Today is Dave McKenna’s 78th Birthday. He plays the piano.
Happy Birthday.
Dave McKenna
May 30, 2008 By
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Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
Today is Dave McKenna’s 78th Birthday. He plays the piano.
Happy Birthday.
Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion to Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.
The Complete Stanley Dance Felsted “Mainstream Jazz” Recordings 1958-1959 (Fresh Sound)
This nine-CD treasure chest contains dozens of the finest mainstream artists from a golden era. Stanley Dance, who applied the term mainstream to jazz, supervised the sessions for the British Felsted label. Johnny Hodges, Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins, Rex Stewart, Buster Bailey, Jo Jones, Budd Johnson, Dicky Wells, Billy Strayhorn; they’re all here, along with superb half-forgotten musicians like saxophonist George Kelly, guitarist Dickie Thompson and drummer Earl Watkins. Among the supporting players are young lions of the fifties Ray Bryant, Kenny Burrell and Ray Brown. The package includes Hodges in Strayhorn’s brilliant album Cue For Saxophone. The booklet has all of Dance’s notes, updated.
Brad Mehldau Trio, Ode (Nonesuch)
Mehldau has recorded lately as solo pianist, in duets with classical mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie Van Otter and with a large orchestra. Bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard join him in a stimulating return to trio playing. They are attuned to the pianist as if by ESP. He describes the title tune as “an ode to odes” and dedicates other pieces to figures in his personal and musical lives. Among those who inspired them are Michael Brecker, Kurt Rosenwinkel, the Jack Nicholson character George Hanson and Aquaman, but you needn’t know that to be moved by the virtuosity and joy of this music.
Mike Longo, To My Surprise: Trio + 2 (CAP
The trio is pianist Longo, bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Lewis Nash— a formidable New York rhythm section. With the addition on half the tracks of trumpeter Jimmy Owens and tenor saxophonist Lance Bryant, Longo takes the quintet through classic bop territory and beyond into modal country. If there were Oscars for Wilde titles, “A Picture of Dorian Mode,” would win. The adventurous playing on the track awards the listener. With trio or quartet, in standards or new Longo compositions, hard-charging or pensive, this is an album full of satisfactions, not least the lovely take on “In the Wee Small Hours” that ends it.
Thelonious Monk Live in France 1969 (Jazz Icons)
The video of Monk alone at the piano in a Paris studio is the jewel of the fifth Jazz Icons box set that many feared would not come. Taped with visual simplicity and excellent sound, he plays 12 pieces, all of them his compositions but “Don’t Blame Me” and a rollicking “Nice Work if You Can Get It.” Except for that exultant conclusion, the concert has an air of reflective, almost Brahmsian, gravity. His harmonies can be breathtaking. The bonuses—unedited documentary footage and an attempt to interview Monk—are curiosities. The music is essential.
Timme Rosenkrantz, Fradley Hamilton Garner, Harlem Jazz Adventures: A European Baron’s Memoir, 1934-1969
Timme Rosenkrantz (1911–1969) had royal Danish blood, but no royal pretensions, and when he came to the US in 1934, his garrulous charm made him fit right in. What attracted him here was jazz. He became a chronicler and friend of musicians from Louis Armstrong to Art Tatum to Lennie Tristano and dozens of others. He was a rounder and a storyteller, and he could write. His memoir, artfully edited by Fradley Gardner, is a chronicle of three decades when New York was the center of the jazz universe and Rosenkrantz was swinging through it.
Toots Thielemans, Yesterday & Today (Out Of The Blue)
Two CDs with thirty-eight tracks, most previously unreleased, follow Thielemans from 1946, when he was a 23-year-old guitarist with a Belgian swing band, to a 2001 harmonica performance of “What A Wonderful World” with pianist Kenny Werner. In the late 1940s and early ‘50s, when many European musicians were struggling with the style, Thielemans had a firm grasp of bebop. Playing through the decades with George Shearing, Hank Jones, J.J. Johnson, Elis Regina, Mulgrew Miller, Shirley Horn and a few dozen others, Thielemans is astonishing on both instruments, but it’s his harmonica that brings grins of joy.
I saw Dave McKenna in what I think was the last (or one of the last) live performance he had. (In talking to Dick Johnson last summer, I’m told Dave McKenna almost never leaves his home, even.)
It was in December of 2000. It was in the basement of a church in Needham, MA. I’d seen him a few years earlier on Cape Cod, and he did almost 2 hours of solo piano. In 2000, he played maybe 15 total minutes solo. It was mostly with a quartet: Marshall Wood (b), Jim Gwin (d), and Donna Byrne (v). It was a fantastic show, despite the fact that I really wanted to see him play and not listen to Donna sing.
Years earlier, when I’d seen him, he walked up with a cane on one side and a person on the other. He got up to the piano, and threw his cane across the stage. It looked like he was going to keel over and faint on the keyboard, but he stayed in that position for two nearly one-hour sets and played as well as ever.
Truly one of the greats who was never known as well as he should have been — except in New England, where he was known for playing a hotel lobby while listening to baseball. Lou Columbo and Dick Johnson always have fantastic stories to tell if you ever get them both together and say the words, “How’s Dave McKenna doing?”
I featured Dave on my blog “My Favorite Things” several weeks ago and wondered aloud about what happened to him, A reader contacted me to report that Dave is in State College, PA in poor health. However, I have not been able to confirm the accuracy of this.
Back in the 1980′s I produced several solo concerts by Dave. They were wonderful musical experiences.
Thanks, Doug, for this sweet gift of Dave’s lovely piano playing. Brought a tear to my eye, remembering all the wonderful times, both playing with him and just listening to him, that brought me so much joy.
Bill Crow
Being a New Englander for most of my life, I got quite a few chances to hear Dave over the years (as well as to meet him and spend some time talking with him – what a nice, humble guy he is). He’s one of the few with a unique piano sound – as soon as you hear him, you know immediately who it is.
He has often referred to himself as “just a saloon piano player.” After watching that clip, does anyone agree with that self-deprecating assessment?
Thank you so much for the nice bit on Dave’s 78th and bringing even this little piece of his work to an audience who may not be familiar with him or his genius.
I spoke with Dave(telephone) on Wednesday (May 29th) and his spirits are still quite up. We have been friends for many,many years. He is in very poor health and gets out rarely but on occasion he does. Talk is mainly of baseball–and the Red Sox.
He is truly one of those ONE OF A KIND musicians and draws an audience of pianists and others in great numbers when he did perform–particularly in solo settings.
His CDs and vinyls go on my Desert Island list no matter how many times I list and delist.