This post celebrates no anniversary in the brief life of Bix Beiderbecke: it’s always a good time to honor the man, the music, and “his era,” which this stellar band did at the Bern Jazz Festival in 1993.
Randy Sandke, cornet; Dan Barrett, trombone, trumpet-1; Ken Peplowski, clarinet; Scott Robinson, bass saxophone, C-melody saxophone; cornet-1; Mark Shane, piano; Marty Grosz, guitar, vocal*; Linc Milliman, string bass, tuba; Dave Ratajczak, drums. Bern Jazz Festival 1993.
Four or five excerpts from this concert have been posted on YouTube by various people, but I believe this is the first presentation of the complete concert in the best sound and clarity.
FIDGETY FEET / MY PRETTY GIRL (1) / SINGIN’ THE BLUES – I’M COMIN’ VIRGINIA / CHANGES* / MISSISSIPPI MUD in German* / THERE AIN’T NO SWEET MAN THAT’S WORTH THE SALT OF MY TEARS* / BECAUSE MY BABY DON’T MEAN ‘MAYBE’ NOW* / IN A MIST (Shane) – CANDLELIGHTS / SORRY / WAIT ‘TILL YOU SEE ‘MA CHERIE’ (Barrett, Shane, Millman) / RIVERBOAT SHUFFLE / CHINA BOY (Peplowski, Shane, Ratajczak) / I’LL BE A FRIEND ‘ WITH PLEASURE’* / AT THE JAZZ BAND BALL / Encore: CLARINET MARMALADE // Interview with Marty Grosz //
Note: this band recorded a longer tribute to Bix and his era in Hamburg, Germany, on May 1, 1993, which was issued on CD as “The Bix Beiderbecke Era,” Nagel-Heyer (G)CD002 [CD] and as part of (G) CD008, “Jazz at the Musikhalle.”
Gorgeous thoughtful hot and pensive music: a model performance that honors the past and stands on its own.
Three I’s: IMPORTANT, IRREPLACEABLE, and INEXPENSIVE.
But I’ll let Dan Levinson explain it all to us.
In 1992, legendary record producer George Avakian produced an album in homage to the pioneers of 1920s Chicago Jazz, known as The Austin High Gang, who had been among his most powerful influences when his love for jazz was developing. Those pioneers included Frank Teschemacher, Eddie Condon, Jimmy McPartland, Bud Freeman, Muggsy Spanier, Joe Sullivan, Gene Krupa, and others. Avakian’s 1992 recording featured two bands: one, directed by pianist Dick Hyman, which played Hyman’s note-for-note re-creations of the original recordings; and a second band, led by clarinetist Kenny Davern, which played its own interpretations of songs associated with the Chicago Jazz style, keeping the SPIRIT of the original artists close at hand. I was in the Teschemacher role in Hyman’s band, and had never been in a recording studio before.Avakian financed the whole project, but, sadly, was never able to find a label that was wiling to reimburse his cost and put the album out. The last time I went to visit George, in June of 2017, I asked him about the album again. Then 98 years old, he was clearly disappointed that it never came out, and he asked me to continue his search for a label and to “get it issued”. I exhausted my resources at the time, and wasn’t able to make it happen before George passed away several months later. Three years later, Bryan Wright, founder of Rivermont Records, rode in to save the day. And this month – thirty years after the original recording session took place – Avakian’s dream project is finally coming out on Bryan’s label as “One Step to Chicago: The Legacy of Frank Teschemacher and The Austin High Gang”. Bryan has – literally – spared no expense in assembling a beautiful package, which is actually a CD inside a booklet rather than a booklet inside a CD. I’ve written extensive liner notes detailing every aspect of the project, and there are also written contributions from author/record producer Hank O’Neal, guitarist Marty Grosz, and drummer Hal Smith, a specialist in Chicago Jazz style. I was able to track down the original photos from the recording session, and Bryan’s booklet includes a generous selection of them. I want to gratefully acknowledge the help of archivist Matt Snyder, cover artist Joe Busam (who designed the album cover based on Avakian’s 1940 78rpm album “Decca Presents an Album of Chicago Jazz”), the family of George Avakian, Hank O’Neal, Maggie Condon, and the New York Public Library, whose help in making this happen was invaluable.The album features a truly spectacular lineup of artists, including, in various combinations: Peter Ecklund, Jon-Erik Kellso, Dick Sudhalter, Dan Barrett, Ken Peplowski, Dick Hyman, Marty Grosz, Howard Alden, Bob Haggart, Milt Hinton, Vince Giordano, Arnie Kinsella, and Tony DeNicola.
The CD and digital download are available on the Rivermont Records website here. A vinyl version – a two-record set, in fact – will be available later this month.
And here is Rivermont founder (and superb pianist) Bryan Wright’s story of ONE STEP TO CHICAGO.
The details.
“Dick Hyman and his Frank Teschemacher Celebration Band” (Ecklund, Sudhalter, Kellso, Barrett, Levinson, Peplowski, Hyman, Grosz, Haggart, Giordano, Kinsella) play / recreate classic Chicago recordings from the Golden Era of free-wheeling jazz: ONE STEP TO HEAVEN / SUGAR / I’VE FOUND A NEW BABY / CHINA BOY / LIZA (Condon, not Gershwin) / SHIM-ME-SHA-WABBLE: eighteen minutes in the most divine Hot Time Machine.
and “Kenny Davern and his Windy City Stompers” (Davern, Kellso, Barrett, Hyman, Alden, Hinton, DeNicola) going for themselves on THE DARKTOWN STRUTTERS’ BALL / WABASH BLUES / NOBODY’S SWEETHEART / THE JAZZ ME BLUES / BABY, WON’T YOU PLEASE COME HOME? / INDIANA.
and — a bonus — a nearly nine-minute excursion on FAREWELL BLUES by the combined bands.
But I can hear someone saying, “Enough with the facts. How does it SOUND, Michael?” To which I respond without hesitation, “It sounds terrific. Finest kind. It delivers the goods — sonically, emotionally, and heatedly.”
I will give pride of place to the writers / scholars whose words and reminiscences fill the eighty-page booklet (complete with wonderful photographs) Dick Hyman, Hank O’Neal, Dan Levinson, Hal Smith, and Marty Grosz, explain and elucidate, as they do beautifully, the roles of George Avakian, Eddie Condon, Bix Beiderbecke, and two dozen other saints of Hot. That booklet is both perceptive and unabashed in its love for the people and the sounds, and it is more than worth the price of admission. Unlike much jazz writing about the hallowed past, it is also delightfully free of hyperbole and something I will politely call hooey.
The CD — aside from the booklet — has two wonderful selves. The first six performances are evocations of the original, classic, recordings, with musicians who know the originals by heart working from expert transcriptions by the Master, Dick Hyman. The business of “re-creation” is difficult, and I have gotten into trouble in the past when pointing out that in some cases it feels impossible. Great art comes hot from the toaster; it is innovative, imagined for the first time in those minutes in the recording studio. So re-creation requires both deep emotional understanding of the individuals involved, the aesthetic air they breathed, and expert sleight-of-hand to make a listener believe they are hearing the ghost of Tesch rather than someone dressed up as Tesch for Halloween.
But the re-creations on this disc are as satisfying as any I’ve heard, more than simply playing the dots on the page, but dramatically assuming the characters of the heroes we revere. They are passionate rather than stiff, and wonderfully translucent: when Ken Peplowski plays a Bud Freeman chorus, we hear both Bud and Ken trotting along in delightful parallel.
I confess that the second half of this disc makes my eyes bright and my tail wag: it isn’t “hell-for-leather” or “take no prisoners,” or whatever cliches you like to characterize the appearance of reckless abandon. What it presents is a group of sublime improvisers bringing all their knowledge and heart to the classics of the past, playing their personalities in the best ways. And each selection reminds us that however “hot” the Chicagoans prided themselves on being, lyricism was at the heart of their performances. I cherish INDIANA, performed at a rhythm-ballad tempo by Kenny Davern, Howard Alden, Milt Hinton, and Tony DiNicola, and the other band selections are full of surprises, pleasing and reassuring both. The closing FAREWELL BLUES has all the joy of a Condon Town Hall concert, and that is no small accomplishment.
And I can’t leave this without noting how lovely the recorded sound is — applause for David Baker, Malcolm Addey, and Peter Karl. I’ve heard more than two-thirds of these performers live, often at very close range, and this disc captures their sounds, their subtleties so marvelously.
This disc is a treasure-box of sounds and homages, with lively music from present company. I predict it will spread joy, and my only encouragement would be for people to for once shun the download, because they won’t get the book. It’s the Library of Alexandria transported to 35th and Calumet.
And here are some sound samples so no one need feel that they are purchasing on faith, although faith in these musicians and these producers would be wholly warranted.
I was there, among admired friends. And the music was spectacular.
In German, it’s JAZZ IM RATHAUS — Jazz at the Town (City) Hall — but given that Louis’ 1947 Town Hall Concert shaped my life, I realign the words as tribute. The Dramatis Personae is on the green cover.
April 9, 2016. Photograph by Elke Grunwald
This was the thirtieth annual concert, a series featuring, among others, Wild Bill Davison, Kenny Davern, Marty Grosz, Ralph Sutton, Jon-Erik Kellso, Dan Barrett, Randy Sandke, Warren Vache, Bob Haggart, Mark Shane, Danny Moss, Chris Hopkins, Jake Hanna, Rossano Sportiello, Antti Sarpila, Butch Miles, Ken Peplowski . . . . All of this happened because of Manfred Selchow, known to his friends as Mannie, a deep jazz-lover, author of beautifully comprehensive studies of Ed Hall and Vic Dickenson. He’s the serious man below with both hands on the check, but don’t let that somber visage fool you: he is a warm and easy fellow.
But music is what we’re here for — two rousing selections from the final concert of the April 8-10 jazz weekend at the Rathaus. The first, LADY BE GOOD, is full of gratifying solos, ensemble telepathy, uplifting surprises. That’s Matthias Seuffert, Engelbert Wrobel, tenor saxophones; Helge Lorenz, guitar; Bert Boeren, trombone; Menno Daams, cornet; Rico Tomasso, trumpet; Bernard Flegar, later, Moritz Gastreich, drums; Nico Gastreich, string bass; Niels Unbehagen, Stephanie Trick, Paolo Alderighi, piano — doing crowd-pleasing handoffs. AND 1936 Lester! (Wait for it, as they say.)
The encore, PERDIDO, evokes JATP, with Matthias, Engelbert, Helge, Nicki Parrott on string bass; Bernard, Niels, Stephanie, Paolo, Rico, Menno, and Bert:
Someday, sweethearts, we shall meet again. And thanks for the lovely sounds.
Here’s something for the intellectual puzzle-solvers in the JAZZ LIVES audience.
One.
Two.
Three.
Kenny Davern, Yank Lawson, Connie Jones, Pee Wee Erwin, Doc Cheatham, Chuck Folds, George Masso, Don Goldie, Johnny Varro, Jon-Erik Kellso, Paul Keller, Ed Polcer, Eddie Higgins, Marty Grosz, Bill Allred, Bob Schulz, Bobby Rosengarden, Milt Hinton, Brian Torff, Johnny Frigo, Peter Ecklund, John Sheridan, Brian Holland, Rebecca Kilgore, Dan Barrett, Eddie Erickson, Ken Peplowski, Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, the Fat Babies, and more.
Figured it out? The answers, although indirect, are below, and they relate to the Juvae Jazz Society and the Central Illinois Jazz Festival: the story of their inception is here.
I confess that Decatur, Illinois has really never loomed large in my vision of bucket-list places. But I have been terribly myopic about this for the past quarter-century. Consider the poster below, please:
The Juvae Jazz Society is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary, and rather than expecting people to bring them silver plates and candelabra, they are throwing a one-day jazz party, which you might have understood from the poster above. (The list of musicians is just some of the notables who have played and sung for them in the last quarter-century.)
Although I admire Petra van Nuis and Andy Brown immensely, I’ve never had a chance to hear Petra and the Recession Seven live. The Chicago Cellar Boys are one of my favorite bands and would even be so if Dave Bock wore a more sedate bow tie. Other surprises are possible as well.
No, JAZZ LIVES is not going away. Â Nor is there some crisis. Â Nor am I asking for money. Â However, I would like my viewers to devote themselves to what follows, which will take perhaps ten minutes.
That man is pianist Junior Mance, born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1928. Â Before he was twenty, he had begun recording with the stars we revere: Gene Ammons, Howard McGhee, Lester Young, Sonny Stitt, Dinah Washington, Clark Terry, Paul Gonsalves, Clifford Brown, Maynard Ferguson, Israel Crosby, Chubby Jackson, Art Blakey, Johnny Griffin, Cannonball Adderley, Sam Jones, Nat Adderley, Jimmy Cobb, Carmen McRae, Wilbur Ware, Bob Cranshaw, James Moody, Jimmy Cleveland, Bill Crow, Art Taylor, Dizzy Gillespie (he’s on the duet with Louis of UMBRELLA MAN), Leo Wright, Harry Lookofsky, Lockjaw Davis, Johnny Coles, Ray Crawford, Paul Chambers, Bennie Green, George Coleman, Eddie Jefferson, Louis Jordan, Irene Kral, Joe Williams, Coleman Hawkins, Zoot Sims, Ben Webster, Kenny Burrell, Mannie Klein, Shelley Manne, Etta Jones, Benny Carter, Jim Hall, Joe Newman, Milt Hinton, Richard Davis, Frank Wess, Wilbur Little, Jimmy Scott, Marion Williams, Les McCann, Dexter Gordon, George Duvivier, Carrie Smith, Ken Peplowski, Howard Alden, Milt Jackson, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Al Grey, Houston Person, Joe Temperley, Benny Golson, Jay Leonhart, Jackie Williams, Andrew Hadro . . . and I know I’ve left two dozen people out.
Next, in the world of jazz, one would expect a tribute. Â Or an obituary. Or both.
But not a love story, which is what follows.
A few days ago, I was contacted by Sarit Work, co-producer of SUNSET AND THE MOCKINGBIRD, a not-yet-finished documentary about Junior and his wife, Gloria Clayborne Mance. Â They have created a Kickstarter to help them finish the documentary. Â The headline is “The love story of jazz legend Junior Mance and Gloria Clayborne Mance. As he loses his identity to dementia she reckons with her own.”
Being a man (although this may not be typical of my gender) I have less ability to cope with illness than women I know. Â It’s terribly irrational, but I cringe at visiting people in hospitals, visiting the ailing, the dying . . . and so on. Â There must be a name for this — call it “testosterone terror”? — which makes people like me hide under the couch, if possible. Â Or in the car. Â And dementia is especially frightening, because I am closer to being a senior citizen than ever before. Â But Sarit was very politely persuasive, so I watched the trailer.
And it hit me right in the heart.
Junior has a hard time remembering, and he knows this. But he knows he loves Gloria. Â And Gloria, for her part, is a lighthouse beacon of steady strong love. Â It is not a film about forgetting who you are so much as it is a film about the power of devotion.
So I urge you — and “urge” is not a word I use often — to watch the trailer, and if you are moved, to help the project along. Â It will be a powerful film, and I think that helping this project is very serious good karma. Â Maybe it will protect us a few percent?
Here is the link. Yes, the filmmakers need a substantial amount of money.  But anything is possible.  And, yes, I’ve already contributed.  And from this day (or night) the filmmakers have only EIGHT days to raise the sum they need.  So please help — in the name of jazz, in the name of love, or both.  In my dictionary, the two are synonyms.
I attended my first version of this party (it was then held in upstate New York and called JAZZ AT CHAUTAUQUA) in September 2004, and I wandered around in a dream-state, astonished by the music and the musicians, many of whom I’d heard for years but hadn’t been able to speak to in person. Â And as a journalistic aside, the very first blogpost I wrote here — in early 2008 — was called GOIN’ TO CHAUTAUQUA — so this party and this blog have had a long cozy relationship.
A few years ago the party moved itself to Cleveland, Ohio, and reinvented itself — thanks to Nancy Griffith and Kathy Hancock — as the CLEVELAND CLASSIC JAZZ PARTY. Here is the event’s Facebook page.
In a world where jazz festivals get bigger and bigger and then sink without a trace, the CCJP is going strong. Â From Thursday, September 14, to Sunday, September 17, 2017, music will be joyous and triumphant in comfortable surroundings among friends. Â And the music is solid Mainstream, with no gimmicks — which you could expect, given the roster of performers. Â The flyer I am looking at has, in small type, “Roster and Schedule subject to change,” but I think the players are fairly certain, barring attack by androids or arachnids.
On cornet / trumpet, Duke Heitger, Randy Reinhart, Andy Schumm; on trombone, Dan Barrett; on reeds, Dan Block, Ken Peplowski, Scott Robinson; on guitar / banjo, Howard Alden, Andy Brown; on piano, Ehud Asherie, James Dapogny, John Di Martino, Rossano Sportiello; on string bass, Joel Forbes, Nicki Parrott, Frank Tate; on drums, Ricky Malichi, Pete Siers, Hal Smith; on vocal, Petra van Nuis; gypsy swing quartet, the Faux Frenchmen; historian (giving a presentation on Ella’s centennial) Phil Atteberry.
On Thursday night, there’s an informal session (for donors and weekend patrons only) that begins at 7:30. Â Friday begins with Phil Atteberry’s presentation on Ella (10:30-11:30) and then there are piano solos from 2-4 and an evening set from 5:30-11 and an hour’s set — anything goes — in the “Jazz Club.” Â Saturday, music from 10-2 and again from 5:30-11 and 11-12. Â Sunday, 9-1:30. Â My math won’t stand the strain, but that is a great deal of music. Â And as someone who feels morally committed to seeing and often recording everything, I appreciate the breaks, which give me and others time to sit and talk in tranquility.
For details — the name of the hotel, prices for individual sessions or the whole weekend, student scholarships, meals, and more, check here.
Should you go? Â I think you should, if you can:
If that swinging jazz (from left, Hal Smith, Frank Tate, Rossano Sportiello) doesn’t in some ways motivate you, I don’t know what to suggest.
Feeling lower than a snake’s belly? Â Or perhaps is “fump” the objective correlative for now? Â (Milt Hinton would be happy to explain.) Is the inside of your skull terribly dark these days?
This might help.  The elixir of life mixes the inspiring shades of Louis Armstrong and Hoagy Carmichael with the real-life inspirations offered us by Jon-Erik Kellso, Evan Arntzen, Rossano Sportiello, Frank Tate and someone holding a video camera — on December 22, 2016, at Luca’s Jazz Corner (1712 First Avenue, New York City).  There are no artistic or audible flaws in this video, but there are a few seconds where the focus blurs.  I wasn’t trying out new special effects, but the bright light from above confused the camera’s little brain.  However, blessedly, the sound is unaltered.  Hear for yourself:
Here is more evidence of the cosmic happiness that took place that night: RUNNIN’ WILD and FINE AND DANDY.  Incidentally, a young musician (I believe he plays trumpet) named Wynton Marsalis came in for the second set.  I am sure that he inspired the band, but I am even more sure that this delicious quartet inspired him as well.  As they did me.
Jon-Erik will be bringing a quartet back to Luca’s on March 23, 2017. Â I plan and hope to be there. Â You should come too. Â (Other heroes — Gabrielle Stravelli, Michael Kanan, Pat O’Leary, and Ken Peplowski — have gigs coming up.)
I had heard a great deal about the lyric troubadour Jimmy Mazzy (also a wonderful banjo player, raconteur, songhound, and more) but had never encountered him in person until late August. Â It was a phenomenal experience. No, it was two phenomenal experiences.
Jimmy was part of the Sarah Spencer Quartet: Sarah, tenor saxophone and vocals; Bill Sinclair, piano; Art Hovey, string bass and tuba — playing a gig at the wonderful Sarah’s Wine Bar in Ridgefield, Connecticut.  (Facebook calls Sarah’s a “pizza place,” which is like calling the Mona Lisa a smiling lady.)  More about Sarah’s below.
And more about the saxophone-playing / singing Sarah Spencer  in a future blogpost, with appropriate audio-visuals.
Sometimes the finest music is created when it appears no one is paying attention: the live recordings, the music that’s captured while the engineers are setting up or in between takes (WAITIN’ FOR BENNY and LOTUS BLOSSOM are two sterling examples that come to mind). Â In a few instances, I’ve brought my camera to the soundcheck or to the rehearsal because the “We’re just running this through” ambiance is a loose friendly one — shirtsleeves and microphone-adjusting rather than the musicians’ awareness of tables of expectant listeners. In that spirit, I offer Jimmy’s seriously passionate version of Lonnie Johnson’s TOMORROW NIGHT.
I think you see and feel what I mean about Jimmy as a passionate singer / actor / troubadour. Â If a maiden had Jimmy beneath her balcony, serenading like this, she would know that he was offering his whole heart to her with no restraint and no artifice yet great subtle powerful art. Â Those of us in the audience who aren’t maidens and perhaps lack a balcony can hear it too.
But Jimmy is a sly jester as well — totally in control of his audience (even though there’s a long, drawn-out “Ooooooh, no!” from Carrie Mazzy, Jimmy’s wife, at the start of this anthropological exegesis):
Jimmy Mazzy, two of a kind. Â And more. Â Irreplaceable.
And there will be more from this session.  Now, some words about the delightful locale: Sarah’s Wine Bar in Ridgefield, Connecticut, features world-class jazz music on the last Sunday of every month.  But that’s not the whole story: Ken and Marcia Needleman are deeply devoted to the art form, and they’ve been presenting it in style since 2009.  Ken is a guitar student of Howard Alden’s, and he decided that he wanted to bring top jazz musicians to perform in an intimate setting (with excellent food and fine acoustics).  They found kindred spirits in Sarah and Bernard Bouissou, restaurateur and chef of Bernard’s, one floor below the wine bar.
Thus the Jazz Masters Series began in February 2009, and I’ll mention only a double handful of the musicians who have played and sung to enthusiastic audiences: Howard Alden, Bucky Pizzarelli, Gene Bertoncini, Dick Hyman, Rossano Sportiello, Mark Shane, Frank Wess, Scott Robinson, Harry Allen, Warren Vache, Ken Peplowski, Dan Levinson, Jon-Erik Kellso, Rufus Reid, Jay Leonhart, Cameron Brown, Matt Wilson, Akira Tana, Joe LaBarbera, Mike Mainieri, Cyrille Aimee, Karrin Allyson.
The food critic who writes JAZZ LIVES wants to point out that the food was wonderful and the presentation delightful. Â Sarah’s Wine Bar would be a destination spot if the only music was the humming heard in the kitchen.
But right now I want to hear Jimmy sing TOMORROW NIGHT again.
I first became aware of Bob Byler — writer, photographer, videographer — when we both wrote for THE MISSISSIPPI RAG, but with the demise of that wonderful journalistic effusion (we still miss Leslie Johnson, I assure you) I had not kept track of him. Â But he hasn’t gone away, and he is now providing jazz viewers with hours of pleasure.
“Spill, Brother Michael!” shouts a hoarse voice from the back of the room.
As you can see in the photograph above, Bob has always loved capturing the music — and, in this case, in still photographs. Â But in 1984, he bought a video camera. Â In fact, he bought several in varying media: eight-millimeter tape, VHS, and even mini-DVDs, and he took them to jazz concerts wherever he could. Now, when he shares the videos, edits them, revisits them, he says, “I’m so visual-oriented, it’s like being at a jazz festival again without the crowd. Â It’s a lot of fun.” Â Bob told me that he shot over two thousand hours of video and now has uploaded about four hundred hours to YouTube.
Here is his flickr.com site, full of memorable closeups of players and singers. AND the site begins with a neatly organized list of videos . . .
Bob and his late wife Ruth had gone to jazz festivals all over the world — and a few cruises — and he had taken a video camera with him long before I ever had the notion.  AND he has put some four hundred hours of jazz video on YouTube on the aptly named Bob and Ruth Byler Archival Jazz Videos channel. His filming perspective was sometimes far back from the stage (appropriate for large groups) so a video that’s thirty years old might take a moment to get used to. But Bob has provided us with one time capsule after another.  And unlike the ladies and gents of 2016, who record one-minute videos on their smartphones, Bob captured whole sets, entire concerts.  Most of his videos are nearly two hours long, and there are more than seventy of them now up — for our dining and dancing pleasure.  Many of the players are recognizable, but I haven’t yet sat down and gone through forty or a hundred hours of video, so that is part of the fun — recognizing old friends and heroes.  Because (and I say this sadly) many of the musicians on Bob’s videos have made the transition, which makes this video archive, generously offered, so precious.
Here is Bob’s own introduction to the collection, which tells more than I could:
Here are the “West Coast Stars,” performing at the Elkhart Jazz Party, July 1990:
an Art Hodes quartet, also from Elkhart, from 1988:
What might have been one of Zoot Sims’ last performances, in Toledo, in 1985:
a compilation of performances featuring Spiegle Willcox (with five different bands) from 1991-1997, a tribute  Bob is particularly proud of:
from the 1988 Elkhart, a video combining a Count Basie tribute (I recognize Bucky Pizzarelli, Milt Hinton, Joe Ascione, and Doc Cheatham!) and a set by the West End Jazz Band:
a Des Moines performance by Jim Beebe’s Chicago Jazz Band featuring Judi K, Connie Jones, and Spiegle:
and a particular favorite, two sets also from Elkhart, July 1988, a Condon memorial tribute featuring (collectively) Wild Bill Davison, Tommy Saunders, Chuck Hedges, George Masso, Dave McKenna, Marty Grosz, Milt Hinton, Rusty Jones, John Bany, Wayne Jones, in two sets:
Here are some other musicians you’ll see and hear: Bent Persson, Bob Barnard, Bob Havens, the Mighty Aphrodite group, the Cakewalkin’ Jazz Band, the Mills Brothers, Pete Fountain, Dick Hyman, Peter Appleyard, Don Goldie, Tomas Ornberg, Jim Cullum, Jim Galloway, Chuck Hedges, Dave McKenna, Max Collie, the Salty Dogs, Ken Peplowski, Randy Sandke, Howard Alden, Butch Thompson, Hal Smith, the Climax Jazz Band, Ernie Carson, Dan Barrett, Banu Gibson, Tommy Saunders, Jean Kittrell, Danny Barker, Duke Heitger, John Gill, Chris Tyle, Bob Wilber, Gene Mayl, Ed Polcer, Jacques Gauthe, Brooks Tegler, Rex Allen, Bill Dunham and the Grove Street Stompers, Jim Dapogny’s Chicago Jazz Band, the Harlem Jazz Camels, and so much more, more than I can type.
Many musicians look out into the audience and see people (like myself) with video cameras and sigh: their work is being recorded without reimbursement or without their ability to control what becomes public forever. Â I understand this and it has made me a more polite videographer. Â However, when such treasures like this collection surface, I am glad that people as devoted as Bob and Ruth Byler were there. Â These videos — and more to come — testify to the music and to the love and generosity of two of its ardent supporters.
The works of art that move me the most combine and embody intelligence, warmth, playfulness, and love. Â Ken Peplowski’s new CD, ENRAPTURE (Capri Records 74141), is a shining example of what I mean.
Recorded slightly more than a year ago, this vivid and satisfying session is a portrait of a wonderful band — recorded as if at a gig but in splendid sound. Â The band is a balanced, energetic, communal organism: four individuals who listen to and support each other — Ken on clarinet and tenor; Ehud Asherie, piano; Martin Wind, string bass; Matt Wilson, drums.
And the principles behind this CD are so simple, yet often neglected in this era of “projects” and “themes”. Â I will let the writer of the elegant liner notes, Mr. Peplowski, explain: “[This CD is] my latest effort – a year or so of sifting through material, a year or so of playing with these great musicians, and very little time in the studio – we really wanted to approximate what we do in the clubs – this is us, in as close to a live setting as one could ask for in a recording environment – every song pretty much in one take – we weren’t going for a speed-recording record, we just like to capture the spontaneity and interplay of four people who enjoy making music together.”
If circumstances permitted there to be more working bands who could record sessions like this . . . but I digress.
Here’s a sonic sample — the title song of the session, composed by Herbie Nichols:
Even the casual listener will notice that this is a delightfully egalitarian melodic quartet: each player contributing an individual energy to the music, rather than a Star and a Rhythm Section. Â Each of these players is obviously a Star but the prevailing atmosphere is a friendly communality — humility and eagerness mixed as a loving offering to the Music.
And what Music! Â Although some “traditionalists” like to claim Peplowski as their own — after all, he’s recorded with tuba on the session — and then renounce him as a Dangerous Modernist, the truth is that he has a wide and delicious musical intelligence, one that embraces all kinds of music as long as it has a lively center. Â So on this CD there are songs by Harry Warren, Bernard Hermann, Barry Manilow, Noel Coward, Ellington, Fats Waller, Lennon, Leslie Bricusse, and Peter Erskine. Â There are touching ballads and ruminative introspections; there are quick, spiky ventures into apparently unknown territory; there is rollicking swing (as opposed to tributes to its fabled King — none of that here, please).
There is nothing self-conscious about the breadth of repertoire: it is a mark of an integrity that brushes away “styles and schools” in favor of deeply-felt but never pretentious creativity. Â And although Peplowski can play his horns with incredible speed, vehemence, and precision, his is a mature sensibility that does not seek to impress listeners with flash. Â Rather there is immense tenderness in his ballad playing, great intelligence and feeling throughout. Â I stand in awe of Ehud’s solo and ensemble playing, and have listened to several tracks on this disc just to hear what chords he plays behind everyone else (wow, as we say); Martin’s bass playing is always tuneful, warm, and propulsive (catch him on WILLOW TREE); Matt is a splendidly melodic percussionist in the great tradition, one that extends past the expectations of jazz performance. Â Together they are delicious.
If you want tangible reassurance that deep yet light-hearted beauty is being created and preserved in the name of Jazz (or Creative Improvised Music) as recently as last year, this is a CD to get — and savor and replay. Â I’ve taken this long to write this review because I didn’t want to take the disc out of the car player.
It’s available at all the usual places, but I urge listeners to do the ancient act of purchasing the actual CD because Ken’s liner notes are wise and to the point, rather like their writer.
Pete Neighbour (hence the title) is a wonderful clarinetist, and his new CD, BACK IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD, is a consistent delight.
Before you think, “If this fellow is so good, why haven’t I heard of him before?” put that thought to rest.  You have.  Here. And you can click here to hear some sound samples from this new CD and to learn more about this session. For those who feel disinclined to click, here are the details of the sixty-four minutes and seven seconds.  The compositions are I WANT TO BE HAPPY / BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS / I MAY BE WRONG / YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO YOUNG / OPUS ONE / COME SUNDAY / LIZA / WHAT WILL I TELL MY HEART? / TEACH ME TONIGHT / WILLOW WEEP FOR ME / A FOGGY DAY / AFTER YOU’VE GONE.  (I would start my listening session with BOULEVARD, which is a feathery, pensive masterpiece.)
The disc was recorded in London in September 2014; Pete appears with Jim Mullen, guitar; David Newton, piano; Nat Steele, vibraphone; Andrew Cleyndert, bass; Tom Gordon, drums.  Louise Cookman makes a guest vocal appearance on YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO YOUNG and WHAT WILL I TELL MY HEART?
Aside from a few rousers, the whole CD is carried off as a series of medium / medium-fast rhythm performances, where the band superbly rocks, quietly and persuasively. Â Pete himself is a great lyrical player — hear his touching COME SUNDAY, which has a dear pulse but retains its hymnlike aspect. Â And he resolutely chooses to sound like himself, although he is clearly inspired by Benny and Buddy — with a sidelong glance at Ken. Â His approach, although he has technique to make any clarinetist consider bringing the instrument in for a trade, is not in rapid-fire flurries of notes. Â Rather, Pete (in the best heroic way) constructs logical long-limbed phrases and sweet solos out of those phrases, everything fitting together in a way that sounds fully improvised but is also compositionally satisfying. Â And the tempos chosen caress the songs rather than attacking the hearer. The rest of the band is quite wonderful, and each number unfolds in its own fashion without ever being predictable. Â The session has the gentle exploratory air of a late Ruby Braff recording, as the band continually changes shape into duos and trios — with echoes of Dave McKenna and Ellis Larkins in the duets incorporating Newton’s piano. Louise Cookman, whom I’d not heard before, is a wonder: gently memorable on her two guest appearances.
This very well-produced and reassuring CD is available through the usual sources, but here is an easy place to purchase one.  Or several, from the best musical Neighbour.
I could write a long piece on the history of the West Texas Jazz Party — in Odessa, Texas — which in 2016 will celebrate its fiftieth year. Â This, for those keeping count, makes it the longest-running jazz party in existence. Â I could list the names of the luminaries who played, say, in 1980 — Red Norvo, John Best, Lou Stein, Carl Fontana, Kenny Davern, George Masso, Herb Ellis, Buddy Tate, Flip Phillips, Dave McKenna, Milt Hinton, Gus Johnson, PeeWee Erwin, Cliff Leeman, Bobby Rosengarden, John Bunch, Buddy Tate, and the still-vibrant Ed Polcer, Bucky Pizzarelli, Michael Moore, Bob Wilber.
But I think it is more important to offer the evidence: the music made at this party, which is superb Mainstream jazz. Â Here are several videos from the 2013 WTJP — they will unfold in sequence if you allow them to — featuring Ken Peplowski, Ehud Asherie, Ed Metz, Joel Forbes, Chuck Redd, Randy Sandke, and John Allred:
And the musicians themselves speak sweetly about the pleasure of attending the party and playing there (Ken, Chuck Redd, Dan Barrett, Bucky):
The superb videos — both music and interview — are the work of David Leonnig, who’s also helped inform me about the Party.
Piano: Johnny Varro, Ehud Asherie, Rossano Sportiello
Bass: Joel Forbes. Frank Tate, Nicki Parrott (vocals)
Drums: Chuck Redd (vibes), Tony Tedesco, Butch Miles
Trumpet: Ed Polcer, Warren Vache, Randy Sandke
Trombone: Dan Barrett, John Allred
Reeds: Ken Peplowski, Scott Robinson, Allan Vache
Guitar: Bucky Pizzarelli, Ed Laub (vocals)
Vocals: Rebecca Kilgore
The West Texas Jazz Party is sponsored in part by:
• The Texas Commission for the Arts
• Odessa Council for the Arts and Humanities
• The Rea Charitable Trust
Patron Tickets: $200:Â Reserved Seating for all performances and Saturday Brunch.
General Admission: Each performance $50 • Brunch $50
For Hotel Reservations, call 432-368-5885 and ask tor the Jazz Rate of $129.00. For Jazz Party or Brunch Reservations, call 432-552-8962. The WTJP now is accepting credit cards or make a check payable to: West Texas Jazz Society • P.O. Box 10832 • Midland, Texas 79702.
It looks as if a good time will be had by all. For the forty-ninth consecutive year!
If you are reading this in the Northeast United States, you might be coming out of a sustained depression caused by several weeks of snow and cold. Â It’s all melting, and I feel a thaw in my psyche. Â There’s something about seeing the sidewalk that gives me hope.
What better way to celebrate our survival — that we didn’t have to break open the pemmican — than with some free heartfelt jazz coming tomorrow, Monday, March 9, at 7:30 PM, in New York City?
I said free. But you do have to RSVP them. The venue is the JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Avenue, New York 10023, and the event is being put on by the Balassi Institute.
Revisit the music of Louis Armstrong and Joe Murányi as interpreted by the cream of today’s trad jazz scene! Joe Murányi (1928-2012), affectionately called “Hungarian Joe” by his bandleader, the great Louis Armstrong, was not just a traditional jazz clarinetist extraordinaire, but a record producer, activist and jazz writer. Born to Jewish Hungarian parents, his legacy is a testament to the cultural impact of immigrants of Hungary to the United States.
The performance is free, seating guaranteed only with RSVP to the Eventbrite page.  (Here is the Eventbrite link.)
You will notice that the band is a version of our beloved EarRegulars, and it is a rare chance to hear them in a concert setting.
I’ll be there, but I take up only one seat — which means there might be room for more of the faithful.
Imagine an interval where the band plays that 1929 pop hit, LIVE FOR TODAY (But Think of Tomorrow).
To think too much of September 2015 would be to rush away the joys of spring and summer to come, but it’s always nice to make plans, to have something rare to look forward to.  So I urge you to make a small space in your thoughts for the second annual Allegheny Jazz Party — taking place September 10-13, at the Inter-Continental Hotel and Conference Center in Cleveland, Ohio.  I was a very happy audience member (and camera-operator) at last year’s event, which was just like the hallowed Jazz at Chautauqua . . . but even better — under the benignly serious guidance of Nancy Griffith and Nancy Hancock.
The musicians? How about Duke Heitger, Jon-Erik Kellso, Randy Reinhart, Andy Schumm, Harry Allen, Dan Block, Ken Peplowski, Scott Robinson, Bill Allred, Dan Barrett, Howard Alden, Marty Grosz, Ehud Asherie, James Dapogny, Mike Greensill, Rossano Sportiello, Jon Burr, Nicki Parrott, Frank Tate, Ricky Malichi, Pete Siers, Hal Smith, Andy Stein, Rebecca Kilgore, Wesla Whitfield, the Faux Frenchmen. Â Our friend Phil Atteberry will be giving a morning talk on the music of Cole Porter.
For more information, visit the AJSÂ website, or call 216-956-0886. And if you’re like me — an eager early adopter of such things, the Inter-Continental Cleveland Hotel is at 9801 Carnegie Avenue . . . and there is a special rate of $189 per night plus tax. Â (It’s a very comfortable hotel, I assure you.) Â Call 855-765-8709 and mention the Allegheny Jazz Party or Group Code YON to receive the special rate.
In my deepest jazz self, I hold to what I would call the Condon aesthetic: that nothing beats a group of like-minded musicians assembling for a common purpose — creating swinging lyrical improvisations — on the spot, with no arrangements, nothing more formal than a mutually agreed-upon song, tempo, key, and perhaps someone volunteering to play lead in the first chorus. Â After that, the players live utterly in the moment. Â Sometimes this freedom makes for collisions, but more often it results in the kind of pleasure one lives for, the moments when the tight collars have been unbuttoned, the painfully fashionable shoes have been kicked off.
Last September, at the Allegheny Jazz Party (debuting with great success in Cleveland, Ohio) these impromptu delights happened many times in the three-day banquet of sounds. Â But one session has remained in my mind as a high point of playful unfettered collective improvisation — a trio set led by Dan Levinson, clarinet and tenor, with two of The Singular Elders, Bob Havens, trombone; Keith Ingham, piano. Â The combination of a reed instrument and trombone works beautifully but isn’t often attempted these days. Â There were bebop precursors and swing ones, but the tonal ranges of the two instruments are delightfully complementary. Â The trio of piano and two horns requires a certain orchestral approach to the piano, although I am sure that Monk or Herbie Nichols would have done splendidly here, too — but Keith is a full band in himself.
With pleasure, then —
(WHAT CAN I SAY, DEAR ) AFTER I SAY I’M SORRY:
SEPTEMBER SONG:
A SHANTY IN OLD SHANTY TOWN:
Thank you, Messrs. Dan, Bob, and Keith.
And, although it’s only January, the 2015 Allegheny Jazz Party is a sure thing for September 10-13, with a delightful lineup (although there is the asterisk that indicates “All programs subject to change”: Duke Heitger, Jon-Erik Kellso, Randy Reinhart, Andy Schumm, Harry Allen, Dan Block, Ken Peplowski, Scott Robinson, Bill Allred, Dan Barrett, Howard Alden, Marty Grosz, Andy Stein, Ehud Asherie, James Dapogny, Mike Greensill, Rossano Sportiello, Jon Burr, Nicki Parrott, Frank Tate, Ricky Malichi, Pete Siers, Hal Smith, Rebecca Kilgore, Wesla Whitfield, Faux Frenchmen.  To keep up to date with what’s happening at the AJP, visit here.
Mildred Bailey once sang, “If you miss me, you’ll be missing the Acme Fast Freight.” Â I don’t know enough about railroad / steam train mythology to even pretend to interpret the seriousness of that metaphor, but I do know this.
On Thursday, December 5, in Portland, Oregon, a remarkable small jazz happening is going to take place at Classic Pianos: a concert by the peerless singer Rebecca Kilgore, trombone / cornet master / arranger / composer / singer Dan Barrett, and pianist Paolo Alderighi. Â
This trio will be performing songs that will appear on their next CD. Â Classic Pianos (the space) is an intimate room and a good number of tickets have already been sold. Â
If this sounds to some like more JAZZ LIVES shameless sleeve-tugging, you can take it as such if you choose. Â But if three of the finest musicians now improvising were going to give a quiet concert . . . and you found out only when it was over, wouldn’t you be annoyed?
So I am trying to save you such irksome moments of kicking yourself (always a nasty business, whether you connect or not) and encourage you, if you live within reach of 3003 SE Milwaukie Ave, Portland, Oregon 97202, to join in on the pleasure.  From what I have heard, this concert will sell out.  The doors open at 7 PM; the concert begins at 7:30 PM.  Tickets are $15 apiece (less than a CD) and can be purchased online here.
And here is the Facebook page for the event.  And an Event it is.  If I have to explain to JAZZ LIVES readers who Miss Kilgore, Mister Barrett, and Mister Alderighi are . . . some of you have not been taking proper notes!
This version of the Rebecca Kilgore Trio is making a rare Portland appearance, but any appearance by these three inventive musicians is a delight. Â Rebecca calls Portland home, but Paolo has traveled from Milan and Dan from southern California for this. Â (Me, I have traveled from New York by way of Novato and San Diego but I would not miss this concert.)
Paolo has performed all over the world and is admired by many jazz greats including Ken Peplowski and Bucky Pizzarelli.  He is an astonishing musician, as I have written here.  Dan Barrett has been amazing and reassuring us since the late Seventies — with Benny Goodman, Ruby Braff, Howard Alden, Scott Hamilton, Rosemary Clooney, Joe Bushkin, Buck Clayton and Bobby Short. Rebecca was a wellspring of sweet swinging melody when I first heard her at the end of the last century and she keeps getting finer.  Usually she’s at Carnegie Hall or in Europe: this is a rare chance to catch this trio in a small quiet room, making small-group swing music come alive with love and wit.
For more information, contact Peggie Zackery at Classic Pianos:
I had a great deal of trouble writing this review of the new duo CD by pianist Dick Hyman and clarinetist / saxophonist Ken Peplowski because I didn’t want to take the disc out of the car player. Â (So the punchline here is: BUY SEVERAL.)
Years ago, Dick recorded a solo album for Monmouth-Evergreen with the title GENIUS AT PLAY (and a cover image of an orange road-construction sign). Â The people at Victoria Records, bless them, decided that GENIUSES AT PLAY wasn’t a good title, so the disc is called simply LIVE AT THE KITANO — a selection of titles created on the spot by Dick and Ken in 2012.
I know that in the swirling maelstrom that I might whimsically call “the jazz marketplace,” a disc such as this has a good deal of competition. Â On the surface, it doesn’t “push the envelope”; it doesn’t “transcend old frontiers”; it isn’t “cutting edge.”
But those terms, so beloved of the most extreme publicists, are irrelevant here, because what Dick and Ken do is explore, improvise, and play, all beautifully. They are masters of “tonation and phrasing,” which is to say that they play melodic lines with warmth, intelligence, and humor — they know, for instance, how to pace out the notes of BLUE ROOM so that the upward leaps of the melody sound wistful rather than mechanical. Â To make an instrument speak and sing is not easy, but they do it in ways that amaze other players.
And when they get together in duet, magic results: a playful conversation that both fits and expands the mood of the song without tricks or gimmicks. Â I keep returning to the idea of PLAY — a word that means more than the logo on top of a button on a digital answering machine — for Hyman and Peplowski, because they are brave, carefree, and wise in their joyous romps or musical experiments. Â No atonality, no showing-off-for-its-own-sake, but the sweet assurance of wise players who know what they can do in the service of Song. Â And they are clearly inspired by one another: Hyman has always been a gentle sparkplug, someone who sweetly and gently encourages exploring, and Peplowski fears nothing. Â Even critics who keep insisting that he sounds like Benny.
The repertoire is wide and imaginative, but always strongly based in melodies: BLUE ROOM, GONE WITH THE WIND, I MEAN YOU, YELLOW DOG BLUES, LUCKY TO BE ME, THE WORLD IS WAITING FOR THE SUNRISE, UGLY BEAUTY, MY SHIP, LOVER COME BACK TO ME – QUICKSILVER.
Ken plays tenor on WIND and LOVER — most beautifully, I might add. And although the session was recorded live in a room with people and glasses, the occasional rustles aren’t distracting — rather, they enhance.
The disc is issued by Victoria Records; it’s VC 4393, and it’s a masterpiece. Better yet, it’s deeply moving music and great fun. All at the same time.
In doing research for this blogpost, I also found a treasure previously unknown (by me): E PLURIBUS DUO, the predecessor Hyman-Peplowski CD primarily devoted to songs composed by jazz musicians: GODCHILD, ANOUMAN, THE RED DOOR, WALTZ FOR DEBBY, LITTLE DOGS, TWOSOME, VIGNATTE, OH LOOK AT ME NOW, THE CUP-BEARERS, SEGMENT, I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS (two versions), DREAMS, TWO-PLAY FREE-PLAY. Â It’s Victoria Records VC 4379.
Dick Hyman not only makes beautiful surprising music on his own — as he has for sixty years — but he attracts the best musicians in surprising combinations. Â Here are two recent pairings that couldn’t be better.
One CD joins Dick and the singer Heather Masse for a program of introspective ballads — with one surprise, a frisky reading of I’M GONNA LOCK MY HEART with Heather becoming her own cross between Mae Questel and Fats Waller. Â Masse is a deep-voiced marvel, someone truly in touch with the songs — and what songs! Â BEWITCHED / LULLABY OF BIRDLAND / SINCE I FELL FOR YOU / OUR LOVE IS HERE TO STAY / SEPTEMBER SONG / LOST IN THE STARS / LOVE FOR SALE / IF I CALLED YOU / I GOT IT BAD AND THAT AIN’T GOOD / A FLOWER IS A LOVESOME THING / MORNING DRINKER / I’M GONNA LOCK MY HEART (AND THROW AWAY THE KEY). Â Hyman is, as ever, the most brilliant of piano accompanists.
You can obtain the CD here from Red House Records or here from Dick’s site.
Here’s Heather from the January 29, 2011 PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION — with a tender reading of the Ralph Rainger – Leo Robin JUNE IN JANUARY:
The second disc is more unusual but exceedingly beautiful — a series of duets (plus a friend or two) for Dick and his daughter, Judy, a fine fiddler and composer — who is responsible for the lovely waltzes on the disc. Â It’s not always what you’d expect — melancholy in ways that mix Brahms and folk song — but it is music that lingers in the memory for a long time. Â I kept returning to the CD, and there’s no greater tribute.
Here’s the  evocative RALPH’S WATCH:
And SAVE A THOUGHT (in a very beautifully done film by Becky Lane):
And should any rigorous readers worry that octogenarian Hyman has “left jazz piano behind,” his two nights earlier in 2013 at the Kitano (Park Avenue and 38th Street, New York City) in duet with Ken Peplowski were evidence to the contrary. Â I wasn’t there, but heard ecstatic comments from a few people who were there — SRO, by the way — and the duo has recorded another CD, to be released in the near future. Â
Dick’s stature as a jazz pianist hasn’t been in doubt since the late Forties . . . and neither has his reputation as the great explicator of the art form. Â With the help of the much-missed Mat Domber of Arbors Records, Dick created a multiple CD / DVD set, A CENTURY OF JAZZ PIANO. Â
A new book and DVD combination, published by Hal Leonard, DICK HYMAN’S CENTURY OF JAZZ PIANO — TRANSCRIBED! is a welcome extension of that first impulse. Â With clear examples in a large-scale readable format, the gifted or diligent player can follow Dick from the cakewalk to McCoy Tyner in 157 pages. Â Now, get to work!
Here’s the Master, himself, doing what he does so beautifully — inventing variations on I CAN’T GET STARTED and I GOT PLENTY OF NUTTIN’ for almost fourteen minutes. Â Recorded in January 2010 at the second Arbors Jazz Party:
For the closing set at Feinstein’s at the Regency on Sunday, June 10, 2012, Harry Allen and his noble friends chose some easy-to-love jazz classics with an Ellingtonian flavor. The only sad thing about this music and this posting is that it is the last one from that glorious evening . . . but we can get ready in our heads and on our calendars for the Autumn series of happy nights.
For now, here’s Harry, tenor; Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet; Joe Temperley, baritone sax; Rossano Sportiello, piano; Joel Forbes, string bass; Chuck Riggs, drums: jazz aristocrats who are never too proud to swing, to play the blues, to roll up their sleeves and venture into I GOT RHYTHM.
Here’s that classic, circa 1925, SWEET GEORGIA BROWN:
THESE FOOLISH THINGS:
Ben Webster’s line on IN A MELLOTONE (based on ROSE ROOM), titled DID YOU CALL HER TODAY? — which builds and builds:
And finally — a rousing romp with that Rhythmic rabbit, COTTONTAIL:
And here’s the Autumn 2012 schedule — all Monday nights. Mark them down!
September 10th: (Harry and the young saxophone masters!) Luigi Grasso, Jesse Davis, Harry Allen, Rossano Sportiello, Joel Forbes, Chuck Riggs.
October 8th: (Harry and splendid singers!) Lynn Roberts, Rebecca Kilgore, Nicki Parrott, Mike Renzi, Harry Allen, Joel Forbes, Chuck Riggs.
November 5th: (Harry and the jazz masters!) Bucky Pizzarelli, Ken Peplowski, John Allred, Bill Allred, Rossano Sportiello, Joel Forbes, Chuck Riggs.
December 2nd: (Harry and the jazz masters, continued!) George Wein and the Newport All Stars
Harry Allen is one of those rare musicians who needs only his horn to get something started — but when he’s joined by Chuck Riggs (drums), Joel Forbes (string bass), and Rossano Sportiello, a delicious combination of excitement and relaxation fills the room. This happened once again on Sunday, June 10, 2012, at Feinstein’s (the comfortable club nestled within Loews Regency, 540 Park Avenue, New York City). Harry and his friends were there — thanks to Mat and Rachel Domber, the generous spirits responsible for so much good music through Arbors Records and live concerts.
It was a privilege to be there, and the Beloved and I basked in the warm, friendly atmosphere of that room — and the warm creativity of the players. And for the first time, I was allowed to video-record the evening, so consider yourself invited to the extraordinary musical scene created magically by Harry and friends — with surprises to come.
Harry began the evening with a loping performance of CHEEK TO CHEEK that would have pleased Fred, Ginger, and Mr. Berlin as well:
Then, something really pretty — a pensive reading of Kern’s SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES that, surprising us all, segued into a rollicking I WANT TO BE HAPPY with the first of several extraordinary outings from our hero Rossano at the piano:
The familiar anthem of hipness, SATIN DOLL:
And A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP (with such beautiful support from Joel and Chuck):
A tender MY FOOLISH HEART (did the SATIN DOLL prove fickle?):
Harry closed off the first set — a satisfying offering of jazz — with the always-delicious (Basie-flavored) BLUES, this time in Ab:
Harry and friends have been a regular attraction on the first Monday of every month — for over a year now. (The Sunday, June 10, date was an exception.) They will return on the first Monday of September with more good sounds and special guests. Here’s the schedule:
September 10th: (Harry and the young saxophone masters!)Â Luigi Grasso, Jesse Davis, Harry Allen, Rossano Sportiello, Joel Forbes, Chuck Riggs.
October 8th: (Harry and splendid singers!)Â Lynn Roberts, Rebecca Kilgore, Nicki Parrott, Mike Renzi, Harry Allen, Joel Forbes, Chuck Riggs.
November 5th: (Harry and the jazz masters!)Â Bucky Pizzarelli, Ken Peplowski, John Allred, Bill Allred, Rossano Sportiello, Joel Forbes, Chuck Riggs.
December 2nd: (Harry and the jazz masters, continued!)Â George Wein and the Newport All Stars
There are certain live musical events I hope to remember the rest of my life. Three that come to the surface immediately: an I WOULD DO MOST ANYTHING FOR YOU that Ruby Braff created one night in 1975 at the last Eddie Condon’s — at such a quick tempo that the other players had to scurry to get in their sixteen bars before the performance ended. There’s also a Vic Dickenson chorus of LOUISE performed as part of a Condonite ballad medley alongside Bob Wilber, Kenny Davern, and Dick Wellstood in 1972 at Your Father’s Mustache. The BODY AND SOUL played at the 1975 Newport “Hall of Fame” by Bobby Hackett, Vic, Teddy Wilson, Milt Hinton, Jo Jones — where Hackett gave the bridge of the final chorus to Jo, who created a subtle, dancing wirebrush sound sculpture.
I could extend this list, but it is only my way of prefacing this: the music I heard and recorded last Sunday night at The Ear Inn (326 Spring Street, Soho, New York) — created by the EarRegulars and friends — is on that list.
The EarRegulars that night were Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet (a special one, a 1970s Conn horn that had belonged to Bobby Hackett); Ken Peplowski, tenor saxophone and clarinet; James Chirillo, guitar; Jon Burr, string bass — and some fine congenial friends. I have written in my earlier post (check it out here) about a community of joyous magicians (Jazz Wizards, perhaps?), artists and friends listening deeply to one another . . . but the new friends coming along didn’t break the spell. Rather, they enhanced it. The party expanded and became more of what it was meant to be.
Listen, savor, marvel, be enlightened!
They began with that twelve-bar commentary on how the universe feels on a dark Monday morning — a lament with a grin, THINGS AIN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE. Here it’s a soulful shuffle with a big heart. Things might be annoying but if we play the blues for a good long time, we won’t notice so much:
Listening to THINGS, I thought once again of Miss Barbara Lea’s mildly imperial disdain for what she called “Sounding Like” — the game critics and listeners play of “Oh, that phrase Sounds Just Like . . . ” and a name, famous or obscure, follows — but most importantly, the names mentioned are never those of the musicians actually playing. I declare that for this post, the musicians these players Sound Like are named Kellso, Peplowski, Chirillo, Burr, Anderson, Au, Musselman . . . no one else but them!
Someone proposed that minor romp — all about a melancholic African fellow whose liturgical utterance swings like mad: DIGA DIGA DOO. Concealed within in, not too subtly, is an Andrew Marvell carpe diem, which you can find for yourself. The Ellington connection isn’t all that obscure: it was a 1928 hit by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh from the show BLACKBIRDS OF 1928 — which also included Bill Robinson’s DOIN’ THE NEW LOWDOWN. (If Fields and McHugh had never collaborated, how much poorer would our common language be.) And the Ellington band recorded it when the song was new and kept the chord changes for many romps in later decades. All I can say is that I was happy to hear them begin it — and I got happier chorus by chorus through their Krazy Kapers:
The eternal question, DON’T YOU KNOW I CARE (OR DON’T YOU CARE TO KNOW)? What beauty! And the surprise for me — among others — is that lovely bridge. In this performance, every note is in place but it all sounds fresh, new — from their hearts!
An aside: as an introduction to DON’T YOU KNOW?, Jon-Erik said that the EarRegulars were going to continue their explorations of Ellingtonia because a friend was in the house who likes Ellington. I found out later that it was the UK rocker Joe Jackson, who has created his own Ellington-tribute CD: details here.
The first of the Friends to join the fun was the brilliant young reedman Will Reardon Anderson, who had been sitting at a table with a very happy Missus Jackie Kellso — he leapt in the carrot patch for a exhilarating COTTON TAIL:
The emotional temperature in the room was increasing, not only because we moved from the plaintive question DON’T YOU KNOW I CARE to the romantic request JUST SQUEEZE ME. And the stellar cornetist Gordon Au joined the band for this sweet improvisation. (Behind Missus Kellso the observant eye can catch a glimpse of night-owl Charles Levinson and ragtime hero Terry Waldo, enjoying themselves immensely.) The first thirty seconds of this performance continue to make me laugh out loud . . . for reasons I don’t need to explain here. And I hope you’ll drink in this performance’s beautiful structure — from ensemble to solos to conversations. We’re among Friends!
And the young trombone master Matt Musselman came to play on the last song of the night, Juan Tizol’s PERDIDO . . . a true exercise in swing by all concerned! And pay attention (to echo Jake Hanna) to the casually brilliant dialogues than just happen: not cutting contests, but chats on subjects everyone knows so well:
I write it again (“with no fear of contradiction,” as they used to say): we are so fortunate to live on the same planet as the magical creative folks. Blessings on all of you!
I write this on Wednesday, May May 16 — several days after the magical improvisations of last Sunday night, when The EarRegulars created life-enhancing beauty at The Ear Inn (326 Spring Street, Soho, New York) once again. But the music from The Ear is still vibrating in my ear and lifting my spirits. I know that I will be savoring it for a long time to come.
The EarRegulars that night were Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet (a special one, a 1970s Conn horn that had belonged to Bobby Hackett); Ken Peplowski, tenor saxophone and clarinet; James Chirillo, guitar; Jon Burr, string bass. They were joined by some exalted friends you will encounter in the second chapter.
Each of the four EarRegulars here is a profoundly gifted musician, as my readers will know and have witnessed in person. But this Sunday session was one of those special occasions where everything jelled from the first notes. I won’t say “It kept on improving,” because it was already superb. Everything was in place, yet nothing was planned or formulaic; you could see from the grins on the faces of the players just how pleased and surprised they were, how well and deeply they felt their most subtle impulses heard— for this was a listening band, a true community of joyous magicians.
Enough words. The depth and playfulness of this music makes them trivial, perhaps an impudence. Listen, savor, marvel, be enlightened!
Tommy Dorsey’s pretty theme, taken at a sweet loping pace, I’M GETTING SENTIMENTAL OVER YOU:
The good advice created by Harry Barris and friends, WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS:
Harking back to Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton but never Charles Laughton, RING DEM BELLS:
The pretty ballad that Louis recorded in 1938, ONCE IN A WHILE:
The hot tune that Louis recorded in 1926, ONCE IN A WHILE. Only at 326 Spring Street!:
Oh, so sweet! SUGAR, set up beautifully by Jon and James:
The Twenties ode to the madness syncopation brings, CRAZY RHYTHM:
It was just magical — watching and hearing these musicians transform metal, wood, electricity, breath, and moisture into a joy that had tangible heft and substance. But there were no tricks, no stuffed rabbits or items concealed from view: it was simply the magical combination of tension and repose, expertise and abandon.
I felt that the money I put in the tip jar was paltry in comparison to the experience I had participated in. And these musicians go off to do this night after night. Aren’t they something?
Hail, O EarRegulars! We are lucky to live in your world.
I would have been eager to visit clarinetist Ron Odrich’s monthly session at San Martin on East 49th Street, New York City (it happens the first Tuesday of each month) for his swooping playing — and the lovely work of his colleagues James Chirillo (guitar); Gary Mazzaroppi (string bass); “Cenz” (drums). But last Tuesday’s session was even more special because it allowed me to hear one of the quiet masters of jazz in person.
I refer to trombonist George Masso: veteran of the late Forties Jimmy Dorsey band (a band whose trumpet section had Charlie Teagarden and Maynard Ferguson!) and then right-hand man to Bobby Hackett, Ken Peplowski, Barbara Lea, Spike Robinson, Harry Allen, Wild Bill Davison, the World’s Greatest Jazz Band, Warren Vache, Ed Polcer, Joe Wilder, Urbie Green, Helen Ward, Al Klink, Scott Hamilton, Ruby Braff, Tom Pletcher, Maxine Sullivan, Mike Renzi, Kenny Davern, Carl Fontana, Dave McKenna, Eddie Higgins, Randy Sandke, Charlie Ventura, Dan Barrett, Dick Hyman, Bob Wilber, Lou Columbo, Ralph Sutton, Jake Hanna, Woody Herman, and the King of Swing himself.
Obviously, if all those people had called upon Mr. Masso, he was special: this I already knew from the recordings: his accuracy and fine, broad tone — his remarkable combination of swing-time and ease with a broad harmonic palette and astonishing technique, always in the service of melody and logical improvisations.
Two additional facts you should know before you watch the videos that follow (featuring superb playing by everyone in the group). George Masso is one of the most gentle, humble people it will be my privilege to know — so happy that a fan (myself) would make a small pilgrimage to hear and capture him (his lady friend June is a dear person too, no surprise).
Mister Masso is eighty-five years old, obviously one of the marvels of the age. Cape Cod and Rhode Island must agree with him. And his playing certainly agreed with everyone there.
They began their set with TANGERINE:
I’M OLD-FASHIONED, taken at a walking tempo:
BLUE BOSSA, lilting and graceful:
A romping I FOUND A NEW BABY:
And — not dedicated to anyone in the room! — George’s ballad feature on OLD FOLKS:
Masterful.
P.S. I hope George comes back to New York City — with his trombone — soon! In April, Ron’s guest star will be baritone saxophone wizard Gary Smulyan.
JAZZ LIVES 