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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Lundgren Then: An Archive Special

The news from Ystad arrived in a conversation with Dick Bank that also included discussion of a recording that is a high point in Lundgren’s career as a pianist and in Mr. Bank’s as a record producer. It is Lundgren’s album with bassist Chuck Berghofer and drummer Joe La Barbera of songs by Ralph Rainger. When the CD was released two-and-a-half years ago, it received enthusiastic reviews, but in narrow precincts of the press and the web. It deserved more attention and still does. Therefore, below is that Rifftides rarity, a rerun.

This post is from December, 2008.

THE FILM MUSIC OF RALPH RAINGER

The release of a new CD, The Film Music Of Ralph Rainger, is the occasion for my piece in today’s Wall Street Journal. Coupled with an article about the contemporary motion picture composer A.B. Rahman, it is headlined, Another Who Has Been Unjustly Forgotten and begins: 

For years, Jack Benny opened his CBS radio and television broadcasts with “Love in Bloom.” The comedian’s violin butchery of his theme song became a running coast-to-coast Sunday night gag. As a result, the piece became even more famous than Bing Crosby had made it with his hit record in 1934. Generations of listeners and viewers heard Bob Hope close his NBC shows with “Thanks for the Memory,” which he introduced in a movie, “The Big Broadcast of 1938.” The song was inseparable from Hope’s career. 

Ralph Rainger, the man who wrote those songs, was a pianist and recovering lawyer from Newark, N.J., who also composed such standards as “Easy Living,” “If I Should Lose You,” “Here Lies Love,” “Moanin’ Low,” “June in January,” “Please” and “Blue Hawaii,” most often with lyricist Leo Robin. Rainger and Robin turned out dozens of songs for Hollywood movies. They were frequently on the hit parade with Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter and the Gershwins. George Gershwin died at age 38, Rainger at 41. But while Gershwin’s fame increased after his death, Rainger’s name faded. With their beguiling melodies and challenging chord progressions, Rainger’s works are frequent vehicles for improvisation. Yet, in my experience, most musicians who play those songs respond with puzzled looks when asked who wrote them. That might have been the case with bassist Chuck Berghofer, pianist Jan Lundgren, drummer Joe La Barbera and the incomparable vocalist Sue Raney until producer Dick Bank recruited them to record the CD “The Film Music of Ralph Rainger” (Fresh Sound). 

To read the whole thing, run out and buy a copy of the Journal or click here for the online version. The article praises the CD, but it concentrates on Rainger’s successful, grotesquely terminated career. The album demands greater attention, and gets it here. 

The Chuck Berghofer Trio: Thanks For The Memory, The Film Music Of Ralph Rainger (Fresh Sound).

Producer Dick Bank swears that this is his last project. If that proves to be true, he is retiring a champion. He provides Berghofer with a classy repertoire, two superb sidemen and the first leader assignment in the bassist’s distinguished career. Berghofer gets the music underway by playing the melody of “Miss Brown to You.” The stentorian sound of his bass is beautifully captured by engineers Talley Sherwood and Bernie Grundman. La Barbera and Lundgren gently escort Berghofer into a chorus of improvisation. Lundgren follows with his first solo in a CD full of work that makes this the best recording so far by a remarkable pianist. In the Journal piece, I wrote:

…it is the first all-Rainger album since pianist Jack Fina managed to reduce Rainger’s tunes to dreary cocktail music in a 1950s LP. Mr. Lundgren, a brilliant Swedish pianist, plumbs the songs’ harmonic souls. He illuminates even the prosaic “Blue Hawaii,” which — to Rainger’s horror — became a huge hit in 1937. “It will disgrace us,” he told Robin. “It’s a cheap melody . . . a piece of c-.” 

(In a touch of irony that Rainger must have come to appreciate, sheet music sales of “Blue Hawaii” barely exceeded 40,000, but sales of Crosby’s recording of the song skyrocketed and it was on Your Hit Parade for six weeks.) 

It is not only Lundgren’s harmonic ear and gift for chord voicings that elevate his work here, but also his unforced swing and an easy keyboard touch that puts him in a class with Jimmy Jones, Ellis Larkins, Tommy Flanagan and his countryman Bengt Hallberg. His tag ending on “Sweet is the Word for You,” with Berghofer walking him home and La Barbera nudging every fourth beat, is exhilarating. Lundgren’s wry interpolations are a significant part of the fun. They show deep familiarity with, among other sources, Lester Young, as In two quite different uses of a phrase from Young’s 1943 recording of “Sometimes I’m Happy.” 

Throughout, La Barbera reminds listeners why, from his days with Bill Evans, he has been one of the most respected drummers in jazz. His touch with brushes equates to Lundgren’s at the piano, and he employs it to construct a full-chorus solo on “Blue Hawaii” proving that a drum set can be a melody instrument.

Sue Raney is the guest artist for two of Rainger’s best-known songs, “If I Should Lose You” and “Thanks for the Memory.” They are perfectly served by the richness of her voice and interpretations. The performances are among her best on record.

With his unaccompanied “Love in Bloom,” Lundgren banishes recollections of Jack Benny’s violin clowning. He finds harmonic treasure beneath the surface of that abused melody, as he does in another solo piece, “Faithful Forever.” Hugely popular in the 1930s, those songs are less known today than many of Rainger’s others. The jaunty “Havin’ Myself a Time,” which Lundgren and Berghofer perform as a duo, is nearly forgotten, but the harmonic possibilities Lundgren finds in it show that it is worthy of revival. 

In addition to the trio music, the CD has a ten-minute final track that amounts to a little documentary. Lundgren introduces a 1937 interview with Rainger. Bank, the producer, introduces a segment of a1940 ceremony of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in which Rainger plays the piano and his partner Leo Robin sings “Love in Bloom.” The 32-page CD booklet is packed with information and photographs. If I make all of this sound like an exercise in nostalgia, do not be misled. The musical material may be standard songs from the 1930s, but Lundgren, Berghofer and La Barbera constitute one of the hippest trios of our time. This album is on my top-ten list for 2008 and will be permanently installed in my CD player for a long time.

Correspondence: Clark Terry Update

Bill Crow sent this followup to the August 4 Rifftides item:

I talked to Clark yesterday on the phone (my call interrupted his practicing the trumpet). He’s been home from the hospital for a couple of days and says he is concentrating on healing up. Sounded wonderful.He laughed a long time when I told him a joke. He’s an expert at hanging in there, and I hope that he hangs in for a long time.

The Miles Español Project

Blogging here has slowed in the past few days and may not pick up markedly for a few more. The Rifftides staff is on deadline for an historical essay to accompany Bob Belden’s Miles Español film project. The research has had to be deeper, wider and more intense than I imagined when I said yes to the assignment. No regrets, though. A few years ago, William Zinsser wrote an inspirational book called Writing to Learn. I thought I knew a thing or two about the subject at hand, but as I write this, boy, am I learning—about the roots of African, Spanish and Caribbean music, how they intertwined and nourished early jazz, about how those traditions informed what we heard from Miles Davis and Gil Evans and led to much of what we hear today. A bonus: I’ve come to know Jelly Roll Morton even better.

Belden’s Miles Español will result in a compact disc, but it is primarily a video venture. Many of the musicians worked with Miles. A few of the players are Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, Chano Domínguez, John Scofield, Alex Acuña, Ron Carter and Jerry Gonzalez. All 36 are named in the credits of this 10-minute preview.

Hasta la mañana (mas o menos)

CT IS OK

This item from trumpeter Mike Vax has popped up in various places on the web in the past couple of days. It is dated August 3.

I just talked with Gwen Terry. Clark Terry had surgery on his right leg to remove some blockage and the operation went very well. I will be talking with Clark tomorrow and will give him all the good wishes that I know will come from many of you. Please keep him in your thoughts and think good things for him. After all – any surgery at age 90 is a major thing.

Gwen says that Clark sends his best to all his friends and fans around the world!

That is good to hear. So is this.

That was at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland on July 14, 1977. The other musicians were Ronnie Scott, tenor saxophone; Milt Jackson, vibes, Oscar Peterson, piano; Joe Pass, guitar; Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, bass; Bobby Durham, drums. CT is the sole survivor of that group.

I wonder how many of his fans know about Terry’s crucial role in prodding New Orleans to pay proper homage to its most celebrated cultural figure. Here’s the story from the Terry chapter in Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. I wrote the piece in 1978.

Terry’s ties to the city have been more spiritual than personal, but his admiration for a New Orleans hero led to one of the most important gestures of his life. A few blocks from the Super Dome a monument to Louis Armstrong is nearing completion. It might very well not have been built without Terry’s inspiration.

New Orleans’s Armstrong Park has been a project of the administration of former mayor Moon Landrieu, who deserves full credit for paying tangible tribute to the city’s greatest artist. But impetus for the idea came in 1969 on a bus ride during the second New Orleans JazzFest. As a musicians’ tour was passing Jane Alley, Armstrong’s birthplace, Terry deplored the fact that while New Orleans seemed to have statues of half the Latin American presidents in history, there was none of the city’s most famous son. Then and there, he started a fund to commission a statue. His first dollar was symbolic. His organizing ability and leadership were much more. Nine years later, that statue is on the verge of becoming the centerpiece of an entire park dedicated to Armstrong’s memory. The park’s completion slowed in the six-month transition between Landrieu’s administration and that of Mayor Ernest Morial. But assuming Morial, the city’s first black mayor, gets behind the project, Armstrong Park should be the New Orleans equivalent of Copenhagen’s celebrated Tivoli Gardens and open by 1980.

Well, it may still be a while before the park is the US Tivoli Gardens, but it was formally dedicated on April 15, 1980 by Landrieu (then US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development), Morial and Armstrong’s widow Lucille. The statue of Armstrong is the centerpiece.

For more on Clark, including the story of how he became Buddy Bolden, see this Rifftides archive piece.

Other Places: Jazz And Poverty

The subtitle above may seem like a redundancy, and for too many musicians, it is. Fellow artsjournal blogger Howard Mandel’s newest post offers a question—

“Are hard times good for jazz?”

—and answers it at some length, complete with a classic 1930s film clip. The reader comments are also interesting. To see the piece, click here.

Nice work, Howard. I wish I’d thought of that.

New Recommendations

In the right-hand column under Doug’s Picks, you will find recommendations of new CDs by a daring pianist, a daring duo and a daring singer. For now, last month’s DVD and book picks remain on the main page. New ones will follow——sooner or later.

Theme In Search Of Development


This morning I took a side trip through a subdivision that not long ago was an orchard. The non-architecture is typical of the builder-designed antisepsis or Stepford school—big double and triple garages with houses attached.

But wait, there’s a bright spot. This is the name of the main drag.

In vain, I rode around looking for Brass Boulevard, Strings Street, Percussion Place, Chorus Court, but all of the other streets in this collection of extruded houses have numbers rather than names. The developer missed a thematic opportunity.

2011 Crop Forecast

Here is the unofficial Rifftides apple crop forecast for 2011. My friend Vigorelli Bianchi and I gathered evidence on an early morning cycling expedition. You see Vig resting while I photographed.


The forecast is for abundant fruit. This fall, there will be plenty of good red Washington apples to go with your scrapple.

“Scrapple From the Apple” by Charlie Parker, alto saxophone; 
Charlie Byrd, guitar; 
Bill Shanahan, piano; 
Merton Oliver, bass; 
Don Lamond, drums; unknown, bongos. Howard Theater, Washington, D.C., October 18, 1952.

Other Places: On Paul Motian

As Paul Motian’s latest engagement began at a venerable New York club that holds precious memories for him, Larry Blumenfeld profiled the 80-year-old drummer in The Wall Street Journal. Here’s a quote:

What turns me on isn’t technique,” he said. “It’s the sound of the drums, the way they’re tuned. I can play one beat on a tom-tom, and that might set me off. One sound leads to another. It just grows.”

The article includes Motian’s thoughts about the Bill Evans Trio, in which he became well known (“It taught me what it means to play ideas”), and reflects on his work with Paul Bley, Keith Jarrett, and Bill Frisell. Blumenfeld quotes colleagues less than half Motian’s age who are profoundly affected by his music and his example. To read the piece, go here.

Here is Motian the master of brushes, cymbals, subtley and timing, with pianist Anat Fort and bassist Gary Wang last fall at the Rubin Museum in New York City.

Frank Foster, 1928-2011

Frank Foster died today following a long period of ill health. He was 82. Foster was important to the Count Basie band as a tenor saxophonist, composer and arranger for more than a decade beginning in 1953. In the reed section, he and Frank Wess teamed up as one of the best-known tenor sax tandems in jazz. Foster later also distinguished himself as a bandleader in his own right and as an educator. He moved beyond his hard bop essence as a soloist into free territory opened for exploration by John Coltrane, but never abandoned his bebop beginnings or the blues heart of his style. His Loud Minority and Living Color big bands served as training and proving grounds for dozens of young musicians and outlets for established players who cherished the band environment. After Thad Jones’ death, Foster led the Basie band for nearly ten years in the 1980s and ‘90s. For a thorough obituary of Foster, see Nate Chinen’s piece in today’s New York Times.

When I first heard Foster with Basie around 1955, he looked pretty much as he does in this photograph. Following a concert in downtown Seattle one night, he, Wess, bassist Eddie Jones and other members of the band showed up at the old Birdland on East Madison Street (pictured). Aside from Foster’s powerful playing in a jam session that occupied several early morning hours, I remember that during breaks he charmed the best looking woman in the club and ultimately went out the door with her on his arm. That was years before he met Cecilia, the woman who became his wife.

Foster’s composition “Shiny Stockings,” recorded in Basie’s 1955 April in Paris album, became an instant staple in the Basie book, where it remains in today’s edition of the band. That hugely popular piece will be coming in for lots of attention in the aftermath of Frank’s death. Video of the Basie band playing it has been removed from the web by a record company copyright intervention, but we have the audio of “Shiny Stockings,” accompanied by a photo of Basie.

Here is Foster leading his beloved Loud Minority in his composition “4, 5, 6.” The video is a bit shaky, possibly because of the disco lights on the dance floor. He is in a wheel chair and doesn’t play, but you can feel his energy swinging the band. The trombone soloist is the veteran Benny Powell.

Frank Foster, RIP.

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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, … [MORE]

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