JazzWax

Weekend Wax Bits

Planning on using Kickstarter.com to raise funds for a jazz project? Buy an ad at JazzWax for the duration of your drive and let readers know. The last two who did exceeded their financial goals, thanks in part to JazzWax ads: Jessica Ferber (a Bob Campbell jazz photo book/$23,000) and Stephanie Castillo (documentary on Thomas Chapin/$50,000). Email me for rates at marc@marcmyers.com.

One Note Samba. Last week Doug Ramsey at Rifftides posted a fabulous video of Antonio Carlos Jobim teaching Gerry Mulligan his Samba de Uma Nota Só...

 

Stax at the White House. On April 9, President Obama hosted an evening of music featuring the sound of Stax Records. The gala included Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Eddie Floyd and others. You can watch the performances in their entirety on PBS stations nationwide on Tuesday, April 16 at 8 p.m. (EDT). Here's the President's introduction...

 

More Stax news: Speaking of the Memphis Horns, trumpeter Wayne Jackson has just published the third part of his memoir: In My Wildest Dreams, Take 3. You'll find it here. Take 1 and Take 2 are here and here. 

Breakfast at Tiffany's. In my follow-up post last weekend, I meant to add that 11 jazz artists have recorded the song Breakfast at Tiffany's, for those who love the song as much as I do. They include Eddie Harris, Jack Wilson, Barney Kessel, Harry Allen and Ted Nash. Here's another version of the song by guitarist Royce Campbell, from his album A Tribute to Henry Mancini...

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Documentary. Bret Primack's Taking Charge: The Pauly Cohen Story will be featured at the Arizona International Film Festival in Tucson. The film about the high-note trumpeter [pictured above] and Brooklynite who once played with Count Basie will have three showings—on April 17 and two on April 23. For more information, go here.

Bret also tells me he'll be doing a TED talk (technology, education and design) in Tucson on April 18: "Are We Brainwashed by Imagery?" For more information on Bret's TED talk, go here.

Stan Kenton lives! Dig Stan Kenton? The alumni band is still on the road under the direction of trumpeter Mike Vax. To see if they'll be playing near you, check their concert itinerary at the alumni site here.

Bill Kirchner in New York. Next Wednesday, April 17, saxophonist Bill Kirchner will be playing a concert with singer 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. For reservations, e-mail: reservations@theplayersnyc.org

Wrecking Crew drummer Hal Blaine sent along the following email...

"Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternative meanings for common words. Among the winners:

• Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
• Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
• Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
• Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
• Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
• Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
• Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
• Gargoyle (n), olive-flavored mouthwash.
• Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
• Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
• Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

John Graas. Susan Graas McKeever, niece of the late jazz French hornist, sent along audio of two interviews. The first is with Southern California radio host Sleepy Stein in the '50s. (Graas sounds remarkably like pianist Bill Evans?) You'll find the first clip here...

 

Next, Graas discusses his technique for playing jazz on the French horn here...

 

Oddball album cover of the week. 

It's rare that an oddball album cover is a front for a superb recording, but that's the case here. From the liner notes: "Here is giant jazz played by giant jazzmen, masked to conceal their startling identity, blowing with the enormous fervor and rushing push you've always wished for and seldom found on good jazz albums. Ah, the problem of cold business! Here was a recording session like you'd always dreamed about, and yet how to give it to the people without making some of the companies that held the contracts of these jazz giants feel bad? The answer was a masquerade, a masquerade party!" Who's on the album? You can find out here. The tracks seem like a bunch of live dates bundled onto one 1959 LP.

Beverly Kenney at Play

As noted in my last post on Beverly Kenney, the singer was a tragic figure. She recorded a clutch of albums for Roost in 1956 and '57 before upgrading to Decca in '58 and '59. Then for whatever reason—insufficient friends in the right places, not enough TV charisma or the general shifting of priorities and budgets at record labels in the wake of rock's rise—she wasn't able to gain traction. Kenney also likely suffered from depression, since at age 28 in 1960 she committed suicide.  [Pictured above: Beverly Kenney dancing with Jack Duffy in Toronto, circa 1956]

A couple of weeks ago, JazzWax reader Ken Crooke of Toronto sent along a couple of snapshots of Kenney. Based on her hairstyle at the time, I'm guessing they were taken in 1956 (top and below). Here's Ken's email...

"Back in the '50s in Toronto, we formed a group of jazz fans known as The Town Club. One of the guys in our group was always the guy with a camera at parties. He then made copies for those who wanted them—including me.

"These two photos were taken at a basement party room in an average middle-class Toronto home. Beverly was likely in town to sing at Toronto's Town Tavern, where she was typically backed by the Norm Amadio Trio—Norm on piano, Bob Price on bass, and Archie Alleyne on drums. [Pictured: Beverly Kenney, seated, left, facing the camera]

"Beverly must have accepted an invitation to come to our party after her gig. The thin chap in the checked jacket is Jack Duffy. He sang with Tommy Dorsey for a season or so."

Documentary: Ronnie Scott's

Maybe you've visited Ronnie Scott's on vacation in London. If you're a musician, maybe you've played there. Or you probably have albums that were recorded live there. Whatever your relationship with the fabled club, odds are you know virtually nothing about its history. That ends today.

Here's a terrific BBC documentary on the jazz establishment—co-founded by tenor saxophonists Ronnie Scott and Peter King. The documentary features rare performance footage of Ella Fitzgerald, Zoot Sims, Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, Buddy Rich, Ben Webster and side of Mel Brooks you've never seen before. And be sure to catch King's fast aside at 21:24—"Two and six, all night." [Pictured above, from left: the late Peter King and Ronnie Scott]

 

JazzWax note: A special thanks to Don Emanuel for sending this one along.

Tommy Flanagan + Jaki Byard

Piano duets date back to the days when the instrument developed its curves. In fact, I've long wondered whether the piano's undulating casing design was fashioned specifically so two instruments could be spooned for musical dialogue. [Pictured above, from left: Jaki Byard and Tommy Flanagan]

One of the earliest recorded jazz piano duets was a series by stride artist Albert Ammons—who was teamed in the late 1930s with Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis. As recording technology improved through the years, there were plenty more—including Bill Evans accompanying himself thanks to overdubbing. In most cases, duets were viewed as summits between two heavyweights—a cutting contest of sorts but also a harmony encounter, since the two had to work together for any pairing to wow listeners.

Back in February 1982, two piano giants, Tommy Flanagan and Jaki Byard, were booked into San Francisco's Keystone Korner by club manager Todd Barkan. Fortunately the music that night was recorded and has just been released for the first time as The Magic of 2 by Resonance Records—the same label that last year released Wes Montgomery: Echoes of Indiana Avenue and Bill Evans: Live at Art D'Lugoff's Top of the Gate.

At the time of the Flanagan-Byard club date, the jazz acoustic revival was underway after nearly 15 years of electronics and fusion domination. The clashing jazz styles of these two pianists made for exciting listening—together and independent of each other. Flanagan, of course, was a crafty bebopper and Byard was more of a percussive modernist in the Monk-Mingus mode. 

The result was a robust set of artistic head-butting and high-risk exploration. The pianists when playing together roar into realms that make you wonder how they ever were going to resolve their improvisational adventures. And yet they do each time. In other cases they flew along as though in a drag race—coming off the line and going all out to the finish. This music truly is jazz competition at its finest. [Pictured above: Jaki Byard]

There are 11 tracks on the album—six of which are solo efforts by Flanagan and Byard. Flanagan plays alone on Something to Live For, All Day Long and Chelsea Bridge while Byard takes his turns on Sunday, Chuck Mangione's Land of Make Believe and Stevie Wonder's Send One Your Love. The balance—Scrapple From the Apple, Just One of Those Things, Satin Doll, Our Delight and Miles Davis's TheTheme—are duets.

Interestingly, the highlights of the set for me come during the solos—in particular, Byard's [pictured above] highly innovative take on Send One Your Love, which he morphs several times into John Coltrane's Giant Steps. What Byard does to this 1979 Wonder masterpiece (from Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants) is breathtaking. His exploration is so thorough that it left me wishing that he and Flanagan had chosen more songs of the day rather than the old saws.

Nevertheless, there are strokes of genius all along the way—the pianists' double-barreled wood-chopping on Our Delight, the playful genius of The Theme and the engrossing grace of Satin Doll.

As astonishing as the recordings themselves are, the quality of the sound is eye-widening. Like the other Resonance sets, the sonics here are dimensional, crisp and warm—placing Flanagan [pictured above] and Byard squarely in your listening room. What makes all of this even more remarkable is that the source material was cassette tapes.

Hats off to the Resonance restoration team of George Klabin and Fran Gala as well as producers Todd Barkan [pictured above] and Zev Feldman. A second thanks to Barkan for unearthing the tapes and making them available to Resonance with the blessing of the Flanagan and Byard estates.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Tommy Flanagan and Jaki Byard: The Magic of 2 (Resonance) here.

JazzWax clip: Here's Jaki Byard playing Stevie Wonder's Send One Your Love...

Send One Your Love

Phil Spector: BBC Documentary

One day, there will be an opera called Phil Spector. For now, we'll have to be satisfied with The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector, an unusual and brilliant documentary by the BBC. Recently, HBO aired Phil Spector—a docu-drama of the famed producer's murder trial starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren. But the David Mamet-directed film received something of a critical "whatever."

By contrast, the BBC did a masterful job of meshing Spector-produced music, trial footage, music analysis and startling interview tape with Spector himself—from the '70s and just before the start of his trial in 2007.

Here's the BBC documentary...

 

JazzWax note: Thanks to Jim Eigo of Jazz Promo Services for sending it along.

Dexter Gordon: "Ernie's Tune"

In the late '50s, Jack Gelber wrote a play called The Connection, which dramatized the lure of narcotics and the stark perils of addiction. The play—which opened in New York at the Living Theatre on July 15, 1959—featured jazz musicians who were initially going to improvise music on stage.

But when pianist Freddie Redd wrote a score, he persuaded Gelber to use it and Redd, alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, bassist Michael Mattos and drummer Larry Ritchie performed it during the run. The theater was located on the second floor of the former Hecht's department store on Sixth Ave. at 14th St.

The play's raw theme and incorporation of live jazz attracted sufficient acclaim in New York that Gelber launched a West Coast production in 1960. For the Los Angeles version, Dexter Gordon composed music and performed. Among the songs he wrote was Ernie's Tune, a ballad. 


What most people don't know is that in 1960, Los Angeles songwriter Morgan Ames [pictured above] was asked to write lyrics to Gordon's song.

Last week, I spoke with Morgan about Ernie's Tune...

JazzWax: When did Dexter Gordon write Ernie's Tune?
Morgan Ames: It was written during the run of the play in Hollywood in 1960, because that's the date on my original leadsheet. Dexter was probably hanging out somewhere and he did what musicians do—he wrote several tunes for the play. As we know, Dexter turned out to be a really good actor. I'd love to know who figured that out. Later, of course, he was beautifully cast in movies like 'Round Midnight and Awakenings.
 

JW: Who was Ernie?
MA: Ernie was the play's junkie musician—soft-spoken, talented, lost, attractive. Dexter was perfectly cast, and this may have been his first play. I don't know.  

JW: Who played the characters on the West Coast?
MA: Robert Blake and Gavin MacLeod, who was notoriously square in life but playing this hope-to-die drug addict. He was really good in it but his career didn't take off until The Love Boat and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, both of which suited him way better.

JW: Who asked you to write lyrics for the song?
MA: I think it was Robert Blake's [pictured above] idea. He liked my writing. I was excited about the idea of writing a lyric around a character.
 
JW: Why that specific song? What is it about the song that intrigued you?
MA: It's a purely beautiful melody, not just a jazz tune.  At that time, jazz guys were writing changes to tunes and this was one of them—but Dexter's had a real melody. I was a keyboard player who was enthralled with chords. Dexter was a jazz star to me. I was 20 at the time—thrilled to be around these guys. Here was this young girl eager to write a lyric to his tune.

JW: What did Gordon think?
MA: I think he was amused, and then he liked it. It suited the character and the life pretty well. I remember Dexter was very tall—courtly but distant. I'm a little hazy but I'm pretty sure I was the one who made sure the song was registered with BMI. He must have been in the process of recording it because otherwise you can't get a song registered.

JW: Did you work with Gordon on the lyrics?
MA:  No, I didn't work with him. He wrote the song and I got my hands on it somehow.  I never saw Dexter again after that.

JW: What was your expectation—that a specific singer would take it on?
MA: Yes. It was a disappointment that the song was never recorded with my lyric. But this is a very familiar occurance in the music business, and every writer knows it. These rejections happen, and your confidence flags.  You bury it and move on to the next song, the next chance. I was not good with follow-through.

JW: Tough to needle singers to try singing it?
MA: I was more attracted to musicians than songwriters.  Sometimes a songwriter makes a profound hookup with an artist—Fred Ebb, John Kander and Liza Minnelli [pictured above], or Barbra Streisand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman. They have a whole different kind of career as a result.  They are better oriented and have a container for their work. And of course these are all great songwriters.

JW: So to date, no one has recorded the lyrics? A song waiting to happen.  
MA: That's right. Shirley Horn would have killed it. I'd say it hasn't been recorded because no one knows it exists. I lost track of it over time, and Dexter was a player, not a singer. Also if anyone did look it up, I was listed as Vicki Arnold—a name I changed in my early 20s. It was registered with BMI, and I've always been an ASCAP writer.
 

JW: What are the lyrics?
MA: Here they are...

Don't cry if you see him reach for a star that's high

High up in the sky, much too far.

'Cause that's how it is, how it really is, for Ernie's always alone.

Once I saw a tear in his eye that shone, bright as any star in his sky.

But tears are a fake, asleep or awake, for Ernie.

He won't ever change, although he knows with every nod he's older. 

"He's strange," that's what they say about him

There's a way about him, but they're wrong,

He's not strange, he's just dreaming of a song

Or just something pretty to love. 

But that's how it is, how it really is for Ernie. 

Never cry for Ernie.
 

JW: Have you written lyrics for other jazz songs that have not been recorded?
MA: Yes, and I've decided to put together a book of lost songs, now that I've found some of them. I'm assembling leadsheets, demos, some keyboard parts as well. I’d like people—especially singers—to know that these great musicians wrote songs and that there are lyrics. Some were recorded, some not.  

JazzWax note: For more information on Morgan Ames, go here. She has written lyrics to songs by Johnny Mandel, Dave Grusin, Bill Evans and many others.

JazzWax tracks: Dexter Gordon's Ernie's Tune has been recorded just six times—twice by Gordon on Dexter Calling (1961) and More Than You Know (1975).

JazzWax clip:  Here's Dexter Gordon in 1961 playing Ernie's Tune...

 

Ernie's Tune

Weekend Wax Bits

Last week, the Jazz Journalists Association announced the nominees for its 2013 JJA Awards. Winners will be named on June 19 at the Blue Note in New York. I was nominated in three categories—"Writing of the Year," "Blog of the Year" and "Best Book About Jazz" (for Why Jazz Happened). Wow, so honored and humbled. Wish me luck!

JazzWax on social media. Follow me on Twitter (MarcMyers@JazzWax) for music thoughts throughout the day and on Facebook (Facebook.com/JazzWax). And be sure to subscribe for free by signing up in the right-hand column. The day's post arrives in your email at 8:30 (EDT).

Breakfast at Tiffany's I. After my post last week on the music I felt should have been the movie's pervasive theme (instead, Moon River appears twice in the film and is widely thought to be the theme), many readers wrote in. Some wondered why the song hadn't been covered by other artists. Others felt there wasn't enough melody to cover.

Enter Los Angeles arranger, historian and reader Roy Phillipe. As Roy points out, the song called Breakfast at Tiffany's was melodic enough to be given lyrics by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. It was then re-titled Lovers in New York. Here's Johnny Mathis singing Lovers in New York from Johnny Mathis Sings (1967)...

  

Breakfast at Tiffany's II. Here's Roy on Moon River...

 "On Breakfast at Tiffany's, Paramount went along with Blake Edwards's wish to hire Henry Mancini for the score but didn't think he was much of a songwriter. His hits up to that point were all instrumentals, and Paramount wanted to bring in New York songwriters.

"But Mancini [pictured above] convinced the studio to give him a chance. Knowing that Audrey Hepburn would be singing the song, he researched her films where she actually did the singing. Going through her work, he found Funny Face—where she  sang How Long Has This Been Going On, which has a range of a major ninth (an octave and a note).

"Going on this, he wrote the music to Moon River with the same range. Moon River along with Charade are what Mancini called his "white key" songs. But the song was almost cut from the film. After a preview in San Francisco, the studio head was happy with the film but said 'that fuckin' song has got to go.' Hepburn threatened to distance herself from the film if that happened, so it remained.

"At Mancini's 70th birthday celebration at UCLA in 1994, Blake Edwards [pictured above] told that story and then introduced Andy Williams to sing "that fuckin' song." For more on the score, see The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music (Columbia University Press) by Jeff Smith. It has a chapter titled 'My Huckleberry Friend: Mancini, Moon River and Breakfast at Tiffany's' that goes into detail about the score."

Free Art Pepper. Laurie Pepper, Art Pepper's wife, is offering yet another free download of an Art Pepper track, this time featuring Jack Sheldon. Go here.

Trombonist Clifton Anderson will be appearing in New York on Sunday April 7 at the Iridium. Sets at 8 and 10 p.m. He'll be joined by pianist Donald Vega, saxophonist Frank Fontaine, bassist Essiet Essiet and drummer Steve Williams, with vibraphonist Warren Wolf and bassist Bob Cranshaw. For more information, go here.

Billie Holiday. This Sunday (April 7), WKCR will feature its annual Billie Holiday Birthday Broadcast, presenting her music for 24 hours. The special will start at midnight (EDT) on Saturday and run through Sunday at midnight. You can tune in on your computer from anywhere in the world by going here. 

Booker Little. Blogger and radio host Tom Reney offered rare footage of trumpeter Booker Little this week. Go here to read Tom's post and here for the clip...

 

Rob the Mob. I had dinner this week with director Raymond De Felitta. He's rolling up his sleeves to start production in New York in May on his new film Rob the Mob, which focuses on a true story about a couple that targeted the mafia for heists. As you may recall, Raymond's 'Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris remains one of the great jazz documentaries. To follow Raymond's blog on the making of Rob the Mob, go here.

In case you missed it, here's the trailer for 'Tis Autumn...

 

Oscar Levant. Still pining for more dreadful television featuring pianist-humorist Oscar Levant? Thanks to reader Richard Glazier, here's an episode from his 1958 show...

 

CD discoveries of the week. Add pianist Gerald Clayton to the growing list of artists who are advancing jazz by stirring in past and present soul elements. Clayton's new album Life Forum (Concord) is a breath of fresh air—a collection of originals that Clayton says were inspired by life events. This concept album is moody and stirring, thick with textures provided by horns, wordless vocals and spoken voice. Sample Some Always and Unhidden. A strong, muscular work that ably resists jazz cliches and gladly moves the form forward with a contemporary spin.

Beata Pater's Red (B&B) is a rousing jazz-dance album that darts and swings. Red is Pater's third album in her color series, and the Polish-born singer and producer deftly leverages funk and her wordless vocalizing style. There's tremendous energy and restless here—no two tracks seem to be alike. Best of all, the music is plenty exciting within the jazz milieu. Of course, there's a fine line between smooth jazz and the real thing, but Pater manages to keep her sound dynamic and smooth without drifting into the elevator. Dig Rany Bombay and her treatment of Freddie Hubbard's Red Clay. Pater uses her voice like a trumpet with wings and will sweep you up along the way.   

Oddball album cover of the week.

In the '50s and '60s, vibraphonist and marimba player Arthur Lyman specialized in mood music with a Polynesian touch. Known as exotica, the music genre was supposed to allow bored suburbanites and harried urban dwellers to take a Pacific vacation via the phonograph. The cover appears to show Pele—the goddess banished from Tahiti by her father for her hot temper and who went off to Hawaii where her ire triggered volcanic eruptions. I guess that's one way to look at it.

Young Rascals: "Groovin' "

I grew up in Manhattan's Washington Heights and had the best of both worlds. My family lived in the city—which meant pizza shops, candy stores and movie theaters. But P.S. 187 was a short bike ride to Fort Tryon Park—home of the Cloisters [pictured above]. For those unfamiliar with Fort Tryon Park, it sits high above the Hudson River and it's thick with flowers, foliage and panoramic views. It's probably one of New York's most tranquil spaces and still among its best-kept secrets.

In the spring of 1967, the song Groovin' by the Young Rascals was released, and by late May the song was playing everywhere on transistor radios, including in the park. I loved it—the smooth beat, the song's message, the bird calls, the harmonica and the soulful vocals. I used to park my green Schwinn Sting-Ray Three Speed, sit on a bench and listen to the radio—waiting for Groovin' to come on—which it eventually would, since it was No. 1. For me, the song sounded like music for the best day of your life. I just couldn't figure out why "life would be ecstasy, you and me and Leslie." Seemed like a strange lyric strange but how bad could it be?

A week ago I finally had a chance to ask Felix Cavaliere—the song's co-writer, the band's leader and its lead vocalist—about Leslie. In today's Wall Street Journal (go here), my "Anatomy of a Song" column for the paper's Arena section looks at Groovin'—why it was written and recorded, the song's inspiration, how those bird sounds were made, and the identity of Leslie. Turns out "you and me and Leslie" wasn't the lyric.

JazzWax note: On April 15, the Rascals begin a 15-concert run in New York at Broadway's Richard Rodgers Theater. For more information, go here.

JazzWax track: Here's the mono single version of Groovin'...

Groovin'

JazzWax clip: Here's a video the Young Rascals made in Central Park for Groovin' back in '67...

 

Creed Taylor on Phil Ramone

Producer Creed Taylor deserves enormous credit for the popularity of the bossa nova movement in the U.S. in the early 1960s. Instead of merely recording jazz artists interpreting the new Rio de Janeiro sound—as many jazz producers at the time were doing—Creed [pictured above] carefully blended the two. By recognizing the jazziness and romantic qualities of Antonio Carlos Jobim's melodies, Creed was able to insist that the two styles feed off each other—giving them equal expressive footing.


During Creed's years at Verve—between 1961 and 1966—the resulting sound became known as jazz-samba. The hybrid was sexy, coy and youthful—a product of jazz and bossa nova interacting naturally in a common space that was comfortable to both sophsticated forms.

Creed’s go-to engineer on the early bossa nova sessions was Phil Ramone [pictured above], who died last weekend. Phil had co-founded A&R Recording in 1958 at 112 West 48th Street. Together, Creed and Phil recorded several seminal jazz-samba albums—most notably Getz/Gilberto (March 1963) and Antonio Carlos Jobim: The Composer of Desafinado, Plays (May 1963).

Yesterday, Creed called to catch up and reminisce about Phil…

"I have nothing but pleasant memories of Phil. If I could have recorded five days a week with him, I would have. His studio—A&R—had a such a warm sound. At A&R, I was getting the same thing in Manhattan that I got at Rudy’s [Rudy Van Gelder’s] in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.—thoughtful mike placement and careful monitoring. Phil had pure talent. He had ears.


"After we recorded Getz/Gilberto, I could hear how jazz and bossa nova shared many similar characteristics and that when placed together with the right musicians, an interesting dialogue took place. I also could hear that Jobim's melodies and piano could be staged on a much bigger scale and still retain their intimacy. Jobim's music virtually demanded it. I decided to pair Jobim with arranger Claus Ogerman [pictured below].

"I wanted to hear how this combination would turn out, but I also was looking for a sound—something large and seductive. That's why I turned to Phil. I wanted the record-buyer to hear Jobim fully expanded, with Claus’s strings enhancing those gorgeous melodies of Jobim's. I knew Phil, with his classical training, could do it.

"Phil had studied the violin at Juilliard and knew strings inside and out. He knew exactly what to do with the mikes to get the sound I wanted and who to move where. On The Composer, the piano's sound was important—but so were the strings. Phil placed the mikes with such finesse as the musicians warmed up. He’d step back and look, then move forward to make an adjustment, tinkering until it was absolutely right. The piano and strings plus instrumentation were recorded separately, so the mixing was crucial. In fact, I had the strings, Jimmy Cleveland [trombone] and Leo Wright [flute] recorded first. Then Jobim came in and overdubbed on top. I wanted him to wander around with his loose, melodic style—to engage the beauty of what we already had on tape. [Pictured above: Antonio Carlos Jobim]

"Phil viewed mikes as instruments. On The Composer, he wanted what I wanted—a certain sound that enveloped the listener. We didn’t have to talk about what he was doing to get this sound. We’d listen to the playback after and just look at each other and smile. We both could hear the same thing—perfection.

"Jobim [pictured above] had never recorded anything on that scale before. At least not in the States. I wanted Claus because I knew he liked to voice unison strings, which resulted in this warm, penetrating, high-register airiness. That sound became his signature, but I have no idea how he did it.


"When I worked with Phil, I never heard him utter a phrase that was anything but positive. I viewed him as a dear friend. He had a sense of humor and was never ever angry or annoyed at anything. Only those who worked with him got to see what drove him to make beautiful recordings. The record-buyer heard the difference, of course. And that’s what Phil was about. Making sure that end-users were knocked out—whether they were aware of what went on or not." [Illustration above of Phil Ramone by Rob Kelly]

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Antonio Carlos Jobim: The Composer of Desafinado, Plays (Verve) here.

JazzWax clip: Here's One Note Samba from Antonio Carlos Jobim: The Composer of Desafinado, Plays...

One Note Samba

 

Antonio Adolfo: "Finas Misturas"

Brazilian pianist, composer and arranger Antonio Adolfo became a professional musician in Rio de Janeiro at age 17 and has since recorded 25 albums as a leader. His teachers were Eumir Deodato and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Adolfo's songs have been recorded by Sérgio Mendes, Stevie Wonder (Pretty World), Herb Alpert, Earl Klugh and Dionne Warwick.

What makes Adolfo's music special is the high proportion of sophisticated jazz sifted together with his Brazilian heritage. On his new album Finas Misturas (AAM), all of Adolfo's skills in both the jazz and bossa nova realms are tenderly exhibited across a wide range of selections. Floresta Azul, Balada, Misturando and Tres Meninos are originals. In between are John Coltrane's Giant Steps and Naima, Dizzy Gillespie's Con Alma, Keith Jarrett's Memories of Tomorrow, Chick Corea and Neville Potter's Crystal Silence and Bill Evans's Time Remembered.

The level of taste here is huge—delicate without ever sounding samba-commercial. The high level of Adolfo's arranging is splendid at every turn and members of this sextet are in perfect harmony, spinning silky webs of seductive introspection and tranquility. Joining Adolfo's gorgeous piano are Leo Amuedo on electric guitar, Claudio Spiewak on acoustic guitar, Marcelo Martins on tenor sax and flute, Jorge Helder on bass and Rafael Barata on drums and percussion.

The playing is joyous and unified—gentle but at the same time determined to amaze and soothe. All of which makes for fine listening. Dig the yearning quality of Time Remembered or the boldness of Giant Steps—with a complex bossa nova beat. Every song on the album has purpose, and there are no wasted notes or ideas. The goal here is elegance, and Adolfo goes far to ensure you're awed. An album of curvy improvisation and poise.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Antonio Adolfo's Finas
Misturas (AAM) here.

JazzWax clip: Here's Antonio Adolfo's take on Giant Steps with Marcelo Martins on tenor sax...

Giant Steps