George Van Eps Live 1969

[jmgalich]

I post somewhat infrequently, but when I do it's usually about some obscure videos I found on YouTube or elsewhere. Today, we have two recordings of the legendary George Van Eps from (according to the YouTube title) an LP called ''The Blue Angel Jazz Club – Jazz At Pasadena '69 Volume Two.'' However, the notes state that it was recorded at the University Club in Pasadena, CA, in November 1969. Regardless, it's GVE live. Also, these are audio only; the "video" is a montage of images of GVE from various sources.

Although George was (IMO) always a phenomenal player, he is on fire on these two tunes.

Here's "The Man I Love":

Here's "Mountain Greenery":

Enjoy!

John Galich

[Rob MacKillop]

Wow! He's certainly on form here. Wonderful playing, musical too. Thanks for sharing.

[rpjazzguitar]

When I was studying with Sid Margolis, a big band player from the 30s-50s, he asked me to get a copy of Mellow Guitar (I was going record shopping in Manhattan). I got it at Colony Records.

It was the only guitarist I recall Sid mentioning. I think guys in that era were in awe of Van Eps. And, listening to these tracks, it's clear why.

He sounds a lot like a pianist, which is how he said that he thought about guitar "a piano you hold in your lap".

Thanks for posting these recordings!

[wintermoon]

these are cool if you haven't seen them

[sgcim]

When I was studying with Sid Margolis, a big band player from the 30s-50s, he asked me to get a copy of Mellow Guitar (I was going record shopping in Manhattan). I got it at Colony Records.

It was the only guitarist I recall Sid mentioning. I think guys in that era were in awe of Van Eps. And, listening to these tracks, it's clear why.

He sounds a lot like a pianist, which is how he said that he thought about guitar "a piano you hold in your lap".

Thanks for posting these recordings!

Besides being a guitar genius, the man was also a great composer. Listen to Howard Alden playing his compositions. They're like piano sonatinas written for guitar, using extended form, prepared modulations going from section to section, and great melodic and harmonic invention.

I'm not talking about long spacey pieces the 'geniuses' of fusion play; I'm talking about music that could have been written by 'serious' composers, where every note meant something.

[rpjazzguitar]

He retired from music at one point and ran a hobby store in SoCal.

He built a miniature working locomotive. Key word is "working". It had a working steam engine and everything, just tiny.

It came up when Ted Greene interviewed him.

The interview includes some technical details of the challenges he faced in building this scale locomotive. It was not possible to simply reduce every measurement by the size ratio. It turned out, for example, that the metal used in full size locomotives was too porous to use in a mini-boiler. It took him 22 tries to design and build a boiler that worked. I found this part of the interview fascinating. Mr. Van Eps was quite a guy.

https://www.tedgreene.com/images/pdf...iptOfAudio.pdf