Author: Devra Hall Levy

I’ve Got Mail: Jazz Is In The Air

Jazz Outside of the City

Since Whiplash, lots of people have sent well-wishes, including bassist Bill Crow who also mentioned a new venue:

There’s a new restaurant, called Division Street, in Peekskill NY that is trying out a jazz policy. I played there Friday night with Carmen Leggio and Bucky Pizzarelli, and it was nice. Good sounding room, and the people actually shut up and listened to the music! The boss says he plans to buy a good piano soon, so we’re hopeful. I’ve closed several jazz clubs in Westchester over the years, and another one, 17 Main, just bit the dust in Mt. Kisco. So it is good to see a decent venue open up. Carmen is a rare treat…playing a style that ranges from Hawk and Byas to Al and Zoot, he’s one of the last of that breed of instinctive players with a great sound and easy swing.

I am not familiar with Mr. Leggio, so I did a little googling and found this recording of Smile/Tarrytown Tenor with Milt Hinton, Derek Smith, George Duvivier, Ronnie Bedford, John Bunch and Butch Miles, and a 1999 article – Carmen Leggio: Young Man With A Horn – by Fred Cicetti that included this intriguing analogy: Leggio blows tenor the way Willie Mays ran down a flyball. They both let you know from the get-go that you’ll never be able to do it their way.

Speaking of outside the city, I also received well wishes from drummer Kenny Harris in England. You can also find him on page 248 of Doug Ramsey‘s Desmond bio, Take Five.

Emails about Al McKibbon included

“Dear sweet Al…..” (a mutual friend)

“This summer has been tough on old bass players…I’m starting to look over my shoulder.” (a bassist)

and

“I had the opportunity to play with Al on several occasions throughout the years here in L.A., and the things that impressed and inspired me the most were his deep, dark sound and the notes he chose to play. Al played the bass in a manner that you felt as well as heard. His sound came up at you from the floor. And no matter how convoluted the chord changes might be on any given song, Al always seemed to find the best notes to play. He was truly the heartbeat and, to my way of thinking, one of the unsung heroes of the bass world.”

That last one was from drummer Michael Stephans, who just launched a very lovely website of his own.

Radio Days

I’ve been corresponding with discjockey/drummer Dick McGarvin (he was also at McKibbon’s funeral) and he wrote belatedly about last month’s Johnny Pate piece

The day you had the piece on Johnny Pate, I played my LP of “Round Trip” by Phil Woods – it hadn’t been off the shelf in years – and was reminded of what a good album it is. Oh, and thanks to your blog, I finally learned who was in the great sounding rhythm section on “Round Trip”. There was no mention of personnel on the album!

That’s why I blog – not for the thanks, but for the kick of introducing, or in this case, reintroducing someone to some good music, a great book, or even just an interesting thought. Spotlighting those who go unnoticed or unmentioned is another good reason.

McGarvin went on to reminsce about the good old days of radio:

I remember playing it [“Round Trip”] on the radio when it was released…and I wasn’t even working at a jazz station then. It was at KSFO, San Francisco, which was an AM personality oriented MOR station playing everything from Sinatra to Paul Simon, Peggy Lee to the Carpenters, Shearing to the Tijuana Brass. That list also included Ella, Steve Lawrence, Brazil 66, Otis Redding, The Fifth Dimension, Kenny Rankin, Stevie Wonder, Nancy Wilson, Cannonball’s MERCY MERCY MERCY, Van Morrison. Well, you get the idea. (WNEW probably would have been the closest New York equivalent at the time.) What’s amazing, considering today’s homogenized radio, is that each disc jockey in those days picked his own music, so I was able to mix in the occasional Oscar Peterson or something like one of the more familiar songs from the Phil Woods album. It was wonderful to be able to program such a wide variety of music into one show…and it worked. But, sadly, that kind of radio station is of another time and doesn’t exist anymore.

The pendulum is bound to swing again…someday. Meanwhile, I am wondering if it is time to check out the XM Satellite. TT seems to think so.

Missed Basses

When you get to be a certain age the number of entries in your address book across which you scribble “deceased” begins to increase. I know this, and given that my husband knows more dead people than live ones, I really shouldn’t be the one to comment. Still, I can’t help but notice that six world-class jazz bassists, five of whom I knew personally, have died in the last three-and-a-half months, starting with former Ellington bassist, Jimmy Woode, who passed away on April 22nd, and ending with Keter Betts who died this past weekend. In between, we lost Percy Heath (April), Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen (May), Pierre Michelot, and Al McKibbon (July). If I’ve forgotten anyone, let me know.


I first met Jimmy Woode in a recording studio in Berlin. It was June of 1969. We (Mom, me, and my best friend Daisy) were with Dad on one of his whirlwind tours – Paris, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Berlin all in two weeks. For some reason, we flew into East Berlin where Dad’s amplifier did not appear with the rest of our baggage. Thankfully, the bus stopped at an outer building where the amplifier was found, and then took us on to West Berlin. Of course the ride included the obligatory stop at Checkpoint Charlie, where, against explicit instructions, we took snapshots and got away with it. It was a trio recording (Daniel Humair on drums), and as producer Joachim E. Berendt pointed out, it was Dad’s first recording of his own in more than ten years. “It’s Nice To Be With You” was a family album, if you will, in that Mom wrote the title tune and I am on the cover. I wasn’t too thrilled with the cover back then – at thirteen I would have preferred something more glamorous than eating a bockwurst out of my father’s hand at the Berlin Zoo – but that was then, and today I wish I had a copy of the original photo.


It was Dad who first introduced me to Percy Heath. Percy was playing with The Modern Jazz Quartet – I think it was the 1966 concert at Carnegie Hall. Listening to my Dad, I was familiar with a tune called Bags’ Groove, and the MJQ played it that night; it was probably the only tune I recognized. In recent years, my husband, John, and I have had the pleasure of hanging out with all three Heath Brothers at annual events like Monterey and IAJE conventions. I especially enjoy it as Beverly and Mona (Mrs. Tootie and Mrs. Jimmy, respectively) often travel with them; seeing Percy’s wife, June, was a much rarer treat. It’s funny that we always see them on the road and seldom at home, even though Tootie & Beverly are neighbors. John had breakfast with Jimmy and Tootie at the Heritage Festival in New Orleans the day after Percy died.

I never knew Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen personally, but you can’t be a jazz lover and not know his playing, especially his work with Oscar Peterson. Ray Brown, who left us three years ago (it doesn’t seem like that long) recommended him to Peterson, reportedly saying, “He’s the only one I know that might keep up with you.” The word virtuoso is often over-used, but NHOP was one, and I’ve read that he can be heard on more than 400 recordings. Of the many Pedersen-Peterson recordings, The Paris Concert, recorded live in October of 1978, is often singled out.

Pierre was not so well-known in the U.S., save by those who recognized him as the unnamed bassist in the movie, ‘Round Midnight or knew his work with Miles Davis on Louis Malle’s 1957 film, Ascenseur Pour L’échafaud. Serious jazz fans, of course, knew him from recordings with Bud Powell, Coleman Hawkins and Buck Clayton, Django Reinhardt, Dizzy Gillespie, and Clifford Brown, among others. I was in my early twenties when I met him in Paris. He, along with pianist George Arvanitas, was working in the tiny cave (basement) of a little nightclub called Le petit Opportun’ (15, rue des Lavandières-Ste-Opportune) with saxophonist Jerome Richardson. I remember Pierre as always swinging and smiling, and I was sad to learn that during the last few years of his life he suffered with Alzheimers.


Al McKibbon I’ve written about recently (here and here). I am not sure when I first met Keter, but I think it was in Nice, France, at Le Grande Parade du Jazz (the festival produce by George Wein). I was an impressionable sixteen-year-old on a summer excursion, and he was on tour with Ella Fitzgerald. I saw him many times over the years, usually with Ella, sometimes with Joe Williams, later with Etta Jones, and at recording sessions with everyone who was anyone. At home, he was active in the Washington, D.C.-area schools and music programs, taught at Howard University, and coordinated jazz programming for Black Entertainment Television.

The beat will go on without them, or perhaps, because of them.

Al McKibbon’s Funeral

We attended Al’s funeral yesterday at Forest Lawn’s Church of the Hills, followed by a gathering at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Bass players in attendance included Richard Davis (he flew in from Wisconsin) Jimmy Bond, Jennifer Leitham, Richard Simon (who along with pianist Phil Wright, accompanied Ernie Andrews in his rendition of “My Way” with lyrics by Howlett Smith) and Howard Rumsey. Of course there were many other musicians on the scene — Kenny Burrell, Herman Riley, Charles Owens, Clora Bryant, Donald Vega, Michael Melvoin, and Jake Hanna, to name a few — but what touched me most were the tributes and reminiscences shared by other people whose lives he touched: his next door neighbor, his dentist, a fan, and his hanging and dining buddy Gary Chen-Stein.

Neither John nor I spoke at the service, but here’s what I would have said:

Big Al looked tough and mean – that is, until he smiled. He was also an exceptional listener and a loyal friend who refrained from judging people…unless they did him wrong. He mastered the art of overt generosity while still wringing blood from a nickel. He could grumble a lot, but he never gave up. He was 80 years old when his first recording as a leader was released. Tumbao Para Los Congueros Di Mi Vida was followed five years later by Black Orchid, and both albums are deeply steeped in Afro-Cuban flavors. If anything could surpass the joy he felt in creating those recordings, it was his trip to Cuba last November. There he found a beautiful country with smiling faces, warm sun and great music – everything the world should be. Despite its poverty, Cuba was his heaven.

Al was a proud man who maintained the best of “old-fashioned” values: he was a man of his word (and you’d best stick to yours, too), he liked to shop for clothes and dress well, he preferred for everything and everyone to run on time, (including his wives and daughters), and he was fiercely independent. Al always spoke his mind, regardless of the consequences, and yes, it got him fired plenty of times. But when it came to darker feelings, he was very private and hid any despair. He was extremely intelligent and well-read, but when asked what college he attended, he’d say “the one behind the Bass looking out at the world.” He loved to travel and meet people from all over the world. Whenever language was a barrier, music was always the solution.

Al was a big man with big heart and we will miss him.

Al & Lucky

Kudos to Jazz Portraits — while many jazz sites have noted the passing of both Al McKibbon and Lucky Thompson, Joe Moore is the only one I’ve found who has done so by posting a photo of the two playing together. I don’t know where the photo came from, but it’s a great one – check it out.

John Levy, longtime friend of Al’s and seven years his senior, also worked with Lucky Thompson back in the day. They played at The Three Deuces with Bobby Tucker on piano.

Life was good. I was 32 years old, and I was making a living in one of the most exciting places in the world—the only place in the world for an enterprising jazz musician to be. Club and concert dates, live broadcasts, and recordings kept me busy. My encounters with Ben Webster, Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson and Duke Ellington left me with many wonderful memories. I had engagements with other artists including Don Byas, Lucky Thompson, Mildred Bailey, Red Norvo, and Milt Jackson…

Whenever I could, I’d go off the street to hear other people play; I was always looking to hear a good bass player. I knew Milt Hinton was in New York now, but he wasn’t playing on 52nd Street at the time. I’d try to catch him whenever he was playing. Then one night I heard Al McKibbon playing with Tab Smith up on 135th Street. “Damn, he sure can play,” I told Jimmy [Jones] the next day.

[excerpted from “Men, Women, and Girl Singers“]

When John put down his bass, he hired Al to fill his spot on the bandstand with the George Shearing Quintet. John and Al remained lifelong friends.

Jazz in China?

JazzPortraits blogger Joe Moore (who is also Station Manager of KFSR FM in Fresno, California) asks Jazz in China? to which I reply with the first paragraph from William Zinsser’s “Mitchell & Ruff: An American Profile in Jazz”

“Jazz came to China for the first time on the afternoon of June 2, 1981, when the American bassist and French-horn player Willie Ruff introduced himself and his partner, the pianist Dwike Mitchell, to several hundred students and profesors who were crowded into a large room at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.The students and the professors were all expectant, without knowing quite what to expect. They only knew that they were about to hear the first American jazz concert ever presented to the Chinese. Probably they were not surprised to find that the two musicians were black, though black Americans are a rarity in the People’s Republic. What they undoubtedly didn’t expect was that Ruff would talk to them in Chinese, and when he began they mummered with delight.”

Originally published in 1984, with a foreword by Alfred Murray, this once-out-of-print book has been reissued in paperback by Paul Dry Books. (They also re-issued Boston Boy by Nat Hentoff.)

Ruff’s web site includes a page about the duo and I was also happy to find a CD, Breaking the Silence – Standards, Strayhorn & Lullabies, newly issued in celebration of the re-issued book. Also of great interest is Jerry Jazz Musician’s interview with Zinsser about “his special friendship with Mitchell and Ruff, their background, and the incredible journeys he accompanied them on throughout the world.”
Note: Photo credit for the picture belongs to Reginald Jackson.

Subliminal Career Goals?

In today’s The New York Times, an Arts section headline caught my eye: “Pentagon’s New Goal: Put Science Into Scripts” Twenty-five thousand dollars in Pentagon research grants is paying for the scriptwriting education of a group of mid-career researchers, engineers, chemists and physicists.

“Fewer and fewer students are pursuing science and engineering. While immigrants are taking up the slack in many areas, defense laboratories and industries generally require American citizenship or permanent residency. So a crisis is looming, unless careers in science and engineering suddenly become hugely popular, said Robert J. Barker, an Air Force program manager who approved the grant. And what better way to get a lot of young people interested in science than by producing movies and television shows that depict scientists in flattering ways?”

My first three thoughts were:

1. If it works for science, maybe it will work for jazz and classical music — or maybe not. Fabulous movie music is usually that which achieves its goals without the audience taking notice. It serves to heighten the story, and story is what movies are all about. Stories thrive on conflict and obstacles. Movies that showcase jazz (“‘Round Midnight” and “Bird”) tend to highlight those whose drug-filled lives provide the requisite tension and contrast to the beauty of the music. Movies that showcase classical music (say Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist” or “Amadeus” directed by Milos Forman) appeal to a more mature audience, one that is already in the choir.

2. It could backfire: I like to watch CSI, but I have no interest in becoming a forensic scientist. With three shows on each week, I’ve become so familiar with luminal and the evolution of maggots that the job has no more and no less allure than that of lawyer or doctor.

3. They want to grab the kids, so they’ll probably focus on laser swords and explosives rather than medicines and fuel efficiency. If we want scientists and musicians to be cool, then we’ve got to reshape our values, instill more inclusive social ideals in our youth to negate the me, myself and I mentality, and better appreciate those whose work brings rewards other than monetary gain, rewards that may be aesthetic, intangible, and/or immeasurable.

What do you think? Send me an email (without the spaces): devra @ devra do write . com

Whiplash

Sorry I’m late with today’s post; whiplash is my excuse. I wish I was referring to Snidely Whiplash, nemesis of Dudley Do-Right, or even just a metaphorical pain in the neck, but alas, I had the misfortune to be in an automobile accident last Friday and headaches are slowing down my productivity. Cruising down New York Drive on my way home from Radio Shack where I had been looking at gizmos for recording telephone interviews, I came upon an obstacle; a large flatbed truck making a delivery was jutting out into the right lane. It was at the bottom of a short steep hill, so one would not see them from off in the distance, and even close upon it the cars in front of me blocked it from clear view. One or more cars must have veered around the truck, but the Altima directly in front of me came to an abrupt stop. The speed limit for that stretch is 50 mph, and I’m not a slow driver, but I do keep a fair distance behind other cars – something like a car length for every 10mph – and so I was able to stop safely, albeit suddenly, without hitting it. Unfortunately, the Ford behind must have been on my tail because he hit me full force; my rear windshield shattered on impact, the trunk of my car crumpled, and I became the gazillionth person to suffer whiplash, also known as acceleration flexion-extension neck injury, soft tissue cervical hyperextension injury, cervical sprain, cervical strain, or hyperextension injury.

When I got home (amazingly, my car was drivable), my husband thought I should go to the hospital to get checked out, so I phoned my doctor, hoping he’d say “take two and call me in the morning.” He didn’t, and off we went to the ER at 7:30 on a Friday evening. I have heard that at an ER, Friday and Saturday nights are second only to Halloween and full moons; I think it must be true. “There are 34 people in front of you,” the receptionist told me. “It will be about three hours.” They’ve got a pretty good system, but unless you’re bleeding out, it does take forever. First you register and they give you a bracelet. Then you wait. Then comes triage — a nurse makes some notes and you go “back to chairs” to wait some more. Then they took me to the x-ray waiting room, and after snapping four films…”back to chairs.” It was after 11 PM when the receptionist took us down a long hallway into another wing where there were more examining rooms. A really pretty nurse came in to say the doc would be in shortly. I thought that pretty nurses and gorgeous doctors existed only on TV, but I was wrong — the doc was quite handsome. He sent me home with powerful pain killing drugs, a soft cervical collar that he told me use nonstop for the first several days and intermittently after that, and a warning that I was going to hurt, a lot, for more than a few days. “Heat will help a little,” he said, “and I don’t see any fractures on the films. Check in with your doctor on Monday.”

Monday I called my doctor, Tuesday I had a CT scan to check for intracranial bleeding, and today I got around to checking the internet for information. What did I learn, besides the fancy names for whiplash mentioned above? The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons website confirms that symptoms may take several months to resolve, and eMedicine.com, boasting “the largest and most current Clinical Knowledge Base available to physicians and other healthcare professionals” concurs: “Most people recover completely from a whiplash injury in the first 12 weeks. Others’ symptoms continue to improve over the course of a year. You have a 40% chance of experiencing some symptoms after 3 months, and an 18% chance after 2 years.”

Whiplash or not, I’ve got to crack my own whip and get into gear…there’s research to be sorted, interviews to be conducted, and blogs to write before I sleep. Well, maybe a little nap….

A Prescription

Seems I am not alone in mourning the loss of unique places. A week after my Village Memories, Terry Teachout was home in Smalltown USA and wrote “I sometimes wonder whether the rural Missouri town where I grew up is losing its individuality.” (read the whole piece here .) Killin’ Time Being Lazy responded with Death of Smalltown USA which also linked to a January piece that quoted this recipe:

RECIPE FOR AN AMERICAN RENAISSANCE:
— Eat In Diners
— Ride Trains
— Put a Porch on Your House
— Shop on Main Street
— Live in a Walkable Community
(“Recipe For An American Renaissance” by Randy Garbin, publisher of Roadside Magazine, Worcester, Massachusetts)

Call it a recipe or a prescription, it sounds like good advice to me. The closest thing to a diner near me is a local establishment called Fox’s where I eat breakfast 2-4 times week. As I think about it, the place is worthy of a blog entry all its own, so I hold off on further description for now. I can’t afford any house renovations at the moment, but my immediate neighbors do tend to congregate out front, and we are not adverse to standing around or siting on the curb. The closest I can get to shopping on Main Street is the stretch of little shops in Sierra Madre that includes a few gifteries, an old fashioned cobbler/shoe repair (albeit folded into the local cleaners), a jewelry store, and tea shop. Millie’s Dancewear, much missed, used to be there too. I admit that I prefer living on a strictly residential street and that popping down to the corner for a quart of milk has lost its allure, still I support the small shops wherever I can find them. As for the trains, well, I ride the Metro North trains in New York, and like the Metroliner between Boston-NY-DC, but out here in Lalaland, mass transit is difficult at best. Still, the Gold Line is now nearby and the next time I have to go to downtown Los Angeles — an infrequent need, but perhaps jury duty next year — I will take a ride.

Django

When in pain – physical or mental – the two things I think most soothing are music (specifics vary by person and will be addressed in a later post) and the unconditional love of a pet. When I was fighting the cancer war, ensconsed at Glendale Adventist Hospital, they had a visiting pet program. I remember one morning, when in one of my darker moods, two strangers walked into my room with two small dogs. I was not in the mood to talk with friends, let alone strangers, but they said that was okay and asked if I wanted to pet the dogs. The dogs were already on my bed and snuggling up — irresistable. The couple carried on their own conversation between themselves and left me to the dogs. I don’t know how long they stayed, it may have been only fifteen minutes, but the effect was long lasting and far outweighed the ocassional unrequested drop-ins from various clerics.

I had a dog when I was very young, a poodle name Bosco. He was a nervous fellow, not meant for city life — or maybe he didn’t like wearing a bonnet and riding in a doll’s carriage — and he soon went to live with someone else in the suburbs. After that we had a succession of cats. So it may have been that hospital visit that primed me for my meeting Django, or maybe it was just fate. It was only a couple of months after the chemo and radiation treatments, and, in anticipation of further medical treatment, I had moved to New York City to be near to my family. One afternoon the apartment buzzer rang and the building superintendent said he had a package for me. I went downstairs and saw a puppy playing in the lobby. It was a cute little black and white ball of fluff, and when I sat down on the floor he jumped right into my lap. (I later learned that this fluffball was a pure-bred Shih-Tzu.) After a few minutes, I asked the super where was my package, and he pointed to the dog. Turns out, some idiot in a building down the block was going to take this dog to the pound, and that building’s superintendent mentioned it to our super who said he’d find a home for the dog. I was told his name was Sluggo, which I promptly changed to Django.

When I moved back to California, my parents agreed to dog sit while John and I got settled in the new house. That was seven years ago, and Django is still living with my parents — the three of them are inseparable. You may have seen Django with Dad on the pages of Jazz Times, or on his web site (Django is in picture #11 of the First Meeting collection here) , or in this shot I copied from a Japanese magazine. Django never strays too far from Mom, either, but she’s not partial to being photographed. The picture at the top is one I took just two weeks ago.

Al McKibbon: May He Rest In Peace

Alfred McKibbon, born January 1st, 1919 at 12:00am in Chicago, Illinois, died this morning at Good Samaratin Hospital in Los Angeles. It seems like just weeks ago that Al and his daughter, Alison, were here at the house — we ended up going out for seafood dinner, Al loved seafood — but that was five months ago. My husband, John, and Al were friends for more than fifty years. When John put down his bass to become a fulltime manager, it was Al that he hired to play bass with the George Shearing Quintet. We will miss him.

Al’s first-person bio, which includes photographs from his personal collection, can be read online here. Also included are liner notes and audio clips from Tumbao Para Los Congueros Di Mi Vida, his first recording as a leader.

And here’s a Wikipedia entry that has links to info about many of the great artist with whom Al worked.

Also check out “Al McKibbon: a living history of Jazz/Al McKibbon and the Roots of Latin Jazz” a recent (April 2005) article by Nelson Rodriguez in Latin Beat Magazine.