JazzWax

Madhur, Emily and Karen

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed the legendary Indian cookbook author and actress Madhur Jaffrey for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Madhur talked about growing up in Delhi and how she managed to wind up in New York as the preeminent expert on Indian cuisine. Along the way, she was in the Merchant Ivory film Shakespeare Wallah (1965). [Photo above of Madhur Jaffrey at her home in Columbia County, N.Y., by Richard Beaven for The Wall Street Journal]

Here's Madhur in the film's trailer...

SiriusXM. If you missed me on Feedback with Nik and Lori last week, here's the podcast on Blondie's Rapture...

Emily Remler. Following my post last week on the late guitarist Emily Remler, I received the following from Michael Simonetti...

Hi Marc. In the early 1980's I was renting a house on Long Beach Island, N.J. It was a convenient walk to a coffee & donuts shop, my usual morning routine. One morning, as I walked, I could hear the sound of a guitar running scales growing louder as I approached a two-story house with open windows directly across the street. As I got closer, the sound grew louder, and I could hear chords, running changes, and single-line improvisations by a serious guitarist with major jazz chops. Obviously, I stood outside those windows until the music ended. This became my routine for the next several days. I knew this was an accomplished artist and it was my good fortune to enjoy a free concert each morning. I didn't want to intrude so, I never attempted to make contact. One morning the music stopped. I later learned that the guitarist was Emily Remler who had come to the island during a period when she was fighting her drug addiction and hoping to free herself from her demons. I wish we had been able to meet in order to simply say, "Thank you." Thanks for remembering Emily Remler and her art.

Here's Emily playing Wes Montgomery's D-Natural Blues in the early 1980s...

Here's Emily playing George Benson's My Latin Brother in 1986...

And here's Emily with organist Barbara Dennerlein and saxophonist Sonny Fortune playing Dennerlein's Tribute to Charley in 1986...

Louis Armstrong radio. WKCR-FM in New York will hold its annual Pops Birthday Broadcast playing the trumpeter's music for 24 hours on July 4, his traditional day of birth. Listen from anywhere in the world on your phone or computer by going here.

Hello, Possums! Here's comedian Dame Edna in 2004 on Michael Parkinson's talk show in London...

What the heck: Here's Sharon Redd in 1980 performing her disco hit, Can You Handle It...

Oddball album cover of the week.

I've never heard Billy Daniel sing, but clearly the woman in this illustration wishes she hadn't. One ear is covered by her right bicep while her left hand covers the other.

BBC Doc: Yacht Rock

With the July 4th holiday falling on a Thursday this year in the U.S., next week is pretty much a wash. Many people are taking off, turning the first week in July into a sweltering version of the week between Christmas and New Year. You can literally hear New York quiet down to a hush.

Since today is Friday and the gateway to summer, let's dig a new BBC documentary on yacht rock, the name for soft, escapist pop that became massively popoular in the early 1970s and ran until 1986 as the offspring of folk rock and sunshine pop. Interestingly, yacht rock intersects with jazz along the way. Many hits were covered by jazz musicians in the '80s and the genre helped launch smooth jazz, for better or worse. So put up your feet, tie your hair back in a pony tail, crack open a cold Diet Dr Pepper and let I Can Go for That: The Smooth World of Yacht Rock wash over you. A special thanks to Jimi Mentis, who sent along the links for all to see:

Here's Part 1...

Here's Part 2...

10 Little-Known Maiden Voyages

In January 1965, jazz pianist Herbie Hancock received a call from a Hollywood jingle agency. Its client, Yardley, needed background music for a TV commercial and wanted a trio to play something jazzy, since the men’s fragrance ad took place in a sophisticated club. But instead of writing straight-ahead jazz, Mr. Hancock arranged a catchy rhythmic line that was closer to rock.

In the weeks ahead, Mr. Hancock completed the assignment and then used the rhythmic chords as the bones for Maiden Voyage—the title song to what would become his most iconic album. Below is Hancock's original version released in 1965 followed by nine versions, many of which may be new to you:

Here's Herbie Hancock's original...

Here's Toto in 2002...

Here's Formerly of the Harlettes, Bette Midler's former backup vocal group, in 1977...

Here's Pucho and His Latin Soul Brothers in 1967...

Here's Bobby Hutcherson in 1966...

Here's Denny Zeitlin in 1966...

Here's Grant Green in 1970...

Here's Helen Merrill in 1977...

Here's the Third Wave arranged and conducted by George Duke in 1970...

And here's Ramsey Lewis with strings and voices in 1968...

Emily Remler: Firefly/Take Two

Sometime in 1984, WKCR-FM's Bird Flight host Phil Schaap introduced me to guitarist Emily Remler. I was an early fan, and she was playing at the West End Bar near Columbia University where I had just completed grad school. As I recall, the place was half full and I was sitting in a booth when Phil graciously brought her over between sets.

What I remember most were her eyes. They seemed vulnerable, like a doe's. Looking at her, it was impossible to discern whether she felt she was a much bigger deal than the audience's size indicated or she was surprised anyone had bothered to show up at all. I learned later that Emily was like that—puzzled by life, its rules and her place in the jazz universe of male artists. A year or so after our meeting, drug addiction would begin to help her cope with that frustration and wound up killing her in 1990. But in 1984, I sensed a confused and enormously gifted soul.

That night at the West End, I remember going on about her albums Firefly and Take Two and how superb they were. Emily was gratified to hear that. After talking to her for about 10 minutes, I recall thinking that she seemed young for someone with her chops. The artists she gigged with must have felt the same way. Given the quality of her playing, she should have been in her late 50s. Instead, she was a year younger than I was at the time—29.

Firefly was recorded in 1981 and featured Hank Jones (p), Emily Remler (g), Bob Maize (b) and Jake Hanna (d). Take Two featured James Williams (p), Emily Remler (g), Don Thompson (b) and Terry Clarke (d), and came a year later. Both are exquisite.

Emily was born in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. A self-taught guitarist, she planned to become a graphic designer. But when she she graduated early from high school at age 16, she found herself admitted to the Berklee College of Music. In Boston, Emily squeezed four years into two and graduated at 18. Then she moved to New Orleans, where the level of musicianship pushed her to become exceptional. Guitarist Herb Ellis became a mentor after hearing her there, and she soon moved to New York.

Up north, Emily found herself in a crowded field of exceptional players. Guitarist John Scofield became another mentor and introduced her to bassist John Clayton, who invited her to San Francisco to record with him and his brother Jeff on their Concord album, It's All in the Family. It would be Emily's first recording. Impressed, Concord signed her to a recording contract. Firefly was first followed by Take Two. After her marriage to Monty Alexander fizzled in 1984, Emily entered a self-loathing phase and turned to drugs.

In 1986, Emily left New York for Pittsburgh to become an artist in residence at Duquesne University and she studied with Bob Brookmeyer at the University of Pittsburgh. She also entered therapy to deal with her issues. She continued to record until her Concord deal ran out. In 1989, she signed with Justice Records to release what would be her last leadership album, This Is Me. While on tour in Australia in May 1990, she was found dead in a Sydney hotel room. The official cause was heart failure, but at 32, Emily's substantial appetite for heroin and dilaudid (an opioid pain-killer) surely put her heart through the ringer.

Now, whenever I hear Firefly and Take Two, I can't help but think about that night at the West End Bar, her face lit only by a flickering table candle and her eyes baffled by her gift, her failing marriage and figuring out what to do next.

For more on Emily Remler, read Michael J. West's article in JazzTimes last year here. Also, visit All Things Emily here.

Pages. Geoff Page recently published Elegy for Emily: A verse biography of Emily Remler (1957-1990) here. It's written in poem form.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Emily Remler's Firefly and Take Two here and here.

JazzWax clips: Here's the entire Firefly album...

And here's the entire Take Two album...

Here's Emily in the late 1980s playing Blues for Herb...

Here's Emily playing her original Majestic Dance...

And here's Emily in Australia in April 1990 playing How Insensitive just weeks before her death...

Mark Turner + Gary Foster

Seventy years ago, on March 4, 1949, cool jazz was recorded for the first time. Given a mandate to record whatever new jazz was important, Pete Rugolo, Capitol's head of A&R, brought the Lennie Tristano Sextet into the studio to tape two songs—Wow and Crosscurrent. The music by Lee Konitz (as), Warne Marsh (ts), Lennie Tristano (p), Billy Bauer (g), Arnold Fishkin (b) and Harold Granowsky (d) featured the reeds playing bone dry (zero vibrato), high on the upper register and loaded with complex counterpoint lines and freewheeling harmony. Cool jazz didn't catch on the way hard bop would nor did it last long, but it established an original sound and made jazz stars of Konitz, Marsh and Tristano. [Photo above, from left, Gary Foster, Mark Turner, Putter Smith and Joe LaBarbera, courtesy of Braithwaite & Katz Communications]

Now, tenor saxophonist Mark Turner and alto saxophonist Gary Foster, backed by Putter Smith on bass and Joe La Barbera on drums, take on the cool school of the Tristano group minus the piano and guitar. On Mark Turner Meets Gary Foster (Capri), the quartet chose Marsh's Background Music, Sonny Red's 'Teef, Tristano's Lennie's Pennies and 317 East 32nd Street, the standards Come Rain or Come Shine and What's New, and Konitz's Subconcious-Lee.

Fans of cool jazz will find much to love on this album. Each track features the reeds weaving and bobbing dryly with the "driving in reverse" Konitz-Marsh feel. Background Music, Lennie's Pennies and 317 East 32nd Street steal the show, but the other tracks show enormous dexterity and affinity for the style's abstraction and arid sound. If you dig Konitz and Marsh together and how they played off each other, you'll dig this new album. Special kudos to Putter Smith and Joe La Barbera for delivering the knotty bass and persistent drums that colorized cool jazz. [Photo above of Lee Konitz]

I would have loved to have heard the quartet take on Wow and Crosscurrent, but as you'll hear, the results are a full understanding of cool and Tristano's compositional and stylistic break from bebop. [Photo above of Warne Marsh]

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Mark Turner Meets Gary Foster (Capri) here.

You'll also find the album at Spotify.

JazzWax clips: Here's the entire album. Just let it play...

Bonus: Here are the Lennie Tristano groups playing Wow and other tracks from their 1949 Capitol recordings...

Bonus2: Bill Kirchner sent along a link to Ne Plu Ultra, recorded in 1969 and featuring Warne Marsh (ts), Gary Foster (as), Dave Parlato (b), John Tirabasso (d)...

Blue Mitchell: Smooth as Wind

One more Tadd Dameron album that is a masterpiece—Blue Mitchell's Smooth as the Wind. Recorded in 1960 and '61 for Riverside, the album showcased Mitchell's fleshy trumpet backed by sophisticated and sympathetic brass and strings. Seven of the songs were arranged by Dameron, with the remaining three by Benny Golson. The songs arranged by Dameron are Smooth as the Wind, But Beautiful, The Best Things in Life Are Free, For Heaven's Sake, The Nearness of You, A Blue Time and Horace Silver's Strollin'. (Benny arranged Silver's Peace, For All We Know and I'm a Fool to Want You.) Benny's arrangements are glorious, but it's a shame Dameron didn't have an opportunity to complete the album. Having just been released from a federal prison rehab hospital in Lexington, Ky., Dameron probably found the full number too much for him to meet producer Orrin Keepnews's deadline. Or Dameron may have been sidelined by health issues. Many people compare this album to Clifford Brown With Strings. For me, Dameron and Benny's scores are far more interesting than Neal Hefti's string writing five years earlier on the Brown album. But it's all subjective.

Here are the Dameron scores:

Here's the title track...

Here's But Beautiful...

Here's The Best Things in Life Are Free...

Here's The Nearness of You...

Here's For Heaven's Sake...

Here's Dameron's composition, A Blue Time, which bears some resemblance to Tenderly...

And here's Strollin'...

Cathy, Raymond and Freddie

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed Cathy Guisewite for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Cathy is the cartoonist behind "Cathy," a strip that ran in newspapers nationwide from 1976 to 2010 and playfully addressed the angst-y issues women faced in their personal and professional lives. Cathy got her start by sending cartoons about her own life off to Universal Press Syndicate as a lark. UPS sent a letter back within weeks saying, "Let's do it." Cathy's mother played a key role. As you can imagine, Cathy was hysterical to interview. [Photo of Cathy Guisewite at her Los Angeles home by Matthew Scott Granger for The Wall Street Journal]

Here she is on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the late 1980s...

And here she is with Jay Leno, who was guest-hosting in 1990...

SiriusXM. I'll be on Feedback with co-hosts Nik Carter and Lori Majewski on Thursday, June 27, to break down Blondie's Rapture, the subject of my most recent "Anatomy of a Song" column for the WSJ.

Director Raymond De Felitta's new film is Bottom of the Ninth, a baseball film starring Joe Manganiello, Sofía Vergara, Michael Rispoli and Denis O'Hare. Raymond directed one of jazz's finest documentaries, 'Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris. Here's the trailer...

Shades of Red Clay. Milan Simich sent along a Freddie Hubbard track, Gittin' Down, from Hubbard's album Black Angel in 1969. Clearly a tune-up for Hubbard's Red Clay in 1970. Here's the track from May 1969...

And here's Red Clay from January 1970...

More Bennie Maupin. Rob Fletcher sent along this track, Escondido, from Early Reflections...

Dr. John. Chris "King" Cowles, radio host of Greasy Tracks on WRTC in Hartford (from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., EDT, every Saturday), sent along this clip of Dr. John in action...

Lee Morgan radio. "Symphony" Sid Gribetz is hosting a five-hour radio broadcast on Sunday (June 23) celebrating the career of trumpeter Lee Morgan on Jazz Profiles on WKCR-FM in New York from 2 to 7 p.m. (EDT). To listen from anywhere in the world on your phone or computer, go here.

What the heck. Here's Sly and the Family Stone performing Hot Fun in the Summertime in 1969...

Oddball album cover of the week.

I have no idea what this kitschy surrealist cover is all about. A sculpture of a rearing horse, a sombrero, an apple with an arrow shot through it on a model's head and a seemingly frozen toy poodle. Despite odd bits and pieces, the models seem to be having the time of their lives thanks to Harry Farmer, a British easy listening organist.

Perfect Album: Mating Call

While we're on the subject of Tadd Dameron this week, I didn't want to overlook what is perhaps his finest quartet album—Mating Call, with John Coltrane. Produced by Bob Weinstock for Prestige in November 1956 and released in '57, the personnel included Tadd Dameron (p), John Coltrane (ts), John Simmons (b) and Philly Joe Jones (d). It's sensational in every way, from Dameron's six songs (Mating Call, Gnid, Soultrane, On a Misty Night, Romas and Super Jet) to the superb expressive contrasts between Dameron and Coltrane, with Simmons and Jones chiming in.

Here's the entire Mating Call album (just let the tracks play)...

Five Tadd Dameron Clips

The beauty and sophistication of Tadd Dameron's compositions and arrangements are impossibly seductive. Let's extend our Dameronia week with five YouTube clips:

Here's Vanessa Rubin singing Dameron's On a Misty Night...

Here's John's Delight in 1947, named for a line guitarist John Collins conceived...

Here's Dizzy Gillespie's big band in 1947 playing Good Bait...

Here's Barry Harris playing Casbah...

And here's a young lady with a wonderful tone playing Ladybird...

Paul Combs: Unknown Dameron

Tadd Dameron's compositions have been widely celebrated since his death in 1965. In addition to three albums by Dameronia—a group formed in the 1980s by trumpeter-arranger Don Sickler and drummer Philly Joe Jones—there also is Barry Harris Plays Tadd Dameron (1975), Continuum's Mad About Tadd (1982), Warren Rand Duo and Quintet's Dameron II-V (1995), Tardo Hammer's Look, Stop and Listen (2007), The Dream Is You: Vanessa Rubin Sings Tadd Dameron (2019) and a bunch of others. [Photo above of saxophonist-author Paul Combs]

Add to the list Paul Combs's new Unknown Dameron: Rare and Never Recorded Works of Tadd Dameron (Summit). Recorded in 2017 and 2018, and released this month, the album features 12 obscure Dameron compositions. The album is a product of Combs's research into the life and music of Tadd Dameron for his 2012 biography, Dameronia. Here's what Paul writes in the album's liner notes:

I uncovered many more works by this important musician beyond the eight for which he is generally known; some on rare recordings, others in copyright deposits, and still others in scores tucked away in various libraries. It was my hope to share as much of this music as possible. To this end, I organized a quintet devoted to playing the music I had found. In the end, the original idea of a two-CD set had to be abandoned due to copyright complications and a general lack of resources.

Fortunately, after I moved to San Diego, Ken Poston, fellow researcher and now general manager of KSDS/Jazz88.org, asked if I would like to perform Tadd’s music on one of their live broadcast concerts. We settled on Dameron’s 100th birthday, February 21, 2017. This garnered the interest and support of Summit Records, and made this recording possible.

The album's collective personnel includes Derek Cannon (tp); Paul Combs (saxes); Bill Cunliffe and Ken Cook and Melonie Grinnell (p); Kamau Kenyatta (sax); Jeff Denson, Rob Thorsen and Alex Frank (b); Charles Ruggiero (d); Alex Aspinall and Richard Sellers (perc); and Danielle Wertz (voc).

For the benefit of those who will download the music without the liner notes, here's Combs's take in the notes on each Dameron composition featured:

• Conversation (1940) was copyrighted along with other pieces that Tadd wrote for Harlan
  Leonard. There may well have been an arrangement for the band, but it was never recorded. While I can imagine what the arrangement might have sounded like, taken by itself, it suggests something more modern.
• Moon From the East (1962) was written for Benny Goodman’s USSR tour in 1962. It was originally a “set piece” without solos, but I have found it to be a good “blowing” vehicle.
• Take a Chance on Spring (1963) is a cheerful piece with lyrics by Maely Daniele. It was recorded by Karin Krog and Per Husby on a record that won an award in Europe, but the song remains unknown in the U.S.
• Don't Forget It (1942), written during Dameron’s tenure with Jimmie Lunceford, is very much in the vein of the popular songs of the day. It was never recorded, but its charming melody has made it one of my favorites.
• The Search (1948) was copyrighted along with some other tunes that were recorded by
  Dizzy Gillespie at the time, and I suspect there was an arrangement of this in the Gillespie
  book that never made it to “wax.”
• Never Been in Love (1963), with lyrics by Irving Reid, was first recorded by Bill Lee and Muriel Winston on a long-forgotten Strata East LP. It was also recorded in the 1980s by the Norwegian vocalist Karin Krog, but it should be much better known.
• Sando Latino (1962) was written for a Milt Jackson session on Atlantic, but its recording was lost in the very unfortunate vault fire at Atlantic that year. Sadly, the master tapes were all that existed at the time, and the whole session was lost.
• A La Bridges (1940) was written for and recorded by Harlan Leonard’s Kansas City Rockets. Dameron chose to share the composer credit with tenor saxophonist Henry Bridges, whose playing inspired the tune. Since we have no record of any other compositions by Bridges, it is my opinion that this is primarily Tadd’s work.
• Weekend (1963), with lyrics by Irving Reid, was also on the Winston/Lee LP. I hear it as
  a bossa nova, even though it tells the story of a brief affair at a ski lodge. Dameron was known to be very interested in the bossa nova groove at this time.
• Zalkat (c. 1945) was written for Jimmie Lunceford, but some time after Tadd was on staff. It is clearly a bop tune, and while it was never recorded, musicians who were on the scene at the time remember the tune.
• Come Close (1962) only appears as a piano arrangement filed with the U.S. Copyright Office. The title and the melody suggest that Dameron had a lyric in mind, but so far, none has come to light.
• The Rampage (1956) shares some thematic material with Small Groove, which Tadd
  wrote for Woody Herman around this same time, and may have been the basis for the
  Herman version. This is its first recording.

For those who love Dameron's work, Combs's album is rather miraculous. How lucky are we that Combs went the extra distance to pull loose virtually unknown Dameron compositions, form groups to play them, rehearse tirelessly and record only when the music was perfect. I can't wait to hear Combs's next Dameron recording, if Summit is willing. I hope they will be. It's important jazz history worthy of documentation. What's more, Combs is a superb saxophonist.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Paul Combs: Unknown Dameron (Summit) here (download available now) and here (the CD is out on Friday).

The album is also available at Spotify.

JazzWax clips: Here are tracks from this glorious album. Just let them play...