Editor's Note: Blue Skies, With Trepidation

Winter eases its grip on New York, a new Bill Evans movie and a Serge Chaloff tribute

New York temperatures climbed above freezing for the first time in two months this week. It’s still cold, but not nearly the bitter subzero numbers we had when the wind was factored in. Soup suddenly became a meal. [Photo above taken in New York last week by Marc Myers]

While we’re not out of the woods yet by a long shot—February is a nasty piece of work—we are on our way to normal highs and lows. Then once March rolls around and the Earth’s tilt is aligned perpendicularly with the sun’s rays, the sun will be directly over the equator and the light will look like spring even though it’s not.

Then begins what we in New York call “fake spring” or “sprinter.” For a few days, the temperature rises to 55 or even 60 and then falls into the low 30s for several weeks and maybe even snows. Spring does a veil dance here and it really doesn’t get spring-like until mid-May. Last year, the first warm day was June 1, more than four months away from now. So I suspect we’ll at least get one solid Nor’easter blizzard here yet.

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Gunther Schuller. Following my post on Bill Evans at Brandeis last week, readers reminded me to provide a link to my powerful interview with Gunther Schuller, who organized the event and commissioned the works. He also had reflections on Evans’s piano solo. To read the 2010 interview, go here.

Bill Evans, the movie. Music writer and author Harvey Kubernik emailed me yesterday with news that Everybody Digs Bill Evans, a pic, directed by Grant Gee, is on its way. Here are the rest of the credits: Screenplay: Mark O’Halloran, based on the novel Intermission by Owen Martell. Camera: Piers McGrail. Editor: Adam Biskupski. Music: Roger Goula. With: Anders Danielsen Lie, Barry Ward, Bill Pullman, Laurie Metcalf, Valene Kane, Katie McGrath and starring Anders Danielsen Lie (above) as Evans. For more go here.

Tommy Crook (1944-2026). Alan Meeks wrote me last week about the passing of superb jazz guitarist Tommy Crook (above), who lived in Tulsa, Okla.:

“Hi Marc. We recently lost one of our superb local guitarists, Tommy Crook. He was a very talented and gifted player of different genres of music. I first became acquainted with Tommy when I was in college in the 1970s. He used to play a lot of local venues and played with Leon Russell and J. J. Cale along with other singers and musicians.

“Although he played different types of music, my favorite was his jazz playing on standard tunes. He had a unique setup where he had two bass strings added so he could play a bass line while accompanying his melody line.

“He was amazing to watch and hear. I read that at one point, guitarist Chet Atkins thought he was the best guitar player around. He will be missed!

“Thanks so much for your Hoka and shaving recommendations. Your insights are well appreciated and welcomed. Trying to keep my feet and face in good shape. All the best to you and your family!”

Here’s Tommy Crook on All the Things You Are…

“Symphony Sid” Torin. Following my post last week entitled How Technology Changed Jazz, 1935-1948, I heard from Aurin Primack, whose father was part-owner of the original Birdland:

“Marc, great post on tech’s influence on jazz. When I met Symphony Sid at Birdland in the early 1950s, he was accompanied by “a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn” named Monte Kay (nee Kaplan). He was a talent agent and music producer.

“I remember hearing that Sid and Kay were responsible for bringing the concept and jazz musicians to the Royal Roost in 1948 for the club’s successful Jazz Sunday concerts. And again when Birdland was started in December 1949, it was Kay and Sid who booked the opening night show.

“The common thread, of course, was the shadowy and shady entrepreneur and club co-owner Morris Levy, but it seems to me that Monte Kay’s’ role is hardly ever mentioned. What a shame.

“How did my dad wind up part-owner of Birdland? When Levy couldn’t get a liquor license from New York State in the fall of 1949, my dad was introduced to him by a mutual friend. My dad knew nothing about the music industry but he had cash from the liquidation of a lumber business he operated with his father, my grandfather Joe.

“Dad obtained the license and the club opened as planned on December 15, 1949. To this day I don’t know what possessed him to invest and can only guess that Levy made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

Serge Chaloff radio. This Sunday, Sid Gribetz will present a five-hour tribute to the swinging Serge Chaloff on WKCR-FM’s Jazz Profiles, from 2 to 7 p.m. (ET). As Sid notes: “Chaloff was a fleeting star on the baritone saxophone during his brief lifetime, one of the saxophonists on Woody Herman’s famed Four Brothers and a bebopping legend as well. He was a sophisticated musician and swinging performer. Serge possessed a lithe, fleet, flowing conception propelled with a lighter tone and nimble execution on the big horn.”

To listen from anywhere in the world, go here.

Here’s a taste of Chaloff…

Let me leave with these. Here are bunch of audio clips I think you’ll enjoy:

Here’s Waltel Branco’s fascinating Meu Balanco bossa-jazz fusion album from 1975…

Here’s the Nelson Riddle Orchestra playing the two themes used for the Naked City TV series—the early one and the one that followed. The song was also known as Somewhere in the Night. This thing is so hip spliced together that I often right-click on the clip and using the drop-down box and select “loop.” Then it plays over and over until I realize I’ve been listening to it for nearly 20 minutes. Especially great for writing on deadline…

And finally, here’s Jerry Fielding’s swinging 1959 theme for the one-season sitcom Goldie, also known as The Betty Hutton Show…