Jason Lancaster » Music

Kick-ass swing: Fletcher Henderson’s Stealin’ Apples

Jason Lancaster — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:16:59 +0000

Fletcher Henderson was a trendsetter. Beginning in 1923, he closely marks the transition from New Orleans jazz to big band. He was one of the first black artists to successfully collaborate with white artists. He cultivated amazing talent in his band including the beginning of Louis Armstrong’s career. His contributions drove the swing era to its heyday.

I first heard Stealin’ Apples almost exactly one year ago when I began getting into pre-big band music and it has been in my top ten ever since. This song is a perfect combination between a catchy riff, a nice tempo at 185bpm, a relaxed sound, and something that makes me want to bounce and dance. There are quite a few versions of this song, but the one on the album The Fletcher Henderson Story is my absolute favorite.

I’d like to take a brief second and thank Chris for the idea for this post. I sometimes struggle to come up with good topics and he made a point the other day to ask me to talk about music more. I’ve had others ask about it in person and I can talk for hours or recommend stuff over a dinner conversation, but no one ever said, “Hey, can you talk about that on the blog?” I must say, I wish I thought about it sooner and hope this becomes a big hit!

Will Hoge concert

Jason Lancaster — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 19:38:42 +0000

I saw Will Hoge, one of my top ranked (based on iTunes most frequently played music) artists, on the 3rd of March. He was really cool and has one of those awesome, raspy and full voices that lend themselves so well to live music. He seemed really chill and personable too, considering that he is, you know, a somewhat popular musician. However, I was suprised by the amount of younger girls there. I didn’t realize he had somewhat of a teeny bopper following. Oh well. It was still awesome.

Meeting up with Alan and Kristine was an unlikely suprise. Alan snapped some pictures:

Tyler Hilton

Jason Lancaster — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:25:52 +0000

Ok, so I’ve been pretty bad at actually talking about things that have been going on in my life recently. I’ll try and change it right now, starting with the concert I went to last night. It was Tyler Hilton at the Towson Recher. He was pretty damn cool. I was afraid it was going to be a bunch of teeny boppers because of his whole One Tree Hill thing and well, there were a bunch, but the crowd was small and he played some upbeat rock songs that just had a real cool groove to them. He also played "Picture Perfect", a very mellow acoustic song of his, by himself on acoustic guitar. I’ve been trying to figure out how to play that song for so long because he does some very strange tuning. It was nice to hear it live in person and watch his fingering… although I’m no closer at being able to play it myself.

I found out about him because I frequent the WB tv shows online for music recommendations. They always have some cool stuff and one day I just stumbled on his name. WB is how I learned of Death Cab for Cutie and Rooney. I can’t complain about any of those bands either.

I took EEE with me because she has similar musical taste and figured she’d be good company. She was indeed.

On a side-note, I ate thai food 3 times last week. Oh, how I would love to be eating it right now…. yum!