Mel on Louis

So I'm on a Mel Torme jag. Sue me.

I'm reading his book My Singing Teachers: Reflections on Singing Popular Music (Oxford University Press, no less, 1994), which includes this anecdote about Louis Armstrong:

I got to know Louis over the years and found him to be a warmhearted, loving man. He had a great pride in himself and his accomplishments, particularly his role as unofficial goodwill ambassador from America to the world.

He had a great sense of humor, sometimes biting, sometimes self-deprecating. I remember once, when I was playing the Paramount theater in New York, he came bounding up the stairs to say hello to some musicians on the floor above my dressing room. I yelled at him: “Hey Louis, what's happening?”

He bounced back into my doorway, grinned that Chinese grin of his, and said: “White folks still in the lead.”

Next book in the stack: Terry Teachout's Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong.

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[Photo of Armstrong from 1946 by William P. Gottlieb from the Gottlieb Collection at the Library of Congress Flickr Feed.]

Crushing the Velvet Frog

A publicist dubbed Mel Torme "The Velvet Fog" sometime in the late 1940s for the singer's signature smooth style. Torme hated the nickname, but it clung to him like ivy, as the poet once said, like a slug to a garden path, like toilet paper to a shoe, like a dryer sheet to a polyester pantsuit.

Torme would later joke about his "velvet frog voice." So it's hard to tell whether some drudge toiling away deep in the bowels of Amazon.com picked up on Mel's joke (see screen capture above). Or was just being sloppy. Probably the latter (although that person did go to the trouble of adding a diacritical mark to the final vowel of "Torme" up in the title tag, even if it is pointed in the wrong direction. But I obsess, and digress.)

According to my sources at the retail behemoth, this "bug" has been noted in the system and should one day soon be corrected. But maybe it would make Mel's ghost happier to let his joke stand. He does seem to have come to terms with the moniker, later titling his 1988 autobiography It Wasn't All Velvet.

Whether the Velvet is Foggy or Froggy, “The Very Best of Mel Torme” is an amazing deal. Fifty songs by one of the greatest vocalists who ever lived (and if his autobiography is remotely accurate, boy, did he ever live), working some of the best arrangers of the 20th century, all for $6.99. Smooth, man, real smooth.

Recommended reading:
"Mel Tormé and the Marty Paich Dek-tette" by Thomas Cunniffe

(Special thanks to Queenie Sunshine for the dryer sheet simile.)

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UPDATE: The bug report was entered on 31 January. As of 8 Feb, the page is still froggy.

A Jazzman's Jazzman

From the "Merely the Mockumentary" Department:



Gotta respect a man who takes care of his shoes. Gotta give it up to anyone with the patience for stop-motion animation. Premieres at Seattle's Fremont Abbey on Friday, September 10, 2010

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Tip: PJ at Blog Supremo.

Zubatto Syndicate Passes the Hat

I caught the Zubatto Syndicate's premier last fall at Seattle's Town Hall. The group includes some of the city's top jazz cats in a delightfully reed-heavy mix. (How can you not love a band with a bassoon?)

They're getting ready to record their first studio sessions and could use your help. See below for details. [Full disclosure: I'm a backer, yes I am.]

Show: Sachal Vasandani at Jazz Alley

Is it just me, or does referring to someone as a "crooner" feel like a putdown? Come to think of it, it probably is me.

Back in the college, I auditioned for a spot in the chapel choir. As a nervous sophomore transfer student  - and an admittedly poor site reader - my approach was on the tentative side, rather than the hammy imitation of the Bugs Bunny opera singer I'd learned to do in high school. This started as a gag to do for my friends; much to my surprise, choir teachers loved it. "Why don't you sing like that all the time?" one asked me. Anyway, after I'd stumbled through my Chapel Choir audition piece, the director muttered something about me being "more of a crooner." It was something in the tone of his voice, but I found myself wanting to leap across the room and choke him.

This memory resurfaced the other night at singer Sachal Vasandani's show at Dimitriou's Jazz Alley.The man introducing Vasandani described him as "a great crooner. These words were followed by an audible gulp, after which he hastily added, "...uh, and a first-rate jazz artist." It was the kind of recovery you might hear from a guy on a blind date who announces that Ugg boots are the least flattering footwear ever foisted on the feminine gender, only to look down and see a pair of chestnut brown Sundance IIs, the toe of one tapping ominously. "But they look great on you! Now what's taking so long with that table?"

Or anyway that's how I heard it.

The good news for the capacity crowd that greeted Vasandani - emerging from the back of the house, all movie-star handsome in a sharp suit and tie, gliding to the stage under the adoring gaze of a follow spot - is that the he is, in fact, both a great crooner and a first-rate jazz artist. He can also belt it out when called upon, and scat with smooth assurance.

He's also a gifted songwriter, capable of both adding to and re-interpreting the traditional jazz repertoire. A case in point is "Escape," a new introduction to "There's a Small Hotel." "Escape" not only stands on it’s own, while also allowing you to appreciate the original from a new angle.

Vasandani is touring in support of a new release, "We Move," on the excellent Mack Avenue label. The CD's production is quite lush, at times too much so for me. (I wouldn't be surprised to hear the title track turn up in the background of Grey's Anatomy.) On stage with his excellent young trio (Jeb Patton, piano; David Wong, bass; and the occasionally too loud Jeremy Brown, drums), Vasandani seemed to be having a high old time and exuded the charm and ease of classic Bobby Darin. The droning influence of Vasandani's fellow Chicagoan Kurt Elling, in evidence on both "We Move" and Vasandani's debut recording "Eyes Wide Open" was all but absent. To me that's a good thing.

On the cusp of his 30s, Vasandani is still working out who he is as an artist, incorporating influences as diverse as Sinatra, Jon Hendricks, Joni Mitchell, and Sade. The mix isn't perfectly distilled yet, but he and the trio consistently served up the good turtle soup. Mic dynamics proved to be an issue throughout the night, but I’m not sure whether this was his problem or something that should have been worked out during the sound check. Whichever, it was definitely a distraction.

The crowd (which included a lot of the under-30s everybody in the jazz intelligentsia is so exercised about) seemed to eat it up, but at the end of the set there was no encore. This struck me as odd, but then Seattle-ites are notorious for their polite equanimity.

Where ever the road leads him, Vasandani merits watching. As we passed by the autograph line on the way out, a swoony woman in her 40s standing next to the singer called out to her mortified teenage daughter, “Get over here with that camera and take my picture!”

A certain Canadian crooner whose name rhymes with “poo-flay” would do well to take note.

(Image pilfered from Mack Avenue Records.)

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Show: Sachal Vasandani at Jazz Alley - Seattle - November 11, 2009

Set list:
That Old Black Magic
Escape/There's a Small Hotel
Don't Worry About Me
Please Mr. Ogilvy
Medley: Royal Eyes/There Are Such Things/My Dear
All The Way
Ring Road (Back to You)
Monk's Dream
Every Ocean, Every Star
We Move
No More

Viddie: Sweet Georgia Brown

More bad news for drummers everywhere. (Rumor has it Apple is preparing a tractor Jam Pack for Garageband. Of course you didn't hear that here.)

Tip: KK at Groove Notes

Mingus at the Showplace

Today's Writer's Almanac includes the poem "Mingus at the Showplace" by William Matthews about writing a bad poem at age 17 and having the nerve to show it to Charles Mingus. I loved these lines:

He didn't look as if he thought

bad poems were dangerous, the way some poets do.
If they were baseball executives they'd plot

to destroy sandlots everywhere so that the game
could be saved from children.

TNLD says check it out. And check out some Mingus, recorded in Stockholm with Eric Dolphy, Clifford Jordan, Jaki Byard and Dannie Richmond.

Review: Nils Lindberg and Margareta Bengtson - As We Are

As We Are (2008, Prophone) starts with a 19th Century meditation on death ("Remember," a setting a poem by Christina Rosetti) then moves on through the blues, folk tunes from Finland and Sweden, bossa nova, Hoagy Carmichael and Ellingtonian vocalese before arriving at Shakespeare. Talk about your strange meadowlarks.

There's something otherworldly about the whole enterprise, as if Nils Lindberg (composer, arranger and pianist) were a Martian who spent a his childhood listening to radio waves from the next planet over, picking up jazz and classical and all those popular tunes broadcast before 1960 and then deciding to have a go at it himself. While those signals might have left this world in discreet streams, what Lindberg sends back to earth is all mixed together, as if the boundaries between genres don't matter. As it turns out, Lindberg is from Sweden, where, thankfully, they don't. The result is as crisp and classic as a restored black & white movie and as new as next Tuesday.

Chief among Lindberg's co-conspirators on this project is singer Margareta Bengtson, who appears on 11 of the 13 tracks. Bengtson's Nordic cool may be a million miles from Ella Fitzgerald in style but they both share a gift for putting the across the lyric with great feeling, while avoiding the "watch me, watch me" embellishment that many singers use to prove that they're singing jazz, as if you didn't know. But Bengtson is also no slouch when it's time to bust out the scat chops.

What Lindberg and Bengston achieve on As We Are is a remarkable melding of jazz song and art song that I suspect would have pleased a chamber jazz proponent like Billy Strayhorn no end. Only the tune "Santa Barbara" comes off a little cheesy, but it's a pleasant cheese and entirely in keeping with the city that inspired it (see/hear for your own self).

• Note on purchasing - Much as I commend this CD to your listening ears, it isn't sold on Amazon, CD Baby or any of the usual suspects. The Prophone link above will eventually get you to a purchase link, but it's a long and winding road that leads nowhere. Several sketchy bit torent avenues turn up on searches but those always make me feel dirty. I'll try to update this post if I find a solution.

Further linkage
Nils Lindberg (official site | wikipedia) is as celebrated in Sweden for his work in jazz settings as he is for his classical compositions, film and TV scores, as well as settings of Swedish folk music.

Margareta Bengtson's myspace page - includes the opening track "Remember" as well as a sprightly version of Annie Ross's "Twisted."

Free: Ari Hoenig's Green Spleen

Word to the budget-wise: A free mp3 of drummer Ari Hoenig's funky-wah-wah composition "Green Spleen" is available here. Check it out.

It's from Hoenig's new CD "Bert's Playground" which dropped last month (on Dreyfus Jazz, a very cool French label).

Hoenig is joined by a raft of top-shelf NY jazzheads: Chris Potter and Will Vinson on their saxophones, Jonathan Kreisberg and Gilad Hekselman on their guitars, and doghousers Matt Penman and Orlando LeFleming (not all at the same time, of course, he's not Ornette Coleman). It's a mixture of new compositions and standards run through a sensibility that Hoenig refers to as "Punk Bop" which explains thusly:

"As a kid, I listened to a lot of punk and hardcore music as well as metal, reggae, funk, hip-hop, house and pop... I wanted to incorporate all my influences in this band..."

Long live the multiverse.

More info at Ari Hoenig's website and/or Myspace page.

Bonus viddie: Here's Hoenig's quartet (with Penman, Jean-Michel Pilc on piano and Jacques Schwartz-Bart on sax) perfroming "SKA" at the Fat Cat in NYC.

New to the TNLD Blogroll: The Jazz Session

Pardon the dust around these parts. I promise I haven't forgotten about the three of you.

This is long overdue, but I feel the need to plug The Jazz Session, a fine jazz blog with a great jazz podcast to boot. If I were ever to do a jazz podcast, I'd hope it could be half as good as the podcast that host Jason Crane does every week. Crane brings both knowledge and a genuine enthusiasm to the proceedings and generally keeps the conversation from degrading into arcane shop talk for experts. I'm still working my way through the archives, but recent interviews with Aaron Parks and Eddie Daniels have both been a treat.

Better git it in your feed reader.

Slow Blues

Video: Oscar Peterson and Count Basie, back in the day (although not that far back).

Work in other sectors of my life has been hectic enough of late that posting in this space has slowed to a crawl. So I'm posting the slice of nice above as a way of saying that I shall indeed post again, soon.

Still to come:

• Overdue reviews/reflections on recent releases by Bobby Watson and Erin Bode, among others
  
• A brief meditation on Marilyn Maye
• Scenes from the Greenmill

And it looks like I may be able to make this year's graveside Bird memorial after all. (Here's my recap from last year.)

Post-war Jazz

Talented composer and raggamuffin Darcy James Argue has a great piece over at the New Music Box: "Dispatches From the End of the Jazz Wars." I recommend it to anyone concerned about the future of this thing called jazz.

A few excerpts:

You remember the Jazz Wars? One side—the traditionalist faction—was spearheaded by Wynton Marsalis and his consiglieri, writer, and critic Stanley Crouch—both tireless defenders of the essential virtues of swing, blues, and standards, both deeply suspicious of outside influences, especially those they saw as coming from popular culture or "modern European concert music." The other side, a ragtag coalition of those left excluded by this narrow view,

The truth is that while a lot of critical ink was spilled on both sides of the Jazz Wars, few musicians actually took up arms themselves.

Call me a cock-eyed optimist, but I happen to think the outlook is good. Jazz musicians of all stripes have spent the post-Jazz Wars era forging ahead with smart, visceral music that is reaching a new audience—our grounding in jazz fundamentals actually makes it easier for us to reach across genre barriers and engage with the wider musical culture, as jazz musicians have been doing throughout the music's history.

Read it, already.

Update: And don't miss the comment badinage on DJA's blog (aw, all right some of it is worth missing...)

Review: Willie and Wynton and the boys

The gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt made only one tour of the United States. He spent three weeks in November 1946 on the road with Duke Ellington's band, performing for the first time in Cleveland before making stops in Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh before returning to New York for two shows at Carnegie Hall (or almost two - the famously erratic Reinhardt ran into an acquaintance on his way to the concert hall and instead spent two hours at a cafe instead).

The tour was at best a moderate success. (Check out Paul Vernon Chester's account in which he reports that Reinhardt was shocked to discover that Ellington and the members of his band wore underpants of a floral design - although he made sure to picked some up for himself before returning to Europe). Only one obscure recording of the show in Chicago documents their performance chemistry. Still, the event remains on the short list of shows that most jazz fans would have given their right arms to have seen.

I thought of Duke and Django's American adventure last year when I happened on a review of a concert featuring Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis. Jazz purists will rattle their dentures at the comparison, but the echoes are there: Nelson, while no gyspy virtuoso, shares Reinhardt's instinctual approach to music and love of swing and the standards that populate much of the jazz songbook. Marsalis, for his part, has made no secret of his desire to inherit Duke the mantle of as both a composer (and snazzy dresser). And I'd have given my right arm to have seen this show.

When the shaggy country star joined the elegantly tailored jazz czar on stage in New York in January 2007, they came together on a program of music from the genre where both styles meet: the blues. The evening apparently got off to a rough start, but five songs in Marsalis's band (drummer Ali Jackson, bassist Carlos Enriquez, pianist Dan Nimmer and saxman Walter Blanding) and Nelson finally found their groove.

That groove is what's on display in the new Blue Note release "Two Men with the Blues," which drops officially on July 8. Nelson is clearly the visiting team here (he gets moral support from his longtime harmonica player, the awesome Mickey Raphael) but he's almost like Jackie Chan's character in the Drunken Master movies in that it's precisely his idiosyncratic (and at times just plain off-kilter) approach that becomes his strength. Marsalis and his men are clearly enjoying the challenge of adapting to the bearded outlaw's at times Zen-like disregard for the beat. On "Stardust" in particular, he's at times so far and so comfortably off the beat that you can feel the rest of the band trying to adjust. The result is kind of a group moonwalk with Willie in the lead.

All this disorder leads to some really fresh and engaging solo work form Marsalis, who I often find a little too calculating in his approach. His vocals on "My Bucket's Got a Hole In It" and "Ain't Nobody's Business" are also a treat. The setting also allows the jazz roots of Nelson's guitar solo technique, always laying there latent, to come to the fore. (As a footnote, the recording also makes clear how integral Mickey Raphael's harmonica is to the Willie Nelson sound. His presence on the band stand is as understated as ever but just as tightly wound into the larger context.)

The essential pleasure of "Two Men with the Blues" is listening to this meeting of city and country styles as the players work it out. It's actually less of a concert than an especially productive jam session. I'll dare to hope that they both Wynton and Willie carve some time out of their rampant touring schedules to see what else they might be able to come up with. And if not, we'll always have this one night in New York to remember.

Free download
Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis - Bright Lights, Big City (mp3)

Linkage
www.willieandwynton.com

Dennis Irwin on the bass

Video: Matt Wilson's Arts & Crafts performing Pat Metheney's "The Bat."

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Bassist Dennis Irwin passed on March 10th, just a few hours before a benefit concert held at Jazz at Lincoln Center to raise money for his battle with cancer. His brother Dave recounts the concert on his blog. It sounds like an amazing show: Jon Hendricks, Mose Allison, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell, Wynton Marsalis, Tony Bennett, and John Scofield among many others. You have to hope that the bassist's departure secured him a front row seat.

Darcy James Argue has collected a fine list of Irwin tributes and memorials on his blog and they are all worth reading.

I saw Irwin play with Matt Wilson's Arts & Crafts at the Blue Room in Kansas City last year. In addition to generously anchoring the ensemble with his work on bass, he also broke out a clarinet for a couple of numbers. In my post about the show, I described it as feeling like a house party. This intimacy is one of the many advantages that small clubs have over festivals and larger venues. Proximity to the musicians is particularly helpful with a music that has never been primarily about volume.

I went to the show mostly on the strength of the buzz around Wilson and because I'd been intrigued and wowed several recordings featuring the ensemble's keyboard wiz Gary Versace. They were both outstanding, as was trumpeter Terrell Stafford. Sitting there a piano's length from the bandstand I could see how intently all three of them listened when Irwin soloed. Several times all three of them would nod in unison at things that I couldn't hear.

So one of the lessons I took away from hearing Dennis Irwin play how much I still don't know. That's almost always a good thing, in life or art.

Going to Chicago

Going to Chicago, sorry that I can't take you.
Going to Chicago, sorry that I can't take you.
There's nothing in Chicago that a monkey woman can do.

When you see me coming, raise you window high.
When you see me coming, raise you window high.
When you see me passing, hang your head and cry.

If you love your baby, tell the world you do.
If you love your baby, tell the world you do.
There's coming a day your baby really learn to love you too.

- "Going to Chicago Blues," Jimmy Rushing & Count Basie

Thanks to everyone who made the last four years in Kansas City such a treat - and to hell with the rest of you. :)

Radio: Eldar and Alaadeen

Sorry for all the dust around here. The times, they are a changin'. More on that in a later post. In the meantime, let's catch up on recent radio adventures.

Eldar

The Russian-born pianist was in Kansas City at the end of last month for a pair of concerts with the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra. This preview aired on KCUR Friday September 28, but you can listen to it here:

• Eldar Returns to Kansas City

I was out of town for the shows and apparently no one at the Star could be bothered. So if you went and have an opinion I'd love to hear it. Happy in Plastic covered Eldar's last appearance in KC in his review of last summer's Jazz in the Woods festival.

The following Sunday, KC Currents aired this interview with Eldar about his new album, "Re-Imagination," released this summer on Sony Classical. Listen to it here:

• Eldar's "Re-Imagination" takes pianist into new territory

Alaadeen

I also interviewed Kansas City saxophonist Alaadeen recently about his new album, "And the Beauty of it All - Ballads." A dazzlingly crafted version of it airs on KC Currents tomorrow night (7 October) at 5 PM with a repeat Monday at 8. (Seriously, I was really pleased with the result.) A slightly shorter version will air next week during Morning Edition.

Where to tune in

• KCUR FM 89.3 on your terrestrial radio
• kcur.org on your kom-poo-tor

Final note, both Alaadeen and Eldar were featured in my most recent appearance on KCUR's Up to Date. Check it here.

Radio: September 21 Jazz Update - notes and links

Here are the tracks and links from last Friday's jazz update on Up to Date. I'll update this post with notes over the next few days.

If your eyes are tired, you can listen to the segment instead (runs 11:30).




Louis Armstrong and the All-Stars
CD - Live at the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival (Monterey Jazz Festival Records)
Track - Now You Has Jazz

The Monterey Jazz festival turns 50 this year (with this year's fest kicking off this weekend). To mark its golden anniversary, the festival has teamed with Concord to release a series of live performances recorded over the last half century. The first batch includes performances by Sarah Vaughn, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis and the aforementioned Satchmo. There's also a festival sampler disc with additional cuts by Jimmie Witherspoon, Pat Metheney, Dave Brubeck and Dianna Krall et alia.

Re-issues bring with them an quandary for the ethical jazz fan: is it better to shell out your hard-earned jazz dollar for music by a past (i.e., dead) master, or to spend it in support of a corporeal artist trying to make a living in the here and now. Concord and MJF Records bridge the gap by donating all the profits from the series to the MJF's jazz education programs. The ethics of jazz education are also a subject of much debate. Ben Franklin has this take; the IAJE would undoubtedly beg to differ.

But I digress... The rest of the selections all have a Kansas City connection, with the first two living and working here, and the second pair spending some of their formative years on the scene (and passing through on a somewhat regular basis).

Charles Gatschet
CD - Step Lightly
Track - Caracas

Alaadeen
CD - And The Beauty of It All - Ballads (ASR)
Track - And The Beauty of It All

The Harold O'Neal Project
CD - Charlie's Suite: Cries and Whispers From My Great-Great-Great Grandfather (PME Records)
Track - Felix Bebop

The Harold O'Neal Project is Harold O'Neal on piano with Rick Gibbins on guitar. Harold will be making three appearances in KC in October.

• October 9: w/ The Dan Thomas Quintet at Epperson Auditorium, Kansas City Art Institute
• October 13: w/ Alaadeen and Group 21 at The Blue Room
• October 26: The Harold O'Neal Quintet at Rush Hour at Mutual Musician's Foundation
• October 31: w/ The Dan Thomas Quintet at Crazy Olives

Eldar
CD - Re-Imagination (Sony)
Track - Prairie Village

• Eldar appears next Friday and Saturday with the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra at Unity on the Plaza.

Eldar returns to KC

I had the chance to interview piano phenomenon (see the performance above for proof of that description) Eldar yesterday for a feature that will air next week. No surprise, but the kid's a sharp cookie.

Eldar's parents emigrated to the Kansas City area from Kyrgyzstan in the late 90s, arriving in Prairie Village when he was 10. For the next six years or so, Eldar studied with local jazz pros like Kim Park (and generally dropping jaws around the KC jazz scene) before signing with Sony and heading for New York.

Eldar says he's on the road about half of the time these days, and occasionally that brings him back to his old stomping grounds. Last summer, he simmered at the Corporate Woods festival (see some guy named Bill's review). Next week, he'll be back for a pair of concerts with the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra next week.

Gazarek and Nelson

I've featured vocalist Sara Gararek here before. She's a young jazz singer developing a fine set of chops. And in case you want to verify that for yourself, she's recently posted the video of "Let's Try This Again" above on YouTube. (As a grouchy side note, the video is also proof that it takes more than software to maintain visual interest.)

Gazarek co-wrote the tune with Josh Nelson, the pianist for her touring combo. Next week, 24-year-old Nelson releases his first CD as a leader, "Let it Go" (Native Language Music). It features a raft of original compositions and support from drummer Matt Wilson and tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake. I think Nelson is mature beyond his years and definitely one to watch.

Radio: Up to Date jazz update 9/21

My next appearance on KCUR's Up to Date update happens next Friday. Hope you can tune in.

On deck

• Local jazz goodness including Alaadeen's "And the Beauty of it All" and guitarist Charles Gatschet's Step Lightly, and additional jazz goodness TBA
• Notes from the local scene
  
• and maybe, just maybe, an progress report on TNLD's podcast
  

When to tune in

• Friday, September 21 at somewhere between 11:45 and noon Central
  

Where to tune in

• KCUR FM 89.3 on your terrestrial radio
• kcur.org on your cyber wawa
  

As per usual, a post with notes and links will follow. As always, if you like these jazz segments, scream and shout at uptodate@kcur.org