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It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not. It’s feeling. —Bill Evans

Originality’s the thing. You can have tone and technique and a lot of other things but without originality you ain’t really nowhere. Gotta be original. —Lester Young

A chimpanzee could learn to do what I do physically. But it goes way beyond that. When you play, you play life. —Jaco Pastorius

I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close order drill, or exercise or yodeling or something, not music. —Billie Holiday

Master your instrument, master the music, and then forget all that sh__ and just play. —Charlie Parker

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After reading the May 24 Rifftides post about the passing of pianist Frank Strazzeri, producer Dick Bank sent a story from Los Angeles.

Frank did a recording with Sonny Stitt in the Eighties at Sage & Sound studio in Hollywood. The engineer, Jim Mooney, remembers that Stitt had brought a big bottle with him, which he put next to the piano. He’d refresh himself during breaks. The bottle was emptying faster than it should have, but he said nothing. Finally, he came over to help himself and it was dry. Stitt exploded. Fortunately for Frank, there was a liquor store on the corner of Gordon Street and Sunset Boulevard. He wasted no time getting down there—and not a moment too soon. Jim said that all ended well after it looked like the session might have ended up missing a pianist.

Stitt’s discography lists no album with Strazzeri on piano. Strazzeri’s lists none with Stitt on saxophone. During his career at Sage & Sound, Jim Mooney recorded dozens of artists for a variety of labels. He retains distinct—and colorful—memories of the Strazzeri-Stitt encounter, but doesn’t recall which company hired his studio for the recording. He thinks it may have been a Japanese label and that there is a chance the album was never released.

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On the calendar, summer is nearly three weeks away. In many parts of the United States, thermometers tell us that it is here. Whether you measure summer’s arrival by time or temperature, there are few better ways to greet it than with George Gershwin’s anthem to the season from Porgy and Bess. This duo interpretation was filmed at a 1972 Highlights In Jazz concert in New York. The bassist is Richard Davis, the guitarist Ted Dunbar (1937-1998). Respected among musicians for his theoretical knowledge and teaching, Dunbar’s output of recordings was slight in relation to the size of his talent as a guitarist. This is a welcome addition to his legacy.

Thanks to Bret Primack, the Jazz Video Guy, for posting that performance on YouTube.

For a Rifftides piece about Davis being named an NEA Jazz Master earlier this year, go here. All of Dunbar’s recordings under his own name seem to be out of print. eBay lists his masterly Secundum Artem and a few other LPs here. Dunbar is featured on Kenny Barron’s Peruvian Blue, which has a classic take on Thelonious Monk’s “Blue Monk.”

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As a companion to the Artt Frank-Chet Baker recommendation posted above, let’s listen to something from Baker’s early work. Here’s what I wrote about “Bea’s Flat” in the notes for Mosaic’s box set The Complete Pacific Jazz Studio Recordings Of The Chet Baker Quartet With Russ Freeman (out of print).

A book of transcriptions of Baker’s solos on “Band Aid,” “No Ties,” “Maid in Mexico” and several other Freeman pieces was published not long after the original 10-inch Pacific Jazz LPs hit the market. Like hundreds of other aspiring trumpet players, I had a crack at them. I was able to make my way, laboriously, through most of the music, but “Bea’s Flat” destroyed me. ‘We strongly urge you in your studies of these works,’ the publisher wrote in the forward, ’ to play with the records in order to duplicate the nuances of Chet’s artistry. ’ Nuances; hell, I couldn’t get the melody line right, let alone the solo. Not at that tempo. This has to be one of the most devilishly ingenious blues lines ever written.

Looking through the discographical information for the Baker-Freeman sessions, I see that they recorded “Bea’s Flat” on my birthday. Nice present. But I’ve still never been able to play the line at that speed. The Mosaic box is long gone, but there is a CD with “Bea’s Flat” and other Baker-Freeman collaborations.

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The other day in a National Public Radio story about the Veterans Administration mess and the resignation of its director, NPR correspondent Quil Lawrence (pictured) consistently spoke of “President Obama,” “Mr. Obama” and “the President.” Courtesy titles have become rare enough in journalism that I was struck by Mr. Lawrence’s use of them. Years ago, with few exceptions, print and broadcast news organizations began allowing references to presidents of the United States by their last names. It was the final disintegration of the news tradition of attaching titles in second references to people in the news—Doctor, Professor, Mr., Mrs., Miss (the latter two now replaced by Ms.). The late Norman Isaacs, often called the dean of American newspaper editors, said in a 1985 speech at a conference that I organized,

American communications has played a major role in debasing the nation’s level of civility by the broad elimination of courtesy titles for individuals of good repute. We have stripped from society its sense of personal dignity.

Lauding The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal for what he called their resolute refusal to abandon the titles Mr., Mrs. or Miss, Mr. Isaacs (pictured right) said,

Does any reporter face a banker or corporate executive and address him or her by only a last name? Of course not, but the moment that reporter turns to writing, the courtesy vanishes. Television is totally confused. It treats all guests with titles but elminates the courtesy in regular on-line coverage. I don’t know where the hell they stand.

Mr. Isaacs would no doubt applaud Quil Lawrence and NPR for joining the Times and the Journal in the preservation of courtesy titles. It may just be that if newspapers, broadcast news operations and internet news outlets revived courtesy titles, they would go at least a modest way toward lifting the tone of contention and vituperation that infects so much of public life.

To hear the Quil Lawrence report that triggered these thoughts, go here.

For an early Rifftides post that reflects on matters of journalism ethics, go here.

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Paul Desmond died 37 years ago today. Every year, as the anniversary approaches, my cerebellum senses it and the brain starts dialing up episodes. Playwright Jack Richardson (1934-2012) got it right when he spoke at the memorial service about what it was like to be Paul’s friend:

I found him the best company of anyone I’d ever known in my life. I found him the most loyal friend I’ve ever had in my life. I found him the most artistic person I’ve ever known in my life. His leaving will make this planet a smaller and darker place for everyone.

Rereading that, I recalled Richardson, Desmond and me ambling through Greenwich Village, talking and laughing in some anonymous bar, sitting in The Guitar listening to Jim Hall, hailing cabs at two in the morning. And every day, I remember Desmond and the cats because I recently took out of storage a painting that now hangs on a wall of our music room. It triggers the memory of a conversation at our house in Portland, Oregon, in 1965. This is the painting.

Here’s the story as it appeared in Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond.

During the Portland visit, Paul joined my wife, infant son and me for lunch at home—a late lunch, of course. He gazed at a large painting on the living room wall, an oil by Barbara Jones of four cats stalking a mouse, and said, ‘Ah, the perfect album cover for when I record with the Modern Jazz Quartet.’ I pointed out that the mouse was mechanical, with a wind-up key on its side.

‘In that case,” he said, ‘Cannonball will have to make the record.’

In truth, Desmond admired Cannonball Adderley, and the feeling was mutual. In a Down Beat blindfold test, Adderley referred to Desmond as ‘a profoundly beautiful player.’

Paul did eventually record with the MJQ, on Christmas night, 1971, at Town Hall in Manhattan, a few blocks down Sixth Avenue from his apartment. He and John Lewis had been mutual admirers and dining companions for years, but had never before performed together. Here are a couple of excerpts from my Down Beat review of the concert.

Desmond has recorded frequently with Percy Heath and copiously with Connie Kay. When he walked on stage their faces lit up in proprietary grins. Lewis also seemed to be anticipating the occasions, crouching over the keyboard, hands at the ready. Milt Jackson looked vaguely skeptical, but that expression is chronic.

…Then came the piece that should have lasted forever, a blues, “Bags’ Groove.” Desmond applied long lines and that remarkable sense of when to change pace and came up with his most interesting solo of the night, swinging hard. When his solo had ended, there wasn’t an immobile foot in the house.

A recording of the full MJQ-Desmond concert has been in and out of circulation, with CD copies and LPs sometimes going for as much as $130. It now seems to be available both as an MP3 download and a CD.

Years ago when we were discussing his friend and musical companion of decades, Dave Brubeck summed it up for a lot of us:

“Boy, I sure miss Paul Desmond.”

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After Herb Jeffries died on Sunday in Los Angeles, headlines around the world remembered him for his career as a singing cowboy in a succession of low budget 1930s Hollywood movies.

Herb Jeffries dies at 100; Hollywood’s first black singing cowboy—The Los Angeles Times

Herb Jeffries, ‘Bronze Buckaroo’ of Song and Screen, Dies at 100 (or So)—The New York Times

Appreciative listeners are more likely to recall Jeffries as the singer who worked with the Earl Hines Orchestra, then joined Duke Ellington when the classic Blanton-Webster edition of the band was taking shape. With Ellington, he recorded “Flamingo.” The record, with its remarkable Billy Strayhorn arrangement and a lovely Johnny Hodges interlude, became a hit in 1941. It remained on juke boxes and radio play lists for decades.

“Flamingo” became a trademark and calling card for Jeffries. Over the years, he was prevailed upon to remake the piece in film shorts, including this one with the Ellington band and decoration by a couple of pseudo-Caribbean dancers. Subsequent performances did not match the seductive power of the original recording.

Jeffries led a full and varied life in the United States and in the 1940s in France, where he owned night clubs in Paris. From the well-balanced New York Times obituary:

Over the course of his century, he changed his name, altered his age, married five women and stretched his vocal range from near falsetto to something closer to a Bing Crosby baritone. He shifted from jazz to country and back again, and from concert stages to movie theaters to television sets and back again.

To read the whole thing, go here. For the L.A. Times obit, which concentrates on Jeffries’ movie career, go here.

The matter of his ethnicity was a source of speculation throughout Jeffries’ career. He most often claimed that his mother was Irish and his father was a mixture of Sicilian, Ethiopian, French, Italian and Moorish and that his birth name was Umberto Alexander Valentino. The question of his degree of blackness seemed to be a source of some amusement to him in an interview around the time of his 100th birthday last fall. It had to do with his role in the production of Ellington’s 1941 musical Jump for Joy. It takes the video a while to get to the interview and Jeffries a while to get through the story, but patience will be rewarded.

Herb Jeffries, RIP

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With hardly a week going by in which we don’t lose a venerable musician, it may be natural to wonder whether the art form will wither. That is unlikely. New players emerge and enrich the music. It is rare, however, that they emerge quite as young as Kojo Roney of the Philadelphia Roneys. He is the son of tenor saxophonist Antoine and a nephew of trumpeter Wallace. He plays drums. He is nine years old. He recently sat in for Al Foster at the Village Vanguard in New York. Although the rest of the group is muffled in this video, young Mr. Roney is not. The piece he plays with the unidentified musicians is Victor Feldman’s “Seven Steps to Heaven.”

One observer at the Vanguard speculated that Kojo Roney is channeling Tony Williams (1945-1997), who made the original recording of “Seven Steps to Heaven” with Miles Davis in 1963. It will be interesting to see how Kojo develops.

This piece first appeared on Rifftides on Memorial Day, 2011.

There is someone I think of every Memorial Day, and many other days. Cornelius Ram and I were among a collection of young men who accepted the United States Marine Corps’ bet that we weren’t tough or smart enough to wrestle commissions from it. It quickly became apparent to everyone, including the drill instructors charged with pounding us into the shape of Marines, that Corky Ram would have no problem. He was a standout in the grueling weeks of officer candidate competition and then in the months of physical and mental rigor designed to make us worthy of those little gold bars on the collars of our fatigues. After high school in Jersey City, New Jersey, he had served a hitch as a Navy enlisted man, and then got a college degree before he chose the Corps. He was two or three years older than most of us, and a natural leader. He could tell when the pressure was about to cave a green lieutenant exhausted from a 20-mile forced march with full field pack or demoralized after a classroom test he was sure he had flunked. Corky knew how to use encouragement or cajolery to restore flagging determination. He helped a lot of us make it through. The picture on the left is how I remember him from that period.

Unlike most of us who served our few years and got out, Corky made the Marine Corps his career. He served two tours in Viet Nam. Here is the official 5th Marines’ Command Chronology of what happened to him and another officer on his second tour in January of 1971, as the war was slogging to its demoralizing conclusion:

“On 10 January Major Ram (2/5 XO) and Captain Ford (E Co., CO), while attempting to aid two wounded Marines, were killed by a 60mm surprise firing device.”

There’s a bit more to the story. Major Ram, Executive Officer of 2/5 Marines, and Captain Ford (of Glen Rock, NJ), Commanding Officer of Echo Company, were overhead in a command helicopter when they spotted the wounded Marines in the open and in the path of oncoming enemy troops. The helicopter pilot, convinced that the open area was mined, refused to land in the vicinity of the wounded Marines and instead put down at a distance. Major Ram and Captain Ford exited the helicopter and began to cross the open area toward the wounded men. The pilot was right – the area was mined, and both Major Ram and Captain Ford died as a result. At least one of the two wounded Marines survived; he visited the Ram family several years later and described the circumstances.

Corky Ram was one of 13,085 Marines who died in hostile action in Viet Nam. I knew others, but he was the one I knew best. More than once, I have stood gazing at his name on the wall at the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington, DC. When Memorial Day comes around, he symbolizes for me the American service men and women who have died in the nation’s wars. What we and all of the free world owe them is beyond calculation.

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Reports that the veteran pianist Frank Strazzeri had died began circulating a couple of weeks ago. They were impossible to confirm until now. Strazzeri died at 84 on May 9 in his hometown, Rochester, New York, but he spent most of his career in Los Angeles. He moved back to Rochester in late April following a final engagement at the Glendale club Jax, where he often played in his final years.

After attending the Eastman School of Music, in 1952 the 22-year-old Strazzeri worked as house pianist at a Rochester nightclub, accompanying visiting performers including Roy Eldridge, J.J. Johnson and Billie Holiday. He moved to New Orleans in 1954 and played traditional jazz in bands led by Sharkey Bonano and Al Hirt, but his main interest was in bebop. Soon, he went on the road with Charlie Ventura, then Woody Herman. At Herman’s suggestion, he settled in Los Angeles in 1960. Like many L.A. jazz musicians, Strazzeri used his skills to work in recording and television studios while also playing with a cross section of jazz artists, among them Bill Perkins, Art Pepper, Terry Gibbs, Bud Shank, Louis Bellson and Chet Baker. When filmmaker Bruce Weber was producing the Baker documentary Let’s Get Lost, the trumpeter designated Strazzeri to supervise the music.

I was extremely surprised when I was asked to do the film,” Strazzeri told Bill Kolhaase of The Los Angeles Times in 1993. “(Baker) played with hundreds of piano players. But I think he felt an alignment with me, a buddy thing, that made him feel comfortable. I used to break him up quite a bit. He lived on the sad side of life, you know, the doom-and-gloom thing. So I’d crack jokes and make him smile.

Strazzeri also played for Joe Williams, Maynard Ferguson, Les Brown and—Elvis Presley. Surprised? He toured several times with Presley in the early 1970s and struck up a friendship with him based on a mutual interest in karate.

When I brought it up, Strazzeri told Kolhaase, he said ‘Wait here.’ He came back in his karate outfit, and we spent the whole night talking about it. He showed me how he could kill me. And when I got up the next day, there was an envelope with $300 in it tucked under my door. Every time I talked with him he’d give me money.

Strazzeri’s primary source of income, however, was from his music, which continued long after his work with Presley. Among the colleagues with whom he worked most closely was saxophonist and flutist Bill Perkins. They recorded together on several occasions in, among other settings, Strazzeri’s sextet Woodwinds West. For the liner notes I wrote for their album Somebody Loves Me, Perkins told me,

His choruses are classics in melody. When we were playing together at Dino’s in the early days, I taped most of what we did. I’d go home and listen to the tapes. My intention was to listen fox myself; that’s human nature. But I would find that I was riveted to his solos. I kept thinking of the early Lester Young because, like Pres in those days, Frank never repeats himself. He has the gift of beautiful melody. I never get tired of listening to him.

There are few videos of Strazzeri. Here’s one. He has the first solo on his composition “Relaxin’,” filmed at Spazio in L.A. in 2010 with trombonist Steve Johnson’s Jazz Legacy. George Harper is the tenor saxophonist, with Jeff Littleton, bass, and Kenny Elliott, drums

From the 1973 Strazzeri album View From Within, this is his classic “Strazzatonic.” The all-star sidemen are named on the album cover.

Trombonist Johnson reports on his blog, Strazzeri told him that following the death two months ago of Jo Ann, his wife of 63 years, it was his dream to return to Rochester and be among family members.

Frank Strazzeri, RIP

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Gregory Herbert, one of the most talented saxophonists of his generation, was born in Philadelphia 67 years ago this month. After a brief engagement with Duke Ellington when he was 17, Herbert spent four years as a music major at Temple University in his hometown, concentrating on alto saxophone, clarinet and flute. In 1971 he joined Woody Herman’s Herd, that perpetual incubator of young talent, and began to specialize as a tenor saxophonist. Based on his work with Herman, conventional wisdom in the jazz community was that Herbert had the potential for a long, influential career. This piece from a 1974 concert in Zurich, Switzerland, presents some of the evidence. Richard Evans’ arrangement of The Temptations hit “I Can’t Get Next To You” begins with Herbert and fellow tenor men Gary Anderson (on the left) and Frank Tiberi, then devolves to Herbert as the featured soloist.

After he left Herman, Herbert worked with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, Chuck Israels’ National Jazz Ensemble and Blood, Sweat & Tears. He made memorable recordings with Jones-Lewis and Israels and with Harold Danko and Chet Baker. When he died in Amsterdam of a drug overdose in 1978, he was 30 years old.

This Herman album features Herbert on “I Can’t Get Next To You” and other pieces including his passionate solo on “Tantum Ergo,” Alan Broadbent’s memorial tribute to Duke Ellington.

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Rifftides reader Ted Arenson writes in response to yesterday’s posting about bees and a piece of bee-oriented music:

How about Hamp and the Ellingtonians great recording of “Buzzin ‘Round with the Bee?”

That’s a fine reminder of the many all-star sessions that Lionel Hampton recorded for RCA Victor in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Victor usually listed the records as by “Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra,” suggesting a studio full of musicians. In fact, the bands were combos of as few as six and no more than ten players. They included a cross section of the most prominent jazz artists of the period and helped to overcome the reluctance of major record companies to combine black and white musicians in the studios.

With thanks to Mr. Arenson and at the no doubt small risk of soliciting a tsunami of suggestions about jazz pieces having to do with bees, we bring you “Buzzin’ ‘Round With The Bee.” Lionel Hampton, vibes and vocal; Cootie Williams, trumpet; Lawrence Brown, trombone; Johnny Hodges, alto saxophone; Jess Stacy, piano; Alan Reuss, guitar; John Kirby, bass; Cozy Cole, drums.

Readers with sharp eyes may have noticed that the record label lists Mezz Mezzrow on clarinet, but he is nowhere to be heard on that track or on “Whoa Babe” and “Stompology,” the other two from the April 14, 1937 session. The Mosaic label has a five-CD box of Hampton’s Victor sessions from 1937 to 1941, amazingly not yet sold out. To see my Jazz Times review of the set, go here.

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This morning a man came to the door, introduced himself as Francisco and said he was cutting the neighbors’ lawn. The neighbors were away. “Do you know about bees?” Francisco said. “Let me show you.” We walked over to a tree and there were two huge clumps of bees hanging from a branch.

Francisco said, “When I was a kid, one time I was out playing and disturbed a nest of bees and they started to come after me. We lived near a river, and the only way I could escape them was to jump in the river and come up once in a while to see if they were still there. Finally they went away. There’s no river around here, so I wondered if you knew who to call.”

I gave him a suggestion, and before long an old man arrived with what looked like a box—an empty hive. The apiarist recruited the queen, and soon, to Francisco’s relief, the hundreds of bees began assembling on it. By late evening, this is how it looked.

Tomorrow, we hope, the beekeeper will be back to take his captives to a new home.

If you think that telling you this story was an elaborate excuse to play a Duke Pearson recording from the 1960s, good guess. Here’s Pearson (1932-1980), piano; James Spaulding, flute; Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Ron Carter, bass; Mickey Roker, drums: “Sweet Honey Bee” from the album of that name.

Some of you may have forgotten about Pearson or have yet to encounter him. Go here for a biography and here for a generous representation of his work

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Joe Wilder, admired for his trumpet tone, range, stylistic flexibility and for his elegance as a musician and person, is gone. Wilder died at the age of 92 last Friday in New York. Despite his modesty and disinclination to assert himself, his skill put him in demand by big band leaders including Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, and Benny Goodman, as well as a wide range of Broadway and television producers. Among the dozens of musicians with whom Wilder recorded were Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Evans, Tom Talbert, Charles Mingus, Tadd Dameron, Carmen McRae and Terence Blanchard.

Here is an impression of Wilder’s impact in performance from a review I wrote For Texas Monthly of the 1980 Midland, Texas, Jazz Classic, which was packed with New York musicians of the first rank. The full piece appears in Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers.

Joe Wilder, a trumpeter whose studio obligations have kept him off the street for twenty-five years, is famous among his peers for a tone so lustrous that he has been engaged to play as few as four bars because only his sound would fulfill the demands of the arrangement. But Wilder is also a first-class improviser. If his soloing can sometimes seem too controlled, too smooth, he can surprise you with explosive quotes like the snatches of “Moose The Mooche” woven into his solo on “Exactly Like You” and with his plunger work on “Cotton Tail,” in which he evoked Cootie Williams’s days of glory with Duke Ellington.

Here is Wilder in 1956 with Hank Jones, piano; Wendell Marshall, bass; and Kenny Clarke, Drums.

Joe Wilder, RIP.

For extensive obituaries, go here and here.