JazzWax

Barbara Carroll (1925-2017)

Barbara Carroll, a gifted jazz and pop pianist and singer who initially made a name for herself in New York in the late 1940s as a standout bop keyboardist with a proclivity for block chords and impeccable time, died on Feb. 12. She was 92.

Carroll came up at a time when most skilled female jazz pianists wound up as intermission keyboardists at clubs and hotel bars where managers sought to hold onto audiences until the headliner's next set. The list of female pianists who began this way included Marian McPartland, Dardanelle, Marjorie Hyams (before she turned to the vibes), Hazel Scott and about a dozen others. Little known is that Carroll was the last living member of the Stan Hasselgard Quintet and recorded with the Swedish clarinetist just days before his tragic death in 1948.

Let's listen to why Barbara Carroll was special:

Here's the Barbara Carroll Trio in 1953, featuring Joe Shulman (b) and Herb Wasserman (d)...

Here's the Barbara Carroll Trio in the early 1950s, featuring Joe Schulman (b) and Billy Exiner (d)...

Here's Carroll playing It's a Wonderful World in 1956, with Joe Shulman (b) and Al Munroe (d)...

Here's Carroll in 1967 with Chuck Domanico (b) and Colin Bailey (d)...

And here's Carroll on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz...

Harry Belafonte: 1949

In late 1948, Harry Belafonte was having trouble finding work as an actor. At the time, he was performing with New York's American Negro Theater and studying at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School in Greenwich Village. Appearing in the theater's production of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, Belafonte had to sing a song. He had no musical training nor did he have any interest in becoming a singer. But he had a good voice.

After each night's performance, Belafonte typically took the subway uptown and hung out at the Royal Roost on Broadway between 47th and 48th streets. Eventually he befriended jazz musicians at the club, and they came to see him perform in Of Mice and Men. When Belafonte complained that he was having trouble finding work as an actor, musicians suggested he try singing to help support himself.

One night, Lester Young told the club's artistic director Monte Kay that Belafonte was a good singer and that Kay should give him a shot. Kay asked Belafonte if he had a set's worth of material. Belafonte told him he didn't. When asked if he could play an instrument, Belafonte replied that he couldn't.

So Kay teamed Belafonte with pianist Al Haig, who helped him put together a repertoire. Two weeks later, Belafonte was ready. On that first night at the Roost, Belafonte was supposed to sing only with Haig. But as he took the stage, Max Roach came up and sat behind the drums, Tommy Potter picked up the bass and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker came up to play behind him.

After his appearance that night, Belefonte was both an actor and a singer. In 1949, he recorded two sides for Jubilee, followed by two sides in Hollywood and then two for Kay's Royal Roost label in New York. In 1951, Belafonte put together enough folk songs to open at the Sage in Greenwich Village. He then had a hugely successful folk run at the Village Vanguard. Belafonte's big break as a singer came in 1952, when he was signed by RCA, which had him record Caribbean folk songs. The rest is history.

For today's post, let's just listen to Belafonte's entire jazz discography in 1949. In listening to the first two tracks, one wonders what might have been had Belafonte remained a jazz singer, at least for a few years:

Here's Belafonte singing The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, with Zoot Sims (ts), Al Haig (p), Jimmy Raney (g), Tommy Potter (b) and Roy Haynes (d)...

Here's the flip side, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes...

Here's Whispering with a Hollywood orchestra arranged and conducted by Pete Rugolo. This song and the next, I Still Get a Thrill, may have been demos for Capitol, where Rugolo was head of jazz A&R...

Here's I Still Get a Thrill...

Here's Lean on Me with Machito, with trumpeter Howard McGhee and tenor saxophonist Brew Moore...

Here's Recognition from the same session...

Farmer, Quincy and Coltrane

Riffs—short, repeated musical phrases—have been around since the beginning of time. From the moment man (or woman) began beating rhythms and melodies on surfaces to communicate or entertain, catchy patterns have been a highly effective way to ensure that an audience wouldn't forget the message. In the era of recorded music, riffs performed much the same task—getting listeners to remember and buy the records they hear. The funny thing about a powerful riff is that it can take up residence in your unconscious and remain there dormant until heard again or summoned through thought. It's amazing what the brain recalls and why we respond to riffs. I'm sure there have been plenty of exhaustive neurological studies on this phenomenon.

Musicians are not immune to the unconscious power of riffs. Riffs enter the musician's head and can knowingly or unknowingly resurface years later when the musician is composing. If a musician recalls where he or she first heard the riff, they most often will change it somewhat to add their own twist. Jazz has always been a borrowed language among musicians, an art its participants applaud by building upon nifty things already created. For example, Charlie Parker's blues riff on Now's the Time became the basis for dozens of hit songs that followed, including The Hucklebuck. [Image above, John Coltrane's score for A Love Supreme]

Which brings me to the point of this post. The other day, I was listening to a favorite album—The Art Farmer Septet, recorded for Prestige in July 1953, featuring Art Farmer (tp), Jimmy Cleveland (tb), Oscar Estelle (as,bar), Clifford Solomon (ts), Quincy Jones (p,arr), Monk Montgomery (el-b), Sonny Johnson (d), and unknown (perc-1).

As the album's Mau Mau was playing, I suddenly realized that the background riff sounded awfully familiar. The more I focused, the more the riff sounded like the famous one John Coltrane used 11 years later on A Love Supreme. Did Coltrane knowingly use the riff credited to Art Farmer and Quincy Jones? Or was it one of those riffs that entered a composer's brain and sat there until one day it was used to create a new song. We'll never know, of course, since Coltrane died in 1967 and Farmer passed in 1999. Either way, there's no crime here. It's all part of the creative process—taking what has been and turning it into something even more revolutionary and beautiful. Inspiration is a wonderful thing.

Here's Art Farmer and Quincy Jones's Mau Mau from 1953. The riff starts at 1:43...

And here's John Coltrane's Acknowledgment from A Love Supreme (Impulse) recorded in December 1964. The riff starts at 00:30 and continues throughout the track...

Roland Hanna: Child of Gemini

While on tour in Europe in early 1971, the Roland Hanna Trio was invited to record at the MPS Studios in Villingen, Germany. The trio consisted of Roland Hanna on piano, Dave Holland on bass and Daniel Humair on drums. The result was Child of Gemini, a rare album that has just been reissued by MPS Records as a digital download.

Hanna's playing style was a fascinating combination of gospel, jazz and classical influences, and his training gave him a powerful command of the instrument. A graduate of New York's Juilliard School of Music, Hanna had worked with a wide range of jazz headliners prior to 1971. The list included Benny Goodman, Kenny Burrell, Charles Mingus, Elvin Jones, Sarah Vaughan, the Thad Jones and Mel Lewis Orchestra, and Jim Hall.

For Child of Gemini, Hanna had intended the work to be played as a suite by cello and trio ensemble, with the piano and cello as the prominent instruments. Eventually he realized he had all the texture he needed in Holland and Humair. Holland had recently left Miles Davis's band and Humair was about to begin a tour with pianist Oscar Peterson.

Hanna's music on this album covers a range of emotions. It's stormy, lyrical, jazzy, hymnal, classical and loaded with innovative solo passages by all three musicians. Holland's bass solos are woody and superb while Humair's drumming has persistent force with an elated sense of freedom. Hanna, of course, is exceptional here and highly inventive. The Child of Gemini was a masterpiece when it was released and it remains so today.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find the Roland Hanna Trio's Child of Gemini exclusively at iTunes.

JazzWax clip: Here's Blue Lilly with Roland Hanna on electric piano...

Naomi, Betty and Eddie

Recently, I was interviewed by Steve Adubato for his wonderful One-on-One television show on NJTV (New York studios at Lincoln Center above). The clip of my appearance just went up on YouTube...

To buy my new book, Anatomy of a Song, go here in the U.S. In the U.K. go here and in Canada go here. 

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed Naomi Judd for my "House Call" column on her excruciating childhood and the gauntlet she had to run to get signed to a record deal with daughter Wynonna (both above) in the 1980s (go here). Our conversation was harrowing.

Also in the WSJ, for my "Playlist" column I interviewed actor-singer Betty Buckley on her favorite song, Jefferson Airplane's Comin' Back to Me (go here).

Snapped! Sally Tannen sent along this photo of Anatomy of a Song that she took at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Thanks Sally!

Eddie Jefferson radio. On Sunday, "Symphony" Sid Gribetz will host a five-hour "Jazz Profiles" broadcast on the great vocalese singer Eddie Jefferson. Tune in from anywhere in the world on your computer on Sunday, Feb. 12, from 2 to 7 p.m. (EST) to WKCR-FM in New York (go here and click "listen now").
 

Henry Mancini. Following my post on Lola Albright's Dreamsville album arranged by Henry Mancini and the mention of two dreadful novelty albums (Terribly Sophisticated Songs: A Collection of Unpopular Songs for Popular People in 1958 and Edie Adams' Music to Listen to Records By in 1959), Hollywood arranger Roy Phillips sent along the following email:

"At the time those two novelty albums you mentioned were recorded, the music department at Universal was shutting down and Hank took on whatever work he could get. He wrote charts for a number of artists including Dinah Shore, Tony Martin and Jeff Chandler. Mancini and Chandler were good friends and they wrote the title song to the film Firefox. Another early Mancini song is Six Bridges to Cross, a Universal film in 1955. It was recorded by Dinah Washington at some point. He also recorded The Versatile Henry Mancini in 1957, sort of a tropical exotica album. It contains Poinciana, The Breeze and I and others of that ilk."

Lynn's Blues. After my post on Linda Lawson's Lynn's Blues from Peter Gunn (photo of Lawson above from YouTube), Michael Simonetti rightly pointed out that it's really just Leah Worth and Bobby Troup's Meaning of the Blues:

Here's Lynn's Blues ...

And here's Julie London singing Meaning of the Blues...

What the heck: Here's a vocal recording of the theme for Mr. Lucky, a TV show that aired form 1959 to 1960. Henry Mancini wrote and scored the show's music. I think I hear Ginny Mancini in there singing the hot notes...

Oddball album cover of the week.

I can't figure out the point of this cover for Liberty Records in 1958, featuring the Vic Schoen Orchestra. Perhaps the album was sold near Air Force bases to lonely pilots. Among the oddities, the pilots pictured have strangely small feet, and it's unclear whether the female model was about to depart or was just arriving. The cover concept must have come from one of the album's songs, A Swingin' Holiday. Not sure how "swingin'" wound up "swinger's." Then again, I'm not sure how a female civilian wound up on the tarmac of an Air Force base.

The Gals of Gunn

Earlier this week, I featured a clip of Lola Albright singing How High the Moon from TV's Peter Gunn in the late 1950s. The other young actress-singer who appear on the detective series was Linda Lawson, whom I've posted about in the past about her sole superb album, Introducing Linda Lawson. She was cast on Peter Gunn as Lynn Martel, a nightclub singer under the control of a bad guy in "Lynn's Blues" (season 1, episode 7, November 1958). Lawson, like Albright, had a wonderful husky voice that epitomized Los Angeles during this period. It's the sound of humid melancholy and a dash of hope.

Here are a bunch of Lawson clips:

Here's Lynn's Blues (which is really Leah Worth and Bobby Troup's Meaning of the Blues), arranged by Henry Mancini. The camera pans to actor Craig Stevens (who played detective Peter Gunn) and Lola Albright (who played Gunn's girlfriend Edie Hart). Favorite line: "She's just saying goodbye"...

Here's Lawson singing Somehow, a 45 arranged by Henry Mancini...

Here's Never Like This, another Lawson-Mancini single collaboration...

And here's my favorite, Lawson singing More Than Ever, a single arranged by Mancini...

More Than Ever

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Linda Lawson's debut and only album (arranged by Marty Paich) along with four singles arranged by Henry Mancini on a Fresh Sound release here.

Tony Bennett: Mystery Solved!

Back on Jan. 24, I posted about Tony Bennett singing Pennies From Heaven in the street at night on the Steve Allen Show in June 1958. As fire hydrants were opened, Tony sang and danced with kids and even was soaked while frolicking in the spray. The children clearly aren't neighborhood kids—they were rehearsed and danced and sang too well. Also, I'm fairly certain that Tony, the kids and the band recorded the soundtrack inside the studio earlier and then lip-synced to the recording as they danced outside and moved down the block later. How else could they have sounded so great without microphones? Here's the clip (Pennies From Heaven starts at 1:50)...

What baffled me, though, was the location. I knew it was the Upper West Side. I also knew it wasn't two-way Broadway. And I knew the camera had to be shooting the action facing west or north, since there were no Midtown Manhattan building lights in the background.

Bob Waldman, who originally sent me the clip's link, knew that Steve Allen taped his show at the Colonial Theater, which used to stand at 1887 Broadway, on the west side of the avenue. But none of the cross streets were that wide. Did they close off Columbus or Amsterdam Ave. for the Tony taping? Or was it all done on an NBC sound stage?

Well, kudos to Bob. He managed to get his hands on the entire show from a VHS tape and sent it along. While the YouTube clip ends with Tony and the kids waving from a fire truck, there was a little more to the show that Sunday night. At the very end, Steve and the entire cast, including a wet Tony, were out in the street gathered on the corner of Broadway and 62nd St., with the Colonial marquee in the background.

So, thanks to Bob, the mystery has been solved. They used 62nd St. between Columbus Ave. and Broadway, moving east from Columbus to Broadway and shooting west. Note the traffic in the background moving south. What threw me was the width of the street. Then again, much of the area was demolished starting in 1960 when construction began on Lincoln Center and everything looks completely different today, including the street's width.

Here's the location today (in 2013 via Google Maps) where Steve, Tony and the cast stood on Broadway...

Here's the view of the block used in the clip, facing west...

The street was much wider then because the building line was likely where the iron fence is now in the background...

Here's where 46 W. 62nd St. used to be. In the clip, it's shown in the opening scene...

Our Esso station...

...was about here...

And the facade on the right below belongs to the American Automobile Association (AAA) building, which still stands. Note the windows with pediments...

At one point in the '90s or early 2000s, its windows were stripped of their original pediments seen above, though the triangular pediment still existed above the doorway. I believe this is where Chase Bank had a branch prior to Ameritrade taking it over...

Now the windows are completely masked by Ameritrade's sleek base...

As for Tony emerging from the stage door or exit of the Colonial to sing Pennies From Heaven, a little perspective. Here's the Colonial back in the 1960s on Broadway with the Hotel Empire to the right...

Here's the same space today occupied by the Lincoln Center Atrium...

Here's the exit to the Atrium on 62nd St. (the Colonial had an L-shaped footprint). This is where Tony emerges at the clip's start (the exit is on the far right of the photo with the red banner in the window)...

"A long time ago" indeed. A big thanks to Bob Waldman. Fine detective work tracking down the original show and the street location!

Art Pepper: West Coast, 1980

In 1979, the Japanese owners of Atlas Records made Art Pepper an offer we should all be grateful he didn't refuse. They wanted him to record in his 1950s West Coast style backed by a range of equally gifted musicians. The money was good, but there was a problem. Pepper was signed to Fantasy. So Pepper or someone tied to the project figured out a nifty contractual loophole: he could do the sessions provided he was billed as a sideman, not the leader. Other choice musicians would have to be listed as leaders but when recording, Pepper would clearly be the headliner or share the role.

The sessions were recorded at Hollywood's Sage & Sound Studios, which is still thriving today. In the early 1980s, vinyl albums from the sessions were released individually, and in the digital age, Art Pepper: The Complete Atlas Years was released as a five-CD box in 1997. This set is long gone and all but impossible to find.

Enter Laurie Pepper, Art's wife, who has co-produced two magnificent reissues of the Atlas sessions with Cheryl Pawelski of Omnivore Recordings, one of the great revival labels today.

The first of the two is Art Pepper Presents West Coast Sessions! Vol. 1: Sonny Stitt. It originally was released by Atlas in 1980 as Groovin' High: Sonny Stitt & His West Coast Friends. On the new release, we have the original six tunes plus two previously unissued tracks and an alternate take that had appeared on another Atlas album in the series.

The second is Art Pepper Presents West Coaost Sessions! Vol. 2: Pete Jolly. It was originally released as Strike Up the Band: Pete Jolly and His West Coast Friends. The new Omnivore release includes the seven original track plus two previously unissued alternate takes.

On the Sonny Stitt date, the saxophonists play alto and tenor, and the results are lyrical, searing and, at times, congenially competitive. Muscular bebop, cool and hot. To top it off, Russ Freeman was on piano, adding his skeletal attack and gorgeous chord voicings. His solos here still thrill, and this marks the first and only time Freeman recorded with Stitt, a fascinating pairing. John Heard was on bass and Carl Burnette on drums.

On the Pete Jolly date, Jolly's piano frames Pepper with just the right amount of velvet and swing. Bob Magnusson was on bass and Roy McCurdy was on drums.

Kudos to Laurie (with Art above) for a brilliant re-issue. Her liner notes for both sets are poetic and informative. Kudos also to Cheryl for giving the package a polished and intelligent sensibility for fans. The sound is terrific, and you won't be able to take these albums off once you put them on.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find the two-album Sonny Stitt session here and here, and the single-album Pete Jolly session here.

JazzWax clips: Here are tracks from the Sonny Stitt recording, courtesy of Laurie Pepper...

And here are tracks for the Pete Jolly session, courtesy of Laurie Pepper...

JazzWax note: Visit Laurie Pepper's cool site here.

Henry Mancini: Lola Albright

Henry Mancini didn't arrange too many albums for non movie-soundtrack singers. Doing so wasn't his bag, since he felt his music was enchanting enough to stand on its own. He also didn't have the time, given his TV and movie scoring schedule. But he made a handful of exceptions in the late 1950s, when he had a spare few hours to do singers a favor. There were two Mancini-arranged 45s produced by Verve in 1957 for singer Linda Lawson (Somehow, More Than Ever, Salty Salty Is The Sea and Never Like This). There also were two painful novelty albums—Edie Adams' Music to Listen to Records By (1959) and Terribly Sophisticated Songs: A Collection of Unpopular Songs for Popular People (1958), featuring a batch of unremarkable tunes and singers with music arranged by Mancini without a credit.

The only vocal album arranged by Mancini during this period that remains truly remarkable is Lola Albright's Dreamsville (1959). Albright, of course, starred on the TV detective series Peter Gunn as the Gunn character's girlfriend. Albright has a husky, relaxed vocal timbre on the album, and Mancini's arrangements are sterling and beautiful. And according to arranger and Mancini expert Roy Phillips, that's John Towner Williams on the album playing piano in Mancini's style. Mancini's music has long been likened to a dry martini. If that description is apropos, the songs on this album are the olives. [Photo above of Henry Mancini courtesy of HenryMancini.com]

JazzWax tracks: Lola Albright's Dreamsville (Columbia) can be found here paired with her Lola Wants You, arranged by Dean Elliott.

JazzWax clips: Here's Dreamsville—first the Mancini instrumental and then Albright's vocal version with Mancini's orchestration and piano...

Here's It's Always You from the album...

And here's Ablright in 1958 on Peter Gunn singing How High the Moon, arranged by Mancini and featuring Shorty Rogers on flugelhorn and Victor Feldman on vibes...

Interview: Marcos Valle

Marcos Valle's contribution to the bossa nova and Brazilian music are enormous. The singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist began recording in 1963, and in the 1960s, his songs and arrangements were in huge demand by singers and instrumentalists in Brazil and in the U.S. Marcos's first trip to the States came in 1966. That year, organist Walter Wanderley recorded Marcos's Summer Samba (So Nice), which remained on the Billboard pop chart for nine weeks and reached No. 26. Marcos also teamed with Sérgio Mendes that year in a group that would become Brazil '66. The following year, Marcos played a duet with Andy Williams on the singer's TV show. Then he returned to Brazil, where he has recorded, produced and toured worldwide ever since. Marcos's most familiar bossa nova hits include The Face I Love, Os Grilos, The Answer, Chup Chup, Crickets Sing for Anamaria, She Told Me and dozens of others. [Photo at top courtesy of Marcos Valle]

Starting tomorrow (Tuesday), Marcos and his electric keyboard will be appearing at New York's Birdland through Saturday, Feb. 11 (two performances nightly). Produced by Pat Philips, this year's performance series by Marcos will include special guest, Celso Fonseca, a Brazilian guitarist and singer-songwriter best known for his Slow Motion Bossa Nova. They will be backed by vocalist Patricia Alvi, trumpeter Jesse Sadoc, bassist Itaiguara Brandao and drummer Renato Massa. For information and tickets, go here.

I caught up with Marcos last week for a Q&A while he was still in Rio:


JazzWax: What have you been up to since I saw you last February?
Marcos Valle: A DVD that was taped last year when I was in New York at Birdland with Stacey Kent was released worldwide by Sony in 2016. To promote the release, we performed two big shows in Brazil—one at Vivo Rio in Rio de Janeiro and another in São Paulo at Teatro Bradesco. I also added very special guests—guitarists and singer-songwriters Edú Lobo and Dori Caymmi. All three of us started out together in Rio when we were 21. We had a trio at the time. Then we all went off in different directions. We had not been on the same stage in 50 years, so it was beautiful to have everyone singing together again. Stacey also joined us. It was emotional, and the audience loved it. I also performed outside of Brazil in Portugal, Russia, England and different festivals in Europe as well as shows in Rio. At the same time, I’m composing a lot now because next year I will be recording a new album for Joe Davis's Far Out Records in London.

JW: Your special guest this week at Birdland will be Celso Fonseca. Where did you two first meet?
MV: I first met Celso [pronounced SELL-so] in the house of friends in the early 2000s. That was the beginning. Then one day, friends of Celso had this big idea to record an album of us singing together. They were willing to invest in the project, which would feature a large orchestra. I liked the idea very much. All of the songs were written by Celso and me together, and we sang them as duets on the album—Página Central, which was released in 2009. It came out very very good.


JW: Celso (above) is part of what’s known as the "música popular brasileira” movement, yes? How would you describe that movement?
MV: Yes, that's correct. This post-bossa movement is vast because you have many different styles within the genre, from bossa and samba to pop. They are all “música popular brasileira”—or MPB. The music itself is like a new bossa, eh? Celso is very influenced by the bossa nova and writes new bossa nova and bossa pop songs.


JW: What do you love most about Celso’s guitar?
MV: Celso is a very good musician. When he plays the electric guitar, you can hear the pop influence of George Benson in his solos. But when he sings accompanying himself on the acoustic guitar, he follows the ideas of João Gilberto. He likes João a lot and tries to make his own acoustic music and singing very soft.


JW: You wrote Samba de Verão, or Summer Samba, in the Rio bedroom you shared with your brother, Paulo. What influences played a role in that beautiful song?
MV: When I wrote Samba de Verão in 1964 with my brother, Paulo, I was 21, almost 22. We wrote it in our bedroom at our parents’ house in Rio. What I was listening to at that time was a lot of bossa nova. That meant a lot of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Roberto Menescal and Carlos Lyra. And yes, the birds outside were singing because it was summer. Samba de Verão reflects a lot of the atmosphere we had in Rio at the time. We lived close to the beach, and my brother and I were surfers. So the feeling of surfing, the girls—all of that—is part of our romantic portrait of Rio in that song.


JW: Tell me about writing Seu Encanto, which became The Face I Love? Who did you write it for?
MV: I wrote the song because I very much liked the 6/8 tempo. It’s like a jazz waltz. Even Jobim had written songs with this tempo. I love that sound. I think the 6/8 tempo was important in the bossa nova. I was excited to write one. So in 1964, when it came time to record my second album, O Compositor e o Cantor (1965), I decided to write two 6/8 songs—Seu Encanto [Your Charm in English] and Vem. I didn’t write Seu Encanto for anyone particular, to tell you the truth. I was thinking only about the tempo. My cousin, Carlos Pingarilho, came up with the beginning and then I developed the rest of the song. My brother, Paulo, wrote the original Portuguese lyric. He had this thing of “you are so beautiful” but his words weren’t written for anyone specific. It was more like a dream he imagined. After Ray Gilbert wrote the English lyric in the States, the song was retitled as The Face I Love. Ray wrote the English lyric with his wife in mind, actress Janis Page.


JW: What made Brazilian singer Sylvia Telles so special?
MV: She had a very beautiful voice and different way of interpreting songs. It was a powerful voice but at the same time cool. Also, she had a distinct style on the stage that was highly charismatic and engaging. She knew how to work the audience. She was married then to Aloysio de Oliveira, a popular record producer and actor. He directed her. She had a touch of Judy Garland, with elegance and sensuality. This made her very special, not only on records, with her unusual different timbre, but also on stage during performances. Audiences loved her. [Photo above, from left, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sylvia Telles and Marcos Valle at RCA Studios]


JW: Did you know Brazilian organist Walter Wanderley? What was he like? He’s such an enigma here.
MV: Yes, I knew Walter well. I had met him in Brazil, but when I came to the States the second time in 1967, he lived close to me. He had a big hit with my song, Summer Samba, in 1966 and he became famous with it. A year later, he recorded four of my songs on his album Batucada—including the title track, The Crickets Sing for Anamaria, It’s Time to Sing and More Beautiful. I wrote the arrangements. Walter was an excellent organist and piano player. But at the same time, he was the opposite of Sérgio Mendes. Sergio was a businessman who knew how to build a career. Those things were difficult for Walter. Sadly, he drank a lot. That was the big problem. If he had been more organized, perhaps he could have followed on the success he had with Summer Samba. Despite his problem with alcohol, he was a very talented, nice man.


JW: Today in Rio, is there still the same romance about the bossa nova that once existed?
MV: Rio today is much different than it was back then. The social situation, atmosphere and culture are all different now. The romance and love are still there but it's less than it was. The music today goes more toward funk and other styles. Young people like pure bossa nova, but Rio still isn't like it was. The culture and vibe are totally different now.


JW: What do you feel inside when you play your music?
MV: When I play music, it’s the best moment of my life. I love to make music and I love performing and recording. I do it with a lot of love and happiness. Really, the happiest moments of my life are on stage. Of course, when I’m with my wife, Patricia, or my sons, who are 22 and 24 now, I am very happy. But music brings me everything that I need and love. It still enchants me. My music takes me back in time, of course, but it also helps me look forward to the future. Music remains a big part of my life.

JazzWax reminder: Marcos Valle and his band with special guest Celso Fonseca will be at New York's Birdland this week starting tomorrow night through Saturday, two performances nightly. For information and tickets, go here.

JazzWax clips: Here's Marcos singing Samba de Verão (Summer Samba)...

Here's Marcos singing Seu Encanto (The Face I Love)...

And here's Celso Fonseca singing his Slow Motion Bossa Nova...