JazzWax

Erroll Garner: Boston, 1959

In 1959, Erroll Garner was in the middle of a personal storm. The previous year, his label, Columbia, released earlier Garner recordings without his approval. Martha Glaser, his manager, hit the roof and said the label had breached Garner’s contract by releasing inferior recordings without his permission. She had Garner stop recording for Columbia. Disputes over the contract and a demand for higher fees for Garner led to a lawsuit in 1960 by Glaser and a countersuit by Columbia. The dispute wouldn't be resolved until 1962, with Glaser winding up controlling Columbia’s release of Garner’s recordings. Garner also started his own label with Glaser—Octave Records—for all future recordings. [Photo above of Erroll Garner performing, c.1959; by Ted Williams, Erroll Garner Archive courtesy of Mack Ave.]

I've always thought Garner's move was rash and ultimately a mistake. We'll never know, of course, if Columbia's recordings of Garner in the 1960s and '70s would have been as exquisite as his 1950s output. It's doubtful, given the upheaval in jazz recording during those years. What I do know is that much of Garner's material on Octave wound up being inferior and many albums were ill-conceived. Glaser would have done better by Garner and Garner lovers had she found a way to handle the Columbia contract violation with Garner's future in mind. Truth be told, Garner was a far better live player than a studio artist, as his concert albums show. To make ends meet, he had to amp up his touring schedule after departing from Columbia. [Photo above of Erroll Garner, c.1960s; by Vernon Smith, Erroll Garner Archive, courtesy of Mack Ave.]

But what his manager's legal actions did for Garner was give him the freedom to record what he wanted and how he wanted to do it. Which may have been more important for Garner than anything else. But sometimes creative freedom results in albums that don't sell very well. Not all artists are the best judges of what the public will buy, and not all producers are the best judges of what's art and what's junk. The best albums by any artist have been somewhere in the middle, where a producer has a say and the artist has a say and they listen to each other and appreciate each other's judgment. [Photo above, from left, of Erroll Garner, Mitch Miller and manager Martha Glaser, backstage, c.1959; by Bertrand Miles, Erroll Garner Archive, courtesy of Mack Ave.]

Garner's live recordings are almost always sterling, no matter when they were recorded. His love for the audience and the mischief he created on his complex and mysterious introductions as everyone in the audience as well as his bassist and drummer tried to figure out what song he was about to play. Add the recently discovered concert at Boston's Symphony Hall on January 29, 1959 to the list of great GArner performances. Earlier this year, the 27 tracks recorded that night turned up on the Garner box set, Liberation in Swing: The Octave Records Story & Complete Symphony Hall Concert (Mack Ave.).

Now 9 of the 22 previously unreleased concert tracks have been pulled out from the box and offered as a stand-alone vinyl or CD release. For the full concert tracks, you'll still have to buy the box. Backed by bassist Eddie Calhoun and drummer Kelly Martin, Garner swings through Dancing in the Dark, My Funny Valentine, But Not for Me, The Nearness of You, Foggy Day, Gypsy in My Soul, I Didn't Know What Time It Was, Lover, Last Word, The Song From Moulin Rouge, I Can't Get started, Back Bay Stride, Gospel Mambo, Shell Game, My Fair Lady Medley, Frenesi, Dreamy, I Get a Kick Out of You, Misty, Indiana and Moment's Delight. [Photo above of Erroll Garner, c.1960s; photographer unknown, Erroll Garner Archive, courtesy of Mack Ave.]

All have the freewheeling sound of Garner's signature piano style and swing, only more free, since he recently had been liberated from Columbia and seemed to be as happy as a lark. There's a lot to be said for happiness.

JazzWax note: For more on Erroll Garner's battle with Columbia, go here.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find all of the different formats for Erroll Garner's Liberation in Swing: The Octave Records Story & Complete Symphony Hall Concert here (Mack Ave.).

JazzWax clips: Here's Misty...

And here's A Foggy Day...

Maura, Staci and Poupie

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed actress Maura Tierney for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Maura, of Primary Colors and Insomnia fame, is currently co-starring in the intriguing Showtime series American Rust. She plays Grace Poe, a seamstress in a rural, dilapidated Pennsylvania town in the 2000s where the American dream has been crushed. Maura was extremely shy as a girl until the day a nun in her Boston all-girls Catholic junior-high school pulled her out of class. The nun asked Maura if she'd represent the school in a poetry-reading contest. She did and from then on, she knew what she wanted to do with her life. [Photo above of Maura Tierney and Jeff Daniels in American Rust, courtesy of Showtime]

Here's a roundup of Maura's scenes in Primary Colors...

And here's the American Rust trailer...

Swell review! Publisher's Weekly, the major book-industry trade publication and traditionally the first with trend-setting book reviews, last week featured Rock Concert, my new book from Grove Press due out on November 9. Here's the review in full...

Myers (Anatomy of a Song), a music writer for the Wall Street Journal, surveys in this engrossing oral history five decades of rock concerts, and the “songwriters, producers, disc jockeys, managers, promoters, and artists [that] sided with the youth culture as it struggled to be heard.” Starting with the emergence of R&B in the late 1940s and ending with 1985’s Live Aid benefit, he vividly recreates what went on behind the scenes, onstage, and in the crowds with intimate accounts from the people who were there. Joan Baez recounts what it was like to perform at the 1963 March on Washington and to lead the crowd in singing “We Shall Overcome”; Bob Eubanks describes how—despite being a disk jockey who’d never produced a concert before—he scrambled to secure the funding to make the Beatles’ legendary Hollywood Bowl performance happen; and Alice Cooper recalls relocating his band from California to the Midwest, where his “lurid and despicable” reputation resonated with Rust Belt kids. Myers also offers a thoughtful overview of the considerable ways in which the rock landscape has shifted since Live Aid, due to the popularity of streaming services and scandals recently brought to light on social media in response to “past or present me-too events.” Eminently entertaining, this is sure to delight rock fans of all persuasions. Agent: Glen Hartley, Writers’ Representatives. (Nov. 9)

Pre-order Rock Concert: An Oral History as Told by the Artists, Backstage Insiders, and Fans Who Were There, by going here.

George Wein. Last week, I heard from Rebecca Reitz on the late George Wein:

Marc, I enjoyed reading your entry about George Wein at JazzWax. My mother, Rosetta Reitz, a champion of female jazz and blues artists and an entrepreneur who started her own record label (Rosetta Records), produced several concerts for Mr. Wein and the Newport Jazz Festival. He supported her idea to celebrate women who sang the blues and proved it by putting on these showcases. See the photo above of Rosetta with performers of the "Blues Is a Woman" concert at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1980 at Avery Fisher Hall.

In the photo above, standing, from left to right: Koko Taylor, Linda Hopkins, George Wein, Rosetta Reitz, Adelaide Hall, Little Brother Montgomery, Big Mama Thornton and Beulah Bryant; seated, left to right: Sharon Freeman, Sippie Wallace and Nell Carter; photograph by by Barbara Barefield.

I remember George stopped by to listen to Dick Hyman leading old pros like Vic Dickenson, Buddy Tate, Doc Cheatham, Kenny Davern and Panama Francis. They backed the female singers. And although the festival included acts that covered a vast array of jazz genres, it seemed that this swinging music was where his heart truly was.

Renee Rosnes. Last week, pianist Dave Thompson sent along a clip pf Renee in 1989 with bassist Ira Coleman and drummer Billy Drummond. Go here...

CDs you should know about:

Staci Griesbach—My George Jones Songbook. To celebrate the 90th anniversary of the late George Jones's birth, Staci has released a compelling album of the country singer's songs with a jazz twist. This isn't Staci's first rodeo. Staci has been working through country-artist catalogs for her recent series of albums and giving important songs a fresh perspective with her hip, warm voice. Among the highlights: The Grand Tour, He Stopped Loving Her Today, A Good Year for the Roses and He Thinks I Still Care. A savvy Los Angeles take on Nashville's countrypolitan standards. Go here.

Here's The Grand Tour...

Poupie—Enfant Roi (Capitol). Poupie de Moncuit, who goes by Poupie on stage, is a French singer discovered in 2018 on Factor X Spain, a sing-off competition show, when she wowed the judges. On her first full-length album out on Friday, the singer shakes a cocktail of Jamaican-Latin fusion, rap and French chanson. The pour-out is atmospheric and sensual, with much of the material written by Poupie and sung in French. Contemporary dance music without the slamming thump found in so much of today's chart-topping fare. Textured, bright and light as a dawning Parisian mist. Go here. 

Here's Dollars...

And here's the multilingual Poupie on the French version of The Voice in 2019...

Lee Santa sent along a link to his many jazz images. His photo of Ornette Coleman is above. Go here.

Cedar Walton radio. This Sunday, Sid Gribetz will present a five-hour radio broadcast celebrating pianist Cedar Walton on “Jazz Profiles,” from 2 to 7 p.m. (ET), on WKCR-FM in New York. To listen from anywhere in the world, go here.

And finally, in tribute to John Coltrane's birthday last week (September 23), here's an extraordinary colorized video of the saxophonist in Dusseldorf, Germany, on March 28, 1960. He's backed by pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb. Then Stan Getz appears during Autumn Leaves, playing Moonlight in Vermont. They play together on Thelonious Monk's Hackensack, with Oscar Peterson on piano. Coltrane wins this one hands down.

Here are the notes from the uploaded video at YouTube:

In the first set, John Coltrane was unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight when Miles Davis was unable play that day. It’s basically a performance of the Miles Davis Quintet without Davis. The film was made during a European tour billed as “Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic Presents Jazz Winners of 1960.” Two of the other “Jazz Winners” were Stan Getz and Oscar Peterson, both of whom join Coltrane and the band near the end of the Dusseldorf set. Getz plays on the last few songs. It’s a historic session—the only known recording of the two great saxophone players performing together. At the beginning of the final song, Peterson taps Kelly on the shoulder and takes over on piano. (Mark Springer/Openculture)

Here's the video...

Interview: Lorraine Feather

Lyricist and singer Lorraine Feather is the daughter of Leonard Feather, the jazz pianist, composer, producer, author and journalist who died in 1994. If not for Leonard Feather and other driven and talented communicators, radio personalities, photographers and concert promoters in the 1940s such as Norman Granz, Gene Norman, Symphony Sid Torin, Barry Ulanov, Fred Robbins, photographers William P. Gottlieb and Herman Leonard, to name a few, post-war modern jazz may have come and gone with little recognition. As I wrote in my 2012 book, Why Jazz Happened, the supportive jazz journalists, promoters, independent record-label owners and radio announcers put bebop on the map by celebrating, promoting and popularizing artists and their music. The artists, of course, took it from there. [Photo above of Lorraine Feather by Natalie Sinisgalli]

Lorraine is an artist in her own right. A three-time Grammy nominee, she has recorded 14 albums since 1978. Her vocal approach defies tradition, and her new album out today, My Own Particular Life, is no exception. It's a tapestry of painful and joyous lifetime recollections layered together with engaging music and arranging by her collaborators. She uses a sing-talk narrative style that has a Kurt Weill, storytelling feel. In this regard, the album has the sound of an intimate soundtrack, and in some ways, it is. It's the story of Lorraine's dramatic trials and tribulations. [Cover photo image above ("Dolly") by Michael Ticcino] 

I caught up with Lorraine a bunch of weeks ago after listening to her new album:

JazzWax: What's your full name, for those unaware?
Lorraine Feather: Billie Jane Lee Lorraine Feather. Billie was for Billie Holiday, Jane for mom, Lee for Peggy Lee and Lorraine for the song Sweet Lorraine. I asked to be called Lorraine when I was in grade school and my parents complied, though they sometimes still referred to me as Billie, as a few friends continue to do. I'm not sure why Sweet Lorraine was an influence. Besides Nat's version, Armstrong sang it, and hearing his West End Blues in London was the impetus for my dad's life in jazz. My dad had the song cued up when Tony and I got married in 1983, as well as a song called Tony's Wife that I'd never heard of.

JW: Where did you live in Manhattan as a child? Who do you remember coming over to the house to visit your mom and dad?
LF: When I was born in 1948, we lived at One Sheridan Square, above Cafe Society Downtown (above). A year later we moved to 340 Riverside Drive, at 106th Street, now Duke Ellington Boulevard. Among my folks’ close friends was Dizzy Gillespie, whom I probably saw the most, and whose wife was also named Lorraine.

JW: Who else?
LF: Charlie Parker, who went to Jones Beach with us when I was little. He came to the hospital when my father and mother were hit by a car as pedestrians in 1949. My framed copy of my father's book, Inside Bebop, is signed "To Leonard, my best friend—Charlie Parker." And then there's the funeral photo, which you've probably seen, of Parker's casket being carried out of a church. My dad is a pallbearer (above). I remember wondering aloud, as a grown young woman, what it was like when Parker was first coming up. Did people accept him easily? "Lorraine," my dad said, "it was as if he'd arrived from another planet."

JW: Amazing. There must have been so many others.
LF: Dick Hyman, who decades later urged me to write lyrics for Fats Waller compositions and played on my New York City Drag album; Jean Bach, who went on to produce the A Great Day in Harlem documentary in her mid-70s; Virginia Wicks, who was Dizzy’s and Ella Fitzgerald’s publicist. I saw Duke Ellington from time to time. He gave my dad a job doing publicity for Mercer Records as he recuperated after being struck by a car. My dad couldn’t go running around to clubs for months. Duke’s sister, Ruth, lived down the street, and her son, Stevie, used to come over to have popcorn and watch TV. My mom and dad were very close to my godmother and namesake Billie Holiday. She made me baby booties and later wrote letters to my parents on toilet paper when she was in jail. I only remember meeting her at the apartment once. Billie, Bobby Short and Helen Merrill all sang in our living room when I was asleep in my bedroom. There were other people I knew mostly as voices on the phone. Willie “The Lion” Smith used to call fairly often, saying his whole name. When I was little, I thought he was a real lion. Andy Razaf, Fats Waller’s great lyricist, called often, too.

JW: Precious little is known about your mom. What was her full name and which bands did she sing in? Where did your parents meet?
LF: Her given name was Jane Berenice Larrabee. Her stage name was Jane Leslie. The bands I remember her mentioning were Vincent Lopez and Jimmy Dorsey. She never talked about her singing career, except to say she was always compelled to sing “Stardust.” Peggy Lee introduced my mother and father. He proposed on their first date. Red Norvo and Mildred Bailey stood up for them at their City Hall wedding.

JW: Were you close with your mom?
LF: I loved my mom, who was a sweet, tender-hearted and generous person. But things were difficult between us for many years. She was horrified and upset when I moved back to New York on my own as an adult. She was an alcoholic and was in rehab several times to no avail. Things were somewhat better when I returned to California, and both my parents were crazy about my husband, jazz drummer Tony Morales. Mom had a whimsical, weird sense of humor and there were times when we had a lot of fun.

JW: Did she sing around the house?
LF: My mother was shy and never sang around the house, except occasionally under her breath in the kitchen. Once I heard her singing softly as she washed the dishes. She was imitating Billie Holiday singing Your Mother’s Son-in-Law. I could tell she had a keen ear. She had her own musical favorites, among them Ernie Andrews and Art Pepper. Our family stayed with Peggy when we were looking for a house in Southern California. She was Aunt Peggy to me and would give me glamorous Christmas gifts. We sometimes saw each other on holidays, but my mom accepted the fact that Peggy lived in a different world. She was a star.

JW: After your family moved to L.A. when you were 12, where did you live? Was that period exciting?
LF: We lived on Wrightwood Drive in Studio City. Dad was really into it and was often in our swimming pool. Many of their friends had moved to California, like George Shearing and Benny Carter. I know many people who think of L.A. as Shangri-La, but it never spoke to me.

JW: Really? Why not?
LF: I was most unhappy with that move. I had spent my childhood gazing at the Hudson River out the window in our living room on Riverside Drive. I'd listen to the wheeze of buses while falling asleep and walk to the market with my mom with lots of people all around. Studio City seemed so isolated and barren. Tears sometimes streamed from my eyes on smoggy days. And it was so freaking hot all the time.

JW: Did you enjoy school out there?
LF: The girls in junior high wore frosted lipstick and carried pastel purses. I was seen as something of a dork and always young for my grade, since I had skipped first grade. I already knew how to read so I advanced early. At 18, I moved back to New York. I had this fantasy of becoming a theater actress. I also wanted to avoid having to learn to drive in L.A. Finally, at age 30, I received my driver’s license. In New York, I wound up waitressing extensively, with occasional showbiz gigs, including Jesus Christ, Superstar.

JW: Was your dad accessible to you or preoccupied with his career?
LF: He was very accessible. My parents were out at clubs at night, but during the day he was often around, typing on his old manual typewriter in bed or organizing questionnaires from musicians for his Encyclopedia of Jazz, all spread out on our huge dining-room table. I asked my mom what he did, as we were supposed to do a talk about it at school. She said, “He’s a jazz writer.” My little friends didn’t get what that meant, and I didn’t understand it either. In truth, he was as much a songwriter as anything else.

JW: Was he funny?
LF: My dad was funny in a low-key way. He specialized in groan-worthy puns, but he had a wry take on things, generally. Once in L.A., when I told him “I think I’ll walk down the hill to the drugstore,” he asked, “When will you know?”

JW: Was he supportive?
LF: When I started writing lyrics in my late 20s, my father gave me an ASCAP form and told me to fill it out. We went to an ASCAP meeting together and I met all the legendary songwriters, including David Raksin, who wrote Laura, and Alan and Marilyn Bergman. My father would suggest Ellington or Strayhorn tunes he thought I should lyricize, like On a Turquoise Cloud. The first time I did a club date with all my own lyrics, people were coming up to him at the break and saying, “Oh Leonard, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” He was over the moon. He didn’t respond to some of my early attempts at pop-jazz, but for the most part, he was just thrilled that I wound up a lyricist.

JW: Did you feel close to him?
LF: I was closest to my father during the last years of his life because of our songwriting bond. We took a trip together to Perugia, Italy, for the Umbria Jazz Festival in 1994—the year of the Northridge earthquake, in which my parents’ townhouse was half-destroyed. He became very ill on our trip and died six weeks after we returned to L.A. He was in the intensive-care unit at Encino-Tarzana Hospital when he roused himself to ask if I’d sent my Ellington lyricizations to singer Cleo Laine, who was doing an album with Mercer Ellington. So touching and so typical.

JW: How did your mother take this?
LF: My mother had a heart attack while my father was in the hospital. They were both there for a few weeks, but she recovered. Benny Carter brought his saxophone to the hospital and played by my dad’s deathbed.

JW: For your new album, you say you wrote lyrics for songs based on "the trajectory of your life." In this sense, the album is autobiographical. Why did you think it was time to take stock?
LF: I actually started taking stock with my Ages album, in 2010, which was also when I began my collaborations with living writers in earnest—Russell Ferrante, Shelly Berg, Eddie Arkin and, later, Dave Grusin. Attachments in 2013 was about the emotional connections in my life, including an eight-minute piece written with Shelly about my mother.

JW: What about your new album, My Own Particular Life?
LF: I started writing it after I wound up in Rochester, N.Y., ending one chapter in my life and beginning another. The title song is the first lyric I wrote for Eddie Arkin and me to work on. I wanted it to be kind of smart-ass and groovacious. I had recently made some bad mistakes and didn’t want to sink into despair. I was still riding the adrenaline high of moving. I heard this drumline groove in 6/4 in my head that I thought was exciting. Eddie and I took it from there. Later, of course, a lot of other emotions crept into the songs.

JW: Do you feel unfulfilled?
LF: No, not at all. My creative life is fulfilling, though not easy, and the best part of it only started a dozen years ago. I have a small circle of unbelievable friends and colleagues now. I’m miserable sometimes, of course.

JW: Which song on your new album was the most emotionally difficult to write and why?
LF: Music From the Ceiling, about my ex-husband, Tony [Morales]. We lived together after the divorce for a time. Then we both moved back to L.A. from Orcas Island in Washington State and stayed close. Not long after, he started forgetting the names of things. It took years for him to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in his mid-60s. I went to L.A. in the fall of 2019 to write and to see Tony. Not long before, he had been found wandering on the freeway.

JW: How was he in 2019?
LF: I had dinner with Tony, his brother, Joey, and Joey’s girlfriend, Emily. Tony was uncommunicative, but at one point he looked up at a speaker overhead and asked why music was coming from the ceiling. I burst into tears. I felt so helpless. In the parking lot afterward, he told me he thought I was beautiful and hoped he would see me again. He had no idea who I was. He's such a good guy, and it rips me apart.


JW: Music From the Ceiling must have been hard.
LF: It is the only song on the album that was written music-first. I had been trying to write a lyric about Tony for months, and it was hard. I felt so raw about it and couldn’t seem to make it simple enough. But when I heard the guitar Eddie played with a Big Sky reverb pedal in his home studio and had my last meeting with Tony, the song fell into place. [Photo above of Lorraine Feather and Eddie Arkin by Mikel Healey]

JW: In Sweet Little Creature, you write about a traumatic event. What happened?
LF: It was a relationship that ended painfully. Honestly, it's too difficult for me to talk about.

JW: I hear both disappointment and optimism in your lyrics and voice, as if you are coming face to face with the totality of life’s randomness—its good breaks and bad. True?
LF: I wouldn’t say I’m resigned to how life played out. I do believe in karma, and try to be more responsible and honest as time goes by. And I hold to the belief that at any moment, something glorious can happen, whether it’s a major work breakthrough, a great love, or just a scrumptious meal. Given what we have all gone through since early last year and continue to go through, I feel privileged to be alive, full of energy and engaged in life. I’m also grateful that I have a roof over my head.

JW: How do you hear the album?
LF: As a self-reflecting statement of who I am at this point in my life—as a human being and as a lyricist-singer. The 2½-year experience of co-producing the album with Eddie, writing it with him, Russ, Shelly and Dave, and recording it from our different locales with our stellar musicians and engineers, was in some respects more intense than doing it the traditional way.

JW: How so?
LF: There’s a nice little recording studio minutes from my apartment in upstate New York where I recorded all the lead and background vocals, and a studio in L.A. called the Hideaway that was command central. We got into this routine of shuttling the tracks from person to person via computer, doing rough mixes as each musician was added—Mike Shapiro in Manila, Russ and most of the others in L.A., Dave Grusin in Santa Fe, the Shelly Berg Trio in Miami.

JW: So it was rewarding, despite the pandemic?
LF: Being able to create something as a team, mostly with musical friends I’ve known for so long, was exhilarating. When we handed it off to Don Murray to mix, he said he was flabbergasted that almost all of it was recorded from remote locations because everyone sounded so emotionally connected. It was a close bond, despite the separation.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Lorraine Feather's My Own Particular Life here...

JazzWax clips: Here's the album's title track...