This week, I received quite a few emails about my post on Jackie Paris and Anne Marie Moss's 1974 album, Live at the Maisonette. Many readers asked about the song that Moss sings solo, The Bright Lights and You Girl. So I did a little digging. The song was written by Sayde Shepherd, who, it appears, brought the song to Ray Charles in 1967. The song first appeared on his Portrait of Ray album, released in March 1968, and was published by Charles's Tangerine Music.
After doing a little online research, I found that Shepherd's name only comes up in Bodies and Soul: Musical Memoirs, a book by poet Al Young published in 1981. Unfortunately, Google Books wouldn't let me expose the entire passage. Here's what I could pull up, though it's unclear who's doing the talking:
"Yeah, I love [Bright Lights] too," he says. "Took us a long time to get all that down—the rhythm section tracks, the band, the background stuff. It's written [words and music] by a lady right here in the neighborhood named Sayde Shepherd. She comes in with a few things every now and then. Ray wants to sign her as a songwriter, but she always laughs and says , 'I'm just a housewife.'" I also found that she worked for Tangerine Music.
My guess is that Young had interviewed Oliver Nelson (above), who was one of the arrangers on the album, along with Rene Hall and Sid Feller. To my ears, that's a Nelson arrangement on the Charles recording. I'm not sure which "neighborhood" Nelson was referring to at the time and in which city.
Here's the Anne Marie Moss version once again, followed by the Ray Charles original and six cover versions:
Here's another in my Backgrounder series on great jazz albums up at YouTube that you can play while on your phone or computer. Today, Lee Morgan's Lee-Way, a Blue Note album recorded in April 1960 and released in May 1961. The album featured Lee Morgan (tp), Jackie McLean (as), Bobby Timmons (p), Paul Chambers (b) and Art Blakey (d). The songs are Cal Massey's These Are Soulful Days, Morgan's The Lion and the Wolff, McLean's Midtown Blues and Massey's Nakatini Suite.
Carol Fredette was a lovely and much-admired singer who see-sawed between supper club and jazz. When she sang jazz, her voice grew hushed, as if telling you a secret. It also could become husky and rich, as on songs like This Is Always and Long Ago and Far Away. Born in 1940, she started singing right after college in the late 1950s with the touring big bands of Sal Salvador, Larry Elgart and Neal Hefti. Sadly, none of those dates were recorded, and if they were they were never released.
Fredette then spent the 1970s on the road as a club headliner. When she started to record in the early 1980s, she produced only six albums. Jazz had dried up and was especially hard on jazz singers. Then Carol became ill and died in January 2021. [Photo above of Carol Fredette]
Out today is a previously unreleased album by saxophonist Bill Kirchner that features Fredette and pianist Marc Copland. Recorded live on April 17, 2013, at The Players, a historic private club dating back to 1847 on New York's Gramercy Park, the album features seven standards and put Fredette's intellect and voice to the test. Both Bill and Marc are challenging jazz players who come at songs from unusual, sophisticated angles—Bill on the soprano sax and Marc with unusual chord voicings and singular counter-melodies. They take songs apart, reassemble them differently, change the tonality and bring them around—all on the bandstand and all on the spur, as the mood dictates. [Photo above of Bill Kirchner by Ed Berger]
As a result, Fredette was in deep waters and had to dig deep. My guess is she initially had to focus hard on the song's melody and listen for core notes that would keep her on track rather than distracted or derailed by the musical swerving of Bill and Marc. But in short order, Fredette was in sync with what Bill and Marc do with songs. The result was a completely different Fredette than the singer who appears on most of her other recordings, which tended to be rather formal.
Bill and Marc together produce renditions with aching melancholy and cascading drama with wonderful results. In the process, their deconstructive collaborations nudged Fredette into fascinating vocal risks and shaded corners. The tracks are All of You, Some Other Time, Dreamer, Beautiful Friendship, A Time for Love, Zingaro and For All We Know. [Photo above of Marc Copland by Guido Werner, courtesy of Marc Copland]
I've listened to this album seven times and I'm going to listen another seven times today. There's so many twists and turns in the music and how Fredette responds and interprets what's going on around her, musically. Listen to what she does on Some Other Time and Antonio Carlos Jobim's Dreamer. Or A Beautiful Friendship. Each interpretation has a song within a song within a song. Fredette had two choices on this live date: She could have performed these songs straight while Bill and Marc worked around her or she could have worked them with unusual choices of her own. Fortunately for us, the artist in her was pushed to the fore and she chose the latter very quickly and fearlessly.
I have all of Carol Fredette's albums and this is her finest by far, largely because of the demands that nudged her to new heights. Kudos to Bill for realizing when he lined up the gig that this would work splendidly and deliver timeless surprises. An amazing live journey. [Photo above by Ed Berger]
As you'll hear, Bill's playing is magnificent—harmonizing in places and adding counter-coloration in others. And Marc's chord voicings and side explorations are a trip. Remember, don't listen just once. You really need to listen to this album multiple times to pick up on what the performers were doing and how they managed to walk the creative tightrope together without slipping off.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Bill Kirchner's For All We Knowhere.
On the afternoon of September 28, 1974, husband-and-wife singers Jackie Paris and Anne Marie Moss videotaped a gig in the Maisonette at New York's St. Regis Hotel. They were backed by Mike Abene on piano, Harvie S on electric bass and Steve Gadd on drums. The point of the taping was to support a TV-show concept Paris and Moss were pitching. When the TV show didn't pan out, an album of the material, Jackie Paris & Anne Marie Moss Live at the Maisonette, was unofficially released.
Today, Mike, Harvie and Steve are powerhouse players with staggering careers and are among the best in the jazz business. Back in 1974, Mike had already had sterling years with Maynard Ferguson's band and as an accompanist, and Harvie and Steve were new to New York. Listen carefully to each musician on this date—Mike's glorious piano, Harvie's fast electric bass and Steve's rhythms on drums. Harvie is a dear friend, and recently I asked him about the Maisonette gig. [Photo above of Harvie S courtesy of Harvie S]
For years, the rare album has been prized by collectors for Jackie Paris's freewheeling comeback attempt with his wife, Anne Marie Moss, and their new sound and vocal arrangements. It's also one of only a few recordings by Moss, who is widely regarded by singers and musicians as exceptional and underappreciated. For me, the music has a distinctly early 1970s sound, complete with hip, fresh arrangements, swinging vocals, song combinations and monster playing.
Here's my e-chat with Harvie S about the gig back in 1974 and how he wound up on the stage:
JazzWax: Harvie, set the scene for me. How did the gig at the Maisonette come about? Harvie S: After graduating from Boston's Berklee College of Music with a degree in composition and a piano minor, I ended up in Europe for a while and came back to a bleak music scene in Massachusetts. There was little jazz work. Clubs were no longer able to fill seats or they needed more income and switched to more popular forms of music. So I worked for a year in a Top-40 rock band playing electric bass and doing background vocals. Then I started playing acoustic upright again and struggled financially. One day, I received a call from Lennie Sogoloff of Lennie’s on the Turnpike in Peabody outside Boston to do three weeks at the club, which I did with a burned hand. That's a whole other story.
JW: Rough scene. HS: It was. While working on a gig at Lennie’s with signer Chris Conner and pianist Mike Abene, Mike said I should move to New York. I thought he had lost his mind. I didn’t feel I would ever be good enough to make that journey. He said if I did, I could have the gig with husband-and-wife singing duo Jackie Paris and Anne Marie Moss. I needed work and I was broke, so I took it. The bassist leaving Jackie and Anne Marie was Dave Holland, who had taken the job after leaving Miles. That's how tight jazz money was in the early 1970s.
JW: Were you scared? HS: I was frightened and thought it was a dream. I’ll always remember my first night. No rehearsal, and about an hour before the gig they showed me some music. I looked and thought everything was going to be OK. What I didn’t know was the chart they showed me and the other charts were being played at breakneck speeds. I just moved my fingers as fast as I could and tried to hang in. Eventually I got in the groove.
JW: Which clubs did you play with Paris and Moss in New York prior to the Maisonette? HS: We played a week at the Half Note and some concerts here and there. We even played a Horn & Hardart, when the chain held a short-lived, live-jazz series. We also played two weeks at the King George Inn in Annapolis Md. I can’t remember all the gigs, but there were others, some in New Jersey.
JW: How did Paris and Moss interact? HS: Jackie and Anne Marie were a high-strung, ambitious couple with a lot on the line, so yes, there was some strife on and off the bandstand. Married couples fight and disagree, so I’ve heard. But Jackie and Anne-Marie loved each other, that I am sure of.
JW: Was your Great Gorge Playboy Club a gig with Paris and Moss? HS: Yes. With Mike Abene and the great drummer Jimmy Madison. We may have been there six weeks or so. I had moved out of my apartment before the gig, so I didn’t have a place to live. That job helped get me on my financial feet so I could rent an apartment. After the gig I rented a place in Rego Park, Queens. Saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi was my roommate for a year. He then decided he wanted to move back to Boston. After that I moved into a Manhattan loft. By the way, at the Great Gorge club, Teddy Wilson was there playing piano in the lounge. [Photo above of the Great Gorge Playboy Club in Vernon Township, N.J.]
JW: On breaks during your gigs, did you have conversations with Moss or Paris? HS: Jackie liked to tell stories about the old days. Lenny Bruce had been a roommate of his. Anne Marie would talk about her early days with Maynard Ferguson and life in Canada, where she was from. Just fun, general conversations and lots of joking around before and after the gig.
JW: After settling in at the loft, where were you working? HS: I continued working with Jackie and Anne Marie. In September 1974, they called me to do a special gig at the Maisonette, the club at the St. Regis Hotel on 55th Street. They said I’d be playing with a new drummer who had just come to town with an already strong reputation—Steve Gadd—and, of course, Mike on piano. Mike had written their musical arrangements, which were sensational.
JW: What was the purpose of the gig? HS: The afternoon performance was set up to videotape a demo reel for a TV show pitch. Since the club was in Midtown Manhattan and it was the middle of the day, parking would be hard to find and amps weighed a ton, so I just brought my Fender Precision electric bass for the gig. Also on the show was a tap dancer, Pete Condo. He and Steve Gadd did a duo number that was extraordinary. I wish someone still had the video. The promoter was Jack Tafoya and I have no idea where he is now. I also had no idea that audio was going to be recorded for release as an album. I guess it came out after the TV show failed to materialize.
JW: Was that your first uptown New York gig or had you been playing in the city by then? HS: When I first got to the city, I started working in Lee Konitz’s band with Jimmy Madison on drums and Yoshiaki Masuo on guitar. It was a great group, and we worked a lot. One night vocalist Sheila Jordan showed up. Lee asked me if it was OK if she sat in. I was already a fan of hers and was so excited she would join us. After the set, Sheila said to me “Kid, I like the way you play. Would you be interested in doing some gigs with me?” I was floored and so thrilled. That started a musical relationship that continues to this day.
JW: What did the Maisonette look like? I was too young to go, but I remember it considered was pretty hip and swanky. HS: The Maisonette was a beautiful room with high ceilings and plenty of space to set up all the video cameras. I knew the music well, having worked with them. Steve Gadd was sight reading that day and playing the music like he wrote it. There was no rehearsal. It was a one-time-only event with an invited audience, mainly for the taping. As far as Mike’s arrangements go, he's an arranging genius. He's also able to write for any configuration, from big band to string orchestra. He was writing killer arrangements for Maynard Ferguson when he was in his teens.
JW: From your perspective, what were Jackie Paris and Anne Marie Moss like to deal with? HS: I loved Jackie and Anne. They were really good, honest and fair people. Jackie could be tough, though. On gigs, when I was playing a particularly up-tempo number, if I let up for a second he’d turn around and let me know it. [Photo above of Jackie Paris in the early 1970s]
JW: How so? HS: He’d snap his fingers or wave his hand and say, “Stay on top. Don’t let up.” Nothing mean. He wanted total immersion in the music. It was good training for me, and I learned a lot. Anne Marie was always supportive. I also have to say, I think she was one of the greatest jazz singers ever but she never got much recognition. That's sad. She had a three-octave range, perfect time, perfect intonation, could swing and could make you cry when she sang a ballad. She was special.
JW: The speed with which you’re playing on the album is spectacular. HS: I guess my chops on electric bass were better by then because I was playing it more often. I was doing a lot of studio work, too. Most people will be shocked to learn that I play bass guitar because almost everyone thinks I don’t. I’ve since focused on acoustic bass mostly. I sold that nice Fender Precision because I needed money and bought a cheaper one. I have a Precision now and a five-string Ibanez. And yes, I can still play them and love to. [Photo above of Anne Marie Moss and Jackie Paris]
JW: Mike Abene told me years ago that this gig wasn’t one of his favorite moments. Was it problematic? HS: Wow, I gotta say that as far as I could see, everything was smooth and OK. But you never know what goes on behind the scenes. I was there to play bass and that’s all I did. I was not involved with the business, and probably some off-stage stuff went down. I never even knew about the album until I heard it on the radio. I never even got paid for it.
JW: When was the last time you heard the album? HS: I have to admit, I hadn't listened to the recording in some time. I rarely listen to anything I've recorded after it's released. After listening today to the clips you sent, I was amazed that I was playing as well as I did on bass guitar. I’d forgotten about that. As far as the recording quality goes, it isn’t so great and could use a remastering. But the energy was there. I enjoyed listening to the YouTube clips you sent. Now, I’m so glad it was documented. [Photo above of Steve Gadd]
In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed actor-dancer George Chakiris for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). George played Bernardo, leader of the Sharks, in the 1961 film version of West Side Story. He also played Etienne in one of my favorite films (and yours), The Young Girls of Rochefort. George talked about his Greek parents, who were united in an arranged marriage and became a perfect fit. We also talked about how he wound up dancing in major Hollywood films in the 1950s. [Photo above of George Chakiris, center, in West Side Story, courtesy of George Chakiris]
Here's George (in orange) in West Side Story's prologue...
Here's George (again, in orange) in The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)...
And here's George with Rosemary Clooney in Love, You Did Me Wrong from White Christmas (1954). I'm sure you'll know which one is George...
Also in the WSJ this week, I wrote an opinion essay on one of hard rock's seminal albums, Deep Purple's Machine Head (1972), which still raises hairs (go here). On March 25, the album celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Here's Deep Purple performing Smoke on the Water in 1972...
Central Park is just starting to show some color. It's still chilly in New York—in the 40s F in the morning—and we're expecting lower temperatures early next week. But there are glimmers of hope. As I crossed the park early this morning, I thought of you and snapped two pictures of the only blooms in sight. For now.
Barbara Morrison. A celebration of the late singer's life and career will be live streamed on Saturday, March 26, at 5 p.m. (ET). Go here.
Also, a GoFundMe page has been started to help cover her health expenses. The page has raised over $30,000 with a goal of raising $40,000. Go here.
Harold Mabern radio. On Sunday, Sid Gribetz will host a three-hour Jazz Profiles show on WKCR-FM spotlighting the life and music of pianist Harold Mabern from 2 to 5 p.m. Tune in from anywhere in the world by going here.
And finally,here's Joe Pesci on the Late Show With David Letterman in 1994 [photo above courtesy of NBC]...
Finally, a Trammps box set has been released! Re-issued by Cherry Red's Robinsongs label in the U.K., all eight albums by the Philadelphia group now appear on Burn Baby Burn: The Trammps Albums 1975-1980. The eight-CD set features terrific fidelity and career-spanning liner notes by Charles Waring.
I'm not sure why the Trammps have been ignored for so long by the American record industry. Perhaps the rights were too expensive or difficult to secure. Or they were simply forgotten during repeated turnovers at record companies staffed by younger executives born in later decades than the 1970s. At any rate, as a disco fan and collector since 1973, I was overjoyed to hear this music again with superb mastering. [Photo above of the Trammps]
The Trammps were much more than their 1976 tourist-trap dance hit, Disco Inferno (1976). The Philadelphia group had its roots in the 1960s as the Volcanos and then the Moods. The story behind their name has several versions. In one, evening rehearsals on neighborhood streets in Philadelphia led passers-by to chide them as tramps. A second "m" was added and they became the Trammps. But founder and drummer Earl Young told Waring, the box's liner notes writer, that he wanted a silly name—like Bummie and the Bums—record buyers would remember. Tramps worked, but he added the extra "m" to class up the name. Either way, the group's first album, Tammps, was released in early 1975 on Golden Fleece, a boutique label distributed by the songwriting and producing team Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.
The album made it onto on both Billboard's R&B and pop charts, largely because of the underground album dance hit, Where Do We Go From Here, released in 1974. Young, a Philadelphia session drummer in the early 1970s, recorded the group at Philadelphia's famed Sigma Sound, where the city's leading studio musicians and producers were emerging. Many were members of MFSB, Sigma's sizable and talented studio band. At Sigma, producer-arranger-songwriter Ronnie Baker and guitarist-arranger-songwriter Norman Harris joined Young on Trammps recording sessions and songwriting. Baker-Harris-Young would go on to write major soul and disco hits and had played on several significant pre-Philadelphia International albums, including the Spinners' Spinners (1973) and early '70s albums by Blue Magic. When I interviewed Young for my "Anatomy of a Song" column for the WSJ on the Spinners' I'll Be Around (1972), we talked about the start of the Philly dance beat he created on the Spinners' hit.
As soul dance music picked up in the early 1970s with the emergence of discos, FM radio and supermarket-sized record stores, the Trammps had increased success. Their second 1975 album, The Legendary Zing Album, on Buddah charted, but it was their next album, Where the Happy People Go in 1976 that became a club classic and put the group on the map. All of the album's songs were popular at discos, including Soul Searchin' Time, the title track, Can We Come Together, Disco Party, Ninety-Nine and a Half, Hooked for Life and Love Is a Funky Thing.
The Atlantic album reached #13 on Billboard's R&B album chart and #50 on the Billboard 200. The single of That's Where the Happy People Go topped out at #12 on the Hot Soul Singles chart, #27 on the Billboard Hot 100, and No. 1 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart, and Disco Party peaked at #1 on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play chart. I wore out two copies of the album at college in Boston, where disco emerged early on one FM station for several hours on Sunday nights.
The Trammps' next album, Disco Inferno (1976), was so popular at discos that the title track landed in the film Saturday Night Fever and on the album soundtrack. The followup, The Trammps III (1977), also was a significant seller. By the late 1970s, the band's success started to flag as the disco phenomenon took on a European electronic sheen, grew repetitive and waned. [Photo above of the Trammps, courtesy of Wikipedia]
The Trammps' sound was unique and driven by muscular dance rhythms by Earl Young, spectacular arrangements by Ronnie Baker and Norm Harris, and by the big emotional vocal delivery of Jimmy Ellis. His expressive lead singing style was akin to the Four Tops' Levi Stubbs.
Burn Baby Burn: The Trammps Albums 1975-1980 is welcome news for anyone who loved early disco and is interested in the emergence of the Philadelphia sound. Hopefully someone at Robinsongs will turn to the Archie Bell catalog next. Do the Choo Choo!
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Burn Baby Burn: The Trammps Albums 1975-1980 here.
JazzWax tracks: Here's Tom Moulton's mix of Can We Come Together...
Here are the Trammps performing Where the Happy People Go in 1976...
And here are the Trammps in 1974 lip-syncing their club hit Where Do We Go From Here...
On October 13, 1963, Beatlemania—the youthful hysteria over appearances by the charismatic Fab Four—began in London after an afternoon rehearsal at the Palladium prior to their televised concert that evening. Crowds of suburban teens rushed the Fab Four as they headed to their limo and newspapers picked up on the mania the next day. Ten days later, on October 23, the Beatles flew to Stockholm for their first real tour outside the U.K. On October 30, they went on Swedish television and closed the show after a series of local pop artists appeared, including the jazz-pop vocal group Gals and Pals.
As the Beatles left Sweden the next morning, thousands of young Swedish fans gave them a screaming send-off at Arlanda International Airport. When the lads arrived at London's Heathrow Airport later that morning, a vacationing Ed Sullivan was aboard an in-bound flight taxiing to the gate. When Sullivan asked why so many the teens were screaming from the terminal's viewing terrace, he was told that the Beatles had come home from a tour of Sweden. Sullivan met his connecting flight to New York and upon return, he began negotiations to book the band for his show in February 1964. The rest is history. [Photo above of Paul McCartney on Sweden's Drop In from YouTube]
The Beatles' appearance on the popular Swedish TV show, Drop In, on October 30 was broadcast there on November 3. The last time I posted about Gals and Pals was in 2016 here. The Swedish TV performance by the Beatles is significant because it was held just before their fame exploded internationally and changed them and pop music. And because the Swedes were traditionally polite and reserved, we get to hear what the Beatles sounded like in a relatively quiet room, perhaps the last time that would happen other than in a studio.
A little digging online and voila, the entire Drop In show:
Here's Part 1 of Sweden's Drop In on October 30, 1963...
Today, I start an intermittent series I call "Backgrounder," featuring great, rare albums that may be unknown to you. My intent is to provide you with superb music while you work or read—music that I'm listening to as well. So we'll be listening to the exact same music at the exact same time. Cool, right? Hopefully, you'll love the music as much as I do.
My first offering in this series is The Ipanema Pop Orchestra's Bossa Nova for Swinging Lovers, an instrumental album recorded in Rio de Janeiro with brass and strings and released in 1965 on the London label. The arranging and conducting in Brazil were by Eumir Deodato, Cipó and Luiz Eca.
Shortly after being discharged from military service in 1953, tenor saxophonist Frank Foster joined Count Basie's band. By then, Basie's so-called New Testament band was in place and had been recording for a year. The orchestra was known as the New Testament band, to differentiate it from Basie's swing-era big band that formed in 1935 and was shuttered in late 1949. Vocalist Billy Eckstine was the first to urge Basie to give up the small groups Basie led from 1950 to 1952, telling the Count, "This is small garbage for you." Morris Levy, co-owner of New York's Birdland, sweetened the pot by giving Basie's new band a residency at the club. [Photo above of Frank Foster, left, and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis]
Foster's first recorded arrangement for the band was Blues Backstage in 1954. Here it is...
Foster favored mid-tempo, walking blues when arranging for Basie, a tempo that grooved. His original songs and arrangements for the band included Shiny Stockings, Down for the Count, Blues Backstage, Back to the Apple, Discommotion and Blues in Hoss' Flat.
Foster recorded three albums devoted to his Basie sound—two as a leader and one as the sole arranger of a Basie album. Tuesday is as good a day as any to dig Frank Foster's Basie sound. These albums will put a wag in the week's tail.
Here's the complete No Count for Savoy in 1956 with the Frank Foster Septet, featuring Benny Powell and Henry Coker (tb), Frank Foster and Frank Wess (ts,fl), Kenny Burrell (g), Eddie Jones (b) and Kenny Clarke (d)...
Here's Count Basie's Easin' It in 1960, with arrangements by Frank Foster, featuring Sonny Cohn, Snooky Young, Thad Jones and Joe Newman (tp); Al Grey, Henry Coker and Benny Powell (tb); Marshal Royal (cl,as), Frank Wess (as,ts,fl), Frank Foster (ts,arr), Billy Mitchell (ts), Charlie Fowlkes (bar), Count Basie (p), Freddie Green (g), Eddie Jones (b), Sonny Payne (d), plus special guest Clark Terry (tp) on track #1 and possibly on track #2...
And here'sBasie Is Our Boss, recorded for Argo/Cadet in 1963 with Al Aarons (tp), Frank Foster (ts), Eric Dixon (ts,fl), John Young (p), Buddy Catlett (b) and Philip Thomas (d). A special thanks to Bill Kirchner for reminding me about the album...
Every great jazz musician has his musical mate—an artist who perfectly complements his or her style and sound. Such historical jazz pairings that come to mind are Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Pepper Adams and Donald Byrd, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Rouse, Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, Art Farmer and Benny Golson, Clifford Brown and Max Roach, and so on. For Toots Thielemans, it was Rob Franken, the Dutch pianist, Fender Rhodes virtuoso and session musician who appeared on more than 400 records, mostly in Europe. [Photo above of Rob Franken and Toots Thielemans]
Thielemans, a jazz harmonicist, guitarist and whistler, first met Franken in 1972 when they worked together on the soundtrack for Turkish Delight, a Dutch erotic drama film released in 1973. They recorded and performed up until 1983, when Franken died at age 42 from an internal hemorrhage. As Thielemans said to Dutch journalist Ton Ouwehand, "Rob was much younger than I was. He had studied Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea and you could hear that in his playing style. I used a cassette of his solos like someone studying Russian or Chinese. I locked myself up and listened to nothing but Rob Franken's solos. No other language." [Photo above of Rob Franken and Toots Thielemans]
Now, the Netherlands Jazz Archive in Holland has released Toots Thielemans Meets Rob Franken, a three-CD set that documents previously unreleased studio sessions together between 1973 and 1983. According to liner notes by Frank Jochemsen, Franken during this 10-year period headed up the Functional Music recording sessions that took place in Holland's best recording studios. The results were used as background music in shopping mall, hotels, elevators, department stores and airports.
After Franken died, the Fumu recordings by Franken were saved by Theo van Leeuwen, the sessions' producer. When Jochemsen began exploring the tapes in the 2000s, he found three CDs' worth of recordings by Franken and Toots Thielemans (above), who worked extensively on already released records.
The three albums in this new set released by the Netherlands Jazz Archives are Together (1973), Absorbed Love (1974-1978) and Nature Boy (1981-1982). Unlike American easy listening music during this period, which tended to be saccharine orchestral renditions of pop songs of the day and yesteryear, these Dutch recordings by Franken and Thielemans are pure jazz by small groups and smooth and smart on the ear.
The 57 tracks feature Thielemans playing harmonica and, on other songs, whistling improvised lines. Frank comps behind Thielemans' mostly on Fender Rhodes and then solos. None of the songs are easy listening, per se, but you can imagine how the relaxing music could be a sophisticated chill-out soundtrack in public spaces in the Netherlands. Listening to these albums, Franken and Thielemans were extraordinary together and on the exact same intellectual page, finishing each other's musical sentences.
These newly discovered recordings are in addition to the many albums that Franken recorded with Thielemans, including Live (1975), Live Two (1975), Old Friend (1975), Soft Melodies (1975), Live Three (1976), Slow Motion (1978), When I See You (1979 and 1980), When I See You (1980) and Bratislava Jazz Days (1982).
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Toots Thielemans Meets Rob Franken (Netherlands Jazz Archive) 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.
