{"id":12226,"date":"2014-04-14T23:40:26","date_gmt":"2014-04-15T07:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.zennioptical.com\/?p=12226"},"modified":"2023-11-06T09:12:01","modified_gmt":"2023-11-06T17:12:01","slug":"jazz-appreciation-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ca.zennioptical.com\/blog\/jazz-appreciation-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Jazz Appreciation Month – These Artists ‘Got Their Glasses On!’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In jazz slang, to say you\u2019ve \u201cgot your glasses on\u201d means you\u2019re acting a little snooty.
\nBut we think that expression\u2019s jive, man, because we\u2019re all about people getting their glasses on. After all, some of the coolest cats who ever blew an axe literally got their glasses on.<\/p>\n

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\nDon\u2019t have a cow, man. We know Simpsons character Bleeding Gums Murphy<\/a> wasn\u2019t an actual jazz great. But plenty of real-life jazz musicians sported some pretty rad rims.<\/p>\n

So in honor of April\u2019s designation as Jazz Appreciation Month (with the appropriate acronym JAM), we\u2019re taking a look at some of the baddest daddies (and a couple of fine ladies) of jazz who definitely got their glasses on \u2013 in a good way.<\/p>\n

Composer, lyricist, and ragtime pianist Eubie Blake was one of the fathers of jazz.<\/p>\n

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\nBlake and his partner, singer-songwriter Noble Sissle, wrote the 1921 Broadway musical Shuffle Along, one of the first written and directed by African Americans. That show gave the world the standard \u201cI\u2019m Just Wild About Harry.\u201d Blake was just wild about horn-rim, square glasses. Check out similar Zenni frame 220421<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nClarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman\u2019s 1938 concert at New York\u2019s Carnegie Hall was considered jazz\u2019s coming-out party, and as such, one of the most important performances in jazz history.<\/p>\n

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\nThe concert climaxed with the immortal \u201cSing, Sing, Sing,\u201d featuring Lionel Hampton (left) on vibraphone, Gene Krupa on drums and Harry James (not pictured) on trumpet.<\/p>\n

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\nA big part of Goodman\u2019s image is his rimless eyeglasses.<\/p>\n

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\nGoodman\u2019s frame is similar to Zenni\u2019s frame 322111<\/a>, shown with lens shape 232.<\/p>\n

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\nIf you want to copy Goodman\u2019s style, go with lens shape 224.<\/p>\n

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\nThelonious Monk was one of the first modern-jazz, bebop artists.<\/p>\n

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\nHe was notable for a percussive style of piano improvisation with abrupt starts and stops. Monk first gained attention performing with Charlie \u201cBird\u201d Parker and Dizzy Gillespie at Minton\u2019s Playhouse in Harlem, where he was the house pianist.<\/p>\n

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\nMonk\u2019s popularity took off when the Thelonious Monk Quartet played the Five Spot Caf\u00e9 in New York, in 1957. Along with Monk on piano, the quartet included (from left) John Coltrane on sax, Shadow Wilson on drums, and Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass.<\/p>\n

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\nWhether it\u2019s \u201c \u2019Round Midnight,\u201d or any time of the day, Monk looks great in his glasses. You\u2019ll look just as cool in Zenni frame 690111<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nOr, to get the Monk look in non-prescription sunglasses, go with Zenni frame A10120421<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nElla Fitzgerald was known as both the \u201cFirst Lady of Song\u201d and the \u201cQueen of Jazz.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nShe was the first African-American woman to win a Grammy, at the first Grammy Awards ceremony, in 1959. She actually won two Grammys that night, Best Female Vocal Performance for Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook, and Best Jazz Performance for Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook.<\/p>\n

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\nShe went on to win 11 more Grammys. Her live version of \u201cMack the Knife,\u201d recorded in 1960, is one of the landmark jazz performances captured on record.<\/p>\n

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\nAlthough she didn\u2019t wear glasses in performance as a young jazz singer, Fitzgerald wore them in later years.<\/p>\n

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\nHer oversize, ornamented, full-rim style is similar to these Zenni frames (click on the images to see their specs!):<\/p>\n

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\nIt\u2019s notable that several of these landmark performances are in the late 1950s and early \u201960s. In jazz, 1959 is considered the art form\u2019s peak year, similar to the way film buffs consider 1939 the greatest year in movie history.<\/p>\n

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\nYou\u2019ve probably seen those three 1939 movies, which are so famous they need no identification. They are just a few of the many movie masterpieces that year.
\nNow let\u2019s look at some classic jazz albums that were released in 1959:<\/p>\n

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\n\"\"<\/a>
\nOf the jazz greats behind these albums, only bandleaders Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis were frequently seen in glasses.<\/p>\n

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\nCheck out Brubeck (at the piano) with his quartet (from left, alto sax player Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright, and drummer Joe Morello), all of whom are wearing glasses.<\/p>\n

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\nWe love the Take Five cut \u201cBlue Rondo \u00e0 la Turk,\u201d and the title track, which is so recognizable and popular it could almost serve as jazz\u2019s theme song, although some would argue that John Coltrane\u2019s version of Rodgers and Hammerstein\u2019s \u201cMy Favorite Things\u201d deserves that distinction.<\/p>\n

As much as we love both recordings, we\u2019re going to go with Brubeck, if only because he and his bandmates all wore glasses.<\/p>\n

Brubeck\u2019s signature frame is not unlike Eubie Blake\u2019s square-style horn-rims, but let\u2019s mix it up a bit (you didn\u2019t think we were going to say \u201cjazz it up,\u201d did you?) with a rich-looking, brown square-style frame from Zenni, model 820415<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nDesmond\u2019s glasses are similar to Zenni frame 614212<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nWright is wearing a pair of classic brow line glasses, not unlike Zenni frame 535021<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nMorello\u2019s glasses, with a straight-line bridge, are similar to Zenni\u2019s Christmastime tortoiseshell frame 624725<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nTrumpeter Miles Davis\u2019s Kind of Blue brought a new form of improvisation to jazz, using the songs\u2019 scales rather than chords for his riffs. His 1960 album, Sketches of Spain, is just as revered as Kind of Blue, but we\u2019re also extremely fond of a less heralded 1959 album by Davis and Gil Evans, their jazz version of Porgy and Bess, by George Gershwin (music), DuBose Heyward (libretto and lyrics), and Ira Gershwin (lyrics).<\/p>\n

When he started wearing glasses, Davis favored oversized frames, like these aviators.<\/p>\n

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\nDavis\u2019s frame calls and Zenni responds, with similar frame 579721<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nWhen you think of images of one of Davis\u2019s modern-jazz forebears, Dizzy Gillespie, you probably think of two balloon-like cheeks rather than two round eyeglass lenses. But in his early years, the man credited by many as the originator of bebop, also known as modern jazz, wore round, full-rim specs that set off his not-yet \u201cmoon cheeks\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\nPop on similar Zenni frame 6290015<\/a>, and start blowin\u2019!<\/p>\n

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\nIf Thenlonious Monk and Miles Davis are bebop, and Benny Goodman is \u201cprebop,\u201d then Herbie Hancock could be considered \u201cpost bop.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nHancock is a true crossover jazz-fusion artist, bringing synthesizers, funk, soul, and modern classical music to his improvisations. His 2007 tribute album to occasional jazz artist Joni Mitchell, River: The Joni Letters, won two Grammys, for Best Contemporary Jazz Album and Album of the Year.<\/p>\n

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\nThe full-rim, rectangular metal frames shown in his picture and on the album cover are not unlike Zenni\u2019s frame 650312 (in gray) and 650315 (in brown).<\/p>\n

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\nTrumpeter Wynton Marsalis is the first jazz artist to win the Pulitzer Prize for music.<\/p>\n

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\nA prodigy who was performing in church by age 8, Marsalis won the Pulitzer in 1997 for Blood on the Fields, an oratorio about a couple moving from slavery to freedom.<\/p>\n

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\nWith his participation in various PBS programs, including Marsalis on Music and Ken Burns\u2019s Jazz, his several books on jazz, and his artistic directorship of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Marsalis has become the leading ambassador of jazz.<\/p>\n

The full-rim rectangular metal frame he\u2019s wearing in his picture is similar to Zenni\u2019s frames 552415 (brown) or 552421 (black).<\/p>\n

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\nFinally, sultry Canadian singer-pianist Diana Krall (shown with bassist Ben Wolfe) is one of the few ladies of jazz who doesn\u2019t mind performing in eyeglasses.<\/p>\n

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\nThat may be because she is married to Elvis Costello, whose glasses are an indelible part of his appearance.<\/p>\n

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\nKrall\u2019s tinted full-rim rectangular glasses are similar Zenni\u2019s frame 228721<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nCostello\u2019s are close to Zenni\u2019s frame 638821<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nNow you\u2019ve got some crazy chops to break it down and find some gone frames in the mix. And that is all that jazz \u2013 in eyeglasses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":null,"protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eye-health","category-fashion"],"acf":[],"contentshake_article_id":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ca.zennioptical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ca.zennioptical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ca.zennioptical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ca.zennioptical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ca.zennioptical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ca.zennioptical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ca.zennioptical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ca.zennioptical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ca.zennioptical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}