Author: Bash Daily Group Archive Feed

The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong: 50 Years of The Slivovice Interview: RICKY RICCARDI

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://dippermouth.blogspot.de/2015/05/50-years-of-sliviovice-interview.html

** 50 Years of The Slivovice Interview
————————————————————
Today’s a fun anniversary for Pops nuts because it was 50 years ago today that Dan Morgenstern and Jack Bradley paid Louis Armstrong a visit in his Corona, Queens home, spoke to him for over two hours and polished off a bottle of Slivovice plum brandy to boot. Dan recorded the audio, which Phil Schaap played many times over the years on WKCR, making “The Slivovice Interview” fairly well known in Armstrong circles. On this here blog, I’ve posted the audio multiple times, usually while celebrating Dan and Jack’s respective birthdays. Thus, on the 50th anniversary, I have to post it again but with some more information and many more photos from the Louis Armstrong House Museum. Sound good? Let’s begin!
In July 1965, the world was preparing to celebrate what was then perceived as Louis Armstrong’s 65th birthday, as well as Armstrong’s 50th anniversary in show business. Dan, who was then Down Beat’s New York Editor decided to mark the occasion by interviewing Pops at his Corona home on May 22 for what would become the magazine’s “Salute to Satch” issue. The resulting portrait would be published in the July issue.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V_Jg_9zOzRc/VV3VBem-7CI/AAAAAAAABts/FtleAavUArc/s1600/Downbeat%2B1965%2BSalute%2BWM.jpg
If you’d like to read Dan’s beautiful finished portrait, it appears in his indispensable Pantheon volume Living With Jazz. But if you’d like to HEAR it, you’ve come to the right place.
Though Dan had known Armstrong for about 15 years, he hadn’t ever been to the Armstrong home. Thus, he asked Louis’s good friend Jack Bradley to put in the good word. Jack did just that, got the okay and accompanied Dan on May 22, taking a bunch of photos, some of which appeared in the final Down Beat article. Most of the watermarked images appearing in this blog have never been seen before. Here’s Louis, Lucille Armstrong and Dan in the backyard that May day:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-n-Et_vk16yE/VV3VA83urRI/AAAAAAAABtk/iX5iQ17owHo/s1600/2006.1.1695h%2BWM.jpg
Jack wanted to get in on it but Dan, not being a trained photographer left our man in Cape Cod a little blurry!
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-U4eIHVp7XPA/VV3VAjIx1aI/AAAAAAAABtc/_1Dw6LMMeBc/s1600/2006.1.1695c%2BWM.jpg
Armstrong’s career was just as busy as ever, but Dan actually caught Louis during a rare break. After a historic tour that found Armstrong breaking down the Iron Curtain by playing such places as East Berlin, Prague and Yugoslavia in March and April, Armstrong took over a month off for a dental procedure to fix his chops. Armstrong’s mentor King Oliver lost his chops because of bad teeth (pyorrhea) and Armstrong wasn’t about to do the same. He had also just won a Grammy for “Hello, Dolly!,” which he was eager to show Dan and Jack once they got up in his den:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-l-3zMubKg2s/VV3U_YexPgI/AAAAAAAABs8/ALq61tuAPkU/s1600/2006.1.106%2B-%2BGrammy%2BWM.jpg
During Dan’s interview Armstrong was resting from the dental procedure, but about to embark on yet another tour of Europe. Surrounded by his friends Jack and Dan (with Lucille chiming in now and then from the background), Louis sounds very relaxed and friendly. But there was something else present that made for the relaxed atmosphere: a bottle of Slivovice plum brandy Armstrong brought back from Europe earlier that year. Slivovice (now known as Slivovitz) is still around as an online search quickly shows. Louis and Lucille both testify early on about the powers of Slivovice. They warn Dan and Jack that it’s pretty much going to knock them on their asses. Dan and Jack are up for the challenge, so the bottle of Slivovice is cracked open.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PAVX9Dcg1H8/VV3U_2EaYJI/AAAAAAAABtE/E_RbRWoAPEk/s1600/2006.1.1694c%2BWM.jpg
Not only will you hear the sound of ice clinking around the glasses during this interview, but you’ll also hear Dan and Jack get progressively sillier as the interview goes on. Pops doesn’t change much but the laughter certainly gets goofier towards the end. Here’s some Bradley photos of Louis and Dan and the bottle of Slivovice that day:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nD8zYwKy8Jg/VEp05FIHNTI/AAAAAAAABH4/KDhmDJmqazs/s1600/10374974_10152779253647398_3774044174011682320_n.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4ZtgP-idqbo/VV3VAHSKmCI/AAAAAAAABtM/a4CTGmEoXXI/s1600/2006.1.1694e%2BWM.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-paQGvt3P2ZY/VV3VAeSt30I/AAAAAAAABtQ/FLxqnW_TaHU/s1600/2006.1.1694k%2BWM.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Cs8J4_FO3mQ/VV3U_mcOi7I/AAAAAAAABtA/iZyJtO2NK2A/s1600/2006.1.1694a%2BWM.jpg

I should mention the length of the Slivovice interview: two hours and ten minutes. Thus, I obviously don’t expect anyone to set in front of their computer for the next 130 minutes and listen to every second of this. But I still want to share it and let it be known that it will always be here to savor if you want to listen to it in bits and pieces. And to make it easier, I’ve broken it into three small segments (see below for my notes). Here’s the 50-minute first part:
Here’s the 50-minute second part:
And finally, the 30 minute third part:
It’s a fascinating interview from start to finish (this is the one where Pops finally came out and admitted he wrote “Muskrat Ramble”) but it’s also a fun way to feel like you’re spending an afternoon with the Armstrong’s in Corona in 1965. Thanks to David Ostwald for the tapes and thanks for Dan and Jack for just plain being there.
Oh, and as a postscript, you should know by now that I was hired as Archivist for the Louis Armstrong House Museum in 2009 specifically to process Jack Bradley’s Collection. It’s monumental but what’s my favorite artifact?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Q4FsScvCOJQ/SuL-uWqD3hI/AAAAAAAAATk/qiIRGqUq9L4/s1600-h/IMG_3731.JPG
Yes indeed, that’s the ORIGINAL Slivovice bottle polished off by Jack, Dan and Louis on that May day in 1965, now an artifact that’s been preserved and displayed at the Louis Armstrong House Museum. Incredible.
One final note on this 50th anniversary. I recently listened to the entire interview on one of my 2 1/2 hour commutes, pulled out my iPhone and typed up the following notes. It might not make sense but if you’re looking for a specific part, the timings can help. Enjoy!

Part 1
0:00 opening, Louis gives upcoming schedule

2:30 Ali-Liston

4:15 Iron Curtain

5:40 Slivovice introduced, Jack’s great line

6:35 back to iron curtain

9:15 Lucille enters, back to Slivovice

11:00 Lucille takes lead, gifts

11:50 common ground, music, no politics, ambassador

13:00 convoy story

16:45 no Checkpoint Charlie

17:40 no Russia

18:50 Louis opens window, pour Slivovice

20:35 Dan tells him about Downbeat issue

21:40 Lucille talks about traveling.

22:55 Lucille talks about her organizations

26:00 Louis talks about few days off, stuff piling up, cleaning basement

27:00 Louis toasts Slivovice, mention of Zutty

28:15 Louis talks about opening up a club

29:55 is jazz dying, jazz musicians need chance to record, stay before the public, being forgotten , watching TV

32:40 Erskine Tate

33:50 Louis shows Dan books from Europe

34:25 big bands, 1931, switching to All Stars, preference

36:25 singing with Fletcher Henderson , reading music, leaving Henderson and going back to Chicago, doubling

39:55 Chicago in the 1920s, other acts

40:40 Tom Anderson’s and Tuxedo Brass Band in NOLA, Fate Marable, Jack Teagarden hearing him, in the land of beginning again, steamer sidney

44:15 getting experience, going out on his own, Carroll Dickerson, ain’t Misbehavin’ , never go to tables only dressing room

45:55 Louis musicians drunk on NYE, never professed to be a saint, having a ball, missed very few gigs

47:05 writing another book, needing time to do it

49:20 Bunk Johnson

Part 2

0:00, Bunk continued, Aquarium, as long as you’re alive you can always do something, Bunk playing with him in 1949

1:40 Zulus 1949

5:15 Louis’s tapes, no time to listen

5:40 opening nightclub on corner, giving lessons, stop traveling

7:37 Lucille comes back, drinks, Jack talks about food in New Orleans

9:45 Suburban Gardens

15:30 the south, Arkansas

16:30 the Music’s always good. More Slivovice. Trojans

17:15 being around the youngsters, no regrets about life and music

17:50 Bechet, Louis lists New Orleans musicians, “they were all soul musicians”

19;45 Kid Ory

20:45 if a cat can play a beautiful lead, anyone can scream out a high note, Joe Oliver, bop, play more lead

22:10 sad ending of King Oliver, dead and forgotten,

23:05 Hoagy Carmichael songs from 1930s, Louis remembers every record, has them all

23;55 Louis admires the youngsters, Watusi , playing for dances, TV

25:50 writing tunes, Kid Ory, Muskrat Ramble composer, Sister Kate

29:00 first trip to Europe

32:54 Booker Pittman

34:30 musicians moving to Europe

37:35 Louis retiring to Ghana? Edmond Hall in Africa, adopting baby

42:05 life’s wonderful if you look at it the right way, joint joke, Louis shaking hands, autographs (great stuff)

Part 3

0:00 Dancing, Nicodemus, “going to stay there with you”

0:49 criticism, as long as they spell my name right ,

1:20 public is a funny thing, they love you, how fast America is

2:12 falling on stage in Germany

4:00 Europe, cassette recorder, demonstration

9;10 Trummy didn’t write anybody after he left

10:30 Talk about an award ceremony, having a suite, wishing Dan came, playing with Woody Herman

12:14 Took Joe Glaser while to realize Louis could play with white musicians

12:45 working with Jimmy Durante , making records, checking out tunes

13:50 some people try to do too much in life, as long as I’m in music,

14:30 back to tapes

15:30 Redd Foxx, turns off cassette, shows off tapes, Erroll Garner, cassette player

20:00 Chop time, back to work, that’s his profession, toothache

21:40 hospital in Chicago , Slim Thompson

23:45 big laughs with tonsils

26:40 human body is like a car

29:44 upcoming Steel Pier engagement , Newport (big laugh), Jack goes to bathroom (Louis joke)

31:54 ending, Louis says thanks, Dan closes

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=edd0529509) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=edd0529509&e=[UNIQID])

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE ON THIS MAILING LIST PLEASE RESPOND WITH ‘REMOVE’ IN THE SUBJECT LINE. IF YOU ARE RECEIVING DUPLICATE EMAILS OUR APOLOGIES, JAZZ PROMO SERVICES ANNOUNCEMENT LIST IS GROWING LARGER EVERY DAY…..PLEASE LET US KNOW AND WE WILL FIX IT IMMEDIATELY!

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

May 27, 2015 / No Comments / More

Elliot Horne’s Hiptionary: Dig We Must! | Michael Sigman

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-sigman/elliot-hornes-hiptionary_b_7443756.html

** Elliot Horne’s Hiptionary: Dig We Must!
————————————————————

In the melancholic aftermath of the recent deaths of record industry giants Stan Cornyn (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/arts/music/stan-cornyn-record-executive-is-dead-at-81.html) (The Coast/Warner Bros.) and Bruce Lundvall (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/21/arts/music/bruce-lundvall-who-revived-blue-note-dies-at-79.html?_r=0) (The Apple/CBS, Blue Note), I was drawn to The Hiptionary, a boss tome penned in 1963 by RCA Records publicist Elliot Horne. The wondrous sights and sounds of pre-Beatles America came flooding back…

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-05-24-1432484401-4741176-IMG_0473.JPG

Elliot Horne, whose clock sadly stopped in 1989 when he was 67, was an 18-carat cat. He didn’t have boatloads of biz juice and wasn’t a major breadmaker. But he was a sweet scratcher with Cornynesque language chops and a Lundvallian devotion to jazz. When it came to schooling bizzers and civilians alike on the skinny of what’s what, hip-wise, Elliot was The Man.

You know that gag about someone’s picture being next to a certain word in the dictionary? Flip over The Hiptionary and cast your eyeball at the author. (“Dig we must” barrier courtesy of Consolidated Edison, an outfit with serious juice.)

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-05-24-1432484478-6887099-IMG_0475.JPG

My ultra-hip mom brought The Hiptionary to our Long Island crib when I was a mere junior high book-buster yet to dust my first feathers. Horne’s riffs — shoes were “ends,” astronauts were “cloud poppers,” the CIA was “room service” — cooled all my hang ups. And the killer illos (by Mad Magazine’s Jack Davis) of such high groovers and twisted studs Mr. Bad Face (Mao), Der Fig (Adenauer), The Hot Frog (DeGaulle), and The Ghost Kicker (Krushchev) were the ultimate kick.

Elliot was a subterranean wig whose brains had brains. He earned his geets as a gigging class everycat, a peeper-sporting, fancy threads-wearing, spank-planking hip hyper for RCA Records, a diskery strictly from corporate cubesville (squaresville squared). That he flacked for some turkeys might have cacked the whole tune, but mostly he worked the jazz/soul side of the street, where heavy swingers like Sonny Rollins and Sam Cooke kept their pads. His tag line for Cooke’s greatest hits album — “He lives in the top ten”– might have inspired a “You Send Me” from Don Draper.
The Hiptionary shaped up as a crazy score until President Kennedy was assassinated shortly after it hit the streets. Not that the scene was a total bagel, medicine tune or ape bag. But what was a gas before November 22, 1963 was suddenly a deep drag.

When sales became lame as Mame, did Elliot play the blame game? Hells, no! He may not have been choppin’ high, but the mean reds never took over. He didn’t jump salty or bork his bowel. Nor was he bugged, beat, and wasted. His attic was cool and didn’t need cleaning from a head man or a konk class.

Early in ’64, Elliot landed a living-room gig on the boss TV gamer To Tell the Truth, wherein he told it like it was while two impostors served up nothing but applesauce and horsefeathers. All four hep cats on the panel — Kitty Carlisle, Peggy Cass, Tom Poston, and Orson Bean — correctly identified our hero.

Biz mavens and journos agreed that Elliot was beyond supermurgatroid. A&R vet/vault guy extraordinaire Gregg Geller told me, “When I started my Sam Cooke campaign at RCA, it was as if Elliot was starving to work on something he could relate to. Never before or since have any of my catalog projects received so much attention from any aspect of a record company’s marketing arm.”
Susan Ochshorn, one of Elliot’s two crumbcrushers, told me that her dad’s memorial at St. Peter’s — Manhattan’s jazz church — was somethin’ else. Jazz critic Gary Giddins paid tribute in the Village Voice, writing that Elliot was “the best record company PR man I ever knew.”

I know what Giddins meant. During my 10 years as editor of the trade rag Record World (1972-’82), the hippest hip hyper never hyped me. When he was gassed, he worked gravy and took care of business like the whole bit was at stake.

When, on occasion, he needed a favor, Mr. Horne got on the horn and said, “Mike, I need a favor.” If I could do it, I would. If not, everything was still jake.

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-05-24-1432484776-2668508-FullSizeRender1.jpg
Elliot and his wife Joan Ochshorn at the Newport Jazz Festival, circa 1967. Photo courtesy of Susan Ochshorn.

Follow Michael Sigman on Twitter:www.twitter.com/majorsongs

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=bc32e7b83c) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=bc32e7b83c&e=[UNIQID])

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

May 26, 2015 / No Comments / More

Elliot Horne’s Hiptionary: Dig We Must! | Michael Sigman

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-sigman/elliot-hornes-hiptionary_b_7443756.html

** Elliot Horne’s Hiptionary: Dig We Must!
————————————————————

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-05-24-1432484401-4741176-IMG_0473.JPG

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-05-24-1432484478-6887099-IMG_0475.JPG

When, on occasion, he needed a favor, Mr. Horne got on the horn and said, “Mike, I need a favor.” If I could do it, I would. If not, everything was still jake.

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-05-24-1432484776-2668508-FullSizeRender1.jpg
Elliot and his wife Joan Ochshorn at the Newport Jazz Festival, circa 1967. Photo courtesy of Susan Ochshorn.

Follow Michael Sigman on Twitter:www.twitter.com/majorsongs

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

May 26, 2015 / No Comments / More

Elliot Horne’s Hiptionary: Dig We Must! | Michael Sigman

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-sigman/elliot-hornes-hiptionary_b_7443756.html

** Elliot Horne’s Hiptionary: Dig We Must!
————————————————————

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-05-24-1432484401-4741176-IMG_0473.JPG

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-05-24-1432484478-6887099-IMG_0475.JPG

When, on occasion, he needed a favor, Mr. Horne got on the horn and said, “Mike, I need a favor.” If I could do it, I would. If not, everything was still jake.

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-05-24-1432484776-2668508-FullSizeRender1.jpg
Elliot and his wife Joan Ochshorn at the Newport Jazz Festival, circa 1967. Photo courtesy of Susan Ochshorn.

Follow Michael Sigman on Twitter:www.twitter.com/majorsongs

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

May 26, 2015 / No Comments / More

Elliot Horne’s Hiptionary: Dig We Must! | Michael Sigman

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-sigman/elliot-hornes-hiptionary_b_7443756.html

** Elliot Horne’s Hiptionary: Dig We Must!
————————————————————

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-05-24-1432484401-4741176-IMG_0473.JPG

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-05-24-1432484478-6887099-IMG_0475.JPG

When, on occasion, he needed a favor, Mr. Horne got on the horn and said, “Mike, I need a favor.” If I could do it, I would. If not, everything was still jake.

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-05-24-1432484776-2668508-FullSizeRender1.jpg
Elliot and his wife Joan Ochshorn at the Newport Jazz Festival, circa 1967. Photo courtesy of Susan Ochshorn.

Follow Michael Sigman on Twitter:www.twitter.com/majorsongs

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

May 26, 2015 / No Comments / More

Vintage Line Notes of the Day

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

From the pen of one of our most respected jazz journalists Nat Hentoff:

Tell me that ‘tailor’ isn’t the spittin’ image of Ed Koch.

http://www.amazon.com/Music-Tailored-Taste-Digitally-Remastered/dp/B0030T1PHA/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1432571472&sr=1-1&keywords=music+tailored+to+your+taste
(Check out the reissue on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Music-Tailored-Taste-Digitally-Remastered/dp/B0030T1PHA) )

Music Tailored to Your Taste …
A CERTIFIED HIGH FIDELITY RECORDING
(EVEREST HI-FI Long Play)

A group of brilliant compositions by Anthony Tamburello performed by the Everest Concert Orchestra under the direction of Derek Boulton

This multi- colored kaleidoscopic series of musical impressions was written- with the exception of Separate Tables- by Anthony Tamburello and recorded in London in the 400- year –old Friends Meeting House.
Anthony Tamburello was born in New York, February 4, 1921. He began playing piano at thirteen, and for several years gained professional experience from night clubs to society parties. For the past ten years, Tamburello has specialized as a vocal coach, and among his pupils have been Tony Bennett, Tommy Leonetti and Marilyn Maxwell. He was also associated with Tom Murray in the formation and direction of Horrible Records, a label devoted to broad musical parody.
Tamburello begins a new career with this album as a composer of instrumental music, music that tells stories and underlines moods. Cross County Tour, as the title indicates, is traveling music and aims at connoting the motions- physical and emotional- of a trip. East of Fifth, is described by the composer as a “kind of sophisticated New York type of melody. “Fifth is Fifth Avenue.”
Valse Viennese is a characteristic Viennese waltz. Imagine a large ballroom; an historical romance; and you’ll have the context intended. Love Story is meant to spin a background to the kind of love dramas you’re apt to hear by radio during the day.
Shopping Spree, notes Tamburello, “ Is the picture of a girl on an afternoon run through the smart stores. She’s very busy, running from one charge account to another.” Lady of Fashion is typical fashion music, the kind of bright texture you’d expect at a fashion show. It can also serve as a background for looking through Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar.”
March Forth is a pun of sorts. It is a march, but March fourth is also the birthday of Mrs. Tamburello. Tamburello is fond of marches, partly as a legacy from his father, who was a professional musician (he’s now 73). The elder Tamburello played for opera companies in Italy; came to the United States, and played with the troupe of Buffalo Bill, among other engagements, including opera units. Naughty Nautical is a satirical version of the sailors’ hornpipe.
Roundelay is a “round with the instruments following each other into the play until the whole orchestra is working, and
then they leave the same way- singly.” Fall In is another march, and the full title could be Fall in, Men.
Waltz for Jane is a “romantic waltz that I wrote for my wife when I first met her. Her name isn’t Jane, but that seemed to be the kind of name many listeners could identify with. Goblins’ Gavotte is intended as a “spooky Hallowe’en song for kids. “ It is based on a tune familiar to children. The set of lyrics Anthony remembers from his childhood is:

“Go ask your mother for fifty cents
See the elephants jump the fence
He jumped so high
He reached the sky
And never came down
Until the Fourth of July.”

Mama’s Lullaby was written by Anthony’s mother years ago and has been orchestrated by him. He describes it as a “typical Italian mother’s lullaby. She used to play it on the piano between cooking meals.” It’s All Over and Out is what the ringmaster of a circus used to say to signify the end of the show. You’ll notice the final two notes- at least the notes one would expect to complete the piece- are not sounded. “That’s the kind of guy I am,” explains Tamburello. “ I didn’t drop the shoes.”
As an epilogue, the orchestra plays the title song of Separate Tables, the film version of the successful Broadway play by Terence Rattigan

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=a0958cbca9) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=a0958cbca9&e=[UNIQID])

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

May 25, 2015 / No Comments / More

Vintage Line Notes of the Day

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

From the pen of one of our most respected jazz journalists Nat Hentoff:

Tell me that ‘tailor’ isn’t the spittin’ image of Ed Koch.

Music Tailored to Your Taste …
A CERTIFIED HIGH FIDELITY RECORDING
(EVEREST HI-FI Long Play)

A group of brilliant compositions by Anthony Tamburello performed by the Everest Concert Orchestra under the direction of Derek Boulton

“Go ask your mother for fifty cents
See the elephants jump the fence
He jumped so high
He reached the sky
And never came down
Until the Fourth of July.”

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

May 25, 2015 / No Comments / More

Vintage Line Notes of the Day

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

From the pen of one of our most respected jazz journalists Nat Hentoff:

Tell me that ‘tailor’ isn’t the spittin’ image of Ed Koch.

Music Tailored to Your Taste …
A CERTIFIED HIGH FIDELITY RECORDING
(EVEREST HI-FI Long Play)

A group of brilliant compositions by Anthony Tamburello performed by the Everest Concert Orchestra under the direction of Derek Boulton

“Go ask your mother for fifty cents
See the elephants jump the fence
He jumped so high
He reached the sky
And never came down
Until the Fourth of July.”

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

May 25, 2015 / No Comments / More

Vintage Line Notes of the Day

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

From the pen of one of our most respected jazz journalists Nat Hentoff:

Tell me that ‘tailor’ isn’t the spittin’ image of Ed Koch.

Music Tailored to Your Taste …
A CERTIFIED HIGH FIDELITY RECORDING
(EVEREST HI-FI Long Play)

A group of brilliant compositions by Anthony Tamburello performed by the Everest Concert Orchestra under the direction of Derek Boulton

“Go ask your mother for fifty cents
See the elephants jump the fence
He jumped so high
He reached the sky
And never came down
Until the Fourth of July.”

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

May 25, 2015 / No Comments / More

Anne Meara, Comedian and Actress, Dies at 85 – NYTimes.com

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/arts/anne-meara-comedian-and-actress-dies-at-85.html?_r=0

** Anne Meara, Comedian and Actress, Dies at 85
————————————————————
Continue reading the main story Slide Show

** A Comedian Who Stood in a Range of Spotlights
————————————————————

CreditGeorge E. Joseph

Anne Meara, who became famous as half of one of the most successful male-female comedy teams of all time and went on to enjoy a long and diverse career as an actress and, late in life, a playwright, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 85.

Her death was confirmed by her husband and longtime comedy partner, Jerry Stiller, and her son, the actor and director Ben Stiller. They did not provide the cause.

Ms. Meara was an experienced but relatively unknown stage actress when she joined forces with Jerry Stiller, as members of the Compass Players, an improvisational theater troupe that evolved into Second City (where another male-female team, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, had gotten their start), and later on their own as Stiller and Meara. The duo began performing in New York nightclubs in 1961 and within a year had become a national phenomenon.

But even during the heyday of Stiller and Meara, Ms. Meara also pursued a separate career as an actress. She had already amassed an impressive list of stage credits before beginning her comedy career, including an Obie Award-winning performance in “Mädchen in Uniform” in 1955 and roles in several Shakespeare in the Park productions. (She was a witch in “Macbeth” in 1957.)

She later appeared both on and off Broadway, in films, and especially on television, where she was seen on a wide range of series, from “Rhoda” and “Archie Bunker’s Place” on CBS to “Sex and the City (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/sex_and_the_city/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) ” and “Oz” on HBO.

A tall redhead with a brassy voice and a self-confident demeanor, Ms. Meara was a natural for comedy but frequently played dramatic parts as well. “Comedy, drama, it’s the same deal,” she said in an interview for the Archive of American Television in 2008. “You don’t really act differently; you just make adjustments.”

Anne Meara was born in Brooklyn on Sept. 20, 1929, and raised in Rockville Centre on Long Island. An only child, she was the daughter of Edward Meara, a lawyer, and the former Mary Dempsey, who committed suicide when her daughter was 11. After studying for a year at the Dramatic Workshop at the New School in Manhattan, Anne began her career in summer stock in 1948.

She met Mr. Stiller in 1953 and married him soon after, but it would be some time before they began working as a team. The idea, they both agreed, was his; she did not think of herself as a comedian, but because work was scarce she reluctantly agreed.

“Jerry started us being a comedy team,” she said in 2008. “He always thought I would be a great comedy partner. At that time in my life, I disdained comedians.”
Photo

Anne Meara in her West Side apartment in 1995. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

In the 1960s Stiller and Meara were regular guests on the variety and talk shows of Ed Sullivan and many others, and performed in nightclubs all over the country. In the 1970s their voices were heard on radio commercials for Blue Nun wine and other products.

Ms. Meara and Mr. Stiller’s relationship was the basis for their best-known comedy routines, which told the continuing story of Hershey Horowitz and Mary Elizabeth Doyle, a short Jewish man and a tall Catholic woman who had virtually nothing in common except their love for each other.

On their first date, arranged by a computer, Hershey and Mary Elizabeth were surprised to learn that they lived on the same block but knew none of the same people. (There was one significant difference between the real-life couple and the comedy version: Ms. Meara, though born and raised Roman Catholic, converted to Judaism in 1961.)

By the end of the decade, Mr. Stiller and Ms. Meara were both concentrating on their individual careers, but they continued to perform together from time to time. She made several guest appearances on the sitcom “The King of Queens,” on which Mr. Stiller (who had also memorably played Frank Costanza on “Seinfeld”) was a regular; her character married his in the series finale in 2007.

In 2010 they began appearing in a series of web videos produced by their son in which they sat on a couch and talked, to the camera and occasionally to each other, about a variety of topics.
Photo

Jerry Stiller and Ms. Meara on the set of “The King of Queens” in 2003.
Credit Stefano Paltera/Associated Press

In 1975 Ms. Meara starred in “Kate McShane,” an hourlong drama about a lawyer that, despite generally good reviews, was canceled after two months. “They never really made her a full-blooded woman,” she said of her character in 2008. “She had no love life; she was really a nun.”

That was her only starring role on television, but she kept busy in a range of supporting roles on the small screen well into the 21st century. In addition to her prodigious prime-time work, she appeared occasionally on the soap opera “All My Children” in the 1990s. During her career, she was nominated for four Emmy Awards and won a Writers Guild Award as a co-writer for “The Other Woman,” a 1983 TV movie.

She had memorable character parts in movies as well, including a teacher in “Fame” (1980) and a personnel manager in “Reality Bites” (1994), Ben Stiller’s feature-film directorial debut. Onstage, she was in the original Off Broadway production of John Guare’s dark comedy “The House of Blue Leaves” in 1971 — her son had a small role in the 1986 Broadway revival (http://www.nytimes.com/theater/venues/broadway.html?inline=nyt-classifier) and the lead role in a second revival, in 2011 — and she was nominated for a Tony for “Anna Christie” in 1993.

In addition to her husband and her son, Ms. Meara is survived by a daughter, the actress and comedian Amy Stiller, and two grandchildren.

Ms. Meara branched out into writing in 1995, when her comedy “After-Play” was presented Off Broadway. Her “Down the Garden Paths” had a brief Off Broadway run in 2000, with a cast headed by Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson.

“After-Play” has been produced by a number of regional theaters, sometimes with both Ms. Meara and Mr. Stiller in the cast. But neither of them was in the original cast, and she did not conceive it as a Stiller and Meara vehicle.

“I wanted to do something on my own,” she told The New York Times in 1995. “It’s the same way he feels good about doing ‘Seinfeld.’ The irony is, I feel we’re closer personally than when we were out going to nightclubs.”

** Stiller & Meara on Computer Dating (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H–kLKTGzaQ)
————————————————————

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=8c019c0ed3) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=8c019c0ed3&e=[UNIQID])

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

May 25, 2015 / No Comments / More

Anne Meara, Comedian and Actress, Dies at 85 – NYTimes.com

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/arts/anne-meara-comedian-and-actress-dies-at-85.html?_r=0

** Anne Meara, Comedian and Actress, Dies at 85
————————————————————
Continue reading the main story Slide Show

** A Comedian Who Stood in a Range of Spotlights
————————————————————

CreditGeorge E. Joseph

Her death was confirmed by her husband and longtime comedy partner, Jerry Stiller, and her son, the actor and director Ben Stiller. They did not provide the cause.

“Jerry started us being a comedy team,” she said in 2008. “He always thought I would be a great comedy partner. At that time in my life, I disdained comedians.”
Photo

Anne Meara in her West Side apartment in 1995. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

In 2010 they began appearing in a series of web videos produced by their son in which they sat on a couch and talked, to the camera and occasionally to each other, about a variety of topics.
Photo

Jerry Stiller and Ms. Meara on the set of “The King of Queens” in 2003.
Credit Stefano Paltera/Associated Press

In addition to her husband and her son, Ms. Meara is survived by a daughter, the actress and comedian Amy Stiller, and two grandchildren.

** Stiller & Meara on Computer Dating (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H–kLKTGzaQ)
————————————————————

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

May 25, 2015 / No Comments / More

Anne Meara, Comedian and Actress, Dies at 85 – NYTimes.com

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/arts/anne-meara-comedian-and-actress-dies-at-85.html?_r=0

** Anne Meara, Comedian and Actress, Dies at 85
————————————————————
Continue reading the main story Slide Show

** A Comedian Who Stood in a Range of Spotlights
————————————————————

CreditGeorge E. Joseph

Her death was confirmed by her husband and longtime comedy partner, Jerry Stiller, and her son, the actor and director Ben Stiller. They did not provide the cause.

“Jerry started us being a comedy team,” she said in 2008. “He always thought I would be a great comedy partner. At that time in my life, I disdained comedians.”
Photo

Anne Meara in her West Side apartment in 1995. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

In 2010 they began appearing in a series of web videos produced by their son in which they sat on a couch and talked, to the camera and occasionally to each other, about a variety of topics.
Photo

Jerry Stiller and Ms. Meara on the set of “The King of Queens” in 2003.
Credit Stefano Paltera/Associated Press

In addition to her husband and her son, Ms. Meara is survived by a daughter, the actress and comedian Amy Stiller, and two grandchildren.

** Stiller & Meara on Computer Dating (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H–kLKTGzaQ)
————————————————————

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

May 25, 2015 / No Comments / More

Anne Meara, Comedian and Actress, Dies at 85 – NYTimes.com

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/arts/anne-meara-comedian-and-actress-dies-at-85.html?_r=0

** Anne Meara, Comedian and Actress, Dies at 85
————————————————————
Continue reading the main story Slide Show

** A Comedian Who Stood in a Range of Spotlights
————————————————————

CreditGeorge E. Joseph

Her death was confirmed by her husband and longtime comedy partner, Jerry Stiller, and her son, the actor and director Ben Stiller. They did not provide the cause.

“Jerry started us being a comedy team,” she said in 2008. “He always thought I would be a great comedy partner. At that time in my life, I disdained comedians.”
Photo

Anne Meara in her West Side apartment in 1995. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

In 2010 they began appearing in a series of web videos produced by their son in which they sat on a couch and talked, to the camera and occasionally to each other, about a variety of topics.
Photo

Jerry Stiller and Ms. Meara on the set of “The King of Queens” in 2003.
Credit Stefano Paltera/Associated Press

In addition to her husband and her son, Ms. Meara is survived by a daughter, the actress and comedian Amy Stiller, and two grandchildren.

** Stiller & Meara on Computer Dating (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H–kLKTGzaQ)
————————————————————

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Jazz Promo Services
269 State Route 94 South
Warwick, Ny 10990
USA

May 25, 2015 / No Comments / More

Detroit jazz trumpet legend Marcus Belgrave dies at 78

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/
http://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/2015/05/24/trumpeter-marcus-belgrave/27878711/

** Detroit jazz trumpet legend Marcus Belgrave dies at 78
————————————————————

By Mark Stryker, Detroit Free Press Staff Writer 8:43 p.m. EDT May 24, 2015
Marcus Belgrave plays the trumpet at the funeral of

Trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, the reigning patriarch of Detroit’s jazz scene, fought heart and pulmonary issues for years and used oxygen 24 hours a day. But you would hardly know it to hear him play.

Belgrave still lit up bandstands from here to New York with his clarion tone, soulful improvisations and charismatic personality. And just as he had done for 45 years in Detroit, he mentored young musicians, initiating them into the expressive glories of jazz.

Belgrave’s heart finally gave out today at age 78. Death has silenced his horn, but his legacy will remain immortal.

Related: Listen to and watch Marcus Belgrave on record and video (safari-reader://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/arts/mark-stryker/2015/05/24/marcus-belgrave-recordings-videos/27885363/)

Archives: Jazz artist Marcus Belgrave reunited with stolen trumpet (http://archive.freep.com/article/20140312/ENT04/303120087/jazz-marcus-belgrave-trumpet-found)

Belgrave died at Glacier Hills, a care and rehabilitation facility in Ann Arbor. His wife, vocalist Joan Belgrave, said he died in his sleep. The cause of death was heart failure. He had been in and out of the hospital since April 19, battling complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure. But he had also shown signs of steady improvement and was practicing daily. His wife said they had spent Saturday preparing for his return to the stage at the Concert of Colors in July.

His last public appearance was April 17 in Durham, N.C., as part of a “trumpet summit” with Russell Gunn and Rayse Biggs, but Belgrave continued to play in his hospital bed, including brief jam sessions with fellow musicians.

It’s impossible to overstate the impact that Belgrave has had on musical culture in Detroit as a musician, teacher and standard-bearer of jazz. Like an African griot, he came to embody the soul and mythology of the city’s jazz history, handing down the values of swing and blues to multiple generations of students — many of whose fame would eventually outshine his own. Belgrave symbolized Detroit’s continued vitality as an incubator and epicenter of jazz, and he remained a key link between the city and the international jazz scene.

“He became a mentor to entire generations of musicians, and a lot of us would not have found the music without him,” said bassist Rodney Whitaker. “He brought us together. I have not met one musician from the last 50 years in Detroit that Marcus has not had some sort of impact on.”

Belgrave was a world-class trumpeter whose A-list resume included a long tenure with Ray Charles in the 1950s and early ’60s and associations with jazz royalty like Max Roach and Charles Mingus. Ultimately, however, Belgrave’s greatest contribution was the remarkable honor roll of his former students who graduated to leading roles on the national scene — including pianist Geri Allen, bassists Whitaker and Robert Hurst, alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett, violinist Regina Carter, and drummers Karriem Riggins, Ali Jackson and Gerald Cleaver.

Belgrave took his advanced students under his wing, hiring them for gigs that provided critical on-the-job training.

“With Marcus there was a pipeline from high school right into a safety zone in the scene,” Allen told the Free Press in 2012. “We saw the passion and the professionalism up close. What Marcus has done for Detroit and what he’s done for all of us — he truly is a national treasure. How much we all love him can’t be expressed in words.”

Most of Belgrave’s teaching came under the umbrella of his Jazz Development Workshop. a shoestring operation. The students who became stars are by no means the whole story, because Belgrave’s influence extends to protegees like bassist Marion Hayden, who has become a pillar of the Detroit scene as a player and teacher. Then there are the countless inner city kids who didn’t become professional musicians but whom Belgrave helped keep on the straight and narrow.

“If you factor in those of us who also became mentors because of his example, Marcus has changed the lives of thousands of students,” said Whitaker, who directs the jazz program at Michigan State University.

Belgrave — who was born in Pennsylvania but settled in Detroit in 1963 after roughly five years with Ray Charles — could have had a larger national profile had he remained in New York. Mingus once lamented that he couldn’t afford to pry the trumpeter out of Detroit. “If I had Marcus Belgrave, I’d have the greatest band going,” the bassist-composer told Down Beat magazine in 1975.

But fame and fortune were never Belgrave’s goals.

“Actually, I feel famous, because I’ve been able to survive playing music in Detroit,” Belgrave told the Free Press in 2012. “Major musicians would say, ‘What is Marcus doing in Detroit?’ But I had to find a place where I belonged, and where I could have an impact. Being around all of this young talent gave me a sense of community and a purpose. I became a catalyst.”

Belgrave’s cult status grew once his famous protégés began trumpeting his name in interviews in the 1980s. In the 1990s, work with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, a handful of New York gigs and a few sideman appearances on CDs with Allen and others bumped up his visibility a bit.

Belgrave’s identity on the trumpet was unique. Initially inspired by Clifford Brown, his sound was broad and lustrous, and his solos unfolded in complete paragraphs of cogent melody, rhythmic wit and emotional resonance. As he reached his full maturity as an improviser in the 1970s, Belgrave favored the road less traveled, marrying down-home soul with spontaneous, offbeat tangents.

“I’m trying to hear the whole picture of the piece,” Belgrave told the Free Press. “The improvisation comes in as a part of being able to feel the whole framework of a song and then you work your way into the flow. I want to play like a singer and feel the rapture of the song.”

Belgrave’s ability to remain himself in a myriad of styles was a calling card. He’s recorded bebop, blues, ballads, funk, fusion, free jazz, post-bop and in recent decades worked all over the country playing and singing the Louis Armstrong songbook with spot-on authenticity.

Belgrave, who stood just 5 feet 4 inches tall, was an elfin figure with twinkling eyes, a gravelly voice and a bebopper’s beard that in later years turned more salt than pepper. He commanded a spiritual force that elevated the musicianship of a band even when he was simply in the audience as a listener.

“He’s the epitome of soul and taste,” Marsalis told the Free Press in 2009. “His sound is just so evocative, and he’s a master of swing and blues. When he walks into a room, he brings a good time with him.”

Despite his up-and-down health, Belgrave practiced religiously, putting in two hours a day on the horn, even when he landed periodically in the hospital. His doctors said the trumpet kept him alive, helping his respiration and allowing him to get everything he could out of his weakened lungs. The continued vitality of his playing astounded his fellow musicians and earned him critical accolades.

In his appearance at Dizzy’s Club in New York last July, Belgrave was especially proud to lead a band comprised of all current Detroiters and proteges. Critic Ben Ratliff wrote in the New York Times that the show was an example of the kind of music that doesn’t often get headlines: “Jazz played with a beautiful sense of proportion, modesty, refinement; using the full range of his instrument but free of aggression, anxiety, overplaying. (Belgrave) let the essence of the songs manifest themselves. It’s the result, maybe, of understanding something and then rendering it so that it coheres and can be passed on intact.”

A bebop baby

Marcus Belgrave was born on June 12, 1936, in Chester, Pa., a manufacturing town near Philadelphia. He started blowing a bugle at 4 and a trumpet at 6, taught by his father, a fine amateur musician. Belgrave’s cousin was baritone saxophonist Cecil Payne, who played with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, and it wasn’t long before Payne was teaching Belgrave to play bebop melodies by Charlie Parker.

At 12, Belgrave began studying with a local teacher and performing with a concert band in nearby Wilmington, Del., that included Clifford Brown, six years older and on his way to becoming a major influence in jazz. Brown took a shine to Belgrave and helped him learn to improvise by writing out a solo for him on the chords to “How High the Moon.”

Belgrave joined the Air Force after high school and played in a service band stationed in Wichita Falls, Texas. One night he sat in with the Ray Charles band at a concert. Belgrave was back in Chester in 1958, when Charles offered him a job as second trumpet. He was 21.

Charles had a hot small band working at the intersection of rhythm and blues, jazz and gospel. For Belgrave, the experience was like graduate school.

“I had to learn patience,” Belgrave told the Free Press. “I wanted to play bebop, but I had to learn to play the blues. I played too many notes. And Ray would play such slow ballads that I’d be through eight bars before he got through one. But eventually he let me play obbligatos behind him on a ballad.”

Belgrave made his first recordings with Charles, playing brassy solos full of bebop curlicues on “Blues Waltz” (1958) and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (1959). He can also be heard to good advantage on “Fathead: Ray Charles Presents David Newman,” taped with Charles’ band in 1958.

Belgrave worked with Charles until 1963, except for a year and a half when he lived in New York. While based in the city, he toured for two months with drummer Max Roach and recorded with Charles Mingus on “Pre-Bird” (1960). He also worked with drummer Charli Persip and saxophonist and former Detroiter Yusef Lateef. Belgrave surely would have found wider fame had he not turned down potentially career-defining opportunities to play with Duke Ellington’s big band and Horace Silver’s quintet. Belgrave said in both cases he didn’t want to return to the grind of life on the road.

Belgrave settled in Detroit in 1963, lured by the city’s reputation as a jazz mecca and the former stomping grounds of Pontiac-born Thad Jones, whom Belgrave revered. The promise of steady work in the Motown studios was also a magnet, and he played on numerous Motown sides in 1963-64.

Belgrave fell into teaching in 1970. His friend, pianist Harold McKinney, recruited him to work for Detroit’s Metropolitan Arts Complex, a federally funded Model Cities program. Belgrave, a natural communicator, found the energy and excitement of the students intoxicating. Belgrave created the Jazz Development Workshop in the early ’70s, and there were also more formal posts along the way at Oakland University and elsewhere.

Belgrave also became involved in Detroit’s legendary Tribe, a ’70s cooperative that ran a record label and produced concerts. Belgrave’s first LP under his own name, “Gemini II,” a progressive jazz-rock fusion album, was made for Tribe in 1974.

Belgrave later made numerous recordings for his own Detroit Jazz Musicians Co-Op label, including two exemplary CDs in the 1990s: “Live at the Kerrytown Concert House” (with Detroit pianists Tommy Flanagan, Geri Allen and Gary Schunk) and “Working Together,” which documents Belgrave’s partnership with the late drummer and composer Lawrence Williams. Limited distribution prevented these recordings from making a bigger splash.

In later decades, Belgrave also appeared on recordings by Allen, Kirk Lightsey, McCoy Tyner, Horace Tapscott, Junko Onishi, Robert Hurst and David Murray.

In recent years, Belgrave found a measure of financial security by accepting a teaching post at Oberlin from 2001-2010, and he was awarded the $50,000 Kresge Eminent Artist prize in 2009.

Belgrave’s 2007 marriage to Joan Belgrave, his third wife, a singer with whom he often performed, also brought stability to his life. Joan helped him manage his business affairs and monitored his health.

In addition to his wife, Belgrave is survived by two daughters and two sons. Services will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at Greater Grace Temple, 23500 W. Seven Mile, Detroit. A gathering will follow at the Carr Center, 311 E. Grand River Ave., Detroit.

Belgrave’s life stood as a monument to the continuum of jazz history, and he was sustained by a profound understanding of community, character and fellowship. Connecting his trumpet playing and his teaching was a respect for the past as a springboard to the future. The greatest lesson of all in jazz, he once said, was to be an individual.

“In order to get to the future, you have to go to the past,” he told the Free Press. “I try to instill that you learn from the masters in your presence and go back and forward from there. In order to find yourself, you have to be cognizant of what went down before you. That’s always been my philosophy.”

Contact Mark Stryker: 313-222-6459. mstryker@freepress.com

**
————————————————————

This E Mail Is Being Sent by:
Jim Eigo Jazz Promo Services T: 845-986-1677 E-Mail: jim@jazzpromoservices.com (mailto:jim@jazzpromoservices.com)
http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

HAVE A JAZZ EVENT, NEW CD OR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE JAZZ COMMUNITY YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? CONTACT JAZZ PROMO SERVICES FOR PRICE QUOTE.

CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU) HERE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDvUe6fkNLU&feature=player_embedded)

Unsubscribe (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]&c=b241551877) | Update your profile (http://jazzpromoservices.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=911f90f0b1&e=[UNIQID]) | Forward to a friend (http://us2.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3186fe64133adb244b1010be2&id=b241551877&e=[UNIQID])