JUST A LITTLE WHILE TO STAY HERE

Mal Sharpe and the “Big Money in Jazz” band

Mal Sharpe moved to another neighborhood on March 10, 2020.  He refuses to go away, so it is both an obligation and a privilege to honor him here.  His official obituary depicts him as a comedian:  

Mal Sharpe, ‘The Man on the Street’ radio gag man, dies at 83

That’s one way to see Mal, but between 2011 and 2014,  I knew him well as the leader of a band of idiosyncratic individualists, playing traditional jazz and standards, and as a friend.  I brought my camera and videoed him and his band, “Big Money in Jazz,” at the No Name in Sausalito, at the Savoy Tivoli and Fior d’Italia in San Francisco, at an outdoor concert in North Beach, and once in Armando’s in Martinez.  You can find my videos on YouTube, of course. 

Even though I celebrate Mal as musician and friend, this demands to be included, with all respect to Larry Scala, who told Mal the joke and was never credited:

“You know.”

I checked my email files and found that I first met him through my friend Jeff Hamilton in 2011: I’d written to Mal for permission to video his gig at Armando’s, and he was very gracious, telling me that he had seen my blog many times.  Later, I came to his regular gigs, chatted with him, and took pleasure in the band.  He was physically large — tall and broad-shouldered, even though he slumped down in his chair while playing — well dressed in an intentionally casual way.

In those years I was commuting-for-romance from New York, and although I loved being in California, I missed the banquet of music at home.  I was sustained by Clint Baker’s Cafe Borrone All-Stars and the occasional swing dance gig, but initially found driving to and parking in San Francisco terrifying.  Going to Sausalito was easier — I clearly recall parking my car on Bridgeway and walking past a vertical bank of nasturtiums, which I ate liberally, much to the horror of my companion: I compromised by eating only those above dog-height.  I digress, of course.

The No Name Bar in Sausalito was quite awful, and since I had not been a bar-goer in my youth, I recoiled from its most remarkable features: the broken toilet in the men’s room, the bill of fare that was microwaved popcorn in paper bags, local beer, ordinary spirits, an odd clientele, Nancy, behind the bar, gracious in a rough-hewn way, the band assembled on a narrow stand parallel to the bar.  I remember coming outside after the gig and feeling that the world was strange because it was so clean and bright.  

I never knew in advance who was going to be on the stand with Mal — sometimes superb players, sometimes those who had once been superb, and some others — but the music was always interesting, if only because it was precarious: would X know the chords to the bridge? would Y accelerate his usual glacial pace to get to the end of the chorus when everyone else did?  And there was always Mal, who had his routines, but delivered them with that combination of “I know this by heart” and “I just made this up” that I found charming.  Hearing and watching him do something as mundane as gently hector the crowd to put tips in the jar was worth the drive. 

Mal also had regular improvisations.  One of them was that he would go to a local thrift store (was it in Berkeley or in Oakland?) and buy nearly-useless trinkets — little plastic toys or medical items of no value but much strangeness — and set up mock-contests whose winners would receive some bizarre prize.  I don’t think I am making this up, but once it was the empty case in which one could carry an enema bag.  The takers were few. 

Here is Mal’s New-England based improvisation with which he closed the afternoon’s music:

He played trombone and sang.  As a singer he could be marvelously affecting, and one of the delights of the band was that it was not a stereotypical Bourbon Street band.  If they played the SAINTS, I don’t recall.  And — in the fashion of the great postwar ensembles of Boston (where Mal had grown up (he’d been to George Wein’s Mahogany Hall) and New York, where I had, the band explored standards.  You were much more likely to hear PENNIES FROM HEAVEN than BOURBON STREET PARADE, although they did perform ICE CREAM and Mal liked women singers who favored Billie and Ella, so the band had a less-raucous air to it.  Here’s an example I found moving at the time and still do:

That’s classic Mal — singing with sly tenderness, but also with new lyrics he probably made up on the drive from Berkeley to the gig.

Mal and I bonded because he saw that I was going to use the blog and camera to celebrate him — not embarrass him — and he once said to me, after a post, “Michael, you made us sound so good!” which pleased me.  He knew he was an amateur trombonist, and he said as much, but he stayed within his limitations and thus did no harm. 

We also drifted into a sideways friendship over delicatessen sandwiches at Saul’s, and talked of our mutual hero Vic Dickenson.  I gave him copies of recordings I’d made of Vic, and sometimes our phone conversation would start with his commenting about what Vic had done on the second chorus of SONNY BOY on the CDs I’d made for him.  When I visited him at home once or twice, he invited me into his den, which had photographs of his and my heroes on the wall, a barber’s chair that he sat in to practice, and other oddments. 

I emailed him often, mostly propelled by my finding a new picture or video that I knew he would like, and his brief responses had a telling comical snap.  Face to face, Mal and I spoke of recordings we were listening to; I brought him jazz gossip from New York and he talked about chance meetings with great people and odd ones, taking perhaps more delight in the latter than the other. 

As noted in the newspaper obituary, he was a great on-the-spot improviser of nearly-surreal sketch comedies, and once that I recall I felt (years after the fact) that I had become a character in a Sharpe sketch.  We both knew someone on the New York scene — a fan, amateur musician, and schnorrer (Mal loved Yiddish) who was always on the lookout for some apparently-altruistic scheme that would benefit no one but himself.  He came into the conversation and Mal and I took turns enthusiastically narrating his small-time thieveries.  The next time we met I brought him up with vengeful glee and told of his latest feats while Mal sat silent, listening.  When I ran out of energy, Mal looked at me after a long pause and said that he had decided to speak of this person no more, that it was not what he should be doing, and so on.  At the time, I felt as if Mal had let me walk blindfolded into a hole he had just dug, and said, “Hey, you could have stopped me at the start of blackening this person’s character,” and I don’t recall what he said.  Years later I understood that he had let me go on for the pleasure of the punchline, and I appreciated it as much as I could.

I am not sure if I discerned it or Mal himself told me, but he was a classic paradox — a shy man who sought the limelight as long as he could control it.  I think he needed to be onstage, to make people laugh and applaud, but (with the tuna or turkey sandwich he had Nancy get for him) he needed even more to drive home in silence, then be at home with no one bothering him.  Later on he told me that it wasn’t just shyness, it was anxiety, and I felt very sorrowful, but it also helped me understand him better: as if someone afraid of drowning forced himself to take swimming lessons, even though they scared him terribly and he never got any better.  

When I came back to New York in January 2015, I was happy to be home but I missed Mal greatly, and I would pick up the phone and call him.  I think the last time we spoke was in 2017, and I sensed that he had retreated from the world more than a little.  He stopped responding to emails as well.  But that is too sad a note to end my recollections on.  

How could you not love a man whose email signature (edited by me) was . . . .

MAL SHARPE
Host of KCSM’s Back on Basin Street 91.1
Man On The Street Productions & Big Money in Jazz
Home phone xxx xxx xxxx cell xxx xxx xxxx
Teenage Home phone in Newton, Ma. Bi-4-9509 (If my mother answers, hang up)

DON’T LOOK AT THE TROMBONES, IT ONLY ENCOURAGES THEM—RICHARD STRAUSS

and then there’s this song and performance.  Larry told me today, as we spoke of Mal, that it was Mal’s opening song for gigs:

I think Mal would be embarrassed by having more than fifteen hundred words written about him, but when he could be by himself in his barber chair, he would be secretly pleased.  Perhaps he would have emailed me to say he never ate turkey.

My condolences to Sandra and Jennifer Sharpe.  And my gratitude to Mal for letting me be one of the band in my own way

.

May your happiness increase!

GOIN’ TO TISHOMINGO: A FEW WORDS FOR CONNIE JONES

This morning, I learned through Ed Wise and Tim Laughlin that Connie Jones died in his sleep at home next to his beloved wife Elaine.  Although I hold to cherished ideas about death and transitions — that those who leave their earthly form behind never leave us utterly, that they have merely moved to another neighborhood — I find it hard to write that Connie has left us. He was a great poet without a manuscript, a great singer of immediate heartfelt songs even when he wasn’t singing.

I had the immense good fortune to see and video-record Connie in performance from 2011 to 2015: mostly at the San Diego Jazz Fest, but once at Sweet and Hot and once during the Steamboat Stomp, and I’ve posted as many of those performances as I could.

We didn’t converse much: I suspect he had some native reticence about people he didn’t know, and perhaps he had a perfectly natural desire to catch his breath between sets, ideally with a dish of ice cream.

His playing moved me tremendously.  I tried not to gush, although my restraint failed me once, memorably.  After a particularly affecting set, I came up to him and said, more or less, “Do you think of yourself as a religious man?” and he gave me the polite stare one gives people who have revealed themselves as completely unpredictable, and said, after a pause, “Yes, I do,” and I proceeded to say, quietly, “Well, I think your music is holy.”  Another long pause, and he thanked me.  And I thanked him.  Which is what I am doing in this post.

With all respects to the people who recorded him and played alongside him in various recording studios, I think the real Connie Jones only came through complete when he was caught live — one reason I am proud that I had the opportunity to catch him, as it were, on the wing.  He was the bravest of improvisers, reminding me at turns of Doc Cheatham, of Bob Barnard, of Bobby Hackett — someone so sure of his melodies that he would close his eyes and walk steadily towards a possible precipice of music . . . but creating the solid ground of loving music as he went.

I expect to have more reason to celebrate and mourn Connie in the future, but I think this is one of the most quietly affecting vocal and instrumental performances I will ever hear or witness. See if you don’t agree: Connie, cornet and vocal; Tim Laughlin, clarinet; Doug Finke, trombone; Chris Dawson, piano; Katie Cavera, guitar; Marty Eggers, string bass; Hal Smith, drums, at the San Diego Jazz Fest on Nov. 29, 2014:

He was so unaffected, so generous in what he gave us.  No one can take his place.

May your happiness increase!

PISMO JOYS (Part Five): “LARRY, DAWN, and FRIENDS”: LARRY SCALA, DAWN LAMBETH, DANNY TOBIAS, CARL SONNY LEYLAND, BILL BOSCH // CHLOE FEORANZO, DANNY COOTS (October 26 and 27, 2018, Jazz Jubilee by the Sea)

One of the great highlights of the 2018 Pismo Jazz Jubilee by the Sea was the small flexible swing groups led by guitarist Larry Scala, featuring the wonderful singing of Dawn Lambeth. Without being consciously imitative, they harked back to the great Thirties and Forties recordings and performances of Billie Holiday, Teddy Wilson, Charlie Christian, Count Basie, Mildred Bailey, Benny Goodman, and more.  But they weren’t ancient artifacts behind glass: they swung and were full of joyous expertise.  Here are three more performances, the first two featuring Larry, Dawn, bassist Bill Bosch, trumpeter Danny Tobias, pianist Carl Sonny Leyland; the third, from the next day, featuring clarinetist Chloe Feoranzo instead of Danny, and adding drummer Danny Coots.

Dee-lightful.

Irving Berlin’s ALL BY MYSELF:

Walter Donaldson’s LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME:

And from the next day, Dawn, Larry, and Bill, with Danny Coots, drums; Chloe Feoranzo, clarinet, for Cole Porter’s YOU’D BE SO NICE TO COME HOME TO:

Thanks to all these creative people for bringing their own brand of sweet swing to Pismo.  I hope they’ll be brightening the corners in 2019.

May your happiness increase!

PISMO JOYS (Part One): “LARRY, DAWN, and FRIENDS”: LARRY SCALA, DAWN LAMBETH, MARC CAPARONE, BILL BOSCH, DANNY COOTS (October 26, 2018, Jazz Jubilee by the Sea)

Only a few days ago, I had my first immersion in the pleasures of Pismo — not the sunsets or the salt-water taffy, but the musical joys of the Jazz Jubilee by the Sea, which combines congenial people and seriously uplifting music.

What finally got me to Pismo (aside from the immense kindness of Linda and John Shorb and other helpful folks) was the chance to hear and see some friends and heroes in new combinations: Larry Scala, guitar; Dawn Lambeth, vocals; Marc Caparone and Danny Tobias, cornet and trumpet; Dave Caparone, trombone; Carl Sonny Leyland, piano and vocal; Danny Coots and Jim Lawlor, drums; Steve Pikal and Bill Bosch, string bass; Katie Cavera, guitar and vocal; the Au Brothers; and — new to me in person — the Shake ‘Em Up Band and Jeff Beaumont’s Creole Syncopators.  She didn’t play an instrument, but I was also able to be dazzled by my Facebook friend Brettie Page.

But first on my list was “Larry, Dawn, and Friends,” a group that delighted me throughout the weekend.  Readers will know how much I admire Dawn Lambeth, Marc Caparone, and Danny Coots, but it was a pleasure to see Larry — with his nice mixture of the blues, Basie, and Charlie Christian — lead a small group.  His long-time friend Bill Bosch also impressed me because Bill is a purist who plays without amplification and has a lovely sound.

Here are three highlights from the first set I caught.  First, the rarely-played swing tune COQUETTE, yes, by Carmen Lombardo:

Dawn’s lovely version of the Gershwins’ THEY CAN’T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME:

And a lightly swinging THAT OLD FEELING that has a truly feeling coda:

More to come!  (I’ve already been invited back to Pismo for next year, and it took a long pause of several miliseconds for me to say “Yes!”)

May your happiness increase!

A NOTE FOR THE BURGLARS, 2018

Dear Gentlemen or Ladies Who Might Enter My Apartment, Uninvited, During My Absence,

Some thoughts to make your lives easier.

1.  Please watch your step.  There are cardboard boxes of Louis buttons all through the living room.
2.  If you accidentally knock over a pile of CDs or books, I would take it as a great kindness if you would — to the best of your ability, and time permitting — put it back as it was.  Nothing upsets a homeowner more than an ungracious burglar.
3.  On that same note, please put the seat down when you are through.
4.  Help yourself to whatever you like in the refrigerator, but (again, time permitting) please wash whatever plates and utensils you might use.
5.  There is very little of monetary value in the apartment, so if you look in my sock drawer for stacks of currency or gold coins, I fear you will be disappointed.  There are quarters on the kitchen counter, for laundry and the parking meters.  Feel free.
6.  I would very much appreciate if you would leave me the autographed jazz photos on the wall.  You don’t want the avenging ghost of Sidney Catlett to plague you, do you?
7.  There is a Banner 78 of BELIEVE IT, BELOVED, by Henry Red Allen on one of the turntables.  Please, only take it if you have a turntable yourself and a proper stylus.  Otherwise it is not worth the effort of properly wrapping it in bubble paper for your getaway.

Why am I writing this?

I will indeed be away from my apartment from October 25 to 29, more or less, at the Jazz Jubilee by the Sea in Pismo, California.  Why?  To enjoy the festival, to meet new friends, and to hear and see my beloved friends make music.  (I’ll have a video camera or two as well, should you worry about such things.)

I know that I will be showing up to enjoy the work of Larry Scala, Dawn Lambeth, Marc Caparone, Dave Caparone, Carl Sonny Leyland, Steve Pikal, Danny Coots, the Au Brothers, Three Blue Guitars, the Creole Syncopators, Chloe Feoranzo, Bob Schulz, Katie Cavera, the Shake ‘Em Up Jazz Band, and more.  I might pay a call on a few others, although if people reading this post expect me to make a full longitudinal video survey of the festival, neither my legs nor my aesthetic inclinations allow for such breadth.  (At any point in the festival, five groups are playing simultaneously in five locations.  Choices must be made.)

You’ll have to get out of your chair and be there in person your ownself — a radical thought for those of us accustomed to having the world come to us through cyberspace and for free.

For more information, click Pismo Jazz Jubilee by the Sea.

And a postscript for the burglars, or at least the one portrayed above.  I admire the striped shirt, but once one attains a certain girth, perhaps a nice paisley?  Horizontal stripes, alas, are not slimming at all, even if they are traditional.

Here’s the Red Allen 78 (or at least the music) I’d like to keep:

Here’s the flip side (now a completely archaic phrase):

May your happiness increase!

EXTRA! EXTRA! HOT TIMES IN PISMO (Jazz Jubilee by the Sea, October 25-18, 2018)

As I’ve written here, I am making my maiden voyage to the Pismo, California, JAZZ JUBILEE BY THE SEA next month — about five weeks from now.  While my suburban neighbors will be having illicit affairs with their leaf blowers and looking skeptically at their down parkas, I’ll be in Southern California, enjoying the sounds of (among others) Larry Scala, Bob Schulz, Carl Sonny Leyland, Chloe Feoranzo, Clint Baker, Creole Syncopators, Danny Coots, Danny Tobias, Dawn Lambeth, High Sierra, IVORY&GOLD, Jeff Barnhart, Marc Caparone,  Midiri Brothers, Mike Baird, Adrian Cunningham, the Au Brothers, The Shake ‘Em Up Jazz Band . . .  The list is subjective, and I am sure that someone’s favorite band in the cosmos has been omitted, but a complete listing follows below.

I invite you to join me, of course.  Details here (Facebook) and the much more comprehensive Pismo Jazz website.

But for people like me, and I would think many of my readers, going to a jazz festival is not just a matter of, “Oh, I’ll drop by this place.  Music is coming out of the windows and front door,” but a matter of strategy: “If we go to see the Land Rovers at 3, we’ll be in a perfect place to see the Hot Tortoises at 4:15, and then the Adrian Rollini Memorial Orchestra at 7, but we’ll have to miss the Broken Sandals on Friday.  No worry, though, they are playing an 8 AM Saturday set,” and so on.

“Hey, Mister! Hey, Lady! Get the Full Band Schedule here! The Pismo News!”

Such cogitation — worthy of a great eighteenth-century European general planning his campaign — is only possible when one has a Band Schedule, which I can offer you now, courtesy of the very kind people who run things.  Hence:

There’s a version of this schedule on the Jubilee website here, which may be easier to read and annotate.  I am sure that the schedule will also be given out to attendees when they buy tickets / pick up badges onsite.

Veterans of the Jubilee have pointed out to me that the performance venues are somewhat spread-out.  I am moderately ambulatory (that might be a euphemism) but my days of sprinting from one place to another are over.  So I report with pleasure the news from Jubilee HQ:

If you get stranded at a venue, we do have buses.  We are trying something new. Every venue will have a bus.  That bus will be available at the end of the set.  They will take you where you want to go, venues first.  If that bus is full, another bus will be along and dropping people off.

Very reassuring!

And in the spirit of “breaking news,” here’s a bouncy love song from 1934 by Chick Bullock and his Levee Loungers.  Alas, Sterling Bose (or Stirling?), Perry Botkin, Joe Venuti, and Jack Teagarden won’t be at the Jubilee — they have other commitments — but I know you and I will be in for a weekend of singular sights and music:

May your happiness increase!

FOUR-FOUR RHYTHM: KRIS TOKARSKI, JONATHAN DOYLE, LARRY SCALA, NOBU OZAKI, HAL SMITH at the SAN DIEGO JAZZ FEST (November 24, 2017)

Jazz at Lincoln Center (and JazzTimes) just sent an announcement about the 2019 Jazz Congress, January 7-8, 2019 at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Broadway at 60th Street, New York, New York.  One panel is:

 Jazz, Swing, Race and Culture
Considering swing as a rhythm or swing as a feeling or a verb, what are the social, cultural, and racial factors that affect individuals’ perception, acceptance or rejection of the concept? Player[s] and thinkers ponder what swing means in 2019.

I doubt that it will happen, but in my ideal world, the player[s] and thinkers at JALC will watch these videos before pondering.  The music was created in 2017, not 2019, and there are other ways to swing, but what Kris and his Gang did was genuine and might eliminate some theorizing.

These four performances come from a magical band that made a splash at the 2017 San Diego Jazz Fest: Kris Tokarski, piano; Jonathan Doyle, clarinet / tenor saxophone; Larry Scala, guitar; Nobu Ozaki, string bass; Hal Smith, drums.  I could spend paragraphs pointing out resemblances and echoes of the Ancestors (you’re free to chase such things at your leisure) but I’d rather you admire these living heroes at play, and such expert play.

LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME:

REPEATER PENCIL (and, yes, such a thing did exist: see here):

DROP ME OFF IN HARLEM:

JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS:

Festival organizers, club bookers, concert promoters with taste: now’s the time!

Incidentally, this is the charming 1929 record from which I take my title:

May your happiness increase!

MORE FROM A GENEROUS TRIO: DAWN LAMBETH, MARC CAPARONE, CONAL FOWKES (San Diego Jazz Fest, Nov. 24, 2017)

Dawn Lambeth

She’s lyrical; she swings; she has deep feeling and a light heart.

Conal Fowkes

He’s versatile, a wonderful mix of elegance and roistering.

Marc Caparone and Ricky Riccardi, considering important matters Louis

Marc’s a hero of mine: listen and be moved.

WHEN YOU AND I WERE YOUNG, MAGGIE scored for horn and continuo:

Mister Waller tips over due to love, thus I’VE GOT A FEELING I’M FALLING:

Rube Bloom and Harry Ruby’s wonderful GIVE ME THE SIMPLE LIFE:

An emotionally intense yet swinging SAY IT ISN’T SO:

PORTO RICO, a wonderful dance number first recorded by Bunk Johnson, Sandy Williams, Sidney Bechet, Cliff Jackson, Pops Foster, and Manzie Johnson on March 10, 1945.  But I wish audience members wouldn’t enter into dialogues with the musicians, even when they are correct:

Dawn will be appearing with swing / blues guitar master Larry Scala at the Jazz Jubilee by the Sea in Pismo, California (October 25-28); Marc will be there as well with High Sierra, the Creole Syncopaters, and who knows where Dawn, he, and Larry will turn up?

Conal, Dawn, and Marc will again appear as the Dawn Lambeth Trio at the San Diego Jazz Fest, which takes place over Thanksgiving weekend in that welcoming city, and Conal will be an integral part of the Yerba Buena Stompers there as well.

May your happiness increase!

“WON’T YOU COME ALONG WITH ME?”: PISMO JAZZ JUBILEE BY THE SEA (October 25-28, 2018)

I’m going to my first Jazz Jubilee by the Sea (although I have visited Pismo, California, once before) for hot jazz, floating swing, gritty blues, tender ballads, and good times among friends this October.

I can now spend the time between late August and late October figuring how I will see my favorite bands.  There are twenty-plus bands and guest stars, a cornucopia of jazz and other musics.  Here are some of the august participants, listed as they appear on the flyer:

Professor Cunningham and His Old School • Larry Scala, Dawn Lambeth, and Friends • The Shake ‘Em Up Jazz Band • Tom Rigney and Flambeau • Blue Street • Cornet Chop Suey • High Sierra • Midiri Brothers • Tom Hook and the Terriers • Dick Williams Jammers • We Three + One • Ivory&Gold® • Creole
Syncopators • Rag Bone Saints • Mariachi Autlence • High Street
Party Band • The Au Brothers • Sue Palmer and Her Motel
Swing Orchestra • Night Blooming Jazzmen • Ulysses
Jasz Band.
SPECIAL SETS WITH GUEST ARTISTS
Bob Draga • Carl Sonny Leyland • Larry Scala • Dawn Lambeth •
Jeff Barnhart • Danny Coots • Washboard Steve • Pat Yankee •
Bob Schulz • Paul Ingle • Danny Tobias • Chloe Feoranzo.

Now, if you’ve been reading JAZZ LIVES for any length of time, you can recognize the names of my friends and heroes above.  I will be there to celebrate them and hear new bands and new combinations, as is my habit and sometimes good fortune.

Here’s a promotional video from 2016 — an audio-visual tasting menu:

and one of my happy souvenirs of good times in Pismo — a 2014 concert by Clint Baker, Marc Caparone, Dawn Lambeth, Mike Baird, Carl Sonny Leyland, Bill Reinhart, Jeff Hamilton:

I hope to see you there for some good sounds.  Here is the Jubilee website, and here is their Facebook page.  It would be pleasing if you said “JAZZ LIVES sent me,” if, in fact, I did.  It’s too early to start charging camera batteries, but I assure you that my psychic ones are at full capacity.

May your happiness increase!

YES, IT’S STILL POSSIBLE! (Part One): KRIS TOKARSKI, JONATHAN DOYLE, LARRY SCALA, NOBU OZAKI, HAL SMITH at the SAN DIEGO JAZZ FEST (November 24, 2017)

Sometimes, as a devout jazz enthusiast, I feel caught between two ideologies — rather like a kernel of corn watching the two stone wheels approach. One group of fans insists that all the great music has already been made: that there’s really no point in leaving the house, because Lester and Louis and Hawkins are dead, so these fans bury their heads in their speakers and do takeout.  Another group embraces the new jazz flavors of the month, and insists that Hank McGillicuddy and his Stompers are as good as Basie at the Famous Door, and by the way, Zelda Red-Dress “brings Billie back.”  She doesn’t, but if you think so, that’s nice.

I offer a third possibility: that there are musicians who don’t have contracts with Jack Kapp or Eli Oberstein; they don’t pack the Palomar or the Savoy — but they are alive today, you can speak to them, they inhale and exhale — and they do that thing splendidly.  They are worth leaving the house for.

One shining example of this phenomenon — why I call this blog JAZZ LIVES rather than JAZZ NEEDS DUSTING — is the small group led by pianist Kris Tokarski that swung like mad at the 2017 San Diego Jazz Fest.  Along with Kris, they are Jonathan Doyle, clarinet and tenor saxophone; Larry Scala, guitar; Nobu Ozaki, string bass; Hal Smith, drums.  No too-small brightly-colored matching polo shirts; no funny hats; no group vocals.  Just wonderful music, sweet when it’s called for, hot enough to make us sweat.

Here are four examples.  Jazz thrives.

LOVE IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER, evoking Crosby and Condon:

and what Kenny Davern used to call “face to face”:

and an explosive LITTLE GIRL:

and a lovely pensive MEMORIES OF YOU:

May your happiness increase!

IN THE NAME OF SWING: KRIS TOKARSKI, LARRY SCALA, JONATHAN DOYLE, HAL SMITH, NOBU OZAKI (San Diego Jazz Fest, November 24, 2017)

Kris Tokarski, piano; Larry Scala, guitar; Nobu Ozaki, string bass; Hal Smith, drums; Jonathan Doyle, clarinet / tenor sax, with guest Katie Cavera, guitar and vocals. San Diego Jazz Fest, Nov. 2017

I followed this band faithfully at the 2017 San Diego Jazz Fest and they didn’t disappoint.  The credits are above; the wonderful music is below.  Festival producers, take note(s)!

NOBODY’S SWEETHEART NOW (how sad, how true):

LULLABY OF THE LEAVES, one of the two great Bernice Petkere songs:

LOUISE (thanks to Richard Whiting: I think of Lester, Teddy, Pee Wee, and a Rodney Dangerfield joke):

CHINA BOY (don’t miss Kris’ bridge):

YOU TOOK ADVANTAGE OF ME (savor Larry — bringing the blues — and Hal on this one, especially):

More to come — eager and expert — but this band is, in Eddie Condon’s words, too good to ignore.

May your happiness increase!

DAVID BOEDDINGHAUS IS MY TRAVEL AGENT (November 6, 2016)

There are many magnificent jazz pianists.  But there’s only one David Boeddinghaus.  I’ve enjoyed his rollicking swing, his lyrical groove, his tender ballads (he is a master of Porter and Rodgers and Carmichael) and deep blues, his evocations of Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, and Frank Melrose — in California, in New Orleans, in Newcastle (thus my title as well as a reference to the 1920 pop tune below, because David gets us where we’d like to go and more).

You can read his biography online; you can ponder his discography thanks to Tom Lord.  But his glorious playing needs no more explication than this: it is beautiful without commentary.  David is especially exultant as an ensemble player, no matter what the tempo: a one-man rhythm section full of subtlety and strength.  Meaning no disrespect to Duke Heitger, Alistair Allan, Lars Frank, Henry Lemaire, Malcolm Sked, and Josh Duffee, I think David is the great engine of this romping CALIFORNIA, HERE I COME, captured at the 2016 Mike Durham Classic Jazz Party:

and here’s another performance from that set that has justly garnered a good deal of praise — with David swinging like a wonderful amalgam of Joe Sullivan and everyone wonderful uptown as well:

Musicians I know speak of his accuracy, his scholarship: he knows the verses, the right tempos, the best changes.  Ask Banu Gibson, ask Larry Scala and three dozen others.  But for me, it’s something larger: David Boeddinghaus transports us through sound.  Bless him.

May your happiness increase!

A MEETING OF KINDRED SOULS: KRIS TOKARSKI, HAL SMITH, JONATHAN DOYLE, LARRY SCALA, NOBU OZAKI at the SAN DIEGO JAZZ FEST (Nov. 24, 2017)

Kris Tokarski, piano; Larry Scala, guitar; Nobu Ozaki, string bass; Hal Smith, drums; Jonathan Doyle, clarinet / tenor sax, with guest Katie Cavera, guitar and vocals. San Diego Jazz Fest, Nov. 2017

In the words of Sammy Cahn, “I fall in love too easily,” but not when the Love Object is a great artist or a collection of them.  There my devotion rarely plays me false.  This band, led by the quiet virtuoso Kris Tokarski, gave extraordinary pleasure at the November 2017 San Diego Jazz Fest.  I followed them happily and recorded (I think) five hour-long sets of the six they played.  Glowing music: heartfelt but beautifully expertly executed.  Somewhere Milt Gabler, Alfred Lion, and John Hammond are happily in the groove with all of us.  Here are the six posts I have already offered of the band’s great joyous surge — with guests Katie Cavera, Marc Caparone, and Dawn Lambeth: one and two and three and four and five and six.  (I did all that annoying hypertexting because I love my readers and I don’t want you stumbling around in the dark reaches of cyberspace.  Enjoy yourselves!)

Here are four brilliant performances from the band’s very first set at San Diego.  The first is a Jonathan Doyle original from 2016, called BATS ON A BRIDGE, dedicated to an Austin, Texas nature phenomenon, described here.  Jonathan has, to me, no peer at creating winding, clever witty lines based on the harmonies of “jazz standards,” and sometimes his lines are so irresistible on their own that I’ve found it hard to dig beneath to find the familiar harmonies. I’ll help you out here: the title of the song is exactly what Bithiah, otherwise known as Pharoah’s daughter, exclaimed when she saw the infant Moses in the bulrushes:

Next, a rarity at “trad” festivals, a purring reading of a ballad: in this case, YOU GO TO MY HEAD, which I believe Jonathan knew but had never performed in public.  Isn’t he marvelous?

Another Doyle original, from 2017, LONG DISTANCE MAN, whose source we get from the wise and observant Larry Kart — a story of the clarinetist Frank Chace’s meeting with Lester Young: [Chace] also told a very “Frank” story about his encounter with Lester Young in 1957 in Pres’s hotel room in (I think) Indianapolis, where Frank was playing at a club and Pres was in town with a non-JATP package tour. The drummer in the band Frank was part of, Buddy Smith, suggested that they pay Pres a visit after the gig, and when they got there, Frank (“I’m shy,” he said), hung back while the other guys gathered around Pres. Having noticed this bit of behavior, Pres beckoned Frank to come closer, addressing him softly as “long-distance man.” Probably a meeting of kindred souls.

The “kindred souls” create one of the finest blues performances I’ve heard in this century, beginning with Jonathan’s barks — part schnauzer, part Henry “Red” Allen, part walrus.  The only complaint I have here is that I wish the band had jettisoned the set list and just kept playing this, just kept on exploring the infinite spaces between the three chords, the tonalities, the steady swing:

As a set closer, the down-home classic, BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA:

You’ll notice I’ve avoided the game of Sounding Like (all praise to the late Barbara Lea for putting it so pungently): I hear murmurs from the admiring ghosts of Sidney Catlett, Walter Page, Teddy Wilson, Earl Hines, Charlie Christian, Lester Young, Frank Chace, Omer Simeon, Pee Wee Russell, Eddie Miller, Bud Freeman, Ike Quebec and others I haven’t named.  But they are quietly present.  The real and the truly brilliant voices I hear come from Tokarski, Doyle, Scala, Ozaki, and Smith.  And what glorious music they make. There will be more to come.

Festival promoters and concert bookers looking for noise and flash, circus acts and Vegas Dixieland, pass this band by with my blessings.  People who want to give genuine jazz and swing a venue [think of the San Diego Jazz Fest!], consider these heroes.

May your happiness increase! 

“IT SURE SOUNDS GOOD TO ME”: WHEN IT’S SWINGTIME IN SAN DIEGO (PART TWO) with KRIS TOKARSKI, JONATHAN DOYLE, HAL SMITH, LARRY SCALA, NOBU OZAKI, and KATIE CAVERA (Nov. 25, 2017)

Yes, the very thing: Kris Tokarski, piano; Hal Smith, drums; Jonathan Doyle, clarinet and tenor saxophone; Larry Scala, guitar; Nobu Ozaki, string bass, with guest star Katie Cavera, guitar / vocals.  Recorded November 25, 2017.

No one is truly that shade of purple in real life (aside from children’s television) but they played beautifully, ignoring the vagaries of stage lighting.  For the first part of this set, including CRAZY RHYTHM, IDA, THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE, I MUST HAVE THAT MAN, and I NEVER KNEW, please click here.

Now the second helping.

Here’s Katie to sing one of her (and our) favorites, I’LL BET YOU TELL THAT TO ALL THE GIRLS — a Twenties phrase brought back a decade later in this 1936 song by Charlie Tobias and Sam H. Stept, which I first learned through Henry “Red” Allen’s recording of it, where (as was the custom) he couldn’t change the gender of the lyrics.  They fit Katie better:

SOMEBODY LOVES ME, with a delicate reading of the verse by Kris, solo:

This is surely a swing (and swinging) band, but my goodness, how they can play a ballad.  Case in point, I SURRENDER, DEAR:

and the set concludes with the Twenties classic, SOMEBODY STOLE MY GAL:

What a great band!  I look forward to seeing them at other festivals, and I hear that PBS, NPR, and the BBC are all ears, too.

May your happiness increase!

WHEN IT’S SWINGTIME IN SAN DIEGO (PART ONE) with KRIS TOKARSKI, JONATHAN DOYLE, HAL SMITH, LARRY SCALA, NOBU OZAKI, and KATIE CAVERA (Nov. 25, 2017)

Kris Tokarski. Photograph by Scott Myers.

Pianist Kris Tokarski (who’s much less somber in person) led a swinging small band at the 2017 San Diego Jazz Fest,  It was a deep privilege to see and hear them. Along with Kris, they were Hal Smith, drums; Nobu Ozaki, string bass; Larry Scala, guitar; Jonathan Doyle, clarinet and tenor.  And for this November 25, 2017, set, guest Katie Cavera, rhythm guitar and vocal, sat in, adding her own flavor to the proceedings.

They began the set with the venerable but very lively CRAZY RHYTHM, with begins with extraterrestrial lighting that is very quickly repaired.  Swing fixes everything:

Then, the sweet IDA — which I offer here in honor of Aunt Ida Melrose Shoufler, who knows what swing is:

One “that all the musicians like to jam,” THERE’LL BE SOME CHANGES MADE, with stellar work from Nobu and Hal:

And a wonderfully tender I MUST HAVE THAT MAN, one of the highlights of my weekend, making me think of Pee Wee Russell and Billie Holiday — among other yearning souls — thanks to the immensely soulful Mister Doyle:

I NEVER KNEW, a performance that makes me think of Lester, Charlie, and Sid:

More to come — from that glorious weekend in San Diego.

May your happiness increase!

CLASSICS MADE NEW: DAWN LAMBETH, KRIS TOKARSKI, JONATHAN DOYLE, LARRY SCALA, MARC CAPARONE, NOBU OZAKI, HAL SMITH (San Diego Jazz Fest, November 26, 2017)

Dawn Lambeth, Kris Tokarski, Larry Scala, Nobu Ozaki, Hal Smith, Jonathan Doyle, Marc Caparone at the San Diego Jazz Fest

What Phil Schaap calls “the swing-song tradition” — a nimble swinging singer accompanied by an equally swinging group — is epitomized for most people by the 1933-42 recordings Billie Holiday made with Teddy Wilson, Lester Young, and other luminaries.  However, it was going on before Billie entered the studio (Connie Boswell, Lee Wiley, Mildred Bailey) and it continues to this day (Rebecca Kilgore, Daryl Sherman, Barbara Rosene, Petra van Nuis, and others).  Dawn Lambeth shines in this setting, and the three performances captured here at the San Diego Jazz Fest both reflect the great tradition and show what joy and art these musicians bring to it.  (I was reminded often, as well, of the late-life recordings Maxine Sullivan made in Sweden, which are very dear to me.)

I know that the tradition wasn’t exclusively female — think of Henry “Red” Allen among others — but I am holding back from making a list of all the swingers.  You’ll understand.

If you more evidence of Dawn’s magic — and the band’s — before proceeding, I invite you to visit here and here.  She sounds wonderful, and there’s fine riffin’ that evening.

Here are three beauties from that same set.  First, Irving Berlin’s ALL BY MYSELF (which is really quite a lament — but not when swung this way):

Then, the tender ONE HOUR — someone is sure to write in and say that it is really called IF I COULD BE WITH YOU ONE HOUR TONIGHT.  Yes, Sir (there are no Female Corrections Officers in jazz-blog-land!) — by James P. Johnson and Henry Creamer:

And finally, Mr. Berlin’s I’M PUTTING ALL MY EGGS IN ONE BASKET, with thanks to Fred Astaire, as always:

To quote Chubby Jackson, but without a touch of irony, “Wasn’t that swell?”  I certainly think so.

May your happiness increase!

KRIS AND HIS GANG: MORE FROM THE SAN DIEGO JAZZ FEST: KRIS TOKARSKI, HAL SMITH, LARRY SCALA, JONATHAN DOYLE, NOBU OZAKI, MARC CAPARONE (Nov. 26, 2017)

Dawn Lambeth, Kris Tokarski, Larry Scala, Nobu Ozaki, Hal Smith, Jonathan Doyle, Marc Caparone at the San Diego Jazz Fest

Oh, how they swing.  This band is one definition of happiness.

See here for their version of MY GAL SAL which continues to bring great pleasure, with the same heroes: Kris Tokarski, piano; Hal Smith, drums; Larry Scala, guitar; Jonathan Doyle, clarinet and tenor; Nobu Ozaki, string bass; Marc Caparone, guest nobleman, on trumpet.

And Edgar Sampson’s fervent wish, IF DREAMS COME TRUE:

Don Redman’s CHERRY:

and Alex Hill’s I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR YOU:

Not only might they do anything for us, or would do anything for us: they DO.  And so splendidly.  I recorded another four sets (if memory serves) so there might be a few more delicacies to come.  Such joy, such generosity of spirit, such art.

May your happiness increase!

“MY GAL SAL”: KRIS TOKARSKI, JONATHAN DOYLE, HAL SMITH, LARRY SCALA, NOBU OZAKI, MARC CAPARONE at SAN DIEGO (Nov. 26, 2017)

Imagine a small band, perfectly balanced, without excess in any way, that honors the Basie rhythm section, the Goodman Sextet with Charlie Christian, Fifty-Second Street, steadiness, great lyricism, allying Teddy Wilson and Al Capone for a few minutes.  What if you didn’t have to imagine this marvel?  Yes, they existed for more than five sets — outside the recording studio — and you can enjoy them here.

The generous benefactors of small-band swing are Kris Tokarski, piano; Jonathan Doyle, tenor saxophone; Hal Smith, drums; Larry Scala, guitar; Nobu Ozaki, string bass; Marc Caparone, trumpet.  All of this took place on Sunday, November 26, 2017, at the San Diego Jazz Fest.

The song they chose was the venerable MY GAL SAL, from 1905, music and lyrics by Paul Dresser, whose older brother Theodore Dreiser — the original family name — is more famous, although Theodore could never restrict himself to thirty-two bars.  Paul’s story is fascinating and sad: read about it here.

Hal Smith reminded us that SAL was Al Capone’s favorite song.

It’s one of those harmonically simple compositions that can be played at a number of tempos, but Kris wisely starts it off at an easy bounce.

A digression.  I am a relentless armchair critic.  Even though my own musicianship is at best faded, I sit in front of the speaker or the musicians or the video and say (thank goodness, silently) “That tempo is too fast.  He missed a chord in the bridge.  She could have taken a third chorus!” and so on.  But in this performance I wouldn’t change a note, a tone, an inflection, from intro to riffs to the ending.  It’s “in the pocket” deeply and splendidly, a Keynote session realized in front of our eyes in 2017.

During this set, someone’s phone in the audience rang and rang, and Marc Caparone, dangerously witty, said to us, “Teddy Wilson’s calling. He wants his rhythm section back.”

I will post more videos by this band, because I followed Kris, Jonathan, Larry, Hal, and Nobu for five hour-long sets at San Diego.  And if you haven’t seen the other performance I’ve posted — an absolute masterpiece — check it out here.

What a blessing to see and hear these musicians, and a greater blessing to be able to share their work with you.

P.S.  (Pro tip for aspiring videographers: we in the trade ask the musicians for their permission to shoot video before the music starts, and we clear it with the musicians before posting.  That’s what makes us different from the amateur with the iPhone at the back of the room.)

May your happiness increase!

“MY DREAMS ARE ON PARADE”: DAWN LAMBETH, KRIS TOKARSKI, LARRY SCALA, MARC CAPARONE, HAL SMITH, NOBU OZAKI at the SAN DIEGO JAZZ FEST (November 26, 2017)

“A tender plea” is what the fine writer Harriet Choice calls this Sammy Cahn / Saul Chaplin song.  PLEASE BE KIND speaks of the vulnerability of love — the way we say “Here is my heart” to the person whose love we gently ask for.  When the plea doesn’t work, we could feel as if we’d painted an archery target on our t-shirt.

But when neither person has arrows or bow, happiness is possible, blossoming out of mutual understanding.  Kindness becomes the common language, enacted more than spoken.

I’d heard many great versions of this song, by Mildred Bailey, Frank Sinatra, Carmen McRae — but this version, performed at the San Diego Jazz Fest just a few days ago (November 26, 2017) is slower, more tender, and infinitely more touching than any of the more famous ones.

Dawn Lambeth sings it from her heart, as if it mattered, which of course it does.

I’ve known Dawn’s music for nearly fifteen years, thanks to the blessed and much-missed Leslie Johnson, of The Mississippi Rag, who offered me a copy of her first CD, MIDNIGHT BLUE, to review.  And from the first notes of “If I Were You,” I knew I was listening to a splendid artist: someone who understood the words, who knew how to swing, whose voice was a gentle warm embrace of the song and the listener.  And although it might be rude to speak of an artist “improving,” the emotional riches Dawn offers us now are lasting gifts.

Pianist Kris Tokarski’s little band is just spectacular — Kris on piano, Larry Scala (who set the magnificent yearning tempo) guitar; Jonathan Doyle, tenor saxophone — showing his heart utterly as well; Nobu Ozaki, string bass; Hal Smith, drums; Marc Caparone, trumpet.

I know that comparisons are precarious, but this performance hits me gently where I live — as Louis and Lester do.  Allergies are not the reason my eyes are suddenly damp.

This performance quietly says to me that even in the darkest moments, when I might think all is harsh and hard, “No, kindness and beauty and subtlety have not been lost and will not ever be lost.”

I hope you watch and re-watch this performance, that you go away with words and melody in your mind and ears, and that you, too, make the choice to be kind. It always counts.

May your happiness increase!

GOIN’ TO SAN DIEGO (November 22-26, 2017)

The poster says it all:

But some additional choruses.  First, the “almost final schedule” can be found here.  That schedule shows so many musical delights going on at any given time that anticipated pleasure is mixed with anxiety: “How will I see and hear everyone I want to?”  We should all have such problems, of course.

There’s no substitute for the experience of being there and hearing the music as it is created, but here are a few videos.  One is something delightful from 2015, the triumph of Rena Jean Middough, here.

A lovely swinging performance from the next year, here.  Some folks who know what swing is, also from 2016, here.  And some heroic stomping, here.

If I haven’t video-recorded your favorite band at San Diego, there’s only so much one person with admittedly narrow tastes can do.  So you can 1) check YouTube for more videos of THE AIR-DRIED PLUOTS (you’ll know them by their polo shirts) or 2) book a flight and get there while Joy is still Unconfined.

A few lines about travel arrangements.  This year, I was sure that I had booked a flight to San Diego a few months ago; checking online, I saw I had not.  Since it looked as if re-booking the same flight (from New York) would cost more than two thousand dollars, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.  (One of my neighbors knocked to inquire.)  But I persevered, and secured a flight — the same days and times, with a few minutes’ difference — for the lowest fare I’ve ever seen for Thanksgiving.  All things are possible.  Be brave.  I’ll see you there.

May your happiness increase!

THE WARM SOUNDS OF BILL NAPIER (1926-2003)

Clarinetist Bill Napier might be one of the finest musicians that few people outside of California have ever heard, or heard of.  Marc Caparone says, “I only played music with him twice, but he was a god, a very quiet man who didn’t get much publicity but was always superb.”  Leon Oakley remembers him as a “warm, creative player.”  Hal Smith told me that Bill cared about the music more than “traditional” ways of playing a chorus.

Almost all of the recordings Bill made, and the live performances captured outside of the studio have him in the middle of six or seven-piece units.  What I now can share with you here is intimate, touching music, with Bill the solo horn in a congenial trio.

The personnel of these live recordings is Napier, clarinet; Larry Scala, banjo; Robbie Schlosser, string bass.  They were recorded on August 8, 1994, outdoors at Stanford University, by Dr. Arthur Schawlow, who won the Nobel Prize (with others) for his work on the laser beam.  Dr. Schawlow not only liked jazz, but was an early adopter of high-tech: Larry says that he recorded these performances on a digital recorder, the first one he had ever seen.

Here are five delicious chamber performances, beginning with ALL MY LIFE.

ST. LOUIS BLUES:

I’M CONFESSIN’:

RIVERBOAT SHUFFLE:

IF I HAD YOU:

and a masterpiece:

Napier’s sound comes in the ear like honey.  He never plays a superfluous note; he honors the melody but in the most gentle supple way.  It is rather as if he were leaning forward, softly saying something heartfelt that was important to him and that he knew would uplift you.  Beauty and swing without affectation.

Before we move on to precious oral history, a few words about one of the other members of this trio.  After you have bathed in the liquid gold of Napier’s sound, listen once again to the very relaxed and gracious banjo playing of Larry Scala. Like Napier, he understands melodic lines (while keeping a flexible rhythm going and using harmonies that add but never distract).  Banjos in the wrong hands can scare some of us, but Larry is a real artist, and his sound is a pleasure to listen to.  (You can find examples of his superb guitar work elsewhere on this blog.) And this post exists because of his generosity, for he has provided the source material, and Larry’s gift to us is a great one.  Music to dance to; music to dream by.

I asked California jazz eminences for memories of Napier, and this is some of what people remembered.  Bill was obviously A Character, but everyone I asked was eager to praise him, and you’ve heard why.

From Hal Smith: I was going through tapes in the archive of the San Francisco Traditional Jazz Foundation. One tape had several of the bands which performed at the Clancy Hayes benefit at Earthquake McGoon’s in May of 1970. Napier led a band for the occasion. I heard him get onstage, walk to the mic and say “Here we are!” Then, a couple of seconds later, “Where ARE we?”

By the way, Bill’s real name was James William Asbury.  I’m not sure how it got changed to “Bill Napier.”  When he would tell stories about his youth, or time in the Army, he always referred to himself as “little Jimmy Asbury.”

Bill told me about the clarinetists he admired, including Jimmie Noone and Jimmy Dorsey. He also liked Albert Nicholas and went to hear him at Club Hangover in San Francisco. He asked to sit in, but was turned down. As he described it, “I asked Albert Nicholas if he needed any help and he said he didn’t think so.”

Bill was the original clarinetist with Bob Schulz’s Frisco Jazz Band. He left the group following Jack Sohmer’s mean-spirited review of Schulz’s CD which was published in The Mississippi Rag. After that, whenever Schulz would ask if Bill was available to play a gig, Bill would say, “No. Jack Sohmer may be in the audience.”  Before he left the Schulz band, we played a concert at Filoli Mansion outside San Francisco. M.C. Bud Spangler asked each musician to explain why they play music for a living. There was a wide range of responses, but Bill’s was the best: “Well, I have to pay my taxes!”

From Clint Baker:  Bill Napier was a bit of a prodigy, as a teenager he was playing at the Dawn Club as part of a young band that was one of the substitute bands for the wartime Yerba Buena Jazz Band.  By the late 40’s he was working with Wingy Manone in San Francisco. He went on to have a couple of stints with the Turk Murphy band and also with Bob Scobey, a band for which he was better suited for sure. He later worked with all the better bands around here; he was not all that interested in playing music on the road and kept close to home for the most part after the Fifties.

I encountered him many times when I was coming up.  He was always the consummate sideman, and always played with great imagination; he had the most amazing tone, liquid would best describe his.  But he NEVER ran out of ideas, he was a wellspring of original musical thought. If he did fall back on a device such as quote, it was always the most obtuse thing one could come up with.

Bill was one of the only players I ever played with who perfectly combined the elements of swing clarinet and New Orleans style clarinet; he all at once sounded like Goodman or Shaw or Simeon or Bigard.  He was hip to all of it and could combine all of the musical DNA of those styles in to his own rich sound. I remember speaking with him about to old masters and he told Simeon was one of his main favorites.  BUT he was truly his own man with the richest of musical imaginations.  I was always honored to work with him, and wish I had had more chances, but the times I did, I cherish. You knew when you were on the bandstand with him you were in the presence of greatness.  Bill was a master.

From Paul Mehling: I worked with him for nearly thirty years in a trio of bass, guitar, and clarinet, and he is on two of our CDs.  He was very shy, quiet, and private. He loved his two (or more?) cats. He and his wife would take the two cats camping and one year when it was time to leave they couldn’t find one of their cats. They called and called but feared he’d been abducted or eaten so they drove home very sad. Next year, they went camping again, same spot/campground. Guess who showed up!  They were overjoyed.  He never really believed how much I loved his playing and all I aspired to at that time was to be GOOD ENOUGH TO SHINE HIS SHOES (musically). I used to try to get into his head during each song and try to give him the kind of rhythm that he’d be most comfortable with.

I was 18 when I first played a full gig with him, but I first met him at the Alameda County Fair when I was 16, long-haired, and didn’t know anything about music but had enough gumption to drag my acoustic guitar into the fairgrounds and find those guys- Lueder Ohlwein, banjo; maybe Ev Farey, trumpet; for sure Bob Mielke, trombone, was there and probably Bill Carrol on bass.  They said Do you know any songs?” I said “Sure, whaddabout Avalon and I Got Rhythm,” and probably one other song.  I played, they liked it, and a few years later Napier remembered me!

He and I bonded early on over comedy. He liked how often I quoted Groucho. We had a shared love for bad puns:
Napier: “Let’s play the suspenders song.”
Me: “ What song is that?”
Napier: “It all depends on you.”
Me: “What?”
Napier : “It hold de pants on you.”

Napier: “You like to golf?”
Me: “Uh, no. You?”
Napier: “No, I never wanted to make my balls soar.”

We’d come up with all manner of re-titling songs to keep us from feeling bad about playing background music and getting almost zero love from “audiences.”

When the Bob Scobey band did a two-year stint in Chicago, Benny Goodman used to show up just to dig on Napier’s playing (which sounded like Goodman/Bigard/Noone!

One thing for sure: the guy never did NOT swing. Never. Even a song he didn’t know. In fact, and more curious was that I could throw all kinds of (gypsy) chord substitutions at him (I didn’t know any better, I thought that’s what jazz musicians did: reharmonize everything) and he never, EVER said “No” or so much as cast an evil eye in my direction. I think the years he played with Bill Erickson at Pier 23 were his favorite years.  He didn’t speak much of Erickson, but I could just tell.

Oh, here’s the BEST story. I just remembered: we were at a swanky Sunday brunch on the Stanford Campus, near that big Stanford Mall with Bloomingdales and other stores.  We would often try to engage diners by chatting and asking if they had a request. Most people wanted to hear something from CATS (ugh). Or they wanted to hear In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.  So we went up to this table, and there’s a guy there, of a certain age. With an attractive woman half his age.  One of us said, “What would you like to hear?”
Man: “ I want to you to play “It Had To Be You” but not fast, about here- ….”(snaps his fingers indicating a medium slow tempo)
Me, aside to Napier: “Why don’t you ask MR. CONDUCTOR what KEY he’d like to SING it in?”
Napier, whispering to me: “I think MR. CONDUCTOR is MR. Getz.”
Boy, did I feel stupid: Stan Getz, doing a residency at Stanford, one of Napier’s heroes.

Obviously, a man well-loved and well-remembered.

I have foregone the usual biography of Bill, preferring to concentrate on the music for its own sake.  But here is a lovely detailed sketch of his life — unfortunately, it’s his obituary, and here is another week’s worth of rare music — Napier with bands — provided thanks to Dave Radlauer.  There are more trio performances, also.

Now, go back and listen to Napier play.

May your happiness increase!

“DIASPORA”: MICHAEL McQUAID, ANDREW OLIVER, NICHOLAS D. BALL

A few nights ago, I was sitting in my apartment, entertaining friends (one of them the fine guitarist Larry Scala) and I was playing 78s for them.  After a particularly delightful performance, which may have been the Keynote I WANT TO BE HAPPY with Roy, Emmett Berry, and Joe Thomas, or 46 WEST 52 with Chu Berry, Roy, and Sidney Catlett, I turned to them and quietly said, “Music like this is why some bands that everyone else goes wild about do not appeal to me.  I’ve been spoiled by the best.”

But there are glorious exceptions to my assessment of the present.  One of the shining musicians of this century is  Michael McQuaid — heard on a variety of reeds and cornet, even possibly breaking in to song when it seems right.  I first heard him live in 2010 and admired him powerfully, and although our paths don’t cross often (we meet every few years, not only in Newcastle but also in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and in New York City) he remains a model to me of what can be created within and without those venerable musics.  (Full disclosure: he quotes from JAZZ LIVES on his blog, but I simply take that as evidence of his good taste in literature.)

Michael, informally

If you’d like to read a brief biography of Michael, you can do just that here, but I will offer three salient facts: he is Australian by birth; he has been playing professionally for twenty years even though he is a mere 35; he and the lovely Ms. Anna Lyttle will take up residence in London in November 2017.

Michael, feeling the spirit

His newest CD, DIASPORA, is an exceptional pleasure.  It’s a trio CD — Michael’s first as a leader in this format — where he is nobly paired with pianist Andrew Oliver and percussionist Nicholas D. Ball.  When you click on the title above, you can hear selections from the disc, and if so moved, then purchase it from Bandcamp or CDBaby.

But enough commerce.  I’ve found it daunting to review this CD in a hurry, not, I assure you, because I had to dig for adjectives, but because each performance — none of them longer than a 12″ 78 — is so dense with sensation, feeling, and music, that I feel gloriously full and satisfied after each track.  I couldn’t compel myself to listen to this disc, stuffing in track after track at one sitting: too much glorious stuff was going on.  So I promise you that it will not only appeal at the first listening but for many more to come.  Michael, Andrew, and Nicholas D. are strong personalities but willing to merge their egos into a band, which in itself is a deep reward for us.

The music here is nicely contradictory: comforting but full of surprises, aesthetically familiar but never rote.  “Clarinet, piano, and traps,” as they would have written in 1928, lends itself to all sorts of formulae: the Goodman / Dodds / Noone “tribute” album.  Or, more loosely, “Chicago jazz.”  DIASPORA, it is true, nods affectionately to early Benny, Wingy, Leon, the Halfway House boys, Fats, Bud Jacobsen, Charles LaVere, and others, but it is not a series of copies: it’s as if Michael, Andrew, and Nicholas D. have made themselves so familiar with the individual songs and the idioms they came from that they are at ease and can thus speak for themselves.  There is so much shining energy in their playing: nothing seems forced or tense.  And although this would be marketed as “hot jazz,” some of the finest moments in this recital are sweet, rueful, tender: Fats’ CHELSEA, for one.

I asked Michael for his thoughts about the CD, especially because there are no liner notes, and he told me that he wanted to let the music speak for itself, and that DIASPORA has been on his mind for some time: “I wanted to do a project featuring my OWN playing rather than a larger group with a more democratic purpose. I also wanted to record in a very good studio, because I think the clarinet is rarely recorded well . . . it’s just me and my Albert system clarinet! And my colleagues, of course.”  [Note from Michael: the recorded sound is superbly natural.]

The songs Michael chose are admiring homages to various clarinetists without imitating them.  “For instance, ‘Do Something’ was imagined as a hypothetical Don Murray/Arthur Schutt/Vic Berton collaboration; ‘Tiger Rag’ asks ‘what if Rappolo and Jelly Roll made a trio side?’.”

I’d asked Michael about his original compositions.  “‘Black Spur’ takes its name from a treacherous mountain road to the north east of Melbourne, while ‘Diaspora’ is a Beguine/Jazz mix, paying tribute to the musical styles (and peoples) scattered widely throughout the world by the time of the 1920s/30s.  Of course, there’s a link there to the album title as well; an Australian, playing music of American origin (broadly speaking) with an American and a Briton, recorded and mixed in London and mastered in Helsinki!”

I hope all my readers take the opportunity to hear DIASPORA: it’s music that travels well.

May your happiness increase!