Praia da Ursa, Sintra, Portugal. A blue hour seascape seen in wide angle.

The Colosseum during the blue hour

Blue hour in Paris.

The illuminated mining lamp memorial in Moers during the blue hour

The blue hour comes from the French expression l'heure bleue, which refers to the period of twilight each morning and evening where there is neither full daylight nor complete darkness. The time is considered special because of the quality of the light at this time of day.

A time of innocence[link]

The phrase is also used to refer to Paris immediately prior to World War I, which was considered to be a time of relative innocence.^{[citation needed]}

Influence in popular culture[link]

As a result of the perceived specialness of this time, there are various restaurants, theatres and hotels called L'Heure Bleue located worldwide. There is also a women's perfume by Guerlain (1912) of the same name. The Norwegian rock band Madrugada (Spanish and Portuguese for "early morning") were also named after this time.

In English culture the term was used to describe the period of inactivity and uselessness a drinker encounters when pubs and other licensed premises have closed after the lunch-time session (typically 15:30 hrs) and will not open for the evening session until (typically 18:30 hrs) based on pub opening times in England. Scotland and Wales, now largely abolished in favour of all-day opening.

Art[link]

• l'Heure Bleue is a concept often expressed, in his works and in his thought, by the contemporary artist Jan Fabre^[1]

Books[link]

• The cover background of The Junior Encyclopedia of Canada, Volume 5 (S-Z)^[2]
• A series of city scenes by David Mamet collected in his Goldberg Street: Short Plays and Monologue anthology
• Blue Hour (2003), a book by Carolyn Forché^[3]
• Blue Noon (2005), the third book in Scott Westerfeld's Midnighters trilogy
• L'heure Bleue, a book by Edward Gorey^[4]
• The Blue Hour (1999), a novel by T. Jefferson Parker in the Merci Rayborn series
• The Blue Hour (2002), a romantic novel by Kate Thompson

Films[link]

• The first portion of the 1987 episodic film, 4 aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle, by Éric Rohmer
• A 1991 film by director Marcel Gisler
• The TV calendar series Jul i Blåfjell (Christmas in Blåfjell) associates magic/other-wordly powers with the Blue Hour - blåtimen, Jul i Blåfjell (norwegian Wikipedia) (1999)
• The Blue Hour is a 2007 film starring Alyssa Milano

Music[link]

The blue hour is also a common theme in popular music and the subject appears in various songs:

• Pete Anderson – "Blue Hour"
• Turin Brakes – "Blue Hour"
• Stephen Cummings – "Blue Hour"
• Vanessa Daou – "This Blue Hour"
• Christian Death – "The Blue Hour"
• Peter Fox – "Schwarz zu Blau" ("Black to Blue")
• Nina Gordon – "The Blue Hour"
• Françoise Hardy – "L'Heure Bleue"^[5]
• Killer Loop – "The Blue Hour"
• KLF – "Madrugada Eterna"
• Ute Lemper – "L'Heure Bleue"
• John Mackey – "Hymn to a Blue Hour"
• Madrugada – "Strange Colour Blue"; both the song and the eponymous album title (which means "dawn" in Portuguese and Spanish) refer to the blue hour
• Roy Orbison – "When The Blue Hour Comes"
• Oysterband – "Lost and Found"
• Radiohead – "The Gloaming"
• Andreas Vollenweider – "Chanson de l'Heure Bleue" ("Song of the Blue Hour")

Photography[link]

• l'Heure Blue is a speciality of Czech photographer Lucie Debelkova

See also[link]

• Civil twilight
• Midnight sun
• Polar night
• Green flash
• Golden hour
• Belt of Venus

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Blue hour

• bluehoursite.com: Everything about Blue Hour and Night Photography (news, articles, tips and calculator)
• Twilight Calculator, Golden Hour/Blue Hour table

v t e Parts of a day Dawn · Twilight–Sunrise · Morning · Daylight · Evening · Sunset–Twilight–Dusk · Night Related articles: Blue hour · Golden hour · Terminator · Forenoon · Noon · Afternoon · Midnight · Daytime · Midnight sun

Stanley Turrentine
Turrentine in 1976.
Background information
Born	(1934-04-05)April 5, 1934
Origin	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	September 12, 2000(2000-09-12) (aged 66)
Genres	Bebop, hard bop, jazz blues, soul jazz
Occupations	Bandleader, composer, saxophonist
Instruments	Tenor saxophone
Years active	1959–2000
Labels	Blue Note, Fantasy, CTI, Prestige, Impulse!
Associated acts	Shirley Scott, Tommy Turrentine, Jimmy Smith, Freddie Hubbard, Kei Akagi

Stanley William Turrentine, also known as "Mr. T" or "The Sugar Man", (April 5, 1934 – September 12, 2000) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.^[1]

Biography[link]

Turrentine was born in Pittsburgh's Hill District into a musical family. His father, Thomas Turrentine, Sr., was a saxophonist with Al Cooper's Savoy Sultans, his mother played stride piano, and his older brother Tommy Turrentine also became a professional trumpet player.^[2]

He began his prolific career with blues and rhythm and blues bands, and was at first greatly influenced by Illinois Jacquet. In the 1950s, he went on to play with the groups of Lowell Fulson, Earl Bostic, and at the turn of the decade, Max Roach.

Turrentine received his only formal musical training during his military stint in the mid-'50s. In 1959, he jumped from the frying pan into the fire when he left the military and went straight into the band of the great drummer Max Roach.

He married the organist Shirley Scott in 1960 and the two frequently played and recorded together. In the 1960s, he started working with organist Jimmy Smith, and made many soul jazz recordings both with Smith and as a leader.

In the 1970s, after his professional split and divorce from Scott, Turrentine turned to jazz fusion and signed for Creed Taylor's CTI label. His first album for CTI, "Sugar" proved one of his biggest successes and a seminal recording for the label. He worked with Freddie Hubbard, Milt Jackson, George Benson, Bob James, Richard Tee, Idris Muhammad, Ron Carter, Grant Green and Eric Gale, to name a few. He returned to soul jazz in the 1980s and into the 1990s.

Turrentine lived in Ft. Washington, Maryland from the early 90s until his death. He died of a stroke in New York City on September 12, 2000 and is buried in Pittsburgh's Allegheny Cemetery.^[3]

Discography[link]

As leader[link]

Blue Note Records

• 1960 Look Out!
• 1960 Blue Hour with The Three Sounds
• 1961 Comin' Your Way
• 1961 Up at "Minton's"
• 1961 Dearly Beloved
• 1961 ZT's Blues
• 1962 That's Where It's At
• 1962 Jubilee Shout!!!
• 1963 Never Let Me Go
• 1963 A Chip Off the Old Block
• 1964 Hustlin'
• 1964 In Memory Of
• 1964 Mr. Natural
• 1965 Joyride
• 1966 Rough 'n' Tumble
• 1966 Easy Walker
• 1966 The Spoiler
• 1967 A Bluish Bag
• 1967 The Return of the Prodigal Son
• 1968 The Look of Love
• 1968 Common Touch
• 1968 Always Something There
• 1969 Another Story
• 1984 Straight Ahead
• 1986 Wonderland
• 1989 La Place
• 1993 Ballads

CTI Records

• 1970 Sugar
• 1971 The Sugar Man - (released in 1975)
• 1971 Salt Song
• 1972 Cherry (with Milt Jackson)
• 1973 Freddie Hubbard/Stanley Turrentine In Concert Volume One
• 1973 In Concert Volume Two
• 1973 Don't Mess with Mister T.

Fantasy Records

• 1974 Pieces of Dreams
• 1975 In the Pocket
• 1975 Have You Ever Seen the Rain
• 1976 Everybody Come on Out
• 1977 Nightwings
• 1977 West Side Highway
• 1978 What About You!
• 1980 Use the Stairs

Other labels

• 1966 Let It Go (Impulse!)
• 1965 Tiger Tail (Mainstream Records)
• 1960 Stan "The Man" Turrentine (Bainbridge)
• 1976 Man with the Sad Face - Bainbridge (orig. released on Fantasy Recs.)
• 1977 Love's Finally Found Me - Classic World
• 1979 Soothsayer - Elektra
• 1979 Betcha - Elektra
• 1980 Inflation - Elektra
• 1981 Tender Togetherness - Elektra
• 1983 Home Again - Elektra
• 1991 The Look of Love - Huub
• 1992 More than a Mood - Music Masters
• 1993 If I Could - Music Masters
• 1995 Three of a Kind Meet Mr. T - Minor Music
• 1995 T Time - Music Masters
• 1995 Time - Music Masters
• 1999 Do You Have Any Sugar? - Concord Jazz

As sideman[link]

With Kenny Burrell

• 1963: Midnight Blue (Blue Note)
• 1964: Freedom (Blue Note)

With Donald Byrd

• 1964: Up with Donald Byrd (Verve)
• 1964: I'm Tryin' to Get Home (Blue Note)

With Georgie Fame

• 1996: The Blues and Me (Go Jazz)

With Astrud Gilberto

• 1971: Gilberto with Turrentine (CTI)

With Roy Hargrove

• 1993: With the Tenors of Our Time (Verve)

With Gene Harris

• 1985: Gene Harris Trio Plus One (Concord Jazz)

With Freddie Hubbard

• 1987: Life Flight (Blue Note)

With Duke Jordan

• 1960: Flight to Jordan (Blue Note)

With Diana Krall

• 1994 Only Trust Your Heart (GRP)

With Abbey Lincoln

• 1959: Abbey Is Blue (Riverside)
• 1991: Devil's Got Your Tongue (Verve)

With Les McCann

• 1961: Les McCann Ltd. in New York (Pacific Jazz)

With Jimmy McGriff

• 1969: Electric Funk (Blue Note)

With David "Fathead" Newman

• 1988: Fire! Live at the Village Vanguard (Atlantic)

With Horace Parlan

• 1960: Speakin' My Piece (Blue Note)
• 1961: On the Spur of the Moment (Blue Note)

With Duke Pearson

• 1965: The Right Touch (Blue Note)

With Ike Quebec

• 1962: Easy Living (Blue Note)

With Dizzy Reece

• 1960: Comin' On! (Blue Note)

With Max Roach

• 1959: Quiet as It's Kept (Mercury)
• 1959: Moon Faced and Starry Eyed (Mercury)
• 1960: Parisian Sketches (Mercury)

With Mongo Santamaria

• 1970: Mongo's Way (Atlantic)

With Shirley Scott

• 1961: Hip Soul (Prestige)
• 1961: Hip Twist (Prestige)
• 1963: The Soul is Willing (Prestige)
• 1963: Soul Shoutin' (Prestige)
• 1964: Blue Flames (Prestige)
• 1964: Everybody Loves a Lover (Impulse!)
• 1964: Queen of the Organ (Impulse!)
• 1968: Soul Song (Atlantic)

With Marlena Shaw

• 1997: Elemental Soul (Concord Jazz)

With Horace Silver

• 1968: Serenade to a Soul Sister (Blue Note)

With Jimmy Smith

• 1960: Midnight Special (Blue Note)
• 1960: Back at the Chicken Shack (Blue Note)
• 1961: Prayer Meetin' (Blue Note)
• 1968: Stay Loose (Verve)
• 1982: Off the Top (Elektra/Musician)
• 1986: Go Fot Watcha Know (Blue Note)
• 1990: Fourmost (Milestone)

With Art Taylor

• 1960: A.T.'s Delight (Blue Note)

With Tommy Turrentine

• 1960: Tommy Turrentine with Stanley Turrentine (Time)

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Stanley Turrentine Hard Bop Homepage accessed March 23, 2011
• Stanley Turrentine biography All About Jazz accessed January 6, 2010
• Stanley Turrentine at Find a Grave

Rodney Crowell
Crowell onstage at Whelans, Dublin January, 2009
Background information
Born	(1950-08-07) August 7, 1950 (age 61) Houston, Texas United States
Genres	Country
Occupations	Musician, Songwriter
Instruments	Vocals Guitar
Years active	1978–present
Labels	Warner Bros., Columbia, MCA, Sugar Hill, Epic, Yep Roc
Associated acts	Rosanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, The Notorious Cherry Bombs, Los Super Seven
Website	Official Site

Rodney Crowell (born August 7, 1950) is a Grammy Award-winning musician, known primarily for his work as a singer and songwriter in country music.

He is part of both the alternative country and the mainstream country music camps^{[citation needed]}. He was influenced by songwriters Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. Crowell played guitar and sang for three years in Emmylou Harris' "Hot Band".

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Rodney Crowell on Bookbits radio.

Crowell was born August 7, 1950,in Crosby, Texas, to James Walter Crowell and Addie Cauzette Willoughby.{Chinaberry Sidewalks (New York: Knopf, 2011} He had come from a musical family, with one grandfather being a church choir leader and the other a bluegrass banjo player. His grandmother played guitar and his father sang semi-professionally at bars and honky tonks.^[1] At age 11, he starting playing drums in his father's band. In his teen years, he played in various garage rock bands in Houston, performing hits of the day mixed with a few country numbers.^[1]

1972 - 1986: Early Career[link]

In August 1972 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in search of a musical career and got a job as a songwriter after being discovered by Jerry Reed.^[1] He later met and befriended fellow songwriter Guy Clark, who became a major influence on his songwriting and vice versa.^[2][3] While there, he said, "I got a real cold splash in the face of what real songwriting is about. I started filling my mind with as many symbols and images as I could. I started reading. I got real hungry to have something to contribute".^[2] Emmylou Harris had recorded some of Crowell's songs and made a request to meet him. After he visited Emmylou's home in Washington, D.C., she asked him to play rhythm guitar in her backing band, The Hot Band. He accepted and later followed her to Los Angeles.^[2][4]

Crowell at the Grammy Awards in February, 1990

In 1977 as a side project, he formed a musical group, The Cherry Bombs, together with Vince Gill, Tony Brown and others.^[5] One year later, he signed a solo deal with Warner Bros. Records and in late 1978, released his debut album, Ain't Living Long Like This.

His debut album, as well his following two albums, But What Will the Neighbors Think and Rodney Crowell, were not commercially successful despite garnering a huge cult following. Crowell himself criticized his debut album for not translating onto vinyl the same clarity and energy he felt in the studio. His single "Ashes by Now" from "But What Will the Neighbors Think" reached #37 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1981.

Though he had already several country hits by artists covering his songs (including "Ain't Living Long Like This" by Waylon Jennings, "Leaving Louisiana..." by the Oak Ridge Boys, and several covers by Johnny Cash, Rosanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, Jerry Reed and others), Crowell got his first big taste of pop songwriting success with "Shame on the Moon". "Shame on the Moon" was recorded on the 1982 album "The Distance" by Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band. Glenn Frey joined Seger on background harmony on the song. Appealing to a broad cross-section of listeners, the song spent four weeks at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart, topped the adult contemporary chart, and placed in the Top 15 of the country chart in early 1983. The song's dark, poetic and hypnotic style helped boost Crowell's cult status.

The album Rodney Crowell was released in 1981 (see 1981 in country music) by Warner Bros. Records and was his last album on that label before switching to Columbia. The first album Crowell produced by himself, it reached #47 on the Top Country Albums chart and #105 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The songs "Stars on the Water" and "Victim or a Fool" were released as singles. "Stars on the Water" reached #30 on the Hot Country Songs chart, Crowell's highest charting song up to that point. It peaked at #21 on the Canadian country charts. "Victim or a Fool" reached #34 in the U.S.

In 1981, Rodney left Warner Bros.' roster, putting his career on hold to produce several of his wife Rosanne Cash's albums.^[2]

In 1983 Crystal Gayle had a number one Country single with his song "'Til I Gain Control Again" from her first Elektra album, "True Love". The song was first recorded in 1975 by Emmylou Harris.

1986 - 1995: Columbia Records and Mainstream Success[link]

After producing Rosanne Cash's Rhythm & Romance, Crowell signed to Columbia Records in 1986. His first album for that label, Street Language, was co-produced with Booker T. Jones and featured a blend of Soul and country music.^[6] The album did not chart.

Although best known as a songwriter and alternative country artist, Crowell enjoyed mainstream popularity during the late 1980s and early 1990s. His critically acclaimed album 1988's Diamonds & Dirt produced five consecutive No. 1 singles during a 17-month span in 1988 and 1989: "It's Such a Small World" (a duet with Cash), "I Couldn't Leave You If I Tried," "She's Crazy For Leavin'," "After All This Time" and "Above and Beyond" (a cover of Buck Owens' 1962 hit). His follow-up album, 1989's Keys to the Highway, produced two top 5 hits in 1990, which were "Many a Long and Lonesome Highway" and "If Looks Could Kill."

As Crowell's popularity in hit-radio country music faded, he continued his prolific songwriting. After 1992's Life Is Messy, he left Columbia Records and signed to MCA Records where he released two more albums.

2001 - Present[link]

In 2001, after a brief hiatus from recording, he released The Houston Kid on Sugar Hill Records, his first studio album since 1995's Jewel of the South. Many songs on the album were semi-autobiographical, and the album included a duet with Crowell's ex father-in-law Johnny Cash on "I Walk the Line (Revisited)". Initially, Cash was annoyed at Crowell for changing the tune to his song, but he came to like the finished product.^{[citation needed]} Crowell followed up this effort with Fate's Right Hand in 2003 and The Outsider in 2005, both of which came out on Columbia Nashville, a division of Sony Music. Leading critics and Crowell consider these three albums his finest work as a solo artist.

2004 saw the release of The Notorious Cherry Bombs, a reunion of Crowell's 1970s road band, including Vince Gill and Tony Brown. The future Keith Urban hit "Making Memories of Us" was included on this disc. In 2005, Crowell served as producer for established Irish singer/songwriter Kieran Goss on the album "Blue Sky Sunrise".

In 2008 CMT announced that Crowell's next album, Sex and Gasoline, would come out on Yep Roc Records, ending his relationship with Sony Music. This marked the first time Crowell did not produce his own CD, turning production over to Joe Henry. The album was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album.^[7] Crowell figures prominently in musician-neuroscientist Daniel Levitin's book The World in Six Songs for which he was interviewed, and three Crowell songs, "Shame On The Moon," "I Know Love Is All I Need" and "I Walk the Line (Revisited)" are featured in the book.

In 2009, Crowell wrote Wynonna Judd's title track to her album Sing: Chapter 1, which also was released in 2009. The song was given several electronic dance music remixes, and sent to dance radio as Judd's second release from the album. In August 2009, the single reached #4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart.

In 2010, Chely Wright will release her seventh studio album on Vanguard Records. The album titled Lifted Off the Ground is produced by Crowell. Wright also made a cameo appearance in Crowell's 2008 music video Sex and Gasoline.

A memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks, was published in 2011.

Personal life[link]

He was married to Rosanne Cash (daughter of Johnny Cash), from 1979 to 1992 and they had an influence on each other's careers, with Rodney producing most of her albums during that period and her success influencing his songwriting. They collaborated on a number of duets, including 1988's "It's Such a Small World." Although Crowell and Cash are now divorced, they remain on friendly terms, performing together occasionally. Crowell and Cash have three daughters, Caitlin, Chelsea, and Carrie, and together raised Hannah, Rodney's daughter from a previous marriage. He married Claudia Church in 1998.

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rodney Crowell

• Official Site
• A brief biography