Phil Ramone (1934-2013), a rock producer with superlative ears and a gregarious, gentle personality who started out as a concert violinist and jazz-pop engineer, died on Saturday. He was 79.
I spoke with Phil several times over the past three years—most notably for my five-part interview series. In each case, he was kind and highly informative about his recording sessions and the musicians with whom he worked.
Several times we talked about the possibility of a Wall Street Journal profile but we couldn't land on a hook—a key event celebrating him that would make an interview pitch timely and possible. I'll miss Phil. He was one of the good guys.
For Part 1 of my five-part interview with Phil Ramone, go here. Then follow along to the next part using the link above the post's red date.
On Monday (April 1) I will be at Richard Stockton College in Galloway, N.J. for a talk about the unlikely reasons why jazz styles shifted so often between World War II and Watergate. I also will be presenting images and music clips to illustrate points at the Campus Center Theater from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. My host is superb saxophonist Michael Pedicin, who is associate professor of music at Stockton and coordinator of the college's jazz studies program. If you're in the area, I hope you can make it (101 Vera King Farris Drive). Admission is free. For more information and directions, go here. For my new book Why Jazz Happened,go here.
Why Jazz Happened. Ian Tiele wrote a swell review of my book Why Jazz Happened in the March issue of the IAJRC Journal:
"Myers leaves nothing out when he describes the circumstances that changed the development of jazz and how the music was affected by such diverse
happenings as technical advances in broadcasting, the advancement of the Civil Rights movement, the various AFM bans, changes in the way that consumers listen to music, the concept of the “studio musician” and the origination of the West Coast style of jazz playing. We even see how the rise of rock ‘n' roll, British pop bands and the use of electronics greatly influenced the way that jazz was served up for public consumption."
More on Beverly Kenney. Following my post last week on Kenney—complete with a clip of the ill-fated singer on Playboy After Dark—many readers wrote in asking for more information. JazzWax reader Ed Frank provided this link.
Doc Pomus documentary. I told you about Raymond De Felitta's 'Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris. I told you about Denny Tedesco's The Wrecking Crew. Now I'm telling you about William Hechter and Peter Miller's AKA Doc Pomus. This documentary about the fabled disabled songwriter who penned A Teenager in Love, Save The Last Dance For Me, Hushabye, This Magic Moment, Little Sister, Lonely Avenue and many more details his physical struggles and creative triumphs. I watched it flying back from L.A. last week and it's terrific. Hey, you heard it here first. For a taste, go here and click the "trailer" tab. For the festival schedule, go here and click the "screenings" tab.
Gregory Corso at Newport. JazzWax reader Jimi Mentis spots Beat poet Gregory Corso in this Gerry Mulligan-Art Farmer clip from Jazz on a Summer's Day (at 1:18)...
What was that song? Many JazzWax readers emailed last week asking about the instrumental song that kicked
off the Astrud Gilberto clip I posted. It was Tyree Glenn's Sultry Serenade—also known as How Could You Do a Thing Like That to Me, recorded by Frank Sinatra on his 1954 10-inch LP Swing Easy.
Hal Blaine on Bond. Last week Wrecking Crew drummer Hal Blaine sent along this link to a post on the late
trumpeter Derek Watkins, who played on the soundtrack of every James Bond film. Fabulous video clips as well for those seeking insights into what 007 studio work was all about.
Words About Music. Perhaps the dumbest and most ill-conceived game show in the history of television was
Words About Music, which aired in Los Angeles on KCOP in 1956. The premise was songwriters would come on, pitch their new tunes and be criticized by a panel of "experts." First up, Sammy Cahn. The show was pulled after two episodes after Oscar Levant made negative comments about Marilyn Monroe and Richard Nixon. Here it is, courtesy of Bret Primack...
Bill Kirchner, live. If you're in New York on April 17,
catch arranger-composer-saxophonist Bill Kirchner with vocalist Carol Fredette and pianist Marc Copland. They'll be performing A Beautiful Friendship at the Players Club, 16 Gramercy Park South, at 7 p.m. For more information, go here.
CD discoveries of the week. Pianist Shamie Royston's debut CD Portraits features mostly originals that pack a lot of heart. On each track, Royston unleashes brooding,
penetrating melodies that build with frisky melody lines and thick, rolling chords. She's joined by husband Rudy Royston on drums, Ivan Taylor on bass and vocalist Camille Thurman on In This Quiet Place. Royston also chose Horace Silver's Summer in Central Park, which she executes beautifully, and her husband Rudy's Ruby Goes to School, a tender song that remains on the move. An engaging and embracing first album.
In the spirit of Matt Dennis and Page Cavanaugh, pianist Beegie Adair has released A Time for Love (Green Hill). If you're unfamiliar with Adair, she's a throwback to an earlier age when Beverly Hills and Lake Tahoe lounges filled up at sundown with patrons eager to
unwind with whiskey sours and lush and jazzy interpretations of standards. Adair's touch is flawless, and her mission is to turn songs you know into long, seductive strokes. Once upon a time lounges had their place, along with gin, gentlemen and elbow length gloves—bridging the gap between jazz and pop. On this album, Adair makes sure we never forget.
Oddball album cover of the week.
Here's another early LP of mood music—"blended to mix graciously with social gatherings." Except here the background looks a bit like the "Prehistoric Man" diorama at New York's Natural History Museum.
Edward Bland died of cancer at his home in Smithfield, Va. on March 14 at 86. Bland was a musician, composer and arranger, according to the New York Times's obit, but he also made one film—The Cry of Jazz.
When the 34-minute film about jazz from a black American perspective was released in 1959, it triggered debate among leading intellectuals. In 1998, Bland said in an interview that "it was considered the work of madmen when it was originally released. Black racists. At best it was considered a personal statement. Bad music, bad thinking, bad acting, bad writing and bad photography. Unfair to jazz, because we made jazz a political statement."
As amateurish and stiff as it might seem now, the film expresses a viewpoint not captured by white filmmakers of the time. For more on Bland go here and here.
Here's Edward Bland's The Cry of Jazz, in its entirety (ignore the Sun Ra stuff in the title):
JazzWax note: Just one day left (today) to support Stephanie Castillo's Kickstarter.com drive to fund a documentary on the late saxophonist Thomas Chapin. To view her video pitch and donate, go here.
David Amram [pictured] is one of the last surviving members of the Beat Generation scene and a forefather of the counterculture movement of the '60s. Not only was the French hornist and composer there in the '50s, he was part of the Beats' inner circle. Yesterday—March 26—Beat poet Gregory Corso would have been 83 (he died in 2001). Recently, David was asked by Greek journalist Michalis Limnios for his recollections of Corso, which David included in his upcoming book David Amram: The Next 80 Years.
Here are David's thoughts on Corso...
"When I first met Gregory Corso [pictured above] in 1956, Jack Kerouac and I were already performing together at bring-your-own-bottle parties in lower Manhattan. Allen Ginsberg, whom I met in 1955, when I was playing with Charles Mingus, had often talked to me about Gregory. 'He is the poet you have to read, David,' Allen said to me. 'I like his work even more than my own'
I hadn't read much of Allen's poetry, but I admired his devotion to Gregory's work, just as many of us today appreciate Allen's tireless efforts to get Jack Kerouac's poetic prose novels published. This wasn't easy over 60 years ago, but Allen was always there on behalf of anyone whose work he admired.
When I met Gregory, he, Jack [pictured], Allen and I had a great time hanging out and talking for hours to one another about all the things we hoped to do—especially the ones that we were told were impossible. And Gregory always made it clear that anything was possible that he decided was worthwhile doing.
It was always a treat to be with Gregory, because like Jack, he was always comfortable in the milieu of the early 1950's informal community of poets, painters, authors, bartenders, waiters and waitresses, moving men, checker and chess virtuosos, theater people, dancers and even budding classical composers and working jazz musicians like myself. Just as Jack was at home at any late-night/early-morning jam session, Gregory was always respectful of (and therefore respected by) the musicians who created spontaneous and sophisticated improvisations that soared beyond the restrictions of a conformist society, which we felt considered all of us to be schizophrenic nut-cases and terminal losers.
We all felt a common bond with Gregory's boundless energy, outrageous individualism and his ability to laugh when confronted by overly cerebral intellectuals who felt that all creative people in America should act like morticians. When I first heard Gregory read his poetry and began reading it on the manuscripts he occasionally gave me—like his 1957 Thanksgiving, which he signed to me and I will always treasure—I knew I had a kindred spirit. Like Kerouac, Gregory saw the beauty and poetic facets of everyday life, which most of America ignored.
Tiny fragments of conversations, whispered secrets, broken promises and soaring flights of his own imagination inspired Gregory to create a body of work which today shines brighter than ever, as clear and pure and as full of surprises as the classic jazz solos that enriched the lives of all of us who were lucky enough to be there at the moment of their inception, or which were captured on recordings.
Fortunately, you didn't have to have been there to see and hear Gregory in action. While he was a spellbinding speaker and charismatic reader and performer, he wrote his poems down on paper. So like the improvised solos that were recorded by the jazz masters, Gregory's poems are preserved. When you read them, they stand the test of time, remaining as fresh today to the reader as they were the day that they were created. [Photo of Gregory Corso above by Hank O'Neal]
When Gregory was reading them for an audience, he was often so outrageous that the audience forgot to pay attention to his poetry. This was basically because he never wanted to be a performer. He often told me 'You can wear people out reading your poetry. It's a 10-minute shot. Get on and get off. Once the poem is written, I'm done with it.'
Like Kerouac, Gregory never sought the limelight. He wanted people to read his work. When he was alone in a room with you, he was a spellbinding reader of his poetry. But he was never comfortable in the role of being a performer. His real life-crazed antics exceeded any insult comic's most cherished routines. But he was just being himself at the moment, not following a planned routine.
In 1959, we appeared together in the Film Pull My Daisy. I played Mezz McGillicuddy, the deranged French hornist, and Gregory played himself, giving a bravura performance as the deranged sidekick of the even more deranged Allen Ginsberg. Gregory's unscripted antics and spontaneous raps kept the entire cast (as well as the constant stream of visitors who wandered in and out while we were filming) screaming with laughter for the three weeks we were together trashing Alfred Leslie's studio.
Leslie, the film's director, was like a great hostage negotiator, trying patiently to get Gregory to follow his directions. Fortunately, it was a silent film, with Kerouac's narration and my music added later, so no one ever got to hear Gregory's screaming at all of us as well as at the people passing by on the street below, when he invited startled pedestrians to come up to the second floor and see him, the matinee idol known as Fabian Fongool, the greatest lady killer since Rudolph Valentino.
Somehow, Robert Frank [pictured] managed to film all of the scenes in which Gregory appeared without shaking his camera on its fragile wooden tripod, even when Robert was laughing so hard that tears rolled down his cheeks.
Unfortunately, there was no recording ever made of Gregory's endless stream of insults, jokes and seethingly accurate criticisms of our non-performances.
Fifty four years later, Gregory's own admitted non-performance in Pull my Daisy still has a resonance as the antics of a crazed poet and visionary. Gregory knew that he didn't have to act. He was just being his irrepressible self. I still have the picture from a scene that was fortunately cut from the film, where I was dressed up in a cowboy outfit, and Gregory and Alfred Leslie are both looking like dapper young actors in search of a script. [Pictured above, from left: Larry Rivers, Jack Kerouac, David Amram, Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso—with back to camera]
As the years went by, no matter how tough the times were, Gregory continued to create gems, drawn from his life experience and his endless imagination. In November 1965, I bumped into Gregory, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky in San Francisco, where I was attending rehearsals of Let Us Remember—a cantata I had written with poet Langston Hughes. It was receiving its world premiere at the San Francisco Opera House.
'I loved the piece,' said Gregory, after the performance was over. 'You could understand every word of Langston's poetry, the way you set it for the solo singers, the chorus and the orchestra. But this social scene in the opera house is a drag. I borrowed this dumb jacket and tie, but I feel like I'm suffocating. Why do we have to wear a costume to go hear classical music? It's a beautiful work you wrote, man, but get rid of that white tie and tails you're wearing. You look like an out-of-work doorman or Count Dracula about to jump out of his coffin.You look like a penguin!'
After Jack died in 1969, we all felt a loss in our lives that we knew would always be there. But we knew that we all had to continue to do what we felt we were put here to do. And all of us kept in touch. We didn't consider ourselves to be charter members of the Beat Generation. We were friends for life and stayed that way.
In the '70s and '80s, Gregory always scraped up an old doll or a flower as a celebratory gift for each of my kids when they were born, and I always tried to do the same for his growing family. And even though he was sometimes barely hanging on, with kids of his own to take care of, he kept writing, and his work was becoming better known worldwide.
In the 90s, the renewed interest in Kerouac's work by a generation of young people numbed out by the corporate style of unentertaining entertainment began to discover Gregory's work, finding his poems to be a shining light in a creative era that was being rediscovered.
Just as his fellow poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bob Creeley, Gary Snyder, Bob Kaufman, Philip Lamantia, Howard Hart, Ted Joans, Phil Whelan, Michael McClure, Amiri Baraka, novelist Joyce Johnson and a host of other artists of all genres of our era, Gregory followed his own path and never gave up, sold out, tried to be fashionable or forgot who he was and what he wanted to express.
We managed to stay in touch until his last days with his daughter Sheri, when he left New York to be with her in Minnesota. I visited him for the last time in Greenwich Village, when he was bed-ridden, and I brought my kids. He was still as much fun as always. And when Patti Smith and I were invited by his family to perform at his memorial service at the church where he went as a child, I expected during the service to hear his braying voice shout out some choice insults, telling us all to knock it off and lighten up.
Today, when young musicians, poets, painters, actors, dancers and people from all walks of life who love his work come up to me and say how much they feel his spirit by reading his poetry, it is always a special treat to share their appreciation. [Pictured: Gregory Corso at a party in 1959]
In a world of high-tech shlock, reality TV and instant trash, it's more than ever a joy to bask in the shining sunlight of Gregory's work. He had a voice of his own, and it still rings clear and true today.
As his fellow poet Keats said long ago 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever.'
Happy birthday Gregory."
—David Amram
JazzWax clip:Here's my favorite clip of Gregory Corso, in which he reads and editorializes on The Bill of Rights and parts of the Constitution.
As you'll see in the videoclip below, only Hugh Hefner could pour Champagne and then rest his forearm across the top of the bottle. On Hef's Playboy's Penthouse TV show in late 1959 or early 1960, one of his guests was singer Beverly Kenney. Amazing Kenney could remember the lyrics with her host staring at her so intently. But to Kenney's credit, she did manage to coax Hefner into singing with her on Makin' Whoopee. And it turns out he had quite a nice voice.
In April 1960—not long after her appearance on Playboy's Penthouse—Kenney committed suicide by combining excessive alcohol and Seconal. It was her second known attempt. She was 28 years old.
Here she is with Hugh Hefner, couresy of JazzWax reader Stuart Yasaki...
A couple of weeks ago I was in Los Angeles for the Wall Street Journal to interview (go here) Smokey Robinson at his home north of the city. At age 73, Smokey is a charming, gregarious guy who generates enormous electricity when he enters a room—even when only one person is there waiting for him.
What you notice first about Smokey is how tall and fit he is. He stands nearly 6 feet tall and there's solid body definition that comes from weight-lifting. Then you notice his eyes, which are a sparkly green. Smokey is a lifelong showman, but he's also remarkably down-to-earth and unpretentious—comfortable talking about his success and open about what he can and can't do.
As you'd expect, Smokey is highly passionate about all forms of music, Motown and songwriting. But he also knows his jazz and R&B history. We sat for an hour in his library—a comfortable room with a large sectional leather sofa and wood and glass cases housing awards and photos—and the subjects were wide-ranging.
Smokey, of course, wrote and recorded Shop Around—Motown's first No. 1 hit (on Billboard's R&B chart) and first million-seller in 1961. He also wrote many of the label's classics including My Guy, My Girl, You've Really Got a Hold on Me, Mickey's Monkey, Going to a Go-Go, Ooo Baby Baby, Tracks of My Tears, I Second That Emotion, Baby Baby Don't Cry, The Tears of a Clown, Love Machine and many others.
Motown remains one of post-war America's most remarkable success stories. A black-owned record company in 1960 manages to overcome a range of racial and business obstacles to create a highly identifiable, seductive sound thanks to the vision of songwriter Berry Gordy.
As Smokey said during our time together, the label's rise was possible only because the company was run in a highly organized, supportive manner. Its goal was to create music for black and white teens and was managed by black and white executives who knew their slice of the business—from sales and accounting to distribution and artist development.
Back in the 1960s, Smokey was a key architect of Motown's
crossover sound as a performer, songwriter, producer and company vice
president. He's still going strong today.
JazzWax track:Here's Smokey Robinson with the Miracles (minus Claudette Rogers) performing Shop Around...
In the summer of '65, Astrud Gilberto made a fast trip to the Netherlands to appear on Dutch TV. The show—See Jazz—was produced by pianist and host Pim Jacobs. Flush off the release of Getz/Gilberto and the success of her single of The Girl From Ipanema, Gilberto sang a long list of songs with a bossa nova beat backed by Pim Jacobs (piano), Wim Overgaauw (guitar), Ruud Jacobs (bass), Ruud Brink (tenor saxophone) and Dom Um Romão (drums). According to the July 15, 1965 issue of Billboard, she returned to the U.S. a day after taping.
What's particularly special about the clip you're about to see—perhaps the finest video taken of the singer at her peak—is the foresight of the cameraman and producer. Rather than tape from a distance, they had the good sense to come in tight on Gilberto's face, giving us a luxurious look at how special she was back then—in both her innocent beauty and honest, lyrical delivery.
Here's Astrud Gilberto on Dutch TV in 1965 (ignore all the guesswork about the date at the YouTube page)...
I snapped this image in Paris last year. The metal sign was bolted to the wall of a building, about knee-high. So much for posters and tape. Ça fait du bien means "It feels good." Indeed it does.
Urbie Green, redux. Apologies. For some reason an incorrect link wound up in my Urbie Green post last week. Here's the fabulous YouTube clip of the 1968 clinic I mentioned in my post...
Dig Rita Hayworth? Me, too. Here she is hoofing away in a montage—all set to Stayin' Alive from Saturday Night Fever, courtesy of Jimi Mentis in Athens...
Thomas Chapin. Stephanie Castillo's campaign to raise funds for a documentary of the late alto saxophonist Thomas Chapin has only days remaining at Kickstarter. Take a look at the pitch here...
Jazz adventures. Recently, Mick Carlon wrote a pair of books for young adults that combine old-fashioned
adventure and jazz history. Riding on Duke's Train is told from the perspective of a nine-year old who hops a train owned by Duke Ellington. The voice in Travels With Louis is that of a 12-year-old who talks about his friendship with Louis Armstrong. Go here and here.
Are you curious about what this summer will look and
sound like? Just back from the future, reader Tom Fine sent along a sample for those still still
enduring the snow, ice and wind and yearning for green and blue. Go here.
CD discoveries of the week. Bassist Michael Blanco understands the meaning of originality—tastefully rolling out your creative vision while keeping the customer satisfied. On No Time Like the Present (Nineteen-
Eight), all nine tracks are by Blanco—a high-risk move, since originals by definition are foreign to the ear and often drag on. But Blanco has a skilled writing touch—he twice has received the ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composer Award. He also has assembled a terrific ensemble for this CD. Saxophonist John Ellis and guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg are the front line. Joining Blanco in the rhythm section are David Cook on piano and Mark Feber on drums. Blanco's playing is strong, and his solos are solid and never overstay their welcome. And the sound of Ellis and Kreisberg together is gorgeous. A beautiful album with compositional depth and technical maturity.
Ron Oswanski uses the Hammond organ (and piano and accordion) to great effect on his new neo-fusion album December Moon (Tames). A veteran of Maynard
Ferguson's Big Bop Nouveau Band, Oswanski has powerful musician pals: Tim Ries (saxophones), John Abercrombie and Jay Azzolina (guitar), John Patitucci (bass) and Ian Froman and Clarence Penn (drums). Most of the tracks are intensive Oswanski originals, but Led Zeppelin's The Rain Song and Fred Hersch's glamorous Evanessence are here as well. An album by a keyboard player who thrives on textures and has refashioned a '70s archetype.
Oddball album cover of the week.
One of the most common cover-design images of '50s Easy Listening albums has to be a woman clad in formal atire—lit warmly and placed an arm's length from a drink. But here, we have a new twist. The chap above seems to have discovered a new way to close in on a date: mix only one cocktail.
You may think that a wire-walker has little or nothing to do with jazz or art. But to me, wire-walking is all about rhythm, balance and expression. In the case of Philippe Petit—perhaps the world's most famous wire-walker and juggler—there's also poetry and philosophy.
Philippe, as you surely recall, brazenly and illegally walked between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in August 1974 after attaching a wire between them using a bow and arrow.
The mere idea of the walk was sheer insanity—the vulnerability of being on a wire so high up without a net and the downside risk were terrifying and unimaginable. But when Philippe was out on the wire with his balancing pole and black bell-bottoms, the feat became defiant art and wound up a humanist valentine to buildings that no longer exist.
In today's Wall Street Journal (go here), I interview Philippe on life at home with his companion Kathy O'Donnell. What is their house like? What's important to Philippe? And why is his basement workspace so tight— considering he spends most of his time in thin air.
I asked Philippe one question about his famous Twin Towers walk (not for the article):
Marc Myers: When you crossed the wire connecting the Twin Towers, was there ever a moment when you felt even a little unsteady? Philippe Petit: No, I never felt it. The world of the wire-walker is the constant dance between the solidity of the wire and the great fragility. I test gravity's flavor in the air when I step on the wire. When I start, I refuse to feel the negativity—which is to lose your life. I enjoy living, so I make sure I am prepared and rig the wires myself.
To me, Philippe's 45-minute walk between the Twin Towers remains the greatest work of performance art in our lifetime—and there won't likely be anything else like it again. As Philippe himself said afterward about the famed walk: "There is no why." And there's the philosophy.
JazzWax pages: Philippe's new book is Why Knot?How
to Tie More Than Sixty Ingenious, Useful, Beautiful, Lifesaving, and Secure Knots! (Abrams).
JazzWax DVD: If you've not seen Man on
Wire, the documentary on Philippe's death- defying and illegal walk between the Twin Towers in August 1974, rent it at Netflix. Or to own the DVD, go here. His sheer courage and determination in the face of unfathomable risk remains one of the most breathtaking artistic acts.
Cuban boleros are a specialty all to themselves. Performed well, they are languid ballads with stories illustrating love gone wrong. To be convincing, a bolero requires a humid, husky timbre and a feeling that neatly combines grief and guarded optimism. The greats always sound shattered by a lost love but hopeful that tomorrow will bring fresh happiness. Among the finest female practitioners of the Cuban bolero have been Olga Guillot, Omara Portuando and Graciela Perez Grillo.
Add Maria Bacardi to the list [Photo of Maria Bacardi at top by Christine Newman]. The Cuban-born New Yorker's new album Deseo (or Desire) is perfect. Her voice is as lovely and confessional as it is emotionally pained. The sheer honesty in her delivery can come only from personal experience, talent and listening carefully to those who came before her.
The band here is first-rate. Producer David Oquendo [pictured above] is one of my absolute favorite acoustic guitarists. His strong, sentimental accompaniment on this album comforts Bacardi and provides her with empathetic support. His passion and taste are extraordinary. I've been going to hear David play for years—and I'm always struck by his soul, upbeat spirit and masterful technique.
On her debut album, Bacardi takes on 12 boleros—including the classic Como Fue, Yellow Days and Interludio. All are smoldering, moving and deeply sensual. Don't understand Spanish? Neither do I. Trust me, you'll catch on fast enough. Bacardi here reminds us how broken hearts used to communicate when imaginations were required. [Pictured above: Maria Bacardi and David Oquendo, left, last summer in East Hampton, N.Y. Photo by Christine Newman]
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Maria Bacardi's Deseo(Breaking Records) here.
JazzWax clip: Here's Maria Bacardi singing Como Fue, with a touch of English thrown in...
I spent the day yesterday writing while listening to pianist Aaron Diehl's new album, The Bespoke Man's Narrative (Mack Ave.). I love Diehl's chord voicings and acute sense of drama. In his playing, you can hear the suspense of Red Garland and patience of Ahmad Jamal. And yet he sounds like himself.
Diehl's trio here features David Wong on bass and Rodney Green on drums—with vibraphonist Warren Wolf joining them on seven tracks. No one is in a hurry, which is a joy since their restraint lets your ear keep up with what they're doing and fully absorb their ideas. Even on uptempo songs there's a crispness and clarity that is never rushed—like the evenness of water moving from pitcher to glass.
Juilliard-trained Diehl is the American Pianists' Association's 2011 Cole Porter Fellow in Jazz. Other honors include Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal award (2004), winner of the Jazz Arts Group Hank Marr Jazz Competition (2003), and Outstanding Soloist at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington Competition (2002). Born in Columbus, Ohio, Diehl now lives in Manhattan and is pianist at St. Joseph of the Holy Family Church in Harlem. A nice guy as well as a towering talent.
If you want to hear Diehl's chops in all their glory, sample Moonlight in Vermont, which he also arranged splendidly for the quartet. The rendition is respectful of the original masterpiece yet it pulls this way and that as drama builds. Yet the rendition never jumps track or becomes bombastic, always remaining within the parameters of the song's sophisticated nostalgia.
Diehl's originals—Generation Y, Blue Nude and Stop and Go—as well as Duke Ellington's Ravel-ian ballad Single Petal of a Rose are all perfect executions that exhibit the mastery of the quartet's individual parts. Their sound reminds me of those intricate tapestries that honor simple beauty and story-telling—without bringing too much attention to the loom.
Marc Myers writes frequently on music and the arts for the Wall Street Journal. He is author of "Why Jazz Happened" (University of California Press). In 2012, JazzWax was named the Jazz Journalists Association's "Blog of the Year."
