Yesterday I posted a new YouTube video clip of Carmen McRae on The Ed Sullivan Show. Today, here are a nine more recent jazz and pop additions to the Sullivan YouTube channel [photo above of Ed Sullivan courtesy of The Ed Sullivan Show]:
Here's Nancy Wilson singing Face It, Girl It's Over in 1968 Nancy told me when I interviewed her that she was pregnant when she sang this song on Ed Sullivan and had this dress specially made. As with all Nancy Wilson clips, watch how she arches her mouth...
Here's Peggy Lee singing The Best Is Yet to Come in 1962...
Here's Duke Ellington playing a medley of Beatles songs in February 1970. Two months later, Paul McCartney announced the group's split...
Another Peggy Lee video, this time singing (You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman in 1969...
Here's Ella Fitzgerald with Duke Ellington in 1965 performing It Don't Mean a Thing...
In May 1961, singer Carmen McRae was booked into London's popular Flamingo jazz club for a two-week run. The Flamingo, at 33 Wardour Street in Soho, was a basement nightspot that on weekends remained open until 6 a.m. and was known for its sterling sound system. [Photo above of Carmen McRae, courtesy of the Free Social Encyclopedia]
Just over a year later, in October 1962, the club would be the site of a fateful knife fight between a former and current boyfriend of Christine Keeler, a 19-year-old struggling model. The fight and the events that followed ultimately led to the exposure of another one of Keeler's paramours—John Profumo, Britain's Secretary of State for War. He would resign over his sexual involvement with Keeler in June 1963 after the revelation that Keeler had possible relations with a Soviet naval attache. All of this brought down the U.K.'s conservative government. Quite a knife fight.
But before the clash and what became known as the Profumo affair, McRae's Flamingo appearance was backed by Don Abney (p), Kenny Napper (b) and Phil Seaman (d). McRae was at her peak in May '61. The songs she sang that were recorded are I Could Write A Book; Body and Soul; Thou Swell; 'Round Midnight; A Foggy Day; Don't Ever Leave Me; Moonlight in Vermont; Day in, Day Out; Lover Man; Stardust and They Can't Take That Away From Me.
Born in Harlem in 1920, McRae began taking piano lessons at age 8. By her late teens, she was playing piano at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, where she met many of bebop's originators. Her first significant job was playing piano in Benny Carter's band in 1944, followed by singing in Count Basie's and Mercer Ellington's bands. She also appeared with Charlie Parker in 1948. At a piano gig in Brooklyn in the early '50s, she met Decca's Milt Gabler. A conversation followed that led to a five-year recording contract and 12 albums. Throughout the 1950s, McRae recorded a long series of flawless albums on which she experimented vocally like the right hand of a jazz pianist.
If Ella Fitzgerald was the grande dame of female jazz singers, Sarah Vaughan was a concert goddess and Dinah Washington ruled the jukebox, McRae was the queen of clubs. Her clarion, confident voice was ideal for the intimacy of small rooms, where audiences were captivated by her warm risk-taking, fluid jazz sensibility and high-gloss tone.
With McRae, even if you knew the song she was singing, you often were surprised by her phrasing and the interesting note choices she made along the way. What's more, the notes she hit were always in tune. A masterful pianist who often accompanied herself, McRae didn't suffer rude patrons.
I recall seeing her at a New York club in the 1980s and hearing her excoriate someone for talking just before she started a song at the piano. When she was finished, you actually felt sorry for the individual in the dark. With McRae, the punishment was the same for all crimes of discourteous behavior: A firm reprimanding. I don't think I heard another word spoken that evening, even after McRae's set. Tables conversed in library whispers and servers walked on eggshells.
Carmen McRae died in 1994.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Carmen McRae: In London, Live at the Flamingo Jazz Club (Future Noise) here.
Bonus1: Here's McRae on the Ed Sullivan Show on January 21, 1961, four months before her Flamingo run...
Bonus2: How did the Flamingo club get its name? The original house band, the Kenny Graham Afro-Cubists, played the song each night as its theme. Here'sFlamingo...
In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed director Catherine Hardwicke for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Catherine grew up on the Rio Grande near McAllen, Texas, one of the southern-most towns in the state's horn. She grew up a daredevil when, she said, having fun involved danger. She just directed a new series called Don't Look Deeper, which is on the Quibi platform. What's cool about Quibi is that you can watch it on TV but it's really designed for your phone. Each episode is 7 to 10 minutes long. Like a plate of sliders! Don't Look Deeper is a sci-fi drama about a girl who senses she’s different but doesn’t understand why. We do. [Photo above of Catherine Hardwicke from YouTube]
And here's the trailer to Catherine's haunting Thirteen (2003)...
This I Dig of You. After posting on Hank Mobley's Soul Station this week, I came across Gabe Condon playing This I Dig of You on guitar. You're going to be pleasantly surprised. Here's the clip...
Who Can I Turn To. This week, pianist Dave Thompson, who plays beautifully in the style of Bill Evans, sent along clips of him playing Who Can I Turn To and Nardis.
Earle Spencer. Following my post last week on Earle Spencer, I received two emails with two different dates for Spencer's passing:
This one from Peter Levin:
Marc, William Lee’s American Big Bands’ entry on Spencer shows a 1991 date of death.
And this one was sent along from Steven H. at the Jazz West Coast forum:
Does anyone know if Marc Myers reads our daily posts? If not, perhaps someone can pass this on re: his JazzWax post on bandleader-trombonist Earle Spencer, in which he wondered if he was still alive. Searching through my file on Earle, he died in a car wreck circa 1975-76, according to his daughter. This would have placed his age at no more than 50.
Barbara Stanwyck. Bill Kirtz, my journalism professor at Northeastern University in the late '70s, sent along a clip of Barbara Stanwyck performing Drum Boogie from Ball of Fire (1941) with the Gene Krupa Orchestra. Stanwyck's vocal was dubbed by "Liltin'" Martha Tilton. Here's the clip...
A word about Tilton. Martha Tilton had one of the purest and most relaxed female voices of the big band era, starting in the late 1930s. She also had natural screen talent. Her biggest hits were probably And the Angels Sing (1939) and Loch Lomond (1941). Here's Tilton in 1941 singing Love Turns Winter to Spring, with Gene Grounds...
And here's Tilton singing the first recording of You Make Me Feel So Young in 1946, with a Paul Weston arrangement...
Side by Side.Here's a spirit-raising duet by Kay Starr and Margaret Whiting in 1984, two pop legends. Whiting was 60 and Starr was 62...
And here's Dinah Washington singing Bessie Smith. I wish there were more videos of Dinah in action on TV...
One more.Here's Washington singing Make Someone Happy in 1963. Dig how she swings this one, with the back beat only on the two. Easily the finest vocal version of this song from the show Do Re Mi in 1960...
Central Park remains one of the world's most beautiful urban refuges. Designed and developed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux between 1857 and 1876, the 778-acre park wasn't a natural rectangular woodland set aside as the city grew up around it. All of the trees and foliage were brought into the space and landscaped to delight the eye at every turn. [Photos above and below (c) Marc Myers]
Recently, my wife and I went for an hour-long walk at sunrise for exercise and to put our heads in the right space for the day. Here are photos, above and below, that I snapped along the way....
When I write, I often wish I had pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Art Blakey as my backing trio. I'd set them up in my office, and their swinging, percussive feel would motivate me to finish twice the work I set out to accomplish. While this isn't possible and wouldn't be even if they were still with us today, tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley was lucky to have them behind him on February 7, 1960, when he recorded Soul Station—arguably his finest album. [Photo above of Hank Mobley by Francis Wolff (c) Mosaic Images]
Four of the songs are Mobley originals—This I Dig of You, Dig Dis, Split Feelin's and Soul Station. The album's first and last tracks are standards: Irving Berlin's Remember and Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin's If I Should Lose You. [Photo above of Wynton Kelly by Francis Wolff (c) Mosaic Images]
What makes this album special is the combination of Mobley's singular tone and slippery attack and the tossed-dice sound of the trio. Remember is taken at a sassy, walking tempo; This I Dig of You is a galloping hard-bop standard with a melody line that shifts from wistful to determined; Dig Dis is a jaunty blues; Split Feelin's seems like an ode to John Coltrane or a message letting him know that what he was doing was no mystery to Mobley, Soul Station is a loping blues; and If I Should Lose You is taken at an impatient tempo that gives the standard an urgency. And dig Mobley's outro on the last one! [Photo above of Paul Chambers by Francis Wolff (c) Mosaic Images]
Soul Station is an album worth cranking up. The music will captivate you with it's perfect execution and Mobley's silky, earthy narrative. Kelly's solos are remarkable for their impeccable snap and melodic seduction, Chambers jabs along with a warm woodiness, and Blakey unleashes his press rolls, door-knocking tom-tom shots and cymbal splashes. Each time I listen to this album, it gives me the same chills as watching a bowling ball slide down the lane with speed, curving in at the last second to explosively clear all the pins. It's hard to beat grace and power. [Photo above of Art Blakey by Francis Wolff (c) Mosaic Images]
Tropical storm Isaias blew into New York around 11 a.m. yesterday, whipped things around and split at about 3 p.m. When it did, the sun came out immediately and the 35-mph gusts began, cooling things off a bit. For some reason, at that moment, I craved J.J. Johnson and his distinct, trombone sound. [Photo above by Marc Myers]
The albums I turned to were the three he made with Belgian woodwind player Bobby Jaspar. On J Is for Jazz (1956), Dial J.J. 5 (1957) and Live at the Cafe Bohemia: Jay Jay Johnson Quintet (1957), Jaspar played tenor saxophone and flute. Johnson and Jaspar were magic together.
The sessions for Columbia were among the first by Jaspar after he arrived in the U.S. in May '56 hoping to make a name for himself. Jaspar was already known in the States from the recordings he made with touring American jazz players in Paris. He had married American singer-pianist and arranger Blossom Dearie in 1954, whom he had met while she was playing in Paris. Her return home to New York in 1956 to begin recording for Verve surely had something to do with Jaspar's arrival here that year. The pair divorced the following year.
J Is for Jazz featured J.J. Johnson (tb), Bobby Jaspar (ts, fl), Hank Jones (p), Percy Heath (b) and Elvin Jones (d). Johnson swings as Jaspar plays with a dry, cool feel. The solos are extraordinary. Standouts include Angel Eyes, Chasin' the Bird and Solar.
Dial J.J. 5 included J.J. Johnson (tb), Bobby Jaspar (ts,fl), Tommy Flanagan (p), Wilbur Little (b) and Elvin Jones (d). The selections were mostly bebop tunes, including Barbados, Tea Pot and Bird Song. An interesting contrast between the two approaches by Jaspar on this album and the previous one.
Live at the Cafe Bohemia featured J.J. Johnson (tb), Bobby Jaspar (ts,fl), Tommy Flanagan (p), Wilbur Little (b) and Elvin Jones (d). Best tracks are I Should Care, Dailie Double and Solar.
For me, Jaspar and Johnson were most interesting when blowing cool on their first album together. Jaspar had long, relaxed lines and a Pacific Coast sensibility, likely picked up from listening to West Coast recordings in Paris. Johnson plays throughout with his lyrical sensibility and the powerful, powdery attack of his horn. Together, they were a perfect match.
As for Elvin Jones, we hear him early in his recording career, displaying cymbal work that would become a hallmark of his style. My only wish on these three albums is that they had chosen songs that better displayed their sound together. The bop pieces feel a little worn by 1956 and '57, and others, like Jaspar's In a Little Provincial Town sound, well, provincial. A hidden gem is Tommy Flanagan with just bass and drums playing Bud Powell's So Sorry Please on Dial J.J. 5.
J.J. Johnson died in 2001; Bobby Jaspar died in 1963.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find these three albums on a two-CD set called J.J. Johnson Quintet Featuring Bobby Jaspar: Complete Recordings (Fresh Sound) here.
JazzWax clips:Here'sAngel Eyes from J Is for Jazz...
In a funny way, the start of progressive orchestral jazz is marked by the day Igor Stravinsky became a naturalized U.S. citizen in January 1946. The aristocratic Russian composer was at the forefront of modern classical music and long had ties to American classical institutions. After being sponsored for citizenship by actor Edward G. Robinson, Stravinsky moved to Los Angeles and networked with a wide range of prominent avant-garde artists, poets, writers, actors, choreographers, dancers and musicians who settled there during World War II.
Stravinksy's modern approach began years earlier, when his ballets—The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913)—were performed by Diaghilev's famed Ballets Russes in Paris. By the mid-1940s, Stravinsky's inventive, expressive works had an enormous influence on jazz orchestras with musicians who could compose, arrange and pull off complex works with a Stravinsky bent. [Photo above of Earle Spencer]
At the time, there were five such bands comfortable in the progressive space: Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Johnny Richards, Boyd Raeburn and Earle Spencer. Earle who? Spencer was a 20-year-old trombonist who formed his Earle Spencer Orchestra in 1946 after his discharge from the Navy. Recording for the Black & White label, Spencer hired quite a few musicians who went on to bigger things, including Al Killian, Ray Linn, Jack Marshall, Tommy Pederson, Tony Rizzi, Barney Kessel, Jimmy Knepper, Herb Geller, Buddy Childers and Art Pepper.
According to newspaper writers who caught the band on tour, Spencer was a "hard-working bandleader" and extremely popular in the Southwest and Midwest. As bands became economically challenged due to shifting music tastes and cultural shifts, Spencer managed to hold his band together until 1949, when the bottom dropped out. Running short of funds, Spencer found bookings harder to come by and musicians tiring of the road. What's more, musicians jumped ship for other recording and playing opportunities. A heart murmur also forced Spencer to dial back the work, and Black & White went out of business. Not a good year for struggling bands.
As Jordi Pujol writes in the liner notes to his Fresh Sound collection of Spencer recordings, "In the spring of 1950, Earle Spencer, who wouldn't give up his one-off local slots, appeared with a newly formed orchestra: eight brass, five saxes, three rhythm and girl singer. Although the band contained most of the necessary ingredients (fine arrangements and excellent soloists) to make it to the top, once again without a large agency to sustain the interest created, the band's days were numbered, being the most short-lived recording band ever to have played on the road.
Spencer may have lacked Kenton's polish, command and bandleader experience and Raeburn's access to many top arrangers, he still had a nifty progressive band with scorching horns and Stravinsky touches that turned up on Spenceria, Spencerian Theory, Parts I and 2, and Jazzbo. The band's arrangements were smart and tight, with a Kenton feel.
It's a shame Spencer was unable to find backing. While Kenton could sound ponderous during this period and Raeburn had novelty leanings in places, Spencer recorded with streamlined dance-band brashness and swinging sass. Sort of the way Harry James sounded in 1949 when Neal Hefti was in his band.
Fortunately we have Spencer's Black & White recordings. What became of him after 1950 is a mystery. Wikipedia just lists his birth year as 1926. If you're out there, Earle, let me know.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Earle Spencer: The Complete Black & White Recordings 1946-1949, a two-CD set from Fresh Sound here.
Thirteen years ago today, I put up my first JazzWax post. It has been some journey—6.1 million pageviews and nearly 4,150 posts. It's also the day I traditionally take off and you get to think about all you've read here and enjoyed.
Read one of the many free JazzWax interviews in the right-hand column. Or go back into the JazzWax archives and look around. On this blog's birthday, thanks to all of my readers for making JazzWax a loving global music-loving family. I hope I've brought joy into your world and made your days a little brighter.
Last week in The Wall Street Journal, I interviewed actor Sam Trammell for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). If you've seen the TV series True Blood, Homeland or Reckoning—a superb new suspense series on Netflix—then you know Sam routinely plays flawed, troubled protagonists. Yet in real life, Sam is as humble and nice a guy as can be, thanks to his New Orleans and Charleston, W.VA. roots. The magic of acting! [Photo above of Sam Trammell courtesy of YouTube]
Here's Sam in the trailer for season 1 of Reckoning...
And here's Sam in the trailer for the 2015 film All Mistakes Buried...
Sari Schorr. Before the invasion of Covid-19 earlier this year, Sari could be found on stages around the world signing her heart out, backed by her blues-rock band. Then the singer-songwriter's lineup of gigs were cancelled, falling like dominoes as cities locked down and then socially distanced. Live performances were impossible. So Sari took to Facebook and has developed quite a following simply by talking to viewers about what's on her mind and what she's dealing with. This isn't whining nor is it yammering about woes. It's more about an artist social charming, and she's quite at it, given that her flame-thrower singing voice converts neatly to a warm spoken tone laced with kindness.
At her Facebook page (go here), Sari goes live every Friday at 11 a.m. (EDT), which is 8 a.m. PCT and 4 p.m. GMT. Yesterday, I asked Sari about her switch from stage to screen:
Hi Marc. Life under Covid rule has forced me to reinvent myself. When the pandemic hit, it swept me off my European tour and ditched me back in Brooklyn. I’m suddenly home and lost. The first few weeks were an ugly mix of disappointment, fear, and frustration. But then I started to pay attention to my fans. They were hurting too. How could I help thousands of miles away?
It all started with a phone call I made to a fan who was severely depressed. It helped. I wanted to do more. Facebook Live seemed to be an excellent option to reach more people. But, the thought of doing a 30-minute monologue into a camera made my teeth chatter…among other things.
Those first few months were unnerving, but gradually I got the hang of it. I was grateful to have found a way to connect with my audience. It felt natural, and it grew organically. It has been gratifying getting to know the fans on a more personal level through their questions and comments.
Every Friday morning, before the chat, I look back on the week's events and choose the most relevant and compelling stories. Then I connect them to universal themes that I hope will resonate with as many people as possible. My goal is to inspire my community with these talks and leave folks with a sense of well-being that lifts their spirits as best I can. It is precisely what I always try to achieve on stage, but now the internet is my platform.
To read my interview with Sari back in May, go here.
Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival. As promised, here's the full slate of streams (minus tonight's concerts) from Sweden's annual concert celebration. A special thanks to Itta Johnson in Ystad...
Here'sSpirit of Swedish Jazz: The Music of Lars Gullin featuring the Fredrik Lindborg Trio backed by a string quartet...
And here'sDebut featuring fusion guitarist Chico Lindvall...
Louis Armstrong radio. Part 2 of the trumpeter's birthday celebration will be broadcast on Tuesday, August 4, on WKCR. For decades, the station has celebrated Armstrong's birthday broadcast on July 4th, the recognized date of his arrival. However, a while back, a baptismal certificate was discovered by researchers, indicating that Louis was actually born on August 4, 1901. So the station decided to split the difference and hold two parts.
To listen from anywhere in the world on your phone, iPad or computer, go here.
Vaughan Mason & Crew. In 1978, as the "me decade" wound down, rinks began opening that combined disco and roller skating. By then, disco had increasingly become an elite diversion at clubs like Studio 54, and VIP lines and guest lists became commonplace at local dance halls. Rinks eliminated the awkward couples scene and freed individuals to enjoy the music and do their own thing, without the status overlay. It was a blast and a fantastic workout. Here's Vaughan Mason & Crew's Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll. Like the Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight, the song "borrowed" from Chic's Good Times...
At the annual Ystad Jazz Festival in Ystad, Sweden, it's business as usual. Since we are restricted in most places in the U.S. from public gatherings, many jazz clubs are closed and concerts have been postponed or cancelled. So Itta Johnson and my friends in Sweden sent along a link so you can enjoy what you're missing.
Over the weekend, I'll feature links to the entire festival thus far. For now, here's a 1 1/2 hour concert from yesterday evening at Ystads Teater with Scott Hamilton on saxophone backed by the marvelous Jan Lundgren on piano, Hans Backenroth on bass and Kristian Leth on drums, featuring Ulf Wakenius on guitar. Thank you, Itta, Jan and everyone else there. Sending much love...
Marc Myers writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and is author of "Anatomy of a Song" (Grove) and "Why Jazz Happened." Founded in 2007, JazzWax is a three-time winner of the Jazz Journalists Association's best blog award.
