On that ghastly afternoon when John F. Kennedy died, Woody Herman was recording an album for Phillips. The band was playing Bobby Scotts A Taste of Honey. Everyone had heard the news and there was in that performance a mournfulness that is not in the arrangement, not in the notes themselves, but in the attitude in the band, whose personnel at that period included Nat Pierce, Sal Nistico, Phil Wilson, and Bill Chase. You can hear it in the recording. It is a striking track, deeply sad, and it shows how jazz can reflect public events and the consequent more immediately than any other art. Woody finished the take and cancelled the rest of the date.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 12:00:03 +0000
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