Lady Owl, Johnny Alistair and Me...

When I was four years old, I fell through a hole in the ground into a subterranean cave. In there, waiting to be found (it was seven days, I think….. but it seemed like another lifetime), I heard echoes of our ancestors pounding on drums. Waiting in that dark primordial cave…. with one blinding light shining through the hole I fell through just above my head…..just out of reach…..the distant beating on logs that I could hear from deep within that cave in otherwise deafening silence, THAT is my primary drum influence. And the Roland 808 drum machine as well.

                              Johnny Alistair drumming influences

Acid Viking (2024) signed by Johnny A

Black Sabbath when I was a teenager.  After the first few songs the power went out and the stage lights went dark.  They got the lights back on but the amps stopped working so they finished the show a cappella.  The drummer Bill (Ward) was mouthing the drum parts and Tony (Iomni) was vocalizing the guitar parts.  It was insane.  I was on mushrooms to top it off.  I’m pretty sure they finished a cappella.

                              Johnny Alistair's first concert, an auspicious start!

Acid Viking back cover (2024)

My great friend Johnny Alistair sent me his recent album Acid Viking and I am so grateful for his kindness and generosity. It is a very interesting mix of original music and lyrics written by Johnny who also handles the drums with skill and precision. Johnny used some great session players including keyboard legend Lester Snell, a veteran of Stax Records and key contributor to hits by Eddie Floyd, Al Green, Isaac Hayes, Albert King, Mavis Staples and so many others. I asked Johnny what his songwriting process was, melodies first or lyrics?, this was his response, “Songs come to me from dreams, I float out of my body and lift up through a portal. There I find them sitting on a mountain waiting for me. I can physically pick it up and then it enters my consciousness. An owl sitting on a nearby branch delivers these riffs to a waiting spot on the riff mountain and I just go there when the time is right.” Sounds like a great process...

The record was recorded and mixed to tape, then completely mastered to analog, an old school process. It was never converted to digital, which necessitated an old school engineer with suitably vintage equipment. Enter Greg Calbi, mastering engineer par excellence with over 7500 album credits, including John Lennon “Walls and Bridges,” Lou Reed “Berlin,” Bob Dylan “Blood On The Tracks,”  Bruce Springsteen “Born To Run,” David Bowie “Young Americans,” Patti Smith “Easter,” Talking Heads “ Fear Of Music,” and Taylor Swift “Evermore.” Whew, that’s a lot of work and an impressive CV which omits the 7500 other albums which Greg has worked on!

The music is great, a little heavier than what I listen to now, but it brought back fond memories of Hawkwind’s Hall Of The Mountain Grill, psychedelic space rock at its finest, mixed in with funky echoes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the sonorous dischord of Mark Lanegan. The album artwork is equally striking, crafted by Todd Alcott who mashes up film noir sensibilities with a mid century ethos. All in, a wonderful effort by all concerned. Thank you Johnny, thank you Lady Owl, please go out and support new artists!

https://ladyowl.bandcamp.com

Choice Lady Owl cuts (per BKs request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAw8gU5B-VA

"Hits Hard"   Acid Viking    2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbEiJLUqvac

"Acid Viking"    Acid Viking   2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx98j34sRfM

"Lithium"  Acid Viking  2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e7Wj1Y5YbY

"Boom"   Acid Viking    2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj0pprJznOw

"Chilly"  Acid Viking  2024

Bonus Cuts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrLizmL56CY

"The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear In Smoke)"  Hawkwind: Hall Of The Mountain Grill  1974

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m9IG66EUe0 

"Nutshell"  Mark Lanegan sings Alice in Chains  2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIu3uNZ_-ZI

"Love Will Tear Us Apart"  Mark sings Joy Division  2017

Beth Orton and Me...

When I put out those first records, success came very quickly. When that happens, there are things to do to build on success, and a lot of it I think went against my grain. And also, maybe I wasn’t that good at it. I thought it was a phase, for sure, what a funny phase! And then what’s happened over the years is: no, this isn’t a phase. Actually you might just have to admit that you love what you do, and shut the f*ck up and get on with it. Accept what is possible, and what hasn’t been possible, and where I might have been able to figure it out a bit better and been a better version of myself. Or wish that other people had been better versions of themselves, and not be afraid of my darkness.

                   Beth Orton

Everyone’s poking you with sticks, What are you, are you successful? What kind of music do you make, what’s your thing?’ I don’t know, I’m just muddling through. I’m a f*cking mess, all right? I’ve become a ‘mother’. I meet my children at the gates of the school, and I don’t know if I am that person, but I’m trying to be. I’m also a singer and a songwriter, and I’ve been famous – did that happen, I’m not sure? Trying to incorporate all those incredibly disparate bits of the self into one is ... I just don’t know any more. I don’t know who the f*ck I am.

                        Beth Orton

Central Reservation (1999) signed by Beth

I met Johnny Marr. I’d just come off stage in LA and he was talking to a friend of mine and I was just chatting to the two of them. I didn’t know who this other guy was and I was just talking for about half an hour, getting on really well, having a laugh and then I was just like, So what do you do? And he was like, "Oh, I play guitar." And I thought, Right, okay. And anyone I might have heard of? And he was like, "Well, maybe. Yeah, The Smiths." I was: I know you’re Johnny Marr. Oh, okay, okay and then I sort of expected that embarrassment set in and just thought, Oh, but it didn’t because he’s just such a sweetheart and we just carried on. It was like a blip, and then we went or whatever and just carried on talking. And then it turned out we’re staying in the same hotel, and he came up one evening and we just sat on my balcony drinking wine and playing guitar until like the wee hours, you know, and it was just beautiful. It was like it was amazing. And I had these songs and I was” I’ve got this song” and I had "Concrete Sky."  I’ve had that knocking around for a while and and he just got very excited about that song in particular and, and started adding these chords underneath and then sort of said, 'I know, what about this idea for a bridge,' then help me with my chorus, you know and just kind of like galvanized it and I don’t know, made it into what it is really.

                    Beth Orton

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGVgbKQldEA
"Concrete Sky"  Daybreaker  2002

That tag? I don’t mind it as long as it’s not a gimmick. I mean, I was playing around with that and it was my ambition to mix those two things. And it also made me laugh because both of them are such kinds of genres, just full of snobbery. You know, you’ve got your dance snobs and you’ve got your folk snobs and you got this thing. And it was just hilarious to bring it together in a way, and also I just thought it could be really beautiful.

                        Beth Orton on "Folktronica"

Daybreaker is a word I made up when I was talking to Johnny Marr. I was trying to describe how I wanted the song to be outside. You know, like a daybreak, like a song. It’s a daybreak and a song. For example, I’d been at a friend’s house and we were up all night drinking and talking. And he and his wife were there, and we were just having the best night. And before I left in the morning, like 6 a.m., they gave me a copy of Dusty in Memphis (by the great Dusty Springfield). And I went home and I put it on and I watched the sun come up with a head full of dreams and, you know, and you’ll just be like, oh, drifting around. You just had a brilliant night with your friends, and you listen to the most beautiful record you’ve ever heard. That is a daybreaker.
                  Beth Orton

I don’t think it’s easy, I don’t think it’s easy at all, and I think that sounds whatever it sounds. It’s funny, I was walking past a hotel yesterday with my daughter in New York, and I was like, “I used to stay there,” and she was like, “wow, it’s massive,” and I was like, “yeah, huge, and it’s really fancy,” and I said, “but you know what, I’m so happy to be walking past that hotel pointing it out to you but walking down the street with you.” Not staying in that hotel, but looking at it and going, “I did that once. I’m so happy that I’m here with you now and not there.” Not because I didn’t enjoy it, because the success wasn’t lovely and all of that and given me the chance to have a nice home to bring my kids up in, not fancy, fancy, but good enough — it’s all good. And I’m just like, did I handle it well? Probably not. Was I gracious? Not always. I came out of nowhere in a very particular time of my life when … It’s a lot, maybe more than people realize.
                        Beth Orton

Trailer Park (1996) signed by Beth

For over thirty years, Beth Orton has been creating beautiful music and delighting audiences with her exquisite songcraft. She defies categorization. A singer-songwriter who adds elements of folk, electronica and beats, Beth has collaborated with mix masters the Chemical Brothers, Four Tet, William Orbit and Andrew Weatherall on many of her recordings. For her efforts, critics labeled her music 'folktronica," which sounds as nonsensical as it seems. Rather than all the categories which critics revel in, I prefer Duke Ellington's description: "There are simply two kinds of music, good music, and the other kind." Beth has been nominated twice for the prestigious Mercury Prize, an annual award (since 1992) for the best album released by a musical act from Ireland or the United Kingdom. Though she lost in 1997 to Roni Size & Reprazent (whoever that is!) and to Talvin Singh in 1999, she is in good company with Adele (0 for 2), David Bowie (0 for 3),  Radiohead (0 for 6), Paul Weller (0 for 2), and Amy Winehouse (0 for 2). Apparently, the Mercury Prize has a track record as unenviable as the Grammys!

Born in Dereham, Norfolk, Beth moved to Dalston, East London when she was fourteen. Her father, a journalist and public relations consultant, left the family three years earlier and died shortly thereafter. It was a hardscrabble life for Beth, her two brothers and her mother as Beth ruefully recalled, "Vodka and white bread seemed to be what we lived off." Beth was also afflicted when she was seventeen with Crohn's Disease, a debilitating inflammatory bowel ailment. To lessen the pain, Beth sought non prescriptive cures, "I was out drinking on it, drugging, living the life, The highs were very high and the lows were very low." Unfortunately, Beth's mother passed away from cancer when she was only nineteen and now she was on her own.

Initially, Beth wanted to be an actress, and she enrolled in the Anna Scher Theatre School in Islington, outside of London. Founded in 1968, this school was one of the first to welcome working class students. As a result of the poor reading skills by some of the pupils, improvisation was encouraged and deemed essential. The Royal Shakespeare Company, this, clearly, was not. Thus, Beth embarked on a tour of the UK, Russia, and Ukraine in Une Saison en Enfer (A Season in Hell), a poem turned play written by Arthur Rimbaud, with subject matter as cheery as its title implies. Regrettably, it was probably an accurate representation of Beth's life at the time. It was at a different music theatre production that producer and beat master William Orbit (later to collaborate and have outsize success with Madonna, Britney Spears, and Pink among others) saw her and enlisted her to work on the third installment of his Strange Cargo series, which featured "Water From A Vine Leaf," a song co-written by Beth and Orbit. This led to Beth's first album, Superpinkymandy, named after a ragdoll Beth owned as a child, produced by Orbit and released in 1993 in Japan to little or no fanfare. Despite an imaginative interpretation and reinvention of English folk singer John Martyn's "Don't Wanna Know About Evil," and her composition "She Cries Your Name" which later appeared on Trailer Park as a single in 1996, the album didn't sell very well. A limited pressing of only five-thousand copies didn't help.

Sugaring Season (2012) signed by Beth

Her relationship with Orbit wasn't just professional and it was hardly a cheery Hallmark Card, as she disclosed, “He wanted me to be all like part of his world and we started going out together and he wanted me to sing. I was like ‘F*ck off, I’m not going to be some bloke’s bird who sings but can’t even sing, but because they’re going out together he gets her to sing on his record.' I was really indignant about it. I remember I was really drunk and on ecstasy – I used to make him do loads of ecstasy, he never went out or did anything – and then all of a sudden I was popping pills in his gob and we were lying under a mixing desk being all mental. And I sang ‘Cry Me A River’ as a joke, and ‘Catch A Falling Star’ by Francoise Hardy. And then he made a little demo of it.”

Despite this inauspicious and unsettling beginning, four years later, Beth had her critical and commercial breakthrough with the release of Trailer Park, a proper release through proper channels. Her first single was a cover of The Ronettes' "I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine" which bore little resemblance to the swirling Phil Spector power pop originally recorded in 1965, and Beth's career was off and running. Initially, Beth wanted to name the album "Winnebago" but licensing from the manufacturer of mobile homes proved impossible. Beth remembered the vibe, "Trailer Park conjures up the same kind of filmic American images, images of transience and dislocation... and funnily enough, when we shot the video for the first single (in an actual trailer park)... I had all these odd, rather desperate people coming up and giving me their entire life-stories in a second, even though I didn't want them to." Not everybody is a star, I reckon...

Kidsticks (2016) signed by Beth

The disappointment of the elusive Mercury Prize notwithstanding, Beth has had a phenomenal career, releasing eight albums while collaborating with an eclectic list of artists, Ryan Adams, Dr. John, Emmylou Harris and Terry Callier, a singular soul singer and writer of renown. It seems as though her cadence is to release an album, well crafted and lovingly written, every four or five years, and it is always worth the wait. Her latest album Weather Alive is no exception, and it is exceptional. The rigors of Covid wrought its own challenges. Beth was set to work with a (as yet unnamed) "super-fancy" producer before he bolted, "Anyway, lockdown happened, he disappeared, the whole thing went to sh*t." The record label wasn't happy either with the dour and dark songs that Beth was creating and dropped her.

Undaunted, Beth took out a loan in 2022 and self-produced Weather Alive, the first time she had ever done so. The songs were born in a studio shed on her property where she went to escape during the pandemic, "This old piano really spoke to me and held an emotional resonance I could explore in a way I wasn't able to on guitar, a depth, or a voice I'd never worked to before. For me, the mood and atmosphere were another instrument. They were always consistent... In a way, when I was making the record, there was something about those last few months when I was just on my own in the shed, and I was working remotely with people, and I was taking the beautiful music that had been kind of played around the songs and started to sculpt it and create a new sonic world for these songs. It was kind of an indulgence for me, I really loved it. I loved the experience of getting to transport myself and the music is transporting anyway. There was some gorgeous, gorgeous stuff to work with. It's lovely to think of making a record that people can lose themselves in, because it's not always the most jolly record. It's not dark, but it's deep."

Weather Alive (2022) signed by Beth

Erin and I were lucky to see Beth perform Weather Alive at the Sacred Heart University Community Theater in Fairfield, Connecticut on September 7, 2023, the first gig in the US to preview this impressive work. The theater is an old vaudeville relic opened in 1920, and was recently purchased by Sacred Heart University and upgraded. It is an intimate venue with only four-hundred seats. Accompanying Beth were Alex Bingham on guitar, Stephen Patota on bass, Ben Sloan on drums, and multi-instrumentalist Jesse Chandler on keys, horns and everything else. Jesse was also the opening act as his solo band, Pneumatic Tubes, had just released a beautiful aural and ambient excursion, A Letter From TreeTops, dedicated to his late father, his upbringing in Woodstock, New York, and the camp he attended as a child, TreeTops. It was a mesmerizing performance as Jesse used pedals, loops and added occasional flute and saxophone flourishes to take us on a spellbound journey. Read more about Jesse here https://www.vinyl-magic.com/blog/pneumatic-tubes-beth-orton-and-me

Jesse Chandler, Beth Orton at SHU Community Theater, September 7/ 2023

After a brief intermission, Beth and the rest of the band came out and opened with the title track, “Weather Alive,” a brooding yet hopeful piece that featured Beth’s moving vocals amidst the haunting sounds. Like the great Lucinda Williams, her voice cracks in all the right places, she is perfectly imperfect. Other highlights off Weather Alive included "Friday Night," wherein a Proust name drop is always welcome, and a bubbly "Fractals," written in tribute to the late Hal Willner, a producer who succumbed to the ravages of Covid in the early days of 2020. Beth had worked with Hal in 2006 on a concert tribute to Leonard Cohen along with other luminaries Laurie Andersen, Nick Cave and Lou Reed. As she said in a recent interview, “Hal allowed for a freedom of creative expression that I had not had anywhere else. "Fractals" was written to him, written to that feeling. When Hal died I felt him so close, and I got into this: I have no control, though my brain is rattling around telling me I have, and everything is a projection anyway.” Beth also did a beautiful version of "Central Reservation" accompanying herself on acoustic guitar and "Pass In Time," a lovely paean to the loss of her mother. The encores were the obligatory "Stolen Car," which a fan had shouted earlier in the show, to which she wryly responded, "Yes, he's here, he's at every show," and "Call Me The Breeze," an original written by Beth, not the J.J. Cale song which was famously covered by Lynyrd Skynyrd, an enduring staple in the cock rock canon. It was a glorious evening of music.

After the show, Beth was kind enough to sign her vinyl and I thanked her for her music. Hopefully, it won't be another five years between albums and tours. Perhaps, her hard earned freedom as a self producing artist augurs well for future endeavors, as she recently revealed, "I've spent a life handing elements of my work over to men in a room before I'm ready and having them reinterpret my perception, add chords to make something else happen and sometimes, in the process, take the music to a place I had no intention of going. It's subtle the ways that could happen, but to be able to hold on my own intention throughout has been a powerful experience." None more powerful than her performances transmitted directly to an audience.

Choice Beth Orton Cuts (per BKs request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYUXWwMWbGE
"Friday Night"  Weather Alive  2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2TeBrO8pqc
"Don't Wanna Know 'Bout Evil"  with William Orbit  1992

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xXaNZEUNeY
"I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine"  Trailer Park  1996

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh4es2xulPg
"Pass In Time (with Terry Callier)"  Central Reservation  1999

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjF6akZ2WqI
"The Sweetest Decline (with Dr. John)"   Central Reservation  1999

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxjJnSvjKHs
"Someone's Daughter" Trailer Park  1999

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSDliZi9d6U
"Fractals"  Weather Alive  2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMaOipvolgM
"Carmella (Four Tet Remix)"  The Other Side Of Daybreak   2002

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiUHKOK6PUE
"Carmella"   Daybreaker  2002

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvpRUqPrR4k

"Lean On Me (with Terry Callier)"  Best Bit  1998

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFZc4ax4tJs&list=RDQJ-63s5xHy4&start_radio=1
"She Cries Your Name"  Trailer Park  1996

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rHa78_M16I

"Thinking About Tomorrow"  live  Paste Studio 2003

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK8mGUS11iY
"I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain"  Tim Buckley cover with The Chemical Brothers 2018

"We must have recorded it around the same time as I made Central Reservation; The Chemical brothers would have just released Dig Your Own Hole. Sometime in 1998 possibly. I imagine the track got put to one side, slotted into that book that I told myself I’d read someday and never did, and the track got forgotten. Found by chance last year but released with every intention I hope you enjoy this offering."
Beth Orton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StRW1XrKJaY
"Water From A Vine Leaf"  with William Orbit  1993

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUrmm7EARZY
"The State We're In"  with The Chemical Brothers  Come With Us  2002

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ35dnfYKrQ&list=RDSjF6akZ2WqI&index=22

"Stolen Car"  Central Reservation  1999

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08XxjGkCbTc
"Call Me The Breeze"  Sugaring Season  2012

Bonus Picks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtEmjwI2a7Q

"I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine"  The Ronettes  1965 recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12qiOFv6OHg
"Lean On Me"  Terry Callier  Occasional Rain  1972

all photos by me

copyright 2024

Andres Segovia, Charlie Byrd and Me...

The guitar chose me. I played other instruments at times, but none of them suited me like the guitar. It's something done with the hands, and I'm oriented that way. If I weren't a guitarist, I'd be an artisan or cabinetmaker or sculptor.

Charlie Byrd

Classical music encompasses just about everything that can be done on the guitar. And the instrument has all kinds of color within itself, so you can play its colors against each other to a much higher degree than you can the regular guitar. Besides that, I like the sound.

Charlie Byrd

Jazz Recital (1957) signed by Charlie

I think the first time I heard it [bossa nova] anywhere – Felix Grant (WMAL DJ) played a few João Gilberto records. On my way to Brazil (in 1961), I stopped in Caracas and I met a man named Jacques Bernstein (an aficionado of jazz and all kinds of music) and he had an extensive collection of Bossa Nova. He had everything that had been recorded up to that time. And a few days later we went down to Brazil – started in the north – in Recife. I went out and played with some guys in a café, whose names I don’t remember. So that was my first exposure to playing it live.

Charlie Byrd

Bossa nova was invented by the Brazilians, but it was already an amalgamation because they liked jazz so much. They had brought in many elements of American music, and it made it much easier for us to grasp it and identify with it.

Charlie Byrd

Charlie’s Choice (1960) signed by Charlie, Keter Betts

An innovative and prolific jazz guitarist, Charlie Byrd recorded over one hundred albums. Born in rural, southern Virginia, Charlie studied music at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute before he was drafted into World War II where he saw combat. When he was discharged, he returned to the United States and eventually to New York City where he studied jazz theory and composition at the Hartnett National Music School. In 1950, Charlie moved to Washington, DC where he was classically trained by Sophocles Papas. Papas, a founder of the Columbia Music Company, was a noted guitar instructor and one of the first publishers of arrangements and original compositions for the Guitar. Papas was also a close friend of the renowned Spanish classical guitarist Andres Segovia (since Segovia's initial US recital in 1928), and he introduced Byrd to Segovia.

In the summer of 1954, Charlie studied with His Eminence in Siena, Italy. As he said of his time with Segovia, "It was like playing with God. It was a great deal more than adulation. He knew all the secrets of the acoustic guitar. I was one of several charmed souls to be in special circumstances to allow us to meet one of the world's greatest guitarists, and to learn a fraction of what he spent a lifetime learning."

Bossa Nova Pelos Passaros (1962) signed by Charlie, Keter Betts

I saw Andres Segovia  perform at three recitals: Symphony Hall in Boston in 1980 and 1982, and again at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC in the mid-1980s. Each time, Segovia would make his way to the center of the cavernous stage clutching his nylon stringed classical guitar. Amid thunderous applause, he would sit down on a small bench, prop his foot on a stool and the wondrous sounds of Bach, Haydn and Villa-Lobos would envelope the hushed room. Rapt and spellbound, we watched a master deliver an impressive classical program. Though Segovia was in his late eighties, his technique was flawless and his sound luminous.  Certainly, I will not challenge Charlie's assertion that Segovia was "the greatest guitarist ever on the face of the earth.” As a fitting tribute, one of his guitars (1937-1962), designed by luthier Hermann Hauser of the esteemed Hauser Guitar family, is installed at the Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York City. Sadly, I never met Segovia, nor do I have any signed albums, but donations are warmly accepted!

Bach: Chaconne (1969) signed by Carlos Barbosa Lima

Charlie Byrd's biggest influence in jazz, however, was the fleet, three fingered Gypsy maestro Django Reinhardt. Charlie had the good fortune to see Django perform in Paris in the 1940s during the war and he was instantly changed. As fellow guitar sage Jerry Garcia once said of Django, ""His technique is awesome! Even today, nobody has really come to the state that he was playing at. As good as players are, they haven’t gotten to where he is. There’s a lot of guys that play fast and a lot of guys that play clean, and the guitar has come a long way as far as speed and clarity go, but nobody plays with the whole fullness of expression that Django has. I mean, the combination of incredible speed – all the speed you could possibly want – but also the thing of every note has a specific personality. You don’t hear it. I really haven’t heard it anywhere but with Django." Charlie's genius was to apply the nylon string classical virtuosity of Segovia and wed it to the improvisatory jazz fury of Reinhardt. The results were extraordinary.

Byrd At The Gate (1963) signed by Charlie, Keter Betts, Clark Terry

In 1961 as a substitute for Dave Brubeck, Charlie took a State Department sponsored tour of Central and South America (eighteen countries in twelve weeks!), and he fell in love with the Brazilian rhythms and melodies. Upon returning, Charlie and Stan Getz recorded Jazz Samba at Pierce Hall, All Souls Unitarian Church, in Washington, DC on February 13, 1962.  As drummer Buddy Deppenschmidt recalled, "It looked like a basketball court in there. It didn't have fixed seating, just folding chairs. It almost gave me the feeling of a junior high school stage, like if you were going to see your kid in a play. There were no baffles on the walls, no glass window...  (it) was like playing a concert to no people."

At The Maryland Inn (1977) signed by Charlie and Joe Byrd, Chuck Redd

A three to four studio session would change music forever. Jazz Samba became an enormous hit, selling over 1,00,000 records and it is the only jazz album ever to hit Number 1 on the Billboard Pop Charts. Almost as soon as Stan Getz won a Grammy Award in 1963 for Best Solo Jazz Performance, the fighting and bickering began. Charlie Byrd sued Getz and MGM for royalties, eventually settling with MGM for $100,000 and royalties going forward, and Byrd and Getz never recorded together again. Getz, mercurial and a bit of a misanthrope, especially when drinking, was famously described by fellow saxophone great Zoot Sims as "a nice bunch of guys." Nevertheless, the Bossa Nova craze was launched from this inauspicious and unexpected beginning, and everyone started recording and performing the songs of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto, and Luiz Bonfa. Stan Getz's sublime treatment of Jobim's "The Girl From Ipanema" in 1964 engendered countless versions, and it became the second most recorded popular song after The Beatles' "Yesterday." Sammy Davis, Jr., Ella Fitzgerald,  Lou Rawls, Frank Sinatra, and, even Amy Winehouse have all sung about the wiles and virtues of "The Girl From Ipanema."

Great Guitars (1976) signed by Charlie

Erin and I saw Charlie Byrd perform many times through the years. From 1980-1985, he was a part owner of Charlie's Georgetown in Washington, DC. Charlie's Georgetown was a swank supper club for jazz sophisticates and swells. Seating maybe 150 patrons, the intimate club hosted top jazz artists like Sarah Vaughan, Benny Golson, Art Farmer, Mel Torme and Joe Williams, and Charlie Byrd would perform there quite often with his trio  and special guests. One memorable gig, he was playing with a group called The Great Guitars, featuring Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis. The show was a guitarist's dream as the trio traded furious guitar runs, each skilled player pushing the others on jazz standards from the Great American Songbook. Charlie's playing was so precise and lyrical while exploring the rhythms of the wonderful songs of Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael, Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, Jobim and Gilberto.

After each show, Charlie was kind and gracious. His drawl was a Southern drawl and he seemed to be every bit the laconic, Southern gentleman he was. He enjoyed looking through his catalog, especially his first album Jazz Recital, in which he looked as resplendent in formal attire as his hero Andres Segovia. He smiled when he saw The Great Guitars' albums, "That was a great group and we had a lot of fun." Yes, indeed, I felt very blessed to see them perform.

Charlie Byrd, influential across musical genres and a singularly great guitar. 

Great Guitars At The Winery (1980) signed by Charlie

Choice Charlie Byrd Cuts (per BKs request)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1OxyUaw2nA

"Desafinado" - Live on Perry Como Show - Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xkLF33eghI

"One Note Samba"  Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri_Zk8qzff4

The Great Guitars, North Sea Festival 1982 - Charlie, Herb, Barney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPyY80pUujE

"Corcovado" Live 1998

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtWSwRaI7xY

"More" - Charlie Byrd with Seldon Powell, 1963

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kezmn0mTUi4

"Don't Cry For Me Argentina" Charlie with Laurindo Almeida

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBQfHJA2Lng

Andres Segovia Plays Bach

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xGrjWt1hco

"Prelude 1 - Villa-Lobos" by Andres Segovia

The Charlie Byrd Christmas Album (1982) signed by Charlie

Tom Scott, The LA Express, and Me…

I was obsessed with music and everything about it. Not only how to play saxophone, clarinet and flute, but I was obsessed with learning how to arrange. I also spent hours on the weekends dropping the needle down on the record for only a few seconds and then pulling it off. I’d try to pick off all the notes I was hearing. Whether it was Benny Goodman, John Coltrane, Cannonball (Adderley) or an entire arrangement by Count Basie – whatever it was – I just wanted to know how music was built. I wanted to understand what the component elements were. I just got way into it.

                        Tom Scott

As a young sax player coming up, I was particularly struck by the records by the Miles Davis Sextet. There was Cannonball, John Coltrane and Miles, and the three of them represented three unique styles of playing. On paper, you couldn’t imagine how it would work stylistically. Miles was sparse and classy; Coltrane was always searching for something deep, and Cannonball was always so jovial. And I was always drawn to him, and not only because of his stunning originality and technique. Cannonball just always sounded happy to me, as if he was always reveling in the joy of making music.

                        Tom Scott and his Holy Trinity

The Honeysuckle Breeze (1967) signed by Tom

Regarding the “Starsky & Hutch” theme: In 1975, I gave a talk about my life as a composer/saxophone player in Hollywood studios to an audience of pre-teen girls at a private school in Bel Air. I played a reel-to-reel tape of Carole King singing "Jazzman" without any sax, then played along ‘live’ the second time. The girls seemed to enjoy my talk. I had done several ‘Career Day’ lectures like this one, and afterwards pretty much forgot about it. In the meantime: “Starsky & Hutch” was first aired in April 1975 as a ‘Made-for-Television’ movie on ABC. It was a ratings winner, and so the following fall it was slated to return to the air as a weekly series. The first year of the show had a main title theme edited down from the chase climax cue in Lalo Schifrin’s score for the original TV Movie. It was rhythm-based and had no melody. However, once the show was picked up for a second season in the summer of 1976, the producers (Aaron Spelling & Leonard Goldberg) decided to have a new, more recognizable theme for the opening title sequence. Right around that time I got a call from my film-scoring agent Al Bart. He had just spoken to producer Joe Narr at Spelling-Goldberg Productions. It was an unusual call, Bart recalled. “My 12-year-old daughter saw one of your clients give a career lecture at her school”, Narr said. “She suggested to me that he compose the new theme music for Starsky & Hutch—his name is Tom Scott.” And with that left-field endorsement, I was hired to do a demo session of three different tunes—hopefully one of them would be chosen. I was thrilled to learn the producers had chosen demo song #1—and it became the ‘Starsky & Hutch Theme’!

             Tom Scott and the unintended virtues of community service

Each movie has its own set of parameters, but one thing is constant – your job as the film composer is to help the director realize his/her vision. The director is “The Boss” and the goal is to make him or her (and hopefully the studio) happy. It was a particular honor to work with Sidney Poitier, who directed Stir Crazy and Hanky Panky. In both cases, Sidney gave me the freedom to write what I felt. He heard those scores for the first time as we were recording them in the studio with an orchestra. How nice it is to have someone trust you that much!
Tom Scott

Tom Scott & The L.A. Express (1974) signed by Tom

I’ve gone headlong into building a new website. I’m trying to collate things like the film music that’s in the libraries of Fox, MGM and Universal into a catalog that’s accessible through the site. Clearly, websites have become the best ways of promoting yourself. I never thought I’d see the day where record companies would make me an offer and I could say, ‘I think I can do better on my own, guys.' It’s amazing what recording artists accepted for so many years. The record company would say, ‘We will pay you money to make a record. You make that record, then you give it to us, and we’ll give you a royalty of 10 to 15 percent. And out of that money, you will pay us back what it cost to make the record, and we will own it, lock, stock and barrel.’ And we all naively said, ‘Yeah, great, sign me up.’ That kind of deal doesn’t sound so attractive anymore. They took advantage of  countless young, up-and-coming artists. George Harrison even told me stories about how badly the Beatles became victims of that system.

                        Tom Scott

About ten years ago a friend of mine was recruited to join the engineering faculty at Berklee College of Music. We had a going away party for her and she had the Berklee catalog with her. I was looking through it and was absolutely blown away by all the offerings. One of the courses listed was Jazz-Fusion 101: A Study of the Music of Tom Scott and the Brecker Bros. You know, I would love to take that course because I don’t have a clue as to what I’m doing! I’m just making one record after the next. If that turns out to be a style, pattern or something that you can make a course out of – fantastic!

                      Tom Scott

Livin’ It Up (1968) signed by Tom, Jimmy Smith

Arranger, composer, conductor, and saxophonist, Tom Scott is one of the most prolific musicians whom you have heard but possibly don't know. His saxophone credits include Blondie's "Rapture," Carole King's "Jazzman," Whitney Houston's "Saving All My Love For You," Paul McCartney and Wings "Listen To What The Man Said," Joni Mitchell's "Free Man In Paris," and Rod Stewart's "Do You Think I'm Sexy," among countless others. Oh yeah, he also wrote the horn arrangements and played on Steely Dan's Aja, and he even found the time to play the lyricon, an obscure electronic wind instrument, on Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." Tom also composed film and television scores and was a member of The Blues Brothers band, appearing on their first album, Briefcase Full Of Blues, although a salary squabble resulted in his absence in the film. I guess he wasn't nicknamed Tom "Triple Scale" Scott on the liner credits for nothing! A three time Grammy winner (with thirteen nominations), Tom has released more than thirty albums as a leader and appeared on hundreds of sessions in an amazing and varied career, and he's not done yet.

Born in Los Angeles, Tom was surrounded by music. His father, Nathan Scott, was an accomplished film and television composer as well as a pianist and trombonist, as Tom remembered, "Dad spent many years composing and conducting music for films and television. Beginning in 1952, he arranged and orchestrated for “Dragnet” theme composer Walter Schumann, later taking over as composer on that Jack Webb series. He later joined the roster at CBS-TV composers along with Lalo Schifrin and others, scoring episodes of “Laramie” “Wagon Train,” “Have Gun-Will Travel”, “Rawhide,” “The Untouchables,” “My Three Sons” and other television series of the 50’s and 60’s. He scored two “Twilight Zones,” including the classic 1960 episode “A Stop at Willoughby”. He began working on “Lassie” in 1963 and scored all of its episodes until the show ended in 1973... Clearly, I was born into a very musical household. My Dad never pushed me, but once I started playing clarinet at age eight, I was hooked!" Clearly, the apple didn't fall far from the tree. 

Tom Cat (1975) signed by Tom

As a teenager, Tom played in bands and though he enrolled at the University of Southern California, he dropped out after his freshman year to concentrate on his burgeoning music career, "“The L.A. scene was great for studio musicians in that era. There was a group of producers cranking out records with lots of musicians, even if some of them may have been overproduced and had too many people on them. But it was a lot of fun, and there was great camaraderie between the musicians." It's a long, long way stylistically from playing and sitting in with Thelonious Monk and Gerry Mulligan to the pablum pop of the Partridge Family or the 5th Dimension, but Tom had the skills to adapt and flourish. Even the great Quincy Jones recognized his talent as early as January, 1970 when Q gave him a shoutout in an LA Times interview. " Like Tom Scott, the saxophonist, he's twenty-one and out of sight! Plays any idiom you can name, and blows like crazy on half a dozen horns." Q knowed, he always did...

Blow It Out (1977) signed by Tom

When Tom wasn't participating in robust studio sessions in Los Angeles, he was holding court at the Baked Potato, a vaunted and appropriately named venue, "In 1972, I led the house band on Tuesday night at the Baked Potato in North Hollywood, CA. At that time, the personnel consisted of Mike Wofford on piano, Chuck Domanico on bass, and John Guerin on drums. We were a ‘straight ahead’ jazz band for several months. Mike and Chuck, for unrelated reasons, left the band around the same time. John suggested Max Bennett as a replacement bassist. On Fender Rhodes we asked someone who had been listening at the bar on many Tuesday nights—Joe Sample, of the Crusaders. We then added a young guitar player, Larry Carlton. Max wrote the first tunes that helped shape the sound of this new band. They were jazzy melodies with a distinct R&B or Rock feel and, at the time, quite revolutionary. Max and I began to expand the bands’ library with more of these ‘hybrid’ tunes. The audience grew quickly and in a matter of months, it was standing room only on Tuesday nights at the Baked Potato. Clearly, this new sound had great appeal and set us apart from other local bands of that era. Producer/guitarist and friend Louie Shelton came in the club to hear us one night, and casually suggested we call our band “The LA Express”—we thought it was a great idea!"

Land’s End (1974) signed by Tom, Jimmy Webb

A great name and a marvelously talented band, Tom caught the attention of Joni Mitchell and he would go on to appear on four of her records, "“The first time I was called to work with her, I was still thinking she was a folk singer, and I suppose her roots were in that genre at the time. But this record (For The Roses in 1972) was where she started to break out into whatever style you want to call her music, since she’s so hard to categorize. She played me a tune she’d written about Beethoven ("Judgment of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig’s Tune)"), and it was just a jaw-dropping experience. It was about what might have been his inner feelings about certain things. It was just so deep, and way beyond any kind of folk music I’d ever heard. She’s a supreme artist." Tom also appeared on Court and Spark, which yielded the hits "Help Me" and "Free Man In Paris" expanding Joni's commercial appeal on mainstream radio.

Bobby Darin Sings Doctor Doolittle (1967) signed by Tom and Roger Kellaway

In support of her record, Joni Mitchell enlisted Tom Scott and the LA Express to be her backing band, as Tom recalled, “We started what was supposed to be a six-week college tour to promote that record, but the album did so well that the tour got extended into March and April. Then we were doing a summer tour. By September, we were on stage at Wembley Stadium in England with 100,000 spectators, on a bill with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Bob Dylan with The Band, and none if it was expected. Based on that tour, we then did the live album Miles Of Aisles. Of her talent during the ten-month tour, Tom remarked, "Joni was an inspirational live performer—I never heard her screw up a lyric or flub a chord once in over 70 shows!"

Mitch Towne, Andrew Synowiec, Tom Scott, JR Robinson

I saw Tom recently at Birdland in New York City on July 22, 2023, a rare visit back east as he has been doing mostly studio and film work over the years and rarely tours. Tom was a special guest, sitting in with SRT, a jazz trio led by John "JR" Robinson, an equally gifted and prolific Los Angeles based studio veteran and drummer. JR has played on countless hits from Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Lionel Richie, Donna Summer to Madonna, The Weeknd and Lady Gaga. JR is widely believed to be the most recorded drummer in history as the songs he has played on have sold more than five-hundred million copies, including the iconic Quincy Jones' produced "We Are The World." Filling out the trio was Hammond B3 organist Mitch Towne and guitarist Andrew Synowiec, both accomplished session players. They opened with an original song "Burn The Bridge" which featured some extended and sinewy guitar solos backed by the stout drums of JR, a human metronome, and some new tunes off their forthcoming album. Another highlight was a cover of the Bee Gees "Stayin' Alive," with greasy organ fills and taut drum rolls, and Tom flashing his still serious chops.

Spirit Feel (1967) signed by Tom, Roger Kellaway

After the show, I visited with Tom, and he was warm and gracious as he signed his vinyl. I lamented that he rarely toured back east, "You know, I've been back east more than you know, but you just haven't seen me. I have been doing a lot of work with the Steinhardt School (part of New York University) working on their archives and doing some interviews." He smiled when he saw the Don Ellis album, "Wow, this is where it all started, I was just a kid, what a band that was and Don was such a great player." When I handed him Roger Kellaway's Spirit Feel, he smiled, "My first feature on an album," he said, pointing to the cover credit, "You know, Roger's great and he's still going strong, And Bobby Darin? What a talent he was, it was such a loss to lose him so young." Of his debut release in 1967, The Honeysuckle Breeze, when he was only nineteen, Tom said, "This was with the Wrecking Crew," a famed group of first call musicians who helped create Phil Spector's Wall Of Sound and played on countless hits with The Beach Boys, Ike and Tina Turner, Frank Sinatra et al, "This was before Glen Campbell became Glen Campbell," he laughed as he scanned the album credits which had Glen on guitar, and included Carol Kaye on bass and Hal Blaine on drums who reportedly played on more than one hundred-forty Top Ten hits. Yes, this is not among them, although it was released on Impulse, the jazz label preferred by John Coltrane. The Honeysuckle Breeze features slight covers of The Beatles, Donovan and Jefferson Airplane, and has a version of Coltrane's "Naima," although clocking in under three minutes, it is as slight as it is forgettable. At least the artwork holds up as a testament to 1960's zeitgeist!

New York Connection (1975) signed by Tom

When Tom saw New York Connection, he lit up, "When you walk in a studio and see Chuck Findley (on trumpet), Richard Tee (on keyboards), Bob James (on electric piano), Hugh McCracken (on guitar), Eric Gale (on guitar) Ralph MacDonald (on percussion) and Steve Gadd (on drums), you know it's gonna be a great record and it is!" He recited the names in a burst that suggested the recording was done last month, rather than nearly fifty years ago. The only player he omitted was his friend and frequent collaborator George Harrrison who played slide guitar on "Appolonia (Foxtrata)." A remarkable collection of musicians, I thanked Tom for his time, his generosity and, especially, his music.

Live At Monterey! (1966) signed by Tom

A formidable studio musician, composer and performer, Tom Scott has graced so many iconic recordings with artists as disparate as Joan Baez, Joe Cocker, Neil Diamond, Richie Havens, Rickie Lee Jones and Peggy Lee in his lengthy career. Interestingly, he cites Steely Dan's Aja as perhaps his favorite, "That's one of those records that's very unique. It belies the time in which it was made. In other words, you put it on, it could have been made yesterday. It doesn't have 1975 stamped on it, you know?"

Thankfully, Tom put his stamp on so many recordings and we get to revel in the richness of his artistry as a result. 

Choice Tom Scott Cuts (per BKs request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEx53W-qcYw
“Gotcha (Starsky & Hutch Theme)"   Blow It Out  1977

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jz_vytdLK8
"Appolonia (Foxtrata)"  New York Connection with George Harrison  1975

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyHU7WAIrII
"Naima"  The Honeysuckle Breeze  1967

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrSFuAIw_i4&list=PL7x90QIm3bJp4Qil7BymAsB4ScP-V45lS&index=1
"Rock Island Rocket"  Tom Cat   1974

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcsoeVoPaIA
“Pick Up The Pieces"  Them Changes   1990

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yiHs-MVGWc&list=PLrVwrW4BjwaK1oJmZn53iBYTUVsZ5nkGB&index=2
"Gotta Give It Up"  Bluestreak  1996

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBdXxST1d2s&t=51s

"Burn That Bridge"  SRT live at Birdland July 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzrDs_Vaho4

"Black Cow"  Aja with Steely Dan  1977

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PicdXFEj8fE

"Them Changes"   Them Changes   1990

Bonus Picks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHCdS7O248g
"Rapture"  Blondie   1981

"Blondie’s producer, Michael Chapman, called me one day and requested a session that night, it was for “Rapture." He played the song for me and then asked me to 'fill in these holes.' The saxophones you hear are all me, comprised of four tenor sax tracks blended together. I met Debbie Harry that night. She was very nice to me… and I thought she was hot!"

          Tom Scott

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewxmv2tyeRs

"Saving All My Love For You"

Whitney Houston  1985

“Saving All My Love for You” was recorded with producer/songwriter Michael Masser at the controls. Whitney did not attend the session personally. However, she did something I have never forgotten – three months later, as the album was being released, she took the time to call and thank me for my performance. Very classy!"

            Tom Scott

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTWH1Fdkjow

"Soul Man"  Blues Brothers  live on SNL  1978

 "I wasn’t exactly a founding member – more accurately an 'added' member. The first official Blues Brothers gig was as opening act for Steve Martin at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles for a week. I was not a member at the time, but I got a call from Tom Malone. Tom asked me if I could substitute for him in the horn section of the Blues Brothers band until his wife delivered their baby in New York. I said sure, so I filled in for “Bones” Malone until Thursday of that week. However, I had apparently impressed John Belushi – instead of thanking me and sending me on my way, “Uncle Johnny” asked me to join the band as a regular! “We’ll just have four horns instead of three!” He could be a really great guy – not to mention funny!"

            Tom Scott

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W8KGSD-aNE

"Judgment Of The Moon and Stars (Ludwig's Tune)"  For The Roses with Joni Mitchell  1972

"I had done that one record with her, and she said 'Listen, will your band record on my next album?' She had never, up until that point, recorded with a band. She would overdub a bass player, then send him home, overdub a horn player, then send him home...I can only speculate as to her motives, but I guess she just wanted to move into another area. When you consider where she went on to — some very esoteric jazz exploration — I guess I was kind of the beginning of that. It turned into a real good thing for us, in terms of getting the exposure of being her backup band."

Pine Leaf Boys and Me…

For us, we’ve always loved music. My parents are musicians; all of our friends are musicians. We grew up in a very musical place here, and it’s something we started as young people, and as we got older, we began to meet other young musicians that were into it, and we just decided to start a band ten years ago. And what happened with us is we were playing on the campus … at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, just playing on the street, trying to entertain the students. And one day, a cop came and said, “You guys have got to get out of here. Y’all are disturbing the peace,” and I left, and I was pretty upset about that. I wrote a letter saying, you know these guys call themselves the Ragin’ Cajun campus. I think they should allow … young people to play music. The students love it, you know, and so everybody in Lafayette — all these bars and different venues and dance halls got really upset about this and said, “Hey, if UL won’t have you, come play for us.” And within a year, we took it from just being like a street busking band to playing in bars and dance halls. And within a year, we had an agent and a record and we were doing our first European tour. So it just kind of blew up that way. ... And we’re very fortunate for that, and so we just kept kind of doing what we were doing. We just took it to a bigger audience ... and made it all the way to England and then over to Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. State Department found out about it, and so the government started to invite us out on different tours.

Wilson Savoy, 2016 interview

It’s that the scene here in Louisiana is conducive to that — young people dancing with old people. There’s not really those weird generational differences like there are in the rest of the world. I think we bring that with us. Here, the young people will dance with the old people just like any other spot in Louisiana with any other music, and I think that’s a special thing about Louisiana. ... I think the music is kind of tailored to both generations. In other words, we play music that the old people grew up with. For example, 1950s rock 'n’ roll like Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and Little Richard, we play that style of music with Cajun music, which is old music, and then we also play Louisiana-flavored music the young people identify with. The young people like coming out and dancing because they meet new boyfriends or new girlfriends that way. ... It’s just the glue that connects these two very different generations together and just makes everyone equal, you know.

Wilson Savoy

La Musique (2006) signed by Wilson

Well, we pick tunes that have been around since, some of them, the 1920s or '30s. And we keep the same lyrics and the same melody but we introduce different, more pumping rhythms to them that people are doing already in Zydeco and heavy drums, heavy bass, even bring in a piano sometimes and kind of just add rock 'n’ roll influences. …  If you like country music, then we’ll bring in a little bit of country twang into that tune, or if you like rock 'n’ roll, bring some rock 'n’ roll twang to it. ... and it’s all Louisiana and Texas-based; it’s already here, but for so long, people didn’t want to combine the two, they just thought, “Oh, let’s keep this thing Cajun. Let’s keep this thing rock 'n’ roll, keep this thing country.” It was only a matter of time till finally we said, “Well, let’s kind of allow them to flow into one another.” And I think that’s how we do it by bringing in this new life into these old tunes.

                         Wilson Savoy, master music alchemist 

Everybody in our band has a very distinct personality, and each of us brings our own particular strengths. Marc’s is authenticity. He played the dancehalls for years as a young man; he defines the Cajun sound. He’s our source, we’re his band. Joel listens to a lot of archival material, so he’ll bring elements from the Swing Era in Louisiana, like Harry Choates and some old, rare gems. Wilson has this vintage rock ’n’ roll feel—at ten years old, he was really into Louisiana piano styles. He could barely talk, but he could play Jerry Lee Lewis-style piano, and play so hard he broke the strings. The kids grew up coloring at the feet of (Cajun legends) Dennis McGee, Dewey Balfa, and Wayne Fruge, absorbing these sounds into their brain cells. It was the music of their lives, it was what they heard, and by the time they had instruments in their hands, around ten or twelve, they could tear it up.

Ann Savoy on her husband Marc, sons Wilson and Joel - The Savoy Family Band

We didn’t teach them anything. They learned by osmosis, by watching and listening. I remember once, I tried to show Joel a little bit of Cajun fiddle when he was young, and in about five minutes, he was better than me. After that, we played together a while, and then he just took off on his own. That was it.

                         Ann Savoy, matriarch of Savoy Family Band, on her talented sons

Blues de Musicien (2007) signed by Wilson

I saw the Pine Leaf Boys for the first time in 2006 at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (HSB) festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. HSB was founded and wholly supported by financier Warren Hellman, a rabid music fan and erstwhile banjo picker. From a rather humble start as a one day concert in 2000, HSB has evolved into a three to five day musical extravaganza across five stages with hundreds of thousands of fans taking residence in Golden Gate Park and enjoying the glorious music.Totally free, thanks to the largesse of Warren Hellman, a private equity billionaire and hardcore bluegrass aficionado. As unlikely and incongruous as that combination might seem, Warren was a modern day Medici, an unrivaled music benefactor minus the corruption, the killings, the potentates and the Popes that marred the Medici clan. When he died in 2011, Warren stipulated in his will that funds would be earmarked to continue the festival beyond his earthly presence (which it does!). I was blessed to attend HSB twice in the early days (2005-2006), and it remains one of my all time live musical experiences. Thank you Warren!

The hardest thing about attending HSB was deciding which show to watch: you had to make difficult choices and sacrifices. It's simply impossible to see five concerts at once, even though Warren and his staff staggered the starting times of each act. So, who do I see? Bob Weir and The Waybacks or the Drive By Truckers or Richard Thompson? The Avett Brothers or the Songwriter's Circle with Billy Bragg, Guy Clark and Steve Earle? Hot Tuna (acoustic) or Earl Scruggs? These are impossible, existential choices which can only leave devastating and scarring impressions. Thanks again Warren!

Friends and Family passes, 2005, 2006 Thanks Warren!!!

My friends knew Warren (thanks Bill H.and Jonathan K.!) and secured the coveted Friends & Family passes which gave us greater mobility to the five stages sprawled across the spacious Golden Gate park. We didn't have Warren's tricked out golf cart which shuttled him from stage to stage, but we did have access to the backstage catering and bathrooms, a phenomenal perk. After the Songwriter's Circle at the Banjo Stage, my friend suggested that we go see the Pine Leaf Boys at the Arrow Stage. "They're a young Cajun band, really fun and uptempo," he said. 'All right, let's go check them out,' I replied, a little unsure of what we were about to see.

We hustled over to the Arrow Stage just as the Pine Leaf Boys went on. They had so much energy, it was as if Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of The Clash had been born in the Louisiana bayou and given fiddles and accordions instead of loud, thrashy guitars. The boys sang in their native tongue, an infectious Cajun patois, part French, part Acadian which gave depth and dimension to their driving rhythm and sound. Their energy was infectious, I was blown away and I wasn't the only one. What was supposed to be a fifteen minute cursory sampling, became the entire riveting set. I don't remember who we blew off to watch them, nor did I care, The Pine Leaf Boys were revelatory.

Back Home (2010) signed by Wilson

Wilson Savoy, the co-founder, accordionist, fiddler, pianist and principal singer, descends from Cajun royalty. His mother, Ann Savoy, is a noted singer and guitarist, his father, Marc Savoy, is a virtuoso accordion player and the greatest craftsman of Cajun button accordions, and his brother, Joel, leads the Red Stick Ramblers and owns a record label, Valcour Records. Underachievers all, Marc recalled their beginnings, "When the kids were coming up, we had a bunch of instruments in a ring around the house: fiddles, accordions, guitars. The first time Joel and Wilson expressed an interest, I said, 'You can play my fiddle, but don't ever ask me to show you anything, because I won't.' And I did that for one simple reason. When I was a kid, I had such desire, such a passion for this music and these people that played it. I would have figured out how to play if someone put me in a straightjacket, and I wanted the kids to have the same passion for it, because you'll never amount to a hill of beans if you don't." Thankfully, the kids found the same passion for music and live performances as their parents.

Throughout the years, The Pine Leaf Boys have exposed their rocking Cajun music to forty-seven states and more than twenty countries on U.S. State Department sponsored tours, including Dubai where they played two segregated shows, one for nine-hundred men, and a different show for nine-hundred women. Wilson remembered the trip fondly, "If I would have been in The Beatles, that must have been what it felt like. It was nine-hundred beautiful women and you can only see their eyes because of the robes they wear. It got so wild. They were going insane." That’s the mystery and magic of music: it cuts through to your soul, whether you live in Dubai, Croatia, Slovenia or Ridgefield, Connecticut, all tour stops on the Pine Leaf Boys peripatetic itinerary.

Hommage Au Passé (2009) signed by Wilson

Since HSB in 2006, Erin and I have seen the Pine Leaf Boys several times and we have always marveled at their talents. We saw them again on August 29, 2019 at Ballard Park in Ridgefield, Connecticut. For nearly twenty years, the nonprofit CHIRP (Concert Happenings in Ridgefield's Parks) has provided free concerts during the summer and we have seen some incredible acts: The Holmes Brothers, Jimmy LaFave, and The Low Anthem among them.

The Pine Leaf Boys’ show, as always, was energetic and fun, fun, fun. Nominated for four Grammys, their music is so infectious that, invariably, the dance floor gets crowded, much to the delight of Wilson and the other band members who implore the audience to cut loose and have fun. They played some of their older songs, “Pine Leaf Boy Two-Step,” “Blues de Bosco,” “Les Barres de Prison,” mixed in an old George Jones weeper “A Picture Of Me Without You“ as well as a tribute to the recently passed Merle Haggard, a stirring rendition of “Mama Tried” sung entirely in French.

Pine Leaf Boys, Ridgefield, CT 2019

After the show, I had a visit with Wilson as he was hanging out near the merch stand. Sadly, there was no Pine Leaf Boys vinyl for sale. I asked him about the origin of the band's name, He laughed, “Yeah, I was driving to the dump to get rid of some stuff and we'd been working in the studio on our first recording, and I thought of the name. Little did I know, it would last all these years later.” I mentioned how impressive their performance was at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass all those years ago. "Wow, I'm glad you were there and enjoyed it. We had a great time. We were the first and, I think, only Cajun band ever invited. I'd love to be invited back." What about new music? "We're in the studio next month and we'll be working on our next album. It's high time, it's been too long," he admitted, acknowledging the lengthy time since their last release in 2013. I handed him a couple of CDs to sign, “Oh man, you have all our early recordings. I think most of these are out of print." I said that I especially loved their debut album La Musique, "Thanks, it was really special. You know they still play that CD in the airport in New Orleans. I live in Lafayette, so we drive about two hours to fly out of New Orleans. It was playing in the airport when we left, and that was just a couple of days ago!" It was released on Arhoolie Records, a really cool label, what was that experience like? "My Uncle Chris (Strachwitz, founder of Arhoolie), well I call him my uncle, I've known him all my life, he's a part of our family. It was great recording with them. Lately, I've been working on my brother's label, Valcour, so we're keeping it in the family." I told Wilson that I had an old Arhoolie t-shirt that I bought years ago when I saw them at HSB that now was all tattered and torn. "Yes, I know the shirt, that's a great shirt. I had an old Arhoolie truckers hat, I think that's gone too." As engaging as Wilson was on stage, he was equally affable off. I thanked him again for his time and his great music.

Pine Leaf Boys, Ridgefield, CT 2019

Wilson Savoy and the Pine Leaf Boys are keeping the Cajun tradition alive, injecting much needed passion and vitality. Master music alchemists, they keep the flow going. As Wilson once said, “If we weren’t playing it on stage, we’d be at home on our porch playing for ourselves and friends.” And that porch would be rocking! Now if only they would release some vinyl?!

Pine Leaf Boys, Ridgefield, CT 2019

Choice Pine Leaf Boys Cuts (per BKs request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgWcGBUZU_A

”Blues de Bosco” La Musique 2005

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4uP25fp3PE

”Pine Leaf Boy Two Step” La Musique 2005

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-EOnpXSQL4

“Pine Leaf Boogie” Blues De Musicien 2007

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhEinWGouJ0

”Whiskey, C’est Mon Ami” Back Home 2010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZJzGUsmVT8

Pine Leaf Boys live in Uzbekistan 2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Live at Blue Moon Saloon, Lafayette LA 2005

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyvNywRHlWk

“A Picture Of Me Without You” Danser 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovnwVw24s80

”Eunice Two-Step” live 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F6LzZiMH8o

”Je T’aime Toujours” Back Home 2010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22eW8lia_fI

”I Got A Camel” Live 2016



All junk from the Kirk vinyl collection
Copyright 2021

Jon Faddis and Me...

I do think it was a long process for me to develop my sound... a longer process than normal because my relationship with Dizzy was a pretty rare one. Dizzy was always very supportive and generous of his time with me. As a result, some people got the idea in their head that I sound like Dizzy, then they dismiss me. They won't go any further than that, but I think I have gone further and developed my own sound — my own style. It used to bother me, but I had a talk with Wallace Roney about that. The same thing happened to him with Miles (Davis). But if you listen to him closely you'll hear him playing many different harmonic ideas than Miles would play, longer lines, a lot of things. I'm pretty proud of what I've accomplished in music and jazz and I do think I have my own stuff happening.

                        Jon Faddis

Youngblood (1976) signed by Jon

At one point, Bill Chase, the former trumpet player with Woody Herman, was a big influence. Snooky Young was another influence, I would say. I also had the opportunity to meet Clark Terry, who was very, very helpful to me in the early days of my career. He still is, and we've become very good friends. Lew Soloff , the same way, but I actually used to listen to records by every trumpet player that came out back then. I listened to everybody —and I still do.

                      Jon Faddis

Oscar Peterson & Jon Faddis (1975) signed by Jon, Oscar Peterson

My father was a teacher, and he instilled in me a desire to learn. And then when I met Dizzy and got to know him over a couple of decades, I would observe him and people like (trumpeter) Clark Terry and (Count Basie Orchestra stalwart Harry) Sweets Edison. Whenever a young musician would ask them a question, they would take the time to answer it. If you asked Dizzy a question about music, he could sit down at the piano and start talking, and the next thing you know, three or four hours would’ve passed by.

                          Jon Faddis

Jon Faddis & Billy Harper (1974) signed by Jon, Billy Harper

An enduring lesson I learned from them was when (James) Moody was in his 60s and said to Dizzy: ‘Man, I wish I played the piano and could understand everything you’ve been telling me about music all these years.' And Dizzy said: ‘You’re not dead!’ So Moody found somebody in San Diego to start teaching him piano. That, to me, sums up the philosophy I learned from Moody and Dizzy — to always keep trying to get better.

          Jon Faddis on two mentors, Dizzy Gillespie and James Moody

Ellington Is Forever (1974) signed by Jon, Kenny Burrell, Joe Henderson, Ernie Andrews

There aren't many trumpet players who have had a career as varied, interesting and prolific as Jon Faddis. A childhood prodigy who was mentored by Dizzy Gillespie, Jon has recording credits on James Brown's "Get On The Good Foot," Chic's "Everybody Dance," Players Association's "Disco Inferno," Lou Reed's "Sally Can't Dance," Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al," Sister Sledge's "We Are Family,"  Peter Tosh's "Nothing But Love," Grover Washington's "Mr. Magic," and the Village People's iconic hit "YMCA." For a serious artist with impeccable jazz bona fides, it is an eclectic list of collaborators and it doesn't include the hundreds of other studio sessions Jon appeared on with Peter Allen, Aretha Franklin, Bo Diddley, Mick Jagger, Billy Joel, Chaka Khan, Bette Midler, Diana Ross and Carly Simon and so many others. Truly, Jon has been a very, very busy man.

The Players Association (1977) signed by Jon

Born in Oakland, Jon was surrounded by music, "I had an older sister who played piano and I was noodling at the piano we had in the house, but I wasn't really playing music. And I remember that sometime after I had seen Louis Armstrong on TV (on the Ed Sullivan Show), I was asked by my parents which instrument I would like to play if I could choose one. In one of those split second epiphanies, I thought: my sister plays the piano, the guy down the street plays sax and his brother plays trombone, someone else plays drums... Louis Armstrong... he was great. Trumpet! I blurted out 'Trumpet,' and the next thing I knew my parents had bought a trumpet and were signing me up for lessons on Saturday morning. which at that age was cartoons and pancakes and play time. So it was not what I wanted to do at the beginning." Despite his well founded hesitancy and initial misgivings to curtail his cartoon exposure, Jon proved to be a gifted and dedicated player. 

Bird (1988) signed by Jon, Charles McPherson

Like so many musicians, Jon was blessed with the good fortune of having skilled teachers and he flourished under their tutelage, "My second trumpet teacher, Bill Catalano, was a former trumpet player with Stan Kenton and still played in a lot of clubs in the Bay area. He was a very big influence on me. I started with him when I was ten and stayed with him until I was sixteen. My first teacher was a straight classical player, while Bill had a jazz background, and I liked that a lot. Bill was the one who introduced me to Dizzy Gillespie's music, and that was it for me. I started getting into Dizzy, and when I was fifteen got the chance to play with him. That did it, I wanted to be a jazz musician."

Blame it all on Dizzy Gillespie, who became an early, colossal and sustaining influence, as Jon remembered their less than auspicious first encounter, “I met him when I was twelve, but I was too shy to say anything. It was in a club, the Basin Street West in San Francisco. My father said, ‘Hey Diz, my boy’s a trumpet player. He really digs you.’ I was frozen, I couldn’t speak a word. So I told myself the next time I have the opportunity to meet Dizzy, I was going to talk to him." Redemption happened three years later when Jon met Dizzy at the Monterey Jazz Festival when he was fifteen, " I took all of my records down there hoping to meet him and have a chance to get his autograph, and that's exactly what happened. I was in heaven! He signed all of my records — which at that time was about fifty." Finally, a record collector cut from my same cloth!

Mingus At Monterey (1964) signed by Jon, Charles McPherson, Richard Wyands

The third encounter with Diz was the most magical, as Jon revealed, “About three weeks later, he was performing at a club in San Francisco again, the Jazz Workshop. My mother took me over to see him and I took my horn. He remembered me from Monterrey. He was playing "A Night in Tunisia” and during the bass solo, he left the bandstand and started walking through the audience. When he came to my table, I said, ‘Hey Diz, are you gonna play the ending?’ And he said, ‘You’ve got your horn, you do it.’ So I got my horn and played the ending, and he invited me up to play a couple of tunes with him. I remember playing tunes, I remember the club spinning around. I don’t remember the end of the night. I don’t remember getting home. I don’t remember anything after that. I was in heaven.”

Mingus At Carnegie Hall (1974) signed by Jon, Charles McPherson

As his prodigious chops developed, Jon moved to New York City after graduating from high school and joined Lionel Hampton. This led to greater exposure as Jon was recruited to be the lead trumpet of the vaunted Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, pretty heady stuff for a teenager. The mercurial genius that was and will always be Charles Mingus solicited Jon to play on a couple of recordings when trumpet great Roy Eldridge fell ill. Then Jon launched his solo career at the behest of noted jazz producer and impresario Norman Granz, on his recently formed Pablo Records, named after Norman's great friend, Pablo Picasso. Jon remembered, “In 1975 and 1976, I did a couple of recordings for Norman Granz and Pablo Records. After I did the recordings, Norman asked me if I would put together a group and go on the road. I was thinking, ‘Here’s someone who’s managing Ella Fitzgerald and booking Oscar Peterson and he wants me to get a group together.’ I was afraid, so I said ‘I’m not really interested in that.’ I started to do a lot of studio work.” Indeed, over the next fifteen years Jon played on hundreds of recordings with a vast array of artists, "I did a lot of work for CTI (record label started by Creed Taylor), a little bit later, I started to do some disco stuff, but the big thing was jingles - radio and TV commercials. I did a ton of those." 

Empire Jazz (1978) signed by Jon, Ron Carter, Billy Cobham, Frank Wess

All that studio work took a toll on his own personal discography as Jon has only released nine albums as a leader over the ensuing fifty years. Of course, he has stayed busy. For ten years, he was the musical director of The Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra until it disbanded in 2002 due to a lack of funding by the new director for the 2002-2003 season. The orchestra released three critically acclaimed albums and toured extensively, proselytizing the jazz compositions of Toshiko Akiyoshi, Frank Foster, Jimmy Heath, Slide Hampton, and Maria Schneider to ever increasing worldwide audiences.  It is perhaps his role as an educator which has left the most indelible impressions. A full time faculty member at the Conservatory of Music, Purchase College- SUNY, Jon began as an Artist-In-Residence in 1999, and is now a Professor and Director of Jazz Performance, and he has helped countless students over the years. His most famous recent student is probably Samara Joy, a sumptuous singer in the Sarah Vaughan tradition who just won the 2023 Grammys for Best Jazz Vocal Album for Linger Awhile and Best New Jazz Artist. Thank you Dr. Jon Faddis!

Legacy (1985) signed by Jon, Kenny Barron

I saw Jon perform at the Jazz Forum in Tarrytown, New York on March 10, 2023. Jon had several of his former students on stage with him: Destiny Diggs on bass, brothers Andrew Latona on guitar, Chris Latona on drums and their sister Lucy Wijnands on vocals. It was a drizzly and cold night which was brightened by the warmth emanating from the bandstand. They opened with Miles Davis' "All Blues," Destiny setting the groove on her upright bass while Jon began with a hushed mute on trumpet, Then the mute was removed, the gloves came off, and the clarion call of Jon's ear piercing pyrotechnics was revealed. Another highlight was "Four On Six," a celebration and tribute to the 100th birthday of composer and guitarist extraordinaire Wes Montgomery. It's not for the faint of heart for any guitarist to play a Wes Montogomery classic, but Andrew Latona was equal to the task, tossing off fleet fingered runs bolstered by the sturdy bass of Destiny Diggs and rock solid drums of Chris Latona. An original composition by Jon, "The Hunters & The Gatherers,"  was a groover with Jon stretching out on his solos with warm, melodic twists and subtleties. Next came a well deserved break and Jon introduced Lucy Wijnands and he left the stage. Lucy sang some jazz standards beautifully - "S'Wonderful," "When Lights Are Low," and "The Masquerade is Over."

Lucy Wijnands laying out!

I was sitting at the bar enjoying the sounds when, suddenly, I heard a trumpet blow a languid solo during the Benny Carter classic "When Lights Are Low." Startled, I turned around to see Jon sitting directly behind me. I hadn't seen him sidle in. When I turned around to thank him after his solo, he said "Surprise!" Yes, it was a wonderful surprise. Jon then rejoined the band members and acknowledged several students by name and their respective instruments who had come to the show with a proper schoolteacher admonishment, "Just because you came to the gig doesn't mean you're getting a good grade!" The band closed with a rousing rendition of Sonny Rollins' calypso burner "St. Thomas," a marvelous way to end night of the stirring performances.

Jon blowin’ sweetly at the bar!

After the show, I visited with Jon and he was gracious in signing his records.  He laughed when he saw the Players Association records, “You know, I didn’t make a dime on any of these records, that’s the way it was back in those days,” he said ruefully. An unfortunate though not unfamiliar tale of artists being exploited by record companies which probably continues to this day. When he signed Young Blood, he smiled, “Look at me, I was a young buck too!” I thanked Jon for his time and especially his music.

The Players Association: Born To Dance (1977) signed by Jon

It's not exactly a straight line from Dizzy to Mingus to Lou Reed to the Village People, but Jon Faddis is a consummate musician and professional. Thanks again for all your beautiful music!

Into The Faddisphere (1989) signed by Jon

BeBop (1988) signed by Jon, Milt Jackson, Jimmy Heath, J.J. Johnson, Mickey Roker, Cedar Walton


Choice Jon Faddis Cuts (per BKs request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOvXSfc-SO4

"A Night In Tunisia"  Pacific Mambo Orchestra with Jon Faddis  Live  2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8uq3njd3G0
"West End Blues"  Legacy  1985

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T1bJNic-ic
"And Then She Stopped" with Dizzy Gillespie, Chick Corea, Miroslav Vitous, Roy Haynes The White House 12.04.1982

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ak19M4aXVc&list=PL0q2VleZJVEkGDxUTjXhgZeaD9cwiey9-

"Things Ain't What They Used To Be"  Oscar Peterson & Jon Faddis  1975

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn_vyrHNxMQ

"Blues 'n Boogie" Dizzy Gillespie live with Jon Faddis Japan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfbdKqUf9-k

"The Hunters & The Gatherers"   Teranga   2006

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PblaEjtOrlM
"Groovin' High"  with Phil Woods, Frank Wess  Live 2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv4MSKN891Q

"C Jam Blues"  Mingus At Carnegie Hall  1974

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S-zMlBpWEs
"Things To Come" Jon Faddis Big Band with Wynton Marsalis  Live  2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWFFxBFVAhk
"All Blues"  Live: Tribute to Miles Davis  2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOZrPu2cd3A

"Samba de Orpheu"  Youngblood  1976

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jJa-Nle664

"Water Bridge"  Jon & Billy  1974

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxogubfeSbc&list=PL8ZqwGNKYS46ErF18oMmYK65faaso-Ymf

"Ridin' High"  Good And Plenty 1980

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTwluCOgq5w
"The Man Who Never Sleeps - Blues Medley"  Charles Mingus  Live Munich  1972

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KveDLDbNL8s

"The Imperial March - Darth Vader's Theme"  Empire Jazz  1980

Bonus Picks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzlxUHUKlrA
"Get On The Good Foot"  James Brown  1972

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbfB9z4Am-E

"Sally Can't Dance"  Lou Reed  1974

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHxeM1hQOSc

"You Can Call Me Al"  Paul Simon  1986

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUEPT44FbX0

"Disco Inferno"  Players Association  1977

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBpYgpF1bqQ

"We Are Family"  Sister Sledge  1979

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivYTk3pqc_E
"Nothing But Love"   Peter Tosh  1981

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3_whyiG0xg

"YMCA"  Village People  

Good And Plenty (1979) signed by Jon

Jazz Forum March 10, 2023

Bettye LaVette and Me...

It was the gigs.  When you signed a contract, you only got about 1½ percent. The royalties were not a big deal anyway. They’ve become a big deal during the last, maybe, twenty-five years, when artists have become involved in writing, producing, owning part of this and owning all of that. Back then you knew, if the record was big, you were going to work all the time. That was what you looked forward to, and it wasn’t television then.  Especially for black artists, you had to do a lot to get an album and to go on TV, it wasn’t a given. I never went on television until "Let Me Down Easy." When I was on Shindig (in 1965), I was just standing there very still. I was very frightened, I didn’t even move my head.

                          Bettye LaVette

I was ashamed to sing it, because it sounded so old. I wanted to sound like Little Eva and the Shirelles, but this was all I was offered, so I had to do it, but I was very embarrassed, and I never got the opportunity to do the kind of shows they were doing. I was always at a nightclub because of the nature of the song. I was always with older performers. I had been singing for fifteen years, before I met the Shirelles and Chubby Checker... My mother was thrilled. No one in the family had ever done anything. No one had actually held a hundred-dollar bill, no one had ever travelled. They thought that we had been saved. They were very thrilled.

             Bettye LaVette, sixteen years old singing "My Man, He's A Loving Man"

Things Have Changed (2018) signed by Bettye

Dee Dee Ford was very ill at the time, mentally, and was slowly having a nervous breakdown. She was very sad about this trumpet player, who was her man, and she started to write "Let Me Down Easy," so I helped her write the song. When they asked to write down the credits who wrote it, I just said ‘give my part to her.' I didn’t know you get money from these things for years and years and years. I think I wrote maybe three or four lines, but gosh! – today three or four lines...  So as a result she winds up being the only writer on it.

                        Bettye LaVette

I wrote our most famous song, ‘Nights in White Satin’ when I was nineteen. It was a series of random thoughts and was quite autobiographical. It was a very emotional time as I was at the end of one big love affair and the start of another. A lot of that came out in the song. She (Bettye LaVette) covered ‘Nights,’ and somebody sent it to me as an MP3, a link. I was sitting in bed with my laptop, waking up to my emails, and I clicked on this link, and I burst into tears. My wife came in, and she said, ‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ And I said, ‘You’ve got to listen to this.’ She didn’t cry, but I heard the lyric for the first time. There have been hundreds, maybe thousands of covers of ‘Nights in White Satin,’ but that was the first time I heard it for real.

  Justin Heyward, Moody Blues singer-songwriter and ardent Bettye Lavette fan

Let Me Down Easy: In Memphis (1960s recordings, 2022 release) signed by Bettye

Bettye LaVette is not only a soul singer sensation, she is a survivor with a career lasting more than sixty years. Judging by her recent appearance at the Iridium on December 13, 2023, she has no intention of slowing down. She was in great voice and her lithe figure dismissed any notion of a senior citizen hobbling or slouching toward retirement. She was seventy-seven years young and electric, prowling the stage, fertile and fecund, enthralling the audience. She was showcasing her new album, LaVette!, a collection of songs written by Randall Bramblett, which is up for a Grammy, her seventh nomination. As Bettye quipped during the show, "I hope I win, I don't wanna be the Susan Lucci of the Grammys!" Bettye defies categorization like few singers: elements of blues, country, gospel, rock and soul inhabit her gruff and expressive vocals. In many ways, she is the best kept soul secret hiding in plain sight.

Born Betty Jo Haskins in Muskegon, Michigan (near a harbor of Lake Michigan), Bettye was raised in Detroit, "When I was two, we left there for Detroit.  My early life was spent in an atmosphere where there was always music playing, but I’m one of the few singers that did not come out of the church.” Her parents had moved from Louisiana as part of the Great Migration decades earlier in search of better opportunities, "My family was in the corn liquor business, and I’m the only person in the family who was involved in music." Unfortunately, Bettye's father died when she was twelve, a casualty of having too much free and unfettered access to said corn liquor. Not the first nor the last time that John Barleycorn won. He always wins.

There was lots of music around the Haskins house, as Bettye recalled,  ”You could call my mother ‘a gospel groupie.'  Because gospel singers drank so much, they stayed at my house quite a bit, to be there to drink, so I had the opportunity as a small kid to know and see the Five Blind Boys, Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers and others.  Everybody was always happy.  It was a very happy atmosphere.  It was fun.  Even then I would dance and sing for them, so I’ve always known old songs.  When most children didn’t even talk, I knew entire songs.  I really didn’t grow up with gospel, because I didn’t go to church to see those gospel people.  I saw them at my house.” She was also friendly with Aretha Franklin and her father the Reverend C.L. Franklin, sharing a deep Detroit gospel and soul bond.

Initially, Bettye was influenced by the phrasing and voices of Bobby Bland and Sam Cooke "and musicals...  All I knew about singing was this big stage, the dancing and Fred Astaire, which is one reason why I hated my voice for so long, because it didn’t sound like Ginger Rogers.  But I liked all of the musicals, anyone who sang in a movie.  I always knew I could sing, and I’ve always sung, but I didn’t know I could do it as a profession until maybe a month before "My Man - He's A Loving Man" came out (in 1962 when she was sixteen)." 

Blackbirds (2020) signed by Bettye

Bettye's name change happened around this time. She was good friends with Sherma "Ginger" Lavett Anderson who was active on the booming music scene, as Bettye explained, ”She was a local groupie. She knew all the entertainers, and I wanted to know them, so she introduced me to Timmy Shaw and to all of them. Although I was no one at the time, I met people like the Temptations, who were the Distants then. I began to hang around with Ginger, and they just kinda blocked me out of it and said ‘you don’t have to be a groupie, you can join us’. Timmy Shaw took me to meet Johnnie Mae Matthews. They liked me, but I knew I didn’t sound like Bobby Bland. I knew I didn’t sound like Etta James.  It was a long time before I accepted my voice. I guess about the time I went to Muscle Shoals in the early 70s, I began to realise the power of my voice and that it was okay I didn’t sound like all the girls.  It was okay, I sounded like James Brown.” 

In the ensuing decades, Bettye's career was marked by near hits and many misses. Her first single recorded in 1962 "My Man, He's A Loving Man" was a Top Ten R&B hit for the Northern Recording Company, a label owned by Johnnie Mae Matthews,  a singer, songwriter and producer who was also the first black female to own a record company in the rough hewn Detroit music scene, a formidable task. Bettye remembered her toughness, "She was ‘a truck driver’ – really rough, really mean, just a really hard woman. At that time, I guess, she was maybe around thirty-five, but that was old to me, because I was only sixteen. She was a hustling kind of a woman, very manlike. She was not respected, but everybody (she) knew she had crossed somewhat. She was the only one, who had a connection to outside of Detroit, but there was no one at her funeral...The thing with "My Man" actually happened in a few weeks’ time.  One week I was a groupie, the next week I was already there.” 

The road beckoned with incessant touring and Bettye ended up in New York recording her next big hit, "Let Me Down Easy." Bettye remembered the unusual circumstances, ”Fortunately, in New York I was surrounded by people, who wanted to help me. Nate McCalla, who owned Calla Records, actually worked for the mafia, I found out later that they gave him Calla Records. He and I just became really good friends, but he knew nothing about the record business. He was asking me, should we do this? Should we do that? When we did "Let Me Down Easy," they asked me what I wanted. The only arranger that I had heard of was Dale Warren, and they flew him (in) from Detroit. I asked for violins, because I’d never had any violins. I probably should have just asked for straight money, but Nate just adored me, and I didn’t know they were gangsters.”

Tell Me A Lie (1982) signed by Bettye

Her next big break (and bust) came when she signed with Atco in 1972, a division of the storied Atlantic Records, the home of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding. They released one single recorded in Detroit, a jaunty, swinging cover of Neil Young's "Heart Of Gold." You might think a dour Neil Young song might not be the best subject matter for a soul singer, and you would probably be right. Brad Shapiro, a gifted producer of Wilson Pickett and James Brown renown, suggested that they go to Muscle Shoals, Alabama and record an entire album with the fearsome rhythm section of Jimmy Johnson, Barry Beckett, David Hood and Roger Hawkins, known affectionately as The Swampers, so respected and revered that they were even name checked in Lynyrd Skynyrd's opus "Sweet Home Alabama" in 1974:

"Now, Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers
And they've been known to pick a song or two
Lord, they get me off so much
They pick me up when I'm feeling blue
Now, how 'bout you?"

Bettye recalled the joy of working with them, ”It was very, very easy working with them. They were the most laid-back guys.  We’d sit around for a while, smoke joints and then they’d say ‘Well, let’s record one, how you wanna sing it, baby?' I’d start singing and they’d follow one at a time and everybody would get their part. Then they would go out alone, work out their part, come back and then we would do the head arrangement.”

The studio at 3614 Jackson Highway (the title of a Cher album which she recorded there in 1969!) was not sumptuously appointed, as Bettye divulged, ”The roof was thin, and everytime it rained we couldn’t record. We rehearsed those days. It was just the most ragged little place. We would sit on the floor, but it was very laid-back. They didn’t charge you by the hour, and sometimes you were in for twelve-fifteen hours." The album was set for release, then it was shelved for reasons that were never revealed, though Bettye had her opinion, ”My biggest disappointment is that album that didn’t come out.  That was supposed to be my first album, and I thought I had all the components – Atlantic, Brad Shapiro, the Muscle Shoals Sound, the songs – and when they decided not to release it, which I know now was because of Ahmet Ertegun, I was devastated." It's incomprehensible that Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder of Atlantic Records and purveyor of exquisite taste, would have made such a terrible error in judgment but Child Of The Seventies languished in storage until the tapes were retrieved and subsequently released in 2006, nearly thirty-five years after they were originally recorded.

The Scene Of The Crime (2007) signed by Bettye

By this time, Bettye had resuscitated her career with critically acclaimed albums and producers like Joe Henry who collaborated with her on I've Got My Own Hell To Raise (a collection of songs written by Fiona Apple, Sinead O'Connor, Dolly Parton, Lucinda Williams) and Patterson Hood on The Scene Of The Crime (with songs by Elton John, Don Henley, John Hiatt and Willie Nelson). Her career was kicked up several notches when she performed in 2008 at The Kennedy Center Honors in a tribute to The Who, with surviving members Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend in the audience. Bettye sang a spellbinding "Love Reign O'er Me" to the delight of the rapturous audience and awestruck honorees. By all accounts, it was the highlight of the evening and the subsequently released television show!

I was blessed to see Bettye at The Iridium in New York City on December 13, 2023. She had a talented band with her: Tom West on keyboards and Hammond B3, Marc Hickox on bass, Bobby Keyes on guitar, and her music director Marco Giovino on drums. The band was tight and they opened with a swampy "Things Have Changed," off her eponymous album released in 2018 dedicated to all things Bob Dylan. Other highlights were "I Hold No Grudge," "I've Got My Own Hell To Raise," and "Joy," a Lucinda Williams classic. Though Bettye doesn't write many of her songs, she is the rare interpreter who completely inhabits and envelops a song to make it her own.

Thankful N’ Thoughtful (2007) signed by Bettye

She mentioned that she was so happy to be back at the Iridium, near the Brill Building where so many songwriters. churned out hit after hit, not just Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and Mike Lieber and Jerry Stoller, but also her friends Don Covay and Van McCoy who later wrote "The Hustle," a number one hit in 1976. At the time, they were just struggling songwriters, wishing and hoping to catch a break, As Bettye reminisced, she forgot Van's big hit, and laughed, "You know, I suffer from CRS...can't remember shit!" No matter, she didn't forget any lyrics and brought down the house with her version of "Let Me Down Easy," a song that was sampled by EDM stars ODESZA, which has over 50 million streams since it was released in 2022 as "The Last Goodbye." With Spotify's challenging accounting, it's prolly added $5,000 or so, a mere pittance to Bettye's coffers! She finished the show by singing "It's Alright," another new track off LaVette!, and she roamed all over the club exhorting and imploring the audience with the healing refrain, "It's alright, It's alright, It's alright..." Indeed it was.

Bettye walking the floor! The Iridium, NYC 12.13.2023

After the show. I asked her husband and tour manager Kevin Kiley if she wouldn't mind signing a couple records. He saw the stack of seven or eight, "Yeah, she's not gonna sign all those, pick two." 'Yeah, that's gonna be tough,' I said, flipping through the albums, 'They're all great, how can I pick just two?' "Yeah, ok, I hear you, gimme three and I'll be back," Kevin grabbed three and he headed behind the curtain to secure the signatures. After a few minutes, Kevin reappeared and opened the curtain and said, "Listen, it's mellow back here tonight, why don't you come back and get the rest of them signed." He didn't have to ask twice. Bettye was seated, a well deserved rest after a gripping and energetic ninety minute show. I thanked her for her music and wished her well in her elusive Grammy pursuit. She was happy to sign her records, and when she saw The Scene Of The Crime, she said, "You know, there aren't many of these, this is a limited edition." She smiled when she saw the Elmore James tribute album, "This was done for his hundredth birthday, that was a lot of fun," Her husband Kevin said, "You know Marco produced that album," pointing to his drummer in the corner, "You should have him sign it as well." Well, that was fortuitous, yes that sounds like a great idea. When I handed it to Marco, I said, 'I already had Rodney Crowell sign it.' "Oh, he's a great songwriter and a really nice guy as well. That was a great session," Marco confided as he handed it back to me. 'You know,' I continued, 'the only problem I had with Rodney was after the show, he was wearing an Astros shirt. I hate the Astros, I'm an unrepentant Sawx fan.' Kevin said, "You're right at home here, the whole band is with you!" An unexpected delight, reveling in the company of fellow massholes, I thanked Bettye and, especially Kevin for their kindness and generosity. 

Strange Angels In Flight With Elmore James (2018) signed by Bettye, Rodney Crowell, Marco Giovino

It's amazing the resurgence that Bettye Lavette has experienced over the past twenty years, releasing ten albums with seven Grammy nods, and guest artists flocking to play with her including Keith Richards, John Mayer, Stevie Winwood, and Jon Batiste. It's been so well deserved and earned. "In The Meantime," a track off her new album, Bettye sings, "I'm dreamin' dreams of my used to be, tellin' everybody I'll be just fine..." Bettye's been through so much, and she's more than fine, much, much more. 

Peace and blessings to Bettye LaVette and Kevin Kiley!

Billie Holiday Nina Simone Bettye Lavette (2020) signed by Bettye

Bettye testfyin’ The Iridium NYC 12.13.2023

Choice Bettye LaVette Cuts (per BKs request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRF-jKeiNOM

"My Man, He's A Loving Man"  45' single  1962

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7RKRkkoGlU

"Let Me Down Easy"  live on Shindig  1965

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMUjsj-n_FY

"Let Me Down Easy"  live with Jools Holland  2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-pyAjpCqVw

"Heart Of Gold"  Bettye sings Neil Young!  1972

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJi6maTueSc

"Love Reign O'er Me"  live at Kennedy Center Honors 2008

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUK8ZQD5GYo

"Things Have Changed"  Things Have Changed  2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNCMw26M_sk

"It Don't Come Easy"  Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook  2010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6SzMxuAsa0

"Political World" with Keith Richards  Things Have Changed  2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDqcyqZT41I

"In The Meantime (with John Mayer)"  LaVette!  2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb4-SiqsYL4

"Nights In White Satin"  Bettye Sings The Moody Blues!  2010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi6DEw-nxdg

"Wish You Were Here"  Bettye sings Pink Floyd  2010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahwWl4v_FdY

"Don't Get Me Started"  with Stevie Winwood  LaVette!  2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLKoiq6Su-8

"The Last Goodbye (with Bettye LaVette)"  ODESZA   2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSir8QL_Uy0

"It's Alright"  LaVette!  2023

David Sanborn and Me…

You don’t know how amazing that is until you try to do it yourself, that empty space comes along and you get nervous. You say to yourself, ‘Oh, man, I’ve got to fill that space with something.’ No, you don’t, but that’s the hardest thing to learn. Every day that goes by, I’m more and more convinced that dealing with space is what it’s all about. Whether it’s music or painting or writing, it’s all about filling an empty space. You start with nothing and all of a sudden there’s something. But you have to leave a little of the nothing for the something to mean anything. Listen to Miles Davis or Wayne Shorter; they got it. People were always mystified when Miles said he was influenced by Ahmad Jamal, but I think Miles was talking about the way Ahmad dealt with space.

David Sanborn

David has been wrongly dismissed by cerebral-minded critics who have judged him from an Ornette Coleman standpoint. That’s not where David is coming from; he’s coming from R&B, from Ray Charles and Hank Crawford. A lot of jazz critics look down on that as simple and not serious. But we musicians aren’t judging David by Eric Dolphy and Sonny Rollins, because that’s not what he’s trying to do. Some music you have to analyze before you get it, and I like that music too. It stimulates the cranium, but some music goes straight into the body. I like Ornette Coleman, and so does David, but I also like Ray Charles, and I like what David does in that style. He knows his chords, like the rest of us, but he’s not trying to be something he’s not. He’s very funky, and he’s got one of the most identifiable sounds in the history of the music.

bassist Christian McBride

Young Americans (1975) signed by David

I am always discovering new things about the saxophone, the way you attack a note, the way you end a note, how you shape the note, different ways to use vibrato, the variations are endless. That’s one of the great things about music in general, you never truly master it. You’re always a student.

David Sanborn

I never understood what exactly the term meant from the beginning. It didn’t make sense to me and I never figured out what is and isn’t Smooth Jazz. To me, at its worst, the term refers to music that is divested of being interesting or having much drama, or is just bland and safe, the stuff you listen to when someone puts you on hold. When I started doing what I do, that term didn’t exist, but later people kept applying it to me and I felt it was inappropriate. I’ve always fought against categorizing music, and my music obviously is influenced by jazz, R&B and other genres. If you think about it, the most interesting music is that which transcends boundaries. Ray Charles mixed gospel and jazz, James Brown’s revolutionary sound was hard to peg simply so they called it funk. A lot of it is about purists having their say. When I was growing up people said Cannonball Adderley was a sell out because his music was too commercial, but I loved it. Categories tend to be exclusionary, whether someone champions or rejects them.

David Sanborn

Backstreet (1982) signed by David

Smooth Jazz - the bane of my musical experience, anathema to purists, the bland and trite pablum of Kenny G., Spryro Gyra, The Rippingtons, Boney James (whoever the hell that is) and so many others. My late, great friend Danny Callahan - who had far bigger ears than I - once said, "You know, not everyone has to be Miles or Coltrane. It's all just music. I like to call it 'shrazz.' " Well, call it what you want, just don't put it on my turntable!

Double Vision (1989) signed by Bob James

I guess one artist who gets lumped into the Smooth Jazz category (fairly or unfairly) is alto saxophonist David Sanborn. David has had a very successful career as a band leader, arranger and composer, releasing twenty-four albums, winning six Grammys, as well as being awarded eight gold and one platinum album, commercial success that eludes most, if not all, jazz artists. He has also been a prolific session player, appearing on hundreds of recordings with B.B. King, David Bowie, James Brown, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Linda Ronstadt, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder and, yes, even The Eagles, to name a few. It is hard to imagine a more multi-culti genre busting musician!

Pirates (1981) signed by David, Rickie Lee Jones, Bob Weir

Born in St. Louis, David was stricken with polio as a child, and a local doctor proscribed playing the saxophone in order to build up his strength and lung capacity. Little did that doctor know how prescient and influential his advice would become. David recalled years later, "I wasn't like the other kids, my mantra was, 'Hey guys, wait up.' I used to lie in bed a lot, listening to the radio which was my theater of the imagination. To hear those songs coming through the air from Memphis and New Orleans seemed so magical." One of those songs really struck David: "Honky Tonk" by Bill Doggett featuring Clifford Scott on a searing tenor sax. He remembered, "My parents had records by Billie Holiday, Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong, and Benny Goodman, and I liked those, but the rock 'n' roll I heard on the radio was the shit. My parent's records were working on the top end, but my songs were all about the bottom. All these dirty sounding records sounded like they were homemade, which they were. I guess they were folk music really, but when I heard "Honky Tonk", it hit me..."

Equally important was David's first concert with Ray Charles and his band. After attending a St. Louis Hawks NBA game in 1956 with his father, the Ray Charles band took center stage and played thirty minutes sans Ray. David was transfixed, especially with the one-two punch of David "Fathead" Newman on tenor saxophone and Hank Crawford on alto saxophone. “I’d been hearing so much saxophone on the radio that I couldn’t get enough of it. To me, Fathead was as big a star as Ray. He had that same earthy sound, that same punch-in-the-gut feel as my favorite rock ‘n’ roll songs, but I could tell something else was going on too. Some kind of sophisticated inner harmony was happening that reminded me of Benny Goodman or Count Basie. It was as if he were combining my records and my parents’.”

the Brecker Brothers (1975) signed by David

Displaying dedication, aptitude and a keen talent for the saxophone, by the time David was fourteen, he was sitting in and playing with blues legends Albert King and Little Milton in local St. Louis clubs and theaters. After enrolling at Northwestern University, David transferred to the University of Iowa to study with noted jazz saxophonist J.R. Monterose, and completing his studies, he headed to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco in 1967 where the Summer of Love was in full bloom. David ran into an old jamming buddy from home, Philip Wilson, who had just landed a gig as the drummer with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and asked David to join them the next day in a Los Angeles studio to watch them record. David dutifully rode the bus to Los Angeles and ended up sitting in on that session which became The Resurrection Of Pigboy Crabshaw, an album released in 1967. For the next four years, David recorded and toured with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and even appeared at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, performing after Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and before closer Jimi Hendrix. If you think David is Zelig, believe me, he was only just getting started.

The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays The Music of Jimi Hendrix (1975) signed by David, Billy Harper

The next chapter was David's prolific and lucrative work as a sideman. At one point, he was simultaneously playing with both jazz conductor Gil Evans and pop avatar David Bowie. Sanborn explained, "Once I finished a tour with Bowie at Madison Square Garden and caught a midnight flight to Rome the same night. I got a ride to Perugia and that night I went on with Gil (Evans) right after (Charles) Mingus. I dug that I was able to do both gigs one after the other. It wasn't as much of an adjustment as you'd think. I played the same, only the context had changed. My job is to respond appropriately to the context, and when the context has more harmonies happening, you respond to that."

After touring extensively with David Bowie (well documented on the 1974 release David Live), David joined Bowie at the Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia to record the Neo Soul classic Young Americans, or as Bowie described it derisively at the time, "Plastic soul. It is the squashed remains of ethnic music as it survives in the age of Muzak rock, written and sung by a white limey." Bowie's original plan was to record with MFSB, essentially the house band for Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff's Philadelphia International Records, a label that was crushing the airwaves with the fresh grooves of Harold Melvin, The O'Jays, The Spinners, The Stylistics, and especially the Three Degrees' "TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia)", the theme song for Don Cornelius' television show Soul Train (where Bowie would perform in 1976.) Thankfully, the infectious grooves of "TSOP" endure as the song is played before every Phillies' home game at Citizens Park. TSOP indeed!

MFSB (the clean name was Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, the real name was Mutha F..... Son of a Bitch, a term of endearment for each musician's skill and precision), was unavailable for the session, so Bowie assembled a crack team of musicians, chief among them David Sanborn and (a not yet superstar arranging all vocals) Luther Vandross. Sanborn remembered the session very fondly, "I think David and I bonded because he was a saxophone player too. The way he presented it to me at the outset of the session was, 'There's not going to be any lead guitar on this record. There's going to be rhythm guitar and bass and drums and piano. You're going to be the lead guitar.' I didn't really know how that was going to work, but I put myself in that mindset... I really didn't have any parts, but I had been on the road with him, so we had a kind of dialogue. That was one of the great, great things about working with him. He was so responsive to input. The brilliance of Bowie was that he gave us the framework and then it was the unseen, unfelt hand of guidance from him. he was very clearly in charge, but was not 'in charge'...." It is an extraordinary recording by extraordinary musicians.

A Wizard, A True Star (1973) signed by David, Todd Rundgren

To fully chronicle David's contributions as a hired hand would take a Dickens novel, one I can neither write nor read, but here are a few highlights: Bruce Springsteen's "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out", helping the Big Man with his close friends Randy and Michael Brecker, "Guess Who" by B.B. King, "Tuesday Heartbreak" from Stevie Wonder's Talking Book, "My Thang" from James Brown's Hell, "How Sweet It Is" from James Taylor's Gorilla, the epic medley, "I'm So Proud > Ooh Baby Baby > La La Means I Love You > Cool Jerk" from Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star, "Time Out Of Mind" from Steely Dan's Gaucho, "Don't Stop The Dance" from Bryan Ferry's Boys and Girls, and so many others.

Back To Back (1976) signed by David, Randy Brecker

Probably David's most underrated work was as the host of Night Music, a short lived NBC network television show in the late 1980s, which featured diverse artists collaborating with each other, unusual pairings finding common ground with song composition and peerless musicianship. Where else could Miles Davis jam with Marcus Miller, George Duke and Kenny Garrett, Sonny Rollins trade riffs with Leonard Cohen on "Tower Of Song", Jack Bruce and Joe Walsh perform "White Room", Al Green sing "Put A Little Love In Your Heart" with backing by Jack Bruce and Joe Walsh, Bootsy Collins sing "Healing Power" with exquisite accompaniment by jazz pianist Carla Bley, Steve Swallow and Hiram Bullock, Carlos Santana and Wayne Shorter jam on "La Raza", and, perhaps my favorite pairing, Nick Cave with Charlie Haden, Toots Thielemans, and Omar Hakim on "Hey Joe." Throughout all episodes, David Sanborn injects his unmistakeable alto into the mix, at times cool and detached, other times fiery and volcanic. YouTube exists solely for this type of remarkable content: seek it out and watch, listen and learn from these masters.

Hideaway (1979) signed by David

Though I have been listening to David Sanborn (albeit through his session work) for decades, I had never seen him live. That changed recently when a good friend (thanks Keith!) invited me to see him at the Blue Note in New York City. With Danny's long ago wise counsel of "It's just music" ringing in my ears propelling me forward, I decided to keep an open mind. I was not disappointed. Besides, anyone whose heroes are Ray Charles, David "Fathead" Newman and Hank Crawford is certainly a kindred spirit.

David Sanborn, Blue Note, NYC February 22, 2019

There was a good buzz in the club as people were excited to see David perform in an intimate setting., and the band took the stage and they opened with two Michael Brecker songs. Afterwards, David noted, "Those two songs were written by Michael Brecker whom I, and many others, consider to be one of the great saxophonists and composers of the 20th and 21st Century. I miss him but I am happy to play his music." "Maputo" came next, written by his long time collaborator, bassist Marcus Miller. Quite a groover, the intro by Andy Ezrin on electric piano revealed some deep African percussive funk with steel drum shadings, while underneath, the stout upright bass of Ben Williams and the sturdy drums of Billy Kilson laid a powerful foundation. David then joined on a free wheeling and frenetic solo while Michael Dease layered in some trombone grease.

David and Michael Dease, Blue Note, NYC February 22, 2019

After thunderous applause, David said, "The next song we are going to play comes from an unusual source. The melody was written a long time ago by Charles Dawes (in 1911) who served as Calvin Coolidge's Vice President. Lyrics were later written in the 1950s (by Carl Sigman), and it became an unlikely hit for Tommy Edwards. Here's our version, I hope you like it." An aching, poignant song which has been covered by Nat King Cole, Merle Haggard, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Van Morrison (all my favorite food groups!), David and his band performed it with an exquisite melodic lyricism. Next, David turned up the heat with "Spanish Joint", written by D'Angelo and the late trumpeter Roy Hargrove, and there was some filthy interplay between the sultry trombone of Michael Dease and David's preening alto in a captivating call and response. Before the last song, David disclosed, "We're going to play an old song of mine. Actually, we are going to attempt to play an old song of mine that was requested. I hope I remember it. If we fuck it up, remember, it was a request." Everyone laughed with David before they played "The Dream", a track from A Change Of Heart, released in 1987. A mid tempo ballad, each player stretched out on their instruments, a fitting coda to a great night of music.

David Sanborn Blue Note, NYC February 22, 2019

Next, it was upstairs to the dressing room to get some vinyl signed. David was warm and generous with his time, though he seemed a bit frail off stage, a stark contrast to the commanding presence he was on stage. He signed the vinyl with nary a comment and I expressed my gratitude for all he had done in his amazing, enduring career. I was really glad to hear David and his band play, though I haven't entirely changed my mind on Smooth Jazz, Shrazz or whatever you want to call it. To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's dictum in a whole 'nother context, I know it when I hear it, and I certainly didn't hear it from David and his band at the Blue Note!

David and Ben Williams, Blue Note February 22, 2019

Choice David Sanborn Cuts (per BK's request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydLcs4VrjZQ

"Young Americans" Dick Cavett TV show with David Bowie, Luther Vandross

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcE54Dcvo5c
"I Wanna Do It Good To Ya" Barry White on Letterman with David on alto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mp0rBHhXMs
"How Sweet It Is" James Taylor with David Live 1979

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq4NhcfurgU
"Honky Tonk" Bill Doggett 1956

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdllstkW9yI
“Who By Fire" Leonard Cohen with David, Sonny Rollins 1989

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7eiOsxzjKc
"Hey Joe" Nick Cave with Charlie Haden, Toots Thielemans et al 1989

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSsGIQt2Lbg
“Maputo" with Bob James Double Vision 1986

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBZ7YURLAIc
“The Dream" A Change Of Heart 1987

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cKkS5GOdPo

“It's All In The Game" Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Ben Williams laying out at Blue Note, NYC February 22, 2019

Pneumatic Tubes, Beth Orton and Me...

My dad and I connected over a lot of things. Music was something he definitely imparted to me. His favourite was Jimi Hendrix, and he saw him five or six times. He went to Woodstock in 1969 when he was sixteen, hitch-hiking up to the festival with his buddy from New Jersey. So that was one of the things we’d always talk about, and we’d go hiking in the Catskill mountains, where I grew up, and in the Adirondacks, a few hours north. That’s where my mind was when I was making the album… thinking about mountains, and my childhood.

                         Jesse Chandler

Getting in touch with childhood, and the wonder of it, is something I’ve been obsessed with for years. And I love the idea that memories become hazy. Even if you see a photograph or a home movie of your family, the memory still remains the way you’ve always felt it: the way that it’s evolved over time. You can never remember things exactly as they were. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this… when you’re away from your home, you miss it and think about it all the time, but when you’re actually there, it’s depressing, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because you can’t go back to the way you once felt about it? You want to feel, as an adult, the same way you did when you were a kid, but you never can.

Jesse Chandler

A Letter From TreeTops (2022) signed by Jesse Chandler

Erin and I had the great pleasure to see Beth Orton at the Sacred Heart University Community Theater, a refurbished 1920 vaudeville theater with four-hundred seats, in Fairfield, Connecticut on September 7, 2023. Beth delivered a spectacular show as expected in support of her brilliant new album Weather Alive, but the real revelation for me was her opening act, Pneumatic Tubes, a one man band helmed by the versatile and accomplished multi-instrumentalist Jesse Chandler. As if being in two highly acclaimed bands Midlake and Mercury Rev concurrently weren't enough, Jesse's boundless creativity has led to a solo project, Pneumatic Tubes, and the release of his brilliant new album A Letter From TreeTops.

An homage to his late father who passed away in 2018, A Letter From TreeTops is an atmospheric ambient swirl, at times discordant, at others gentle and lilting, always imbued with warmth despite its haunting electronic treatments. The ghost definitely resides within this machine! According to Jesse, the album title comes from "The summer camp my dad went to, a place called TreeTops in the Adirondacks. This was in the 1950s and 60s, and it was very organic… before ‘organic’ became a hipster buzzword! They would make their own peanut butter, and tap the trees for maple syrup, so he had a lot of fond memories."

Jesse Chandler at the controls, September 7, 2023

The origin of the band name Pneumatic Tubes sadly doesn't derive from the John Wick franchise which used the archaic messaging system to great cinematic effect, transmitting contract details within the treacherous confines of The Continental. Rather, as Jesse disclosed, it comes from another cinematic reference, no less weighty than the oeuvre of Jonathan Wick, "I was watching a Truffaut film, Stolen Kisses, and there’s a scene where one of the characters sends a love letter using a pneumatic tube system. They show it weaving through all the pipes, and I just love that. For a certain period of the 20th century, there was magic and wonder about the idea of sticking something in a tube in one part of the city, and a few minutes later it ending up in another. You could send a lock of hair…and there’s the fact that it uses woodwinds and electronics, too. The tubes are like clarinets and flutes, so that kind of resonates.”

Opening for an artist is always a tricky and often thankless proposition. A short, abridged set hardly gives any momentum from the artist to an audience, and there are many headlining acts who are deathly afraid of being upstaged by an opening act. I have heard (and witnessed) acts being turned down at the soundboard, a subtle sabotage, so as not to be a competitive threat. Erin and I recently saw Rufus Wainwright at The Towne Crier in Beacon, New York and he related a story of his early career and how he opened for his father Loudon Wainwright III one night and completely bombed. As boos cascaded down on him, Rufus left the stage distraught and his father gave him a consoling hug and told him he would have better nights. A couple of nights later, Rufus again opened for his father, and this night, Rufus was electric and the crowd gave him deafening standing ovations. This time, Loudon was waiting for his son in the wings with a stern edict and admonition, "You will never open for me again!" And he never did, although Rufus assured us that his relationship with his father has been restored and is now usefully whole!

Pneumatic Tubes tubing!

Happily, there was no such nonsense or theatrics when Jesse Chandler (aka Pneumatic Tubes) opened for Beth Orton. The sightlines were faultless and the sound system was calibrated perfectly. Jesse was part of Beth Orton's touring band for a short US stint showcasing her recent album release Weather Alive and opened for her on several nights. Jesse appeared on stage to a smattering of applause and began to play tracks off A Message From TreeTops. It was a mesmerizing performance as Jesse used pedals, loops and added occasional saxophone and flute flourishes to take us on a riveting and spellbound journey. A beautiful aural and ambient excursion,  it was a fitting interlude for the beauty that was to follow when Beth and her band, featuring Jesse on keyboards, took the stage for the main event.

Jesse Chandler and Beth Orton September 7, 2023

After the show, I caught up with Jesse at the merch booth and thanked him for his music and performance. I mentioned that I heard the influence of Brian Eno, the godfather of ambient music, in his work. "Yes, Thank you, he is a huge influence on all this music and everyone."  I said that I really enjoyed the 2019 Bobbie Gentry tribute that Mercury Rev did, The Delta Sweete, which reimagined and reinvented Bobbie's songs (which she originally recorded in 1968) with singers Norah Jones, Beth Orton, Hope Sandoval, and Lucinda Williams among others. "Thank you very much, that was a lot of fun to record," Jesse replied, as unfailingly polite as he is humble. He signed his record and then he hooked me up with Beth for which I am exceedingly grateful.

It was a stunning night of music discovery, irrefutable evidence of the balm and elixir that live music provides, as long as I have an open mind and ears. Thank you again Jesse for your kindness and generosity.

Jesse Chandler on keys, Beth Orton on guitar, Ben Sloan on drums, Stephen Patota on bass, Alex Bingham on guitar

Jesse Chandler on keys, Beth Orton on keys

Choice Pneumatic Tubes Cuts (per BKs request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFhj8J4oh7s
"Joyous Lake"  A Letter From TreeTops  2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8weNVdCjaQk

"Slow Fawns"  A Letter From TreeTops  2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qei7DfAheQw

"The Big Deep" A Letter From TreeTops  2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3EbSaxSAo4

"Camp Sunfrost"  A Letter From TreeTops  2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx6477wPGno

"Courtyard"  Mercury Rev with Beth Orton The Delta Sweete  2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNaRp4-PW0c

"Big Boss Man"  Mercury Rev with Beth Orton  Soda Bar, San Diego 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poSjrHMcclo

"Ode To Billie Joe"  Mercury Rev with Lucinda Williams  2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq8SlNY5wl4
"Holes"  Mercury Rev live in Austin 2019  Jesse on keys

Jesse Chandler quotes lifted from a thoughtful interview:

https://hauntedgeneration.co.uk/2022/05/06/jesse-chandler-pneumatic-tubes-and-ghost-box-records/

Charles Tolliver, Gary Bartz and Me…

I take the most difficult path for improvisation, because it’s easy to actually play a number of choruses and never make a mistake, never break down. You just play them effortlessly. That’s no fun. You need to get in hot water by trying something out right from the jump, get yourself out of that, and move on to the next chorus. I rumble. I like the rumble.

Charles Tolliver

Jazz is about improvisation and changing things around, to fit the mindset of the men on the bandstand. Say the soloist is gathering steam or the drummer moves the soloist to another gear. I then have the liberty to move things around; by eye contact or a hand movement, they know immediately that I want to take a section or part of a section and put it somewhere else. It takes some time playing together to do that, but it means that each night the guys are refreshed, and not just reading the stuff the same way all the time.

Charles Tolliver

Action Action Action (1964) signed by Charles Tolliver, Cecil McBee

I noticed the rhythms of the church and the communal thing that happens between the parishioners and the pastors - especially in the Holiness Church, where my grandmother was. They'd get up and have the call-and-response with each other, and some of them would actually fall out and froth at the mouth, like the Haitian voodoo business. Other parts of the family were in other denominations, but it was communal, and the music came out of the old hymn books by James Weldon Johnson and others from the 19th century. There were all different types of rhythms in it. So early on, it was apparent to me that rhythm, as personified in the modern drum kit, is integral for this kind of music. I require the drummer to really lay it on. A lot of my compositions and arrangements sound as if I wrote them for the drums, and in my playing, I work off the rhythm a lot. More so, let's say, than playing linearly.

Charles Tolliver

The Ringer (1969 recordings, 1975 release) signed by Charles Tolliver

Charles Tolliver is a noted trumpeter, composer, arranger, and conductor. As if that wasn't enough, Charles also found the time to start a highly acclaimed record label, Strata East, in 1971 with his colleague, the esteemed jazz pianist Stanley Cowell. Founded by artists for artists, it was an extraordinary concept at the time, and not without attendant controversy. As Charles recently recalled, "I'm a believer in ownership of your intellectual property or art form. It has nothing to do with politics. A lot of people have tried to read the political and racial overtones into the creation of Strata East Records. It had absolutely nothing to do with that. It had to do with ownership... The label was never created to put artists under a contract...it was created as a conduit for artists to get their product to the marketplace, pure and simple." Important artists Gil Scott-Heron, Pharoah Sanders, John Hicks and many others including Charles and Stanley Cowell have released influential recordings under the Strata East imprimatur. Though a somewhat revolutionary approach in 1971, the trailblazing efforts of Charles and Strata East Records has led other artists and collectives to form their own labels and pursue their independent artistic endeavors.

Born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1942, the Tolliver family moved to Harlem in New York City in 1952 and there, Charles has resided ever since (save for a four year stint in Washington, DC when he was a Pharmacy major at Howard University). Even while in DC, Charles felt, "I was always returning home, " and so he did, hooking up with Jackie McLean in New York City and recording three acclaimed Blue Note Records (1964-1966), before hitting the road with Gerald Wilson's scorching big band, and then settling down leading his own bands and performing his own compositions.

I saw Charles recently at the Blue Note in New York City where he was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of Paper Man, a celebrated album which featured the singular talents of Charles on trumpet, Gary Bartz on alto saxophone, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Joe Chambers on drums. To be sure, it was an estimable band of all stars. For this performance, Gary Bartz reprised his role on a searing alto, Vijay Iyer had the unenviable task of filling in for Herbie Hancock on piano, Buster Williams supplied a bed rock bass, and Lenny White drove the bus with his syncopated drums.

Expansions (1968) signed by Gary Bartz, McCoy Tyner

The band ascended the small stage to a raucous, sold out Sunday night crowd anticipating a fiery show. We would not be disappointed. Bespectacled and resplendent in a blue double breasted pin-striped suit, black beret rakishly askew, Charles had the manner and mien of an English Literature professor, or perhaps, a purveyor of rare books and manuscripts. That illusion disappeared quickly as Charles counted off the first tune tapping his right foot, and then it was off to the races with a screaming hard bop "Household Of Saud." The two pronged attack of Bartz and Tolliver in a frenzy, each player frenetic and furiously out-blowing the other. "Lil's Paradise" followed with a long solo by pianist Vijay Iyer who displayed his lyrical touch. The youngest on the band stand by more than twenty years, Vijay is no less gifted. A MacArthur Fellow recipient in 2013, when he is not touring or recording, Vijay teaches at Harvard, after studying at Yale and getting his doctorate at University of California, Berkeley.

Blue Note, NYC 3/17/2019: Vijay Iyer on piano, Gary Bartz, Charles Tolliver, Buster Williams on bass

There was funky filth in the third song "Right Now" which showcased a mesmerizing alto solo by a slouched Gary Bartz along with the crisp back beat furnished by the propulsive Lenny White. Big smiles and knowing glances abounded after each solo, old masters pushing each other and enjoying the results. The fire and the fury was also revealed in the drum solo by Lenny White, arms akimbo, at times sensitive and nurturing, other times flailing, hitting snares and cymbals with a precision and force that went right through my spine, and made me sit up straight in my chair. Attention was paid. The fourth song - and all of the program's selections were from Paper Man - was "Peace With Myself." A ballad with a florid, lyrical piano intro, then Charles joined on mute, while Gary took us on a meandering and exploratory alto solo. Underneath, Lenny and Buster provided a rococo Latin beat. The final song - "Repetition" - was originally recorded for the 1968 session but was left off for time constraints, It has subsequently been released on CD. Written by Neal Hefti in 1950 for the seminal recording Charlie Parker with Strings, it was in keeping with the band's approach: a frantic, full throttled attack by Bartz and Tolliver. Unlike most of Hefti's work, which included writing the bluesy Count Basie standards "Lil' Darlin'", "Cute", and "Splanky", in Bartz and Tolliver's skilled hands, it was a hard bop tour de force. As Charles remarked once about his influences, "It comes from the style of jazz which we played, which is high energy music. As a young child, I listened to Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Clarke and Max (Roach), and they were on all cylinders all the time. It's in my blood." High energy indeed, that was certainly the performance that I had just witnessed! 

Gary Bartz blowing sweet!

Now it was time for a visit with Charles and Gary who were sharing a dressing room upstairs. I knocked gently on the door and was escorted in. I approached Gary first as Charles was noshing on a salad quietly in a corner, while friends were seated, scattered on couches and chairs. Gary was warm and effusive. "Hey, let's see what you got," he greeted me. I handed him Paper Man. "Ooh, that's a great album. What's your name?" 'Neil, N-e-i-l,' I said slowly. "Oh, I see you spell it wrong," Gary teased. 'Yeah, well fuck Neal Hefti, he spells it wrong," i countered, brimming with confidence. The whole room laughed and I handed Gary some other vinyl. When he saw McCoy Tyner's Expansions, he said, "This is a great album but this isn't the original cover. This is a reissue." Amen brother Gary, spoken like a true vinylphile. 

Ellington Is Forever, Volume Two (1975) signed by Gary Bartz, Kenny Burrell, Ernie Andrews, Sir Roland Hanna, Joe Henderson

Gary was particularly interested in Kenny Burrell's Ellington Is Forever, a jam session not only remarkable for its roster of all stars - Nat Adderley, Joe Henderson, Jimmy Smith - it also features the last recordings of Quentin "Butter' Jackson, a long time Ellington trombonist, who died before it was released.  "I know (drummer) Philly Joe (Jones) is on this album," Gary said as he opened the gatefold, scouring the pictures of his friends and colleagues from the long ago 1975 sessions. "Yes, there he is, and there's "Butter", too." Quentin "Butter" Jackson played with the most significant big bands during his lengthy career, from Cab Calloway to Duke Ellington, Count Basie to Quincy Jones... "Butter" said it best about all things Ellingtonia: "You just can't describe Duke's music, because the music itself is so descriptive. So much fire, so much to say. Every piece describes some part of life, or some person, or even a color... once you're in Duke's band, you never get out. It's part of you forever."

Love Affair (1978) signed by Gary Bartz

Gary laughed when he saw Love Affair, a 1978 recording. "They gave me a budget for this one. Do you remember those days?!" he said as he held it up to Charles. 'How much?' i queried. "$90,000, and of course I went over by $20,000. Man, those strings were expensive," he confided, thereby dispelling any notion that there were nefarious activities involved. "Check out my hair on this one. I wasn't wearing any hats then, my afro was fully formed!" he said with a chuckle. I thanked Gary for his time and, especially, the music.

Now, it was time to "harass" Charles. "Let me see Paper Man, and I already know how to spell your name: k-n-e-e-l, right?!" he said grinning while the room erupted in laughter. "Well, what else?" I handed him Jackie McLean's Action, a steaming hard bop 1964 Blue Note recording which featured two Tolliver compositions of the five selections on the record. "Jackie means so much to me. I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for him." 'How did he find you?' I asked. "Find Me? I found him. When I first came to New York, I sought him out. He gave me a chance when he let me sit in with him at Slugs, and we made some great music together. He was a beautiful man."

Virgo Vibes (1967) signed by Charles Tolliver, Roy Ayers, Buster Williams, Reggie Workman

Next came two sides with vibraphonist Roy Ayers - Virgo Vibes and Stoned Soul Picnic. "These are great albums and Roy is such a beautiful man, what a talented player," Charles added. I noted that Herbie Mann produced both albums and appears on the cover of Stoned Soul Picnic despite not playing on either record. "Herbie had nothing to do with the music on these albums. That was all Roy and the rest of us," Charles stated firmly. Indeed, Charles was responsible for all the taut arrangements on Stoned Soul Picnic as well as some crisp trumpet on both sessions. 

Stoned Soul Picnic (1968) signed by Gary Bartz, Charles Tolliver, Roy Ayers

Finally, I handed Charles Live And Swinging, a tour de force from Gerald Wilson's big band. "Oh my, Gerald was such an important figure in my life. The reason I dress like I do today comes directly from him." Charles explained, "You know when I started with Gerald, I didn't have much and his band were all sharp dressers. Gerald came to me, he had a very elegant way of speaking, and he said, 'Now Charles, I know you really don't have suitable clothes for our bandstand so I would like to send you to my tailor who will make you some suits. My tailor is Hart Schaffner Marx. Please go see them and they will take care of you.' I was thrilled, I had no idea who Hart Shaffner Marx was, but I went and I had four suits made. I wore them for the next four years, even as I began to outgrow them," Charles laughed. "It was later that I found out that Hart Schaffner Marx was a sponsor of Gerald's band and all the cats had similar suits." How about Gerald's charts? I probed. "Oh man, I learned so much from him. He was an incredible writer, simply the best charts and arrangements."

Live And Swinging (1967 signed by Charles Tolliver, Gerald Wilson

I thanked Charles again for his generosity and the wonderful music and I told him that the band sounded great, augmented by his gifted rhythm section, Buster Williams on bass, Lenny White on drums, and Vijay Iyer on piano. "Thank you, Neil. It's a million dollar band. A million fucking dollar band," Charles stated emphatically. 'Can I quote you?' "Musically? Yes, absolutely." 

Truth, words and respect from a towering musician of impeccable taste, influence, and talent.

Choice Charles Tolliver Cuts (per BKs request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_2OgAqomxM

"Paper Man"   Paper Man  1968

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoYa7O4zBzk

"Paper Man"   Live And Swinging   with Gerald Wilson   1967

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_RKvp1hON0

"Lil's Paradise"   Paper Man   1968

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7raIuNiWig

"Household Of Saud"   Paper Man  1968

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCcAsYW4fxg&list=PLlxdnGV3wLNMeEBb7ixlMrepULo_pDr-u

"Earl's World"   New Tolliver   1978

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2nW1P_njos&list=PLlxdnGV3wLNMeEBb7ixlMrepULo_pDr-u&index=7

" 'Round Midnight"  Charles Tolliver Big Band With Love    1978

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCevx5odvRI

"Plight"    Action  with Jackie McLean   1964 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl4FNUWrJLE

"Wave"   Stoned Soul Picnic with Roy Ayers  1968 

Lenny White under the watchful eye of Charles, always give the drummer some!

Jenni Muldaur, Teddy Thompson and Me...

I had the great pleasure and privilege to see Jenni Muldaur and Teddy Thompson celebrate the release of their new album Once More: Jenni Muldaur & Teddy Thompson Sing The Great Country Duets with a riveting performance at Joe's Pub in New York City on November 11, 2023. Part of the New York Public Theater and named after its famed producer, impresario and benefactor Joseph Papp, Joe’s Pub is an intimate space with pristine acoustics. The excitement was palpable as the audience settled in, a mix of actors, artists, authors, New York downtown cognoscenti and Hampton swells. Jenni and Teddy's band was led by the gifted string master David Mansfield on guitar and fiddle, and included Tony Scherr on bass, Matt Beck on piano, G Wiz (aka Greg Wieczorek) on drums, and Mike Robinson on guitar and pedal steel, all crack studio and performing musicians. It was a fabulous concert with a curated collection of songs befitting the colossal musical DNA and pedigrees which Jenni and Teddy share.

Jenni testifyin’ Joe'sPub, NYC 11.11.23

Born in Boston, Jenni is the daughter of Geoff and Maria Muldaur, both accomplished and revered musicians. While Maria is more well known, especially for her Top 10 hit, "Midnight At The Oasis," Geoff is certainly no slouch, having recorded and performed with John Cale, Bobby Charles, Jerry Garcia, Bonnie Raitt, and as a member of the influential Better Days band led by harmonica blues virtuoso Paul Butterfield. Geoff and Maria D'Amato met in the early 1960s while performing in the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, a mainstay of the burgeoning Boston folk scene. Geoff and Maria got married and later decamped to Woodstock, New York where they released two albums under the Geoff & Maria Muldaur moniker. Though they divorced many years ago, Maria remains a powerhouse who still performs and records (please read more here https://www.vinyl-magic.com/blog/maria-muldaur-and-me ), while Geoff transitioned to writing film scores and television work, even winning an Emmy. For her part, Jenni has recorded several well crafted and critically acclaimed solo albums, whilst touring and recording with Lou Reed, David Byrne, John Cale, Marianne Faithful, Ronnie Spector, Eric Clapton, Rufus Wainwright, and many others.

Teddy Thompson is similarly afflicted and blessed. His father, Richard Thompson, is one of the great guitarists, Rolling Stone ranks him #19 on their Top 100 Greatest Guitarists, whatever that means. I have found these Top 100 lists to be particularly tiresome and loathsome. To me, their purpose has always been to inflame rather than to instruct. Nevertheless, Richard is a master singer-songwriter and guitarist in every sense, from his founding of the seminal English folk rock band Fairport Convention in 1967 to his solo career which continues for more than fifty years and presently. Teddy’s mother, Linda (Peters) Thompson is simply one of the finest English (or anywhere) folk singers. She and Richard recorded six albums together which have been staples in our home for decades. Yes, talent abounds in the Muldaur and Thompson family trees, but it certainly didn’t end with the parents, it extends through Jenni and Teddy to today.

The show at Joe's Pub was revelatory. It takes a lot of courage to sing country duets, especially songs made famous by the likes of George Jones & Tammy Wynette, Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn, and Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton, masters of the genre, but Jenni and Teddy were more than equal to the task. They opened with "Just Someone I Used to Know" from the Dolly and Porter songbook and we were off to the races. Their voices blended beautifully, and the band played crisp, taut solos under the leadership of David Mansfield who produced the album. Jenni has a powerful, soulful voice with a more than a soupçon of twang. Teddy smartly did not try to out-sing George Jones (who can?!), rather, he was understated, earnest and sturdy, a perfect foil and complement. Other highlights were "Golden Ring," "Once More,” "Take Me," and a beautiful version of "Makin' Believe," a treasured song which has been sung by Ray Charles, Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard, Kitty Wells and, perhaps, my favorite version, a crunchy punk rock rumble by Social Distortion. 

At one point, Teddy quipped that they would play the Once More album in its entirety, about twenty-eight minutes in length and then say goodbye. Even though Harlan Howard famously described country music as “three chords and the truth,” he neglected to mention it was also recorded under three minutes! Fortunately, they didn't leave early, and Jenni sang a soulful, bravura "Stand By Your Man'' to the delight of the rapturous audience. And the ghost of the late great producer Hal Willner (think Rick Rubin only much cooler!) was summoned when they sang an ethereal "I Believe In You," a gorgeous treatment of the Neil Young classic, which Jenni said Hal insisted they perform for a Canada Day celebration held long ago at Joe's Pub. As always, Hal's instincts were impeccable and flawless, surpassed only by Jenni and Teddy's delivery on this tender, winsome ballad. An upbeat "Pickin' Wild Mountain Berries" ended the night with the band and audience in raucous revelry.

Teddy & Jenni Do George & Tammy (2022) signed by Jenni, Teddy cover art by Cindy Sherman

After the show, Jenni greeted a throng of well wishers at the merch table. There was so much love and respect, I felt like I was crashing a wedding reception or an engagement party among close and trusted friends. Jenni was very gracious in signing my vinyl, including some 45s which I had bought during the throes of the pandemic. The George and Tammy cover was done by famed artist Cindy Sherman, who was seated near me during the show. "You know, this will be a collector's item," Jenni whispered conspiratorially. She also said the sepia toned Once More album cover photo was taken out East in the Hamptons, a previously unknown hotbed of honkytonk music. She mentioned that a friend had said that on stage she looked like a gunslinger, all dressed in embroidered black. Maybe so, but she was an even better song slinger and soul sender. I thanked her for her kindness and especially the music.

Teddy & Jenni Do Porter & Dolly (2022) signed by Jenni and Teddy

I was struck by a quote which I read by Teddy about the universality of country music: “It doesn’t matter where you are from or what accent you have, this music can speak to you. I fell in love with it as a little boy growing up in London a longtime after it was recorded.” To which Jenni added, “These songs speak directly to the heart. I can remember pulling over to the side of the road while listening to George Jones because a song made me so emotional.” Possum does that, it’s what he do, and now Jenni and Teddy carry on this rich legacy..

Many, many thanks to Jenni and Teddy for expanding the Great American Songbook to include these country classics, their talents are deserving of far and wide acclaim. Hopefully, there’s a Volume 2 somewheres down the road.

Jenni’s first album credit on mama Maria’s million selling Maria Muldaur (1973) - an auspicious debut!

Choice Jenni and Teddy Cuts (per BKs request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q24M4TRL8WY&list=OLAK5uy_mchHKbAoLl_AOivQDEkVLpY1KL4tdYn4A&index=1

"Just Someone I Used To Know"  Once More   2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chZicRXDQB8
"Makin' Believe"  Once More  2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6C0ufaoClE&list=OLAK5uy_mchHKbAoLl_AOivQDEkVLpY1KL4tdYn4A&index=12
"Pickin' Wild Mountain Berries"  Once More  2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozzBqYsCxQ0
"Golden Ring"  Once More  2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAIjWlov7NI

"Dearest Darlin' (with Joseph Arthur)  Dearest Darlin'  2009 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv6e_8YXMy0

"I Believe In You"  Teddy and Jenni live at City Winery with David Mansfield, NYC 8.16/2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJi7JyLpiN4
"Take Me"  Once More  2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXFKaabbIk0
"We're Gonna Hold On"  Once More  2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OHMM_gvOGc
"Want"   Rufus Wainwright with Jenni   2003

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ku41ufV_cQ

"Jesus"  Jenni sings Lou Reed, Bowery Electric, NYC 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tvvn3Ai1Y4

"In The Pines"  Jenni sings Leadbelly  with Tony Scherr and David Mansfield, City Winery NYC 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-uuXXwGqXA

The Fallout Shelter Sessions: Jenni and Teddy create magic live with David Mansfield 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHo7ucNwP_A

"She Thinks I Still Care"  Teddy sings George Jones  Transatlantic Sessions, Loch Lomond Scotland 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g35D5jwpbpM

"Persuasion"  Teddy and Richard Thompson  2001

Bonus Picks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJgPZLEUI1A

"Making Believe"   Social Distortion  Somewhere Between Heaven And Hell  1992

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEb9dEMV3p8

'Making Believe"  Emmylou Harris  Live 1977 with Albert Lee, Rodney Crowell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94ylHmklbqg&list=RD94ylHmklbqg&start_radio=1

"Making Believe"  Merle Haggard  1977

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqViJyweNV0

"A Heart Needs A Home"  Linda and Richard Thompson live 1975

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzqjD-_OMHk

"Dimming Of The Day" Linda and Richard Thompson 

Buck Hill and Me…

The only thing in the clubs was organ and drum duos. No place for a sax. That period was a drag. I felt that no one wanted me, felt worthless. I didn't even practice much. Just came home and sat around listening to records and having a drink or two. Didn't even pay my union dues. But my wife, she went to the union office and said. "You know this man can't live without music.' She paid my dues for me.

Buck Hill on his lack of opportunities in the 1960s

Buck did not like to travel. He did not like a lot of attention. He just wanted to plant his feet and play the music.

Nasar Abadey, drummer with Buck for more than 30 years

Scope (1979) signed by Buck, Kenny Barron, Billy Hart, Buster Williams

He's a fantastic horn player. His playing is very steeped in tradition and yet very contemporary. His writing is so fresh that it's hard to play cliches.

Kenny Barron on Buck Hill

It depends on how the money runs. If I make a lot of money, I'll retire. If I don't, I won't. I saw in the paper where there's an eighty three year old mailman in New York City.

Buck Hill

 This Is Buck Hill (1978) signed by Billy Hart, Buster Williams

Roger "Buck" Hill was born in 1927 in Washington DC. He started playing tenor saxophone in local clubs in the 1940s, but Buck always had a back up plan. He worked for the US Postal Service with a regular mail route for over forty years. Mailman by day, swingin' jazz cat by night, Buck was known as the "Wailin' Mailman" and wail he did. He had serious jazz chops with a warm, rich, and full bodied sound and Buck even played jam sessions with Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt and Dizzy Gillespie. But he kept his day job and supported his wife and five children.

Though he played (and recorded) with Charlie Byrd in the late 1950s, Buck did not make his debut as a leader until 1978 on Steeplechase Records, a highly regarded Danish label, which was home to artists and expats like Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Kenny Drew, and Horace Parlan. This Is Buck Hill has superb accompaniment by Kenny Barron on piano, Buster Williams on bass, and Billy Hart on drums. It is an impressive debut for the (then) fifty-one years young tenor titan with a first rate jazz trio for a first rate jazz saxophonist. Buck followed that release with two other Steeplechase releases which mixed standards like Cole Porter's "Easy To Love", Jerome Kern's "Yesterdays", and Sonny Rollins' "Oleo" with some hard bop originals.

Capital Hill (1989) signed by Buck, Barry Harris

In 1989, Buck released Capital Hill on Muse Records, another sublime session anchored by the great Detroit pianist Barry Harris and produced by Houston Person. This record features exquisite versions of George Gershwin's "Someone To Watch Over Me", Sonny Rollins "Tenor Madness", and Benny Goodman's "Stompin' At The Savoy." And the most interesting (and improbable) song is a raucous, hard bop instrumental version of "Hail To The Redskins", the Washington Football Team fight song. The second oldest fight song in professional football (Green Bay Packers' "Go! You Packers Go!" was first, composed in 1931), "Hail To The Redskins" was written by Washington bandleader Barnee Breeskin in 1938 with lyrics penned by Corinne Griffith, wife of owner George Preston Marshall. It became an anthem with all the success that the Washington Football Team enjoyed, particularly under the ownership of Jack Kent Cooke and Hall Of Fame coach Joe Gibbs. There was no more rockin' place than RFK Stadium in the 80s-early 90s when John Riggins, Art Monk or Gary Clark scored a touchdown, and "Hail" was sung in all its exuberant glory. From those peaks of grandeur (including three Super Bowl wins!) to the current depths of despair, those memories fade as the interminable folly, futility, and pettiness of current owner Dan Snyder pervades ad nauseam, ad infinitum. But I digress...

Reuben Brown Benefit program, Austrian Embassy September 15, 1995

I was lucky to see Buck Hill many times over the years. While he recorded twelve albums since his re-introduction in 1978, his touring and appearances were limited. After all, he had mail to deliver and a route to service. In 1995, he played a benefit at the Austrian Embassy for Reuben Brown, a local DC jazz pianist who suffered a debilitating stroke. There were many jazz legends, including Shirley Horn who dedicated a hushed and spellbinding "Here's To Life" to Reuben's recovery, James Williams contributed a rollicking gospel "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free", George Coleman blew pretty for all the girls, and Buck performed with Barry Harris and Cecil McBee. It was a great tribute and a beautiful night of soul and music.

Buck Hill and Barry Harris, Austrian Embassy September 15, 1995

George Coleman and Cecil McBee, Austrian Embassy September 15, 1995

After the show, I chatted with Buck. He signed a couple of albums and I told him how much I loved his playing of "Hail To The Redskins" on Capital Hill. He took the album and signed "Hail To The Redskins" right in the middle of his forehead. Sadly, Buck passed away on March 20, 2017 at ninety-years old. While he never got the accolades or acclaim he deserved, Buck was a monster if unsung talent.

Thanks Buck, this postman may or may not ring twice, but he sure can blow his horn.

Buck Hill prowling at the Austrian Embassy, September 15, 1995

Choice Buck Hill Cuts (per BKs request)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pYOezw2Osvo

”The Sad Ones” Scope 1979

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRXX1AEZ0Rw

“Tenor Madness” Capital Hill 1989

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iAIKbcPMFlg

”Yesterdays” This Is Buck Hill 1978

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OMPZ9PSSYwE

”Easy To Love” Easy To Love 1982

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lXu-Psb0GPY
“Bossa For Sax” I’m Beginning To See The Light 1991

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbGieLtOWpQ

”Oleo” This Is Buck Hill 1978

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsY_cmekGo
”Little Bossa” Scope 1979

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osQoJCjLQ5M
”Two Chord Molly” This Is Buck Hill 1978

Cecil McBee and Me… Austrian Embassy, September 15, 1995

Rosanne Cash and Me...

I dream of songs. I dream they fall down through the centuries, and come to me. I dream of lullabies and sea shanties and keening cries and rhythms and stories and backbeats. I dream of the Summer of Love and the British Invasion and the cries of Appalachia and the sound and soul of the Mississippi Delta.

               Rosanne Cash

Seven Year Ache (1981j signed by Rosanne

I did write him a letter when I was 12 years old which he saved. I'd had this burst of expansiveness about who I was. I told him I wanted to do something special, that I loved art and music, and I wanted to be out in the world, and I didn't want to be just a wife and a mother. I poured my heart out to him. And he wrote me back this letter that ached with identification. It was so great. And he said, 'I see that you see as I see.' I'll never forget that line.

               Rosanne Cash letter to her father, Johnny Cash

It’s what you leave out that’s important, just as the moments of silence are essential to great music. I think the poetry lies in the periphery, and I think all the details of the event are what contain the resonance. And also a viewpoint that’s a little skewed, it’s not looking exactly dead-on.

               Rosanne Cash

King’s Record Shop (1987) signed by Rosanne

I sew. It's calming, but it's much deeper than that. It frees me up from thinking about language and melody and rhyme scheme. It's pure. It's a single thing you're doing with your hands. And because everything is about what you're doing with your hands, space opens up. Your mind opens. It's incredibly refreshing. I like doing things that are non-verbal, that don't require those tracks to be run over and over again in my head....but it's not only meditative, it's social. I sew with other women, and we talk about our lives, our kids, our jobs, men. It's great because it's completely removed from what I do as a songwriter.

               Rosanne Cash

There are a lot of performers and artists who examine the marketplace, see what's successful, then try to copy that. Even if that works, it's still hollow. The spark that comes from interacting with the world, from listening to and reading language, from conversations, from observing the color of the light and listening to great music. I like getting my competitive spirit aroused. I may never write a song as good as Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", but it still inspires me to try.

               Rosanne Cash

Right Or Wrong (1980) signed by Rosanne

Like any person in their twenties, I needed to get away from my parents to find out who I was. But in your thirties, you start appreciating who your parents are, and by your forties, you say, 'They know a couple of things, maybe I should be friends with them.'

              Rosanne Cash

King’s Record Shop (1987) signed by Rosanne

May 24th is one of my favorite days. The immortal bard (and recent Nobel Laureate) Bob Dylan was born on that day in 1941, singer/songwriter Rosanne Cash followed in 1955, and transcending all, my beautiful daughter, Camryn, in 2001. What a talented trio; and, I firmly believe the best is yet to come! Despite seeing Dylan perform more than a dozen times, I have yet to meet him. Over the years, I have met Rosanne Cash many times, and Camryn, well, she's stuck living with us. For now.

Rosanne is the eldest daughter of Johnny Cash, and the only one in her immediate family to follow in his formidable footsteps. It took balls to become a singer and songwriter in the vast wake of Johnny's tsunami. Big balls. Not surprisingly, Rosanne's got 'em. Born in Memphis, Rosanne grew up in Southern California listening to The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Buffalo Springfield, far from the madding Nashville crowd. In those days, the only thing growing faster than her father's fame and record sales was Johnny's burgeoning drug problem. Rosanne remembered her childhood as "fraught with anxiety. In my pre-teen years, my father's drug addiction was really consuming him and consuming my parent's marriage. I knew there was something wrong, but I didn't know what it was. There was just this background tension and anxiety to all of those years. I thought, 'He's taking medicine but it's not good for him. He's acting strange, he seems very unhappy and incredibly restless...' " Restlessness, irritability and discontent, the hallmarks of any active addict or alcoholic.

Somewhere In The Stars (1982) signed by Rosanne

Initially, Rosanne was attracted to books and literature. A turning point came when she went on tour with her father for nearly three years. Her education in country music sprang directly from its source: the music of Johnny Cash and June Carter, daughter of A.P. Carter, the patriarch of the renowned Carter Family. Hillbillies from rural, southern Virginia, A.P. Carter and his family basically invented country music in the 1920s, stealing Celtic airs and Scottish Highland reels, while grafting their simple, heartfelt lyrics, creating the aural and enduring masterpieces "Will The Circle Be Unbroken", "Wildwood Flower", "I''m Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes", "Wabash Cannonball" and "Keep On The Sunny Side", among many others.

Rosanne remembered the circumstances of her recruitment, "Once when I was in my late teens, I really fucked up. Me and my stepsister used his car and we were drunk and he found out about it. The next day, he was so quiet and the tension was building with every hour, and we were terrified that he was going to blow. Then, he finally took us out for an ice cream, and he said, 'I'm going to give you a choice. You can either go out on the road with me and sing and earn lots of money, or you can stay home and take drugs." I was crying and said, 'Yes, I'll go out on the road!' But my step-sister said, "I'm going to have to think about it." In the end, we both went. My step-sister died six weeks after my dad (in 2003). She never really got off drugs."

Seven Year Ache (1981) signed by Rosanne

Rosanne learned how to play guitar while on tour, and she treasured the time spent with her father, "It was great to stock in some time with my dad because he had traveled so much through my childhood. So just being with him on the bus every day, and going to new places and traveling with him, that was wonderful. And I really satisfied some childhood yearning for him that I had. But it was great in another way in that I sat in the wings every night and watched him for three years. And I saw the essence of him, that's where the essence of him flourished, under the spotlight. So to see that every night was beautiful."

When she returned home from touring, Rosanne studied acting briefly at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in Los Angeles (one of her classmates was Kelly McGillis), but the acting life was not for her. The music came calling. She released her first album, Right Or Wrong, in 1979, produced by songwriter extraordinaire Rodney Crowell. They married, had three daughters and collaborated on several albums over the next thirteen years. A successful artistic partnership did not translate into matrimonial bliss. Of her time with Rodney, she reflected, "We were too similar. While we ruminated dreamily on philosophy and music and metaphysics and art, neither of us knew where to find a post office, or how to change the oil in the car, or whether we even owned a key to the front door of the house." When their marriage ended, Rosanne decamped to Chelsea in New York City in 1992, and there, she has become (and remains) a devoted New Yorker in every sense.
Fortunately, for music lovers and her family, Rosanne hasn't succumbed to the Cash family demons. She has released thirteen albums since her recording debut in 1979, and she has charted eleven Number 1 country hits, won four Grammys, and sold millions of records. She has also written four books, including Composed: A Memoir published in 2010 which details her background and family life in illuminating and unsparing detail.

Composed: A Memoir (2010)

Erin and I have seen Rosanne many times through the years. Two memorable shows stand out. She performed at President Clinton's Inaugural Ball at the Washington Hilton in 1993 with her current husband, John Leventhal, a marvelous string virtuoso. It was an amazing night of music as Jerry Jeff Walker, Emmylou Harris, Lou Reed, Bob Weir, and Paul Simon performed sets. The show started around 10pm and ended well after 4am, with Paul Simon singing "Bridge Over Troubled Water" to less than forty hearty though bleary souls. Rosanne played a flawless set including her hits, "Seven Year Ache", "Blue Moon With Heartache", "I Wonder", and "Runaway Train." Then, she announced a special guest would join her for a couple of songs, as Johnny Cash ambled on stage in his black tie finery. The crowd, mostly swells and politicos, was bedecked and bedazzled. Rosanne and Johnny opened with "Big River", then lit into a ferocious version of "Tennessee Flat Top Box", a song Johnny wrote and originally released in 1961. When Rosanne recorded the song in 1987 on King's Record Shop, she assumed the song was in the public domain and she was unaware that her father was its author. There was no denying ownership that night, Johnny and Rosanne were in complete dominion. Years later, I met her at a book signing and told her how much I enjoyed the Tennessee Inaugural Ball performance with her dad. She smiled, "You know, I was really sick that night. That's why I asked my dad to sing with me. I really needed his support. I'm glad you were there, that was an incredible night."

Composed: A Memoir (2010) title page signed by Rosanne

Erin and I saw her again at the Ridgefield (Connecticut) Playhouse in 2009, when Rosanne was touring in support of The List, an album culled from one-hundred songs bequeathed to her by her father some thirty-five years earlier. Rosanne explained, "When I was 18 years old, I went on the road with my dad after I graduated from high school. And we were riding on the tour bus one day, kind of rolling through the South, and...we started talking about songs, and he mentioned one, and I said I don't know that one. And he mentioned another. I said, 'I don't know that one either, Dad,' and he became very alarmed that I didn't know what he considered my own musical genealogy. So he spent the rest of the afternoon making a list for me, and at the end of the day, he said, 'This is your education.' And across the top of the page, he wrote '100 Essential Country Songs.' " Thankfully, Rosanne kept the list and still has it to this day. As a significant historical document, I think the Magna Carta may be its only rival or equal!

The List has special guest vocalists Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Jeff Tweedy and Rufus Wainwright applying their star power to the classic country songs of Harlan Howard, Hank Snow, Merle Haggard, and even Bob Dylan's "Girl From The North Country" gets a plaintive re-working. In concert, these songs were majestic. Rosanne and her band opened with Hank Snow's "I'm Movin' On", an uptempo ode to rollin' and ramblin'. As John Leventhal said, "It always goes over, it's fun, it's not all that serious, and you've got to build up to the wrist-slashers. You just can't hit 'em with it from the beginning." Beautifully stated from a man who knows how to put together a playlist!

10 Song Demo (1996) signed by Rosanne

In concert, a highlight was a song that Rosanne said was not on The List but should have been - "Ode To Billie Joe", written by Bobbie Gentry. The band did a deep, delta swamp boogie intro with Leventhal bending notes on his Telecaster amid swirling atmospherics by a Hammond B3 organ, before Rosanne sang the mysterious tale of Billie Joe MacAllister jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge in Choctaw Ridge, Mississippi. It was a riveting performance. There has always been ambiguity about what was thrown off the bridge which led to Billie Joe's demise. For her part, the reclusive songwriter Bobbie Gentry has remained evasive, "It's entirely a matter of interpretation as from each individual's viewpoint. But I've hoped to get across the basic indifference, the casualness, of people in moments of tragedy. Something terrible has happened, but it's 'pass the black-eyed peas', or 'y'all remember to wipe your feet.' "

Years later, Rosanne solved the mystery with some unexpected help. "I sang it live at Carnegie Hall at the Rainforest Foundation Benefit (in 2012) and President Clinton was in the audience. During the intermission, he summoned me so that he could talk about that song, and what was thrown off the bridge, and how that song was the quintessential expression of the shame of the South. It had been an abortion, a miscarriage, and they threw it off the bridge. It was stunning that he had put so much thought into this song and what it meant to Southern people. And it clarified my thoughts about it. It took the leader of the free world to explain the song to me, well, the ex-leader of the free world. I was thinking, 'This guy's mind is not full of other stuff? He's had time to think about this song?!"

The River & The Thread (2014) signed by Rosanne i

As successful as Rosanne's performance was, the album sold better, although Rosanne became concerned that her fans seemed more interested in her interpretative covers rather than her original songs. She rectified that on her 2014 release, The River & The Thread, featuring all original compositions. Interestingly, the Tallahatchie Bridge and surrounding environs loom large. Rosanne recalled a visit, "I thought it would be some overpowering structure, but it’s just this little bridge. We just sat there for half an hour, and then John (Leventhal) snapped a picture from behind me that became the album cover. But that area was like a vortex, and you can’t understand why so much came from this one spot. Down the road is Dockery Farms, which were the largest cotton plantations in Mississippi and all these great blues musicians worked there – Howlin’ Wolf, Charley Patton, Pop Staples. They’d sit on the porch of the juke joint at night and play music, and pick cotton all day.” To be sure, it is a ripe and fertile area. A mile away in Money, Mississippi, Emmett Till was slain in 1955 at Bryant's Grocery, a gruesome act that inspired and catalyzed the Civil Rights movement, and seminal blues man Robert Johnson is buried nearby. On vinyl, Rosanne mines these themes and influences adroitly with her compelling lyrics and melodies.

Rosanne Cash, an activist, author, sewer, singer, songwriter, and consummate storyteller.She once said, "I didn't want to be a musician when I was a kid. I didn't like the fact that you had to travel, that it appeared you had to take drugs and your relationships were in shambles. Being a performing musician? Crazy."

Thank God she overcame her objections. The world is so much richer as a result of her many accomplishments.

Yes, May 24th is one of my favorite days.

Crawl Into The Promised Land (2021) 7” vinyl signed by Rosanne

Choice Rosanne Cash Cuts (per BK's request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GITcXIVv54s

"Wouldn't It Be Loverly" Rosanne sings My Fair Lady! Live 1994

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM592cB_mkU

"Wildwood Flower" Rosanne sings, Randy Scruggs plays the Carter Family

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYsHXye5M3A

"That's How I Got To Memphis" Rosanne and Johnny Cash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLwocVPaGsE

"Tennesee Flat Top Box" Live 2003

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3ErCq6kxnI

"Ode To Billie Joe" Live with John Leventhal 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qqxTBOarfA&list=PLE3C3DAFCC1D95514

"Seven Year Ache" Live with John Leventhal 2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izMlJRftg_o&list=PLE3C3DAFCC1D95514&index=2

"I Still Miss Someone" Rosanne sings Johnny! Live 2003

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2WilM6ljUg

"September When It Comes" Johnny sings with Rosanne Rules Of Travel 2003

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKlmDL2gFpo

"Pancho & Lefty" Rosanne sings Townes Van Zandt 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu1EFVX03eU

"I Walk The Line > I'll Fly Away" Rosanne sings to Johnny Kennedy Center 1996
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_XgghFZt1o

"500 Miles" Live at Austin City Limits 2009

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubT_annvRf4&list=PLgpxRW466O3UASyqCWgQJSbk419XzgtHZ

"I'm Movin' On" Live at Austin City Limits

Bonus cut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yice4w7g1cI

"Till I Gain Control Again" Rodney Crowell masterpiece sung by Van Morrison and Raul Malo

She Remembers Everything (2018) signed by Rosanne

Gary Burton and Me…

I grew up in a farm town in Indiana. In the early years I played by myself, because there were no other musicians around. And especially no one else who had an interest in jazz music that I had sort of discovered from records. So playing with just two mallets was so empty, wasn’t complete. I wanted some harmony to make the music sound complete. In high school, I started experimenting playing with four mallets more and more. And eventually by the time I was about ready to leave home, I had pretty much become a four mallet player. I was surprised when I finally moved to Boston and the East Coast, to discover that there weren’t that many vibraphone players around. And I was the only one playing with four mallets. I didn’t just dabble in it. I really committed myself to it and I developed a fair amount of independence of the mallets so I could really play it in a pianistic way. Which was something that no other players had done yet. So I’m credited, rightly or wrongly. I didn’t invent four mallet playing – I popularized it.

               Gary Burton

The Groovy Sound Of Music (1965) signed by Gary, Bob Brookmeyer, Steve Swallow, Phil Woods

I’m pretty anti-putting-things-in-boxes. Every time I hear somebody say, “Jazz fell apart after the 1950s,” or lost its way, or whatever, I just shake my head and think, this is surprising, because the people who say that revere [musicians] who were iconoclasts. Their favorites are Duke [Ellington] and Thelonious [Monk] – people nobody understood at the time, who were constantly challenging audiences to keep up with them.

Gary Burton

To me, he was the epitome of what a great modern musician should be. He is a bottomless pit of ideas and melody. I think this gets a little bit lost because of the nature of the instrument he plays. With those four mallets flying around and the notes ringing the way they do, sometimes I feel like folks might miss the actual content of the ideas and the lines and are kind of wowed by the sight of it all.

guitarist Pat Metheny

The Time Machine (1966) signed by Gary

So many things I've done over the years have been influenced and inspired by Gary. If I'm playing a Bob Dylan song, or recording an album in Nashville, these are things he did decades ago. He showed me the possibilities. There are no limits. I can't imagine where I'd be or what I'd be doing right now if I hadn't heard Gary Burton. For more than 40 years he has been an inspiration.

guitarist Bill Frisell


Some musicians today want to stay in the past instead of looking ahead, trying to challenge themselves and move things forward. The nature of the art form, of all art forms, is you get classicists and people who break new ground. There’s room for everybody. I personally don’t have much interest in staying put or going backwards, certainly.
Gary Burton

Gary Burton & Keith Jarrett (1971) signed by Gary, Steve Swallow

Born in Anderson, Indiana, Gary Burton is a virtuoso vibraphonist with an unusual and uncommon jazz career. He has released more than sixty-five albums, appeared on hundreds of sessions, and collaborated with master musicians Chick Corea, Larry Coryell, Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, and Keith Jarrett, to name a few. Winner of seven Grammys (along with twenty-one nominations), Gary once said, "One thing I’m most proud of about my career, the reason why my Grammys mean a lot to me, is they’re spread out over five decades. That says to me that my career wasn’t one period of success followed by a long fade. I’ve managed to sustain it at a high level all this time." No fade indeed, it has been a remarkable run for a farm boy who got his professional start in Nashville in 1960. Yes, Nashville, Tennessee was not exactly a hotbed of progressive jazz then, or now!

A Genuine Tong Funeral (1967 recordings) signed by Gary, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow

While jamming at saloons and local honky tonks in southern Indiana, Gary caught the ear of Boots Randolph, a noted Nashville session saxophonist who had attended high school in nearby Evansville, and was later well known for his hit "Yakety Sax", forever immortalized as the theme to The Benny Hill Show, that inscrutable arbiter of impeccable British taste and urbanity. Boots recommended that Gary move to Nashville for the summer (before attending Berklee College of Music) and Boots introduced him to Hank Garland, another seasoned Nashville session player who was looking to branch out with a foray into jazz.

Mister Guitar (1961) signed by Gary

Hank needed a vibraphone player, there were none available (unsurprisingly) in Nashville and Gary's chops were more than adequate. An unlikely alliance was forged. Or not so unlikely, as Gary revealed, "As I became more acquainted with country musicians, I discovered that a lot of them were big jazz fans. And I realized that the two [types of] music have a lot in common. They both feature improvised solos – the bluegrass music and the hot violin solo, and so on. So they have a lot of respect for the improvising in the jazz world. And the songs were a little different, but the concept of being a hot instrumentalist existed in both of those kinds of music. And so I came to have a lot of respect, and received a lot of enjoyment out of country music. I didn’t pay any attention to it at all when I was growing up. I was a real jazz snob. I knew nothing about classical music or country or pop or anything else. Jazz was my world when I was a teenager. That was a great experience in Nashville. It not only introduced me to the professional music world and got my career off to an early start, but it also very much broadened my awareness of what was out there in the music world."

Chet Atkins In Hollywood (1961) signed by Gary

The resulting vinyl, Hank Garland's Jazz Winds In A New Direction, released in 1961, was an unexpected departure for Garland who had been a featured guitarist on Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, Roy Orbison and Faron Young recordings in the late 1950s and early 1960s. That was a heady summer in Nashville as Gary also sat in on pianist Floyd Cramer's "Last Date", a million seller that reached Number 2 on the pop charts, but could not supplant Elvis Presley's "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", with piano by Floyd Cramer and guitar by Hank Garland.

Latin Escapade (1956) signed by Gary

Before leaving Nashville, guitarist extraordinaire and A&R guru Chet Atkins signed Gary to an RCA record contract as a parting gift. There weren't many incoming seventeen-year-old freshman, even at a distinguished music institution like Berklee, with a signed record contract already in hand. Gary stayed at Berklee for two years, left to tour with George Shearing for one year, and then spent three years with (sometime) misanthrope Stan Getz. Of his time with Stan Getz, which included touring with the white-hot hit "The Girl From Ipanema" during the Bossa Nova craze, Gary remembered, "Stan was the most outrageous musician I’ve ever encountered. It was the 1960s, and the concept of being bipolar didn’t exist yet, and he was a classic case. He would zoom back and forth between being the nicest guy imaginable to angry and suspicious and thinking everyone’s out to get him. You could never predict any given day. I was the one who drove him to gigs because he was too drunk himself and I bailed him out of fights when he would get into trouble with the club owners. Still, Stan gave me great exposure, and that was a factor in starting my own band."

Latin Lace (1958) signed by Gary

After leaving Getz, Gary started his own band in 1967 with guitarist Larry Coryell, a swirl of jazz, rock, and country, and a harbinger to what would be called 'jazz fusion' two years later when Miles Davis' Bitches Brew was released to critical acclaim. "One of the reasons I felt encouraged to try combining rock and jazz was that I had watched Stan combine musics for three years. And I said, 'I want to do something that my age group can relate to.' " Although Gary never got the credit as an innovator that Miles, Herbie Hancock, or John McLaughlin do, Burton's Duster, released in 1967, is considered the first jazz-rock fusion album.

Newport In New York Vols 3 and 4 (1972) signed by Gary

Perhaps, Gary's biggest contribution has been as a teacher and professor. He began as an instructor with Berklee in 1971, was appointed Dean of Curriculum in 1985, and retired as an Executive Vice President in 2004. The prodigal son had triumphantly returned. Gary explained his philosophy, "You don't teach talent. You teach technique, interpretation, and content. As a kid, people advised me not to learn to read music—they thought it would destroy my creativity. Some people have the same attitude about going to school. But talent is not fragile. It will survive almost anything." It is impossible to calculate how many students Gary influenced as a teacher or Dean during those thirty-plus years, but some of his students (and band members) include Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny, John Scofield, and Joe Lovano, the current Berklee Gary Burton Chair in Jazz Performance. Lovano said recently, " Most young players today aren’t coming from one school or another; they’re coming from a wider place. Gary was always coming from that wide place.”

The New Tango (1988) signed by Gary

Though retired from academia since 2004, Gary recently announced his performing retirement after nearly sixty years. As a farewell tour, he performed thirteen shows in eight cities with pianist Makoto Ozone, once a Berklee pupil, now an esteemed collaborator for the past thirty-four years. I saw one of their last performances at Birdland in New York City on March 11, 2017. It was a showcase of their wonderful blend of music and talent. They opened with Chick Corea's "Bud Powell", spritely and buoyant taken at breakneck speed, then followed a bluesy and meandering "Soulful Bill" written by the late pianist James Williams. Another highlight was "Remembering Tano", a tribute that Gary wrote for his friend, Astor Piazzola, the Argentinian tango master, appropriately moody, sensuous and evocative with florid piano flourishes by Makoto.

Gary Burton Quartet In Concert (1968) signed by Gary, Steve Swallow

Gary introduced the next song, "We're going to play a piece that was written by Maurice Ravel in 1917, 'Le Tombeau de Couperin.' This song appears on Virtuosi, an album that Makoto and I released which was nominated for a Grammy in the classical category. It did not win, but we are both so proud of that record. Feel free to hum along, although I don't think that Ravel knew that he was a jazzer!" Originally written as a memorial to soldiers slain in World War I, it was an upbeat and joyous romp, in keeping with Maurice Ravel's intent not to play the composition as a sombre dirge. As Ravel said at the time in response to critics, "The dead are sad enough, in their eternal silence."

Times Like These (1988) signed by Gary

Then, Makoto disclosed the fascinating back story to the set closer, "Times Like These", "I had studied with Gary at Berklee, and he had asked me to write two songs for an upcoming album. I put it off and kept putting it off for months. Finally, Gary called me and said he was going into the studio next week and he wanted my songs. I told him that I would come over to his house but I didn't have anything. So I went over to his house, and he left to run some errands for a couple of hours. I went down in his basement, where he kept an old, beat up, upright piano, and I wrote two songs including "Times Like These", which became the title of his next album, although I didn't play on it." The version on the record is a piano-less quintet which featured Michael Brecker on tenor saxophone. As a duo, Gary and Makoto rendered a shimmering, glistening ballad, a beautiful end to a glorious night of music, and a stunning outcome for a two hour banishment in a basement!

Mood Latino (1961) signed by Gary

After the show, I visited with Makoto in the Birdland dressing room. I told Makoto how much I enjoyed his playing and that Gary's retirement seemed premature. "Yes, Gary's playing on this tour has become stronger and stronger, he really sounds great. He just doesn't like to practice, that's his real problem." Just then, Gary joined us. He explained, "You're very kind to tell me that my playing is good, but I've had six heart surgeries, two major. The older I get, you know, things happen." I expressed my condolences on the recent loss of his friend and colleague, Larry Coryell who had passed away a couple of weeks ago after performing at The Iridium. "See? Things happen," he said. I mentioned an interview that I had read recently, where Gary talked about seeing Lionel Hampton at age ninety-two, unable to play, just waving his mallets while the band played on. "Yes, I have no interest in that. There's much more to life." He was generous and gracious when signing the vinyl. He was particularly interested in the Chet Atkins vinyl with their colorful covers. Although he didn't play on many recordings with Chet, he was appreciative for all the support Chet had given him as a seven-teen year old. "Chet really helped me when I started out. He knew everyone and that record contract with RCA was a great start," Gary said.

Picks On The Beatles (1966) signed by Gary

Gary Burton, always moving forward, a life in jazz and service exceedingly well lived. What a legacy of compositions, performances, recordings, and students he has left.

Times Square (1978) signed by Gary, Roy Haynes, Steve Swallow

Choice Gary Burton Cuts (per BK's request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m687bVNcV8s

“The Girl From Ipanema" Gary on vibes, Stan Getz on tenor sax, Astrud Gilberto on vocals  1964

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0buaAR5Rdk

"When The World Was Young"  with Stan Getz, Steve Swallow, Roy Haynes  Live in London  1966

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb4vMor-vOY
“Le Tombeau de Couperin"  Makoto Ozone on piano   Live at Montreux  2002

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1INJB4pwAVo
"Remembering Tano"  The New Gary Burton Quartet  tribut to Astor Piazzolla  2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxtr86zmYbk

"Libertango"  Live in Buenos Aires with Astor Piazzolla's band   2002

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP4GSTk5cPE&list=PLMXJ9yz9BSmCIRjN4sXlqoH_HIp64Bi_9
"Sweet Rain"  Duster  1967

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhn5GQvPzso
“just Like A Woman"  Tennessee Firebird  Gary Swings Dylan!  1966

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQoVRCFuVes
"Norwegian Wood"  The Time Machine  Gary swings The Beatles  1966

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_syabUQOnc
“I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You"  Tennessee Firebird   Gary swings Hank Williams with Chet Atkins  1966

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fZh838mRWo
"Opus Half"  Gary and Makoto swing Benny Goodman!  Munich  1995

Bonus tracks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvfG9uFswis

"Last Date"  Floyd Cramer on piano, Gary Burton on vibes   1960

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4NDLJow1ZE

"Yakety Sax"  Boots Randolph on sax  1958

Quincy Jones Explores The Music Of Henry Mancini (1964) signed by Gary, Phil Woods, Clark Terry

Ronnie Foster and Me...

Can I tell you how I met Jimmy Smith? This is important for me. The owner of Royal Arms would always sneak me in because I wasn't supposed to be in at twelve years old. He knew I loved music, so he said, "You get your butt over in that corner and you stay there and you can't move." And that corner happened to be on the side of the stage where everybody went up, so I had a bird's eye view of what was going on onstage. Jimmy was coming in and I called the owner and I said, "Hey, where's Jimmy staying?" He named some motel in Buffalo. I called Jimmy, and I still laugh about this, Jimmy picked up the phone. 'Hello,' I said, 'Yeah Jimmy, Mr. Smith, this is Ronnie Foster, I'm a little young organ player around here, you got to show me something.' And he said, "Boy, when you hear me play, you won't want to play anymore." And so I said, 'No, no , no Mr. Smith, I really love to play.' And he said, "Boy, you're not listening to me, when you hear me play, you're going to want to throw your organ away." I'm going, 'No, no, no.' But you know why he was doing that? Because he wanted to know how hungry I was, right? So he said, "Okay, what time you get out of school?" And I said, '3:00.' He said, "You meet me over at the club," and the rest is history. When he was in town, I was with him every night and we got a great relationship moving forward as I got older until he passed. He was really amazing and it really pisses me off when people say, "Oh Jimmy Smith is so overrated." How can he be overrated? He created the genre. He had his own voice and his own vocabulary on that instrument, which was his and his only. And there's a lot of organists that play bebop, they've taken that direction, But Jimmy was very, very special, very, very unique.

                   Ronnie Foster

Blue Note has always stood for The Art of Jazz. I grew up on Blue Note, listening to all the greats, it was ingrained early. I was exposed to it through my own path and other people's paths - fans and players. I had some albums, my friends had other albums. When something new came out, we'd go to someone's house and we'd all check it out together. From Horace Silver and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers to Donald Byrd and Herbie Hancock. Blue Note's roster was the cream of the crop - the center. And, of course, they brought Jimmy Smith on the scene. The stuff he was playing on The Sermon and Groovin' At Smalls' Paradise was crazy! Had me listening on headphones at the Buffalo Public Library!

                      Ronnie Foster

Two Headed Freap (1972) signed by Ronnie

I first found out that musicians were sampling "Mystic Brew" when one of the forefathers of acid jazz in the UK called me to ask if he could remix it. He told me he loved my music and mentioned that A Tribe Called Quest had already done something with the song. I was unaware of Tribe's sample, so I went out and bought Midnight Marauders and listened to the song "Electric Relaxation." I realized that the group had not asked for permission to sample. In those early days of hip hop, it was common for people not to ask for permission to sample, but I still felt violated by them not asking. I reached out to Blue Note, and they got it all handled. But it seems things have mostly changed since then in terms of respecting the source material. I've been trying to get a hold of J. Cole so I can thank him for his song "Neighbors." The song uses "Mystic Brew" but the sample was actually of the song played backward. I would never have known about the sample if he hadn't credited me for it. It was beautiful that he credited me for my work.

                    Ronnie Foster

I'll tell you a really great story. Jimmy Smith called me one day, he says, "Ronnie, Michael and Quincy sent me over this tune, I need your help. You've got to tell me what to play." I said, 'What are you talking about?' The tune was "Bad" which a lot of people don't know that that's him on organ. That organ solo is his. And he sent me the track and I said, 'Jimmy, just play you.'

                       Ronnie Foster - The child is father to the man

Sweet Revival  (1973) signed by Ronnie

An accomplished Hammond B3 organist, arranger and composer, Ronnie Foster has had a remarkable career. He released his first solo album fifty years ago on the acclaimed Blue Note record label, then dropped out of sight until his recent resigning and his heralded 2022 release, aptly named Reboot. Although his profile was low key in the ensuing years, Ronnie was productive, especially in the studio, performing with George Benson on Breezin' and Weekend In L.A., Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway on "The Closer I Get To You," The Jacksons on "Can You Feel It," Stevie Wonder on "Summer Soft," and producing artists David Sanborn, Stanley Turrentine and Chayanne, a Latin American artist who has sold more than fifty million records. And his influence didn’t stop there, Ronnie's recordings have been sampled by noted hip hop artists A Tribe Called Quest, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar and so many others. It's been a long and winding journey from Ronnie's home town of Buffalo, New York where it all started.

Initially, Ronnie played classical piano as a child, then switched to organ, transfixed by jazz music and the wide spell cast by the inimitable organ maestro Jimmy Smith. A gifted player, it was a tough slog to get gigs. Ronnie recalled his humble beginnings, "My first professional gig was at fourteen, and this club was a supper club. The only reason I could work was because it was a supper club. So James Clark was a great guitarist out of Buffalo who worked with Grover Washington. You know, Grover came out of Buffalo...anyway they hired me for the gig and they said, 'So, now we'll practice the music for the exotic dancer.' So remember, I'm fourteen...we're running over "Caravan" and she starts taking off stuff, Well, I... all of a sudden, lose track of what I'm doing, and I just kind of hold the note down. The bandleader shouts at me, "Ronnie, Ronnie," 'Oh okay, I got it.' And that was my first pro gig, that's how I started. And these guys, actually, the first night, they took me back in the kitchen and they pushed  me up against a wall, and they said, "We see you doing any stupid shit, we're going to kick your motherf...ing ass. So just play your instrument." So that was a good foundation, because I've only been drunk twice in my life. They treated me like a kid, you know, like their kids. That was a good foundation."

George Benson  Breezin' (1976) signed by Ronnie

More good fortune happened when Jimmy Smith introduced Ronnie to George Benson, "Yeah, I feel so humble. Just think, when Jimmy introduced me to George at fourteen, that really changed my whole path. Like, I got a lot of notoriety or whatever you want to call it. I'm not saying that in an ego way, I'm just saying this was developed through my relationship with George. I'm still humbled." When they met in 1964, George Benson was a hot young guitar phenom, not the jazz pop superstar that he would become a decade later. George had recently released The New Boss Guitar Of George Benson with his current employer Jack McDuff sitting in, and George and Ronnie kindled a friendship which extends warmly till this day. Years later, Ronnie would tour and record with George on his platinum selling Breezin' and the equally successful Weekend In L.A.. However, before he joined up with George, and after he graduated from high school, Ronnie was enlisted by another powerhouse guitarist Grant Green. Ronnie toured with Grant and he played organ on Alive!, an incendiary live album recorded in 1970 at the Cliche Lounge, one of Newark, New Jersey's finest sweat boxes.

Cheshire Cat (1975) signed by Ronnie

That gig led to Ronnie getting signed and eventually recording for Blue Note, as Ronnie remembered, "After the (Alive!) session was over, Francis Wolff - one of the co-founders of Blue Note - walked up to me and said, "Hey Ronnie, how would you like to have a deal with Blue Note?" And I go, 'Yeah.' Unfortunately, he passed away, and then Blue Note was kind of up in a gray area, because they were trying to find someone to run Blue Note. But then I found out who that was, which was Dr. George Butler, and I called him up and I said, 'Hey you know Francis offered me a deal, you know I'd like to do it.' And he said, "Where are you playing?" And I said, 'I'm playing at this club in Detroit.' He said, "Oh, I'll fly out to check you out." He came out, and after the first set, he said, "Yep, I'm signing you." You know, it was like that, a very beautiful situation. I was with George through that and then I did two other albums for him at Columbia."

His first two releases on Blue Note in 1972, Two Headed Freap and Sweet Revival, were soul jazz workouts featuring well worn covers of soul classics "Let's Stay Together," "Back Stabbers," "Me And Mrs. Jones," and originals like "Mystic Brew" which became a deep reservoir for hip hop samples by A Tribe Called Quest, Childish Gambino, J. Cole, and Kendrick Lamar. In all, Ronnie released five albums on the storied Blue Note label, but when label head Dr. George Butler left to join Columbia Records, Ronnie departed as well, and he released two albums to little notice or fanfare in 1978 and 1979. In the 1970s, Jazz was in transition and struggling to be commercially viable and artistically relevant. Nonetheless, Ronnie released The Racer in 1986,  and, mostly,  focused on studio work and production in the ensuing decades. Thus, it was quite surprising that Blue Note resigned him and released a new album, a mere thirty-six years later. If it weren't true, it would be as unlikely as it is unbelievable.

Reboot (2022) signed by Ronnie

Ronnie related the improbability of it all, “Yes, I was talking to somebody and they said, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this, coming back after fifty years.’ My thanks go out to (Blue Note President) Don Was for having that vision. He said, ‘Man, your stuff is killing.’ He’s the right guy for Blue Note because he is so musical, he still gigs on the weekend. I was very excited, the company was very excited. Now I’m building some stuff to go out because they asked, ‘Do you want a tour?’ I said, ‘Are you kidding?’ I’m going out on the road which I love. We play from an emotional base because I’m an emotionally based person and that’s the only thing I can do. I love that people are on the journey with us when we play.”

Love Satellite (1978) signed by Ronnie

I was lucky to see Ronnie and his trio perform to a packed house at the Blue Note on April 24, 2023. Now living in Las Vegas, it had been decades since Ronnie had headlined a gig in New York City, and the excitement and tension in the club was palpable. Showcasing songs from Reboot, Ronnie was joined by longtime colleague Mike O’Neil on guitar, a rhythm guitarist for George Benson for decades, and his son Chris Foster on drums. For this special occasion, Ronnie had two guests: Isaiah Sharkey on guitar and James Carter on tenor saxophone. Not surprisingly, Ronnie opened with “Blues For J,” a rollicking groover written and recorded in 1965 by, as he said, “my mentor and hero Jimmy Smith.” Other highlights included “Carlos,” an homage to his great friend Carlos Santana with furious Spanish flamenco flourishes by Mike O’Neil, “Two Headed Freap,” titled by Ronnie because of the two concurrent melodies percolating throughout, with Isaiah Sharkey, a fleet fingered guitar slinger adding tasty fills, and a buoyant “Isn’t She Lovely,” written by his longtime friend Stevie Wonder, with James Carter adding a soulful tenor saxophone. Ronnie and his trio played for nearly two hours, prolly a Blue Note record, especially since they had a second show. It was an incredible night of music.

Silk Fuse One signed by Ronnie  1981

After the show, I bounded up the stairs to get some records signed. I waited, and I waited. Finally, after twenty minutes - it seemed an eternity - I went back downstairs, and there was Ronnie, surrounded by friends and fans, a conga line of well wishers snaking through the club, waiting to exchange thanks and praises with the maestro. He took selfies, signed albums and CDs, seemingly reveling in the adulation which he so richly deserved. When it was my turn near the end, I told him how much I enjoyed the music and how great the band sounded. Ronnie was gracious and smiled as he signed the records, “ You know, you got some history here,” he said as he signed the Silk records, a supergroup of musicians including George Benson, Stanley Clarke, Stanley Turrentine, Lenny White, and a nineteen year old Wynton Marsalis. When he signed Wonderland, a Stanley Turrentine album of Stevie Wonder songs which he produced, “You know I love this album and I’ll tell you a story. I had all the arrangements done and we had booked time at the studio, but we hadn’t heard from Stanley for weeks. Nothing, there were no cell phones back then. Two days before, he called and said he’d be at the studio. So we went to the studio and Stanley showed up and played beautifully. Man, he had that stuff down. Later, we found out that he had been in rehab and had just gotten out. Man, he was beautiful and could he play!” I thanked Ronnie again for his time and music, and I couldn’t resist imploring him to come back to New York for a more extended visit to share his considerable talents.

A wonderful arranger, composer, musician and producer, Ronnie Foster is deserving of far wider acclaim. Hopefully, that happens with his re-association with Blue Note. As he once said, “No matter what genre you’re playing, you play you. You pay respect to the circumstances that made your music, but music is music, and it’s beautiful.” And Ronnie is as beautiful as his music.

Stanley Turrentine Wonderland (1987) signed by Ronnie, Stanley Turrentine

Choice Ronnie Foster Cuts (per BKs request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWp6ngco92c&list=PLCX_SlmERpRPTjvkN2qvBqHkpYVzTZ7g-&index=3

"The Two Headed Freap"    Two Headed Freap   1972

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nj1HWC-dQs&list=PLCX_SlmERpRPTjvkN2qvBqHkpYVzTZ7g-&index=5

"Mystic Brew"  Two Headed Freap   1972

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YddU8wrJn4E&list=PLEz_mLoNZMeQBv9PYaP7sUnTwKdZpwDKB&index=5

"Isn't She Lovely"   Reboot   2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98Aoj4Aoe6Y

"Golden Lady"  On The Avenue  1974

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha1K3VU-734&list=PLEz_mLoNZMeQBv9PYaP7sUnTwKdZpwDKB&index=6

"Carlos"  Reboot  2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdB71CvYRMc

"Boogie On Reggae Woman (with Stevie Wonder on harmonica)"  Wonderland   1987

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g8fWbSb4XA

"Living For The City"  Wonderland  Stanley Turrentine  1987

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlwBo4Y_ZpU

"Cheshire Cat" with George Benson  Cheshire Cat  1975

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGBWZxMetjA

"Fuse One"  Silk  1981

Bonus Cuts/Samples

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHRnvjCkTsw

"Electric Relaxation"  A Tribe Called Quest 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-kWlUbkHS4&list=PL4WJm31i8c6hfUWYEVON-Aeu0HNdQnYcI&index=2

"Forbidden Fruit"  J. Cole feat. Kendrick Lamar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDnwWkxEnMY

"Summer Soft"  Stevie Wonder: Songs In The Key Of Life  1976

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK9UUcd29AQ

"Can You Feel It"  The Jacksons  Triumph  1981

9/11, Frank Salvaterra, Sandler O'Neill, Sting and Me...

In years past, I have written about some of my amazing friends at Sandler O’Neill who perished on 9/11. Initially, I sent these notes to colleagues, friends and institutional clients and we grieved together and tried to gain some semblance of peace and understanding, where there was none. 

As some of you know, I have an insane autographed record collection, so there is an appearance by Sting at the end of this rather lengthy missive, an encounter which happened entirely through the generosity of Herman Sandler. Although the seasons and years pass, the ache of loss from that dreadful day endures.

I hope you, your family and friends are well.

Neil

Synchronized (1983) signed by Sting, Andy Summers

I had the privilege to work with Frank Salvaterra at Sandler O’Neill on the 104th Floor of 2 World Trade Center. A talented trader and an even better man, he was murdered senselessly along with thousands of others on 9/11. Thankfully, I have some wonderful memories. 

Frank loved all kinds of music and he was up for anything. One of the first shows that we saw together was Doc Watson and Dave Grisman at Town Hall, a fabled New York City landmark. I bought tickets online and we were escorted to our seats, the last row in the center of the balcony. I had never been to Town Hall, and I was excited to be in such an historic and intimate venue. Frank smiled his big smile, a smile that lit up a room, so big his eyes squinted. "You know, Neil, we have a ticket broker. We don't have to sit in the last row."

Duly noted.

A month later I made amends, thanks to Frank and his ticket broker, we sat in the second row for BB King at the Beacon Theater. We also saw shows at Madison Square Garden in the Sandler O’Neill box - Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, and an Eric Clapton and Friends benefit for the Crossroads Recovery Center in Antigua on June 30, 1999. That was a great show which was augmented by some very special guests: Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow, Mary J. Blige, and David Sanborn. My wife, Erin, joined us for this gig, as she and Frank shared a special connection. They were born on the same day in the same year, an extremely auspicious day and year! Frank always asked how the birthday girl was, especially when she called the desk, he was always so kind, generous and thoughtful.

One of Frank's favorite songs was a Dylan tune, "Not Dark Yet" off Time Out Of Mind. When a trade was going south, or the desk wasn't making money, Frank would quote Dylan: "It's not dark yet, but it's getting there." There is always a fair amount of gallows humor around Wall Street, but Frank would leaven this quote with his effervescent smile. He was serious, but never took himself too seriously, rare and endearing qualities in a head trader, a boss, or anyone for that matter. When Dylan played the opening chords to "Not Dark Yet" and Clapton started riffing tasty fills, I think my smile was bigger than Frank's. It was a great concert, a great night with even greater company.

I miss Frank Salvaterra and all the other Sandler O'Neill colleagues who perished so senselessly on 9.11.01. Although the years pass, the wound never fully heals. Each year on October 4, we add an extra candle to Erin's birthday cake in remembrance and celebration of a great friend.

Sending love and peace to their families

Here’s the original Herman Sandler and Sting post…

Herman Sandler was a founder of Sandler O'Neill, a financial services investment bank. Along with his partners, he ran a very successful and lucrative practice. Herman was also a benefactor, who gave generously to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and The Rainforest Foundation. He looked like Daddy Warbucks: shaved head, glasses perched on the top of his forehead, fit and disciplined like the US Army Captain who had served his country in Vietnam. He was tough and he did not suffer fools, and I was lucky to work for him and his talented team of bankers, salesmen, and traders on the 104th floor of 2 World Trade Center until I left in May 2000.

In November 1999, Sting was playing four shows at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. One of my clients was a big Sting fan and asked if I could get tickets. Tickets were at a hefty premium since the venue was so small - only 3,000 seats vs. Sting's normal Madison Square Garden gig with 20,000+. I bought tickets through a ticket broker and asked Herman for backstage passes, since Herman was friends with Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, and served with them on the board of The Rainforest Foundation. Herman said, "No problem." Everything was no problem with Herman, even his boat was named "No Problem." Herman secured the backstage passes the next day and handed them to me. No problem.

The night of the show, I met the client and her trading assistant for a quick dinner at the Ocean Grill on the Upper West Side. They were very excited to see Sting. We finished our meal and headed over to the Beacon. The backstage entrance was near the loading dock, so we flashed our passes and we were escorted in. A roadie told us that there was no real backstage area, so we could stand along the wall or go to our seats. I looked at the wall. That didn't look very promising and it was too early to go to our seats. 'Lets try this again,' I told the clients, 'Follow me.' We went back to where we came from and an elevator door opened. Another roadie got off. We got on. Taped to the elevator wall was handwriting: Sting 6, Costumes 5, Band 4, Catering 3. This was helpful. I pressed 6 and up we went.

Outlandos d’Amour (1978) signed by Sting, Andy Summers

The elevator opened on the 6th floor into an anteroom where Sting had his back to us. He was being interviewed, speaking into a mic attached to a large tape machine. I walked by Sting, nodded, and my clients followed me and stood in the corner. Actually, they cowered in the corner, they were so starstruck. The interview concluded and I greeted Sting. I told him that I worked for Herman Sandler. "Herman is a great friend and a good man. We're doing some great work together on the Rainforest Foundation," Sting said as he signed a couple of his albums. I asked him if he would take a picture with my two guests. He agreed. I coaxed them out of the corner and they flanked Sting as I took a picture. No iPhone in those days, I relied on a throw away camera just purchased at Duane Reade. I took the picture, no flash. I stalled, 'Hey Sting, we got everything working now,' I promised as I took another picture. No flash again. Sting laughed, "You got everything working except the camera!" Then he shook everyone's hands and left. We headed back to our fourth row seats and watched Sting put on a great show. My clients were very grateful that they got to meet Sting, less so when my pictures got developed and came back blank.

Regatta de Blanc (1979) signed by Sting, Andy Summers

Tragically, Herman Sandler died on September 11, 2001, along with sixty-six of his Sandler O'Neill colleagues and some of my best friends. Sting later performed his song "Fragile" at one of the World Trade Center benefits and dedicated it to Herman's memory. I miss Herman Sandler, David Rice, Frank Salvaterra, Bruce Simmons, Howard Gelling, Tom Clark, Tom Collins, Doug Irgang, Stacey McGowan, Kristy Irvine Ryan, Mike Edwards and all the other Sandler O'Neill colleagues who senselessly died that horrible day. Although the years pass, their loss is a wound that never fully heals.

Read about Bruce Simmons here…

https://www.vinyl-magic.com/911-bruce-simmons-herman-sandler-sting-and-me

Read about Stacey McGowan and Kristy Irvine Ryan here:

https://www.vinyl-magic.com/blog/911-stacey-mcgowan-kristy-irvine-ryan-sting-and-me

Read about David Rice here:

https://www.vinyl-magic.com/blog/911-david-rice-sandler-oneill-sting-and-me

Listen to a podcast about David Rice with his brother Andrew and I here:

http://storiesfromnowherepodcast.com/

Miles Davis, Al Foster, Erin and Me…

At three years old, I was banging on my mother’s pots and pans. My great aunt bought me a practice pad when I was around maybe five, six or seven, and I was practicing all the time. My mother and father were into the swing era before bebop music — Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa — and that’s the first drummer I heard because my father had records. My mother said when I was born on January 18, 1943, “Sing, Sing, Sing” was playing, which was a big hit; Gene Krupa and the first drum solo was on that record, and it was playing when I was born. When I got older, my father bought me a set of drums; I was ten years old. I played them for six months and then stopped. My mother’s mother, my grandmother, told everybody that I told her, “I’m gonna practice when I’m ready.” Anyway, I heard “Cherokee” by Max Roach and Clifford Brown. I was twelve... I heard that record; it was modern jazz, and Max Roach, the great drummer, plays music on the drums. I didn’t know you could make music on the drums, so after that, when I came home from school, every day I’d set up my drums and put my ear to the speaker to try to figure out what he was doing, and that’s how it started. Then I got into Thelonious Monk and Miles, everybody. I’ve worked with those people. I never learned to read music, and can play a little piano, but I have to have somebody write the music and my songs out for me. I’ve been so blessed because I’ve played with everybody I fell in love with when I was a young teenager - Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Miles, Thelonious Monk, Cannonball Adderley…

Al Foster

We Want Miles (1982) signed by Al, original Kix ticket stub, 1981

I loved him so much. Another thing that people don’t know is that I raised four kids, four daughters, by myself, and I told Miles six months after I joined him, and he asked me to bring them in; maybe he didn’t believe me. I took them up there one Sunday a couple of weeks after I had told him, and a few months after that, he said that when we’re not working, for me to go up to management. This is the God's honest truth. When I wasn’t working, I went to pick up a check for $200 every week of the month. If I was off three months, four months, I got $800 a month, for real, and he never said that he was trying to help me with my daughters, but I felt that. So he wasn’t like his image, being mean, cursing at people, even punching people.

Al Foster

You know, he was little, and he studied boxing...but he was the hippest trumpet player ever because I haven’t heard anybody with that kind of taste. Cool, you know. He would take his time. He knew I didn’t like playing the back beat. I was nervous for the first few years, but after I got to know him, I would say, ” Miles, why don’t we play some tunes with changes, you know, not just one damn chord. Miles would say, “Don’t worry about the changes, worry about the drums.” After that, I kept my mouth shut, you know, but he said everything so cool, never in anger. Even when he’s mad, he’s cool. I respect that because I can lose my temper. I grew up in Harlem and can act like a fool and regret it the next day, but he was always cool. One of a kind.

                         Al Foster on Miles Davis 

The Thing To Do (1964) signed by Al

My idols were Sonny Rollins - he was so melodic on the saxophone - and Max Roach, of course. The music is old now, you know, the forties, fifties, sixties, and then it changed in the seventies, and I joined Miles. He told me to buy Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix, and Buddy Miles records. Buddy Miles was a drummer who was already famous. Miles used to say, “Buddy Miles has one beat, but Al, he plays the shit out of that beat!” So I had to learn that beat. Miles was too much, you know, but what a beautiful human being. He kept people away from him with his attitude, but he was the sweetest man, really and I miss him so much. I was with him for thirteen years, ’72 to ’85, and then I left and joined Herbie and Stan Getz. Miles called me in ’89 to play on a record... and then I played his last concert before he died, July 10th, 1991. He died September 28th. It was billed “Miles Davis and Friends,” and it was Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Joe Zawinul, three piano players; Wayne Shorter, Steve Grossman, Jackie McLean, sax players; John Scofield and John McLaughlin, two guitar players; and Dave Holland on bass and Darryl Jones on electric bass.

And I was the only drummer. Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette, and Jimmy Cobb were living, and they made great records with Miles, and he called me. That was the most money I ever made for one hour. Really big money. I didn’t know he was sick. I went to see him just before he died; flew out to LA. His nephew called me and said, “He’s sick, Al. Not like before.” My wife booked a flight for me, and I left the next morning and stayed a couple of days. I think he was in a coma. I’m not sure. He was tapping in my hand. I was holding his hand. When I walked in, the nurse said, “Oh, Miles. Your friend. He came all the way from New York to see you.” He had tubes in his mouth, so he couldn’t talk. Tears were coming down my face, and I said, “Miles, you have to get better. We have to play in New York next week.” I wasn’t even in his band. And that was it. He died a week later.

                         Al Foster

It’s About Time (1985) signed by Al, Jackie McLean, McCoy Tyner

Bandleader, composer and a drummer's drummer, Al Foster has appeared on hundreds of recordings in his lengthy career. Probably best known for his association with Miles Davis, Al has always been in demand as a faultless timekeeper and human metronome. Born in Richmond, Virginia, raised in Harlem, Al has come a long way from banging on pots and pans as a child to playing with Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Herbie Hancock, Frank Morgan and Sonny Rollins and so many other legends.

Yardbird Suite (1988) signed by Al, Frank Morgan, Ron Carter, Mulgrew Miller

His enlistment with Miles was serendipitous. As Miles wrote in his 1989 autobiography, he heard Al at the Cellar Club in New York City, "He knocked me out because he had such a groove and he would just lay it right in there. That was the kind of thing I was looking for. Al could set it up for everybody else to play off and just keep the groove going forever. For what I wanted in a drummer, Al Foster had all of it." Thirteen albums resulted from their 1972-1985 collaboration which also included Miles’ self-imposed retirement from 1975-1980. As Miles said, "I quit primarily because of health reasons, but also because I was spiritually tired of all the bullshit I had been going through all those years. I felt artistically drained, tired. I didn't have anything else to say musically. From 1975 until early 1980, I didn't pick up my horn for over four years, didn't pick it up once. I would walk by and look at it, then think about trying to play." Prodigious amounts of cocaine during this period probably didn't help Miles either during his sabbatical.

Reflections (1989) signed by Al, Ron Carter, Joe Henderson, Mulgrew Miller, Frank Morgan

When Miles agreed to perform again, it was at the behest of his record label CBS who wanted to record a concert at Avery Fisher Hall and release it as an album. As usual, Miles hired young guns - saxophonist Bill Evans, percussionist Mino Cinelu, bassist Marcus Miller and guitarist Mike Stern. Miles was always searching for new sounds and musicians, as he once revealed, "I have to change. It's like a curse." Except for drummers. as Al was the only member of Miles' band who played with him before and after his hiatus.

In The Vanguard (1987) signed by Al, Buster Williams

Since Miles was scheduled to perform in New York City in early July 1981, Miles and his band played a tuneup in Boston. It was a smart move as no one knew what Miles' chops were like after five years of decay and rust. Miles reached out to Fred Taylor who had previously run the highly regarded Paul's Mall and The Jazz Workshop, venues which Miles had played many times in the 1960s and 1970s. Though his clubs had been shuttered for several years, Fred secured a four-hundred seat venue, Kix, an unlikely site at 590 Commonwealth Avenue near Kenmore Square. Kix was a converted parking garage which had been the Psychedelic Supermarket in the 1960s and had hosted some seminal rock concerts by Cream, The Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin with Big Brother & The Holding Company. It was now a cavernous disco and hosted Miles Davis and his new band for four nights, June 26-29, 1981. Tickets were an exorbitant $12.50, but as I was trying to impress my new (would be) girlfriend, and attempting to woo her away from another suitor, I bought the tickets, $25 all in, with no handling and usurious Ticketmaster fees!

This Bud’s For You… (1984) signed by Al

The club was packed and Miles got a thunderous standing ovation before he even played a single note. The audience chanted "We Want Miles," which became the title of the double lp when it was released, and the show was great. Most of the songs on the album were recorded from the performances at Kix, only "Back Seat Betty" was culled from Avery Fisher Hall. The energy and excitement was palpable, as guitarist Mike Stern remembered, "Kix was perfect and the audience was just ready to enjoy it and they did. It was the kind of band where we got off on the energy of it." For Miles, it was a welcome resurgence, "Cause I love Boston. I just happen to have a thing with Boston. Every time I have a new band and a good band, I just come to Boston... I like Boston people. It isn't a question of how many jazz clubs you have here. It's the attitude of the students. The students are thinking, you know what I mean? They are not afraid to look beyond today's music or anything else." Regrettably, this was the first and only time we saw Miles, but, thankfully, not the only time we saw Al Foster!

Mood Indigo (1989) signed by Al, Frank Morgan, Buster Williams

Erin and I were blessed to see Al perform recently at the Jazz Forum, an intimate eighty-five seat venue, in Tarrytown, New York. Tim Armacost, a fine tenor saxophonist, was ostensibly the leader of the quintet which boasted a front line of Michael Rodriguez on trumpet, Tim on tenor, Gary Smulyan on baritone saxophone and John Pattitucci on bass. The real leader of the band, as is often the case in jazz, was the drummer, the redoubtable Al Foster. The band opened with "It's Just The Blues." written by Tim, a bluesy number which featured the stalwart front line trading trumpet, tenor and baritone solos, while the rock-ribbed rhythm was supplied by John Pattitucci's pulsating bass and Al's stout drums. Other highlights included two Thelonious Monk tunes, "Let's Call This" and "Oska T," fun romps with Monk's intricate melodies explored by a piano-less quintet, not the usual fare. Another highlight "The Next 20" was dedicated to the Mayor of Hastings on Hudson, Nicola Armacost who was in attendance, or Tim's wife. It was a gorgeous, lush ballad which showcased Al’s exquisite brushwork. The encore was an uptempo burner, Harold Land's "Vendetta," which capped a memorable night of music.

To Bird With Love (1987) signed by Al

After the show, Erin and I chatted with Al. Our seats were so close that he was held captive and he had to move a cymbal and hi-hat to extricate himself from his perch on the bandstand. First, another well wisher from the audience approached and said, "You know Al, I saw you with Miles in 1981 at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City. What a great show." Erin countered with, "Well, we were at an earlier show at Kix in Boston, and we're still together!" Al grabbed my arm and pulled me close, “Wow, that's incredible," and then he looked me straight in my eyes, "You know, that was all Miles!" The other guest retreated in abject defeat while Erin and I continued our conversation. Al was gracious while he signed a bunch of vinyl, "Oh, you got my first album, I think I was twenty when we recorded this," he said as he signed Blue Mitchell's The Thing To Do, released on Blue Note in 1964. He loved the Frank Morgan albums, "Frank was great and you got Mulgrew (Miller) and Ron (Carter) and Joe (Henderson), those are some great players. Those records were a lot of fun to make. I spent some great times touring with Joe."

We Want Miles (1982) signed by Al

As he signed We Want Miles, I told him how much fun it was for Erin and I to see him all those years ago in Boston. "You know, I started playing with Miles in 1972 after Jack (DeJohnette) left." Al looked around to see who was listening, made a sign of the cross, and then whispered conspiratorially, "You know, I never really liked that band. Miles was playing his trumpet through wah wah pedals, trying to be Jimi Hendrix or something. I really just wanted to play standards. I loved (bassist) Marcus Miller though, he's on this record and it was great playing with him. You know, that's my hat that Miles is wearing on the cover. We had a photoshoot at the soundcheck in New York and Miles saw his nephew (Vince Wilburn Jr.) playing my drums, he said, 'Get that muthaf..ka off those drums.' We went over to my kit, he saw my bag and grabbed my hat. It was brand new and it matched his pants!” Al smiled fondly while pointing to his hat on the album cover.

The Magnificent Tommy Flanagan (1981) signed by Al, Tommy Flanagan

He laughed when he saw the Tommy Flanagan heavy lidded photo on The Magnificent and quickly turned to the back cover, "George Mraz was on this, we played together quite a bit. He had such a great sound. it's a shame we just lost him," he said pointing wistfully to George's photo. The Jackie McLean/McCoy Tyner album elicited a similar emotional response. "I don't know why, but I never liked this session and I love McCoy. The last time I saw him, man it was tough. I had heard that he was sick so I went to see him, but he didn't even know who I was. He just had a vacant stare. All the music and shows we played together, it was all gone. He was gone. That was tough." I handed him A New Kinda Soul recorded in 1970 led by Larry Willis, "Man, this is a great album. This was Larry's first as a leader, I loved playing with Larry, he was a beautiful player." I asked Al about his upcoming gigs, "Oh, I'll be playing around, doing some stuff at Mezzrow soon." 'That's a great venue, I love that space,' I said, 'I was lucky to see Brad Mehldau perform solo there last summer.' "Yes it is a great space. I love Brad, he is a genius," Al gushed. I couldn't agree more! Erin and I thanked Al for his time and especially his contributions to the beautiful music which has been such a positive force in our lives these many years.

Al Foster, a terrific drummer, kind and generous, as Miles said, he keeps the groove going on forever.

A New Kind Of Soul (1970) signed by Al, Larry Willis

Choice Al Foster Cuts (per BKs request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dfzlSadHLc&list=PL0RNmJPHxmg-hboNhxbgUF3hgxGHt1vzG&index=8

“Kix” We Want Miles 1981

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVvXB0efwEQ

“The Thing To Do” The Thing To Do Blue Mitchell 1964

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj8eHq5WCyg

“Recorda Me” live with Joe Henderson, Dave Holland 1993

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1U0vgOW-NI

“Caravan” Reflections Frank Morgan 1989

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWOk5hDDDdc&list=OLAK5uy_nbfI9h67FjUndiLaIw9cwnBPo1FVXw5Io&index=2

“Good Morning Heartache” The Magnificent Tommy Flanagan 1981

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gD2PHRpMqo

“Bouncing With Bud” This Bud’s For You Bud Shank 1984

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP09_dvZoZc

“Consola Coa” A New Kinda Soul Larry Willis 1970

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqQmBtNSUUw

“Someday My Prince Will Come” In The Vanguard Bobby Hutcherson 1987

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8nkNEa0g2I&list=PLyHn3f7-9IULulVPuo3rThFRCwKVHN08s&index=5

“No Flowers Please” It’s About Time Jackie McLean/McCoy Tyner 1985

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS-pPyYn2Z4

“East Of The Sun” To Bird With Love Eddie Daniels 1987

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=DBpt6QX4f0w

“The Next 20” Time Being Tim Armacost 2017

The Rolling Stones, Gary Stromberg and Me…

Between The Buttons (1967) signed by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman

Most of my loyal and devoted readers know of the exploits of my great friend Gary Stromberg - author, bon vivant, music PR maven and supreme mensch (read more here https://www.vinyl-magic.com/new-page-3). From signing Jim Morrison and The Doors to co-producing two of the greatest cinematic triumphs of the 20th century - CAR WASH and The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh -  to running the most powerful music PR firm in the 1960s and 1970s with clients Ray Charles, Elton John, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and others, Gary has lived a charmed and blessed life. Well, there were some potholes along the way, Gary did end up on Charles Manson's hit list which necessitated an FBI interview, and he struck fear in The Stones during their epic 1972 tour of debauchery. When Keef says, "Man, that guy needs some help," you are swimming in perilous waters! Fortunately, Gary got help and he has been a pillar in recovery for over forty years.

CAR WASH (1976) signed by Gary

Anyhoo, I saw Gary last week on a rare visit to New York away from his lair in Marina Del Rey. Gary was in town to celebrate the launch of "Stones Touring Party" on iHeartPodcasts which details the first Stones’ tour since the mayhem and murder at the Altamont Speedway in December 1969. 

Stones Touring Party

iheart.com

The Stones had just released Exile On Main Street and they were in the prime of their career. Gary and his fellow tourmate, rock journalist Robert Greenfield, recount the tour and their experiences in gripping detail. Greenfield had been hired to write a book (Stones Touring Party, published in 1974) and he had more than sixty hours of archival interviews with Mick, Keith, Charlie and some friends and artists whom they met along the way. But these interviews have never been heard, and years ago, Greenfield donated these interviews and other artifacts to Northwestern University, and there they sat, rotting in academic obscurity until now.

I listened to the first episode and it was as compelling as it was riveting. It screams for a proper Ken Burns doc treatment, although that seems doubtful, as Mick is as penurious as ever and licensing the music and photos would be cost prohibitive. No matter, go listen to Stones Touring Party wherever you listen to podcasts. You won't be disappointed. It’s always great fun to spend time with Gary Stromberg, especially on the internets! I am reminded that we are all storytellers, some, like Gary, just happen to be more gifted.

Start me up, indeed!

Some Girls (1978) signed by Mick, Keith, Charlie, Bill, Ronnie Wood

The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979) signed by Gary

Bob James, Hip-Hop, Erin and Me…

Everyone talks about the history of our field and Quincy Jones has a lot to do with my history. You could even say he discovered me. He was very influential at several key stages in my career. He was a judge at a jazz competition that I did when I was still in college, and my group ended up winning the whole thing. Quincy then signed me to do a record called Bold Conceptions in the '60s. That, of course, was very important to me. Ten years later, when I moved to New York, I met Quincy again, and it was Quincy who introduced me to (producer) Creed Taylor, that launched my career with (record label) CTI. Those two things are extremely important to me and how my career played out. Quincy was definitely pivotal.

                        Bob James

One (1974) signed by Bob

Creed's whole outlook on production was very influential to me. He always believed in hiring the best musicians possible and he put a lot of emphasis into the mixing and production value. He always used a fantastic engineer named Rudy Van Gelder. I can say that Rudy was very important in my development also. He cared about the way things sounded more than any engineer I've worked with. He also had a very identifiable sound. I've never thought that much about the recording process, just the composing and playing. But together, Rudy and Creed had a definite personality in all their projects. The combination of Creed's ears, how he listened to things, combined with Rudy's engineering style made them a great production combo. I'd always try to keep that same feeling in my works for many. many years after first working with Rudy and Creed.
                        Bob James

Gula Matari (1971) signed by Bob

This song is the most ironic thing of all. It didn’t get any attention when the record came out in the ’70s. Then as years went by, I found out that the hip-hop field was heavily sampling it. Of course it was the LP era, so there’s a side A and side B. Oftentimes, producers would put what they consider to be the best cut on the beginning of the A side because the audio is much better on the outer ring of a record. The grooves were wider and just other technical stuff like that. The songs that would be “attention getters” were placed on the outside of the record, and “Nautilus” is hidden at the end of side B, so that should give you an indication that we didn’t pay much attention to it. I had written several compositions of my own, primarily so I could get my own copyrights of the album and this was just another one of those compositions. It’s a real simple tune because I was just looking for a nice groove to improvise on. I had a great rhythm section that was in the studio that day so we were just having fun. 

                         “Nautilus," sampled by more than 350 hip-hop artists!

Two (1975) signed by Bob

I’ll listen to the track that is sampling my tune. That way I can make an intelligent decision on whether or not I’m going to allow it. I still get requests for sample clearances all the time. It’s lessened through the years to a certain degree, but I still get requests to this day and it still surprises me. The coordination of the requests has become more well-organized, and simplified, than it used to be. We have a basic formula now for how we treat requests. Record companies are better about the approach nowadays because there have been too many lawsuits and they’d lose money if they did it the wrong way. Fortunately, almost all the records where there have been sample requests, I am the record company. I am the artist, record company, and composer by law, so I control all the publishing rights and fortunately, make a lot of the decisions… There is really only one significant piece where I don’t have the final say, and that’s “Angela.” I don’t know if younger people remember, but it was used for the television show Taxi. I heard it's also been sampled by some hip-hop artists recently, but the television company owns those administration rights. Of course, for a song like “Take Me to Mardi Gras,” they have to get permission from Paul Simon’s publishing company too, since I didn’t write it. Technically, I just control the recording of my version, so something like that is more of a joint effort, but that’s rare.

                        Bob James on sample clearanceS

BJ4 (1977) signed by Bob

Creed Taylor really liked the idea of taking classical music and adapting it to jazz or funk. This song gave me an opportunity to work with a larger ensemble of musicians. Especially for a piece like this, there was a huge orchestra and a big brass section. It also was one of the early recording sessions of Steve Gadd who became very respected in our field. He was one of the most well-known jazz drummers and “Night on Bald Mountain” featured him pretty prominently. Steve often credits this tune as helping him establish his reputation because so many people heard him on this. I’m very proud of that. Steve and I have remained very close friends since.

                        Bob James on his version of Mussorgsky's "Night On Bald Mountain"  

Blues Farm (1970) signed by Bob, Ron Carter

I was not always a jazz music snob, I seemed to have been born and raised that way. My love for music happened at an early age. I was surrounded by sounds, my grandmother and mother played piano, and my father played saxophone, although I never heard him play. He talked about it a lot, like he talked about a lot of things! There was a record player spinning Herb Alpert's "Whipped Cream", Roger Williams' "Georgy Girl", Louis Armstrong's "Mack The Knife", or anything by Frank Sinatra. There was always music, even as it emanated from a sturdy, faux mahogany Magnavox console which doubled as a sideboard during holiday meals, or as a bookshelf and cabinet long after the electronics failed. It was as much a part of the fabric of 1960s and 1970s entertainment as anything.

In 1973, our family took a summer vacation to visit Washington, DC where we saw all the major tourist attractions and museums. As we made the winding and torturous drive from Massachusetts, my two older brothers and I bickered incessantly In the back seat of my father's Cadillac. The fighting ceased when we went to the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian Collection Of Classic Jazz, a six lp box set had just been released, a treasure trove of brilliant songs, from Scott Joplin's 1916 "Maple Leaf Rag" to Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five's seminal 1920s recordings to deep cuts from Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Sonny Rollins. My dad purchased this collection at the gift shop for the princely sum of $25 - the best $25 he ever spent. The liner notes were brilliantly written and annotated by jazz scholar Martin Williams, and when we got back home, I dove into the deep end of classic jazz with this wonderful collection and, in many ways, I have yet to emerge. It remains a fabulous primer for any music enthusiast.

Heads (1977) signed by Bob

After listening to this incredible music by these fabulous musicians, I started buying records recklessly while scouring the liner notes to glean more information. This voracious obsession intensified when I went to college in Boston, where there were innumerable record stores and jazz clubs to slake my seemingly insatiable thirst. But my jazz sensibilities were rather parochial - Miles, Sonny, Dizzy, Duke, Monk and Bill Evans. While I could admire the fusion of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, Chick Corea’s Return To Forever and Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, I was strictly straight ahead hard bop, Blue Note preferably, if you please.

So when Wynton Marsalis came on the scene in the early 1980s, playing Miles circa 1958 replete with bespoke suits, I thought I had heard and found a kindred spirit. In reality, I was becoming an insufferable and unyielding bore. Rather than embracing change and creativity which is the essence of jazz and improvisation, I was stuck in a time capsule and turned my nose (and ears) at anything modern, especially smooth and contemporary jazz, the purview of Bob James, David Sanborn, Kirk Whalum and the quintessential schlockmeister Kenny G, the bane and scorn (rightfully so!) of any jazz aficionado. Fortunately, my arrogance has lessened over the years, my ears have widened and I have come to appreciate a broader listening palette of the music which we call Jazz. Heck, I have even seen David Sanborn and Bob James recently and they blew me away with their compositions, skill and virtuoso musicianship. Since I have already written about David Sanborn, let's talk about Bob James...

Smackwater Jack (1971) signed by Bob, Monty Alexander

Born in Marshall, Missouri on Christmas Day 1939, Bob began playing piano at age four. His first piano teacher, Sister Mary Elizabeth at Mercy Academy, discovered he had perfect pitch and soon, Bob was gigging around the Marshall area playing professionally as a teen. Initially, Bob attended the University of Michigan before transferring to Berklee School of Music in Boston. While studying music, Bob entered his band in a jazz competition which was judged by Quincy Jones and Henry Mancini. Bob's band won which led to Quincy producing his first album Bold Conceptions in 1964. The album was a commercial flop, more free jazz explorations than the smooth grooves for which Bob would later become revered. No matter, it got Bob off the schneid, and Quincy hired Bob to arrange, produce and record with George Benson, Ron Carter, and Hubert Laws.  Along the way, Bob met maverick producer and record label owner Creed Taylor who offered Bob a chance to record a solo album on his record label, CTI. 

Touchdown (1978) signed by Bob

The success of One, Bob's debut album on CTI released in 1974, led to unprecedented acclaim and his subsequent albums, cleverly titled Two, Three, and BJ4, are among the most sampled albums in the history of hip-hop. How a bookish, mild mannered, midwestern piano savant became the darling and avatar of hip-hop artists is truly remarkable. According to whosampled.com, more than fifteen hundred samples of Bob's compositions have appeared in songs by Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, Danny Brown, Ice-T and the Wu Tang Clan among so many others, as unlikely a group of collaborators and co-conspirators as you can imagine. You wouldn't think that Ghostface Killah would have much sympatico with Bob James, but you (and I) would be wrong! 

For his part, Bob is gracious about all the fuss, "Life has treated me real well. Being a part of rap history is just another extremely good thing that's happened to me in my career. I've heard about other composers of my era who don't like their work being sampled or touched, but I've never felt cheated. I mean, sampling gave my work a life of its own without me being in the creative process at all. I'm just a bystander watching it happen. It's a bit strange, but it's a good thing because of the exposure, In many instances, it led hip hop listeners who've recognized certain samples to dive into my additional works. And seeing how sampling isn't just a passing fad, or that it was done in a novelty kind of manner, makes me extremely flattered..." And I'm sure the steady flow of royalties from these artists continues to ease the burden!

All Around Town (1981) signed by Bob

In his prolific, sixty year career, Bob James has released more than fifty records as a leader, participated on hundreds of sessions as a sideman, won two Grammys and sold millions of records. His impressive discography also includes appearances with a myriad of artists including Chet Baker, Neil Diamond, Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra, Luther Vandross, Sarah Vaughan and Dionne Warwick. Whew, that's a lotta work! An early adopter, Erin has been happily listening to Bob’s music since college and was always proselytizing his talents. I was less enthusiastic but my stance has softened considerably over the years. With her guidance (read: insistence), we went to see Bob at the Jazz Forum in Tarrytown, New York on November 5, 2021, a small venue with fabulous acoustics.

Jazz Forum, November 5, 2021 - Bob James, Michael Palazzolo, David McMurray

Bob was joined by a remarkable group of musicians: David McMurray on flute and tenor saxophone, Michael Palazzolo on Fender and upright bass, and the revelatory James Atkins on drums. Bob supplied his piano and unmistakable Fender Rhodes, and highlights included "Feel Like Makin' Love," a smash hit by Roberta Flack which Bob originally played on and was also covered on One, released just two weeks after Roberta's soul classic, "Westchester Lady," one of Bob's personal favorites off Three, "Bulgogi," a funky tune off Espresso which he said was, "named after a Korean dish that's not very good, but I love the way it sounds," and the finale, an obligatory rendering of "Angela," the ubiquitous theme from Taxi, an extended groove-filled work out. It was a great night of music from superlative musicians.

Lucky Seven (1979) signed by Bob

After the show, I visited with Bob in his dressing room and he was gracious while he signed a bunch of records. I mentioned that it was a thrill to see him perform in such an intimate venue, "Yes, thank you, I played this room once before, it was such a great time and the vibe feels really good, so I had to come back," he replied. I mentioned that I loved his record label Tappan Zee, named after the famous bridge, not far from The Jazz Forum, “Yes, I lived near here in Irvington for quite a few years. It's nice to be back home." Yes, it was a very, very nice visit, and a beautiful and inspiring night of music.

Double Vision (1986) signed by Bob

Bob James, a wonderful composer, pianist, an unlikely and unsung hero of hip-hop, thank you (and Erin!) for opening our ears with your vast talents.  Long may he inspire others with his grooves! Now if only Ghostface Killah would sit in for a session!!!

Choice Bob James Cuts (per BKs request)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pptFCbYuOIM

"Angela" (Theme From Taxi)  Touchdown  1978

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxxoN7_HhMw

"Feel Like Makin' Love"  One 1974

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0wMGQrWKNw

"Westchester Lady"  Three 1976

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aW9URHShCY

"Night On Bald Mountain"  One  1974

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XPfkYs6O8I

"Nautilus"  One  1974

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzTgfqTLWPI

"In The Garden"  Bob James plays Pachelbal's Canon In D

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71tn9gF0dMI

“Rocket Man”  Bob plays Elton John!  2022

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ove38w3ztG4

“Take Me To Mardi Gras”  Bob plays Paul Simon!   1975

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thJZ4dLuugE

“Westchester Lady”  Live at Jazz Forum,  6 November 2021

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=twVvFXwzOM4

“Mister Magic”  Live at Jazz Forum,  6 November 2021

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mbbaeY1fCYs&list=PL_Q8ASk4N4-IW3lfQ5-ZL5ydr-f-c-ycJ&index=2

“Bulgogi”  Espresso  

 Bonus picks:

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0A_tk_7kcPI

“Daytona 500”  Ghostface Killah samples “Nautilus”  1996

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b0PhxOv_8D0

“Sincerity”  Mary J Blige with DMX & Nas  sampling “Nautilus” 2000

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=va4uokENBks

“Hold It Now, Hit It”   Beastie Boys sample “Take Me To Mardi Gras”  1986

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oo5-74dWGS0

“Peter Piper”  Run DMC samples “Take Me To Mardi Gras”   1986

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eZqZschnrxM

“Straight Outta Compton”  N.W.A samples “Take Me To Mardi Gras”  1988

Bob James at the controls, November 5, 2021 Jazz Forum

Thelonious Monk, Steve Lacy and Me...

I have always loved music and theater and dance and cinema and painting, all the arts. I was really into that all my life. But jazz, I got very interested in jazz from when I heard Duke Ellington at twelve years old, that is what started me into the jazz world. It was the hottest swinging, spicy music that I had ever heard. I heard the records that he had made in 1929 and 1930, when he had the original Jungle band with Bubber Miley on trumpet and I bought those records as a kid without knowing what they were exactly. I was just intrigued by the way they looked on the shelf. I had some birthday money. I was twelve years old and I bought them without listening to them. I look them home and I flipped. That was the birth of my interest in jazz really. At sixteen years old, a few years later, I heard a record of Sidney Bechet playing a Duke Ellington piece actually and that combination was just magic for me.

Steve Lacy

I saw it happen with Cecil Taylor. I worked with him for six years in the '50s and at that time, he was really in the avant-garde and almost nobody was interested in what he was doing. In fact, he was considered a musical terrorist at that time. Almost everybody was against what he was doing and it took him about twenty years to break through and I saw that with Monk, who also was considered avant-garde, esoteric, weird and difficult and (with) no technique. That also took about twenty years to clear up so that people started to realize how good it really was. Now, fifty years after Monk wrote all of those things, all of those compositions are classics and all of us want to learn all of them. This is a cultural process. As Monk told me, "You go your own way and the public catches up with you at a certain point." I've seen very often the twenty year gap between the conception and the acceptance. I also think that the more original something is, the more resistance there is to it.

Steve Lacy on the vicissitudes of the public and critics

Soprano Sax (1957) signed by Steve

I met Herbie (Nichols) when he was alive, but I never heard him play his own things. I only heard him play so called Dixieland that he was playing to make a living at. I met him, but I had no idea about his own music until much later when I discovered it through Roswell Rudd and also through Misha Mengelberg. Now, I love it very well, but I didn't know it at the time when he was alive. The thing is, Herbie didn't live long enough to see his music accepted and developed really. Monk was lucky enough to have a wonderful wife, who helped him survive the lean years and he could do his own research and he lived to see his music accepted and flourishing. Ellington, of course, had his wonderful band and he had some great hits. He had some big hits that he wrote that helped him pay the members of his band and keep his music and to be able to realize what he wanted to realize with success. But Herbie, Herbie didn't have a chance really. He died too young and he never lived to see the interest that people have in his stuff. It's very original music and very beautiful stuff and very varied and quite interesting now and more and more people are getting interested in playing it. I think Roswell has done the most to promote it than anybody.

Steve Lacy on the underappreciated composer Herbie Nichols

It's usually not a direct line from traditional New Orleans jazz to the avant garde, but this was the uncommon path which soprano saxophonist and Jazz master Steve Lacy trod. A prolific artist, Steve released more than one-hundred recordings in his career, participated on dozens more as a sideman, and he is cited as an essential source by fellow saxophone deity Wayne Shorter who proclaimed, "Anyone who plays soprano orientates himself on Steve Lacy." Unlike most of his contemporaries, Steve rarely played jazz standards or show tunes, rather, he was an early champion of the music of Mingus, Monk and Herbie Nichols. For his accomplishments and acclaim, Steve was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, a "Genius" Award, in 1992, twelve years before his untimely and unfortunate passing from cancer.

Born Steven Lackritz in New York City in 1934, Steve was exposed to music as a child playing the piano. Eventually, Steve picked up the clarinet before settling on the soprano saxophone, his weapon of choice and primary instrument. Of his foray into traditional jazz, "...I was into the traditional jazz world playing with the people from New Orleans, Chicago, Kansas City, and playing traditional jazz. The reception was good there because I wasn't competing with anybody. There was already the trumpet, trombone, and the clarinet in those bands and I was playing the soprano saxophone. I wasn't taking anybody else's job away, so they just sort of added me on." Steve developed his chops and jammed with Henry "Red" Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Buck Clayton and other musical luminaries. In fact, Rex Stewart, a cornetist with Duke Ellington, suggested he shorten his name to Lacy.

From those humble beginnings, Steve’s participation on Gil Evans & Ten led to Steve's first record, Soprano Sax released in 1957, "I recorded with Gil Evans in his first record for Prestige and as a result of that, the producer, Bob Weinstock offered me my own chance to record under my own name. So I made my first record. I used Wynton Kelly on piano and Dennis Charles on drums, Buell Niedlinger on bass and I did the best I could for a young beginner. I had some Ellington material, one Monk piece, and a calypso piece." So long Dixieland, Steve's career was off and running.

Reflections: Steve Lacy Plays Thelonious Monk (1959)

His love of all things Thelonious Monk was nurtured by his friendship and association with the then enfant terrible of jazz, pianist Cecil Taylor. Steve explained, "I fell in love with his music… I was working with Cecil for six years in the '50s and Cecil turned me onto Thelonious Monk. First, we were playing one of his pieces in Cecil's group and then I went with him to hear Monk in 1955 at a little club in downtown New York. And again, I flipped. Every time, it is some great music that I hear for the first time, I flip. I flip again and again. I really fell for Monk's music and I started to learn it the best I could from his own records. I found to my delight and surprise that it was very good for the soprano saxophone. The range was ideal for me. It was like the right hand of the piano, which is in the same range as the soprano saxophone. They fit me. Those pieces fit me and also, they were very full of challenges and problems. They were difficult to play and nobody else was playing them. Not even Monk was playing them. He wasn't working very much in those days. So it seems like that material was made for me in a way, or made for my instrument." For most of 1960, Steve was a member of Thelonious' band and he appeared on The Thelonious Monk Orchestra At Town Hall, an important 1959 recording with other jazz greats, Donald Byrd, Charlie Rouse, Art Taylor and Phil Woods. Steve’s love affair with the music of Thelonious would endure for the entirety of his career.

Steve found a kindred spirit and collaborator in trombonist Roswell Rudd, as he recalled, "We were like fellow researchers. We both love Ellington and the whole history of jazz, but especially we were very interested in Monk's music. We worked together on it to discover how it was made and what it consisted of. He helped me correct my mistakes and I helped him find good parts for him to play on the trombone, so we collaborated on that and the thing is, you have read the expression "Sunday painters." Well, we didn't want to be that. We wanted to play that every night and for a long enough time so that we got to the bottom of it and also, so that we could play it freely. If you only play something once in a while, you can't, you have to be very polite with the material. You can't take liberties with it. We felt that if we played this music long enough, we could find a freedom on the other side and sure enough, we were right. Of course, we couldn't make any money then. Back then, it was considered very weird to have a quartet with no piano, playing the music of Thelonious Monk in little cafes in New York. That was really underground."

Momentum (1987) signed by Steve

While the music was new and challenging, the audiences were not as welcoming. In the 1960s, there seemed to be more opportunities in Europe and Steve found that many of his peers were enjoying a comfortable life there as expats. After marrying Swiss vocalist/violinist Irene Aebi in 1967, and touring extensively in Europe, Steve and Irene moved to Rome, then settled in Paris. Steve explained his departure with this illuminating observation, "...when we left in the Sixties, the music that we were doing was rather still underground. There was little interest in it and we couldn't make a living with it. That was out of the question. When I got to Europe, I found that one could make a living with it over there. There were all the different countries, all the different cities, and lots of good musicians here and there and radio stations, record companies, critics, fans, everything. There was everything that was not in America at that time and so I stayed. It did flourish for a long time and now it started to get better in America and I am working more and more here, so it was logical to follow the music back home. The artistic context is very high there. It is an older civilization. It is older in that it goes back further than it does here and the culture is more grown. It is longer grown. That includes painting and music and dance and lots of things like that. Here, it is a few hundred years old and there, it may be a thousand years or more and in some places, there is much more than that. That is an important part because any kind of art is an organic commodity that is grown under circumstances with influence and inspiration from the surroundings. For example, Italy is a beautiful place and has a very high level of culture and the music, the people understand music extremely well. They listen to opera in their own language and their ears are highly developed really. In America, you have good listeners and all of that and good performers, but it is a younger kind of thing. It isn't as deep as it is over there yet because it can't be. Too little time has gone by. Even jazz is just about a hundred years."

For more than thirty-five years, Steve and his wife remained in Europe, performing and recording, until the unrelenting hellhounds of the French tax authorities forced Steve to relocate back to the United States. For the last two years of his life, Steve accepted a position as a professor of music at the New England Conservatory of Music where he nurtured and mentored students, and continued to perform concerts.

Sempre Amore (1987) signed by Steve, Mal Waldron

Erin and I were lucky to see Steve at the Village Vanguard in New York City in 1996. It was a rare stateside appearance at the venerable and intimate club, and he was joined by his longtime friend Mal Waldron on piano. Steve recounted their association, "I've known Mal from the Fifties. We worked together back then. He was on my second record. We were accompanying the poets together at the old Five Spot. Then we met again later in Europe. We both moved to Europe around the same time in the mid-Sixties. Then finally, in the Seventies, I started to work with him and he started to work with me and then we started doing duos together and it just went on and on and on. A collaboration like that is rare and very precious and flourishes. It is organic. It goes on and on and on until it can't go on anymore. Mal is a wonderful accompanist. He can make anybody sound good. I like to play with him because he made me sound good."

It was a Tuesday night late show and the environment at the Vanguard was loose and low key. The show wasn’t sold out and there wasn’t a lot of fussing, just two master musicians collaborating and creating. The program was Monk, Mingus and some knotty originals, a perfect display of their wonderful interplay and longstanding chemistry. Steve was blowing hot and cold while Mal could do it all: swing, bebop and even mixed in some dissonance. It was a remarkable and engaging performance. After the show, I chatted briefly with Steve and he was gracious as he signed his albums. As he signed Soprano Sax, "You know, this was the beginning for me." When he signed Reflections, he noted, "This is all Thelonious, what a musician he was." I thanked Steve for his time and, especially, his music.

Steve Lacy once described his vocation as "combination orator, singer, dancer, diplomat, poet, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer, and all-around good fellow." What a powerful legacy he and his music leaves.

Impressions (1959) signed by Mal Waldron

Perhaps Danilo Perez, a gifted pianist and fellow New England Conservatory Of Music faculty member, said it best in a tribute when Steve passed:

“Steve Lacy showed us that being a jazz musician is the work of a lifetime. His compositions and improvisations are full of wisdom and life. He taught us the power of words through his music. Hearing his soprano playing was a life changing experience, because he approached his sound, improvisation and technique as if he believed it was a test of man's sincerity.

As a friend, he was a very encouraging, caring and generous man with a great sense of humor. As a teacher, he was a great educator who inspired all of us inside and outside the classroom, with the genius of his musical phrasing and his brilliant remarks. Last year while playing a duo concert in New York, he took me to an exhibition of a great Chinese painter. His detailed comments about the paintings offered a great lesson in color subtlety and form. I found myself contemplating his words of wisdom all afternoon. That night after the very inspired concert we played, he said; ”Danilo we were painting tonight.“ He was very kind to me and to many people who knew him. As he would say, the music and the artist become one as we get older.”

Choice Steve Lacy Cuts (per BKs request)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_JDAvPtw24&list=OLAK5uy_lPb85EplMP6V10TnfCjdEYNFWX8HZUE08

“Ella Speed” Gil Evans & Ten 1957 Steve plays Leadbelly!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGeCy65z0xA

"The Star Crossed Lovers" Sempre Amore Steve and Mal play Ellington 1987

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRPl1A7ypgY

“Day Dream” Soprano Sax 1957

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgLxDyWRjIc&list=OLAK5uy_nIg0udfI3ek2p9MEfJKiF7o1bXTXfEZ3w&index=7

“Skippy” Reflections 1958

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgXI15ZMJxs

"Snake Out" Steve and Mal live in Paris 1081

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUuilQcWNsA

"Mistral Breeze > House Party Starting!" Steve and Mal Waldron play Herbie Nichols live