I was 12 on July 20, 1969. We had just moved to the Town of Cortlandt, a wooded hamlet an hour north of New York. The public schools were becoming too rough and classes too crowded in northern Manhattan, and my artist parents didn't have the means for private school. So on that Sunday, I was in my room with my father's reel-to-reel recorder taping the audio of CBS anchor Walter Cronkite coming out of a small white portable TV set with an antenna.
Cronkite was was providing commentary as the Eagle lunar lander descended to the moon's surface. I have no idea why I was taping the special news report. I suppose documenting it made me feel part of the process. Or it was the inner journalist emerging. Interestingly, 43 years later, I would interview Buzz Aldrin for the WSJ about living in that lander for 21 1/2 hours and how he and Neil Armstrong almost were unable to leave the surface when it was time to depart (go here).
So today, with the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and walk tomorrow, let's get in the lunar groove with 10 timeless pop and jazz songs about the magic of the moon:
Here's Paul Whiteman and Bing Crosby in 1928 on Get Out and Get Under the Moon...
Here's Maurice Chevalier in 1930 singing Livin' in the Sunlight...
Here's Frank Sinatra in 1940 with Tommy Dorsey's orchestra and Sy Oliver's arrangement of East of the Sun and West of the Moon...
Here's Glenn Miller's Moonlight Serenade in 1941 from the film Sun Valley Serenade (followed by Pat Friday overdubbing actress Lynn Bari singing I Know Why and So Do You)...
Here's Nat King Cole in 1947 playing piano and singing If You Stub Your Toe on the Moon...
Here's June Christy with Stan Kenton in 1947 singing How High the Moon...
Here's Sarah Vaughan in 1958 singing Moonlight in Vermont with Count Basie's band minus Basie.
Here's Dinah Washington's Destination Moon in 1962...
Here's Julie London in 1964 singing Fly Me to the Moon...
On July 19, 1978, Bill Evans performed at the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy, with Marc Johnson on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. What's fascinating about the following clip of Nardis is how fractured and percussive Evans's playing is. Was it the uncomfortable stool? Disgust with the piano? Drugs? Or the sheer tedium of the song? Or all of the above? What we see and hear on this video is a different Evans—an artist distraught, exceedingly aggressive and heavy handed, as if he's flogging the song rather than caressing it. The performance isn't helped by Jones beating Nardis into submission. Here'sNardis...
What was it like to be on the road in a big band in 1950? It's difficult to say, since we only have the recollections of musicians who were there. And who knows how accurate those memories are. In the case of Elliot Lawrence, two members of his band at the time—Bob Karch and Howie Mann—took color home movies. As you'll see in the following eight clips, the country was young then. The interstate highway system hadn't been built yet. TV hadn't yet penetrated most markets. Radio still dominated. And bands were still being booked to play dances and proms. I found that the following soundless clips at YouTube speak volumes. Each includes a description of what's going on in the segment. The music added for sound is from 1950 radio transcriptions of the Lawrence band. The optimism, excitement and horsing around isn't that much different from rock bands decades later.
I'm guessing this was the general personnel of the road band in 1950: Joe Techner, John Dee, Gerry LaFurn (tp) Bill Danzien (tp,fhr) Sy Berger, Ollie Wilson, Gene Hessler (tb) Herbie Steward (as) Phil Urso, Stan Weiss (ts) Vince Ferraro, Merle Bredwell (bar) Elliot Lawrence, Bob Karch (p) Mert Oliver (b) Howie Mann (d) Rosalind Patton (vcl). [Pictured above, Elliot Lawrence with models]
These are home movies, so be patient. If you watch carefully, you'll get a strong feel for what young ambitious band musicians were up to 69 years ago—goofing around, performing and just enjoying themselves and the American scenery during swings through the rural West in the summer and fall. Part 7 has a particularly great opening...
Gerry Mulligan's contributions to jazz are monumental. As an arranger, the baritone saxophonist pulled drummer and bandleader Gene Krupa into the bebop era in the mid-1940s, gave bandleader Claude Thornhill a hip sound in the late 1940s, made major contributions to the Miles Davis "Birth of the Cool" recording sessions at the tail end of the '40s, created a revolutionary pianoless quartet with Chet Baker in Los Angeles in 1952, influenced arrangers Bill Holman and Shorty Rogers on the West Coast in the early '50s and yanked bandleader Stan Kenton off his neo-classical kick and helped him shift to a more swinging modern sound. For the balance of the decade, Mulligan revolutionized the tentet, sextet and concert band. And we haven't even discussed his influence as a player or composer.
Jazz paid Mulligan back starting in 1954 as artists recorded tribute albums featuring his compositions and arrangements. Here are 10 of the best albums. All are killer and available at Amazon except where noted:
Vic Lewis's Mulligans Music (1954). Here'sWestwood Walk...
Elliot Lawrence Plays Gerry Mulligan Arrangements (1955). Here's Mulligan's fabulous arrangement of Bye Bye Blackbird by the Elliot Lawrence band...
Claude Williamson Mulls the Mulligan Scene (1958). Here's Line for Lyons (this one is available at Fresh Sound)...
The early 1960s was a hot time for the Hammond organ, especially on the Prestige label. The surge in organ players at clubs in the late 1950s had to do with three trends. First, in 1959, Hammond came out with its A-100 series that was slimmer and more preferred as a road instrument than the B-style cabinet. Second, as a dominant instrument in a jazz or soul group, the Hammond had all-in-one efficiency; all you needed was a drummer, guitarist and a socket. And third, and perhaps most important, organist Jimmy Smith was all the rage at Blue Note.
Richard "Groove" Holmes was among Prestige's most popular players in the early '60s and beyond. He traveled with a bulky Hammond B-3 and Leslie speaker cabinet, carting them around in a funeral hearse in the pre-SUV era. Holmes's stature at Prestige was a big deal considering that the label also recorded Brother Jack McDuff, Don Patterson, Shirley Scott, Johnny "Hammond" Smith, Charles Earland, Trudy Pitts and Charles Kynard among organ giants. What set Holmes apart is that he typically launched a fabulous groove on both originals and standards, and worked it. He also wasn't a piano player turned organist. He started on the bass before turning to the organ in his hometown of Camden, N.J., and had his flavor from the start.
On Soul Message, recorded in August 1965, Holmes was accompanied by Gene Edwards (g) and Jimmie Smith (d). The big hit off the album was a funky cover of Erroll Garner's Misty. It went to #44 on Billboard's pop chart. In addition to Misty, Holmes had three other hits on the chart—What Now My Love, Secret Love and The More I See You—all in 1966.
The interesting thing about this album is that it's perfect. There's no wheel-spinning here. Each track—Groove's Groove, Daahoud, Misty, Song for My Father, The Things We Did Last Summer and Soul Message—is hip and sharply shaped. As for guitarist Gene Edwards, the bulk of his brief five-year recording career in the early 1960s was with Holmes. He's gorgeous on every track, delivering hard-edged, soulful lines. As for drummer Jimmie Smith (no relation to organist Jimmy), he has played drums behind virtually everyone and is still with us.
Richard "Groove" Holmes, one of Prestige's tastiest Hammond players, died in 1991.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Richard "Groove" Holmes's Soul Messagehere.
You'll also find the album at Spotify.
JazzWax clip:Here's the entire album in tracks, starting with the first...
This week in The Wall Street Journal, I interviewed actor Richard Thomas for my "House Call" column in the paper's Mansion section (go here). Richard talked about his early start on Broadway at age 7 and his parents, both of whom danced in the Ballets Russes and New York’s Ballet Theatre. Fans of the TV series The Americans will recall Richard as Frank Gaad, director of the FBI's Counter Intelligence Department. If you haven't binged the series on Amazon Prime, do. The series was as good as if not better than The Sopranos and Homeland combined. [Photo above of actor Richard Thomas at his Manhattan apartment by Matt Furman for The Wall Street Journal]
Here's Richard talking about how he wound up on The Americans...
Shout out for "House Call." A special thanks to Andrew Ferguson in this month's Atlantic, who wrote about the WSJ's Mansion section and mentioned my weekly "House Call" column...
One recurring feature about celebrities, titled “House Call,” not long ago gave us Moby, who in the 1990s, we are reminded, was “a pioneer of electronic dance music.” (I’m one who needed reminding: I can scarcely remember his music, perhaps because the 1990s is when I stopped dancing.) Moby’s story, as told to Mansion, is unrelievedly squalid, a Dickensian coming-of-age tale about a young fellow abandoned by his father and yanked around the country by an itinerant, drug-addled mother. Here’s a brief excerpt, so un-Mansion-like: “Being ashamed was my lot. My mother’s hippie life meant chaos, poverty, and shame.” This is the stuff of real journalism."
Jackie DeShannon, Hollywood's first female pop-rock singer-songwriter, sent along an email last night:
Dear Marc, Hope you are doing well and having summertime fun. This is the link to my new single, For Isla. Hope you like it. Go here...
The song (here) was inspired by Jackie's granddaughter. As you can hear, Jackie's voice sounds fantastic!
Here's Jackie in 1964 performing her hit song When You Walk in the Room...
João Gilberto. In my recent post on the late João Gilberto, I mentioned that his song Um Abraço No Bonfá took a Luiz Bonfá riff and built on it. Several readers wondered which song I was referring to. Here are the two songs:
And here's João Gilberto's Um Abraço No Bonfá in 1960, which translated means A Hug for Bonfá...
Batter up! I never knew footage existed of the 7th game of the 1960 World Series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Yankees. Years ago, a tape was found among the personal archives of Bing Crosby, who was part owner of the Pirates. He hired someone to shoot a kinescope film of the final game while he was away in France. Crosby reportedly was too nervous to watch the game in Pittsburgh, so he had a film made to watch later. Here are the last three innings, widely considered to be among the most dramatic three innings in World Series history. If you don't know the outcome, I won't spoil it...
Hazel Scott documentary. Robert McKeon sent along a link to a documentary on this highly underappreciated pianist...
Mike Mainieri. Des Stanley sent along terrific links to vibraphonist Mike Mainieri's two-hour performance in 2017 with the WDR Big Band in Germany conducted and arranged by Bob Mintzer:
And here's Part 2, which Des notes opens with an intoxicating duet between Mike and flutist Karolina Strassmayer playing the Spartacus Love Theme...
Dinah Washington. Last week I received an email from producer Angie Lee Cobbs:
Hi Marc, I hope this message finds you well. I’m writing to help spread the word about Dinah Washington's granddaughter, Angel Jenkins. She has written a touching song about the late singer and needs help preparing, recording and getting the song out for Dinah’s birthday on August 29th. Readers can help by donating and/or sharing the Go Fund Me link to her campaign.Go here.
What the heck. Here's Timmy Thomas at the organ in 1972 singing his hit Why Can't We Live Together...
Oddball album cover of the week.
In 1959, rubber sharks were a shoreline menace. I'm unsure of the pun on "wailin', since the hoisted predator seems more like a great white, not an ocean orca. In fact, that's not even Winnie Gould on the cover. She's here in 1962...
On March 21 and 22 in 2013, Brazilian vocalist Rose Max was in Costa Rica with guitarist Ramatis Morais, pianist Michael Orta, bassist Jamie Ousley and drummer Carlomagno Araya. They were there to perform a bossa nova tribute backed by Costa Rica's National Symphony Orchestra at the National Theatre of Costa Rica in San José. The orchestra was arranged and conducted by Jeremy Fox, a masterful artist who lives in Miami. Rose Max (above) and Ramatis Morais live there now, too.
It's Friday, so kick back and enjoy the following videos I found from the concert. I only wish I had been there. Why oh why can't tributes like this one find its way to be performed in the U.S.? Rose's singing, Ramatis's playing and Jeremy's arrangements are fantastic, not to mention the rest of the rhythm section and the orchestra [photo above of the National Theatre of Costa Rica in San José]:
Here's Samba de Uma Nota Só, Chega de Saudade, O Barquinho and Água de Beber...
Over the past few weeks, I've come across three superb recent tribute albums to pianist-composer Tadd Dameron. I posted most recently about Dameron here, here, here and here, plus here in 2013. The recent ones that came to my attention are Ferit Odman's Dameronia With Strings (2015), Joe Magnarelli's If You Could See Me Now (2019) and Vanessa Rubin's The Dream Is You (2019).
Ferit Odman's Dameronia With Strings (Equinox)—Turkish drummer Ferit Odman leads a group fronted by trumpeter Terell Stafford. The balance includes Danny Grisset (p); Antoine Silverman, Diane Monroe and Tamara DeMent (vln); Chris Cardona (viola); Emily Brausa and Clarice Jensen (cello); Peter Washington (b); and David O'Rourke (arr,cond). The string arrangements are terrific and provide Stafford with dreamy support. Songs include On a Misty Night, If You Could See Me Now, Just Plain Talkin', Smooth as the Wind, Look Stop & Listen, You're a Joy, Our Delight and Soultrane. Go here.
Joe Magnarelli's If You Could See Me Now (Cellar). Magnarelli's fleshy trumpet and flugelhorn take center stage backed by Ralph Moore (ts), Anthony Wonsey (p), Dezron Douglas (b) and George Fludas (d). Everything Mags plays is juicy, and he's at the top of his bop game here. The songs are Lady Bird, On a Misty Night, Bula Beige, The Tadd Walk, If You Could See Me Now, The Dream Is You, I Think I'll Go Away, Sando Latino and Super Jet.Go here.
Vanessa Rubin's The Dream Is You (Nibur). Delivering songs with beautiful intonation and phrasing, Rubin has the perfect voice for Dameron's work. She has done her homework by studying jazz history's great singers but resisting sounding like anyone in particular. Instead, she relies on her own cozy, intimate approach and bravely takes on Dameron standards and rarities. Rubin is backed by a nifty big band with punchy arrangements. The songs are Lady Bird, Kitchenette Across the Hall, If You Could See Me Now, Weekend, On a Misty Night, Never Been in Love, Next Time Around, Good Bait, Reveries Do Come True (The Dream Is You), Whatever Possessed Me, You're a Joy and I Think I'll Go Away. Go here.
New Orleans pianist Jelly Roll Morton is widely considered to be jazz's first arranger. Though jazz was considered an improvised form early on, Morton proved that jazz could retain its joyous, freewheeling feel even when scored on music paper. He also was jazz's first published composer. His Jelly Roll Blues was published in 1915. As a composer, Morton was a powerful force, writing the standards King Porter Stomp, Wolverine Blues and Black Bottom Stomp. He also was among the first jazz musicians to be ripped off in a sizable way. [Photo above of Jelly Roll Morton in Harlem]
Despite having written dozens of songs that had been recorded and performed with great success by other leading bands since the start of the swing era, Morton had consistently been denied membership in ASCAP. As a result, he didn't receive a dime in royalties for the performances of his music in concerts, on jukeboxes and on the radio. In the 1930s, ASCAP was exclusively for Broadway's white, legit songwriters whose songs generated sizable income in New York and Hollywood.
During this period, jazz was thought of as junk music by ASCAP, which considered the originality of jazz compositions suspect, since the blues was a public domain construct. It wasn't until 1939, with the formation of BMI, that musicians who played jazz, R&B, country, blues and other popular folk styles found a performing rights organization that welcomed their membership and protection.
Getting back to Morton, who died in 1941, a sensational new album has been released by two extraordinary musicians—pianist Andrew Oliver and clarinetist/saxophonist David Horniblow. The album is The Complete Morton Project, featuring 15 songs by Morton. The tracks represents a fraction of what already is available on YouTube. Oliver and Horniblow have recorded direct to video all of Morton's original songs, which number around 95. At the moment, there are no plans to issue them on CDs or as downloads.
The songs on this first album are Shreveport Stomp, Croc-O-Dile Cradle, Gan Jam, State and Madison, Finger Buster, Courthouse Bump, Stratford Hunch, Mamanita, Good Old New York, Freakish, I Hate a Man Like You, Jungle Blues, Black Bottom Stomp, Mr. Jelly Lord and My Home Is in a Southern Town. To learn more about each individual song, visit Andrew Oliver's site, where he has posted about them. Go here.
What you hear on this new album are two excellent musicians embracing the musical life of a jazz icon who was short-changed while he was alive. The Complete Morton Project not only lets us hear the breathtaking quality of Morton's piano (thanks to the magnificence of Oliver) but it also serves up the piano with reeds (thanks to Horniblow) clear and vibrant, with all of the excitement intact.
Most of Morton's original recordings suffer from the limitations of technology in the 1920s and '30s. Now, with this new album, we finally can hear Morton's original work with the sonic grime wiped off. The result is spirited foot-tapping music that illustrates a turning point in the evolution of syncopation and the emergence of a piano sound that emulated the jazz orchestra.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find The Complete Morton Project (Lejazzital) here.
JazzWax clips:Here's a promo video for the album...
Unlike other forms of popular music, jazz is a product of where artists are from. Each jazz musician's sound is flavored by their environment and surrounding culture. It's unavoidable. Louis Armstrong had a joyful New Orleans sound, Dizzy Gillespie had the arch flavor of New York, Chet Baker had a relaxed West Coast feel and Howard McGhee had a tough, ambitious Detroit sound. The influence of one's surroundings is a vital part of a jazz expression since jazz improvisation comes from one's imagination, and imagination is shaped by experiences.
Pianist-composer Abdullah Ibrahim is from Cape Town, South Africa. As Abdullah told me in 2011 when I last interviewed him, he began playing professionally in 1949 and started his recording career with the Tuxedo Slickers Orchestra in 1954. The South African big-band sound rooted in reeds is still embedded in Abdullah's jazz today, as evidenced on his latest album, The Balance (Gearbox).
Recorded in London at RAK Studios, the album features Abdullah Ibrahim (p); Noah Jackson (b) on tracks 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and cello on tracks 3 and 10; Alec Dankworth (b) on tracks 3 and 10; Will Terrill (d); Adam Glasser (harmonica) on track 10; Cleave Guyton Jr. (as) on tracks 2, 3, 6, (fl) on tracks 1 and 10, and (piccolo) on tracks 4 and 8; Lance Bryant (ts); Andrae Murchison (tb); and Marshall McDonald (bs).
The Balance is Abdullah's first album in five years, and on the recording he unites two jazz formats—a vibrant, conversational piano trio and moody brass akin to a Charles Mingus ensemble. He also dips into his past and present, and embraces liberation from apartheid, from artistic rigidity and from the inflexibility of tradition. Abdullah is a projector of feelings and experiences that swirl around a dense core of childhood memories.
Prior to the mid-1970s, Abdullah was known as Dollar Brand. During my 2011 interview, I asked Abdullah about the origin of his former name: "My original last name was Brand," he said. "I was given my nickname while hanging out in Cape Town Harbor as a teen. I’d befriend African-American sailors, who were manning merchant vessels. They gave me a few dollars and the name stuck. I changed my name in the mid-70s when I converted to Islam."
As you listen to The Balance, you hear the many facets of Abdullah's 84 years. There's the gospel of the black church, Indian ragas, European formalism and a stew of jazz genres. All of these create an assortment of moods in the music, from nostalgia and melancholy to jocularity and jubilation. It's no wonder that Abdullah most relates to the music of Duke Ellington. As he noted in 2011, “In the words of our illustrious poet Rumi, 'There is only one sound, everything else is echo.' ”
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Abdullah Ibrahim's The Balance (Gearbox) here and here.
Marc Myers writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and is author of "Anatomy of 55 More Songs," "Anatomy of a Song," "Rock Concert: An Oral History" and "Why Jazz Happened." Founded in 2007, JazzWax has won three Jazz Journalists Association awards.