© -Steven
Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Today [July 27th]
was Jack Tracy’s birthday and we wanted to remember him on these pages by
combining the four-part interview he graciously consented to give us in April/May
2009 and to add John McDonough’s reflections on Jack, his importance to Downbeat magazine and to the world of
Jazz.
For almost six decades, in one capacity or another, Jack Tracy has been a friend of
Jazz. And, for the better part of this
last decade, thanks largely to the Los Angeles Jazz Institute’s [LAJI]
bi-annual, 4-day Jazz Festivals, he has become my friend, too.
Ironically, Jack lives along the southern California coast and I live about
100 miles southeast of him in Orange County. But given the enormity that is traffic on the
Los Angeles freeways, we might as well live in
separate states in terms of ready access to one another. Thank goodness for the LAJI’s Jazz bashes,
which are usually staged at a location about equidistant from our respective
homes, as they afford us an opportunity to get together without having to pack
an overnight bag.
Like bassist and writer Bill Crow, who graced JazzProfiles
recently with some of his many reflections on the music and its makers,
Jack agreed to share some of his observations and anecdotes about Jazz in what
the editorial staff hopes will become the first of a number of installments.
Down Beat Days
I
graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Journalism in March, 1949, and left Minneapolis to become the assistant editor of
Down Beat in Chicago. The editor was a wise and kindly
gentleman named Ned Williams, previously a colorful New York publicist whose duties had included
press management for Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway.
He left
two or three years later and I became editor of DB and remained there until
near the end of the ‘50s, when I joined Mercury Records as one of its A&R
(Artists and Repertoire) men, a position now better known as Producer. In 1962
Mercury moved me to Los Angeles to head its West Coast office in Hollywood, and California has been my home ever since.
Regretfully
I ignored one of the basics of becoming a journalist and never kept a daily
diary, And thus I am delving into the mists of an 82-year-old memory to provide
some flashbacks from the last six decades that are as close to accurate as I
can manage right now.
Bear with
me. Some of the following has appeared in threads I have submitted to online
groups in which I participate, the rest is a ramble through some happy years.
Frank Holzfiend
I’m
afraid that many jazz club owners and operators are seldom regarded as civic
leaders, men of high principles and generous natures, or the sort of guys you
hoped your daughter would marry. Or even men who knew much about music. I mean a lot of them were like the one who,
when the bandleader complained that the piano was in bad shape, said, “What do
you mean, the piano’s in bad shape? We
just had it painted last week.”
But Frank
Holzfiend, whose Chicago Blue Note was his pride and joy, was different. He was
a balding, bespectacled man always dressed in a dark blue suit and somber tie
who looked rather like a Methodist minister. He loved the music he was
presenting, and I suspect you would have to look hard to find any musicians who
ever worked there who would offer a bad word about him.
Duke
loved him and worked many a two-week stint there, and his band always played
the Blue Note over the Christmas holidays. When Frank finally had to close the
club because jazz was now moving to concert halls and festivals and the cost of
musicians was forcing him to put up admission and cover charges that he hated,
Ellington called him the night the club closed its doors forever and told him
that as of that moment Frank was now on Duke’s weekly payroll as his Chicago
publicist. Name me another club owner who would have received that call.
Holzfiend
had a good ear for musicians, was always kind to those who he thought were
great but weren’t quite ready for prime billing yet, and used them when he
could. When Ahmad Jamal’s name was still Fritz Jones Frank had him at the Blue
Note for months playing on Mondays, customarily the off night for the
attractions booked for the other six days. He was sure Ahmad’s time would come.
And when
Studs Terkel was being hounded by local do-gooders in Chicago and found his TV
series was canceled and work hard to come by because of the blacklisting and
Red scares of those days, Holzfiend turned over another chunk of Monday nights
into “I Come for to Sing,” in which Studs emceed and
presented blues (Big Bill Broonzy), folk (Win Stracke) and Elizabethan (Larry
Somebody) singers. I’d be surprised to hear that there was any profit to speak
of on those nights.
Ruby
Braff could be a bitingly sarcastic person, and it took very little to perturb
him. When Ruby played the Blue Note, Frank, who used to introduce the band each
set, invariably called Braff “Rudy”. We
kept waiting for some sort of explosion to occur, but Braff
liked Frank so much he never corrected him. Go figure.
On one
occasion Holzfiend did something I would have bet the house no club owner would
ever do. Times were getting very tough, and it was near the end of the road for
the club, but Frank got a break when he was offered Fats Domino at an
affordable price at a time when Domino was a big, big name.
I was
sitting with him at his “Office” (first table on the right when you came in) on
closing night when Fats joined us after the first set. The house remained full
for the next one.
“Mr.
Holzfiend,” said Domino, “I want to do something.”
“What’s
that, Fats?” asked Frank.
“I want
to buy a drink for everybody in the house.”
Now, God
knows what sort of tab would have been presented to him by, say,Birdland, but Frank shook his head and said, “No, thanks, Fats, but I can’t let you do
that.”
My jaw
hit my chest.
And
although Domino repeated the offer, Holzfiend turned him down.
I told
you he was different.
Artie Shaw
I was one
of Don Fagerquist's great admirers. I first heard of him when
he was
the kid trumpeter in Gene Krupa's band,
and thus I was most anxious to hear him
in person when Artie Shaw's re-formed band that contained many young, great
players like Fagerquist and Dodo Marmarosa came to the Blue Note in 1950.
It was
opening night, and near the end of the first set Shaw announced that they'd
play "Little Jazz," which was one of Roy Eldridge's showcases when he
was with the band, and that Fagerquist would take over the solo responsibility.
I’d guess
it was opening night nerves or chops trouble or whatever, but
Don's
performance unfortunately included a couple of bad clams. When the tune was
over, Shaw took the mike and said, "That was Don Fagerquist, ladies and gentlemen,
and if you come back tomorrow night maybe he'll play it a little better for
you."
Is it any
wonder Shaw was heartily despised by so many of the musicians who
worked
for him?
Dorothy Donegan
Dorothy
Donegan was a tall, striking lady who was a great piano technician and a good
jazz player. She once played Chicago’s London House, and opening night
found the usual dozen or more press people at a long table down front. Donegan
wore a fawn-colored, satiny, strapless gown and she looked elegant
Her first
set started out with an up-tempo tune that showed off her considerable
technique, then she followed it by yet another finger-buster. At its
conclusion, obviously perspiring from her efforts, she graciously
nodded to acknowledge the audience applause, reached for a large white napkin
from beside her and proceeded to wipe the sweat from under her armpits
We sat
there no longer quite as interested as we had been in the food before us..
How do
you review something like that?
Big Sid Catlett
I'd like
to tell you a little about Big Sid Catlett, who in early 1951 was the feature
attraction at Chicago's prime Dixieland establishment,
Jazz Ltd.
An Easter
concert at the Civic Opera House that was held under the aegis of local disc
jockey Al Benson featured various acts, some of which were jazz: I remember
only Bud Powell, whose drummer was Max Roach. I was attending with my wife, and
at intermission we went backstage to visit. When we got there it was almost
eerily silent, with few people in sight.
Directly
to our left we saw perhaps a dozen people gathered silently around a stretcher
on the floor. There was a body on it covered with a gray blanket. All that
could be seen of the person was a pair of shiny, yellowish shoes sticking out
from under the blanket. I asked what had happened and a man replied, "It's
Big Sid."
There was
nothing to say. I saw Max there, smoking a cigarette and looking stricken.
Behind us were two young men, not much beyond boyhood, who were whispering.
Then one of them said, "I wish I could steal those shoes." My wife
and I just looked at each other.
Not much
later an ambulance arrived and Sid was gone.
An almost
unbelievable result of my presence backstage that night came just a few years
ago, more than 50 years after the concert. As a contributor to an online jazz
group I happened to relate the details of that night in a thread I wrote about
Big Sid. I got a return response from one of the members, who said, "Jack,
you may not believe this, but I was the kid who wanted those shoes."
I am
still amazed at that coincidence. I have since met the young guy in person;
he's Gordon Rairdin, now an elderly and longtime contributor to the Jazz West
Coast online group, and we still shake our heads when we talk about that
occasion.
As for
Sid at Jazz Ltd., I can recall only his majestic appearance on that tiny
bandstand. He sat at the drums barely seeming to move as he played absolutely
impeccably, and he looked like a monarch sitting there. Occasionally he might
flip a stick in the air, catch it and continue to play, never missing a beat or
the stick. It was a low ceiling, maybe a foot or two above his head, but that
flipped stick never touched it. Sid never looked like he was showboating, but
it just seemed to be part of his supreme skill and his enjoyment in what he was
doing. I found it almost impossible to take my eyes off him.
He was at
Jazz Ltd for several weeks, and I got to hear him maybe a half-dozen times. I
wish it had been more.
Chubby Jackson – Bill Harris
Somewhere
there is a recording of the quintet that Chubby Jackson and Bill Harris once
toured with, but I don't have it and wish I did. Not only did they have a
swinging little group that is well worth remembering, but both had outrageous
senses of humor, and what I really wish is that I had a photograph of what
would happen at some point during every night of their Blue Note 1953 two-week
gig.
In the
midst of a beautifully soulful ballad, the staid-looking, professorial Harris
would trigger a release device, his pants would fall to the floor revealing
white boxer shorts with large red polka dots, and he would go right on playing.
Now,
please, all you purists, don't respond to this by decrying Bill and Chubby's
antics as
a despoilment of jazz. Harris was a wonderful soloist and Jackson was a huge factor in assembling
Woody Herman’s First Herd as well as a poll-winning bassist. They had the very
best of creds, but both liked to occasionally show that playing music was not a
matter of life and death.
So maybe
you can understand why I still wish to hell I could again see Harris with his
trousers around his ankles playing a remarkable solo on "Mean to Me."
Some
things you just don't forget.
Oscar Peterson
Speaking
of Oscar Peterson, which we weren't, but are now, I vividly recall an evening
when his trio (O.P., Herb Ellis and Ray Brown) was at the London House.
"If you feel like it," I asked one night, "do you think you
might play some stride the next set?" He just nodded briefly and went to
the piano.
Culminating
the set’s final tune, which had kicked off at a fast clip, and with his left
hand just a blur, he drove into two or three choruses of stride that were a
stunning exhibition of technique and swing. Amazing stuff.
After
getting standing applause from the audience Oscar came down from the stand,
looked over and asked, “Was that o.k.?”
I could
do nothing more than crack up.
Johnny Frigo
Bassist/violinist
Johnny Frigo was not only a fine, creative musician, a talented painter, poet
and songwriter, but as my friend Don Gold so nicely put it, "great company
between sets."
One of my
favorite Frigo moments came one day when he and I stood chatting at Universal
recording studios in Chicago and an auto driver who was editing some racing
tapes excitedly asked us to come into the editing room to hear what he had
recorded.
“Did you
hear that?.......Did you hear that?" he said excitedly as his car came
down the stretch..
Frigo
looked over and remarked dryly, "Sounded like you were rushing."
Duke Ellington
It was
another opening night for Duke Ellington at the Blue Note, this one in 1956,
and the usual large crowd of Ellington enthusiasts and more than several
members of the press were all there. Midway through the second set Paul
Gonsalves was head-down and nodding in his seat amidst the saxes, quite
obviously the worse for wear. He was ignored by the rest of the band.
Slowly,
inch by inch, he began to slide in his chair as the band wailed on about him.
Inevitably gravity took hold and, saxophone gripped in both hands, he slipped
all the way down to the floor and stayed down for at least half a minute until
he shook his head slightly, got to his feet and sat down again.
The tune
finished, Duke went right into introducing the next one to be played and that
was that; no mention was made of the incident then or later.
The next
night I went to the club well before the scheduled first set and saw Duke
sitting alone a side table. We greeted each other and began to exchange
pleasantries and then I thought, “Why not bite the bullet and ask about Paul’s
performance the previous evening.”
“Duke,” I
asked, “Wasn’t it an embarrassment to you as a leader when Paul fell out of his
chair last night in front of that large audience?”
Ellington
looked at me, then gave one of his urbane smiles and said, “Jack, a lot of
people don’t seem to realize that when Paul was in the service of his country
in World War II he was stationed in India where he unfortunately contacted
a rare tropical disease that occasionally makes him fall asleep. Why should I
be embarrassed when someone who gave so much to us all has to suffer the
indignity of an affliction caused by wartime exposure?”
I could
do no more than nod in agreement and then chuckled—I had been ducally euchred
and satisfactorily squelched by the master of the non-reply. We went on to
other subjects and had a most pleasant chat and Gonsalves went on nodding in
his chair at odd intervals for years, all as a result of a rare Indian tropical
disease.
Of course
it was.
Part 2
I’ve always enjoyed
anecdotal history; it gives all of us the chance to recapture the spirit of
being in a given situation as a first-hand observer.
Of course, the magic of
being transported back into a particular situation has a lot to do with how
well the original story is described. When it comes to subjectively
recounting Jazz stories, no one does it better that Jack Tracy.
© -Steven
Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Down Beat Days
For most
of the ‘50s I was assistant editor, then editor of Down Beat, and there is no
job I could have enjoyed more. I got to
hear, meet and in some cases become friends with many of the giants of our
music in an era that I believe will be regarded as the golden years of jazz. I
had the privilege of working with a staff of writers whose names grace some of
the best writings on jazz to be found anywhere. In one city alone, Chicago, I could listen to at least three
or four jazz programs on AM radio every day (Dave Garroway’s show was among them)
and another half-dozen that played quality pop music that often included jazz.
Live
music? Any night of any week you wanted to hear jazz there were at least two
dozen places you could go to hear swing, bebop, Dixieland, mainstream jazz,
excellent singers—take your pick. There’d be big names and big bands at the
Chicago Theater, the Regal and the Oriental, and seemingly everywhere local
talent waiting to break out nationally. You’d hear them at any of the many
local bars and restaurants that would sporadically give music a try. A number
of smaller local clubs made jazz their steady policy.
One
example of such venues was the Hi-Note, a club on seedy Clark Street that was said to be at least
partly financed by Anita O’Day. She often worked there, and for one stretch was
co-featured nightly with Billie Holiday, singing to audiences sometimes as few
as a dozen listeners. Jeri Southern got her start there, and a young Buddy
Greco played solo piano and sang for maybe $125 a week.
Monday
nights were “off-nights” at the Hi-Note, a chance for local musicians to come
in and jam. Traveling guys would drop by to check them out and sometimes sit
in. If anyone got paid I’d be surprised, but if they didn’t have gigs elsewhere
you’d see Cy Touff, Ira Sullivan, Ira Shulman, Red Lionberg, Joe Daly, Hal
Russell, Bill Russo, Guy Viveros, Irv Craig, Doug Mettome, Kenny Frederickson and so many others
with great talent and ambitions. Some made it, some fell into the drug scene
and disappeared, others stayed and played in Chicago.
The South
Side, Chicago’s vast black community, was like a city unto itself.
Places with live music abounded, and on the bandstands would be performers as
varied as Gene Ammons, Muddy Waters, Lurlean Hunter, Frank Strozier, Willie
Dixon, Von Freeman, Sun Ra, Jody Christian, Joe Williams, Tom Archia and John
Young, plus the likes of stars such as Charlie Parker, Dinah Washington, Sonny
Stitt, Cannonball Adderley and Miles Davis at clubs like the Bee Hive and the
Sutherland Lounge.
So many
names, such marvelous music and so many venues, all gone now but with echoes
that can still be faintly heard if you close your eyes and listen very closely.
You
should have been there.
Jimmy Yancey Memorial
Jimmy
Yancey, the venerable Chicago boogie-woogie and blues pianist,
died In September, 1951, and Dizzy Gillespie was playing with his quintet at
the Capitol Lounge at that time. A memorial was planned for Yancey for the
following Saturday afternoon, to be held at a local watering hole which
occasionally featured a Dixieland band or solo pianists like Don Ewell, a
standby. I told Gillespie I planned to be there and asked if he’d like to join
me. Somewhat to my surprise he said yes.
So we met
and walked in together, where perhaps a hundred trad music fans were gathered.
Heads swiveled as we stood at the bar. Diz was wearing a maroon suit and beret
and carried his horn in a corduroy bag. One guy turned to his friend and asked
loudly, “What the hell is he doing here?” Those were the days in which boppers
and moldy figs were separate camps.
Mama
Yancey, Jimmy’s blues-singer wife, was at a large table surrounded by family
and friends. Dizzy said, “Here, hold my horn,” and went to the table to pay his
respects to her.
The
musicians onstand, led by trumpeter Lee Collins, a veteran from New Orleans who
had played with many bands there when he was a youngster, then later with Jelly
Roll Morton and others, finished the
tune they were playing. He was a lyrical and powerful player who had been playing
for several years in Chicago with his own band at the Victory
Club, a strip joint.
Dizzy
stopped on his way back to the bar to chat with Collins for a few moments. “You
gonna sit in?” I asked when he returned. He nodded, took his horn from the bag
(he was still playing a straight one in those days), softly buzzed the
mouthpiece he took from a pocket a couple of times, then went to the stand and
took a seat next to Collins.
From all
around the room came looks of amazement and, in some case, outright hostility
from those who must have thought Dizzy was going to take over the stage and
start playing some of that damned bebop.
Lee
kicked off the band and we all proceeded to hear and witness an astounding
performance. Dizzy, as Louis Armstrong was reputed to have done when he joined
his older mentor, King Oliver, played a respectful and perfect second to
Collins, never intruding, always supporting and keeping completely within the
spirit and character of the music. He played only a couple of short solos that
were little gems stitched seamlessly into the structures of the songs that were
played during the next half hour, then quietly thanked Lee and came back to the
bar, ready to leave.
The
applause was overwhelmingly heartfelt, as were the cheers from people who
realized they had seen something special. They shouted thanks and goodbyes to
him as we left.
In 1994,
more than 40 years later, I received in the mail from a friend who I had once
told about that special night the picture you see here—he had attended a record
collectors’ event, saw the picture among a group of miscellaneous photos for
sale, bought it and sent it to me.
I
treasure it.
Jeru and Erroll
Before
George Wein became a major jazz impresario he owned Storyville, a Boston jazz club. I met him for the
first time when I was in that city in the early ‘50s and spent an evening at
the club listening to Gerry Mulligan’s sextet on an opening night. Erroll
Garner had closed a Storyville engagement the previous evening and had stayed
in town to hear Mulligan, so at the end of the night Wein invited Mulligan,
Garner and me to join him for some Chinese food and then a visit to a local
after hours club.
All I
remember of the club was a bare and somewhat tacky interior with a bandstand
and a bar and perhaps a half-dozen people sitting quietly at tables. No one was
onstand when we got there, and after ordering and receiving our drinks
Mulligan, who had brought his horn in with him, not wanting to leave it in
George’s car, asked Garner if he’d like to play a little, just the two of them.
Erroll
agreed immediately and they went to the bandstand. Garner tried out the
battered upright piano and shook his head at what sounded like at least four or
five grossly out of tune chipped and yellowed keys. Jeru honked a couple of
warm-up notes and they started to play.
At which
point the magic began. Just two of the most celebrated musicians in jazz, no
bass, no drums, a bad piano and lovely music being played free for a handful of
an audience at 2 a.m.
Somehow
Garner avoided the offending keys and made that old wreck of a piano sound like
a real instrument, Mulligan played effortlessly and they had themselves a
wonderful time. I’m not sure whether the few people who were there, other than
Wein and I, even knew who the musicians were, but it didn’t matter.
Sounded
great to me.
Bill Crow once wrote:
"Lennie
Tristano deliberately chose drummers who would just keep time softly, with few
accents. He wanted to do all the rhythmic accenting himself. I heard him at the
Half Note one night with a last minute replacement drummer who I thought put a
lot of life and swing into Lennie's music, but Lennie didn't like him at all.
Most of the jam sessions I played at Lennie's studio were with drummers who
just played brushes very softly, usually with just a snare drum and
hi-hat."
In 1957,
as Down Beat's editor, I was asked to be on the board of trustees of the School of Jazz at the Music Inn in Lenox, Mass. Among the impressive list of
instructors at the now-legendary session of schooling that summer were Tristano
and Max Roach (others included luminaries like Dizzy Gillespie, John Lewis,
Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, Jimmy Giuffre, Bill Russo and more).
Every
night someone would organize a session in which some of the staff would
participate, so one of the nights I was there I persuaded Lennie and Max to
play together. I can't recall the bassist, or if there even was one. It could
have been Percy Heath.
I can
only tell you that I wish someone had taped it--Lennie and Max played some
inspired music, and if Tristano was unhappy with Roach's compelling playing,
I'm certain no one was aware of it. Max anticipated Lennie's every twist and
turn and lent surging pulse to it all. They played two beautiful sets and it
remains one of the highlight nights in my some 65 years of listening to and
writing about jazz.
Bill Russo
In the
summer of 2002 I took off on a trip to visit some people I hadn’t seen in a
long time, people who meant a great deal to me and who I feared I might never
see again if I didn’t initiate some effort to reestablish physical proximity.
My first
stop was in Chicago, where I had prearranged a lunch
date with Bill Russo, someone I first met when I went to work for Down Beat in
1949. We struck up a close friendship immediately, hung out together a lot (I even
took some lessons in music theory from him) and were tight buds until he was
hired by Stan Kenton and left town.
Our
mutual regard never wavered over the years, even though my moving to California and he to New York, then back to Chicago, precluded much of any contact
except by phone and email. And so our lunch was a delight (great Italian food,
of course), a couple of hours of reminiscences, laughs and bread-breaking. We
may even have told a lie or two.
The
effects of cancer on him were obvious, but his mind was still keen, his
curiosity insatiable and his enthusiasm for the music he was involved in as
high as ever. I was grateful we had found the time to rekindle our interest in
each other’s welfare and current activities. Bill died six months later.
In recent
times I have tended to growl loudly about the misuse of the word “legendary.”
It seems that anyone who has ever stepped on a stage more than once is now so
described—it’s as common as another overused device, the standing ovation. So I
am not going to drop “legendary” in Russo’s direction.
But I do
want to say this about him: A lot of people are going to remember his name and
his accomplishments for a very long time. Google him if you don’t believe me.
I’m one of them, although in my case “a long time” has a great deal of
relatively attached. And I must add that I was very fortunate to be around when
he accomplished them.
So I
think I’ll just remain right here in my chair and give him a sitting ovation.
Sharon Pease
Sharon
Pease wrote a column for Down Beat for years in which he transcribed and
analyzed recorded solos from prominent pianists. A teacher and songwriter, he
had a studio and office in a downtown Chicago building.
He once
received a letter from the building’s management starting out, “Dear Miss
Pease,” telling him that they were about to refurbish the women’s’ rest room on
his floor and asked for any suggestions for improvements.
He
requested they install a urinal.
Jimmy Dorsey
Tommy and
Jimmy Dorsey, the frequently combative brothers whose battles were often juicy
reading in Down Beat, were among the bands that would play the Orpheum Theater
in my home town of Minneapolis. The first time I heard Jimmy was
at that theater in the mid-‘40s, when
the band opened after a midwinter train trip from Omaha during which
large amounts of alcohol were imbibed
by all to ward off the chill..
Jimmy's
instrumental tour de force at that time was David Rose's "Holiday for strings," played at a
full-speed-ahead tempo and featuring him on alto sax. Well, he couldn't quite
make it that night, and had to start over after a few bars, at which point he
got a loud raspberry from a guy in the front row.
Drawing
himself up with great drunken dignity, Jimmy announced, "Please come back
tomorrow, folks, and we'll play "Holiday for Strings" for you. And as for you (pointing
to the heckler), you can go shit in your hat!"
Bang!
Down came the curtain, the movie started running, and Dorsey was fined a chunk
by the Musicians Union for his performance that night.
I loved
it. Almost as great as the time Sammy Kaye's toupee slid almost over his eyes
while he was a tad over-energetic in conducting the band with that three-foot
baton he used to wield.
Tommy Dorsey
My first
and last contact with Tommy Dorsey came when I was still a journalism student
at the University of Minnesota and writing a jazz column for the
college daily newspaper. TD’s band played the Orpheum in 1946 and had some
great sidemen, including Buddy DeFranco and Charlie Shavers.
Hoping to
get an interview with one or both of them I went to the stage door and
introduced myself to the band boy. He suggested I come by the next afternoon
before the first show and he’d try to help me out.
When I
got there he pointed to a chair just inside the stage door entrance and I sat
down to wait. A bit later Dorsey came down the stairs from his dressing room
with trombone in hand, looked over at me and asked the band boy, “Who’s he?”
“A writer
for the college paper and he wants to write about Buddy or Charlie.”
Dorsey
barked, “Get him the eff out of here,” and kept walking.
Classy
guy.
Part 3
I have had two experiences as a co-producer of Jazz recordings: one
involving Italian Jazz pianist Dado Moroni and the other with Jazz pianist Christian Jacob’s tribute album to the
music of the late French pianist, Michel Petrucciani.
From my limited participation, I can assert unequivocally that
everything that Jack Tracy states about the
process of producing Jazz recordings is true: it involves a great deal more
talent, ability and hard work than most people realize.
What follows in Part 3 of the continuing JazzProfiles feature on
Jack are his remembrances from his Producer
Days.
© -Steven
Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
What is a Jazz Record producer?
In 1958
Mercury Records, based in Chicago, offered me the opportunity to join the company as the
director of its jazz wing and in that move I found myself now producing the
recordings I previously had been reviewing and writing about. I took a rather
brief exit to serve the same function with Argo Records, a Chess Records jazz
operation, in 1960, but returned to Mercury at the instigation of Quincy Jones
and remained there into the late '60s.
During my
years with those companies, some of the artists
whose recordings I was responsible for were Cannonball Adderley, Art
Farmer and Benny Golson's Jazztet, Gerry Mulligan, Roland Kirk, Woody Herman,
Buddy Rich, James Moody, Ahmad Jamal, Ramsey Lewis and singers Sarah Vaughan,
Dinah Washington, Jon Hendricks, Ernestine Anderson and the Four Freshmen.. It
was a new world that I continued to live in until I retired from the record
business in the 1970s. Rock and roll came in, jazz was in a terrible state, and
I got out.
A few
years ago I read an online contribution by a man who contended that anyone
could call himself a jazz record producer. I offered the following response:
To
suggest that anyone can call himself a jazz record producer is undoubtedly
true. To suggest that anyone can BE a jazz record producer and come up with
results that are generally regarded as worthy of critical appraisal and produce
profitable sales is not always true.
To
suggest that all one need do is go into a recording booth and be a cheerleader
or a nodding yes-man and be called the producer is to misunderstand the
functions that apply to that title.
A
producer is responsible for the creation of a finished product and must be
involved to some degree in all the following:
*The
overall budget
*Concept
of the recording
*Selection
of the recording studio and the engineer and recordist
*Hiring
of the musicians if the recording is not being done with an already established
personnel
*Selection
of the compositions to be recorded
*Supervising
the recording sessions
*Confidence
in the producer's ear by the musicians, particularly the leader.
*Preparing
all of the paperwork necessary for the payroll department, the musicians
union and the publishers performance societies
so that the many legal and financial
requirements are satisfied.
*Editing
the results (often with the artist not
there--he may be out on the road),
selecting the master takes, arranging the
sequence and mixing the tracks to
prepare a test CD for the artist to listen to
and approve
*Mastering
the final results with an engineer whose ear he can trust.
*Selection
of the artwork for the CD and the liner note writer
*Consulting
with the promotion department to determine the best venues for marketing the
record.
In all
honesty, however, that there was at least one instance when I received producer
credit for an artist that was probably undeserved.
Some of
the producers at Mercury like Quincy Jones, Pete Rugolo and Bobby Scott were
also recording artists, and it was decided that they should have another staff
member as their producer, someone who could handle a lot of the niggling
details that take away from the time really needed to write arrangements and
get ready for the recording dates.
Quincy
and I had become very close friends, so I was handed the title of producer for
Q. Well, to tell the truth, I was no more producer for Quincy Jones than you
were, except that I got to remind him of deadlines (he was notorious for
pushing the envelope where they were concerned), attend the recording sessions and
stay the hell out of the way.
Sort of
like a cheerleader.
Mercury – Chess - Argo
Among the
many record labels that sprang up after World War II, two that were based in Chicago became important players in the
game, Mercury and Chess. The former began to develop a roster of singers that
made a huge dent in the pop market—Patti Page, Vic Damone, Georgia Gibbs and
Frankie Laine led the way—and created jazz and country/western departments that
were significantly serious. Chess was a blues label headed by Muddy Waters,
Chuck Berry, and Bo Diddley that began to have success in jazz as well, and
then came up with a smash hit in Ahmad Jamal and became a real jazz contender.
Both
companies were headed by men who were tough, demanding and, unlike the heads of
the large and unwieldy major labels, were able to move swiftly to respond to
any situation and establish a personal relationship with key disc jockeys and
radio stations that enabled them to get all-important airtime for their
records. They didn’t hesitate to spend money for whatever it took to get that
done.
Leonard
Chess ran the company that carried his name, and Irv Green headed a cadre of WW
II vets who ran the A&R (Artists and Repertoire), sales and promotion
departments at Mercury.
Irv Green
was an experienced record man whose father had owned the old National label. He
was big, forceful, intimidating and not always easy to get along with. I never
heard anyone refer to him as "a really nice guy," although when he
wanted to steal an artist from another company he could be remarkably charming
and persuasive.
This
incident might give you an idea of his personality and business acumen:
When we
had a surprise hit on our Philips label with "The Singing Nun," a 45
rpm side that found its unexpected way out of an expensively packaged specialty
album, there was a rush to get quantities of the album into the stores to cash
in on the single's huge sales. At one of
the Monday staff meetings that kicked off each week, Green asked the art
director how the production of the jacket was progressing. He was told that one
of the fancy artwork gimmicks on the cover was slowing down the printing
process considerably, and it would be a while yet before we could get it out in
quantity.
Green,
face red and veins bulging, slammed his fist down on the conference table and
roared, "I don't give an eff if you put the effing record in a brown paper bag, get that goddamn
thing out there, do you here me? I don't give a shit what it takes. You get it
out and get it out fast or you're gone."
Irving B.
Green was definitely one of a kind, and anyone who ever worked for him will
never forget him.
Leonard
Chess came to the United States with his parents and younger
brother Phil from Poland when he was just a boy. The elder
Chess was a junkman, a rags and old iron guy with a horse and wagon. Leonard
helped. As the little Chess junkyard grew in size they figured a truck would be
a good investment.
So after
a lot of looking around and shopping for the best deal they could find on a
used truck, they bought one. Leonard hand-painted the sign on the door. It
read:
Chess Junkyard
Truck #2
Little by
little Leonard and Phil turned a South Side Chicago bar into a tiny record
label started on practically zero dollars into a company with three labels
(Chess, Checker and Argo), a recording studio, a music publishing company, a
radio station, a pressing plant and who knows what else. Leonard was a canny,
tough, shrewd businessman who viewed with suspicion every invoice he saw and
every bill he had to pay. I would guess that every check that left the building
met his eye.
His
attitude, although I never heard him express it in just these words, was, “I’ll
take a chance and record some of your songs and put ‘em out. If I make any
money on them, I’ll give you some.”
He never
did understand jazz musicians, let alone their music. Jazz musicians expected
to be paid union scale for recording dates and any overtime. They had their own
publishing companies and wanted to control the rights to their own
compositions.
They
expected to get their royalty statements on time, and they were able to read
them. Some of them even had (God forbid!) attorneys and/or agents representing
them, people who asked for things like promotion budgets and ads in the trade
papers and recording sessions with strings!
The six strings on one guitar were about as much as Leonard figured was
necessary.
But, boy,
was he a record man! I brought The Jazztet, Art Farmer and Benny Golson’s
group, to Argo. Shortly after their first album came out, a Philadelphia disc jockey called to say that
one of the tracks, “Killer Joe,” was getting a lot of listener response. Within
five minutes of that call Leonard had me in the studio editing “Killer Joe” to
suitable singles length, and the next day it was being pressed and deejay
samples were readied for radio play. “Killer Joe” sold some 50,000 copies, a
very large number for a jazz single, and opened the door for the group’s
success.
One more
story about Leonard.
He had a
hideaway office tucked behind the recording studio in the building in which he
could conduct those aspects of business that required closed doors. Rumor has
it that once, when some of Chicago’s bent-nose guys made an appointment with
him to tell him they had decided to become his partners, Leonard had a mike
installed behind his desk, ran the line to the studio control room and taped
their entire conversation, one in which he told them that there would be no
partnership.
When they
called the next day to tell him his health might suffer if he did not
reconsider, he told them about the recording he had and to whom he might send
copies. And so Phil remained his only partner and they were sole owners of the
company until Leonard’s death in 1969.
The
record business doesn’t have any Leonard Chesses anymore. It has lawyers and
accountants and people who talk about demographics and world markets and
conglomerates, but no one who takes a disc jockey to dinner and helps the guy out
if his new house needs carpeting.
It’s a
different ballgame.
Benny Goodman
There
are, of course, scores of stories about Benny Goodman and his foibles, his
absent-mindedness, his treatment of musicians and his reluctance to spend
money. I have one to add.
When I
was at Argo we had an opportunity to acquire enough unreleased material in
Benny’s personal stockpile to put together an album. It required that I fly to New York and be driven to Benny’s Connecticut home by his brother Harry.
Goodman
and I spent two or three hours in his private retreat off the garage that
served as a practice site, music room and even rehearsal space for a small group if need be. When at
last we decided on the tracks to be purchased Benny asked if I’d like to come
in the house, meet his wife and have a drink before Harry and I hit the road
back to Manhattan. I of course agreed, and we went in, passing the
carefully manicured surroundings that included a personal trout stream.
“What do
you drink?,” Benny asked. When I told
him Scotch on the rocks would be just fine, he reached up to an impressive
section of shelves holding what must have been many hundreds of dollars’-worth
of cut glass, selected one, and then opened a cupboard beneath.
He pulled
out a pint bottle of White Horse with perhaps 1/4 an inch of Scotch left in it
and asked, “Do you think this will be enough for a drink?”
I managed
to offer a yes without raising my eyebrows..
There was
no second.
Woody Herman
You have
to be almost a golden-ager to remember where you were the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
I can
tell you where Woody Herman was, and where I was, and where Bill Chase, Sal
Nistico, Jake Hanna, Nat Pierce, and some other names known well to this group
were on that 22nd day of November in 1963.
We were
all at the A&R Recording Studio in New York, in the midst of making a
record album that would be titled "Woody Herman: 1964." I was the
producer.
We had
taped one three-hour session two days previous, and we had two more to go, this
one on the 22nd and the final on the 23rd.
I lived in Chicago at the time, was in New York to do the dates, and had arranged
a reunion lunch on the 22nd with two former Chicago neighbors.
We
enjoyed a leisurely meal and decided to walk to the studio, which was on the
second floor of a building on 48th St. right next to Jim & Andy's,
the well-known musicians' bar and hangout. As the three of us walked in and
headed for the elevator, a radio was playing loudly in the lobby cigar stand
and a voice was excitedly yelling something about someone being shot. We were
in the elevator behind closed doors before we heard anymore.
The grim
news awaited us when we entered the control room. Kennedy, in an open convertible, had
been shot at from a window in the Dallas Book Depository and had been rushed
behind screaming police sirens to the Parkland Memorial hospital.
Stunning.
Woody and
the band were already there. So was the recording engineer, Phil Ramone. A
radio was on and was pouring out whatever facts were known. It was shortly
after the shooting. No one seemed to know whether Kennedy had been seriously wounded or
not. We just looked at each other.
"What
do you want to do, Woods?" I finally asked. He was quiet for a few
seconds,
then
said, “Let's go ahead with it. We don't have much choice."
Indeed,
we didn't. Their itinerary had been wrapped around these sessions, and after
the next day the band would be out on a string of dates that would make it
impossible to have the album finished anywhere near the deadline that had been
set for its release.
Woody
went out into the studio and talked to the guys. They agreed it would be better
to get the job done now than to cancel the session and sit around and do
nothing. Professionalism prevailed.
And so
for the next three hours we recorded three of the nine charts that make up the
album. It was not an easy time, especially at the point when the flash came
that JFK was dead. We took a long break then, and I can't forget the look on
Phil Ramone's face when we heard those words. He had done some special
assignment recording for Kennedy on several occasions and knew and admired him. Tears
welled up in his eyes and he looked stricken. I guess we all did. I silently
pushed the bottle of J&B that was sitting on the console desk over to him.
He took a hit, nodded his thanks, and we went back to work.
When it
was over, everyone quietly packed up instruments and headed off. Woody and I
went downstairs to Jim & Andy's and watched the events as they unfolded on
the bar's TV set. When Air Force One landed at Andrews Field and the casket was
unloaded there was an aching quiet in the room. People just looked at each
other and shook their heads in disbelief. There were some tears. And there were
some curses.
I walked
with Woody back to his hotel and then headed off to my own. The streets of Manhattan, usually a Babel of voices and a concerto of car
horns and traffic sounds, were eerily silent. It could have been a small town
we were walking through, Elm St., not Broadway.
We
finished recording the next day.
It was a
fine album and still holds up well after some 40 years. But if it doesn't seem
to have quite the fire and crackle and joyful exuberance the band showed in the
two great ones that preceded it, perhaps you'll understand why.
It’s hard
to be joyfully exuberant when you’re grieving.
Roland Rahsaan Kirk
Certainly
the most unusual recording artist I ever encountered was Roland Kirk, who later
added “Rahsaan” to his name. Shortly after I joined Argo, Ramsey Lewis told me
he had recently heard a remarkable player in Louisville and had told him if he was ever
in Chicago to be sure to look me up.
It was
perhaps a month later that the receptionist rang me and said there was a man
named Roland Kirk in the lobby to see me. I went there and was met by an
extraordinary sight: there stood a man in dark glasses, raggedly dressed and
carrying a white cane. Beside him was an old golf bag with two wheels attached
that allowed it to be pulled. In it were some strange horns that looked like reed
instruments. Over his shoulder in a separate cloth bag was a tenor sax. He was
alone.
I greeted
him, brought him into the office, and he produced an LP he had recorded some
time previous for a small label in the Midwest. I played it and was immediately
taken by his extraordinary ability to play several instruments at the same time
and with great jazz feel. Kirk told me that he and his rhythm section had
driven to Chicago to look for a gig and to take a chance that I would
record him. I would and did. We got a contract signed, a recording date was
set, and the resulting album was issued as “Introducing Roland Kirk”.
My next
album with him would be for Mercury. Shortly after “Introducing” was issued I
was rehired by them to direct their jazz program, and with agreement from Argo,
I was able to take Roland with me.
Our first
Mercury album, done in New York, was titled “We Free Kings,” and
became the album that really brought Kirk to the attention of disc jockeys,
jazz fans and musicians. It was his growling, moaning, utterly unique flute
playing on one track that created all the attention.
After the
first take on a yet-unnamed blues, a friend of mine, Phil Moore, the noted
vocal coach, drew Roland aside before we did take 2 and quietly suggested to
him that he further personalize his performance by thinking of it as a story
and giving it continuity. What resulted was an extraordinary and
ground-breaking solo that culminated in Kirk growling an impassioned “You did
it, you did it,” thereby creating the tune’s title and making Roland suddenly
well-known.
Kirk’s
refusal to let blindness keep him from trying almost anything that appealed to
him made for some interesting situations. My favorite was the time I picked him
up at his motel to take him to a recording date. He got into my car, but before
I could turn the key to get started he asked, “Can I drive?” I just looked at
him as if he was insane. “How the hell can you drive?” I asked.
“Just
tell me what’s ahead and I’ll be ok,” he said.
I told
him no.
John Lennon
Here's
how I learned of John Lennon's death.
I was at
Donte's jazz club in the San Fernando Valley and the TV set above the bar was
tuned to the Monday night football game. The band was on a break. Howard Cosell
made his now-notable announcement that Lennon had been shot and killed outside
of his New York apartment. It was silent. Then Jake Hanna looked up at
the screen from his bar seat and proclaimed firmly in his best W.C. Fields
voice, "One down, three to go."
You gotta
love the guy.
Part 4
Although they often contain more than a modicum of truth, I really
dislike trite expressions.
But all I could think of when Jack Tracy informed the editorial
staff of his decision to conclude his memoirs on JazzProfiles was the
adage: “All good things must come to an end.”
Thanks to Jack’s reminiscence about pianist Johnny Guarnieri, I
spent an afternoon preparing a draft of this portion of Jack’s last feature
listening to Johnny’s Echoes of Ellington [Star Line
SLCD-9003].
Since I was already somewhat downcast because of the disappointing
nature of Jack’s news, it didn’t help that some of the song titles on
Guarnieri’s Duke tribute album are entitled In
a Sentimental Mood, Birmingham Breakdown, Mississippi Moan and In My Solitude.
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected;
all rights reserved.
Woody Herman
The last
years of Woody Herman's life were desperately tough. Abe Turchen, his manager,
put Herman into such terrible trouble tax-wise that he was constantly hounded
by the IRS, who levied fines and threatened
to take away his Hollywood home, a house he had purchased from Humphrey Bogart
many years before.
Then his
beloved Charlotte died, he had a crippling car accident driving to a gig
and never really recovered, and yet he somehow he stayed out there on the road
and put one foot in front of the other.
There
were two big reasons Woody didn't realize the extent of Turchen's financial
didoes in time to do something about them: (1) Abe had power of attorney, and
everything concerning the band went through him, and (2) Woody was a great
bandleader but a terrible businessman. He had experienced some of the same sort
of problems years before with a management team that booked the First Herd, yet
he left everything up to Turchen, who
took full advantage of Herman's trust in him.
For
example, when I brought Woody to the Philips label, everything was handled by
Abe, including signing Herman's name to the agreement and then telling me,
"Don't tell Woody the details of the contract, I'll handle that."
When the band, whose record sales had been moribund for several years, had big success on Philips I'm convinced it was
Turchen who talked Woody into leaving us to sign with Columbia, which now was
interested in him after turning down the chance to sign him at the time I made
my offer. If any money changed hands to effect that switch it went to Abe.
It was a
sad story, and Herman's last years were wretched, as the IRS nagged him to his grave, creating
a bitter ending for one of the most decent and fine men o ever grace the jazz
world. Woody Herman didn't deserve that --he gave us too much to get so little
back.
I must
tell you this about him. For decades he had an East Coast friend, still
alive at this writing, named Jack
Seifert. They were tight buddies, and Woody would spend as much time as possible with Jack
whenever he was in the vicinity of Philadelphia. One night he called his dad, by
then a senile widower in Milwaukee, from Seifert's home and listened
patiently as the old man rambled on and on.
When he finally hung up, Jack said something like, "Woody, I know
this is none
of my
business, but sometimes I wonder why you spend so much time and money calling your dad. These days he doesn't
even know who you are."
Woody
looked at Seifert. "But I know who HE is," he said.
That was
Woody Herman.
Buddy Rich
I am a
member of an online group that deals in singers. One person once asked about a
particular Buddy Rich vocal album, "Weren't you at Mercury at that time?
Did you have any professional interaction with him then? I wonder what other
musicians thought of his vocal abilities? "
I was
indeed there then, and in fact I had signed Buddy, a longtime friend,
to the
label. The album was recorded in 1959 after Rich had suffered a heart
attack
that left doubts as to whether he could ever withstand the physical rigors of
playing drums on a fulltime basis again. So he was seriously considering putting
together a night club act that would have him doing some standup patter, some
dancing and some singing, along with perhaps a closing drum solo on a reduced-size
kit.
We didn't
expect to be a threat to Sinatra,
Bennett, Torme or the like -- we
wanted to
do an album that would let people know Buddy could sing well enough to hold
an audience. And I thought that by adding a four-singer backup group, along with
charts by longtime vocal coach and mentor to many singers, Phil Moore, we'd have a
product that could introduce disc jockeys to another side of Rich that would get some
attention.
The album
was titled "The Voice Is Rich," and I think it came off quite well
and served
its purpose. In the several albums that I did with Buddy, never once did I find
him to be anything but a complete professional and very easy to work with. I saw him
scores of times in clubs, concerts and recording studios, and he always gave it
100%. It was when he felt that others
involved were slacking that his temper
flared and his language grew colorful.
It turned
out, of course, that he recovered completely from the heart scare and, except
for a couple of tryout dates, the nightclub act became unnecessary and was ditched.
He went on for many years as an astounding drummer and top bandleader, but
Buddy's ability to get to an audience with his wit and patter was often demonstrated
in his appearances on the Johnny Carson show.
And what
did other musicians think of Buddy's singing?
I haven't the slightest
idea, and
Buddy wouldn't have cared, either; it was the standards he set for himself that
mattered.
I wish he
was still around.
Jack Leonard
(This was
written in 1999 in response to someone who wondered if Jack Leonard was still
alive)
Jack
Leonard died 10 years ago. He had cancer and spent his last days at the Motion
Picture home in Woodland Hills, California.
He was a
dear friend, and a kinder, sweeter, nicer, more thoughtful man you will never
meet. And he could sing. Sinatra always referred to him as one of his early
influences. After he quit performing, he worked for the legendary (and I use
that word very sparingly) Carlos Gastel, the hard-drinking personal manager for
such stars as Nat Cole, Stan Kenton, Peggy Lee, Mel Torme, June Christy, Billy May,
etc., etc. All of Cole's promotion was handled for the Gastel office by Jack.
After Nat
and then Carlos died, he went to work first for Paramount Pictures' music
publishing division, then for the publishing wing of Columbia Pictures. The
last recording he ever made was for the Capitol series of re-creations of big
band favorites arranged by Billy May. Jack once more sang his biggest hit of
all, "Marie", with the Tommy Dorsey band. Pete Candoli played the
classic Bunny Berigan trumpet solo.
One
Dorsey record that Jack hated to talk about was titled (if you can believe
this) "The Man in the Moon Is a
Coon". Once I asked him how on earth he could ever have brought himself to
sing it. He grimaced and said, "I had to do it. When I got the lead sheet
at the recording session I told Tommy I couldn't sing a lyric like that. He
just looked at me and said 'You shithead, you'll sing the effin song or get the
eff out of here, because you're fired if you don't.'
"I
figured I didn't have a choice, but I've always been ashamed of having done it.
Nat would kid me about it once in awhile, but I didn't think it was
funny."
It wasn't.
Jazz Novel
The late
Milt Bernhart was a gifted writer whose literary abilities nearly matched his skills as a trombonist. He once said that
it might be fun to try to write a Jazz mystery novel. I responded as follows.
Dear Milt:
I have become enamored of your
idea for a mystery novel about a trombone-playing bandleader who is found dead
on the bandstand. I think it would make a helluva movie and I’d like to take
the liberty of helping you cast it. Here are some suggestions.
“DT” The hard-drinking, satirical,
trombone-playing bandleader who is detested by everyone: Steve Allen (don’t laugh, remember how great he was as
Benny Goodman?)
“Fancy” The girl singer secretly in love with the
lead trumpet player, even though she sits in the right front bus seat with DT
and shares a blanket with him when the lights go out: Betty Grable (who else?)
“Chops” The
terrifically talented, triple-tonguing lead trumpet who happens to have
a thing for girl singers and ladies’ underwear: Dan Dailey
“Speedy” “The World’s Fastest Drummer,” who has a
quick mouth to match his sticks-a-plenty: Mickey Rooney
“Sonny” The heartthrob boy singer, skinny as a
microphone but hung like a horse: Frankie Avalon
“Blinky” The nearsighted bandboy who is an amateur
photographer and may have inadvertently taken a picture of DT being ( a )
poisoned, ( b ) stabbed in the heart with a hatpin or ( c ) strangled with a
size 36D bra: Phil Silvers
“Artie” The fawning song-plugger who is furious when
DT refuses to play Artie’s #1 plug
of the week on the band’s “Fitch
Bandwagon” broadcast: Tony Curtis
"Shamus Greenberg" New York’s only Jewish
Oriental homicide detective: Keye Luke
"Leon Fartner" Jazz critic and would-be pianist who breaks
the story of the romance between DT and Fancy in Down Beat, thus revealing
their affair to DT’s wife, who is terminally ill with breast cancer: Peter
Lorre
Various sidemen could be played by
such noted musician/actors as Georgie Auld, Pete Candoli, Jerry Colonna, Tony
Martin, Hal Linden, Sid Caesar, Jack Sheldon and Phil Harris.
What do you think, Milt?
Jack
Judy Garland
Any
stories you might run into these days about Judy Garland are likely to lay
stress on the tragedy of her passing and the empty ending of her career, but I
have to agree with the writer who recently said, "She was very funny,
whether recounting scripted anecdotes or just bantering with the band or the
audience."
I'm of
the same mind: I saw her perform several times, and aside from an appearance at
the Miami Fontainebleau when she was very heavy and quite obviously spaced out,
she was always witty, appealing and full of energy.
I
particularly enjoyed Garland's performance on a windy Sunday
afternoon at the 1961 Newport Jazz Festival. It was outdoors, and the sound
engineer had covered the mikes with condoms to shield them from the wind.
At one
point Judy stared at her slim, hand-held mike for a couple of seconds, then
treated it in a fashion so graphic that it brought a huge appreciative laugh
from the audience. She offered a salacious grin in response.
I like to
think of her as she was that Sunday.
Johnny Guarnieri
Johnny
Guarnieri could flat out play piano. I recall more than several evenings spent
at the now-long-gone Tail of the Cock in Sherman Oaks, California, where Johnny gave lessons
nightly on how to play solo piano.
On one
occasion I invited John Campbell, one of my favorite pianists, to dinner at the
Tail and to introduce him to Guarnieri's playing. Campbell recognized Johnny's name, but had
no idea of how he played--he just took my word that he was worth listening to.
We had
dinner in a room well away from the bar where Johnny was playing a perfunctory
first set in which he tried not to bother the dinners as they ate. I noticed Campbell's reaction as the music drifted
over...he tried hard to be polite, but it was obvious that he was wondering
what this old fool had led him into.
Then we
went to the bar to hear the next set. By the third tune, Guarnieri was turning
it on. When he began a brilliant stride version of "Stealing Apples" Campbell could contain himself no longer
and left me to stand directly behind Guarnieri to see exactly what the hell he
was doing.
He stayed
there for the remainder of the set. When he came back he said simply,
"Jesus Christ!"
I repeat,
Guarnieri could flat out PLAY piano.
Clark Terry
This was
written in 2006 to a friend:
I went to
hear Clark Terry last night when he appeared at a Santa Barbara City College concert. I cried when they
brought him onstage--he is very heavy, he needs someone to support him when he
walks even though he also uses a cane, and to see him like that tore me up. You
know the first words he said at the microphone? "The golden years
suck!"
He played
a couple of tunes with each of three different big bands, all of which rehearse
regularly at the school and only the last of which was much good. The first
couple of things he played were embarrassingly bad--he sounded terrible—and I
almost walked out because I just couldn't take hearing and watching this
giant sitting in a chair and sounding
like a beginner.
His chops
got better in the next two sets, and he managed to fire off a few bars in each
of another half-dozen tunes that let you know he was once somebody, but it was
all very bittersweet stuff -- I was glad
to have seen him one more time but almost wished I hadn't. The full house of
some 400 applauded and quite properly showed their love and respect for a true
hall-of-famer, however, and I know he must have appreciated it.
Couldn't
bring myself to go backstage and say hello afterwards, but I'll never forget
the many nights I heard him in person with small groups and with Brookmeyer and
with Duke and with Basie's septet in '51 and I remember the sheer delight he
always gave everyone in the house.
It is a
privilege to know him.
Miles Davis
An online
contributor once said of Miles Davis: "I only went to one of his concerts.
Nina Simone was the opening artist. It was her famous 1959 Town Hall
Concert--which was really Miles' concert.
Nina was a revelation to everyone. Miles was a total s**t. He showed this receptive audience total
contempt".
Isn't it
sad that Miles would act in this manner to people who had come to listen to a
great artist? Because, from a number of firsthand experiences, I can tell you
that Miles could be a witty, friendly, open man who was fun to be with on a
one-on-one basis.
An
example: Once we were chatting casually, and jazz critic Leonard Feather's name
came up. Leonard was slightly stooped with a prominent nose and a vaguely
furtive appearance who sort of scurried when he walked. When I mentioned his
name, Miles exclaimed in that guttural voice of his, "Leonard Feather?
Leonard Feather looks like a man who just stole somethin'."
It was Davis's music, not his public behavior,
that spoke for him, and when I listen to the best of Miles I hear a shy, lonely
man who loves things that are beautiful but looks at a world through eyes that
see mostly ugliness and greed.
Most of
his difficulties came when he attempted to cope with that vision.
But he
had a broken coper.
Les Koenig
Les
Koenig, a screenwriter and associate producer at Paramount Studios, found his
motion picture career aborted by 1950s blacklisting. A fine writer and lover of
music and the arts, he founded his own record label, Contemporary, and first
found success with his Dixieland band of Walt Disney technicians, The Firehouse
Five Plus Two.
It was
not long, however, before he started to record modern West Coast musicians, and
his fastidious taste in the selection of artists, recording techniques and
packaging began to set a standard in the industry. He was the first to record
Ornette Coleman, and Shelly Manne, Bud Shank, Art Pepper, Barney Kessel and
Andre Previn were just a few of the jazz artists whose careers were given a
huge boost by their association with Contemporary.
His death
in 1977 was a sad loss for us all.
I first
met him on a West Coast trip for Down Beat in the mid-1950s, but after I moved
to Los
Angeles in 1962 I got to know him well. I found that Les took his
time evaluating people before he extended friendship, but when he did, it was
to reveal a sense of humor and mature wisdom that made any time spent with him
invaluable.
Leonard
Feather initiated a series of sessions in which a small group of some of us jazz
regulars would meet in one of our homes to listen to and offer opinions on the
newest record releases. It was a great way to keep abreast of what was
happening, and among the participants was Koenig. It was his ear that I quickly
began to trust when comments were offered, and his judgment that I invariably
agreed with.
And so it
came to pass that I once brought a new recording I had produced to one
evening’s meeting, Roland Kirk’s “Rip, Rig and Panic.” Customarily we’d play
just a track or two of an LP to get the feel of it, then move on; there were
always many records to hear. After the seven-minute Kirk title track was
played, Leonard started to lift the record from the turntable, but Koenig said,
“Play some more.”
The second
track was played, then Les turned to me and said, “I wish I had made that
record.”
I think
it was the greatest compliment I have ever received.
Regrets
Regrets?
Some. Shortly after I left Down Beat to join Mercury Records, a concert was
held in Chicago featuring many of the prime Dixieland players in the
country: a group from New York that included Pee Wee Russell,
Jimmy McPartland and George Wettling and a band of Chicagoans headed by Art
Hodes. I contracted them all to record a New York/Chicago “Battle of Bands,”
and then made a stupid mistake.
To take
advantage of the growing interest in stereo recordings, I put the two bands on
opposite sides of the studio and had them stopping and starting as the soloists
played. It was an absolute mess, and I was too inexperienced in recording to
abandon the scheme, reshuffle, and just get some good music out of the guys.
The talent was all there to make a fine album and I plain screwed it up. If you
ever see a copy of the record that came out you may be looking at the only one
anyone bought.
When I
was at Argo Records I became quite friendly with Oscar Brown Jr., who was
struggling to create a songwriting career and was not yet a recording artist.
He came to me one day with a tape of a young Chicago pianist he had heard and asked me
to listen to it. I thought it was terrific and was interested in signing the
youngster, but asked Oscar to give me a couple of days to think about it. I
talked it over with others at the company and they convinced me that it might
not be fair to the pianist to sign him—that we already had two pianists to
promote and take care of, Ahmad Jamal and Ramsey Lewis. Ahmad was already a
major star and Ramsey was threatening to break open and both needed a lot of
attention..
So I
called Oscar and told him that I reluctantly would turn down the young pianist.
The young pianist’s name? Herbie Hancock.
Actually
I created a double regret in this episode: I didn’t have the brains to sign
Oscar Brown Jr. either.
I recall
some record reviews I did at Down Beat that I wish I’d been more careful about,
but I’d guess every reviewer goes through that. The one I really regret and
cannot explain was one I wrote of George Wein playing piano and singing on an
Atlantic LP made shortly after his initial success as producer of the Newport
Jazz Festival.
George is
no Tatum, but certainly a capable pianist, and not a bad saloon singer either.
But for no reason I can yet offer, I dismissed the record with a totally
unnecessary remark that went something like, “He should work his side of the
street and let musicians work theirs.” It was stupid and uncalled for, but I
can’t pull it back.
Somewhat
similar was the thoughtless editorial judgment I made in allowing Nat Hentoff
to suggest in a Down Beat review of a Charlie Ventura record that Charlie hang
up his horn and get out of jazz. I should have pulled that from his review as a
cruelty that didn’t belong in our pages.
There
were times in those days when record company sales departments were able to say
they had to have product by certain artists by a specified date and that
producers had to come up with albums by them to meet that deadline. What
occasionally resulted was a record that didn’t fully reflect the artist’s
talent because it was all done in too much of a hurry.
We used
to get hard looks and reprimands if we didn’t complete an entire album--some 35
minutes of music—in three three-hour sessions, which would be laughed at today,
when it takes longer than that to lay down a track. Overtime was considered an
expensive luxury. But I still now wish
that at some sessions I had ignored the bitching which would result and
taken more time to make a better record.
There was
one session, however, that didn’t cause any worry about the time clock and was
one of the easiest and best I was ever to be involved in. The final album
Cannonball Adderley recorded for Mercury was done in Chicago with Adderley and
the rest of Miles Davis’s sextet sans Miles. Adderley, John Coltrane, Wynton
Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb strolled into the studio on a frigid
February night an hour past the scheduled recording time and walked out about
four hours later after completing an entire album of six tunes, none of which
required more than two takes.
Titled
“Cannonball and Coltrane” (I wish now I’d called it “Ball and Trane”), it is a
prime example of two outstanding jazzmen
at their finest and sounds as good today as it did that night.
No
regrets on that one.
And there
will be no regrets, either, about writing this little series of reminiscences.
Thanks for letting me share them.
Jack Tracy
Jack Tracy
Set Down Beat Critics' Table
By John McDonough/August 2011 [p. 54]
© -Downbeat Magazine, copyright protected;
all rights reserved.
Jack Tracy, who joined DownBeat in 1949 and led
the magazine as editor from 1953 to 1958, died Dec. 21, 2010, in Nooksack, Wash. He was 84. It would be
hard to imagine this issue's Critics Poll without his impact: Tracy guided
DownBeat out of the last phrases of its fabled but fading antiquity into a
modern era of serious criticism and journalism and then went on to become one
of the most important jazz producers of the 1960s, mentoring such talents as
Ahmad Jamal, Benny Golson and Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
"I started writing for DownBeat just after Jack left,"
said Dan Morgenstern, Director of the Institute for Jazz
Studies at Rutgers University, "and knew him
primarily as the record producer he became. But there's no question that his
tenure at DownBeat covered one of the magazine's most transformative
decades."
In a 1995 interview, Tracy reminisced about his
arrival at the magazine. "I had just graduated from the University of
Minnesota School of Journalism when I joined the DownBeat Chicago staff,"
he recalled. It was April 1949, and his salary was $75 a week. "I was 22
and that was one of the highest salaries of anyone in my class." Born in
1926, Tracy had served as a medic
in the Navy during the end of World War II before coming to Chicago. His first DownBeat
byline appeared Oct. 7, 1949.
When Tracy arrived at DownBeat,
its founder and publisher, Glenn Burrs, still ran the magazine. But its
fortunes were floundering as unpaid printing bills piled up. Thirteen months
after joining DownBeat, Tracy found himself with a
new employer when the John Maher Printing Company took control. In January
1951, with editorial management still in flux, Tracy and two staffers took
over the record reviews. Each scored a given record on a scale from one to 10.
The combined average of the three became the rating. This method proved
unwieldy, though, and in May 1952 it was abandoned for the present five-star
rating system, with each review assigned to a single writer. It was Tracy who
decided in January 1957 that full personnel listings should accompany all
record reviews—an editorial approach that continues to this day.
In October 1952 Norman Weiser came over from Billboard to become
president and publisher. He appointed Tracy editor in early 1953. Tracy recruited or nurtured
dozens of important writers, including Ralph J. Gleason, Dom Cerulli, John
Tynan, John S. Wilson, Martin Williams and Nat Hentoff. "Jack Tracy was DownBeat,"
said Hentoff. "His spirit, his knowledge and his continual determination
to be accurate and insightful was the magazine."
As circulation slumped with the decline of the big bands, Tracy responded with a
flurry of innovations. He began devoting issues to specific niches on an annual
basis. First came the annual orchestra and combo issues. Advertisers loved
them. The first dance band edition was the biggest issue in 15 years. Soon
there was a procession of annuals covering percussion, brass and reeds. In 1952
the annual Hall of Fame was added to the Readers Poll. For years DownBeat had
been a tabloid, but Tracy adopted a standard
magazine format on April 24, 1955. The move made
possible more in-depth articles and greater newsstand circulation.
In 1956 Tracy hired Don Gold, who
would succeed him as editor in two years. "Even though I had a degree from
Northwestern in journalism, Jack was a mentor to me," Gold said.
It was also Tracy who steered DownBeat into a more controversial
survival strategy—a conscious embrace of more pop coverage. Covers from the
'50s include some unexpected faces: Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Jerry Lewis,
Lawrence Welk, Liberace and Bill Haley. Because covers could boost circulation,
Tracy rarely led with a newcomer. Miles Davis,
Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, even Charlie
Parker all had to wait until the '60s to land on the cover. Race was also a
sensitive issue for any magazine in the pre-Civil Rights '50s, even one
covering jazz.
Then there was Elvis Presley. "One day Jack brought me an
LP," Gold recalled, "and said, 'What do you think of this guy?' It
was Elvis. Jack realized early that DownBeat couldn't avoid him. He was
establishing a new kind of mainstream and we had to acknowledge it."
But Tracy never burned
DownBeat's traditional bridges. Benny Goodman appeared on nine Tracy-era
covers; Frank Sinatra, seven; and Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck and Duke
Ellington, six each.
Perhaps the most important page that DownBeat turned during the Tracy era was its initiative
into jazz education. When Tracy was unable to attend a festival of high school
bands in 1956, he passed the invitation to the magazine's publisher, Chuck
Suber, who returned convinced that schools represented a growth frontier in
which DownBeat could play a major role. From that point forward Tracy and Suber
became leaders in the growing student band movement. The magazine helped rally
advertisers to sponsor festivals and musicians to become clinicians. On Oct. 3, 1957, DownBeat published its first annual school
band issue.
That turned out to be Tracy's last major act at
DownBeat. In March 1958, he left to join Mercury Records, where his many
DownBeat contacts proved invaluable. One was Buddy Rich, whom he had met in
1950 and brought to Mercury for the famous teaming with Max Roach, Rich Versus
Roach. In 1960 he moved to the Chess-Checker-Argo group, where he concentrated
on the Argo jazz line. Among the artists he produced were Jamal, Golson, Ramsey
Lewis, Art Farmer and James Moody. He also recorded Kirk's first important work
for Argo, then brought him to Mercury when it merged with Dutch Phillips in
1961. He continued with the company and helped form another jazz subsidiary,
Limelight Records, in 1965. In 1963 Tracy co-authored (with
Leonard Feather) an anecdotal memoir, Laughter From The Hip.
As contributors for DownBeat, we will always be grateful that Tracy made the magazine what
it is today.
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