In May, June and July, four new Maynard Ferguson clips were posted at YouTube. Three feature Ferguson on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in Toronto between the mid-1960s and 1971. I apologize in advance for the time bar that ticks away in the center of several of them, but the footage is worth hearing if not seeing. A fourth was The World of Maynard Ferguson, a TV show recorded in London in 1970 just as adult males began embracing colorful youthful styles they scorned a few years earlier. A special thanks to Rick Megahan for finding these.
Without further ado, here we go:
Here's 25 minutes with Maynard Ferguson's band and guest singer Joe Williams...
Here's 27 minutes of Ferguson during the same period—on the CBC's Jack Kane Hour, Ferguson leading the Kane band on another program, and Ferguson briefly on a third jazz show...
Here's an hour of Ferguson and a dynamite big band comprised of British musicians in London in 1970, at the start of Ferguson's groovy mid-life crisis. Also featured are vocalists Jon Hendricks and Sylvia McNeill (in fashion crises of their own), who rips through Joni Mitchell's Chelsea Morning to a virtually emotionless TV audience of seemingly perplexed young people. A surreal hour but worth the acid-reflux trip, in particular the fiery Fox Hunt. The band featured Ferguson with Ernie Garside, Martin Drover, John Huckeridge and John Donnelly (tp); Adrian Drover, Al Wood, Chris Pyne and Billy Graham (tb); Peter King, Danny Moss, Brian Smith, Bob Watson and John Holbrooke (saxes); Peter Jackson (p), George Kish (g), Dave Lynane (b), Randy Jones (d) and Ray Cooper (perc). Arrangements were by Keith Mansfield, Sam Harding, Tommy Watt, Mike Abene, Adrian Drover, Slide Hampton and Don Sebesky...
In Toronto in December 1971, the Rob McConnell Big Band was at the CBC's Jarvis Street studios to perform on the TV show In the Mood. Fronting the band was Ferguson. The 27-minute show features five songs plus an on-camera interview.
Here's the clip—but note that the video cannot be embedded at JazzWax, so just click on the "Watch the Video" link in the black box below...
In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed Kristin Davis for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Kristin currently is co-starring in TV's And Just Like That..., the 10-part HBO series sequel to Sex and the City. I do a lot of celebrity interviewing and Kristin was a lot of fun—a flame thrower of joy, energy and enthusiasm. [Photo above of Kristin Davis courtesy of YouTube]
David Bowie. On Friday, I was with Nik and Jeff Slate on SiriusXM's Feedback (Ch. 106) to talk about my WSJ essay on David Bowie's 1971 album Hunky Dory and why it's still important. Here's the hour-long show...
Last minute gift? Back in September, I posted on the no-vibration Spinbase amp by Andover Audio with built-in speakers that a turntable is supposed to sit on. Now, Andover Audio has a dream turntable made in Germany called the Spindeck Max. The turntable can play 33 1/3 albums or 45s and 12-inch singles at the flip of a switch. Best of all, you can put the album on, hit a button, close the acrylic top and the tone arm will automatically swing over and land gently on the vinyl and return to the base at the end of the record. You just have to turn off the unit, at your leisure.
In other words, if you fall asleep while listening, forgot you have an album on or can't get to the turntable the moment the last song finishes, you no longer have to worry about the tonearm impatiently idling at the end of the vinyl. And the Spindeck Max can sit proudly atop the Spinbase. I just bought the two together in white for a family member. Shipping was free (returns are free as well) and the two boxes arrived in New York the next day. I'm told if you order by December 22, it will reach your intended party no later than the 24th. Orders in the U.S. only at this time. For more information or to call or email them, go here.
The Phil Schaap archive was down for a period of days but now is back up and operational. The archive is home to dozens of in-depth jazz radio shows on WKCR-FM in New York hosted by Phil—from Birthday Broadcasts of significant artists to his esteemed Bird Flight, which focused just on Charlie Parker (above). Phil's shows are like sitting in on a Harvard jazz course. The platform and education is invaluable. A special thanks to those who are hosting the archive now after Phil's passing. To access the archive, go here and scroll down.
Frances Madden.Here's Australia's irrepressible and ever-charming Frances Madden playing and singing White Christmas...
Helen Merrill. Last week, following my post on the JazzWax Vintage Holiday Album Hall of Fame and the induction of Helen Merril's Christmas Song Book, I heard from pianist Roger Kellaway...
Hey Marc, Happy Holidays to you and, thanks for picking Helen Merrill. I did a one-month tour of Japan with her in 1986 and her "Clear Out of This World" album. I’ve been a fan of her singing ever since her album with Gil Evans, "Dream of You." Back then, I didn’t actually know "Helen Merrill," the album she did with Clifford Brown, but I got to know the recording in Japan. You could hear it being played in any venue that we were nearing from 100 yards away!
Holiday Fare...
Georgia Mancio.Here's singer Georgia Mancio with pianist Alan Broadbent singing That Time of Year—words by Georgia and music by Alan...
Mary Stallings.Here's Mary Stallings with the Emmet Cohen Trio earlier this month...
Esther Bennett.Here's more holiday music, this one from the late composer and saxophonist Duncan Lamont, as sung by Esther Bennett...
Diana Panton.Here's one of my seasonal faves—Diana Panton singing Don Thompson's Christmas Kiss, with Don on piano, Reg Schwager on guitar and Neil Swainson on bass...
Bill Kirchner.Here'sNoël from Noël, a 1981 album by the USAF Airmen of Note, with an arrangement by Mike Crotty and solos by Vaughn Nark (flgh) and Pete BarenBregge (ts)...
Summer of Love. Following my post on Swinging London, Carl Woideck sent along the cover and a spread from the 2017 The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll exhibit at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. And here's a virtual tour...
Rock Concert radio. Last weekend, I was interviewed by WRTC-FM's Chris Cowles for his long-running, three-hour Greasy Tracks show on the rock concert. You can listen to the show for free here.
Pogo. Photographer Durell Godfrey sent along a link to Walt Kelly's Songs of the Pogo, a mischievously playful 1956 album with ticklish wordplay. You can see who is singing on each track by checking the YouTube page. Pogo was a daily comic strip created by Walt Kelly that appeared in newspapers from 1948 to 1975. Notable is the music's arranger and conductor—Jimmy Carroll. If the name sounds familiar, he was the arranger and conductor on the first Bird With Strings sessions years earlier, including Just Friends and April in Paris. Here's the Pogo album...
Lorez Alexandria radio. On Sunday, Sid Gribetz on WKCR-FM in New York will host a three-hour Jazz Profiles tribute to singer Lorez Alexandria, from 2 to 5 p.m. (ET). Listen from anywhere in the world by going here.
And finally,here's Tammi Terrell singing James Brown and Bobby Byrd's I Cried in 1963...
Yesterday, I found two outstanding YouTube clips that went up in November. Though Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt recorded extensively together in the late 1940s and '50s, these clips feature Ammons and Stitt separately in 1971.
In June, Just Jazz, a TV show on WTTW, a UHF public broadcasting station in Chicago, welcomed the Gene Ammons Sextet. The show was part of a 10-part series of televised jazz performances. The sextet featured Ammons (ts,varitone), King Kolax (tp), George Freeman (g), Wallace Burton (p), Chester Williamson (b) and Bob Guthrie (d). The 30-minute video comes from a recently discovered 2-inch video dub found in Canada. The original show was produced by Dan Morgenstern and Robert Kaiser and directed by Kaiser.
In October of that same year, Sonny Stitt was touring with the Giants of Jazz. The sextet featured Dizzy Gillespie (tp), Sonny Stitt (as,ts), Kai Winding (tb), Thelonious Monk (p), Al McKibbon (b) and Art Blakey (d). I was lucky enough to catch them at Carnegie Hall in July 1972. It was breathtaking to see these outstanding artists together in action on one stage.
Here's Stitt playing Everything Happens to Me with just the trio at Lucerna Hall in Prague, the former Czechoslovakia, on October 30...
Jimin Park (above) is a South Korean jazz pianist, composer and educator who received a full scholarship to Boston's Berklee College of Music, graduating in 2017. That year, she won second prize in the World Championship Old-Time Piano Playing contest and has won several awards in classical competitions. Recently, Bill Pauluh turned me on to this clip of Park playing Giant Steps in the styles of eight different jazz legends...
Yesterday, I had a sudden urge to really feel what Swinging London was all about—the fashion, the color, the younthful energy and the music, from 1963 to 1970. The stores on Kings Road and Carnaby Street, the styles, the cars, the makeup, the hair styles—the works. I also wanted to know how it all came about and why then, at that moment. So I revved up the old YouTube time machine and blasted off into the past. I had so much fun, I decided to create the same experience for you. Want to know where the youth culture first exploded in color? Forget about San Francisco in 1967. Head back to London, where loud color in pop clothes made of new cutting-edge materials was invented in the very early 1960s:
Want to hear something freaky? Last night I had a sudden urge to watch newly uploaded videos of Nancy Wilson and share them with you today. When I went onto her Wikipedia page after writing my post, I realized she had died on December 13 three years ago to the date. Why I had the urge to re-visit Miss Nancy on the anniversary of her passing is beyond me. Something in the stars. Or a warm whisper from Miss Nancy herself—"Go on, give a listen." (My JazzWax interview with her can be found here.) Whatever the reason, here she is in recently uploaded live clips, all her glory in the 1960s. The majestic and always artful Nancy Wilson:
The next three weeks combined are like a long weekend. This week is going to feel like one long Friday, the week leading up to Christmas will feel like one long Saturday and the one after that leading up to New Year's Day will feel like one long Sunday. Then the eating will end and the cardio will begin. For now, it's time to announce the newest member of the JazzWax Vintage Holiday Album Hall of Fame. It's the Hall's 14th season and one of JazzWax's oldest traditions.
My choice this year is vocalist Helen Merrill's Christmas Song Book . Recorded in New York in August and September of 1991 for Victor Japan, the album was arranged by Helen's husband, Torrie Zito, and done in two sessions. The first was a small-group date with Jim Pugh (tb), Torrie Zito (p,celeste), John Beal (b) and Ronnie Zito (d). Songs backed by this quartet were Let It Snow, Winter Wonderland, If I Were a Bell and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
The second session with the remaining tracks feature Art Farmer (flhrn-3 tracks), Peter Gordon (fhr), Blair Tindall (oboe), Shelly Woodworth (English hrn), Laura Conwesser and Karen Griffen (fl), Dave Tofani (cl,as), Charles Yassky (cl), Charles Russo (b-cl), Lester Cantor (bassoon), Gloria Agostini (harp), Lee Musiker (keyboards), John Beal (b), Jim Saporito (perc) and strings. Mel Torme joined Helen (above) on the holiday classic he composed, The Christmas Song.
Here's Helen, from the album, singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas...
You'll find Helen Merrill's Christmas Song Bookhere.
Here's the rest of the JazzWax Vintage Holiday Album Hall of Fame, in order of their year of induction, with links to buy or listen. Most are probably also available at Spotify or on YouTube. Assembled and shuffled, they make a standout compilation playlist...
2015—Two albums with the same name: Bobby Timmons' Holiday Soul and Don Patterson's Holiday Soul. Both trio albums were recorded for Prestige in Nov. 1964—the former on the 24th and the latter on the 25th.
Here are albums that have already been inducted into the JazzWax Holiday Album Hall of Fame... - See more at: http://www.jazzwax.com/2012/11/duke-pearson-merry-ole-soul.html#sthash.V0RZmXiQ.dpuf
In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed actor Brian Baumgartner for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Brian is best known for playing Kevin Malone on the trompe-l'œil sitcom The Office. Brian talked about a terrible mishap after foot surgery when he was young and how having to use a walker and a cane in middle school awakened his imagination and sensitivity. If you love the office, check out Brian's oral history of the show here. [Photo above of Brian Baumgartner courtesy of Wikipedia]
Here's 11 1/2 minutes of Brian playing Kevin in The Office...
Rock their worlds. You still have time to order my new book, Rock Concert, as a gift for the holidays. And while you're at it, throw in a few live albums on vinyl. There's no better gift than music—except a book on music. Go here. Want it signed? Just two left. Go here.
Catch me on the air today, Saturday, with Chris "King" Cowles (above), host of Greasy Tracks, on WRTC-FM in Hartford, Ct. Chris will be interviewing me as he hosts a three-hour show on great rock concert recordings. Tune in from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. (ET) by clicking the "listen live" button after going here.
SiriusXM. Last week, I joined co-hosts Nik and Lori on SiriusXM's Feedback to talk about Mickey Guyton's Indigo, a song off her new album Remember Her Name. I also talked about the history of Black country and the many marvelous artists who have recorded hit songs. Listen for free here...
Barry Harris. Following my post honoring the late bebop pianist Barry Harris, I heard from two great musicians, bassist Chuck Israels and pianist Michael Weiss [image above of Barry Harris courtesy of YouTube]:
Here's Chuck Israels...
Dear Marc, musicians and lovers of music have lost a dear, generous friend with the passing of Barry Harris. I don’t know anyone else who's given so much on such a personal level to so many. Jazz schools are restricted by their structure to teaching mostly the mechanics of music—certainly essential components to achieving mastery. Those of us who had the opportunity to learn the music in apprenticeship settings, when jazz schools were unavailable, often learned more efficiently and in better proportion—a better hierarchy of what’s important, despite (or perhaps because of) the absence of formal jazz education.
In his classes, Barry gave time and attention to teaching vocabulary and efficiency while exhibiting almost endless patience and personal commitment unavailable in most school situations. For years he's been the antidote to the misaligned values of the jazz school system—a misalignment that's not necessarily intended, but that's a built in result of the way schools are organized. We need to remember him for what he did, and for what he valued. Time spent with Barry was a lesson in music, inclusiveness, acceptance and understanding.
Here's Michael Weiss...
Today, with sadness we mourn the loss of a great man. With joy we celebrate the life of a great man. I met Barry Harris in 1979, receiving a piano lesson while Barry was in Indianapolis for a concert. After I moved to New York in 1982, we established a close musical and personal relationship. Over the years he would call me or I would call him with a musical challenge, an investigation, or a conundrum—he at his piano and me at mine. In the 1980s I performed several times at Barry's Jazz Cultural Theatre as a member of the Junior Cook/Bill Hardman Quintet.
We collaborated on numerous projects, including concerts in tribute to Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and an extensive co-interview recorded and transcribed for the liner notes to the Complete Bud Powell on Verve. In 2012 Barry commissioned me to transcribe his complete compositional output. Despite a 30-year difference in age, there was a bond, a kinship, a sharing of the same musical aesthetic and values. Barry was my musical soulmate.
As a pianist Barry orchestrated melodies and constructed his improvisations in an easy-going, unhurried, free-flowing narrative—a lyricism delivered with a laissez-faire attitude, never resorting to virtuosity for its own sake, yet complex or as simple as needed. But his rhythm was profound. He grabbed the beat in his phrasing that tugged at your very soul. He was a brilliant and effective musical orator.
As an educator, Barry’s own codification of the bebop language stands alone, apart from most of the trite attempts at jazz theory in the academic world, because it goes to the heart of what makes a melody melodic. He married the horizontal and the vertical in a unified whole of tonality: melodies existing inside chords and chords existing inside melodies. As the best practitioner of his theoretical concepts, Barry mined extraordinary beauty in exploring all the harmonic and melodic possibilities he could derive. To the very end he remained curious, always looking for new answers and looking for new questions.
As a person, he gave tirelessly of himself as a teacher and as a human being, always wanting to help others. For this he was revered and loved throughout the world. Anybody who has known Barry well over the years, probably feels like they had a special and unique relationship with him, and I'm no exception. But he was just Barry.
Barry Harris radio. Today, Saturday, WKCR-FM in New York will present a special memorial broadcast from noon until midnight (ET), spinning records and honoring Barry Harris's legacy. You can listen from anywhere in the world by going here.
Bobby Darin. I came across this audio last week. Had to share with you. Here's Bobby Darin singing I Wanna Be Around. This was Darin's sweet-spot tempo, a walking swinger. So much of is catalog is junk. It's a shame they didn't record everything at this sassy-strut pace...
Steely Dan radio. Following my post on Steely Dan's Black Friday, I heard from Kim Paris of the FM Radio Archive:
Hi Marc, thanks for your recent column on Steely Dan's Black Friday, one of my favorites. Your readers may enjoy this recording from Steely Dan's "Two Against Nature" tour in 2000, broadcast on the SFX Radio network. I believe this may be the first Steely Dan live broadcast since the 1970s. It includes a great version of "Black Friday." Go here.
Quiet Now. As noted in my post on Quiet Now, the song is a jazz standard written by jazz pianist Denny Zeitlin while he was in college in the early 1960s. Here's the Bill Kirchner Nonet playing the song on Bill's Lifeline album in 2001. Bill orchestrated the music directly from Denny’s published piano voicings. Go here...
Sal Mosca. Bassist Don Messina alerted me last week that Rutgers’ Institute of Jazz Studies completed its website of the Sal Mosca Archives. I last posted on the late pianist here. To view the archives, go here.
And finally,here's the late, great Barry Harris in performance in 2014, courtesy of the Jazz Video Guy...
Barry Harris, a jazz pianist and beloved educator whose leadership and sideman recordings celebrated bebop—the 1940s modernist movement that established a roadmap for improvised jazz—died on December 8. He was 91.
Though Harris was too young to have participated in bop's birth or initial popularity in the years immediately after World War II, the Detroit-based pianist caught the tail end of the first wave. In particular, he was influenced by and adored Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, bebop's founding-father pianists, and you can hear both musicians' influences in his playing. Harris's first bop recordings—two sides of a 78—took place in 1950. By the early 1960s, when he moved to New York, he was much in demand as a sideman. Eventually, in the early 1980s, he opened the Jazz Cultural Theatre in the city, a teaching and dance studio by day and an informal and relaxed club by night. To comply with city ordinances, the studio was official, Barry once told me, the club or "theater" was a tag-along. Anyone who attended those gigs at Barry's place is grateful for that arrangement.
Harris knew all of the jazz greats, and many of them played at his club, from Bill Hardman and Junior Cook to Vernel Fournier, Michael Weiss and Jaki Byard's big band. Food was served, including breakfast in the wee hours, and alcohol was available under the table when politely requested. Or you could bring your own. One sensed that the club was set up so Harris could play with his accomplished contemporaries. The audience was just a bonus.
Though Harris, on the surface, was cooly introverted, that side of him changed quickly when engaged by an artist, student or a fan who truly loved the music. At his studio-club, he seemed to take great pleasure in artists lingering to talk with audience members between sets, largely because conversation meant friendship and friendship was good for the music, for return visits and for the future of the art form. Bebop wasn't just a style for Harris, it was a language, a way of life.
I tried to interview Harris several times but he never was home when we had agreed to talk. Eventually, I moved on. But as Harris said often, anything you wanted to know about him was in the music he played on his records or at gigs. So, here are 10 of my favorite tracks that will give you a fine sense of what make Harris special:
Here's Barry Harris's first recording, Hopper Topper, in 1950, with Frank Foster on tenor saxophone...
Here's Sonny Stitt and Barry Harris on Reed and a Half from Stitt's Burnin' (1958)...
Here'sJeannine from the Cannonball Adderley Quintet's Them Dirty Blues (1960)...
Slide Hampton, a slide trombonist and a prolific leader, composer and arranger for many of the most significant big bands of the post-war era, including several led by Maynard Ferguson, died November 18. He was 89. [Photo above of Slide Hampton]
Though not as well known to jazz fans as J.J. Johnson, Kai Winding, Urbie Green or Curtis Fuller, Hampton was an in-demand sideman, arranger and leader whose smooth, punchy playing and whip-cracking arrangements delivered drama and daring.
Here are 10 favorite tracks—including 8 as a leader and 2 as a player, composer and arranger—that will give you a fine sense of what made Slide Hampton special:
Here's Randy Weston's Hi-Fly from Sister Salvation (1960)..
Here's Dizzy Gillespie's Ow! from Somethin' Sanctified (1960)...
Here's Horace Silver's Strollin' from Jazz With a Twist (1961)...
Here'sDelilah from Explosion! The Sound of Slide Hampton...
Here'sThe Good Life from Back to Jazz With Slide Hampton (1968), recorded in Paris...
Here's Gillespie's Con Alma from World of Trombones (1979)...
Here's Gillespie's Tour de Force from Dedicated to Diz (1993)...
Here'sCherokee from Spirit of the Horn (2002), with trombonist Bill Watrous...
Here's Hampton's composition, arrangement and horn on Three Little Foxes from Maynard Ferguson's A Message From Newport (1959)...
And here's Hampton's Slide's Derangement from the same album...
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.
