In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed film legend Piper Laurie (above) on growing up in Detroit and Los Angeles (go here). The actress, who received Oscar nominations for her roles in The Hustler, Carrie and Children of a Lesser God, was abandoned by her parents for three years in the late 1930s along with her older sister. They were placed in a sanitarium because her sister had severe asthma. Piper was sent to keep her company. It was a hard three years, but when Piper and her sister went home in '41, Piper found it hard to resent her parents. Instead, she found that her imagination had flowered. She never found out why her mother didn't reply to their homesick letters or why they didn't show up to visit on her birthdays. We also talked about Paul Newman and Kirk Douglas.
Here's Piper on TV's What's My Line in October 1961. Move the space bar to 19:42...
Tower of Power's latest album is 50 Years of Funk & Soul: Live at the Fox Theater, Oakland, CA, June 2018 here. In August 2018, Doc Kupka and the band were on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert performing three songs—On the Soul Side of Town, So Very Hard to Go and What Is Hip? Here they are...
French New Wave. If you enjoyed my JazzWax Film Festival over the holidays, especially my French New Wave picks, you should know that Raymond Cauchetier (above) died recently. Cauchetier was the photographer on the sets of many New Wave films to take the stills that appeared outside movie theaters in the old days. Except it turned out that he was the only still photographer documenting an important film movement. Here's an obit by the best obituary writer in the business, Robert D. McFadden of The New York Times. Go here.
Camille Bertault. After last weekend's roundup post, I received the following from Jeffery Geraldton in Western Australia:
Hi Marc. I am a jazz fan and also a subscriber to JazzWax which has opened my eyes and ears to musicians I haven't heard before. When I saw your article today featuring Camille Bertault, I knew exactly who you were referring to. I found a clip of Camille singing with the great Dutch jazz big band, the Henk Meutgeert New Jazz Orchestra, and the meteoric pianist Peter Beets. Here it is...
Don Cherry. After posting last week on cornetist Don Cherry, I received the following from Steven Balkin in upstate New York [photo above of Don Cherry by Francis Wolff (c)Mosaic Images]...
Hi Marc. Nice to see you do a piece on Don. He was a sweet, gentle soul. We met 60 years ago while I was at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute, and we hit it
off. The brownstone that I shared with a couple of other artists and musicians had jam sessions at 302 Clinton Ave. Fred Schwab, the bassist, put together an ensemble that also played some very tough clubs in Brooklyn. Pharoah Sanders on saxophone, Don on cornet, Fred on bass, Ron Schwerin on drums and a guy named Bill on trumpet.
Don liked to drop by the brownstone and hang out with me and shoot the breeze. He came by one day to say goodbye. He was leaving on a tour in Europe with John Coltrane. He took out his cornet and hit some notes. It was sort of a wreck held together with adhesive tape. I happened to have a really fine cornet given to me by an old antique dealer whom I helped when I had some free time. I never accepted payment, so from time to time he made me accept a gift. One time it was a cornet. Don returned the instrument to me a year and a half later. Last summer I donated it to a small Jazz Museum in Rejavick, Iceland.
CD you should know about:
Roni Ben-Hur—Stories (Dot Time). Guitarist Roni Ben-Hur is based in New York but his musical interests have always been divided between bossa nova and bebop. On his new album, Roni swings with a pensive groove colored by the uncertainty of the past year's pandemic. Roni's playing is inquiring and insistent, especially when picking, and Ingrid Jensen's trumpet is a perfect partner. The personnel features Roni on guitar, Ingrid Jensen (tp), George Cables (p), Harvie S (b) and Victor Lewis (d), with Magos Harrera (vcl) on tracks 1 and 7, and Tamux Nissim (vcl) on track 5. Bop and bossa meet in Roni's hands and we discover they have much in common—a sophisticated lyricism that is hopeful and driven by melodic narrative. Go here.
Here's Roni and the band in the studio recording Something for Kenny...
Live From Emmet's Place is a live streaming gig each Monday night at 7:30 p.m. (ET) featuring the Emmet Cohen Trio. On most Mondays, they're jamming from Emmet's apartment . You can watch at Facebook here or at YouTube here.
Don't miss Emmet's scene. He's a spectacular player. Here's his March schedule of live streams and special guests...
- March 8: Emmet Cohen Trio + Houston Person
- March 15: Emmet Cohen Trio live from Moscow, Russia
- March 22: The music of Wayne Shorter, featuring Sasha Berliner and Nicole Glover (sponsored by Steve Petrie & Ellen Hexter)
- March 29: Emmet Cohen Trio + Regina Carter (sponsored by Mack and Deborah Roach and anonymous friends from East Lansing, Mich.)
For more, go here.
Tiny Grimes radio. On Sunday (March 7), WKCR-FM in New York will re-broadcast Sid Gribetz's 2009 Jazz Profiles broadcast on guitarist Tiny Grimes from from 2 to 7 p.m. (ET). Listen to Sid from anywhere in the world by going here.
Ornette Coleman and Bix Beiderbecke radio. WKCR-FM in New York will hold its annual Ornette and Bix Birthday Broadcasts back-to-back on Tuesday and Wednesday (ET) (March 9 and 10) for 48 hours total. Listen from anywhere in the world by going here.
Here's an hour of the Gary Burton Quartet in Oslo, Norway, in 1976, with Gary on vibraphone, Pat Metheny on guitar, Steve Swallow on bass and Dan Gottlieb on drums. Such a happening fusion quartet...