Thursday, January 19, 2012

DR BEKKEN

Dr Bekken has been thrilling me with his talents on the baritone ukulele in the last 2-3 months. Today I sent him an e-mail asking him about himself. I guess I should have Googled him first. Below is just an exerpt of his MySpace page...
"TOR E 'Dr' BEKKEN is a pianist, tuba player and singer specializing in jazz, blues and free improvisation. He holds a Master's degree in music from NTNU (University of Trondheim, Norway), and he has been a professional jazz/blues musician on the Norwegian scene since the late 1980s. He has released seven albums: THE NAKED BLUES (sonor records; 1995) TRAIN - STONE BLUES PIANO, VOL 1 (sonor records; 2001) GOT MILK IF YOU WANT IT (sonor records; 2003) THE TICKLERS (ticklerdisc/gumbotronic; 2004) FLOOD STREET (DrB Records; 2006) HARDCORE PIANO (Blue Mood Records/Grappa; 2008) SONGS FROM A FOREST (Blue Mood Records/Grappa; 2009)..."

There's plenty more to read there, including Dr. Bekken radio!

SONGS from YOUTUBE
All I Do Is Dream of You (+scat)
Ain't She Sweet (+scat)
A Working Man Will Always Be a Slave
Low End Strut
Just Humming & Picking the Blues
Nobody But You (Cliff Edwards)
Sweet Savannah (original on his Savannah Baritone ukulele)
Cherry Red (Big Joe Turner & Pete Johnson)
Corrine, Corrina

The Doc wrote back...
"Man, this is GREAT. Thank you very much! As you've probably realized, I love the ukulele, baritones and sopranoes in particular. I used to play it as a kid, and kinda forgot about it until last year, when i saw a documentary on Norwegian TV. I couldn't believe that I'd forgotten about the uke, and I went straight out and bought a cheap soprano. Now, I'm checking out cheap baris, and the 'Savannah' is just fine with me...My solo ukulele & vocal album, 'JazzBluesRagtimeVaudeville' is available on iTunes (only soprano, though...), and I am planning a solo baritone album in 2012!" 

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