JazzWax

Sheryl, Gordon and Bonnie

Last week in The Wall Street Journal, my "Anatomy of a Song" column was on Sheryl Crow's If It Makes You Happy (go here). Sheryl co-wrote the song in 1996 with Jeff Trott when she was working on her second album. Jeff started the song in 1994 after breaking up with his girlfriend. Interestingly, the song has different personal meanings for Sheryl and Jeff.

For Sheryl, the song is about the struggles she endured after her first album was a huge success. Band members grew disgruntled that it was a solo album after she shared the publishing with the others. She told me she was supposed to be happy, so why was she so upset? As for Jeff, the song expressed his bafflement about his departing girlfriend. As he told me, "If the relationship made my girlfriend so happy, why did we split up?" As always, my column has a nifty twist at the end.

Here's Sheryl singing If It Makes You Happy in 2007...

Also in the WSJ, I interviewed Gordon Lightfoot for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section on growing up in Orillia, Ontario (go here). Readers may be surprised to learn that in the late 1950s, Gordon studied jazz composition and orchestration at the Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles, Bill Holman's alma mater.

Here's Gordon's hit recording of If You Could Read My Mind in 1970...

SiriusXM. If you have access to SiriusXM next Thursday (August 22), tune in to Feedback (Ch. 106/VOLUME) at 9 a.m. (EDT). I'll be on for an hour with Nik and Lori taking about Sheryl Crow's If It Makes You Happy and playing audio clips. Not to be missed.

Two books on Merseybeat. Too little is known about the Liverpool pop scene from 1960 to 1964. Beyond the Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers and Cilla Black, most people have little knowledge about the big beat's evolution in the port city. Anthony Hogan has written two that were published by the Amberley imprint—The Beat Makers: The Unsung Heroes of the Mersey Sound and From a Storm to a Hurricane: Rory Storm and the Hurricanes (go here and here). Fascinating to learn what a huge influence the music of Liverpool's black neighborhood had on the Beatles and all of the groups that emerged.

Who was Rory Storm? Back in the late 1950s, his cool intensity and steamy sexuality captivated the girls at clubs. Storm and the Hurricanes are credited with launching the Merseyside sound (Ringo Starr was the band's drummer, before he joined the Beatles in 1962). Poorly managed, the Hurricanes recorded only two singles.

Here's a clip of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes in action...

And here's a promo for Anthony's book, The Unsung Heroes of the Mersey Sound...

Michael Wolff—Swirl (Sunnyside). Backed by bassist Ben Allison and drummer Allan Mednard, pianist Wolff released Swirl earlier this year. Wolff recorded six originals, two standards and one composition by Allison. There's a brooding storminess to Wolff's attack, giving fresh meaning to Angel Eyes and I Didn't Know What Time It Was, and his originals such as Metairie and the title track have thoughtfulness and plenty of edge. Go here. 

Bird/Prez birthday broadcast. WKCR-FM will present a 72-hour broadcast featuring the music of Lester Young and Charlie Parker (above). Starting Monday night, August 26 at 11:59 p.m. (EDT), the station will play their music around the clock on Tuesady, Wednesday and Thursday. To listen from anywhere in the world on your phone or computer, go here.

Bonnie Bowden, a former member of Sergio Mendes and Brasil '77, will be singing with the Angel City Big Band this Sunday, August 18, from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at the San Fernando Valley Arts & Culture Center in Tarzana, Calif. Listen or dance, the admission is $15. Bonnie has a truly extraordinary voice. Photo above of Stevie Wonder and Bonnie. For more information, go here.

Here's Bonnie singing Put a Little Love Away with Sergio Mendes...

And here's Bonnie singing lead on Love City...

Bonus: To read my interview with Bonnie back in 2012, go here.

What the heck: Here's Jackie Wilson singing Whispers (Gettin' Louder) in 1966...

And here's Wilson in action on Shindig! in 1965...

Oddball album cover of the week.

When the hot rod craze of the late 1950s ran its course, car racing moved indoors on a miniature scale. Generically, it was called model road racing. For the rest of us in the mid-1960s, we called it slot-car racing. When I was a kid, two sounds stood out—the hushed explosion of a strike at a bowling alley and the whoosh of slot cars flying around a track in storefront raceways. On this album, the Phantom Surfers recorded what must have been a soundtrack meant to be played at home while racing slot cars...

Here's a clip on the mid-'60s slot-car craze...

10 Lionel Hampton Videos

Up until the late 1950s, vibraphonist, drummer and bandleader Lionel Hampton was on par with Count Basie. Hampton began his recording career in 1924, and played and recorded with Louis Armstrong before joining Benny Goodman in 1936. Through the late 1930s and into 1940, Hampton was a member of the Benny Goodman Quartet, which bravely introduced integrated jazz performance at the highest level during the swing era.

Throughout the 1940s, he led his own orchestra and helped pioneer rhythm & blues and jump blues. In the early and mid-1950s, he was a progenitor of rock 'n' roll and starred in Alan Freed's 1957 jukebox film Mr. Rock 'n' Roll. And at times, such as in 1951, Hampton employed a trombone section that would wind up working for Basie. Where Basie was quiet and reserved, Hampton was vocal and outgoing. By 1958, as 12-inch stereo albums caught on, Basie became more prominent thanks, in part, to the cool pop-swing of his collaborations with arranger-composer Neal Hefti.

To give you a sense of Hampton's longevity and influence on swing, R&B and rock 'n' roll, here are 10 clips of Hamp in action over four decades:

Here's Hampton with the Benny Goodman Quartet in the film Hollywood Hotel playing I Got A Heartful of Music in 1937...

Here's Hampton and his band in a 1951 short film playing Cobb's Idea, by tenor saxophonist Arnett Cobb, featuring Betty Carter, possibly trombonist Al Grey and tenor saxophonist Johnny Board...

Here's Hampton and his orchestra in a Universal short in 1949 playing a jump blues and more...

Here's Hampton with his orchestra in 1953 playing in a 33-minute Western Electric short film...

Here's Hampton and his band in 1955 playing a jam session with Milt Buckner on piano...

Here's singer Marti Barris joined by Johnny Otis and Lionel Hampton on The Johnny Otis Show on KTTV-Los Angeles in 1956 or '57...

Here's Otis and Hampton on the same show playing It's You...

Here's Hampton in Mr. Rock 'n' Roll, again chipping away at segregation in 1957...

And here's Hampton and his band with baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams in 1964 playing Sophisticated Lady...

Here's Hampton and his big band on Chicago television in 1965 playing Neal Hefti's Cute...

JazzWax note: Lionel Hampton died in 2002.

Jazz Drummers Abroad: '75

In June 1975, Kongsberg, Norway, held its annual jazz festival. Fortunately, NRK Norwegian television sent a documentary team and a wonderful interviewer to cover it. The documentary focused on the drummers, including Elvin Jones, Billy Higgins, Dannie Richmond and Ed Thigpen. Matt LeGroulx sent along a link to the film, which is highly illuminating and revealing.

Here's the documentary:

Four Wes Montgomery Videos

Wes Montgomery had a way with a song. There was swinging melody, cool harmony and his right thumb that strummed the guitar strings with the snapping force of a sling shot. Here are four videos that tell you all you need to know about what made Montgomery special and how he pioneered jazz-pop [photo above of Creed Taylor, left, with Wes Montgomery in the studio in the mid-1960s by Chuck Stewart]:

Here's Montgomery in London in 1965 on the BBC's Jazz 625...

Here's Goin' Out of My Head in 1967. The 1966 hit recording produced by Creed Taylor on Verve launched the jazz-pop revolution of the 1960s...

Here's California Nights and Windy in 1968...

And here's a clip sent along by Bill Pauluh of Montgomery synching to his Wives and Lovers recording on the Hollywood Palace in 1967...

Mary Kaye's Swing and Sway

Guitarist Mary Kaye led a popular trio from the 1940s through the 1960s that roosted in Las Vegas in 1953. There, she helped establish the lounge phenomenon that showcased small snappy singer-player ensembles in smaller, intimate rooms at emerging resorts. Of Hawaiian descent, Kaye played and sang while her two male counterparts sang and played, accompanyied and hammed it up a bit. In the 1950s, she also played a role in the history of the Fender Stratocaster, promoting the new model with a singular color scheme (blonde wood body and gold hardware), which became standard for the line. Kaye died in 2007.

Here are bunch of clips of the Mary Kaye Trio in action that Milt Cohen sent along:

Here's the trio in 1945...

Here's the trio in Las Vegas in the mid-1950s...

Here's Kaye and the trio singing Just One of Those Things...

Here's Kaye playing the very first Fender Stratocaster c. 1954...

Here's the trio in 1963, with Kaye singing I Left My Heart in San Francisco...

Bonus: Here's the trio's recording of I Should Care in the late 1950s...

Jazz Club U.S.A. Episodes

Jazz Club U.S.A. was a weekly radio show that aired between 1950 and 1952. Hosted by jazz critic and producer Leonard Feather, it was featured on the U.S. government-sponsored Voice of America network. In the early 1950s, VOA programming was beamed into countries under Communist rule so that residents there who picked up the VOA surreptitiously could equate the thrilling aspects of American music with the positive qualities of freedom and capitalism. The U.S. government hoped the music would help thwart the spread of Communism and that residents of such countries would overthrow Communist regimes. In 1954, Feather went out on a Jazz Club U.S.A. tour to Sweden. [Photo above of Leonard Feather]

Les Johnston in Australia passed along links to the shows as they aired back in the early 1950s:

Here's the first episode...

Here's Woody Herman in 1952...

Here's Stan Kenton in 1952...

Here's a show on the jazz keyboard in 1952...

And here's my favorite—a show of poll winners that includes recordings by Charlie Parker with strings, Count Basie, Serge Chaloff, Stan Getz, Miles Davis, Stan Kenton with Maynard Ferguson, and more...

Eva, Craig and Francis

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed actress Eva Longoria for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Eva's family in the 1700s helped settle what would become Texas, making her 9th generation American, which may come as a surprise to many. She has a wonderful sense of humor and is tireless when it comes to work and family. She says her mother is the same way. Growing up, Eva and two of her sisters looked after their older, developmentally challenged sister. The experience taught her a great deal about character. [Photo above of Eva Longoria at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., by Shayan Asgharnia for The Wall Street Journal; the pantsuit is from Australian designer Rebecca Vallance.

Here's Eva with Craig Ferguson about 10 years ago. Listen how fast she is and how she keeps the repartee going without a break. It's like listening to Tracy and Hepburn. Not easy...

SiriusXM. Last week I was on SiriusXM's Feedback (Ch. 106) with Nik and Lori to talk about the writing and recording of Killing Me Softly With His song, recorded first by Lori Lieberman and next by Roberta Flack. To listen to the broadcast, go here.

Francis Wolff site. Mosaic Records has set up a new site featuring the powerful jazz photos of Francis Wolff (above), a co-founder of Blue Note and its chief photographer. As Mosaic co-founder and producer Michael Cuscuna writes...

The Mosaic Images website is now operational, where the most famous Blue Note session photographs are available to the entire world. Over 2400 black & white images and over 300 color images are available for licensing in publications, album and book packaging, documentaries, films, and more. In addition, over 90 of the best and most famous images are available for sale as fine art prints in three sizes.

The site is full of features like the Mosaic Jazz Gazette, the history of Mosaic Records, Mosaic Images and a biography of Francis Wolff. There are also links to a number of video features on Blue Note’s graphics and Wolff’s photography as well as interviews about the history of the Blue Note label.

To visit the site, go here.

Amazon Prime. As a celebrity interviewer, I have to watch quite a bit of alt-TV—my term for the multi-episode series produced for streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc. This medium is growing rapidly and fast replacing the movies. I have a fairly sizable new iMac, so it's easy to knock off a couple of episodes each night after writing. For Prime subscribers looking for stuff to watch, here are the series I've enjoyed most so far:

• The Americans
• Jack Ryan
• Goliath
• Widow
• Hannah
• Fleabag

Art Neville radio. The late Art Neville of Neville Brothers fame died on July 22. Chris "King" Cowles paid tribute to him recently on his WRTC-Hartford radio show—Greasy Tracks. The Neville show includes interviews with guitarist Leo Nocentelli, one of the founding members of the Meters; guitarist Brian Stoltz of the Neville Brothers and Funky Meters; and drummer Russell Batiste, Jr. of the Funky Meters. For best results, use Firefox or Safari. Go here. [Photo above of Art Neville courtesy of NPR]

What the heck. The Chants were a doo-wop group from Liverpool in the early 1960s whose music was a fascinating combination of vocal soul and the big Merseybeat. No city's population knew more about black and white music trends and the pop charts than Liverpudlian teens in the early 1960s. Well, maybe Philadelphia. At the time, Liverpool numbered upward of 300 bands. The Chants were on the U.K.'s Pye label, which meant they were distributed in the U.S. on Philadelphia's Cameo label.

Here are the Chants performing their 1964 hit, I Could Write a Book...

Oddball album cover of the week.

Here's a Brazilian bossa-nova bass and organ player who was moderately successful in Rio and desperately in need of a name change.

Five Summer Bossa Videos

I spent yesterday writing and listening to Sergio Mendes and the Brasil '66 and '77, as well as other vintage bossa albums. The music is always breezy and melodic and sets a fast work pace. The photo above shows singers Lani Hall, right, and Brazilian singer Bibi Vogel at a Sergio Mendes and the Brasil ‘66 recording session in 1967 at United Western Recorders in Los Angeles. Here are five videos for a summer Friday:

Here's the Italian bossa group Anima Nova, with singer Gabriella Cascella...

Here's Gilberto Gil and Marjorie Estiano...

Here's João Gilberto and daughter Bebel Gilberto...

Here's Anima Nova again...

And here's Sergio Mendes and the Brasil '66...

Bonus: It's not a bossa, but this video was too good to leave out. Here's Barcelona bassist and leader Joan Chamorro...

Six Videos of Jim Hall

As with Bill Evans, I often crave Jim Hall in the middle of my work day. I love his song introductions that start with a riff or hook that flowers into the song itself. And I love Jim's accompaniment and jagged solos, bending notes and making chords ring.

Here are six Jim Hall videos I watched yesterday:

Here's My Kinda Love with Art Farmer on flugelhorn, Steve Swallow on bass and and Walter Perkins on drums, on Ralph J. Gleason's Jazz Casual TV show in San Francisco for National Educational Television (PBS's predecessor) in 1964...

Here's I'm Getting Sentimental Over You...

Here's Sometime Ago...

Here's Jim on The Merv Griffin Show in 1965 (with George Duvivier on bass behind him)...

Here's Jim with Bob Brookmeyer in the late 1970s...

And here's Jim in Madrid in 1988...

Double bonus: For my interview with Jim, go here. And for my 2009 interview with Bob Brookmeyer, go here for Part 1; links to additional parts can be found above the red date at the top.

Vince Mendoza: Renaissance

One of the finest orchestral jazz albums I've heard this year is Vince Mendoza's Constant Renaissance (BCM&D). Recorded with a roughly 100-musician Temple University Studio Orchestra, the album is a Montana-sized canvas. Composer-arranger and conductor Mendoza is a six-time Grammy winner and has written arrangements for leading pop artists, including Joni Mitchell and Elvis Costello.

On Constant Renaissance, the full orchestra is joined by two major soloists—Terell Stafford on trumpet and Dick Oatts on alto saxophone. The music and the album's title serve as a valentine to Philadelphia, a city that Mendoza notes has made enormous contributions to jazz. The album features just three movements—Bebop Elation (6:32), Solace and Inspiration (8:30) and Love, a Beautiful Force (7:16). The first movement is dedicated to Dizzy Gillespie, the second to Billie Holiday and the third to John Coltrane—all of whom were touched by their Philadelphia experience. The third movement features streaks of Coltrane's A Love Supreme.

Born in 1961 in Norwalk, Ct., Mendoza studied classical guitar and piano from an early age. He started on trumpet during high school and later earned a degree in music composition at Ohio State University. Then he moved to Los Angeles, completing his post-graduate composition and conducting studies at the University of Southern California. [Photo above of Terell Stafford]

The music on this album is exceptional on many levels. The score is expansive and sweeping, as if written for film. The solos are passionate and rich in tone. Mendoza's conducting is wave-like and inspired. And the arrangements make full use of the orchestra, with sections sliding in and out and overlapping with a Gil Evansian jazz-classical expression and intelligence. I found myself listening to this album repeatedly in a single sitting and looking forward to hearing it each time anew. [Photo above of Dick Oatts]

For more on Vince Mendoza, go here.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Vince Mendoza's Constant Renaissance (BCM&D) here. The three tracks are just $2.97 to download. Do yourself a favor and make the purchase.

JazzWax clip: Here's Bebop Elation...