"Checkmate" - John T. Williams and The Shelly Manne Quintet

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“.. what Shelly has done here is to take each piece out of its original setting and put it into a setting all his own. Herein lies, I think, the most remarkable aspect of this album. Shelly has given each piece a mood and a quality quite different from al! the rest and while doing so has retained what was my original thought concerning each piece. This is an exceptional accomplishment, particularly for a jazz group of this size, and a practice which should, I think, be a more important part of contemporary jazz. The variety of colors and moods that Shelly and the group have achieved here is truly amazing.”

- John T. Williams, composer, arranger, piano player

According to Lalo Schifrin (Dirty Harry, Bullitt), jazz was a natural fit for these hard-hitting screen stories. “Filmmaking is not an individual art form,” he said. “It’s a collective, almost like a jazz jam session. It’s a gestalt. The director is the brain; the cameraman in the eyes; the film editor is the DNA; the producer is the lungs; and the composer is the ears.”

With the advent of Hank Mancini’s score for the Peter Gunn television series in 1958, Jazz went from total obscurity to almost becoming commonplace in such settings.

It was almost derigeur. Have cop or private eye show - M-Squad, Johnny Staccato, Mike Hammer, Richard Diamond - equals Jazz score.

At about the same time, Crime Jazz music was also increasingly finding its way into the movies with Anatomy of a Murder, Shadows, Odds Against Tomorrow, and Bullitt, among many others, all sporting Jazz themes and scores

Crime jazz captured the mood not only of our post-war cities, but of a character as distinctly American as the cowboy – that soulful, solitary seeker of justice, the private eye.

Checkmate was an American detective television series starring Anthony George, Sebastian Cabot, and Doug McClure. The show aired on CBS Television from 1960 to 1962 for a total of 70 episodes and was produced by Jack Benny's production company, "JaMco Productions" in co-operation with Revue Studios. Guest stars included Charles Laughton, Peter Lorre, Lee Marvin, Mickey Rooney and many other prominent performers.

The series chronicled the adventures of a private detective agency set in San Francisco. Created by Eric Ambler, the program involves the cases of the detective agency called Checkmate, Inc. Don Corey and Jed Sills run the agency, which specializes in preventing crimes before they happen, from Corey's stylish apartment, supposedly at 3330 Union St. Sebastian Cabot portrays a Ph.D. college professor whom they employ as an adviser.

But for my ears, what made the series particularly enjoyable was the Jazz score written by an up-and-coming Jazz pianist - John Williams.

Long before he composed the music for Jaws, the Star Wars series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and dozens of other major motion pictures. John Towner Williams was Johnny Williams, jazz pianist. He began writing for films and television in the early 1950s and in much of his earlier work, the jazz influence was still strong. Shelly Manne worked with Williams on Hollywood sound stages and was taken with his music for the TV series Checkmate.

Manne adapted seven of Williams's themes from the show for his band. Shelly Manne & His Men. Because Williams was tuned in to trends in jazz, some of the pieces reflected modal approaches recently taken by forward thinkers like Miles Davis and John Coltrane. "The King Swings," as an example, is nearly identical in form to Coltrane's "Impressions." Accordingly, Manne and his quintet, one of the best small groups of the 1960s, plumb Williams's unusual television music for all of its considerable improvisational possibilities.

Here’s more about Shelly Manne and His Men Play Checkmate [Contemporary S-7599; OJCCD 1083-2] from Lester Koenig, who produced the recording and composer John Williams.

A NOTE FROM THE PRODUCER:

“Checkmate is one of the most successful TV shows of the current season [1961 on CBS].  The three heroes of Checkmate—Sebastian Cabot, Doug McClure, and Anthony George — aim to stop crime before it happens, accompanied by the exposed thrills, chills, and danger — and by Johnny Williams's excellent score which strikes precisely the right balance between mayhem and music.'

Shelly Manne, a friend and associate of Williams, held the percussion chair in the studio orchestra which recorded the Checkmate score. He realized that most of Williams's themes would lend themselves admirably to a jazz treatment by his own group. "What attracted me to the music," says Shelly, "was the mood the pieces create—you might call it a 'modal' mood. This is particularly true of The Isolated Pawn,' The King Swings,' 'En Passant.' By modal I mean there aren't a lot of changes and because of it you can create more exciting rhythmic interest. With only a few changes as in 'Milestones' or Coltrane's 'My Favorite Things,' the rhythm can create tension and mounting excitement through use of ostinato effects [a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm]. Oddly enough, the 'monotony' is what helps create the intensity!"

Shelly also likes Williams's melodic lines. "They are good jazz lines. He didn't conceive of Checkmate as a jazz score, but because Johnny is also a jazz musician, he knows how to write lines which lay just right for jazz blowing."

In the months before this recording, Manne & His Men played the Checkmate music for receptive audiences at the Manne-Hole, Shelly's jazz club in Hollywood. In this way the seven themes took their places on an equal footing with the standards, jazz originals, and jazz classics which comprise the group's extended repertoire.

The characteristic element which distinguishes these performances from Williams's own first-rate big band version of the score album is the extended improvisation by the soloists. The quality of improvisation is an elusive thing. It is primarily a personal and emotional expression. To play well, a musician has to believe in what he is doing. In the case of Checkmate, Manne and his colleagues had become thoroughly enthusiastic about the Williams music, and looked forward to the recording session with much more than ordinary anticipation.”

—LESTER KOENIG December 13, 1961

A NOTE FROM THE COMPOSER:

“Probably the greatest satisfaction a composer can get is when an artist decides to play and record his work, particularly when the artist is of the caliber of Shelly Manne with his present group. The pieces contained in this album were selected by Shelly from a larger group of things that I had written for the TV show, Checkmate. Each was written for a different segment of the show and was associated with the particular personality for whom it was written. I hold the conviction, not by any means alone, that it is a composer's job not only to create the melodic and harmonic details of his music but also the timbre, that is, the final sound or color.

My gratitude to Shelly, therefore, may seem contradictory, for what Shelly has done here is to take each piece out of its original setting and put it into a setting all his own. Herein lies, I think, the most remarkable aspect of this album. Shelly has given each piece a mood and a quality quite different from al! the rest and while doing so has retained what was my original thought concerning each piece. This is an exceptional accomplishment, particularly for a jazz group of this size, and a practice which should, I think, be a more important part of contemporary jazz. The variety of colors and moods that Shelly and the group have achieved here is truly amazing.

In addition to acknowledging wonderful performances by each member of the group, I think special attention should be called to the invaluable contribution made here by Russ Freeman. Russ is truly one of the most important pianists in jazz today. He has a perception and sensitivity unequaled by all but a very few.

My sincere thanks to Shelly and Contemporary Records for this presentation of the music from Checkmate.

—JOHNNY WILLIAMS December 14, 1961

Johnny Williams, a talented pianist, as well as composer and orchestrator, was exposed lo both jazz and classical music from his childhood. His father was a well-known drummer of the Swing Era [featured with Raymond Scott’s sextet] and Johnny, who was born in Flushing. New York in 1932. started studying piano at the age of eight. He came to California with his family in 1948 and at North Hollywood High School led his first band with vocalist Barbara Ruick. a fellow student. later to become Mrs. Williams. Since 1955 Williams has been actively al work in Hollywood, composing and conducting for TV [M-Squad, Wagon Train, etc.] and writing backgrounds for many singers. He is also active as a pianist with jazz albums of his own.

Jon De Lucia - The Brubeck Octet Project Strikes Again

For those Jazz fans with ready access to NYC

Our octet album release show is this Sunday at Birdland Jazz Club. One set at 5:30pm.

I hope you can join us! We’ll be performing the never recorded music of the original Dave Brubeck Octet, and the band is amazing:

Brandon Lee

Danny Fox

Daniel LaCour Duke

Becca Patterson

Andrew Hadro

Keith Balla

and the great Scott Robinson!

We’ll also release our first single to streaming services that day.

See you there!

Cover illustration by the great Arnold Roth. Design by Rocket Fuel Art & Design

Benny Green - RENOVATION - Drops Friday 9.18.2026

 

Good morning,

Just a note that pianist-composer Benny Green will release Renovation, his new solo piano album, THIS FRIDAY, September 18, 2026 via Sunnyside Records.

Recorded live at Dizzy's Club in New York City, Renovation is Green's first live solo recording, featuring 13 tracks that include eight originals alongside compositions by Bobby Timmons, Randy Weston, Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser, and Matt Dennis and Tom Adair. The album continues a solo piano lineage that began with Green's feature on Art Blakey's Not Yet and continued through his studio recordings Green's Blues and Solo, this time bringing that thread before a live audience. Green has recorded for Blue Note, Telarc, Criss Cross, and Sunnyside, and spent formative years with Betty Carter, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Freddie Hubbard, and the Ray Brown Trio.

Find the full press release and usual assets below, and let me know if you'd like to schedule an interview with Benny. He has a full tour coming up - if Benny is going to be in your area and you'd like to come through, just let me know. 

All the best,
Lydia

OSCAR PETERSON PROTÉGÉ, JAZZ MESSENGER AND ACCLAIMED PIANIST-COMPOSER BENNY GREEN ANNOUNCES RENOVATION

RECORDED LIVE AT DIZZY’S CLUB IN NEW YORK CITY, GREEN’S FIRST LIVE SOLO PIANO ALBUM DRAWS FROM FOUR DECADES OF TRIO LANGUAGE AND BLUE NOTE FEELING

FEATURING EIGHT GREEN ORIGINALS ALONGSIDE PIECES BY BOBBY TIMMONS, RANDY WESTON, HOAGY CARMICHAEL & FRANK LOESSER, AND MATT DENNIS & TOM ADAIR

OUT SEPTEMBER 18, 2026 VIA SUNNYSIDE RECORDS

Pianist, composer and bandleader Benny Green is proud to announce Renovation, his new solo piano album, out September 18, 2026 on Sunnyside Records. Recorded live at Dizzy’s Club in New York City, the 13-track album marks his first live solo recording, with eight Green originals alongside pieces by Bobby Timmons, Randy Weston, Hoagy Carmichael & Frank Loesser, and Matt Dennis & Tom Adair.

“With my performing and recording activities of the past 40-plus years having been primarily centered around piano-bass-drums trios, I embraced the solitude of the 2020 lockdown as a golden opportunity to redirect my instrumental focus toward exploring the expansive freedom that playing solo provides me,” Green says.

“As Harold Mabern Jr. has said, ‘The piano knows what it can do — it wants to hear what you can do,’” he continues. “And I realized that liberated from the inevitable chemistry parameters that are conditionally subjective to whom I’m playing with, I can roam wherever I choose when playing solo, free from the need to cue other members to unscripted, spontaneous musical gear changes in the moment.”

Critics have recognized Green’s authority for decades. Leonard Feather of the Los Angeles Times called Green the “prototypical modern jazzman”; All About Jazz called him “one of the most gifted jazz pianists around” and a “consummate jazz pianist”; and DownBeat, writing on his 2023 Sunnyside album Solo, described “the master pianist in transition.”

Oscar Peterson named Green his protégé in 1992, chose him as the first recipient of Toronto’s Glenn Gould International Protégé Prize in Music, and later invited him to record the two-piano album Oscar and Benny.

Born in New York City in 1963 and raised in Berkeley, California, Green first heard jazz through his father, a tenor saxophonist whose record collection included Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles and many of the music’s founding voices. He began piano lessons at 7, played his first paid performance at 12, made his major concert-stage debut at 15 with the Monterey Jazz Festival High School All-Stars, and by his late teens was working with vocalist Faye Carol and NEA Jazz Master trumpeter Dr. Eddie Henderson.

In 1982, at 19, he returned to New York City, where Walter Bishop Jr. and Walter Davis Jr. mentored him during his first year in town, and where his earliest gigs included work with Barry Altschul, Bobby Watson and Jo Jones Jr.

Betty Carter hired Green in 1983, beginning four years of international touring with the vocalist. He played on her Grammy Award-winning Verve album Look What I Got before joining Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers from 1987 to 1989. He joined Freddie Hubbard’s quintet in 1989 and recorded Live at Fat Tuesday’s with Hubbard in 1992. That same year, he joined the Ray Brown Trio, his longest sideman tenure, remaining with Brown for four and a half years.

As a leader, Green recorded two albums for the Dutch Criss Cross label in the late 1980s before signing with Blue Note Records in 1990, where he made seven leader albums across the decade, plus two for Toshiba-EMI. He went on to record for Telarc, including his 2001 solo piano album Green’s Blues and two duo albums with guitarist Russell Malone. In 1998, Peterson invited Green to record Oscar and Benny. In the 2010s, Green began recording for Sunnyside, with albums including Magic Beans, Live in Santa Cruz, Happiness, Then and Now, Benny’s Crib and Solo.

During Green’s Jazz Messengers tenure, Blakey would sometimes turn off his snare drum and send the other musicians offstage mid-set, leaving Green alone to play a long solo piano medley. In the studio in Milan in 1988, while recording his first album as a member of the Messengers, Blakey also gave him the chance to play what became the only solo piano track in the Jazz Messengers’ discography: “I’ll Never Be the Same,” chosen on the spot after Green had been listening to versions by Art Tatum and by Louis Armstrong with Oscar Peterson.

Green’s recorded solo-piano history before Renovation began with his feature on Blakey’s Not Yet, followed by Green’s Blues in 2001 and Solo in 2022; all were studio recordings. Renovation places that solo thread before an audience.

“In live performance,” Green says, “this newfound freedom allows me to tune in more directly to the mood and vibe of a live audience when I enter a room, so that regardless of whatever I’d preconceived as an opening selection, I can respond untethered by allowing abrupt diversions from my pre-planned choices of selections.”

The title carries several meanings. Musically, Green describes Renovation as a conscious refresh of the setting that has defined much of his working life. Personally, it refers to the renovation of his home in Berkeley, where his family moved in 1968. His wife is overseeing a major project there, adding rooms, building a deck and bringing new love to the 100-year-old house his parents left to him and his sister.

On Renovation, Green channels what he has long loved about piano-bass-drums trios into solo piano: the bassist’s melodic pulse, the drummer’s ride cymbal and snare, and the pianist’s single-note storytelling. He draws on the flowing lines of Sonny Clark, Barry Harris, Cedar Walton and Kenny Barron, and the two-fisted swing of Fats Waller, Erroll Garner, Hank Jones and Ray Bryant. He also admires pianists who treated the instrument, in his words, “in ways not per se intended to impress, but rather to paint.”

As a composer, Green’s reference remains the small-group language that first seized him as a listener: Charlie Parker’s 1947 quintet with Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, Tommy Potter and Max Roach; the classic Blue Note records of the 1950s and ’60s; the Miles Davis Quintets; and the expanded frontlines of Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.

“When I write,” Green says, “I’m channeling the textures of horns playing melodies together in a quintet or sextet to the piano. My main inspiration as a composer stems especially from classic Blue Note records and the Jazz Messengers. I strive to write singable, swinging melodies that channel some sort of feeling of the blues that a listener can remember.”

Renovation opens with “For Duke Pearson,” a piece that began when Wynton Marsalis commissioned Green to write a new original composition as a big band arrangement for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Premiered at Rose Hall in New York City and later scaled down for solo piano, the piece tips its hat to the titular pianist-composer-arranger — one of Green’s favorites of the 1960s.

“Seoul Station,” a minor-key original theme, combines Green’s love of Blue Note with his affection for jazz audiences in Korea; its title refers to the principal train hub in Korea while nodding to Hank Mobley’s Soul Station. 

“Cedar Would” honors Cedar Walton, one of Green’s foremost heroes as a pianist and composer. “I’ve waited all my life to write something in honor of how much his sound means to me,” Green says, “and I’ve put my heart into this piece.”

“This Here” brings Bobby Timmons directly into the program. While preparing to become a Jazz Messenger, Green listened closely and played along with Blakey bands featuring Horace Silver, Timmons and Walton in the piano chair. On Renovation, Green plays Timmons’ “romping blues waltz,” which he finds to be a perennial audience favorite.

Green also turns to “The Night We Called It a Day,” the Matt Dennis and Tom Adair ballad whose melody has long drawn him in; after hearing Dennis sing and play it online, Green brought its haunted mood into the live recording date at Dizzy’s Club.

For Green, the format harkens back to those nights with Blakey. “This was a character-building challenge,” Green says, “as my solo endeavor was sandwiched between a powerhouse sextet, presented to live audiences, and I needed to maintain a strong level of sound and feeling for the continuity of the shows.

“As Art would remind us, ‘You’ve got to project beyond the floodlights,’” Green recalls. “Meaning not to just play to and for ourselves, but to actually reach into the hearts and minds of our listeners.”

Tracklisting:

1. For Duke Pearson

2. Constitutional

3. Cedar Would

4. This Here

5. Hi-Fly

6. Two Sleepy People

7. Seoul Station

8. Blues for Junior

9. My Girl Bill

10. The Night We Called it a Day

11. Wiggin’

12. Sophy’s Chant

13. Ernie’s Uncle

Tour Dates:

Sept 17 – University of Tennessee Chattanooga
Sept 19-20 – Venue TBA (Philadelphia, PA)
Sept 22 – Jazz, TX (San Antonio, TX)
Sept 23 – Monks (Austin, TX)
Sept 25-26 – The Jazz Corner (Hilton Head, SC)
Sept 28-29 – University of Missouri, Kansas City
Sept 30 – Crystal Bridges (Arkansas)
Oct 1 – Keystone Korner (Baltimore, MD)
Oct 22-25 – Dizzy’s with Carl Allen Tribute to Jazz Messengers
Oct 31 – Scullers (Boston, MA)
Nov 1 – William Paterson with Carl Allen Tribute to Jazz Messengers
Nov 6 - University of New Hampshire
Nov 12-15 – Cotton Club Tokyo, Japan
Nov 19-22 – JazzCultural (NYC)
Nov 30 – Kuumbwa (Santa Cruz, CA)

BILL EVANS TRIO - The Sesjun Radio Shows

This 12 minute plus track is from the "broadcast live" on December 6, 1979 "De Meerkoet" Lelystad, The Netherlands and features Bill Evans on piano, Marc Johnson on bass and Joe La Barbera on drums. The sound quality is excellent and each of the soloists demonstrate inventiveness and exquisite technique. If you ever wanted to know what the last Bill Evans Trio was all about, check this out.

Bill Evans Alone - Notes by Bill Evans [Verve V6/8792 LP; Verve CD 833-801-2]

© Introduction. Copyright ® Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected, all rights reserved.

“Simultaneously, Evans took the next logical step in his sequence of unaccompanied piano recordings for Verve by cutting Alone, a recital entirely devoid of extra piano tracks. Recorded in September and October 1968, this may be seen as a logical extension of his search for further clarity of line and texture, as he had said in the liner notes to Further Conversations - but in his own notes for Alone he did not mention this….. 

Certainly the music on Alone is much more unified and intense than that on Further Conversations from the previous year. Here, Evans does not have to consider embellishment, accompaniment or any other aspect of multiple piano tracks. He pares his playing to essentials and concentrates on his involvement with the music. Because of the absence of all other accompaniment, Evans can be as flexible as he needs to be and takes appropriate advantage. He adopts the simplest of approaches: exposition, improvisation, resolution. He also allows himself complete freedom of invention harmonically, rhythmically and melodically. Apart from his natural ability, the resulting power and logic is largely due to his certain vision and thorough preparation.

Talking to Marian McPartland just prior to the recording, Evans was in a decisive mood. "You can hear that I know exactly what I am doing," he said. "There's no doubt in my mind when I play. I know the reason for everything I do." As if ruminating on his upcoming solo sessions, he elaborated: "If you play too many things at one time, your whole approach will be vague. You won't know what to leave in and what to take out. I would say to a young musician: know very clearly what you're doing and why - play much less, but be very clear about it ... Take an idea - any idea - play it upside down, backwards, change the rhythm, and so on. Take any combination of notes that might occur to you and try to find 18 different ways of doing it." With a set of standard songs on Alone, he practiced what he preached.

As Evans attempts to penetrate the surface meaning of each tune he reaches different and deeper levels of meaning and inspiration, involving himself not only in any "message" a song might have but also in the beauties to be found in the study and redeployment of its components. Again in his album notes, Evans observes: "As you can readily see from the length of the tracks, I did get involved perhaps most successfully in 'Never Let Me Go'."22 Running for over 14 minutes, the song provides Evans with sufficient raw material to play himself through most of his own personal licks and cliches into fresh and invigorating musical waters. His inspiration is palpable. Other songs are given less magical transformations, but nothing from these sessions is wholly without its own small successes and surprises, the album being a formidable achievement at a time when Evans's relationship with Verve was winding down. Certainly Doug Ramsey in his Down Beat review agreed, making one especially prescient point. "When the dust subsides from the meaningless battles for recognition waged by so many of his contemporaries," wrote Ramsey, "[Evans] will still be there, playing his music as he hears it. And he hears it beautifully."” 

• Keith Shadwick, Bill Evans - Everything Happens to Me - A Musical Biography [2002]

“His playing on the Alone conveyed a feeling of unaffected nobility. Evans made no special effort to produce beautiful tone, but did so anyway — it was simply the way he played. There was much oscillation between keys a major third apart, except on the superbly paced "Never Let Me Go," which built and arched consistently in one tonality and unified mood. There are two "bonus" tracks on the CD release, chips off the workbench block that Evans would surely not have wanted to be issued — witness the disdain with which he casually finger-flicked the endings away, as if to say: No good, forget that one!

This LP won him his third Grammy award.”

• Peter Pettinger, Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings [1988]

The Grammy Award-winning Alone was Bill Evans' first single piano solo album following in the footsteps of his 1963 Verve session Conversations With Myself (three pianos overdubbed) and his 1967 Further Conversations With Myself, also on Verve (two pianos overdubbed).

For this Compact Disc release, we have included two recently discovered, previously unreleased tracks. Track 6 is a medley of All The Things You Are (the abrupt beginning is as it exists on the original tape) and Joe Zawinul's beautiful waltz Midnight Mood. Evans' only other earlier interpretation of All The Things You Are was also done solo (for Riverside) and also did not see release until many years after it was recorded. The final track is an alternate take of A Time For Love.

• Richard Seidel

The following are Bill Evans' liner notes from the original LP:

“Perhaps the hours of greatest pleasure in my life have come about as a result of the capacity of the piano to be in itself a complete expressive musical medium. In retrospect, I think that these countless hours of aloneness with music unified the directive energy of my life. At those times when I have achieved this sense of oneness while playing alone, the many technical or analytic aspects of the music happened of themselves with positive rightness which always served to remind me that to understand music most profoundly one only has to be listening well. 

Perhaps it is a peculiarity of mine that despite the fact that I am a professional performer, it is true that I have always preferred playing without an audience. This has nothing to do with my desire to communicate or not, but rather I think it is just a problem of personal self-consciousness which had to be conquered through discipline and concentration. Yet, to know one is truly alone with one's instrument and music has always been an attractive and conducive situation for me to find my best playing level. Therefore, what I desired to present in a solo piano recording was especially this unique feeling.

As you can readily see from the length of the tracks, I did get involved perhaps most successfully in Never Let Me Go. It is difficult to make a qualitative judgment, however, since one always must be wary of falling prey to indulgence in a too subjective feeling unsupported by musical content.

My solo piano professional experience has been negligible and it is sad that this great tradition in jazz is in danger of extinction because of the prevalent public attitude relegating a single pianist to background for conversation or dinner. 

Therefore, I hope that my playing has sufficient merit to carry the listener without distraction to the musical feeling I have strived to accomplish in these recorded performances.” - Bill Evans