JazzWax

Interview: Laurie Verchomin (Pt. 3)

Last Sunday Laurie Verchomin spent what would have been Bill Evans' 80th birthday at a local golf driving range. It was her daughter's first golf experience. Said Laurie: "Bill spent a lot of time on his father's driving range in New Jersey picking up golf balls with his brother Harry in the quiet of the evening." Between May 1979 and September 1980, Laurie was Bill Evans' lover. More than 25 years younger than the pianist at the time, Laurie realized early in their relationship that Evans was dying and that what he needed wasn't a nurse or a nag but an emotional and spiritual companion. [Photo of Laurie taken in 1980 for a Canadian passport]

On a personal note, interviewing Laurie on Evans was among the most difficult I've conducted over the past two years. Laurie was perfectly forthcoming and candid. But Evans has long been a jazz hero of mine. I had seen him perform several times in the 1970s in Boston and New York, and had even managed my way through several piano transcriptions in the early 1970s. As anyone knows who has played these transcriptions, they put you on a more intimate basis with his creative mindset. To hear Laurie talk about the raw struggle Evans endured with his art and demons toward life's end was both shocking and fascinating. Honesty can be that way.

In Part 3 of my interview series with Laurie, she talks about Evans' enigmatic mix of sensitivity and self-destruction, Miles Davis' taunting treatment of Evans and Evans' reaction, how Evans viewed his own ego, and why manager Helen Keane stopped communicating with him toward the end of his life:

JazzWax: During the period you knew Bill Evans, was his music coming from a place of pain?
Laurie Verchomin: There might have been some emotional pain, but not physical pain. He wasn’t really  experiencing physical pain. He chose not to experience physical pain thanks to the drugs he was taking. He was using those drugs to keep himself going.

JW: Why?
LV: Bill didn’t need a doctor to tell him he had only so many months to live. It was clear to him. Any rational person would have known that. He was very much in a state of ecstasy. Given the drugs and knowing that you’re going to be leaving this world soon, you’re in an ecstatic state because you’re trying to get everything you can out of every moment.

JW: Did it ever strike you that in Evans, you had extreme beauty and sensitivity and ugliness and self-loathing all at the same time?
LV: The contrasts were very extreme. That’s what was so shocking. There were really ugly parts of the relationship and really beautiful parts. It’s like New York City. What has always attracted me about New York is the enormous amount of high culture set in a filthy grimy tension-producing place. But that’s what makes it special. The contrasts. The puzzle.

JW: Was Evans two different people or one?
LV: With Bill, it wasn’t as though he was divided between two different personalities. He showed me that it was all one thing: creativity and destruction. You couldn’t separate out the beauty of his art and the ugliness of his addiction and physical state. They were one in the same, feeding off each other.

JW: What was Evans' biggest fear?
LV: Bill wasn’t afraid of performing. He was a professional. I got the sense that when he looked into my eyes, whatever fears he had he was offering them up to me. It was a strange experience.

JW: Did Evans talk much about his period with Miles Davis?
LV: Miles and Bill were still in touch when I was with Bill. One day Bill asked me if I wanted to meet Miles. But from what he had told me about him, it was all too much for me. Miles was in a crazy place back then. He was living in seclusion and had a wacky life going on. He was hanging out with transvestites and had an entourage of kinky people coming and going from his place. He had created quite an out-there life. He was even farther out than Bill. Given what I had going with Bill, going over to Miles’ place would have been too much for me. It would have been too surreal and overwhelming.

JW: What did Evans think of Davis?
LV: I got the feeling that Miles wasn’t a nice person. Bill said Miles would go out of his way to tease him in different ways, to take him out, throw him off his game. I don’t know why Miles did that to him, but it did seem cruel. Bill said they’d go out on the road [in 1958], and Miles would say things to Bill to put him on. Bill was innocent and vulnerable. He didn’t expect those kinds of things. Bill said Miles [in 1958] came on to him sexually as a joke. Miles said something like, “If you’re going to be in the band, you’re going to have to have sex with me.” Bill took Miles’ words seriously, and Miles' constantly played with Bill's head, which was upsetting to Bill.

JW: Why?
LV: Bill at heart was a really nice person. He liked to have really nice people around him. When you’re a nice person and you have nice people around you, you don’t say things like that. Miles wasn’t very respectful in those kinds of ways. I don't think Miles was as spiritually evolved as Bill.

JW: Was Bill egocentric?
LV: No, not at all. He had looked at his ego when he was young. He drew this diagram for me. It was a diagram of his Jungian perspective of super ego and rebuilt ego. When you see your ego this way, you can step back and look at it and analyze the conditioning of your early childhood experiences and understand what is needed to rebuild the ego so you’re operating from a proactive place. That’s what made Bill such a great person to be with. He did a lot of reading of Eastern philosophy and of [psychiatrist Carl] Jung's works. Bill was highly developed in a spiritual way.

JW: Did Evans get hooked on heroin in Miles Davis' group, as some books claim?
LV: Bill didn’t talk about it. But he did say his addiction had started before joining Miles' sextet. Bill said he came to heroin on his own. It was around the time he joined Miles but it wasn’t through Miles. It happened in New York, with a group of musicians he was close with. It may have been a very acceptable form of behavior for musicians at that time. Bill had other friends who were musicians. Some were experimenting. He joined in on it.

JW: Who were the musicians?
LV: I don’t want to say. I heard who it was from someone other than Bill, so repeating names wouldn’t be fair.

JW: What did Helen Keane, Evans' manager and producer, think about his destructive side?
LV: Helen was white-knuckling it over the last few years.  The whole situation was out of control. She made me the road manager, meaning I was supposed to collect the cash from the clubs. She had handed over the responsibility of paying Bill's rent and other bills to an accountant. There were problems with the IRS. It was all surreal. [Pictured: Helen Keane and Bill Evans]

JW: Was Helen unable to cope?
LV: I think Helen was doing the best she could given her abilities. She had had a long relationship with Bill and had brought him through a lot. But near the end, it was unbearable for the two of them to communicate.

JW: How so?
LV: Helen couldn’t handle the stress of where he was headed. Bill didn’t need or want the extra financial stress either. Toward the end, she didn’t want to be in close personal contact with him any more. [Pictured: Keane and Evans]

Tomorrow, Laurie talks about how Evans composed in their New Jersey apartment, grappling with Evans' cocaine habit, what it was like taking piano lessons from Evans, and why Evans enjoyed socializing at the racetrack.

Photo of Laurie in early 1980 (top of page) courtesy of Laurie Verchomin. Laurie is working on a book about her relationship and experiences with Bill Evans. For more, visit Laurie's site here.

JazzWax tracks: Bill Evans' first album after starting his relationship with Laurie is the much overlooked and somewhat prophetic We Will Meet Again (Warner Brothers) recorded in August 1979 and dedicated to his late brother Harry. This was his last studio recording. Going forward, Evans would be recorded live through early-September 1980.

Rather than record with just his trio (Marc Johnson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums), Evans was joined on different tracks by trumpeter Tom Harrell and saxophonist Larry Schneider. He also recorded two tracks solo. We Will Meet Again won a Grammy in 1981 for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance.

You'll find We Will Meet Again at iTunes, Amazon and other online retailers.

Interview: Laurie Verchomin (Pt. 2)

Laurie Verchomin was Bill Evans' lover during the final 18 months  of his life. Through this critical period, Laurie struggled with Bill's chronic cocaine habit and deteriorating health. But she also respected Evans' creative space at home in New Jersey and while accompanying him on grueling performing tours in the U.S. and abroad. For Laurie, these trips weren't always romantic, musical adventures. They were typically burdened by stress, stretches without rest, and enormous worry and fear. As creative as Evans was, he was relentlessly self-destructive, and, she says, viewed beauty and ugliness as inextricably linked. [Pictured: Laurie in late 1979]

So many questions came to mind when I interviewed Laurie, some of them judgmental and, in retrospect, silly: "Why weren't you more forceful in getting Evans to halt his drug habit? Why didn't you push him to take better care of himself? Were you an enabler?" I say "silly" because Laurie's answers were always completely rational and logical: "What would you have had me do? There was no stopping a lifetime of bad habits. Bill was such a creative force, who was I to get in the way of that? He was deteriorating when I arrived and beyond saving. All I could do was make him feel comfortable and be there for him emotionally."

In Part 2 of my interview with Laurie, she talks about the now famous song Evans wrote for her, their only big argument, how Evans made up, trying to understand how so much beauty could come out of someone so self-destructive, and what Bill never did the entire time Laurie knew him:

JazzWax: Bill Evans’ Laurie was composed for you. How did the song evolve?
Laurie Verchomin: Bill wrote it on May 31, 1979, at the end of my first visit to New York. He sent me several versions of the song in his letters that followed. There were five letters in all with five versions of the song. The final version is dated July 29, 1979.

JW: Could you read music at the time?
LV: Yes, so I could figure out what the song Bill wrote sounded like. Both my parents were musicians. My father is Ukrainian Orthodox, so we grew up in the church with melancholy music. Bill had that background, too. His mother belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church. So we shared that heritage. That’s where much of the mood in Bill’s music comes from: the Russian Orthodox Church.

JW: Did you enjoy what you heard in the music Evans sent along?
LV: Very much. In fact, [jazz educator and pianist] Andy Laverne is looking at all five versions. He wants to write a harmonic analysis of Bill’s songwriting.

JW: What is Evans saying to you in Laurie?
LV: It’s an ascension thing. He modulates up, up, up. As he said to me, “You have to work really hard and make something out of your life.” My life became that ascending song after his death. Everything evolved from that experience, from the trauma of his death.

JW: How was Evans as a companion?
LV: He was perfect. He left me a lot of space. You could have your own thoughts. Discussions would arise. When you’re young, you want to know everything. I was so open to everything. He was very keen to that.

JW: Did you ever fight?
LV: Never. Actually, I take that back. We had one moment when he was very upset with me.

JW: What happened?
LV: He asked me to do something for him that I refused to do.

JW: What?
LV: Bill asked me to go buy him cocaine. I refused. I told him I wasn’t going to do it. So he raised his voice and got really angry. A couple of hours later, though, he brought me a Hallmark card with a stock message written by Leonard Nimoy [pictured]. Bill wrote an apology on it [below]. He had a great deal of control over his emotional state.

JW: How did Evans manage that?
LV: He always thought out in advance how he was going to express his feelings. It’s a thing of creating observations. If you can get to a place where you can observe how you’re feeling before you express those feelings, you create a space, a buffer zone, where you can objectively consider your feelings. It becomes like an art form. [To read Evans' note, click once on the image to enlarge]

JW: Was it frustrating not being able to extract Evans from his drug habit?
LV: Given our age difference, I wasn’t trying to influence or control his life. I knew that the only thing I could do for him was to be there emotionally, to observe and help if something was beyond his control. I was there to cover for him.

JW: That seems a little distant and detached.
LV: Look, when you meet someone who has terminal cancer and is dying, your energies aren’t spent trying to save them. You spend your time doing what you can to help comfort that person.

JW: Did Evans ever indicate that he would make an effort to quit his cocaine habit for you?
LV: Bill would make overtures that he wanted to quit. But it was clear that he wasn’t going to. And I wasn’t there to fight that force. It would have destroyed me. My task was to be accepting. All I could do was to make the daily struggle as easy as possible for him.

JW: Why was someone as gifted and as in control as Evans so hopelessly addicted to something so obviously destructive?
LV: I never did figure that out. That part of him was a really deep place. I don’t know why someone like Bill would be so persistently self-destructive. It’s such a conundrum. It’s such a riddle. For me it’s still a mystery. The only way to understand Bill was to realize that destruction and creativity exist simultaneously. Because Bill was so intensely creative, he had an intensely destructive side. He told me he never could do anything halfway. It all had to be to the extreme. He felt the same way about his addictions. 

JW: Did Evans know how you felt?
LV: No. I never had a discussion about his addiction. It’s not something he wanted to discuss with me. It seemed obvious to me that the issue was not going to be discussed seriously or ever fully resolved.

JW: Was traveling with Evans during his performance tours in 1979 and 1980 exciting?
LV: They were nerve-wracking trips. It was always a tension-producing experience. It was physically stressful to travel and perform. He was traveling with large amounts of drugs going through airports. We were in a new city every few days, making [drug] connections, getting to the clubs, playing the gig and getting back to the hotel to rest up. Then it was on to the next city.

JW: Did you go with him to Paris in November 1979?
LV: No. I joined him in London at Ronnie Scott’s Club for two weeks. I wasn’t invited on that Paris trip. But soon after he left he called to tell me that things weren’t going so well with his health. He was quite ill. The music is what carried him. Whatever I added certainly wasn’t as powerful as the energy he received from the music.

JW: Did Evans get any rest on the road during his last 18 months?
LV: Bill rarely slept the entire time I knew him. When you’re consuming cocaine the way Bill was, he would be in different states of exhaustion and never truly rested. He never slept.

Tomorrow, Laurie talks about Bill Evans and Miles Davis, how Evans felt about Davis, what Bill told her about Davis' cruelty toward him, and how Evans' manager Helen Keane coped with his self-destructive streak.

Photos of Laurie in 1979 (top) and the Hallmark card courtesy of Laurie Verchomin. Laurie is working on a book about her relationship and experiences with Bill Evans. For more, visit Laurie's site here.

JazzWax tracks: Bill recorded Laurie 12 times between August 1979 and September 1980. One of my favorite versions is Evans' last known performance of the song, recorded without his knowledge at Keystone Korner in San Francisco on September 6th—just 11 days before his death. The track is available on The Brilliance, which can be downloaded at  iTunes and Amazon. Now that you know the composition's back-story the song sounds like a musical letter of desperation and relief to Laurie, who was in the club that night. 

Interview: Laurie Verchomin (Pt. 1)

From May 1979 to September 1980, Laurie Verchomin was pianist Bill Evans' lover. After their meeting in Edmonton, Canada, in April 1979, Laurie and Bill struck up a letter-writing relationship that led rapidly to romance. Within a month and a half, Laurie, who was 22 years old at the time, visited Evans in New York. Over the 10 months that followed, she visited him in several different cities. Then in April 1980, Laurie moved to New York to be with him romantically and as a sober set of eyes. The drug-addicted pianist was ill and keenly aware he was dying. Laurie shared this final period with him—a period during which many believe Evans created some of his strongest and most introspective work. [Pictured: Laurie in 1979]

For the first time, Laurie talks openly about her relationship with Evans, what she witnessed, and the ups and downs of their relationship. Her candid insights shed new light on Evans and provide a greater understanding and empathy for his creative choices. They certainly made me think much differently about his late period, giving me a much greater understanding of Evans' motives and choices.  As you'll see, Laurie's candid reflections on this jazz lion in winter are both touching and harrowing.

In Part 1 of my five-part interview with Laurie commemorating what would have been Evans' 80th birthday on August 16th, she talks about meeting Evans, her visit to New York, and her initial impressions of Evans physically and emotionally:

JazzWax: When and where did you and Bill Evans meet?
Laurie Verchomin: We met on April 13, 1979, in Edmonton, Alberta. It was Friday the 13th. We met in a  Ukrainian church [pictured] on 97th Ave. that had been converted into a Chinese restaurant. I was the cocktail waitress for the whole room. I also was a member of the local jazz society that had invited Bill to perform at the restaurant. Ironically, the church space now is a soup kitchen.

JW: Did you have eyes for Evans?
LV: Actually, Bill chose me. I had just turned 22 years old. He pursued me when we met and that night asked me to go up to his room. I didn’t really understand that at the time. He was 50 years old—older than my father, and I had a boyfriend. But I thought it was sweet. So I invited him to my place with a bunch of his fans and served him tea. He gave me his business card. The night before he left Edmonton, he wrote me a letter from his hotel. His letter was immediately full of love.

JW: What kind of love?
LV: He was very upfront with how he felt about me, and he felt it was important that we get together. I wrote back about the effect of his music on me and sent him one of my favorite quotes from Sartre: “When you tear your neighbor to pieces, all your neighbors will laugh. But if you beat on your own soul, all souls cry out."

JW: Did Evans indicate that it was a painful time for him?
LV: Yes. Bill wrote me in his second letter that he had received my letter just days after his brother Harry [pictured] had committed suicide. Harry was a schizophrenic. In the letter, Bill described his relationship with his brother and how his brother was a hero to him. Bill saw his brother as his equal, not as an inferior musician or anything like that. In fact, if anything, he put Harry a little above himself. He had such deep respect for him.

JW: What do you think Evans saw in you initially?
LV: I’m a really creative person and a really good person. I think he saw someone he could be himself with and possibly draw some energy from. He was quite ill when I met him, and I could tell that he didn’t have long to live. It was obvious to both of us that he was near the end of his life. He didn’t hide that. I think he was looking for someone with energy to sustain him for the last 18 months. I also didn’t have many responsibilities in Edmonton, and he knew that, too.

JW: Whose idea was it for you to visit Evans in New York?
LV: After I received Bill’s letter about his brother’s suicide, I was quite moved. In that letter, Bill urged me to come visit him in New York. That’s when I started to consider having a relationship with him. I felt his need, that he was in trouble and needed someone to talk to.

JW: When did you leave for New York?
LV: I left Edmonton at the end of May 1979. Bill met me at the airport in New York and couldn’t have been sweeter and more caring. I felt a connection right away. I had wanted to return to New York anyway. I had been there the year before studying acting at the HB Studios in Greenwich Village.

JW: How would you describe your relationship with Evans in New York from the outset?
LV: At first I didn’t think Bill was going to be my lover. I was just going to see how things went when I got to New York. We made a sexual connection immediately. It was really beautiful. I began to imagine a future for us. I thought at first that I could restore him to health.

JW: Was that a challenge?
LV: It was pretty shocking. Bill lived in Fort Lee, N.J., at the time, on Center Ave. in a high rise called the Whiteman House [pictured]. He lived on the 9th Floor. His place was absolutely serene, very orderly. But his physical state was disastrous. After all of those years of heroin abuse, he barely had a body left. His spirit was moving his body around. I realized that restoring him to health would be a seemingly impossible task.

JW: What was so shocking?
LV: Bill’s body.

JW: How so?
LV: When I met him, Bill was an intravenous cocaine user. This created a chronic level of infection, which was adding to the general stress of his health. Tracks from his earlier heroin addiction had healed over, and his skin was in a kind of petrified state. He apparently only had an eighth of a liver.

JW: What did you think?
LV: You have to remember, I was 22 years old. All the people I knew were young and had firm, youthful bodies. Bill’s body took me aback. He looked like he’d come out of a war. He was really scarred up. He had vigor though. He was incredibly lively. It was amazing and shocking that he could survive what he had put his body through.

JW: How did Evans view himself physically?
LV: He was accepting about his condition, which also was kind of shocking. I just went with that. He wasn’t in pain. His physical body had been like that for years, and he wasn’t embarrassed about it. When you’re young, you’re self-conscious about everything. You’re new and beautiful. I was self-conscious about my hair—stupid stuff. But people who aren’t in that youthful state of perfection lose some of that vanity. Their consciousness takes on a different focus.

JW: How did Evans treat you?
LV: He was deeply respectful. He treated me as his equal. I had never met a man who treated me that way. I had

grown up in a very redneck town with cowboys everywhere. Bill was the opposite of the guys I had known. He was the kindest and most generous man I had ever met. He offered me everything he had. He was a fully present human being from the moment I stepped off the escalator at the airport. He paid attention to me, and there were no pretenses. I could be myself.

JW: How did Evans view you?
LV: He was in love with me. He saw me as a source of inspiration. He also didn’t want to be alone while he was dying.

JW: Did that scare you?
LV: I had to go to that level to be there. Bill had invited me to share his space while he was in his final creative process. I was ready to have that experience. I really wanted someone to see me as a whole person. He saw me that way and allowed me to share his experience.

Tomorrow, Laurie talks about how Evans' composition Laurie was created, the meaning behind the song's structure, the origins of Evans' brooding sensitivity, the only time Laurie and Evans fought, and dealing with Evans' cocaine addiction.

Photos of Laurie in 1979 (top) and the Ukrainian church where they met are courtesy of Laurie Verchomin. Laurie is working on a book about her relationship and experiences with Bill Evans. For more, visit Laurie's site here.

JazzWax clip: Here's Evans, bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera in early 1979 playing In Your Own Sweet Way...

Sunday Wax Bits

Waxing & musings. Following my post last week on jazz and the youth market, I received the following e-mail from friend Pam Zimmerman:

"I was thinking about your blog post about how kids are not being introduced to jazz. And I wanted to bring up another issue. I don't have any women friends who are into jazz. Not one. All of the people I know who are into jazz are men. So while many lament that the average age of jazz aficionados is escalating along with those who appreciate opera and classical, the last two forms of music actually attract a large percentage of chicks. Jazz? Not so much."

Pam is right, of course. Part of the reason, I suppose, is that a vast majority of jazz players were and are male. As a result, the music has a firmer connection with men for a range of psychological reasons that likely have to do with ego and id. Like sports, jazz has long been an expression of male independence, the struggle for identity, a yearning for success, and a triumph over other males. Or some such.

As for Pam's other point—why classical music and opera have so many female fans while jazz seems to have far fewer—that certainly is baffling. One can only attribute this to the gentle, tranquil, qualities associated with classical music and the way the music makes women feel compared with jazz, which is less about seduction and drama, and more about hunting and gathering. Or some such.

Playing with Ray. As part of Bret Primack's continuing series of video podcasts for Concord Records in support of the label's release of six remastered Ray Charles albums, here's what musicians who played with Charles felt about the experience...

Bill Evans. Today would have been Bill Evans' 80th birthday. To honor the pianist who died in September 1980, Jan Stevens has opened a page at his Bill Evans Web Pages to feature comments by readers on Evans and his contribution to jazz and listeners' hearts.

CD Discovery of the week: If you want to hear some warm, exciting bass playing, dig John Goldsby. Last week John e-mailed me from Cologne, Germany, where he lives, to let  me know that his new album, Space for the Bass, is out. I gave a listen to a few samples and downloaded the album immediately.

What's most remarkable about the album is the sound of John's bass, It's full and confident, and John delivers a big, round rubbery snap that appeals to the jazz ear. And John's arco bass playing (bow on strings) is equally captivating. There's a studied precision about John's playing, but unlike many bass players today, John isn't just technically masterful. He's also "well read," meaning he knows his jazz bass history, and you can hear it in everything he plays.

Take Moose the Mooche, for example. The Charlie Parker standard from 1946 is given an unorthodox intro before John swings the group into sharp focus. He uses lines that demonstrate a full understanding what Vic McMillan, the song's original bassist, was up to. Or dig John's unaccompanied bass intro to Eighteen Years. Or his lines on my favorite track, You Stepped Out of a Dream, on which he's accompanied only by drummer Hans Dekker's wispy brushes. Gorgeous stuff.

It's rare that a bass player can dominate an album this definitively and hold your attention throughout. We tend to think of the bass as a back-office timekeeper that every so often is given a solo role out of pity rather than necessity. Here, John transforms the bass into an instrument with as seductive and as worthy a lead jazz voice as the saxophone or trumpet.

John was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He played piano, guitar, and electric bass before taking up the double bass at age 18. Since 1994, has been a member of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Big Band (the Cologne Radio Big Band). Between 1980 and 1994, John lived in New York City and performed at venues ranging from clubs to Carnegie Hall.

John is joined on his new album by Francesco Cafiso (alto sax on Clockwise, Moose the Mooche and Eighteen Years), Karolina Strassmayer  [pictured] (alto sax on Blue Dahlia, Pumpkin's Delight, Angelica, Forgotten But Not and Redpost), Martin Sasse (piano on all tracks except You Stepped Out of a Dream), and Hans Dekker (drums on all tracks except Alone Together, Clockwise, Moose the Mooche and  Eighteen Years).

You'll find Space for the Bass as a download at iTunes and Amazon. Or on CD here. Or through John's website here.

Oddball album cover of the week. Vik Records was started in 1953 by RCA Victor. Recorded in 1956, this Vik album was co-led by Joe Newman and Frank Wess, both of whom are on the cover. They were accompanied by Hank Jones, Freddie Green, Barry Galbraith, Eddie Jones and Osie Johnson. The session was arranged by Ernie Wilkins. An inventive and humorous cover but odd just the same. The wee Newman and Wess were lucky Osie didn't drop his sticks.

Favorite video of the week. This weekend marks the anniversary of Woodstock. Go here to view this lovely clip. When the page opens, click the arrow. You'll get redirected. Put up with the ad for a moment. It's worth it. Trust me.

Happy Birthday JazzWax

JazzWax turned two years old on August 3rd. I was too busy posting the start of my Denny Zeitlin interview to remember. A friend mentioned it yesterday, and my palm hit my forehead. So today I decided I'd pause briefly and reflect. The past two years have certainly been an exciting adventure. I always say I'm no different than my readers—it's just that I write about what I'm listening to and take the rest of you along for the ride. I hope you've found the past 706 JazzWax posts enjoyable and, like me, have learned a few things along the way.

As long-time readers know, I write only about subjects that interest me and interview legends I care most about. Editorial decisions are made free of influence and are exclusively about the music and what turns me on. Despite the hurt that print has experienced over the past two years, it's gratifying to know that web-based journalism and history are still widely read and appreciated. 

So far so good for JazzWax. According to Invesp Consulting, a blog-ranking service with data updated weekly, JazzWax is now ranked #6 in the Ultimate Rank among all jazz blogs based on 20 different factors. JazzWax also is #2, just behind Doug Ramsey's Rifftides among jazz blogs with the most incoming links (meaning who in cyberspace is linking back to JazzWax blog posts). It's #2 based on unique monthly visitors, behind Wynton Marsalis' site. It's also #2 based on Google PR, and #2 in Invesp's Compete Rank.

All of which is nice. What counts, however, is that JazzWax's mission continues—namely to help jazz consumers figure out where to spend their money and to preserve the stories of jazz legends. Jazz is as much about stories as it is about music. In fact, the music is almost meaningless without the historical context. And a big thanks to all of you who post brilliant comments, regularly e-mail support and keep an eye on my typos. You know who you are.

Well, I've held you long enough. Lots more coming in the months ahead. Oh, before I forget: Starting Monday, a five-part interview series that is sure to astonish. Trust me, you'll be taken aback. See you on Sunday for my weekly editorial and Wax Bits roundup.

Have a great weekend!

Hidden Jazz Downloads (Vol. 10)

From time to time I feature fabulous little-known albums that are available as downloads at iTunes, Amazon and other online retailers. I call them "hidden" because online retailers do so little promotion that you'd never know these albums existed unless you stumbled upon them like I did. (For the other nine volumes in this series, go to my search engine in the upper right-hand corner and type in "Hidden Jazz Downloads.") Here are my latest five finds:

Delightful Doris Drew (1957). Drew started her recording career in the late 1940s as a vocalist in trumpeter Ziggy Elman's band. Drew had a Doris Day-like vibrato, and her delivery was direct and crystal clear. She recorded this jazz outing with Don Fagerquist (trumpet), Bob Enevoldsen (valve-trombone), Herb Geller (alto sax), Dave Pell (tenor sax), Marty Paich (piano and celeste), Al Viola (guitar), Max Bennett (bass) and Mel Lewis (drums). The Hollywood Strings were added. Paich wrote the arrangements.

Herbie Mann: Peace Pieces (1995). Bet you didn't know flutist Herbie Mann recorded an album of Bill Evans tunes. You wouldn't likely have known this because when you type "Herbie Mann + Bill Evans" into search engines at iTunes and Amazon, all you get is Nirvana, the album they recorded together at the tail end of 1961. The problem is the Mann album is in their databases only as Peace Pieces, despite its subtitle: The Music of Bill Evans. This one is gorgeous and features Randy Brecker (flugelhorn), Bruce Dunlap (electric guitar), Eddie Gomez (bass), Sammy Figueroa (percussion) and three different drummers on different dates: Paul Socolow, Lewis Nash and Ricky Sebastian.

Arthur Prysock: This Guy's in Love With You (1986). I dig Prysock, selectively. The singer had a fabulous deep baritone and vibrato but was frequently poorly produced. On this album, he's teamed with vocalist Betty Joplin on three tracks and the rest by himself. Featured are Arthur's brother Red Prysock (tenor sax), Lloyd Wilson (keyboards), Randy Caldwell (guitar) and Jimmy Lewis (bass) and Don Williams (drums). Killer tracks include the title song (a duet), Rainy Night in Georgia, At Last and Don't Misunderstand. In fact, if you just download those tracks, you'll be all set.

Art Blakey: Africaine (1959). This one was out of print when I first wrote about it here a year ago. Maybe someone at Blue Note read my post and JazzWax readers' wishes? At any rate, the album remains one of the Jazz Messengers' finest recordings—and that's saying something. Now it's back as a download. The Messengers lineup featured Lee Morgan (trumpet), Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Walter Davis, Jr. (piano), Jymie Merritt (bass) and Dizzy Reece (conga).

Oliver Nelson: The Kennedy Dream (1967). This one was just re-issued. It's a throwback to a time when the Kennedy assassination was still fresh in the nation's collective mind. When Arlington National Cemetery installed the Eternal Flame at the former president's gravesite in 1967, the yearning for what could have been filled artists' imaginations. Nelson composed and scored this tribute to Kennedy, but it's more of a Camelot suite that in only a few places is dated. Tracks that remain brilliant are The Rights of All, Tolerance, The Artists' Rightful Place, Jacqueline and John Kennedy Memory Waltz.

Jack McDuff and Jimmy Forrest

I love organ combos, especially when a take-charge tenor sax is in the mix. Groovy pairings that come to mind include Stanley Turrentine and Shirley Scott, Sonny Stitt and Don Patterson, and Charles Earland and Grover Washington Jr. One of the very best "stops 'n' reed" albums is organist Jack McDuff's The Honeydripper with Jimmy Forrest on tenor sax. Talk about slippery organ playing, big builds, and a swinging, commanding sax. This album has it all—plus guitarist Grant Green. [Photo: Jack McDuff]

The Honeydripper was the third and last album that McDuff and Forrest recorded together. The first was Singin' and Swingin', a disjointed June 1960 date with vocalist Betty Roche. Tough 'Duff followed in July 1960—a strong outing though Lem Winchester's vibes pulled it more toward jazz than soul-blues. The Honeydripper in February 1961 nailed the sound. It was a quartet date (with Ben Dixon on drums) and for me remains McDuff and Forrest's finest summit. In fact, I'll go so far as to say it's one of the finest organ-sax combo albums ever recorded.

McDuff began his jazz career in the 1950s as a bass player. McDuff switched to the organ at the urging of saxophonist Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson. McDuff's first organ date came in 1959, on a blues album by Shakey Jake called Good Times. His initial jazz leadership date was Brother Jack in January 1960. In 1969, McDuff had a Billboard Top Pop 100 hit with Theme From Electric Surfboard. What always set McDuff apart from so many other organists of the period was his keen blues riffs backed by clear strong bass lines worked out on the pedals. 

Jimmy Forrest started in the reed section of Andy Kirk's band in 1943, and by the late 1940s was with Duke Ellington. In 1951, Forrest [pictured] recorded a stripper-beat Night Train, which soared up the R&B chart to #1 in 1952. During the 1950s, Forrest was recorded live in St. Louis with Miles Davis and in the studio on dates led by Cat Anderson, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Jo Jones and others.

By the time 1961 rolled around, Forrest and McDuff were solid jazz-soul players. Four of the six tracks on The Honeydripper are magnificent blues that give both artists plenty of room to work out lines. The bonus here is Grant Green, whose solos and comp lines give the album extra energy.

The Honey Dripper (as the original song was known) has an interesting history. The song was written by Joe Liggins in the early 1940s. It was recorded by Liggins in March 1945 on two sides of a 78 rpm and became a hit "race record," remaining at No. 1 for 18 weeks. The Honey Dripper is often credited as heavily influencing the development of r&b and early rock 'n' roll. The tune is based on Shortnin' Bread, and Liggins' words played off the title's slang meaning—a guy who was a big-time charmer. When McDuff and Forrest took on the song in 1961, they updated it with a funky backbeat.

The standards on the album are I Want a Little Girl and Mr. Lucky, and both are treated as blowing tunes. Mr. Lucky in particular features McDuff's swirling technique on the keyboards leavened with plenty of vibrato. Forrest, for his part, plays the perfect foil with lines that resolve beautifully. It's impossible to play this one through just once. I often restart it two or three times before moving on.

JazzWax tracks: Jack McDuff's The Honeydripper (Prestige) has been remastered and can be found as a download at iTunes or Amazon, or here on CD. Joe Liggins' original Honey Dripper from 1945 can be found at iTunes or Amazon with sax solos by Little Willie Jackson and James Jackson on tenor.

Jazz and the Passion Crisis

Next week marks the 40th anniversary of Woodstock—the festival that all but doomed whatever hope jazz had of reviving its popularity with the young masses. So what better time for many jazz writers to insist that jazz today is wildly popular with kids—and to beat up on one of our own for saying that's not the case.

Last Saturday, jazz writer, author and drama critic Terry Teachout wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal entitled: Can Jazz Be Saved? The Audience for America's Great Art Form Is Withering Away. After it was published, you could hear the metaphoric sound of glass shattering. Many web-based jazz writers leapt at the chance to take a swing at Terry. One blogger went so far as to say, "Mr. Teachout has stumbled into a very old trap, forecasting the death of jazz."

The problem is Terry didn't say that.

For those of you who missed Terry's column, let me briefly bring you up to speed. Terry's point was that despite efforts by government to encourage jazz appreciation among young listeners, kids today aren't digging the jazz scene in growing numbers. To support his point, Terry held up data from the National Endowment for the Arts' latest Survey of Public Participation in the Arts.

Long story short, jazz-performance attendance by adults is shrinking fast, according to the NEA.The data shows that this falloff is occurring even among college-educated adults—a big shocker since in the 1950s campus fans single-handedly made jazz an intellectual art form. Terry also noted that the median age of jazz-performance attendees is inching north and now rivals that of opera (yikes!).

Most troubling of all, Terry observed that young people aren't listening to jazz in strong enough numbers and that something should be done by jazz musicians and jazz powers to change this if the music is to survive. The response? Many jazz writers came crashing down on Terry—in some cases taking him to task for things he never actually said in his column.

I don't know much about studies and who attends what. But I know a few things about music and kids today. As the father of one, I know that kids consume music very differently than people over age 40. Most older jazz fans grew up listening to jazz to the exclusion of virtually everything else. Many jazz fans of a certain age also have not forgiven rock and soul for undermining jazz's pre-1965 popularity. And most older jazz listeners I know harbor a Shangri-La vision of a world in which jazz stages a comeback and dominates our culture again.

We all know that's not going to happen, just as nylons and Checker cabs aren't coming back either. There simply isn't a street market for the kind of jazz that older fans have in their heads. Jazz, as I wrote nearly a year ago, is high art, not mass culture. The shift to high art was a natural progression and a choice as jazz artists became more sophisticated and performance trumped dance. Miles and Sonny aren't supposed to be understood by everyone. No true art is.

Which leaves us with the big question: Why aren't more kids moved by jazz? Part of the answer is that young people don't  listen to music the way older listeners did or do. Thanks to the computer, iTunes, the iPod and iPhone, most kids jump from genre to genre and from track to track in any given time period, rarely listening to any song all the way through. For better or worse, the computer has taught them to multitask everything.

This leads us to the second big hurdle: There's a passion crisis among young people today. In an ADD age, many kids have trouble falling passionately in love with anything, let alone jazz. By passion, I mean really getting into a form of music, exploring all of its facets, and tracing its roots and stories so you have a better understanding of what you're listening to.

To be fair, this passion deficiency isn't really their fault. There  simply are too many choices for every decision today, and each looks more appealing than the next. The upshot? It's harder than ever for kids to stay focused on jazz or anything else to the exclusion of the broad mix of choices before them.

So when Terry writes that young people aren't listening to jazz en masse, we know deep down that he's right—with or without the data. As for adults, is it really a surprise that fewer of them are attending jazz concerts and that the median age is climbing? With less time for pastimes and more demands on adults to make ends meet, a jazz concert isn't everyone's idea of relaxing or stimulating way to spend downtime. I wish that weren't the case, but it's true.

What's the solution? There may not be one. For jazz to make up a larger slice of young people's iPod listening time, jazz musicians and jazz labels will have to start pitching the music so it makes sense in our new world of multitasking and job anxiety. My suggestion is shorter tracks, for starters, and fewer solos that drag on forever by instruments that aren't appealing. Or if you object to this, keep things just as they are. But then don't whine when jazz's popularity declines.

Miles and Sonny on Prestige

Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins recorded upward of 25 tracks  together for Prestige between 1951 and 1956. These are stunning summits for variety of reasons: The recordings reflect what was happening in jazz at the highest level between the bop and hard bop periods. They provide us with a sense of what might have been had Sonny agreed to join Miles' first quintet instead of John Coltrane (who was Miles' alternate choice). The recordings begin at the dawn of the 10-inch LP, which gave these artists more room to solo. And they included a range of important musicians in interesting settings—from Charlie Parker and Art Blakey to Horace Silver and Roy Haynes.

These recordings have been around for years in one form or another. Now Concord Records' producer Nick Phillips has finally united them all on a two-CD remastered set called Miles Davis/Sonny Rollins: The Classic Prestige Sessions, 1951-1956. To hear Miles and Sonny join forces on 25 tracks reminds you yet again how strong these two sounded together and how remarkable they were as soloists so early in their lengthy careers.

And if we're being completely fair, a third person's name could easily have been added to the CD's title: Ira Gitler. Ira produced the early Prestige sessions, came up with the names of a number of track titles (Morpheus, Down, I Know and Denial) and played a strong role in the direction many of these recordings. So it's especially gratifying that the liner notes were written by Ira. Who better to write about these critical dates? [Photo of Ira by Michael Wolff]

I ordinarily wouldn't make such a fuss over liner notes, but these are positively breathtaking. The notes not only are analytical but they're also up close and personal. Ira was there, not as an editor or writer chasing after jazz musicians but as the producer of many early Prestige sessions. He was responsible for providing Miles, Sonny and Charlie Parker with direction on these dates and playing traffic cop when musicians weren't focusing. 

Ira's recollections and eye for detail not only fill in many blanks about these dates but also take you behind the scenes and provide eyewitness explanations for what you hear on the recordings. You learn about the elbow nudges, who was late, who didn't show up and the way in which Charlie Parker taunted Miles Davis. Hint: Lily Pons plays a role.

Ira turns up at every corner, like Woody Allen's Zelig. For example;

"[Miles and I] didn't really know each other. That didn't stop me from going up to him late in the summer of '48. I said, 'Hey Miles, what's happening?' and he answered, 'I'm opening at the Roost next week with a new nine-piece band. It's different. You ought to come down.' I did and was knocked out. Of course, it was the Nonet, later dubbed "The Birth of the Cool."

Here's Ira on Charlie Parker at the January 1953 "Collectors' Items" session with Miles and Sonny:

"I ordered a fifth of Gordon's Gin and 12 bottles of beer to be shared among the six musicians and myself. I could not have predicted that Parker, even given his reputation as a prodigious consumer of various potions and substances, who most of the time, was capable of performing at a high (no pun intended) level, would do what he did. Bird appropriated the Gordon's and in two chug-a-lugs left the bottle virtually empty. No chaser." [Photo of Charlie Parker by Esther Bubley]

Here's Ira on Miles:

"Miles was cracking notes and there were more stoppages [in the studio]. This was long before I would become a hockey coach, but I left the control room with an intuitive attempt to motivate Miles. I announced, 'Man, you ain't playing shit.'

"Almost immediately he began to pack up his trumpet in making preparations to leave... Miles is quoted to the effect that Bird talked him out of leaving but it was really yours truly, afraid that my job would leave with him. In retrospect, I think he was bluffing."

This is only a sampling of the dramatic anecdotes Ira delivers across 11 pages of notes. You'll learn what Sonny did in the studio in October 1951 when his horn was giving him trouble. Or what happened when Ira walked Parker from Prestige's studios on 10th Avenue to the Colony Record Shop on 8th Avenue to cash an advance check.

In fact, 'Round Midnight from the Miles-Parker-Sonny date was Ira's idea when the group struggled with Thelonious Monk's Well You Needn't. With Miles' chops wearing thin and the clock nearing closing time, Ira made the substitution to fill out the date and come in under the wire before the engineer shut down the studio for the night. The impromptu version remains one of the most astonishing versions of Monk's ballad.

Even if you already own these tracks on different CDs, it's worth buying the CD just for Ira's notes. One beef, however. The CD's package designer jumped track here, as many designers do when not carefully tasked or restrained. The black type is sitting on a dark kidney-bean background, making them very difficult to read. I actually had to take the notes out into the sunlight to read them.

Memo to jazz record companies: You're in the publishing business now. One of the only reasons to buy music in the CD format today is for the liner notes. Hence, notes must, must, must be legible. As someone who has managed designers for years, I always spend quality time outlining what I want and what my designers can and can't do in terms of the finished product. When needs are specified, a good designer will almost always come back with a great look that enhances rather than buries the written word.

JazzWax tracks: Miles Davis/Sonny Rollins: The Classic Prestige Sessions, 1951-1956 can be found here. Listen to Sonny, Bird and Miles on Compulsion in January 1953. Or Miles and Sonny on Oleo from June 1954. Absolutely amazing. You'll find the new two-CD set here.

Sunday Wax Bits

Waxing & musings. If you want to know where the music business is heading, you simply have to go online. It's hardly news that revenue from downloads is rising as CD sales decline. Or that the ability to download individual tracks versus entire albums is shredding the music industry's profitability. Now a new trend is emerging called the "albumsite." Whether or not the concept catches on or makes money going forward is anyone's guess. But it's a rather intriguing trend just the same.

Unsure what I'm talking about? Last week Tunc Ak, a self-described musician designer in Los Angeles, reached out to me and hipped me to the concept. Mind you, Tunc's albumsite isn't jazz. It features tracks of drum-machine beats that one can download for free and play for a wide range of purposes—from gym workouts to alarm clock wake-ups. More important is the concept and what it means going forward.

I asked Tunc to explain:

"I created the albumsite to finally release my work and to do it independently by making the music, designing the art and distributing it by myself. And I did it to prove and establish that this is the new free format and packaging of the modern music album.

"The goal is for everyone who has a computer to listen to it. I believe there is an audience for anything, and I want it out there for people to know it exists and have the lovers find it. My ultimate goal, is of course to make a living with it. To gain value through popularity, making it a hit. And to attract sponsors and investment in developing the project into a venue."

In the jazz cyberworld, it's not a stretch to imagine a saxophonist in New York, for example, laying down eight  tracks of an album and then asking global musicians to upload, say, drums, bass, piano and trumpet. Then the saxophonist can audition what he or she has been sent before committing it to the albumsite. When the album is done, the saxophonist can promote it (along with the other musicians), and visitors can listen or download the tracks for free or a fee (provided our good New York reedman shares the wealth with his fellow e-bandmates). [Pictured: Internal and External Values by Terry Winters, 1998]

What this means is goodbye middleman—the record company. Which actually may not be a good thing as far as I'm concerned. There's something to be said for record companies and producers—particularly when quality control, packaging, sequencing and marketing are concerned. This is especially true of jazz recordings and historical reissues and box sets.

But like blogging for writers, the albumsite does give musicians who can't gain access to record companies and the marketplace a shot to get their art out there and consumed. But ultimately, the music has to sound good and excite, beyond the concept's initial novelty. And record companies can certainly compete in the albumsite space as well. Record companies, are you listening?

Henry Mancini. As long-time readers know, I adore Henry Mancini's music (go here). So I was overjoyed when I came across The Thorn Birds: A Case History of a Film Score by Henry Mancini and Los Angeles composer and arranger Roy Phillippe. In the book (2004), Mancini reflects on each phase of the film's score, elaborating on what he did step-by-step, and why. A fascinating oral history that's illustrated with page after page of sheet music and notes. Best of all, there's a CD of the soundtrack that includes the engineer calling out each song and takes. You'll find the book here.

Bonnie Bowden. Singer Bonnie Bowden reached out to me last week to talk about her recent work with Dave Pell and Med Flory, including a concert in San Jose yesterday. Bonnie's voice is a throwback to the 1950s. Among her recent recordings produced by Dave Pell is one called Yesterdays. It's different but addictive just the same. The CD features Bonnie singing along with Music Minus One versions of classic 1950s arrangements. The charts include the ones written for Margaret Whiting's Moonlight in Vermont, Nat King Cole's When Your Lover has Gone and Sarah Vaughan's Lullaby of Birdland. Learn more about Bonnie and sample tracks here.

Steve Kuhn on the air. Jazz musician and DJ Bill Kirchner will feature the music that pianist Steve Kuhn [pictured] recorded for ECM Records tonight on New York's WBGO-FM. Kuhn's collaborators on these recordings include composer-arrangers Gary McFarland and Carlos Franzetti, vocalist Sheila Jordan, reed players Joe Lovano and Steve Slagle, bassists Ron Carter, David Finck and Harvie S, and drummers Joey Baron, Marty Morell, Bob Moses, and Michael Smith. The show airs at 11 p.m. (EDT), and you can listen live anywhere in the world here.

CD discovery of the week. Vocalist Tessa Souter's Nights of Key Largo was recorded in New York and released late last year on the Japanese Venus label. I only caught up with the CD this past week. If you're unfamiliar with Tessa, she has a gorgeous vibrato and a timbre that's warm and sweet. And she's one of the few vocalists around today who knows how to distill a standard, pop tune or rock ballad into a tasteful jazz rendition.

Tessa started out as a San Francisco journalist in 1992, writing for British Vogue and Elle and London's The Guardian and The Times. After moving to New York in 1996, she started sitting in at jazz clubs and soon won a scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music in 1998. After studying with vocalese legend Mark Murphy, Tessa performed with Murphy, Joe La Barbera, Marvin Sewell, Larry Koonse, Bobby Sanabria and jazz tuba legend Howard Johnson. [Photo of Tessa by Richard Conde]

Joining her on Nights of Key Largo are Joel Frahm (saxophones), Kenny Werner (piano), Romero Lubambo  (guitar), Jay Leonhart (bass) and Billy Drummond (drums). The song selection is an interesting mix and includes the title sultry track by Benny Carter as well as The Island, Close Enough for Love, You Only Live Twice, I'm Glad There Is You, The Look of Love, and others. I personally can't stand Van Morrison's Moondance. Yet here, Tessa pulls it back a bit and creates an entirely different song, breathing new life into it. There's also fine work here by all of her sidemen, particularly Frahm, Werner and Drummond. 

Nights of Key Largo is Tessa's second of three albums and is available here. It came out after Listen Love (a 2004 release that can be found at iTunes and on CD here) and just prior to her newest release Obsession (2009), which I mentioned in my Bill Evans: Six Vocal Versions post. Obsession (Motema Music) can be found here.

Oddball album cover of the week. Arranged by Benny Golson, this Art Farmer Tentet album was recorded for United Artists in 1959. Interestingly, United Artists was also the company that would distribute James Bond's Goldfinger five years later in 1964. Brass ain't gold, but I hope album designer Stephen Haas and photographer Hugh Bell were rewarded for originating the smelted covergirl concept.

Speaking of Bond. Somehow or other I wound up on YouTube Friday evening. Don't ask. At any rate, I dug up things I hadn't seen or heard in a while. Here are two of my absolute favorite James Bond intros to Dr. No and Thunderball (both by the great title designer Maurice Binder). Give the Thunderball clip a second to get in gear—and watch it in HD, full screen...