JazzWax

Mel C, Bette and Joyce

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed Melanie Chisholm for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). For those unfamiliar with Melanie, she is perhaps better known as Mel C or Sporty Spice to women who grew up in the 1990s and listened to the Spice Girls, a teenage phenomenon and one of pop music's most successful all-female vocal groups of all time. Her memoir, The Sporty One: My Life as a Spice Girl, is worth reading (go here). It's beautifully written, revealing and open. During our Zoom interview, I found Mel down to earth, enormously upbeat and open about the challenges she had to overcome during her childhood. [Signed publicity still above of Melanie Chisholm courtesy of eBay]

Here's Mel's mom, on the left, singing harmony in Petticoat & Vine, an English sunshine-pop group, in 1971...

Here's Mel (in white) with the Spice Girls at their reunion 10 years ago at the 2012 London Summer Olympics...

Here's Mel today with Bryan Adams singing a new version of a hit they first recorded together in 1998. Note that this video was done as a "one shot"—there are no breaks. Similar in spirit to the Steve Allen one shot at NBC Burbank in February 1958...

And here's This Could Be the Start of Something Big, a one shot in 1958 done presumably with a seated cameraman and standing boom team on a flatbed dolly. There are no breaks and no room for mistakes as the action and song unfold live around the soundstage's outer perimeter...

More me. Bret Primack's recent on-camera interview series with me continues with Chapter 4. Go here...

Miss earlier chapters? For the previous three interview installments by Bret, go here.

Holidays are coming. Get your shopping out of the way now by pre-ordering my new book, Anatomy of 55 More Songs and last year's oral history, Rock Concert. Both are fast and fun reading that's perfect for anyone who grew up listening to hits on the radio or attending live music. Go here and here. 

Two bits and a shave. Last week, following my week-long series of posts on shaving, I heard from Andrea Baroni in Italy...

Hi Marc. I should like to say that I deeply appreciate your jazz writing and, I must confess, I often link to your posts or take inspiration from them for articles I write in the music magazine I run with some friends here called Tracce di Jazz.

But the reason for contacting you now is your recent posts about the world of shaving. I was aware that all kinds of stuff like double-edge razors and brushes existed, but I thought all of it was totally out of fashion. Instead, I found that a lot of people are still open to handling these tools. This brought me to discover some razors left in my parents' house that I'd like to have revamped to replace my modern Gillette Mach3. So I have to thank you also for this.

In the end, I think that jazz and shaving are a good couple, even if I don't really know why. The photo at the top is of a little shop in Genoa, one of the last to sell special shaving products in this part of the city.

Meanwhile, in Tuscany, Rob Hyman of the Philadelphia band The Hooters is vacationing in Italy with his family and came across the store above in the local village. He emailed me the following:

Greetings from Italy, Marc. Thought this shop display would be right up your alley—the lower half anyway. Iffy weather, but hopefully clearing up soon. Have had some great road trips, food and wine, of course. Ciao for now.

Twyla Tharp. If you missed my Q&A post with Twyla Tharp (above), the famed choreographer (here), you should know that two of her ballets—Nine Sinatra Songs and In the Upper Room—will be performed at the New York City Center from October 19 to 23. For more information and to buy tickets online, go here.

Speaking of Bret Primack, back in 2008, he created a phenomenal video interview series with legendary producer Orrin Keepnews (above) for Concord Records' re-issues of Orrin's Riverside albums. Here's one of Bret's mini-docs with Orrin reflecting on producing Sonny Rollins...

Want more Bret with Orrin Keepnews? Go here.

Jazz at Lincoln Center has a new streaming subscription service, Mark Rabin writes. Now anyone can access the performances, including dates at Dizzy's Club. Go here.

Bette Davis. Last week I came across this rather fascinating interview by Dick Cavett of Bette Davis in November 1971. A bit too much fawning by Dick in places and he perhaps didn't fully realize that Bette was interviewing herself, meaning he could have said less. Yet Dick still managed to get Davis to be herself instead of a character, which is a tribute to his easy-going, curiosity-fueled interview sytle. Go here...

Live jazz on the radio. Last week I heard from Kim Paris of the FM Radio Archive [photo above of Ramsey Lewis courtesy of JazzTimes]:

Hi Marc. In response to your recent JazzWax columns about the passing of several musical giants, here are links to broadcasts by these late greats...

Pharoah Sanders—two concert broadcasts, one in London in 2011 and another in Paris in 1975. Go here.

Ramsey Lewis—a broadcast of his Legends of Jazz radio show on PBS, from 2006. Go here.

Joey DeFrancesco—three broadcast concerts: one in Germany in 2007 (with Bobby Hutcherson), one in New York on NPR in 2019, and one in Sweden in 1993 (with John McLaughlin). For all three, go here.

I also will dedicate 90 minutes of my Sunday "Melting Pot" radio show on Freeform Portland to all three jazz artists above and songs written by Motown's Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team, in tribute to the late Lamont Dozier. The show airs online Sunday from 8 to 10 a.m. (PT). To live stream, go here.

For anyone who misses this show when it airs live, it will be posted after the show on MixCloud. Go here.

New from Rio. Far Out Recordings in Brazil has just issued Natureza, by Joyce with Mauricio Maestro. The album was recorded by Columbia in New York in 1977 but never issued. What's more, the album was the brainchild of Claus Ogerman, who arranged, produced and conducted the orchestra. It seems the problem was that Columbia, at the time, wanted Joyce to return to New York to record the lyrics in English for commercial purposes, but Joyce was pregnant with her third child and couldn't leave Brazil. Soon, correspondence between the two parties faded and the project was shelved.

The album's astonishing personnel:

• Joyce Moreno - lead vocals, lead guitar (all tracks, except for ‘Coração Sonhador’ and ‘Ciclo da Vida’), rhythm guitar & vocals on ‘Ciclo da Vida’
• Mauricio Maestro – rhythm guitar & vocals on all tracks, lead vocals and guitar on ‘Coração Sonhador’ and ‘Ciclo da Vida’
• Buster Williams - bass
• João Palma - drums (all tracks except for ‘Moreno’, ‘Pega Leve’ and ‘Descompassadamente’)
• Naná Vasconcelos - percussion
• Tutty Moreno - percussion, drums on ‘Moreno’ and ‘Pega Leve’
• Joe Farrell - flute (except for ‘Pega Leve’)
• Ion Muniz - flute on ‘Pega Leve’
• Michael Brecker - tenor saxophone
• Mike Mainieri – vibraphone
• Warren Bernhardt - Keyboards

You will find Natureza here.

Here's the full album posted on YouTube by Far Out Recordings...

Bob Wilvers. Fishink, a site in England devoted to mid-century graphic design, this week features a post on the art of Bob Wilvers (above). A fascinating essay and artist. Go here.

The year is 1964 and you don't know how to handle marital conflict and a highly emotional spouse. Someone for some reason produced a film that showed viewers the worst and best ways to settle your strife peacefully. My guess is that this film was shown to anger-management groups or couples in therapy. Hard to imagine it running on TV or as a lead-in to a feature film. Caveman stuff from nearly 60 years ago. Here's the how-to instructional...

More Ramsey Lewis radio. Chris Cowles, host of Greasy Tracks, which airs each Saturday starting at 3:30 p.m. (ET) on WRTC-FM in Hartford, Ct., recently devoted a three-hour show to Ramsey Lewis. To listen, go here.

And finally, I had a craving last week to hear Lynn Anderson's hit I Beg Your Pardon (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden). Probably because the Ray Edenton, one of country music's top studio guitarists, had passed. he played on the record. Here's Anderson on the BBC's Top of the Pops in 1971 with live strings...

And here's Ray Edenton playing Cincinnati Rag...

Interview: Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp has long been a master of translating American pop music into modern dance movement. Starting in 1965, Twyla pioneered modern dance choreography set to music heard most often on transistor radios, giving pop a fresh expression. To show you just how hip and maverick Twyla was early on, two years out of college in 1965 she formed Twyla Tharp Dance, her own dance company, and performed her first original work—Tank Dive, a piece lasting around 7 minutes set to Petula Clark's Downtown. Mind you, the Beatles' Rubber Soul hadn't even been released yet. [Photo above of Twyla Tharp in the dance studio of her Manhattan penthouse by Chris Sorensen for The Wall Street Journal]

Twyla and I became fast friends after my interview with her for The Wall Street Journal in 2019 (go here). In addition to being a JazzWax reader, she is a wonderful tea host. We get together twice a year at her place to sip and chat. She's straightforward, curious, passionate about music and art, lives for dance and choreography, and has more energy than a logging camp. Her work ethic is powerful and her analytic thought process is fascinating. [Photo above of Twyla Tharp]

Twyla has choreographed more than 150 works, many of which combine classical, jazz and pop music. She has won a Tony and an Emmy and has danced with Mikhail Baryshnikov (who, incidentally, performed One More Frank in 1976, Twyla's first Sinatra adaptation). She has been awarded the National Medal of Arts (2004), was honored by the Kennedy Center (2008) and there are about three dozen other prestigious awards too numerous to mention here. [Photo above of Twyla Tharp and Mikhail Baryshnikov by Judie Burstein]

Now you're in luck. If you're in New York next month, two of her works will be performed at the New York City Center—Nine Sinatra Songs and In the Upper Room. The performances will run from October 19 to 23. Best of all, Twyla will be there at each performance. But hurry and buy your tickets. They're going fast. For more information and to buy tickets online, go here.

Recently, I caught up with the tireless Twyla by email:

JazzWax: Excited about the upcoming performances of your choreographed ballads, In the Upper Room and Nine Sinatra Songs?
Twyla Tharp: I am. Nine Sinatra Songs was first performed in Vancouver in 1982. Since then, it has been performed hundreds of times by many groups, globally. I have never changed the songs, but for the New York City Center performance, I’m considering altering the very last exit of the final couple in My Way.

JW: Why?
TT: As a contemporary nod to female rights and power. The ballet was created immediately following principal photography in the Czech Republic of the movie, Amadeus—for which I staged the opera scenes—and is a study of the conditions of couples in love. It's modeled on my parents’ relationship.

JW: Was Philip Glass thrilled to hear about the upcoming performance of your 1986 collaboration with him on In the Upper Room?
TT: I don’t know Philip as well as I know his music, which I’ve been listening to and working with in the studio since he has been writing it.

JW: You two go back, yes?
TT: We do. We lived in the same Tribeca loft area in downtown Manhattan in the 1960’s. Composer La Monte Young and his wife, multimedia artist Marian Zazeela, lived diagonally across Church Street from my dance studio. Back then, minimalist composer Terry Riley was the man down there. Philip’s music gave a huge push to movement. Dancers’ bodies just wanted to go.

JW: What made you choose these particular nine Sinatra songs?
TT: The songs—Softly As I Leave You, Strangers in the Night, One for My Baby (and One More for the Road), My Way, Somethin' Stupid, All the Way, Forget Domani, That's Life and My Way again—were selected to create a theatrical progression of an intimate relationship, from infatuation to stability. They needed to complement one another, both musically and linguistically. My passion for pop comes from my mother, a classical musician with a love for Tin Pan Alley. Frank Sinatra was her favorite pop vocalist. In listening to these songs thousands of times, I’ve found that the appeal for me isn't only Sinatra’s musical sophistication but also his chops as an actor. That's what retains my interest.

JW: Tough to choose pop songs for a ballet?
TT: Selecting and arranging a suite of pop songs—whether for a dance or a show—is the equivalent of an acrostic puzzle. The songs must simultaneously satisfy requirements in several different directions—melodically, rhythmically and dramatically.

JW: How do you want audiences to take in these performances—as music to be heard or as a visual interpretation?
TT: Both, together. Music and dance join in making a single impact—this is their theatrical power. In the Upper Room is a statement of endurance. Nine Sinatra Songs bespeaks our capacity for relationships.

JazzWax clips: Here's the trailer for a PBS "American Masters" documentary on Twyla called Twyla Moves...

Here's a quick Nine Sinatra Songs teaser from New York City Center...

Here's a performance of That's Life...

Here's a teaser for In the Upper Room...

And here's a fascinating clip from the "American Masters" documentary on Twyla and Baryshnikov...

Mal Waldron: 'Searching in Grenoble,' 1978

Struggling to record The End of a Love Affair on February 20, 1958, Billie Holiday abruptly ended a take for her album Lady in Satin with resigned frustration. She said into the studio microphone, "No good. I don't know it. Mal, please try to play...as loud as you can. I don't know the tune." Mal was Mal Waldron, her accompanying pianist. Holiday was in the studio booth with headphones on and couldn't hear her pianist clearly enough to create a melody guide over the live strings arranged and conducted by Ray Ellis. Holiday would try again that day, but ultimately, producer Irving Townsend decided the session would be more expedient to simply record the orchestra alone and then have Holiday overdub her vocal the next day to the instrumental track.

Waldron was Holiday's favorite pianist. They had been performing and recording together since 1957 and appeared together on the CBS special The Sound of Jazz at the end of that year. Waldron was a favorite of many jazz musicians who enjoyed his firm, soulful elegance and inventive bebop lines. Waldron can be heard on a wide range of superb jazz albums in the 1950s by artists such as Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus, Teddy Charles, Gene Ammons, Kenny Burrell, Phil Woods, Ray Draper, Paul Quinichette, John Coltrane, Herbie Mann, Steve Lacy and Bill Russo. In the early 1960s, there were major albums with Max Roach, Eric Dolphy, Dizzy Gillespie, Teddy Charles and Johhny Griffin as well as many leadership trio sessions. [Photo above of Billie Holiday and Mal Waldron]

Between 1966 and 1978, Waldron also frequently recorded solo in the studio and on stage on albums that included All Alone, Tokyo Reverie, The Opening, Signals, Blues for Lady Day, Jazz A Confronto 19, Mal Waldron on Steinway and Meditations. Now we have Searching in Grenoble: The 1978 Solo Piano Concert. Co-produced for release by Zev Feldman and Josh Rosenthal on Tompkins Square Records, the previously unreleased recording was captured during the Grenoble Jazz Festival in Grenoble, France, on March 23, at the city's Maison de la Culture. The performance was recorded by Radio France, and the tape resided in the vaults of L'Institut National de L'Audiovisuel (INA) until recently, when they were discovered and released with the cooperation of Mala Waldron, the pianist's daughter, and the Waldron estate.

Most of the nine originals performed were moody and tormented, with a Slavic feel as Waldron played heavily and somberly. Among the brief respites from the percussive keyboard attack was his best-known original, Soul Eyes, where the piano finally started to lighten up and swing a bit. Even the standards You Don't Know What Love Is and It Could Happen to You were given the funerary treatment, with the latter becoming more lyrical and interesting in places. Not until I Thought About You did Waldron's technique shake off the pounding effect and grow more spirited. 

None of this is a knock. Waldron was a tremendously inventive and powerful player whose work on ensemble albums is spectacular. It's important to note here that as exceptional as he was, he had his troubles and deep frustrations, which clearly were reflected in his approach during the concert. Drug use in the late 1950s and early '60s among jazz musicians to ease stage anxiety and touring stress, and free up creative juices often led to police harassment, legal threats to provide names of other users and dealers, police violence and prison. This harsh treatment was true for black and white artists alike, but certainly was harsher and less forgiving with black musicians. In 1963, Waldron experienced a breakdown following a heroin overdose that led to shock treatment, a spinal tap and a recovery period.

His battle back from those depths was a difficult one, by his own admission, writing out solos and playing what he had written down until his former skills and gifts returned. Once he had recuperated, Waldron spent a great deal of time in European cities before settling there in 1967, where he felt truly free.

To be honest, many of his solos on this 1978 recording sound halting, as if pounding out phrases over and over again were a way to buy time to figure out what to do next. Unfortunately, many of the songs never went beyond circular and repetitive concepts and rarely lifted or resolved with an easily digestible narrative. And there isn't much of a break in this sequence, as most of the songs were treated to the same process. Waldron's mood seemed dark and his playing appeared more like grim statements or a thrashing battle with an invisible force.

Again, all of Waldron's recordings are worthy of examination, because he was such an extraordinary player who had recorded remarkably and extensively with top artists on important albums. Admittedly, the late 1970s, both in the U.S. but particularly in Europe, was a period or jazz experimentation, when bending and twisting the music into new personal statements to push boundaries and explore new territory. But, as is the case with all music, the quality of the result depends on how the listener feels and whether they're emotionally engaged. In the end, jazz appreciation, like all things creative, is subjective. I'm just not sure that on this particular date in 1978 that Mal Waldron knew completely what he wanted to say or do with the music. It happens.

Mal Waldron died in 2002. 

JazzWax tracks: You'll find the CD release of Searching in Grenoble: The 1978 Solo Piano Concert (Tompkins Square) here. The downloadable and streaming version as well as the vinyl are due shortly.

JazzWax clip: Here's Soul Eyes...