JazzWax

Thelonious Monk: Brussels, 1963

I'm loving these newly colorized jazz videos on YouTube. The trend began earlier this year, and the number of videos being given the hue treatment keeps multiplying. I'm not sure how or why so many are getting this makeover (new software technology on the market?), but they certainly are more exciting and lively than the black and white originals. I loath the process for film, but for videos, the ear and brain somehow absorb more when the eye is delighted by color. Case in point: In March 1963, the Thelonious Monk Quartet performed in Brussels as part of a European tour. Here's an hour of the group in colorized tape...

Mike LeDonne: It's All Your Fault

Mike LeDonne is one gorgeous organist. You can hear his love of Charles Earland, Jimmy McGriff and Don Patterson. But his sound is all his own—always groovy and driving, but never overcooked. The joy of Mike's music is that he has respect for the instrument's tradition, especially as it came into its own in the early 1970s. [Photo above of Mike LeDonne by Jesse W Cahill, courtesy of Mike LeDonne]

Mike's latest is It's All Your Fault (Savant), which was dedicated to the late Dr. Lonnie Smith, who died yesterday (more on Lonnie tomorrow). Recorded in February 2020, just weeks before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown, Mike's latest album was released May of this year. I'm just getting to it now because I'm finally digging out from under stacks of work. Mike is joined on tracks here by two groups—his all-star big band and his Groover Quartet.

The big band tracks are LeDonne's It's All Your Fault (a favorite phrase of Lonnie's), Grant Green's Matador, the Michael Jackson hit Rock With You, Lee Morgan's Party Time and Mike's Bags and Brown. The Groover tracks are Lionel Richie's Still, Ambrosia's hit Biggest Part of Me and Mike's Blues for Jed. 

The Mike LeDonne Big Band features Jon Faddis, Frank Greene, Joe Magnarelli and Joshua Bruneau (tp); Mark Patterson, Steve Davis, Dion Tucker and Doug Purviance (tb); Steve Wilson and Jim Snidero (as); Eric Alexander and Scott Robinson (ts); Jason Marshall (bar); Mike LeDonne (org); Peter Bernstein (g); John Webber (b) and Joe Farnsworth (d). The Mike LeDonne Groover Quartet includes Eric Alexander (ts), Mike LeDonne (org), Peter Bernstein (g) and Joe Farnsworth (d). [Photo above of Mike LeDonne courtesy of YouTube]

Every track is a smoker that peels out and roars off. The big band arrangements by Dennis Mackrel, who also conducted, have a '70s vibe with horns playing call-and-response riffs with Mike's organ and adding soulful texture throughout. The solos on the album are all first-rate, especially by tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander and guitarist Peter Bernstein.

Mike's albums always take me back to a time when tasty Prestige organ combo dates featured artists like tenor saxophonist Grover Washington Jr. and trumpeter Virgil Jones. This one is no exception. Mike's playing is so good and saucy, the album should have come with napkins. [Photo above of Dennis Mackrel courtesy of YouTube]

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Mike LeDonne's It's All Your Fault (Savant) here.

JazzWax clips: Here's Rock With You...

And here's Still...

Bonus: Here's Mike LeDonne's Groover Quartet at Smoke in 2019...

Jimmy Gourley: Cool Guitar

I last posted about guitarist Jimmy Gourley in 2020 (go here). As noted at the time, Gourley was an American born in St. Louis who moved to Paris in 1951 and died in France in 2008. Enamored of Jimmy Raney's playing style, a combination of several picking techniques, Gourley performed and recorded with a range of French jazz artists in Paris as well as with touring Americans. [Photo above of Jimmy Gourley]

Why did he move to Paris in the first place? Apparently, Chicago was too bleak and depressing for Gourley in the late 1940s given the morass of jazz musicians hooked on heroin. He was told that Paris had a different, more upbeat and exciting scene. The event that likely convinced Gourley to remain in Paris was the shocking death of his friend and guitarist Ronnie Singer, who had become a heroin addict. [Photo above of Ronnie Singer]

Singer and his wife, Jeannie, were married in 1951. Based on my research, in December 1953, they were found dead, fully clothed, on a bed in New York's Colborne Hotel at 79 Washington Place in Greenwich Village. Their deaths were listed as a suicide pact. A note was found written by Singer's wife outlining where she wanted her personal items sent. [Photo above of the former Colborne Hotel]

In Paris, Gourley soared. To quote from Jordi Pujol's liner notes in a recently issued release, The Cool Guitar of Jimmy Gourley: Quartet & Trio Sessions 1953-1961:

Gourley had been told that France had a good jazz scene, and he thought that it could be a good country to start a new stage in his life. So he applied for a scholarship for former American combatants under the G.I. Bill... Gourley arrived in Paris sometime in April 1951 to study piano and French. But his true calling was jazz, and so it didn't take him long to meet Henri Renaud, a young pianist, a staunch follower of Al Haig and an enthusiast of cool jazz.

What we hear on the new Fresh Sound release are four sessions—one with Renaud (above) in October 1963, one with American bassist Buddy Banks in October 1954, and two with Gourley as the leader of a quartet, in January and October of 1961. All showcase Gourley's ringing guitar sound and swinging style. His taste level was extraordinary. Like many top guitars of the period, he could take any song and turn it into a gorgeous, hip expression.

As for Ronnie Singer, Gourley was said to have tapes of the unrecorded guitarist whom Gourley thought was on par with Raney or better. At the time of his death in 2008, Gourley was supposedly trying to get them issued. It's unclear what happened to the tapes. 

JazzWax tracks: You'll find The Cool Guitar of Jimmy Gourley: Quartet & Trio Sessions 1953-1961 (Fresh Sound) here.

JazzWax clips: Here's You're a Lucky Guy...

And here's Changing My Tune...

Bonus: Here's Jimmy Gourley, organist Lou Bennett and drummer Kenny Clarke...

Erroll Garner: Boston, 1959

In 1959, Erroll Garner was in the middle of a personal storm. The previous year, his label, Columbia, released earlier Garner recordings without his approval. Martha Glaser, his manager, hit the roof and said the label had breached Garner’s contract by releasing inferior recordings without his permission. She had Garner stop recording for Columbia. Disputes over the contract and a demand for higher fees for her client led to a lawsuit in 1960 by Glaser and a countersuit by Columbia. The dispute wouldn't be resolved until 1962, with Glaser controlling Columbia’s release of Garner’s recordings. Garner also started his own label with Glaser—Octave Records—for all future recordings. [Photo above of Erroll Garner performing, c.1959; by Ted Williams, Erroll Garner Archive courtesy of Mack Ave.]

I've always thought Garner's move was rash and ultimately an artistic mistake. We'll never know, of course, if Columbia's recordings of Garner in the 1960s and '70s would have been as exquisite as his 1950s output. It's doubtful, given the upheaval in jazz recording during those years as the money shifted to rock. One can imagine Garner being forced to record increasingly light and trite fare. What I do know is that much of Garner's material on Octave wound up being poorly produced and many albums were ill-conceived. Glaser might have done better for Garner and lovers of Garner's piano playing had she found a way to handle the Columbia contract violation with Garner's future in mind. Truth be told, Garner was a far better live player than a studio artist, as his concert albums show. There are plenty of them, since he had to boost his touring schedule after departing from Columbia. [Photo above of Erroll Garner, c.1960s; by Vernon Smith, Erroll Garner Archive, courtesy of Mack Ave.]

But what his manager's legal actions did for Garner was give him the freedom to record what he wanted and how he wanted to do it. Which may have been more important for Garner than anything else. But sometimes creative freedom results in albums that seemed like a good idea but weren't and don't sell very well. Not all artists are the best judges of what the public will buy, and not all producers are the best judges of what's art and what's junk. Producer Mitch Miller at Columbia is a perfect case in point. The best albums by any artist have been somewhere in the middle, where a great producer has a say and the artist has a say and they listen to each other and appreciate each other's judgment and taste. 

Garner's live recordings, however, are almost always sterling, no matter when they were recorded. He loved making an audience happy and delighted in playing complex and mysterious introductions as everyone in the audience as well as his bassist and drummer tried to figure out what song he was about to play. Now add the recently discovered concert at Boston's Symphony Hall produced by the late George Wein on January 17, 1959 to the list of great Garner performances. Earlier this year, the 22 songs recorded that night turned up on the Garner box set, Liberation in Swing: The Octave Records Story & Complete Symphony Hall Concert (Mack Ave.).

Now 9 of the 22 previously unreleased concert tracks have been pulled from the set and released as stand-alone vinyl and CD releases. For the full concert tracks, you'll still have to buy the box. Backed by bassist Eddie Calhoun and drummer Kelly Martin, Garner on the box swings through Dancing in the Dark, My Funny Valentine, But Not for Me, The Nearness of You, Foggy Day, Gypsy in My Soul, I Didn't Know What Time It Was, Lover, Last Word, The Song From Moulin Rouge, I Can't Get started, Back Bay Stride, Gospel Mambo, Shell Game, My Fair Lady Medley, Frenesi, Dreamy, I Get a Kick Out of You, Misty, Indiana and Moment's Delight. [Photo above of Erroll Garner, c.1960s; photographer unknown, Erroll Garner Archive, courtesy of Mack Ave.]

All have the freewheeling sound of Garner's signature piano style and they swing beautifully, only more free, since he recently had been liberated from Columbia and seemed to be as happy as a lark. There's a lot to be said for happiness.

JazzWax note: For a good article on Erroll Garner's legal battle with Columbia, go here.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find all of the different formats for Erroll Garner's Liberation in Swing: The Octave Records Story & Complete Symphony Hall Concert here (Mack Ave.).

JazzWax clips: Here's Misty...

And here's A Foggy Day...

Maura, Staci and Poupie

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed actress Maura Tierney for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Maura, of Primary Colors and Insomnia fame, is currently co-starring in the intriguing Showtime series American Rust. She plays Grace Poe, a seamstress in a rural, dilapidated Pennsylvania town in the 2000s where the American dream has been crushed. Maura was extremely shy as a girl until the day a nun in her Boston all-girls Catholic junior-high school pulled her out of class. The nun asked Maura if she'd represent the school in a poetry-reading contest. She did and from then on, she knew what she wanted to do with her life. [Photo above of Maura Tierney and Jeff Daniels in American Rust, courtesy of Showtime]

Here's a roundup of Maura's scenes in Primary Colors...

And here's the American Rust trailer...

Swell review! Publisher's Weekly, the major book-industry trade publication and traditionally the first with trend-setting book reviews, last week featured Rock Concert, my new book from Grove Press due out on November 9. Here's the review in full...

Myers (Anatomy of a Song), a music writer for the Wall Street Journal, surveys in this engrossing oral history five decades of rock concerts, and the “songwriters, producers, disc jockeys, managers, promoters, and artists [that] sided with the youth culture as it struggled to be heard.” Starting with the emergence of R&B in the late 1940s and ending with 1985’s Live Aid benefit, he vividly recreates what went on behind the scenes, onstage, and in the crowds with intimate accounts from the people who were there. Joan Baez recounts what it was like to perform at the 1963 March on Washington and to lead the crowd in singing “We Shall Overcome”; Bob Eubanks describes how—despite being a disk jockey who’d never produced a concert before—he scrambled to secure the funding to make the Beatles’ legendary Hollywood Bowl performance happen; and Alice Cooper recalls relocating his band from California to the Midwest, where his “lurid and despicable” reputation resonated with Rust Belt kids. Myers also offers a thoughtful overview of the considerable ways in which the rock landscape has shifted since Live Aid, due to the popularity of streaming services and scandals recently brought to light on social media in response to “past or present me-too events.” Eminently entertaining, this is sure to delight rock fans of all persuasions. Agent: Glen Hartley, Writers’ Representatives. (Nov. 9)

Pre-order Rock Concert: An Oral History as Told by the Artists, Backstage Insiders, and Fans Who Were There, by going here.

George Wein. Last week, I heard from Rebecca Reitz on the late George Wein:

Marc, I enjoyed reading your entry about George Wein at JazzWax. My mother, Rosetta Reitz, a champion of female jazz and blues artists and an entrepreneur who started her own record label (Rosetta Records), produced several concerts for Mr. Wein and the Newport Jazz Festival. He supported her idea to celebrate women who sang the blues and proved it by putting on these showcases. See the photo above of Rosetta with performers of the "Blues Is a Woman" concert at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1980 at Avery Fisher Hall.

In the photo above, standing, from left to right: Koko Taylor, Linda Hopkins, George Wein, Rosetta Reitz, Adelaide Hall, Little Brother Montgomery, Big Mama Thornton and Beulah Bryant; seated, left to right: Sharon Freeman, Sippie Wallace and Nell Carter; photograph by by Barbara Barefield.

I remember George stopped by to listen to Dick Hyman leading old pros like Vic Dickenson, Buddy Tate, Doc Cheatham, Kenny Davern and Panama Francis. They backed the female singers. And although the festival included acts that covered a vast array of jazz genres, it seemed that this swinging music was where his heart truly was.

Renee Rosnes. Last week, pianist Dave Thompson sent along a clip pf Renee in 1989 with bassist Ira Coleman and drummer Billy Drummond. Go here...

CDs you should know about:

Staci Griesbach—My George Jones Songbook. To celebrate the 90th anniversary of the late George Jones's birth, Staci has released a compelling album of the country singer's songs with a jazz twist. This isn't Staci's first rodeo. Staci has been working through country-artist catalogs for her recent series of albums and giving important songs a fresh perspective with her hip, warm voice. Among the highlights: The Grand Tour, He Stopped Loving Her Today, A Good Year for the Roses and He Thinks I Still Care. A savvy Los Angeles take on Nashville's countrypolitan standards. Go here.

Here's The Grand Tour...

Poupie—Enfant Roi (Capitol). Poupie de Moncuit, who goes by Poupie on stage, is a French singer discovered in 2018 on Factor X Spain, a sing-off competition show, when she wowed the judges. On her first full-length album out on Friday, the singer shakes a cocktail of Jamaican-Latin fusion, rap and French chanson. The pour-out is atmospheric and sensual, with much of the material written by Poupie and sung in French. Contemporary dance music without the slamming thump found in so much of today's chart-topping fare. Textured, bright and light as a dawning Parisian mist. Go here. 

Here's Dollars...

And here's the multilingual Poupie on the French version of The Voice in 2019...

Lee Santa sent along a link to his many jazz images. His photo of Ornette Coleman is above. Go here.

Cedar Walton radio. This Sunday, Sid Gribetz will present a five-hour radio broadcast celebrating pianist Cedar Walton on “Jazz Profiles,” from 2 to 7 p.m. (ET), on WKCR-FM in New York. To listen from anywhere in the world, go here.

And finally, in tribute to John Coltrane's birthday last week (September 23), here's an extraordinary colorized video of the saxophonist in Dusseldorf, Germany, on March 28, 1960. He's backed by pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb. Then Stan Getz appears during Autumn Leaves, playing Moonlight in Vermont. They play together on Thelonious Monk's Hackensack, with Oscar Peterson on piano. Coltrane wins this one hands down.

Here are the notes from the uploaded video at YouTube:

In the first set, John Coltrane was unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight when Miles Davis was unable play that day. It’s basically a performance of the Miles Davis Quintet without Davis. The film was made during a European tour billed as “Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic Presents Jazz Winners of 1960.” Two of the other “Jazz Winners” were Stan Getz and Oscar Peterson, both of whom join Coltrane and the band near the end of the Dusseldorf set. Getz plays on the last few songs. It’s a historic session—the only known recording of the two great saxophone players performing together. At the beginning of the final song, Peterson taps Kelly on the shoulder and takes over on piano. (Mark Springer/Openculture)

Here's the video...

Interview: Lorraine Feather

Lyricist and singer Lorraine Feather is the daughter of Leonard Feather, the jazz pianist, composer, producer, author and journalist who died in 1994. If not for Leonard Feather and other driven and talented communicators, radio personalities, photographers and concert promoters in the 1940s such as Norman Granz, Gene Norman, Symphony Sid Torin, Barry Ulanov, Fred Robbins, photographers William P. Gottlieb and Herman Leonard, to name a few, post-war modern jazz may have come and gone with little recognition. As I wrote in my 2012 book, Why Jazz Happened, the supportive jazz journalists, promoters, independent record-label owners and radio announcers put bebop on the map by celebrating, promoting and popularizing artists and their music. The artists, of course, took it from there. [Photo above of Lorraine Feather by Natalie Sinisgalli]

Lorraine is an artist in her own right. A three-time Grammy nominee, she has recorded 14 albums since 1978. Her vocal approach defies tradition, and her new album out today, My Own Particular Life, is no exception. It's a tapestry of painful and joyous lifetime recollections layered together with engaging music and arranging by her collaborators. She uses a sing-talk narrative style that has a Kurt Weill, storytelling feel. In this regard, the album has the sound of an intimate soundtrack, and in some ways, it is. It's the story of Lorraine's dramatic trials and tribulations. [Cover photo image above ("Dolly") by Michael Ticcino] 

I caught up with Lorraine a bunch of weeks ago after listening to her new album:

JazzWax: What's your full name, for those unaware?
Lorraine Feather: Billie Jane Lee Lorraine Feather. Billie was for Billie Holiday, Jane for mom, Lee for Peggy Lee and Lorraine for the song Sweet Lorraine. I asked to be called Lorraine when I was in grade school and my parents complied, though they sometimes still referred to me as Billie, as a few friends continue to do. I'm not sure why Sweet Lorraine was an influence. Besides Nat's version, Armstrong sang it, and hearing his West End Blues in London was the impetus for my dad's life in jazz. My dad had the song cued up when Tony and I got married in 1983, as well as a song called Tony's Wife that I'd never heard of.

JW: Where did you live in Manhattan as a child? Who do you remember coming over to the house to visit your mom and dad?
LF: When I was born in 1948, we lived at One Sheridan Square, above Cafe Society Downtown (above). A year later we moved to 340 Riverside Drive, at 106th Street, now Duke Ellington Boulevard. Among my folks’ close friends was Dizzy Gillespie, whom I probably saw the most, and whose wife was also named Lorraine.

JW: Who else?
LF: Charlie Parker, who went to Jones Beach with us when I was little. He came to the hospital when my father and mother were hit by a car as pedestrians in 1949. My framed copy of my father's book, Inside Bebop, is signed "To Leonard, my best friend—Charlie Parker." And then there's the funeral photo, which you've probably seen, of Parker's casket being carried out of a church. My dad is a pallbearer (above). I remember wondering aloud, as a grown young woman, what it was like when Parker was first coming up. Did people accept him easily? "Lorraine," my dad said, "it was as if he'd arrived from another planet."

JW: Amazing. There must have been so many others.
LF: Dick Hyman, who decades later urged me to write lyrics for Fats Waller compositions and played on my New York City Drag album; Jean Bach, who went on to produce the A Great Day in Harlem documentary in her mid-70s; Virginia Wicks, who was Dizzy’s and Ella Fitzgerald’s publicist. I saw Duke Ellington from time to time. He gave my dad a job doing publicity for Mercer Records as he recuperated after being struck by a car. My dad couldn’t go running around to clubs for months. Duke’s sister, Ruth, lived down the street, and her son, Stevie, used to come over to have popcorn and watch TV. My mom and dad were very close to my godmother and namesake Billie Holiday. She made me baby booties and later wrote letters to my parents on toilet paper when she was in jail. I only remember meeting her at the apartment once. Billie, Bobby Short and Helen Merrill all sang in our living room when I was asleep in my bedroom. There were other people I knew mostly as voices on the phone. Willie “The Lion” Smith used to call fairly often, saying his whole name. When I was little, I thought he was a real lion. Andy Razaf, Fats Waller’s great lyricist, called often, too.

JW: Precious little is known about your mom. What was her full name and which bands did she sing in? Where did your parents meet?
LF: Her given name was Jane Berenice Larrabee. Her stage name was Jane Leslie. The bands I remember her mentioning were Vincent Lopez and Jimmy Dorsey. She never talked about her singing career, except to say she was always compelled to sing “Stardust.” Peggy Lee introduced my mother and father. He proposed on their first date. Red Norvo and Mildred Bailey stood up for them at their City Hall wedding.

JW: Were you close with your mom?
LF: I loved my mom, who was a sweet, tender-hearted and generous person. But things were difficult between us for many years. She was horrified and upset when I moved back to New York on my own as an adult. She was an alcoholic and was in rehab several times to no avail. Things were somewhat better when I returned to California, and both my parents were crazy about my husband, jazz drummer Tony Morales. Mom had a whimsical, weird sense of humor and there were times when we had a lot of fun.

JW: Did she sing around the house?
LF: My mother was shy and never sang around the house, except occasionally under her breath in the kitchen. Once I heard her singing softly as she washed the dishes. She was imitating Billie Holiday singing Your Mother’s Son-in-Law. I could tell she had a keen ear. She had her own musical favorites, among them Ernie Andrews and Art Pepper. Our family stayed with Peggy when we were looking for a house in Southern California. She was Aunt Peggy to me and would give me glamorous Christmas gifts. We sometimes saw each other on holidays, but my mom accepted the fact that Peggy lived in a different world. She was a star.

JW: After your family moved to L.A. when you were 12, where did you live? Was that period exciting?
LF: We lived on Wrightwood Drive in Studio City. Dad was really into it and was often in our swimming pool. Many of their friends had moved to California, like George Shearing and Benny Carter. I know many people who think of L.A. as Shangri-La, but it never spoke to me.

JW: Really? Why not?
LF: I was most unhappy with that move. I had spent my childhood gazing at the Hudson River out the window in our living room on Riverside Drive. I'd listen to the wheeze of buses while falling asleep and walk to the market with my mom with lots of people all around. Studio City seemed so isolated and barren. Tears sometimes streamed from my eyes on smoggy days. And it was so freaking hot all the time.

JW: Did you enjoy school out there?
LF: The girls in junior high wore frosted lipstick and carried pastel purses. I was seen as something of a dork and always young for my grade, since I had skipped first grade. I already knew how to read so I advanced early. At 18, I moved back to New York. I had this fantasy of becoming a theater actress. I also wanted to avoid having to learn to drive in L.A. Finally, at age 30, I received my driver’s license. In New York, I wound up waitressing extensively, with occasional showbiz gigs, including Jesus Christ, Superstar.

JW: Was your dad accessible to you or preoccupied with his career?
LF: He was very accessible. My parents were out at clubs at night, but during the day he was often around, typing on his old manual typewriter in bed or organizing questionnaires from musicians for his Encyclopedia of Jazz, all spread out on our huge dining-room table. I asked my mom what he did, as we were supposed to do a talk about it at school. She said, “He’s a jazz writer.” My little friends didn’t get what that meant, and I didn’t understand it either. In truth, he was as much a songwriter as anything else.

JW: Was he funny?
LF: My dad was funny in a low-key way. He specialized in groan-worthy puns, but he had a wry take on things, generally. Once in L.A., when I told him “I think I’ll walk down the hill to the drugstore,” he asked, “When will you know?”

JW: Was he supportive?
LF: When I started writing lyrics in my late 20s, my father gave me an ASCAP form and told me to fill it out. We went to an ASCAP meeting together and I met all the legendary songwriters, including David Raksin, who wrote Laura, and Alan and Marilyn Bergman. My father would suggest Ellington or Strayhorn tunes he thought I should lyricize, like On a Turquoise Cloud. The first time I did a club date with all my own lyrics, people were coming up to him at the break and saying, “Oh Leonard, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” He was over the moon. He didn’t respond to some of my early attempts at pop-jazz, but for the most part, he was just thrilled that I wound up a lyricist.

JW: Did you feel close to him?
LF: I was closest to my father during the last years of his life because of our songwriting bond. We took a trip together to Perugia, Italy, for the Umbria Jazz Festival in 1994—the year of the Northridge earthquake, in which my parents’ townhouse was half-destroyed. He became very ill on our trip and died six weeks after we returned to L.A. He was in the intensive-care unit at Encino-Tarzana Hospital when he roused himself to ask if I’d sent my Ellington lyricizations to singer Cleo Laine, who was doing an album with Mercer Ellington. So touching and so typical.

JW: How did your mother take this?
LF: My mother had a heart attack while my father was in the hospital. They were both there for a few weeks, but she recovered. Benny Carter brought his saxophone to the hospital and played by my dad’s deathbed.

JW: For your new album, you say you wrote lyrics for songs based on "the trajectory of your life." In this sense, the album is autobiographical. Why did you think it was time to take stock?
LF: I actually started taking stock with my Ages album, in 2010, which was also when I began my collaborations with living writers in earnest—Russell Ferrante, Shelly Berg, Eddie Arkin and, later, Dave Grusin. Attachments in 2013 was about the emotional connections in my life, including an eight-minute piece written with Shelly about my mother.

JW: What about your new album, My Own Particular Life?
LF: I started writing it after I wound up in Rochester, N.Y., ending one chapter in my life and beginning another. The title song is the first lyric I wrote for Eddie Arkin and me to work on. I wanted it to be kind of smart-ass and groovacious. I had recently made some bad mistakes and didn’t want to sink into despair. I was still riding the adrenaline high of moving. I heard this drumline groove in 6/4 in my head that I thought was exciting. Eddie and I took it from there. Later, of course, a lot of other emotions crept into the songs.

JW: Do you feel unfulfilled?
LF: No, not at all. My creative life is fulfilling, though not easy, and the best part of it only started a dozen years ago. I have a small circle of unbelievable friends and colleagues now. I’m miserable sometimes, of course.

JW: Which song on your new album was the most emotionally difficult to write and why?
LF: Music From the Ceiling, about my ex-husband, Tony [Morales]. We lived together after the divorce for a time. Then we both moved back to L.A. from Orcas Island in Washington State and stayed close. Not long after, he started forgetting the names of things. It took years for him to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in his mid-60s. I went to L.A. in the fall of 2019 to write and to see Tony. Not long before, he had been found wandering on the freeway.

JW: How was he in 2019?
LF: I had dinner with Tony, his brother, Joey, and Joey’s girlfriend, Emily. Tony was uncommunicative, but at one point he looked up at a speaker overhead and asked why music was coming from the ceiling. I burst into tears. I felt so helpless. In the parking lot afterward, he told me he thought I was beautiful and hoped he would see me again. He had no idea who I was. He's such a good guy, and it rips me apart.


JW: Music From the Ceiling must have been hard.
LF: It is the only song on the album that was written music-first. I had been trying to write a lyric about Tony for months, and it was hard. I felt so raw about it and couldn’t seem to make it simple enough. But when I heard the guitar Eddie played with a Big Sky reverb pedal in his home studio and had my last meeting with Tony, the song fell into place. [Photo above of Lorraine Feather and Eddie Arkin by Mikel Healey]

JW: In Sweet Little Creature, you write about a traumatic event. What happened?
LF: It was a relationship that ended painfully. Honestly, it's too difficult for me to talk about.

JW: I hear both disappointment and optimism in your lyrics and voice, as if you are coming face to face with the totality of life’s randomness—its good breaks and bad. True?
LF: I wouldn’t say I’m resigned to how life played out. I do believe in karma, and try to be more responsible and honest as time goes by. And I hold to the belief that at any moment, something glorious can happen, whether it’s a major work breakthrough, a great love, or just a scrumptious meal. Given what we have all gone through since early last year and continue to go through, I feel privileged to be alive, full of energy and engaged in life. I’m also grateful that I have a roof over my head.

JW: How do you hear the album?
LF: As a self-reflecting statement of who I am at this point in my life—as a human being and as a lyricist-singer. The 2½-year experience of co-producing the album with Eddie, writing it with him, Russ, Shelly and Dave, and recording it from our different locales with our stellar musicians and engineers, was in some respects more intense than doing it the traditional way.

JW: How so?
LF: There’s a nice little recording studio minutes from my apartment in upstate New York where I recorded all the lead and background vocals, and a studio in L.A. called the Hideaway that was command central. We got into this routine of shuttling the tracks from person to person via computer, doing rough mixes as each musician was added—Mike Shapiro in Manila, Russ and most of the others in L.A., Dave Grusin in Santa Fe, the Shelly Berg Trio in Miami.

JW: So it was rewarding, despite the pandemic?
LF: Being able to create something as a team, mostly with musical friends I’ve known for so long, was exhilarating. When we handed it off to Don Murray to mix, he said he was flabbergasted that almost all of it was recorded from remote locations because everyone sounded so emotionally connected. It was a close bond, despite the separation.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Lorraine Feather's My Own Particular Life here...

JazzWax clips: Here's the album's title track...

Herb Ellis & Remo Palmier: Windflower

In the 1970s, Concord recorded many great jazz albums, especially ones by guitarists. Back in 2010, I posted on Barney Kessel's Soaring, which has long been a favorite. Today's Concord winner is Herb Ellis and Remo Palmier's Windflower, a perfect album released in 1978. The two guitarists were backed by George Duvivier on bass and Ron Traxler on drums.

Elllis was best known as a member of the Oscar Peterson Trio from 1953 to 1958. He also composed Detour Ahead and I Told Ya I Love Ya, Now Get Out. Palmier is less well known. He began his recording career with Red Norvo and with Norvo's former wife, singer Mildred Bailey (the two were divorced in 1942). An early bebop pioneer, Palmier played on 52nd Street and recorded with Coleman Hawkins. He also appeared on an early important bebop recording date—the Dizzy Gillespie Sextet's Groovin' High session in 1945 for Guild, featuring Gillespie (tp), Charlie Parker (as), Clyde Hart (p), Remo Palmieri (g), Slam Stewart (b) and Cozy Cole (d). Palmier would later remove the final "i" on his last name. [Photo above of Herb Ellis]

Palmier, whose playing style emulated the attack of a horn, went on to record with every major player of the mid-1940s, including Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson and Flip Phillips. But his discography went cold in 1946, not reappearing until 1973. His sizable recording gap was a result of a golden gig with Arthur Godfrey, at first on his CBS radio show and then his long-lasting television program. Palmier was with Godfrey for 27 years. Only when Godfrey's show was cancelled did Palmier return to playing gigs and recording. [Photo above of Remo Palmier, courtesy of Getty Images]

On Windflower, the two of guitarists exhibit a relaxed and natural beauty. All of the tracks are standards, but through their easy, swinging approach, they sound fresh and alive. The guitar lines are lovely, and the chords are splendidly voiced. The songs are Windflower, The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, My Foolish Heart, Close Your Eyes, Danny Boy, Walkin', Star Dust, Triste and Groove Merchant.

They don't make albums like this anymore. Many of these great Concord recordings were produced by Carl Jefferson (above), the label's founder, who personally produced more than 500 releases. For some strange reason, his name is absent from Wiki's Concord Records entry, which is unfortunate. Someone with this much good taste should be celebrated, not forgotten.

Herb Ellis died in 2010; Remo Palmier died in 2002.

JazzWax tracks: Sadly, Windflower is out of print and hard to find. The album came out on vinyl in 1978 and on CD in 1992. If you find it, the price will likely set you back between $200 and $300. I'm not sure why Concord hasn't reissued some of these masterpieces. I'm guessing someone is going to tell me by email. More to follow.

JazzWax clip: Here's the full album...

Doc: British Jazz Scene (Part 2)

On Monday, my post featured Part 1 of a two-part BBC Jazz Britannia documentary on the post-war history of British jazz. Today, Part 2 (Strange Brew), starts where Part 1 left off—with pianist Stan Tracey's seminal album Jazz Suite, Inspired by Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, released in 1965. In case you missed Part 1, I'm including both parts here:

Here's Part 1 (Stranger on the Shore), from 1945 to 1965...

And here's Part 2 (Strange Brew), from 1965 and beyond...

Lucy Yeghiazaryan and Vanisha Gould

One of the most compelling and ambitious jazz vocal albums of the year is In Her Words, a new recording by vocalists Lucy Yeghiazaryan and Vanisha Gould. Like a number of recent jazz albums by female vocalists reviewed here, this one joyfully steers clear of the American songbook—a dusty and lazy resource for true jazz singers of 2021.

Six of the 12 songs are by Gould and one is by Lucy (who arranged five). The remaining five songs are by other composers, including Nobody's Heart (Belongs to Me) by Rodgers and Hart; Gone Again by Curley Hamner, Curtis Lewis and Gladys Hampton, wife of Lionel Hampton; My Man by Billie Holiday and Maurice Yvain; Patty McGovern's Love Isn't Everything; and Moments Like This by Burton Lane and Frank Loesser.

As you'll hear, the five mentioned above are beautiful boutique standards. Yes, My Man and Nobody's Heart are fairly well known, but they're good choices just the same and splendidly executed. There are hundreds of great songs by terrific composers that are simply overlooked by many singers who seem content to take on the same tired stuff. All it takes is a little effort to find new ones.

Of the album's 12 songs, here's how Lucy and Vanisha divided up the vocals:

1. The Game: Lucy Yeghiazaryan
2. Gypsy Feet: Vanisha Gould
3. Nobody's Heart (Belongs to Me): Lucy Yeghiazaryan
4. Hey Baby: Lucy Yeghiazaryan with Richard Cortez
5. Look This Way: Vanisha Gould
6. Gone Again: Lucy Yeghiazaryan
7. Trapped in This Room: Vanisha Gould
8. My Man: Lucy Yeghiazaryan
9. Interlude: Lucy Yeghiazaryan
10. Love Isn't Everything: Lucy Yeghiazaryan
11. Cute Boy: Vanisha Gould
12. Moments Like This: Lucy Yeghiazaryan

I interviewed Lucy back in April here. As this new album demonstrates, she continues to make increasingly sophisticated choices. Lucy's and Vanisha's talent and determination to break new ground are rewarding and commendable, and the knowing sound of their clean, warm vocal styles with roots in the 1950s is simultaneously new and familiar.

The album's instrumental backdrop is quite a magic trick. Joining Lucy and Vanisha are guitarist Eric Zolan, bassist Dan Pappalrdo, cellist Kate Victor, and violinist Ludovica Burtone. A trick because it sounds like a much fuller ensemble. The arrangements by Lucy, Chris McCarthy and Dan Pappalardo aren't traditional and offer just enough of a frame to be a minimalist, luxe accompaniment. As for the album's theme described in the notes as "an unabashedly intimate recording that offers a glimpse into the private lives of women told from their unique perspectives," it's a nifty and revealing concept.

The jazz vocal must move beyond Broadway of the 1930s if it is to remain interesting and survive. I'm guessing Lucy came across Nancy Overton singing Nobody's Heart with Bob Brookmeyer in 1954 and Dinah Washington's He's Gone Again in 1962. Happily, more female vocalists are breaking with the songbook habit, whether they take on folk-rock songs of the 1960s, French pop, country catalogs or roll up their sleeves and collaborate with others on compelling new originals. Add Lucy and Vanisha to the list. These songs come alive with hip elegance and depth. Don't miss out on this one.

The album project was generously funded by a grant by the New York Foundation Arts 2020 Women’s Fund.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Lucy Yeghiazaryan and Vanisha Gould's In Her Words (Made in NY) here.

JazzWax clips: Here's Lucy singing Vanisha's The Game...

Here's Vanisha singing Look This Way...

Look This Way

And here's Lucy on Moments Like This...

Moments Like This

Doc: The British Jazz Scene

Earlier this month, a documentary went up at YouTube produced by the BBC as part of its Jazz Britannia series. The documentary tracks the rise of post-war British jazz and helps explain why trad jazz lingered so long there in the 1950s, how skiffle emerged mid-decade, why bop came late to London, why American jazz musicians didn't tour in the U.K. until the 1960s, the emergence of free jazz there at the same time as Ornette Coleman's music here, and the album that helped identify a distinctly British jazz scene in London in 1965, just as rock's British invasion of the U.S. market was pulling large numbers of young musicians away from jazz careers.

Here's Part 1 of the BBC documentary Jazz Britannia, covering the years from 1945 to 1965...