Thanks to Rifftides reader John Bolger for his timely alert to a rare opportunity to see a film tied to an important recording by the Dave Brubeck Quartet in the band’s third year. Timely? Yes, because the Brubeck memorial service in New York was so recent and because the Memorial Day weekend is the 36th anniversary of Paul’s death.

The album was Brubeck Time. The film is Stompin’ For Mili, made by the photographer Gjon Mili at the October 12 and 13, 1954, recording sessions in the storied CBS 30th Street Studio in New York. In a letter to producer George Avakian, used in the album’s liner notes, Brubeck described the making of the recording’s most famous piece:

‘I would like,’ said Gjon, closing his eyes and raising his hand expressively, ‘I would like to see Audrey Hepburn come walking through the woods.’ ‘Gee,’ said Paul wistfully, ‘So would I.’ ‘One,’ I said, noticing the glazed expression about Paul’s eyes ‘two, three, four.’ And we played it.

“Stompin’ For Mili,” is the second take of an improvisation on the chords of George Gershwin’s “Oh, Lady Be Good.” When Mili spoke derisively of the first take, it aroused Brubeck’s cowboy temper and he angrily stomped off the time for take two. In the letter, he described his reaction as an “expression of rage and frustration” that accounted for his directing at Mili a quote from “Thank You for a Lovely Evening.”

The sound track of the film is simultaneous with the recording of “Audrey” and “Stompin’ For Mili” on the album.

The film was posted on Vimeo by the filmmaker Brandon Bloch, whose grandfather, Joe Dodge, was the drummer in the Brubeck quartet from 1951 to 1956. The bassist in the film and on Brubeck Time was Bob Bates.

Here is an addendum to the “Audrey” story from Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond.

Paul never met Audrey Hepburn, though he came close many times that summer of 1954. In the Jean Giraudeaux play Ondine, she was an underwater nymph who fell in love with a knight. She won a Tony award for her work in the title role. Ondine played at the 46th Street Theatre, not far from Basin Street.

“Paul would look at his watch the whole time we were playing at Basin Street,” Brubeck told me. “He knew when she would walk out the stage door and get in her limousine, and he wanted to be standing there. So, when I’d see him watching the time, I knew I’d better take a quick intermission or I was going to have problems with Paul. He’d put his horn down, and out the door he’d go, and he’d run down just to stand and watch her leave.”

“Paul told me that,” I said to Brubeck, “and I asked him, ‘What did you say to her? And he looked surprised and said, ‘Nothing. Are you kidding?’”

Brubeck Time became a big seller and “Audrey” one of Desmond’s most beloved works. The recording associated his name with Hepburn’s, but he died twenty-three years later never having imagined that she knew who he was or that she had heard the piece. After Hepburn died in 1993, the United Nations honored her for her international work with children. Her husband, Andrea Dotti, asked Brubeck and his Quartet to play “Audrey” at the memorial service at UN headquarters in New York.

“I told him,” Brubeck said, “that I had no idea he’d be aware of ‘Audrey.’ He said, ‘My wife listened to it every night before she went to bed, and if she was walking through the garden, she’d listen to it on earphones.’”

“Paul never knew,” Iola Brubeck said. “And he was so in love with Audrey.”

A year or so earlier, Hepburn herself acknowledged what “Audrey” meant to her. The publicist and author Peter Levinson sent the actress a copy of Brubeck Time when the album was first reissued as a compact disc. She responded with a hand-written note.

19 March ’92

Dear Peter,
Thank you for such a lovely gift—I am thrilled to have the Brubeck C.D. with ‘My Song,’ the ultimate compliment. You letter is so lovely, and I am most grateful for all your kindness.

Warmest Wishes,
Audrey Hepburn

At the United Nations ceremony, Brubeck’s new alto saxophonist, Bobby Militello, played Desmond’s solo note for note, inflection for inflection. He had memorized it when he was a boy.

After he left his native New Orleans as a teenager, the great clarinetist and, later, soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet for decades toured widely in the United States and Europe. He was respected for his originality and powerful playing, but he tired of struggling to make a consistent living in the US and moved to Paris in 1950, when he was 53. He found steady work in France and quickly became a national celebrity. A film running on YouTube, L’ Historire De Sidney Bechet, suggests his omnipresence in French cultural life and the extent of his fame in that country.

In the video, there are glimpses of well known French musicians and entertainers, a few Americans including Eddie Condon, Shorty Sherock, Joe Bushkin, George Wettling, Chubby Jackson and—in a couple of frames that give “cameo appearance” new meaning—Charlie Parker. We see Parker and bassist Jackson in a short clip in the studio of WPIX-TV in New York. We don’t hear him. All of the music is Bechet dubbed into the film sequence.

Any newly discovered film of Parker is valuable. The problem is, the scene is dark and goes by so fast that unless you were told it was Parker, you would need Superman vision to catch him. So, the Rifftides technical staff sprang into action, snagged a still frame and worked a bit of digital magic to brighten it and give it better focus. The result, seen on the left, is Parker pictured as a pointillist like Seurat might have painted him.

Now that you know what to watch for at 1:51, here’s the Bechet tribute.

Sidney Bechet died in Paris in 1959 at the age of 62. The Sidney Bechet Society helps to keep his legacy alive.

The East Room audience included Mrs. Ronald Reagan, Vice President and Mrs. George Bush and a cross section of Reagan administration dignitaries when Chick Corea, Miroslav Vitous and Roy Haynes played at the White House in 1982.

By special arrangement with the publisher, Rifftides readers may acquire autographed copies of Doug’s novel Poodie James at a reduced price. To see a description of the book, read an excerpt and learn how to order, click on Purchase Doug’s Books on the blue border above. The special price will be in effect until the limited supply runs out.

Doug Ramsey is the John Steinbeck of apple country. Rich with sweet detail of the unique landscape of Washington State, Poodie James pulses with Steinbeck’s sense of character—the hurt ones, their tormentors, and everyone in between. This novel will take your heart.

—Jack Fuller, author of The Best of Jackson Payne

Poodie James is a very good book. Not only is it handsomely and lyrically written, but Ramsey’s snapshots of small-town life circa 1948 are altogether convincing, and he has even brought off the immensely difficult trick of worming his way into the consciousness of a deaf person without betraying the slightest sense of strain…A quarter-century ago, Poodie James would have had no trouble finding an East Coast publisher, and it might even have made its way into the hands of a Hollywood producer, since it could easily be turned into a very nice little movie along the lines of The Spitfire Grill.

—Terry Teachout, Commentary

Fascinating characters vividly brought to life in a setting of the Columbia River country in a time now vanished. The writing is unfailingly exquisite, the story irresistible.

—Gene Lees

Last night on the PBS News Hour, Robert McNeil and Jim Lehrer remembered their marathon live reporting of the Watergate hearings that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation. The hearings opened on May 17, 1973. In a special segment on the News Hour, McNeil and Lehrer recalled how their work as Public Broadcating System anchors of the coverage led to the evolution of PBS as a news organization and the creation of The News Hour. Many in the Congress and, certainly, in the Nixon administration thought that public broadcasting had no business reporting the news. It is likely that any American who watched the Watergate epic unfold on television retains indelible impressions of the senators who conducted the hearings and witnesses like John Dean, H.R. Haldeman, Alexander Butterfield and a parade of others.

Journalists who covered Watergate, as I did for UPI Television News, will never forget the weeks of alternating boredom, excitement and shock as the scandal unfolded. All of that came rushing back last evening as my wife said, “There you are.” Indeed, there was my 40-years-younger self, out of focus but recognizable, getting up to stretch after Senator Sam Ervin called the proceeding to a close on the final day. Nixon would not give up the presidency for more than another year of investigation, the release of the “smoking gun” tape, revelation upon revelation of wrongdoing in the White House, great reporting by The Washington Post’s Woodward and Bernstein, and impeachment. But the hearings by the Senate Watergate Committee set the stage for his departure from office.

Here are McNeil and Lehrer with Jeffrey Brown in the PBS News Hour Watergate segment from last evening. It’s a good refresher course.

Trumpeter Marvin Stamm and pianist Mike Holober just ended a duo concert at the library in Nyack, a Hudson River village north of New York City. The music was streamed live on the internet and is ready for viewing on the Nyack Library’s website. I snagged this screenshot as Holober and Stamm were launching into the Bill Evans composition “Funkallero.”

The concert included, among other pieces, Raye and DePaul’s “Star Eyes,” Michel LeGrand’s “You Must Believe in Spring,” Cole Porter’s “I Love You,” Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Caminhos Cruzados” and a piquant Stamm original based on “In a Mellotone,” which Duke Ellington wrote on the harmonies of “Rose Room”—a triple play. Great fun. The internet stream has the entire concert, including listeners milling around and chatting during the intermission, the sponsor’s announcement and people schmoozing when it’s over. It’s almost like being there. You may see someone you recognize. Production values are minimal; one camera on a static shot. Audio quality is excellent. What more do you need? To tap into the archived stream of the Stamm-Holober concert, click here. For information about the artists, see the websites of Holober and Stamm.

To learn about the Nyack Library’s Carnegie room and its schedule of jazz and classical concerts, go here.

Have a good weekend.

At the very moment that last evening’s memorial service for Dave Brubeck got underway, the rumble of thunder penetrated the massive Gothic walls of New York City’s Cathedral of St. John The Divine. A murmur ran through the throng filling the 120-year-old church.

With dignity and a commanding presence, Iola Brubeck read Langston Hughes’ poem “I Dream a World.” She said that it echoes the core of her husband’s belief in the equality of all peoples. An excerpt:

Recalling one of the last times her husband played in the cathedral, Mrs. Brubeck said, “The 5/4 is still echoing somewhere in here.”

5/4, 9/8 and assorted other time signatures sounded through the cathedral as combinations of musicians remembering Brubeck played a dozen of his compositions. Catherine Brubeck, pictured here with her dad, told of the time in the 1950s that her father came off the road to their home in the Oakland hills above San Francisco Bay and initiated a jam session with his very young sons. She was two years old. Inspired by the family musicale, she slipped into her tiny tutu and danced around the room. That, in turn, inspired Brubeck to write “Cathy’s Waltz.” After she told the story, Catherine introduced her brothers Darius, piano; Chris,bass; Danny, drums (pictured); and Matthew, cello; who played her song. That initiated a succession of performances by musicians young and old, from the Brubeck Institute Alumni Quintet in their early twenties to bassist Eugene Wright (pictured), the surviving member of the classic Brubeck quartet of the 1950s and ‘60s. Two weeks short of his 90th birthday, Wright joined Darius to play “King For a Day,” his feature from Brubeck’s musical The Real Ambassadors.

A full rundown of the memorial program, including names of speakers, players and compositions, is posted here.

Among the highlights of the evening were husband and wife pianists Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes in a four-handed duet on “The Duke” and Roberta Gambarini singing an impassioned “Travelin’ Blues” accompanied by pianist Andy Laverne, bassist Chris Smith and drummer Cory Cox, with clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera, and Roy Hargrove playing flugelhorn.

The Brubeck Brothers backed alto saxophonist Paul Winter and flutist Deepak Ram in “Koto Song.

Laverne, Dan Brubeck and Chris Brubeck were the rhythm section for Branford Marsalis in his stunning exploration of “For Iola.”

Chick Corea followed with “Strange Meadowlark.” He played it unaccompanied, investing the piece with harmonic and metric riches that all but illuminated the huge cathedral space.

Those were a few of the memorable moments in an occasion dedicated to a man who had an enduring impact on the music, culture and social conscience of his and our time.

Veteran Bay Area pianist and trumpeter Dick Vartanian writes:

My brother-in-law was entertainment chairman of the Lion’s club in the early 1970s. They put on a benefit for the blind every year. He asked me if I could get some people to appear.

George Shearing was in San Francisco, so I asked him. His reply, as expected, was a direct yes. He played a few numbers with his trio and then announced to the audience that he had taken the liberty to bring a friend. At that point they played an intro and from the wings came, “Did you say you have a lot to learn?” followed by you know who.

The audience reaction was wonderful.

No doubt, especially if You Know Who sang as he did in the album they made together for Shearing’s Sheba label in 1971, and if Shearing dug into his store of harmonic knowledge as he does in this medley. It was assembled from the recording by YouTube contributor David Speed.

For my first New York visit in too long, nature trumped the forecasters and gave us a beautiful morning. This was the view from my host’s apartment across the Hudson River to Fort Lee, New Jersey

Let’s hope that the weather holds for the Dave Brubeck memorial tomorrow. The service is late in the day. The Rifftides plan is to post a report on Sunday.