Stefano di Battista: Jazz in Italy

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

Soprano and alto saxophonist Stefano di Battista and I have three primary things in common: [1] February 14, [2] Rome and Paris and [3] a passion for passionate Jazz.

We were both born on February 14^th  although I am – ahem – a few years older than him.

Stefano was born in Rome; my father was born there and it along with Paris are our favorite European cities.

The last common interest is self-explanatory, but is really the point of the whole piece.

I know that it seems hard to believe that an Italian and an American of Italian descent would be passionate about Jazz, but Stefano can’t play Jazz other than passionately and I have no interest in Jazz that doesn’t “speak to me” – passionately.

[Actually, we have a fourth thing in common: we both have the same first name].

Essentially, this piece on Stefano has two, main features [it seems that I’ve suddenly discovered enumeration].

The first feature consists of three [here I go again] videos that we have developed and embedded throughout this profile on Stefano.  Each of these uses a different audio track from Stefano’s Parker Mood CD as a way of acquainting you with his style of playing

In the initial video, Stefano performs Tadd Dameron's "Hot House" with Flavio Boltro [tp], Rosario Bonaccorso [b], and drummer Herlin Riley. Can you tell that drummer Herlin Riley is from New Orleans, home of the syncopated, marching street bands? And if you've ever wondered about the sound of the Jazz expression - "a two-beat-feel" - you're listening to it.

HOT HOUSE

The other, two videos are interspersed in the following overview of di Battista’s career and approach to Jazz which is largely drawn from the annotations on his My Space profile.

“Italian saxophonist Stefano Di Battista could spill a can of paint onto a canvas, only to find he has made a beautiful picture. In other words, every breath that passes through his horn is attractive.

His latest project Round About Roma creates an imaginary cinema score, with strings by the Symphonic Orchestra of Paris, that could have been a 1960's romantic film centered in Rome. Together with composer/arranger Vince Mendoza, Di Battista weaves jazz elements into these well-tempered tracks. Mendoza has created orchestral arrangements for jazz and pop music from John Scofield to Bjork. His most accomplished work being two discs for Joni Mitchell, including last years Travelogue with his string arrangements for Mitchell's re-interpretation of her beloved hits.

Two saxophonists, Art Pepper and Cannonball Adderley, have influenced Stefano di Battista's career. Both of these players incorporate an emotional approach in their playing. Where Pepper would reach for a clarinet, di Battista favors a soprano saxophone. His tone is more luscious than his two heroes, as is evident throughout this disc. Where the prior self-titled Stefano Di Battista (2000) with Elvin Jones and pianist Jackie Terrasson threatened to speak bebop throughout, this albums concept is pure amour. This isn't as much a jazz quartet with string accents as it is a small orchestra that includes piano/bass/drums/saxophone. Mendoza and Di Battista refrain from overlapping music, they intertwine and prudently have either the quartet or the strings drop out for an agreeable mix.

It is a stretch to call this jazz. Let's call it beautiful cinema orchestrations in the tradition of Nina Rota. If there is such a category, this is a near perfect album.

CONGO SQUARE:

Born: February 14, 1969

For many jazz fans, Stefano Di Battista will always be associated with the city of Paris, where he became a regular performer at The Sunset in the mid-1990s. From there, the alto and soprano saxophonist became a valuable sideman (to the late piano great Michel Petrucciani and later, drummer Elvin Jones) before launching his own solo career. On Round About Roma, his third date for Blue Note, Di Battista keeps the lush romance of the City of Lights alive and well while taking us back to the music of Rome, his beloved birthplace, where his journey on the sax began at age 13.

“This album is a story about Rome and its history, with every song featuring a unique point of view about the city’s life,” he says. “The idea was to remember people and places, both real and fictional, like ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘Anastasia,’ and bring out love through the music. It’s important that as a composer and player, I always tell the truth. My band and I really liked the 2000 Joni Mitchell CD Both Sides Now and we wanted to recreate a new kind of jazz music using this idea.”

Di Battista is in the company of longtime friends and cohorts throughout the eight beautiful and haunting tracks. He has worked with this particular quartet”pianist Eric Legnini, double bassist Rosario Bonaccorso and drummer Andre Ceccarelli”for almost ten years, and they’re still making magic some 500 gigs later (Legnini appeared on A Prima Vista, and Bonaccorso is on that date and the 2001 self-titled release).

“Playing with them is my life,” the saxophonist says. “We all know each other really well. The piano and double bass are like a prolongation to my mind, and the drum is my heartbeat.”

Still, the essence of Rome cannot be conveyed by jazz ensemble alone, and this is where the orchestra of top Parisian musicians (featuring the 1st violin of the Opera National de Paris) transforms a magnificent jazz date into a truly universal expression of love featuring classical and film score overtones. Bringing this element to glorious life is veteran orchestrator and arranger Vince Mendoza, who has worked a similar magic for years with jazz and pop heavyweights like Bjork, The Yellowjackets, Peter Erskine, John Scofield, and significantly, Joni Mitchell, for whom Mendoza wrote the orchestral arrangements of Mitchell classics that appear on her previously mentioned recording, Both Sides Now. Incredibly for all of its grandeur,

Round About Roma was recorded in one nine hour session in Paris, with no overdubs.

“Vince wrote the arrangements, and the quartet integrated his music with our own,” says Di Battista. “Playing with an orchestra is a great experience and the music is much easier for the people. It helps us keep the essence of what we’re trying to convey musically. This is the first time I have recorded with an orchestra under my name but I’ve been playing with orchestras for many years, including a whole orchestra tour with Dianne Reeves two years ago. I like the idea of music that’s simple and can be listened to easily. It’s a real challenge compared to what I did previously with my quartet or with Elvin Jones.”

A NIGHT IN TUNISIA [“A Tribute to Charlie Parker: 1920-1955”]

In an ongoing effort to convey different emotions and moods, Di Battista switches off between soprano and alto effortlessly throughout the session. His wistful soprano leads us through the elegant, dreamy atmospheres of his own composition “Tartaruga,” while he leads with alto on Mendoza’s “Amoroso” to convey a rich sense of deeper melancholy. The soprano-driven “Anastasia” offers interesting mood swings between the contemplative beginning (violin solo over a dark bassline, then a classical flavored opening melody) and the livelier, swinging quartet action that emerges later. Di Battista is a longtime fan of the classic Franco Zeffirelli film Romeo & Juliet, and blends his alto with Mendoza’s caressing yet dramatic orchestrations to bring new life to the familiar Nino Rota theme. “The Other Side” begins with a dark, minor key flavor before becoming a reflection of the lighter side of the Roman experience via Di Battista’s spirited soprano jamming, a trademark lively Legnini piano solo, and the intense contrast between Bonaccorso’s double bass and Ceccarelli’s insistent hi-hat. Mendoza’s “Arabesque” is a joyful adventure, which begins as a silky soprano ballad before widening the palette to include off-meter rhythms and powerful orchestral swells. Di Battista’s warm alto drives the final two tracks, the soulful ballad “Roma Antica” and the intensely percussive, pop-flavored closer “The Next Nine Hours.”

While it would be hard for anyone born in Rome and living for years in Paris to be anything but ultra-romantic, Stefano Di Battista’s birth date, February 14, 1969, ensures that Cupid will always be part of his life. He began playing sax as a teenager in a neighborhood group and says his love affair with jazz grew from his early infatuation with the acid tone of Art Pepper. But John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley and the Italian saxophone legend Massimo Urbani are equal influences: “Urbani taught me energy, generosity, physical and spiritual commitment to music. And when I heard Cannonball at 16, I thought that was the most important turn of my life. It became a career just after that.”

In 1992, Di Battista played at the Calvi Jazz Festival and was invited by Jean-Pierre Como to move to Paris, where he soon established himself at the city’s premier jazz hotspot, The Sunset. “When I arrived in Paris,” the saxman remembers, “it was as if I’d been born there.” He appeared frequently on the bill with Michel Benit, drummer Stephane Huchard and drummer Aldo Romano. Then came associations with cornetist Nat Adderley, drummers Daniel Humair and Jimmy Cobb, and the late pianist Michel Petrucciani, who asked Di Battista and his trumpeter sidekick Flavio Boltro, to join his new sextet.

In 1997, Di Battista released his solo debut Volare on Label Bleu, which was nominated for the Victoires de la Musique, Choc de L’Annee 97 Jazzman. He made the transition from Bleu to Blue (Note) with the recording of A Prima Vista, his well-received 1998 label debut featuring Boltro, Legnini and Bonaccorso. Di Battista’s fruitful association with drummer Elvin Jones, legendary originally for his work with John Coltrane, began with the recording of Di Battista’s well-received self-titled second Blue Note album in 2001. Jones came to Brussels to lay down tracks for “some kid” and wound up taking Di Battista on his own world tours with the Elvin Jones Jazz Machine.

For Di Battista, making music comes down to one thing: “I like the idea of simple, communicative playing that remains fluid and immediately perceptible. On Round About Roma, I wrote everything with the orchestra in mind and Vince helped me make my dream come true. The music sounds like a soundtrack so it made sense to make a play on the words ‘Round About Midnight.’ I was born in Rome and the city grew with me in my heart. Every time I leave it, something is missing to me. Being around these beautiful cities helps me communicate those special images to the listener.”

Paul Horn’s Jazz Impressions of CLEOPATRA

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

Recent research has revealed that Antony and Cleopatra - one of history's most romantic couples - were not the great beauties that Hollywood would have us believe.

A study of a 2,000-year-old silver coin found the Egyptian queen, famously portrayed by a sultry Elizabeth Taylor, had a shallow forehead, pointed chin, thin lips and sharp nose.

On the other side, her Roman lover, played in the 1963 movie by Richard Burton, Taylor's husband at the time, had bulging eyes, a hook nose and a thick neck.

History has depicted Cleopatra as a great beauty, befitting a woman who as Queen of Egypt seduced Julius Caesar, and then his rival Mark Antony.

But the coin, which goes on show on Wednesday at Newcastle University for Valentine's Day, after years lying in a bank, is much less flattering about both famous faces.

The 32 BC artifact was in a collection belonging to the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, which is being researched in preparation for the opening of the new Great North Museum.

Clare Pickersgill, the university's assistant director of archaeological museums, said: "The popular image we have of Cleopatra is that of a beautiful queen who was adored by Roman politicians and generals. The relationship between Mark Antony and Cleopatra has long been romanticized by writers, artists and film-makers.

"Shakespeare wrote his tragedy Antony and Cleopatra in 1608, while the Orientalist artists of the 19th century and the modern Hollywood depictions, such as that of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the 1963 film, have added to the idea that Cleopatra was a great beauty. Recent research would seem to disagree with this portrayal, however."

The university's director of archaeological museums, Lindsay Allason-Jones, said: "The image on the coin is far from being that of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

"Roman writers tell us that Cleopatra was intelligent and charismatic, and that she had a seductive voice but, tellingly, they do not mention her beauty. The image of Cleopatra as a beautiful seductress is a more recent image."

While the editorial staff at JazzProfiles is saddened to learn that Hollywood didn’t get it right, again, we were delighted when producers at Columbia Records commissioned Paul Horn to make a “Jazz Impressions” LP of composer Alex North’s fine score to Cleopatra [he is also the composer of the film score for the movie Spartacus].

In a way, the Paul’s Jazz Impressions of Cleopatra turned out to be a family affair as both of my drum teachers, Victor Feldman and Larry Bunker played piano and percussion, respectively, on the album. In addition to Paul [who plays flute exclusively], Victor and Larry, the LP features the talents of Emil Richards on vibes and Chuck Israels on bass.

It doesn’t appear that this recording ever made it to CD. To rectify this omission, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles and the cracker-jack production team at CerraJazzLTD have developed the following video which features the Paul Horn Quintet performing  Grant Me an Honorable Way to Die from the Columbia LP Cleopatra [CL 2050] as the audio track.

Dave Brubeck at The Blackhawk - "Jam Session"

Dave Brubeck at 90

Jazz musicians were high on my list of childhood heroes, right up there with my Dad who served with General Patton’s 3^rd Army in Europe and my Uncles [his brothers] who both served in the Pacific for the duration of World War II with the US Navy and Marines, respectively.

The fact that Dave Brubeck sent along the photo autographed by alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, bassist Gene Wright and drummer Joe Morello which you will find at the end of this piece did nothing to diminished my admiration of him. [I had sent him a handwritten letter – remember those? - requesting a photograph of he and the group.]

And then there’s all of that wonderful music that Dave produced with his various groups over the years which has been a constant source of inspiration and enjoyment. Heck, I even liked the Dave Digs Disney theme album that the quartet made not-too-long after signing with Columbia Records in 1950s.

What a life; what a guy!

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought perhaps that visitors to the site who may have missed the endearing tribute to Dave as he turns 90 which Gene Seymour wrote for the December 5, 2010 “Arts & Books” section of The Los Angeles Times might enjoy having an opportunity to read it. Click the following link for subscription information for the Los Angeles Times.

“The Enduring Jazz Legends Who Turns 90 on December 6, 2010 is Still Playing And Composing.”

DAVE BRUBECK WON’T TAKE FIVE

© - Gene Seymour reporting from Wilton, Conn./Los Angeles Times; copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Most people who have never lived in Connecticut imagine that the whole state is exactly like Wilton. It's not, but driving toward the town where Dave Brubeck lives, you understand why this dream never dies, especially in late autumn when every tree seems almost mythic in its chromatic display and every pitch and roll of the rural landscape yields views that can either fill your heart or break it gently.

You can easily love this area of the world in the same unfettered way the whole world seems to love Dave Brubeck. Jazz may not occupy the center of the musical universe at the front end of the 21st century, but even people who know little, if anything, about jazz know who Brubeck is. And what they know, they like very much. Through more than 60 years of record­ings and performances at colleges, concert halls, festivals and nightclubs all over the world, Brubeck put forth a body of work — as pianist, composer and bandleader — that is as accessible as it is ingenious, as stress-free as it is rhythmically emphatic, as open-hearted as it is wide-ranging.

Brubeck turns 90 years old Monday and the occasion will be marked with the premiere on Turner Classic Movies of Bruce Ricker's documentary "Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way," executive-produced by Clint Eastwood. Columbia Records, which enjoyed a fruitful, hugely profitable relationship with Brubeck from 1954 to 1970, just marked the occasion with the re­lease of a two-disc set, "Leg­acy of a Legend," whose se­lections were supervised by Brubeck.

All this celebratory activ­ity has been tempered somewhat by the pace­maker surgery Brubeck had in October. His recovery was so unexpectedly protracted that he had to postpone pre­viously scheduled perform­ances. (You figure that it had to have been a pretty se­rious problem for someone so devoted to making his gigs that he once did 120 straight days of travel for concert dates.)

"It was tough," Brubeck says of the procedure, which was supposed to have kept him hospitalized overnight but led to an 18-day stay. "They had to go into muscle instead of skin ... and that caused all the problems."

The dark-haired, owlish countenance that was once among the most recogniz­able faces in music has be­come pale, almost snowy white. He speaks and moves more delicately and deliber­ately than he did even a dec­ade ago. But there remains in Brubeck an aura of amia­bility so ' radiant that it seems to compete with the sunlight flooding his living room in ways that are al­most as breathtaking as the country surrounding his house. Instinctively, one looks for the piano. It's one step below the parlor area in a space where anyone else with an instrument, even a trap set, can jam.

From this area of the house, an assistant brings out a promotional poster of a now-defunct series of CDs, Columbia Jazz Masters, on which caricatures of these masters crowd together on a tiny stage. In the process of identifying the icons de­picted on the poster—nota­bly Miles Davis, Louis Arm­strong, Count Basic, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Billie Holiday - it strikes the observer that the only one in this picture among the living is the stu­dious, buttoned-down young fellow with horn-rimmed spectacles seated at the piano nearest to Holi­day.

So, of course, one asks him first about Lady Day. "I toured with her years ago. She was a wonderful singer, but her health was so bad. She didn't take care of her­self. And her manager wouldn't give her money to stay in a hotel, so she'd sleep in the band bus."

Leaving the ranch

It may take Brubeck longer than it used to for him to reach back for a rec­ollection. But when he does, it unravels with vivid detail, whether he's remembering a club date from the 1950s or talking about his childhood in Stockton, where his fa­ther wanted him to go into the family business of cattle-ranching.

"I'd always go home from college to work with him on the ranch. And this one summer I said to him, 'You know, I have a job, playing in a club. I would like to do that. You have plenty of cow­boys.' He said, 'Dave, I can't see you leaving this life and playing in a smoky night­club. You could be out in the fresh air. I think you're mak­ing a big mistake.' But I went and it was a big disap­pointment. He never lived to see me make it as a musi­cian. So I don't know if he would have approved in the end."

More anecdotes invari­ably turn up in "In His Own Sweet Way," which uses ar­chival footage; vintage in­terviews with Brubeck (in­cluding two with the late Walter Cronkite); testimo­nials from sources as varied as Bill Clinton, George Lu­cas, Bill Cosby and Stanley Crouch; and, of course, many musical interludes on- and off-stage to present as comprehensive a life story of Brubeck as you'll find anywhere.

The artistic triumphs are covered, of course: his groundbreaking college concert tours in the early 1950s that shot him to fame; his experiments with time signatures and polytonality. Then there are the personal triumphs, especially his long and happy marriage to his wife, lola,* whom he met while both were attending what is now the University of the Pacific, where the Brubeck Institute of Music is based. He also was a suc­cess at being a father, with four of his sons — Darius (named for his mentor, French composer Darius Milhaud), Matthew, Chris­topher and Daniel — all be­coming renowned musi­cians in their own right.

The Sony two-disc set amplifies the artistic story as it pulls together pieces from the label's 16-year cache of Brubeck record­ings, most of which encom­pass the epoch-making "classic" quartet of the 1950s and 1960s, featuring bassist Gene Wright, drummer Joe Morello and alto saxophon­ist Paul Desmond, which served as a lucrative labora­tory for Brubeck's aggres­sive assaults on rhythmic imits. The set includes such chestnuts as "Blue Rondo a la Turk," "Summer Song" (as vocalized by Armstrong' on the now out-of-print 1961 recording of Brubeck's se­riocomic "jazz opera," "The Real Ambassadors") and the indelible, inevitable "Take Five." (Quick! Who wrote it? Brubeck, you say? Wrong! Desmond did.) Some glowing rarities dis­tinguish this retrospective, including a never-before-re­leased live performance of "Three to Get Ready" by the classic quartet at its last concert before disbanding in December 1967. (Brubeck wanted to do more compos­ing than touring, a resolu­tion that didn't last longer than a couple of years.)

After listening to these and other Columbia tracks recently, jazz critic Gary Giddins said he liked "the best of them as much or more than ever. It's so much the sound of that era. And there is cheerfulness, a love of playing jazz, of inventing stuff that is rare in any pe­riod."

A bow to the Duke

Through it all, Brubeck, as the title of the film im­plies, retained a sweetness of temperament that some of his critics found too good to be true. Yet his sense of fair play was genuine. Take, for instance, Brubeck's re­action to being put on the cover of Time magazine in November 1954, following his triumphant series of col­lege concerts. Most people would say, at such a mo­ment, "Wow! I'm on the cov­er of Time!" Brubeck's im­mediate reaction was some­thing like: "Gee. How come I'm on the cover of Time magazine before Duke Ellington had the chance?"

It was Ellington, with whom Brubeck was touring at the time, who first showed Brubeck the Time cover. "Seven in the morn­ing, there's a knock at the door and there's Duke handing me the magazine and saying, 'Dave, you're on the cover.' He was happy for me, but I was just so disap­pointed because it should have been him. They got around to him finally a cou­ple of years later. But ...it just bothered me."

Brubeck paid his own lasting tribute to Ellington with one of his most famous compositions, "The Duke," a solo version of which can be heard on "Legacy of a Legend." In a way, the tune is a tribute to both Ellington and his other musical hero, composer Milhaud.

"I was using polytonal chords on the bridge, and I wanted to call it 'Milhaud Meets Ellington.' I was in­spired to write the melody when I took my son Christo­pher to preschool. And com­ing back, it was raining, and I had the windshield wiper on. And I started thinking as the blades were going back and forth...." And he begins to sing the melody as his arm mimics a wiper, "Bah-dum-bahdum-bah-da-ba-daaah.... When [pia­nist] Marian McPartland first heard it, she said, 'Dave, you've written the best bass line of any song.'"

He still writes. "There's usually somebody wanting me to do something, and it'll be something I never thought of doing," he says, referring to such recently commissioned work as a pi­ano suite inspired by the na­ture photography of Ansel Adams and a mini-opera based on John Steinbeck's "Cannery Row." "One thing," he admits. "At my age, holding a pencil for hours a day is not so good anymore. So I had Chris do all the hard work, getting all the copies together."

And he can still play, as he recently proved during a Thanksgiving weekend stint of his quartet at Man­hattan's Blue Note jazz club for his first gig since he left the hospital.

His interaction with longtime partners Bobby Militello on saxophone, Mi­chael Moore on bass and Randy Jones on drums was reportedly as seamless as ever and New York Times jazz critic Nate Chinen found in Brubeck's playing "the picture of judicious clarity, its well-placed chordal accents suggesting a rifting horn section."

Is it possible he could keep this up? Well, he's sure not going 120 consecutive days in different cities any­more. But one dividend of his hospital stay was the chance to have, in his words, "all kinds of things fixed.... And I just saw on my driver's license that there's no re­strictions on my eyes. And my ears are still pretty good. I lost a little in one ear. It rings a lot because when you sit next to the drummer and those cymbals, it gets to your ears eventually. After the ringing started, I moved to the far end." He laughs. "I should have made that move sooner."

So it's all good then? He nods, stating what seems, when taking in a home, a ca­reer, a legacy and a life, alto­gether obvious. "I'm very fortunate."

calendar@latimes.com”

Beautiful Buenos Aires

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

There’s something about Latin Jazz that makes it sound hauntingly beautiful when it is played at a slow tempo.

Hear it for yourself on this tune by trumpeter Diego Urcola which he named after his hometown of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Diego performs it on the following video as a member of the Paquito d’Rivera Quintet with Paquito featured on clarinet [he takes a marvelous solo on an instrument seldom heard in Jazz these days], Dario Eskenazi [also an Argentinean] on piano, Oscar Stagnaro on bass, Mark Walker on drums and Pernell Saturino on percussion.

The track is from the quintet’s Live at the Blue Note CD [Half Note 15095-4911].

Phil Woods & Barcelona Jazz Orquestra - My Man Benny

Mel Rhyne: 1937-2013 - R.I.P. [From the Archives]

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

“Rhyne immediately sounds different from the prevailing Jimmy Smith school of organ players. Instead of swirling, bluesy chords, he favors sharp, almost staccato figures and lyrical single-note runs that often don’t go quite where expected. … He has a way of voicing a line that makes you think of the old compliment about ‘making the organ speak ….’”

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

“Mel Rhyne is certainly among the best Jazz organists. He has fluent ideas, good time, and a clean, light touch. In his hands, the controversial instrument never becomes overbearing or cloying.”

- Dan Morgenstern, Director, Institute for Jazz Studies, Rutgers University

"Melvin's very unique because he's got his own thing. He really doesn't play typical organ. The organ just happens to be his instrument but he doesn't use it in the common way. Like any jazz player, he plays his lines, which are really subtle and personal. It's not like he's pulling out all the stops and doing the organ thing. He's unique, like a Hank Jones of the organ, a really subtle player."

- Guitarist, Peter Bernstein

"Melvin's got great time. I noticed that the first time I played with him, that his time does not move. Not only that, his choice of bass notes is always right. In fact, just his choice of notes period, the way he constructs his lines. There's nobody around playing organ like that. He's playing just as good as he did or better than on those classic Wes Montgomery sides. It's a pleasure to play with him because his time is so steady, which is something that doesn't happen all the time and that can be very hard on the drummer. But let me tell you, it's a gas to play with Melvin Rhyne."

- Drummer, Kenny Washington

Mel Rhyne passed away on March 5, 2013. Always one of my favorites, I wanted to remember him on these pages with a re-posting of this piece from the blog archives [12.4.2010]. I am posting it again because the videos accompanying the both pieces were deleted due to copyright issues. Fast forward to 2021 and what a difference the 8 years make as they are now available again through YouTube.

And making music in the context of Hammond B-3 Organ Jazz trios is also “a gas” as I can attest from personal experience.

After playing drums professionally for about 12 years, I went into a different line of work, married and began raising a family.

I did keep a set of drums around and played the odd gig now and again, which is how I happened on to an organ-trio gig that began in the Spring in 1970.

It’s easy to remember the year as April and May of 1970 witnessed the titanic seven game professional basketball battle between the New York Knicks, who were co-led by center Willis Reed and guard Walt Frazier, and the Los Angeles Lakers, co-led by center Wilt Chamberlain and guard Jerry West.

The Knicks won the best-of-seven series in seven games, much to the disappointment of Lakers fans who, at the time, were looking for the team’s first NBA title since it had moved to Los Angeles from Minneapolis a decade earlier.

The venue for the gig was an upstairs room [some referred to it an “attic”] at Woody & Eddy’s, a well-established restaurant and bar that was located at the corner of San Gabriel Blvd. and Huntington Avenue in San Marino, CA [think “the Beverly Hills” of the San Gabriel Valley; northeast of Los Angeles]. 

For whatever reasons [probably increased patronage = selling more booze], the owners of Woody & Eddy’s had decided to turn the upstairs room into a Sunday afternoon Jazz club. The gig lasted from 4:00 – 7:00 PM, ending just-in-time [good name for a song] for the evening supper crowd.

The call for the job came from an old high school buddy who played what musicians sometime refers to as  “arranger’s piano.” The fact that he was [and still is] primarily an arranger may have something to do with this “choice” of styles.

“Arranger’s piano” usually consists of soloing with chords instead of playing hornlike phrases with the right hand and accompanying chords or intervals with the left.

When my pal called me for the gig, he mentioned the name of a tenor saxophonist/vocalist who would be joining us, the length of the gig and the “bread” involved [money].

When I asked him who would be playing bass he said somewhat evasively: “You’ll see.”

Upon showing up early at Woody & Eddy’s in order to set-up my drums, I suddenly understood “who” the bass player was going to be when there before me was a gleaming Hammond B-3 organ with its bass keyboard foot pedals.

From the first downbeat, we jelled as a trio and the huge sound coming from the Hammond helped to envelope everyone in an atmosphere of musical merriment [the early afternoon glasses of Chardonnay may have also had something to do with the salubrious effect brought on by the music].

Almost instinctively, and perhaps in no small measure due to the presence of the Hammond, our repertoire became -  The Blues.

Also somewhat curatively, my arranger- piano friend’s keyboard limitations were more than offset by the Hammond’s suitability to chords and chording.

Using the “stops” [devices that alter the sound texture] on the Hammond and locked hands [playing the same phrase in both hands at the same time], he pounded out explosive chords while the sax player sang “Goin to Kansas City” and I laid down heavy backbeats with rim shots on the snare drum.

My Slingerland Radio King snare drum really got a workout on this gig and I got extra “pop” out of it by using [very large] 1A drum sticks that had been recommended by Ron Jefferson [a drummer who had worked with organist Richard “Groove” Holmes; he was also pianist Les McCann’s regular drummer].

Luckily, too, I had remembered to bring along my 20” K-Zildjan ride cymbal and its harmonic overtones blended in perfectly with the sound of the Hammond, the tenor sax and the blues-drenched atmosphere of the music.

The most fun was watching my buddy dance his feet on the organ foot pedals which produced driving bass lines that soon had the upper floor walls of the club figuratively “breathing in and out” with their pulsations.

It was one of the best times I had ever had on a gig from every standpoint.

But it appeared that it was all going to end all-too-soon when the tenor player called in during the week to share the news that he and his wife had just celebrated the birth of their first child.

While we were delighted for he and his wife, the bad news was that he was no longer going to make the Sunday job at Woody & Eddy’s.

At this juncture, however, serendipity intervened with the result that a good gig was about to become a great one.

For obvious reasons, I had been listening to the three, superb organ-trio albums that the late guitarist Wes Montgomery made for Riverside Records before that label was besieged by financial woes and Wes made the jump to Verve Records and subsequent fame and fortune.

While listening to these sides, it dawned on me that since my earliest days in music, one of my closest friends was a guitarist who had recently gotten back into town after going on the road with Buddy Rich’s “new” big band.

To make a long story short, I telephoned him, he said that he’d love to make the gig and after we played our first song together, we knew something special was happening.

The Management at Woody & Eddy’s did as well and extended our time at the upstairs room through the Summer of 1970.  They even supplied and staffed the bar in the attic room so that the patrons didn’t have to [dangerously] go up and down the stairs to replenish their tankards [there was an elevator, but for some reason, no one ever took it as it negotitated the one flight slower than a hospital lift].

To top it all off, the guitarist taught us all of Wes’ original compositions from the Riverside albums.

I got to play on Fried Pies, Jingles and The Trick Bag, the latter becoming a solo vehicle for me until some of the early dinning patrons in the below restaurant complained to the owners about “the racket coming from upstairs.”

The organist on these, three classic organ-guitar trio LPs that Wes made for Riverside was Mel Rhyne.

Unlike my arranger-piano friend, Mel played the organ like a piano, foregoing the instrument’s theatrical effects in favor of a legato style of phrasing his solos. One thing they did have in common was a love for the instrument’s foot pedal keyboard, although Mel employs it in a more understated fashion.

After Mel made the Riverside LPs with Wes, he retired to the relative obscurity of the Jazz scene in his native Indianapolis and later moved to Milwaukee, WI where he had a prosperous career and where he was rediscovered in the 1990s by Gerry Teekens at Criss Cross Records.

All you need to know about the “disappearance” and reappearance of Mel is contained in the following insert notes by Lora Rosner from Mel Rhyne’s first Criss Cross CD which is appropriately named Melvin Rhyne: The Legend [Criss Cross Jazz 1059].

You can locate more about Mel’s Criss Cross Recordings by going here.

Here's Mel with he along with guitarist Peter Bernstein and drummer Kenny Washington performing Wes’ The Trick Bag as its soundtrack.

More of Mel with Peter and Kenny can be found at the conclusion of Lara’s notes in a video tribute to Jazz guitarist Peter Bernstein which uses as its audio track Billie’s Bounce from Melvin Rhyne’s Mel’s Spell Criss Cross CD [1118].

© -Lara Rosner/Criss Cross Records, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

"Legend" is derived from the Latin verb "legere", meaning "to collect, gather or read" and the word has come to mean "things to be read or collections of stories about notable figures"; legends are both such people and the lore that surrounds them. When a musician makes a historic contribution or is part of a historically significant group, an undying interest in the personality and the documents he has left behind, combined with a lack of current information will often engender tales of his recent activities and past achievements which are created to satisfy and feed the public's curiosity and hunger for such news. While Mel Rhyne is too modest to feel comfortable being called a legend (Teekens' title), the legend of his whereabouts and his slim recorded output from 30 years ago are now happily supplemented and brought up-to-date with fresh recordings by this brilliant, original voice on the organ and master of his instrument at the peak of his powers.

Mel Rhyne (born 10/12/36) is best known as the lyrical, inventive, understated organist and longtime associate of Wes Montgomery who complemented the guitarist so beautifully on four of his Riverside LPs, including his first and last for the label: Wes Montgomery Trio; Boss Guitar; Portrait for Wes; Guitar on the Go. Wes' Riverside recordings document the period of his first maturity and the core of his purest, most inspired, small group playing (10-9-63). Wes and Rhyne both played with great imagination and a certain disregard for convention; they also shared great respect for one another. Wes loved his "piano player's touch." Mel has a good left hand from learning boogie woogie from his father as a child, which made playing basslines easier when he began playing organ in the mid-50's in order to get more work as a sideman.

One of the first jobs he did on organ was with Roland Kirk, another highly original, maverick performer grounded in the roots of jazz and the blues. While he later became a fan of the John Coltrane Quartet with McCoy Tyner, a devotee of Red Garland and a student of great organists like Milt Buckner, Jimmy Smith, Wild Bill Davis and Jackie Davis, his earliest musical education was based on listening to Nat Cole, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner records.

People interested in jazz history know that Chicago had DuSable H.S., Detroit had Case and Sam Brown taught at Jefferson High in south Los Angeles. Russell Brown was the open-minded band director and free spirit at Crispus Attucks, the only high school in Indianapolis' black neighborhood, who encouraged the jazz activity and featured the talents of many famous Indianapolites: J.J. Johnson; Slide Hampton; Leroy Vinnegar; Larry Ridley; Buddy Montgomery; Mel Rhyne; Freddie Hubbard; Virgil Jones; Ray Appleton - to name a few. Many young musicians took night school classes at the city's numerous clubs and after-hours joints such as the Turf Bar, the Hub-Bub, the 19th Hole, the 440 Club and of course the Ebony Missile Room where Wes Montgomery often held forth, drawing young talent and music lovers to him like a magnet.

From 1959-64 Rhyne played and toured with the guitarist except when Wes had the chance to work with his brothers as part of the Mastersounds. The difficulty of transporting an organ contributed to the group's demise but the final deathblow came when Riverside went into receivership and Creed Taylor, Wes' new manager, led him off into a world of large orchestras and more commercial music where Rhyne would have felt superfluous and out-of-place.

In 1969 Rhyne moved to Madison, Wise, to work with guitarist John Shacklett and his brother Ron Rhyne on drums and also appeared on Buddy Montgomery's This Rather than That (Impulse). Early in his career, Mel had backed great acts like T-Bone Walker, B.B. King, the Four Tops, Aretha Franklin and Arthur Prysock, but after working with Wes he only wanted to play jazz. Buddy Montgomery persuaded him to move to Milwaukee in 1973, a town with enough jazz activity at the time to keep him working and stimulated. Last year Herb Ellis asked him to play the B-3 on Roll Call (Justice) and a few months ago Milwaukee native, trumpeter Brian Lynch who has known Mel since 1974, asked the organist to appear on his third CD for Criss Cross.

A few weeks before his record date Lynch heard guitarist Peter Bernstein at the Village Gate and was so taken with his playing that he asked him to be on the date as well. Bernstein predictably gains the respect of every great musician he works with; Jimmy Cobb first asked Peter to work with him in April '89 when he was all of 21 and the guitarist recently led his own quartet featuring Cobb for a standing-room-only week at the Village Gate. Lou Donaldson thought he was listening to a Grant Green record the first time he heard Peter play, subsequently featured him on his CD, Play the Right Thing (Fantasy). Peter's playing incorporates the best qualities of Wes Montgomery and Grant Green. He's an expressive soloist whose horn-inspired lines draw much of their power, beauty and effectiveness from his soulful time.

Criss Cross producer Gerry Teekens was so pleased with the results of Lynch's date that he asked Rhyne to do an impromptu trio recording the next day and Mel was quite happy to have Bernstein and young veteran Kenny Washington with him again in the studio. Although Organ-izing (Jazzland) was issued under Rhyne's name in order to capitalize on the organ fad of the time, the LP (1960) was a thrown-together session of four blues featuring horns, organ, piano and bass which limited his role as an organist; he had no idea he was the leader of the date. It seems hard to believe but The Legend is Melvin Rhyne's first recording as a leader; the world has waited long enough and so has Rhyne. His stunningly original ideas, impeccable taste and time, humor and unique sound make this CD special from its opening moments.

After so many years of imposed silence Rhyne bursts onto CD with a performance of Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis' Licks A-Plenty which conveys his youthful exuberance and enthusiasm and sheer delight in making music. While the title is an apt description of the head, a good name for the solos (especially Rhyne's) might be "Expect the Unexpected." The rhythmic shapes of his lines are irregular and unusual and have an arresting vocal quality. He plays with his audience setting up riffs which he deconstructs with subtle amendments, sly timing or the big sound of surprise when he pulls out a few more stops during a shout chorus. A drummer of Kenny Washington's caliber is needed to keep up with the organist's utterances. Bernstein can't help but respond to Rhyne and his solo reflects some of Mel's rhythmic originality. In his discreet comping Pete defers to Mel the way Mel deferred to Wes. The atmospheric Serenata is played much more slowly than usual and shows off Bernstein's beautiful sound and feeling for melody. He learned the tune in the studio without music. Mel told me that he thought Peter did a marvelous job; he was particularly happy with the trio's pleasing contrast of sound.

Dig the relaxed feeling and great solos on Savoy which is surely one of the highlights of the session. Mel digs in with a strong, dense sound and makes a blistering statement on The Trick Bag. Bernstein is an extension of Rhyne's lyricism and taste on a soulful Old Folks (gorgeous intro). Next Time You See Me was a 1958 hit for Frankie Lymon and many singers have done it since. Rhyne phrases the melody the way a vocalist would. True to his bebop roots and his own inner voice, Rhyne reinterprets Groovin' High at a brisk pace. Contributions from guests Brian Lynch and Don Braden brought the session to a close.

Melvin hopes to record again in the near future which will no doubt be eagerly anticipated. He is very happy with everyone's efforts and the music on The Legend. I'm sure all you listeners will agree with me -- it's been worth the wait!

Thanks are due to Ted Dunbar and Prof. David Baker for their invaluable insights on the Indianapolis scene. Enjoy!

Lora Rosner Jackson Heights, NY March 1992”

Peter Bernstein with Mel and Kenny on Billie’s Bounce.