JazzWax

Beegie Adair: 1937-2022

Beegie Adair, who was one of the busiest unbusy studio and lounge pianists in Nashville who recorded more than 100 albums, died on January 23. She was 84.

Unbusy, because Beegie (born Bobbe Gorin Long) played simply with a straight-ahead style, adding a dash of jazz along the way. While not widely known outside of Nashville studio circles and among those who fancy the cocktail-piano sound, Beegie preferred playing the standards people liked to hear with a modicum of flourish and pinache. Instead of twisting a song in knots, she let the melody surface fully, dressing it up with just enough swing and improvisation to show off the song's lyrical figure.

During her 65-year career, Beegie contributed to the recordings of Dolly Parton, Vince Gill, Clifton Davis, Henry Mancini, Joe Williams, Chet Atkins, Lucille Ball, Steve Allen, Dinah Shore, Boots Randolph, Hank Garland, Mama Cass Elliott, Peggy Lee and many others.

She and her husband, Billy Adair, also started a jingle company to write music for commercials. In 1982, Beegie and saxophonist Denis Solee formed the Adair-Solee Quartet, which evolved into the Be-Bop Co-Op, a jazz sextet. She made her first album under her own name, Escape to New York, with bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Gregory Hutchinson.

Here are my favorite Beegie Adair clips:

Here's Will You Be Mine with Monica Ramey on the vocal. Dig Beegie's fills and solo...

Here's Beegie accompanying Ramey on Make Someone Happy. Terrific accompaniment chops...

Here's Beegie and Ramey on This Could Be the Start of Something Big...

Here's Beegie on the Beatles' If I Fell...

Here's Misty...

Here's Come Fly With Me...

Here's That Sunday, That Summer...

Here's Autumn in New York...

Here's Miles Davis's Freddie Freeloader...

And here's Young and Foolish...

Bonus: Here's Beegie and Ray Stevens (Everything Is Beautiful, 1970) on That's My Desire...

Barbara, Tom and Roy

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed Wesley Schultz of the Lumineers on the band's new single, Where We Are, for my "Anatomy of a Song" column (go here). An amazing story of how a new song's lyrics were influenced by a car crash 11 years ago that just missed seriously injuring or killing Wesley and his girlfriend (now wife) Brandy. Photo above of Wesley and Brandy, an hour after the accident, at a salvage yard in Flagstaff, Ariz.

Here's the song...

Also in the WSJ, I interviewed Barbara Eden (above) for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Barbara starred in the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie. Here's Barbara in action...

Video podcast. I spent quality time yesterday via Zoom with Tom Semioli and David C. Gross, esteemed hosts of Notes From an Artist, to talk about my new book, Rock Concert. Once it's posted, I'll share the interview with you.

Here's more of you reading my latest book, Rock Concert: An Oral History...

In London, above, composer-pianist Simon Wallace at the piano. His latest album with wife and vocalist Sarah Moule is Stormy Emotions (33 Jazz), featuring songs Simon wrote with Fran Landesman. For more on Simon and Sarah's relationship with the late lyricist, go here.

In Denton, Texas, Paul Roark, above, hipped one of the Vinyl Lounge's DJs (also above) to Rock Concert. The place looks like fun! As the Denton Record Chronicle noted—"New, switched-on Vinyl Lounge: It’s ‘Austin Powers' meets Tommy Bradford’s van."

Passion or obsession? Tom Fine sent along a link to a wonderful documentary on members of the Audiophile Club of Athens in Greece who are seriously into their high-end stereo rigs. Here it is...

Antonio Carlos Jobim radio. Mark your calendar: On Tuesday, WKCR-FM in New York will play the composer's music for 24 hours (ET) in celebration of his birthday. You can listen from anywhere in the world by going here.  

Roy Eldridge. Next Sunday, January 30, WKCR-FM in New York will play the music of Roy Eldridge for 24 hours (ET) to celebrate the trumpeter's birthday. You can listen from anywhere in the world by going here.  

And finally, here's Bloodstone singing Natural High in 1973...

Visual Music Aboard an Aircraft Carrier

Ever since I spent a day training with the National Guard in the early 1980s for a piece I was writing (complete with poison ivy), I've been fascinated by the ballet of military operations, particularly planes. To get big things done efficiently on aircraft carriers, the Navy designs methods of execution and constantly perfects them—with different groups assigned to handle various parts to ensure safety, speed and success. I love watching this activity. For me, it's like visual music.

Nothing in this realm is more beautiful or more cool than the choreography that takes place on the flight deck, day and night. I've long angled for an assignment to write about the bevy of activity to launch and recover (land) jets, but the idea is a hard sell. That hasn't prevented me from obsessively researching and watching the process on YouTube.

First, Navy jets don't take off from the decks of carriers. They're launched. Once a jet is brought up from below by a team wearing brown jerseys, it's fueled by a team in purple and loaded with bullets, bombs, missiles and rockets by red shirts. Next, it taxis slowly to a catapult at one end of the deck's three different flight zones (or mini airports) guided by hand and arm signals provided by yellow shirts. Once there and lined up on the catapult's track, the plane's wings are spread and a team in green jerseys attaches the plane's launch bar to the catapult's shuttle embedded in the deck. The person responsible for the setting the correct catapult velocity is the one in green sitting in a hatch on the deck. Settings are based on the size of the plane, the wind and other factors. Last-minute safety inspections by a team in white jerseys also are completed.

Because the flight deck is deafening with the high-pitched screams of jet engines, all personnel wears noise-cutting headphones. As a result, communication among those on deck is done with hand signals. At the helm of these visual conversations at the catapult stage is the "shooter," who also wears yellow. The shooter is the one who will give final clearance to the pilot. When the inspection and catapult attachment are done, each team crouches on deck with eyes on the shooter.

The shooter then raises an arm and rotates three fingers rapidly, which signals to the pilot to go through a checklist of tech steps in the cockpit. Once those are completed, the pilot salutes the shooter, who then holds his or her hand firm, points to each deck group with the other hand for a thumbs up, indicating their tasks are complete. With those confirmations secured, the shooter goes into a streamlined crouch, with one leg bent at the knee and the other extended out nearly flat.

The shooter then touches the deck with his or her hand and lifts it to point down the fly deck, often holding the hand in the shape of a pistol. This signals to the pilot that he or she is cleared to go. Engines are fired and the catapult sling-shots the jet down the runway to accelerate the speed and ensure a safe lift off. Each shooter has a little leeway to exhibit his or her own body-language and hand style when holding attention and delivering the go-ahead to pilots.

That's the long and short of it in broad strokes. Here are a bunch of my favorite videos that illustrate the cool choreography I describe above:    

Here are teams at work on the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush...

Here's an explanation of the different deck teams and their roles...

Here are flight-deck operations on the U.S.S. Enterprise...

Here's what the shooter is responsible for...

Here's another shooter roundup...

Here's what it's like from the cockpit...

And here's where the art comes into play, as each shooter has a slightly different style. The shooters in this video had a very singular style...