Matt Dennis - "'Scuse Me While I Disappear" - by Gene Lees

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

"Matt Dennis had an ability to write the most beautiful and sophisticated melodies, and yet they were never hard to sing. He was also a gentle, lovely man."

- Julius LaRosa

There are those few musicians who also happen to be singers who also happen to write the songs they [and others] sing, and do all three magnificently well. They are a select group and they are very special, indeed.

One such musician–singer-songwriter was Matt Dennis and he was so exceptional that the editors of JazzProfiles had to turn to the Gene Lees  for this treatment on Matt simply because there is none better.

Gene’s profile on Matt appeared in the May 2002 of his Jazzletter. [Vol. 21 No. 5]

© -Gene Lees, copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with permission.

'Scuse Me While I Disappear

“David Raksin, whose song with Johnny Mercer's lyrics, Laura, is one of the great classics, said, I write all kinds of music, including concert music. I think that our country's greatest musical gift to the world is not concert music, and not jazz ‑ and I love jazz. Our greatest contribution is the American popular song." David was talking about what is now seen as a golden era, roughly from 1920 to the end of the 1950s. He said, "It is the most incredible flowering ever of that kind of music."

One of the greatest practitioners of the songwriter's art in that time was Matt Dennis, whom we had the misfortune to lose recently. The body of his work was not large, compared with that of, say, Cole Porter or Jerome Kern, in part because he was not a creature of the Broadway musical theater or part of that group, like Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer, who wrote mostly for films. But what he did write is unfailingly exquisite: Let's Get Away It All, Will You Still Be Mine, Everything Happens to Me, Violets for Your Furs, The Night We Called It a Day, Junior and Julie, We Belong Together, all written with lyricist Tom Adair, and Angel Eyes, with lyrics by Earl K. Brent. It was written for the movie Jennifer, with Ida Lupino and Howard Duff. Some of Matt's songs have lyrics by his wife, singer Ginny Maxey.

One of my close friends, and one of the best singers to emerge in the generation influenced by Frank Sinatra, is Julius La Rosa. He said, "Matt Dennis had an ability to write the most beautiful and sophisticated melodies, and yet they were never hard to sing. He was also a gentle, lovely man." Sometimes when La Rosa and I are talking on the phone, he (or I) will sing an opening phrase of a Matt Dennis song, and continue through the whole thing, in unison, laughing. So steeped were we in Matt Dennis songs in our high‑school years.

Back around 1960, when I was editor of Down Beat, Mel Torme was playing Chicago, where the magazine's head office was located. Mel asked me to go along with him on a disc jockey interview. The disc jockey said, "Don't you think the singing of Matt Dennis was influenced by yours?"

Mel flared slightly. He said, "I've heard that before, and it's not true. If anything, I was influenced by Matt Dennis."

In fact it is difficult to estimate the reach of the influence of a career in the arts. Obviously I was influenced by all the great songwriters, but certainly Matt Dennis and Tom Adair were a powerful force in my becoming a songwriter. One of the factors in great songwriting is an appropriate match of a melodic interval with what would be the natural inflection if you were speaking the lyric. La Rosa points out that The Night We Called It a Day is a superb example of the up of intervals. And the octave leap on the opening phrase, "The was a moon (out in space)" sort of makes you look up, lending a visual dimension to the song. In fact, that is a very visual song. It is also a very literate one. It was in that song that I first encountered the phrase "the song of the spheres." I first heard the song among the four "sides" Frank Sinatra recorded for RCA Victor's Bluebird subsidiary with arrangements by Axel Stordahl: The Night We Called It a Day, The Lamplighter's Serenade, The Song Is You, and Night and Day. I became an instant fan of Frank Sinatra, Matt Dennis, and Tom Adair.  That has never changed.

Matt recalled to Ed Shanaphy, the editor of Sheet Music Magazine: "I will never forget when I first played and sang The Night We Called It a Day for Tommy Dorsey, backstage at the old Paramount in NYC. Tommy was seated next to Harry James and Ziggy Elman. As I ran the song over, I noticed Tommy looking at Harry and Ziggy and nodding their heads in approval.

'When Tommy decided he really did like my tune, I rearranged my own chart for Frank and the Pied Pipers. What was not expected, however, was Frank and Tommy were not getting along too well. Frank was reaching a popular level and wanted to leave the band and go on his own."

Sinatra's departure from Dorsey, who had a firm contract with him, is by now one of the legends of show business.

Matt said, "So I decided to re‑arrange it again to fit Jo Stafford as the soloist. As fate turned out, later in 1944 TD's recording came out of The Night with Jo Stafford and a good cut, too. Frank did record the song on his own and fortunately it became a collector's item. F. S. recorded and certainly performed it over and over during all the ensuing years, keeping the tune very much alive."

Matt had an impact on Jo Stafford's career as well. Jo's entire interest was group singing, and she became a star half by accident because of Matt's song Little Man with a Candy Cigar, with lyrics by Frank Kilduff. She heard it, went to Dorsey and said, "Tommy, this is the first time I've ever done this, and it'll probably be the last, but I want a favor of you. I want to do the record of Little Man with a Candy Cigar solo." He said, "You've got it." From then on he assigned her to solos, and of course she became a major artist, all of it starting with Matt's song.

A few years ago, Jo told me she had been driving and heard one of those Sinatra Bluebird tracks on the car radio, and impulsively said to herself, "My God, could he sing." Indeed. And so could she.

Knowing how much I admired Tom Adair, Matt at one point offered to introduce us, but I moved too slowly, and Tom Adair died. I hope he knew how much I loved his work. Maybe Matt told him; I would like to think so.

Tom Adair was born in Newton, Kansas, on June 15, 1913, and went to Los Angeles Junior College in 1932 and '33. He wrote scripts for television and movies, as well as night‑club material. He was a sitcom writer on My Three Sons, The Munsters, My Favorite Martian, and other shows. For Matt's tunes, he wrote lyrics for Let's Get Away from It All, Everything Happens to Me, Violets for Your Furs, The Night We Called It a Day, and Will You Still Be Mine, as well as There's No You (with Harold S. Hopper) and In the Blue of Evening (with Alfred D'Artega).

Matt was born into a vaudeville family in Seattle, Wash­ington, on February 11, 1914, and went to San Rafael High School in California. His father was a singer and his mother a violinist. Matt made his professional debut in the family act, called the Five Musical Lovelands. In 1933, in San Francisco, Matt joined the Horace Heidt band on piano. Later he and Dick Haymes had a band, with Haymes in front and Matt as its organizer. Then he became known as an arranger and accompanist for singers, and sometimes as a vocal coach. He held all three roles with Martha Tilton.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, there were a number of sister vocal groups, including the Boswell, Andrews, DeMar­co, Clark, Dinning, and King Sisters. Jo Stafford and her older sisters, Pauline and Christine, became active as the Stafford Sisters. They had their own radio show on Los Angeles radio station KHJ. They replaced Jo with another girl when Jo joined an eight‑voice group called The Pied Pipers.

Matt's association with Jo went back to the days with her sisters. Matt told Ed Shanaphy in a letter: "I used to accom­pany (the Stafford’s) ‑ fine singers of the blues, and good pop songs. Then Jo organized the group of singers that Tommy Dorsey hired for his summer radio series in the East, naming them The Pied Pipers.

"Prior to that I continued playing piano for the group in appearances in and around L.A. during which I seriously started writing songs. Jo heard my songs and set up an audition for me with Tommy Dorsey at the Palladium Ballroom, which led me to a contract with Dorsey, writing songs which he wanted to publish, and did most successfully ‑ glad to say. Jo, the Pied Pipers, and Sinatra all started singing and recording my current songs, Let's Get Away from It All, Everything Happens to Me, Will You Still Be Mine, The Night We Called It a Day, and others."

Everything Happens to Me and Let's Get Away from It All were recorded February 7, 1941. In fact Dorsey recorded 14 of Matt's works in that one year, including a little‑remem­bered patriotic song called Free For All, recorded on June 27, and Violets for Your Furs, recorded on September 26. Sinatra would retain a taste for and powerful loyalty to the Matt Dennis tunes throughout his career. He would re‑record Violets for Your Furs, Angel Eyes, and Let's Get Away from It All, for example, during his period with Capitol Records, when he had become the biggest superstar in the history of American show business.

With the U.S. entry into World War 11, Matt served in the U.S. Army Air Force, with the Radio Production Unit and the Glenn Miller USAAF orchestra. He spent three and a half years in the Air Force. When the war ended, he settled in New York City and became an arranger and sometime performer on a number of network radio shows. And when his friend Dick Haymes got his own radio show, Matt became its music director.

In 1955, Matt starred in his own NBC‑TV series, doing some of the very first coast‑to‑coast color shows. "I replaced Eddie Fisher that year. I had Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Vaughn Monroe had Tuesday and Thursday," Matt said. "Then in December I joined the new Ernie Kovacs five-­mornings‑a‑week show with Ernie, Edie Adams, and myself "

Matt was a very fine pianist, and a sympathetic teacher who wrote a piano method, available from Mel Bay.

I was always enthralled by Matt's singing. He had a light and airy voice, which indeed was not unlike that of Mel Torme’, for reasons already noted in the disc jockey interview I mentioned. He made an estimated six albums, far too few.

One of them I treasured for years was on Trend Records. It contained all of Matt's well‑known tunes and a few that were not so known. Alas, I no longer have it. And my local “record” store, which is always very accommodating, finds nothing by Matt in American CD reissues.

Since Gene wrote this tribute to Dennis, all of Matt’s records have found their way to CD reissue including the Trend Matt Dennis Plays and Sings Matt Dennis which has been released as Fresh Sound 385 and contains the following of his “well-known tunes:”

1. WILL YOU STILL BE MINE?

2. JUNIOR AND JULIE

3. THE NIGHT WE CALLED IT A DAY

4. WE BELONG TOGETHER

5. ANGEL EYES

6. VIOLETS FOR YOUR FURS

7. EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO ME

8. COMPARED TO YOU

9. THE TIRED ROUTINE CALLED LOVE

10. IT WASN'T THE STARS

11. WHEN YOU LOVE A FELLOW

John Bush offered this review of the recording on www.allmusic.com:

“Recorded at the Tally-Ho in Hollywood, Matt Dennis Plays and Sings Matt Dennis is a program of what visitors to his supper-club sets could expect from one of the best lounge singers in an era before the term became a dirty word. Accompanying himself on the piano with bass and drums for backing, Dennis sings 12 of his own tunes, including an avalanche of standards — "Will You Still Be Mine," "The Night We Called It a Day," "Angel Eyes," "Violets for Your Furs," "Everything Happens to Me," and "Let's Get Away From It All." Though his voice doesn't quite match his notable composing skills, Dennis uses his narrow range and soft, high-tenor tone to craft a sensitive vocal style. His deft sense of humor also comes in handy during several hilarious offsides to the audience and listener, often in the middle of a line. Virginia Maxey duets with him on "We Belong Together" and "When You Love a Fella."

Matt told Ed Shanaphy: "Looking back, I'm very proud to have had the success I've had ... and pleased that most of my tunes are still around the world after all these years, and also that I'm still around today, able to enjoy the pleasure of hearing some of my songs at this late date. Hallelujah."

Matt died June 21 in a hospital in Riverside, California, of natural causes. He was 89. He's gone. But the music isn't.

Dreaming Big with Brett Gold

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

“How many young people's dreams, you wonder, have been short-circuited by adults advising them to study something of practical value—something "to fail back on"?

For many years, Brett Gold's artistic potential lay fallow. A star trombonist in high school, he was steered away from a life in music—his trombone teacher, of all people, said becoming a musician was the last thing he should do; his father urged him to take a course in accounting—and he became a lawyer.

Gold is hardly unhappy about the formidable success he ultimately achieved in the field of international and corporate tax law. But only after he changed course and (apologies to Robert Frost) followed the road not taken— 25 years into his legal career—did he find himself on the path to true fulfillment.

Dreaming Big, the aptly named debut of his New York Jazz Orchestra, is remarkable not only for its very existence—Gold went a full decade without even touching his horn—but also for the striking sounds it offers. A tour de force, ranging from 12-tone melodies to playful Monk-isms to a stirring political statement, the album introduces one of jazz's most challenging new voices.

At the same time, the warmth and cohesion of Dreaming Big imparts the easy sophistication of an artist of far greater experience.”

- Gold Fox Records

Over time, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles has become accustomed to messages from Brett Gold expressing his appreciation for various postings on these pages.

Who doesn’t like “atta-boys,” or “well done’s” or “Thank you’s.” Right?

But from these correspondences, I also developed an awareness that there was a musician lurking in the background, but little did I know that this musician had some major unfulfilled dreams until I got a “heads-up” from Brett that Terri Hinte’s jazz promotional services would be sending along a preview copy of his new big band CD!

Whoa! What? A new BIG BAND CD and, more to the point, one that would feature all original compositions written and arranged by one, Brett Gold!

In an era of self-produced CDs that appear in my mailbox by the fistful, what usually arrives are recordings that are heavy on self-promotion and light on quality music.

Let me emphasize at the outset that this is not the case with Brett Gold’s Dreaming Big  [GFR 1701] which releases June 16, 2017 on Gold Fox Records.

The music on Brett Gold’s new CD is not an idle preoccupation; not in conception; not in perception. You gotta pay attention, but if you do, I guarantee that it will move your ears in new directions.

Sure the influences are all there: Gil Evans, Bill Holman, Bob Brookmeyer, Neal Hefti, Hank Levy, Jim McNeely,Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Slide Hampton, Johnny Mandel, Don Sebesky, Nelson Riddle, Billy Byers and Billy VerPlanck.

But these influences have been assimilated and what emerges is Brett Gold’s own style, one that pieces together inspiration from some of the great Jazz arrangers in modern Jazz and then forms voicings, orchestrations and arrangements that contain big band music played in a manner that is altogether new and different.

As trombonist, big band leader and arranger John Fedchock points out on the CD tray plate:

“Dreaming Big … not only breaks new imaginative ground, but also respects that which has come before. Gives the listener a special tour inclusive of the gamut of styles, colors and emotions that a true jazz orchestra is built to sustain.”

In many ways, what Brett has accomplished with Dreaming Big is very reminiscent of what Bill Evans postulates in the following explanation of how his artistic growth came about:

“... I always like people who have developed long and hard, especially through introspection and a lot of dedication. I think what they arrives at is usually … deeper and more beautiful … than the person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning …. And, yes, ultimately, it turned out that these people weren’t able to carry their thing very far. I found myself being more attracted to artists who have developed through the years to become better and deeper musicians.”

With Bill’s statement as a reference point, what Brett Gold demonstrates on Dreaming Big is an assimilation of his influences such that he is able to use them to express his own voice: a personal sound that is the product of his musical conception.

In the case of a big band arranger-composer, this personal “timbre” is proclaimed through the texture or sonorities he employs to generate his unique big band sound.

But what is a musical definition of “texture” which joins with melody, harmony and rhythm [meter] as a fourth building block used to create a musical composition?

Ironically, of the four basic musical atoms, the most indefinable yet the one we first notice is – “texture.”

“Texture” is the word that is used to refer to the actual sound of the music. This encompasses the instruments with which it is played; its tonal colors; its dynamics; its sparseness or its complexity.

Texture involves anything to do with the sound experience and it is the word that is used to describe the overall impression that a piece of music creates in our emotional imagination.

Often our first and most lasting impression of a composition is usually based on that work’s texture, even though we are not aware of it. Generally, we receive strong musical impressions from the physical sound of any music and these then determine our emotional reaction to the work.

So what we hear on the eleven tracks that make up Dreaming Big is Brett’s personal conception, one that makes him different than other Jazz musician, and one - 50 years in the making -  that you’ve never heard before..

The USS Gold’s maiden voyage is ably assisted by a bevy of excellent musicians who add their interpretative skills to the mix to help Brett’s music come alive.

If you are a fan of big band Jazz, you can’t do better than this one as Dreaming Big is a notable extension of the classic large form of this music while at the same time bringing much that is new and different to it.

Hopefully, the Jazz world will not have to wait another 50 years to hear more of Brett Gold’s music.

Below is the always informative and helpful Media Release from Terri Hinte that will provide you with more information about Brett and the music and musicians on Dreaming Big after which you’ll find a Soundcloud audio file that offers a sampling of the music on the CD.

THE BRETT GOLD NEW YORK JAZZ ORCHESTRA

DEBUTS WITH "DREAMING BIG,"

DUE JUNE 16 FROM GOLDFOX RECORDS & FEATURING THE COMPOSITIONS & ARRANGEMENTS OF BRETT GOLD

BMI JAZZ COMPOSERS WORKSHOP ALUMNUS

BREAKS NEW STYLISTIC GROUND WITH POST-MODERNIST APPROACH TO BIG BAND JAZZ

THAT EXPANDS THE LEGACY OF GIL EVANS. BILL HOLMAN. DON ELLIS, & OTHERS

The June 16th release of Dreaming Big (GoldFox Records GFR 1701), which marks the recording debut of the Brett Gold New York Jazz Orchestra and features the compositions of Brett Gold, illuminates a most intriguing jazz odyssey.

A star trombonist in high school in his native Baltimore, Gold was steered away from a music career by his parents as well as his trombone teacher, of all people. Gold became an attorney and went on to achieve formidable success in the field of international and corporate tax law. But 25 years into his legal career, Gold changed course and reestablished contact with his musical muse.

Dreaming Big is remarkable not only for its very existence but also for the striking sounds it offers. A tour de force, the music ranges from 12-tone melodies to playful Monk-isms to a stirring political statement. While the album introduces one of jazz's most challenging new instrumental voices, at the same time its warmth, humor, and accessibility convey an easy sophistication one would associate with an artist of far greater experience.

Gold enlisted first-call players from New York's jazz, studio, and Broadway scenes to produce the recording, including saxophonists Charles Pillow and Tim Ries, trumpeter Scott Wendholt, trombonist John Allred. bassist Phil Palombi, and drummer Scott Neumann.

Many jazz composers and arrangers, including Gold, cite Gil Evans and Bill Holman as influences. But Gold's affinity for the odd time-signature music of the late Don Ellis is reflected in a number of pieces on the CD. Among the compositions on Dreaming Big, the Middle Eastern-themed "AI-Andalus" (featuring a virtuosic turn by trumpeter Jon Owens) is partly in 11/4 and partly in 5/4. "That Latin Tinge" is a 7/4 mambo, not the usual time signature for a salsa piece. Even the fairly straightforward ""Stella's Waltz" can trip someone up with its occasional judiciously placed bar of 5/4. And then there's *'Nakba," the powerful 11-minute finale, which was composed partly with Gold's Moroccan sister-in-law in mind. The song is named after the Arabic word for ''catastrophe," used by the Palestinians to describe the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. Featuring Ries on soprano saxophone, it traces the tragic history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"I found out that you can stop playing music, but it's still there circulating in your head," Gold says of the years when he was not involved in music full-time. After finishing high school a year early, he attended the University of Rochester as a double major in history and film studies (Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa) and continued his music studies at the Eastman School of Music where he played with one of its nationally recognized jazz ensembles. But he soon placed his jazz activities on the back burner, earning a J.D. from Columbia University Law School (1980) and an LL.M in tax law from New York University Law School (1983).

When Gold returned to jazz, he had no problem coming up with ideas for compositions—his brain was full of them—but his sabbatical from music left him unprepared to execute those ideas both on paper and on his horn, which he hadn't touched in 10 years. He first sketched his pieces out and hired professional musicians to record demo-like CDs of them. Then, studying privately with distinguished teachers like Pete McGuinness, Neal Kirkwood, and David Berger, he learned how to write complex compositions for big band.

Eventually, in 2007, Gold was accepted into the esteemed BMI Jazz Composers Workshop, under the direction of Mike Abene, Jim McNeely, and Mike Holober. During his tenure there, he developed a book of more than two dozen arrangements, of which 11 of the best appear on Dreaming Big.

"As a member of BMI, I was pushed to write longer, more abstract orchestral pieces, something I resisted," he says. "Instead, I looked to the way Duke Ellington wrote for his band—his best pieces were seldom more than three to five minutes long. I also admired his idea of writing for individual members of the band."

Over the years. Gold has absorbed and strongly personalized any number of influences, some more than just musical. A study in diminished chords featuring clarinets and flutes, "Theme from an Unfinished Film" reveals his debt to what he calls the "internalized lyricism" of movie composers such as Bernard Herrmann, David Raksin, and Ennio Morricone. The genesis of "Exit, Pursued by a Bear (Slow Drag Blues)5' was Shakespeare's most famous stage direction. And "Al-Andalus'' was originally inspired by the hopes raised by the Arab Spring.

Gold does not play in the trombone section on Dreaming Big. "I actually function a lot better in a dark room writing music," he says. The roles he plays on the new album are those of composer, arranger, producer—and big dreamer. •

http://www.brettgoldnyjo.com

Media Contact:

Terri Hinte

hudba@sbcglobal.net

Tim Armacost: A Stranger in Paradise

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

Tim has a rather deliberate way with the beat, staying clear of relentless sixteenth notes and using his middleweight tone [think Hank Mobley’s tone] to sit squarely on what the other musicians are doing.”

- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD

“If you like your music original, uncompromised, melodic, and rhythmically advanced, then by all means get this CD [referring to Tim’s CD The Wishing Well]. My early impressions of Tim Armacost as an original, searching improviser … are reinforced by this release which documents him as having grown a great deal, and establishes him as a leader ….

- Mel Martin, Jazz critic

“Armacost, the scintillatingly musical 35-year-old saxophonist-composer-bandleader who has deep roots in Jazz’s past yet has his eye and ear upon Jazz’s future, has expanded his Jazz vocabulary via fresh approaches to harmony.”

- Zan Stewart, Jazz critic

The “stranger” in the above title refers to the fact that until I heard a radio broadcast of him with the famed Metropole Orchestra of The Netherlands, I didn’t know anything about the music of tenor and soprano saxophonist, Tim Armacost.

The “paradise” portion of the subheading to this piece is best explained by Tim in a quotation drawn from his website:

“Finally, I had the great pleasure to record a CD with Hilversum’s Metropole Orchestra a little over a year ago … [approximately November 2001 at the time of this writing]. We recorded four of my compositions, arranged for a full band and thirty-five strings by Jim McNeely and Mike Abene, and an extended four part work by Jim, called 23/67, which is an outrageous piece of writing. Bill Dobbins conducted, and it was an inspired and inspiring week for me.”

Like his contemporaries, Ralph Bowen, Larry Schneider, Ralph Moore and Don Braden, Tim plays in a style very much influenced by John Coltrane and Michael Brecker, but without carrying it to an extremes.

He does not dwell on high note screeches or favor runs of chromatic scales and other technical flights-of fantasy.

His tone, while reminiscent of the late, Hank Mobley’s is fuller and richer than Hank’s. His solos are melodically-oriented and played with a rock-solid sense of time.

Frankly, I found his performance with the Metropole Orchestra to be quite a revelation; it’s always pleasant to come across a new voice that “speaks to you.”

With the assistance of the crackerjack graphics team at CerraJazz LTD, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles has put together two videos built around themes that incorporate images related to two of the original compositions that Tim performed with The Metropole.

The first of these is Black Sand Beach. It was arranged for the date by the superbly talented, Mike Abene. Mike has been writing for big bands for many years, but this chart sounds sparkling, fresh and full of excitement.

The title of the audio track for the second video is Wishing Well. Following Tim’s solo and that of Hans Vroman's, the orchestra’s pianist, listen to how brilliantly Jim McNeely frames the counter melodies between brass and strings from 5:23 – 6:34 minutes before Tim comes back in at the bridge. Jim arrangement really highlights the power and the majesty of The Metropole Orchestra.  Is it any wonder that Tim was “inspired” by working with this brilliant ensemble?

If you visit Tim’s website via this link, you can listen to Pull, another of the tracks from the concert with the Metropole Orkest, as well as, other selections from his small group recordings.