JazzWax

Sunday Wax Bits

Thoughts on Tony Bennett. My post last week on the Bill Evans/Tony  Bennett sessions of the mid-1970s drew e-mails from fans and non-fans alike. Fans insisted that Bennett's bel canto style on the two albums was invigorating and powerful. I tend to disagree, probably because I'm a huge Tony Bennett fan.

Tony Bennett matters for many reasons. Like Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole before him, Bennett changed the sound and style of male pop vocals in the 1950s and 1960s, introducing a jazz-smart intimacy that didn't exist previously on a mass-market level.

Back in the 1930s, Crosby's relaxed baritone was a welcome relief from the wooden, classically trained male pop singers of the day. In the 1940s, Sinatra's vulnerability won female hearts while his swinging swagger in the 1950s nailed the male mid-life crisis. And Cole's grace in the 1950s transcended race and perfectly captured a newly emerging male maturity.

But by the early 1960s, the country's definition of masculinity was shifting yet again. The more youthful culture emerging allowed for a new male sensitivity that Bennett's honest vocal encapsulated. His unadorned, passionate approach marks the start of a younger, more expressive swing. You can hear this openness on Put on a Happy Face (1960), Young and Foolish (1963), If I Ruled the World (1965), When Joanna Loved Me (1963), The Moment of Truth (1964), The Shadow of Your Smile (1965) and Make It Easy on Yourself (1970) to name but a handful. Bennett's approach was confident, concerned and gentle—which is why he touched so many and still does. He always gave it up.

And like the blockbuster singers before him, Bennett came up through jazz and jazz delivery, not just pop and Broadway. If you know Bennett's discography, you know that he recorded a number of superb albums and tracks with jazz heavyweights before his Evans summits. So when I'm puzzled by Bennett's heavy-handed approach on the Evans dates, it's because I am comparing his attack to much more enjoyable jazz executions of earlier years. To illustrate (and to keep the Evans comparison fair), here are a handful of more exciting Tony Bennett small-group jazz recordings:

Cloud 7 (1954)—Chuck Wayne (guitar), Charles Panely (trumpet), Dave Schildkraut (alto sax), Al Cohn (tenor sax), Gene DiNovi (piano), Clyde Lombardi (bass) and Sonny Igoe (drums).

The Beat of My Heart (1957)—Nat Adderley (trumpet), Al Cohn (tenor sax), John Pisano (guitar), Ralph Sharon (piano), Milt Hinton and James Bond (bass), Art Blakey and Chico Hamilton (drums), plus others on different dates.

You'll Never Get Away From Me (1959)—Ralph Sharon (piano), Dick Hixson (trumpet), Willie Dennis, Frank Rehak, Kai Winding (trombones), Mundell Lowe (guitar), George Duvivier (bass) and Don Lamond (drums).

Tony Sings for Two (1959)—with Ralph Sharon on piano.

The Very Thought of You (1966)—Though this track from the A Time for Love LP features a full orchestra conducted by Johnny Keating, it's really a duet between Tony and Bobby Hackett's wandering trumpet.

Charles Mingus. WKCR-FM in New York presents its annual Charles Mingus Birthday Broadcast, playing his music around the clock on Wednesday April 22nd. Go here to listen live. 

Dupree Bolton and Rudy Van Gelder. Last week Jazz.com featured two superb posts: Editor Ted Gioia wrote a beautiful and remarkable two-parter on phantom trumpeter Dupree Bolton. Next, Andy Karp managed to score an interview with elusive engineer Rudy Van Gelder. Bravo!

CD discovery of the week: Every so often I hear a new album that hits me just right. To do so, it needs to either build on 1950s sensibilities or intelligently leverage Latin-jazz or jazz-rock fusion. Trumpeter Derrick Gardner and the Jazz Prophets +2's Echoes of Ethnicity manages to do both beautifully. I can't stop listening to this one, and Gardner is one sweet player and leader.

The Jazz Prophets has been around since 1989. Originally modeled on the Jazz Messengers, Gardner's group has successfully built on Art Blakey's small-group vision. The Jazz Prophets + 2 is primarily a hard-bop ensemble that adds flecks of Freddie Hubbard, the funk of the Brecker Brothers and the musicianship of Steps Ahead. The group features Gardner [pictured] on trumpet and flugelhorn, brother Vincent Gardner on trombone, Rob Dixon on tenor sax, Rick Roe on piano, Gerald Cannon on bass and Donald Edwards on drums. The "+2" are Brad Leali on alto sax and Jason Marshall on baritone sax. Two more are aboard on this album: Kevin Kaiser on percussion and Brandon Meeks on bass.

The large reed presence here keeps the album firmly in jazz territory and out of the fusion swamp that most contemporary jazz groups still slide into. Derrick's trumpet playing is richly round and strong, without disintegrating into migraine-inducing bolts of sound. Echoes of Ethnicity is a surprisingly sophisticated album that carefully quilts jazz, funk, fusion and Latin. Sounds like a messy mix, but each flavor comes together perfectly. Vincent Gardner's  [pictured] Mercury Blvd. is a perfect example. There's no drifting or padding here. Every measure has meaning. And drummer Donald Edwards is indispensable throughout the album.

But ultimately, Derrick Gardner is to be commended for offering something new here that works. My guess is that Gardner's five years in Count Basie's band taught him valuable lessons about cohesion and resolution. While the sound is new, Gardner has placed a jazz cop on every corner, and the result is truly fresh and remarkable.

You'll find The Jazz Prophets + 2's Echoes of Ethnicity as an iTunes download or on CD here. Sample Crystal Stair and see what I mean.

Shorty Rogers. In response to last Sunday's "Oddball Album Cover of the Week" (Shorty Rogers' Chances Are It Swings), I received the following e-mail from reader Guy Kopelowicz:

"The cover of the version I own is credited to Garrett Howard. Garrett Howard is also credited with taking care of the covers of several of Martin Denny albums and several of Julie London albums (including Swing Me an Old Song and London by Night)."

Oddball album cover of the week: The "whatever" expression on Lionel Hampton's face says it all. Being tricked out as a clownish 1920s aviator or crop-duster is comical, to say the least. This 12-inch LP for Clef Records in 1956 featured Hamp, Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, Buddy Rich and Buddy DeFranco. While the art director gets a D for creativity, I was struck by the photo and its composition, which actually are quite good. So I did a little research and found out why: It was taken by Herman Leonard. Based on the literal approach, it's a good thing the album wasn't called Midnight Sun.

"I Kissed Frank Sinatra"

Want to host your own radio show? Nancy Barell does. She's an online disc jockey. Heard exclusively on the web, Nancy's 7-hour jazz and pop show, Spotlight on Sinatra, repeats 24 hours a day. She uses Live365.com, one of a growing number of sites that lets your inner deejay run wild. Though Nancy has been hosting her show since 2005 as a lark, her love of radio, pop and jazz began in earnest in 1976, when she met Frank Sinatra. It's a cute story that I'll share with you in a moment. [Pictured: Frank and Nancy Barell in 1976]

First, a little more about this web radio stuff. Nancy produces her radio show for about $100 a year. That’s net—after she shells out for radio web time and takes in a $6 monthly fee from web listeners who don't want to hear the site's ads. If her show sounds a tad homey (I heard a cat meowing recently during a broadcast), that's probably because she records the show at home on a Mac using software provided by Live365.com.

Nancy plays a Sinatra medley once an hour—adhering to a rule that dates back to the payola days. She also plays lots of pop and jazz. A recent set included Diana Krall, Renee Rosnes, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon and Shelly Manne. What all tracks have in common is the American Songbook.

Nancy says her show takes about 16 hours to assemble, and she changes it every 8 to 10 days. Sets are pegged to themes—such as a 30-minute segment of songs by Tadd Dameron or Rodgers and Hart. But deep down she's a Sinatraphile.

Here's Nancy's Sinatra story:

"Back in March 1976, when I was 26 years old, I entered a contest sponsored by WNEW-AM in New York. For those who don’t live in New York and aren’t of a certain age, WNEW was a radio station that played only the records of the big bands and pop vocalists. The disc jockeys were all big-name personalities who had been in the music business since the 1950s and had become close pals with vocalists like Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Tony Bennett and others.

"The contest the station held was called 'Violets for Your Furs.' It was a lottery, and the winner would be chosen at random from postcard submissions. I loved and still love what’s known as the American Songbook. I was introduced to the music of Tin Pan Alley standards and pop vocalists when I was about 8 years old. My Aunt Jenny worked in the music business and brought me albums by Sinatra, Doris Day, Jo Stafford and others. Jazz I discovered on my own over the next two years while listening to the radio late a night.

"When I first heard about the contest, I went nuts. I just had to win. After the contest was announced, there were several weeks until the drawing of the winner. At the time, I traveled quite a bit on business nationwide. So I decided to send in seven postcards from each city in my travels, mailing 105 cards in all.

"Deep down I felt I was going to win. On the day in mid-March when the station planned to announce the winner on the air, I went into work more dressed up than usual. If I won, I thought, the station might ask me to come to the studio right away. I wanted to be prepared. I also brought a tape recorder to capture the phone conversation I was sure to have with the morning disc jockey and a transistor radio to listen to the show.

"At 10 am, my office phone rang. When I answered it, the caller asked for me and said he was William B. Williams [pictured], the WNEW deejay. I couldn’t believe it. At first I was so excited that I thought it was a gag. But when I finally calmed down, he put the call on over the air and said my postcard had been randomly chosen from a total of 8,000 cards. I taped the call by placing the little microphone over the phone's handset, but unfortunately the tape has since disintegrated.

"I wasn’t invited to the studio—but I did win big. I was to receive a fur coat of my choosing, with a dollar limit, of course. I chose mink. I was told I had won a bouquet of violets (for my fur). And that Frank Sinatra was going to present them to me when I saw him in concert three weeks later! What's more, a car was going to be sent to pick up me and my husband John. We’d then travel with WNEW’s Williams to the Westchester Premier Theater in Tarrytown, N.Y., where we’d have dinner and see the concert.

"I couldn't believe it. After I hung up the phone, I was distracted all day and for many days. Leading up to the night of the concert, I couldn’t eat. I was so excited that I lost 12 pounds and fit into a size 4. Of course I bought a new dress to go with the mink. I still have the dress, which is a little tight today.

"When the big day arrived, a teal blue stretch limo pulled up at my apartment in Manhattan. My husband and I joined Williams, and the three of us drove about 45 minutes to the theater. After dinner, we went to our seats in the center of the fifth row. The band was a 40-piece orchestra conducted by Bill Miller. I remember that Al Viola was on guitar, Gene Cherico on bass, Irv Cottler on drums and Charlie Turner on trumpet. Bill Miller conducted and Ray Cohen played piano.

"After the warm-up act, Sinatra came out. At one point during the 70-minute show, Sinatra sang Nancy With the Laughing Face. Of the 12 Sinatra concerts I had attended since 1971, he never once sang this song. I couldn’t help but think he was singing the song just for me.

"After the concert, my husband and I were escorted backstage by Williams and introduced to Sinatra [both pictured]. I was so nervous that I think my voice was three octaves higher than usual. When I was introduced, I said hello, lamely adding, “My name is Nancy and I Iove you.”

"As I recall, Sinatra was about the height I thought he’d be, maybe a little taller. He was extremely charming though not flirtatious. I distinctly remember his eyes. They were so blue. We made small talk, he joked around, and I kissed him on the cheek three times over the course of the 30 minutes we were with him. But I always asked first.

"Sinatra asked me how I won the contest. I told him about the 105 postcards. He laughed, adding, “You don’t take any chances. You ought to be my broker.” We talked for about eight minutes as more people filled the dressing room. I made a tape of our conversation but it, too, has disintegrated.

"I asked him if he enjoyed finding new composers' music to sing. He said yes. At the time he was singing If, a song written by David Gates and recorded by Bread. He had already recorded Joe Raposo’s You Will Be My Music, There Used to Be Ballpark Here and Noah—all on his 1973 album Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back.

"I tried to keep my cool. As my husband snapped photos, Sinatra smiled and laughed most of the time. He  autographed the sheet music for Nancy With the Laughing Face that I brought with me. He also autographed a card that said, "Violets for Your Furs, for You." I have these mementos framed along with the many photos taken by a professional photographer the radio station sent along.

"As my time with Sinatra wound down, I did something I had wrestled with for days before the concert. I presented him with the sheet music to Dream Waltz, a song I had written years earlier. Sinatra graciously took the music but didn’t look at it as he handed it off to an assistant.

"Then it was time to leave. My husband and I were driven back to our apartment. But since we had the limo at our  disposal for the night, we picked up two close friends who had a key to the old Playboy Club at 5 East 59th St. When we arrived, we went to the head of a long line of people waiting to get in simply because of that impressive limo. We got home around 3 am.

"A few days later an envelope arrived. When I opened it, there was my sheet music with a note from Sinatra thanking me for giving it to him. The note apologized, saying that my song wasn’t quite appropriate for him. I wasn’t too disappointed. The song was a beautiful waltz, but the lyrics were really more ideal for a woman to sing.

"What thrilled me, though, was the thought that Sinatra may have sung my song once. Or maybe just a few bars. Even if he never even hummed it at all, I like to think that he did. And that thought alone remains a thrill.

JazzWax tracks: For fans of New York's WNEW-AM, there's a site that details the station's history. WNEW wasn't just about pop. The station played jazz, and jazz artists listened to the station regularly when they were in town. In fact, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, Ron Carter and Elvin Jones recorded Larry Green's theme for the station in May 1964. Their 2:50 jingle was likely recorded to boost WNEW's airplay of Getz's bossa nova albums. You'll find the song on the CD release of Stan Getz & Bill Evans.

Bill Evans and Tony Bennett

I'll be honest: I've never cared much for the two duet albums that Tony Bennett and Bill Evans recorded in 1975 and 1976. I've always felt that Bennett's approach was way too operatic and that Evans' playing in response was frustratingly meek. The results have constantly left me wishing producer Helen Keane had played a more dominant role, imploring Bennett to lighten up while goading Evans to step up.

I revisited both albums in 1999 when Rhino reissued the material on one remastered CD with a handful of alternate takes. Back then I had much the same reaction to the material, that it was a well-intentioned but overtly mismatched affair. So last week, when I opened the Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings, a new double-CD set from Concord Records [pictured], I did so with some trepidation.

The new CD set contains all of the original masters as well as 22 alternate takes. There also are a bunch of surprises. For example, I didn't realize there was a third take of The Bad and the Beautiful, a song Evans played alone to warm up for the Together Again date. I also didn't know there was another acceptable alternate of Who Can I Turn To, a song recorded but then mysteriously not released on the second LP.

After listening to the new set's first CD of master takes, many of my original feelings about the lopsided execution surfaced again. Bennett goes full bore on songs that really needed a tamped down delivery, which would have allowed Evans to shine through. Instead, Evans often sounds crushed against the wall under Bennett's wide-open timbre. A Child Is Born perhaps best illustrates the point. You listen and find you can't wait for Bennett to finish his chorus so Evans can solo.

I adore Tony Bennett, especially in the 1960s. Back then, his hip, knowing voice was the sound of a new male sensitivity. Bennett could swing, but he also understood tenderness and passion. Which is why I've never quite understood why Bennett wasn't able to properly gauge where his voice would be best positioned up against Evans' tip-toe delicacy.

The other problem for me is the song choices. The sessions cried out for a producer with a much stronger hand. I think most listeners would have preferred a few upbeat Broadway or Bacharach-David songs mixed in than the steady diet of double-thick jazz ballads chosen. It's almost as if the two artists were trying to out-depress each other.

Yet despite all of this, I was blown away by the Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings. The magic, it turns out, is on the second CD. It's here, on these so-called "flawed" alternate takes, where the art of this merger exists. The uneven tracks are the real soul-squeezers. For example, on Young and Foolish (alternate take, 4), listen as Bennett unevenly and beautifully runs through the song. And catch Evans' rolling build on the solo break. The imperfections are gorgeous! Or dig Make Someone Happy (alternate, take 5), where Bennett is clipped, crisp and much lighter than on the master take, allowing Evans to sparkle like rain on a wet, sunny tree.

The other wonderful element about the second disc is Evans' solo introductions to each song. He never opens the same way twice, and each entrance ramp takes fascinating twists and turns before you hear the melody and Bennett.

There also is much to be said for Will Friedwald's liner notes.  Will interviewed all of the remaining players and delivers a steamer trunk's worth of new information. All albums should use these liner notes as a model. Among the many revelations:

• Tony Bennett first met Bill Evans backstage at the White House in 1962. Both were attending a special jazz party thrown by President Kennedy (those were the days!)

• Annie Ross and Bill Evans dated in the mid-1950s, but according to Ross there was no chemistry.

• Bennett originally envisioned a two-piano date for the first album, with Bill Evans and John Bunch at the keyboards. John bowed out, feeling he wasn't in Evans' league, a remark that Bennett took umbrage with.

• No preparation was made for the first album. Bennett or Evans would think of a song, and the two would go over it.

• Evans called Bennett in the remaining months of his life to tell him to "Forget about everything else. Just concentrate on truth and beauty, that's it."

If this second CD has a high point (and there are many), it's You Must Believe in Spring (alternate, take 4). On this track, Bennett is virtually whispering the lyrics. Bennett by this point clearly was out of steam or just walking the song around the block. And what a precious version it is. Sadly, it's not until Bennett hit a wall that these two artists wound up exactly in the same space—where they should have been all along. This track will take your breath away.

All in all, the Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings is a highly worthwhile set for fans of the Bennett-Evans collaboration—even if you've never cared for the original recordings or you already own them. It's an important entry because it fully documents what has been up until now a highly puzzling session. What's more, you finally get to hear the alternate takes. They demonstrate just how good this pairing could have been with the right producer in the booth. To paraphrase Evans, it's on these tracks where truth met beauty.

JazzWax tracks: The new Complete Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Recordings can be found as an iTunes download—or on CD here.

David Amram on Blossom Dearie

In 1955, jazz French hornist and composer David Amram was in Paris playing and recording with saxophonist Bobby Jaspar. Jaspar was married to singer Blossom Dearie at the time. When Dearie died in February, I e-mailed David for his recollections. But for some reason David's response never arrived.

While catching up with David the other day, I asked if he had ever received my note. He said he did and that he had replied immediately. Puzzled, David went into his computer system and found the glitch. His comments had become snagged on a technological reef. Once freed up, his Dearie deliberations hit my e-mail in-box. Here are David's warm comments, released and reloaded:

"Blossom was not only an outstanding performer with a unique style all her own, she also was a veritable encyclopedia of American popular music, and she was always anxious to share songs with all of us.

"We first met in 1955 in Paris when she was with Bobby Jaspar, with whom I played. I saw them almost every day. Their apartment was filled with sheet music, of songs from the 1920s through the latest music written by friends. She had a repertoire of hundreds of tunes and was always learning new ones, including ones she never sang but played for friends. And she would show you songs she thought might be good for you to play.

" 'Hey man, listen to these chord changes and how the lyrics are constructed,' she would say, like a pixie-ish professor, in that unmistakable high tiny voice that made you always pay extra attention.

"Even though she was so easygoing and sweet to everyone, she was really serious about what she did, and she was a real perfectionist. She never criticized others. She just tuned out all trash and concentrated on what her perfect instincts told her was important.

"One night, back in the States in 1957 at [filmmaker] Jean Bach's place in Greenwich Village, there was a party and reception that Jean gave for pianist Andre Previn. But when Andre got tied up and couldn't make it until after midnight, Blossom and Annie Ross sang duets together for almost two hours until Andre arrived, and those songs were fantastic.

"In a room full of people who had come to see him, Andre joined us and asked Blossom and Annie [pictured] to continue, as we listened to them for another hour.  Blossom and Annie lit up the room. Blossom spent her whole life lighting up rooms, singing and playing the music she loved. She always made it clear that she loved doing it.

"And she always found the time to share a smile as she greeted every musician (male or female) with a 'Hey, man,' even at 2 a.m. when she was playing in a place with an out-of-tune piano, poor sound system and no audience except for the few musicians who came in after work just to hear her.

"She never complained because she knew how good she was, and she always created her own Carnegie Hall wherever she went. She was beloved by several generations of musicians as well as other singers. She had a loyal audience in the U.S. and Europe who could never get enough of her special gifts, as well as her warmth and far out sense of humor.

"We will all miss her."

JazzWax clip: Here's Dearie singing I'm Hip, with lyrics by Dave Frishberg and music by Bob Dorough. Dig that Dearie flash of ire as a amateur photographer tries to take her picture. And dig her even-tempered struggle with the mike. Neither disrupts her peach-perfect performance. And thanks to David Amram's recollections, the Frishberg lyric, "I even call my girlfriend, 'man' " has new meaning...

Interview: Bret Primack (Part 2)

For years, Bret Primack has been pioneering a relatively new web format known as the jazz video podcast. For those who don't know what this term means, video podcasts are short clips that can be viewed on the web at any time. Whether print people like it or not, in the coming years video will play an increasingly important role in relaying the stories of jazz legends. That's because video is the fastest way to transport information and absorb it. But like any medium, video's success will ultimately depend on the questions asked and how material is edited and packaged. Bret is miles down the road on both scores. [Photo of Christian McBride, Roy Haynes, Bret and Sonny Rollins at Carnegie Hall in 2007 by John Abbott]

Over the past 30 years, Bret has grown close with Sonny Rollins, Joe Lovano, Billy Taylor and other jazz artists, working to document their stories on video and make those clips available on the web. Bret's interviews in 2007 with Orrin Keepnews for Concord Records are prime examples of the medium's rich potential. His upcoming series on Ray Charles should be equally potent.

In Part 2 of my interview with the self-styled "Jazz Video Guy," Bret talks about his professional and personal relationship with Sonny Rollins as well as his upcoming Ray Charles video series:

JazzWax: How did you become involved with Sonny Rollins?
Bret Primack: In 1978 I wrote a profile of Sonny for Down Beat. As part of the article, I took the train up to his house in New York to interview him. His wife Lucille picked me up at the station. I had idolized Sonny for years and knew he wasn’t comfortable with interviews. When we pulled up at the house, Sonny was standing at the top of the stairs. He looked 10 feet tall.

JW: Were you nervous?
BP: No. When we began, he wasn’t very forthcoming in his answers. But I knew from all of the interviewing I had done that when you ask a question, resist jumping in with questions or comments. Remain quiet, and your subject will likely come up with elaboration.

JW: Did that work with Sonny?
BP: When I’d ask Sonny a question, he’d give me a short answer and then just sit there, without saying anything. At first, I thought the interview wasn’t going well. Then I realized that Sonny was thinking. When enough time had passed, he’d talk with greater detail and say something fantastic.

JW: What did you do after the interview?
BP: Sonny, Lucille [pictured] and I had lunch in his kitchen. Then he took me out to a large shed about 50 feet away from his home where he practices. He has since built another one. The original was about 20 feet by 20 feet, with high ceilings, skylights, stacks of LPs, posters from Japan, an old phonograph and basic furniture. It clearly was a place to work, not relax. There was an unbelievable vibe in there. You felt the energy as soon as you walked in. We sat and hung out for a couple of hours. Sonny and I had known each other through pianist Walter Bishop, Jr., but spending time together really cemented the relationship.

JW: Years later you developed Sonny’s website and now host it.
BP: In 2006, Sonny’s nephew, trombonist Clifton Anderson, and Terri Hinte, Sonny’s publicist, called me. They suggested it was time for Sonny to have a web presence for global fans. Clifton also recognized the value of documenting Sonny’s legacy on video.

JW: Did you work directly with Sonny on the site?
BP: No, I worked with Clifton

JW: Does Sonny own a computer?
BP:  No. I fax him the guest book entries once a week. If there are site changes, I send them to him. He sees the videos from time to time. I remember showing him my Like Sonny video, which featured Sonny’s impressions of John Coltrane. When it was over, Sonny got teary and said, “Now you’re getting to me.”

JW: How has Sonny responded to the website and his YouTube presence?
BP: Sonny is both amused and amazed by the response. The truth is, he has no idea how he's touched so many lives. The site allows his audience to interact with him, and their faxed heartfelt messages are very moving. He usually says to me, "Who knew?"

JW: What is it about Sonny that most people don’t know?
BP: Sonny is a great musician but he’s also a great friend. He’s hugely loyal and is someone you can talk to about personal things. He’s a father figure for me, an elder if you will. With Sonny, there’s no judgment. His thinking process is involved in everything he says and does. [Pictured: Bret and Sonny looking at a video podcast on an iPhone]

JW: Did you ever confide in Sonny?
BP: When I first came up with the idea to produce video podcasts for record companies, I encountered push back. Executives said, “Why do we need this? Does it have value? Why should we spend the money?” I talked to Sonny about what I was facing. He said, “The truth will always get through. If you do the right thing and believe in it, eventually people will hear it.” He was right.

JW: What’s your favorite e-mail from a viewer of your Sonny Rollins videos?
BP: Someone recently sent me an e-mail that said, “When I watch these videos, I feel like I’m in Sonny Rollins’ living room.” That makes me realize how deeply these videos touch people and how intimate the experience is for them.

JW: How did you come up with the name, the Jazz Video Guy?
BP: Two years ago, Damani, my 9-year-old grandson, was watching my jazz videos on YouTube. At some point it dawned on him that that I was the person putting them up there. He said, “Hey, you’re the jazz video guy.” The name clicked.

JW: What are you working on now?
BP: A video podcast series for Concord Records on the label's re-issue of seven classic Ray Charles albums. Instead of interviewing one person, as I did last time with Orrin Keepnews, I’m interviewing many of the artists who were involved with the different albums. The podcasts will be rolling out later this year. [Photo of Ray Charles in 1966 by Bill Ray for Life]

JW: So what’s your mission?
BP: To tell the stories of jazz musicians so that the artists behind the music become humanized. I want old and new fans to see where jazz comes from. In the process, hopefully I’m helping to preserve the legacy of jazz through video. Long after traditional print is gone, people will watch these videos and learn something about the music and how specific recordings were made.

JW: Do you think video is fully appreciated yet?
BP:  No, but it's making inroads. Velocity is everything today when it comes to information and communication. Video is the fastest medium for communication, and we're really at the dawn of the short-form age. It’s truly an exciting time for video and jazz history.

JazzWax clip: Sonny Rollins is very soft-spoken, humble and almost shy. So when you can hear him in a relaxed interview setting answering questions, it's a treat. Here, Bret asked Sonny in 2006 how he sustains his intensity when playing...

Interview: Bret Primack (Part 1)

Who is the Jazz Video Guy? You know, the guy whose photo sits like a postage stamp next to many of the best jazz videos on YouTube. Perhaps you've heard his voice off-camera asking questions of Sonny Rollins, Joe Lovano, Orrin Keepnews and other jazz legends in video podcasts. Or maybe you've been to his video blog. But who exactly is the person behind the photo and voice? Where did he come from? And what does he want?

Bret Primack, it turns out, has had quite a past.

In Part 1 of my two-part interview with the self-styled Jazz Video Guy, Bret talks about his early love of jazz and film, being influenced by Francis Ford Coppola, studying with Martin Scorsese at NYU's Film School in the late 1960s, and why he chose to open each Orrin Keepnews video podcast for Concord Records with the legendary producer barking: "You do whatever you want. You're running that end of the show, sir. I'm just here to respond":

JazzWax: You currently live in Arizona. Where are you from originally?
Bret Primack: West Hartford, CT. My first exposure to jazz was through two movies: The Glenn Miller Story and The Five Pennies, with Danny Kaye and Louis Armstrong. The joy that Louis brought to the music and how he played in that film overwhelmed me. So much so that at age 9 I started to play trumpet and continued on the horn through high school.

JW: When did you start making films?
BP: When I was 17 years old. The first was about a young guy dealing with female rejection. I used friends as the actors, and the film ran three minutes. Not long afterward, Francis Ford Coppola [pictured] came to Hartford to screen Is Paris Burning?—which he wrote with Gore Vidal. Coppola was so dynamic and exciting that I wrote him a letter about the film and what I wanted to do. He wrote me back a letter of encouragement. I still have that letter.

JW: Did you make any other films in high school?
BP: When I was a senior I made a film for Class Night, our annual talent show that gently mocked the teachers. That was June 1967, the week the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s was released. I used A Day in the Life as the soundtrack. When the school administration asked for a pre-event screening, they were horrified by the song’s lyrics. They told me to remove the music.

JW: Did you remove it?
BP: No. I locked myself in the projection booth and screened the film just as it was. The next day I was suspended. I always had a problem with authority [laughs].

JW: Where did you go to college?
BP: New York University Film School. As fate would have it, Martin Scorsese [pictured] was my teacher. My final project in 1971 was a 10-minute black-and-white film called Rough Ride. It was a neo-realism film shot inside a taxi featuring the eccentric passengers a New York City cab driver picks up in one night.

JW: What did Scorsese think?
BP: He loved it. He had just edited Woodstock, and Warner Brothers had given him money to start work on Mean Streets. He left NYU in 1971, just before I graduated.

JW: Deep down, do you think Rough Ride was an inspiration for Paul Schrader’s screenplay for Scorsese’s Taxi Driver in 1976?
BP: I have no idea. There are similarities, of course. But who knows?

JW: What did you do after college?
BP: I went to work for small company making industrial films and drove a cab. Making independent films was hard in New York then. It was very expensive, and the city’s economy wasn’t in great shape. During this period I met Richard Dubin [pictured], a trumpeter who also was driving a cab. He wound up working with a TV talk-show host and let me hang out on the set and attend some parties. That’s how I met jazz pianist Walter Bishop Jr. I decided to write a profile of Bishop for Down Beat. The magazine published the article in March 1977, which inspired me to write more about jazz, my first love. In 1978 I became the magazine’s East Coast editor.

JW: When did you start to combine jazz and computers?  
BP: In the mid-1990s. But I had been computer savvy since 1984, when I first bought an Apple IIe for word  processing. I soon discovered it had a modem and a bulletin board system (BBS), an early version of the Internet. The BBS let you leave messages for other computer users and engage in public discussions. In 1995, I wrote an article about the Internet for JazzTimes. Larry Rosen, the head of GRP Records at the time, read it and called, inviting me to work on the first large-scale jazz website called Jazz Central Station.

JW: When did video start to play a role in what you were doing?
BP: In 1999, GMN, a London-based company, hired me to tape live audio and video at the North Sea Jazz Festival and at Birdland in New York. The results were then streamed at their website. But this was still the 56K-modem era, so everything was sluggish. The idea, unfortunately, was ahead of the technology.

JW: Were you interviewing jazz musicians on camera on the side?
BP: Yes. Throughout the 1990s I would take my camera along to clubs or ask musicians if I could tape them in their hotel rooms. During this period I taped interviews with Maynard Ferguson [pictured], Joe Henderson, Michael Brecker and others.

JW: What was the big turning point for you?
BP: In 2004, Telarc Records asked me to interview saxophonists Dave Liebman, Michael Brecker and Joe  Lovano [pictured]. Telarc did the editing, and the result was horrible. I knew I could do better. At this point, the price of video cameras and editing equipment for the computer had come down. So I invested in both. At the time, I was producing Joe Lovano’s website, so we decided to start documenting his work on video.

JW: What is Planet Bret?
BP: In 2001, I moved to Arizona and started producing websites. I was in Arizona by myself at the time and needed a name for my company. I came up with Planet Bret from the feeling I had there. It was like living on another planet.

JW: When did you start producing video podcasts for Concord Records?
BP: In 2006, Joe Vella, an audio podcaster, subcontracted a video project for Concord Records’ release of Fearless Leader, the label’s first box of John Coltrane’s Prestige recordings. Joe gave me an audio interview he did with Coltrane biographer Lewis Porter. I used it along with rare photos, music and my narration to produce a video that’s still popular on YouTube.

JW: What happened next?
BP: I heard that Concord was planning to release reissues of classic Riverside albums with updated liner notes by producer Orrin Keepnews, I thought a series of podcasts would be ideal. My vision was to create mini interviews with Orrin to support each CD’s release.

JW: Did you pitch it?
BP: I flew to California to meet with Dave Henson, Concord’s new-media marketing manager, and the idea was a go.

JW: Did you know Orrin?
BP: Yes. I had known him for years. In 1997, when I started BirdLives.com, an early jazz blog, Orrin would e-mail me corrections.

JW: Was he on board with what you wanted to do for the series?
BP: Orrin initially said no. He said he was writing an autobiography and didn’t want what he was writing to appear somewhere else first. He didn’t know much about the Internet at the time. So it took me about six months of phone calls to get him to agree.

JW: I find it interesting that each clip opens with Keepnews becoming annoyed at you. That took courage on your part.
BP: As a film school grad, I always look for the truth when I pick up a camera. I knew that Orrin’s edginess was a big part of his personality. I also knew that including those moments would create drama, even though they were aimed at me [laughs]. I felt that featuring one of his outbursts at the outset would give the viewer an unfiltered, up-close look at this legend’s personality and set the stage for the series.

JW: How did you run the taping of Orrin?
BP: We did them over two days—in two, four-hour interview sessions. Once we got started, Orrin rolled right along. Then I spent two days on each album, editing the tape down and packaging the images and narrative to create a mini story for each CD release. There were 19 podcasts in all.

JW: Orrin seemed to be very cooperative.
BP: He was. As someone who has interviewed more than 300 artists, I know that most people need about 10 minutes to relax in front of the camera. His gruffness was a defensive maneuver on his part. Once we got past his reluctance to engage, Orrin was a really nice guy. And he’s so dedicated to the music and the artists who made the music that he refused to compromise the music in any way. Those classic recordings are like his children.

JW: Did Orrin see the results?
BP: Yes. 

JW: What was his reaction?
BP: As you know, Orrin isn’t one to heap praise. I think he said, “Oh, now I see I what you were trying to do.” I don’t think he originally conceptualized how they would turn out.

JW: The Keepnews podcasts have demonstrated that CD promotions can also be documentary art.
BP: I think the series set new standards and helped record companies realize that what these podcasts do is sell their catalogs indefinitely. This is the important distinction. They go up at YouTube and people keep watching them and are constantly reminded about the albums. The information is timeless.

JW: How often are the Keepnews podcasts viewed?
BP: So far there have been about 600,000 views. That’s 10,000 views a week. The most popular episodes are the ones on Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley and Wes Montgomery.

Tomorrow, in Part 2, Bret talks about Sonny Rollins, how he became close to the tenor saxophonist, spending time with Sonny in his backyard rehearsal shed, building Sonny's website, documenting his concerts, and the video that made Sonny tear up.

JazzWax clip: Of the 19 Orrin Keepnews videos that Bret produced for Concord Records, this one for Cannonball at the Village Vanguard has had more than 80,000 views...

Sunday Wax Bits

Jazz thoughts, over easy. I was talking with my friend Nell last week when she said something fascinating. Nell is a big shot in the music business, and we were chatting about how vital history is to jazz appreciation. Which led to a general chat about our mutual love of music. "Even in the digital age," Nell said, "music isn't a luxury. It's a necessity."

Wow, a necessity. Great point. And how true. Like gasoline,  hot water or groceries, music fuels, revitalizes and nourishes. Whenever I'm on the New York subway, I see white iPod headphones wherever I turn. President Obama and the First Lady made a gift of an iPod to the Queen of England a couple of weeks ago during their visit. And Americans are glued to their TV sets each week watching American Idol and Dancing with the Stars.

Personally, I can't function as a writer without jazz playing all day long. And it's not just jazz. From time to time I slip on Curtis Mayfield, David Bowie, Blue Magic and even Little Jackie.

Is digital music benefiting from the same recession bump as movie theaters? When the economy sours, people are more inclined to reach for music as a tonic. With discretionary income in short supply and saving money now chic, people are looking for relatively inexpensive ways to raise their spirits. Music certainly is the simplest and most cost-efficient way to get happy and think positive.

While we know that CD sales are down, downloads are up and computer hard drives are bulging with music files. Last week alone I received several e-mails from readers who had heard about my recent posts on transferring your iTunes library to an external hard drive and wanted the link or had questions on how to do it. Our music libraries will only grow over the coming years, and I don't know anyone who has said they're giving up music instead of coffee or shoes as a way to save.

Nell is right. Music is indeed a necessity. It makes us feel good. It motivates us. It reflects the way we feel. It takes us back. Like an old friend, music is always there for us, reviving our youth or just making everyday life feel better. But beyond nostalgia, music (especially jazz) reminds us there's hope and possibility, and that good times will return. In today's world, that's fundamental, whether you're sitting on the IRT or chilling at Buckingham Palace.

Victor Feldman. Tonight, jazz musician, historian, professor  and friend Bill Kirchner will feature a one-hour Jazz From the Archives radio show on pianist and vibraphonist Victor Feldman (1934-1987). Bill will be spinning sides featuring Feldman as a leader and sideman with Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, and saxophonist Bill Perkins. Time and place: Tune in at 88.3 FM in New York—or on your computer at WBGO.org from 11 pm to midnight (EDT).

Carol Sloane, live! Legendary singer Carol Sloane e-mailed  me last week to say she'll be appearing at The Iridium in New York on May 8-10. Shows are at 8:30 and 10:30 pm. Carol's tribute to Benny Goodman will feature quite a quintet: Ken Peplowski (reeds), Warren Vache (trumpet), Ted Rosenthal (piano), Pat O'Leary (bass) and Chuck Redd (drums).

CD discovery of the week. Hard-bop sextets are all the rage these days. But many fall short, either because they don't sound sufficiently rehearsed or because individual solos are dull. Not so with One for All, a hard bop pickup band of headliners that first played together in 1996 at New York's Augie's (now Smoke). The group's name comes from the title of Art Blakey's last album in 1990, for which trombonist Steve Davis wrote the title tune.

One for All's new album, Return of the Lineup, is its 12th CD since 1997. The band features Eric Alexander (tenor sax), Jim Rotondi (trumpet and flugelhorn), Steve Davis (trombone), David Hazeltine (piano), John Webber (bass) and Joe Farnsworth (drums).

What I love most about this CD is the group's tender, stroking sound. Davis reaches deep on trombone, and Alexander [pictured] and Rotondi are thankfully bigger fans of space and tone than scales and peeling rubber. Six of the eight tracks are originals by One for All bandmembers, with one standard and a Cedar Walton composition thrown in.

The album opens with Rotondi's minor-key cooker, Jackpipe. I love Farnsworth's aggression level, and here he works the cymbals inventively. Alexander's arrangement of But Not for Me borrows just enough of John Coltrane flavor for the Gershwin classic. Davis' [pictured] funk-samba Silver and Cedar unites the breezy influences of Horace Silver and introspection of Cedar Walton. Hazeltine's up-tempo Treatise for Reedus is a minor-major tribute to the late drummer Tony Reedus.

My favorite track is Dear Ruth, a Rotondi arrangement of Cedar Walton's walking ballad written for his mother and recorded first on the pianist's 1992 release, Simple Pleasure. Alexander offers tender Pharoah Sanders touches while Farnsworth, who has played with Walton, shows off his brushwork. Rotondi's flugelhorn here is as warm as it gets.

Davis' Forty-Four amps up the group on a bright major-minor tune with Lee Morgan influences (I'm reminded of Morgan's Is That So, from The Rajah). Alexander's Road to Marostica I assume is a hard bop tribute to the walled Italian town north of Venice. The album ends with Blues for JW, a Hazeltine salute to bassist Webber. Another nice production job by Sharp Nine's Marc Edelman.

You'll find Return of the Lineup as a download at iTunes or on CD here.

Oddball album cover of the week. Shorty Rogers' Chances Are It Swings features the music of Robert Allen. It also happens to be one of the flugelhornist's best LPs from his finger-snapping RCA period. In fact, the 1958 release was nominated for a Grammy (Best Jazz Performance, Group) in 1959 but lost out to Jonah Jones' I Dig Chicks (another album-cover beaut). Which brings me to my point. The fact that the model on the Chances Are It Swings cover is shown seemingly digging Shorty's flatted-fifth wolf call is quite a throwback to a politically incorrect era. And the model? My research shows she's 1950s West Coast pinup sensation Sharon Lawrence [pictured]. The photographer and designer of the Shorty Rogers cover are unknown. Maybe it's better that way.

Interview: Billy Taylor (Part 5)

Starting in 1952, Billy Taylor emerged as the progenitor of a new, more elegant style of jazz piano. After forming a critically acclaimed trio, Billy quickly became known for his musical grace and good taste. In some respects, Billy never forgot his fortuitous encounter with Ben Webster at Minton's in 1944. He also was forever indebted to the piano masters of the 1930s and 1940s who took him under their wings. [Photo: Hank O'Neal]

Billy's technique was so remarkable by the mid-1950s that he could effortlessly channel the piano styles of Jelly Roll Morton, Willie "the Lion" Smith, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Duke Ellington, Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum. Or he could shuffle them all together with his own phrasing and emerge with a sound all his own. In this regard, Billy became the trustee of a generational flame, a vital link to past traditions that were flickering by the 1960s. 

In Part 5 of my interview series with Billy, the legendary pianist talks about Jackie Paris, Harry Belafonte, Candido, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Gerry Mulligan, Creed Taylor and the inspiration for his best-known composition, I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free:

JazzWax: You played on the famed Jackie Paris Skylark session in 1953 for Brunswick Records.
Billy Taylor: Jackie was one of those singers who faded out of site after we were on 52nd Street together in the 1940s. I never could understand why he didn't make it. He sang so well on the Street. I guess he couldn’t get off 52nd St. in terms of his vocal style and mindset. There were a lot of musicians around then on the Street who sang well. Everyone expected more of Jackie.

JW: What made Jackie Paris exceptional?
BT: He had a hip, cool sound that was fresh. He was a good ballad singer, and he could play guitar while he sang. Most of all, he had great time, and you felt that immediately. Maybe his problem was his personality. I don’t know. I didn't catch a personality problem. We played often together. I played with a lot of singers during the early 1950s.

JW: Did you play with Harry Belafonte?
BT: Yes, I played for him at Birdland. Harry originally wanted to sing jazz until they shifted him into pop and the West Indian tunes that made him a star. He wanted to go in that direction. He was really an actor who wanted to combine all of that stuff. He was a good singer.

JW: Increasingly, you became in-demand as an accompanist for vocalists.
BT: I enjoyed accompanying singers in those days, trying to make the vocalist sound good. I took a lot of pride in that. My job was to make whoever was out front sound so good that they'd get an encore.

JW: In 1952 you formed your great trio with Earl May on bass and Charlie Smith on drums.
BT: That was one of the best trios I ever led. It was my first real trio. Earl May stayed with me for 12 years. I wish Charlie Smith could have stayed, too. But he couldn't hold his whiskey and soon went on to do other things. By 1954 I replaced hm with Percy Brice. 

JW: It was a new sound for you, too. There was more of a mood in your playing.
BT: I had listened to all of the great pianists. I learned from Art Tatum and assimilated many different things from different players. I was able to use all of it at will.

JW: How good were the guys in your trio?
BT: Before we played our Town Hall concert in December 1954. I had added a new song, Theodora, to the program. The song was named after my wife. We were going to play it at Town Hall. The problem was that by the day we were scheduled to appear, I still hadn't written it [laughs].

JW: What did you do?
BT: I ran everyone out and wrote it. I played it once for Earl May before the concert, but he didn't have time to truly learn it. On stage, he was nine feet away, yet he heard what I was playing and responded to it. He and Percy sounded great. That's how intuitive each of us was.

JW: The sound was sensitive and assertive.
BT: At this point, all of the things I had been working on had come to a head. I was in command, and we had come together as a group. That was the beginning of my experience as a leader. I knew what I wanted to do and how to pull the other guys into my frame of mind. That's what a leader does.

JW: But there was a new level of grace and smoothness in your playing.
BT: When I sit down at the piano, in my mind I'm out to play elegantly and to swing. All of my mentors did this—playing the way they were thinking. The way you look and feel is the way you sound. I tried to live up to that.

JW: How did you develop that new sound?
BT: Friends used to come into Birdland and in between sets they'd tell me they were bringing their girlfriends in the next night and asked if I could play some romantic ballads to help get things going [laughs].

JW: In 1954 you recorded with Candido Camero and kicked off a new jazz-Latin combo sound.
BT: I had been playing quite a bit with Latin players for a couple of years. I had played with Machito and Mario Bauza and recorded with guys like Jose Mangual, Frank Colon and Manny Oquendo in my groups. But the sound hadn't caught on yet. Maybe because the Latin artists who played with me had always been used as background percussionists. With Candido, we were musical partners, which is what listeners responded to.

JW: How did you meet Candido?
BT: Dizzy brought him into Le Down Beat one day and asked me to listen to him. Dizzy wanted to hear how he was playing at the time. I think Dizzy wanted to see how he'd work in his band.

JW: What did you say?
BT: I said, "But Dizzy, I already have a drummer.” Dizzy said, “No,  no, he plays the conga drum.” So this guy comes up on stage with not one but two conga drums. From the moment Candido started playing, Monte Kay [Birdland's manager] shouted out, “You’re hired.” Dizzy wanted me to audition him for his band but lost him to my group [laughs]. Dizzy brought him to the wrong place for an audition [laughs].

JW: Soon afterward, you recorded Billy Taylor Trio with Candido for Prestige Records. It still sounds great.
BT: After he was hired, Candido worked with me for the next six months. I was delighted to have someone of his stature playing with me. The thing that he brought to jazz was the excitement. The Latin beat is a very different thing. It wasn’t until I had played with Machito that I realized it’s like clapping your hands on the wrong beat.

JW: Did you ever feel you and Oscar Peterson were in competition?
BT: I had heard about Oscar in the mid-1940s but never  met him early on. He was an interesting player. When I first heard him in Canada, he was playing boogie-woogie. In the late 1940s, when I heard what he was doing as a member of Jazz at the Philharmonic, I realized he really got it together listening to Art Tatum.

JW: Was there a rivalry or envy?
BT: Among us? No. For me, I had no reason to be envious of other piano players. I had already been Art Tatum's protégé. So it didn’t bother me what other guys were doing or thought after that. Of course, I listened to guys who were coming along behind me, like Oscar Peterson, and watched them grow. Oscar literally took the Art Tatum thing to another level.

JW: Having been as close as you were to Art Tatum, that experience must have been quite a confidence builder.
BT: It was. It’s an amazing thing to have in your heart. You don’t know how many times that came to me. Art liked what I did, so to hell with you! [laughs] After Art, it didn’t matter what anyone thought.

JW: In January 1957, you recorded My Fair Lady Loves Jazz. Despite its seemingly commercial theme, it's one of the best interpretations of this musical.
BT: That was Creed Taylor's [pictured] idea. He was at ABC  Paramount at the time. He came to me and said he wanted to do a Broadway-themed album. He said there was a show called My Fair Lady that was very popular. It had been running on Broadway for a year, since 1956. The jazz album that Creed had in mind would celebrate the show's first anniversary.

JW: What did you say?
BT: I said, "But Creed, jazz musicians have already recorded this music.” Creed said he knew but wanted to come at it from a different direction. Then he asked if I had a dream arranger in mind for the date. So I shot for the moon. I said, "I’d like Quincy Jones." I had recorded with Quincy several times and knew how special he was. The next thing I know, Creed had Quincy on board. Creed was something [laughs].

JW: Looking back, what do you think of the album?
BT: It's one of the best albums I ever recorded. Quincy did all the arranging and I was featured on piano. Quincy brought in Jimmy Cleveland, Jimmy Buffington, Tony Ortega, Don Elliott, Ernie Royal and all of the other great guys on the date.

JW: Why was baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan on some tracks and Charlie Fowlkes on others?
BT: Gerry and I had been hanging out during that period. We were good friends. Gerry had come out to Rudy Van Gelder's studio in New Jersey with me to watch me record. At one point, Charlie Fowlkes, who was on the date, had to leave to catch a bus back to Manhattan.

JW: What did you do?
BT: I said, "OK, we’ll have to close it off for the day.” Gerry was sitting there and said, “Wait, you guys are just hitting your groove. I’ll play.” So Gerry sat in and played on Show Me, The Rain in Spain, I Could Have Danced All Night and Get Me to the Church on Time. And he was fantastic.

JW: What was Gerry like as a person?
BT: It’s a funny thing. I knew Gerry for a long time, since he was with Elliot Lawrence's band in the early 1950s. As was the case with Charlie Mingus, Gerry and I argued for fun all the time. His wife and my wife were faced with the same problem. Whenever Gerry and I would talk on the phone, we'd wind up arguing. Each of our wives would come over to us on separate ends and say, "Who in heavens' name are you talking to?" Gerry would tell his wife, and I'd tell mine. Then they'd each say, "Oh, OK," and turn and go about their business [laughs]. They were so used to it that they knew well enough to leave us alone [laughs].

JW: In November 1957 you recorded Taylor Made Jazz, one of your finest albums with all original material. 
BT: I was in Chicago at the time with my trio at the time—bassist Earl May and Ed Thigpen on drums. It just so happened that the Ellington band was in town at the same time. So I was asked by Argo Records to make that record with some of the Duke's musicians. But I was under contract to ABC Paramount at the time. I told Argo I couldn't do the date under my own name. But I suggested they call it Earl May and Ed Thigpen Play the Music of Billy Taylor to give them credit.

JW: Did the label go for it?
BT: They said they understood the problem. We went ahead and recorded, but instead of releasing it under my suggested title, the label held up the album's release for a couple of years until my contract with ABC expired. Then they released it under my name. That was a drag.

JW: Songs like Mood for Mendes are incredible.
BT: Thank you. I wrote that for Jim Mendes, the disc jockey. He wound up using it as his theme song. In fact, many of those songs were written for radio disk jockeys. Biddy's Beat was for a deejay in Baltimore named Biddy. Daddy-O was for Daddy O Daly a deejay in Chicago. Tune for Tex was for Tex Gathing in Washington, D.C.

JW: How did the date come together?
BT: I had to do it in a hurry because I wasn’t sure I could  get Johnny Hodges. To have Johnny play solo on four of my tunes was an incredible treat, especially Theodora. He played them all so beautifully.

JW: What else was special about the date?
BT: It was the first time Clark Terry played flugelhorn on a record date. I know this because the guy who was living with him arrived in between tracks. He had a box and insisted he be allowed to see Clark. When he came into the studio, Clark took the  box and opened it. Inside was a flugelhorn that had just arrived at his home that day. Clark took out the horn and played it on Cu-Blu on my record.

JW: How easy was the session?
BT: Very. I’ve always been a big Ellington fan. To be able to use a good chunk of that band was fantastic. Hodges read through one song after the next. After each song I asked him if he wanted a re-take. He said, "No, that's OK." What most people don't realize is that Johnny covered those all in one take. And Harry Carney had such a big sound on there. Of all of the baritone players that were around then, Harry was unique.

JW: How long did it take to write I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free in the mid-1960s?
BT: That song took about 15 minutes to write and a year and a co-writer to finish. Nina Simone's recording was the first and the best one ever done. She really got it.

JW: How did you come up with the melody so quickly?
BT: My daughter Kim came home from school one day singing a spiritual. But she didn’t really know what it was and didn't have the proper feel behind it.

JW: What did you say?
BT: I said, "Kim, this is a part of your heritage. You can’t be singing a spiritual like that. You have to have more feeling." I sat down at the piano and said, "The spiritual is so much a part of our tradition that I can sit here and make one up on the spot. This is the feeling you need to have.”

JW: What did you play?
BT:  I made up a little ditty. Then I asked if she understood. She said, "Yes, Daddy," and went back to playing with her dolls. After she went back to her room, I got to thinking, "Hey, this isn’t a bad little tune." So I wrote it down. Spirituals suggest things about who we are and what we’re about and what we long for.

JW: Where did the title come from?
BT: From the melody. I think lyrically when I compose. I came up with the title after I wrote it down. I thought, this is what this song is all about.

JW: What about the year and a half part?
BT: I struggled with the lyrics. I called Dick Dallas, a young man I had been writing music with in those days. My words weren't saying what I wanted the song to say. Dick helped me finish the lyrics. I was so delighted by the song's reception. I’m awed by that.

JW: You almost defy what people think about jazz musicians.
BT: What do you mean?

JW: Jazz musicians by nature are introspective. Many carry a great deal of friction and intensity. It's part of their creative DNA. You’re open, friendly and rather easy-going.
BT: I was brought up like that, I guess. It’s nothing that I learned. It seemed a natural thing to do. I was always focused on giving things my best shot. Back in the early days when I was learning to play, musicians were very kind and generous with me. I feel I have to pass that on.

JazzWax tracks: Billy's 1952-1955 trio recordings can be found on two superb Prestige CDs: Billy Taylor Trio here and Billy Taylor Trio with Earl May and Percy Brice here, which includes the trio's Town Hall concert. Billy's 1954 recording with Candido, The Billy Taylor Trio with Candido, can be found here.

Taylor Made Jazz, Billy's 1957 album of original compositions arranged by Johnny Pate with members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, is notoriously difficult to find. And pricy when you do locate it. The CD seems to be available here, but you should verify first.

My Fair Lady Loves Jazz was released on CD in 1994 and has since gone out of print. You can find copies here. I found all of the tracks hidden away on this Billy Taylor CD here (tracks 13-19).

I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free is also out of print. But you can see what it looks like here to begin your online search.

JazzWax clip: Here's Billy and Candido reviving their 1954 classic recording of Mambo Inn in 1998 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C....

Interview: Billy Taylor (Part 4)

At the start of 1950, Billy Taylor was established as one of the most promising and intimidating young pianists on the New York jazz scene. Deceptively affable, the pianist with the big smile and bookish charm could play flawlessly in any style and made the impossible look easy. Rock-solid dependable, Billy was rapidly becoming a first-call player at clubs, concerts and recording sessions. The more Billy played, the greater his visibility. The greater his visibility, the harder he worked to further develop a new sound on the piano that would stand out. [Photo by Marcel Fleiss]

Billy's sound was his own. To be sure, the influences of his mentors were unmistakable. There were shades  of Art Tatum's lightning runs, Teddy Wilson's clarity and grace, and Duke Ellington's confident chord phrasing. But there was a new, cooler swing sound emerging. Whether leading a small group or playing behind stars at Birdland, Billy could always be counted on to push hard and motivate everyone on the bandstand.

In Part 4 of my interview series with Billy, the legendary pianist talks about Artie Shaw, John Coltrane, Milt Jackson, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Zoot Sims and why Jo Jones never became a leader the way Art Blakey did:

JazzWax: In the fall of 1950 you recorded briefly with Artie Shaw.
Billy Taylor: Artie was one of the most interesting people I had ever met. He was a very intellectual guy. At this point in his career, he had experienced a great deal of disappointment. He had brought an excellent group to Iceland, a club located across from Birdland. The band was huge and played a cross between classical and jazz. He thought that club would be the perfect place. [Photo of Artie Shaw in 1949 with orchestra at Bop City by Martha Holmes for Life]

JW: How did it turn out?
BT: Artie wound up disappointed again, because the band wasn’t well received, and it didn’t do that well for the club. He was very frustrated. By the time he called on me to play with him, he was thinking about another Gramercy Five.

JW: Why did he call you?
BT: Because I had a strong quintet at the time—John Collins on guitar, Joe Benjamin on bass and Charlie Smith on drums. Artie was very nice to me. I was in between bebop and a new style I was developing. I was trying to find who I was. A lot of the stuff that I was trying to do was a work in progress. From a jazz perspective, it sounded classic but different.

JW: Artie could hear that?
BT: I think so. The four of us brought something to him that he didn’t have before. But I went back to Birdland to work after Artie decided not to form that group.

JW: Was Artie too old fashioned musically at this point?
BT: Artie was never old fashioned. Even when Artie re-recorded his hits over the years, they never sounded old fashioned or the same. He always gave them a whole new push. He had tried to put together a couple of groups that got some of the bebop things but they weren't long-lasting.

JW: In 1951 you played in a group at Birdland that included Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane.
BT: Dizzy put together groups like that all the time. He'd use people who played with him in the past or up-and-coming talent he liked. Coltrane was quiet. One of the things he talked to me about was Art Tatum. He wanted to know everything about him. He was very excited about Art's technique. "How does he do that," Trane said. "It sounds like a glissando."

JW: What did you tell him?
BT: I told him it was fingering and a glissando together, as one motion, and that Art was fingering that fast. Trane was pretty amazed.

JW: Milt Jackson was in that group, too.
BT: Milt loved to come to Birdland with Dizzy. I was the house pianist, so that meant he could get up from the piano and play the whole night on vibes. Dizzy had a piano-less group, so he'd have Milt [pictured] play piano and vibes. When Milt played vibes, Dizzy would play piano. But at Birdland, I played piano and Milt got to play vibes. Dizzy had a great sense of humor. Milt, too. Milt had funny sayings. Everything was a lark. You enjoyed the gig with Milt. Dizzy and Milt played lines that were fun. The music had a sense of humor.

JW: Bebop at its highest level has a rich sense of humor, doesn't it?
BT: That’s correct. That’s what’s often lacking when most pianists play bebop. They forget the humor and the musical jokes. That's why it was so much fun playing piano at Birdland in the early 1950s. Everyone who came in to play understood the humor aspect. Back in those days, you needed a sense of humor. Even take-charge players like Big Nick Nicholas and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis didn't take life all that seriously. They were both very funny.

JW: In September 1951, you were at Birdland as the pianist with Miles Davis and His All-Stars. What was Miles like back then?
BT: Miles was strange. I had met him on 52nd St. when he was  playing with Bird. He was scuffling with those charts, replacing Diz and stuff like that. It must have been driving him crazy. He really didn’t have the chops for that. He was a nice young man but he was really turned around because he was frustrated. He couldn’t keep up. [Photo: Miles Davis in 1951]

JW: Who could?
BT: There were a lot of guys who could keep up with Bird better than Miles, like Fat Girl [Fats Navarro] and Clifford Brown. Fats drove Miles up the wall. It was years before Miles got to a place where he could stop trying to be Dizzy and focus on his own thing—playing in the middle register. At Birdland he started focusing on it.

JW: Did the frustration affect him?
BT: Miles came on like he had a sour personality, but it was really a cover up for an inferiority complex, I guess. It took a while for him to earn the respect of those he wanted to respect him. There were a lot of records and gigs and hanging out before Miles felt he was accepted. He developed a defense where he’d do things that were outrageous or not acceptable by everybody. That was his way of saying, “I don’t give a damn.”

JW: Was Charles Mingus similar?
BT: Mingus was different. He and I hit it off right away. He played in that Miles Davis All-Stars group at Birdland. I really enjoyed playing with him. Jo Jones was responsible for putting us together in a trio setting. At the time, I was the house pianist at Birdland. Jo came up to me one day and said he had arranged a gig for me the following out of town. He said, "I just came back from Boston. George Wein who owns a nightclub [Storyville] wants you to bring a trio into his club."

JW: What did you say?
BT: I said great, but I can't get away from my job here as the house pianist. Jo said, "Don't worry about it, it's cool. I spoke to Monte [Kay, Birdland's manager], and he said you can have off to play the Boston gig." Jo and Monte were tight, and Jo was a mentor of mine. I told Jo that I needed two guys. Jo said, "Don't worry I have them." The bass player Jo had was Mingus who had just left Red Norvo's trio. 

JW: Who was the drummer?
BT: A Boston guy named Marquis Foster. I liked Charles very much. I respected him. But like Miles and many other guys, he had his idiosyncrasies. He was so serious about his music and wanted to be creative like Duke Ellington.

JW: Did you meet in Boston?
BT: No, Charles and I took a train up from New York. We got  on the train and argued the entire time. We agreed about many things but there were certain things that we didn’t see eye to eye on. I told him, "Look, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on this and that." By this point I had written a book on bebop. He'd come back just as strong. We were always talking about what could be done on our instruments and what we should be doing in terms of moving the music forward.

JW: What was it about Mingus' playing that was so appealing to you?
BT: He was quite different from anyone I had worked with. He had been listening to the bassists who preceded him. Oscar Pettiford in particular. He wanted to do something along those lines. He wanted to use technique in a different way and become a dominant player, not a sideman. He had developed in his playing a more melodic sound, and played higher up on the bass.

JW: How did this sound against the piano?
BT: I’d play a line with my right hand and he’d play in the same register, not down in the bass clef. Mingus was fast, his mind was always working, and he had the technique to play many things other bassists couldn’t. Eventually, though, his playing was so dominant and off in a new direction that we had to part.

JW: In 1951 you record with Zoot Sims on perhaps his oddest session. Zoot played maraccas?
BT: [Laughs] Zoot was a good friend. I first met him when he played with Sid Catlett out in California. I was with Eddie South. We used to hang out. He just showed up that day and asked if he could play the maraccas. I said, "Hey, why not?"

JW: Jo Jones was your mentor and guardian angel, but you also played quite often with him.
BT: I probably played more with Jo Jones [pictured] and Art Blakey than any other drummers. Jo had a great sense of humor. Jo was one of the elders at that time. He really was taking a lot of young people under his wing and helping all of us play. The same way he convinced me I shouldn’t drink, he helped other musicians with much more serious problems. Jo wasn’t a leader of groups often enough. He would have liked to have been, the way Art Blakey was the leader of the Jazz Messengers.

JW: What prevented him from doing so?
BT: Jo was just more comfortable as an accompanist. I don’t think he wanted the responsibility of leading small groups. He liked to play and he liked to help bands be special. But he backed away from opportunities to be a leader.

JW: Yet Jo had the respect of other musicians.
BT: Absolutely, but he didn’t choose to lead. In many of the groups I played in at Birdland that featured Jo, he was the real leader, even if he wasn't the headliner. He also brought a lot of guys into Birdland. But because he chose to play the role of an accompanist rather than a leader, he was misread.

JW: How so?
BT: I remember a date we did with Neal Hefti. One of the tunes was in an odd meter. Hefti was trying to explain to Jo what he had in mind. Jo said to him, "What do you have in mind other than 1, 2, 3, 4, 5?” [laughs].  Neal took him seriously and started telling him how to accent certain notes. Jo said, “Oh really?” Jo was putting him on. I was just a few feet from Jo. After Neal walked away, I asked Jo teasingly, "Why’d you do that?" Jo said, “He knows better than that.” Neal often wanted Jo on sessions because he loved Jo’s time.

JazzWax tracks: The four sides that Billy recorded with Artie Shaw in 1950—Jingle Bells, White Christmas, Autumn Leaves and Where or When—can be found on Artie Shaw: 1950 here. The Birdland appearance by Billy, Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane is on Trane's First Ride: 1951. You can search Google and eBay for this rare CD.

Special treat: Through a bit of research, I found a free way to hear Night in Tunisia from the date, featuring amazing solos by Coltrane, Dizzy and Billy. Listen to Symphony Sid and the band at Birdland here.

Billy with the Miles Davis All-Stars at Birdland can be found on the last three tracks from Miles Davis: Birdland 1951 (Move, The Squirrel and Lady Bird) here. Billy Taylor with Charles Mingus' massive thumping bass and Marquis Foster on drums can be found on the first five tracks from Billy Taylor: 1952-1953 here. Billy with Zoot Sims on maraccas? The tracks (Cuban Caper, Cu-Blue, Squeeze Me, Feeling Free and Cuban Nightingale) are on Billy Taylor: 1950-1952 here.

JazzWax clip: Here's a fascinating video clip with Billy, Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, Don Elliot, Mundell Lowe, Eddie Safranski, and Ed Thigpen playing Godchild on NBC's The Subject Is Jazz, from May 1958. Listen as Billy sifts bop and cool jazz styles in one piano solo...

Interview: Billy Taylor (Part 3)

By the time Billy Taylor was 29 years old, he had already had a lifetime of jazz experience. By the close of the 1940s, the pianist had played with Ben Webster, Dizzy Gillespie, Don Byas, Big Sid Catlett, Cozy Cole, Stuff Smith and many other jazz giants. He also had been mentored by Jo Jones and Art Tatum. Though his piano style would evolve in the early 1950s and beyond, Billy's technical prowess was already in place by 1947—and his attack on the keyboard was formidable, fluid and downright frightening.

In Part 3 of my conversation with Billy, the legendary pianist talks about becoming Art Tatum's protege, returning from Europe in 1947, playing with Lucky Thompson, forming trios and quartets, having sidemen stolen away by jazz giants, playing with Charlie Parker and strings and becoming Birdland's house pianist:

JazzWax: Did you ever have the urge to stay in Europe, with Don Byas?
Billy Taylor: The thrill of being away was wearing off a bit. By 1947, Don Redman's band had been over there for eight months. Toward the end, my wife wasn’t feeling well so we decided to come home and relax a bit.

JW: What did you do when you arrived back in New York?
BT: I focused more on what Art Tatum and Nat Cole were doing on the piano. Nat was one of the biggest influences on jazz pianists, even in the late 1940s. Most people don’t realize that. They think he was primarily a trio singer and a pop singer. But back then he was a marvelous jazz pianist, and he thought of himself as one. I met Nat briefly around this time. He was playing radio shows in New York. [Photo of Nat King Cole by Eliot Elisofon for Life]

JW: Did Nat hear you play?
BT: No. For me, to hear him play was enough [laughs].

JW: When did you meet Art Tatum?
BT: Back in 1944. Ben Webster introduced me to him. Ben had also introduced me to Duke Ellington. Ben, of course, had been in Duke's band and Duke had great respect for him. When I met Art, he was very friendly and became my mentor. It was a wonderful part of my life.

JW: Drummer Jo Jones also took a liking to you.
BT: Maybe because I looked so young, Jo Jones [pictured] took me under his wing and sort of looked out for me. He had introduced me to everyone on 52nd Street in 1944 and 1945. But he put the word out that I should not be drinking. I think he was afraid that if I'd taken to drink, my playing would suffer. Even though I was older than 21 years old, none of the guys on the Street would ever let me drink anything other than a Coke.

JW: Did you ever just buy a drink yourself?
BT: Yes. But the night I did, Jo spotted me at the bar. I didn't see him, though. He told me this later. Anyway, the next night I had a drink or two and then began my set. While I was playing, I looked up and saw Jo sitting there glaring at me. He had Art Tatum on one side and Teddy Wilson on the other. I knew right away what his point was. I never took another drink after that night.

JW: What did being mentored by Art Tatum mean exactly?
BT: I would go see Art play all the time, and he would show me what he was doing, and we'd spend a lot of time together, especially after his gigs. We were close friends. Art liked what I was doing on the piano. He liked that I had gone to college.

JW: Did you befriend him or did he hear you play and befriend you.
BT: [Laughs] Oh, no. I ran after him. On occasion he'd show me things on the piano. For the most part it was just being together. He was like a father to me. We used to go uptown to Tom Tillman's bar in Harlem. Tom was a friend of Art's. I learned as much from being with Art at Tillman's than in any classroom in the world.

JW: Why?
BT: A bunch of pianists would hang out there, and we knew sooner or later someone would come in, sit down at the piano and try to take on Art or show off. Usually he'd sic me or one of the others on the guy. One time this wonderful player from New Jersey came in and played incredible stride piano. Art realized he had to take him on and knew that it was going to be about stride. That was one of the few times I heard Art play pure stride. Art ordinarily played Art Tatum, which was a product of all that he had heard. But this time, he played just stride and gave that guy some lesson [laughs].

JW: What did you learn from Tatum?
BT: Certain harmonic things that he liked to do. Several of these pianists from the 1930s were into harmonic improvisation. Normally you'd sit down and play a song's melody straight through and then improvise on it. Art had an odd way of doing things. He’d improvise before completing the melody. For instance, he’d take a song like Body and Soul and play the first eight bars. Then he'd play the second eight using a harmony line rather than the rest of the song's melody. It's difficult to do, and he did it for fun. Many stride pianists did that. They did it to put each other on.

JW: Given that Art was blind, how did he get to know you? 
BT: Touch was important with Art. But remember, Art wasn’t completely blind. He had some sight in one eye. He could play cards. He’d put the cars right up in front of his eyes. And he’d win [laughs].

JW: What do you remember about Art, the person?
BT: Art was an interesting guy. He loved jazz and classical music. He listened to a lot of different things. There was a  radio program on at 10 in the morning that featured great classical pianists. I’d bring him home to the hotel in midtown where he stayed after he played all night. Nightclubs closed at 4 am then. By the time we went somewhere to catch a bite or hit an after hours club, it was 8 am. I’d bring him up to his room, and he always wanted to listen to this radio program of solo classical pianists like [Vladimir] Horowitz.

JW: In 1947, you recorded as the leader of a quartet featuring guitarist John Collins, bassist John Levy and drummer Denzil Best. And you sang on two sides.
BT: [Laughs] I wanted to do that. I did the one record as a singer and realized immediately that I wasn't my father. My father had a beautiful voice but I didn’t inherit it, nor did my brother for that matter. I chose the guys for that group because they were my favorite musicians at the time.

JW: The quartet didn't stay together long.
BT: I lost John Collins to Art Tatum. Then he went with Nat Cole. I don’t know why Denzil [pictured] and John Levy left to go with George Shearing. But they did, and they made big names for themselves. In truth, they were both suited for what Shearing needed. They both had a fast, delicate touch. George had a good ear for what he needed.

JW: In 1949 you recorded on a date led by tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson. Why wasn't he better known?
BT: Like Don Byas, Lucky was terribly underrated. He probably was one of the most unlucky guys I’ve met in my career, considering what he was capable of. You go back and listen and realize how well he played. He took the same kind of thing Don Byas was doing and incorporated bebop and other things.

JW: Why wasn't he better known?
BT: People just didn’t respond to him. It made no sense. He made records. He did personal appearances. Finally he just gave up. Nothing worked. He was just unlucky. Things came to me. I don't know why. They just didn’t come to Lucky. All things considered, as well as he played, as many people who knew him, I don’t know why things didn't work out. He was a nice guy, though. It wasn’t as if he was bitter. [Photo of Lucky Thompson by Herman Leonard]

JW: By 1950, by my ear, your sound starts to change.
BT: I had absorbed Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum, and I had learned how to use many devices from Art, many of which had to do with harmonies. But as a leader, I wanted to add my personality, my touch.

JW: In 1950 you formed a new trio with Aaron Bell and Kelly Martin.
BT: That was a short-lasting trio. Those were two guys I liked very much. Kelly had done a lot of things with Erroll Garner, and Aaron [pictured] had worked with Eddie Wilcox. We were playing at the Hickory House. Duke Ellington used to come in a lot to hear me play. He was friendly with the owner, and the owner liked him to come in, since they shared the same publicist. Duke didn’t eat much steak, which was odd since he was at a steak house. He would just order milk or something. He liked Aaron Bell so much that he took him from me. Aaron made some good records with Duke.

JW: Did you ever get frustrated that sidemen you found were getting snatched away?
BT: [Laughs] Oh, no. I held on to most of them. In those days, the reason I couldn’t hold onto them is I wasn’t traveling. By that time I had a couple of kids and didn’t want to travel. If you were a sideman, that's how you made a living, by going out on the road with a headliner.

JW: In August 1950, you played at a famous Apollo Theater concert with Stan Getz and Charlie Parker.
BT: I remember that concert very well. That summer I got a call from Al Haig [pictured], Bird's pianist. He said, "Can you cover for me? I have a job with Parker but I can't make it. He opens at Birdland." What I didn’t know at the time was that Al was going to leave Bird.

JW: So what happened?
BT: I went in to play behind Bird on what I thought would be the only gig. The next day, when I was at home, I got a call from Birdland asking me to come down. Al didn’t show, and they wanted me to finish the week. Which is how I wound up playing with Bird and strings at the Apollo.

JW: What was that like?
BT: It was the first time Bird played a live concert with strings. He had done two studio dates with them but at the Apollo, it was the first live performance.

JW: Did he enjoy playing with strings?
BT: It wasn’t that Bird liked strings, per se. He wanted to show everyone that audiences would respond favorably to him with that kind of commercial background. But he didn’t play commercially with the strings. He just played Bird. He wanted people to hear that.

JW: How many times did you play with him?
BT: The Apollo performance was so well attended and received that we did two weeks there. Then we went back to Birdland. After hearing me with strings, Monte Kay, Birdland's manager, made me the house pianist.

JW: Was that a good thing?
BT: Absolutely. I got to play with everybody as the house pianist. I also got to stay in one place where people could see me all the time and hear that I could play with everyone, from players to singers. I also was the guy who played for the Birdland All-Stars, a group of four or five guys that the club put together every other week. [Menu cover courtesy of Bird Lives]

JW: What was that Apollo concert like?
BT: It was a funny gig. It was a mistake for Stan to take that band up to Harlem. Many of the guys in that band were on narcotics and were slacking off. But to Stan's credit, he picked a lot of guys who sounded great together. And when that band hit, they were right on the money. I remember Stan and Zoot were strung out, but they played like crazy. The truth is that Tommy Potter and Roy [Haynes] held the band together that afternoon.

JW: How were your interactions with Bird?
BT: Good and friendly. One day he came into Birdland to get some money from the boss. By then I was the house pianist and was practicing my music lesson. I was studying with a wonderful teacher who was helping me with my classical playing. I would take a lesson and wouldn’t go home because I’d be late for the gig if it did. So I went there and practiced my lesson before the club opened. Bird came in and heard me.

JW: What did he say?
BT: He said, "That’s nice, I like that." I said, "It’s Debussy." He said, "I know that." I said, "What do you mean you know that," and laughed, turning back to play. I figured he was just putting me on.

JW: What happened?
BT: Well, Bird went to the back to get his money. When he came out, I was playing Debussy's Arabesque #1 again. Bird took an alto horn off the bandstand and played the line I hadn't played yet. I was blown away.

JW: Did you ever have a full conversation with him?
BT: When I was working on 52nd Street years earlier, I had come into a club to hear Art Tatum. I was waiting for Art to show up, and Bird was there. We struck up a  conversation. We talked about music, and it was such an interesting talk. Of course, I had met him with Dizzy many years earlier when they were with Earl Hines. So I knew who he was and had heard him play on the Street. That was the only time we had that kind of a conversation. There weren’t a lot of people there. We were talking about music and whatever came into our minds. I never had another conversation like that with him again. I never knew why I couldn’t stimulate that in him again. [Film still courtesy of Bird Lives]

JazzWax tracks: Don't listen to Billy. He actually had quite a nice singing voice. You can hear it on Billy Taylor: 1945-1949. If you go here, you can sample I Don't Ask Questions, I Just Have Fun and So You Think You're Cute. That's Billy singing. You can hear Billy with Aaron Bell and Kelly Martin on Billy Taylor: 1950-1952 here. The portion of the 1950 Apollo Theater concert with Stan Getz and His Orchestra featuring Billy on piano are the last two tracks on a CD called Stan Getz: The Vancouver Concert 1965 here. CDs featuring Charlie Parker's portion of the concert with strings are out of print.

JazzWax clip: Wish you could go back and hear Billy together with his first employer, Ben Webster? Here's the next best thing: Billy and Ben in April 1958 on NBC's The Subject Is Jazz: Swing. Dig the musical love these two shared. Listen carefully. They're swinging on the exact same page...