Like Erroll Garner, Hal Schaefer had his own distinctive jazz piano style and transformed every song he played into pure magic. He could turn standards inside out with a swinging fury and, with his right hand, whip up improvised lines that left listeners dazzled.
Born in 1925 in Queens, N.Y., Schaefer began playing professionally as a teen at resorts in the Catskill Mountains a few hours north of New York. [Photo above of Hal Schaefer and Marilyn Monroe in the early 1950s]
By the mid-1940s, he was playing and recording with Tommy Dorsey and Boyd Raeburn. During this time, he led a trio that played during intermissions at Duke Ellington concerts.
In 1947, he settled in Los Angeles and teamed with vocalist Peggy Lee and her husband, guitarist Dave Barbour, on record dates. He also squeezed in a session with Bob Cooper's band backing vocalist June Christy. In the early 1950s, he made records for MGM with Woody Herman and singer Billy Eckstine.
By early 1953, he was swept by the movie industry and began working as Marilyn Monroe's vocal coach and accompanist, helping her get up to speed for her solo vocal on Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend for the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a song he arranged while working closely with film choreographer Jack Cole. He also worked with her on the music and arrangements for There's No Business Like Show Business and River of No Return in 1954.
Here's Schaefer on piano during Monroe's solo vocal on River of No Return...
Like many men who came into Monroe's orbit, Schaefer was lulled into thinking their relationship was more than it was. According to Schaefer, he became her lover in 1954 and confidant during the nine months she was married to Joe DiMaggio and beyond. Then Schaefer's relationship with the actress began slipping away. In July 1955, he said, he tried to commit suicide over his inability to hold onto her.
During this period of sexual despair, Schaefer recorded two albums for RCA as a leader—Just Too Much, a trio date months before his suicide attempt, and Jazz Workshop with a sextet months after being released from the hospital.
Both are glorious recordings. On Just Too Much, recorded in late 1954 and early 1955, the album featured Schaefer (p,cel), Joe Mondragon (b) and Alvin Stoller (d). Schaefer sounds spectacular throughout the album, taking on Thou Swell, The Song Is You, It Could Happen to You and St. Louis Blues among others, creating impossibly inventive renditions that became musical catnip for the listener.
On the Jazz Workshop album, recorded over three sessions in the fall of 1955, the tracks on the first date were Spring Is Here, Isn't It Romantic, Real Lee? and A New Sound. The band Schaefer arranged featured Jimmy Nottingham and Nick Travis (tp), Schaefer (p), Milt Hinton (b), Don Lamond and Ed Shaughnessy (d).
On Blues Skies, This One's for Jack, A Song of Love and I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter, the personnel included Billy Byers, Urbie Green, Fred Ohms and Chauncey Welsch (tb); Tom Mitchell (b-tb); Hal Schaefer (p); Milt Hinton (b) and Osie Johnson (d).
And on Imagination, Dancing in the Dark, Of Things Gone By and Let's Have a Celebration, the musicians were Hal McKusick, Sam Marowitz and Phil Woods (as); Hal Schaefer (p); Milt Hinton (b) and Osie Johnson (d).
This One's for Jack must have been for Jack Lewis, RCA's head of jazz A&R at the time, when the 12-inch album format was brand new for pop records. Lewis created the Jazz Workshop series to give top artists a chance to lead a recording session of their own conception. The series also let Lewis quickly fill his quota of newly recorded albums for RCA's 12-inch LP pipeline.
Prior to Schaefer's suicide attempt, a jealous Joe DiMaggio with Frank Sinatra and others broke down the door of the wrong apartment at 3 a.m. looking for Monroe and Schaefer. Following this event, the pianist was regularly harassed in the days before trolling and social media. So much so that Schaefer feared his hands would be broken by goons in retribution and left Hollywood in the late 1950s.
In New York, he continued to play and record jazz albums as well as coach star singers such as Barbra Streisand, Chita Rivera, Rita Moreno and Julie Wilson. He moved to Florida in the 1990s and died in December 2012. Marilyn Monroe died of a barbiturate overdose in August 1962 that was widely considered a suicide.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Hal Schaefer's Just Too Much and Jazz Workshop on one Fresh Sound CD here.
JazzWax clips: Here's The Song Is You...
Here's Thou Swell, with Schaefer on piano and celeste...
Here's Dancing in the Dark...
