May/June 2020

January 9, 1926 - April 1, 2020

By Cydney Halpin President, NJJS

I hope this issue of Jersey Jazz - whose cover is graced one last time by the incomparable Bucky Pizzarelli - finds you and your loved ones safe and healthy, socially distant yet connected to the people and things that bring you solace and joy.

The impact of this global Covid -19 pandemic physically, emotionally, spiritually and financially will have spared no one “When the Lights Go On Again (All Over the World).” The refrain of this song, written in1943 and made popular by Vaughn Monroe, keeps going through my head during these dark and unprecedented times. Every aspect of the jazz world has been upended, with this crisis laying bare how interdependent each piece of this puzzle is and how fragile the web of security is for our musicians, club owners, restaurants, waitstaff, restaurant suppliers, vendors, venues/theaters, advertisers, promoters, managers, publications, publicists, drivers, parking attendants, hotels and their staff - the list is infinite!

Musicians and venues/restaurants need your help NOW! Here are some recommendations for immediate support:

• Purchase artist CDs and downloads from their websites or other online sources like Amazon, Bandcamp and iTunes.

• Purchase gift certificates to clubs and restaurants for future personal use or gifts.

• Purchase take-out meals for yourself, for others, for first responders. Shanghai Jazz is offering this service.

• Make a financial donation to reputable organizations directly helping our musicians like Jazz Foundation of America, the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation and The Grammy’s /MusiCares. There is a comprehensive state by state resource guide on www.billboard.com for other vetted entities.

• Make a financial donation to any organization, museum, entity that supports jazz.

The lights will go on again one day and our fragile jazz world will need your continued patronage and support more than ever. I look forward to seeing you at an NJJS Social, an NJJS sponsored event, at Shanghai Jazz, at a New Brunswick Jazz Project offering, at any of the clubs/venues in NYC, anywhere where jazz music will be celebrated. Until then, please remain vigilant about your health and the health of others. Stay safe and well and WASH YOUR HANDS!

To the Pizzarelli Family, the New Jersey Jazz Society shares in your sadness with the profound loss of your parents Bucky and Ruth Pizzarelli. Their participation and support in the jazz world will be greatly missed. Bucky was our patron saint, and the source of great pride and much musical joy for decades to our board, members and friends. Peace and strength to you all during this difficult time.

To those who have fallen ill with this horrific virus, my fellow board members and I wish you a full and speedy recovery and to those who have lost loved ones to it, we offer our most sincere condolences.

“Music can heal the wounds which medicine cannot touch” – Debasish Mridha ALL

This issue is sponsored in generous part by Tony Freeman.

I met Bucky Pizzarelli in the Spring of 1997- facilitating an interview with him and his sons John and Martin - outside the Royale Theater (now the Schoenfeld) on West 54th Street, after a matinee of the short-lived musical Dream (read John’s memoir “World on a String” if you missed it!). I was friends with “the boys” (the name my mother always affectionately called them) and had greeted them both with hugs. Then I turned, looked “the legend” in the eyes and put out my hand to introduced myself, “Hello Mr. Pizzarelli, my name is Cydney. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” And it happened, my first experience with that smile, the twinkle in those eyes, and the laugh. With a returned handshake with both his hands clasping mine, he chuckled and said, “It’s Bucky. Just Bucky.” That, as they say, was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

For the last several years of his career, I was blessed to be Bucky’s gig buddy, dinner companion, wing-girl, a steadying arm and occasional guest singer, while my partner Bob Rizzo assumed the roles of chauffeur (complete with hat!), roadie and backup wingman. Together with Martin on bass and Ed Laub on guitar, and a host of other incredible musicians, we all kept Bucky doing the ‘only thing I know how to do.’ And do it he didfor over 70 years!!

Being a part of these latter years’ gigs meant we were at the Pizzarelli home often for pickups. Bucky’s wife Ruth, a woman of great style and zest for life, (don’t think the men in the family are the only ones who could tell a good story!) would greet us at the door and turn our simple visit into a celebration! Upon leaving she’d wave us off as if we were embarking on a world cruise and, as family meant everything to her, she’d often be waiting up when we delivered her beloved Bucky and Martin back home safely.

On April 1, 2020, the Covid-19 virus claimed Bucky’s life. On April 8, 2020, Ruthie, after 66 years of marriage, four children, four grandchildren, all the music, all the adventures and all the stories, made it clear she had no intention of living without him. John wrote on Facebook, “I’m certain Bucky called for her.” Indeed, I can hear Bucky’s voice (the boys and Bob do great impersonations!) calling, “Ruuuuth” and Ruthie’s quick reply, “Buck?”

They’re stompin’ together at the Savoy, Bucky on the bandstand, and Ruthie at a table with the best view, right where she belongs, elegant and fun - his honeysuckle rose.

Bucky and Ruthie, It has been the greatest gift to share our lives with you and your family. We will miss you both so much!

With all our love, Cydney & Bob

Jay Dougherty Executive VP email: vicepresident@njjs.org

Dave Dilzell Treasurer email: treasurer@njjs.org

Pete Grice VP, Membership email: membership@njjs.org

Sanford Josephson VP, Publicity email: sanford.josephson@gmail.com

Mitchell Seidel VP,

Mike

Ted

ADVISORS

Don Braden, Al Kuehn, Bob Porter, Holli Ross www.njjs.org

Bucky Pizzarelli: Storyteller and Mentor

By Sanford Josephson

The first time I interviewed Bucky Pizzarelli was in the fall of 1978 for an article I was writing about Joe Venuti for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Venuti died in August of that year, and I was gathering comments from his musical peers. At the time, Bucky was leading a trio at the Pierre Hotel’s Cafe Pierre with pianist Tony Monte and bassist Ron Naspo.

No one really knew Venuti’s age because there were so many versions of when and where he was born. Bucky thought 80 was the correct age, but he told me Venuti kept everyone guessing. “Sometimes, he’d give you a phony figure, then he’d give you another figure.”

Then, Bucky shared two favorite Venuti stories. The first one was at Michael’s Pub, a New York club where Venuti appeared regularly. “One night,” Bucky said, “Joe had a lot of his relatives over from Italy, and they were all sitting around the table. The comedian Henny Youngman came over and started to tell a few jokes. Nobody laughed because nobody understood him. It was a typical Joe Venuti situation. After Youngman told three or four jokes, he looked up at Joe and said, ‘Does anybody speak English here?’, and Joe nonchalantly answered, ‘No.’ ”

The other story was about Teddy Wilson, at Dick Gibson’s Jazz Party, an annual jam session held in Colorado Springs. Bucky said, “Teddy Wilson was sitting around late one night. We were all sitting in the room there. Teddy asked Joe to play some melody that he had heard him do once before. Joe played about eight measures, and Teddy dozed off. So, Joe quietly went to bed, and the next morning when he woke up, Teddy was still sitting in the seat sleeping. So, Joe took his violin out and played the end of the song as Teddy woke up.”

Thirty years later, I was updating the Joe Venuti article for my book, Jazz Notes: Interviews Across the Generations (Praeger/ABC-Clio: 2009) by interviewing some young violinists who were influenced by him. One was Aaron Weinstein, whose touching and humorous tribute to Bucky appears on page 6. Weinstein and Bucky were appearing together at Morristown’s Bickford Theater. “I love how Bucky plays,” Weinstein told me, “but I also love playing with him. He’s a guitar player, and I’m a violin player, but I can learn so much from him because Bucky is one of the great masters of this music, and I value my time with him.”

Earlier that day, Weinstein recorded a new CD with Bucky for Arbors Records. “It’s just beautiful music,” Weinstein said. “It’s that mentality of respecting the melody. It’s Bucky, bassist Jerry Bruno, and I’m with a string quartet -- two violinists, a cellist, and a viola.” The album, So Hard to Forget, was released early in 2009.

On a January night in 2008, Bucky was leading a trio at Centenary College in Hackettstown. The other trio members were pianist John Bunch and bassist Phil Flanigan, but there was a special guest -12-year-old violinist Jonathan Russell. The highlight of the concert was a moment when Bunch and Flanigan left the stage and 12-year-old Russell and 82-year Pizzarelli collaborated on a hauntingly uplifting version of Johnny Green’s “Body and Soul”. Later, when I interviewed Russell, he described the moment with Bucky as “pretty cool.”

R.I.P., Bucky. We will all miss you.

About NJJS

Founded in 1972, The New Jersey Jazz Society has diligently maintained its mission to promote and preserve America’s great art form – jazz.

To accomplish our mission, we produce a bi-monthly magazine, Jersey Jazz; sponsor live jazz events; and provide scholarships to New Jersey college students studying jazz. Through our outreach program Generations of Jazz, we provide interactive programs focused on the history of jazz

The Society is run by a board of directors who meet monthly to conduct Society business. NJJS membership is comprised of jazz devotees from all parts of the state, the country and the world. Visit www.njjs.org or email info@njjs.org for more information on our programs and services.

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‘There Is Only One Bucky’

Bucky Pizzarelli 1926-2020

By Sanford Josephson

In 1969, Oscar Peterson released an album called Motions and Emotions on the MPS Records label. One of the tracks was the Antonio Carlos Jobim tune, “Wave”, and the writer Gene Lees sought to find out who the guitarist was.

He reported on his search in the July 1, 1999, issue of JazzTimes. “The chart is marvelous,” he wrote, “and so is Oscar’s performance. But I was particularly struck by the rhythm section guitar work. I listened, trying to figure out who the player was and concluded that it had to be Brazilian, such was the authenticity of it. Not many Americans at that time could really play that way. Later I said to [the arranger] Claus Ogerman, ‘Who played guitar on that track?’ ‘Bucky’, Claus said. It was unnecessary to add a surname: There is only one Bucky.”

Bucky Pizzarelli died at his home in Upper Saddle River, NJ, April 1, 2020, at the age of 94. Two days earlier, according to his daughter, Mary Pizzarelli, he had tested positive for the coronavirus.

After suffering a stroke, pneumonia, and several hospitalizations in 2015 and 2016, it appeared that Pizzarelli’s career was over. But he made a triumphant comeback in 2017. The Chicago Tribune’s Howard Reich, reviewing his June 2017 performance at the Jazz Showcase, wrote of Pizzarelli’s “disarmingly straightforward approach to melodic line. Even at his exalted age, Pizzarelli brought considerable craft to his solos, dispatching practically every note with heightened care.”

In October 2017, the New Jersey Jazz Society saluted Pizzarelli’s seven-decade career at NJJS’ 45th anniversary concert. As reported in the December 2017 issue of Jersey Jazz, the concert kicked off “with a silky smooth ‘Stompin’ at the Savoy’ with Bucky in the leader’s chair . . . The man of the hour, Bucky Pizzarelli, was resplendent in his trademark blazer and rep tie, flashing that ever ready smile, guitar in hand.” Pizzarelli was a favorite among NJJS members and fans, having played countless Jazz Society events going back to the 1970s.

Born in Paterson, NJ, on January 9, 1926, Pizzarelli learned to play banjo and guitar at an early age and, at age 17, was on the road with vocalist Vaughn Monroe’s band. His first musical hero was a blind accordionist/organist named Joe Mooney whom he would play with in Paterson. In an interview with Jersey Jazz’s Schaen Fox 12 years ago (Jersey Jazz, January 2008), Pizzarelli said he learned about the potential Vaughn Monroe gig because of his relationship with Mooney.

“On Sunday afternoons in Paterson,” he said, “we were allowed to go to the Hollywood Brick Bar downstairs on Market and Main Street. Joe Mooney was there, and one of my uncles was playing

guitar with him . . . Frank Ryerson, who was first trumpet player with Vaughn Monroe, was looking for a guitar player to join the band. So, he said to me, are you the kid who played with Joe Mooney down in Paterson?’ I said, ‘Yeah’. He said, ‘OK,’ and that was the requirement. I jumped on the bus and went to Scranton, PA, and Vaughn asked me to stay with the band ‘til I went into the Army, which was about four months later.”

After being released from the Army in 1946, Pizzarelli reunited with Monroe before leaving to join the NBC staff orchestra. He also played with the Three Suns, free-lanced, and toured with Benny Goodman. Pizzarelli was one of the few musicians able to maintain a positive rapport with the difficult Goodman over several years. Asked about that by Fox, he explained that, “Benny could pick a wise guy out before he even walked into the room . . . If you tried to outsmart him, you couldn’t do it . . . I knew what he wanted: With Benny, you had to know what tempo he was doing. That’s all. When he played by himself, there was the tempo before you started playing. If you interpreted that the wrong way, you were out.”

Pizzarelli switched from a six-string to a seven-string guitar when he started playing with fellow guitarist George Barnes in 1970 after Barnes’ previous partner, Carl Kress, died. “I was lucky to team up with George Barnes when I first got that seven-string Gretsch,” Pizzarelli told JazzTimes’ Lees.

“That’s how I got to learn to play that thing.” Reviewing one of Pizzarelli’s and Barnes’ first performances together, The New York Times’ John S. Wilson called them “a brilliant and unique team. Mr. Barnes and Mr. Pizzarelli can be dazzling, and they can be

continued on page 6

Photo by Bob Schultz

BIG BAND IN THE SKY

continued from page 5

sensuously brooding. They sparkle with excitement, leap with joy, or relax with a warm romantic glow.”

After breaking up with Barnes in 1972, Pizzarelli embarked on a busy recording and performing career, playing solo and appearing with saxophonists Bud Freeman and Zoot Sims and violinists Stephane Grappelli and Joe Venuti, among others.

He played at the White House three times -- for Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton. The Reagan performance was with Benny Goodman’s quintet which also included Hank Jones on piano, Milt Hinton on bass, and Buddy Rich on drums. “Buddy” Pizzarelli told Fox, “respected Benny like you can’t believe, and when Benny called him to come and play, he was excited and dropped everything. We went down to Washington and stayed at the Watergate. When we played, he even played ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ the way Gene Krupa did it. I have a tape of that. It is very exciting.”

Zoot Sims, Pizzarelli said, was Clinton’s favorite sax player. He was also Pizzarelli’s. “To me,” he told Fox, “there was nobody like Zoot. He was the happiest guy whenever he had that saxophone. Nobody could beat him. He and Al Cohn together, they were the champs. Two champs.” In 1998, Pizzarelli and tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton released a duo album on the Concord Jazz label called Red Door, a tribute to Sims. Calling the album, “a very successful outing,” AllMusic’s Scott Yanow wrote that, “Pizzarelli’s mastery of the seven-string guitar allows him to play bass lines behind solos, so one never misses the other instruments . .

positive spirit. He seemed to enjoy life to the fullest and made every occasion you were with him -- whether on the road, at a restaurant, hanging with the guys -- a memorable experience. I always looked forward to being with him and his whole family. Also, he was very calm under pressure.” (See article about Rachel Domber receiving the Sarasota Jazz Club’s Satchmo Award, page 12).

“Jazz guitar wouldn’t be what it is today without Bucky Pizzarelli,” guitarist Frank Vignola told the Daily Record’s Westhoven. “He and Freddie Greene were responsible for a style of rhythm guitar playing that has lasted until 2020.” Vignola was often Pizzarelli’s partner in multi-guitar summits at the annual Morristown Jazz and Blues festivals held in August. “He was an inspiration on so many levels,” Vignola said. “When I first met him, I had four young kids, and he was a father. He showed me that, yes, you can be a jazz guitar player and raise a family. That may not seem like a big deal, but it was huge to me.”

. Both Hamilton and Pizzarelli sound inspired in this format, stretching themselves while always swinging.”

In 1980, Pizzarelli began performing in duos with his son, John, then 20, who has gone onto a very successful career as a guitarist and vocalist. The day after Bucky Pizzarelli’s death, John Pizzarelli described his father to the Morristown Daily Record’s William Westhoven as “the ultimate sideman. He wasn’t looking to be the guy out in front of the band. He was happy to be inside the band, supporting the whole organization. There will be some kind of tribute,” he added, “as soon as we can all get with six feet of each other.”

Bucky and John Pizzarelli have recorded albums together on the Arbors Records label, including The Pizzarellis, Bucky and John: Contrast and Bucky and John Pizzarelli: Family Fugue. Arbors Records’ Rachel Domber recalled to Jersey Jazz that her late husband, Mat, and she became friends with Bucky during the 1990s. “Of course, we had heard of him before that,” she said. “He was a very warm, kind person, and I particularly loved his humor and

Ed Laub, Pizzarelli’s protege and musical partner in recent years, recalled on Facebook his first lesson with his mentor. “When I was 16 years old (1968), I rode my bike to the home of Bucky Pizzarelli to take my first guitar lesson. It was a Saturday morning and a day I have never forgotten . . . He said to me, ‘The most important thing you can do as a musician is to try and make everyone you’re playing with sound as good as they can sound...it’s not about you! That’s how you make good music!’ Every musician that ever had the honor of playing with Bucky could sense that was what he did for them every time they played. It was never about him . . . I could never repay Bucky for what he has given me in my life . . . I will be forever grateful. I miss you my dear friend.”

To pianist Dick Hyman, Pizzarelli was “a marvelous guy to work with. He had perfect time, and he knew exactly how the rhythm section and the individual song were best served. I’ll miss him personally; he was one of the founding members of the gang.” Tenor saxophonist Houston Person met Pizzarelli in the early 1970s. “He was such an easygoing guy,” Person said, “and he and he became one of my role models, although I told him I couldn’t dress like him! He always told me I should just play what I felt. It makes no difference, he said, what genre you’re in. We played with the beboppers and the swingers. We all loved Bucky!”

In a Facebook video, violinist Aaron Weinstein recalled the first time he performed with Pizzarelli. “I realized,” he said, “I was sharing the stage with a guy who had played ‘I Got Rhythm’ three times longer than I’d been alive. He did everything but play my violin to help me through that concert . . . Over 15 years, I’ve had the privilege of working on a regular basis with Bucky. During every concert, every recording session, he showed me what it meant to be a great jazz musician. For Bucky Pizzarelli, it meant doing your best

Bucky, with Bernard Purdie Photo by Mitchell Seidel

to make great music, no matter what the venue, sharing that music with the audience in a way they could appreciate and . . . always wearing a tie while doing it.”

Pianist Rossano Sportiello, like Weinstein, learned a lot from Pizzarelli, describing him as “a wonderful musician and person, very supportive of younger players. He was always in a good mood and very generous to give sincere advice. I’ll miss him very much.”

To guitarist Charlie Apicella, “Bucky Pizzarelli embodied the class, warmth, and complete musicianship that is sometimes a rare thing to witness today. My favorite of his recordings are his solo unaccompanied guitar album, Love Songs from1981 and his rhythm playing on Tony Mottola’s All The Way from 1983.”

Bucky’s wife Ruth tragically followed him in death on April 8th, one week to the day after his own. Born December 1, 1930, Ruth was, according to John, “a Jersey Girl before the term was fashionable.” Raised in Waldwick, NJ, no one cared more about family than Ruth. Known to her children as Mommy, and Ruthie by family and friends, Mrs. Pizzarelli was a woman of great style, who loved music, loved a great party, was a fabulous cook, was a kind and generous friend, and never met a stranger she didn’t know. She and Bucky met in 1952, where she worked as a nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital with Bucky’s sister. Married two years later, the Pizzarellis celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary January 9, 2020. In addition to John and Mary, the Pizzarellis are survived by son, bassist Martin Pizzarelli; daughter Anne Hymes; and four grandchilden.

Donations can be made in their honor to the Jazz Foundation of America.

Ellis Marsalis -- ‘Giant Musician And Teacher, But an Even Greater Father’

“All I did was make sure they had the best so they could be the best. They did the rest.” That brief statement, in a 1993 Ebony Magazine interview, was pianist/educator Ellis Marsalis’ assessment of his

influence on the success of his jazz musician sons -- saxophonist Branford, trumpeter Wynton, trombonist Delfeayo, and percussionist Jason. The elder Marsalis was practically a household name in New Orleans for years, but he only became nationally known when his sons, Branford and Wynton, rose to prominence in the 1980s.

Marsalis died on Wednesday, April 1, 2020, in New Orleans at the age of 85. The cause, according to Branford, was complications of COVID-19. “My dad, was a giant of a musician and teacher, but an even greater father,” said Branford, in a statement issued after his father’s death. “He poured everything he had into making us the best of what we could be.”

Wynton, in his blog on wyntonmarsalis.org, called his father “a humble man with a lyrical sound that captured the spirit of place -New Orleans, the Crescent City, the Big Easy, the Curve. He was a stone-cold believer without extravagant tastes. Like many parents, he sacrificed for us and made so much possible. Not only material things, but things of substance and beauty like the ability to hear complicated music and to read books; to see and to contemplate art . . . For me, there is no sorrow, only joy. He went on down the Good Kings Highway, as was his way, a jazz man, ‘with grace and gratitude.’”

Ellis Marsalis was born on November 14, 1934, in New Orleans. He began as a saxophonist before changing to piano in high school. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education from New Orleans’ Dillard University, later earning a Master’s Degree in Music Education from Loyola University, also in New Orleans. He directed the Jazz Studies program at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts for high school students. Among his students were trumpeter Terence Blanchard and pianist/vocalist Harry Connick, Jr. He later taught at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and the University of New Orleans where he founded its Jazz Studies program.

While teaching, he continued to work as a musician, often performing with visiting musicians who were playing in New Orleans and, for three years, from 1967-70, touring with New Orleans-based trumpeter Al Hirt. In 1979, he played a gig at New York’s Carnegie Tavern and was praised by John S. Wilson of The New York Times. “Unlike the widely accepted image of jazz musicians from New Orleans,” Wilson wrote, “Mr. Marsalis is not a traditionalist . . . he’s an eclectic performer with a light and graceful touch . . .an exploratory turn of mind.”

A year later, his two older sons, Branford and Wynton, began to rise on the national scene, and their father’s profile rose with them. In 1983, he gave a solo performance at the Carnegie Tavern’s next door neighbor, Carnegie Hall. “Mr. Marsalis’ interpretations were impressive in their economy and steadiness,” wrote The New York Times critic Stephen Holden. “Sticking mainly to the middle register of the keyboard, the pianist offered richly harmonized arrangements in which fancy keyboard work was kept to a minimum, and studious melodic invention, rather than pronounced bass patterns, determined the structures and tempos.”

Marsalis also collaborated on albums with his sons -- Standard Time, Vol. 3: The Resolution of Romance (Columbia: 1990) and Joe

continued on page 26

Photo Credit: Louisianaweekly.com

Three Jazz Lovers Had a Dream: 10 Years Later, It’s Reality

By Sanford Josephson

Due to the coronavirus, the New Brunswick Jazz Project canceled all performances beginning in mid-March. Please check nbjp.org for updates.

Ten years ago, New Brunswick residents Virginia DeBerry, Jimmy Lenihan, and Michael Tublin decided they wanted to bring live jazz to their town on a regular basis. As luck would have it, all three were steady customers at Makeda, a local Ethiopian restaurant. “We approached Makeda,” said Lenihan, “because we knew the owners, and they knew us.” Added DeBerry, “We had been regulars there for

many years, and they were willing to give us a shot.” Tublin explained that, “At the launch, we said, ‘We’ll take the financial risk. We’ll put the money up at the beginning, and you’ll see the benefit.’”

The biggest challenge at the start was getting the word out, and DeBerry remembers that, “There were nights when it was the three of us, Makeda staff, and the band. But, the music was great, and we knew we would continue. We had agreed to present events for a year -- no matter what. We felt that was the way to give it a chance.”

The first act, booked on Wednesday night, April 14, 2010, was alto saxophonist Ralph Bowen who was also a faculty member in the Jazz Studies program at Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts. “By the end of the first six months,” recalled DeBerry, “we had gone from twice a month to once a week. The audience was small but enthusiastic, and we felt like it would happen.”

Through the years, NBJP’s venues have featured a wide variety of well-known jazz artists including guitarist Dave Stryker, saxophonists Tia Fuller, Virginia Mayhew and Jerry Weldon, and drummers Victor Lewis and Rudy Royston. Tublin recalled one night when young trombonist Andy Hunter was performing. “All of a sudden, Conrad Herwig comes in and sits in and plays with Andy. We knew Andy was one of his proteges, so it was special.” Added Lenihan: “A bunch of nights we hugged each other because of the interaction of the performers and the audience.”

One promise the NBJP partners have made to their patrons is that there will never be a cover charge or minimum at their venues. That has been accomplished, DeBerry explained, “by working with the venues so they can maximize their return on the additional business jazz nights bring. It’s also working with the audience and encouraging them to eat and drink so the music can keep playing. One of the issues that has happened with jazz, especially in the New York-New Jersey area is that events have often been cost prohibitive.”

Another key to success has been the noise level of the venues. “We ask for respect for the musicians from our audiences,” said Lenihan. “We don’t ask for silence, but we do ask that people listen to the music.” And, echoing DeBerry, he added: “The music is free, but we do expect our audiences to support the house.”

Currently, there is live jazz three nights a week. Tuesday nights feature emerging artists at the George Street Ale House, and Wednesday and Thursday nights are at Tavern on George. “I think the last two to three years is when NBJP really caught on,” DeBerry added, “once we relocated to Tavern on George.”

The group has tried a number of venues, but Tavern on George, according to Lenihan, “came with a basement that looked like a jazz club. It has a certain vibe.” And the owner, Doug Schneider, is committed to making jazz work there. “When we first started there,” said Tublin, “we asked him what dates he wanted to cancel, thinking he would have some private parties around the holidays. He said, ‘We’re not canceling jazz.’”

This writer was at Tavern on George on a Thursday night in late January to see the Nat Adderley, Jr. Quartet. The house was packed, but what was particularly evident was the diversity of the audience -- in race, age, and gender. That, according to DeBerry, is “one of the things I think is the greatest about NBJP jazz nights. I honestly believe we have the most consistently diverse audience of any cultural institution in New Brunswick. We regularly span not only race, age, and gender, but also a wide variety of economic, social and cultural sectors. Our audience proves that music is a connecting force. We have people who have made new friends. We’ve had a number of romantic relationships come from jazz nights. We’ve had marriage proposals and weddings result from our jazz nights. It’s been pretty extraordinary.”

The diversity of the audience, Lenihan added, “reflects our community. It’s the people we hung out with before we started this. They’re the same type of people who are attending our venues. I would also add a shout out to the city of New Brunswick, and the Mayor of New Brunswick, James Cahill. He has been in our corner from the very beginning. He’s the most supportive politician I’ve ever dealt with.” New Brunswick, Tublin pointed out, “is between New York and Philadelphia. It’s fortunate that, geographically, it’s where we all landed.”

Alto saxophonist Ralph Bowen was the first NBJP performer. Photo by Joel W. Henderson

From left, Jimmy Lenihan, Virginia DeBerry, Michael Tublin

Alto Saxophonist Charles McPherson: A True Giant of Jazz

By Sanford Josephson

I first saw Charles McPherson perform in June 1974 at a Newport Jazz Festival in New York concert entitled, “The Musical Life of Charlie Parker”. A big band led by pianist Jay McShann had a saxophone section with three altos: McPherson, Sonny Stitt, and Phil Woods. Throughout the early and mid-’70s, I would see McPherson and trumpeter Lonnie Hillyer regularly at a club in the Village called Boomers on Bleecker Street. I last saw McPherson play live in December 2015 at William Paterson University and was hoping to see him again at the first Main Stage Concert of this year’s Sarasota Jazz Festival, which was canceled (except for the previous night’s Pub Crawl) due to the coronavirus. McPherson was scheduled to appear on March 12 with NEA Jazz Master pianist Dick Hyman, clarinetist/ saxophonist Ken Peplowski, the festival’s music director, and guitarist Russell Malone. Fortunately, in anticipation of the Sarasota performance, I had interviewed him by phone on March 6.

In 1948, when Charles McPherson was nine years old, his family moved from Joplin, MO, to Detroit. “It was better up north,” he told me. “It was a big city. It was booming. Blue collar, working people were very healthy. Money was flowing. The jazz clubs were successful, and there was a great musical scene.”

McPherson’s family lived on a street that was about a block away from the Blue Bird, “the hippest jazz club in Detroit.” Pianist Barry Harris lived around the corner from the McPhersons, and the future trumpeter, Lonnie Hillyer, lived on the same street. But, before McPherson knew all this, he noticed something special about his neighborhood. “I can remember playing in my front yard,” he said. “I would see throngs of people. Now, I know they were walking to the club, the Blue Bird, but I didn’t know it then. I did know there was something different about these people walking in this direction. They were black and white, interracial. A little kid like me noticed something unusual about that. Something different. A different look coming out of those faces. A certain worldliness. I knew this was a different group of people than those I saw when I went to the grocery store or the post office.”

By the time he reached junior high school, McPherson started playing trumpet, eventually switching to saxophone. An older saxophone player told him about Charlie Parker. “I remembered that name, and I saw Charlie Parker’s name on a jukebox. There were songs like ‘Tico Tico’, ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, ‘In the Still of the Night’. They resonated with me. I said, ‘This is it. This is how you should play.’ There were these long lines that connect like sentences, what I would now call linear -- a bunch of notes being played, and they were all making sense. All these notes fit like a glove. I understood it. Then, I discovered a whole slew of musicians who played like this.” (In 1988, McPherson was the alto saxophone voice of Charlie Parker in several scenes of Clint Eastwood’s movie, Bird)

“Now I understood where these people were going,” he continued. “The club down the street, the Blue Bird, was a place where they played that kind of music. So, I started to go down and stand outside and listen to the music, to people like Elvin Jones, Barry Harris, Thad Jones, Pepper Adams, Paul Chambers. I would just stand outside and listen. One day, the club owner said I could come inside with my parents. At

this time, Miles Davis was playing there. I came in with my parents, and I couldn’t believe it.”

McPherson and his friend, trumpeter Lonnie Hillyer, would occasionally try to sit in at the Blue Bird. “We could play the melody,” McPherson recalled, “but we couldn’t improvise worth a damn. Barry Harris heard us and said, ‘If you want, come by the house, and I’ll show you some things.’ That was the beginning of me learning about harmony and chord changes. I was over at his house every day. He was always teaching. People like Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane -- when they came to Detroit, they would go to his house and hang out. I would be over after school, and I would watch them. They’d be talking about Bertram Russell, Jack Kerouac, the existentialists. They were very intelligent people talking about things that had nothing to do with music. I began to realize that to play this music, you’ve got to become a thinker. You gotta understand how art is connected to other things.”

McPherson moved from Detroit to New York City in the late 1950s and in 1959 he and Hillyer joined Charles Mingus’ band where he would remain for 12 years. “Eric Dolphy and Ted Curson were still in the band,” McPherson recalled, “but they were forming their own groups. Mingus was livid. I got referred to the gig by Yusef Lateef. He knew Lonnie and I were in New York looking for gigs, and he told Mingus, ‘There’s an alto player and trumpet player from Detroit I’ve heard’. Mingus hired us that night.”

Boomers: A Charles McPherson Hangout in the Late ‘60s and Early ‘70s

In an August 2016 article reminiscing about the jazz clubs in Lower Manhattan and Greenwich Village in the 1960s and early ‘70s, Westview News writer Mel Watkins mentioned that “many of the era’s most fondly remembered clubs have been celebrated,” but “Boomers, one of the era’s most colorful and unusual jazz spots, has been overlooked.”

Opened in 1969, Watkins wrote, “the club’s reputation swelled when piano legend Bobby Timmons began appearing regularly . . . and New York Times restaurant critic Raymond Sokolov gave the new soul food menu a rave review. By the early 1970s, Boomers had emerged as one of the most popular jazz clubs and eateries in Greenwich Village.”

The article mentioned Charles McPherson as one of the regular jazz performers along with such other jazz luminaries as pianists Roland Hanna, Cedar Walton, and Junior Mance; saxophonists George Coleman and David Sanborn; and vocalists Betty Carter and Etta Jones. WRVR’s Les Davis broadcast live concerts from there, Watkins wrote, adding that the owners of the Village Vanguard and Village Gate “stopped in to evaluate and recruit artists for their own venues . . . According to saxophonist Dave Schnitter, after [Art] Blakey sat in with him during a session at Boomers, the legendary drummer asked Schnitter to join the Jazz Messengers.” The room was also frequented by “aspiring young politicians as well as celebrities ranging from literary figures to sports stars such as Earl ‘The Pearl’ Monroe or Walt Frazier to members of the Negro Ensemble Company.”

Although McPherson took a short break to work for the Internal Revenue Service, he believes he was the second longest Mingus sideman to drummer Danny Richmond. “I can hear, by way of osmosis, things I remember about Mingus,” he said. “I was always enamored by Mingus’ ballad writing. His ballads were kind of haunting with an interesting, unusual quality.” Every night with Mingus, McPherson said, “was a story. He got a reputation for being a tough guy, but here’s a story that shows another side of him. We played a benefit for the writer, Kenneth Patchen (who had been disabled since the late ‘50s due to a spinal injury). He was a personal friend of Mingus, who did a benefit for him at a coffee house in Mill Valley, CA. It was Danny Richmond, Lonnie, and me. There was a jar for money, and Mingus just gave each of us $5 for playing. Everyone took the money, but I said, ‘Just put it in the tip jar.’ His eyes watered up, and he just said, ‘Thank you, Charles.’ I was 21 years old, and from that point on, he never bothered me. I could be late, it didn’t matter. He teared up, and I could tell he thought of me a little differently. Once he pigeonholed you into a certain category, that’s what you were forever.”

In 1978, McPherson moved to San Diego “to get away from New York and also to see my mom who was living there. She was 69 or 70, and I’m thinking, ‘that’s old as hell’. I ended up staying, and she lived to be 94. I started a new life in San Diego.” He met his wife, Lynn, there, and his youngest daughter, 27-year-old Camile, is a dancer with the San Diego Ballet. She introduced him to choreographer Javier Belasco, and, as a result, in 2015, his large-scale work, “Sweet Synergy Suite” was premiered by the company. It blends bebop and Afro-Latin music with ballet and modern dance styles.

McPherson became the ballet company’s Resident Composer in 2016. “In the last four or five years,” he said, “I have written several ballet suites.” His “Song of Songs”, eight tunes for jazz quintet and voice, was recorded last year at the Rudy Van Gelder Studios in Englewood, NJ, and is due to be released this year. “It was taken from the Old Testament story,” he said. “It deals with a young woman and man in love, a story of unrequited love. The young woman sings some of the words in Hebrew.”

Now 80 years old, McPherson was recently described by The Santa Fe New Mexican’s Richard Sheinin as “an authentic bebopper who keeps his eye on the melody.” That definition, he said, “is true. Any improviser needs a point of reference, other than it sounds good. When you improvise, you don’t just want to ramble. The real art in improvising is when you take a theme and explore it several different ways but make it a cohesive solo with an awareness of the melody. That’s the difference between a player who knows his craft and one who doesn’t. You need to be adhering in some way to the vibe of the melody even though you’re free to play it a million different ways. It’s like playing ping pong. You can’t play without a table. The real art is: Can you hit the ball a million different ways and still go over the net?”

Arbors Records’ Rachel Domber and Her Late Husband, Mat, Receive Prestigious Satchmo Award

The Jazz Club of Sarasota presented its prestigious Satchmo Award to Rachel Domber and her late husband, Mat, founders and operators of Arbors Records, on March 12, at a reception that was part of the pandemic-interrupted Sarasota Jazz Festival. The presentation had been planned as part of the Jazz Club’s 40th anniversary celebration and was hastily rescheduled as musicians and audiences departed under an advisory from Florida governmental officials.

Ed Linehan, President of the Jazz Club and Managing Director of the Jazz Festival, said, “We are very pleased to honor the work of Rachel Domber and her late husband, Matthew, by presenting them with the Satchmo award, the Jazz Club’s highest recognition.” The award commemorates the contributions of jazz great Louis Armstrong. Previous award recipients include NEA Jazz Master pianist Dick Hyman and clarinetist/tenor saxophonist Ken Peplowski, who has been Music Director of the festival the last few years. The 2019 Satchmo Award went to tenor saxophonist Houston Person who was scheduled to perform, along with Hyman and Peplowski, at this year’s event. The award is sponsored by the Harold and Evelyn R. Davis Memorial Foundation in memory of Hal Davis, Founder of the Jazz Club of Sarasota.

Created in 1987, the award, Linehan said, seeks “to honor those who have made a unique and enduring contribution to the living history of jazz, our original art form. I can’t think of anyone who fits that definition better than the Dombers. Through their efforts, Arbors has produced hundreds of albums since 1989, representing many classic styles of jazz.”

Dixieland Jazz Classic in Clearwater, FL; and has been a generous supporter of the New Jersey Jazz Society.

Among Arbors releases in recent years have been Hyman and Peplowski’s Counterpoint, clarinetist/saxophonist Adrian Cunningham’s Adrian Cunningham and His Friends Play the Tunes of Lerner and Loewe, and multi-reedist Scott Robinson’s Tenormore, named Best New Release of 2019 by the readers of JazzTimes Magazine.

Violinist Aaron Weinstein recalled to Jersey Jazz that he met Mat and Rachel Domber “at my first professional recording, which was a session for Arbors Records. At the urging of Bucky Pizzarelli, I was hired to be part of what turned out to be Skitch Henderson’s last album . . . Almost immediately thereafter, Mat and Rachel took me under their wing, bringing me into the Arbors family. They gave me opportunities in my late teens and early 20s to work with the world’s greatest jazz musicians and gave me artistic control of the albums I made for them.” Mat Domber, he added, “was like a grandfather to me . . . Mat and Rachel are a modern day Norman Granz. I feel so grateful to have experienced their musical passion, generosity, and friendship.”

Mat Domber was a New York-based lawyer with real estate interests in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Florida. He was also a jazz fan, record collector, and listener. “We started in 1989 without thinking of establishing a record label,” Rachel Domber recalled, “but only to try to give our friend [clarinetist/saxophonist] Rick Fay something he could sell on the bandstand. It grew into a labor of love, and we now have over 400 recordings in our catalog.” Fay had been a performer at Disney parks in California and Florida but had never recorded as a leader. In addition to making records, Arbors was the originator and producer of March of Jazz weekend jazz parties in Clearwater, FL, which started with bassist Bob Haggart’s 80th birthday in 1994 and continued through 2012, the year of Mat Domber’s death. Arbors is also a sponsor of the Sarasota Jazz Festival and the Suncoast

Among Arbors albums recorded by Weinstein are Handful of Stars (2005) and Blue Too (2008). Reviewing Handful of Stars for AllMusic, Rick Anderson described it as “a startlingly mature and impressively confident debut album from 19-year-old jazz violinist Aaron Weinstein, a young man who plays with a felicitous combination of Stuff Smith’s earthy, powerful attack and Stephane Grappelli’s elegant sophistication.” The ‘stars’ who joined Weinstein on the album included Bucky and John Pizzarelli, Houston Person, Nicki Parrott, and drummer Joe Ascione.

When Mat Domber died in September 2012, several musicians paid tribute to him in the pages of Jersey Jazz (November 2012).

Drummer/vibraphonist Chuck Redd said Domber, “changed my life by allowing me to begin recording as a leader in 2001. He placed no restrictions on my selection of music or on my choice of accompanying musicians.” Pianist Rossano Sportiello recalled that Domber “wasn’t concerned with selling records, just helping musicians whom he liked. That made him truly unique.” And, trumpeter Randy Sandke, who now lives in Sarasota, called Domber “irreplaceable. I never knew anyone else who had so much fun while giving pleasure to others. He was a friend, mentor, and inspiration.”

Rachel Domber

Rachel Domber Keeps the Music Playing ...

By Schaen Fox

Rachel Domber was interviewed by Jersey Jazz writer Schaen Fox before she knew about the Satchmo Award.

When Mat Domber died in September 2012, it would have been easy for his wife, Rachel, to close down the music company he started more than 30 years ago, but she didn’t. Here’s why.

“Since our first album,” she said, “we became personal friends with all of our musicians. When Mat died, I was terribly upset and wondered what to do with my life because we were so intertwined. . . After he died, I thought about keeping the music alive. I enjoyed it so much I thought I’d just keep doing it. I’m 81, so I don’t know how much longer I can keep going, but I’d like to for as long as I can. “Our goal from the start,” she continued, “was to pick out some upcoming people and give them a CD to sell off the bandstand. Now, I’m recording some very well known artists, like Rossano Sportiello. I think he is one of the greatest living pianists, and I want him to record a masterpiece. Things like that fulfill me.”

Although the music business is moving away from CDs toward digital downloads, Arbors, Domber said, will continue to sell CDs. “We are getting most of our business from digital downloads, so I guess it’s the wave of the future,” she said, “but I’m still going to produce physical CDs and digital downloads. We still sell a lot of CDs because we have people who want to get the physical product, read liner notes and have the whole thing there.”

The March of Jazz weekend jazz parties that the Dombers ran from 1994 to 2012 were legendary. “They were the brainchild of my husband,” she said. “He wanted to have a big jazz party with the best musicians. It cost us a lot of money. We never made a dime off of it, but that wasn’t the point. My husband just thrived on the thing. One year was spectacular. We had Sherrie Maricle and her Diva Jazz Orchestra, and we brought the Tuxedo Big Band of Paul Cheron from Toulouse, France. Bob Wilber was very connected to it. It was exciting to see the all-male band from France and Sherrie’s allfemale American band together.”

It might surprise fans of Arbors Record to learn that Rachel Domber was actually a country music fan when she met Mat. “I was an economist working for the government,” she recalled. “He was a consultant with the State Department in Pennsylvania and made an appointment to see me to discuss low income housing. He was trying to get some elderly units for a non-profit group. I only knew Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, and things like that. When we started dating, I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine going with somebody that doesn’t like country music.’ I loved Tom T. Hall, Bob Wills, and the old-time country music. We started going out to country music things, and he became a huge fan of it.”

As for jazz, “He was 10 years older than me, and he knew everything about jazz. He was a fraternity brother with Dick Hyman at Columbia College. Dick was one year older than Mat, so they weren’t very close, but, after classes, Dick would go down to Greenwich Village and play, and Mat would sneak down to watch him. After we got into the music

business, they became very good friends, and we had a lot of fun together.”

Domber is full of stories about the jazz musicians she and Mat worked with through the years. Ruby Braff and Mat were “very good friends, but Ruby was tough to deal with. One time, he called to talk to Mat, who wasn’t there. He started yelling and screaming about how Mat didn’t know how to do things, so I just slammed the phone down. A few seconds later, the phone rang, and Ruby said, ‘Oh, we must have been disconnected.’ . . . He was nuts, but he was very, very sweet. His soft side came out in his music. He was a master on the cornet.”

Bob Haggart “was wonderful. He enjoyed painting and fancy dining, things like that. Kenny Davern was wonderful in his music, but he had a lot of other interests. He loved hiking and nature. He talked a lot about opera and was well versed in a lot of things. We traveled all over Europe with Bob Wilber and Pug, his wife. They were what I call globalists because of their interests beyond music. I like artists that are not just small talk.”

Tenor saxophonist Flip Phillips gave the Dombers his flattened saxophone. “I have it hanging in my office,” Domber said. “I guess a car ran over it. Flip and Mat were very close.” In addition to the flattened sax, “Mat and I were big collectors of paintings from Bob Haggart and photographs by Milt Hinton.”

All the CDs, Domber said, “are like my little babies. I love them all, and I put a lot of work into every single one . . . The thought of just having lunch with the girls or playing golf, or going to the beach is fine, but I’ve been working ever since I was 16. I love business. That’s why I’m in it. It is mainly for the musicians. I only want to deal with musicians I really admire.”

Ruby Braff was "tough to deal with" but "a master on the cornet."

Pianists Rossano Sportiello, left, and Dick Hyman are two among many Arbors recording artists.

DAN’S DEN

By Dan Morgenstern

Of the far too many who have already been taken from us, the man whose image graces the cover of this magazine was particularly close to the hearts of all who love the music we call jazz, and we were lucky to be his neighbors.

Bucky Pizzarelli was a master of his art and craft. He enhanced any musical situation he might find himself in, and those situations covered a truly amazing range, as you will have learned from “Big Band in the Sky”, to whose ranks he surely was welcomed with open arms and hearts—no musician, no singer who ever shared a note with Bucky could fail to love him.

Bucky Pizzarelli was a master of his art and craft. He enhanced any musical situation he might find himself in.

And that was because he not only could play but loved to play. I would watch when, for instance, he would perform his special arrangement of “Honeysuckle Rose,” calling out the changes to his band mates, spreading joy. Or when he paired with a favorite, such as Ed Laub or Zoot Sims (boy, could they define swing). And you could see it as well as hear it.

I had the good fortune of attending a number of those invitational festivals called “Jazz Parties” where Bucky would also be on hand. He was among the early risers, as was I, and always had a big good morning smile. I never found him in a bad mood—not even when he partnered

with George Barnes for a couple of years, or worked and toured with Benny Goodman for much longer.

There were very, very few musicians as versatile as Bucky Pizzarelli was, and maybe none who were so modest about it.

There were very, very few musicians as versatile as Bucky Pizzarelli was, and maybe none who are or were so modest about it. Bucky had no “side.” He was a warm and gentle man, and a great teacher, formally and informally.

For an informal example, Daryl Sherman told me that when she was making an album for Arbors (whose founder, Mat Domber, was a great Bucky fan), they had finished a run through of one of the songs, and Bucky took her aside and said, “Don’t shoot your wad on the first chorus.” Sage advice! Incidentally, the label is kept alive and well by Mat’s widow Rachel (see stories on pages 12 and 13).

We can be sure Bucky gave plenty of that advice to his son John, who is following in his footsteps with a song in his heart, and to John’s brother, Martin, who plucks a mean bass. I don’t know if sister Mary still plays guitar, but I remember hearing her years ago.

So there’s a living legacy, in addition to the treasure trove of records we can hear Bucky on, not a sour note in the lot. When he was on the scene everything was in tune. We are blessed he was with us for so long!

OTHER VIEWS

By Joe Lang

In these difficult days, music is one of the things that helps take your mind off of the pressures of the day. The steady flow of new albums is at times overwhelming to assess and decide which ones to hip you to this time out. Anyway, here are some tasty choices for you to consider.

Passion Flower: The Music of Billy Strayhorn (Sunnyside – SSC-4114) is an elegant musical examination of 14 Strayhorn gems by pianist JOHN DI MARTINO, assisted by tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, bassist Boris Kozlov and drummer Lewis Nash. Di Martino has been incorporating Strayhorn material into his repertoire throughout his years as a premier jazz pianist and accompanist. Strayhorn was a melodist supreme, producing a raft of memorable tunes like “Lush Life,” “Chelsea Bridge,” “Daydream,” “Passion Flower,” “Take the ‘A’ Train,” “A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing” and “Lotus Blossom,” all of which are included on this album. Alexander is a strong presence with his fluid playing and singular improvisational acumen. It is always a plus to have the kind of steady and swinging rhythmic support provided by Kozlov and Nash. A nice bonus is a knowing reading of “Lush Life” by vocalist Raul Midón. Strayhorn’s music is always a joy to experience, and this collection of his music is among the best to come along. (johndimartino.com)

There was only one ERROLL GARNER. He had a sound and style that was as individual as individual could be. That’s My Kick (Mack Avenue – 1163) and Up in Erroll’s Room (Mack Avenue – 1164) are the latest in the Octave Remastered Series of reissues of classic Garner albums from the 1960s and 1970s. The first of these titles finds Garner in his normal trio setting with congas added. Half of the 12 titles are Garner originals, with the others including standards like “The Shadow of Your Smile,” “Autumn Leaves,” “Blue Moon” and “More.” No matter how familiar the tune may be, Garner makes it a new experience. The other album has the same instrumentation with a brass section added for four tracks. The program has 11 songs, two Garner originals, and nine standards and jazz tunes. The tracks with the brass added are “Watermelon Man,” “The Coffee Song,” “Got a Lot of Livin’ to Do” and “I Got Rhythm. Listening to Garner and his infectious playing has almost a hypnotic effect. He is full of surprises, and you cannot wait to hear how he will resolve what

often seems like a trip to nowheresville. This series has made a lot of valuable listening pleasures once again widely available. (mackavenue.com)

The JEFF HAMILTON TRIO has had many incarnations over the last 30 or so years. On Catch Me If You Can (Capri – 74163) he has a long-time associate, pianist Tamir Hendelman and newcomer bassist Jon Hamar on board. They sound like they have been playing steadily for the entire 30 years. Hamilton is a drummer who is equally at home driving a big band or exhibiting his incredible musicianship and sensitivity in a trio setting. Hendelman has been equally acclaimed as a leader, sideman or accompanist for singers. Hamar is a rock steady timekeeper, and sparkles when given solo space. Together they are three minds working as one. The program is a mix of the familiar, “Make Me Rainbows,” “Bijou” and “Moonray;” some nifty jazz tunes, “Helen’s Song” by George Cables, “Lapinha,” a staple of the Sergio Mendes catalog, “Big Dipper by Thad Jones and “The Pond,” written by one of Hamilton’s mentors, John Von Ohlen; plus two originals by Hamar and one by Hendelman. These gentlemen are given plenty of opportunity to show their versatility, and they shine at any tempo. (www. caprirecords.com)

The swinging twins, PETER AND WILL ANDERSON, keep pouring out marvelous music, whether in concert or in a studio as

on their latest album, Featuring Jimmy Cobb (Outside In Music -2003). For this gathering of the multi-reed playing Andersons with pianist Jeb Patton, bassist David Wong and drummer Jimmy Cobb, they have selected a 10-song program that mixes four pop and jazz standards, “Autumn in New York,” “Someday My Prince Will Come,” “Jeannine” and “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” with three originals by each of the Andersons. The four gentlemen from the younger generation, the Andersons, Patton and Wong, have all developed into front line players, and they are driven by the greatness of the venerable jazz giant one Jimmy Cobb. This is a collection of mainstream jazz at its finest. The strength and versatility of the Andersons as musicians is matched by their talent for composing tunes that immediately catch your ear, and are likely to be picked up by other players. If you need some uplifting, the music presented here is the perfect prescription. (peterandwillanderson. com)

For the title track of his latest recording, Denver-based tenor saxophonist KEITH OXMAN has chosen Two Cigarettes in the Dark (Capri – 74161), a 1934 tune by Lew Pollack and Paul Francis Webster, one not heard very often these days. It illustrates his wide range of familiarity with the Great American Songbook, reinforced by others like “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” “Everything Happens to Me” and “Crazy He Calls Me.” He is also hip to jazz tunes like Hank Mobley’s “Bossa for Baby” and Johnny Griffin’s “Sweet Sucker.” On these six selections, Oxman is joined on the front line by tenor master Houston Person. The rhythm section, also from the Denver area, is a sparkling one comprising Jeff Jenkins on piano, Ken Walker on bass and Paul Romaine on drums. The quartet minus Person addresses three Oxman originals and one by Jenkins. Annette Murrell provides impressive vocalizing on “Everything Happens to Me” and “Crazy He Calls Me.” Oxman and his cohorts have produced a

continued on page 18

OTHER VIEWS continued from page 16

winner with Two Cigarettes in the Dark. (www.caprirecords.com)

There is a wealth of recorded jazz, which has been lying dormant, that has been discovered and brought out of the shadows to excite jazz enthusiasts. Various labels have been releasing some of these hidden treasures, among them Reel to Reel Records, an undertaking of Cory Weeds, owner of the Cellar Live label. His latest, co-produced by Zev Feldman, who has been involved in several projects for Reel to Reel and Resonance Records, is Ow! Johnny Griffin & Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis Live at the Penthouse (Reel to Reel – 003). The two tenor masters were recorded in1962 with a rhythm section of Horace Parlan on piano, Buddy Catlett on bass and Art Taylor on drums at The Penthouse in Seattle for broadcast on a local radio station, KINGFM. The pairing of Griffin and Davis started at Birdland in 1960, but only lasted a few years. This live set is a fine example of the excitement that was generated when these cats met, horns in hand. The eight selections include “Blues Up and Down,”

JAZZ TRIVIA

“Ow!,” “Bahia,” “Blue Lou,” “Second Balcony Jump,” “How Am I to Know,” “Sophisticated Lady” and “Tickle Toe,” bookended by their theme, “Intermission Riff.” The extensive liner notes add to the enjoyment to be derived from this package. (cellarlive.com)

JOHN SNEIDER is probably familiar to most listeners as the trumpet player with vocalist Curtis Stigers. On The Scrapper (Cellar Music – 72619) Sneider proves to be a fine leader and front line player with support from Joel Frahm on tenor sax, Larry Goldings on Hammond B3 organ, John Hart on guitar and Andy Watson on drums. Sneider provides three originals, and Goldings two to a nine-song program that also includes two rarities from Duke Ellington, “Pyramid” and “On a Turquoise Cloud,” the Miles Davis classic, “Solar,” with wordless vocal accompaniment by Andy Bey, and “Dinosaur Eggs,” an original by David Sneider, John Sneider’s son, who also contributes some nifty trumpet work on the track. On the title track, it is immediately clear that this group will provide much excitement. The pairing of Sneider and Frahm with backing from the organ trio works perfectly. Sneider plays

Records that could go viral

By O. Howie Ponder

crisp lines, Frahm is consistently inventive, and the supporting trio provides a rhythmic bed for them to shine. Goldings and Hart are also impressive soloists, while Watson is an unobtrusive but steady presence on the drums. This is Sneider’s first album as a leader in 20 years. Let us hope that there will be another one within a much shorter time frame. (cellarlive.com)

Recently, guitarist Doug MacDonald has released several superb albums. His most recent is Mid Century Modern (dmacmusic -17) by THE COCHELLA VALLEY TRIO, MacDonald on guitar, Larry Holloway on piano and Tim Pleasant on drums. They have frequently played together in Palm Springs, located in the Cochella Valley, and MacDonald feels that this environment helps to create a special vibe that is reflected in their playing. Listening to their efforts on this album, whatever effect the location has, it certainly has resulted in a most appealing recording. There are six standards, “My Shining Hour,” “What’s New,” “Give Me the Simple Life,” “Stranger in Paradise,” “I Hadn’t Anyone Till You” and “The Way You Look Tonight;” a jazz classic, Dizzy Gillespie’s “Woody ‘n You;” and four

continued on page 39

If you’re missing live jazz - who among us isn’t? - during this coronavirus shutdown, here’s a quiz about the 2020 Grammy winners in the five jazz categories that might prompt you to buy a CD or some vinyl or stream the music to help keep the beat going until normalcy returns. (This was written in late March, after a week and a half of isolation mandates in New Jersey and New York.)

1. Nominated for Grammys nine times between 1996 and 2018, the 49-year-old pianist finally won this year’s prize for Best Instrumental Album. His Art of the Trio series, 2002’s Largo, and Love Sublime, a duet set with classical singer Renee Fleming, were among his best-known early-career albums.

2. The bassist and singer was just 25 when she won a Grammy as Best New Artist in 2010. She won twice for a 2012 album (Best Vocal Album, Best Arrangement). Her 2020 winner hit #1 on the Billboard jazz chart. She’s taught at Berklee and is currently on the Harvard faculty.

3. The New York-based trumpeter, now 63, is a longtime member of Eddie Palmieri’s explosive Afro-Caribbean ensembles, and the two shared a Best Latin Jazz Grammy in 2007 for Simpatico. In 2020, the Best Large Ensemble award was all his.

4. The Latin Jazz Grammy winner is a 78-year-old pianist and composer who is as busy as ever, as detailed in a JazzTimes cover story in January. It’s his 25th Grammy, and he’s been nominated for more than 60. His first came in 1976 for the Return to Forever record No Mystery.

5. Best Improvised Solo honors went to a trumpeter who hit the big time in 1967 playing in the jazz-rock band Blood, Sweat and Tears. From 1975-82, he teamed with his tenor saxophonist brother; their band earned seven Grammy nominations for six albums. The brothers also founded the Greenwich Village club Seventh Avenue South.

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RISING STARS

The Bright Future of Jazz

By Sanford Josephson

Three members of the New Jersey Youth Symphony Jazz Orchestra and Charles Mingus Combo won Outstanding Soloist awards at the 12th annual Charles Mingus Festival & High School Competition held February 14-17 at The New School of Jazz and at the Jazz Standard in New York City.

Jersey Jazz recently caught up with all three to talk about their love of jazz and their plans for the future.

Twelve-year-old Ben Collins-Siegel, a student at Maplewood Middle School, started playing piano at the age of four. After taking private lessons for five years from Zev Babbit, his father’s music teacher, Collins-Siegel began participating in Montclair’s Jazz House Kids program, also taking lessons from pianists Oscar Perez, Radam Schwartz, and Bob Himmelberger.

Drummer Koleby Royston, a junior at Piscataway High School, grew up in a musical family. His mother is jazz pianist Shamie Royston; his father is drummer Rudy Royston; and his aunt (Shamie’s sister) is alto saxophonist Tia Fuller. “My mom,” he said, “used to tell me stories about how she’d be conducting high school marching and jazz bands while I was still in the womb, so I’ve literally been around music my entire life.” During the summer between seventh and eighth grade, he attended a Jazz House Kids workshop, “and that was when I really decided to get involved in jazz drumming.”

Ryoma Takenaga, a 15-year-old sophomore at the Academy for Information Technology in Scotch Plains, began playing upright bass at age 9 and “started focusing on jazz around the same age. Some of my most important teachers were Jose Rodriguez, who taught me the rudiments of upright bass, and Ed Palermo, who introduced me to the endless creativity that jazz has to offer.”

Takenaga was inspired by “the important role the bass plays in a jazz band. The bassist is responsible for solidifying the groove, keeping time, and creating harmony at the same time.” His jazz hero is Christian McBride. “The way he plays the bass, and the groove he sets for the band continues to fascinate me,” Takenaga said. “I have been fortunate enough to personally meet him and talk to him on several occasions . . . Everything from his soloing style to his large and full sound had made an impression on me. Something about his playing style makes you want to tap your foot or move in your seat when you listen to him, and I aspire to become like that one day.”

Royston has a long list of drumming idols including Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Brian Blade, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Corey Fonville, Jerome Jennings, and Mark Whitfield, Jr. Blade, he said, “is probably one of the best drummers in terms of feel I’ve ever heard. Mark Whitfield Jr.’s creativity is insane. It’s amazing how he comes up with such creative ideas on the spot. Corey Fonville’s control is out of this world. I was actually fortunate enough to get a couple of lessons from Jerome Jennings last summer. The way he thinks of drums is so profound. When he explains his thought process, it is almost as if he was painting a picture. Every touch, stroke, and rhythm that he plays has some sort of meaning.”

Ryoma Takenaga, 3 years ago, with

For Collins-Siegel, it’s two legends and one current pianist: Oscar Peterson, Red Garland, and Christian Sands. “My favorite part about Oscar Peterson,” he pointed out, “is the way he accompanied singers. For example, on the album, Ella and Louis (Verve: 1956), he doesn’t play too much to take away from the singing. Also, he knows the type of chords to play to fit the mood of the song. For Red Garland, it’s how he comps. For example, on ‘Billy Boy’, the chords he plays are super interesting. And if you listen to him solo on something like ‘Straight No Chaser’, he does melodic lines for about the first five choruses. Then, he goes straight to big chords. For Christian Sands, it’s the way he puts the rhythm in his left hand and plays melodic lines in his right hand.”

All three student musicians played with the JTole Jazz Orchestra at the first annual Roselle Park Jazz Festival, created last July by alto saxophonist Julius Tolentino, who is Director of the New Jersey Youth Symphony Jazz Orchestra and Jazz Director at Newark Academy in Livingston. Royston described Tolentino as, “one of the most influential people in my life when helping me improve my skills as a drummer and as a musician. Mr. Tolentino’s passion for the music and knowledge of its history is what really affected me . . . He knows the language, vocabulary, styles, and sounds of not just his own instrument, but all the common jazz instruments. He allows his students to gain their own voice using the vocabulary he has taught them.” At the Roselle Park festival, Royston and Takenaga were featured during the band’s performance of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Night in Tunisia”.

At the festival, Collins-Siegel launched the band’s first number, Thad Jones’ “Counter Block”, with a stride piano solo. “Mr. T.,” he said, “has always pushed me to do things even when I thought they were beyond my ability. He has shown me that I am capable of playing more challenging music than I believed was possible.” Takenaga had “an amazing time” at the festival. “The audience was awesome, and everyone seemed to be engulfed in the music. Getting to play with [guitarist] Dave Stryker was a remarkable experience.”

What does the future hold for these three awardwinning musicians? “If I were offered the opportunity to become a full-time jazz musician,” Takenaga said, “I would gladly take it, but that is not my first option. While I’m not exactly sure what I am going to do for college, I am currently planning on focusing on the computer sciences.” Collins-Siegel plans to continue with music but is also interested in pursuing a career in science. Royston, however, does want to become a full-time jazz musician. “The reality,” he acknowledged, “is that doing gigs and nothing else probably won’t provide a substantial amount of money, so I want to get into writing as well. Some of the trademark colleges that I have been looking at that provide great instruction for both playing and writing are the New School, Berklee College of Music, and the Peabody Institute.”

Finally, what do these young musicians think is the key to attracting more younger audiences to jazz? “I think the best way to attract younger audiences to jazz music,” said Royston, “is to simply educate young people about how hip-hop music -- and any music for that matter-- embodies jazz. What I mean by this is that everything is not straight ahead anymore. You have musicians like Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin, Snarky Puppy, and Terence Blanchard who are taking aspects of jazz and sort of integrating them with hip-hop, funk, and R&B. Of course, this has been done many times in the past, but I think it will have an especially profound impact on young people today, since it is more closely related to the hip-hop pop-culture music everyone is exposed to.”

The key, added Takenaga, “is showing that jazz is not a complicated art form. Many people are intimidated because it is completely different from all other types of music and can sound difficult, complicated, or even crazy at times. I believe kids should be exposed to all different types of jazz . . . If the music gets them to tap their foot, or even start dancing, then you are on the right path!” Collins-Siegel agreed. “A lot of kids aren’t exposed to jazz music, so they don’t even realize they would like it,” he said. “Bringing them to concerts will allow them to discover how exciting jazz music can be.”

In addition to the Soloist awards, the NJYSJO and Charles Mingus Combo won Best Trombone Section and the Mingus Spirit Award at the Mingus Festival. The New Jersey Youth Symphony was founded in 1979 and is a program of the New Providence-based Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts, which serves more than 1,500 students of all ages and abilities. The Jazz Orchestra was formed last year.

From left: Ben Collins-Siegel, Ryoma Takenaga, and Koleby Royston.

Photo courtesy of Wharton Arts

with his musical hero, Christian McBride.

Photo by Elinor Takenaga.

A Jersey Jazz Interview with Ingrid Jensen

By Schaen Fox

Trumpeter Ingrid Jensen is part of Artemis, an all female septet founded in 2018 by pianist Renee Rosnes. The group played at the Newport Jazz Festival in 2018, drawing raves from Rolling Stone Magazine, which described its set as playing “like an expertly crafted mixtape, moving from a knotty version of Thelonius Monk’s ‘Brilliant Corners’ to a surprisingly dramatic arrangement of the Beatles’ ‘Fool on the Hill’.”

In November 2019, Artemis signed with Blue Note Records for an album to be released in 2020 and on December 7 performed at Carnegie Hall. The other five members of the band are: tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, clarinetist Anat Cohen, drummer Allison Miller, vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant, and bassist Noriko Ueda.

JJ: Who came up with the name, Artemis?

IJ: I did. My husband and I found it. We were looking for Greek goddesses and powerful women. (The Greek Goddess Artemis was regarded as a patron of girls and young women).

JJ: What were some of the highlights of 2019:

IJ: Well, recording for Blue Note with Artemis was super exciting. I closed out the year by playing Carnegie Hall with Artemis. That was a beautiful gig: full house and two standing ovations.

JJ: Is there anything you wish to talk about?

IJ: I found a video of me playing with Lionel Hampton and Clark Terry from back in 1993 on YouTube. It’s called “Lionel Hampton and the Golden Men of Jazz – Hey Baba Re-bop.” It’s a big piece of my history and a fun point to start from. Clark Terry was a darling to me. Since he heard me play, I was in his entourage of young people that he mentored. It was a membership I had for life. No matter where he was or I was, when we met each other it was like no time had passed. It was all about playing some music, having some

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laughs and positive vibes together. He was truly the essence of positive energy and inspiration.

I met him in 1991 when I was living in the city. I had been living in Copenhagen before that, and Ernie Wilkins and I became dear friends. I would hang out with him every day and played in his big band. Ernie was one of Clark’s best friends from when they were in the Basie band together. They were really like brothers so much so that Ernie’s adopted daughter Charlotte was Clark’s god-daughter. I stayed in Copenhagen for three or four months. I had family there so I was able to live for free and practice eight hours a day. When I went back to New York, Charlotte was living there. She brought me into the Vanguard one night and introduced me to Clark. He said, “Oh, Ernie told me about you.” Charlotte said, “Yep and he said you have to let her sit-in.” He said, “Okay.” It was his 60th birthday, a big night. I didn’t have my trumpet, but I was living across town. At the break, I jumped in a cab, went home, got my trumpet came running back and sat in with Clark Terry.

That Hampton video was about a year and a half later when I had moved to Austria. I was offered a teaching job I couldn’t turn down. It was for a lot of money and I wasn’t making any money in New York at the time. We used to write each other letters and Clark said, “I’m going to be in Munich, come sit in with the band.” That was a live TV show and the producers were like, “What? What is this person doing? Who is this girl?” If you notice, there is no mention of my name in the credits. I’m the mystery girl who gets up at the end of the concert and blows a couple choruses of the blues. [Chuckles]

JJ: I assumed you were in the band’s trumpet section sitting in the dark.

IJ: No. I came by train from Vienna where I was living. I was hanging backstage dying of nervousness, and they brought me out for the last tune as a surprise. You can actually hear the audience going, “What?” They were half excited and half shocked. What is this person?

The manager of that band, Aleksander Zivkovic, is a great guy who was a real catalyst to my career. He lives in France and insisted on getting me a record deal. He got me a great deal with Enja records. He fought me on one issue: letting the record companies know that I am female. I said, ‘I don’t want them to know, because that will sway the way that they listen. They will listen differently.’ He didn’t. He sent the tape to Blue Note and several different big labels of the time saying, “Here is the new trumpet player I’m promoting. What do you think?” None of the labels got back to him except Enja which was the one I wanted to be on.

JJ: When did music really come into your life?

IJ: In the womb. Our mother was very much into swinging music, jazz and classical music -- Debussy, Chopin, some Mozart. Music was everything around our house. It is what directed our dinner conversation. We had a record player, and everyone had to choose a record. Every night you’d get your turn choosing. It had to be good. If it was too far out, too crazy we had to put something else on. She didn’t like Woody Shaw or the more modern Miles Davis stuff. For the most part, she was very open minded and encouraging us to try

different sounds. It was great. She was the best. There was no TV upstairs or in the family area. There was just one in the basement. Everything was really about the piano, the record player, and radio. We had really great radio. CBC had two jazz stations when I was growing up, and we had stations from the States as well. There was no shortage of amazing sounds coming into the house. She played classical piano and was quite obsessed with jazz when she got to the university. She became friends with all the jazz musicians in town. She got into stride piano hanging out with certain great piano players in Vancouver. Her classical technique made it easier for her, and she had huge hands. So there was that sound in our home, and all of us got into music. We [also] had great band teachers in our area that encouraged us to keep going.

JJ: How many sisters do you have?

IJ: Two, an older and a younger. The older one played trombone, but doesn’t play much

any more. The younger one is Christine, the famous one (Montrealbased saxophonist/composer).

JJ: How did your family react to your decision to make music your career?

IJ: They said, “Oh my God. This isn’t a good idea. There are no women that can do this. We know because we don’t see them.” It was

Artemis, clockwise from top left: Noriko Ueda, Melissa Aldana, Ingrid Jensen, Renee Rosnes, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Anat Cohen, and Allison Miller.

a little bit of a drag in a way, but in another way it caused me to keep going to prove them wrong as much as to be happy at the same time.

JJ: Was your time at Berklee in Boston your first time in the eastern United States?

IJ: Yeah. I went to Seattle a lot for the jazz scene there, but coming east was a big difference. I moved to Boston on a whim and two or three weeks before school started I decided to go to Berklee. I didn’t plan things that well in my life sometimes. I tested out of a bunch of classes and was able to transfer credits from my other college. It saved me a whole year, and I graduated in three years. It was incredible. I met a ton of people who affected my life, some I still play and record with, like (pianist) Maggi Olin, (bassist) Peter Herbert, (bassist) Richie Goods, (drummer) Jim Black, and (vocalist) Lauren Kinhan. I learned a bunch about living in the States, and I was able to get a work visa so I could stay longer. You have to graduate to get the work visa. That was motivation for me. That is why I ended up living in New York and working at the Waldorf-Astoria as an audio-visual technician. I made some money and was able to take lessons with the great Laurie Frink, overall, an epic experience.

JJ: Please tell us about your years with Maria Schneider’s band.

IJ: It was a long run from 1999 until 2012. I sat in with the band at Visiones. It paid 25 bucks for a Monday night, but it was great. I subbed for Tim Hagans a lot. He is an amazing musician. From then on, Maria and I struck up a very good relationship with a lot of sharing of ideas. I’m on quite a few of her records and did a lot of touring and playing. Then, as many relationships can in life, it changed. I became happier just doing small group stuff. I’d been waiting to play in small groups, and my career seems to be flourishing more than ever since the break.

JJ: How did the ban on smoking in clubs affect you?

IJ: It made playing a wind instrument a lot easier and allowed me to wear my gig clothes more than once before sending them to the cleaners.

JJ: Has anything of importance in your career taken place in New Jersey?

IJ: The experience of working with Geri Allen and all those young women at the Geri Allen camp for girls at Rutgers in Newark. Seeing how that changed Geri’s life, changed my life more than anything that’s happened in a long time. Getting these young girls going and watching the community support in that week-long camp of people reminded me of myself when I was that young; but I was without the vast building full of mentors encouraging them to go for it. That camp, I think, is still going on; and it is crucial to whom I am today and to all the young girls that got to do the first two years with Geri.

JJ: Would you go into more detail of how the camp changed Geri and you? Did she say anything to you?

IJ: Geri was also lifting me up in everything I did, from playing to writing to teaching. There was a concert in DC with the Monk Institute a few years back. It was an all-star cast, and Chris Botti and Herbie Hancock played a duo together on “Embraceable You”. I played a few choruses in a larger jam type format which I appreciated at the time. A few weeks later we were on a gig, and Geri said afterwards, “That should have been you playing duo with Herbie”. It was not a snide remark in any way, it was meant to make me understand my worth as far as my ability to contribute to the music.” Geri was the Sage, the Yoda, and more…

JJ: That was a shock when she died.

IJ: A massive one that I can only compare to the loss of my mother in her mid-60s and the loss of the great Michael Brecker, another stellar human who always went out of his way to lift people up, including me.

JJ: Do you have any career souvenirs people visiting you can see?

IJ: Pictures of me with Dizzy and Dr. Billy Taylor. I have a huge black and white picture of me and Clark Terry looking at each other like we are dating, but we were not. We just loved each other. Most of my souvenirs are pictures of my daughter and her childhood art thus far. It may change every month.

JJ: Would you pick just a few of your jazz heroes and say why you find them interesting?

IJ: I don’t hang out with Herbie Hancock that much, but when we cross paths at the airports or at festivals, there is always a deep discussion about something that he is passionate about that seems to relate to where I am at. Maggi Olin is similar in this way. Her roots in who she is are very solid, yet she is ever evolving in her life and, thus, an ever expanding musician. I can easily put these two pianists in the same category as interesting and stimulating human beings. Michael Brecker was a similar energy, always listening, always digging and checking everyone out. Humble, yet strong!

I spent a day with Freddie Hubbard. He was amazingly kind and wonderful to me, but he definitely had some demons. He knew I was a serious trumpet player when he met me, and he respected me just the way Clark Terry and those other guys did. Some women say they were womanizers, but to me they were always incredibly respectful, and never hitting on me. It was all about the music. I’m slightly frustrated now, because now all these women have a cause. I’m all for the cause, if it is justified; but if it is to satisfy a need for drama and stemming out of a lack of self-confidence and self-worth, I find it quite frustrating and annoying. Now jazz has its “feminist movement,” and it is very important that it happens, but it is also distorted at this point.

JJ: Would you explain how you see it as distorted?

IJ: In that video of those guys and me sitting in with Clark Terry and Al Grey in 1993 it isn’t about anything besides the music. When you are around people who are educated and fairly together as humans, it is never an issue. We have a new generation of young people who are very entitled, and also very talented musicians. There is now a new wave of the music taking second place to the issue. As someone who paid her dues and went through the process of earning the respect of all of her elders through her playing, I find this a little odd. It is also a different time. With all the publicity, you can buy a career now, but if you can’t hold water standing next to Freddie Hubbard or Clark Terry, there is a problem. What I’m trying to communicate to some of these younger players, who, as I said earlier are from a generation of instant everything, is that it takes a really long time to get good at this.

What we all strive for in the music business is to show up and let the music soar. Younger players, and maybe some audience members, today, get the impression that it is not so hard to do, but it is not so much about difficulty as it is about having a trunk full of tools that help you communicate with all these other players. And it is a different set of tools depending on who is at the piano. You are listening in a different way to each one.

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Cool’s Blues (Columbia: 1995) with Wynton; and Loved Ones (Sony Legacy: 1996) with Brandon.

Joe Cool’s Blues consisted of music composed for the Charlie Brown television specials -- some written by the late Vince Guaraldi, and others written by Wynton.

Some tracks featured Wynton’s septet, and others featured Ellis’ trio. The album, wrote Billboard’s Jeff Levenson, “not only showcases the brass man’s compositional talents writing for children, it also features another individual who is clearly responsible for the primacy of the Marsalis name -- father Ellis Marsalis.” The elder Marsalis, Levenson pointed out, was a big fan of Guaraldi.

“Guaraldi was almost courageous,” Ellis Marsalis told Levenson, “because he was given a certain kind of freedom, and he went with it. Jazz was never welcome on network television. He took a jam-session approach, which was far more characteristic of jazz musicians than the typical approach taken by Hollywood composers. Those guys might have used jazz techniques within compositional structures, but Guaraldi featured jazz in its most natural form.”

Loved Ones was called “one of the most appealing CDs of the year,” by Los Angeles Times critic Don Heckman. “Give part of the credit,” he wrote, “to the simplicity and the directness of Ellis Marsalis’ concept: an album dedicated to ‘the romantic effect of ladies upon American songwriters via a compilation of such tunes as ‘Laura’, ‘Stella by Starlight’, ‘Sweet Lorraine’, ‘Lulu’s Back in Town’, etc.” Another of the songs on the album was “Dear Dolores”, written by Ellis Marsalis for his wife.

Ellis Marsalis retired from teaching in 2001, continuing to appear regularly at New Orleans’ Snug Harbor jazz club, often accompanied by one or more of his musical sons. In 201l, the National Endowment for the Arts presented its Jazz Masters award to the Marsalis family.

In addition to Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo, and Jason, Ellis Marsalis is survived by his

wife, Dolores; two other sons, Ellis Marsalis III and Mboya; a sister; and 13 grandchildren.

Wallace Roney, a Protege of Miles Davis, Dies from COVID-19

When Gerry Mulligan thought about recording a Re-Birth of the Cool album for GRP Records in early 1991, he hoped that Miles Davis would join him for that reunion. Unfortunately, Davis died before the recording could take place. The natural choice to play the trumpet part was Roney, a protege of Davis who had participated with Miles and Quincy Jones at a 1991 Montreux Jazz Festival re-creation of some of the music Davis recorded with the late Gil Evans.

I had been trying to reach Roney for an interview in connection with my book, Jeru’s Journey: The Life and Music of Gerry Mulligan (Hal Leonard Books: 2015), and I had almost given up when my phone rang around 11 p.m. on a Friday night in October 2014. It was Roney, calling from Europe.

“I had been following Miles around and hanging with him since 1983,” Roney told me. “He was my idol since I was a kid.” As for Re-Birth of the Cool, “We got together to rehearse, and it was funny because we played ‘Boplicity’. I didn’t play it the way it was written. I played it the way Miles taught me to phrase it. And Gerry was amazed. He said, ‘How did you know that?’ and I looked up to the sky and said, ‘Thanks’ to Miles. Miles had told me that he loved Gerry.”

Roney died October 31 at St. Joseph’s University Medical Center in Paterson, NJ, a result of complications from COVID-19. He was 59 years old. Born May 25, 1960, in Philadelphia, he started trumpet lessons at

age 5 and was the youngest member of The Philadelphia Brass when he was 12. His first tutor was Clark Terry.

As a teenager, Roney was recruited by Art Blakey to play trumpet in the Jazz Messengers, succeeding Terence Blanchard. After that, he played with drummer Tony Williams, a veteran of Davis’ quintet. The New York Times’ Jon Pareles, reviewing a 1988 concert by Williams’ quintet, wrote that Roney was “the standout soloist, bitingly articulate at fast tempos and lucidly melodic in gentler passages.”

In 1979 and ‘80, Roney received DownBeat’s award for Best Young Jazz Musician of the Year. His first album as a leader, Verses, was recorded on the Muse label in 1987. Throughout his career, he recorded more than 20 albums as a leader. Reviewing his most recent release, Blue Dawn-Blue Nights (HighNote: 2019), Chicago Jazz Magazine’s Hrayr Attarian wrote that, “trumpeter Wallace Roney has put together an outstanding quintet consisting of up-andcoming talent. Together, they interpret eight lesser-known compositions with sensitivity and panache . . . Blue Dawn-Blue Nights is more than another uniformly superb Wallace Roney album. It is also an outlet for his proteges to demonstrate their skills. With his youth spent learning from greats like Miles Davis, Roney knows the value of mentorship in the success of his art. Furthermore, he excels at it.”

In 1994, Roney won a Grammy Award, filling Davis’ trumpet chair in A Tribute to Miles (Qwest/Reprise/Warner Bros.). He was joined by Davis alumni, Williams on drums, Wayne Shorter on saxophone, Herbie Hancock on piano, and Ron Carter on bass.

Tenor saxophonist Mike Lee recalled to Jersey Jazz the first time he was invited to play with Roney’s quintet. “I asked him what I should prepare,” Lee said, “and he said, ‘everything’. He wasn’t being flippant. He knew all the music. He could hear so much nuance on any instrument and played with beauty and thoughtfulness on every note. He was a musician’s musician. A true genius of our music.”

On Facebook, alto saxophonist Vincent Herring wrote that he was “stunned and completely speechless . . . a dear friend who

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left us in the middle of this craziness . . . Wallace Roney, you and your music will always be with us. R.I.P.” Added trumpeter Randy Brecker, also on Facebook: “Total sadness and shock. We’re in for a long haul in the music world. So, everyone, do your part. R.I.P., Wallace. I loved listening and getting the occasional chance to play next to you.”

Roney is survived by a daughter, Barbara, and son, Wallace, Jr., from his former marriage to the late pianist Geri Allen; his fiancee, Dawn Felice Jones; a stepdaughter, Laila Bansaiz; his grandmother, Rosezell Roney; two brothers, Antoine Roney and Michael Majett; and three sisters, Crystal Roney, Marla Majett, and April Petus.

Jazz Pianist Mike Longo, 83, Dizzy Gillespie’s Musical Director

Mike Longo was born in Cincinnati on March 19, 1937, and died Sunday, March 22, 2020, at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The cause, confirmed by his wife, Dorothy, was COVID-19. Admitted to the hospital on Tuesday, March 17, Longo had pre-existing medical conditions.

Growing up in Fort Lauderdale, FL, Longo played in his father’s dance band as a teenager.

His playing was noticed by Julian Cannonball Adderley, who was then band director at Fort Lauderdale’s Dillard High School. As a result, Longo became Adderley’s protege and would fill in when the alto saxophonist’s regular pianist was not available.

When Schaen Fox interviewed Longo nearly six years ago (Jersey Jazz, April 2014), the pianist recalled an incident when Adderley

was hired to play in his father’s dance band at the Plantation Country Club in Plantation, FL. “We showed up with Cannonball and played the first set,” Longo recalled. “Then, the maitre d’ said, ‘We have a table over here for the band to eat.’ We all went and sat down. A few minutes later, he came over and said, ‘We had some complaints about the colored guy. He is going to have to go in the kitchen and eat.’ My dad threw down his napkin and said, ‘Come on. We will all go in the kitchen and eat.’ After that, Cannonball loved my father.”

Another early hero of Longo’s was Oscar Peterson whom he first heard at a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in Fort Lauderdale. Later, in his 20s, Longo studied at Peterson’s Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto.

In the ‘60s, Longo moved to New York and was discovered by Dizzy Gillespie while playing as part of the rhythm section at the Embers West jazz club. Gillespie hired him, and Longo eventually became Musical Director of Gillespie’s band that also included saxophonist/flutist James Moody. His tenure lasted from the late ‘60s through the mid-’70s, but he would occasionally return after that.

When Fox asked Longo about some of his memories of Gillespie, he responded that, “There were actually three Dizzy Gillespies. There was Dizzy the screwball that the public knew. Then, there was the serious side, musically. And then there was John Gillespie, a very spiritual man. I was fortunate enough to have a relationship with all three.”

After leaving Gillespie, Longo pursued a career as both pianist and bandleader. “If Longo had a flagship group,” wrote WBGO’s Nate Chinen the day after Longo’s death, “it was the 18-piece New York State of the Art Jazz Ensemble, which released a studio album called Explosion in 1999.” Reviewing the album in the May 2000 issue of JazzTimes, Doug Ramsey wrote that, “This stimulating big band recording by the pianist and arranger Mike Longo is a reminder that the best jazz in New York these days is not necessarily made by marketable youngsters promoted by major labels. Longo’s ensemble is salted with seasoned musicians who share his long and balanced view of the bop and post-bop

tradition . . . Good solos. Good arrangements. Good band.”

Bassist Paul West, who played with Longo in Gillespie’s band, described him to Chinen as “a consummate musician, a dedicated musician and instructor.” In recent years, West and Longo played together in smaller groups, either a duo or trio. “We depended on each other, so to speak,” West said. “He depended on me to be supportive and in tune with his playing. So, we played as if one person was playing two instruments.” Longo also played weekly jazz sessions at the New York City Bahai Center in honor of Gillespie. Both he and Gillespie were members of the Bahai faith.

In addition to his wife, Longo is survived by a sister, Ellen Cohen, and several cousins, nieces, and nephews.

McCoy Tyner, 81, Last Living Member Of Classic John Coltrane Quartet

In 1960, John Coltrane asked Tyner to join his new band as the pianist. Tyner was the last living member of that quartet, which also included bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones and was, according to the Los Angeles Times’ Don Heckman, “one of the definitive jazz ensembles of the 20th century.”

NPR’s Nate Chinen, writing two days after Tyner’s death, said, “Few musicians have ever exerted as much influence as a sideman [as Tyner]. His crucial role in the group’s articulation of modal harmony, from the early 1960s on, will always stand as a defining achievement: The ringing intervals in his left hand, often perfect fourths or fifths, became the cornerstone of a style that endures today.

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BIG BAND IN THE SKY

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Staying with Coltrane for five years, Tyner left when Coltrane began to add extra percussionists and horns. He told Lewis Porter, author of John Coltrane: His Life and Music (University of Michigan Press: 2000), there were strong differences of opinion regarding the direction the music was heading. “I didn’t see myself making any contribution to that music. All I could hear was a lot of noise.”

Even after he left Coltrane, though, Tyner found it difficult to separate himself from his association with the tenor saxophonist. “The influence was so great,” he told Chinen in 1997, “and the roles we all played in that group were so powerful; you couldn’t divorce yourself from it just because you weren’t physically there. For a while there, all the horn players that were with me wanted to sound like John. So, I deliberately started using alto sax instead of tenor, and other instruments, because I wanted to try something different.”

Tyner, who was born on December 11, 1938, in Philadelphia, died March 6, 2020, at his home in New Jersey. He was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2002 and received five Grammy Awards, the latest for his 2004 Telarc album, Illuminations.

Shortly after leaving Coltrane, Tyner recorded several albums that are considered classics today. Among them is The Real McCoy, his first album on the BlueNote label, released in 1967. In a 2008 interview with JazzTimes’ Bill Milkowski, Tyner said he considered that album important because he was making “a personal statement. It was the first album I had done as a leader since leaving John’s band . . . I learned so much from playing with him. He was like my teacher. And, a lot of what I learned from him transferred to that recording. So, I was sort of inspired when I wrote tunes like ‘Search for Peace’, and ‘Passion Dance’, and ‘Blues on the Corner’ . . . And I had some great guys with me on that date: Elvin [Jones], Joe Henderson, Ron Carter. You can’t lose with that lineup.”

Tyner remained with BlueNote for five years, moving to the Milestone label in 1972. One of his best known Milestone albums was Enlightenment, recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1973. AllMusic’s

Scott Yanow described it as “one of the great McCoy Tyner recordings. The powerful, percussive and highly influential pianist sounds quite inspired throughout . . .” JazzTimes’ Thomas Conrad called it “one of the most engulfing 25 minutes in 1970s jazz.”

After leaving Milestone in 1981, Tyner formed two bands in 1984, a trio and a big band. The latter earned him two Grammy Awards -- for The Turning Point (Birdology: 1992) and Journey (Birdology: 1993).

Reviewing Tyner’s 2004 Grammy-winning Telarc album, Illuminations, for AllMusic, Ken Dryden wrote that Tyner “signals that he still has a few surprises up his sleeve. One thing apparent right away in his opener, ‘Illuminations’, is that he is willing to stay in the background a good deal of the time, focusing the spotlight on band members Terence Blanchard, Gary Bartz, Christian McBride, and Lewis Nash . . . Perhaps the greatest surprise among his own works is the playful strutting ‘New Orleans Stomp’, in which his down-home piano will lift a few eyebrows . . . This is yet another essential release by the always enjoyable McCoy Tyner.”

Upon news of his death, BlueNote Records issued the following statement: “We’ve lost a titan . . . Words fail when trying to express how important McCoy was and always will be to our music. The amount of beauty he gave the world is simply staggering. R.I.P. to one of the greatest of all-time.”

Survivors include his wife, Aisha; his son, Nurudeen; his brother, Jarvis; his sister, Gwendolyn-Yvette; and three grandchildren.

Ray Mantilla, Latin Percussionist/Bandleader

Mantilla’s closest childhood companion was drummer/bandleader Ray Barretto, who

introduced him to flutist Herbie Mann in the early 1960s. That had a huge impact on Mantilla’s career as a percussionist and bandleader. He and Barretto recorded several albums with Mann, and Mantilla was noticed by such prominent jazz musicians as drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach and bassist Charles Mingus. As a result, Mantilla appeared on such legendary recordings as Mingus’ Cumbia & Jazz Fusion (Atlantic: 1977) and Roach’s M’Boom (Columbia: 1979). He joined the M’Boom drum collective, co-founded by Roach and fellow drummer/percussionist Joe Chambers. That band continued after Roach’s death, and its most recent version featured Mantilla, Chambers, Bobby Sanabria, and Warren Smith.

Sanabria, writing on WBGO’s website two days after the 85-year-old Mantilla’s death, on March 21, 2020, in New York, recalled Mantilla’s “funny anecdotes, deep storytelling, and, of course, his priceless musicianship -- all things that I always looked forward to . . . But it is the friendship I will always cherish more than anything.” Mantilla was born June 22, 1934, in the South Bronx.

Chambers told Sanabria he first noticed Mantilla “when I saw him with Art Blakey . . . I was impressed because I liked the way he navigated his role in the group. He demonstrated the drummer’s philosophy, as it was taught to me, to accompany. He never overplayed.”

Smith recalled that, “Ray understood the subtle nuances in African, Latin, and jazzbased music, and he adapted beautifully. The first time he played with us, it was seamless. What also impressed me was the variety of solo contexts he could do. He could play solo on bongos, congas, whatever and hold the audience.”

After performing with Dizzy Gillespie in 1977 as part of the first band to play in Cuba after the travel embargo of 1962 was lifted, Mantilla went on, in 1978, to become a bandleader. He made nine albums as a leader. The first, in ‘78, was Mantilla on the Inner City Records label, and the most recent was High Voltage (Savant Records: 2017) Another album, Rebirth, was scheduled for release this year by Savant. Cause of death was complications from lymphoma. He is survived by his brothers, Kermit and Lisandro Gilberto; sisters, Irma Ogden and Sara Kelly.

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‘Lean on Me’ Songwriter Bill Withers

Growing up in West Virginia coal mining country, Withers was mostly a country music fan, but he once said that he was also aware of “the old Frank Sinatra-Nat King Cole genre type music.”

Withers, who was 81, was born July 4, 1938 in Slab Fork, WV, and died March 30, 2020, in Los Angeles.

His biggest hit, of course, was “Lean on Me”, a single from his second album, Still Bill (Sussex: 1972), but toward the end of his career he collaborated with alto saxophonist Grover Washington, Jr., on the Grammywinning “Just the Two of Us” from Washington’s 1981 Elektra album, Winelight In a review of Withers’ “10 Essential Songs” on April 3, Rolling Stone’s Elias Leight pointed out that “Just the Two of Us” was originally written by Ralph McDonald and Bill Salter, but Withers didn’t like the lyrics. He apparently said, “They sent me this song and said, ‘We want to do this with Grover. Would you consider singing it?’ I said, ‘Yeah’, if you’ll let me go and try to dress these words up a little bit.”

Withers won three Grammy Awards and released eight albums before retiring from the music business in 1985. “Lean on Me”, Rolling Stone’s Andy Greene pointed out, “emerged once again in recent weeks as an anthem of hope and solidarity in the time of COVID-19.”

After spending nine years in the U.S. Navy, Withers released his first album, Just As I Am on the Sussex Records label in 1971. It contained another of his biggest hits, “Ain’t No Sunshine”. Inspired by the 1962 movie, Days of Wine and Roses, it reached No. 3 on the singles charts. Death was due to heart complications. He is survived by his second wife, Marcia, and their children, Todd and Kori.

Eddy Davis, Banjo Virtuoso

By Scott Robinson

I’ve just lost one of the dearest friends I’ve ever had in music. Eddy Davis was a highly significant and influential presence in my life. He was a fiercely individualistic performer… a veteran of the old Chicago days when music was hot, joyful, exuberant and unselfconscious. A character and a curmudgeon, who could hold court for hours after the gig. And a loving mentor who helped younger musicians like myself learn and grow in this music.

I had only played with Eddy a handful of times when he called me in late 1998 to say that he was forming a new band to fill a weekly Wednesday spot at the Cajun on Eighth Avenue. He wanted me to play lead on C melody saxophone, in a little group with two reeds, and no drums. This by itself gives a clue to what an original thinker he was.

I already knew that Eddy was a proficient and highly individualistic stylist on the banjo, who sounded like no one else. What I didn’t know, but soon found out, was that this man was also a walking repository of many hundreds, if not thousands, of tunes of every description, ranging far beyond the standard repertoire… with a fascinating background story at the ready for nearly every one. I quickly learned that he was also a prolific and idiosyncratic composer himself, with a wonderfully philosophical work ethic: write original music every day, keep what works, and throw the rest away without a backward glance.

Eddy was also what used to be called a “character”: affable, opinionated, hilarious, and irascible all in one, and above all highly passionate about music. What I learned over the ensuing 7 ½ years in Eddy’s little band, I cannot begin to describe. I came to refer to those regular Wednesday sessions as my “doctor’s appointment” -- for they fixed whatever ailed me and provided the perfect antidote to the ills of the world, and of the music scene. Over the years we were graced with the presence of some very distinguished musicians who came by and sat in with us, including Harry Allen, Joe Muranyi, Bob Barnard, Howard Johnson, and Barry Harris.

Eddy was generous with his strong opinions, with his knowledge and experience, and with his encouragement. But he was a generous soul in other ways as well. When he heard that I was building a studio (my “Laboratory”), he had me come by the apartment and started giving me things out of his closets. A Roland 24-track recorder… three vintage microphones… instruments… things that I treasure, and use every single day of my life. When my father turned 75, Eddy came out to New Jersey and played for him and wouldn’t take a dime for it.

When I got the call [on April 7] that Eddy had passed [at the age of 79] -- another victim of this horrible virus that is ruining so many lives, and our musical life as well -- I hung up the phone and just cried. Later I went out to my Laboratory, and kissed every single thing there that he had given to me. How cruel to lose such an irreplaceable person… killed by an enemy, as my brother commented, that is neither visible nor sentient.

One night at the Cajun stands out in my memory, and seems particularly relevant today. It was the night after the last disaster that changed New York forever: the World Trade Center attack. There was a pall over the city, the air was full of dust, and there was a frightful, lingering smell. “What am I doing here?” I thought. “This is crazy.” But somehow we all made our way to the nearly empty club. We were in a state of shock; nobody knew what to say. I wondered if we would even be able to play. We took the stage, looked at each other, and counted off a tune. The instant the first note sounded, I was overcome with emotion and my face was full of tears. Suddenly I understood exactly why we were there, why it was so important that we play this music. We played our hearts out that night -- for ourselves, for our city, and for a single table of bewildered tourists, stranded in town by these incomprehensible events. They were so grateful for the music, so comforted by it.

The simple comfort of live music has been taken from us now. We must bear this loss, and those that will surely follow, alone… shut away in our homes. I know that when the awful burden of this terrible time has finally been lifted, when we can share music, life, and love again, it will feel like that night at the Cajun. My eyes will fill, my heart will sing, and the joy that Eddy Davis gave me will be with me every time I lift the horn to my face, for as long as I live.

NOT WITHOUT YOU! We can’t do what we do without you! Your membership is vital to NJJS’s mission to promote and preserve America’s great art form – jazz! Thank you and welcome to all who have recently joined or renewed their memberships.

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NOTEWORTHY

The New Django is a Whitehaired Dane

One-hundred and ten years ago, Jean Reinhardt was born in Belgium. He died only 43 years later in France. Django Reinhardt was the first major jazz talent to emerge from Europe and, arguably, he remains the most significant. With violinist Stèphane Grappelli, Reinhardt formed the Paris-based Quintette du Hot Club de France in 1934. The group was among the first to play jazz featuring the guitar as a lead instrument. Reinhardt’s most popular compositions have become standards in gypsy jazz. In 2017, a French movie, Django, was made about his life. Lynn Rene Bayley wrote a fine long article about this in Jazz in Europe in December 22, 2017.

When Reinhardt was 18, he was badly burned in a fire in his gypsy caravan. He would spend the next 18 months in a hospital, recovering from his injuries. His left hand was rather clumsily repaired so the little finger and ring finger were permanently bent into his hand. His brother brought an acoustic guitar into the hospital so that Django could practice with his free three fingers. That way of playing became his specialty, his sound.

In 1946, wrote Bayley, “Django finally came to America, accepting an invitation from Duke Ellington to play with his band. In his mind, Django envisioned that he would become a Hollywood star like his idol Armstrong, not realizing that this was the product of clever management by Armstrong’s representative, Joe Glaser. He never realized that Armstrong was a movie star because of his effervescent personality.” Here are some more excerpts from Bayley’s article:

determined to play it from then on. Django was largely self-taught and could neither read nor write music, but his ear was so acute that he could absorb music like a sponge.”

In August 2019, milady Hanne and I first heard a live concert with Rêve Bohème, a Danish gypsy jazz quartet. Inspired by Django Reinhardt, the quartet was formed in 1998 in Paris by guitarist and singer Jens Fuglsang and guitarist Robert Pilgaard. They are still the backbone of the quartet, but the other two original members have been replaced by Finn Poulsen on harmonica and vocals and Jesper Riis on bass.

The sound was terrific. Later, we took home Reve Bohéme’s latest CD, Six & Six. That is super enjoyable. Finn Poulsen´s harmonica is a wonderful asset.

“Since his own proclivity offstage was to disappear and play cards, shoot pool and drink with his gypsy buddies, he wasn’t exactly the clean-cut image Hollywood wanted to project. And that’s exactly what he did when the Ellington band hit the stage in Chicago, and Django was nowhere in sight. He hadn’t even bothered to bring his treasured instrument with him because he believed that American guitar manufacturers would be falling all over themselves offering him first-class instruments for free. It didn’t happen; Ellington had to send someone out to scour the bars in Chicago to find Reinhardt shooting pool with some gypsies, drag him to the stage, and hand him an electric guitar to play, which he had never touched in his life.

“Although the American trip ended up a semi-disaster, Reinhardt fell in love with the electric guitar and went back to France

Six & Six is Reve Bohéme’s sixth album. They have chosen six less known compositions by Django Reinhardt and mixed them with six bebop standards that Django loved to play. The result is superb gypsy jazz and the CD can be played over and over. In 2016, the group composed and recorded several scenes in the Danish movie, Fuglene over Sundet (Birds Over the Sound), which deals with the Danish Jews’ escape to Sweden in October 1943.

Jens Fuglsang is remarkable. He started to play guitar at age 13. He studied jazz guitar at Berklee College in Boston and later received a master’s degree in music in 1999 at the University of Copenhagen. His thesis was on Django Reinhardt’s life and music, and he went to Paris many times to research Django’s music and special gypsy jazz guitar technique. Call him a “Django expert,” but as he told us, “These days you don’t have to travel that much. You can buy Django guitars and study gypsy jazz on the net.” Many YouTube instructors teach this special kind of guitar playing. The group’s homepage is reve.dk.

Reve Boheme

FROM THE CROW’S NEST

By Bill Crow

The Newport Jazz Festival was always the high point of the year for me during my years as Gerry Mulligan’s bass player. I not only got to hear some of the best jazz groups playing at the time, I got to hang out with the musicians at the hotel and backstage at the venue. It was great to see old friends like Bill Evans, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Buck Clayton, Jo Jones, Milt Jackson, Connie Kay, James Moody, Miles Davis, and Bud Freeman; to meet heroes like Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong; and to spend some time in conversation with them.

It was especially rewarding to rub elbows with musicians of an earlier generation who I had in my record collection, but hadn’t met before. One year I was hanging out backstage at the Festival grounds in the afternoon when Willie “the Lion” Smith came offstage after playing his set. He sat down among the group of musicians I was chatting with and accepted everyone’s congratulations on his playing. Then he sat listening to the conversation, during which someone complained about the lack of respect that musicians encountered in the music business.

Willie spoke up sharply: “Musicians get exactly the amount of respect that they deserve!” he said. “They don’t get it because they don’t demand it. You got to educate people to give you the treatment you want. I’ll give you an example. I was called last month by this club owner up in Connecticut who wanted me to play in his establishment. After we agreed on a price, he started telling me what bus to take to get up there! I said, ‘Hold it! What I want to know is what time does the limousine pick me up at my house? Otherwise, the deal is off!’ I had to educate him, you see. ...

My friend John Simon, the record producer who helped create albums for The Band, Simon and Garfunkel, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Blood Sweat & Tears, and many others, has written an engaging book about his adventures in the music world titled Truth, Lies & Hearsay. In it he tells of his parents’ first meeting, at a summer camp in the Adirondacks. The young man later to be John’s dad asked the young woman later to be John’s mother for a date. She accepted. Five days later, on the appointed day, he showed up at her door and asked, “Would you rather go to a movie or get married?” She replied, “I’ve seen a movie.” So they drove to Maryland for a speedy wedding, creating a marriage that lasted for 40 years. Michael Sherwood: wrote this on

Facebook: “After several years of ignoring jury duty notices, I finally decided, ,You know what? I’m just gonna go.’ So I went, and guess who I hung out with all day ? My hero Herbie Hancock! We were both dismissed, but the judge was like Chris Farley when he was doing the Chris Farley Show. He said ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Herbert Hancock. I’m a musician’ The judge said, ‘Remember when you played the Hollywood Bowl, but you didn’t have a drummer, but you had some guy with dreads tap dancing all the rhythms all night. Remember that?’ Herbie kindly said, ‘Yeah I think I remember something like that.’ The judge said, ‘Yeah, that was awesome.’ “When he got to me he said ‘Who are you?’ I said ‘I’m a huge Herbie Hancock fan. My name is Michael Sherwood. I play keyboards.’ He said ‘You two can go,’ and we walked all the way back to our cars together waxing poetic about music and justice and gear ... What a great day!”

Steve Herberman posted on Facebook about a night in Boston when he went to hear Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel play a duo gig. He sat close to the bandstand to enjoy the music more. At the end of the gig, an old friend of Herb and Barney’s came up to the bandstand for a chat. Steve said the guy was carrying some serious body odor. When the guy left, Herb said to him, “Straight ahead,and strive for tone.” Barney said softly to Herb, “Straight ahead, and strive for soap!”

A friend of mine in London, drummer Peter Cater, was using a drum throne that had the same pearl finish that was on his drums. On one date, Peter set up his kit and left for a break. When he returned, he found that the sound man had set up microphones on each of his drums, and had even put a separate one on his drum throne.

Willie “The Lion” Smith

Photo by Wiliam P. Gottlieb.

BOOK REVIEW

IT’S A SIN TO TELL A LIE: My Life in Jazz

By Marty Grosz

Golden Alley Press, Emmaus, PA - 195 pages, 2020, $15.95 (Paperback)

By Joe Lang

If there is anyone on the scene more aware than the guitarist/vocalist/raconteur Marty Grosz that pleasing the audience is an essential entertainment element of live jazz performances, please advise me of who it is. Seeing a Grosz performance is to experience a superb rhythm guitarist, an engaging singer, a man with a whimsical sense of humor, and the ability to tell a story with the best of them. The latter two aspects of his strengths are evident throughout It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie: My Life in Jazz

The first part of the book is autobiographical, and the second part is a series of interviews of Grosz by jazz bassist Joe Plowman.

Grosz was born in Berlin in 1930 to the noted artist George Grosz and his wife. As Marty Grosz explains it:

My father was German artist George Grosz, famous for his caricatures and paintings that evidenced his disdain for the ruling class, bourgeoise, militarism and capitalism during the Weimar Republic in the 1920s.

Unsurprisingly, George Grosz was not on the list of Hitler’s favorites, and in January, 1933, Grosz and his wife left Germany for New York City, leaving Marty and his brother with relatives in Berlin. His mother returned in October to bring the two boys back to the States. By his early teens Grosz had become infatuated with jazz from the 1920s and 1930s, especially Fats Waller, a preference that has been evident in his performances to this day. He started to attend jazz concerts at Town Hall in Manhattan when he was 13. The leader at most of these sessions was guitarist Eddie Condon, and Grosz developed a liking for that instrument.

Eventually his parents moved from Queens to Huntington, on Long Island, where Grosz, who had been banished from the exclusive prep school that he had been attending, finished his high school education at Huntington High school. He had been playing guitar in hot jazz combos with his friends.

Upon graduation, he and a clarinetist friend from prep school decided to head to Hollywood to gain fame and fortune. Hitchhiking with $10 between them, they made it as far as Chicago where they ran out of funds, and resorted to a series of menial jobs with an occasional gig arising. It was a struggle, and Grosz eventually returned to New York. He soon found himself inducted into the United States Army, spending his time assigned to duty in southern Germany.

Following his tour of duty, he returned to Chicago where he landed a steady gig playing banjo in a trio at The Gaslight Club. Over the next decades, Grosz spent most of his time gigging around Chicago with occasional out of town jobs.

Life turned around for him in 1970 when he got a call to join Bob Wilber and Kenny Davern’s successful Soprano Summit group. From there he became a fixture on the jazz party scene. He fronted different groups over the subsequent years, with his home base being New York. He also did a lot recording as both a leader and sideman.

Over the years, he experienced many individuals and situations that formed the basis for his many stories. Plowman, in the interview chapters, drew much of this information out of him. There are 11 chapters in this part, each devoted to a different subject.

Grosz established himself as unique presence whenever he appeared. It was his sense of humor and talents as a raconteur that put him in a special place. Seeing him perform gave audiences a lot more than the music to enjoy. This book provides just the kind of entertaining reading that you would expect from Marty Grosz. Pick it up, and you will find it hard to set it down.

JAZZ TRIVIA ANSWERS

questions on page 27

1. Brad Mehldau, for Finding Gabriel. Other nominees in this category: Joey DeFrancesco’s In the Key of the Universe; Branford Marsalis Quartet for The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul; Christian McBride’s New Jawn, and the Joshua Redman Quartet’s Come What May.

2. Esperanza Spalding’s 12 Little Spells won as Best Jazz Vocal Album. Other nominees: Jazzmeia Horn’s Love & Liberation, Sara Gazarek’s Thirsty Ghost, Catherine Russell’s Alone Together, Tierney Sutton’s Screenplay.

3. Brian Lynch’s Big Band won for The Omni-American Book Club. Also nominated: Anat Cohen Tentet’s Triple Helix; Mike Hazama’s Dancer in Nowhere; Terraza Big Band’s One Day Wonders; Mike Holober and the Gotham Big Band’s Hiding Out.

4. Chick Corea and the Spanish Heart Band, for Antidote. Also nominated: Thalma de Freitus and others for Sorte! Music by John Finbury; Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Una Noche with Ruben Blades; David Sanchez’s Carib; Miguel Zenon’s Sonero: the Music of Ismael Rivera.

5. Randy Brecker for his solo on “Sozinho’” Other nominees: Melissa Aldana on “Elsewhere”; Julian Lage on “Tomorrow is the Question”; Branford Marsalis on “The Windup”; Christian McBride on “Sightseeing.”

OTHER VIEWS

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MacDonald originals that hold their own in this esteemed company. Special guest Big Black adds his nimble djembe playing on six of the tracks. Take a visit to the Cochella Valley vibe, and you will be pleased that you did. (www.dougmacdonald.net)

Those of you who have seen PROFESSOR CUNNINGHAM AND HIS OLD SCHOOL, the spirited group led by multi-reedman Adrian Cunningham know that there is always an element of whimsy to their performances. Well, their new release, Swings Disney (Arbors – 19472) has whimsy to spare. There are 15 tracks from 13 different Disney films, from the earliest Disney feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to Aladdin (1992).

Cunningham’s band includes himself on reeds and vocals, Jon Challoner on trumpet, Dani Alonso on trombone, John Merrill on guitar, Alberto Pibiri on piano, Jim Robertson on bass and Paul Wells on drums. There are five instrumental tracks, “When You Wish Upon a Star,” “A Spoonful of Sugar,’ “Bippity Boppity Boo,” “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes” and “Cruella de Vil.” Cunningham is not a classic vocalist, rather what might be called a character vocalist. However you define him, he knows how to put songs across, and milk them for their humor where applicable. Particularly fun to hear are “Everybody Wants to Be a Cat,” “The Bare Necessities,” “Under the Sea” and “Oo De Lally.” Whether a child or an adult, there is plenty to enjoy on Swings Disney. (arborsrecords.com)

The name Benny Benack has been a significant one on the Pittsburgh jazz scene for three generations. Trumpeter/vocalist

BENNY BENACK III is the latest to emerge as a first-rate player following his reedplaying father and trumpeter grandfather. His new release, A Lot of Livin’ to Do (BB3 Productions – 01242020), finds him assaying a program of 12 selections in the company of pianist Takeshi Ohbayashi, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. He plays a mean trumpet, and sings with a smooth baritone that is easy on the ears. The program is eclectic with four standards, “A Lot of Livin’ to Do,” “What the World Needs Now,” “Where Is the Love” and “The Shadow of Your Smile;” a couple of jazz tunes, “Social Call” and “Gravy Waltz;” a pair by Fred Rogers of Mr. Roberts Neighborhood fame, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” and “It’s You I Like;” and four of his nifty originals. Guest vocalists join on two tracks, Veronica Swift on “Social Call,” and Alita Moses on “Where Is the Love.” The inclusion of the

two Rogers songs ties Benack back to his grandfather who guested on the Rogers

television show. Benack also proves to be a gifted lyricist on “Irrepressible” and “Later On.” (www.bennybenackjazz.com)

Over the years, Chet Baker has inspired several tribute albums. The latest, Baker’s Dozen: Celebrating Chet Baker (Cellar Music – 100819) by trumpeter/vocalist JOHNNY SUMMERS has, as the title suggests a 13-song program of tunes that were recorded by Baker. While Baker is an obvious influence on Summers, there is a richer sound to the voice of Summers, he does not attempt to channel Baker. He recorded the album over a two-year period in various musical settings from a big band to himself with a rhythm section of piano, bass and drums. There are a couple of selections with a string quartet added, and three tracks with a tenor sax present. Simmers plays trumpet, flugelhorn, and flumpet, a hybrid of the other two, all with fluency and imagination. When he vocalizes on songs like “Let’s Get Lost,” “This Time the Dream’s on Me” or “You Go to My Head” you hear shadows of Baker, but Summers own feel for the material. Similarly, on instrumental tracks like “Time After Time,” “I Fall In Love Too Easily” or “I Get Along Without You Very Well,” the confluence of Baker’s influence and the individual approach of Summers creates an interesting cross pollination. (cellarlive.com)

Together–Live (Heavywood – 78920) is simple, direct and lovely. It is a duo album by vocalist REBECCA KIGORE and guitarist ANDY BROWN recorded in concert at Classic Pianos in Portland, Oregon. Kilgore is the epitome of good taste, fabulous phrasing and lyric interpretation. Brown, who has plenty of experience playing in this format with his vocalist wife, Petra Van Nuis, is a superb accompanist as well as a stellar jazz guitarist. Both aspects of his talent are in strong evidence on this 12-song program. The songs are just what you would hope for and expect from Kilgore and Brown, great tunes that are not done to death. Seeing “The

Touch of Your Lips,” “Better Than Anything,” “Can’t Get Out of This Mood,” “Nobody Else But Me,” “A Woman’s Intuition,” “Rock Me to Sleep,” “The Gentle Rain,” “Give Me the Simple Life,” “Where Can I Go Without You,” “destination Moon,” “Any Old Time” and “You Are There” on the song list leads you to expect something special. Well, that is exactly what Kilgore and Brown give to the listeners. (www.andybrownguitar.com) (www.rebeccakilgore.com)

It is hard to believe that The Night We Couldn’t Say Good Night (Gut String Records – 041) is the debut album by vocalist ANGELA VERBRUGGE. This lady swings forever, has a wonderfully listenable voice, and knows her way around a lyric. While based in Vancouver, she came to New York City to record with pianist Ray Gallon, bassist Cameron Brown and drummer Anthony Pinciotti. They laid down 13 terrific tracks. There are standards like “Love Walked In,” “All Too Soon” and “The Moon Was Yellow.” A Spanish language version of “You and the Night and the Music,” “Si Tu Pudieras Quererme,” and “Plus Je T’Embrasse,” a French language take on a song that was popular here as “Heart of My Heart,” gives the album a taste of Verbrugge’s versatility. Another aspect of her talent is as a songwriter, writing lyrics for “I’m Running Late (That’s the Question)” and How Did I Know This Was the End,” while penning both words and music for “The Night We Couldn’t Say Good Night” and “You’re Almost Perfect.” The whole package is an impressive beginning for a lady for whom the title of one of her selections should apply, “This Could Be the Start of Something Big.” (angelaverbrugge.com)

Here is another debut album with Ray Gallon on the piano, Dearly Beloved (Cellar Music- 100119) by vocalist NAAMA

GHEBER. This Israeli-born singer now resides in New York City, and has been appearing at many of the major jazz clubs in the City. For this album, she has recruited a team of Gallon, vibraphonist Steve Nelson, bassist David Wong and drummer Aaron Kimmel. Equally at ease singing ballads and quicker tempo numbers, she has a 12-track program filled with Great American Songbook standards. The songs include “Dearly Beloved, “So in Love,” “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” “You Stepped Out of a Dream,” “What’s New” and “Goodnight My Love.” Gallon and Nelson are a perfect front line support pair, while Wong and Kimmel keep everyone in the right grooves. (cellarlive.com)

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