Jo Harrop and I became acquainted over email in 2024 after I reviewed her album The Path of a Tear. Since then we’ve stayed in touch, and last year she shared with me a new album she was trying to get released but was encountering business hurdles. I was floored. The album, Love Now, Pay Later, was a major stylistic break from her prior jazz recordings. This one blended romantic Northern Soul with a Dusty in Memphis approach framed by cool, contemporary arrangements. [Photo above of Jo Harrop by Christine Schwann at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles in 2024]

When she emailed me a couple of months ago to say she was finally able to get the album out on Lateralize Records, I figured now was a good time to do an email interview timed to its release so JazzWax readers could get to know her and her new direction. Jo co-wrote eight of the 12 tracks, but before we dive in, here’s the album’s title track, a cover of Clydie King’s 1969 soul single:

You can hear the entire album at Spotify or YouTube here. Listen and buy here.

Here’s my e-conversation with Jo:

JazzWax: Jo, where did you grow up?

Jo Harrop: I was born in the city of Durham, in the northeast corner of England, and grew up in Great Lumley, a tiny village north of the city. Most of my teenage years were spent in Chester-le-street, a semi-rural market town near Newcastle. I remember lots of family walks with the dog, and being surrounded by nature. Our house was modest in size, with a lovely, well-tended garden and a tree that I liked to climb. There were always people over for dinners and weekends. Looking back, those early years felt simple and happy.

JW: What did your parents do for work?

JH: Dad was a technical draftsman and Mum worked as a civil servant in the employment offices. My sister, Tracey, was adopted into our family at age 5 after a turbulent start to her life, and we became the best of friends. She is now an amazing pediatric nurse. I was the first person in our family to pursue a musical life. Despite being a painfully shy child, I was eager to perform on stage in front of crowds, much to my parents’ surprise.

JW: What did you listen to first when you were very young?

JH: I always loved music and sang for as long as I can remember. As a little girl, I spent my time watching musicals on TV, such as The Sound Of Music, The Wizard Of Oz, My Fair Lady, Bugsy Malone and West Side Story. So show music was my introduction to learning and performing songs. I also attended summer camp at a nearby musical youth theater with my best friend.

JW: What was playing on the stereo at home?

JH: My parents often played Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra and Jack Jones records, so I learned to sing jazzy easy-listening songbook songs. I think I drove my mum crazy singing all the time. When I was 12, I asked for a stereo system as a birthday present. My aunts and uncles bought me one and included CDs and tapes along with a random selection of albums. My first albums were by Whitney Houston, George Michael, Sheryl Crow, Madonna and Jon Bon Jovi.

JW: What about LPs?

JH: After my parents separated when I was 13, I claimed all their vinyl and would sit in my room and play the saddest of Tony Bennett’s songs, all the heartbreaking ones. They actually made me feel better, especially the ballads, probably because the songs felt as if someone else had experienced what I did. They gave me a shoulder. Eventually I asked my dad who else I should be listening to.

JW: Who did he recommend?

JH: He loved swing, so he recommended Frank Sinatra, big bands led by Count Basie and Duke Ellington, and drummers such as Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. He also played me Billie Holiday’s Sophisticated Lady in 1956 and pointed out Ben Webster’s breathy solo on the track. Dad bought me CDs of her recordings, and I wound up so in love with her, the lyrics and the delivery. Her Sophisticated Lady remains my favorite recording of the jazz standard. From there, I visited record stores and spent hours at the listening pods checking out loads of different jazz singers.

JW: What was your first concert?

JH: Seeing Tony Bennett live at Newcastle City Hall, at around age 14 in the 1990s. I saw him another five times over the years. At the first concert that night, I knew that singing was exactly what I wanted to do, but I never believed it was possible.

JW: As an early teen, were you introverted or extroverted?

JH: I was shy and introverted. I had two good friends, and I was definitely the only person I knew my age who was listening to jazz. Or vinyl, for that matter. A first, innocent romantic relationship led me to Prince and the Doors. Next came Nina Simone, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Anita O’Day and Julie London. I also had a compilation album that included Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Erma Franklin, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke and other soul greats. My friends were into all-boy and all-girl bands, which I never found appealing.

JW: Did you have a hard time at middle school?

JW: I was bullied quite badly for being quiet. I also was different. Then the school made my life miserable by not allowing to take music as a subject. I was told I wasn’t musical and it was up to me to take private lessons, which my Mum couldn’t afford.

JW: What did she do?

JH: Instead, she brought me to a more affordable dance school above our local laundrette on Saturday mornings. As a result, I didn’t get to learn a musical instrument. School had convinced me I wasn’t good enough, so I just had my voice and my records. I learned every song that caught my ear by listening to it over and over again. Music became a constant in my life and an escape. As for school plays, I was cast for small roles or a chorus-line part. I didn’t take music or voice lessons.

JW: How was high school?

JH: I kept my head down and excelled at English literature, language and art history. I worked hard for my grades and never got in trouble. There was a vicious pack of girls in my year that relentlessly put down kids, me included. I also was beaten up outside of the school gates and fortunately was rescued by a sweet old man.

JW: What was the impact on you?

JH: School’s social situation became so rough that I couldn’t wait to graduate and leave town. I didn’t love school, but I made it to the other side and got good grades. Hey, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

JW: Who was the first to realize you had a gift and should develop it?

JH: I’m not sure. People said, “Joanne’s got a nice voice,” but as a kid I was never encouraged to seek a musical career by my parents or anyone else. Because I was obsessed with music, I found myself compelled to sing and write songs, to be a part of the thing that was constantly running through my head. Later, once I started singing, I received support from musicians, producers and my first manager, Sue Carling.

JW: So after high school, what did you do?

JH: I moved to London, when I was 18, in January 2000. I was determined to sing professionally, but I had no plan at all. I moved to Belsize Park in North London with three other friends. The first morning I was there I landed a job at a pub on the corner of our road. That night I found myself pulling pints for TV celebrities who happened to frequent the pub. I was foolish enough to think becoming a singer would be an easy ride. I also took a waitress job in Camden Town, at the Jazz Cafe, which in those days showcased some incredible artists. I was able to see so many of them while working. In hindsight, that was an amazing job. I saw John Legend audition for record labels in the early 2000s before he recorded his 2004 album Get Lifted.

JW: At what point did you shift gears?

JH: I soon began answering stage-magazine ads for singers wanted for all kinds of things. I didn’t own a computer then nor did I have an email address. I went to some awful girl-band auditions and weird sessions for random bits of music in some very dodgy places. Nothing stuck, until five months later.

JW: What happened?

JH: I was sending cassettes of demos to contacts in ads. I had recorded them on a 4-track recorder at a guitar player’s flat, with my phone number written on them. So old school at the time. I can’t even remember the songs, but the originals I wrote with the guitarist were on there and were basic.

JW: Anything come from your hustle?

JH: I received two phone calls one night from a woman named Sue Carling, who I thought was mad for loving the music. I remember that the ad said, “Can you sing in color?” Sue asked me to meet her and two producers at a West London studio. I arrived, and we wound up working together for several years on original music. It was Sue who set me up singing backing vocals for pop stars, as a source of income.

JW: Which stars?

JH: Neil Diamond, Gloria Gaynor, Rod Stewart and Enrique Iglesias. Once I started doing session work, I met musicians who invited me to sing with their working bands and at jam sessions. Some of them were on the jazz circuit, and I’d occasionally sing with them in bars as background. I wasn’t singing to paying audiences yet, but I was learning my craft. I knew the lyrics and melodies to hundreds of songs, but I didn’t have a clue about keys, counting off songs and soloing. I had to learn fast on stage and from watching music videos of jazz musicians.

JW: A big curve?

JH: It has been a very organic and slow process to get to here. I always tried to write song lyrics and little poems in notebooks. That began for me early on. I’m not saying anything was very good then, but I had one break, when the smooth-jazz band Acoustic Alchemy took a song of mine and re-arranged it for me to record with them on Radio Contact, their 16th studio album, in 2003.

JW: How did that come about?

JH: I’d met their frontman, Miles Gilderdate, when we were both working backup for Enrique Iglesias on BBC TV’s Top of the Pops. and I played him a song on my demo cassette called Little Laughter. Some people in the U.S. had emailed to say they had played it at their wedding. He wanted the song and me on their record.

JW: What did you think?

JH: That blew me away, so I kept writing. But I didn’t really end up recording any more original songs until I my 2021 album The Heart Wants. I still carry around a notebook to jot down ideas, but I also make notes on my phone and leave myself voice memos. Weeks or months go by, and I’ll have a look and or a listen and then suddenly know what I want to do with them. The song Love Is Like the Wind, off my new album, is like that. It’s a sad story. My guitarist, Jamie McCredie, and I started writing it in around 2021 but it wasn’t finished. We parted company under sad circumstances and didn’t see one another for a few years.

JW: So what happened?

JH: One day I found a voice note about the song on my phone and couldn’t get the melody out of my head. I woke up in the dead of night with pretty much all the lyrics in mind. I wrote them out and said to Paul Edis—a pianist and co-writer—I need to record this as soon as possible. So Paul helped me knock it into shape, and we recorded the song as a demo. Love Is Like the Wind wound up on Love Now, Pay Later. Producer Chris Seefried loved it. Needless to say once I sent it to Jamie, we began working together again. A happy ending.

JW: How do you compose songs?

JH: I love working with a guitarist or pianist, just the two of us in a room. I typically come with lyrics first and we find music that helps tell the story. In some cases, it’s more organic and we start with a music hook that sets the tone for the title and subject. We build from there. All my songs are stories, most of them autobiographical.

JW: When did you feel in command of your composing ability?

JH: I started writing in earnest in 2020, during Covid, when there was all that time and space to stop and think. I haven’t really slowed since then. I lost many people close to me—my Dad and my step-parents and a friend. There was so much loss to reflect on and write about.

JW: Did composing help you cope?

JH: Yes, it was a cathartic way to process things and reach others going through similar life experiences. I always set out to write and record songs that make people feel—the way I felt listening to artists who touched me deeply. They’re not always sad songs. Sometimes they feel cool and make you want to move or are sensual, humorous, romantic or hopeful. Music is a connection of souls. It’s healing and powerful.

JW: You’ve appeared at some impressive places, including London’s Ronnie Scott’s and the Royal Albert Hall?

JH: I’ve had some incredible opportunities—opening for Gregory Porter on his 13-date UK tour that included four nights at the Royal Albert Hall. Performing my own music with a pianist on that stage was an indescribable feeling. The same stage I saw Tony Bennett on three different times. Ronnie Scott’s is a dream for any jazz singer—and I now feel like I can call it home, as I have performed there pretty regularly over the last six years.

JW: Was there a turning point for you and your career?

JH: Ha! Some days I feel I’m still waiting for my career to take off. What I’ve learned is that so much is out of your control and that you have to slow down and enjoy the process. The truth is there’s no endgame, no trophy or ultimate satisfaction at the end of the journey. It is about creating and carving out a successful and long-lasting career, and enjoying the making and doing. Once the music is out there, it isn’t mine anymore. It’s in other people’s hearts. That’s why playing live is so important to me: living in that moment and being in contact with people face to face.

JW: What was the turning point?

JW: I think I truly became an artist in 2018 when I connected with guitarist Jamie McCredie. We had a magical connection, and when we played together live, people really seemed captivated by our sound. We recorded a duo album Weathering the Storm, released in 2020. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone believe in me the way he did. That little album received praise when Covid struck and the world fell still and found itself listening harder to music. It was an unexpected success.

JW: How so?

JH: Iggy Pop played it first on his BBC Radio 6 Music show and set the ball rolling. That will always be a huge moment in Jamie’s and my musical journey. From there, I gained the confidence to start recording my compositions. To my great surprise, people actually seemed to relate to my songs and would message me from all over the world to say this or that one changed them in some way. Or they said it got them through something they were struggling with, just as music always did for me. That’s the loveliest feeling—to know you’ve moved strangers and maybe even helped them.

JW: Tell me about the new album.

JH: Love Now, Pay Later felt like a collaborative album, working with visionary artist, writer and producer Chris Seefried at Sunset Sound Recording Studio in Los Angeles. It was an incredible experience. Chris had heard my previous recordings and suggested we approach this new album with a modern take. The inspiration was Dusty Springfield’s 1969 album Dusty In Memphis, to bring a Northern Soul flavor to my existing jazz/blues pallette.

JW: What did you think of Sunset Sound?

JH: Working there in Studio 3 gave me enormous confidence to know I was recording where the Doors, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty and Prince made records. I felt I was in the presence of greatness. Fresh off the plane, with just three days to record a new album, with a brand new band and brand new enthusiastic producer was quite a challenge. I was never more fired up to get it done at the highest possible level.

JW: What was Chris Seefried’s input?

JH: He chose a team of remarkable players, who all brought their own unique creativity to the record. Deron Johnson on keyboards, Jonny Flaugher on upright and electric bass, Denny Weston on drums and percussion, and Chris on guitars. We had guest vocals from the incredible Lady Blackbird and background vocals from Chris’s daughter, Ava, who performs as Tigerlily.

JW: The new album is quite a big break from songbook standards.

JH: Singing in a jazz style came naturally to me, but my love of soul and blues were always an influence along with my love for poetic songwriters such as Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Joni Mitchell. I’m drawn to the imperfections, finding the beauty within the darkness, the aching voices, the yearning melodies, the cracks, the deep growls and the real emotion found in old recordings or outtakes. I find so much charm in that—I never want everything too shiny and polished.

JW: What is special about Chris?

JH: When I met him, we seemed to be speaking the same language in the approach and the songs we found and co-wrote. Choosing the right songs was key as was bringing together the right musicians and production—even down to selecting an historic studio—Studio 3 at Sunset Sound.

JW: How did you relate to the musicians?

JH: They were incredibly supportive and so enthusiastic about creating something magical. We worked very hard over those three days, often recording the vocals late at night to get the most raw and emotional sound for the ballads. But, the vision for the record was something that had grown and developed as I got to know Chris. And that didn’t end on the last day of recording. Chris continued to deepen the songs we recorded in the production and mixing process that followed, with so many intricate details. As Jamie Cullum put it on his BBC Radio 2 show, Chris reframed my voice beautifully.

JW: It was recorded in 2024. Why the delay?

JH: Business issues surfaced, which meant it had to be shelved for a couple of years. As you know, it nearly wasn’t released at all, so I’m grateful to be past that point.

JW: What’s your impression of the album title?

JH: Love Now, Pay Later is named for the cover version we did of the 1969 song by Clydie King. To me, the song is about a wild-hearted woman who loves with reckless abandon, regardless of how much trouble she’s getting herself into. I love the retro feel of the track that sets up the tone for the rest of the album. I love the cool drum riff that sets up the backing vocals intro that is so catchy.

JW: The album is a suite of sorts, with one song connected to the narrative of the next, yes?

JH: Exactly. The entire album follows a story, starting with the reckless optimism of Love Now, Pay Later, moving into the consequences and finally a conclusion with the song Old Friend. We hadn’t planned on including our previously released track She Carries On. We felt it didn’t quite belong on the album. Including it was a label decision. It sits almost like a reprise at the end, where the protagonist has made peace with her past and now she carries on.

JW: Today, where do you live?

JH: In London. I mostly gig in the U.K. and Denmark, and I’ve been lucky enough to perform in New York, L.A. and San Francisco. I would love to get out into the world more, especially continental Europe. There are amazing audiences still to find. I have two boys who are now teens. Ellington loves the late Cream bassist Jack Bruce, and he has very cool taste in music and loves vinyl shopping. He has his own turntable and sits and plays bass for hours. He takes himself to London’s Denmark Street to try out all the basses and has so much music history knowledge.

JW: And Ray?

JH: He plays tennis religiously and is so invested in the sport. He’s much more into modern music. But when I played him My Song, by Labi Siffre, he burst into tears. Both of my boys are amazingly understanding about my career and occasionally hear me on the radio. I see a glimmer of pride, or at least I hope they’re proud or inspired. They understand that you can do what you love as a career if you work hard.

JW: Finally, what are your favorite jazz vocal albums?

JH: Here are nine:

• Sarah Vaughan Sings the Mancini Songbook (1965/Mercury)

• Sarah Vaughan With Clifford Brown (1955/EmArcy)

• Aretha Franklin: Sweet Bitter Love (1982/Columbia compilation)

• Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album (Fantasy/1975)

• Together Again (Tony Bennett and Bill Evans) (1977/Improv)

• Nina Simone: Here Comes the Sun (1971/RCA)

• Beth Hart: Better Than Home (2015/Provogue/Mascot)

• Tom Waits: Mule Variations (1999/Anti-)

• Lady Blackbird: Black Acid Soul (2021/Foundation/produced by Chris Seefried

Bonus: Let’s go inside Sunset Sound in Los Angeles for a video of the making of the album…

Resonance Records was founded by George Klabin in 2007, the year I launched JazzWax. He is co-president of the non-profit label with producer Zev Feldman. Resonance is responsible for many high-quality audio releases, most notably a long series of previously unreleased Bill Evans Trio albums. [Photo above of George Klabin]

George has a fascinating background that may not be known to many fans of the label. For example, he’s fortunate to be here. His mother escaped Austria in 1939 following the Nazi occupation in 1938 and resettled in Brazil, where she had relatives. That’s where she met George’s father.

George’s exposure to music and the gift of a Victrola at an early age led to his life-long fascination with recording technology, jazz and the bossa nova.

Here’s my email interview with George…

JazzWax: George, tell me about your early life.

George Klabin: My grandparents on my father’s side met and lived in Lithuania. They left in the late 1890s and sailed for São Paulo, Brazil, to escape the pogroms. One of their children, Mauricio, had emigrated to São Paulo several years earlier and wrote them about the many opportunities to create businesses in that country.

JW: Once in São Paulo, what did the family do?

GK: They eventually started a paper factory that opened around 1899. It was called Klabin Brothers and is today the second largest paper manufacturer in South America.

JW: And your father?

GK: My father, Samuel, was born in São Paulo in 1910. Our family name was originally Lafer, but some family members had changed it to Klabin in Lithuania. It was the name of a non-Jewish man who had died. The family thought they could evade the Czar of Lithuania’s oppression by buying Klabin’s land and taking his name. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the Czar’s persecution.

JW: What about your mother?

GK: My Austrian mother, Gertrude “Trudy” Gleich, and her mother escaped the Nazis when she was 20 years old. Fortunately, she let go of her budding career as a movie actress ingenue, and they sailed to Brazil in 1939, settling in São Paulo. [Photo above of Trudy Gleich at age 18 in Austria, courtesy of George Klabin]

JW: Why Brazil?

GK: Several years earlier, her two older brothers had emigrated to São Paulo. By the time my mom arrived, one of her brothers, Lutz, an engineer, wanted to build a factory to produce precision ball bearings and pistons for the burgeoning Brazilian auto industry. Lutz had met my father at a party, where my father, 30, confided that he was ready to find a wife.

JW: What did Lutz do?

GK: My mother was a very beautiful and well-educated woman. Years later, I saw her in a German-language movie made in 1938. I can’t recall the name, but she had a single line. Lutz thought Sam might like Trudy, but he also had an ulterior motive.

JW: Which was?

GK: Samuel was wealthy, and Lutz wanted him to invest in his ball-bearing factory. He urged Trudy to meet him, hoping that if he liked her, they might marry. That union would lead to a factory investment. So Lutz took Trudy to meet Samuel, who fell for this beautiful blonde 20-year-old. [Photo above of Samuel Klabin, courtesy of George Klabin]

JW: She was willing?

GK: Trudy really wasn’t interested in marrying someone she barely knew. Lutz convinced her that Samuel was rich and that she would have a much better life with him, with all the money and prestige of the family name. Not having much else to choose from, and living with her mentally unstable mom in a small house in São Paulo with very little money, she agreed. They were married in 1940.

JW: Was it a good match?

GK: My mother was a very cultured, intelligent woman. Dad, on the other hand, loved to work and wasn’t well-versed in the arts or culture. When he was home, he liked to listen to sports on the radio and read newspapers.

JW: Did they remain a happy couple?

GK: In São Paulo, it was customary for wealthy men to keep an apartment for trysts. Since they never had affairs, occasional sex with paid prostitutes was acceptable in their circles. Apparently, my mother found out about the arrangement and a few years later decided on a trial separation. In 1943, she left for Manhattan and stayed at the Chelsea Hotel on 23rd Street, where painters, writers and musicians had rooms or suites. My mother had visited New York as a teenager and loved it. While at the hotel she met the writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who wrote the famous “Little Prince” story, and Edgar Lee Masters, who wrote “The Spoon River Anthology” poems.

JW: So your mom remained in the city?

GK: Mom soon started painting and adored New York’s culture. She didn’t want to return to Brazil. My father, however, realized what he was losing and traveled to Manhattan to convince her to repair the marriage by having a child. She reluctantly agreed and returned to Brazil. In 1945 she became pregnant with me.

JW: Where were you born?

GK: I was born on April 3, 1946 in Manhattan, because the best hospital in São Paulo had a 40% death rate for births. My mom had taken a flight to New York from São Paulo. The flight was aboard a noisy DC-3 prop plane that traveled at about 125 miles an hour. Since there wasn’t any radar for passenger airplanes yet, the plane flew beneath the clouds and landed every evening. Passengers then stayed at a hotel and resumed flying only during the day. The trip took five days.

JW: How did she gain entry to the U.S. given she was pregnant?

GK: Mom told me she sneaked me into the U.S. with a tourist visa. She was already showing a belly, but she wore a heavy mink coat to hide it. When she got to the customs clearance, the polite officer asked if she wanted to remove her coat to be more comfortable because it was rather hot. She said no thanks. Once she cleared customs, she got in a cab.

JW: Where did you live?

GK: She rented an apartment in a building on 59th Street and 7th Avenue. That red-brick building is still there. After eight months, she took me to São Paulo. She tried to make the marriage work, but it lasted only about three more years.

JW: Then she returned again to New York?

GK: Yes. We flew back and she proceeded to file for divorce. She was about 30 at the time. She had received a very nice settlement from Dad and we lived very comfortably. In return, Dad had custody of me every summer. Each June, I few down to São Paulo to stay with him and returned at the end of August, until I was 21. I learned to speak Portuguese fluently.

JW: So you were in Brazil around the time the bossa nova started?

GK: Yes, I was 12 then. I also started hearing bossa nova on Brazilian TV and radio around 1960 or ‘61, when it was becoming widely accepted as a new musical style. I recall a few pianists who played bossa, including Pedrinho Mattar, who was quite famous and had his own musical show on TV. Already a lover of modern jazz, I had a good collection of LPs at my New York home.

JW: What did you think of bossa nova?

GK: I was fascinated by the style. It combined authentic Brazilian rhythms with jazz improvisation. The Tamba Trio and the Zimbo Trio come to mind as major influences on my appreciation. I started to frequent a very large record store in downtown São Paulo called Bruno Blois. The owner named it after himself.

JW: Fun?

GK: Of course! At the time the store allowed you to select LPs and play them in special listening booths. I hung out there for hours and always purchased a few jazz and bossa nova LPs released by local Brazilian labels, featuring Brazilian musicians. I collected for eight years. When bossa nova jazz began to be recorded by American labels, I was able to buy some in New York.

JW: Where did you go to school in the U.S.?

GK: The Taft School, a private Connecticut boarding school. I graduated third in my class out of 97 kids. By then, I had started to play piano by ear and learned a few blues and other easy-to-play tunes that I practiced daily in the music department’s basement, where they had piano practice rooms. I also found friends who enjoyed the arts.

JW: What initially interested you in jazz?

GK: My first love was boogie-woogie piano. I learned a few licks to play in that style. Later, as my sophistication level grew, I listened to Erroll Garner, then Oscar Peterson and finally Bill Evans in the mid-1960s. By age 6, I was fascinated by music technology after my father gave me a windup portable Victrola when he upgraded to LPs. I also was given a bunch of 78s. The Victrola fascinated me.

JW: And how did you become fond of recording music?

GK: When the first home tape recorders were sold in the late 1950s, I was given one as a present and played around with it, recording myself as a jazz DJ and making up my own shows. By the time I was in high school, I booked jazz pianist Howard Reynolds and his trio for a concert at the Taft auditorium. I recorded it and eventually had the tape transferred to acetate. That was my first so-called record release on my Kool Jazz label.

JW: Still have it?

GK: I do. I have the acetate and my liner notes. When I got to Columbia University in 1964, I became head of the jazz radio department and had my own three-hour show, “Jazz Til Midnight,” every Sunday night on WKCR-FM, the university’s station. [Photo above of George Klabin at age 20, courtesy of George Klabin]

JW: When did your recording hobby turn serious?

GK: I started to record live jazz musicians seriously when I had my radio show in 1965. I wanted to present recordings that could only be heard on my show. I started calling musicians and offered a free copy of my recording of them if they allowed me to play it on the air just once. Most readily agreed.

JW: Who was first?

GK: Pianist Roger Kellaway, with Russell George on bass and Dave Bailey on drums. At the time, Roger was with the Clark Terry/Bob Brookmeyer Quintet and also recorded for the Impulse label. When they played The Blues and the Abstract Truth, I used the radio station’s tape recorder and mics but wasn’t totally satisfied with the result.

JW: What did you do then?

GK: I decided to purchase professional equipment and ended up with a 2-track Crown tape deck, an Ampex mixer, six very good German microphones and a pair of Beyer headphones. I could pack up all of this and transport the gear anywhere easily.

JW: What did you do?

GK: I started recording musicians on Sundays at the Wollman Auditorium at Columbia. It has since been torn down and replaced. On stage, they had a gorgeous nine-foot Steinway concert grand that was always tuned. I could sign up to utilize the concert hall stage for recordings. After a while, I got a reputation for doing these free recordings and even had musicians ask me to record them in concert, for which I charged $50 to $100—good money in the mid-1960s. The rent on my apartment was about $400 a month and milk was 25 cents a quart.

JW: Over time, what happened?

GK: I recorded a wide range of jazz greats in the auditorium for my shows. I also taped with permission at venues such as New York’s Village Vanguard and Town Hall.

JW: Who were some of the musicians you taped?

GK: Gary Bartz, Keith Jarrett, Gary Burton, Ran Blake, Freddie Hubbard, Sheila Jordan, the Frank Foster Big Band and Bill Evans. I released our Top of the Gate recording of the Bill Evans Trio on Resonance in 2012. Eventually, in 1966, I taped the opening night of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Band at the Vanguard, which I released on Resonance Records in 2016.

JW: Who took you under his or her wing?

GK: I didn’t have any real mentor in my career. I was self-taught. I started Resonance Records in 2007 as a division of Rising Jazz Stars Inc., which had launched a few years earlier to produce live jazz concerts in the Los Angeles area at my studio/performance center. I liked the word “resonance.” Everything that exists has a resonance. It means life, rather than stagnant death. I didn’t want to make a profit on the business, so I filed for non-profit status.

JW: Still involved with radio?

GK: I am. Each week, I produce a 90-minute show called The Heart of Brazil. The shows are posted at our Resonance Records YouTube page. They will remain there for posterity. [To listen, go here and scroll down to “For You,” which allows you to scroll horizontally and see the episodes. To listen to Show #1, go here.

JW: What were your first Resonance releases?

GK: They were CDs released in 2008—one by singer Cathy Rocco called You’re Gonna Hear From Me, and one by pianist Mike Garson called Conversations With My Family. I think of the label as a jazz museum and our recordings as musical versions of important artistic paintings that hang on a wall. We feel we are preserving jazz’s history and the legacy of seminal musicians who played modern jazz. We also record today’s best jazz musicians, such as pianists Tamir Hendelman and Josh Nelson, clarinetist Eddie Daniels and so many others.

JW: A life well lived?

GK: Not bad at all. I’m very lucky my mother made it out of Nazi Germany when she did and that her brothers had left for Brazil years earlier. Otherwise, she never would have met my father.

[Here’s George Klabin’s recording of Bill Evans: Live at Art D’Lugoff’s Top of the Gate on Oct. 23, 1968, with Eddie Gomez on bass and Marty Morell on drums]…

Chet Baker never saw Let’s Get Lost—Bruce Weber’s film on the trumpeter-singer’s life and one of the finest jazz documentaries ever made. Baker died in May 1988, four months before the film’s release. [Photo above of Chet Baker in 1988 courtesy of Bruce Weber]

Now, Bruce, his wife, Nan Bush, and bassist John Leftwich are in the process of assembling a sequel. It’s being culled from previously unreleased footage and music recorded at the time and will be called Swimming by Moonlight: New Music From the Documentary Let’s Get Lost. There’s no official release date yet. It’s still in production.

What we do have coming is Chet Baker Performs & Sings: Swimming by Moonlight, a two-LP/two-CD soundtrack album to be released by Slow Down Sounds. The two-CD set will be out Nov. 7 and the double vinyl on Nov. 14.

It turns out that when the original Let’s Get Lost was re-issued two years ago in 4K, director Bruce Weber needed several new songs because some of the licenses for the film’s songs had expired.

Back then, Bruce, Nan and John dipped into the Baker material to find substitutes. That’s when they discovered they had upward of 60 previously unreleased tracks plus film of Baker recording some of them in the studio. That’s when they realized they had more than enough material for a new film. They chose 16 songs for a new soundtrack, and the music was ready first.

Last week, I Zoom-interviewed Bruce Weber (above) and bassist John Leftwich on Baker, the new album and the forthcoming movie, and why pianist Russ Freeman wasn’t in the original film:

JazzWax: Bruce, why do you think Chet Baker’s late period in the 1980s is so dreamy and heavily romantic?

Bruce Weber: Chet was older in the 1980s, but he was still a kid inside—curious and exploring. He also really liked to take his time with a song then. I’m a big Peggy Lee fan, and I remember watching her at a session when she was quite ill. She was singing, and lyricist Sammy Cahn was there, who I really admire. Peggy was singing Sammy and Jimmy Van Heusen’s The Second Time Around. She was singing so slowly that Sammy thought her memory was slipping and yelled out the lyrics to her. She looked up and smiled and said, “Sammy, I know the song. I just really like to take my time.” Chet was deep like that with everything.

JW: Deep?

BW: As a person. He loved living, despite his demons. Remember, this guy’s favorite sport was deep-sea diving. In 1988, Nan Bush, my wife and agent, would go to these film festivals where Let’s Get Lost was entered, and people would come up to us after and say, “Oh, I can’t believe we weren’t in the film.”

One couple said, “Chet was our babysitter for six months.” Just the idea that somebody hired him as a babysitter when he was an adult and that he wanted to do it was fantastic. I mean, how many grownups would do this? Chet was always an adult child. Even dogs pick up on it.

JW: How so?

BW: I have a lot of dogs and they can sense adolescence. There’s a story that was told to me that when Chet arrived in Germany on tour with a friend, they were carrying a lot of drugs. He went through customs and wound up where German shepherd dogs sniffed around everything. Chet sat on the floor and played with the dog. Then Chet and the friend walked out with all their stuff.

JW: What other ways?

BW: If you said no to him, he’d get really angry. He couldn’t handle it, just like a little kid. One time in Paris, we were walking to dinner. He said, “I need you to rent me a car. I want to drive from Paris to Rome to pick up my bass player and come back.” I said, “Chet, I can’t do that for you.” He said, “Man, why not? What’s wrong?” I said, “Because you’re a terrible driver.”

He said, “Is that because you believe all the stories about me?” I said, “No, because I’ve been with you in a car. You’re a lousy driver and I know it.” He said, “Yeah, but I want to go there.” And I said, “Well, the answer is no.” I sound like my father talking to me.

JW: Did that ruin dinner?

BW: Not at all. At the restaurant, he had a drink and they were playing music. He was singing along with the song. You wouldn’t have thought he had a care in the world or that he was just told he wasn’t going to get his way with the car. Another time, I said, “Hey, Chet, I was just in New York and friends introduced me to Gerry Mulligan. I was really excited, and at dinner I asked him if he’d like to be in the film. Gerry said, yes.” Chet said, “Oh, he doesn’t know anything about me.” Which was so puzzling.

When we started to film, Chet was singing Imagination. I’ll never forget it. We we’re in the recording studio and just before we started rolling film, I’m thinking, “Oh my God, I’m just starting out to make films. Not only am I making a film, but we’re making a record.” It was like double-trouble, right? These guys were purists. The guy who recorded it, Jim Mooney, asked me, “What jazz people do you like?” I said, “Well, I grew up on Ella Fitzgerald.” He stopped me and said. “No, there’s only one singer—Billie Holiday, and then it stops right there.” They all knew their stuff.

JW: When Baker starts singing Imagination, what happened?

BW; We could barely hear him. A great bunch of Los Angeles studio guys were backing him—Frank Strazzeri on piano, John Leftwich on bass and Steve Backer on drums. As he sang, the mic was literally almost in his mouth. He loved old mics, to get an older sound, but he was so close to it. After the take, all these musicians and others were back in the booth talking when the playback started. Then we had the moment of decision. It’s almost like in bullfighting.

JW: What happened?

BW: Tape rolls and I had to ask them to be quiet a couple times so we could hear. It goes quiet and all of a sudden every person in that room had their mouth open. They were hearing a song that they have probably heard a million times, and Chet’s close-mike take took the song to a whole new level.

JW: When you first approached Chet to do the documentary, what was his reaction?

BW: We were in New York. He was happy, even though he had no idea who I was or what I’d done. And he never talked to me about paying him money to do it. Money wasn’t motivating for him on something like this, thank God. All he wanted was for me to take some photographs of him with his girlfriend, Diane Vavra. I was really so excited and said, “Hey, yeah, I’ll do that, but can we come uptown and see you at your place? I know you’re staying at your bass player’s apartment up in Harlem” He said, “Yeah, that’d be really nice.”

JW: What happened next?

BW: We get there and we were like these total nerds coming to this jazzy bare-bones apartment where the neon light outside shined on and off in the window. Chet was in bed in the bedroom with this little trumpet—it looked like a toy, almost.

JW: He really new nothing of your reputation?

BW: God, no, of course not. No, no. I could have been anybody off the street. I said, “I want to shoot you singing Blame It on My Youth,” this Oscar Levant- Edward Heyman song. Chet said, “Yeah, yeah.” I said, “We’re going to California.” He said, “I’m going out to San Jose to visit my girlfriend.” I said, “Well, why don’t we get together. You can come down to L.A. and we’ll do it.” After the experience with the bed, I realized what I had for the film.

JW: What exactly did you have?

BW: A person with enormous charisma who was a natural character. He was so magical up in that apartment that he just turned the place into an apartment in Tahiti. There was such an aura of fantasy around him.

JW: Was he confident you knew what you were doing or would even get it done?

BW: I don’t think he truly cared and didn’t believe in us until we did that Imagination taping. In the booth, all the guys were poking fun at him and my team and me, as musicians do. A lot of verbal towel-snapping. When I finally told them to be quiet, Chet liked that. I was suddenly someone who was protecting him, like a bodyguard. Bassist John Leftwich was so gentle and patient with Chet to get him to do what we needed.

JW: What was the noticeable difference in Baker?

BW: After that, Chet immediately wanted to please me, Nan and John. I don’t think he ever looked at the filming as anything bigger than that. Hanging out with someone who was passionate about him and willing to protect him.

JW: How was the recording handled? Was it done after the documentary’s filming or before?

John Leftwich (above): At the same time, intermingled.

JW: What did you notice about Baker throughout the recording sessions?

JL: Probably his repose. He’d just be there witnessing everything with an expression that said, “Maybe I’ll sing, maybe I won’t.” So it’s a sense that he’s almost reflecting all the time and just being himself, but when he wanted to record, boom, you had to catch it quick because he didn’t like a second take. He liked just one. But we’d all encourage him to do a second.

BW: You see this in Let’s Get Lost. There’s a moment where he’s ready to go and says, “Are we ready, Frank, or did you want to rehearse the intro again?” You can see it’s a different Chet—the worker Chet, impatient Chet, master artist Chet.

JW: John?

JL: Right. I don’t even think he viewed it as work. He was just ready and wanted to go. If he wanted to go out for dinner, if he wanted to talk to his girlfriend, if he wanted to sing and play a tune—he sees that moment as his only shot, like a child. He was in that moment of desire, suddenly determined and not happy if everyone isn’t on board. Chet wasn’t playing three-dimensional chess. He was just going on an inward feeling and an instinct with the understanding that the moment was essential.

JW: Basically, you’ve just outlined a very long definition of cool.

JL: [Laught] Yeah, I guess you could say that.

JW: Bruce?

BW: Well, when you asked John this question about being cool, it reminded me of something I had said to Chet. With most people you’re working with, you might make idle conversation, like, “So how are you today?” or “Wow, what a beautiful day out there today.” Something simple to break the ice. Chet’s answer would be, “Yeah, nice day for a kite.” Every time I see a kite now, I think about that line.

JW: I assume you were into the Chet Baker mystique, his music and his vulnerability before you even approached him. Did working with Baker and experiencing his quirks shatter your romantic impression of him?

BW: No, those quirks only fortified my feelings. We had the money and the time to do the film the way I wanted, and I was working with three other people who were infatuated with his music and the essence of him as a human being, as a man. These people were Nan, John and Jeff Price, our cameraman. I never expected to get the same kind of support and enthusiasm from Chet.

JW: Why not?

BW: We were really kind of square for him. I think he loved that. Most people would have been getting high with him and doing stuff like that, and then never would be able to find him the next day. We were working so hard we weren’t even drinking much. We were too wiped out at the end of a day, emotionally. Like John said, you didn’t know if he was going to show up, and if he did, whether he was going to sing. It was always a drama.

JW: When you say he had respect for the squareness of you guys, do you think what he was really respecting was your integrity and work ethic?

BW: Yeah, exactly. I think he just loved it when he went to a recording studio. Sometimes he’d work with pianist Frank Strazzeri and get really uptight about the piano’s sound. But he loved Frank and they worked together and knew each other. And John was so protective of him. If there was an issue, John would gently say, “Oh, Chet, let’s do it this way or that way.”

JW: What was the most confounding thing about Baker?

JL: You’d expect him to do a take and he wouldn’t want to. Or he wouldn’t show up—as in Bruce’s short, Looking for Chet, Again, In All The Familiar Places. That really explains it. Nan was one of the keys to this whole thing. She and Chet had a kind of mystical connection. She could even sense where he was that day, and would be right. Chet wanted Nan to manage him because she really got him. Chet seemed to have feminine feelings that women responded to.

JW: Where do you think that came from?

BW: When we went to Oklahoma to film his family, I thought I was going to see this beautiful farm or a ranch or something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. I envisioned his mom and his wife would be there along with his kids and it would be a wholesome, Midwest scene.

I get there, and they all lived in a little apartment. They had no food in the refrigerator. And I was like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe this.” But they were in their place. I didn’t see it until Jeff was filming, way over in the corner.

JW: See what?

BW: Way over in the corner was this big bust of Chet. We got to know a record producer who loved Chet’s music so much, he left his wife and kids to move into an L.A. apartment with him. He sold his piano, all his sound equipment, everything to support him. One day Chet came home and said, “Hey man, I need some money.” The guy said, “I’m wiped out. I just have two cans of Chef Boyardee spaghetti in the kitchen.”

JW: What did Chet do?

BW: Chet said, “Man, I’m out of here.” As for that bust in the corner, it was owned by the guy. Chet’s daughter took it, I guess, when she was helping Chet get his stuff out.

JW: Tell me about the new album and forthcoming film project?

JL: After the Let’s Get Lost film was reissued two years ago with a 4K restoration, we had to swap out some of the clips because our music licenses had expired. So we re-edited to get the new music in and swapped out videos for others we had in the can. That’s when Bruce and Nan realized they had all these sessions that were recorded and some of them filmed. So they had another 50 or 60 songs. From the tapes, we pulled 16 for the new album—Swimming by Moonlight: New Music From the Documentary Let’s Get Lost.

JW: That’s an enormous amount of additional material. Are you also using tape of Baker singing from the sessions?

JL: Yes. Bruce is pulling them together and adding interviews. It will be like a sequel to Let’s Get Lost, except the focus will be on the music.

JW: On the new album, the personnel is much broader than the original soundtrack. Was music overdubbed?

JL: Yes. In some cases, Bruce wanted some of the songs to be more gentle or different for the upcoming film. He also wanted Chet’s voice more up front. Or in some cases, the piano was played a little harsh, so Bruce wanted a guitar in there or different instrumentation. The album is a soundtrack and needed to feel bigger. And there was some editing. The tape was 40 years old, so we did our best to sort that out.

JW: Bruce?

BW: We have a series of music videos of the songs on Swimming by Moonlight. We may have 10 videos on this new film. We’re bringing them together so they flow like one film held together with interviews.

JW: John did you have the same level of passion for Baker as Bruce?

JL: Yeah, I bought his albums when I was a kid and I learned the songs. The solos from his She Was Too Good For Me album in 1975 on CTI are just fantastic. I transcribed some of his solos and learned to sing a few of the songs. I always loved him.

JW: What did Chet think of your “Zingaro” solo, which is a classic?

JL: Not much. Most of the feelings we had for what we were doing were expressed without words. When we were working on an arrangement, we’d say, “OK, Frank, you take this first part. John, you’re the second. Should we try an intro?” So it was really the common way that jazz musicians work is they come up with something real quick.

JW: What’s your favorite song on the new album?

BW: I Can Dream, Can’t I? I just love it. In this world we live in now, to be able to hear those lyrics and give some kind of hope for things, you can’t beat it.

JW: John?

JL: Quiet Nights, because of the way he sings it. The way he interprets the song is so fresh, and you really feel the sentiment and vulnerability. Then he takes a great trumpet solo. Hubert Laws added a great flute solo after, and they interplayed at the end. But there’s a bunch of great songs. I love Make Me Rainbows and I’ll Be Around.

JW: John, did you get a sense that Baker seemed mystified by his own beauty? I don’t mean physical beauty. The fact that he could play and sing so beautifully. Beauty is what he was all about in many respects.

JL: I don’t think he thought about it. I think his expression was all in the moment. He didn’t really view himself in the third person. He was just in the moment being himself and feeling out what was special about a song and how he wanted to project that. In that sense, he was really just there, being himself.

JW: As we know, we’re talking about a person with two personalities. There’s the jerk who borrowed money and didn’t pay it back. Then there’s this guy who could be so incredibly beautiful when playing and singing—really get inside a song. Was music just a way for the bad guy to pay the bills? Or was he a beautiful cat trapped inside desperation?

BW: What you just said reminds of that line from My Foolish Heart—”There’s a line between love and fascination.” Chet was kind of fascinating. How did he get away with so much and still have a lot of soul?

JW: Yes, how did he pull that off?

BW: I think he really knew how to seduce people. It wasn’t a con. It was a pure expression of his heart. I think he needed to do it. That was the real drug he was on. It wasn’t all the other stuff. He needed to be seductive. If he walked into a room, he would want everybody to be fascinated by him, to be interested. There’s something interesting about why people like that need it so badly.

JW: What’s the answer?

BW: I don’t know. It’s strange. He’s strange, and that’s interesting. You never know what he was going to do next. For a photographer and a filmmaker, that was really challenging and great for me. I was very lucky. It was a gift that I was given to capture all of it.

JW: Ever get a sense of why he became hooked on drugs?

JL: There’s a strong correlation between a mood that you set when you’re playing something and a story that you’re trying to tell musically. The feeling of a drug suspends self-judgment and you just experience it. And when you’re in that moment of creativity, it’s the same thing. You’re suspending judgment and not judging yourself. You’re saying, “Oh, I should play this higher or louder.” You’re just in the moment.

JW: How do drugs enter that though?

JL: With drugs, it would seem, it’s that same suspension of self-judgment and becoming part of a story and just kind of flowing with it. I think it’s the same.

JW: Bruce?

BW: I think the pressure to create something unique is just extraordinarily compared to most other things. It’s like climbing Mount Everest without oxygen. I remember that when we interviewed Chet’s mom, she said to me, “I used to say to Chet, why can’t you play and be like Dave Brubeck? He’s a really clean-cut guy. He’s got some sons, kids, he’s got a home, a wife.” After she said that, I thought, given all that Chet has accomplished and winning all these awards and everything, it still wasn’t good enough for his mother.

The jazz musician has a different pressure than other musicians, requiring a high level of sensitivity. As a result, I think even the weather affects them. You know what I mean? Their translation of sadness is so deep and they just have to be supported all the time.

JW: What are you most proud of in the upcoming film?

JL: Bruce and Nan were able to set up an environment for Chet so that he could show himself completely. It wasn’t just another studio date or another documentary. Chet was able to show himself more fully. And I think he enjoyed it.

JW: Bruce?

BW: He wanted this film to be a little bit of history about him for posterity. When you have somebody like that, if you’re a photographer and you’re photographing somebody, you want that interesting element. I remember photographing Nelson Mandela. He talked a little bit about his life, but not so much. When I looked in his eyes, he absolutely had no anger or nothing like it. He just wanted to be admired. I think that’s a normal thing for exceptional people.

JW: Is assembling the new movie part of this feeling?

BW: It is. I’m so glad we have him back in our lives again on tape. That’s what’s been so great. And I’ve been really excited. I think about it at night. I think about it when I get up in the morning. I just totally live it.

JW: Do you wish you could give him a call and let him see some of the stuff that you’re doing?

BW: Of course. He never saw anything we did. I don’t even know if he ever heard anything that he did except for a playback in the studio. He died in May 1988. The film had its premiere at the 1988 Toronto Film Festival, four months later.

JW: Why is Chet Baker still important?

JL: As artists, our job is to tell a story that people can experience and get something from emotionally without having to go through that experience themselves. That’s when an artist is a pioneer. As a member of a documentary team, you’re going out there with the subject, you’re feeling things, you’re experiencing life and then you’re telling a story on film so people have a chance to experience those things, too. That’s what Chet was doing on-camera and in the studio. He was summing up a lot of his emotions and telling his own story in a more true way than albums and concerts ever could.

JW: Bruce? But let me frame the question a little differently: when people hear Chet Baker for the first time, the music pulls them in. They respond. But why? What are they responding to?

BW: Chet had a lot of grace as a musician. That’s the thing that I was really attracted to—his grace. As a filmmaker, I just hope we got some of that for audiences in the new film because in the end, even though he shook people down and was messed up all the time, he gave somebody something back.

JW: One last question: Why didn’t you use Russ Freeman on piano for the film? Freeman recorded all of those great tracks with him back in the early 1950s.

BW: We tried, but we couldn’t get in touch with Russ. He was nowhere to be found, probably away on a gig where he planned to stay for a while. We were thrilled to work with Frank Strazzeri—he had the perfect temperament for Chet. Russ would have wanted to do a lot more takes, and Chet wouldn’t have been able to deal with that.

To buy Swimming by Moonlight: New Music From the Documentary Let’s Get Lost, go here.

Here’s Chet Baker singing and playing I Can Dream Can’t I?, from the forthcoming Swimming by Moonlight, with John Leftwich on bass and Ricardo Silveira on guitar…

And here’s Relaxin’, with Chet Baker on trumpet, Frank Strazzeri on piano, John Leftwich on bass and Ralph Penland on drums…

For most of the 1950s, tenor saxophonist John Coltrane recorded straight-ahead jazz for Prestige and Blue Note. In 1958, he began playing modal jazz with the Miles Davis Sextet on Milestones (1958) and continued with his own Giant Steps (1959), Davis’s Kind of Blue (1959), My Favorite Things (1961) and other albums for Atlantic and Impulse. Modal jazz uses specific scales for improvisation rather than chord progressions, allowing musicians to improvise for longer periods. [Photo above of John Coltrane by Francis Wolff ©Mosaic Images]

From 1965 to 1967, the year of his death, Coltrane explored free jazz, beginning with his album Ascension. The ferocity and intensity of his playing not only was hypnotic but had a huge influence on rock and fusion artists who sought to play extended solos. His later albums featured this style of playing for entire sides of an album.

Bret Primack, who for years was known as the Jazz Video Guy, conducting on-camera interviews with jazz musicians and uploading them to YouTube, has just written a memoir, How John Coltrane Changed Me: A Jazz Journey. In the book, he writes about how Coltrane’s later period inspired him and still does. You can buy it as a Kindle for just $6.95 (go here). [Photo above of Bret Primack in Mexico by Sherrie Posternak]

Last week, I caught up with Bret to talk about his love for Coltrane and why the saxophonist’s music had such an impact on his life and his new book:

JazzWax: Where did you grow up and what did your parents do for work?

Bret Primack: I grew up in West Hartford, Ct., about 100 miles from New York, in suburbia. My dad began as a professional musician. During World War II, he was a pianist stationed in London and led a big band called the Skyliners that backed Bob Hope on USO tours. After he was discharged and returned home, he continued to play weekend gigs and weddings, but he abandoned playing full-time for more steady work. He held a series of office jobs where he worked as an accountant at various companies, but he was never happy with that. Once he gave up music, he resented it and never played the piano we had at home. My mother was a homemaker who looked after me and my two younger brothers, Terry and Ross.

JW: Did your father take his resentment out on the family?

BP: Not at all. He was a very quiet guy. My mom was an A-type neurotic who laid all of her stuff on us. She had tremendous anger and frustration. During the war, she was a WAVE— the U.S. Naval Reserve’s women’s branch set up in 1942 to have women fill non-combat roles in the States. She was based in New York. After the war, she went from being a purposeful working woman to a housewife responsible for raising the family. Dad went to work and came home, and she was unhappy with that life. So her anger and frustration came out on a regular basis, almost as a form of torture for us. Both of my parents also regularly worried out loud about money. A lot of therapy helped me.

JW: Did a lack of money squeeze your home life?

BP: Not really. We didn’t take lavish vacations or belong to a country club but we had everything we needed. Our house was nice and there were two cars. My dad worked his day job. On the weekends he played gigs, but he barely kept his hand in music.

JW: Was that a bad thing or a good thing?

BP: The unfortunate big thing for me was he never encouraged me to practice the trumpet. He said, “I don’t want you going into the music business.” He was emphatic about that. If he had given me some encouragement, I might have become a musician. But I can’t complain. My life has been incredible.

JW: How did your passion for music start, and how were you first exposed to jazz?

BP: When I was 6, I saw Louis Armstrong on The Ed Sullivan Show. His joy and playing pulled me in.

JW: Where did you go to college and what did you study?

BP: As high-school graduation neared, I applied to NYU’s film school, at their Tisch School of the Arts. I didn’t get in, so I spent a year at Hofstra University. During my freshman year, I met director Francis Ford Coppola. He had gone to Hofstra and encouraged me to read the classics and get into theater, which I did at Hofstra. But Manhattan had a magical lure. I couldn’t wait to move there. I transferred to Tisch in 1968 and was there for three years.

JW: Wait—how did you meet Coppola?

BP: I went to a film symposium in Hartford where Coppola spoke. After, I sent him a letter and he wrote back. He was very encouraging. In 1967, he was on Long Island shooting a film called The Rain People. I arranged to have breakfast with him at a local hotel, and he invited me to spend the morning with him. He introduced me to filmmaker George Lucas. Right then and there, I should have volunteered to be an intern on the set for free, but my parents would have gone nuts if I left college. I didn’t have enough self-confidence to make that move. I often wonder what my life would have been like had I done so.

JW: How was film school at NYU?

BP: Great. Director Marty Scorsese was one of my teachers and very encouraging. His love of movies, his knowledge and his willingness to share it were huge motivators. After college, I needed direction and became fascinated by technology. I bought an early Apple computer in 1984 and helped build out Jazz Central Station, the first online jazz site, in the 1990s.

JW: What was Jazz Central Station?

BP: It was the brainchild of Larry Rosen, who had done well with GRP Records as the first jazz label to release CDs and produce smooth jazz in 1979. He had seen an article I wrote in Jazz Times magazine. Jazz Central Station featured jazz sound clips, interviews and photos. It was too early yet for video. The site also sold things and was geared to jazz musicians.

JW: What happened?

BP: Amazon picked up speed in 1998 as people began to shop online, and Jazz Central Station’s revenue dried up. So I went to work for another dot-com company called Global Music Network. It featured audio and video music online. It went belly-up in 2001 with the dot-com crash. By 2004, camcorders and computer-editing software had become more affordable and easier to use. I invested in gear. YouTube launched in 2005 and I began uploading jazz video interviews and became known as the Jazz Video Guy.

JW: When did you start listening regularly to jazz?

BP: When I was 12, I began listening to jazz on FM radio. The music spoke to me immediately. The first recording we had in our house when my parents bought a hi-fi was Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite. Duke Ellington had visited and performed at my high school.

JW: When did you first hear John Coltrane?

BP: I knew about him as a reader of Downbeat magazine in the 1960s, but I didn’t hear his music until 1970, when I first heard A Love Supreme. That album was a big deal for me. I had heard Kind of Blue, but it didn’t move me. Coltrane’s 1960s recordings did. The sound of his tenor and soprano saxophones, with their almost human voice, affected me deeply.

JW: Some have argued that his music in the 1960s was an expression meant for black listeners during a period of political and social turmoil. As a white listener who began listening to Coltrane after his death, what was it that caught you?

BP: Coltrane’s 1960s work was rooted in the black experience. Alabama was his reaction to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Ala., in September 1963. A Love Supreme grew from a spiritual awakening. I don’t claim to fully grasp those dimensions. As a white listener in the 1970s, I connected to something universal: the sound of pushing past limits, refusing to abide by boundaries. Ascension and his late work with drummer Rashied Ali showed me someone dismantling conventions. Over time, I’ve come to grasp the cultural context more fully, which makes the music even more powerful. What stays with me is Coltrane’s relentless search, his proof that transformation is always possible—born from black struggle yet resonating far beyond it. It was different and healing.

JW: What did you need healing from?

BP: Making some sense out of this life. It came to me at a time when I was trying to figure out who I was at age 20. There had been no spirituality or religion in my life, so jazz held my life together. Coltrane inspired me. I studied his music and found that what made him unique was the way he kept changing and searching for meaning. I was doing the same. Many musicians wanted to succeed by doing the same things over and over. Coltrane was looking for something new.

JW: How did Coltrane’s 1960s recordings change you?

BP: They helped me be more open about all possibilities. Even though I get to a point where I’ve found a solution, I keep going. In other words, life is a continuous search, a continuous struggle that never ends. With Coltrane in my life, I evolved from film student to web guy to documentarian to a guy who posted jazz videos to a blogger now living in Mexico. If you look at what Coltrane did from 1957 to 1967, his transition is extraordinary. Nothing like that had ever been done before in music. I’ve always been a risk-taker, and Coltrane’s search for an answer has been very motivating.

JW: Is there a connection between Coltrane and your relocation in 2022 to the Central Highlands in Mexico?

BP: Not really, That was a decision made for us by Sherrie, my wife and artist. When I initially told people I was going to move to Mexico, they couldn’t believe it. Many said, “Why take a chance like that? You’re living in Tucson, Ariz., in a nice house.”

JW: What was your reply?

BP: If Coltrane taught me anything, you have to keep moving forward, and forward was Mexico. Here, people treat each other differently. They take care of each other. There’s a compassion and a strong spiritualism here. There’s also a sense of colorful joy that didn’t exist for me in the U.S. Coltrane taught me to integrate spirituality into my life, and that’s what I did.

JW: Is this something you knew in advance or discovered after the move?

BP: I didn’t realize how important spiritualism was to me until we moved. There’s a history here in Mexico. There’s a culture. Unfortunately, most Americans do not know much about Mexico. The media paints a very negative picture. It’s a completely different place than has been characterized.

JW: Is there a connection between listening to Coltrane and who you’ve become now?

BP: Absolutely. And Coltrane was portable. He’s here with me now.

JW: Do you find that when you listen to Coltrane, in Mexico, is there a different message and feeling?

BP: I have a much stronger connection to nature here, because of where I live and our house and our garden. Coltrane’s music has a lot of dimensions. There’s a more lyrical, tender aspect of it that I experience now than in the past. If I’m in my garden, when I put on Coltrane’s Crescent, Dear Lord or Naima, the music feels like an extension of the nature I see around me.

JW: Have you taken to Coltrane on your headset during a hike into the mountains?

BP: I don’t need to. I know the music well, so it’s in my head. But I think of it often. For example, there’s an ancient site of Mesoamerican pyramids called Teotihuacan, about 40 minutes northeast of Mexico City. It’s unbelievable when you see these things. How did people build them? What were they like? Coltrane’s later music, such as Meditations and Transition, elevated what I saw when I thought about the music. I could hear that civilization evolving while they were building the pyramids.

JW: What was the motivation to write your book?

BP: To give readers a sense of how John Coltrane’s spiritual music fit into my life and helped motivate me to continuously seek a higher purpose and the meaning of the world around me.

JW: For readers unfamiliar with Coltrane’s 1960s recordings who want to ease into it, what five tracks would you recommend, in order?

BP: My choices would be…

Equinox, from Coltrane’s Sound

Lush Life, from John Coltrane with Johnny Hartman

In a Sentimental Mood, from Duke Ellington and John Coltrane

Wise One, from Crescent

And Dear Lord, from Transition

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