Live jazz videos of Blue Fiasco jazz quintet
Videos of Blue Fiasco live, playing jazz arrangements of Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, and some jazz standards, too.
What makes playing in Blue Fiasco really fun? Experiments! We like to try new arrangements, songs that you wouldn’t expect to hear as jazz, mashups of songs that don’t belong together, and yes, even Andy’s bad puns. Here’s our arrangement of Oliver Nelson’s classic “Stolen Moments,” from the 1961 album, The Blues and the Absolute Truth. The challenge: take the dissonance of the original, played on horns by Nelson, Freddie Hubbard and Eric Dolphy, with Bill Evans accompanying them on piano, and preserve that dissonance using guitar, sax and keyboards as instrumentation.
Our take on “Straight No Chaser” by Thelonious Monk. Watch the part at about 58 seconds, where Jon H. gets “stuck” soloing and George helps out by stomping on the ground.
“Straight No Chaser” is a 12-bar blues, usually performed in B flat, and was first recorded by Monk in 1951. It’s one of Monk’s most popular songs and has been recorded by many others, including Miles Davis (in the key of F).
Our jazz arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed.”
Originally written for Stevie’s 1979 album, Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants, it was dropped from that album and released on In Square Circle.
It has a beautiful chord progression from the intro, all through the chorus.
For the music theory geeks…that intro is Db6-C7-Bmaj7-C7 and repeats…it shouldn’t make sense for a song in the key of Eb but it does and it’s amazing.
Pink Floyd’s “Us And Them,” reimagined as jazz, from a recent date at Comida in Hudson, Ohio, April 2023. Originally released on Pink Floyd’s classic 1973 album, The Dark Side of the Moon.
Our take on the Stevie Wonder classic, “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing,” reimagined as jazz and played at Comida in Hudson, Ohio, April 2023.
The jazz standard “Satin Doll” played by Blue Fiasco at a private event, June 2023.
The group is caught laughing at something funny before getting serious with the song, which is often the case!
“Satin Doll” was written by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn in 1953. It has been performed and recording too many times to count, and Blue Fiasco adds their version to the mix.
An old jazz standard from 1940 but used for the 1980s TV series Mike Hammer, and more recently as the theme song for Guy Noir in A Prairie Home Companion. From a concert in Oberlin, Ohio. This video has nearly 8,000 views on YouTube.
Our “Pink Suite:” Pink Floyd re-imagined as jazz: “Money,” “Us and Them” and “Another Brick In The Wall.” This video has 14,000 views on YouTube.
Something a bit more traditional: the jazz standard “Autumn Leaves.”
Our opening song from a gig on the Hudson Green, Hudson, Ohio in September 2021: our version of “Moondance.”
Our original two-minute introductory video from 2020: “Can’t Buy Me Love” (The Beatles), “Norwegian Wood” (The Beatles), “Rocket Man” (Elton John), and “Layla” (Eric Clapton/Derek and the Dominos).