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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for October 19, 2008

TT: Neal Hefti and Dave McKenna, R.I.P.

October 19, 2008 by Terry Teachout

Two more jazz masters have passed on. Neal Hefti was best known to the public for composing the Batman and Odd Couple themes, but among musicians it was his smoothly swinging work for Count Basie that made him legendary, in the process helping to update and redefine the language of postwar big-band arranging. The Atomic Mr. Basie, their best-known collaboration, contained “Li’l Darlin’,” the slower-than-slow ballad for which Hefti will always be remembered. Marc Myers’ obituary deftly summarizes his innumerable other musical achievements and offers a well-chosen list of recommended recordings. I especially like “The Good Earth,” the oft-reissued 1945 Woody Herman flagwaver that is one of my all-time favorite big-band recordings.
41V3G7HZJKL._SL500_AA240_.jpgDave McKenna was best known for his unaccompanied piano solos, whose propulsive left-hand walking-bass lines rendered sidemen superfluous. He was also a consummately sensitive balladeer, and Solo Piano, recorded for Chiaroscuro in 1972, includes a version of Leonard Bernstein’s “Lucky to Be Me” that shows him at his most tender. (You can download it from iTunes.)
McKenna recorded frequently before illness forced him into retirement, but not nearly enough of his albums remain in print. I hope Concord will hasten to reissue My Friend the Piano, for me his most satisfying record. Used copies are easy to find, and I suggest that you order one, listen to “Baby, Baby All the Time,” and mourn the passing of an artist.
* * *
“Li’l Darlin’,” “The Good Earth,” and “Lucky to Be Me” can all be downloaded from iTunes.
Hefti’s New York Times obituary is here. McKenna’s is here.
Doug Ramsey writes well about Hefti and McKenna here and here.
Here’s an appropriately elegiac McKenna medley of Leonard Bernstein’s “Some Other Time” and Johnny Mandel’s “A Time for Love”:

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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