff, John Kelly, Freedy Johnston, Bernard Fowler, Jeff Buckley and Deborah Harry, who is now functioning as a full-time member of the band. Since the summer of 1995 The Jazz Passengers, have toured Europe and America with Harr ...
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Oren Bloedow
Oren Bloedow (born July 3, 1965) is an American singer, guitarist and bassist. He founded the band Elysian Fields in 1995 with Jennifer Charles. His father, Jerry Bloedow, was a playwright, poet, and film editor whose theater, the Hardware Poet's Playhouse, participated in the New York avant-garde scene in the 1950s and 1960s. Career Bloedow's first musical affiliations were with Phillip Johnston, Bobby Previte, and Wayne Horvitz, all of whom worked with him in Bobby Radcliff's blues band in the 1980s. With Radcliff, Bloedow backed up Dr. John, Otis Rush, Johnny Copeland and Paul Butterfield. Another close collaboration was with guitarist Ron Anderson of The Molecules. In 1985 a friend of Anderson's introduced Bloedow to 101 Crustaceans, whose leader, Ed Pastorini, is Bloedow's oldest continuing musical associate and was a member of Elysian Fields. Bloedow names Pastorini as his favorite musician. He attended New England Conservatory in 1987–88, studying with Ran Blake a ...
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