Today is Eddie Bert's centenary. The trombonist was born May 16, 1922 and died in 2012. Eddie was an extraordinary musician, a solid swinger and a great guy. And if we're looking at East Coast and West Coast doppelgängers, then Eddie can be compared with Frank Rosolino in Los Angeles for his powerful and hungry improvisational lines, a seasoned approach and touches of wit. One of Eddie's most remarkable leadership albums was Eddie Bert: Musician of the Year, recorded for Savoy in 1955. [Photo above of Eddie Bert in the 1940s]
Joining Eddie on the album is Hank Jones (p), Wendell Marshall (b) and Kenny Clarke (d). What makes this album special is that there are really five musicians on the date. Joining Eddie was, well, Eddie. As he told me in a JazzWax interview in 2007, just months after I started this blog:
In 1955, I won Metronome magazine's Musician of the Year. Savoy’s head of A&R, Ozzie Cadena, called and asked if I wanted to do a date with two trombones. "Who’s the other trombone?" I asked. He said, "You. We’re going to overdub you." So I taught myself how to overdub and showed Rudy Van Gelder how I'd do it—playing the straight line first and then recording a second track over it that harmonized with the straight line. When the album came out, Jimmy Cleveland took a blindfold test and said it was J.J. and Kai at their best. That was funny.
Eddie started recording with Red Norvo in 1942 before moving on to Charlie Barnet, Woody Herman, Horace Henderson, Sam Donahue, Herbie Fields and Stan Kenton, in 1947. Not a bad five-year break-in experience. Eddie is on the first recording of Kenton's Interlude (1947), which Pete Rugolo scored for just the trombones and rhythm section. Benny Goodman's Capitol bebop band was next in 1948 and 1949. Eddie also was part of Gene Roland's Band That Never Was, a massive New York rehearsal orchestra between 1948 and '50 with Charlie Parker that was taped. Next came Artie Shaw in 1950 and Chico O'Farrill's Second Afro Cuban Jazz Suite and other Latin sessions for Verve in 1951, including Dance One, Bright One, Flamingo and Last One. [Photo above, from left, drummer Shelly Manne; trombonists Eddie Bert, Harry Forbes, Milt Bernhart, Harry Betts, Bart Varsalona; and trumpeter Conte Candoli in Stan Kenton's band in the fall of 1947]
Eddie began playing in small groups in 1952, as the 10-inch LP replaced the 78 and created new opportunities for musicians as ensemble leaders. These included Eddie's record dates with the Bill Harris Herd, Gil Melle's New Faces—New Sounds and Eddie's first leadership session in March 1952. There are no bad Eddie Bert recordings. [Photo above of Eddie Bert with Charlie Parker at one of Gene Roland's "Band That Never Was" rehearsals]
On Musician of the Year, Eddie's overdubbing is remarkable and paved new ground. Overdubbing became possible only with the emergence of magnetic tape in recording studios. Not easy to accomplish back then and no clear way to create the right harmony, since so little overdubbing had been done except, perhaps, for pop recordings by Les Paul and Mary Ford.
Here's the entire album, featuring two Eddies with the Hank Jones Trio...
Here's Eddie with Eddie Safranski and the Poll Cats playing Sa-frantic in an early Atlantic date in 1947. On the session: Ray Wetzel (tp), Eddie Bert (tb), Art Pepper (as), Bob Cooper (ts), Pete Rugolo (p,arr), Eddie Safranski (b) and Shelly Manne (d)...
Here's Eddie in Stan Kenton's trombone section on Interlude in 1947...
Here's Eddie's trombone solo on June Christy's famed recording of How High the Moon with Stan Kenton in 1947...
Here's Eddie soloing on Benny Goodman's Undercurrent Blues in 1949...
Here's Chico O'Farrill's Last One in 1951. Talk about a knockout East Coast band: Al Porcino and Roy Eldridge (tp); Eddie Bert, Bill Harris, Ollie Wilson, Bart Varsalona (tb); Lenny Hambro and Charlie Kennedy (as); Flip Phillips (ts); Pete Mondello (ts,bar); Ralph Burns (p); Billy Bauer (g); Ray Brown (b) and Jo Jones (d), with Chico O'Farrill (arr,cond)...
Here's Eddie soloing on Hoot, a Ben Webster combo date from 1953 arranged by Johnny Richards...
Here's Eddie on Bobby Scott's Aunt Sarah in 1954, produced by Creed Taylor...
Here's Eddie playing and singing He Ain't Got Rhythm in 1954...
Here's Eddie with Coleman Hawkins on a mid-tempo rendition of Out of Nowhere in 1954. Eddie's solo follows the Hawk's. The personnel: Emmett Berry (tp), Eddie Bert (tb), Coleman Hawkins (ts), Billy Taylor (p), Milt Hinton (b) and Jo Jones (d)...
And here's Eddie's solo following Cecil Payne on a nifty Kenny Clarke-Ernie Wilkins date in 1955 before recording his Musician of the Year album. The band: Eddie Bert (tb), Ernie Wilkins (as,ts,arr), George Barrow (ts,bar), Cecil Payne (bar), Hank Jones (p), Wendell Marshall (b) and Kenny Clarke (d)...
Obviously, this is just the start of Eddie's fabulous discography, since he would play and record for many decades after.
To read mymultipart interview with Eddie Bert in 2007, start here. There are four parts. To read the second, third and fourth parts, scroll above the red date for the link. This was one of my earliest interviews, when I just ran the subject in on a long narrative rather than a Q&A. It's also before I figured out how to embed images.
In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed actor-comedian Mike Myers for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). A fun interview, as you might imagine, and great to finally talk to the person I'm most often confused with when I dial in to a customer service rep. For example, whenever I call a restaurant, FedEx or a store, I'll spell my name and they wind up calling me Mike anyway before we hang up. [Photo above of Mike Myers's many characters in The Pentaverate, courtesy of Netflix]
Mike's latest project is a Netflix miniseries called The Pentaverate. It sounds like there's going to be a fourth installment of Austin Powers, but Mike wouldn't give me a full-throated commitment. But as we say in the media business, he didn't deny it either. Here's the Pentaverate trailer...
Here's Mike in Inglorious Bastards (2009), a rare appearance in a dramatic role...
Also in the WSJ, my monthly essay for the Opinion pages on important rock and soul albums that changed music history and are celebrating an anniversary this year, I took a fresh look at the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street, released in May 1972. Go here.
Ahoy there! Somewhere near Grand Cayman, Dan, a friend and eagle-eyed JazzWax reader, was aboard a cruise last week and snapped the photo above. Looks like he took along the perfect book for an afternoon of reading on the high seas. The whisky sour and melting sunset were a bonus. You'll find my latest book, Rock Concert, here.
Mike Abene, the jazz pianist and arranger pictured above, sent along an email last week following my post on lead trumpeter Bernie Glow...
Hello Marc, I especially loved the article on Bernie Glow. I had the pleasure of using him on a number of dates. He was a fantastic lead player, and we had a great time. Bernie also played on the Burt Collins and Joe Shepley Time, Space and the Blues and Lennon and McCartney Live albums. Whenever the Maynard Ferguson Band played the Cork 'n' Bib in Westbury on Long Island, Bernie was usually there hanging out.
Cannonball Adderley.Here's a quintet that doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves: The Cannonball Adderley Quintet, in 1960, playing Jeannine, featuring Cannonball Adderley (as), Nat Adderley (cnt), Victor Feldman (p), Sam Jones (b) and Louis Hayes (d)...
Sonny Stitt. Fifty years ago, saxophonist Sonny Stitt released Tune Up! on the Cobblestone label. On the album was I Can't Get Started, played as a mid-tempo ballad, with Barry Harris on piano, Sam Jones on bass and Alan Dawson on drums. Here's the track...
On Saturday, (today, May 14), radio host Fritz Byers on NPR's WGTE in Toledo, Ohio, will focus on saxophonist Bill Kirchner's new album, For All We Know, featuring Carol Fredette and pianist Marc Copland. I posted about the album here. Since 1989, Fritz has hosted one of jazz radio's longest-running shows and he'll be on tonight from 8 p.m. to midnight (ET). To listen from anywhere in the world, go here, click the "Radio" tab at the top and then the "Listen Now" button.
Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, the rock guitarist on the bottom left of the album cover above who has played most notably with Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers during the 1970s and Spirit in the 1980s recently was celebrated during a two-hour Greasy Tracks radio show hosted by Chris Cowles of WRTC-FM in Hartford, Ct. To listen, go here.
Zabar's. Anyone who has visited New York most assuredly was urged to make the trek to Manhattan's Upper West Side to visit Zabar's, the food emporium. It's crowded every afternoon, seven days a week, with locals shopping for dinner—buying prosciutto from Italy, cheeses from Europe and New England, freshly sliced smoked salmon for a weekend breakfast, and fresh ground coffee and bagels, to name just a few of the thousands of things you can buy and eat in this stuff-jammed store. There are hundreds of everything, from jam, to mustard, pasta sauce, olives, you name it.
If you've been, you may have wondered about the store's history and pedigree. Now your curiosity can be fed, too, with a new book by Lori Zabar, a member of food's first family. The store opened in 1934 and has grown ever since. And if you frequent the counters, everyone who works there knows your name. Which adds to the neighborhood charm. I happen to live near by, so Zabar's is my extended refrigerator. A fun book loaded with historic pictures, stories and recipes. To buy, go here.
Pianist Dave Thompson has something he'd like to play for you. Go here...
And finally,here's pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi with then husband and alto saxophonist Charlie Mariano playing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes in 1963, featuring Masanaga Harada on bass and Takeshi Inomata on drums...
Out today is Alan Broadbent's new trio album, Like Minds (Savant), with Harvie S on bass and Billy Mintz on drums. It's a terrific trio recording, featuring Alan's elegant piano and superb conversational interactions with Harvie and Billy. I've known Alan for many years, and it's always a joy to hear his new releases, see him live and catch up. I first fell in love with his playing on his duo albums backing vocalist Irene Kral—Where Is Love (1974) and Gentle Rain (1977). By then, my ear was grooved to the piano articulation of Bill Evans, and Alan's playing shared many similar traits, including the swing, the gentle quality, the pedal tones and chord voicings. [Photo above of Alan Broadbent]
Alan's new album is terrific, with songs ranging from Hank Mobley's This I Dig of You, Bud Powell's Blue Pearl and Sonny Rollins's Airegin to Clara Edwards and Jack Lawrence's With the Wind and the Rain in Your Hair and Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green's Dance Only With Me. Harvie S is also such a gorgeous player, running sensitive, meaty lines behind Alan while Billy is right there with splashy but tender cymbals and drum figures. So great to hear a trio that's so in sync and in the pocket.
Recently, I reached out to Alan for an email interview...
JazzWax: Where in New Zealand did you grow up? Alan Broadbent: I grew up in a suburb of Auckland called Onehunga. In the days before the internet and TV’s popularity, and just before the Beatles changed everything, my family lived in a pretty isolated, provincial world. My dad played banjo and piano as an amateur, but I was never encouraged to play. Piano lessons were what you did as a pastime, but for me it took hold and never let go, much to the consternation of my parents. [Photo above of Onehunga in the 1960s]
JW: Why consternation? AB: My parents weren't professional musicians and didn't understand my obsession. They also probably worried about how I was going to earn a living locally if I stuck with it. From the time I was 6, I had a different relationship with music and had no guidance or mentor, which I really could have used. So, from the beginning, it was a sense of self-discovery. I stopped studying music with the nuns in my school when I was 12 because I wanted to compose, not knowing in the least how to go about it. I used to frequent the library in Onehunga where I found an LP of Frank Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours, of all things, arranged by Nelson Riddle. This began my love for standards. Little did I know I’d be Nelson's pianist some 15 years later.
JW: How did you become interested in jazz? AB: In 1964, the Dave Brubeck Quartet toured in New Zealand and played in Auckland. That was my first experience with live jazz. At the time, Take Five was a global hit, so I was familiar with that song. But I was more taken with Dave’s Gone With the Wind album from 1959, with Paul Desmond’s wistful improvising and Dave’s comping. With friends, I listened heavily to albums such as The Amazing Bud Powell and the Lennie Tristano Trio’s Lennie Tristano from 1955, with Line Up and Requiem. Years later, I studied with Lennie and even wrote a string arrangement of Requiem’s intro for bassist Charlie Haden and Quartet West.
JW: Who else? AB: I loved pianist Wynton Kelly’s feeling and Red Garland’s joyous, skipping eighth notes, something that now comes to me naturally. It’s the art of rhythm, the lines emanating from that feeling. Then I heard Bill Evans playing Re: Person I Knew from his Moon Beams album in 1962. This changed everything for me, as I had been trying to find a way to improvise that expressed a certain beauty in the music, and there it was. Fortunately, Jazz Scene USA was broadcast on TV where I lived in New Zealand. As I watched, I realized I wanted to be in that world more than ever.
JW: What was your first professional jazz performance? AB: There was no performance in particular that I remember, just night gigs around town while I worked days as an apprentice sign painter. When I was 17, I had a trio at an Auckland club called the Embers, with Denny Boreham on bass and Frank Gibson on drums. I never copied anybody’s style, since I knew intuitively that jazz was about "singing" with your own voice. Besides, as Tristano stated concisely, “Jazz is not a style, it’s a feeling.” It was just a matter of me learning how to do it and absorbing what I loved and what moved me. [Photo of the Embers' courtyard in Auckland in 1969]
JW: Why did you choose Boston’s Berklee School of Music over music schools in New Zealand? AB: Well, I knew early on that my jazz future in New Zealand was somewhat limited. I also knew that I needed to be in the U.S. with like-minded musicians who had, as Bud said, “a seriousness of purpose.” I wanted the possibility to grow into the musician I had in mind for myself. I subscribed to DownBeat magazine, which was always a month late due to shipping in the days before Auckland International Airport was built. [Photo above of Boston's Berklee School of Music at 1140 Boylston St. in 1970]
JW: What came next? AB: I applied for a scholarship at Berklee and included an acetate of my trio playing Speak Low. Lo, I was awarded a partial scholarship, enough to get me in the door. I quit my sign-painting apprenticeship and got an afternoon gig working on a newspaper conveyor belt at The Auckland Star to save money for the trip. Although my parents didn’t quite understand what was going on with me, I have always thanked them for letting their 19-year-old son get on a boat and sail to Boston. It took 32 days.
JW: In Boston, did you get to hear Bill Evans? AB: The third week after I arrived, Bill appeared at the Jazz Workshop. As he was leaving, I handed him a transcription I had done of his recording of “Re: Person I Knew,” which he took with a shrug. A few years later, I went with Irene [Kral] to hear him at a club in the San Fernando Valley called Diamonte’s. There were three or four other people in the audience. On the break, Bill disappeared out back and never returned, if I remember correctly.
JW: Immediately after college, you went into Woody Herman’s band in 1970. You also wrote Be-Bop and Roses, arranged for Woody's band. A confusing time for jazz, yes? AB: Back then, I wasn’t aware it was a confusing time. I’ve always lived in a kind of parallel musical universe. I've never felt any connection whatsoever with pop and rock, and I know very little about the performers. I wrote Be-Bop and Roses, on Woody’s Giant Steps album in 1973, after I was already off the band. I didn’t have a piano at the time and sent it to Woody without hearing it, except in my head. It turned out nicely for a kid and kind of vindicates me for some of those awful rock charts I did. A couple of years ago, I was invited to play with the band under Frank Tiberi. I requested we play Be-Bop and Roses. They’d never heard of it. So there you go.
JW: How did you get the Irene Kral gig in 1974? AB: As far as I remember, I replaced jazz pianist Mike Wofford, who was moving to San Diego. I don’t know how Irene came to hear of me, but she called and we hit it off musically. She already had her charts for the songs she was going to record, but we refined them. We recorded at Wally Heider Studios in Hollywood that December. I think Irene’s perfect intonation and economic use of vibrato gave her voice a unique horn-like quality. We never officially toured, per se, but we did play a number of venues, including New York’s Michael’s Pub a couple of times with Harvie S, who produced and plays on my new album, Like Minds.
JW: Was working with Kral a changing moment, a turning point for you? AB: I don’t think I changed so much as I found another purpose. A huge part of my universe at the time had been my love of the orchestra. I came to writing for orchestra late and regret not having had the chance to write orchestrations for Irene. In truth, at the time of Where Is Love, my piano technique was in disrepair. I couldn’t play a scale then to save my life. It seems to me, listening back, that I'm playing the piano. Now, I feel as if I am the piano. Hard to explain, but I can feel it. The music pulled me through. That’s what I meant about being more orchestral in my approach to the piano. I was literally forced to think in terms of orchestration rather than the piano itself. It’s all there, though, waiting for me to create an orchestration for Irene’s vocals magically in the center of it all.
JW: You were quite busy in the early 1980s. Were you just working on jazz recordings or was there movie and TV work that went uncredited or unknown to your jazz fans? AB: In the mid-‘70s I started working with Nelson Riddle, first on his dance-band gigs, then his television and occasional movie dates. Except on his Linda Ronstadt albums, I was his pianist from the '70s on.
JW: You were on the West Coast then, yes? AB: Yes. I got to know all these wonderful studio guys from the Sinatra era: Willie Schwartz, father of Nan; Harry Klee, who plays all those In the Wee Small Hours flute solos I’d known for years and is the flute soloist on Johnny Mandel’s Sandpiper soundtrack. Harry had in his van out in the parking lot the finest bar this side of the Rockies. There also was Pete and Conte Condoli, Vince DeRosa, Israel Baker, Buddy Collette—all from the Hollywood studios' glory days.
JW: And as the 1980s progressed? AB: By the early 1980s, synthesizers began to take hold and I just couldn’t go there. At the time, I’d get a call once in a while to do a date with composer Pete Myers, whom I’d met when I was on Woody’s band. He was conducting for vocalist Della Reese. He took me on as an orchestrator. That’s when I began to hear my arrangements being performed and recorded on almost a weekly basis. Pete was pretty brilliant and fast, so I learned a lot sitting across from him as he handed me another musical sketch to be orchestrated. But I’m not capable of composing-to-order, and at about this time I became dissatisfied with all that. Then I got called to go out on the road with Charlie Haden's Quartet West.
JW: In the late 1980s, you began recording often with Charlie Haden and Putter Smith. Two different bass styles, yes? AB: I’m not sure they’re different as much as they have different approaches to the same thing: the singing style. The solos that communicate the most to me are ones that transcend their instruments and become more horn-like, playable and singable. Both bassists had that quality and a commitment to time.
JW: What was Natalie Cole like to record with and on tour? AB: Natalie gave me my first real break as an arranger when she asked me to write a chart for Crazy He Calls Me. I’d known the tune for years, ever since Billie Holiday recorded it in 1949 with Gordon Jenkins's orchestra. It’s very strange, but at a record shop in Auckland when I was young, in my hunt for obscure standards, I once came across Nat King Cole’s album Where Did Everyone Go?, with Jenkins arranging. I wanted to write tunes like that and arrange like that. Many years later, I arranged two or three songs from that Jenkins record for Natalie’s Stardust album in 1996. A favorite arrangement of mine is on that album, There’s a Lull in My Life. When we rehearsed it, Natalie and I were very moved. She said to me, “You know, Alan, I used to sing that on my daddy’s knee when I was 12.” Man, could she swing.
JW: Were there eye-opening moments during your playing on Shirley Horn’s Here’s to Life album in 1991? AB: All I remember is sight-reading those beautiful piano parts that Johnny Mandel wrote, wanting to do a highly musical job in such great company. Quite a while later, I got to work with Shirley again, this time with Charlie Haden’s Quartet West. I had written a chart for her of Leonard Bernstein’s Lonely Town. During the playback, everyone went into the control room except Shirley, who remained in her little booth on the other side of the studio. So I went over, peeked in and asked if there’s anything I could do for her. She said she was OK and that she enjoyed being a sideman.
JW: You’ve been a recording tyro over the course of your career. For readers who are relatively new to jazz and your piano and want to buy more of your albums, which would you recommend? AB: Well, there’s my last three trio albums for Savant Records—Like Minds, Trio in Motion and New York Notes. But beyond that, I would say: Personal Standards from 1996, with bassist Putter Smith and drummer Joe LaBarbera; To the Evening Star, a solo album in 2019; Broadbent Plays Brubeck in 2019 with bassist Harvie S, drummer Hans Dekker and the London Metropolitan Strings; Developing Story in 2016, with Harvie, drummer Peter Erskine and the London Metropolitan Orchestra; and Songbook (2017) and Quiet Is the Star (2021), two collections of songs I composed, with lyrics by Georgia Mancio, whose vocals are warm and beautiful.
JW: Tell me about the new album, Like Minds, and the guys with you on there. What was the concept? AB: Bassist Harvie S and drummer Billy Mintz and I have been playing together for quite some time. Rehearsing prior to recording an album is not about arrangements and the like for us but about improvising. So everything was new when we played in the studio, which can be kind of dangerous. But that’s what I want, that feeling of unpredictability and the excitement that the unknown brings. You’ll find a lot of that on the album. Also, to my mind, there is an immediacy to it, a deeper emotional quality.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find the Alan Broadbent Trio's Like Minds (Savant) here.
JazzWax clips:Here'sThis I Dig of You from the Alan Broadbent Trio's new album...
Here's Alan's composition and arrangement of Be-Bop and Roses for Woody Herman...
Here's Alan on piano and vocalist Irene Kral on Where Is Love...
Here's Alan playing The Duke from Broadbent Plays Brubeck...
The Students' Union Building at the University of Alberta in Edmonton was designed by the firm of Richards, Berretti and Jelinek and completed in June 1967 during Canada's Brutalist architectural revolution. That same year, Expo 67 opened in Montreal with the Brutalist Habitat 67. The firm also designed the Brutalist Edmonton Public School Board Building. The future was bright. [Photo above of the Students' Union Building]
The Students' Union Building—known as SUB—included a pub on the seventh floor called Room at the Top, which provided a spectacular view of the city. Now known as University Hall, the building over the years has been expanded and renovated. Room at the Top still stands, as does the view, along with a wide range of recreational rooms and a state-of-the-art theater. Early on, the university understood the importance of a place where students could hang out and socialize and enjoy the arts, a coffee or beer, and conversation. [Photo above of Room at the Top]
In September 1972, baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams played the 75-person-capacity campus pub backed by the Tommy Banks Trio, with Banks on piano, Bobby Cairns on electric bass and Tom Doran on drums. Fortunately for us, producer Marc Vasey, a jazz musician and event promoter at the time, not only brought Adams to Room at the Top from New York's Village Vanguard but also recorded and broadcast Adams's live performance on local CKUA radio. Recently, Vasey made the tapes of the previously unreleased performance available to saxophonist Cory Weeds of Reel to Real Records.
The music on the new album, Pepper Adams: Live at Room at the Top, is Adams in his prime. I'd be hard-pressed to come up with too many other jazz musicians who had Adams's long-distance stamina, especially on the baritone saxophone. Listening multiple times to this extraordinary recording of Adams in the wild, I can't immediately recall him taking a break at all on the album, though he obviously did. His playing is an avalanche of growling, overheated notes rushing forward without any chance of slowing. In this regard, Adams reminds me of rock's best lead guitarists who unleashed ferocious solos. He raises the hairs on the back of the neck or forearm. There was nothing coy or mannered about his playing, whether he was leading a recording session, recording with trumpeter Donald Byrd or playing live. Adams only knew one way, roll all 1,000 barrels down the ramp at the same time. His solos are positively thrilling, occasional clams and all. [Photo above of Pepper Adams]
There are just seven songs on this two-CD set: Thad Jones's Three and One, Adams's Civilization and Its Discontents, Adams's Patrice, Sonny Rollins's Oleo, Thad Jones's 'Tis and, finally, two standards—Time on My Hands and Stella by Starlight. The standards were dropped for the two-LP vinyl set.
The Tommy Banks Trio was a Canadian group. Banks, himself, was rather remarkable. Over the course of his career, he was an Edmonton pianist, conductor, arranger, composer, television personality and senator. His solo on Oleo is staggering and matches Adams's robust attack. As you can hear from the audience response, Adams's ruthless, all-in approach was deeply appreciated. The good news is Vasey has additional tapes that will be released by Reel to Real in the coming months. Hats off to Reel to Real's founder-producer Cory Weeds and Marc Vasey. [Photo above of Tommy Banks]
Pepper Adams died in 1986; Tommy Banks died in 2018.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Pepper Adams's Live at Room at the Tophere.
After Stan Kenton wrote and arranged Opus in Pastels in 1940, his band regularly performed the reed-centered song on the road. A studio version was released by Capitol in 1946, and Opus in Pastels became a hit. Arrangers Pete Rugolo and Bob Graettinger tried to get into the opus act for Kenton in the 1940s and early '50s, but without much success. When the 12-inch album format arrived in 1955, Opus in Pastels was still so popular that Kenton commissioned arranger Gene Roland to write a series of additional "opus color" pieces with catchy melody lines to showcase the saxophones. [Photo above of Stan Kenton]
In addition to the opus numbers that Roland composed and arranged, he also wrote Opus in Azure and Opus in Red, which were never recorded for some reason. Or they were and have been collecting dust on a shelf at Capitol all these years. I'd love to hear these two if readers out there have them. [Photo above, from left, of Stan Kenton and arranger Gene Roland at the Adventures in Blues recording session at Capitol Records in 1960, courtesy of the University of North Texas]
For now, let's listen to the "Opus Story"—all of the Kenton recordings with the word "opus" in the title:
Here's Stan Kenton's composition and arrangement for Opus in Pastels performed live in 1941...
Here's Pete Rugolo's Opus a Dollar Three Eighty in April 1944...
Once upon a time there was a luxury department store called Barneys New York. The store first opened in 1923, but Barneys came into its own in the early 1980s, when a sizable number of baby boomers graduated from college and entered the Manhattan workplace. To make an impression and retain their individuality, the entry-level employees sought out trendy suits and ties, and dresses, shoes, jewelry and other items at Barneys with an Italian and Japanese twist. Fashion-forward design soon carried over into leisurewear in the wake of the 1980s sneaker revolution. [Photo above of Barneys flagship store on Seventh Ave. and 17th St.]
What made Barneys special was how the store's merchandise was edited—fashion-speak for what store buyers selected for the store's racks. These buyers had spectacular taste and chose merchandise by new, elegant designers. Then greed, overexpansion, bad corporate decisions and the sudden shift by consumers to online shopping with free shipping caused Barneys to file for bankruptcy in late 2019 and shutter in February 2020 as the pandemic hit. [Photo above of Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw of gazing in a Barneys window, courtesy of HBO]
What does Barneys have to do with music? Nothing at all. I mention the glory that was Barneys because two, three-CD sets recently hit the market that were released by labels that shrewdly edited their packages by focusing on a series of perfect albums. These two sets are particularly ideal for readers new to jazz or these artists and want to understand what made them special.
The two sets are The Legendary Bill Evans Trio and The Warm World of João Gilberto: The Man Who Invented Bossa Nova.
The Bill Evans set, released by the U.K.'s El Records, a subsidiary of Cherry Red, includes all the recordings by the first great Bill Evans Trio—Evans on piano, Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums. The complete albums included on the three-CD set are Portrait in Jazz (1959), selections from Tony Scott's Sung Heroes (1959), the Birdland Sessions (1960), Explorations (1961), Sunday at the Village Vanguard (1961) and Waltz for Debby (1961).
These albums are fundamental to understanding the brilliance of pianist Bill Evans and his vision for a conversational trio. In Bill's trio, his sidemen were expected to play strong roles in the musical discourse during improvised solos. This was a radical concept at the time, when headliner pianists hired bass players and drummers simply to keep time. This Evans trio is especially important because of the inclusion of bassist Scott LaFaro, who died in a car crash shortly after the last of these albums were recorded.
The second set, from Fresh Sound, is The Warm World of João Gilberto: The Man Who Invented Bossa Nova. It features three sensational and highly influential bossa nova albums by João Gilberto. The set's title is a little misleading. Gilberto wasn't the inventor of the bossa nova. That title belongs to composers and singer-guitarists Carlos Lyra and Roberto Menescal. They began developing the warm instrumental and vocal style at Rio de Janeiro's hotel clubs in the late 1950s. But Gilberto was certainly the singer-guitarist who popularized the bossa nova with a voice and sensitive as soft as crushed velvet.
The three albums in this set are Chega de Saudade (1959), O Amor, o Sorriso e a Flor (1960) and João Gilberto (1961). Gilberto wasn't a prolific composer but he was the bossa nova's first and dominant interpreter. His touch on the guitar and whispered voice gave the bossa nova commercial sensuality. The first album was a monumental bestseller in Brazil, with Gilberto's interpretations of songs by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes, Carlos Lyra and Ronaldo Bôscoli, Dorival Caymmi and others. The record primed the pump for the bossa nova craze that hit the U.S. beginning with Stan Getz's Jazz Samba in 1962.
For years, all three Gilberto albums have been almost impossible to find on vinyl. Now they have been given a 24-bit restoration and they sound terrific. As is the case on the Evans set, there are no bad tracks here, and you can listen from start to finish without touching your digital player.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find The Legendary Bill Evans Trio (Cherry Red) here and The Warm World of João Gilberto: The Man Who Invented Bossa Nova (Fresh Sound) on CD or vinyl here. Both are perfect for Father's Day, or a belated Mother's Day.
JazzWax clips:Here's the Bill Evans Trio playing How Deep Is the Ocean from Explorations (1961)...
And here'sEste Seu Olhar from João Gilberto (1961)...
Hollywood in the 1950s and '60s had its share of top pop studio trumpeters, including Conrad Gozzo, Uan Rasey, Shorty Rogers, Maynard Ferguson, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Don Fagerquist, Pete and Conte Candoli, Ray Linn, Manny Klein, Jimmy Zito, Shorty Sherock, Jack Sheldon and Ray Triscari, to name a bunch. New York had plenty of greats, too, including Ernie Royal, Al Porcino, Al Stewart, Dick Collins, Nick Travis, Jimmy Maxwell, Al Derisi, Billy Butterfield, Jimmy Maxwell, Clark Terry, Burt Collins, Doug Mettome, Joe Newman, Doc Severinsen, Marky Markowitz, Marvin Stamm, Randy Brecker and Jimmy Nottingham. [Photo above of Bernie Glow courtesy of Marvin Stamm]
And then there was Bernie Glow. In the New York recording studios, Glow was the epitome of the rock-solid, first-chair trumpeter, effortlessly batting out the high notes in the section and setting the feel. While he wasn't a jazz soloist, he turns up on thousands of recordings, starting with Artie Shaw and Woody Herman in the 1940s and early 1950s, Miles Davis's Gil Evans orchestral albums in the late 1950s and a wide range of jazz-pop recordings in the 1960s and '70s. [Photo above of Bernie Glow courtesy of Marvin Stamm]
When I interviewed Marvin Stamm on Glow in 2020, Marvin said, "Bernie played on many of the most significant New York jazz and pop studio recordings of that era. His beautiful round sound soars over the music of Gil Evans, Quincy Jones, Bob Brookmeyer, Oliver Nelson, Gary McFarland, Ralph Burns and many other great jazz writers and arrangers. He was loved and respected by many friends both inside and outside the world of music."
In an earlier JazzWax interview with trumpeter Al Stewart, he said, "Bernie was the best first-trumpet player of that generation. He was consistent, and he had a great sound and time. He never seemed to get tired. He could do three or four record dates in a day, and he'd be just as fresh at the end of the day as he was in the morning. He was a beautiful man, and a good friend."
For a post on the 40-year anniversary of Glow's passing (May 8, 1982), I reached out to Heidi Glow, one of Bernie Glow's three daughters, for an email interview. Key audio clips follow the interview:
JazzWax: Where did your family live when you were growing up? Heidi Glow: We lived in Queens, N.Y. from 1952 to 1960. Then we moved to Great Neck, on Long Island. There, we had a nice four-bedroom house on a third of an acre just a block from the Long Island Sound. I have an identical twin sister, Sari, and a younger sister, Cathy. Sari and I were born in 1952 and Cathy was born in 1955. [Photo above of Bernie Glow, courtesy of Heidi Glow]
JW: Tell me about your mom and dad. What were they like while you were growing up? HG: My mom, Gail, was a homemaker until she went to college at age 38 to become a teacher. She was a beautiful, soft spoken, nurturing woman. She did the cooking and household chores, and enjoyed entertaining and making the holidays at our home. My dad was quite modest. He had a great sense of humor and liked sports, especially the New York Giants football team. He also was a wine enthusiast and collector. We took a lot of family vacations. Every summer for many years, we went up to Cape Cod in Massachusetts for two weeks. We also vacationed in Florida and Washington, D.C.
JW: Where on Cape Cod? HG: North Truro, where we’d stay at the Top Mast Motel. The room had a kitchenette and bar stools. I think it was a one-bedroom suite. We’d dig for mussels on the beach and Mom would boil them and then serve with Russian dressing. We also went to Howard Johnson’s for fried clams and saw Ben-Hur at a local drive-in movie theater when it came out in 1959.
JW: Did your dad practice up there? HG: Yes, each day he went to the dunes near the motel around dusk, when the beach cleared out. He’d practice scales and intervals. Sometimes I went with him.
JW: So early on, you knew your dad was a professional musician? HG: Yes, I knew because he practiced every day at home. My dad worked primarily during the day recording ad jingles, playing on record sessions and on TV shows. As crazy as it may seem today for a musician, he worked mostly from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and was usually home for dinner by 6. Occasionally, he worked evenings for major events such as the televised Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Labor Day Telethon. He also played at Lyndon Johnson’s inauguration in 1965. The wives were invited, too. [Photo above of Bernie Glow courtesy of Heidi Glow]
JW: Did you tag along to those events? HG: Eventually. In 1975, Sari and I went to the Grammys at New York’s Uris Theatre, where Dad played in the orchestra. In the audience, we sat near John Lennon, Stevie Wonder and Walt Frazier, to name a few. It was amazing. [Photo above of Bernie Glow and Clark Terry, courtesy of Heidi Glow]
JW: Who were you and your sister named for? HG: Sari and I were named for our maternal grandmother Saina-Hinda. I was also named for the storybook character Heidi, which had been made into a 1937 movie starring Shirley Temple. Mom was a big fan. [Photo of the Glow family, from left: Sari, Bernie, Heidi, wife Gail, and Cathy]
JW: At home, where did your dad practice? HG: He practiced either while walking through our large living room and dining area or in his bedroom. As far as I know, there were no complaints from neighbors. I never asked how he hit the high notes. I honestly wasn’t aware that it was unusual.
JW: What did you listen to as a teen? HG: I grew up in the 1960’s, so I listened to everything, including Chubby Checker, Leslie Gore, Aretha Franklin, Sam and Dave, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors, the Who, Cream, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Crosby, Stills & Nash. In elementary school, I played the violin. At home, we all took piano lessons with Blanche Godlis, wife of trombonist Al Godlis. I briefly sang in a local band in high school called The Rubber Band. I also was in a somewhat tame version of Hair at our community arts center. [Photo above of Jimi Hendrix by Heidi Glow, courtesy of Heidi Glow]
JW: What did your dad listen to on the stereo? HG: A lot of singers like Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra. He also would sit in the living room and blast Tchaikovsky. I appreciated the pop singers he played, but I definitely was into more contemporary music.
JW: When did you first realize your dad was a big deal? HG: I knew my dad’s career was different and cooler than what other dads did for work. It was exciting for me when my dad recorded with artists I knew and liked. He recorded with the Lovin’ Spoonful and did some tracks for the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed album. He also played on Laura Nyro’s Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, which for me is a masterpiece.
JW: A lot of concerts, too, I’ll bet, yes? HG: I spent a lot of my teen years at the Fillmore East seeing all the greats. On June 28, 1968, I went to the Soul Together concert at Madison Square Garden. It was a benefit for the Martin Luther King Memorial Fund. Artists there included Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Sam and Dave, the Rascals, Joe Tex and King Curtis and the Kingpins. My dad played in the band. It was thrilling, and I got some great pictures of Hendrix. This concert and the Grammys were probably the most memorable for me.
JW: Which famous musicians came over to the house when you were growing up? HG: Not many. Most of my parents’ friends were studio, TV and theater musicians. We had a big New Year’s Eve party at our house each year when I was young. Two of my dad’s special friends who came to the house were bassist Milt Hinton and trumpeter Marvin Stamm (above).
JW: How would you describe your dad's gift? HG: He had innate talent, strength and taste. He worked hard and I knew he was one of the best players on his instrument and a "first call" guy. He was consistently busy and successful enough to put four women through college and two through graduate school. He worked doing what he loved during a rich and special time in the music business. Studio work was plentiful, orchestras were still in vogue and there were incredibly talented musicians, composers, arrangers and conductors around then. [Photo above courtesy of Heidi Glow]
JW: Why didn’t your dad record albums as a leader? HG: My father had no aspirations to lead a band or record an album for which he'd have to assemble the musicians and produce the music. His joy and comfort zone was being a powerful lead trumpet player and superb sight reader. In truth, he was probably too busy to do so. [Photo above of Miles Davis and Bernie Glow in the studio, courtesy of Heidi Glow]
JW: What are your favorite albums that include your dad in the trumpet section? HG: I love Sketches of Spain,Tony Bennett at Carnegie Hall in 1962 and Tony's Christmas albums. I appreciated his playing with Aretha Franklin and on a hit record with the Stylistics. There really are so many. My favorite solo of his is on Ballad for Trumpet with the Richard Maltby Orchestra. It’s really a passionate performance. [Photo above of Tony Bennett and Bernie Glow, courtesy of Heidi Glow]
JW: Were you encouraged to be a musician? HG: Not at all. In high school, I wanted to go to U.C. Berkeley or the University of Michigan. They were the hotbeds of the youth culture at the time. But my parents would only let me go as far as the Mississippi River, so I went to Washington University in St. Louis where I studied sociology. I had a great time there and made some life-long friends. After college, I became interested in healthcare while working as a counselor with unwed pregnant girls at a Catholic agency in New York. I then attended Cornell Nursing School at New York Hospital and got my BSN in two years. Then I moved to San Francisco, where I lived for almost 13 years and worked as a registered nurse and studied jazz dance and ballet. I eventually became a Psychiatric Clinical Nurse Specialist after getting my masters degree at U.C. San Francisco. I had a long and gratifying career as a nurse, nurse manager and clinical instructor. I have a fabulous daughter who became an ICU nurse and educator. She moved to Colorado six years ago and I followed her there in 2021. I'm really enjoying the great jazz scene in Denver, and the city is a beautiful place to live. [Photo above courtesy of Heidi Glow]
JW: Your dad died young, at age 56. What happened? HG: In 1972, when I was in college, my dad was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder called Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia. Basically, it’s brought on by an overproduction of a protein in the blood causing the blood to become very viscous. His treatment was plasmapheresis, which is like dialysis for the blood. He did this monthly for 10 years. I do not believe the disorder was inherited. My dad continued to work during most of his illness, but slowed down a bit. His last job was in the pit of the musical 42nd Street from late 1980 until shortly before he passed in 1982.
JW: What do you remember most about your dad? HG: In addition to being an extraordinary musician, he was a remarkable human being. He was extremely warm and well liked. His passing at such a young age was devastating. Even though I was an adult and living in California at the time, I felt a hole in my heart and in my life for a long time. I learned so much from him about music, integrity and kindness. Mostly, I always felt loved and supported. It is truly heartwarming to me that he continues to be remembered and appreciated.
JazzWax clips:Here's a rare credited Bernie Glow solo on a lovely Johnny Hartman single called The World Was Mine in 1955. Listen to how pretty his tone is all the way through, akin to cornetist Bobby Hackett and trumpeter Billy Butterfield...
Here's an Ernie Wilkins arrangement for Sarah Vaughan in 1955 of Don't Be on the Outside. Glow and Ernie Royal are the only two trumpets (with an alto saxophone solo by Cannonball Adderley)...
Here's Glow on Benny Golson's The Touch, from Take a Number From 1 to 10 in 1961. Glow and Nick Travis are on trumpets...
Here'sMy Funny Valentine from Kai Winding and J.J. Johnson's album Israel in April 1968. You can hear Glow join the trombones at 3:15...
Here, from the same album, is Django. You can hear Glow join at 3:02...
Here's Glow in the trumpet section of Wes Montgomery's Road Song, from the the 1968 album of the same name...
Here, from the same album, is Where Have All the Flowers Gone. Listen to Glow's opener on trumpet...
Here's Glow and Marvin Stamm on Soulful Strut, from organist Walter Wanderley's Moondreams, arranged by Eumir Deodato in 1969...
And here's Glow's ripping high-note opener on the Stylistics disco gem I Can't Give You Anything (But My Love) in 1975...
Want more Bernie Glow? In The New Yorker's December 13, 1969 issue, the magazine ran a profile of him by William Whitworth entitled, "Lead Player." You'll find it here or here.
In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed actor Titus Welliver for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Titus is best known for his starring role in Bosch, the Amazon Prime color-noir series, in which he plays Harry Bosch, the Hollywood detective whose "lane doesn't have lines." Titus is now in the new Amazon Freevee series Bosch: Legacy, in which he has resigned from the Los Angeles Police Department and is a private detective while his daughter, played by Madison Lintz, is now a cop. Titus is the son of Neil Welliver, a prominent landscape painter. [Photo above of Madison Lintz and Titus Welliver in Bosch: Legacy, courtesy of Amazon Freevee]
And here's a super 1992 documentary on Neil Welliver...
Spotted by Bob Ruggiero of the Houston Press at Houston's Four Seasons Hotel: Anatomy of a Song—perched atop decorative books in the hotel's private-event room right behind the podium. All books were naked—without their dustjackets. Bob is host of Classic Rock Bob here.
Back in August, I posted about Behind My Eyes, a film by Ivan Acosta made during the 9/11 attack in New York from his high-floor apartment in a building in Midtown. Well, the film just won top prize at the spring 2022 Florida Shorts film festival. Congratulations Ivan! If you missed my post, you can watch the film here.
The Real Ambassadors. In the late 1950s and early '60s, Dave Brubeck and his wife, Iola, in collaboration with Louis Armstrong, developed a musical called The Real Ambassadors. Set in a fictional African nation called Talgalla, the musical explored the Civil Rights movement, the music business, the Cold War and other issues of the day. It was a twist on the State Department's programs of sending jazz musicians around the world as ambassadors of freedom and democracy. Which came with some irony, since much of the country was still segregated or fighting to remain so. A soundtrack was recorded in 1961, but the musical's sole performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1962 was never captured on film. If you're curious about the show, how it came to be and why it couldn't gain traction, read Keith Hatschek's new book, The Real Ambassadors (University Press of Mississippi ) here.
One more with Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes. Here'sYou Baby..
Terry Gibbs gala. On May 26-29, an all-star jazz tribute will celebrate the astonishing career of vibraphonist Terry Gibbs. The event, produced by Ken Poston and the Los Angeles Jazz Institute, will take place at the Four Points Sheraton at LAX in Los Angeles. Terry, at 97, will be there performing. To buy tickets, call (909) 939-0777. For more information, go here.
Photo gallery. Recently, I came across a couple of nifty photos. The first is of Bill Evans and manager Helen Keane in 1969 in the office of Arnold Maxin, left, president of MGM Records, renewing his contract...
The other photo supports something Marshall Rogers told me during our interview about his father, Shorty Rogers. In the interview, Marshall told me that actor Marlon Brando pushed The Wild One studio to bring in Shorty to create original jazz for the film and soundtrack. But first, the studio wanted to see if Shorty and his band were part of the Los Angeles drug scene. Said Marshall: "Apparently, when Brando asked the studio to use Dad, the studio dressed up a couple of security guards to look like beatniks and sent them to the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach to observe a Sunday jazz session." As ludicrous as that may have sounded, it apparently was a practice used by police departments in the early 1950s, including in New York...
Music break.Here's Dave Thompson playing I Should Care in his rehearsal studio...
Mel Brooks, Part 2. Back in April, I posted on director Raymond De Felitta's postcast interview with comedian-director Mel Brooks (above, courtesy of Wikipedia). Raymond just uploaded Part 2. To listen to both parts, go here.
And finally, because the temperature here in New York this weekend is supposed to peak in the chilly low 50s, here's Pat Metheny's Spring Ain't Here...
Of the 3,000 or so celebrities I've interviewed over the past 12 years, Ronnie Spector remains among the sweetest and kindest. I interviewed her three times—twice for Wall Street Journal pieces and once for my Rock Concert book. Each time we spoke, she was honest, revealing and generous. As a kid growing up in Manhattan's Washington Heights in the early 1960s, I came to identify the Ronettes with the sound of summer. Her New York accent was my New York accent (Ronnie grew up in Washington Heights, too) and I knew older sisters of friends who looked just like her.
Today, I hide my accent, but it was fun to slip into it when speaking with her. When I interviewed Ronnie last year, she had just finished writing her memoir, Be My Baby. Now, four months after her death in January, her book has just been published by Henry Holt. Keith Richards wrote the introduction and Vince Waldron, a superb writer and actor, co-wrote it with her. The book reads fast, is smartly organized and retains her voice. For me, that voice was stickball, Pensie Pinkies, Bonomo Turkish Taffy smashed on the sidewalk, Kappy's Record World, the neighborhood pizza shop, standing under a sprinkler in July, Nok Hocky, black-and-white cookies, rolls of caps, comics, the Bungalow Bar ice cream truck, Disney films at the RKO Colosseum, and so on.
Before Beatlemania, the adolescent world lived largely in an annex of the 1950s. Most men still wore hats and ties, even on the weekends, women's dresses came down to the shins, jeans didn't exist yet except on farms, families bought a cake for the week at the local bakery, soda bottle caps had cork under the lid, cars made noise and stores were closed on Sundays. Ronnie, for me, was the sound of that period. She also was the embodiment of integration. Her mother was Black and Cherokee, and her father was Irish. [Photo above of the stairs on 187th Street leading from Overlook Terrace, where I lived, to Fort Washington Avenue that were climbed and descended each day and sometimes twice to get to public school]
When the Ronettes came out on stage at local movie theater revues, they baffled audiences. Audiences back in the early 1960s couldn't figure out if they were Black, Hispanic or white. Puzzlement was quickly replaced with elation once they started singing. Kids stopped wondering and just fell in love with the songs and Ronnie's familiar voice. [Publicity still above, from left, Ronnie Spector, Estelle Bennett and Nedra Talley, courtesy of Encyclopedia Britannica]
Ronnie sang of puppy love, when girls in their early teens in grade school dreamed of getting married and boys spent down time flipping baseball cards and ignoring them. Ronnie sang of the streets, where most kids in my neighborhood hung out back then—on corners and outside candy stores and delis, and in parks. Her hit songs were about walking in the rain, pleading with a love interest to be her baby, pledging fidelity to a boy and why the best part of breaking up was making up. Ronnie's songs were about high drama, and arranger Jack Nitzsche always knew how to get the most out of the instrumentation. [Photo above, the hang today on 187th Street, including the candy store, Gideon's bakery, the pizza shop and, at the bottom, Fort Washington Avenue, where I was hit by a cab in fourth grade dashing across the street, with no injury]
In her new book, Ronnie writes about her tortured relationship with producer and songwriter-wunderkind Phil Spector, which began cute but became a living hell for her. The details of the abuse and her escape remain harrowing. How anyone could treat Ronnie so badly was beyond comprehension. As I read the galleys last week, I thought that cruelty to someone as angelic as she was would be suicidal. You're just asking fate to even the score. And eventually, that's exactly what happened to Phil. A miserable end.
Read the book. It's funny, it's sad, it reads fast and it will give you tremendous insight into an era when music flipped on imaginations, turned teen singers into overnight sensations and captured a generation's heart. When the Rolling Stones opened for the Ronettes during the girls' tour of England in January 1964, Keith understood immediately that Ronnie was special, the epitome of relaxed cool. Her lingo, her manner and her fast street humor were all natural. She didn't have to work at it one bit. It's who she was and would always be. Ronnie and Keith became lifelong friends, and he inducted the Ronettes into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. [Publicity still above of Ronnie Spector by James J. Kriegsmann, whose son, James J. Kriegsmann Jr., now runs the family head-shot business here.]
Miss you, Ronnie.
JazzWax pages: You'll find Ronnie Spector's Be My Baby (Henry Holt) here.
JazzWax clips: Here are a few of my favorite Ronettes clips...
Here'sBe My Baby and Shout! from The Big TNT Show in 1966...
Bill Evans recorded a studio piano-duet album only once—The Ivory Hunters (1959), when he and Bob Brookmeyer both played the keyboards. He also recorded multiple piano overdubs for Conversations With Myself (1963) and Further Conversations With Myself (1967). And then there was From Left to Right, on which he played two different keyboards—the piano and the Fender Rhodes electric piano. But the only time he was recorded live playing a duet was in 1979, during his South American tour that included the live Bill Evans albums I posted about earlier this week in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
It happened on September 29, 1979—two days after the Buenos Aires concert—when the Bill Evans Trio was in Rio de Janeiro. Working their way north, they were there to perform at Sala Cecília Meireles. After the concert that evening, the trio was persuaded by Brazilian pianist Luiz Eça, a member of the Tamba Trio, to come along to a nightclub in the affluent Lagoa district called Chiko’s Bar, where Eça played regularly. [Photo above of Luiz Eça]
When Evans, Johnson and Joe LaBarbera arrived, they were greeted warmly and asked to play a set. Chiko's was a piano bar, so there was no room for drums. Joe watched from the back of the club. Evans and Johnson proceeded to play a set. But after a break, when everyone was nice and loose, Evans shared the piano on several tracks, playing the upper register and Eça the lower, and Johnson on bass. Eça, of course, is the composer of the jazz standard The Dolphin, which Evans had recorded only once, on his From Left to Right album. [Album cover above shows Chiko's Bar in Rio]
An attorney at the club in the early hours of September 30 had the good sense to ask the club's DJ to record the music. When the impromptu gig ended, the attorney left the club with an hour-long reel. Thirty years later, in 2010, the bootleg tape was released by Jazz Lips, a British label, as Bill Evans & Luiz Eça: Piano Four Hands. Pay particular attention to Corcovado, as Evans and Eça huddle at the keyboard to go over the song and then launch into an incredible version. It's the only time Evans was recorded playing the bossa nova standard. And dig the duet on bossa-fied Stella by Starlight. Whew!
The tracks and players (including Brazilian pianist Cidinho and vocalist Lenny Andrade) are...
Noelle's Theme—Bill Evans playing alone.
Sem Título—Evans and Marc Johnson
Who Can I Turn To—Evans and Johnson
Letter to Evan—Evans and Johnson
Laurie—Evans and Johnson
Five—Evans and Johnson
A short break
Wave—Lenny Andrade (vocal), Cidinho (piano) and Johnson
Chorinho Pra Ele—Cidinho and and an unidentified bassist
Letter to Evan—Evans, solo piano
Laurie—Evans, solo piano
Bill's Hit Tune—Evans and Eça, duet
Corcovado—Evans and Eça, duet
One Note Samba/Stella by Starlight—Eça plays the first song, Evans joins for a duet on the second
E Nada Mais—Eça and Cidinho piano duet
Bill Evans died at age 51 in 1980; Luiz Eça died of a heart attack at age 56 in 1992.
Here's the entire bootleg free of ads. It's a remarkable document, both for the music and the warm and passionate Rio club atmosphere in which they played...
Marc Myers writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and is author of "Rock Concert: An Oral History" (Grove), "Anatomy of a Song" (Grove) and "Why Jazz Happened." Founded in 2007, JazzWax has won three Jazz Journalists Association awards
