JazzWax

John Chin: Anything Mose!

I loved interviewing pianist Mose Allison for The Wall Street Journal (here) and for JazzWax (here) in 2010. Mose was a singular artist with a wry sense of humor and a rich, home-grown keyboard style who understood rural wisdom, hard work and suffering. Mose relocated to New York from Mississippi in the mid-1950s as a jazz sideman. By the late '50s, he had parlayed his bluesy, jagged piano and clever, aw-shucks lyric-writing into a soft storm of rural wit, swaggering riffs and howling vocals. Prestige's Bob Weinstock got him and featured him playing and singing on Back Country Suite and Local Color. Both masterpieces were recorded in 1957. [Photo above of John Chin, right, and Richard Julian]

In conversation, Mose was gentle, easygoing and slathered in Southern charm and understated hip pragmatism. Like Fats Waller, Count Basie, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk and Donald Fagen, among others, Mose was one of a kind, both as a songwriter and a jazz pianist. [Photo above of Mose Allison]

So imagine my delight when John Chin: Anything Mose! Featuring Richard Julian (‎Jinsy Music) crossed my desk. The album showcases John's Mose-inspired piano and Richard's guitar and Mose-ian vocals. But John wasn't satisfied to hold this project to a trio. He added horns: John Chin (p), Richard Julian (g,vcl), Kenyatta Beasley (tp), Stacy Dillard (ss, ts), Pete Rende (pump organ), Matt Pavolka (b) and Dan Rieser (d). To John's credit, it all works without ever leaving Moseville.

The tracks are Your Molecular Structure, Your Mind Is on Vacation, Smashed!, Stop This World, Middle Class White Boy, Parchman Farm, I Don't Worry About a Thing, Seventh Son, Tell Me Something, Monsters of the ID and Was. Ten of the 11 songs are by Mose, while Seventh Son is by Willie Dixon and was recorded by Mose.

John is an accomplished pianist who has recorded four albums and performs regularly at jazz clubs in Brooklyn, crossing bridges to Manhattan to perform at Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Blue Note and other marquee clubs. Richard is a Brooklyn singer-songwriter and guitarist who has released six albums.

Knowing Mose, I love this album. John and Richard fully get Mose's art, attack and quiet hipster ethos. What always fascinated me about Mose is how he was able to coax barefoot wisdom and funky jazz to work together. Mose's music sounds simple but it's far from easy. You can't interpret his songs. You have to get into his space and yowl and rock.

Anything Mose! pays tribute to the Southern singer-songwriter and folk-funk pianist in all his Greenwich Village glory. Hearing this album takes you back to a time when artists and thinkers from around the country relocated to New York and converged in downtown clubs and coffee houses to express their regional differences and exceptionalism.

Like Mose, John and Richard understand what it means to be outsiders embraced by New York insiders who appreciate their scene. Mose would have dug Anything Mose! He would have listened, there'd be a summer pause and in that drawl of his, he'd say, "They're quite good, aren't they? Maybe I should think about taking a few nights off."

Mose Allison died in 2016.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find John Chin and Richard Julian's Anything Mose! (‎Jinsy Music) here.

JazzWax clips: Here's a mini doc on the project...

Here's Your Mind Is on Vacation...

Bonus: Here's Mose performing I Don't Worry About a Thing...

And here's Mose in the U.K. performing Everybody's Cryin' Mercy...

Andrew, Rob and Maynard

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed actor Andrew McCarthy for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). The mid-1980s, the Brat Pack star was best known for his roles in St. Elmo's Fire, Pretty in Pink, Less Than Zero and, of course, the cult classic Weekend at Bernie's. He now has a best-selling memoir out, Brat: An '80s Story. [Photo above of Andrew McCarthy courtesy of ABC/Emmys]

Here's a clip from the latter film, with Andrew as Larry in the Hawaiian shirt...

Crystal Blue Persuasion. In case you missed my most recent "Anatomy of a Song" column in the WSJ, go here for my interview with Tommy James on how it was written and recorded. Here's the album version of Crystal Blue Persuasion, a pop masterpiece...

SiriusXM. Last week, I was on SiriusXM's Feedback with Lori Majeswki and Adam Weiner of the band Low Cut Connie (sitting in for Nick Carter) to talk about Tommy James and the Shondells and Crystal Blue Persuasion. To listen to the show, go here...

Rob Madna. Following my post on Dutch pianist Rob Madna (above), I heard from Angela Ballhorn, a jazz journalist, in Berlin...

Hi Marc, to read about Rob Madna at your blog was an amazing surprise. I found the link to your blog post in the press review of the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt/Germany on June 8th, which would have been Rob‘s 90th birthday.

I had the honor of knowing Rob, being a student of his and a friend of the family. Rob was an amazing musician, dedicated to the music, not the fame. Therefore he didn't play too many concerts. He practiced for hours. I remember him playing a spectacular improvisation on "Invitation," grinning afterward and saying "I never played that song in C# minor before." I also remember him watching Wimbledon tennis while practicing "Body and Soul" on a trumpet in all of the keys.

He was very proud of his "At Home" recordings, where he played everything by himself—keyboards, trumpet and the drums—adding the keyboard as the last trick. The sound might have been old fashioned (a Korg M 1 synthesizer), but his sense of swing was absolutely stunning. Bob Brookmeyer, Rob's dear friend, who came over to Europe quite often to jam, used to say about these recordings that he‘d love to hire the bass player.

Here's a link to an at-home recording of Stella by Starlight...

Here's Rob with the Dutch Jazz Orchestra...

One last thing, something many people probably aren't aware of: During the war, Rob's father in Holland, Tole Johannes Madna, hid a Jewish boy from the Nazis and saved his life. You'll find the story in the Washington Post here.

For an hour-long audio oral history with Tole Johannes Madna about the war and the hidden boy, go here.

Walter Becker, the late guitarist and co-writer with Donald Fagen of Steely Dan's catalog of songs, died in 2017. He was fondly remembered in an essay by Howard A. Rodman that director Raymond De Felitta sent along here.

Percy France now has a tribute site created by Dan Gould. Go here.

And finally, here are trumpeters Maynard Ferguson and Dusko Goykovich on Mike Abene's Fox Hunt in 1969 just before Ferguson's mid-life musical crisis...

Maria Creuza: Queen of Brazilian Ballads

As part of my ongoing series on great female Brazilian pop singers of the 1960s and '70s, I'm turning today to Maria Creuza. In particular, I'm focusing on the 10 or so albums she recorded for Brazilian RCA from 1973 to 1982. Born in 1944, Creuza's specialty were ballads about love and heartbreak. Vinicius de Moraes’ favorite interpreter of his songs, Creuza toured extensively worldwide with de Moraes and Toquinho as a singing trio.

All of these RCA records are splendidly arranged with a Brazilian pop feel, and Creuza's voice is passionate, yearning and delicate. I first discovered Creuza in the early 1980s, when I pulled her Sessão Nostalgia loose from a friend's record collection. The album on Brazilian vinyl knocked me out, and I began collecting her recordings. Sessão Nostalgia, with its deeply romantic feel, remains one of my very favorite Brazilian vocal albums.

Before providing you with audio clips of Creuza's music, here are links to the other singers in my running series: Syliva Telles, Beth Carvalho, Nara Leão, Eliana Pittman and Elis Regina.

Now, here are clips from nine of Maria Creuza's RCA albums:

Here's Nossos Momentos from Eu Disse Adeus (1973)...

Here's Vinganca from Sessão Nostalgia (1974)...

Here's O Namoro de Maria from Maria Creuza and the Grand Masters of Samba (1975)...

Here's Dom de Iludir from Meia Noite (1977)

Here's Algemas from Doce veneno (1978)...

Here's Boleríssimo from Pecado (1979)...

Here's Tá Faltando from Maria Creuza (1980)...

Here's A Felicidade from Sedução (1981)...

And here's Garota De Ipanema from Poético (1982)...

Bonus: Here's Creuza in action in 1977...