This is an actual Craigslist item:  Apr 3 - Need a paper typed? Need a editor? - … [Read more...]

Another significant Canadian contributor to jazz is gone. Barely more than a week after Gene Lees died comes news that Rob McConnell lost his long struggle with cancer Saturday in a Toronto hospital. A valve trombonist, arranger, composer and leader, McConnell made his Boss Brass one of the significant big bands of the latter part of the twentieth century and into the first decade of this one. Here he is with the Boss Brass on a visit to the US west coast in 1981. Rob introduces the piece and … [Read more...]

A few years ago, Gene Lees and I fell into serious agreement. It happened in one of our long talks over a glass of wine, or two, at the big table just off the kitchen in his and Janet's house in Ojai. We were kicking around the peculiar effect that popular acceptance of an artist often has on the perception of critics and fellow musicians. We discussed the Modern Jazz Quartet, Cannonball Adderley, the Dave Brubeck Quartet and Diana Krall, all of whom during their struggle upward were lauded by … [Read more...]

A man named Paul Sonnenberg has posted a medley of songs with Gene Lees' lyrics. If you go here, you'll learn as much about Mr. Sonnenberg as I know. If you watch the video below, you'll see and hear him sing the songs, largely in tune, with a feel for the Brazilian samba idiom and with, for the most part, the correct English lyrics. In "Quiet Night of Quiet Stars," it should be, "...how lovely," not "...so lovely," but that's quibbling. Here's Paul Sonnenberg doing nice work. Rifftides is … [Read more...]

Tributes to Gene Lees continue, for good reason. A line from Longfellow applies: "Dead he is not, but departed - for the artist never dies." Terry Teachout remembers Gene in today's Wall Street Journal: Had Gene been born sooner, he would surely have been as famous and successful as the top songwriters of the '30s and '40s. But he came along after the cultural tide of jazz had started to ebb, and by the time his songs were making their mark, rock 'n' roll was in the process of replacing jazz as … [Read more...]

Following Gene Lees' passing, the Canadian tenor saxophonist, pianist, composer, arranger and educator Phil Dwyer sent a story about how he acquired one of Gene's books. In the spring of 1990, I was playing in New York, at a club call Visione's (in the Village) with David Friesen and Alan Jones. It was the middle of a long (seven weeks) tour. It would ultimately be the last tour for the group, which had formed in 1987. For me, the New York stop was a highlight not only because it was New York, … [Read more...]