The Ultimate Organic Tenor Groove Experience [From the Archives]

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

We put this feature together essentially to pay homage to the venerable tradition of the jam session.

As defined by Gunther Schuller in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, the jam session is:

“An informal gathering of jazz musicians playing for their own pleasure. Jam sessions originated as spontaneous diversions when musicians were free from the constraints of professional engagements; they also served the function of training young players in a musical tradition that was not formally taught and accepted in music schools and academic institutions until the 1960s.

In the late 1930s jam sessions came to be organized by entrepreneurs for audiences; this under­mined their original purpose, and by the 1950s true jam ses­sions were becoming increasingly rare.

However, in the 1970s and 1980s the concept of "sessions" has made a comeback among younger jazz musicians, especially those trained in con­servatories. An "open" session is one in which anyone who is more or less competent may take part. The so-called loft scene of the late 1970s in New York may also be seen as a quasi-commercial offshoot of the jam session. (B. Cameron: "Soci­ological Notes on the Jam Session," Social Forces, xxxiii (1954), 177) - GUNTHER SCHULLER “

And Paul F. Berliner, in his wonderfully informative, Thinking in Jazz, The Infinite Art of Improvisation, offers these observations about the jam session:

“As essential to students as technical information and counsel is the understanding of Jazz acquired directly through performance. In part they gain experience by participating in one of the most venerable of the community's insti­tutions, the jam session. At these informal musical get-togethers, improvisers are free of the constraints that commercial engagements place upon repertory, length of performance, and the freedom to take artistic risks. Ronald Shannon Jackson's grade school band leader allowed students to conduct daily lunch-hour jam sessions in the band room. "During those years, I never saw the inside of the school's official lunch room."

Ultimately, sessions bring together artists from different bands to play with a diverse cross section of the jazz community. "New Yorkers had a way of learning from each other just as we did in Detroit," Tommy Flanagan says. "From what I heard from Arthur Taylor, Jackie McLean, and Sonny Rollins, they all used to learn from just jamming together with Bud Powell and Monk and Bird. Even though Bird wasn't a New Yorker, he lived here a long time and got an awful lot from it."

Some sessions arise spontaneously when musicians informally drop in on one another and perform together at professional practice studios. Improvisers also arrange invitational practice sessions at one another's homes. Extended events at private house parties in Seattle "lasted a few days at a time," Patti Brown remembers, and they held such popularity that club owners temporarily closed their own establishments to avoid competing for the same audience. Guests at the parties "cooked food and ate, [then] sat down and played," Brown continues. Musicians "could really develop there. Sometimes they would really get a thing going, and they would keep on exploring an idea. You would go home and come back later, and it was still going on.... [Improvisers] some­times played a single tune for hours." Other sessions were similarly very re­laxed: "Everybody was in the process of learning. Some guys were better than others, but it was always swinging, and the guys went on and on playing. We played maybe one number for an hour, but nobody ever got bored with it.”

Jazz organizations such as the Bebop Society in Indianapolis and the New Music Society at the World Stage in Detroit, where Kenny Burrell served as president and concert manager, promoted more formally organized sessions. Others took place in nightclubs, especially during weekend afternoons or in the early hours of the morning after the clientele had gone. In Los Angeles, according to Art Farmer, opportunities abounded for young people. "During the day you would go to somebody's house and play. At night there were after-hours clubs where they would hire maybe one horn and a rhythm section, and then anybody who wanted to play was free to come up and play. Then these clubs would have a Sunday matinee session. We used to just walk the streets at night and go from one place to another."

Musicians distinguish some sessions in terms of the skills of participants. The New Music Society would have a group "the caliber of Elvin Jones, Barry Harris, Tommy Flanagan, and Kenny Burrell," and then they would have "the next crew of guys" like Lonnie Hillyer and his schoolmates, who rehearsed a couple of weeks in advance to prepare for their own session. The youngsters "wouldn't interfere" with those involving "the guys of high caliber." At times, the arrival of musicians from out of town intensified session activities—artists like Hampton Hawes and John Coltrane "who'd be working in some band and had that night off. It was a hell of a playing atmosphere going on there.”

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Likewise in Chicago, musicians knew that the session "at a certain club down the corner was for the very heavy cats and would not dare to participate until they knew that they were ready," Rufus Reid recalls. As a matter of re­spect, "you didn't even think about playing unless you knew that you could cut the mustard. You didn't even take your horn out of your case unless you knew the repertoire." At the same time, naive learners did periodically perform with artists who were a league apart from them. David Baker used to go to sessions including Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray "when they came to Indianapolis." He adds with amusement, "I didn't have the sense not to play with them."

Although initially performing at sessions in their hometowns, musicians from different parts of the country eventually participate in an extensive net­work of events in New York City, "mixing in with players from everywhere." In the late forties and fifties, they made their way each day through a variety of apartments, lofts, and nightclubs, where they sampled performances by im­promptu groups and joined them as guests during particular pieces, a practice known as sitting in. In addition to having pedagogical value, the sessions served as essential showcases. As Kenny Barron points out, "That's how your name got around." Count Basie's club in particular "was like a meeting ground" during Monday evening sessions, as was the renowned club Birdland, although the latter was difficult "to break into without knowing somebody.”  There were also well-documented sessions at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Up­town House in Harlem.

Tommy Turrentine's fondest memories of the mid-forties concern Small's Paradise Club "in Harlem.... Everybody used to come there." Spanning four musical generations, the artists included trumpeters Red Allen, Hot Lips Page, Idres Sulieman, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Clifford Brown; saxophon­ists Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, and Stan Getz; pianists Bud Powell, Walter Bishop Jr., Walter Davis, and Mal Waldron. The house band was led by Big Nick Nicholas, who knew "every tune that's ever been written." Nicholas was, in fact, an important teacher of the community for his role in challenging players to expand their repertories by constantly choosing unfamil­iar compositions on the bandstand. Within the context of such a rich and varied repertory, the improvised interplay, night after night, served as inspiring learning sessions for Turrentine and his friends. "That was Paradise University. You would hear so much good music each night that, when you went to lay down, your head would be swimming!"

Rivalry among the participants added spark to an already charged atmo­sphere. "During that time, there was somewhat of a mutual respect among the musicians, and they had cutting sessions. They would say, “I am going to blow so and so out.' It wasn't with malice. It was no put-down; it was just friendly competition." Turrentine goes on to describe actual events. "Maybe two tenor players would get up; maybe there would be about seven horn players on the bandstand. Everybody had the sense to know that saxophones was going to hang up there tonight — they was going to be blowing at each other — so we all got off the bandstand and let them have it. Maybe the next night, two trumpet players would be getting up there at each other; then there would be drummers. I have seen it many times. It was healthy really, just keeping everybody on their toes."

Interaction with an increasing number of musicians in these settings pro­vided aspiring artists with stimulus for their own growth as improvisers. Don Sickler speculates that one renowned trumpeter "became so great" because he was aware of the competition around him: "Booker Little was born just a few months before him, and Lee Morgan was just a little younger. He really had to work hard to keep up with that level of competition."

Of course, any instrument was generally welcomed in a jam session, but somehow, to my ears, at least, the tradition of the jam session is best exemplified by the sound of “battling” or “dueling” tenor saxophones.

Over the years, there have been many such pairings including Lester Young and Herschel Evans; Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster; Illinois Jacquet and “Flip” Phillips; Don Byas and Buddy Tate; Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray; Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt; Al Cohn and Zoot Sims; Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott; Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Johnny Griffin; Frank Foster and Frank Wess; Pete Christlieb and Warne Marsh.

The title of this piece gets its name from two Dutch tenor saxophonists – Simon Rigter and Sjoerd Dijkhuizen – who along with guitarist Martijn van Iterson, organist Carlo de Wijs and drummer Joost Patocka – revived the jam session tradition with their appearance on August 18, 2006 at the Pure Jazzfest which was held at De Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague, The Netherlands.

For their performance at the Pure Jazzfest, the group adopted the name -  The Ultimate Organic Tenor Groove Experience – and I have absolutely no idea what the “organic” in the title is in reference to – sign of the times, maybe?.

By way of background, Simon and Sjoerd enjoy a major presence on the Dutch Jazz scene as both perform with The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw and with the Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra. Sjoerd can also be heard regularly as a member of drummer Eric Ineke’s JazzXpress.

Martijn van Iterson has his own quartet and often wroks with The Metropole Orchestra in Amsterdam.  Carlo has also performed with The Metropole Orchestra, Lucas van Merwijk’s Cubop City Big Band and alto saxophonist Benjamin Herman’s group to which drummer Joost Patocka also belongs.

Both in their late thirties, Sjoerd Dijkhuizen and Simon Rigter formed their own quintet as an outgrowth from their appearance together with the late Dutch pianist Cees Slinger on his "Two Tenor Case" recording. In addition to their work in The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw,” they are also a part of a group called "The Reeds,” a sax ensemble and rhythm section.

As  far as I can determine, Simon and Sjoerd in combination with Carlo, Martijn and Joost made only one public appearance together and that was at the 2006 Pure Jazzfest.

You can view images of all the members of The Ultimate Organic Tenor Groove Experience in the following video montage which is set to the group’s performance of Dexter Gordon’s Sticky Wicket.

As we’ve noted before, straight-ahead Jazz is alive and well – in Holland!

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Jazz: Body and Soul - The Photography of Bob Willoughby with a Foreword by Dave Brubeck

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

The West Coast in the 1950s: a time of youth, exuberance and change. Nowhere was this more evident than in the music emanating from the California jazz scene.

We have been fortunate to have many great photographers such as William Claxton, Ray Avery and Bob Willoughby chronicling Jazz on the West Coast at many of the concert halls and clubs where the music was performed from 1945-1960..

BOB WILLOUGHBY is best known as the master chronicler of Hollywood in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. He shot for all the major studios and his work was carried extensively in magazines such as Look, Life and Harper's Bazaar. Willoughby’s iconic images continue to be avidly collected and are included in museums the world over, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Gallery.

Before he became known as the great chronicler of Hollywood stars, photographer Bob Willoughby had produced an astonishing series on these pivotal jazz musicians. Working at night in his garage darkroom to avoid light leaks, the radio blasting, Willoughby heard all the greats from that golden era of jazz. If he heard a live broadcast from a local venue, he'd drop everything and rush down there with his cameras to shoot. Willoughby had a huge appreciation of jazz, both in its technical aspects and its ability to raise the roof in performance. He had a masterful feel for the character of the artists, and was able to convey it even in the most difficult lighting conditions of recording studios and stage.

Many of Bob’s images have been collected in Jazz: Body & Soul - Bob Willoughby Photographs and Recollections.

In Jazz: Body and Soul you'll find unrivaled images of the most famous artists of the time — Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Billie Holiday — and never-before published photographs of inspired performances and backstage jitters. Accompanied by Willoughby's intimate recollections, this is a unique first-hand view of what it was like to be there, as part of what Dave Brubeck's son Darius proclaimed "the beginning of the beyond."

Fittingly, pianist Dave Brubeck wrote the following Foreword to this compilation.

“San Francisco, 1950s. I think of this period as the most exciting period in my life. It was a time of youth, exuberance, hope, and change. The arts reflected the movements shaping a post-war society. Life in San Francisco was vibrant. Radio stations still played live music. My first radio broadcasts reached audiences throughout the Western states, as far as Honolulu, out into the Pacific, and into a garage photo lab where a very young Bob Willoughby listened to the new sounds.

Improvisation was the operative word then, spilling over (literally) on to the artists' canvases, and poets' and authors' pages, and stand-up  comics'   routines.  San   Francisco nightclubs spawned satirical humorists Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce; Sunday afternoon sessions of Jazz & Poetry with the two Kenneths, Patchen and Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg and others; while a whole generation went On the Road with Jack Kerouac. Improvisation, along with something Paul Desmond called ESP, was key to the music that Paul and   created together. Someone later dubbed it "cool" (which it was not) and gave the new movement in jazz a geographic designation, West Coast (which was also misleading, as a similar movement was afoot in New York). Whatever it was called, the music had an immediacy that spoke to the young audiences of that period.

By 1951 the trio that had broadcast on NBC had become a quartet with the addition of Paul Desmond on alto saxophone. We were making our first West Coast appearances away from home ground, San Francisco, when we met Bob Willoughby. It was a big deal. We got into our cars (mine was a Kaiser Vagabond) and drove to Los Angeles to play at a club called The Haig, a converted bungalow situated across the street from the Ambassador Hotel. Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker and I had made a trade. They would play at the Black Hawk, our San Francisco headquarters, while we took over their regular spot at The Haig. During that initial engagement Bob Willoughby took some spectacular photos of our group. When Fantasy Records was about to release our first recording with Paul Desmond, I recommended that Sol and Max Weiss contact Bob to obtain those pictures. The dramatic black and white photograph that became the cover of the first Quartet LP may have also been the first of such covers that subsequently became almost de rigueur in communicating that "cool jazz" was inside the record sleeve.

Fantasy Records, Bob Willoughby and the Dave Brubeck Quartet were all struggling at this time to launch fledgling careers. I understand that Sol and Max made a deal to pay Bob "in kind." Instead of the new jazz records he expected, he was given a stash of Chinese Opera recordings, the lucrative side of Fantasy's business at that time. Later, of course, as our careers advanced, and Bob became quite famous for his stills in the movie industry, he photographed the Quartet for Columbia Records and I trust he received just compensation.

Paul and I always felt at ease with Bob behind the camera. He not only had a good eye, he had a keen ear, and seemed to know when to snap at an inspired moment. Thank you, Bob, for your superb document of a wonderful period in jazz; a golden era that my son, Darius, a jazz educator, writing of the fifties, described as "the beginning of the beyond."

"What Ever Happened to Ronnie Free?"

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

In the field of mathematics, chaos theory is the study of nonlinear dynamics in which seemingly random events are actually predictable from simple, deterministic equations.

If chaos theory could have been applied to the Jazz scene in post World War II New York City, then many seemingly random but predictable events would have equated to Dizzy Gillespie’s aptly stated fact: “A lot of people died for this music.”

Some “died” in other ways, too - they just disappeared.

The root cause for this predictable unpredictability was the widespread use of hard drugs among Jazz musicians. Amphetamines, antidepressants, cocaine, heroin [the latter two in combination formed the deadly “Speedballs” that were so virulently favored by Jazz musicians because “you could play all night” when you were on them] wreaked havoc on the lives of many Jazz musicians.

Many died, some went insane, and some vanished in the seemingly chaotic NYC Jazz world of the 1940s and 1950s.

Drummer Ronnie Free was among the latter.

The following story of what happened to Ronnie Free is excerpted from Sam Stephenson’s The Jazz Loft Project: PHOTOGRAPHS AND TAPES OF W.EUGENE SMITH FROM 821 SIXTH AVENUE 1957-1965.

By way of background, in 1957, W. Eugene Smith, a thirty-eight-year-old magazine photographer, walked out of his comfortable settled world — his longtime well-paying job at Life Magazine and the home he shared with his wife and four children in Croton-on-Hudson, New York — to move into a dilapidated, five-story loft building at 821 Sixth Avenue (between Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth streets) in New York City's wholesale flower district. Smith was trying to complete the most ambitious project of his life, a massive photo-essay on the city of Pittsburgh.

821 Sixth Avenue was a late-night haunt of musicians, including some of the biggest names in jazz — Charles Mingus, Zoot Sims, Bill Evans, and Thelonious Monk among them — and countless fascinating, underground characters. As his ambitions broke down for his quixotic Pittsburgh opus, Smith found solace in the chaotic, somnambulistic world of the loft and its artists. He turned his documentary impulses away from Pittsburgh and toward his offbeat new surroundings.

From 1957 to 1965, Smith exposed 1,447 rolls of film at his loft, making roughly 40,000 pictures, the largest body of work in his career, photographing the nocturnal jazz scene as well as life on the streets of the flower district, as seen from his fourth-floor window. He wired the building like a surreptitious recording studio and made 1,740 reels (4,000 hours) of stereo and mono audiotapes, capturing more than 300 musicians, among them Roy Haynes, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Roland Kirk, Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry, and Paul Bley He recorded, as well, legends such as pianists Eddie Costa and Sonny Clark, drummers Ronnie Free and Edgar Bateman, saxophonist Lin Halliday, bassist Henry Grimes, and multi-instrumentalist Eddie Listengart.

Also dropping in on the nighttime scene were the likes of Doris Duke, Norman Mailer, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Salvador Dali, as well as pimps, prostitutes, drug addicts, thieves, photography students, local cops, building inspectors, marijuana dealers, and others.

Sam Stephenson discovered Smith's jazz loft photographs and tapes eleven years ago and has spent the last seven years cataloging, archiving, selecting, and editing Smith's materials for this book, as well as writing its introduction and the text interwoven throughout.

W. Eugene Smith's Jazz Loft Project has been legendary in the worlds of art, photography, and music for more than forty years, but until the publication of The Jazz Loft Project, no one had seen Smith's extraordinary photographs or read any of the firsthand accounts of those who were there and lived to tell the tale(s)....”

What Happened to Ronnie Free?

"I was thrilled to have Ronnie working with me in my trio at the Hickory House in 1959 or 1960," says the pianist and radio-show host Marian McPartland, who studied with Hall Overton at 821 Sixth Avenue. "He was considered the great young hope among drummers on the scene, a really wonderful player. He had a different style, more swinging, very subtle. Free is a good name for him. He didn't play bombastic solos like many drummers did. Ronnie was one of the best I ever saw. Then one night he just disappeared. We had a gig and he didn't show up. Nobody saw him after that. Thirty or thirty-five years later, in the early 19905,1 was walking down the street in Columbia, South Carolina, and I couldn't believe my eyes, but Ronnie Free was walking right toward me, looking exactly the same. My first words to him were, 'What happened to you that night you didn't show up for the gig?' '

The short answer is that earlier that day Free was committed to the psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital by police. They found him wandering through the streets erratically, virtually daring cars to run him over.

The longer answer could be a movie or novel. He got out of Bellevue in mid-1960, took a train back to his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, kicked a dangerous drug habit, and never returned to New York. He had somebody ship his drums to him from 821 Sixth Avenue, where he'd lived in Eugene Smith's fourth-floor loft space for two years. He pawned his drums and didn't play music for more than twenty years. He ended up in San Diego driving a cab for a decade. "It's astonishing that he could just stop playing like that," said the late bassist Sonny Dallas. "I mean, we are talking about a phenomenal musician here." But he saved his life.

Today, Free is seventy-three years old and lives in Hot Springs, Virginia. For fourteen years he has been playing waltzes and slow dance numbers at The Homestead, a resort founded in 1766 around seven natural springs deep in the Allegheny Mountains near the West Virginia border. It is a comfortable gig in a beautiful setting—the house musicians live in quarters provided by the resort — but it is a long way from the hot New York scene of the late 1950s, where Free was sought after by many prime bandleaders. Yet, Free is content. He has no regrets, no bitterness. He rarely mentions his former reputation,and many of his current friends are unaware that Free's drumming is credited with driving some of the greatest sessions at 821 Sixth Avenue. They don't even know he used to play in New York at all. Free doesn't own copies of the records on which he played. In his room the only clue to his jazz past is a small magazine picture of Miles Davis taped to his wall. Free seems genuinely surprised and embarrassed when told of the fond memories other musicians have of his playing fifty years ago. He says he is surprised they remember his name at all.

Despite a twenty-year age gap, Free and Eugene Smith were united by lamentable childhoods—Smith's father committed suicide; Free's father abused him physically and emotionally—and mutual desperation. Both dropped out of school as teens (Smith after his freshman year at Notre Dame, Free from high school) to be full-time professionals. Free was the drummer for a strip show in a traveling circus, the Royal American Shows, before finding his way to Staten Island and eventually to 821 Sixth Avenue. Smith and Free were both down and out when they met in the loft, battling severe substance addictions. Free gave Smith access to his drugstore connection, and Smith gave Free a place to stay. "Gene and I swapped goodies," Free says. "My favorite amphetamine was a little white pill called Desoxyn, which I shared with Gene. Gene gave me what he called 'psychic energizers' [given to Smith as antidepressants by the famous psychiatrist Nathan Kline].

In those days if I found a pill on the street I'd pop it in my mouth without even knowing what it was. At one point I was taking about a hundred amphetamines a day. I'm lucky to be alive. I was a neurotic, screwed-up mess. I was virtually homeless. The only things I owned were my drums and the clothes on my back. Gene was generous enough to let me stay. And he was in a similar situation as me, trying to get everything back in order."

The pianist Dave Frishberg found his way to 821 Sixth Avenue soon after moving to New York from Minneapolis, against the wishes of his parents, who wanted their son to be a doctor or a lawyer—to live the straight life. He credits playing with Free in the loft as helping affirm his decision to be a professional musician. "Ronnie had a certain raw, instinctive, profound musicianship that was overwhelming and inspiring," says Frishberg. "There was one night in particular when we played deep into the night. Ronnie and I achieved this remarkable rapport for several hours. It was one of the most nourishing musical experiences of my life. I went home feeling good about being a musician, glad to be playing with big leaguers."

On the afternoon of August in 1958, Ronnie Free received word that musicians were to congregate the next morning in front of a brownstone on 126th Street in Harlem for a historic group portrait. The photograph was to be published in an upcoming Esquire magazine issue devoted to jazz. On August 12 Free rolled out of bed—Smith's reclining chair—and headed up to 106th Street, where he met his friend and occasional bandmate pianist Mose Allison. The two men walked up to the designated address, but when they arrived the photographer Art Kane had already snapped the now famous shot of fifty-seven assembled musicians on the steps and sidewalk. The photograph included such icons as Thelonious Monk, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Pee Wee Russell, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan, and Sonny Rollins. Filmmaker Jean Bach made an acclaimed documentary about the photograph in 1994, A Great Day in Harlem and posters of the image sell around the world.

As the musicians dispersed on that "great day," Free and Allison mingled on the sidewalk. Dizzy Gillespie took their picture alongside Lester Young, Mary Lou Williams, Charlie Rouse, and Oscar Pettiford. For Allison, who in five decades has recorded a career that's made him a legend, Gillespie's obscure snapshot is a souvenir. For Free the picture is a tangible reminder that he was once a rising star in the jazz world.

But better evidence is found on Smith's tapes. Free's drum work in the loft is documented on more than one hundred reels — at least two hundred hours of recordings — playing with the likes of Gerry Mulligan, Paul Bley, Freddie Redd, Gil Coggins, Sonny Clark, Warne Marsh, Henry Grimes, Zoot Sims, Eddie Costa, Hall Overton, Pepper Adams, and dozens more, including obscure figures such as Freddy Greenwell and Lin Halliday Particularly memorable is one night in 1960 when Free shared the drum set with Roy Haynes.

"These your drums, Ronnie?" Haynes asked.

"Yeah, man. Here are some sticks."

Two Marks Who Are Hip, Slick and Cool

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

"If Mark Murphy is the reigning king of vocal hipsterism, then Mark Winkler ranks directly behind Kurt Elling among heirs apparent As a lyricist, he is as consummate a traveler in the world of Dave Frishberg drollness as he is in the land of Cole Porter urbanity."

~ Christopher Loudon, JazzTimes

I am a big fan of vocal Jazz artists such as Bobby Troup, Bob Dorough, Dave Frishberg, Blossom Dearie and Mose Allison who can write hip, slick and cool Jazz melodies and create clever lyrics to sing them with.

The members of this club usually play a little piano or, at least, know their way around one, but their real instrument is their voice which they use to embellish and enhance lyrics much the same way a Jazz instrumentalist does.

Many of them achieve the ultimate in Jazz expression - an almost instantly recognizable sound. A few notes and/or a few bars and you know it's them.

Words register in the mind differently than sounds and a clever wordsmith can leave me with lyrics that I can memorize and repeat a little more easily than an instrumental solo by Bird, Diz or Bud [although it is easier with those that play fewer notes such as Bix and Miles, or Prez and Ben Webster, for example].

These are Jazz singers per se as distinct from song stylists such as Billie, Ella, Sassy although categorization can be a dangerous thing so I think I’ll stop here because no one ever used their voice to scat sing better than Ella or Sassy. I mean when they get it going, you can hear the chord progressions as they actually improvise on the changes - talk about Jazz singing!

Although both Mark Winkler and Mark Christian have each been around a while, their music was relatively knew to me. Thanks to Holly Cooper at Mouthpiece Music Publicity and Marketing, the editorial offices at JazzProfiles received copies of their latest CD’s and we thought we’d share the information that Holly’s team sent along as media releases as it contains a great deal of interesting background about the artists and the recordings.

Following each piece is an audio file that gives you the opportunity to sample the music as well as order information.

It’s nice to know that the Two Marks, Winkler and Christian, respectively, are around to carry on this aspect of the Jazz tradition and to make their own “hip, slick and cool” contributions to it.

Mark Winkler, Jazz and Other Four Letter Words [Cafe Pacific Records CPCD 45125]

“Featuring

Mark Winkler vocals; Cheryl Bentyne vocals (2,7);

Jamieson Trotter piano; Rich Eames piano (9,11);

John Clayton bass (2,4,7,10,11); Dan Lutz bass;

Jeff Hamilton drums (2,4,7,10,11); Mike Shapiro drums;

Pat Kelly guitar; Bob Sheppard saxophone (4,7);

Bob McChesney trombone; Walt Fowler (trumpet);

Kirsten Edkins saxophone (6,8)

Jazz and Other Four Letter Words is the witty, heartfelt, and swinging new release from Los Angeles jazz vocalist and lyricist Mark Winkler. The CD features two duets with Manhattan Transfer's Cheryl Bentyne and an eclectic mix of standards, not-so-standard tunes, and original songs by Winkler, a 2015 Downbeat Critics Poll "Rising Star.”

Backed by John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton, and some of the finest musicians on the West Coast, Jazz and Other Four Letter Words is Mark Winkler's 14th CD as a leader and showcases Winkler at the top of his game, both as a lyricist and vocalist.

JAZZ AND OTHER FOUR LETTER WORDS is the newest release from Los Angeles jazz vocalist and lyricist Mark Winkler. The project features an eclectic mix of standards, not-so-standard tunes, and original songs by Winkler, a 2015 Downbeat Critics Poll "Rising Star," backed by John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton, and some of the finest musicians on the West Coast.

JAZZ AND OTHER FOUR LETTER WORDS follows on the success of Winkler's last two CDs, The Laura Nyro Project and West Coast Cool, both of which spent many months in JazzWeek's top 25 and received stellar reviews. West Coast Cool featured Winkler and Cheryl Bentyne, the dynamic vocalist who is well known for her long association with the Manhattan Transfer. Bentyne makes an appearance on this project, singing duets with Winkler on two tunes -- the funny and swinging Dave Frishberg /Bob Dorough song "I'm Hip" and the Rodgers & Hart evergreen "I Wish I Were In Love Again." The easy rapport that has grown from their five year collaboration lends these numbers a fresh, new buoyancy. As Mark says, "I love working with Cheryl. She's a great singer and a real pro. She really knows how to get into a lyric. And she's a lot of fun to work with because her bubbly personality reminds me of my Aunt Shirley."

Winkler has had over 200 of his songs recorded and/or sung by such artists as Dianne Reeves, Randy Crawford, Liza Minnelli, Bob Dorough, Jackie Ryan, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Lea DeLaria and Claire Martin. His writing on this project ranges from deeply poignant, like the lovely "I Chose The Moon," which he penned for his partner of 34 years, to the tongue-in-cheek "Your Cat Plays Piano," which is a witty send-up of new age hipsterism based on a relationship Winkler had with a wild child a long time ago. Clearly, Mark Winkler likes to sing about having a good time. He wrote the opening track "My Idea of a Good Time" with music by Greg Gordon Smith, and includes a raucous version of Paul Simon's "Have a Good Time."

Besides a rich, melodic baritone voice, the essence of Winkler's singing is his sure sense of swing. It's hard not to tap your feet listening to "Stay Hip," with lyrics by Winkler and co-written, arranged and accompanied by pianist Rich Eames, or the title track, "Jazz and Other Four Letter Words," which is both an homage to and lament for the “bad rap” Jazz has recently been subjected to, with Jamieson Taylor and Mark Winkler sharing credit for both music and lyrics.

Trotter, who plays piano and wrote 10 of the arrangements for this project, is an in-demand pianist, arranger, and producer who tours with Sergio Mendez and has also performed extensively for TV and films. Horn arrangements were written by Jacob Mann, a rising star in the Los Angeles music scene. These gentlemen provide a fresh, new take on whatever song they take a pen to.

The other musicians backing Winkler are a Who's Who of Southern California musical talent, including jazz luminaries John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton, Bob Sheppard, Walt Fowler, Bob McChesney, Larry Koonse, Dan Lutz, Mike Shapiro, Pat Kelly, and up and coming tenor player, Kirsten Edkins. This is also Winkler's fourth CD produced by his longtime friend Barbara Brighton, the respected L.A. producer known for her work producing CDs for vocalists Julie Kelly and Judy Wexler, and her involvement with programs and events in the local jazz community.

Winkler is a platinum award winning singer/lyricist as well as a producer and educator. His lyrics are featured on four songs on the new David Benoit/Jane Monheit CD, 2 In Love which debuted at #6 on The Billboard Jazz chart and just received a four star rating from All Music Guide. As a writer, Winkler is very influenced by the craft and technique of the Great American Songbook lyricists, but his own lyrics speak to today's times and sensibilities.

Winkler is also an educator whose course ''Crafting Great Lyrics: A Songwriters Workshop" is popular at UCLA Extension and at the Los Angeles School of Songwriting.

A sought-after producer in his own right, Winkler recently produced Joanne Tatham's CD "Out of my Dreams," which reached number 25 on the Jazz charts this year, and he is preparing to go in the studio producing new projects for Lauren White and Miki Purnell.

A native of Southern California, Winkler grew up in a musical family. His mother and aunt were both singers who toured around the country. Mark credits his mother with teaching him about phrasing and singing in a natural, conversational style.

JAZZ AND OTHER FOUR LETTER WORDS is a witty, heartfelt, and swinging outing by a gifted performer and writer and backed by a crew of stellar musicians. Both the Jazz community and Winkler's large following of dedicated fans are sure to find a lot to admire with this new release.”

Available on Amazon, iTunes, and CDBaby.

Webs:

www.markwinklermusic.com

www.facebook.com/markwinkler

@markwinkler

You can sample tracks from Jazz and Other Four Letter Words on Soundcloud:

Mark Christian Miller, Crazy Moon [Sliding Door Jazz Productions]

“Crazy Moon is the new release from Los Angeles jazz vocalist Mark Christian Miller, his first project in 15 years. Miller, who performs regularly around Southern California, is known for his warm voice and solid sense of swing. On this project, he and arrangers Josh Nelson and Jamieson Trotter have taken mostly lesser-known standards and updated them with modern, edgy arrangements. Miller is one of those rare singers who can capture the poignancy of a lyric while swinging effortlessly.”

Backed by some of the finest young virtuosos and veteran jazz musicians in Southern California, Crazy Moon is an estimable outing for Miller who deserves the attention of a wide audience.

Featuring

Mark Christian Miller vocals

Josh Nelson piano

Dave Robaire bass

Sammy Miller drums

Larry Koonse guitar

Ron Stout trumpet

Billy Hulting percussion

Bob Sheppard bass clarinet

Arrangements by

Josh Nelson (4, 6, 8, 10,11)

Josh Nelson & Mark Christian Miller (3, 5)

Jamieson Trotter (1, 2, 7, 9)

CRAZY MOON is the newest project from jazz vocalist Mark Christian Miller. A music business veteran, Miller has been performing regularly in Southern California for over 20 years and has recorded with L.A. legends. Now, with the release of CRAZY MOON, Miller steps out front as a leader, accompanied by some of the most in-demand musicians on the West Coast.

Miller has a rich voice full of nuance and shadings. Combined with his effortless talent for melodic invention, he casts a new light on vintage under-the-radar standards with updated, modern arrangements by rising jazz stars, Josh Nelson and Jamieson Trotter.

Leaders in their own right, Nelson and Trotter are among the most innovative younger pianists, accompanists, composers and arrangers on the scene. From the first bars of the introduction to the opening track, "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams," you can hear how Trotter has updated this 1930s swinger by wrapping it in an arrangement reminiscent of a movie dream sequence. Combined with Nelson's high energy piano playing and Miller's solid sense of swing and crystal clear diction, it's as fresh and new today as if it were composed only recently. Or listen to Nelson's arrangement of "Strange." Popular in the 1950's with recordings by Nat King Cole, Woody Herman and Chico Hamilton, Nelson has given it a modern groove accentuated by bass clarinet and percussion that highlights Miller's warm timbre and darker hues.

Miller is an effortless storyteller. He takes liberties with time, phrasing, and melody, but he never needs extraneous vocal ornamentation to communicate a lyric. Adept at a wide range of emotional tones, Miller can swing like a 1930's big band singer in tunes like "Cheek to Cheek," and can also convey a deep sense of longing in ballads like "April Fooled Me" and "Second Chance."

The core trio includes pianist Josh Nelson, bassist Dave Robaire, and drummer Sammy Miller, all younger players with a growing fan base. The rest of the band are seasoned veterans, including Larry Koonse on guitar, Ron Stout on trumpet, Bob Sheppard on bass clarinet, and Grammy winner Billy Hulting on percussion.

Miller is a native of Iowa. He grew up on a 350-acre farm where his family raised corn, soybeans and cattle. His first musical training was from his mother, who taught piano. More interested in music than in farming, Miller joined the school band where he played the baritone horn. After graduation, he moved to San Francisco and joined the famed Lamplighters, a light opera company specializing in Gilbert and Sullivan, where he had featured roles. He moved to Los Angeles in 1979 to study at the highly competitive Los Angeles Civic Light Opera's Musical Theater Workshop. Miller soon began working in many small theater productions around Los Angeles. He did several seasons of summer stock and understudied the lead in a tour of Jesus Christ Superstar. In the early 90's, he won a full scholarship from Herb Alpert's brother, David, and attended Los Angeles City College as a full time music major. At that time he came to the attention of the late Teri Merrill-Aarons, founder of the Los Angeles Jazz Society, who started booking him into top local venues paired with the finest pianists in town. He quickly gained a following and stellar reviews. During this time he studied jazz piano with two highly respected artists, Joyce Collins and Jane Getz.

Also during this time, he met Page Cavanaugh, the veteran pianist-singer whose trio was popular in the late 1940s and '50s and who became one of music's most enduring jazz artists. The two became good friends and their friendship was a source of deep musical inspiration for Miller. "Page turned me on to many obscure songs that I never would have heard otherwise. But it was really his approach to tunes that taught me so much. He took care of the music." The two eventually recorded several tracks for Miller's debut CD Dreamer With a Penny that also featured Dave Tull on drums and Phil Mallory on bass. Cavanaugh died in 2008, and Miller was honored by being asked to perform at his memorial, where he shared the stage with Michael Feinstein.

Miller began working behind the scenes as a music promoter and booked two successful jazz series in upscale Los Angeles restaurants. He joined Corniche Entertainment as an artist manager and booker, and has presented entertainment for events in the most prestigious festivals, resorts and hotels in Southern California, launched a highly successful music series, and served as Associate Producer for four music festivals at the John Anson Ford Amphitheater. While this has given him a very complete approach to the music business, he found himself performing less -- something was missing from his life. On a trip to New York City, Miller ran into noted writer James Gavin, who encouraged him to get back into singing, and made an introduction to Jim Caruso. Miller performed that very night at Caruso's weekly "Cast Party" at Birdland. It was a seminal moment in his life. He felt completely reinvigorated, and when he returned to Los Angeles he approached the gifted pianist Josh Nelson and began working on this project.

With the release of CRAZY MOON, Mark Christian Miller takes the lessons he's learned and truly takes care of the music, adding his own distinctive voice and modern take to an out-of-the-box song selection.”

Available at CDBaby, Amazon and iTunes.

You can sample the track "Tomorrow Is My Turn" on Soundcloud: