In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed former Mets first baseman Keith Hernandez for my "House Call" column (go here). Keith grew up near San Francisco in the 1960s. His dad was a fireman in the city, so Keith's family had a different perspective on the civic dangers posed by a freestyle youth culture than romantics elsewhere in the country reading about hippies in Life magazine. Here's Keith on Seinfeld...
SiriusXM. If you missed me on SiriusXM last week with Nik Carter and Lori Majewski, co-hosts of Feedback, you can catch the show here.
Earl Zindars. After my post on Earl Zindars and Bill Evans last week, I heard from pianist Luciano Troja. As you may recall, I included Luciano's stunning solo album of Zindars's work, At Home With Zindars:
"Dear Marc, I read your essential article about Earl Zindars and Bill Evans. The empathy between Zindars and Evans was very important. Your article was a perfect synthesis—condensing a lot of information that explained clearly how close they were. And your line, "Zindars's many works sound like the spirit of Evans's soul," was beautiful. And, how amazing was that Army Band YouTube clip of Bill Evans! I wish to let you know that last April, I played a concert entirely dedicated to Zindars's compositions, at Maybeck Studio in Berkeley, Ca. It was organized with the lovely support of his marvelous family: his wife Anne, and their two daughters—Helene, a superb soprano singer, and Karen. They are deeply inside that music. All around them is music, generosity and beauty. I included some unreleased Zindars compositions, and the concert was recorded. I’m waiting to hear the result, then I will decide whether to release it. I will keep you posted.
Congratulations always for your wonderful blog and for the recent great award you received from the Jazz Journalists Association for best blog of the year. Ciao, from Sicily."
CDs you should know about.
Denny Zeitlin—Wishing on the Moon (Sunnyside).
Recorded live at New York's Dizzy's Coca-Cola in March 2009, this newly released album features Denny at his exploitative best, taking standards apart and reassembling them with curiosity and daring. He's joined by bassist Buster Williams and drummer Matt Wilson. Go here.
Jan Lundgren—Man in the Fog (Fog Arts). Jan's first solo studio album recorded February 2013 on Bee Jazz, has been reissued. Jan neatly brings together jazz and classical, combining the dark moodiness of formal playing with the swing of jazz. The album includes a bonus track of Jan playing Yesterdays, a virtuoso performance. Go here.
Bob Dorough. Following my post on the late Bob Dorough, pianist Mattias Nilsson in Sweden sent along the following email:
"Hello Marc, I hope all is well. My friend Peter Parnestam has done a lot of great interviews for the now-defunct Malmö Jazz Radio. I've converted the old cassettes of these interviews into digital fils and will upload some of them soon." To hear the interview he conducted with Bob Dorough, go here.
To listen to Parnestam's interview with Jay McShann and Margaret Whiting, go here and here.
Tessa Souter tells me that her book, Anything I Can Do You Can Do Better, which was published in the U.K. in 2006 by Random House, has been updated and is now available for pre-order in the States on Kindle. Go here. For information about the book, go here.
Don Randi, a pianist who in the 1960s was a member of Hollywood's famed Wrecking Crew, an unofficial group of studio musicians who recorded on many pop-rock hits, will be at New York's Bitter End with his jazz group, Quest, on June 1. His latest album, Good Jazz Vibrations, is a jazz interpretation of Beach Boys songs. Don recorded on many of the group's songs. For information about tickets, go here.
What the heck. Here's video of the Temptations singing My Girl in 1964. At 1:22, we see Smokey Robinson conducting...
Oddball album cover of the week.
Perhaps one of the dullest covers ever printed, but at least we get to see what RCA in Rome looked like.