Bill Charlap: The Natural by Whitney Balliett

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

"He always leaves something to remember him by."

This is a reprise of one of the earliest postings to the blog and it has a special meaning for me because it is among the last of the distinguished Jazz critic and author Whitney Balliett's pieces for The New Yorker [during a career with the magazine that spanned four decades] and because his essay offers an informed overview of the first decade of pianist Bill Charlap's career.

A sort of end of a beginning and a beginning of an end.

Of course, in the the twenty years since this piece has written, Bill has gone on to great things with his trio with Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington on drums and as a member of the New York Trio with bassist Jay Leonhart and drummer Bill Stewart.

I have appended YouTube videos to the end of this piece to provide you with audio examples of music by both trios [Also included is a video of Bill's performance of Ornette Coleman's Turnaround that Whitney references in his article].

Beyond the trios, Bill has been involved in many other activities in the Jazz World since 1999, but this is our favorite venue in which to enjoy his artistry.

© -Whitney Balliett, copyright protected; all rights reserved. The New Yorker, April 19, 1999.

“There is a secret emotional center in jazz which has sustained the music since it outgrew its early melodic and rhythmic gaucheries, in the late twenties. This center, a kind of aural elixir, reveals itself when an improvised phrase or an entire solo or even a complete number catches you by surprise and sends tremors up your spine. When these lyrical bursts happen in night clubs or at concerts their lovely afterimages inevitably fade. Caught on recordings, though, they last forever.

So here, in no particular order, are some classic recorded beauties: the first twelve or so bars of Louis Armstrong’s second solo on both takes of "Some of These Days," played in a revolving half time in his low register and unlike anything else he ever recorded (Columbia; 1929); the eerie, almost surrealistic melody that Paul Gonsalves fashions on the first bridge of a "Caravan" done with Duke Ellington (Fantasy; 1962); Charlie Parker's stunning two-chorus solo on "Funky Blues," replete with an opening now-listen preaching figure, a shivering, sotto-voce run at the start of the second chorus, and a dodging, ascending climactic figure (Verve; 1952); the cluster of soft, keening notes that Joe Lovano plays near the end of "Lament for M," a dirge by Gunther Schuller written in memory of his wife for "Rushhour" (Blue Note; 1995); the Sidney de Paris-Ben Webster-Vic Dickenson-James P. Johnson-Sid Catlett "After You've Gone," certainly as close to a flawless jazz recording as exists (Blue Note; 1944); and all of the remarkable pianist Bill Charlap's "Turnaround," an Ornette Coleman blues that he fills with huge, stuttering chords and sailing-along-the-tonal-edge single-note lines (Criss Cross; 1995).

Indeed, Charlap is a lyrical repository. At thirty-two, he is the best, but least well known, of a swarm of gifted pianists who have appeared in New York in the past ten years or so. He has already filled much of the sizable space once occupied by Bill Evans, who still reverberates almost twenty years after his death. Unlike many of the younger pianists, whose tastes tend to be parochial, Charlap has absorbed every pianist worth listening to in the past fifty years, starting with Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Duke Ellington, Jimmy Rowles, Erroll Garner, Nat Cole, and Oscar Peterson, then moving through Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, and Bill Evans, and finishing with Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Kenny Barron. His ballad numbers are unique. He may start with the verse of the song, played ad lib, then move into the melody chorus. He does not rhapsodize. Instead, he improvises immediately, rearranging the chords and the melody line, and using a relaxed, almost implied beat. He may pause for a split second at the end of this chorus and launch a nodding, swinging single-note solo chorus, made up of irregularly placed notes - some off the beat and some behind the beat - followed by connective runs, and note clusters. He closes with a brief, calming recap of the melody. His ballads are meditations on songs, homages to their composers and lyricists. He constantly reins in his up-tempo numbers. He has a formidable technique, but he never shows off, even though he will let loose epic runs, massive staccato chords, racing upper-register tintinnabulations, and, once in a while, some dazzling counterpoint, his hands pitted against each other. His sound shines; each note is rounded. Best of all, in almost every number, regardless of its speed, he leaves us a phrase, a group of irregular notes, an ardent bridge that shakes us.

Charlap has a narrow, handsome face, attentive eyes, and a direct, ready-to-laugh voice. He talks fast, and when he talks about his music he gradually accelerates. Here is what he said recently: "I don't ever remember not playing the piano. Everything was by ear at first, and I'd pick out everything I heard. When a teacher came to the house, I'd charm my way through the lesson. It was very painful and slow for me to learn to read music. The songs of Arlen, Gershwin, Porter, and Berlin were paramount in my house, so jazz is about vocalism for me. Even a drum is vocal. To me, there are three steps in improvisation. The first involves the player's concentration, his heavy thinking. In the second, he becomes almost blasé, and he lets his fingers do the walking. And in the third he is detached from what he is doing. He's moving the pawns of the music, yet he has become a listener, who's, like, sitting there and watching what he's doing. From this stage, you go on to experience that supreme feeling, that omnipotent feeling at the heart of improvising."

Charlap knocks out both his musical contemporaries and his musical elders, some of whom are almost twice his age. The matchless bassist Michael Moore made a tight duo album with Charlap in 1995 (Concord), and has said of him, "So many players of Bill Charlap's generation haven't digested Jimmy Rowles, maybe haven't even heard of him, one of the greatest pianists. A lot of the young piano players today take themselves so seriously that sometimes their solos turn into complete piano concertos. They eat everything on the musical table and leave nothing for anyone else. But Bill goes right through each tune to the bone. He has a great imagination, and he has lightness and humor, even the pratfall kind of humor. We played a kind of Mafia Christmas party a while back, and when the guests sang the 'Twelve Days of Christmas' Bill played something totally different behind each person. He did Stockhausen behind a guy who couldn't carry a tune, and he played the 'St. Louis Blues' behind a woman who thought she could sing."

The guitarist Gene Bertoncini is another Charlap admirer, He was part of a spectacular trio that included Charlap and the bassist Sean Smith and drew S.R.O. crowds on a 1996 jazz cruise on the S.S. Norway. (Selections from the trio's three spacious performances are available on a Chiaroscuro CD, "Gene Bertoncini with Bill Charlap and Sean Smith.") "What I admire, aside from his playing, is his incredible knowledge of songs," Bertoncini said recently. "Whenever I work with him, he'll say, 'Gene, have you heard this song from 1947, or this song from 1938?' So in that way, although he's only thirty-two, he's an old man."

Born on East Fifty-first Street, in New York, Charlap grew up in a musical and theatrical atmosphere. His mother is the singer Sandy Stewart, and his father, who died when Charlap was seven, was the songwriter Moose Charlap. Moose wrote most of the music, with Carolyn Leigh, for the Mary Martin "Peter Pan" that was on Broadway in the mid-fifties. And he wrote the music, with Eddie Lawrence, for a still lamented 1965 musical called "Kelly," which got terrific reviews in Philadelphia but was disastrously fiddled with at the last minute by its producers and closed in New York alter one night. Lawrence has said, "Moose loved to laugh, and he loved to sing. He had a gravelly, wonderful voice - a rough kind of thing, like Aznavour. When he died, we were working on a musical about Paul Gauguin." Bill Charlap went to the Town School and to the High School for Performing Arts when it was still in a dilapidated building on West Forty-sixth Street. He spent a year or two at SUNY-Purchase, and he studied classical piano, but, he says, "My classical piano was not authentic. I was speaking classical piano with a jazz accent. A teacher I had asked me why I played everything with street rhythms." Gerry Mulligan hired Charlap in the late eighties, and he has since divided his time between his own trio and random gigs abroad and with the Phil Woods Quintet.

You have to search for Charlap in New York. He did four nights at the Knickerbocker Bar and Grill, on University Place, in January, and he was at Zinno, on West Thirteenth Street, with his trio-Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington on drums-for five days, in March. The gig at the Knickerbocker was hard work. Most people go there to eat and drink and talk, and the piano is almost an afterthought. It sits on the floor hard by a low wall that separates the huge main room from the thundering bar. Charlap's first number on his third night was a medium-tempo version of Kurt Weill's "Here I'll Stay." It was full of backpedaling chords, loose, almost atonal single-note lines, and a couple of mercurial arpeggios. The din in the place was palpable, but Charlap's passion for his music was immediately clear in his playing and in his bobbing, tightly masked face, which stayed a foot or so above the keyboard. Six people near the piano clapped at the end of the tune. His next number, Gerry Mulligan's "Curtains," got eight claps, and Irving Berlin's "The Best Thing for You" got ten. Cole Porter's "All Through the Night," played at an up tempo, was the last number in the set and, when it began, a heavy, middle-aged, wool-wrapped Irish couple stood up in the bar to leave, stopped ten feet from the piano, and listened, their big Irish faces still and pleased. They clapped twice before they left, and there were twelve more claps from the main room. Charlap has said of the Knickerbocker, "It's a great place to practice when you're not working that night."

In the meantime, before Charlap's next New York gig (with Phil Woods at the Iridium, early in June, and with his trio at Zinno later in the month), find his newest CD, "All Through the Night" (Criss Cross), and listen carefully to the start of the second full chorus on Alec Wilder's "It's So Peaceful in the Country." Charlap, leaving a beautifully chorded and measured melody chorus, steps off into a handful of unevenly spaced single notes, a firm four/four rhythm underneath, and the earth suddenly moves.”

Benny Golson: “Soul Me”

“Although he has contributed several staple pieces to the hard-bop repertoire, Benny’s playing style owes more to such swing masters as Coleman Hawkins and Lucky Thompson; a big crusty tone and a fierce momentum sustain his solos, and they can take surprising and exciting turns ….[paraphrase, p.585]

Richard Cook & Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6^th Ed.

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

It seems that I have loved Benny Golson’s compositions from the moment I first heard them. They are based on easy-to-remember melodies, which is something that drummers cherish because you can carry these tunes in your head while others are improvising on them.

Benny’s songs just seem to fall so logically on the ear.

Whisper Not, Along Came Betty, I Remember Clifford, Killer Joe, Domingo, and Blues March, among a host of others, are all Jazz standards whose tonal patterns are instantly recognized by Jazz fans all over the world.

As Dan Morgenstern has commented: “… Benny Golson’s gifts as a composer, arranger and player are of the sort that can stand the test of time.”

Fortunately, Benny is still around, still making music and doing interviews like the following one with the “Dean” of Jazz writers, Nat Hentoff.

After Benny’s chat with Nat, you’ll find some thoughts and anecdotes about Benny by Gene Lees, another esteemed Jazz writer.

By NAT HENTOFF

The Wall Street Journal April 1, 2009

© -Nat Hentoff/The Wall Street Journal, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“When the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was preparing its Jan. 24 tribute, "Benny Golson at 80," I was asked for a couple of lines to be included in the introduction. Hearing in memory Benny's "I Remember Clifford" and "Whisper Not," I told the producer: "His melodies are so natural and lasting, it's as if they invented themselves, as Benny keeps doing."

After the event, Benny reminded me that, in 1957, I produced the album "Benny Golson's New York Jazz Scene" for Contemporary Records, his first as the leader of his Jazztet. Back then, as now in his new Concord Music Group release "New Time, New 'Tet" (Amazon), I was drawn -- in his tenor saxophone improvisations and compositions -- to their flowing sense of ordered liberty, with the inner warmth of an adventurous romanticist.

Benny also reminded me that in 1958 -- when I was asked to phone some of the musicians chosen for the historic Art Kane photograph in Esquire magazine, "A Great Day in Harlem" -- I had told him where and when to be at 10 that morning on a Harlem street. Although Benny was a Dizzy Gillespie sideman at the time, he was not yet a member of the jazz pantheon and, he recalls, he felt like asking for autographs from such legends there as Coleman Hawkins, Count Basie, Roy Eldridge and Rex Stewart.

Since then, after joining Art Blakey and then heading his own series of groups in an abundance of recordings -- with his original compositions being performed by many other leaders, too -- Benny has become an international jazz master, having also received that designation by the National Endowment for the Arts.

He now has over a thousand manuscript pages of his autobiography (tentatively titled "Whisper Not") during which, he tells me, "I have more to say about Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Farmer, Clifford Brown and John Coltrane than anybody else."

Benny and Coltrane were friends in Philadelphia when Benny was 12 and John two years older. In a January "Down Beat" interview, Benny said of his fellow boyhood student: "He was always a little ahead of the rest of us. When we got to where he was, he was always somewhere else, always reaching. . . . He always got to it."

During my conversations with Coltrane years later -- when, as influential as he had become, he was still urgently searching -- he told me, "This music is as serious as life itself."

Hearing me recount that memory, Benny nodded in agreement. "That's why," he said, "when I play, I can't assume the role of an entertainer. Entertainers second-guess their audience, working to find out what they want to hear. My first obligation is to myself, when I play and when I write -- to say who I am, what I'm feeling, exploring in this jazz adventure, and what my dreams are."

A few weeks before, I'd heard Benny on National Public Radio during the Saturday morning program hosted by Scott Simon, an informed, intuitive interviewer. He asked Benny: "Is it a time of your life when you ask what you hope people take from your music?"

Said Benny: "I hope they can look into my heart's core to understand that what they hear is the reflection of my inner parts -- my thinking, my curiosity, my imagination."

In his current, often surprising recording, "New Time, New 'Tet,'" they'll also hear his twilit tribute to Chopin ("L'adieu"), a favorite composer when he was exploring, as a child, his first instrument, the piano. And, also unexpectedly, a virile, joyful celebration of "Verdi's Voice" (credited to Giuseppe Verdi, arranger Benny Golson).

Among other intriguing signs of Benny's insistence on continuing to renew himself are a rejuvenated "Whisper Not"; the Thelonious Monk-Kenny Clarke "Epistrophy"; and "Gypsy Jingle-Jangle," which comes from a time when, watching a Frankenstein movie on television at 4 in the morning, Benny's imagination lit up on seeing "a band of gypsies dancing around a campfire, accompanying themselves with a violin, accordion, tambourine, hand claps and cheerful shouts, as women danced wildly, spinning and jumping up and down. As my head matched their beat, I envisioned a band of hip jazz musicians walking into that happy camp-fire scene, asking shyly, 'Can we sit in?'"

You may find yourself at the campfire, moving in new ways, with Benny, Eddie Henderson (trumpet), Steve Davis (trombone), Mike LeDonne (piano), Buster Williams (bass) and Carl Allen (drums). For Benny and his new Jazztet comrades, music is indeed as serious as their continuing memories, fantasies and delights in being jazz musicians.

One performance especially, Benny's "From Dream to Dream," reminded me of conversations I had in my younger days with other jazz-struck friends about which tracks on which albums to play when making love. Jazz can be intimately erotic -- as when Johnny Hodges or Ben Webster of Duke Ellington's band was playing a ballad and, Duke told me, "a yearning sigh would come out of the dancers and become part of the music."

"'From Dream to Dream,'" I said to Benny, "may lead to a slight increase in the population. Where did this song come from as you started to conceive it?"

"It was based," he said, "on life. Life's rewards and disappointments. And disappointments are followed by dreams. I'm a dreamer. In life, in my music, I'm always involved in what's coming, in what could come. That's part of the adventure."

For listeners around the world, Benny Golson's past is also continually rewarding. Another recording released by the Concord Music Group is "The Best of Benny Golson" (Amazon), in which he is joined by such soul mates between 1957 and 2004 as Art Blakey, Art Farmer, Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris, Ray Bryant and Paul Chambers.

Included in this set from Benny's 1957 first album as leader is the first "Whisper Not." In his notes, Marc Myers, host of JazzWax.com (a site often recommended by musicians), writes: "Benny's arrangement opens with a 'quiet-please' cymbal roll before proceeding like a cat walking on a fence. Listen as gently rising and falling lines are echoed by Julius Watkins's French horn and Jimmy Cleveland's trombone.

Benny recalls that the melody came so fast when he wrote it that he could hardly get the notes down on paper."

"Whisper Not" has been recorded 189 times. He often gets requests for it and "I Remember Clifford Brown," among his other classics. Of course, he never plays them the same way twice.

At one point in our conversation, Benny suddenly said, "I'm so privileged to be a jazz musician -- to say who I am and get paid for it."”

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

“Often one finds that the friendships of prominent jazz musicians go back to sem­inal high schools such as Cass Tech in Detroit, Wendell Phillips and Austin high schools in Chicago, Granoff in Philadel­phia, and Jefferson High in Los Angeles. And even when they do not originate in the same school, many such relationships go back to early youth. One such case is that of Benny Golson and a boy from North Carolina named John Coltrane. They grew up together musically, playing in rowdy local commercial bands to learn their craft. And they got fired together from one. Benny's mother consoled them: "One day both of you are going to be so good that that band will not be able to afford you."

Benny studied music at Howard Uni­versity, whose faculty officially frowned on jazz. The saxophone was not considered an "appropriate" instrument. Benny signed up for clarinet and practiced the saxophone in the laundry room, where no one could hear him. Already, composition was one of his main interests. He grew impatient with the academic rigidity he found at Howard and left before gradua­tion, joining the band of Bull Moose Jack­son and going on the road. He worked with Tadd Dameron and the big bands of Lio­nel Hampton (1953) and Dizzy Gillespie (1956-57), then joined drummer Art Blakey, with whom he worked in 1958 and '59. Blakey, like Horace Silver, was a major mentor of young jazzmen, and Benny's reputation, both as a composer and player, grew.

Many of Golson's compositions, such as "Killer Joe" and "I Remember Clif­ford," have become part of the permanent jazz repertoire. In 1959, he and Art Farmer —a Silver and Gerry Mulligan alumnus — formed their Jazztet, a sextet that at first featured trombonist Curtis Fuller and Art's brother Addison on bass. The group lasted until 1962.

Then Benny broke into television and film scoring in Hollywood, writing scores at all the major studios. He moved back to New York City in 1987, where he soon found himself busier than he had ever been, in all forms of composition and as a player too. In May 1992, Benny was awarded an honorary doctorate by William Paterson College. He teaches there.

One year, backstage at the Newport Jazz Festival, Benny ran into John Coltrane, who reminded him of the time they got fired in Philadelphia. "Remember what your mother said?" John asked. "Do you think they'd be able to afford us now?"”

"These Rooms" - Jim Hall Trio Featuring Tom Harrell

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

It seems like Herb Wong, the late Jazz author, education, record and concert producer and all-around good friend of Jazz was everywhere in the 1980, and it’s a good thing, too, as Jazz and it makers were having their fair share of troubles surviving during a time when fewer resources were supporting the music.

In an earlier piece, we described Herb’s role with the Stanford University Jazz Artist in Residence program in Palo Alto, CA and Blackhawk Records which was based in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1980s.

During the decade of the 1980’s, Herb was also active as a producer for DENON - Nippon Columbia for which he along with Executive Producer Tatsunori “Tats” Konno developed one of my favorite recording by guitarist Jim Hall with his trio made up of Steve LaSpina on bass and Joey Baron on drums. Tom Harrell is featured on trumpet and flugelhorn.

Issued in 1988 as These Rooms: Jim Hall Trio Featuring Tom Harrell [Denon CY-30002], it is an exquisite recording. Here are Herb’s instructive and insightful insert notes about the musicians on the date, which was recorded live to 2-track on February 9-10, 1988 at Sorcerer Sound in NYC with Tom Lazarus serving as recording engineer, and the ten tracks featured on the CD.

Just to be clear, here, had it not been for Dr. Herb hearing these musicians play together in his head, this record wouldn’t exist. His Jazz soul made this album happen.

“Among jazz guitarists, Jim Hall exceeds comparison. Unarguably he stands alone and is the one guitarist who can be spoken in the same breath as Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. The mere mention of Jim sparks lively responses of praise. For several decades he has earned this top position of respect, but more important is his body of brilliant recordings, as what guards the unanimity of success is his conspicuous artistic integrity and finery. He is a superlative who embraces unique sound and design of his notes; every note selected is a needed choice fitting perfectly in the ultimate sculpture of his music.

His exceptional technique combined with confidence to use or not to use this or that in creating a mood is central to the lull resonant quality his guitar achieves, showing deep devotion and acute alertness to sound.

In producing this recording I was impressed once again by Jim's ability to minimize the use of amplification, sounding nearly like an acoustic instrument. In 1977 my interview with Jim elicited comments germane to this issue: "It's easy to overplay the amplifiers so we play really softly compared to the general dynamic level prevailing today. We begin very softly so we have someplace to go. And then it can sound like it's loud when we're just playing with moderate volume. You can draw the sound out of the instruments a lot better and not push the amps."

Jim's music is drawn from the heart core of the guitar and the heart of his own inner soul, unveiling the truth about their capacity. His horn-inspired solos are lyrical, impassioned and swinging — reflecting a fertile sense of composition. Moreover, his phrases develop in a natural flow from one to the next, his melodically and harmonically resourceful ideas are delivered with taste and logic, and rhythmically his sense of balance is without deflection.

Jim was born on December 4, 1930 in Buffalo. N.Y. and spent his childhood in New York, Columbus and finally in Cleveland. At 10 his Mother, a pianist, gifted Jim with a guitar and quickly at 13 he became a precocious pro in Cleveland. The great innovator Charlie Christian was introduced to him via hearing his famous solos with Benny Goodman. Subsequently, Jim became acquainted with the legendary Django Reinhardt's playing. "After high school I attended The Cleveland Institute of Music where I became seriously interested in classical composition. However, my desire to become a guitarist was so compelling. I had to check it out for fear of long term regrets." explains Jim. So he dropped out of a master's degree program to "pursue my fantasy". Thus began the long, distinguished odyssey of performing and recording. His associates stretch from Chico Hamilton (some 33 years ago). Bob Brookmeyer, Jimmy Giuffre. Ben Webster, Hampton Hawes. and Stan Getz to Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, Art Farmer, Paul Desmond, Zoot Sims, Lee Konitz, Ron Carter. Herbie Hancock, Red Mitchell and Wayne Shorter plus so many more.

Prior to this recording, a musician Jim had not had an open opportunity to include in his own recordings is Tom Harrell. I had ruminated over the sumptuous thought of Jim and Tom together — hearing their consonant blends and solos on guitar and flugelhorn in my head, with assuredness that a record of their respective and compatible geniuses should be produced in order that their absorbing subtleties and plentiful imagination could be shared. Both spin their own musical tales. In fact, including Steve LaSpina and Joey Baron, all four musicians on the project are fascinating story tellers who speak fluently thru their instruments.

My esteem for Tom's playing stems from his young teenage years in the San Francisco Bay Area playing in campus bands, jamming in many, many clubs and at the famed Jazz Workshop in S.F. with many name musicians. Born on June 16, 1946 in Urbana, Illinois, he was reared in the S.F. area from age 5 and started trumpet at 8. His gigs began at age 13. Early on, he modeled himself mainly after his inspiration — Clifford Brown and remains a torch bearer of the tradition and spirit of Brown but does tip his hat also to the likes of Blue Mitchell, Kenny Dorham. Lee Morgan, Dizzy Gillespie. Clark Terry and Woody Shaw. Tom notes, "Clifford was such a strong force and expressed so much warmth and joy." Today, Tom is one of the most sought musicians and has been climbing the rungs of jazz polls steadily. After 6 years on the road with Woody Herman and Horace Silver, he settled in NYC for the last decade recording on more than 70 records and is a main stay in the Phil Woods Quintet.

Phil has said to me, "Tom is the most complete musician in my experience. I continue to be impressed with his total harmonic recall, his knowledge of tunes of the past and his compositions reflecting the future." Tom indeed has perfect ears and an uncanny sense of time. He tries not to think when he solos, allowing "my playing to go beyond conscious thoughts". Like Jim, Tom places a premium on Ihe linkage between feelings and sounds — the fundamental pay off. On several previous recordings, I have invited Tom to participate: I simply value his ability to erupt without notice adding an enigmatical, special dimension.

There is unanimity on Tom's impact on any group. At one point in the studio Joey Baron said admiringly: "Tom, how in the world do you play trumpet like that?"

Bassist Steve LaSpina first played with Tom in the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra 10 years ago. “When Tom picked up his trumpet and blew his first notes, I couldn't believe it. I had never heard anything like it and I've enjoyed playing with him since, and he is just marvelous on this date."

Steve was born on March 24, 1954 in Wichita Falls, Texas and raised in Chicago. "My Father Jack, also a bassist, started me on his bass when I graduated from high school and he also taught me the electric bass." Steve was involved with rock and roll, yet his Dad tried to turn him on to jazz by playing records by Oscar Pettiford and Ray Brown. Noi until age 13 when Steve heard Fred Alwood at a music camp at the University of Illinois did he catch the jazz fever.

He came to New York in 1979 and "playing with Jim Hall is like a fantasy corne true. Seems like it's always right... I can feel what he's going to play." Just a partial roster of people Steve has played with verifies his gourmet taste — saxophonists Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Stan Getz and David Liebman; pianists Jimmy Rowles. Marian McPartland and Steve Kuhn; vocalists Joe Williams, Mark Murphy, Morgana King and Helen Merrill. Steve obviously listens to many horn players. As for bassists, the key influences of Charles Mingus. Paul Chambers and Scott LaFaro stick out. Just listen to his story-telling on this recording.

"I love the way Steve sounds," Jim says with glee, "and we've worked together off and on for nearly 4 years. I sit in the car a lot in New York and I listen to jazz on WBGO radio and notice lots ol terrific bassists are being recorded, but I'm not pleased with the bass hitting you right in the face, whereas Steve's warm bass sounds like there is more room and depth being used. Steve recently put gut strings (G & D) in place of steel strings. He's definitely a virtuoso bassist." Take note Steve had acquired a more than 100 year-old French bass with great gut strings on the day of rehearsal and he was ecstatic over it. Its timely availability for the recording was a boost to the quality of sound.

"I look for guys who listen well and react well together, similar to what Jimmy Giuffre has drawn as an analogy between a 'mobile sculpture' and his trio (Giuffre-Brookmeyer-Hall) as not being uni-dimensional I've always kept that philosophy — meaning we should not sound like a guitar with a rhythm section!"

Joey Baron is a very in-demand drummer performing with Jim and Steve close to 2 years on a fairly regular basis. This is the first record of his membership in the trio. "Joey was recommended to me by numerous musicians coast to coast." The consensus is not surprising as Joey's long list of associations in the last 13 years is replete with unique voices of jazz; e.g., Dizzy Gillespie, Art Pepper, John Scofield, Toots Thielemans, Randy Brecker. Blue Mitchell, Pat Martino, Lou Rawls. Carmen McRae, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Red Rodney, Stan Getz, Bill Frisell, Al Jarreau and so many others.

Regarding Jim, Joey pours emotively: "He's a great musician — not so much the instrument itself, but that he plays the music! And I'm attracted to those who do. In Jim's case, you can pick him out of 1000 players every time. In playing with him, his concept of time is a model to emulate. I hope to approach Jim's level some day. He lets you relax and you don't have to baby sit... he opens the ground up for trust in an unspoken way. Lots of things happen between us that way. Jim's sound is the way he pulls people into him."

"I feel I can talk to Joey while he's playing.standing right in front of his cymbals, explains Jim. "Joey gets inlo high intensity without being loud in volume. He has perfect touch."

There's truly something distinctive about guitar and drums — a guitarist can't play 8-note chords all the time like many pianists who fill up the room and leave little space for the drummer. "Jim plays but a few notes, leaving space for conversations with me." Joey emphasizes, "and the way he accompanies, the way he puts intervals in — like he could just hit 2 notes over a chord and it pushes a different sound out of the chord, in contrast to someone who plays a straight chord."

The Music In This Collection

From the very first notes of Jim Hall's guitar on the 1929 Rodgers and Hart WITH A SONG IN MY HEART, you just know he's special. Then enters Joey Baron's melodic brushes and Jim counterpoints. The first rate solos by Jim, Steve and Tom are unpredictable in construction and have gorgeous sounds spilling out. It's plain all four are like vocalists singing their stories on the uplifting 6/8 waltz version — its format matching the spirit of the tune. Jim arranged a half step up modulation in the middle when Tom comes in on the first chorus, giving it more of rising feel. The tune moves along at a good pace but the chords are stretched out and move more slowly.

CROSS COURT — an appealing 24-bar blues is the first of several Jim Hall originals. It's a key of G blues but moves up a half step in the last 4 bars. It's not the routine "let's just play some blues, guys" type of piece, but an architectural piece. The title of ihe tune comes from Jim's love for tennis. "I took my first tennis lessons from the great Don Budge who's a big jazz fan, from Lester Young to Bill Evans." His specialty was a back hand cross court — therein lies the inspiration for the name. "The line of the tune in the beginning — the unison or octaves with bass and guitar is extremely hard to play on the bass and the guitar. It's supposed to sound easy but I keep writing these things because Steve can play them!

"I love the rhythm section feeling. Joey has a grin on his face most of the time which got me to write the last chorus — the jolly sound with the little breaks with Joey." And dig the trace of Stravinsky in the out chorus, spiking the music with quasi-humor.

A flugelhorn/guitar duet carries the unstrained conversation ol the hauntingly charming ballad SOMETHING TELLS ME composed by Jim's wife, Jane. Beginning with E-flat major it wanders thru different keys, finally settling on B-flat "I added a coda at the end," says Jim. "I wrote it specifically for Tom and I love the way Tom plays it." The two of them capture the beautiful mood and possibly the true mood of the tune.

When Jim performed and recorded with pianist Michel Petrucciani and Wayne Shorter at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1986, he wrote BIMINI on commission — a bright calypso similar to what he did with Sonny Rollins. The light, loping Caribbean line has nice “islandic” flavors. Joey is like a gang of percussionists rolled into one!

Ben Webster was a consummate master of improvising jazz ballads. ALL TOO SOON is one of these soothing Ellington compositions recorded in 1940 featuring Ben's suave tenor saxophone, "I first met Ben at one of the once a month concerts sponsored by my friend Dr. Lorin Stephens, an orthopedic surgeon in Arcadia, California during the early days. Red Mitchell and Hampton Hawes played with us frequently, too." Jim certainly narrows his concentration with intense sensitivity on his magnificent solo guitar essay. I felt an unaccompanied interpretation would bring out further colors to add to the whole.

"After turning on to the enticing concept about recording with Tom for the first time, I was inspired to catch Tom's sound," Jim recounts his process in designing THESE ROOMS — the title selection in three sections. "I jotted a little motif with low register for Tom's horn ... examining some intervals — little groups of 2 notes. It gradually took shape with Steve coming on with his counterpoint. Bartok influenced my linear writing: he was my hero. I tied it with the guitar section, including a whole chordal phase before Tom and Steve check in, just ahead of the start of the last section." Jim wrote the third section with some exciting surprises — a gospel. New Orleans street band sound with Joey's authentic marching drums heralding Tom's hip swinging. It gets a little more abstract and ends with the beginning motif. It leaves everyone with a good up feeling.

A segue to the durable 1939 ballad DARN THAT DREAM ushers in another ring of colors by way of a delicate development between Jim and Steve. Both converse with telepathic manifestation of melodic motifs. Steve's close link to Scott LaFaro's highly vocal quality is apparent. And Jim ... well, every note he plays sounds larger than life. Originally planned for the trio to play, it just felt intriguing for a duo, adding a different miniature theater.

MY FUNNY VALENTINE is the one track featuring the working Jim Hall Trio. The tasteful swing powers vitality into individual statements while they merge as three. Remember how people were knocked out by the superb ad hoc interpretation by Bill Evans and Jim on Bill's 1962 "Undercurrent" album!

WHERE OH WHEN is partly dedicated to Freddie Green who passed away in 1987. "Freddie was truly a big hero of mine," Jim says with deep sincerity. The format is fashioned to give generous opportunities for the group to express lyricism with ease.

Tom Harrell's own FROM NOW ON winds things up with chops and finesse. "This was inspired by the collaborations of Jim and Bill Evans," relates Tom, "and also by Dizzy's writing of his "Con Alma" and a little of the way Benny Golson uses certain sounds. It's a good vehicle for Jim's beautiful, sensitive playing". Indeed its harmonic movement is reminiscent of what Jim and Bill did on their iwo duo albums, especially the kinds of motion and colors — sort of a mood of sadness, but something positive rising out of dejection. The ABA structure of the tune finds its way thru different tonal centers. A nice ride to close the recording.

"This project brought Tom into my consciousness as I had never truly played with him, I was in my room writing almost everyday or at least thinking about it for two solid months. And I think it really paid off." Jim continues "I wanted tunes that represent variety not only between tunes but within the tunes to keep the interest burning. So for me, it was a lot of preparation — tons of paper! I just dug in there and I'm grateful for the motivating idea behind it. I'm thoroughly delighted!"

In the final analysis, it really matters little how Jim does it. At times he's like a Japanese brush painter's unfettered improvisations. Jim surprises often and disrupts prediction. His music always sound fresh. Perhaps his jazz life has been a quest for quality fulfillment. Jim Hall surely picks the choicest notes in the world.”

— DR. HERB WONG

“Tom Talbert: A Different Voice”

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

“The music of Tom Talbert is the essence of creative Jazz composition. Like all great artists, Talbert gains inspiration from his surroundings, both past and present, and molds it into his own musical voice. His music has been described as ‘a stylistic combination of Jazz, French Impressionism, abstraction and blowing.”

- Ken Poston, Director, Los Angeles Jazz Institute

“Since the mid-1940s, Tom Talbert has kept to his own path and his own vision, writing extraordinary music. Judged on talent and quality alone, he would be as well known a composer and arranger as Gil Evans, Bill Holman, Thad Jones and Bob Brookmeyer.”

- Doug Ramsey, Jazz author and critic

"A jazz classicist, schooled in the past, with a yen for the future, Tom Talbert is a romantic who shuns the cliché. He is a technician who trusts the heart. Even when he's being clever his notes are warm and tender."
- Budd Schulberg, writer and columnist

I’ve always had a fondness for rehearsal bands and over the years I’ve played in a great number of them.

A few of these were led by notable bandleaders, but the majority were assembled by composer-arrangers who were “amateurs” in the true, French meaning of that term.

Their main interest in running a rehearsal band was to have a vehicle in which to hear their arrangements, which, interestingly enough, is in line with the main reason why the great Duke Ellington maintained his own orchestra throughout his lifetime.

Because there is so little money involved, finding a time and place to rehearse and a group of musicians who can make it on a regular basis can be challenging. It also takes a few volunteers to copy all the parts for the arrangements.

Musicians play and interpret music differently, so it helps if the rehearsal band leader can keep at least a core or nucleus together and substitute around them.

The first trumpet and first alto chairs, lead trombone and rhythm section are the sources for most of the continuity in the “sound” of a big band arrangement and the “style” of the band itself.

Soloists obviously add a lot, too, but they are more interchangeable, because when someone gets up to blow, they are usually expressing their individualism and not that of the writer/leader of the band.

Some pretty talented arranger-composers have toiled in the relative obscurity of rehearsal bands.

A few of these rehearsal band leaders have become “discovered” and contracted with to write arrangements for well-known bands and vocalists .

Occasionally, they may even catch the ear of a producer who hires them to score an album of their own for a lesser known recording company.

One of the benefits of volunteering for rehearsal bands is that you often come across very different and even unconventional arrangements. It’s always fun to try and sound like the Basie Band or deal with the elaborate arrangements of Pete Rugolo and Stan Kenton or try to get into the light and airy feeling of the Thad Jones – Mel Lewis Orchestra, but nobody ever does it as well as the originals.

That’s why it’s enjoyable to play the original music and/or arrangements of a New Voice, a writer who takes your ears in a different direction.

Someone who fits this mold perfectly is Tom Talbert, a composer-arranger who began his career in this manner. Following the Second World War, he put together a series of rehearsal bands that were primarily based in Los Angeles.

He described how it all began in the insert notes to a CD that Sea Breeze issued which documents Tom’s music 1946-1949 [SB-2069]. It’s a very familiar and almost classic story of the evolution of a series of rehearsal bands under a then-unknown composer, arranger and leader.

“My first Los Angeles band began rehearsing in the spring of 1946.

I had been in the army and was discharged from a band at Fort Ord, California the summer before. I had no formal music schooling and the year I spent as chief arranger for a good army dance band was a major part of my education. Worked with several bands and met arranger-bandleader Johnny Richards in Boston. Moved to Los Angeles the winter of 1946 and was soon living at the Harvey Hotel...a musician's hangout fondly referred to as the Hot Harvey.

Before long Richards appeared and, in his generous manner, started looking for things I could do. He soon encouraged me to start a band and that seemed a logical move for an out-of-work twen­ty-one year old arranger. We started with a group of guys who wanted to play and as we rehearsed some were changed and others just left for a real job. The trumpet section of Lou Obergh, Ronnie Rochat and Frank Beach was very strong. Veteran Babe Russin brought his beautiful tone to the sax section.

Richards' brother, Jack Cascales, had a small label, Paramount Records, and he was also acting as my manager. (Last I ever had.) He wanted to record the band. The session at Radio Recorders Studio in June 1946 went very well and we, the orchestra and my arrangements, were out in the world.

I took a smaller group to a nice but miniature casino at Lake Tahoe for July and August. Back in Los Angeles that fall, we were rehearsing and working occasionally. I wrote Flight of the Vout Bug. It was recorded with a good band put together for the date and having the great Al Killian playing lead trumpet was a joy for me. Dodo Marmarosa was tops as my featured piano soloist.

When we went to Tahoe I hired a fine drummer, Dick Stanton. He would later introduce a num­ber of good, young players into the band who were Los Angelenos. Then, in the summer of 1947, I went on the road with Anita O'Day and wound up in New York.

Returning to Los Angeles I started rehearsing the band again. There was considerable arrang­ing work as another musician's union recording ban was imminent. We did some sessions for Paramount with singer Joan Barton that were used on television, lip-synched in early TV fashion. Although I was unhappy with the engineering, we did a good date early New Year's Eve to beat the ban and to record a couple of forgettable pop tunes for the company. We included my Love Is A Pleasure, then called Never Meant For Me.

The band continued to rehearse and play an occasional job during 1948. Warne Marsh and Steve White were the tenors when we played the Trianon Ballroom that April.

Early in 1949 I met Ed Nathan, a warm-hearted, erudite man who worked at CBS. Ed put a lot of effort into trying to get something going for the band but L.A. was not the place nor was it the propitious time in the business. We were playing some jobs, rehearsing weekly, and the band was very tight and up for some concerts at the Coronet Theatre that spring. Don Prell was on bass. Wes Hensel now played lead trumpet between Johnny Anderson and Johnny McComb, so that section was set.

Art Pepper's arrival in the band gave us a new voice. We hadn't had an improvising alto player before and, at the time, Art was already one of the greatest players around. Harry Betts joined John Haliburton in the trombone duo. El Koeling and Don Davidson were still playing lead alto and bari­tone saxophones. Jack Montrose and Johnny Barbera were the tenors.

Pianist Claude Williamson had just left Charlie Barnet and was often in the audience we regu­larly had at rehearsals. I had broken my arm in a fall from a horse, and Claude started playing with Prell and the lightly swinging Jimmy Pratt on drums. The final band was now in place.

Everyone was young and full of energy. I wrote new music for each rehearsal and Don Davidson copied it. (As Ronnie Rochat had done for the first band. What great friends!) The band was extremely faithful about rehearsal and job commitments and good natured with my demands on shading and intonation. As a group, they grew to play with confident authority. Plus, we liked each other and each other's playing. Twenty-six years later Art Pepper reflected, "They were all such nice guys."

So, in November 1949, I was back in Radio Recorders good studio where we had first recorded. I was sending acetate audition discs east to the recording companies where they were then judged not commercial. Perhaps that surprised only me. Bands were being canceled, not signed. But, we kept having .rehearsals. That winter, 1950, Stan Kenton decided to reorganize. Pepper and Betts went on the Innovations Orchestra and I was asked to write. We disbanded.

I followed the audition records east that spring.”

In what has to be considered a true labor-of-love, Bruce Talbot, who is always doing nice things for Jazz, put together a fascinating book about Tom and his music.

Bruce was born in Wellington, New Zealand, where, as a young radio producer in the late 1950s he first heard and was moved by Tom Talbert's music. Moving to London, England in 1963 he worked for the BBC in radio, television and record production before being invited, in 1991, to come to the U.S. as Executive Producer of the Smithsonian Collection of Recordings record label.

Bruce’s book is entitled Tom Talbert: His Life and Times: Voices From a Vanished World of Jazz, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004 | Series: Studies in Jazz (Book 45).

The following is a brief synopsis of the book.

"A jazz classicist, schooled in the past, with a yen for the future, Tom Talbert is a romantic who shuns the cliché. He is a technician who trusts the heart. Even when he's being clever his notes are warm and tender."

Budd Schulberg wrote these words in 1957. Almost 50 years later they still apply. A contemporary of Gerry Mulligan, Shorty Rogers, Gil Evans, Bill Holman, and Ralph Burns, Tom Talbert is a composer, arranger, bandleader, and pianist. In the late 1940s he led his own big band in Los Angeles, featuring star artists like Art Pepper, Warne Marsh, and Claude Williamson. In New York in the 1950’s he wrote for Charlie Barnet, Buddy Rich, Claude Thornhill, Marian McPartland, Kai Winding, Machito, and conceived and scored some strikingly original jazz recordings that were issued under his own name.”

Tom Talbert returned to Los Angeles in 1975 and has continued to record his own innovative, impressionistic, and subtly swinging music using the finest players, even to this day. In this account of his life and career, Bruce Talbot paints a vivid portrait of Tom Talbert and his world. Utilizing first-hand accounts, the book is crammed with memories of Los Angeles in the 40s, road tours of the Mid-West, a rare glimpse of the Twin Cities jazz scene during World War II, and a portrait of New York City in the 50s when it was truly the jazz capital of the world. The book includes a complete discography of Tom Talbert's work and a CD containing fourteen of his most important and representative recordings.

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The editorial staff at JazzProfiles collected these Editorial Reviews to give you some additional perspectives on the significance of Tom Talbert’s music and Bruce’s book.

“He could have been as famous as Gil Evans or Quincy Jones. Certainly the talent was there in abundance. Instead, Tom Talbert remains one of jazz's most neglected figures, his unique arranging and composing abilities known only to the discerning few who listen to music based on its content rather than its name value. Expatriate New Zealander Bruce Talbot, formerly head of the BBC and Smithsonian record divisions, brings his own vast jazz knowledge and experience to this fascinating biography. In dealing with Tom Talbert's life and works he depicts the man against the backdrop of an equally neglected period of American music, that of the post-war experimental years of the late 1940s and early 1950s, where talent bloomed in the unlikeliest of places, flourished despite the awful conditions imposed on the traveling musicians, only to choke and die on the creeping blight known as rock 'n' roll. Truly a golden age that has been overlooked by jazz historians, here brought vividly to life again by the author.” (Brooks, Michael )

 “Since the mid-1940s, Tom Talbert has kept to his own path and his own vision, writing extraordinary music. Judged on talent and quality alone, he would be as well known a composer and arranger as Gil Evans, Bill Holman, Thad Jones and Bob Brookmeyer. In this fascinating biography, Bruce Talbot examines the circumstances and choices that have won Talbert the admiration of music insiders and left him a secret to most of the public. Talbot's book should do much to bring Talbert recognition he has long deserved.” (Doug Ramsey, Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music )

“Bruce Talbot's edgy biography of an American Jazz original reads like a John dos Passos epic novel of America in the World War II and Post War years. Only it isn't a novel - it's the jazz life captured through the wide eyes of a young mid-western musician who was born to make his mark in jazz. Bruce Talbot turns in a dazzling writing performance - it's a very hip, very real, very full biography of a brilliant musician known until now as "the best kept secret in jazz'. Discover Tom Talbert and live life on the road, in the studios and in Jazz history.” (Dom Cerulli )

“This well researched book should bring belated recognition to one of the music's most neglected figures.” (Jazz Journal International )

“…not only a source of intrigue for the jazz enthusiast, but also fascinating for the average reader who may be unfamiliar with Talbert's quiet legacy. (International Musician)

“A fascinating view of this talented gentleman from the world of jazz. Beyond that, however, it also gives a perceptive insight into the various musical environments that formed Talbert's style, and the ways in which he contributed to the development of modern big band music. For those of you who just dig hearing inside stories from musicians, many of them full of humor, there is plenty of meat here for you. If you love delving more deeply into jazz history, you will also find great satisfaction in this volume.” (Jersey Jazz )

“Don't let the opportunity pass to learn more about [Talbert]. His is the stuff of real quality, and the Jazz world and anyone with an interest in composing and arranging should be made more aware of this fact.” (Jazz Now )

“There is an abundance of gorgeous writing and arranging on this disc, and combined with the book's many great stories, and its reevaluation of one of the music's great arrangers, this is truly one of the Jazz publishing events of the year.” (Cadence )

The following video tribute to Tom contains a sampling of his music with an audio track comprised of Shipping Out from his Louisiana Suite.