Monday Music: Everybody's Talkin' (Ramsey Lewis)

We lost jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis last week. From CNN article. "Ramsey Lewis, jazz pianist who revitalized genre, dies at 87":

Depending on which music pundit you ask, jazz “died” when its 1920s heyday ended. Others believe jazz music lost its luster when the 1960s – and rock music – rolled around. But Ramsey Lewis, an inventive jazz pianist and one of the nation’s most respected artists in the genre, continued to find novel ways to keep the genre alive and evolving and, crucially, grow new generations of jazz listeners.

Lewis spent nearly 60 years recording and performing original jazz music, striking gold in 1965 with the crossover hit “The ‘In’ Crowd.” He won three Grammys, scored seven gold records and in 2007 was named a National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Master, the highest honor bestowed upon jazz musicians in the US.

Here is a sampling of his talent in Everybody’s Talkin’.

 

-