JazzWax

Larry Dunlap: You & My Guitar

Larry Dunlap is an impeccable jazz pianist. Absolutely gorgeous. He has performed and/or recorded with vocalists Flora Purim, Giacomo Gates, Mark Murphy, Joe Williams, Sheila Jordan, his wife Bobbe Norris and many others. He also has worked with instrumentalists such as Gerry Mulligan, Art Farmer, Bud Shank and Ernie Watts among others. And then there is the magnificent album And Then Some, a collection of songs by Earl Zindars. Larry and his trio recorded Heads or Tails, Walkin' By, City Tune, My Love Is an April Song, Three Times Around, Song for Artie and Gurdgieff. The Don Haas Trio recorded the balance. [Photo above of Larry Dunlap and Bobbe Norris]

After I mentioned Larry in a recent post on great fireside albums (the Zindars release), I received an email from him. It turns out Larry is a JazzWax subscriber, much to my delight. In our subsequent email conversation, I asked why oh why there weren't dozens of trio albums in his discography and why many of the small-group albums he recorded aren't in print? Ferociously busy, he replied. He has composed works for chamber orchestra and jazz ensembles of all sizes as well as many songs and jazz sketches. He received a grant from The National Endowment for the Arts and has been commissioned to compose several pieces.

Larry also has done quite a bit of pop work with the Pointer Sisters, Mary Wilson, Country Joe McDonald (who is a huge West Coast jazz fan) as well as the accompaniment of vocalists and the transcriptions of music for publications such as the Sher Music Co. and the Hal Leonard Corp.

Larry mentioned that he had indeed released a bunch of small-group leadership albums. One he's particularly fond of is You and My Guitar (Coit Music), a 2003 re-issue of a 1985 album on which he plays the compositions of Amandio Cabral, a Cape Verdian songwriter he has worked with for more than 30 years. Larry wrote the arrangements for the album and was accompanied by Jeff Carney on bass and Jim ZImmerman on drums.

Larry's touch on this album is absolutely beautiful. As he writes, "When the album came out, several people told me it sounded most like a Brazilian trio than any other North American musician." I'll second that!

Born in 1948, Larry today lives in Pacifica, Calif., a picturesque coastal town near San Francisco.

JazzWax tracks: Larry Dunlap's You and My Guitar is nearly impossible to find. Larry was happy to have me provide his email should you be interested in buying a copy (as long as copies last):

bobbelar@earthlink.net

Total cost is $18 within the U.S. ($15 + $3 shipping).

Otherwise, the album is going for $49 here and $60 here.

As for the Earl Zindars tribute album, And Then Some, go here.

JazzWax tracks: From You and My Guitar, here's No Sadness...

No Sadness

And here's Love Let Go...

Love Let Go

Danny, Bill and Gunhild

This week for The Wall Street Journal, I interviewed actor-director Danny Huston for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Danny is the son of John Huston and actress Zoe Sallis. As Danny said during our conversation, "I was conceived while my father was directing Freud in 1961, born in 1962 just before he directed The Night of the Iguana and  teething in Rome on the set of The Bible." When his father would screen films for guests at his estate in Galway, Ireland, Danny saw his father and grandfather on the wall. Films like The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, he said, were like home movies. [Photo above of Danny Huston by Austin Hargrave for The Wall Street Journal]

Danny currently stars in HBO's Succession and he directed and stars in The Photograph, which was just released. Here's the trailer...

SiriusXM. Last week, I was on SiriusXM's Feedback with Lori Majewski and Nik Carter to talk about my WSJ "Anatomy of a Song" column on Gary Numan's Cars. As always, we had fun. Go here...

Bill Evans. Last week, I found a transcribed audio interview with pianist Bill Evans conducted by Bill Goldberg and Eddie Karp at Evans's Fort Lee, N.J., apartment. The interview was broadcast on July 4, 1979. Go here.

ABBA reloaded. Here's Gunhild Carling (above) on trumpet, tap and vocal with Scott Bradlee on piano and Aaron McLendon on drums giving ABBA's Dancing Queen new meaning with a 1920s Hot Jazz spin...

Twitter used right. Last week, I came across a fabulous Twitter feed. It's simply called People Dancing to Steely Dan @steelydance. Go here and follow. It will make your day.

 

Roger Kellaway on Don Ellis. On Friday, pianist Roger Kellaway sent along the following note after reading my post on Don Ellis:

 

Marc, Nice post on Don Ellis. I played with Don and his Hindustani Jazz Sextet from around 1966 to 1968 during my off months with Bobby Darin. Of course, I learned to play the odd time signatures Don favored. Since I learned to play in 19/8, I wrote a piece for the band carrying the idea of 19 to its absurd point of having the piece cover 19 events. You could achieve that kind of an idea only with Don. We did play the piece at Bonesville in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Don never recorded it.

 

Note: If you want to hear this group live at Bonesville playing other material, go here and here.

 

More Don Ellis. Bucky sent along a link to a UCLA project that lets you listen to Ellis's recordings. Go here.

 

Bill Finegan, the superb, unheralded arranger (above), penned Soon for Les and Larry Elgart in 1966. A special thanks to Bill Kirchner for sending the track along...

Billy and Marlene VerPlanck. Jerry Kline sent along the following email on a Library of Congress page that pays tribute to arranger Billy VerPlanck and his wife, vocalist Marlene VerPlanck:

Marc, here is a lovely honor for two talented people. I’m sure you’ll you’ll want to know about it. My wife, Janet, and I were friends of Billy and Marlene for more than 30 years. We still miss them both. Go here.

Bud, Chet and bossa. Bud Shank and Chet Baker teamed up in September 1968 to record Marcos Valle's Summer Samba for Bud's Brazil! Brazil! Brazil! album on World Pacific Records. Go here...

Sonny Rollins. Last week I found this video of Sonny in Copenhagen in 1974 playing his Alfie's Theme with Rufus Harley. Ordinarily, I find that droning bagpipes can be a tad grating. But here, with Sonny, they sound fantastic...

Morgan Ames. Last week, singer-songwriter Morgan Ames sent along a note and a song:

Marc, "My Real Home" is a song I wrote with the great Brazilian composer Dori Caymmi in 2001 for an album entitled Prairie Jazz, by the vocal group Inner Voices. I wrote it because when I was a child, I wanted to run off and live with the cowboys around a campfire, with horses and cows and family. Such was my fantasy. I arranged, produced and sang on the album, too. It actually still sells copies.

This YouTube clip was beautifully put together by someone named Jymster, whom I don't know. What makes it even sweeter is that the clips are from a movie called "The Cowboys," starring John Wayne and directed by Mark Rydell, a close friend. He's going to love this. I just stumbled across the clip on YouTube, but it was made seven years ago. A lovely memory, a touching version. Love, Morgan...

Arlene Corwin, a JazzWax reader and friend in Sweden, had a few tricky health issues lately but is bouncing back nicely. Once again, her emails are full of fizz and optimism. Here she is in 2009...

Podcasts Til Dawn. Director Raymond De Felitta's latest podcast is an interview with director and photographer Jerry Schatzberg (above), director of Panic In Needle Park, Scarecrow, etc. As Raymond notes, "You’ll even get to hear Jerry explain how he almost directed A Star Is Born (1976) with Barbara Streisand, a bullet he seems happy to have dodged." You can access Raymond's Movies Til Dawn here.

What the heck: Here's Eumir Deodato (above) performing Super Strut at the Festival Jazz Lugano in Lugano, Switzerland, in 2010...

Oddball album cover of the week.

Based on this guy's glare, you'd think wishing someone love was the same as casting a revenge spell.

Book Friday: Holiday Reads

Today is Black Friday, the start of the holiday shopping season. The use of the phrase in reference to the busiest shopping and traffic day of the year first appeared in 1975 in The New York Times. The word "black" here refers to black ink (as in, "in the black") indicating profits vs. red ink, which was used to delineate losses. For the purposes of this post, I've renamed today Book Friday, the day on which I post about books I've recently enjoyed and you might consider for gifts this season [Photo above of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward shopping for books at New York's Strand Book Store in the 1950s]:

Music: A Subversive History—Ted Gioia (Basic). For thousands of years, argues Ted Gioia in his marvelous new book, innovative songs have almost always come from outsiders—the poor, the unruly and the marginalized. If songs are stories set to music, those stories belong to disrupters who upended the status quo with new ways of articulation and delivery. Through shrewd research and big ears, Ted looks back years at the vital role the underclass has played in shaping what popular tunes. This is as true about Greek odes as it is about the blues, rock 'n' roll and rap. Outsiders repeatedly have advanced the development of music by creating new forms and new styles within forms. In this book, Ted once again connects the dots with literary and analytic ease. And like his other books, this story is smoothly told and rich with historical facts assembled brilliantly to make his case. Go here.

Janis: Her Life and Music—Holly George-Warren (Simon & Schuster). This biography of rock's first dominant female vocalist is by far the best and most dramatic. George-Warren moves slowly and deliberately through Joplin's family tree and career, shedding much light on the singer's woes, demons and vocal gifts as she traveled from Texas to San Francisco and then to Los Angeles. An enigmatic and troubled blues singer who electrified audiences with her possessed, blowtorch delivery, Joplin self-medicated with heroin and alcohol in an effort to ease the emotional bruising she endured throughout her short, comet-like life. Go here.

The History of Rock & Roll, Vol. II: 1964-1977—Ed Ward (Flatiron). In his widely anticipated second volume, Ed Ward picks up the story of rock's revolution in 1964, a year after Volume I ends. Starting with the phenomenon known as the Beatles in '64, Ward takes us through to The Last Waltz in 1976, the Band's farewell concert at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. Written in essay form, the book blend's rock's major stops with the factors that caused the music to change over this 13-year period. The book also puts the history of rock in perspective. Go here.

The Specialty Records Story—Billy Vera (BMG). Specialty Records was founded in 1945 by Art Rupe just after the American Federation of Musicians' first recording ban ended. Before the ban, there were three major record companies. After the ban was resolved, dozens of new independent labels emerged, including Specialty. Initially a Los Angeles gospel record company, Specialty helped pioneer R&B beginning in the late 1940s. Among the label's top recording artists were Lloyd Price, Little Richard, Percy Mayfield and John Lee Hooker. Much of the factual material in Vera's book came from Specialty's archives, thanks to Art Rupe, who is still with us. Go here.

Anatomy of a Song (Grove Atlantic) and Why Jazz Happened (University of California Press) by me are both available in paperback. Anatomy of a Song has been referred to as a "literary jukebox," allowing readers to jump in anywhere and read the stories behind 45 hit singles in any order you wish. Go here. 

Why Jazz Happened has been called "the first jazz social history," in which I look at the eight major jazz styles and the external social, business and technilogical factors that allowed them to emerge and thrive. Go here.

Video: Chick Corea in Spain, 2018

On July 28, 2018, the Chick Corea Acoustic Band performed at Jazz San Javier in southeast Spain. Pianist Chick Corea was accompanied by John Patitucci on bass and Dave Weckl on drums. The songs were Morning Sprite, A Japanese Waltz, That Old Feeling, In a Sentimental Mood, Life Line, A Sonata (by Domenico Scarlatti), You and the Night and the Music and Spain.

Here's an hour and a half of Chick's trio:

A special thanks to Dave Thompson.

Royce Campbell: Organ Trio

One of my favorite albums celebrating the music of Henry Mancini is guitarist Royce Campbell's Tribute to Henry Mancini, recorded in 1996. Royce marvelously captures Mancini's hip and gentle melody lines and his passion for space. Royce should know. He was Mancini's guitarist for 19 years. A year before this album, Royce recorded a solid organ-trio album with organist Melvyn Rhyne and drummer Jimmy Cobb. You don't climb into the proverbial ring with those guys unless you know exactly what you're doing—and Royce did and does.

Now, 24 years later, he has released a second organ trio album (recorded in 2016) called Organ Trio (Moon Cycle), with Jonah Kane-West on organ and Billy Williams Jr. on drums. In addition to being a lovely guitarist, Royce has great taste, as you'll see when you give a listen. There are two standards—Close Your Eyes and The Brothers Go to Mothers from Mancini's Peter Gunn. The rest are groove-rich originals such as Lucky, the pensive Letter to Henry, the swirling Toe the Line, a holiday-flavored That Time of Year and more.

Even on up-tempo blues, such as Organ Trio Blues, and funky tunes like Caribbean Sea, Royce never wheel-spins nor is he ever in a hurry. He's deliberate and sensitive. On this album, Royce gives the organ-trio format the Mancini touch. He swings gently and lets the sound of ringing tones wash over you before releasing another flurry. I could listen to him all day. As for Kane-West (above) and Williams (below), solid organ playing with an equally gentle approach and drums that stir things up without turning them over. Add this album to your fireplace list.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Royce Campbell's Organ Trio (Moon Cycle) here.

JazzWax clips: Here's The Brothers Go to Mothers...

The Brothers Go to Mothers

And here's Royce's Just for You...

Just For You

Bonus 1: Here's Royce's Dreamsville from his Tribute to Henry Mancini album...

Bonus 2: Dig Royce in 2009 on the same Mancini standard...

Video: Zoot Sims at Donte's

Sometime in 1970, tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims performed at Donte's, a North Hollywood club at 4263 Lankershim Blvd. He was with Roger Kellaway on piano, Chuck Berghofer on bass and Larry Bunker on drums. Fortunately for us, part of the gig was filmed. They played Zoot's Piece, My Old Flame, On the Trail and Motoring Along.

Here's the video of these glorious, commanding swingers...

A special thanks to Duane McClain.

Video: Stan Getz in Munich

On July 18, 1990, Stan Getz performed at the Munich Philharmonic Hall in Germany. Though the YouTube upload describes this as Getz's last concert, it wasn't. The tenor saxophonist was recorded live at the Montmartre Jazzhouse in Copenhagen, Denmark, on March 3,4, 5 and 6, 1991. Getz died June 6 of that year. He was 64. [Image of Stan Getz above from YouTube]

Here's 1 hour and 45 minutes of Getz in concert in Munich with Kenny Barron on piano, Eddie Del Barrio and Frank Zottoli on synthesizers, Alex Blake on bass and Terri Lyne Carrington on drums...

A special thanks to John Kettlewell

Gary, Chris and John

This week in The Wall Street Journal, my "Anatomy of a Song" interviews with Gary Numan and Chris Payne on Numan's early elctro-pop hit Cars in 1979 (go here). The song's inspiration was a road rage incident in London followed by his accidental discovery of the Minimoog synthesizer and his struggles with Asperger's syndrome.

Here's the official video of Cars...

And here's Gary with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails in 2009...

Also in the WSJ, my "House Call" interview with Oscar-winning actor Chris Cooper, who stars in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (go here). As a child, Chris had no intention of being an actor. He studied carpentry and metal shop in high school. As his school buddies in Jackson County, Mo., drifted into petty crime, he took jobs at local theaters in Kansas City as a set builder. Then one day, he decided to give acting a try. [Photo above of Chris Cooper at the Conrad Hotel in Manhattan by Bryan Derballa for The Wall Street Journal]

Here's a scene from Matewan, Chris's first film in 1987...

SiriusXM. On Wednesday, I'll be on Feedback (Channel 106) with Nik Carter and Lori Majewski to break down Gary Numan's Cars. Plus I'll have another 10 fabulous tracks in the hour's final segment. Catch me from 9 to 10 a.m. (EST).

Family finds. Last week, I accidentally came across artwork by my mother and father I didn't know existed—and I collect both of their works. The first was Being Nice Is Lots of Fun (above), a children's book on manners that my mother, Bernice Myers, illustrated in 1955 for a London publisher while living in Paris with my father. She's the author of more than 100 children's books and has quite a following. Three fan sites are here, here and here.

The second discovery was the back of an album jacket by Henri Rene that my father, Lou Myers, illustrated in 1958. Dad was a New Yorker cartoonist and fiction writer as well as one of the leading advertising artists of the 1960s and '70s. He was so in demand that clients let him sign his work in large lettering, virtually unheard of at the time in commercial work. How strange that I came across both of these items in the same week.

John and Yoko. Following my post on the new documentary Above Us Only Sky, John Horan sent an email on a fascinating post he wrote in 2016 about the couple's residency at New York's Dakota. Go here.

Smile. Last week, I found myself detained at YouTube by videos of Candid Camera episodes. I loved this series as a kid—the kind and gentle series that poked fun at human behavior and instincts. Where oh where has this type of humor gone and why did it evaporate? Here are four segments that had me roaring:

Here's Gorgeous Teacher...

Here's Blank Pickets...

Here's The Wet Guy...

And here's Trampoline Surprise...

Billy Ainsworth was a saxophonist in several major big bands of the 1940s and '50s, including Tommy Dorsey's. Here's my post on him last year. The other day, I came across this little-known Dorsey side from June 1951. The record, They Didn't Believe Me, has a nifty arrangement by the great Bill Finegan. Here's the band: Charlie Shavers (tp) Ray Wetzel (tp) George Cherub, Bobby Nichols (tp) Nick DiMaio, Sam Hyster, Tommy Pederson (tb) Billy Ainsworth (cl,as) Hugo Lowenstern (as) Paul Mason, Babe Fresk (ts) Bob Lawson (bar) Freddie Deland (p) Bob Bain (g) Norman Seelig (b) Tommy Guinn (d) Bill Finegan (arr) Tommy Dorsey (tb,ldr) Dig the Sauter-Finegan twists, turns and dissonances.

Here it is...

Richard Wyands radio. On Sunday, Sid Gribetz will presents the music of pianist Richard Wyands from 2 to 5 p.m. (EST) on WKCR-FM's wonderful ongoing series, Jazz Profiles. You can listen from anywhere in the world on your phone, iPad or computer by going here.

Les McCann in need. Pianist Joe Alterman, who is close with Les McCann, tells me Les is struggling with debilitating health issues and that friends of McCann are trying to raise money for his care. For more information, go here.

Here's Les McCann's classic soul-jazz rendition of Compared to What (by Gene McDaniels) with Eddie Harris at the 1969 Montreux Jazz Festival...

What the heck. Someone at YouTube has combined a video of Henry Mancini's music and early '60s Parisian modernist architecture, design and fashion. That person is after my heart. Pure bliss...

Oddball album cover of the week.

Must have been released on Pain in the Ass Records.

Jazz for the Fireplace

With Thanksgiving coming next Thursday and the December holidays just around the corner, you'll likely find yourself in front of a fireplace or cooking for friends in the coming weeks. Or simply unwinding by yourself. To make those evenings extra cozy, here are 10 jazz albums that are hip and remarkably soothing. Here are album titles and sample tracks:

Bill Evans — From Left to Right (Verve) here...

Paul Desmond and Jim Hall — Bossa Antigua (RCA) here...

Tommy Flanagan — Moodsville (Prestige) here...

Marian McPartland — After Dark (Capitol) here...

Al Haig — Jazz Will-O-the-Wisp (Fresh Sound) here...

Gary McFarland — Soft Samba (Verve) here...

Oscar Peterson — Motions and Emotions (MPS) here...

Earl Zindars — And Then Some (Heesoos). Zindars' songs performed by remarkable pianists Don Haas and Larry Dunlap here...

Emily Remler — Firefly (Concord) here...

Cal Tjader and Charlie Byrd — Tambu here...

Antobal's Cuban All-Stars

Havana in the 1950s was an exotic suburb of Las Vegas. How the Cuban capital became the playground of American tycoons, celebrities and hustlers is a long and sordid story. Here's the short version: After Cuba's independence from Spain in the late 1800s, the country became increasingly dependent, economically, on the U.S. At the start of the 20th century, American companies set up plantation systems to inexpensively harvest, package and ship a wide range of agricultural products back to the States. Or they subsidized Cuban shell companies to do the same for them. [Photo above of a Havana nightclub in the 1950s]

In the 1920s, superwealthy Americans began to vacation in Havana during the winter months. The Depression and World War II brought a lull to the fast action. By the late 1940s and early '50s, however, Havana had ramped up its nightclub business to meet the demands for entertainment, gambling and vice. Movie and recording stars as well as a celebrated writers visited and roosted there.

During this period, American organized crime moved in to operate Havana clubs, racetracks and casinos, primarily to launder money obtained illegally in the States. Corruption, payoffs and exploitation became the norm as organized crime paid off the police and government officials. All of this activity and abuse at the expense of average Cubans ultimately led to the Castro revolution and regime in January 1959.

A by-product of this frothy nightlife in the 1950s was the growing demand for Cuban bandleaders and musicians to perform at clubs. Havana's dance bands were known for their exceptional musicianship, arrangements and rhythms. Recording studios in the city operated at full tilt to turn out recordings of these bands for the local market and export. One of those prolific Cuban bandleaders was Eusebio Santiago Azpiazu.

Born in 1891, Azpiazu changed his name to Don Mario Antobal in the 1950s for commercial purposes. As revolution neared, Antobal wanted to document the best compositions of his publishing company, just in case the music was lost or confiscated. So Antobal began to produce a series of orchestral sessions featuring the best Cuban musicians under the direction of Obdulio Morales.

As Fresh Sound's Jordi Pujol writes in his liner notes on this new three-CD release, Antobal's Cuban All-Stars:

Antobal was the creator of an intriguing and captivating new dance rhythm. It was the Bembó, which differed radically from its predecessors in that it is played in six-eight time. Morales also contributed as arranger, but so did Chico O’Farrill, Peruchín, Gilberto Valdés, and René Hernández—the best in the field.

The orchestra, made up of the best soloists on the island, handled their excellent arrangements in an exciting fashion. Don Azpiazu’s youngest, Raul Azpiazu, handled the vocals along with Gina Martin, one of Cuba’s most colorful and outstanding vedettes, on the album “Ay Caramba!” while Roberto Cordero is featured on the other three albums—“Agua! Agua!” “Día de Reyes” and “Mango Mangué.” These recordings bring us the best of the dance rhythms of Havana with the big band sound of Antobal’s All-Stars!

What's special about this three-CD set, featuring four albums, is that you're hearing dance music by top Cuban musicians recorded in Havana in the late 1950s. My guess is Antobal left Cuba right after the revolution for New York with the session tapes in hand. There, he sold them to Decca's Felsted Records, which operated out of the London Records offices in New York, to meet the Latin dance craze in New York, Los Angeles and Miami.

The albums in this set released in the U.S. were Ay Caramba, Agua Agua, Dia De Reyes and Mango Mangue. The dance heat is stunning. One can only imagine what this music must have sounded like live in a Havana club. The U.S. had its share of Latin music then by leaders including Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez and Machito (the first two were actually from Puerto Rico). But this Fresh Sound set is Cuban dance music by the Cuban artists who invented it and recorded in Havana. As authentic as it gets.

Don Mario Antobal died in New York in October 1966 at age 75.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Antobal's Cuban All-Stars (Blue Moon) here.

JazzWax clips: Here's Este E' Mi Mambo...

Este E' Mi Mambo

Here's Un Viejo Balcon...

Un Viejo Balcon

And here's Cuban Blues...

Cuban Blues