George Shearing – R.I.P.

The great pianist George Shearing died earlier today in Manhattan of congestive heart failure. The British born pianist turned 91 on August 13 and had been retired from music for several years, his last album being the lovely trio outing Like Fine Wine (Mack Avenue, 2005).

Shearing made his name with a quintet that became one of the most famed and popular sounds of 1950s jazz but also wrote hundreds of compositions of which, surprisingly, only “Lullaby of Birdland” endures as a standard.

Initially discovered by famed jazz critic – and, later, fellow British ex-pat – Leonard Feather (1914-1994), Shearing made his record debut age 19 and was for many years Britain’s most popular jazz pianist. Encouraged by Feather, Shearing settled in the United States in December 1947, where he later formed his quintet.

Shearing’s quintet featured his piano accompanied by guitar, bass, drums and vibes. The true significance of this was the technique that Shearing himself developed where the vibes player doubles the piano’s melody on a lower octave. George Shearing credits the Glenn Miller Orchestra's reed section of the late thirties and early forties as an important influence in the development of this sound. But it caught on quick and the Shearing Quintet enjoyed tremendous popular success as a result of it.

The group found early success at MGM Records but received household recognition with a spate of records issued on Capitol starting in 1955. Capitol also paired Shearing successfully with Peggy Lee, Dakota Staton, Nancy Wilson, Nat King Cole and (on another label) the Montgomery Brothers, featuring Wes Montgomery. Shearing recorded for Capitol with the quintet and in orchestral settings through 1969, when his brand of music – and the way the label forced him to record – was many years out of style.

Shearing formed his own mail-order label, Sheba, issuing a handful of records in the early 1970s, since reissued on CD by the Koch label, in varying formats ranging from solo to duo and quartet to the traditional quintet. Shearing recorded for the German MPS label during the mid to late 1970s, issuing a number of exceptionally fine recordings in solo (My Ship), quintet (The Way We Are, Continental Experience) and trio settings (Light, Airy & Swinging, 500 Miles High, Windows) as well as the exceptional orchestral outing with Robert Farnon On Target (the two reunited for the equally fine 1993 Telarc CD How Beautiful Is The Night).

Shearing permanently disbanded the quintet in 1978, mostly because he was just plain sick and tired of it. After nearly four decades of doing this sort of music, he no longer felt it. He signed with Carl Jefferson’s Concord Records in 1979, waxing a number of solo records, duos with pianists (Hank Jones, and fellow British ex-pat Marian McPartland), duos with bassists (Brian Torff and Don Thompson), duos with guitarist Jim Hall and several award-winning sets with Mel Torme (1925-1999).

This led to a spate of first-class releases on the Telarc label during the 1990s including Shearing’s first quintet recordings in ages, The Shearing Sound (1994) and the magnificent Christmas with the George Shearing Quintet (1998).

Although Shearing became known to many by his voluminous recorded output – he has been as well represented in the CD age as he was in the LP’s glory days – it is his live performances and gentlemanly demeanor that made him beloved by many, including me.

He was not only one of the wittiest of improvisers, quoting any number of jazz or classical references in the space of a too-brief piano solo, he was one of the most gifted of humorists too. The way he could cleverly twist words revealed the mind of an erudite literary scholar. The way he could turn a phrase revealed the slyest of comedians. The wit he brought to both his music and his performance was utterly unique and entirely infectious.

Shearing’s appreciation of the music he played, the composers (jazz, classical and even pop) who crafted it and, most especially, the band mates who preached the gospel with him bordered on the religious. In word and in deed, George Shearing showed more respect, admiration and appreciation to the music he played and those he worked with than just about any other musician ever has.

My mother-in-law saw the George Shearing Quintet at the height of its fame on a college tour during the 1950s and has never stopped raving about what a wonderfully memorable performance it was. I too saw George Shearing perform live, accompanied only by Don Thompson on bass, in a small room at the Sheraton Hotel in Station Square, across the river from downtown Pittsburgh in 1986.

Hardly anyone else was there. I was in my early 20s at the time and I was certainly among the youngest people in the room. I sat about five feet away from Mr. Shearing, marveling at his enthusiasm but secretly wishing that I could have been around for a quintet performance. But that desire soon dissipated, for when Shearing and Thompson launched into a tune (usually after a hugely amusing anecdote), you couldn’t help but be mesmerized by what the pianist put into and got out of a tune. It really was a show, a spectacle of the senses that didn’t involve any of the expected stadium-rock antics so many acts have to put on to hide a lack of anything else interesting to say or do.

Like that beautiful penultimate scene in Woody Allen’s Manhattan, many of George Shearing’s quintet records are hard-wired into my system as some of the music that make life worth living. Once experienced, it’s easy to enjoy and never to be forgotten – like a friend that knows how to make you feel good whenever life has got you down. May you rest in the peaceful joy you provided in life to so many others, George Shearing.

Please read more about George Shearing in my recent post, Shearing in the Sixties. What follows is Peter Keepnews’ beautifully written New York Times obit:

George Shearing, ‘Lullaby of Birdland’ Jazz Virtuoso, Dies at 91
By PETER KEEPNEWS

George Shearing, the British piano virtuoso who overcame blindness to become a worldwide jazz star, and whose composition “Lullaby of Birdland” became an enduring jazz standard, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 91.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said his manager, Dale Sheets. Mr. Shearing had homes in Manhattan and Lee, Mass.

In 1949, just two years after Mr. Shearing immigrated to the United States, his recording of “September in the Rain” became an international hit. Its success established him as a hot property on the jazz nightclub and concert circuit. It established something else as well: the signature sound of the George Shearing Quintet, which was not quite like anything listeners had heard before — or have heard since.

“When the quintet came out on 1949, it was a very placid and peaceful sound, coming on the end of a very frantic and frenetic era known as bebop,” Mr. Shearing said in a 1995 interview on the Web site newyorkcritic.org. What he was aiming for, he said, was “a full block sound, which, if it was scored for saxophones, would sound like the Glenn Miller sound. And coming at the end of the frenetic bebop era, the timing seemed to be right.”

The Shearing sound — which had the harmonic complexity of bebop but eschewed bebop’s ferocious energy — was built on the unusual instrumentation of vibraphone, guitar, piano, bass and drums. To get the “full block sound” he wanted, he had the vibraphone double what his right hand played and the guitar double the left. That sound came to represent the essence of sophisticated hip for countless listeners worldwide who preferred their jazz on the gentle side.

The personnel of the Shearing quintet changed many times over the years, but except for the addition of a percussionist in 1953 — the band continued to be called a quintet even after it became a sextet — the instrumentation and the sound remained the same for almost three decades.

When Mr. Shearing disbanded the group in 1978, it was less because listeners had grown tired of that instrumentation and sound (although the group’s popularity, like that of mainstream jazz in general, had declined considerably) than because Mr. Shearing himself had.

“I had an identity. I held on to it for 29 years. Eventually I held on like grim death,” he told John S. Wilson of The New York Times in 1986. “The last five years I played on automatic pilot. I could do the whole show in my sleep.”

Shortly after breaking up the group, Mr. Shearing said, “There won’t be another quintet unless Standard Oil or Frank Sinatra want it.” Standard Oil never asked, but in 1981 Mr. Shearing reassembled the quintet for a Boston engagement and a series of Carnegie Hall concerts as Mr. Sinatra’s opening act. He returned to the quintet format on occasion after that, but it was never again his primary focus.

His preferred format became the piano-bass duo, originally with Brian Torff and later with Don Thompson and Neil Swainson. He also performed with bass and drums and, on occasion, unaccompanied. In the 1980s and ’90s he had great success in concert and on record with the singer Mel Tormé.

By his own estimate Mr. Shearing wrote about 300 tunes, of which he liked to joke that roughly 295 were completely unknown.

He nevertheless contributed at least one bona fide standard to the jazz repertory: “Lullaby of Birdland,” written in 1952 and adopted as the theme song of the world-famous New York nightclub where he frequently performed. Both as an instrumental and with words by George David Weiss, it has been recorded by everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Bill Haley and His Comets, who improbably cut a version called “Lullaby of Birdland Twist” in 1962.

George Albert Shearing was born on Aug. 13, 1919, in the Battersea area of London, the youngest of nine children. His father, James Phillip Shearing, was a coal worker; his mother, the former Ellen Amelia Brightner, took care of the family during the day and cleaned trains at night.

In his autobiography, “Lullaby of Birdland” (2004), written with Alyn Shipton, Mr. Shearing recalled that his first attempts at making music involved throwing bottles from an upstairs window: milk bottles for a classical sound, beer for jazz. More conventionally, he began picking out tunes on the family piano at 3, even though it had some broken keys.

Blind from birth, Mr. Shearing attended the Shillington School for the Blind and the Linden Lodge School for the Blind, both in London. It was at Linden Lodge that Mr. Shearing, captivated by the recordings of American jazz pianists like Art Tatum and Fats Waller, began to study piano.

He was discouraged from pursuing his interest in the classics, he later recalled, by a teacher who recognized his gifts as an improviser and felt that studying classical music would be a waste of time. He nonetheless came to see the value of classical training; he later returned to the classics and eventually performed Bach and Mozart on several occasions with symphony orchestras.

Mr. Shearing began his career at 16, when another blind pianist gave up his job playing in a London pub and recommended Mr. Shearing as his replacement. He eventually had his own 15-minute show on the BBC and was voted Britain’s best jazz pianist seven consecutive years in the poll conducted by the magazine Melody Maker. He was indisputably a star at home; the next stop, clearly, was the United States.

Glenn Miller and Fats Waller, among others, encouraged Mr. Shearing to try his luck in the United States after World War II ended. But the booking agents were not especially impressed. At home he had sometimes been billed as “England’s Art Tatum” or “England’s Teddy Wilson.” But, he told The Times in 1986, when he performed for one American agent he received a curt response: “What else can you do?” It was not enough, he realized, to sound like other pianists. He needed to develop a sound of his own.

Mr. Shearing found it with the help of a fellow Englishman, the jazz critic and pianist Leonard Feather, who like him had moved to the United States, and who suggested what became his signature instrumentation. With Margie Hyams on vibraphone, Chuck Wayne on guitar, John Levy on bass and Denzil Best on drums, Mr. Shearing recorded “September in the Rain” in 1949. The distinctive sound of both the quintet and Mr. Shearing himself — he used a so-called locked-hands style in which his hands played melody and harmony in close quarters, with the melody line harmonized by the right hand and doubled by the left hand an octave below — caught listeners’ fancy, and stardom soon followed.

In the early years of Mr. Shearing’s renown he recorded for the MGM label, but his longest professional relationship was with Capitol, where he was a mainstay of the roster from 1955 to 1969. In addition to recording him with his quintet, Capitol teamed him with a number of singers, including Peggy Lee, Nancy Wilson and even Nat (King) Cole, an accomplished jazz pianist in his own right, who relinquished the piano chair to Mr. Shearing on a memorable 1961 album.

With the market for jazz shrinking in the late 1960s, Capitol chose not to re-sign Mr. Shearing. He then formed his own small record company, Sheba, but that enterprise was short-lived. In 1979, a year after disbanding his quintet, he signed with Concord, a jazz label, and his career soon underwent a resurgence.

It was under Concord’s aegis that he first recorded with Mel Tormé. Their albums “An Evening With George Shearing and Mel Tormé” and “Top Drawer” won Grammys — for Mr. Tormé but not for Mr. Shearing, who despite his many other accomplishments never won one.

In his later years, Mr. Shearing also recorded unaccompanied; in duet with his fellow pianists Marian McPartland and Hank Jones; and in settings as uncharacteristic as a Dixieland band. He continued performing into his 80s and stopped only after a fall in 2004, which led to a long hospital stay.

Mr. Shearing’s marriage to Beatrice Bayes ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, the former Ellie Geffert, and a daughter, Wendy.

Mr. Shearing was invited to perform at the White House by three presidents: Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. He performed for the British royal family as well. The British Academy of Composers and Songwriters gave him the Ivor Novello Award for lifetime achievement in 1993. In 1996 he was invested as an officer in the Order of the British Empire, and 11 years later he was knighted.

“I don’t know why I’m getting this honor,” he said shortly after learning of his knighthood. “I’ve just been doing what I love to do.”

Reissuing CTI: The Richard Seidel Interview

If you’ve bought more than one jazz CD in the past thirty years or so, chances are you have at least one that was made possible courtesy of producer Richard Seidel.

During his two plus decades at the Verve label, Seidel was responsible for rescuing some of jazz’s greatest recordings for the digital age and promoting some of the music’s best and most promising talent including Shirley Horn, Joe Henderson, Betty Carter, Christian McBride, Mark Whitfield and Jimmy Smith.

Indeed, Richard Seidel is behind some of the most prominent jazz releases and reissues of the last two dozen years or so – almost single-handedly keeping the jazz spirit alive in a music industry that really doesn’t care much about jazz and a fan base that has changed considerably during this period.

Since leaving Verve, Richard Seidel has kept especially busy with an even more remarkable array of projects. He co-produced Eddie Palmieri’s Listen Here! album for Concord in 2005, for which both he and Palmieri won Grammy Awards. He is also especially proud of Wise One, the album he produced for Bobby Hutcherson in 2009.

On the reissue front, Richard Seidel has recently supervised the To Be Free: The Nina Simone Story (Sony Legacy) boxed set, which was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2008, the overwhelming 70-disc Miles Davis set The Complete Columbia Album Collection (Sony Legacy) in 2009 and the amazing Ella Fitzgerald box set Twelve Nights In Hollywood (Verve), which won both the 2010 Down Beat Jazz Critics Poll and the Jazz Journalists’ Association awards as Best Historical Album.

Somehow during all of this, Richard Seidel has found time to supervise and produce the magnificent set of releases that compromise the 40th anniversary of CTI Records, the beloved jazz label founded in 1970 by producer Creed Taylor.

The celebration started in October of last year with the release of six classic CTI titles, re-mastered to sparkling effect, and CTI Records: The Cool Revolution, a deluxe 4-CD multi-artist box set retrospective. Soon thereafter, a double-CD restoration of the masterful California Concert: The Hollywood Palladium (1971) followed with 90 minutes of music rarely heard and never before available as well as four collectible vinyl LPs (CTI hasn’t been officially available on vinyl for over a quarter of a century). Six additional CTI classics were issued on CD several weeks ago and another four CTI titles have been scheduled for April.

Refreshingly, unlike most producers, Richard Seidel often steers clear of the limelight – usually letting the music speak for itself or, more, accurately, the artist speak for him or herself. But he talked with me recently about music and his involvement with the 40th anniversary celebration of CTI Records.

Doug Payne: Let’s start with a little bit about you. How did you get started in the music business?

Richard Seidel: In 1972 I took a leave of absence from the Institute Of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, where I had been Curator since 1970, after having graduated from Rutgers that same year. I moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music and also took courses at New England Conservatory and worked for Gunther Schuller as a research assistant.

In 1974 I was offered a position as the Jazz and Popular Music Editor of the Schwann Catalog. In the course of my work at Schwann I got to know Scott Billington, then the manager of one of the key retail stores in Boston, who in turn went to work as a sales rep for Rounder Records Distribution, where he asked me to join him. One of my main accounts was the Strawberries chain where, among other things, I got to meet its infamous owner, Morris Levy.

Although Rounder was primarily a distributor of folk and bluegrass labels, we also handled labels like Concord Jazz and Xanadu, the Italian Black Saint/Soul Note labels, and even Sun Ra’s extremely hard to find El Saturn label. Through my position at Rounder I got to know John Koenig, the head of the venerable Contemporary Records in Los Angeles, which had recently been reactivated and which Rounder was distributing.

John brought me in to be the National Sales Manager and to help rebuild what was then a very limited distribution network for the label. One thing led to another and by 1982 I moved back to the New York area to work for PolyGram Classics and Jazz where Verve became the jazz imprint. I ended up first running the label, then headed up its A&R activities, and stayed with the company for twenty years through all of the many changes in the record business between 1982 and 2002.

DP: Your most recent project is supervising the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the CTI record label for Sony’s Masterworks Jazz. What brought you to the project?

RS: I have been doing freelance work for Sony Legacy since 2003, having done dozens of reissues, compilations and boxes sets on artists like Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Jaco Pastorius, George Benson, and many, many others.

When it was determined that Sony Masterworks would begin to handle some of the jazz product that had been previously handled by Legacy, David Foil, the Senior Director of Product Development for Masterworks, asked me to get involved with CTI.

DP: What did you think of CTI back in the day?

RS: I have always been a fan of the label, from the very beginning. When I started working at the Institute of Jazz Studies they were not on any mailing lists to receive new records. So I made several trips to New York City to meet with labels and on one of those trips I went to CTI.

If memory serves me correctly I believe they were located on E. 57th St. at the time and I recall meeting Vic Chirumbalo, who was I think then the head of sales for the company. We immediately started receiving records at the Institute and I was struck by both the excellent music and audio, and the captivating covers.

The label caught on very quickly and I remember going into record stores in NY and NJ and later in Boston where you could actually feel how “hot” the label was just by being in the stores. And I specifically remember going into little record stores in Times Square when Kudu began and hearing them blasting the first Johnny Hammond album which was also hot as blazes.

DP: How do you think the music of CTI compares to the jazz of today?

RS: While I continue to follow current jazz to some degree, although nowhere near as much as I did when I was at Verve, I have to say that there are no more Freddie Hubbards or Stanley Turrentines around today and they are sorely missed. I heard Hubert Laws play twice recently and he sounded great but by and large there’s not a lot of this type of music around anymore.

DP: What are your favorite CTI albums?

RS: I like so many of them - of course, [Freddie Hubbard’s] Red Clay and [Stanley Turrentine’s] Sugar and some of the others by Freddie and Stanley, especially [Stanley’s] Don’t Mess With Mister T., which I think is definitely underappreciated and probably didn’t sell as well as it should have since it was Stanley’s last album for the label. I also particularly like the Jim Hall [Concierto], [George Benson’s] White Rabbit, Grover’s Soul Box, [Milt Jackson’s] Sunflower, and surprisingly the Randy Weston [Blue Moses].

I remember when it first came out, hearing Randy play electric piano seemed like sacrilege. But after all these years I love it: great tunes and great playing by Freddie and Grover, and some of Sebesky’s best arrangements. And, of course, California Concert, the reissue of which I did last year. That to me is one of the great live jazz concerts of all time.

DP: How do you think CTI fits into jazz history or, more specifically, what makes CTI worth celebrating four decades after its inception?

RS: It was/is a unique combination of music and marketing that enabled jazz to reach a much larger audience. It also captured many of the artists at the peak of their careers as leaders, especially Freddie and Stanley.

DP: How did you decide which of the baker’s dozen of recordings were chosen to be part of the 40th anniversary re-launch of CTI Records?

RS: We tried to represent both the most famous and the most important musically, covering a wide a stylistic ground. Even artists who only made one or two records for the label like Jim Hall and Paul Desmond created classics so they needed to be in there. We haven’t done any Kudu yet - except a few tracks in the boxed set - but hope to do some of the rarer titles later this year.

DP: What makes any of these different or better than previous CD issues of CTI records? In other words, why would anybody want to replace their copy of Red Clay with the new one?

RS: We feel that by going back to the original 1/4” 2-track analog masters, with Mark Wilder helming the mastering, we have delivered the best-sounding versions of these titles yet on CD. And the replica mini-jacket packaging has, as far as I know, not been done anywhere else in the world.

DP: Surely, the pinnacle of your work here is the fantastic California Concert: The Hollywood Palladium. What can you say about this?

RS: I have been very fortunate over the last 25 plus years to be able to dig into the vaults of several of the major jazz catalogs including Verve, the Atlantic/Warner/Elektra group and, of course, Sony. I consider myself a kind of audio archaeologist and just love the thrill of coming up with “new” material that hasn’t been heard by anyone in forty or fifty years.

That was particularly true of California Concert. I think the previously unreleased version of “Straight Life” is one for the ages, as is most of the rest of the album. I am a big Stanley Turrentine fan and feel strongly that he has never played better than on this record.

We went back to the original 8-track masters and remixed everything from scratch. Comparing what we did to the original LP and earlier CD I think we have made significant improvements that are very audible. Hats off to Dave Darlington, a terrific engineer and a big CTI fan, who did the mixing. Dave was recommended to me by Mark Wilder at Sony, who in my opinion is the dean of jazz mastering engineers.

Mark’s latest protégé, the extremely talented Maria Triana, another Sony engineer who happens to hail from Colombia, S.A., did a fantastic job on the mastering, including cleaning up some serious distortion. We did our best to remove as much of the jive-sounding disc jockey who was the M.C. of the show. But unfortunately we were stuck with some of what he had to say, when he stepped all over the music, as he did several times.

DP: Is there anything about any of the other releases in the CTI Records 40th anniversary series that you would like to share?

RS: I must say a few words about Creed and Rudy. To me Creed Taylor is not only one of the greatest jazz producers but one of the most underrated. I feel he is often unfairly judged for his commercial successes. From his early days at Bethlehem, ABC-Paramount and Impulse he made many terrific jazz records with brilliantly creative concepts including classics like John Coltrane’s Africa/Brass and Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth.

And at Verve there were many others like Bill Evans’ Conversations with Myself and Kenny Burrell’s Guitar Forms. Creed did more to expose the fusion of Brazilian music and jazz around the world than any other producer. The Stan Getz Bossa Nova albums on Verve and the Antonio Carlos Jobim records on Verve, A&M and CTI are all phenomenal artistic achievements.

The fact that they were also almost all big commercial successes is to their credit, not the reverse. As for Rudy, what can you say about the single individual involved in the creation of by far the largest number of great-sounding jazz records made from the 1950s through the 1970s. He engineered virtually all, if not most, of the albums made by Prestige, Blue Note, Savoy, Impulse, Verve and CTI – not to mention doing sessions for countless other labels in the last forty years. And he’s still making records!

One more thing about Rudy that has always blown me away: he knows how to make records that sound great on the radio. They jump out at you and grab your attention immediately. You know it’s a Rudy record in the first few bars. I’m certain that given how important radio has always been to selling jazz records that this gave Rudy’s records an edge. And so when you put Creed and Rudy together you had one helluva team. I am truly honored to have had the privilege to work for so many years – both at Verve, and now at Sony – with the extraordinary recordings in which both Creed and Rudy played such an important part.

DP: Everybody has their own favorite CTI record and usually wants to know whether it will turn up on CD, particularly given the tremendous re-mastering sound of the 40th anniversary editions. What do you think will make Sony put out more of CTI’s back catalog?

RS: Sales, of course. And I am pleased to tell you that the first releases have done well enough that there are plans to do several more titles this year. First up for an April 5 release are [Freddie Hubbard’s] First Light, [Stanley Turrentine’s] Salt Song, [George Benson’s] Beyond the Blue Horizon, and [Don Sebesky’s] Giant Box. I know that Don Sebesky is particularly happy about Giant Box coming out again.

DP: How did the four-disc box set, CTI Records: The Cool Revolution, come together?

RS: It seemed like it made total sense to celebrate the label’s 40th Anniversary with a historical retrospective/overview. David Foil from Masterworks asked me to come up with themes for each disc which is how we ended up with the four different themed sets of music.

DP: How did you decide which songs belonged on the box set?

RS: I tried to pick both the most famous artistically and the most successful commercially. It’s kind of impossible to please everyone in a situation like this since any one of us would come up with different track lists, so to a certain extent the choices represent my personal taste, as well. And even in five hours of music there were many songs I had to leave out I would have liked to include.

DP: Can you explain the title?

RS: Masterworks came up with the title. I wasn’t so sure about it at first but I think most importantly it’s a grabber and captures your attention immediately – which I guess is what a title is supposed to do. And it seems to have worked.

DP: What are you working on now?

RS: The four April titles mentioned above plus several projects for Sony Legacy in their new D2C (Direct To Consumer) series.

A Great Best Buy Commercial

I don’t watch much TV. But I happened to see this commercial (twice) while watching the latest episode of Archer on FX. I think this was one of those overly-hyped Super Bowl ads that get as much press as the latest super-flop multiplex comedy/action pic/Oscar nominee often gets.

I don’t know. I don’t care. I don’t pay attention to that sort of meta-promotion.

I may not be exactly certain what this ad is pushing (and they even make fun of how confusing this whole thing is), but I haven’t been this entertained – and meta-entertained – by a commercial in years. This is utterly hilarious on many levels…and it gave me a new-found respect for Justin Bieber (guess who "I don't know, kinda looks like a girl" is?), Ozzy Osbourne and Best Buy, where I already spend far too much money.

Dave Grusin “A Dry White Season”

More than twenty years following the release of the 1989 film A Dry White Season and on the 21st anniversary of the release of political prisoner Nelson Mandela – which signaled the end of South African Apartheid - the film-music specialists, Kritzerland, have issued the first-ever soundtrack to the riveting 1989 film that starred Donald Sutherland, Susan Sarandon and Marlon Brando (in a terrifically understated performance that was his first film appearance since 1980’s The Formula).

This film, along with many musical outpourings from people like Artists United Against Apartheid (1985) and Paul Simon’s Graceland (1986), helped to make the rest of the world aware of what was going on at the time in South Africa.

The film’s score, by Dave Grusin, is certainly one of the composer’s lesser-known achievements. It comes between Grusin’s scores for 1988’s Robert Towne epic Tequila Sunrise (a Mel Gibson-Michelle Pfeiffer-Kurt Russell starrer that earned a song soundtrack on Capitol Records) and the Jeff Bridges-Michelle Pfeiffer-Beau Bridges starrer The Fabulous Baker Boys (a Grammy Award winner whose soundtrack was issued on Grusin’s own GRP Records and one that was also nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe award).

A Dry White Season ranks among the composer’s most notable scores: a subtle inflection of emotion that underlies Grusin’s abundant abilities in the conspiracy genre (Three Days of the Condor, Recount) as well as those he has outlined in dramas that develop into personal and life-affirming struggles against the odds (The Yakuza, Absence of Malice, The Little Drummer Girl and The Milagro Beanfield War) and those that require little if any music at all (The Graduate, The Goodbye Girl and one that has some incredibly beautiful music, On Golden Pond).

Directed with great care, caution and sensitivity by the French director Euzhan Palcy, A Dry White Season is little more than the story of one man, blinded by his privileged circumstances, discovering that every bit of his privilege is all based on a lie. The story takes place in 1976 when South Africa’s “Special Branch” was putting children – children! – to death for merely insisting on equal rights and the right to be taught in English rather than Afrikaans, a language that kept Black South Africans subservient to the far fewer white people in control of their land.

Donald Sutherland, as Ben du Toit, gives one of the most remarkable performances of his remarkable career as a white man whose black gardener, Gordon Ngubene (Winston Ntshona), tells how his young son, Jonathan (Bekhithemba Mpofu), who is a good friend to Ben’s son, Johan (Rowen Elmes), is tortured for no reason by “Special Branch,” the police who operated well beyond the law in South Africa for many years. Ben tells Gordon that there’s nothing that can be done.

Eventually, Jonathan dies a horrible death for no good reason. Gordon simply wants to find out what happened to his son. Special Branch tortures Gordon to death for his troubles but passes his death off as a suicide. This prompts Ben to seek “justice” for Gordon. He approaches human-rights lawyer Ian McKenzie (Marlon Brando), who offers to help but suggests that there is very little he can do in helping Ben to seek justice.

Soon thereafter, Ben loses everything – his job, his family, the respect of his white friends and family. Ben’s very life is threatened in multiple ways. But he vows to continue fighting for what he believes is right. And only his son sticks by his side.

It’s hard to imagine a film with more moving performances than those given here. The two boys, who share a poetically beautiful scene during the opening credits (scored beautifully to Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s moving “Unomethemba”), are magnificent. Surprisingly, according to IMDb, neither has ever done another film.

The adults don’t fare too badly either. Donald Sutherland is such a tremendous actor, doing some of his most convincing work here, that it’s a shame he’s never been given the proper recognition he deserves.

But there are some heart-wrenchingly beautiful performances here from Zakes Mokae (as Stanley, the Ngubene’s lawyer) and Thoko Ntshinga (as Emily, Gordon’s wife) to, of course, Winston Ntshona (as Gordon). Brando’s presence as the lawyer gives some levity – and some much needed humor – to Ian McKenzie, a role that the actor brilliantly makes much more important than it really is. Even the white baddies, Jürgen Prochnow and Janet Suzman, do a commendable job of delivering knowingly ugly performances – which must have been a particular challenge, even for them.

Grusin’s score is mostly on the subtle side. There is no major theme here other than South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela’s mournful flugelhorn passages during the film’s saddest scenes. Masekela had been out of South Africa for nearly three decades at the time he recorded his parts for this film (he finally returned to South Africa after Mandela’s release from prison in 1991). And surely this story resonated very deeply within him. Indeed, he wrote “Soweto Blues” in 1978 for Miriam Makeba, another South African ex-pat, about the very subject this particular film takes on.

The Kritzerland CD appears like some sort of miracle, featuring 15 songs from the film’s soundtrack and four added “bonus tracks” (two alternate takes and two source cues). But for as great as the music it presents is – for the first time ever – it never talks about which of this music was actually used in the film (a small fraction of what is heard here) or why, it also credits neither any of the contributing musicians, including Hugh Masekela, nor includes any of the three Ladysmith Black Mambazo songs used so prominently in the film: the beautiful “Unomethemba,” from LBM’s famed Shaka Zulu album, the song played during the film’s opening credits, or “Umusa” (featured on LBM’s 1990 album Journey of Dreams_, or “Yini Kodwa Yini,” which plays over the closing credits.

Masekela, who is never properly credited on the soundtrack disc as he is in the film, plays briefly on the cues "Aftermath / Dead Children," "He's My Child / I Never Saw Him / Gordon's Arrest," "Wife Waffles / Flashbacks," "Stanley Kills Stoltz" and "Source Music 2" only. “Source Music 2” – which is not audible in the finished film – corresponds exactly to Grusin’s “Dancing in the Township,” a song that is heard to excellent effect on the 1989 Dave Grusin album Migration, a performance also featuring an excellent turn by Masekela.

“Ben’s Death” from A Dry White Season also features the “Dancing in the Township” theme, heard at the film’s end when Johan is riding his bike to the newspaper office. (Masekela is also heard on Grusin’s Migration album on his own theme “Polina,” which Masekela also performed on his 1992 album Beatin’ Aroun De Bush.)

Something about the score presentation, which is undeniably beautiful, and the final film suggests that there was much disagreement about the music for the film. There really is no “main theme” and certainly nothing that stands out as such.

The disc’s first cue, Grusin’s brief “Happier Times,” is a gorgeous symphonic piece that isn’t heard until a full five minutes into the film. Some of Grusin’s music seems misapplied in the film too and much of it on this 36-minute soundtrack seems to be missing completely (“Source Music 2” isn’t immediately audible in the film but a Reggae source cue that plays while Ben and Susan Sarandon’s character, Melanie, meet in a public square, is missing here as well).

Even some of the disc’s best moments (“Demonstrations,” “Monsters Win,” “The Search” and “Garage Explodes”) don’t seem to work very well in the film. Oddly, though, Grusin suggests the militaristic undertones with a greater subtlety and more appropriately South African perfection than one would expect from any other composer – but they just seem misapplied to the film.

Grusin’s score throughout suggests a light touch: nothing obvious and nothing catchy. Unlike so much of the great music that is American blues and gospel or South African Mbaqnga, Grusin isn’t trying to celebrate the triumph of will over adversity. He is underscoring adversity and the will to overcome it.

It doesn’t call for happy music. In fact, it really calls for no music at all. It calls for something else. I believe Dave Grusin recognizes this and is scoring appropriately; allowing the drama to dictate the film’s rhythms. It is a movie that probably doesn’t need music. But what Dave Grusin contributes is beautiful and not at all inappropriate.

Grusin – ever the creative conceptualist – seems to rely a bunch on Masekela’s input, inserting the least amount of musical drama into already dramatically-charged scenes. It’s hard not to well up into tears, even without sound, throughout this horrific story and hugely intoxicating film – and even Masekela’s passages are brief in the extreme – and, not surprisingly, vocalists from the cast of Masekela’s then emerging Broadway musical Sarafina are heard briefly in beautiful ways during several of the film’s passages (none, inexplicably, of which are represented on the soundtrack CD). So the little Grusin contributes is certainly enough.

A Dry White Season probably represents one of Dave Grusin’s better and most least-known scores, even though it will appeal most to the composer’s film music fans.

But if you love what Grusin does in film and you hear the magic that Hugh Masekela blows through his horn each and every time he plays, A Dry White Season is very highly recommended. It is a beautiful late addition to the Dave Grusin and Hugh Masekela discographies and one that Kritzerland did a mostly commendable job in rescuing for our listening pleasure.

John Barry – R.I.P.

The film world lost one of its greatest composers with the death of John Barry, who died yesterday in New York at age 77. Barry, who had long lived in New York, is said to have died of a heart attack. But official details have not yet been released.

John Barry, born November 3, 1933, in York, England, composed the scores to dozens of films and TV shows over the past half century, a period known as film music’s “silver age,” but became best known as the man who underscored the best of James Bond’s film adventures. He was first invited in to fix Monty Norman’s music to Dr. No in 1962, crafting the famed James Bond theme (the authorship of which has always been in dispute), giving it an eternally cool edge with the addition of Vic Flick’s famed guitar.

Barry went on to score another 11 Bond films through 1987’s The Living Daylights, even suggesting replacements (George Martin, Bill Conti) when he was unable to score a Bond picture. It was Barry who suggested the Bond producers bring in composer/producer David Arnold (b. 1962), who has scored all five of the James Bond films since 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies.

But John Barry’s music, which has influenced many film and pop music composers and is appreciated by many who don’t know or care much for film music, was well known and respected outside of the James Bond franchise, scores he once derisively referred to as “million dollar Mickey Mouse music.”

He garnered early hits from his themes to “Beat Girl,” “Born Free” and “Midnight Cowboy” and earned five well-deserved Academy Awards for the theme and score to Born Free (1965) and the scores for The Lion in Winter (1968), Out of Africa (1985 – which also won a Golden Globe Award) and Dancing with Wolves (1990 – which also won a Grammy Award).

Barry’s Bond themes were also some of the series’ best-known songs, from the definitive “Goldfinger,” featuring Shirley Bassey, “Thunderball,” featuring Tom Jones, and “You Only Live Twice,” featuring Nancy Sinatra, to “We Have All The Time In The World,” featuring Louis Armstrong, “Diamonds are Forever,” again featuring Shirley Bassey, and “A View to a Kill,” featuring Duran Duran.

John Barry, who became Sir John Barry when he was awarded the O.B.E. in 1999, was instrumental in introducing me and many people of my generation to the concept of film music. Film and TV music was something that you weren’t meant to pay attention to and, early in my years, I certainly paid no attention to it.

My first Bond, Live and Let Die (1973) wasn’t a John Barry score and the music really didn’t have that much impact on me as a ten-year-old. But Bond did. I was sure to catch a Bond picture on TV whenever they aired at the time. The first two that did catch my attention and hold me riveted were Goldfinger (1964) and Diamonds Are Forever (1971), both for the stories and the action as well as the music, which was merely incredible.

Aside from two particularly dynamic themes, both sung by Shirley Bassey (who was hand-picked for the job by Barry for her ability to belt out a tune and hold a note), each had themes that mesmerized me. In Goldfinger, it was the all-too brief cue called “Into Miami,” that plays immediately after the main titles sequence as a glorious pan from a helicopter lets us know we’re in Miami. It had all the elegance of jazz, the decadence of the playful rich and the cool of Bond who knows his boss, M, doesn’t “book him into the best hotel in Miami Beach out of pure gratitude.”

The Diamonds are Forever theme I adored is a lounge-lizard instrumental version of the main theme that plays in Tiffany Case’s apartment when James Bond first enters as “Peter Franks.” Barry also recorded several albums for the Polydor label around this time that featured this particular sound, an homage of sorts to fellow Brit ex-pat George Shearing’s quintet, as well themes to this film and some of the composer’s British TV themes of the time. I should say, too, that I’m a big fan of Barry’s novelty theme “The Man with the Golden Gun,” belted out by Lulu in a perfectly serio-sarcastic style of the time,

What makes John Barry’s music extraordinarily unique is that he’s one of the first of the successful composers for film that came out of rock and roll. Some, like Danny Elfman and Mark Mothersbaugh, have also made such successful transitions. But not like John Barry, who understood and was not afraid of catchy hooks, celebrated the amalgam of melody and rhythm and the unequivocal power of pure simplicity. Barry also harbored an enduring love of jazz and the creativity other musicians can bring to his own music.

This added something special and unique to his scores. He was especially adept at “layering” sounds. He often talked about how much of his music was based on layers of simple ideas. Minimal deconstruction reveals the truth of such investigation. But it’s hard to appreciate as the final constructions were always so appealing as a whole.

Barry was particularly adept at coming up with secondary themes that are as strong, if not stronger, than his main themes. His “007” theme, first heard on Thunderball, is one such theme – for which he scored many variations (i.e. “To Hell With Blofeld”) – and one he was most proud of (interestingly, even the “Thunderball” theme was initially a secondary theme as “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” was intended as the title and main theme to the film, in a vocal version to be sung by Dionne Warwick).

My favorite John Barry score (and theme) is probably the brilliant The Ipcress File (1965), a soundtrack I am very happy to own on CD. After Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever, I’d also say I highly treasure John Barry’s score to Petulia (1968), followed by such early scores for The Knack…And How To Get It (1965) and The Whisperers (1967).

I would also recommend Barry’s longer, near-classic works “Romance for Guitar and Orchestra” from Deadfall (1968 –the film features Barry himself conducting the 14-minute piece) and “Return to the Seas – 2033 A.D.,” the self-edited 24-minute suite of themes from Barry’s score album for The Deep (1977 – issued on CD in 2010 by Intrada, the most recent John Barry CD I purchased).

Many will favor Barry’s more winningly melodic material like Out of Africa or Dances with Wolves, but I have always favored “that Bond sound” Barry perfected and personified in the 1960s and one that his later artistic successes permitted him to return to on The Specialist (1994) and Mercury Rising (1998), both stunning examples of just how brilliant a film composer John Barry was – always in tune with the emotional action of any film and purely perfect in setting just the right tone for a story.

One of John Barry’s last soundtracks, the little-known Playing by Heart (1998 – a reunion of sorts with original Bond Sean Connery), was also one of his most touching and lovingly conceived. A moody and melodic tribute in a jazz context to the influence of Chet Baker, it is John Barry, himself “playing by heart” and someone who always connected with film in a very personal way.

While it is sad that John Barry, who was active up until the end (he had composed The Beyondness of Things and Eternal Echoes outside of film and continued composing for favored artists like Shirley Bassey on her 2009 disc Performance), will not be heard in film again, the music he provided to more than a few films will live forever, forever.

“He’s the man, the man with the Midas touch.”

50 years with jazzclarinet: The Best of Lajos Dudas

The clarinet is one of the most important instruments in the foundation of jazz, from its early progenitors Sidney Bechet, Barney Bigard, Johnny Dodds, Edmond Hall and George Lewis to such later famed instrumentalists as Ted Lewis, Don Murray, Pee Wee Russell, Peanuts Hucko, Artie Shaw and, of course, Benny Goodman.

But you’d never know it today. Sure, a few folks like Buddy DeFranco, Tony Scott and Jimmy Giuffre helped keep the clarinet spirit alive in the fifties (mostly by going into other forms of jazz). But by the 1960s, hardly anyone would be caught dead playing the clarinet – considered probably the most old-fashioned and out-dated instrument in jazz (sorry, bass clarinet players, led by Eric Dolphy, and sax players like Phil Woods, or countless others, who played clarinet on a less than part-time basis really don’t count).

It was only in Europe where the clarinet seemed to thrive after 1960. Even American clarinetists such as Scott and Perry Robinson were forced to ply their trade in Europe. This was the age that gave rise to Germans Rolf Kühn and Theo Jörgensmann, the Swedish Putte Wickman, the Japanese Eiji Kitamura and far too few others. Then, of course, later there was John Carter, Alvin Batiste, George Lewis, Eddie Daniels and Don Byron. There was also Hungarian émigré Lajos Dudás (b. 1941), who, from the mid-1960s on, has centered himself in Germany.

Lajos Dudas plays the blues with guitarist Philipp van Endert in Munich.

He’s played prolifically there ever since, particularly on many radio broadcasts with Germany’s best orchestras and Europe’s finest jazz players. He’s also been recorded frequently and quite well since the mid-1970s on a variety of German and Hungarian labels, in some startlingly differing contexts (most notably in a duo format), with some tremendously supportive players and many long-time musical associates.

Lajos Dudas beautifully conjures the entire history of jazz clarinet, from its very beginnings – which extend well before the start of jazz –and its swing and bop modes to its freest and most romantic of now accepted clarinet-jazz moods. He may well even cover this entire trajectory within just one song. It’s part of his nature. He’s almost completely unencumbered by fad or fashion.

50 years with jazzclarinet: The Best of Lajos Dudas captures a fraction of Lajos Dudas’ prolific output. It is the latest of the clarinetist’s samplers. But the point is that this truly under-appreciated clarinetist has a long recording history that hasn’t earned the respect his major-label contemporaries have been given. But the quality of the music he’s performed over the years speaks for itself – that is when it is heard. For the record, I’m surprised that ECM, or some other internationally-distributed label – has never waxed a Dudas album.

This well-programmed set, however, doesn’t quite live up to its rather unwieldy name. The span of consideration is more like 30 years rather than 50, the music isn’t all jazz and Dudas is not heard exclusively on clarinet (he started off as a sax player). It is, however, a terrific representation of Lajos Dudas’ best musical performances and provides not only some music that is otherwise unavailable on CD, it surprises with some never-before issued gems that account for a mere sliver of what must be hundreds of hours of recorded radio performances the clarinetist has made over the last half century since living in Germany (which is probably where the reference to 50 years comes from).

Dudas aligns himself here with noble European jazz lights like fellow Hungarian ex-pats Attila Zoller (1927-98, on “Rumpelstilzchen”) and Tommy Vig (b. 1938, on “Benny”), Hungarian singer and actress Marta Szirmay (b. 1939, aka Marta Szirmai, on “Wiegenlied”), German trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff (1928-2005, on “Blueduet”), German vibist and free-jazz icon Karl Berger (b. 1935, on “Pirouette” and “Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off”) and American ex-pat vibist Tom van der Geld (from the cult group Children at Play, on “Detour”), not to mention many group regulars including drummer and fellow Hungarian ex-pat János Szudy, German bassist Ali Haurand and, most especially, the great German guitarist (and the manager of this CD’s label, JazzSick) Philipp van Endert, who figures on ten of this double CD’s 25 tracks.

”Change of Time” – as featured on 50 years with jazzclarinet by Lajos Dudas with Harvey Wainapel – alto sax; Hans Sparla – trombone; Vitold Rek – bass; and Wladimir Tarasov – drums.

As a set, the presentation of the disc’s first volume is a little erratic. It fluctuates from free-ish outbursts to slow, melodic moments and wildly varying instrumentation. But things start kicking into gear on the set’s second disc, led by the inventively brilliant electronic take on “Summertime” (1991), which follows rather perfectly on the heels of the terrific, yet seemingly out-of-place fusion performance of “Csardes Obstine” (1978).

There is great variety in the presentations Lajos Dudas provides here – maybe a bit too much. But the element of jazz, or more accurately a great sense of swing, pervades throughout. And, somehow, the added presence of Philipp van Endert inspires Dudas to even greater heights and, ultimately, makes for some really exciting music.

Like so many compilations, it’s not exactly the sort of thing somebody else would have put together. There’s no sign of Dudas’s great tribute to guitarist Gabor Szabo, whose sudden death in 1982 prevented a recording he was scheduled to do with Dudas, called “For Gabor” (recorded twice, in 1985 on Sunshine State and then again in 1995 on Encore) or anything from the appropriately named Some Great Songs (Double Moon, 1998) or the utterly lovely Jazz and the City (Konnex, 2004 – whose title is probably a take-off of the TV show Sex and the City).

”Sunday Afternoon” – as featured on 50 years with jazzclarinet by Lajos Dudas with Philipp van Endert – guitar; Martin Gjakonovski – bass; Kurt Billker – drums.

But far too few people know about Lajos Dudas, who turns 70 in February, and the great wealth of music he has contributed to the jazz pantheon. 50 years with jazzclarinet: The Best of Lajos Dudas is an excellent introduction.

To find out more about Lajos Dudas or to purchase 50 years with jazzclarinet, visit JazzSick Records. To discover just how much great music is here, where it comes from, who plays on what and – needless to say – just how beautifully Dudas shines throughout, here is the discographical detail:

Volume I:

Detour (Lajos Dudas) from 1980 LP Detour and 1993 CD Urban Blues: Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Ali Haurand – bass; Kurt Billker – drums. Special Guest: Tom van der Geld – vibes.

Rumpelstilzchen (Attila Zoller) from 1982 LP Monte Carlo and 1993 CD Urban Blues: Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Bert Thompson – bass; Kurt Billker – drums. Special Guest: Attila Zoller – guitar.

Benny (Lajos Dudas) from 1986 LP Mistral: Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Teodossi Stoykov – bass; Janos Szudy – drums. Special Guest: Tommy Vig – vibes.

Song for Jinni (Lajos Dudas) from a 1987 radio recording: Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Christoph Lauer – tenor sax; HR Jazz Ensemble. (Dudas also recorded the song for his 1991 CD Another Face.)

Blueduet (Lajos Dudas) from a 1987 radio recording: Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Albert Mangelsdorf – trombone; HR Jazz Ensemble. (Dudas also recorded the song, which is also known as “Blueduette,” on the 1991 CD Another Face and the 1997 CD Chamber Music Live.)

Wieganlied (Lajos Dudas) from 1990 CD Change of Time: Marta Szirmay – vocal; Manfred Niehaus – violin’ Teodossi Stoykov – bass; Lajos Dudas – clarinet.

Change of Time (Lajos Dudas) from a 1989 radio recording and included on the 2001 CD The Jubilee Box: Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Harvey Wainapel – alto sax; Hans Sparla – trombone; Vitold Rek – bass; Wladimir Tarasov – drums. (Dudas previously recorded the song on the 1990 CD Change of Time.)

Grave (J.S. Bach) from the CD Jazz Crossover Klassik Volume 3: Lajos Dudas Plays Bach: Lajos Dudas – clarinet.

At Carmelo’s (Lajos Dudas) from the 1985 LP Sunshine State: Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Ernest Gaida-Hartmann – keyboards; Teodossi Stoykov – bass; Imre Köszegi – drums. (Dudas again recorded the song for the 1995 CD Maydance.)

Backstage (Lajos Dudas) from a 1988 radio recording: Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Gerd Dudek – tenor sax; Günter Lenz – bass; HR Jazz Ensemble. (Dudas previously recorded the song on the 1990 CD Change of Time.)

Csardas Obstine (Franz Liszt/Lajos Dudas) from the 1978 LP Contrasts: Lajos Dudas – alto sax; Mike Herting – electric piano; Erhard Bünting – guitar; Ali Haurand – bass; Janoz Szudy – drums.

Volume II:

Summertime (George Gershwin) from the 1991 CD Another Face: Lajos Dudas – alto sax; Bela Weissbach – trumpet; Ernst Gaida-Hartmann – keyboards, bass synthesizer.

Sarabande (J.S. Bach) and Gavotte en Rondo (J.S. Bach) from the 1977 LP Reflection on Bach and the CD Jazz Crossover Klassik Volume 3: Lajos Dudas Plays Bach: Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Ali Aurand – bass; Janos Szudy – drums.

La Gelee (Sebastian Buchholz) from the 1995 Juxoli CD Juxoli: Sebastian Buchholz – alto sax; Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Howard Johnson – bass sax; Jack Djeyim –guitar; Ramon Lopez – table, percussion.

Pals (Philipp van Endert), Cool Getz (Lajos Dudas) and Un Poco Presto (Lajos Dudas) from the 1995 CD Encore: Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Philipp van Endert – guitar; Vitold Rek – bass; Kurt Billker – drums; Janos Szudy – percussion.

Miles from a 2007 radio recording: Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Philipp van Endert – guitar; Jochen Büttner – percussion.

Sunday Afternoon (Lajos Dudas) and Bourree (J.S. Bach) from the 2002 CD Nighlight: Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Philipp van Endert – guitar; Martin Gjakonovski – bass; Kurt Billker – drums.

Triplets (Lajos Dudas) from a 2006 radio recording: Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Philipp van Endert – guitar. (Dudas has also issued different radio recordings of this song on the 1990 CD Chamber Music Live and the 2007 CD Artistry in Duo.)

Children at Play (Lajos Dudas), Pirouette (Shorty Rogers) and Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off (George Gershwin) from the 2000 CD Talk of the Town: On “Children at Play” Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Philipp van Endert – guitar; Jochen Büttner – percussion. On “Pirouette” and “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” Lajos Dudas – clarinet; Philipp van Endert – guitar; Leonard Jones – bass; Kurt Billker – drums. Special Guest: Karl Berger – vibes.

Celebrating CTI Records’ 40th Anniversary – Part Two

Sony’s Masterworks Jazz imprint continues its 40th anniversary celebration of the legendary CTI Records legacy with an additional six titles, issued this week: Deodato’s Prelude, George Benson’s White Rabbit, Milt Jackson’s Sunflower, Jim Hall’s Concierto, Paul Desmond’s Pure Desmond and Ron Carter’s All Blues.

Two of the discs are among CTI’s most historic and essential releases (Prelude, Concierto), two are among the label’s most pleasurable listens (White Rabbit, Sunflower) and one (All Blues) has never been issued on CD outside of Japan.

The celebration of CTI’s 40th anniversary began last October with remastered CD reissues of Freddie Hubbard’s Red Clay, Stanley Turrentine’s Sugar, Chet Baker’s She Was Too Good To Me, Kenny Burrell’s God Bless The Child, Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Stone Flower, the first-ever CD release of Hubert Laws’ terrific Morning Star and the classic issue of the nearly complete CTI All-Stars’ California Concert – The Hollywood Palladium.

Each of the discs, supervised by producer Richard Seidel and beautifully mastered by Mark Wilder and Maria Triana, is packaged to look like the original LP, even getting the gatefold treatment the original LPs were given - and, in most cases, maintaining the original logo and catalog number placement of the original LP for the CD cover (the liner original notes for Pure Desmond and Concierto are even surprisingly reproduced as inserts to those particular CDs).

Unfortunately, the packing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. In what is called “environmentally friendly” digipak sleeves, not unlike the recent discs from the “budget priced” ECM Touchstone series, these discs are issued in dull-matte cardstock packages that begin to wear the moment you touch them. They certainly won’t hold up to repeated use, pulled from the rack and reinserted onto the shelf time after time.

The durability of these flat-matte card packages will not hold up to even seldom use and unfortunately do not necessarily represent the cover artwork – mostly from photographer Pete Turner – to its best advantage. The glossy, heavy card stock of the original LP issues was sadly not repeated for these CD issues, which try hard to replicate the class of the original issues but certainly do not succeed.

Still, the music is what matters. So here is a little commentary in that regard…

White Rabbit -George Benson: Guitarist George Benson had already recorded one album for CTI (Beyond the Blue Horizon) plus three notable albums for Creed Taylor’s CTI production house at A&M (an additional album recorded during this time was issued years later) when he waxed White Rabbit in November 1971.

White Rabbit ranks among the strongest and most consistently satisfying and artistic of all of George Benson’s jazz albums, even though each and every one of his CTI albums contains something of significant worth.

Recorded under the auspices of arranger Don Sebesky, who had arranged Benson’s earlier Shape of Things to Come (1969) and The Other Side of Abbey Road (1970), White Rabbit is probably now best known as one of the earliest recordings of Detroit-based guitarist Earl Klugh, who was 17 at the time of this recording (on Benson’s excellent “El Mar” only – yes, he solos briefly too…Klugh joined Benson’s band in 1973). Elsewhere, guitarist Jay Berliner nicely counters Benson’s guitar and is most notable on the album’s track.

Issued in May 1972, White Rabbit overflows with exceptionally strong performances by both Benson and Sebesky, most notably on two hippie-era rock odes, The Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreaming” and Jefferson Airplane’s title track. Both pieces were no doubt brought to the session by arranger Don Sebesky, a specialist then of transforming such rock staples into dynamic jazz performances (he had earlier written “Big Mama Cass” in tribute to the vocalist from The Mamas & the Papas). It’s no stretch to imagine that Creed Taylor was on board for these covers, imaginatively reconsidered by Sebesky (who uses an effectively minimal deployment of brass and winds throughout) and brought to life by Benson’s warm and reassuring guitarisms.

Benson also covers Heitor Villa-Lobos’ “Little Train” (aka “The Little Train of Caipira”), the second of nine suites written by the Brazilian composer. Producer Creed Taylor had previously covered the popular fifth suite of this musical series in recordings by Lalo Schifrin (Verve, 1964) and Soul Flutes (CTI/A&M, 1968 – arranged by Don Sebesky) and would later capture the piece on the 1972 CTI album by Jackie & Roy, Time & Love, again, arranged by Don Sebesky.

Benson is accompanied here by Herbie Hancock on electric piano (who is bountifully featured throughout), Ron Carter on bass and Billy Cobham on drums, all of whom were first captured together on Benson’s Giblet Gravy (Verve, 1967). Hancock and Carter had, of course, also played with George Benson on Miles Davis’ Miles in the Sky (Columbia, 1968). So these guys were not unfamiliar with each other’s creativity.

Hubert Laws solos on flute for “White Rabbit” while trumpeter John Frosk solos on the title track and the substantial “El Mar.” Airto Moriera is featured on percussion throughout and takes several audibly vocal turns on “Little Train” and “El Mar.”

The excellent and artistically and commercially satisfying White Rabbit was nominated for a 1972 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance – Group (in competition with another CTI performance by Joe Farrell for “Outback”) but lost to yet another CTI performance of “First Light” – also arranged by Don Sebesky – by Freddie Hubbard.

All Blues - Ron Carter: Bassist Ron Carter had long been Creed Taylor’s first-choice bassist on record dates stretching as far back to the classic Gil Evans recording Out of the Cool in 1960. Carter was the first bass choice for many Creed Taylor productions throughout the 1960s for the Impulse, Verve, MGM and A&M/CTI labels, even while the bassist was recording and touring as part of the Miles Davis Quintet. And it was Ron Carter’s dulcet tones and swinging accompaniment on the double bass that drove nearly every CTI album since 1970 into the overdrive that its soloists are often given sole credit for.

Surprisingly, though, Ron Carter’s second CTI recording, All Blues, fell well below the radar. It was hardly noticed when it was first issued in early 1974 (his 1973 CTI debut, Blues Farm, which was hardly a hit, still remains better known). And despite four previous CD releases in Japan, All Blues has never had a domestic release on CD, making it one of the least known of all the bassist’s solo albums.

Interestingly, it’s probably among the best of the albums the bassist waxed for the CTI label between 1973 and 1976. This is due in no small measure to the commanding presence of tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson on “A Feeling,” “117 Special,” “Rufus” and “All Blues.”

Henderson had played with the bassist as far back as 1965 (with Woody Shaw) and on later dates with Herbie Hancock, Duke Pearson, McCoy Tyner, Alice Coltrane and Bill Evans as well as on the saxophonist’s own Mode For Joe, The Kicker, Tetragon, Power to the People and Black is the Color.

Carter and Henderson had also appeared together on Freddie Hubbard’s CTI classic Red Clay and the trumpeter’s follow-up Straight Life, while Henderson had previous CTI connections on George Benson’s Tell It Like It Is.

Carter here also solidifies a simpatico musical kinship with pianist Roland Hanna, who he’d first played with on a European tour in 1969. The two would combine forces shortly hereafter with drummer Ben Riley (on a record for a different label with Phil Woods) to form the short-lived New York Jazz Quartet, which would later cut several records for CTI’s subsidiary label, Salvation.

They would, of course, also be heard together on Jim Hall’s Concierto, which is one of the stand-out releases in this batch of CTI celebrations. Hanna is especially featured on the florid trio feature, “Light Blue” (not the Monk piece), as well as Carter’s bop-y “Rufus” (not the Archie Shepp piece – recorded again by Carter on his album Etudes).

Not surprisingly, Ron Carter dominates the proceedings, with his especially distinctive bass helming any number of attractive solo features (not to mention the overdubbed bass “solo” of “Will You Be Mine”). Hanna steps down for “117 Special,” surely the album’s musical highlight (and recorded again by Carter on his 1999 disc Orfeu), to be replaced by electric pianist Richard Tee, who resumes his role from Carter’s CTI debut Blues Farm.

“All Blues,” of course, is the famed tune from Miles Davis’ landmark Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959). As bassist in the Davis band from 1963-70, Ron Carter was surely familiar with the tune, having recorded it with the trumpeter often between 1963 and the historic Plugged Nickel dates of late 1965 (Carter recorded the tune several more times after this, notably with pianists Hank Jones and Kenny Barron).

But this performance of the tune absolutely defers to Carter’s mastery of not only the melody but the form. It is one of several special performances captured here, and surely among one of the classics in the CTI catalog.

Prelude - Deodato: Since relocating to the United States in 1967, Brazilian pianist and composer Eumir Deodato had arranged many recordings, including several soundtracks and a historic meeting between Antonio Carlos Jobim and Frank Sinatra. Deodato also arranged recordings for such CTI artists as Wes Montgomery, Walter Wanderley, Milton Nascimento, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Astrud Gilberto and Stanley Turrentine by the time producer and CTI boss Creed Taylor offered the pianist and composer his own CTI date in 1972.

Deodato had recorded nine albums under his own name or as part of the band Os Catedráticos in his native Brazil. But Prelude was the first album Deodato released – under his surname only – in America. And what a remarkable debut it was.

Featured on the album was Deodato’s magically captivating performance of “Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001),” a jazz-rock take on a classic piece whose then-recent popularity originated with its striking feature in Stanley Kubrick’s epic 1968 film 2001. The song’s origin also owes something to the popularity of British studio group Apollo 100’s 1972 hit “Joy,” a rockish take on Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”

But what Deodato accomplishes here is utterly unique. This version of the theme has been much copied, but never equaled (the song was also used as is in such films as Being There and Lords of Dogtown).

“Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)” rose to number 2 on the U.S. pop charts, making it the biggest hit in CTI’s entire history and its best-ever selling song. The song went on to win a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance and is almost as recognizable in this version as many of the most popular film and TV themes of the 20th century. Like it or hate it, “Also Sprach Zarathustra” also remains one of CTI’s best and most memorable performances: a pinnacle of funky rock and electric jazz, the definition of all the things the label did well.

Boasting terrific solos from Deodato on electric piano, Ron Carter on acoustic bass and John Tropea on electric guitar, “Also Sprach Zarathustra” is probably not as representative of the rest of Prelude, nor indeed the remainder or Deodato’s American recording career, as its strength may indicate.

The rest of Prelude, with one exception, is delightful but not nearly as definitive as its signature tune. Deodato covers another classic by Debussy, which gives the album its title, a standard (“Baubles, Bangles and Beads”) and two fairly interesting easy-listening originals, “Sprit of Summer” and “Carly & Carole” (names for two pop divas Deodato worked with, a song the composer had earlier recorded for his Os Catedráticos 73 - aka Skyscrapers - and a song which also featured in the 1973 film The Exorcist).

The exception here is the driving funk tune “September 13,” credited to both Deodato and the date’s drummer, Billy Cobham, and named for the date the song was waxed. It is one of those tunes that was obviously crafted to fill the remainder of an otherwise planned album that came up short on playing time.

Cobham probably laid down a groove, over which Deodato formulated something of a tune. As a slice of great instrumental funk, it is without peer. “September 13” is one of the funkiest pieces CTI ever captured, a soundtrack in search of a film and one of the great pieces of funky jazz surviving outside of a Blaxploitation soundtrack (it too was heard in The Exorcist). Deodato crafts a particularly fine electric piano line underneath a riveting horn arrangement, augmented by Cobham’s relentless groove and a fuzzy piece of fun fanaticism by guitarist John Tropea.

Prelude for all its strengths and weaknesses is unequivocally essential CTI. Deodato would wax one more studio date and a live date for CTI before heading off to MCA and Warner Bros. for even more prosperous climes. Interestingly, Deodato’s latest disc, The Crossing (Expansion, 2010), finds the pianist returning to the Fender Rhodes for the first time in years and reteams him with Billy Cobham and John Tropea from Prelude to less satisfying (and less collaborative) results.

Pure Desmond -Paul Desmond: Iconic alto saxophonist Paul Desmond (1924-77) was best known as the harbinger of the Dave Brubeck Quartet (1951-67) and composer of the group’s most famous tune, “Take Five.” Throughout the 1960s Desmond also recorded as part of a group he co-led with guitarist Jim Hall, on whose 1975 CTI album, Concierto (included in this batch of releases), the saxophonist would later appear.

After “leaving” Brubeck – the two continued performing and recording together until the end of Desmond’s life – the alto saxophonist waxed several records for A&M (including Summertime and From the Hot Afternoon) and launched his CTI debut with the remarkable Skylark (CTI, 1974 – featuring guitarist Gabor Szabo and keyboardist Bob James).

Pure Desmond, recorded in September 1974 and issued in early 1975, comes closest of all of Desmond’s CTI recordings to representing the leader in his own climate and most personal space.

Fronting a swinging quartet – with no audible overdubs – Desmond is heard here with his own guitarist, Canadian Ed Bickert, super bassist Ron Carter (who was paired with Desmond on all the altoist’s A&M and CTI dates recorded between 1968 and 1975) and MJQ drummer Connie Kay (1927-94), who featured on many of Desmond’s RCA recordings of the 1960s.

Pure Desmond is remarkably unremarkable but satisfyingly passionate none the less. It feels like four guys just getting together and playing some favored tunes in a quiet, swinging way.

While there is no grand concept or any great idea steering the program, there is some lovely playing by some exceptionally talented players here. The program is mostly comprised of jazz standards, including Ellington (“Just Squeeze Me,” “Warm Valley”), Cole Porter (“Why Shouldn’t I,” “Everything I Love”), Jerome Kern (“I’m Old Fashioned,” “Till the Clouds Roll By”), Django Reinhardt’s “Nuages” and “Mean to Me.”

One glance at the program suggests pianist Bill Evans or possibly Oscar Peterson more than any CTI record of the time. (Ok, how great would it have been to hear Bill Evans partnered with Paul Desmond?) And lovely as it is, you have to wonder why CTI even bothered with this sort of thing. The program suggests almost any other label and Creed Taylor didn’t often allow his artists to ply their own trade like this.

Most CTI artists this day in age were trying to cash in on the influx of disco into the jazz market. The original CTI stars (Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Deodato, etc.) had left the label for higher-paying contracts. Others had left for more artistic avenues. By the time Pure Desmond was released in 1975, former CTI employee John Snyder had lured Desmond back to A&M for several albums done in this style, which was closer to his heart than the “arranged” things Desmond had done for Creed Taylor since 1968.

It’s refreshingly musical that Pure Desmond is jazzy enough to capture Paul Desmond doing his thing without encumbered arrangements. But as pretty as it is, it’s just not that substantial a CTI album or really much of a worthwhile Paul Desmond album.

This CD contains the alternate takes of “Nuages,” “Just Squeeze Me” and “Till the Clouds Roll By,” first included on the 2003 CD release of Pure Desmond as well as the two bonus tracks from the session, the excellent “Wave” and “Song from M.A.S.H.,” included on the 2003 CD reissue and the first domestic CD release of this album in 1987.

Concierto -Jim Hall: Guitarist Jim Hall featured on several Creed Taylor productions in the 1960s, including Gary McFarland’s The Jazz Version of ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’ and The Gary McFarland Orchestra / Special Guest Soloist Bill Evans, Bob Brookmeyer’s Trombone Jazz Samba, Stan Getz’s Big Band Bossa Nova and Voices, Lalo Schifrin’s Piano, Strings & Bossa Nova, Oliver Nelson’s Full Nelson and, most notably, the Bill Evans/Jim Hall date Intermodulation (Creed Taylor also recorded several unreleased sessions with Jim Hall as a leader in 1962-63 for Verve that have not been issued).

By 1975, the guitarist was attempting to make more of a name for himself, having waxed several solo albums for the MPS and Milestone labels, including a live duo with CTI’s house bassist, Ron Carter. The monumental Concierto, the first of several of the guitarist’s appearances on the CTI label that included Big Blues (1978, with Art Farmer), the stunning Studio Trieste (1982) and the odd mish-mash that became Youkali (1992), was not only one of the guitarist’s best recordings up until that time, but one of the greats of Jim Hall’s entire recording career.

Centered around a magically magnificent performance of Joaquin Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez,” Concierto is also probably one of CTI’s greatest single artistic triumphs. Gorgeously arranged in a remarkably minimalist fashion (no strings or horns were overdubbed in the making of this classic) by Don Sebesky, “Concierto de Aranjuez” features a stunning performance by not only the guitarist, but provides notable solos from trumpeter Chet Baker and alto saxist Paul Desmond, all of whom combine to give a magisterial presentation.

The rhythm section here and throughout the remainder of the album is terrifically populated by the purposeful Roland Hanna (himself soon to record a number of records for CTI) on piano, Ron Carter on bass and Steve Gadd on drums. Like the 1960 presentation of the tune by Miles Davis and Gil Evans, Hall and Sebesky also provide a variation on only the second of the 1939 composition’s three movements. But what they convey here is truly outstanding and worth savoring each and every second of its nearly 20-minute playing time.

(It’s worth noting that Jim Hall partnered with arranger David Matthews, who began working for CTI around the time Concierto was recorded, to record a new arrangement of “Concierto de Aranjuez” in 1981 for a Japanese label that isn’t quite the performance the 1975 recording is.)

The remainder of Concierto’s program has never felt quite as substantial or sufficient as the magnificent title piece. But it all swings with a passion, fire and grace that such impeccably perfect practitioners, led by the nearly ethereal playing of the leader, are apt to suggest.

Included on the program are Cole Porter’s “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To” (also with Desmond and Baker), Hall’s “Two’s Blues” (with Baker, no Hanna), wife Jane’s “The Answer is Yes” (with Baker) and Duke Ellington’s “Rock Skippin’” – here given its original title, “Rock Skippin’ at the Blue Note,” for the first time on this release of the disc.

Also included here are “bonus tracks” which appeared on previous CD issues of Concierto including the lovely Desmond/Hall/Carter trio piece “Unfinished Business,” a title the sleeve credits to Hall and Carter, but which is actually a cover of a Mexican folk tune called “La Paloma Azul,” as well as alternate takes of “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To,” “The Answer Is Yes” and “Rock Skippin’ at the Blue Note.”

Concierto was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance – Soloist in 1975, losing out to an Oscar Peterson / Dizzy Gillespie album, while Jim Hall reunited with arranger Don Sebesky for his 1976 A&M album Commitment, notably on the tremendous “Lament for a Fallen Matador,” a piece Hall and Sebesky derived from Albinoni’s famed Adagio.

Sunflower - Milt Jackson: Many jazz fans were probably surprised to see Milt Jackson appear on CTI Records, first on Stanley Turrentine’s Cherry, issued in August 1972, then on the great vibraphonist’s own CTI album Sunflower, issued several months later.

At this point, Jackson, one of the founding members of the Modern Jazz Quartet, had tired of touring with the MJQ, never attaining the audience, celebrity and financial rewards rock stars half his age with half his talent doing half the work were experiencing at the time. After a long career of solo albums on the Blue Note, Atlantic, Riverside, Impulse, Limelight and Verve labels stretching back some two decades that were blues-ier and far more swinging than anything the MJQ waxed, Jackson finally wanted his own piece of the pie.

Milt Jackson recorded three albums for CTI in the space of about a year, the first of which, Sunflower, is surely the best. Jackson, who had worked on surprisingly few previous Creed Taylor productions - notably only Quincy Jones’ This Is How I Feel About Jazz (ABC Paramount, 1956) and Gula Matari (A&M/CTI, 1970) – was up for making an album that would reach the younger ears CTI was reaching with popular records by Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, George Benson, Grover Washington, Jr. and others.

The result, Sunflower, was something of an instant classic. Gathering a top-shelf collective of young talent including CTI recording star Freddie Hubbard (like Jackson, a veteran of many Quincy Jones sessions), pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, guitarist Jay Berliner (audible on “For Someone I Love” only), drummer Billy Cobham, percussionist Ralph MacDonald and the arrangements of CTI’s house sound architect Don Sebesky, periodically alternating a sensibly sensitive commentary of horns and strings overdubs, Creed Taylor delivers what surely must be considered the vibist’s most distinctively wonderful record in an otherwise distinguished solo recording career.

The original program featured four long performances, kicked off by the lovely “For Someone I Love,” Jackson’s own composition, first waxed as the title track to the vibraphonist’s 1966 (though recorded in 1963) Riverside album. Initiated by Berliner’s guitar and coaxed by Hubbard’s colorful flugelhorn – not to mention Hancock’s especially exquisite piano solo - and Sebesky’s painterly strings, it is an especially terrific showcase for Jackson’s melodic mastery.

Such a curious though perfectly exploratory opening leads ideally into Michel Legrand’s romantic idyll “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life” (from the 1969 film The Happy Ending), a song that many jazz players had discovered after Peggy Lee’s initial cover and pianist Bill Evans’ many performances of the sumptuously quixotic ode. Again, Jackson, Hubbard, Hancock and Sebesky excel – and one notices here Ron Carter’s especially sterling contributions to the program (Carter went onto record and perform often with Legrand hereafter).

The album’s (arguably) most memorable performance is the cover of The Stylistics’ 1972 hit “People Make the World Go Round.” The funky ballad, which had already attracted jazz attention on radio with Ramsey Lewis’ invigorating take of the tune, catches Herbie Hancock comping on Fender Rhodes, but soloing marvelously in a Gospel fashion (like he had years before on his early Blue Note dates as well as those for Grant Green and Donald Byrd) on acoustic piano. Jackson, Hubbard and Carter are all in their element as well (Hubbard had recorded “People” earlier in the year for CTI, but this version of the song, which isn’t as good as Jackson’s version, was not issued until 1975 on The Baddest Hubbard. A 1972 CTI All Stars live recording of the song was also issued 1977.).

The original album wraps up with the title track, “Sunflower,” which is a re-titled version of Freddie Hubbard’s tremendous “Little Sunflower,” first heard on the composer/trumpeter’s 1967 Atlantic album Backlash. It’s another glorious performance that depends on the artistry of Jackson, Hubbard, Hancock, Carter and Sebesky to succeed as well as it does.

“SKJ,” a bonus track that has featured on previous CD issues of Sunflower, was recorded during these sessions, but included not on the original Sunflower album, but rather on Jackson’s 1974 album Goodbye, the second of his three CTI releases. “SKJ,” the initials of Milt Jackson’s wife and a song Jackson first recorded with Wes Montgomery on the pair’s 1961 Riverside album Bags Meets Wes, is an up-tempo blues that doesn’t exactly suit the mood of the original program. But it is still a worthy performance that captures this group doing what it does best.

Sunflower is one of the most enjoyable recordings in the entire CTI lexicon and remains a historically significant meeting of some of jazz’s best names. It also features one of photographer Pete Turner’s loveliest cover images, “Necking,” a photo taken in South Africa in 1970.