• Home
  • About
    • Doug Ramsey
    • Rifftides
    • Contact
  • Purchase Doug’s Books
    • Poodie James
    • Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond
    • Jazz Matters
    • Other Works
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal
  • rss

Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Correspondence: Bruno And The Singer

August 29, 2009 by Doug Ramsey

Jack Brownlow has been dead nearly two years, but stories about him keep surfacing. Among his other attributes, the pianist was admired for his harmonic ingenuity, chord placement, taste and timing in accompanying instrumentalists and vocalists. At Brownlow’s memorial service in the fall of 2007, drummer Phil Snyder told several stories about his musical adventures with the man known to his friends as Bruno. He forgot to tell one, though, and sent it to share with Rifftides readers.

As you know, Bruno could play anything in any key. He knew the lyrics to almost every standard song. If they asked him, he also coached singers and advised them how to be better. That combination helped make him a singer’s dream piano Jack Brownlow B&W.jpgplayer. But he hated to do it if they weren’t good.

One summer day in the ’70’s, he was in bassist Jim Anderson’s living room accompanying a singer who had stopped by to perform for Jack and consult with him about improving himself. When I walked in, Jack and the singer were in the middle of “On a Clear Day,” so I quietly sank into the beanbag chair in the corner facing the piano. The man singing was someone I had never heard or seen, a handsome guy with dark skin and curly hair nicely coifed. He had a Latin accent. He sang as if he were every woman’s desire, though there weren’t any women in the room, just Bruno and me. The singer used a lot of arm and hand gestures. He was facing the piano and couldn’t see me, but Bruno and I had eye contact.

This guy’s singing was terrible. Bruno was embarrassed and wouldn’t look at me. He turned his head to the left and faced the wall away from the singer. Bruno played no choruses. Finally, “On A Clear Day” was over. Bruno fiddled with the music on top of the piano. After uncomfortable silence, the singer asked him, “What do you think?” Bruno said nothing. “Let’s try something else,” the singer said.” “How about ‘Have You Met Miss Jones?”‘

Reluctantly, Bruno played an introduction and the singing began. It was a terrible rendition, with mispronunciations and scrambled phrasing. Finally, that was over, too. “Let’s do one more,” the singer pleaded. “Let’s do a ballad.” Bruno looked at me and rolled his eyes. With excitement, the singer said, “‘My Funny Valentine?’ Do you know that one Mr. Brownlow?” Bruno nodded. The singer launched into it and gave rubato a whole new meaning. Finally, “Valentine” was over. Bruno sighed and stood up.

“Well, Mr. Brownlow…what do you think?”

Bruno didn’t say anything. He briefly looked at me, and started to shuffle the music on the piano again.

“Mr. Brownlow? What do you think about my singing? “Do you think I have a great voice?”

Bruno had a difficult time telling an untruth about anything musical. At the same time, he didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. Finally, he looked at the man and said, “Great voice? No, I wouldn’t say you had a great voice. It needs some work.”

“How about my pitch?”

Still shuffling papers, Bruno stood up, then sat down again.

“Your pitch?”

“Yes! My pitch. You know…am I singing in tune?”

Again an uncomfortable pause. “In tune? No, not exactly. You could
work on that, actually.”

The singer was getting disturbed.

“How about my, how do you musicians put it, my swinging? Am I swinging? I think I was swinging.”

I was sitting behind the piano trying to keep quiet and not break up. Bruno was startingJack Brownlow 1971.jpg to sweat, which I’d never seen him do before.

“Swinging?” he said.

“Yes, yes, yes. You must understand swinging. Was I swinging?”

Silence. Bruno looked again at me. Quietly, every quietly, Bruno said, “A little bit.” He paused. Actually, I wouldn’t say that. Not swinging…not exactly swinging. No. I’d have to say no on that.”

The singer was upset. Bruno was clutching a bunch of music in his arms as if to protect himself from blows. I was lying back on the beanbag chair, but not comfortably. The room was very tense. Finally, the singer, who at this point was pacing back and forth, mumbled forcefully.

“Now wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You said I don’t have a good voice. Isn’t that right?”

Bruno looked away. “Well, that might be overstat… ”

“And then you said that my pitch was wrong, that I was out of tune. Right?”

“Well, I didn’t put it quite that way, but yes…”

“Then Mr. Brownlow, you said that I am not swinging at all. Isn’t that also what you said?”

Bruno, now terrified about what this guy was going to do next, tried to ease his pain.

“Well, well, a little bit of swinging, I suppose…toward the end there…”

“STOP!” said the singer.

Again there was uncomfortable, really uncomfortable, silence in the room. Bruno didn’t move. I didn’t move. The singer quit pacing, looked at Bruno and said,

“I come here to sing for you and for you to judge my singing. You tell me that my voice is bad, my pitch is bad, and my rhythm is bad. What else is there?”

Again, there was a pause. Bruno was trying to find something positive to say. Finally, he blurted,

“Your posture is EXCELLENT!”

For more on Jack Brownlow, go here and here.

Related

Filed Under: Main

Comments

  1. Bob Godfre says

    August 30, 2009 at 3:20 pm

    Phil Snyder’s story is wonderful….sounds exactly like Jack.
    (Mr. Godfrey played drums with Jack Brownlow over three decades. — DR)

  2. Scott Faulkner says

    September 2, 2009 at 10:29 am

    I miss Bruno. Thanks a lot for sharing this story, Doug.
    Along these lines, when Bruno and I played at the Canlis piano bar, he hated when people sang along. When Bruno wanted to ditch a singer, it wasn’t a fair fight…nobody ever even made it to the bridge. I wouldn’t have thought that a pianist could go through four completely unrelated keys within 16 bars and still make a song sound good. It was great ear training for me, although I must say I, too, ended up on the short end sometimes.
    I have known very few people who have mastered music completely. Jack Brownlow is one of them.
    (Mr. Faulkner, a bassist, is executive director of the Reno Chamber Orchestra.)
    (I once offered to have engraved for Bruno a small brass plaque to place on the Canlis piano. It would have read “Thank You For Not Singing.” He laughed but declined, not wanting to offend anyone. The method Scott describes was more effective, and a lot more fun. — DR)

  3. Dick Bank says

    September 7, 2009 at 9:55 pm

    I laughed out loud –no, howled — throughout the Bruno story. A classic!
    Of course, the way it was told was inspired.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

Subscribe to RiffTides by Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Doug’s Books

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.

Archives

Recent Comments

  • Rob D on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • W. Royal Stokes on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Larry on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Lucille Dolab on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Donna Birchard on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside

Doug’s Picks

We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside

As Rifftides readers have undoubtedly noticed, it has been a long time since we posted. We are creating a new post in hopes  that it will open the way to resumption of frequent reports as part of the artsjournal.com mission to keep you up to date on jazz and other matters. Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s stunning new trio album […]

Recent Listening: The New David Friesen Trio CD

David Friesen Circle 3 Trio: Interaction (Origin) Among the dozens of recent releases that deserve serious attention, a few will get it. Among those those receiving it here is bassist David Friesen’s new album.  From the Portland, Oregon, sinecure in which he thrives when he’s not touring the world, bassist Friesen has been performing at […]

Monday Recommendation: Dominic Miller

Dominic Miller Absinthe (ECM) Guitarist and composer Miller delivers power and subtlety in equal measure. Abetted by producer Manfred Eicher’s canny guidance and ECM’s flawless sound and studio presence, Miller draws on inspiration from painters of France’s impressionist period. His liner essay emphasizes the importance to his musical conception of works by Cezanne, Renoir, Lautrec, […]

Recent Listening: Dave Young And Friends

Dave Young, Lotus Blossom (Modica Music) Young, the bassist praised by Oscar Peterson for his “harmonic simpatico and unerring sense of time” when he was a member of Peterson’s trio, leads seven gifted fellow Canadians. His beautifully recorded bass is the underpinning of a relaxed session in which his swing is a force even during […]

Recent Listening: Jazz Is Of The World

Paolo Fresu, Richard Galliano, Jan Lundgren, Mare Nostrum III (ACT) This third outing by Mare Nostrum continues the international trio’s close collaboration in a series of albums that has enjoyed considerable success. With three exceptions, the compositions in this installment are by the members of Mare Nostrum. It opens with one the French accordionist Galliano […]

Monday Recommendation: Thelonious Monk’s Works In Full

Kimbrough, Robinson, Reid, Drummond: Monk’s Dreams(Sunnyside) The subtitle of this invaluable 6-CD set is The Complete Compositions Of Thelonious Sphere Monk. By complete, Sunnyside means that the box contains six CDs with 70 tunes that Monk wrote beginning in the early years when his music was generally assumed to be an eccentric offshoot of bebop, […]

More Doug's Picks

Blogroll

All About Jazz
JerryJazzMusician
Carol Sloane: SloaneView
Jazz Beyond Jazz: Howard Mandel
The Gig: Nate Chinen
Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong
Don Heckman: The International Review Of Music
Ted Panken: Today is The Question
George Colligan: jazztruth
Brilliant Corners
Jazz Music Blog: Tom Reney
Brubeck Institute
Darcy James Argue
Jazz Profiles: Steve Cerra
Notes On Jazz: Ralph Miriello
Bob Porter: Jazz Etc.
be.jazz
Marc Myers: Jazz Wax
Night Lights
Jason Crane:The Jazz Session
JazzCorner
I Witness
ArtistShare
Jazzportraits
John Robert Brown
Night After Night
Do The Math/The Bad Plus
Prague Jazz
Russian Jazz
Jazz Quotes
Jazz History Online
Lubricity

Personal Jazz Sites
Chris Albertson: Stomp Off
Armin Buettner: Crownpropeller’s Blog
Cyber Jazz Today, John Birchard
Dick Carr’s Big Bands, Ballads & Blues
Donald Clarke’s Music Box
Noal Cohen’s Jazz History
Bill Crow
Easy Does It: Fernando Ortiz de Urbana
Bill Evans Web Pages
Dave Frishberg
Ronan Guilfoyle: Mostly Music
Bill Kirchner
Mike Longo
Jan Lundgren (Friends of)
Willard Jenkins/The Independent Ear
Ken Joslin: Jazz Paintings
Bruno Leicht
Earl MacDonald
Books and CDs: Bill Reed
Marvin Stamm

Tarik Townsend: It’s A Raggy Waltz
Steve Wallace: Jazz, Baseball, Life and Other Ephemera
Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest
Jessica Williams

Other Culture Blogs
Terry Teachout
DevraDoWrite
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
On An Overgrown Path

Journalism
PressThink: Jay Rosen
Second Draft, Tim Porter
Poynter Online

Related

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in