Unearthed In The Atomic Attic: 11/3/24

Saturday, November 9, 2024

The Southern Style - Jeri Southern

I'll Wear The Green Willow

The Southern Style

Jeri Southern

Vocal and Piano Solos with Rhythm Accompaniment

Decca Records DL 8055

1955

From the back cover: Here is music in the true Southern Style – and when we say Southern we mean Jeri. The girl with the soft, wistful, silky voice was born August 5, 1926, in a tiny Nebraska town of Royal – population 190. A musician from childhood she took her first piano lesson at five – ten years later she was teaching piano! Altogether she devoted fifteen years to classical piano study, including advanced work under Karl Tunberg, with a concert career in view.

At eighteen she decided to be an entertainer. She played three tunes for a booking-agent and, before she had finished the third, she landed a job in Omaha's finest hotel, The Blackstone. She was so conspicuous a success that they would have liked to keep her forever, but Jeri formed an instrumental trio and was even more widely acclaimed than before.

Up to this time she had considered herself a piano player. Singing was something she did occasionally and only incidentally. When the Navy hired here to spur enlistments, she was urged to do more singing; but even then she did not take herself seriously as a singer. It was not until she hit the big time in Chicago that she attracted attention as a vocalist. Soon she was signed up for broadcasting and had a nightly TV show on Chicago's CBS outlet.

Miss Southern, a warm, gracious personality with a soft-like voice, and a crisp, intimate piano technique, is especially noted for her style and the tasteful material she chooses. She sings in a clear unpretentious manner that is always fresh-sounding and sincere. Behind this disarmingly simple approach lies deep understanding and thorough musicianship. She sings songs the way composers like to hear them sung. Her choice of material is always fitting; her presentation charming and original. All the songs in this album combine these well-known Southern characteristics emphasizing a warmth, and intimacy that is a rewarding as it is rare.

I'll Take Romance

Let's Fall In Love

One Day I Wrote His Name Upon The Sand

I'll Wear The Green Willow

It's De-Lovely

My Letters

Too Marvelous For Words

The Gypsy In My Soul

Debonair

I Don't Want To Turn

I Hadn't Anyone Till You

Scarlet Ribbon (For Her Hair)

Simpático - Gary McFarland & Gabor Szabo

Norwegian Wood

Simpático

Gary McFarland and Gabor Szabo

Produced by Gary McFarland and Bob Thiele

Engineer: Rudy Van Gelder

Cover Photo: Bob Ghiraldini

Liner Photos: Bob Thiele

Liner Design: Joe Lebow

Impluse! AS-9122

On the cover: Gary McFarland is riding a Yamaha Jet 100

Gabor Szabo is riding a Yamaha Big Bear

courtesy of Yamaha International Corporation and Village Yamaha, Inc., New York

Recorded May 18, 1966

She's A Cruiser, Norwegian Wood, You Will Pay, Cool Water

Gary McFarland - Vibraphone

Gabor Szabo - Guitar

Sam Brown - Guitar

Richard Davis - Bass

Joe Cocuzzo - Drums

Tommy Lopez, Barry Rodgers - Latin Percussion

Recorded May 20, 1966

Spring Song, The Word, Ups and Downs, Nature Boy

Bob Cranshaw replaces Richard Davis on the following selections:

Simpatico, Yamaha Mama, Hey, Here's A Heart

From the inside cover: For those who don't limit their listening to pre-set categories, it's been clear for several years that popular music is becoming remarkably flexible, searching and candid. It has also become both democratized and internationalized – a swirling stream of blues, rhythm and blues, country and western, Latin sounds and rhythms, British ballads, bristling topical songs, and now even Indian ragas.

Gary McFarland and Gabor Szabo have been intrigued for some time by this revitalization of popular music and accordingly, they decided to do their version – in their own jazz styles – of parts of the pop scene along with the Latin-based music of which they're also fond.

It was particularly important, they felt, to get a rhythm section that could set and maintain various kind of grooves and that also was expert at changing colors. Heard on electric twelve-string is Sam Brown, who has worked with Miriam Makeba and other folk music luminaries. Drummer Joe Cocuzzo, a regular in McFarland's group, has had a wide range of experience both in small combos and in big bands from Larry Elgart to Woody Herman. From the band of Eddie Palmieri, described by McFarland as "the Thelonious Monk of the Latin scene," there came Tommy Lopez and Barry Rogers. Lopez plays conga and a set of higher-pitched Indian drums. Rogers, who plays trombone and writes for Palmieri, is heard on cowbell, scraper and other percussion devices. Alternating are Richard Davis on bass and Bob Cranshaw on Fender bass – both of them prestigious jazz figures.

To get added colors, McFarland and Szabo also sang, sometimes in vocalese, and Gary whistled. "Singing," McFarland points out, "is nothing new for Gabor. He had a vocal group in Hungary, and when he first came to America, he used to sing a little in Boston." The arrangements are by McFarland and Szabo but, Gary points out, "a lot of this we did right on the spot. Gabor and I have worked together so often that we can hear something and know immediately how we both want to handle it."

Since Gary feels strongly that John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles have contributed importantly toward raising the standards of popular songwriting in terms of freshness of conception, two of their songs are included here. The opener, The Word, was chosen, says Gary, "because we liked its feeling. Actually it's another variation of the blues with a little bridge, but it has individuality." The thrust of the song, as is often the case with contemporary popular songs, is an affirmation of the power and potential of love. (Or as the rebels on campus proclaim on their placards: "Make Love, Not War.")

"I've dug Nature Boy," says Gary, "since I first heard Nat Cole sing it when I was thirteen or fourteen. It reached me. We altered a few of the changes in this version but kept, I fee, the essential serenity of the song."

Norwegian Wood, a particularly evocative song by Lennon and McCartney, reflects in this version the beguiling internalization of pop music with its elements from India and Latin America. Listen with particular care to the mesmeric, multi-colored patterns of the rhythm section.

Hey, Here's A Heart is an example of McFarland's own writing in the popular vein. It's been recorded by, among others, Brook Benton and Ethel Ennis. The song has an open feeling of expectation and of wonder. Dig the judicious overdubbing of vocal color.

Cool Water, that vintage thirst-awakener, reflects the admixture of country and western influences in the current popular music scene. "We chose it because I've always liked the song." Gary point out, "and also it was very well suited for the overall mood of the album."

Ups And Downs, another McFarland original, is a different dimension of mood-setting. It tells of inevitable impermanence, and also implicit in the song is the persistent resourcefulness of the human spirit in trying to find new good times.

Yamaha Mama is Gabor Sazbo's. Gabor came in with a straightforward, swinging tune," Gary notes, "and since he digs the little Yamaha motor bike, we decided to title the song in a kind of tribute to it."

Gabor Szabo as chronicler of unrequited love is revealed in You Will Pay, a rueful theme in which the traditional wish of the rejected is distilled: the cool woman will eventually have to pay her dues too. "Just as Gabor is a very melodic player," Gary adds, "he's also a particularly melodic writer."

Another illustration of Szabo's flowing writing skills is Spring Song. "It's an exceptionally soft, lovely song," says Gary. "It was so fresh that when we started to play it, it happened immediately and so we did the song in one take."

She's A Cruiser is Gary's, and he describes the subject of the piece as "a very sassy kind of chick, the kind who floats in and out of places without ever getting too involved. When you think you might be getting close to her, she flits away."

Simpatico took spontaneous shape at the very end of the recordings for the album. "It was toward the close of a double session," Gary recalls. "We were all pretty tired and we were trying a number of different songs, but they weren't working out. Finally we got into this traditional pattern – as traditional to Latin music as blues changes are to jazz. It's based on the dominant chord, in this case from b flat minor to e flat seventh. We took the tempo down, and we got a real groovy feeling. In fact, we got into the kind of trace that all Latin players aim for. For that matter, all players try for that deep a groove – from John Coltrane to Ravi Shankar. If you get it, you lock it in, and you feel as if you're flying at 30,000 feet, cruising all the way."

The final track – and the album as a whole – is a lyrical, variegated personalization by Gary McFarland and Gabor Szabo of many of the intersecting influences that are shaping both contemporary popular music and jazz. This is a time of unusual exploration, warmth, openness and transcending of barriers that are no longer relevant. In music, we live – as you can hear – in a most simpatico time. – Nat Hentoff

The Word

Nature Boy

Norwegian Wood

Hey, Here's A Heart

Cool Water

Ups And Downs

Yamaha Mama

You Will Pay

Spring Song

She's A Cruiser

Simpatico

Meditation - Antonio Carlos Jobim

Agua De Beber

Meditation

Brazilian Mods by Antonio Carlos Jobim

Arrangements by Claus Ogerman

Recording Engineer: Phil Ramone

Director of Engineering: Val Valentin

Cover Photograph by Werner Bokelberg

Produced by Creed Taylor

Verve 711 076 (Printed in Germany)

1969

From the back cover: If Bossa Nova could be considered a revolution or a movement in American popular music, then Desafinado most certainly has been its battle cry. The perky, catchy melody was whistled, hummed, thought of, and quite possibly married to during most of 1962. Stan Getz copped his first "Grammy" at the annual awards presentation of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for "Best Jazz Performance" of 1962. The vehicle, of course, was his version (with guitarist Charlie Byrd_ of Desanfinado. Getz was nominated for eight "Grammy" awards, more than any other single performer in the Academy's history, and nearly all of them were for Desafinado or the parent album, "Jazz Samba" (V6-8432).

So profound was the impact of Desanfinado that Bossa Nova became the thing in pop music. Standards were performed in the "new rhythm" and we were deluged by such items as Stardust Bossa Nova, Fly Me To The Moon Bossa Nova, Bossa Nova Cha Cha Cha, and even Blame It On The Bossa Nova. Arthur Murray and other dance instructors exhorted us to learn to "do" the Bossa Nova.

And, somehow, in all the shuffle, the lightness and the delicacy and the depth of feeling of Bossa Nova got lost. The followers and the doers and the players-for-dancing either forgot or ignored the characteristically long structure of the authentic Brazilian Bossa Nova, its naturally accented rhythm, and the minor feel of the music.

It had become the new thing because it was the new way to make a buck.

This bit of generalization history is by way of introduction to the composer of Desafinado, and one of the young musicians from Brazil who was in at the creation of Bossa Nova: Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Jobim's lovely melody, Desafinado, was the anthem of Bossa Nova in this county. But the man's music doesn't begin and end there. Collected in this set are more of the remarkable works of this Brazilian composer, each, in its own way, as unique and startling as Desanfinado.

Jobim is a lean, handsome musician from Rio de Janeiro whose instruments are piano and guitar, but whose forte is composition. His strength is in the creation of somewhat sad, often languid, always haunting melodies.

He was 36 years old when this set was recorded, and was in New York for a live-and-work period which found him recording, writing for publishers and record companies, and meeting American jazz musicians. In Rio, he studied piano "with good European teachers" as a child. He also is fluent on guitar, and played that instrument on the album, "Jazz Samba Encore!" (Verve V6-8523), by countryman Luiz Bonfa and Stan Getz.

Jobim's music was heard, along with that of Bonfa, on the sound track of the beautiful Brazilian film, "Black Orpheus."

At the time this album was recorded, Jobim had not played piano for about a year. Most of his time was devoted solely to composition. For the mood and spirit of this album, the composer stayed very close to his melody lines, and used a unique, deceptively simple one-note, right-hand style of playing.

The interpretation is as much Jobim as the melodies

Other soloists heard throughout are Jimmy Cleveland, trombone and Leo Wright, flute. – Dom Cerulli

The Girl From Ipanema

O Morro

Agua De Beber

Dreamer

Favela

Insensatez

Corcovado

One Note Samba

Meditation

Jazz Samba (So Danco Samba from the film "Copacabana Palace")

Chega De Saudade

Desafinado

Thursday, November 7, 2024

California Concert - The Hollywood Palladium

Fire And Rain

California Concert

Recorded At The Hollywood Palladium July 18, 1971

Ray Thompson, Engineer for Wally Heider Recordings

Re-Recording Engineer: Rudy Van Gelder

Cover Photography by Pete Turner

Liner Photography by Chuck Stewart

Album Design by Bob Ciano

CTI Records CTX-2+2 (RVG 87669)

From the inside cover: Is jazz dying? Did the trouble at Newport represent the writing on the wall?

Judging by an event that took place here the other night, the answer is a relieved and resounding negative.

Jazz history of a kind was made when a crowd as vast as it was enthusiastic jammed the Hollywood Palladium for a concert billed as "CTI Sumer Jazz."

There was a delicious irony in the selection of a location for this spectacularly successful performance. The ballroom, where jazz is very seldom heard, is owned by Lawrence Welk, whose orchestra and show performed there regularly for many years until he recently went into semi-retirement. The mere possibility that the ballroom would be inundated by a swarm of jazz fans allegedly caused delays in the granting of a license. Possibly in the ballroom management was under the impression that what took place outside the Newport festival field was typical. Actually, of course, it was a disastrous exception that proves the rule, namely that jazz audiences in general, though boisterously receptive, are consisted orderly and are willing to pay good money to see their idols in person.

For CTI's Summer Jazz, they paid $5 for tickets bought in advance, or $6 for those purchased at the door. Despite this fairly high tariff, more than 4,000 patrons had passed through the entrance by the time the concert got underway at 8:30 or so the crowd had swelled to an estimated 5,000.

The show was unusual in several respects. It was neither a permanently organized band nor a slapdash jam session. Everybody used the same all star rhythm section. Moreover, for the most part the performance comprised new versions of tunes whose record sales assured them instant recognition.

In the line-up were Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Hank Crasford, alto sax; Hubert Laws, flute; Johnny Hammon, electric piano and organ; George Benson, guitar; Airto Moreira, percussion; Billy Cobham, drums and Ron Carter, bass.

Freddie Hubbard started it off with "Red Clay," and saved "Straight Life" for the evening's finale. George Benson showed tremendous power in "So What," Hank Crawford was at his most soulful in "Never Can Say Goodbye."

Johnny Hammond Smith spent much of the evening at the electric piano, displaying a style remarkably compatible with that of the rest of the group. However (when he switched to organ for "It's Too Late," his carefully planned exercise in tension-building soon brought the whole audience to its feet.

For my own personal taste, the true hero of the evening was Hubert Laws. He is quite possibly the most accomplished all around flutist ever to play jazz.

For the ballroom bash, his exquisitely eloquent interpretation of James Taylor's "Fire And Rain," early in the evening, provided a challenge to his colleagues, for it was difficult to prevent the rest of the show from seeming anti-climatic.

All in all, "CTI Summer Jazz" seems to indicate the commercial direction that the music may well take without any loss of musical integrity. – Leonard Feather (Reprinted through the courtesy of Melody Maker)

Fire And Rain

Red Clay (Part 1)

Red Caly (Part 2)

Sugar

Leaving West

We're All Together Again For The First Time

Truth

We're All Together Again For The First Time

Produced by Dave Brubeck and Siegfried Loch

Photography: David Redfern

Cover Design: Stanislaw Zagorski

Production Coordinator: Ilhan Mimaroglu

Re-mixed at Atlantic Recording Studios, New York, N.Y.

Re-mix Engineer: Ilhan Mimaroglu

Atlantic Records SD 1641

1973

Truth, Unfinished Woman & Take Five were recorded on November 4, 1972 at the Philharmonie in Berlin.

Koto Song was recorded on October 26, 1972 at the Olympia Theatre in Paris.

Rotterdam Blues & Sweet Georgia Brown were recorded on October 28, 1972 at De Doelen in Rotterdam.

From the back cover: He has had it all: the swift rise from local acceptance (in San Francisco) to national prominence and worldwide acclaim; the poll victories year after year, the meetings with ambassadors and royalty, the Times cover story, the police escorts, the insatiable crowds who kept him playing encores and signing autographs long beyond the deadline.

When the quartet disbanded at the end of 1967 after 17 years of catalytic artistic achievement, Dave and Iola Brubeck worked together on their most serious challenges: a contemporary oratorio, "The Light In The Wilderness," its text adapted from the scriptures; and the cantata "Truth Is Fallen" with its heady mix of piano, rock group, soprano, chorus and the Cincinnati Symphony. No less moving than the cantata itself was the eloquent written statement that accompanied it, baring their souls in an assessment of the social, political, religious and musical significance of the cantata.

Brubeck's involvement with ambitious works as a composer on this scale has not induced him to sever ties with jazz – the music that elevated him to a level of security at which he could afford to devote his time to these new enterprises. And so, in the fall of 1973, by agreement with George Wein, he led one of the six combos that took to the road (or rather the skies) for yet another overseas Newport Jazz Festival tour.

His outline of the itinerary was enough to give the listener a severe case of jet lag. Running into him in Berlin (I tagged along with the Wein junket for a couple of weeks) I found Dave in a rare moment of relaxation at his hotel. "I'm so used to this kind of schedule it really doesn't faze me," he said. "We started in New Zealand, Australia and Japan; then after a brief stop in the United States we headed for Paris, London and a dozen other European dates.

"Parts of this tour are under State Department auspices, so in a sense history is repeating itself: you know, we were the first to play an Eastern European country for the U.S. government, when we went to Poland in 1958. This time around we're headed for Belgrade."

It was in Belgrade that we met again a few nights later. Dave's concert (this was one of several dates on which he split the bill with Charles Mingus's group) attracted a typically responsive, capacity crowd. The fans were perhaps a little older than at the U.S. jazz festival; U.S. Ambassador Malcolm Toon and his wife were present; the State Television cameras rolled.

Brubeck's program that night was substantially similar to the assembly of Berlin, Paris and Rotterdam tapings on these sides. The group was, in effect, a blend of the old quartet with Paul Desmond; the newer unit with Gerry Mulligan that has played together off an on since 1968; and, of course, the rare and delightful quintet sound distilled on the numbers involving both horns.

The Mulligan-Desmond interplay (first commemorated when they when they co-starred in the memorable "Two Of A Mind" LP for RCA in 1962) is beguilingly in evidence on Truth, a very free adaptation of the track from Dave's oratorio entitled Truth (Planets Are Spinning). The theme is used only as a brief point of departure; improvisation reaches several heady peaks of creativity. Brubeck makes characteristic use of space, playing complex but, on the surface, deceptively simple tricks with time, and benefiting from the extraordinary sensitive consistency of Alan Dawson's percussive accents. The Jack Six bass solo (Jack incidentally, played in the premiere performance of the oratorio) sustains the level of intensity until Brubeck, in a puckish, almost Monk-like mood, returns to center stage.

Unfinished Woman is a Mulligan composition blessed with a charm and lack of pretension that I have always admired in him. Its basis is a happy, almost old-fashioned syncopated riff, with Dave taking over as Paul and Gerry offer their counterpoint comments.

Koto Song, first introduced by the old quartet in the "Jazz Impressions Of Japan" album, was described then by Dave as "a blues related to the delicate music I heard performed by two Japanese girls in Kyoto. Of the classical instruments I heard, I was most fascinated by the koto... Koto Song is the most consciously Japanese of these pieces, and tinged with a bit of sentimental sadness at leaving our new friends." Another version, recorded live in Germany in 1966, was issued in the "Brubeck Summit Sessions" LP; but this new interpretation is probably the best, bringing out all the elements of Paul's elegant style, nonaggressive sound and ability to create sinuous melodic lines.

Take Five is, of course, another rerun, one that we see now in a 13 year perspective. The "Time Out" album was released in January of 1960. As Dave now recalls: "That entire LP was an ice breaker. Even Paul Desmond didn't realized at the time the significance of what he had achieved by producing a hit record – and a great composition – in 5/4 time. Steve Race, who wrote the notes, called the whole album an experiment that might be regarded as more than an arrow pointing to the future. He said something great had been attempted and achieved."

Even today, when 5/4 can be felt and played competently and comfortably by high school bands (and of whom also deal with 9/4, 7/4 and other meters that seemed impossibly exotic in the days of Desmond's venture), the original composition has a special character, one that takes on a new dimension with the unison and harmony passages by Gerry and Paul.

Dave might be expected by now to have tired of responding to this most-requested of works, yet he says: "We really still enjoy playing it – and you've heard what kind of audience reaction it still receives wherever we go."

Of all the concert on the route, none was more wildly acclaimed than the Rotterdam date. As Dave recalls it, "They just wouldn't let us off the stage. We must have played at least 40 minutes of encores.

"In fact, Rotterdam Blues begins with just me at the piano after I retuned for another bow; the rhythm section and horns came in later, and the entire thing was completely spontaneous, but I think it resulted in some terrific blues solos." Bur's estimate is correct; good humor, funkiness and spirited blowing were the order of the night. The power of positive swinging, generated by the leader and picked up by his sidemen, has rarely if ever been more accurately pinpointed.

Since even this supposedly final encore would not satisfy the Rotterdam fans, Dave administered on brief, good-humored coup de grace, playing a single unaccompanied chorus of Sweet Georgia Brown. "I don't know how it happened to come to mind; I probably hadn't played the tune since my trio days over twenty years ago. But it just seemed like fun to do it."

None of use who heard and witnessed the pleasure Dave and his musicians shared during this tour can believe that they five will not reunite at some point in time, even though Dave presently is involved in a different and particularly rewarding venture. His "Two Generations Of Burbeck" concerts, with major contributions by Chris Brubeck (whose New Heavenly Blue rock group contributed to "Truth Is Fallen") and Darius Brubeck (named for Dave's teacher) are spanning two generations not only onstage but, logically, in the audiences they attract.

I doubt that Dave Brubeck will ever reject or neglect any area of music with which he has ever been associated. He is the product of a multiple cultural heritage and social milieu; just as his oratorio transcends sectarian religious boundaries, his music will remain neither exclusively jazz nor classical, traditional nor avant garden, neither black nor white, but rather a summation of all he has absorbed during 40 years in and around music (almost 30 of them as a professional).

I look forward eagerly to an album entitled "We're All Together Once More For The First Time Again." – Leonard Feather (Author of From Satchmo to Miles; Stien & Day)

Truth

Unfinished Woman

Koto Song

Take Five

Rotterdam Blues

Sweet Georgia Brown

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

The Feminine Touch - Music For The Boy Friend - Various

The Feminine Touch

Music For The Boy Friend

The Petty Girl as Featured in Esquire

Decca Records DL 8316

From the back cover: In this collection, "The Feminine Touch" transforms some good songs into great entertainment. Here are assembled some of The Boy Friend's (and The Girl Friend's) favorite gal singers, each showcased with material that is their particular specialty.

Peggy Lee is a splendid example of "the little country girl who made good in the big city." She was born in the little farming town of Jamestown, North Dakota, and today is one of the nation's most beautiful and glamorous vocalists. She is not only a tremendously successful singers; she has developed into an actress of superb range, and is a highly gifted song writer.

Jeri Southern, the girl with the soft, wistful, silk-like voice, is also form a small country town: Royal, Nebraska (pop, 190). It was primarily as a pianist that Jeri's success began. It was not until she hit the big time in Chicago that she attracted attention as a vocalist. And she has been singing ever since, in a clear, unpretentious manner that is always fresh-sounding and sincere.

Not only is Carmen McRae a favorite with the many people who have heard her records and have seen her in night clubs, but she is also considered tops with professional musicians and critics as well. "The girl with the haunt in her voice" was born in Brooklyn and was first encouraged in her vocal aspirations by Duke Ellington. His encouragements were well founded, as Downbeat recently voted her "World's Best Female Singer" and Metronome polled her as "Singer Of The Year."

Several times a week, over NBC Television, viewers of Steve Allens' "Tonight" show are treated to the sight and sound of a youngster, barley in her twenties: Pat Kirby. Pat was born in Philadelphia. Her work with Steve has established her as one of the most attractive and talented newcomers in the music business.

Joanne Gilbert is not only an extremely gifted lass: she is also one of the most beautiful singers before the microphone today. At her Mocambo debut in Hollywood, a little over a year ago, the supposedly tough, blasé audience wasn't a bit blasé about her – they felt that a new star had been born. Subsequent night club bookings and her Decca recordings seem to have borne out that fact.

Gloria De Haven is carrying on the show business tradition of her parents, Flora Parker and Carter De Haven, in fine style! George Cukor, a family friend, saw her inherent ability, an put her to work in a small role in "Susan and God." She has since filmed many an outstanding "musical" for Universal-International and other Hollywood picture-makers, so her voice and her appearance are both well-known and admired everywhere!

Ooh That Kiss - Peggy Lee

Vocal with Rhythm Accompaniment

How Bitter, My Sweet - Peggy Lee

Vocal with Chorus and Orchestra Directed by Victor Young

Come Down To Earth, Mr. Smith - Carmen McRae