In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed Tracy Letts for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Tracy is quite extraordinary. In addition to a prolific acting career (many top films and TV series), he is the author of August: Osage County (2013) and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award. He was just in HBO's Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, one of the year's finest streaming series, and his latest play, The Minutes, is on Broadway. [Photo above of Tracy Letts courtesy of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre]
To give you a sense of Tracy's acting career, here are a few of his superb performances:
Here's Tracy as Henry Ford II in Ford v Ferrari (2019)...
Here's Tracy as the dad in Lady Bird (2017)...
Here's Tracy in Showtime's Homeland as Senator Andrew Lockhart...
Here's Tracy in HBO's Winning Time as Lakers' coach Jack McKinney...
And here's Tracy in Seinfeld, in the window at "Horsetrack Betting." Move the space bar to 1:32...
Good vibrations. Photo above of legendary vibist and bandleader Terry Gibbs, right, who recently welcomed an old friend, Fresh Sounds owner-producer Jordi Pujol, to his home. They go back many years.
More good vibrations. Vocalist-pianist Meredith d'Ambrosio, left, sent along the above photo of her and pianist, composer, arranger and singer Bob Dorough in the 1980s when they both performed at a jazz festival in Bordeaux, France.
Ray Brown. Last week after my Backgrounder post on the Ray Brown Trio's 1994 album Don't Get Sassy, I heard from Kim Paris of the FM Radio Archive:
Hi Marc, thanks for your JazzWax Backgrounder on the Ray Brown Trio's Don't Get Sassy. For your listening pleasure, I can offer two broadcast recordings on FM Radio Archive featuring Ray Brown.
The first features the same trio—Ray Brown, Benny Green and Jeff Hamilton—at Yoshi's in 1993. Go here.
The second is Ray Brown with the Charlie Parker All Stars, live at the 1980 Chicago Jazz Festival, celebrating what would have been Parker's 60th birthday. Big thanks to Marc Rabin, who shared both recordings from his collection. Go here.
Bill Evans. Kim Paris also sent along a 1975 Bill Evans Trio concert from Épalinges, Switzerland, with Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums. The recording is from Swiss public broadcasting network Radio Television Suisse (RTS). Go here. [Photo above of Bill Evans courtesy of Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid / Elemental Music]
The Pied Pipers. Jonathan Kahn sent along a link to a recording of the Pied Pipers in 1945 singing In the Middle of May, a nifty tune with the Paul Weston Orchestra. Go here...
Jackie Paris had a big ego, as we know from Raymond De Felitta's documentary Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris. We also know the jazz singer was a handful and, according to subjects interviewed, he "rubbed people the wrong way." Several weeks ago I found the photo above of Paris and then wife and singing partner Anne Marie Moss. Upon looking at the back of the photo, I couldn't help but notice that the photographer or newspaper editor had a comment of his own: "royal pain." (Hard to imagine it says "royal pair.")
Jazz scribes. Pianist Michael Weiss sent along a link to a YouTube clip that features jazz writers-producers Ira Gitler, Dan Morgenstern, Don Schlitten and David Himmelstein on New York's WBAI in 1964. Wow, they sound like kids. Go here...
Orson Welles. Director Raymond De Felitta writes on film at Movie 'Til Dawn and posts podcast interviews that he has conducted with directors here. Last week he alerted me to a cool YouTube interview excerpt that director Orson Welles gave in 1958. Go here...
Nancy Harrow. Want to make a really hip Greenwich Village scene? I mean, like one of those happenings from the early 1960s? If you're in New York, you're in luck. Two plays will feature the music of legendary vocalist Nancy Harrow. The plays are Three Sisters and About Love. Performances will run through June 5 at the Sheen Center on Bleecker and Elizabeth streets. Will Pomerantz adapted About Love from a short story called First Love by Ivan Turgenev, and the adaptation of Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov is also his work. He directs both plays.
Nancy told me that the songs she wrote for Three Sisters are A Storm Is Brewing and Can’t Say Goodbye. These have never been recorded, she said. The other songs that are sung in the production are ones she previously recorded on albums. They will be sung by the actors. In About Love, the music is almost all instrumental except for Happy Days, a song she wrote originally for my Lost Lady album recorded with pianist Dick Katz.
The on-stage quartet for Three Sisters features Misha Josephs on guitar, Frederika Krier on violin, Jared Engel on bass and Steve Picataggio on drums. A trio on stage for About Love is comprised of the same musicians, minus the drums. For more information, go here.
Nancy's latest album is Partners II: I Don’t Know What Kind of Blues I’ve Got compiled during the pandemic. Go here.
Dave Thompson has a little something for you on the piano—Very Early. Go here...
And finally, here's France's Joëlle (above) and Sacha Distel in the 1970s singing I Can't Live Without You...
