Today, August 20th is Jimmy Raney’s birthday. Dad would’ve been 84. Let us celebrate the legacy of his genius once again by listening as much as possible to this underappreciated genius – and anyone else for that matter – deserving of attention that the general listening public doesn’t seem to give enough to. Maybe even WBGO will play a cut or two, who knows (hopefully before Brian Delp’s 3am slot)… Yesterday, I took a stoll through the park with my dog, BJ while tuned in to the local jazz station WKCR (89.9 FM) listening to serial music without knowing who or what it was. And I thought, wow, is that…

This will be a short one. I was exposed to the Robert Casadesus Complete Ravel Piano Works originally by my father, who had the record collection on vinyl. The record is magical and I’m happy to say is available on Rhapsody. IMO there is no one to this day that can capture the feeling of his rendition of Pavane pour une infante défunte NO ONE. The piece ofcourse is one of Ravel’s most famous (making it that much harder). It carries the unique and difficult task of a pulsating background in regimented time but still the feeling and romance in melody typical of (lets say) Chopin. And ofcourse that marvelous…

For those of you that have an interest in the subject, click here.

Felix Lemerle (son of the late Jimmy Gourley’s bassist, Dominique Lemerle) has referred me to a new blog page about Ronnie that incorporates some of the prior archive website data along with some never before seen photos. I’m hoping the amount of info will increase over time as more facts become known about this lost legendary bebop guitarist. Ronnie Singer page

Hold on to your hats folks. This is the Song Is You 2 Chorus Jimmy Raney Solo referred to in previous post. Time to rethink what you knew about Jimmy Raney Getz period playing. There was (or since??)no other player on earth besides Jimmy that could create a bebop solo with this amount of chops, articulation and clarity at this tempo in 1952. BTW the key is Ab not the usual C. Also note the tempo stays absolutely locked to the metronome for 1 chorus and 8 bars. Pretty astonishing. It moves slightly during a particular bar but the tempo is still pretty locked to the speed 314 bpm. Interestingly…

There’s one guy that (if he had lived) might’ve given Jimmy Raney a run for his money as top 50’s bebop guitarist. His name was Ronnie Singer and my father would often talk about him. Ronnie Songer’s death was an apparent double suicide. What a horrible thing. My father got wind of these recordings (shown below) when I was staying with him around 1985. A friend had them and asked Dad about them (thinking Dad was the guitarist) and Dad exclaimed, “No that’s Ronnie Singer!!” We both listened to them. They were not officially released until after Jimmy Gourley (the original possessor of the tapes) died according to available information.…