DON’T MISS CHRIS (DAWSON)!

Artists rarely get paid in relation to how beautifully they create or how much their art pleases us — but if that were the case, the subtly brilliant pianist Chris Dawson would be a wealthy man.

Here’s the evidence, twice:

Victor Young’s aptly named BEAUTIFUL LOVE*:

A souvenir from Fats Waller’s 1939 London sojourn, PICCADILLY:

So, as you can easily hear, Mr. Dawson is a man of many talents: he can sweetly rhapsodize in a most restrained, elegant manner — not an extra note in an hour — with a beautiful touch.  And he can swing out in the best hot manner, evoking Fats, Nat Cole, Mel Powell, Teddy Wilson . . . imitating no one, staking his own claim.

Because he is based in Southern California, Chris is — to my way of thinking — both a National Treasure and a Well-Kept Secret . . . but ask musicians about him — Jean-Francois Bonnel, Connie Jones, Tim Laughlin, Clint Baker, Dawn Lambeth, Dan Barrett, Hal Smith — and they will agree with me.

If you find yourself deep down South (down Santa Monica way) in the next few days, Chris is playing two gigs . . .

The “South Bay Swing Combo” will be appearing this Friday night, August 10, beginning at 6:30PM, at DeLuca Trattoria,  225 Richmond Street,  El Segundo, California: 310.640.7600.  Musicians who have eaten there say the food is delicious and the atmosphere relaxed.  Chris will be playing with two fine improvisers: Bryan Shaw, trumpet; Albert Alva, reeds.

The other appearance is a solo recital on Sunday, August 12, at 5:00pm in PDT at Mt Olive Lutheran Church Elca, on 1343 Ocean Park Boulevard in Santa Monica, California 90405.  The telephone number is 310.452.1116.

I’m beginning the one-man JAZZ LIVES campaign to make sure that everyone hears Chris and that wise concert / party / festival promoters put his name at the top of their lists.  Anyone want to join me in this endeavor?

*As an experiment, play BEAUTIFUL LOVE for someone who can’t see the screen or identify Chris.  Ask the listener who’s playing — my guess is that all sorts of august names (Tommy Flanagan, Hank Jones, Bill Evans) will come up — which is praise for Chris and more evidence that he should be better known.

May your happiness increase. 

SWINGING AT LE COLONIAL with ROB REICH, KALLY PRICE, DANNY BROWN, CLINT BAKER, ERIC GARLAND (August 2, 2012)

Le Colonial, hidden away on Cosmo Street in San Francisco, is known for its ambiance, drinks, cuisine . . . and intriguing music.  Last Thursday night I made my way there to hear a small group led by the inventive pianist / accordionist Rob Reich — with the soulful Kally Price on vocals — with reedman Danny Brown, drummer Eric Garland, and the reliably swinging Clint Baker on string bass.

Readers of JAZZ LIVES will know how much I admire the independent spirits Kally, Rob, and Clint — individualists each paddling their way upstream and sharing the surprises with us.  Rob continued to approach his keyboards from unexpected angles, the results energetic and full of feeling.  I distrust the accordion, having had a childhood involvement with that cumbersome instrument, but Rob has clearly left both left-hand chugging and melodrama behind him (in the case, no doubt).  And his piano work sounds like something heard in the right small club in 1946.

Clint swings the band no matter what he’s doing there — leading it on trumpet, supporting it on bass, tuba, drums, guitar, banjo . . . singing . . . and so on.  And what an eloquent soloist he is!

Kally Price is dramatic without artifice, searching for meaning, unwilling to sing any song if one phrase feels false to her, going beneath the comfortable surfaces of the familiar popular twists and turns to extract deep feeling. Hear what she does, for instance, with the verse of BORN TO LOVE or the whole of IT’S THE TALK OF THE TOWN.

Danny Brown and Eric Garland were new to me, but they provided musical conversion experiences.  As the evening progressed, Danny moved from a lazy late-Lester approach to a more assertive stance, suggesting that Jacquet and Dexter had returned to their California haunts.  He didn’t walk the bar or carry on, but his rough, dark energies were irresistible.  And Eric, playing wire brushes for most of the evening, just swung in his own way — not loud or overbearing, but reliably forceful with a beautiful steadiness in his time.

Here are some highlights.

STOMPIN’ AT THE SAVOY — not too fast but certainly compelling from the first beat:

A Latin-flavored COCKTAILS FOR TWO with just a hint of ironic amusement — a Jazz Mojito with a twenty-first century twist:

Kally’s version of BORN TO LOVE, inspired by Billie Holiday but darker, more passionately raw:

RUSSIAN LULLABY, which made no one sleepy:

GETTING SOME FUN OUT OF LIFE, again thanks to Billie but taken quite seriously:

I associated THE DUMMY SONG with a 1953 performance by Louis, but I hadn’t known that the song dated back to 1925 — by Lew Brown, Billy Rose, and Ray Henderson.  The story is told in the verses: Johnny, a returning soldier, surely from the Great War, finds his sweetheart is unfaithful to him — first with a sergeant, than a colonel — so he sings this vindictive song:

A SMOOTH ONE, homage to Charlie Christian and tenor saxophonists who glide without forgetting how to be a little rough:

An utterly impassioned reading of IT’S THE TALK OF THE TOWN that dwells much more on the rejection, the slight, than it blithely suggests that the romance can be saved:

May your happiness increase.

ATLANTA 2012: MR. SPORTIELLO and MR. SHANE AT THE PIANO (April 22, 2012)

A delicious interchange from the last afternoon of the 2012 Atlanta Jazz Party — Mark Shane and Rossano Sportiello, swing piano masters of subtlety and power, alternating at one piano.

Mark begins with Fats Waller’s AIN’T CHA GLAD? — surely a rhetorical question in these circumstances:

Rossano offers his “Town” medley, more swinging than a discourse on urban planning: IT’S THE TALK OF THE TOWN / CHINATOWN, MY CHINATOWN:

Remembering the beauty of the Basie band when it touched ground for a Herschel Evans rhapsody, Mark tenderly essays BLUE AND SENTIMENTAL:

Quietly announcing his continued good fortune, Rossano plays Bernstein’s LUCKY TO BE ME:

Mark offers a composition of his own, HOMEWARD BOUND:

And the two swing masters team up for a striding game of musical benches, ALL GOD’S CHILLUN GOT RHYTHM:

What a swell party the 2012 Atlanta Jazz Party was!  And the 2013 version will have Warren Vache, Dan Barrett, John Sheridan, and Ken Peplowski among the creative merry-makers . . .

May your happiness increase.