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© GettyImages.com The Roches, group portrait, Waagtheater, Delft, Netherlands, 30th May 1980. L-R Suzzy Roche, Maggie Roche and Terre Roche. NEW YORK (AP) — Maggie Roche, the folk-rock singer-songwriter who since the mid-1970s had performed and recorded as a trio and in pairs with her two sisters, has died.
 
Roche died of cancer, according to a statement posted online Saturday by her sister and bandmate Suzzy Roche. She was 65.
 
Growing up in Park Ridge, New Jersey, eldest sister Maggie formed a duo with middle sister Terre, and while touring, they caught the attention of Paul Simon, who brought them in as backup singers for his hit 1973 album, “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon.”
In 1975, they released an album of their own. Shortly after that, youngest sister Suzzy joined to form The Roches trio. The voices of this threesome blended majestically, with Maggie’s rich contralto balanced by Terre’s soprano and Suzzy filling in the mid-range.
They played Greenwich Village folk venues and, in 1979, released the well-received “The Roches,” the first of their dozen albums as a trio, and were booked on “Saturday Night Live.”
 
With “We,” the first song of that debut album, they charmingly introduced themselves, with acoustic guitar backup, to the listening world:
 
“We are Maggie and Terre and Suzzy. /
 
“Maggie and Terre and Suzzy Roche. /
 
“We don’t give out our ages, and we don’t give out our phone numbers. /
 
“Sometimes our voices give out. But not our ages and our phone numbers. / .
 
“And as a point of interest, we spell our name R-O-C-H-E.”
 
Their final studio album, “Moonswept,” would be released in 2007. Maggie also recorded albums as a duo with sister Suzzy.
 
Maggie and her sisters would never be a big draw or huge sellers. But their unique sound and sensibility, plus their endearing quirkiness, was cherished by a devoted following over the decades.
 
The statement from Suzzy Roche, who, with Terre, survives her, describes their “dear, beautiful sister Maggie” as “a private person, too sensitive and shy for this world, but brimming with life, love and talent . a brilliant songwriter, with a distinct unique perspective, all heart and soul.”
 

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© GettyImages.com The Roches, group portrait, Waagtheater, Delft, Netherlands, 30th May 1980. L-R Suzzy Roche, Maggie Roche and Terre Roche. NEW YORK (AP) — Maggie Roche, the folk-rock singer-songwriter who since the mid-1970s had performed and recorded as a trio and in pairs with her two sisters, has died.
 
Roche died of cancer, according to a statement posted online Saturday by her sister and bandmate Suzzy Roche. She was 65.
 
Growing up in Park Ridge, New Jersey, eldest sister Maggie formed a duo with middle sister Terre, and while touring, they caught the attention of Paul Simon, who brought them in as backup singers for his hit 1973 album, “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon.”
In 1975, they released an album of their own. Shortly after that, youngest sister Suzzy joined to form The Roches trio. The voices of this threesome blended majestically, with Maggie’s rich contralto balanced by Terre’s soprano and Suzzy filling in the mid-range.
They played Greenwich Village folk venues and, in 1979, released the well-received “The Roches,” the first of their dozen albums as a trio, and were booked on “Saturday Night Live.”
 
With “We,” the first song of that debut album, they charmingly introduced themselves, with acoustic guitar backup, to the listening world:
 
“We are Maggie and Terre and Suzzy. /
 
“Maggie and Terre and Suzzy Roche. /
 
“We don’t give out our ages, and we don’t give out our phone numbers. /
 
“Sometimes our voices give out. But not our ages and our phone numbers. / .
 
“And as a point of interest, we spell our name R-O-C-H-E.”
 
Their final studio album, “Moonswept,” would be released in 2007. Maggie also recorded albums as a duo with sister Suzzy.
 
Maggie and her sisters would never be a big draw or huge sellers. But their unique sound and sensibility, plus their endearing quirkiness, was cherished by a devoted following over the decades.
 
The statement from Suzzy Roche, who, with Terre, survives her, describes their “dear, beautiful sister Maggie” as “a private person, too sensitive and shy for this world, but brimming with life, love and talent . a brilliant songwriter, with a distinct unique perspective, all heart and soul.”
 

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CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE VIDEO

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

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LARRY BLUMENFELD
 
01.21.17 12:01 AM ET
 

Waring Abbott/Getty
 
The death of Nat Hentoff at 91 on Jan. 7 was, to me, one final act of defiance.
 
According to his son Nicholas, Hentoff left us in the company of that which he loved dearly—surrounded by family, listening to Billie Holiday recordings.
 
And I suppose that Hentoff, who wrote with as much passion and insight about the Constitution as he did about Holiday’s music, simply refused to stick around to see Donald Trump take the presidential oath of office.
 
I imagined Hentoff whispering something like: “I fought against the Vietnam War. I spoke out during the Reagan administration, against George W. Bush’s Iraq invasion, and in defense of true liberalism and the Bill of Rights. This fight is yours.”
 
As an author, journalist, jazz critic, and civil libertarian, Hentoff’s intensity was matched by his productivity and range. He inspired me early on through his voluminous essays and books. And I was lucky. I go to know the man, who, by then, had a weathered face bordered by greying hair and beard, his piercing eyes softened only by his easy smile. Hentoff was a mentor and a guiding force for me, professionally and personally. I ended up following Hentoff’s lead, straddling unlikely mastheads through my work—The Wall Street Journal, The Village Voice, and Truthdig, for instance—and finding jazz a particularly good vehicle through which to address social justice. After the 2005 flood in New Orleans resulting from the levee failures after Hurricane Katrina, when I described to him the extent of injustice and inequity surrounding that situation, Hentoff told me, “You have to do something, and you can’t do nothing.” Thus followed a decade of my own reporting, supporting in part by funding Hentoff helped me find. Hentoff even helped me reconcile myself with the religion from which I’d strayed, Judaism.
 
The most resonant voice in the pages of his book At the Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene is that of the chazan—the cantor in the Orthodox Jewish synagogue Hentoff attended while growing up in Boston. It’s not that Hentoff was particularly observant (he called himself “a Jewish atheist” in the book). But in shul, he found a captivating voice that provoked both visceral and intellectual responses that turned his head around, and that lasted a lifetime.
 
“The passionate, mesmerizing, often improvisatory singing of the chazan,” he wrote, “sounded at times as if he were arguing with God.” At 11, when Hentoff heard “music blaring from a record store that made me shout aloud in pleasure” it was clarinetist Artie Shaw’s “Nightmare.” Regardless of whether or not that particular keening A-minor melody of Shaw’s was based on a cantorial theme (Hentoff wrote that it was), a deeper connection with the music he would come to love and document—jazz—was thus forged. The cantor’s “soul cry of human promise, transcendence and vulnerability” was the same element Hentoff would home in on within the music of, say, Charles Mingus, the “depth of his witnessing to the human condition” an unbroken link for Hentoff to the blues at jazz’s base.
 
Hentoff said he was an “itinerant subversive” from the start. Growing up in a then predominantly Jewish Roxbury neighborhood within an otherwise largely anti-Semitic Boston, he grew defiantly individual and developed a strong sense of social justice while still quite young. In his memoir, Boston Boy, he recalled his defining moment of rebellion at age 12—eating a large salami sandwich on Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of fasting and atonement, while sitting on his family’s porch. He enjoyed not so much “that awful sandwich” as the experience of rebellion, combined with the knowledge of “how it felt to be an outcast.”
 
Nathan Irving Hentoff was born in Boston on June 10, 1925, the son of Simon and Lena Katzenberg Hentoff. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia, and the tough Roxbury section that was his home was a vortex of political debate among Socialists, anarchists, Communists, Trotskyites, and other revolutionaries. He learned early how to rebel. He channeled his sensibilities into what he used to call his “day job—reporting on keeping the Bill of Rights alive,” reflected most prominently through his 50-year tenure as a columnist for The Village Voice and via many of his books. He also developed an early love and appreciation for jazz—a music he would come to write about as a “life force.”
 
Within jazz’s community, Hentoff found fellow itinerant subversives, including Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Jo Jones, and Paul Desmond. “These were my teachers,” Hentoff once told me, “people who took risks every single night.” While a student at Boston Latin High School, Hentoff spent most of his free time at jazz clubs like the Savoy Café. He befriended Ellington and others, including, later on, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane.
 
Hentoff lived through a good chunk of jazz’s history, including its heyday within American popular culture. He got into radio in Boston while still a teenager, and did broadcasts from jazz clubs such as the Savoy and George Wein’s Storyville, where he got to know many musicians, and sometimes interviewed them on-air. From the start, he was interested in the music’s context as well as its content. He moved to New York to work as an editor for Down Beat magazine, which back then appealed to a much broader readership than it does today. In 1957, together with critic Whitney Balliett, he cast “The Sound of Jazz,” a landmark CBS program that brought the likes of Billie Holiday and Lester Young and more generally the sounds and attitudes of jazz into American living rooms; Hentoff called making that show “the most important thing I’ve ever done.” He wrote liner notes to groundbreaking recordings, including John Coltrane’s Expressions and Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain. As A&R director of Candid Record, he was responsible for a long list of important and unexpected albums, including We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, which still stands as one of the most overtly political of jazz classics.
 
Among Hentoff’s many books is 1955’s Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It, which he edited with Nat Shapiro. It was a seminal work of oral history relating to jazz. “The reason Nat Shapiro and I did that,” Hentoff told me, “was that, at the time, there was a widely held belief—really a myth—that jazz musicians are inarticulate by and large, except on their horns. There was a sense among a number of the listeners that all you have to do is pick up your horn, and you blow. And we had the idea that you could have a book where the musicians told their stories, in part to show that they could tell their stories.”
 
Hentoff was neither the first nor the last jazz lover to exalt the music as both metaphor and laboratory for whatever we mean when we speak of an American experiment. Ralph Ellison expressed all that with more literary distinction and greater connection to the context of African-American arts. But if Ken Burns’s 19-hour PBS series “Jazz” in 2000 offered something of a caricature of jazz as the symbol of American values and virtues, Hentoff’s body of writings has come closest to painting an honest working portrait of the idea.
I recall interviewing Hentoff years ago, when Antonin Scalia was still on the Supreme Court, about the type of jazz pedagogy Ken Burns promoted. “Well, for one thing, John Marshall—who was the first, and in some ways, the most powerful Supreme Court justice in the beginning of the 19th century—said that the Constitution is a living document,” Hentoff said. “And unlike Scalia, who keeps an 18th century dictionary to find out what the framers had in mind, jazz is the same. Sidney Bechet, in that very good memoir of his, said, ‘You can’t hold the music back.’ And that means that you can’t categorize or fix anything in the music in terms of saying, ‘Only this is jazz, and this isn’t jazz.’ And the same thing goes for the evolving Bill of Rights. You can’t talk about the fourth amendment right to privacy only in terms of what the framers said. They didn’t know about wiretaps, let along telephones.”
 
Among the many diverse honors bestowed upon Hentoff—from, among other organizations, the Guggenheim Foundation, The American Bar Association, the National Press Association, and the American Library Association—was his designation in 2004 as one of six Jazz Masters by the National Endowment for the Arts, the first non-musician to win the honor.
 
And yet one of Hentoff’s endearing qualities—one missing in most music critics and political commentators today—was real humility. At one point in At the Jazz Band Ball, Hentoff wrote of sometimes “feeling fraudulent” for lack of technical knowledge about, say, chord substitutions. That feeling grew more intense when his daughter, at the time a budding musician, asked, “How can you dare affect the income of a musician when you give him bad reviews since you can’t say technically what you think he’s doing wrong?” In his book, Hentoff cut to an encounter with the arranger and bandleader Gil Evans. “I’ve been reading you for years,” Evans told him, “so I know what you listen to and how you listen. I also know musicians who can tell technically everything that’s going on in a performance, but they don’t get into where this music is coming from inside the musician—the story he wants to tell. You can do that some of the time. Stop worrying.”
 
Hentoff either stopped worrying, or went ahead anyway. Without discounting the value of or need for such critical analysis based on musical knowledge—how could he?—he argued for the narrative of jazz as a succession of stories of men and women who have shaped and lived the music.
 
“I’ve always had the sense when I was writing,” Hentoff once told me, “especially when I was doing liner notes, of asking myself, ‘What can I say that will be of use to someone in another generation?’ When I do liner notes, I interview the musicians. When I did notes for Coltrane, we’d always go through the same ritual. I’d call up and I’d say that the record company just gave me this. And he’d say, ‘I wish you wouldn’t write the notes because if the music doesn’t speak for itself, what’s the point?’ And John was a very kind man, so I’d say, ‘John, it’s a gig.’ So then we went on.”
 
And so I’ll go—we’ll go on—emboldened by Hentoff’s grandest ideas and deepest commitments, but not past the point of questioning ourselves. Maybe we’ll channel just enough of his itinerant subversive.
 
On the eve of the inauguration, standing onstage at Manhattan’s Symphony Space as master of ceremonies for a “Musicians Against Fascism” concert, I invoked Hentoff’s legacy—his commitment to truths we hold self-evident in both musical declarations, and the Declaration of Independence; his understanding that a sense of community is essential to creative music and effective activism. While dozens of musicians played on for more than three hours, and when I spoke of the dangers posed by this new administration and of complacency in the face of such threats, I felt his spirit present. I believe he’s with me now, demanding more.
 

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

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LARRY BLUMENFELD
 
01.21.17 12:01 AM ET
 

Waring Abbott/Getty
 
The death of Nat Hentoff at 91 on Jan. 7 was, to me, one final act of defiance.
 
According to his son Nicholas, Hentoff left us in the company of that which he loved dearly—surrounded by family, listening to Billie Holiday recordings.
 
And I suppose that Hentoff, who wrote with as much passion and insight about the Constitution as he did about Holiday’s music, simply refused to stick around to see Donald Trump take the presidential oath of office.
 
I imagined Hentoff whispering something like: “I fought against the Vietnam War. I spoke out during the Reagan administration, against George W. Bush’s Iraq invasion, and in defense of true liberalism and the Bill of Rights. This fight is yours.”
 
As an author, journalist, jazz critic, and civil libertarian, Hentoff’s intensity was matched by his productivity and range. He inspired me early on through his voluminous essays and books. And I was lucky. I go to know the man, who, by then, had a weathered face bordered by greying hair and beard, his piercing eyes softened only by his easy smile. Hentoff was a mentor and a guiding force for me, professionally and personally. I ended up following Hentoff’s lead, straddling unlikely mastheads through my work—The Wall Street Journal, The Village Voice, and Truthdig, for instance—and finding jazz a particularly good vehicle through which to address social justice. After the 2005 flood in New Orleans resulting from the levee failures after Hurricane Katrina, when I described to him the extent of injustice and inequity surrounding that situation, Hentoff told me, “You have to do something, and you can’t do nothing.” Thus followed a decade of my own reporting, supporting in part by funding Hentoff helped me find. Hentoff even helped me reconcile myself with the religion from which I’d strayed, Judaism.
 
The most resonant voice in the pages of his book At the Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene is that of the chazan—the cantor in the Orthodox Jewish synagogue Hentoff attended while growing up in Boston. It’s not that Hentoff was particularly observant (he called himself “a Jewish atheist” in the book). But in shul, he found a captivating voice that provoked both visceral and intellectual responses that turned his head around, and that lasted a lifetime.
 
“The passionate, mesmerizing, often improvisatory singing of the chazan,” he wrote, “sounded at times as if he were arguing with God.” At 11, when Hentoff heard “music blaring from a record store that made me shout aloud in pleasure” it was clarinetist Artie Shaw’s “Nightmare.” Regardless of whether or not that particular keening A-minor melody of Shaw’s was based on a cantorial theme (Hentoff wrote that it was), a deeper connection with the music he would come to love and document—jazz—was thus forged. The cantor’s “soul cry of human promise, transcendence and vulnerability” was the same element Hentoff would home in on within the music of, say, Charles Mingus, the “depth of his witnessing to the human condition” an unbroken link for Hentoff to the blues at jazz’s base.
 
Hentoff said he was an “itinerant subversive” from the start. Growing up in a then predominantly Jewish Roxbury neighborhood within an otherwise largely anti-Semitic Boston, he grew defiantly individual and developed a strong sense of social justice while still quite young. In his memoir, Boston Boy, he recalled his defining moment of rebellion at age 12—eating a large salami sandwich on Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of fasting and atonement, while sitting on his family’s porch. He enjoyed not so much “that awful sandwich” as the experience of rebellion, combined with the knowledge of “how it felt to be an outcast.”
 
Nathan Irving Hentoff was born in Boston on June 10, 1925, the son of Simon and Lena Katzenberg Hentoff. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia, and the tough Roxbury section that was his home was a vortex of political debate among Socialists, anarchists, Communists, Trotskyites, and other revolutionaries. He learned early how to rebel. He channeled his sensibilities into what he used to call his “day job—reporting on keeping the Bill of Rights alive,” reflected most prominently through his 50-year tenure as a columnist for The Village Voice and via many of his books. He also developed an early love and appreciation for jazz—a music he would come to write about as a “life force.”
 
Within jazz’s community, Hentoff found fellow itinerant subversives, including Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Jo Jones, and Paul Desmond. “These were my teachers,” Hentoff once told me, “people who took risks every single night.” While a student at Boston Latin High School, Hentoff spent most of his free time at jazz clubs like the Savoy Café. He befriended Ellington and others, including, later on, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane.
 
Hentoff lived through a good chunk of jazz’s history, including its heyday within American popular culture. He got into radio in Boston while still a teenager, and did broadcasts from jazz clubs such as the Savoy and George Wein’s Storyville, where he got to know many musicians, and sometimes interviewed them on-air. From the start, he was interested in the music’s context as well as its content. He moved to New York to work as an editor for Down Beat magazine, which back then appealed to a much broader readership than it does today. In 1957, together with critic Whitney Balliett, he cast “The Sound of Jazz,” a landmark CBS program that brought the likes of Billie Holiday and Lester Young and more generally the sounds and attitudes of jazz into American living rooms; Hentoff called making that show “the most important thing I’ve ever done.” He wrote liner notes to groundbreaking recordings, including John Coltrane’s Expressions and Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain. As A&R director of Candid Record, he was responsible for a long list of important and unexpected albums, including We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, which still stands as one of the most overtly political of jazz classics.
 
Among Hentoff’s many books is 1955’s Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It, which he edited with Nat Shapiro. It was a seminal work of oral history relating to jazz. “The reason Nat Shapiro and I did that,” Hentoff told me, “was that, at the time, there was a widely held belief—really a myth—that jazz musicians are inarticulate by and large, except on their horns. There was a sense among a number of the listeners that all you have to do is pick up your horn, and you blow. And we had the idea that you could have a book where the musicians told their stories, in part to show that they could tell their stories.”
 
Hentoff was neither the first nor the last jazz lover to exalt the music as both metaphor and laboratory for whatever we mean when we speak of an American experiment. Ralph Ellison expressed all that with more literary distinction and greater connection to the context of African-American arts. But if Ken Burns’s 19-hour PBS series “Jazz” in 2000 offered something of a caricature of jazz as the symbol of American values and virtues, Hentoff’s body of writings has come closest to painting an honest working portrait of the idea.
I recall interviewing Hentoff years ago, when Antonin Scalia was still on the Supreme Court, about the type of jazz pedagogy Ken Burns promoted. “Well, for one thing, John Marshall—who was the first, and in some ways, the most powerful Supreme Court justice in the beginning of the 19th century—said that the Constitution is a living document,” Hentoff said. “And unlike Scalia, who keeps an 18th century dictionary to find out what the framers had in mind, jazz is the same. Sidney Bechet, in that very good memoir of his, said, ‘You can’t hold the music back.’ And that means that you can’t categorize or fix anything in the music in terms of saying, ‘Only this is jazz, and this isn’t jazz.’ And the same thing goes for the evolving Bill of Rights. You can’t talk about the fourth amendment right to privacy only in terms of what the framers said. They didn’t know about wiretaps, let along telephones.”
 
Among the many diverse honors bestowed upon Hentoff—from, among other organizations, the Guggenheim Foundation, The American Bar Association, the National Press Association, and the American Library Association—was his designation in 2004 as one of six Jazz Masters by the National Endowment for the Arts, the first non-musician to win the honor.
 
And yet one of Hentoff’s endearing qualities—one missing in most music critics and political commentators today—was real humility. At one point in At the Jazz Band Ball, Hentoff wrote of sometimes “feeling fraudulent” for lack of technical knowledge about, say, chord substitutions. That feeling grew more intense when his daughter, at the time a budding musician, asked, “How can you dare affect the income of a musician when you give him bad reviews since you can’t say technically what you think he’s doing wrong?” In his book, Hentoff cut to an encounter with the arranger and bandleader Gil Evans. “I’ve been reading you for years,” Evans told him, “so I know what you listen to and how you listen. I also know musicians who can tell technically everything that’s going on in a performance, but they don’t get into where this music is coming from inside the musician—the story he wants to tell. You can do that some of the time. Stop worrying.”
 
Hentoff either stopped worrying, or went ahead anyway. Without discounting the value of or need for such critical analysis based on musical knowledge—how could he?—he argued for the narrative of jazz as a succession of stories of men and women who have shaped and lived the music.
 
“I’ve always had the sense when I was writing,” Hentoff once told me, “especially when I was doing liner notes, of asking myself, ‘What can I say that will be of use to someone in another generation?’ When I do liner notes, I interview the musicians. When I did notes for Coltrane, we’d always go through the same ritual. I’d call up and I’d say that the record company just gave me this. And he’d say, ‘I wish you wouldn’t write the notes because if the music doesn’t speak for itself, what’s the point?’ And John was a very kind man, so I’d say, ‘John, it’s a gig.’ So then we went on.”
 
And so I’ll go—we’ll go on—emboldened by Hentoff’s grandest ideas and deepest commitments, but not past the point of questioning ourselves. Maybe we’ll channel just enough of his itinerant subversive.
 
On the eve of the inauguration, standing onstage at Manhattan’s Symphony Space as master of ceremonies for a “Musicians Against Fascism” concert, I invoked Hentoff’s legacy—his commitment to truths we hold self-evident in both musical declarations, and the Declaration of Independence; his understanding that a sense of community is essential to creative music and effective activism. While dozens of musicians played on for more than three hours, and when I spoke of the dangers posed by this new administration and of complacency in the face of such threats, I felt his spirit present. I believe he’s with me now, demanding more.
 

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http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/subversive-sounds/?mc_cid=ee3a54afdf
 
Subversive Sounds: The Straight Men Who Made America’s First Gay Record
By Hunter Oatman-Stanford January 13th, 2017

When “Love Is a Drag” hit record-store shelves in 1962, it was decidedly not a sensation. Only a few shops carried the album, which featured jazz standards performed by an anonymous singer and band, and its label flopped shortly after the release. But beneath this mundane veneer, the record’s content was remarkably provocative, becoming the first major release to feature a male singer crooning love songs about other men.
“It was subtle, under the table almost.”
Like a magic mirror held up to America’s heteronormative postwar culture, its music reflected a dignified, and seductive, vision of gay life. Just below the album’s title read the teaser: “For adult listeners only—sultry stylings by a most unusual vocalist.” For those LGBTQ folks in the know, this record offered a glimpse of the acceptance they’d long been denied, subtly placing gay romance into the standard musical canon. And yet, at a time when even urban LGBTQ communities were mostly invisible, “Love Is a Drag” lacked the publicity needed to really make waves.
For 50 years after its initial release, the album languished, failing to make any headway beyond the close-knit queer scenes in major cities like Los Angeles and New York. But a few years ago, after Houston-based audiophile and archivist J.D. Doyle began playing tracks from the mysterious album on his radio show, he received an email that changed everything.
By 2012, Doyle had built an extensive online archive of LGTBQ music history as part of his monthly radio show, Queer Music Heritage, and amassed the country’s top collection of queer music and related ephemera. Yet he still had no idea how “Love Is a Drag” had been made so far ahead of its time. “Around the mid-’90s, I started focusing on gay and lesbian music, so that was probably when I first discovered this album,” Doyle explains. “It was definitely something that would have caught my eye.”

The front cover of “Love Is a Drag” (top) and the album’s backside (above) were photographed and designed by the Garrett-Howard studio in 1962. Images courtesy of J.D. Doyle.
“The back of the original album doesn’t say who it was produced by,” he continues. “It doesn’t give the singer’s name or the producer’s name. All it says is ‘Cover Photo and Back Liner Design: Garrett-Howard, Inc.’ I thought that was just the photographer; I didn’t know that was the photographer and producer.” After Doyle launched his radio show in 2000, he made sure to carefully document each episode on his website. “If you just play a song on the radio, it’s gone. There’s no trail,” Doyle says. “So my approach was that everything should be archived online to create a permanent resource, and that’s how Murray Garrett found me.”
Garrett had been a lifelong photographer for the entertainment industry in L.A., and his company had been instrumental in producing the secret gay album. “When he sent me that email, it felt like finding a holy grail,” Doyle says. “I was stunned, and immediately asked him for an interview. I was just over the moon.” At 85, Garrett finally wanted to reveal the unlikely origin story behind “Love Is a Drag,” and credit the artists who made the subversive recording possible.
Beginning in the 1950s, Garrett and his friend Gene Howard, a vocalist-turned-portrait-photographer, co-owned a photographic and design studio in Los Angeles called Garrett-Howard, Inc., whose subjects included celebrities like Bob Hope, Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, Natalie Wood, Marilyn Monroe, and Frank Sinatra. Though Garrett and Howard were both straight and married to women, the idea for “Love Is a Drag” had come from one of Garrett’s fond memories of gay Greenwich Village.
“Back in 1946, shortly before he moved to L.A., Murray was living in New York City. He was in a club with some friends and wasn’t really paying attention to the fact that it was a gay club, but suddenly Murray realized the male performer was singing standards with male pronouns like ‘The Man I Love’ or ‘Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man of Mine,’ and he was really taken by that.”

As New York City’s bohemian center, Greenwich Village hosted several popular gay bars and jazz clubs in the 1940s. Here, singer Doc Pomus jams at the Pied Piper in 1947. Photo by William P. Gottlieb, via the Library of Congress.
In Doyle’s 2012 interview with Garrett, the photographer discussed his surprise that night in New York. “I’m sitting there listening to this guy sing,” Garrett explained, “and I’d be damned if he’s not singing what I would have called the ‘girl lyrics.’ … I was really square. I had no idea what was happening, and one of the people with me, when I mentioned that, said, ‘Well, don’t you understand what’s going on?’ I said, ‘No, what’s going on?’ And he explained that the guy was gay, that we were in an essentially gay nightclub that catered to good musicians.”
The act was so untraditional that Garrett couldn’t get it out of his head. “Somehow or another that stayed in my mind for years and years, and every time I’d hear one of these songs, I’d smile,” Garrett said.
Flash forward to the early ’60s, when Garrett’s friend Jack Ames was running a new record label called Edison International. Ames approached Garrett about doing graphics for Edison releases, and asked if he had any unusual album ideas for his label. “Murray told him about his experience listening to this cabaret singer in the 1940s, a memory that had stuck in his mind all that time,” Doyle says.
Ames was taken with the idea, but didn’t want one of the first releases on the Edison label to pigeonhole the company’s future work, so he decided to produce it anonymously using a different label name—the campy-romantic “Lace Records.” Despite the cloak-and-dagger routine, all involved parties agreed the album would be made respectfully and with the best possible musicians; they weren’t going for a novelty angle. But they still had to find a singer, and Garrett thought he knew just the guy.

Vocalist Gene Howard as seen on the cover of “Best Songs” magazine from 1945, during the height of his Big Band fame.
“When Murray asked Gene Howard about recording the vocals for the album, he said, ‘Oh, I don’t know, my wife would have a fit,’” Doyle says. Howard’s wife eventually approved, but insisted that the recording had to be done with dignity, and she wanted to be in the studio when it was made. To back Howard’s vocals, Ames’ team at Edison put together a group of established studio musicians for the various instrumentals: Dick Shanahan on drums, Heinie Beau on flute, Bobby Hammack on piano, Morty Corb on bass guitar, and Al Viola on guitar.
Garrett supposedly also came up with the record’s title, “Love Is a Drag,” whose meaning is explained in fine print on the back of the album as “Drag: (in music vernacular, a bore, a headache).” It’s unclear if he ever acknowledged the more coded definition of the word “drag,” long used in the queer community to describe someone flamboyantly dressed as the opposite gender.
The album’s limited pressing was finished in 1962, making it the first complete album of gay subject matter in American music history. Despite its groundbreaking substance, the record received zero media coverage, partly because the producers agreed to keep all the musicians anonymous. “The mystery was supposed to sell the album in the first place,” Doyle explains. “Famous people like Frank Sinatra were trying to guess who the vocalist was, wondering, ‘Do I know this person?’ If they had credited Gene Howard originally, it would’ve been totally different.
“Part of their marketing angle was that they wanted the music to stand alone—they didn’t want to focus on the singer,” Doyle continues. “For one thing, the singer wasn’t gay.” In fact, no one connected with the album’s production was gay, including the two Garrett-Howard studio employees who modeled for the cover.

Love Is a Drag, sides one and two. Image courtesy J.D. Doyle. (click to enlarge)
Because there was no mainstream gay audience, the producers had no idea how to reach gay listeners. “Some copies went to the biggest record store in L.A., which happened to be across the street from a restaurant that almost exclusively employed gay waiters,” Doyle says. “The store’s owner contacted Murray and said, ‘Hey, this thing is selling like hotcakes. These waiters are buying half a dozen copies at a time and telling all their friends.’ So the producers realized they should market it in gay neighborhoods and sent some copies to San Francisco and New York, but that was about the limit of what they could think of then.”
“I’m sitting there listening to this guy sing, and I’d be damned if he’s not singing the ‘girl lyrics.’”
As if to ward off potential criticism that “Love Is a Drag” was indeed for queer audiences, the jacket also included a bizarrely misogynist justification for men to sing standards with male-centric lyrics: “Were they not written by men? And haven’t they been played by the best men musicians of our time? Think what would happen if orchestrations of these great songs could be performed only by girl musicians!” The text continues to argue that the album’s singer was courageous and “is to be congratulated,” despite the fact that it never reveals who this mystery man actually is.
Beyond the word-of-mouth in the gay community, several copies of “Love Is a Drag” also made it into the personal collections of Garrett-Howard’s celebrity clients like Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope. “The Liberace story; that’s my favorite,” Doyle says. “The album had not even been released yet, although it was manufactured and had a finished cover. Murray’s studio had an appointment to shoot the photograph for Liberace’s next album, ‘Rhapsody by Candlelight.’” Liberace came to the studio for the photo shoot, bearing his own candelabra, and while he was changing into his stage outfit, Garrett put “Love Is a Drag” on the studio’s record player. When Howard realized what was happening and started to object, Garrett kept him quiet, letting the record play during throughout their photo session.

Garrett played the freshly recorded “Love Is a Drag” in his studio while shooting the 1962 cover image for Liberace’s “Rhapsody by Candlelight.”
As Garrett explained to Doyle in 2012, “When the shoot was over, [Liberace] went back into the dressing room, got out of his costume, back into his street clothes, picked up his candelabra, and very quietly walked over to the turntable, picked up the record, and said, ‘Ta-ta.’ And he walked out with the record,” Garrett remembered.
“He didn’t ask for it; he just took it,” Doyle says, laughing. “Liberace later told Murray several times that they had produced his favorite album.” Based on the Liberace album cover, Doyle was able to definitively date “Love Is a Drag” to 1962.
Despite these famous fans, the Edison label was mismanaged by Ames and began to fail before it could invest in marketing the album. “Murray had thought that after it was sold for a while, they’d have a big promotion and release the names of the artists,” Doyle says. “But it never happened because ‘Love Is a Drag’ didn’t sell well, so it just stayed a secret.”
 
 
“The Boy Next Door,” from Love is a Drag (1962)
 
 
 
 
 
<div class=”player-unavailable”><h1 class=”message”>An error occurred.</h1><div class=”submessage”><a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdFzZuLCEAE” target=”_blank”>Try watching this video on www.youtube.com</a>, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser.</div></div>
Vocalist Gene Howard died in 1993, long before his role in the album had been publicly revealed, so he never received any accolades for the pioneering gay album. However, Garrett made it clear that the men had created an album they were proud of, one they were comfortable sharing with their gay friends. “As I look back at my lifetime, ‘Love Is a Drag’ was one of the highlights of my life,” he told Doyle.
Around 2000, the record-reissue label Sundazed purchased the entire Jack Ames catalog, including “Love Is a Drag” and his other work for Edison International. While researching Ames, creative director Jay Millar discovered Doyle’s interview with Garrett and hunted down a personal copy of the LP. “I had no idea that that was part of the purchase until some time later when I brought it up to Bob, the owner of Sundazed and Modern Harmonic,” Millar explained via email. “He pulled it from the tape vault and texted me a photo of the tape box, and I about fainted.” In November 2016, Sundazed re-released “Love Is a Drag” through its subsidiary, Modern Harmonic, on both CD and gold vinyl LP with new liner notes from Doyle accompanying the album’s original text.
Though the story behind “Love Is a Drag” adds a remarkable early chapter to queer music history, it isn’t the last musical conundrum Doyle has faced. Only a few years after “Love Is a Drag” was originally released, another mysterious label called Camp Records put out a series of gay albums whose artists remain unknown today.

The cover for Camp Records’ “Mad About the Boy” used pinup imagery in an homage to Julie London’s 1956 album “Calendar Girl.” Courtesy J.D. Doyle.
Unlike Edison, Camp Records released several comical singles with over-the-top gay innuendo. “They released one album of 10 tracks, plus singles for each of those tracks, and then a second LP that was stylistically very different,” Doyle says. “The first LP was very stereotypically gay—some people might even be insulted by the music because the voice inflections and lyrics are so campy. But back then, gay people had so few gay contacts or communities, and this was at least something.” The second album was more similar to ‘Love Is a Drag,’ featuring an unidentified male vocalist singing standards with male pronouns.

The cover of Vagabond magazine No. 7 from 1965.
“I found the records first, and then located ads for them in some of the mail-order catalogs from the mid-’60s,” Doyle explains. “The earliest ad for Camp Records I’ve found was in a 1964 issue of Vagabond, a catalog published by one of the major companies distributing physique magazines, advertising things like books, cologne, greeting cards, photos, what the so-called ‘gay market’ was then. I found ads for Camp Records in several publications for a short period of time around 1964 and ’65.”
At that time, since gay pornography was illegal under obscenity laws, gay men circulated so-called “physique magazines,” which featured muscular men photographed in provocative situations, although never fully nude. “They marketed Camp Records to that audience, but it wasn’t an explicit gay market,” Doyle says. “It was subtle, under the table almost.”
But beyond these advertisements, Doyle has never located any business entity or people associated with the Camp Records releases. “It’s like they didn’t want anybody to know who was behind the label,” Doyle says. “You can’t track any producers or musicians. There’s a company listed, Different Music Co., but who knows if that was the real name, since I couldn’t find any information about it.”

Ads for Camp Records’ singles as seen in Vagabond No. 7, 1965. Silly song titles included “Homer the Happy Little Homo,” “Mixed Nuts,” and “Leather Jacket Lovers.” Courtesy of J.D. Doyle. (click to enlarge)
Though Camp Records created several albums aimed at gay audiences, Doyle doesn’t think these limited releases really opened the door for queer music. “If you asked me when music was first geared to the gay and lesbian market, I would say it started in 1974 with women’s music, because there were so few gay releases before then,” he explains. “Camp Records didn’t start a trend the way Olivia Records did in the mid-1970s, when they released wonderful recordings by Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, and a slew of other people. There was a distinct women’s music movement, but no comparable men’s music movement. Women had to fight harder for their rights, and they took advantage of the organization of the feminist movement to get the word out.”
When he connected with Garrett in 2012, Doyle thought he might know about this other label, too, given Garrett’s connections in the recording industry during the 1960s. But he had no knowledge of Camp Records. “Murray said other people had asked him about it at the time, and he didn’t know who was behind it,” Doyle adds. “I guess it’s not to be known.”

Four cover designs for Camp Records, including the full LP, “The Queen Is in the Closet” (top left) as well as three singles from the mid-1960s. Courtesy of J.D. Doyle. (click to enlarge)
(For more amazing tales of LGBTQ music, check out J.D. Doyle’s blog, Queer Music Heritage.)
 

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http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/subversive-sounds/?mc_cid=ee3a54afdf
 
Subversive Sounds: The Straight Men Who Made America’s First Gay Record
By Hunter Oatman-Stanford January 13th, 2017

When “Love Is a Drag” hit record-store shelves in 1962, it was decidedly not a sensation. Only a few shops carried the album, which featured jazz standards performed by an anonymous singer and band, and its label flopped shortly after the release. But beneath this mundane veneer, the record’s content was remarkably provocative, becoming the first major release to feature a male singer crooning love songs about other men.
“It was subtle, under the table almost.”
Like a magic mirror held up to America’s heteronormative postwar culture, its music reflected a dignified, and seductive, vision of gay life. Just below the album’s title read the teaser: “For adult listeners only—sultry stylings by a most unusual vocalist.” For those LGBTQ folks in the know, this record offered a glimpse of the acceptance they’d long been denied, subtly placing gay romance into the standard musical canon. And yet, at a time when even urban LGBTQ communities were mostly invisible, “Love Is a Drag” lacked the publicity needed to really make waves.
For 50 years after its initial release, the album languished, failing to make any headway beyond the close-knit queer scenes in major cities like Los Angeles and New York. But a few years ago, after Houston-based audiophile and archivist J.D. Doyle began playing tracks from the mysterious album on his radio show, he received an email that changed everything.
By 2012, Doyle had built an extensive online archive of LGTBQ music history as part of his monthly radio show, Queer Music Heritage, and amassed the country’s top collection of queer music and related ephemera. Yet he still had no idea how “Love Is a Drag” had been made so far ahead of its time. “Around the mid-’90s, I started focusing on gay and lesbian music, so that was probably when I first discovered this album,” Doyle explains. “It was definitely something that would have caught my eye.”

The front cover of “Love Is a Drag” (top) and the album’s backside (above) were photographed and designed by the Garrett-Howard studio in 1962. Images courtesy of J.D. Doyle.
“The back of the original album doesn’t say who it was produced by,” he continues. “It doesn’t give the singer’s name or the producer’s name. All it says is ‘Cover Photo and Back Liner Design: Garrett-Howard, Inc.’ I thought that was just the photographer; I didn’t know that was the photographer and producer.” After Doyle launched his radio show in 2000, he made sure to carefully document each episode on his website. “If you just play a song on the radio, it’s gone. There’s no trail,” Doyle says. “So my approach was that everything should be archived online to create a permanent resource, and that’s how Murray Garrett found me.”
Garrett had been a lifelong photographer for the entertainment industry in L.A., and his company had been instrumental in producing the secret gay album. “When he sent me that email, it felt like finding a holy grail,” Doyle says. “I was stunned, and immediately asked him for an interview. I was just over the moon.” At 85, Garrett finally wanted to reveal the unlikely origin story behind “Love Is a Drag,” and credit the artists who made the subversive recording possible.
Beginning in the 1950s, Garrett and his friend Gene Howard, a vocalist-turned-portrait-photographer, co-owned a photographic and design studio in Los Angeles called Garrett-Howard, Inc., whose subjects included celebrities like Bob Hope, Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, Natalie Wood, Marilyn Monroe, and Frank Sinatra. Though Garrett and Howard were both straight and married to women, the idea for “Love Is a Drag” had come from one of Garrett’s fond memories of gay Greenwich Village.
“Back in 1946, shortly before he moved to L.A., Murray was living in New York City. He was in a club with some friends and wasn’t really paying attention to the fact that it was a gay club, but suddenly Murray realized the male performer was singing standards with male pronouns like ‘The Man I Love’ or ‘Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man of Mine,’ and he was really taken by that.”

As New York City’s bohemian center, Greenwich Village hosted several popular gay bars and jazz clubs in the 1940s. Here, singer Doc Pomus jams at the Pied Piper in 1947. Photo by William P. Gottlieb, via the Library of Congress.
In Doyle’s 2012 interview with Garrett, the photographer discussed his surprise that night in New York. “I’m sitting there listening to this guy sing,” Garrett explained, “and I’d be damned if he’s not singing what I would have called the ‘girl lyrics.’ … I was really square. I had no idea what was happening, and one of the people with me, when I mentioned that, said, ‘Well, don’t you understand what’s going on?’ I said, ‘No, what’s going on?’ And he explained that the guy was gay, that we were in an essentially gay nightclub that catered to good musicians.”
The act was so untraditional that Garrett couldn’t get it out of his head. “Somehow or another that stayed in my mind for years and years, and every time I’d hear one of these songs, I’d smile,” Garrett said.
Flash forward to the early ’60s, when Garrett’s friend Jack Ames was running a new record label called Edison International. Ames approached Garrett about doing graphics for Edison releases, and asked if he had any unusual album ideas for his label. “Murray told him about his experience listening to this cabaret singer in the 1940s, a memory that had stuck in his mind all that time,” Doyle says.
Ames was taken with the idea, but didn’t want one of the first releases on the Edison label to pigeonhole the company’s future work, so he decided to produce it anonymously using a different label name—the campy-romantic “Lace Records.” Despite the cloak-and-dagger routine, all involved parties agreed the album would be made respectfully and with the best possible musicians; they weren’t going for a novelty angle. But they still had to find a singer, and Garrett thought he knew just the guy.

Vocalist Gene Howard as seen on the cover of “Best Songs” magazine from 1945, during the height of his Big Band fame.
“When Murray asked Gene Howard about recording the vocals for the album, he said, ‘Oh, I don’t know, my wife would have a fit,’” Doyle says. Howard’s wife eventually approved, but insisted that the recording had to be done with dignity, and she wanted to be in the studio when it was made. To back Howard’s vocals, Ames’ team at Edison put together a group of established studio musicians for the various instrumentals: Dick Shanahan on drums, Heinie Beau on flute, Bobby Hammack on piano, Morty Corb on bass guitar, and Al Viola on guitar.
Garrett supposedly also came up with the record’s title, “Love Is a Drag,” whose meaning is explained in fine print on the back of the album as “Drag: (in music vernacular, a bore, a headache).” It’s unclear if he ever acknowledged the more coded definition of the word “drag,” long used in the queer community to describe someone flamboyantly dressed as the opposite gender.
The album’s limited pressing was finished in 1962, making it the first complete album of gay subject matter in American music history. Despite its groundbreaking substance, the record received zero media coverage, partly because the producers agreed to keep all the musicians anonymous. “The mystery was supposed to sell the album in the first place,” Doyle explains. “Famous people like Frank Sinatra were trying to guess who the vocalist was, wondering, ‘Do I know this person?’ If they had credited Gene Howard originally, it would’ve been totally different.
“Part of their marketing angle was that they wanted the music to stand alone—they didn’t want to focus on the singer,” Doyle continues. “For one thing, the singer wasn’t gay.” In fact, no one connected with the album’s production was gay, including the two Garrett-Howard studio employees who modeled for the cover.

Love Is a Drag, sides one and two. Image courtesy J.D. Doyle. (click to enlarge)
Because there was no mainstream gay audience, the producers had no idea how to reach gay listeners. “Some copies went to the biggest record store in L.A., which happened to be across the street from a restaurant that almost exclusively employed gay waiters,” Doyle says. “The store’s owner contacted Murray and said, ‘Hey, this thing is selling like hotcakes. These waiters are buying half a dozen copies at a time and telling all their friends.’ So the producers realized they should market it in gay neighborhoods and sent some copies to San Francisco and New York, but that was about the limit of what they could think of then.”
“I’m sitting there listening to this guy sing, and I’d be damned if he’s not singing the ‘girl lyrics.’”
As if to ward off potential criticism that “Love Is a Drag” was indeed for queer audiences, the jacket also included a bizarrely misogynist justification for men to sing standards with male-centric lyrics: “Were they not written by men? And haven’t they been played by the best men musicians of our time? Think what would happen if orchestrations of these great songs could be performed only by girl musicians!” The text continues to argue that the album’s singer was courageous and “is to be congratulated,” despite the fact that it never reveals who this mystery man actually is.
Beyond the word-of-mouth in the gay community, several copies of “Love Is a Drag” also made it into the personal collections of Garrett-Howard’s celebrity clients like Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope. “The Liberace story; that’s my favorite,” Doyle says. “The album had not even been released yet, although it was manufactured and had a finished cover. Murray’s studio had an appointment to shoot the photograph for Liberace’s next album, ‘Rhapsody by Candlelight.’” Liberace came to the studio for the photo shoot, bearing his own candelabra, and while he was changing into his stage outfit, Garrett put “Love Is a Drag” on the studio’s record player. When Howard realized what was happening and started to object, Garrett kept him quiet, letting the record play during throughout their photo session.

Garrett played the freshly recorded “Love Is a Drag” in his studio while shooting the 1962 cover image for Liberace’s “Rhapsody by Candlelight.”
As Garrett explained to Doyle in 2012, “When the shoot was over, [Liberace] went back into the dressing room, got out of his costume, back into his street clothes, picked up his candelabra, and very quietly walked over to the turntable, picked up the record, and said, ‘Ta-ta.’ And he walked out with the record,” Garrett remembered.
“He didn’t ask for it; he just took it,” Doyle says, laughing. “Liberace later told Murray several times that they had produced his favorite album.” Based on the Liberace album cover, Doyle was able to definitively date “Love Is a Drag” to 1962.
Despite these famous fans, the Edison label was mismanaged by Ames and began to fail before it could invest in marketing the album. “Murray had thought that after it was sold for a while, they’d have a big promotion and release the names of the artists,” Doyle says. “But it never happened because ‘Love Is a Drag’ didn’t sell well, so it just stayed a secret.”
 
 
“The Boy Next Door,” from Love is a Drag (1962)
 
 
 
 
 
<div class=”player-unavailable”><h1 class=”message”>An error occurred.</h1><div class=”submessage”><a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdFzZuLCEAE” target=”_blank”>Try watching this video on www.youtube.com</a>, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser.</div></div>
Vocalist Gene Howard died in 1993, long before his role in the album had been publicly revealed, so he never received any accolades for the pioneering gay album. However, Garrett made it clear that the men had created an album they were proud of, one they were comfortable sharing with their gay friends. “As I look back at my lifetime, ‘Love Is a Drag’ was one of the highlights of my life,” he told Doyle.
Around 2000, the record-reissue label Sundazed purchased the entire Jack Ames catalog, including “Love Is a Drag” and his other work for Edison International. While researching Ames, creative director Jay Millar discovered Doyle’s interview with Garrett and hunted down a personal copy of the LP. “I had no idea that that was part of the purchase until some time later when I brought it up to Bob, the owner of Sundazed and Modern Harmonic,” Millar explained via email. “He pulled it from the tape vault and texted me a photo of the tape box, and I about fainted.” In November 2016, Sundazed re-released “Love Is a Drag” through its subsidiary, Modern Harmonic, on both CD and gold vinyl LP with new liner notes from Doyle accompanying the album’s original text.
Though the story behind “Love Is a Drag” adds a remarkable early chapter to queer music history, it isn’t the last musical conundrum Doyle has faced. Only a few years after “Love Is a Drag” was originally released, another mysterious label called Camp Records put out a series of gay albums whose artists remain unknown today.

The cover for Camp Records’ “Mad About the Boy” used pinup imagery in an homage to Julie London’s 1956 album “Calendar Girl.” Courtesy J.D. Doyle.
Unlike Edison, Camp Records released several comical singles with over-the-top gay innuendo. “They released one album of 10 tracks, plus singles for each of those tracks, and then a second LP that was stylistically very different,” Doyle says. “The first LP was very stereotypically gay—some people might even be insulted by the music because the voice inflections and lyrics are so campy. But back then, gay people had so few gay contacts or communities, and this was at least something.” The second album was more similar to ‘Love Is a Drag,’ featuring an unidentified male vocalist singing standards with male pronouns.

The cover of Vagabond magazine No. 7 from 1965.
“I found the records first, and then located ads for them in some of the mail-order catalogs from the mid-’60s,” Doyle explains. “The earliest ad for Camp Records I’ve found was in a 1964 issue of Vagabond, a catalog published by one of the major companies distributing physique magazines, advertising things like books, cologne, greeting cards, photos, what the so-called ‘gay market’ was then. I found ads for Camp Records in several publications for a short period of time around 1964 and ’65.”
At that time, since gay pornography was illegal under obscenity laws, gay men circulated so-called “physique magazines,” which featured muscular men photographed in provocative situations, although never fully nude. “They marketed Camp Records to that audience, but it wasn’t an explicit gay market,” Doyle says. “It was subtle, under the table almost.”
But beyond these advertisements, Doyle has never located any business entity or people associated with the Camp Records releases. “It’s like they didn’t want anybody to know who was behind the label,” Doyle says. “You can’t track any producers or musicians. There’s a company listed, Different Music Co., but who knows if that was the real name, since I couldn’t find any information about it.”

Ads for Camp Records’ singles as seen in Vagabond No. 7, 1965. Silly song titles included “Homer the Happy Little Homo,” “Mixed Nuts,” and “Leather Jacket Lovers.” Courtesy of J.D. Doyle. (click to enlarge)
Though Camp Records created several albums aimed at gay audiences, Doyle doesn’t think these limited releases really opened the door for queer music. “If you asked me when music was first geared to the gay and lesbian market, I would say it started in 1974 with women’s music, because there were so few gay releases before then,” he explains. “Camp Records didn’t start a trend the way Olivia Records did in the mid-1970s, when they released wonderful recordings by Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, and a slew of other people. There was a distinct women’s music movement, but no comparable men’s music movement. Women had to fight harder for their rights, and they took advantage of the organization of the feminist movement to get the word out.”
When he connected with Garrett in 2012, Doyle thought he might know about this other label, too, given Garrett’s connections in the recording industry during the 1960s. But he had no knowledge of Camp Records. “Murray said other people had asked him about it at the time, and he didn’t know who was behind it,” Doyle adds. “I guess it’s not to be known.”

Four cover designs for Camp Records, including the full LP, “The Queen Is in the Closet” (top left) as well as three singles from the mid-1960s. Courtesy of J.D. Doyle. (click to enlarge)
(For more amazing tales of LGBTQ music, check out J.D. Doyle’s blog, Queer Music Heritage.)
 

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

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http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/can-wynton-marsalis-and-lincoln-center-save-jazz-music
 
Research says that people imprint on music in their dating years, and carry those tastes with them through the rest of their lives. Lately, this has spelled trouble for jazz music, which is failing to attract new and younger fans in a competitive musical landscape.
With its listenership in steep decline, jazz legend Wynton Marsalis is looking to rebrand the genre and engineer its comeback, with the help of Professor Rohit Deshpande.
 
 

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

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http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/can-wynton-marsalis-and-lincoln-center-save-jazz-music
 
Research says that people imprint on music in their dating years, and carry those tastes with them through the rest of their lives. Lately, this has spelled trouble for jazz music, which is failing to attract new and younger fans in a competitive musical landscape.
With its listenership in steep decline, jazz legend Wynton Marsalis is looking to rebrand the genre and engineer its comeback, with the help of Professor Rohit Deshpande.
 
 

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I just purchased this from Phil Schaap’s mail order.
 
RARE Flyer/Program from the Jack Kleinsinger’s legendary concert series—the longest-runnning Jazz concert series in NY—”Highlights In Jazz!” This was only the second concert in the series, and it had not yet acquired its name. From March 5, 1973, the concert included Dicky Wells (spelled here “Dickie Wells”), Milt Hinton, and Cliff Leeman! A treasure from Jazz and Jazz appreciation’s reentry into the spotlight in the ’70s. Back of the program has first set tunes listed in Phil’s hand. You get the flyer/program and a ticket stub. 
 
This show fell on my 26^th birthday and who knew that I’d be doing publicity for this very series many years later.
 
Next month Highlights celebrates their 45^th year.

Thursday, February 9, 2017 – 8 pm 
Highlights In Jazz 
44th Anniversary Gala 
Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks 
Ms. Vinnie Knight 
Cynthia Sayer & her Joyride Band 
Adrian Cunningham 
Mike Weatherly 
Larry Eagle
 
 
 
Jim Eigo
Jazz Promo Services
272 State Route 94 South #1
Warwick, NY 10990-3363
Ph: 845-986-1677 / Fax: 845-986-1699
Cell / text: 917-755-8960
Skype: jazzpromo
jim@jazzpromoservices.com
www.jazzpromoservices.com
“Specializing in Media Campaigns for the music community, artists, labels, venues and events.”

 

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

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I just purchased this from Phil Schaap’s mail order.
 
RARE Flyer/Program from the Jack Kleinsinger’s legendary concert series—the longest-runnning Jazz concert series in NY—”Highlights In Jazz!” This was only the second concert in the series, and it had not yet acquired its name. From March 5, 1973, the concert included Dicky Wells (spelled here “Dickie Wells”), Milt Hinton, and Cliff Leeman! A treasure from Jazz and Jazz appreciation’s reentry into the spotlight in the ’70s. Back of the program has first set tunes listed in Phil’s hand. You get the flyer/program and a ticket stub. 
 
This show fell on my 26^th birthday and who knew that I’d be doing publicity for this very series many years later.
 
Next month Highlights celebrates their 45^th year.

Thursday, February 9, 2017 – 8 pm 
Highlights In Jazz 
44th Anniversary Gala 
Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks 
Ms. Vinnie Knight 
Cynthia Sayer & her Joyride Band 
Adrian Cunningham 
Mike Weatherly 
Larry Eagle
 
 
 
Jim Eigo
Jazz Promo Services
272 State Route 94 South #1
Warwick, NY 10990-3363
Ph: 845-986-1677 / Fax: 845-986-1699
Cell / text: 917-755-8960
Skype: jazzpromo
jim@jazzpromoservices.com
www.jazzpromoservices.com
“Specializing in Media Campaigns for the music community, artists, labels, venues and events.”

 

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https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/28/dave-shepherd-obituary
 
Dave Shepherd obituary
Peter Vacher Wednesday 28 December 2016 17.11 GMT

Dave Shepherd’s style and grace in playing was mirrored by his dapper, well-groomed appearance and easy bandstand manner. Photograph: David Sinclair
 
The jazz clarinettist Dave Shepherd, who has died aged 87, was often billed as Britain’s answer to Benny Goodman, his instrumental facility, centred tone and driving attack comparable to that of his American idol. The sobriquet never rankled with Shepherd: he toured frequently with Goodman’s celebrated pianist Teddy Wilson and regularly put together whole quintet presentations (sometimes using other Goodman alumni) based on the maestro’s music. It was reported that Goodman himself once said: “He plays more like me than I do.”
 
If Goodman’s music was often technically demanding, it never seemed to daunt Shepherd, whose style and grace in playing was mirrored by his dapper, well-groomed appearance and easy bandstand manner. “Dave was the finest swing clarinettist in the country and perhaps, in the world,” said the trumpeter Digby Fairweather, a frequent associate, adding: “He was always the most handsome man in the band.” Indeed, it was reputed that Shepherd had once modelled for Brylcreem, when it was the trendiest of male hair preparations.
 
He was born in Walthamstow, east London, to Cecilia (nee Sadgrove), a machinist, and Joseph Shepherd, a semi-pro pianist who worked for the gas company. Dave adopted the clarinet aged 15 after seeing Freddy Mirfield’s Garbage Men, the group whose clarinettist was the young John Dankworth. Shepherd was soon proficient enough to play at gigs with the trumpeter Freddy Randall, while taking lessons from Randall’s clarinettist Bernie Izen and working as a shorthand-typist at the War Office.
 
His national service posting in 1947 was to the British Forces Network radio station in Hamburg. The army had taken over the state opera house for their studios and this allowed Shepherd to persuade the opera’s principal clarinettist to give him a weekly lesson in exchange for 10 cigarettes a go. Shepherd played with the BFN quintet, broadcasting twice a week and practising for several hours a day, this under the benign command of Cliff Michelmore. As he said: “The army did a lot for my start in the jazz world.”
 
Shepherd resumed work at the War Office after demobilisation in 1949 and played around London, sometimes fronting his own quartet while fitting in with any number of Dixieland-style bands. In 1951, he joined the drummer Joe Daniels and his Hot Shots, then a highly popular group, and turned professional, making his recording debut the same year. Daniels’s well-organised Dixieland approach suited Shepherd and he stayed for three years, before moving on to play with Randall again, cementing a working relationship that was revisited often over the years.
 
Shepherd also recorded a pair of albums under his own name at this time. Despite this, and like a number of his contemporaries, he felt impelled in 1956 to try his luck in New York, then the jazzman’s mecca, taking office jobs before the union allowed him to look for musical work. Back in Britain a year later, he became part of an all-star group known as the Jazz Today Unit, playing concerts with the Gerry Mulligan quartet in April 1957. He considered this to be a career highlight, another being his presence as part of the Dill Jones quartet on the first-ever UK tour in May 1958 by the famous Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe with Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson as the star attractions.
 
It was during this time that Shepherd began to be heard frequently on BBC radio, his quartet often used on the Jimmy Young show, or on Round Midnight or Breakfast Special, and even on Music While You Work, his limpid clarinet tone and flair for melodic invention a welcome inclusion on these popular programmes. He also toured abroad, often in eastern Germany, played the Edinburgh, Nice and Montreux festivals, and began to work regularly from 1967 with Wilson, this taking in biennial UK tours but also a couple of visits to South Africa in 1973, including a concert in Soweto. By the 1970s, he had linked up again with Randall, while still fronting his own Goodman-styled quintet.
 
In 1980, Shepherd was recruited by the impresario Peter Boizot as a founder member and leader of the PizzaExpress All Stars, a mainstream group that played residencies at the PizzaExpress jazz club in Dean Street, Soho, several times a week over the following three decades, often with star American guests. This was especially convenient for Shepherd as he now had a job with a film production company located nearby.
 
He moved to Hampshire in 1996, so travelled to London less often, but still carried on with the All-Stars until 2001, while fitting in dates with Fairweather’s Great British Jazz Band and playing solo gigs. He was back at Dean Street in February last year for the 35th Anniversary reunion of the All-Stars, with Boizot on hand to cheer on his veteran proteges.
 
In 1966 he married his second wife, Mary Evans. She survives him, as does Rochelle, the daughter of his earlier marriage to the jazz vocalist Jo Searle, which ended in divorce.
• David Joseph Shepherd, jazz clarinettist, born 7 February 1929; died 15 December 2016
 
                        This article was amended on 15 January 2017. Dave Shepherd was also survived by his daughter, Rochelle.
 

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https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/28/dave-shepherd-obituary
 
Dave Shepherd obituary
Peter Vacher Wednesday 28 December 2016 17.11 GMT

Dave Shepherd’s style and grace in playing was mirrored by his dapper, well-groomed appearance and easy bandstand manner. Photograph: David Sinclair
 
The jazz clarinettist Dave Shepherd, who has died aged 87, was often billed as Britain’s answer to Benny Goodman, his instrumental facility, centred tone and driving attack comparable to that of his American idol. The sobriquet never rankled with Shepherd: he toured frequently with Goodman’s celebrated pianist Teddy Wilson and regularly put together whole quintet presentations (sometimes using other Goodman alumni) based on the maestro’s music. It was reported that Goodman himself once said: “He plays more like me than I do.”
 
If Goodman’s music was often technically demanding, it never seemed to daunt Shepherd, whose style and grace in playing was mirrored by his dapper, well-groomed appearance and easy bandstand manner. “Dave was the finest swing clarinettist in the country and perhaps, in the world,” said the trumpeter Digby Fairweather, a frequent associate, adding: “He was always the most handsome man in the band.” Indeed, it was reputed that Shepherd had once modelled for Brylcreem, when it was the trendiest of male hair preparations.
 
He was born in Walthamstow, east London, to Cecilia (nee Sadgrove), a machinist, and Joseph Shepherd, a semi-pro pianist who worked for the gas company. Dave adopted the clarinet aged 15 after seeing Freddy Mirfield’s Garbage Men, the group whose clarinettist was the young John Dankworth. Shepherd was soon proficient enough to play at gigs with the trumpeter Freddy Randall, while taking lessons from Randall’s clarinettist Bernie Izen and working as a shorthand-typist at the War Office.
 
His national service posting in 1947 was to the British Forces Network radio station in Hamburg. The army had taken over the state opera house for their studios and this allowed Shepherd to persuade the opera’s principal clarinettist to give him a weekly lesson in exchange for 10 cigarettes a go. Shepherd played with the BFN quintet, broadcasting twice a week and practising for several hours a day, this under the benign command of Cliff Michelmore. As he said: “The army did a lot for my start in the jazz world.”
 
Shepherd resumed work at the War Office after demobilisation in 1949 and played around London, sometimes fronting his own quartet while fitting in with any number of Dixieland-style bands. In 1951, he joined the drummer Joe Daniels and his Hot Shots, then a highly popular group, and turned professional, making his recording debut the same year. Daniels’s well-organised Dixieland approach suited Shepherd and he stayed for three years, before moving on to play with Randall again, cementing a working relationship that was revisited often over the years.
 
Shepherd also recorded a pair of albums under his own name at this time. Despite this, and like a number of his contemporaries, he felt impelled in 1956 to try his luck in New York, then the jazzman’s mecca, taking office jobs before the union allowed him to look for musical work. Back in Britain a year later, he became part of an all-star group known as the Jazz Today Unit, playing concerts with the Gerry Mulligan quartet in April 1957. He considered this to be a career highlight, another being his presence as part of the Dill Jones quartet on the first-ever UK tour in May 1958 by the famous Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe with Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson as the star attractions.
 
It was during this time that Shepherd began to be heard frequently on BBC radio, his quartet often used on the Jimmy Young show, or on Round Midnight or Breakfast Special, and even on Music While You Work, his limpid clarinet tone and flair for melodic invention a welcome inclusion on these popular programmes. He also toured abroad, often in eastern Germany, played the Edinburgh, Nice and Montreux festivals, and began to work regularly from 1967 with Wilson, this taking in biennial UK tours but also a couple of visits to South Africa in 1973, including a concert in Soweto. By the 1970s, he had linked up again with Randall, while still fronting his own Goodman-styled quintet.
 
In 1980, Shepherd was recruited by the impresario Peter Boizot as a founder member and leader of the PizzaExpress All Stars, a mainstream group that played residencies at the PizzaExpress jazz club in Dean Street, Soho, several times a week over the following three decades, often with star American guests. This was especially convenient for Shepherd as he now had a job with a film production company located nearby.
 
He moved to Hampshire in 1996, so travelled to London less often, but still carried on with the All-Stars until 2001, while fitting in dates with Fairweather’s Great British Jazz Band and playing solo gigs. He was back at Dean Street in February last year for the 35th Anniversary reunion of the All-Stars, with Boizot on hand to cheer on his veteran proteges.
 
In 1966 he married his second wife, Mary Evans. She survives him, as does Rochelle, the daughter of his earlier marriage to the jazz vocalist Jo Searle, which ended in divorce.
• David Joseph Shepherd, jazz clarinettist, born 7 February 1929; died 15 December 2016
 
                        This article was amended on 15 January 2017. Dave Shepherd was also survived by his daughter, Rochelle.
 

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http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/index.php

• The University of California-Santa Barbara Cylinder Audio Archive now offers the chance to download or stream a digital collection of more than 10,000 cylinder recordings. “This searchable database,” says UCSB, “features all types of recordings made from the late 1800s to early 1900s, including popular songs, vaudeville acts, classical and operatic music, comedic monologues, ethnic and foreign recordings, speeches and readings.” The archive also has a number of privately-made recordings.

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http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/index.php

• The University of California-Santa Barbara Cylinder Audio Archive now offers the chance to download or stream a digital collection of more than 10,000 cylinder recordings. “This searchable database,” says UCSB, “features all types of recordings made from the late 1800s to early 1900s, including popular songs, vaudeville acts, classical and operatic music, comedic monologues, ethnic and foreign recordings, speeches and readings.” The archive also has a number of privately-made recordings.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCkWdmJMbBE
 
Bassist Vivien Garry with Edna Williams, trumpet; Ginger Smock, violin; Winnie Beatty, piano; Dody Jeshke, drums. Recorded in 1946.

 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCkWdmJMbBE
 
Bassist Vivien Garry with Edna Williams, trumpet; Ginger Smock, violin; Winnie Beatty, piano; Dody Jeshke, drums. Recorded in 1946.

 

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http://www.startribune.com/jazz-pianist-james-jimmy-hamilton-played-with-legends-taught-future-ones-like-prince/410987235/
 
Jazz pianist James “Jimmy” Hamilton played with legends, taught future ones like Prince
 
By Jeremy Olson Star Tribune
 
JANUARY 17, 2017 — 5:23PM

Fate smiled on Minnesota’s jazz scene decades ago, when pianist James “Jimmy” Hamilton traveled to the state with his wife, ran out of money, and put down roots. Hamilton became a fixture in Twin Cities’ jazz clubs, and his lessons on the fundamentals of music inspired thousands of Minneapolis teens — including one student with “big ears” who later became known as Prince.
 
Hamilton, dubbed a Minnesota jazz legend, died Dec. 31 after prolonged complications from stroke. He was 80.
 
Local jazz enthusiasts knew Hamilton as a pianist who started playing in the 1960s at the Poodle Club in Minneapolis, appeared with stars at the Carleton Celebrity Room in Bloomington, and anchored a jazz trio at the Lafayette Country Club in Minnetonka. Relatives recalled a loving family man whose emotions poured out through his fingers onto the keyboard, but also through his time with his two children and three grandchildren.
 
“James … never shied away from showing that he cared about people,” said his daughter-in-law, Trena Hamilton. “He cried at our wedding before we even walked down the aisle. That was one thing that everybody loved about him; he showed emotion. That was always a wonderful thing.”
 
Hamilton grew up an only child in Alabama after being adopted into a musical family that included an uncle who played clarinet in the Duke Ellington Orchestra. He studied music in the 1950s at Tennessee State, where a roommate helped him get a two-week gig playing baritone saxophone as a fill-in for the Ray Charles Band.
 
“I told my dad after two and a half weeks, ‘I’m going to go back to Tennessee State and I’m going to stay until I graduate,’ ” Hamilton recalled in a Jazz Legends interview on Jazz88 radio last spring. “Boy I learned a lot about life being on the road with the Ray Charles Band.”
 
Hamilton was introduced to the woman he would marry, Barrow, while giving music lessons in Tennessee to her younger siblings; they remained husband and wife for 54 years. They were traveling between Michigan State, where Hamilton was starting graduate school, and Denver when they stopped in the Twin Cities to see relatives and ended up staying for good.
 
Hamilton was a band teacher for 28 years in the Minneapolis Public Schools, where he inspired musicians with his focus on pitch and clarity and fundamentals, rather than just the mechanics of playing instruments. The band program at Central High School grew from around 20 to 300 musicians in his years there, he said in his interview.
 
“I tried to introduce music theory and the business of music,” he recalled. “My philosophy was, anybody can pick up a guitar and start strumming … and teach themselves, but so many people do not know music theory.”
Hamilton called jazz saxophonist Bobby Watson his “prized pupil” and said student Prince Rogers Nelson had the “big ears” of a star.
 
“The ear is what separates the men from the boys, of course, and guys like Prince … they could hear,” he said in his interview, which was hosted by singer Patty Peterson, a friend who collaborated with Hamilton on two recordings.
Peterson sang Friday at Hamilton’s memorial service. Hamilton is survived by his wife, daughter, Darla, and son, Alan.
 
Hamilton’s other celebrity encounters included appearing at the Carleton room with Sammy Davis Jr., Rodney Dangerfield, Robert Goulet, Gladys Knight, Joan Rivers and (thanks to his country roots in Nashville) Jimmy Dean. Later, he would recall rehearsing on one of two grand pianos for a duet when the man playing with him, Steve Allen, walked over.
 
The musician and TV star simply told Hamilton, “Don’t show me up!
 
 

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http://www.startribune.com/jazz-pianist-james-jimmy-hamilton-played-with-legends-taught-future-ones-like-prince/410987235/
 
Jazz pianist James “Jimmy” Hamilton played with legends, taught future ones like Prince
 
By Jeremy Olson Star Tribune
 
JANUARY 17, 2017 — 5:23PM

Fate smiled on Minnesota’s jazz scene decades ago, when pianist James “Jimmy” Hamilton traveled to the state with his wife, ran out of money, and put down roots. Hamilton became a fixture in Twin Cities’ jazz clubs, and his lessons on the fundamentals of music inspired thousands of Minneapolis teens — including one student with “big ears” who later became known as Prince.
 
Hamilton, dubbed a Minnesota jazz legend, died Dec. 31 after prolonged complications from stroke. He was 80.
 
Local jazz enthusiasts knew Hamilton as a pianist who started playing in the 1960s at the Poodle Club in Minneapolis, appeared with stars at the Carleton Celebrity Room in Bloomington, and anchored a jazz trio at the Lafayette Country Club in Minnetonka. Relatives recalled a loving family man whose emotions poured out through his fingers onto the keyboard, but also through his time with his two children and three grandchildren.
 
“James … never shied away from showing that he cared about people,” said his daughter-in-law, Trena Hamilton. “He cried at our wedding before we even walked down the aisle. That was one thing that everybody loved about him; he showed emotion. That was always a wonderful thing.”
 
Hamilton grew up an only child in Alabama after being adopted into a musical family that included an uncle who played clarinet in the Duke Ellington Orchestra. He studied music in the 1950s at Tennessee State, where a roommate helped him get a two-week gig playing baritone saxophone as a fill-in for the Ray Charles Band.
 
“I told my dad after two and a half weeks, ‘I’m going to go back to Tennessee State and I’m going to stay until I graduate,’ ” Hamilton recalled in a Jazz Legends interview on Jazz88 radio last spring. “Boy I learned a lot about life being on the road with the Ray Charles Band.”
 
Hamilton was introduced to the woman he would marry, Barrow, while giving music lessons in Tennessee to her younger siblings; they remained husband and wife for 54 years. They were traveling between Michigan State, where Hamilton was starting graduate school, and Denver when they stopped in the Twin Cities to see relatives and ended up staying for good.
 
Hamilton was a band teacher for 28 years in the Minneapolis Public Schools, where he inspired musicians with his focus on pitch and clarity and fundamentals, rather than just the mechanics of playing instruments. The band program at Central High School grew from around 20 to 300 musicians in his years there, he said in his interview.
 
“I tried to introduce music theory and the business of music,” he recalled. “My philosophy was, anybody can pick up a guitar and start strumming … and teach themselves, but so many people do not know music theory.”
Hamilton called jazz saxophonist Bobby Watson his “prized pupil” and said student Prince Rogers Nelson had the “big ears” of a star.
 
“The ear is what separates the men from the boys, of course, and guys like Prince … they could hear,” he said in his interview, which was hosted by singer Patty Peterson, a friend who collaborated with Hamilton on two recordings.
Peterson sang Friday at Hamilton’s memorial service. Hamilton is survived by his wife, daughter, Darla, and son, Alan.
 
Hamilton’s other celebrity encounters included appearing at the Carleton room with Sammy Davis Jr., Rodney Dangerfield, Robert Goulet, Gladys Knight, Joan Rivers and (thanks to his country roots in Nashville) Jimmy Dean. Later, he would recall rehearsing on one of two grand pianos for a duet when the man playing with him, Steve Allen, walked over.
 
The musician and TV star simply told Hamilton, “Don’t show me up!
 
 

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http://www.laweekly.com/music/the-spiritual-jazz-master-leisei-chens-tribute-to-violinist-michael-white-7816066
 
“The Spiritual Jazz Master”: Leisei Chen’s Tribute to Violinist Michael White
By Leisei Chen
 

[Editor’s note: L.A. Weekly was contacted by jazz vocalist Leisei Chen regarding her husband of 13 years, violinist Michael White, who recently died. This is her remembrance of and tribute to her late partner in life and music.]
 
Emanating a rippling aura, shining and bright, he slowly walked up to the stage. He was just as free as a bird, soaring, his energy resonating through the whole band and his warm, unique sounds embracing the entire club. I was simply mesmerized by him. “Who is this man?” I wondered. I really loved his sounds, and my inner voice said clearly, “Someday you will play music with him.”
 
Next thing I knew, he was off the stage and came to my table, saying, “I am not trying to pick you up, but can I sit next to you? I like your energy.” This was my first encounter with Michael White, in 1993.
 
Ten years later, miraculously, we reunited. Michael said that for many years he had been looking for a unique sound, which would entail a female voice and romantic intimacy, to complete the concept of his band. When I later joined his recording project Voices, I witnessed how he drew the best out of all the musicians, making space for creativity and allowing uniqueness to blossom individually and collectively. He weaves in his blessed quietness, kindness and peace spontaneously and organically, while driven internally by a rich reservoir of passion. He lives in the now: the essence of jazz. Michael reminded me how, in jazz, synergy between musicians is of the highest importance.
 
Soon we became partners in life and music, pursuing our mutual artistic visions and endeavors, staying true to our cores. The Michael White Quintet was born, and it became our life’s vital mission. As time went on, I discovered that Michael White is also a truly groundbreaking living legend, a jazz violinist and composer whose spirit, concept and sound continually open and heal the bodies, minds and spirits of listeners around the world.
 
Born on May 24, 1930, in Houston, his musical life began more than seven decades ago at age 6 with his Western classical training under maestros from Germany and Italy. He was the first black violinist to perform with the Young People’s Symphony of Berkeley. He grew up in a house on Seventh Street in Oakland in the mid 1930s to ’40s, which was such a vibrant place, surrounded with many jazz clubs like the Harlem Renaissance in New York. His family went to see his cousin Ivie Anderson, who was Duke Ellington’s favorite singer, when Ellington’s Orchestra came to town. Jazz violinist Ray Nance was a member of the orchestra, and he became Michael’s childhood hero. Michael would later perform with Nance in the Jazz Violin Summit at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1970s.
 

 

Michael put aside most of his classical training in order to develop his own techniques and cultivate a sound that he felt suited violin as a solo leading instrument in jazz and modern music. He also lived and worked his way through tradition to innovative progressions of jazz. He performed with luminaries such as John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and countless others, and as part of the John Handy Quintet, a multiracial band, who gave the first live performance at the Watts Towers Arts Center one day after the 1965 riots, serving as a symbol of peace.
 
In 1969, Michael co-founded the first jazz fusion band, The Fourth Way, with whom he became one of the first violinists to experiment with electronics on the violin. As a bandleader, he composed and recorded 12 major albums that included more than 45 original compositions, and he toured nationally and internationally. Albums such as Spirit Dance, Pneuma, The Land of Spirit and Light and The X Factor have been reissued in recent years, some four decades after their original release dates, as a result of high demand from new and old listeners alike, who call Michael their “Spiritual Jazz Master.”
 
“My music is coming from raising awareness of positive human consciousness and my contribution to humanity at large through spiritual cornerstones and vibrations from the cosmos,” Michael wrote in his artist statement. “I carry the torch for jazz, America’s original art form, and all it represents for the good of mankind. … I transport messages from another dimension, translating musically into this dimension and acting as a bridge. I continuously deliver my music to be a healing force, bringing about the unity that jazz always provides.”
 
As we put it in the description of Michael’s 2013 C.O.L.A. fellowship project, Orbit: “The roots of jazz have always reflected ancient wisdom and universal spirituality. The concept of Orbit entails the universe, space, and the inhabiting of celestial bodies. Orbit is a portal of energy that permeates the cosmos and our human inner universe. The orbit of Venus traces the shape of hearts, emanating divine love. The music of Orbit reflects universal oneness.”
 
On Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016, Michael peacefully passed away in Los Angeles after a long struggle with COPD-emphysema. He was 86. He is survived by his beloved wife, Leisei Chen (me). Supported by Dong He and Yao Hua Chen, Desheng Chen, Fusheng Chen, Minyee and Shu Hua Wu, his families in Japan. Patricia Windle Hilliard, Linda Windle McCarthy, Benjamin J. Windle, Lisa Ashley, Donna Ashley and Eddie Stallworth, his cousins in Houston. His dear friends and band members supported him in his transition: Timothy Young, Junko Yoshimura, Azeem Khan, Eryn Young, Danny Frankel and Jon Ossman. His vision is carried on by his beloved band members and jazz master musicians — Leisei Chen (vocals), Michael Howell (guitar), Heshima Mark Williams (bass) and Kenneth Nash (percussion) — who together form the Michael White Quintet.
 

Memorial donations may be made online at “In Loving Memory of Michael White Jazz Violin.” Those who knew Michael or admired his work can also leave messages at the Michael White tribute site.
You’ve Heard and Loved Steve Gadd’s Drums, Whether You Know It or Not
NEXT
 

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http://www.laweekly.com/music/the-spiritual-jazz-master-leisei-chens-tribute-to-violinist-michael-white-7816066
 
“The Spiritual Jazz Master”: Leisei Chen’s Tribute to Violinist Michael White
By Leisei Chen
 

[Editor’s note: L.A. Weekly was contacted by jazz vocalist Leisei Chen regarding her husband of 13 years, violinist Michael White, who recently died. This is her remembrance of and tribute to her late partner in life and music.]
 
Emanating a rippling aura, shining and bright, he slowly walked up to the stage. He was just as free as a bird, soaring, his energy resonating through the whole band and his warm, unique sounds embracing the entire club. I was simply mesmerized by him. “Who is this man?” I wondered. I really loved his sounds, and my inner voice said clearly, “Someday you will play music with him.”
 
Next thing I knew, he was off the stage and came to my table, saying, “I am not trying to pick you up, but can I sit next to you? I like your energy.” This was my first encounter with Michael White, in 1993.
 
Ten years later, miraculously, we reunited. Michael said that for many years he had been looking for a unique sound, which would entail a female voice and romantic intimacy, to complete the concept of his band. When I later joined his recording project Voices, I witnessed how he drew the best out of all the musicians, making space for creativity and allowing uniqueness to blossom individually and collectively. He weaves in his blessed quietness, kindness and peace spontaneously and organically, while driven internally by a rich reservoir of passion. He lives in the now: the essence of jazz. Michael reminded me how, in jazz, synergy between musicians is of the highest importance.
 
Soon we became partners in life and music, pursuing our mutual artistic visions and endeavors, staying true to our cores. The Michael White Quintet was born, and it became our life’s vital mission. As time went on, I discovered that Michael White is also a truly groundbreaking living legend, a jazz violinist and composer whose spirit, concept and sound continually open and heal the bodies, minds and spirits of listeners around the world.
 
Born on May 24, 1930, in Houston, his musical life began more than seven decades ago at age 6 with his Western classical training under maestros from Germany and Italy. He was the first black violinist to perform with the Young People’s Symphony of Berkeley. He grew up in a house on Seventh Street in Oakland in the mid 1930s to ’40s, which was such a vibrant place, surrounded with many jazz clubs like the Harlem Renaissance in New York. His family went to see his cousin Ivie Anderson, who was Duke Ellington’s favorite singer, when Ellington’s Orchestra came to town. Jazz violinist Ray Nance was a member of the orchestra, and he became Michael’s childhood hero. Michael would later perform with Nance in the Jazz Violin Summit at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1970s.
 

 

Michael put aside most of his classical training in order to develop his own techniques and cultivate a sound that he felt suited violin as a solo leading instrument in jazz and modern music. He also lived and worked his way through tradition to innovative progressions of jazz. He performed with luminaries such as John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and countless others, and as part of the John Handy Quintet, a multiracial band, who gave the first live performance at the Watts Towers Arts Center one day after the 1965 riots, serving as a symbol of peace.
 
In 1969, Michael co-founded the first jazz fusion band, The Fourth Way, with whom he became one of the first violinists to experiment with electronics on the violin. As a bandleader, he composed and recorded 12 major albums that included more than 45 original compositions, and he toured nationally and internationally. Albums such as Spirit Dance, Pneuma, The Land of Spirit and Light and The X Factor have been reissued in recent years, some four decades after their original release dates, as a result of high demand from new and old listeners alike, who call Michael their “Spiritual Jazz Master.”
 
“My music is coming from raising awareness of positive human consciousness and my contribution to humanity at large through spiritual cornerstones and vibrations from the cosmos,” Michael wrote in his artist statement. “I carry the torch for jazz, America’s original art form, and all it represents for the good of mankind. … I transport messages from another dimension, translating musically into this dimension and acting as a bridge. I continuously deliver my music to be a healing force, bringing about the unity that jazz always provides.”
 
As we put it in the description of Michael’s 2013 C.O.L.A. fellowship project, Orbit: “The roots of jazz have always reflected ancient wisdom and universal spirituality. The concept of Orbit entails the universe, space, and the inhabiting of celestial bodies. Orbit is a portal of energy that permeates the cosmos and our human inner universe. The orbit of Venus traces the shape of hearts, emanating divine love. The music of Orbit reflects universal oneness.”
 
On Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016, Michael peacefully passed away in Los Angeles after a long struggle with COPD-emphysema. He was 86. He is survived by his beloved wife, Leisei Chen (me). Supported by Dong He and Yao Hua Chen, Desheng Chen, Fusheng Chen, Minyee and Shu Hua Wu, his families in Japan. Patricia Windle Hilliard, Linda Windle McCarthy, Benjamin J. Windle, Lisa Ashley, Donna Ashley and Eddie Stallworth, his cousins in Houston. His dear friends and band members supported him in his transition: Timothy Young, Junko Yoshimura, Azeem Khan, Eryn Young, Danny Frankel and Jon Ossman. His vision is carried on by his beloved band members and jazz master musicians — Leisei Chen (vocals), Michael Howell (guitar), Heshima Mark Williams (bass) and Kenneth Nash (percussion) — who together form the Michael White Quintet.
 

Memorial donations may be made online at “In Loving Memory of Michael White Jazz Violin.” Those who knew Michael or admired his work can also leave messages at the Michael White tribute site.
You’ve Heard and Loved Steve Gadd’s Drums, Whether You Know It or Not
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Rare footage on this documentary
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nahHWEOpCvo

 

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Rare footage on this documentary
 
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http://www.vintagevinylnews.com/2017/01/passings-richie-ingui-of-soul-survivors.html
 
Passings: Richie Ingui of the Soul Survivors

Charlie & Richie Ingui of the Soul Survivors

by VVN Music
 
Richie Ingui, who founded the Philadelphia group The Soul Survivors with his brother Charlie and Kenny Jeremiah, died on Friday, January 13.
 
The Soul Survivors originally formed as The Dedications and released a number of tracks between 1962 and 1964 before changing their name to the Soul Survivors and signing with Crimson Records in 1965.
 
They were paired up with the young Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff who wrote and produced their first and biggest hit, Expressway to Your Heart (1967 / #4 Pop / #3 R&B). The group charted three more times with Explosions in Your Soul (1967 / #33 Pop / #45 R&B), Impossible Mission (Mission Impossible) (1968 / #68 Pop) and City of Brotherly Love (1974 / #75 R&B).
 
When the group broke up, Richie became a house painter, but the two brothers began playing occasional shows starting in 1987.
 
Gamble-Huff Music released a special statement on Ingui:
 
Legendary Philadelphia International Records co-founders and R&B pioneers Kenneth Gamble & Leon Huff released the following joint statement today as they mourned the passing this weekend of Richie Ingui of The Soul Survivors, whose 1967 crossover classic, “Expressway to Your Heart,” launched The Sound of Philadelphia (TSOP) as the first of dozens of hits for Gamble & Huff as songwriters and producers. Richie and his brother Charlie continued to perform and record together as the Soul Survivors, and were preparing to mark the song’s 50th anniversary this year:
 
“We send our very sincere condolences to Charlie and Richie’s families. Not only did they bring our Philly Sound and Gamble & Huff to the national spotlight first with the hit song “Expressway to Your Heart,” but they were truly like Brothers to us. Richie was a true soul singer who sang from the heart. We will truly miss him, and the unique and mellow voice he brought to of this amazing group, the Soul Survivors.”
 
“Expressway to Your Heart” became the first “crossover” hit for The Soul Survivors, reaching #3 on the R&B chart and #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967. It also was ranked #18 on Billboard magazine’s Top Hot 100 songs of 1967. Kenny Gamble has been frequently quoted saying he wrote the lyrics while he was driving on the Schuylkill Expressway, en route to visit his girlfriend at the time, teen pop sensation Dee Dee Sharp (“Mashed Potato Time”). Gamble & Huff loaded “Expressway to Your Heart” with honking horns and other automotive sound effects, but the record’s principal strength lay in its soulful vocals and pounding beat.
 
The Ingui brothers last performed together in November at the Marian Anderson Awards at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. Charlie and Richie captivated the crowd with an extended Gamble & Huff medley, closing their set with a scording rendition of “Expressway.”
 
The Soul Survivors first played together in New York as The Dedications before relocating to Philadelphia, where Gamble & Huff started working with them. “Expressway to Your Heart” was a #1 hit regionally in Philadelphia and New York in the fall of 1967, and wound up spending 15 weeks on the Billboard charts and selling over one million copies.
 
Once “Expressway” became a huge hit, the group toured extensively, appearing on the same bills with such diverse acts as Jackie Wilson, The Miracles, Sam and Dave, Janis Joplin, the Beach Boys and Sly and the Family Stone, among many others.
 
Subsequent hits for the Soul Survivors included, “Explosion In My Soul,” “Mission Impossible (Impossible Mission),” and “City of Brotherly Love.”
 
For the past few years, the Ingui brothers have supplemented their touring as The Soul Survivors as part of David Uosikkinen’s “In the Pocket” project, an all-star collective of musicians who have contributed to the musical history of Philadelphia. Charlie and Richie also sang on In the Pocket’s recent remake of “Expressway to Your Heart.”
 
In 2013, The Soul Survivors were honored by Philadelphia International Records with the annual Phillies Gamble & Huff Community Partnership Award at Citizens Bank Park.
 
 
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http://www.vintagevinylnews.com/2017/01/passings-richie-ingui-of-soul-survivors.html
 
Passings: Richie Ingui of the Soul Survivors

Charlie & Richie Ingui of the Soul Survivors

by VVN Music
 
Richie Ingui, who founded the Philadelphia group The Soul Survivors with his brother Charlie and Kenny Jeremiah, died on Friday, January 13.
 
The Soul Survivors originally formed as The Dedications and released a number of tracks between 1962 and 1964 before changing their name to the Soul Survivors and signing with Crimson Records in 1965.
 
They were paired up with the young Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff who wrote and produced their first and biggest hit, Expressway to Your Heart (1967 / #4 Pop / #3 R&B). The group charted three more times with Explosions in Your Soul (1967 / #33 Pop / #45 R&B), Impossible Mission (Mission Impossible) (1968 / #68 Pop) and City of Brotherly Love (1974 / #75 R&B).
 
When the group broke up, Richie became a house painter, but the two brothers began playing occasional shows starting in 1987.
 
Gamble-Huff Music released a special statement on Ingui:
 
Legendary Philadelphia International Records co-founders and R&B pioneers Kenneth Gamble & Leon Huff released the following joint statement today as they mourned the passing this weekend of Richie Ingui of The Soul Survivors, whose 1967 crossover classic, “Expressway to Your Heart,” launched The Sound of Philadelphia (TSOP) as the first of dozens of hits for Gamble & Huff as songwriters and producers. Richie and his brother Charlie continued to perform and record together as the Soul Survivors, and were preparing to mark the song’s 50th anniversary this year:
 
“We send our very sincere condolences to Charlie and Richie’s families. Not only did they bring our Philly Sound and Gamble & Huff to the national spotlight first with the hit song “Expressway to Your Heart,” but they were truly like Brothers to us. Richie was a true soul singer who sang from the heart. We will truly miss him, and the unique and mellow voice he brought to of this amazing group, the Soul Survivors.”
 
“Expressway to Your Heart” became the first “crossover” hit for The Soul Survivors, reaching #3 on the R&B chart and #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967. It also was ranked #18 on Billboard magazine’s Top Hot 100 songs of 1967. Kenny Gamble has been frequently quoted saying he wrote the lyrics while he was driving on the Schuylkill Expressway, en route to visit his girlfriend at the time, teen pop sensation Dee Dee Sharp (“Mashed Potato Time”). Gamble & Huff loaded “Expressway to Your Heart” with honking horns and other automotive sound effects, but the record’s principal strength lay in its soulful vocals and pounding beat.
 
The Ingui brothers last performed together in November at the Marian Anderson Awards at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. Charlie and Richie captivated the crowd with an extended Gamble & Huff medley, closing their set with a scording rendition of “Expressway.”
 
The Soul Survivors first played together in New York as The Dedications before relocating to Philadelphia, where Gamble & Huff started working with them. “Expressway to Your Heart” was a #1 hit regionally in Philadelphia and New York in the fall of 1967, and wound up spending 15 weeks on the Billboard charts and selling over one million copies.
 
Once “Expressway” became a huge hit, the group toured extensively, appearing on the same bills with such diverse acts as Jackie Wilson, The Miracles, Sam and Dave, Janis Joplin, the Beach Boys and Sly and the Family Stone, among many others.
 
Subsequent hits for the Soul Survivors included, “Explosion In My Soul,” “Mission Impossible (Impossible Mission),” and “City of Brotherly Love.”
 
For the past few years, the Ingui brothers have supplemented their touring as The Soul Survivors as part of David Uosikkinen’s “In the Pocket” project, an all-star collective of musicians who have contributed to the musical history of Philadelphia. Charlie and Richie also sang on In the Pocket’s recent remake of “Expressway to Your Heart.”
 
In 2013, The Soul Survivors were honored by Philadelphia International Records with the annual Phillies Gamble & Huff Community Partnership Award at Citizens Bank Park.
 
 
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http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/rip-benny-soans-a-true-artist-devotee-of-jazz-and-drummer-par-excellence-3198636.html
 
RIP Benny Soans: A true artist, devotee of jazz and drummer par excellence
 
It seems ironic to write of Benny Soans in the past tense. He was a vital, active person with a quiet sense of humour. Sadly, Benny, born Benoni Asher Soans, jazz drummer par excellence, passed away quite suddenly on 6 January at age 70.
 
In the fairly rarefied space that jazz occupies on the Indian music scene, Soans has been a rarity himself, a one off. Much like jazz guitarist Carlton Kitto of Kolkata, Benny Soans was immersed in the music of Bebop in jazz. Both these stalwarts left us within a month of each other.
 

File image of Benny Soans. Twitter @bandra_buzz
 
In the past decade or so, Benny Soans achieved a fair amount of international recognition as the fine musician he was. In 2013, during the festival “Jus’ Jazz” held in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune, and which featured such American jazz greats as Renee Rosnes, Houston Person, Regina Carter, Helen Sung, Lewis Nash and others, Benny Soans led a band which featured Japanese jazz stars Hideaki and Junichi. Ever modest and self-effacing, Soans asked to be introduced to the world renowned drummer Lewis Nash, who was actually a fellow musician of Benny’s on the programme!
 
In the summer of 2015, American saxophonist Greg Banaszak visited Mumbai and played a concert at the NCPA. During an “after hours” nightclub visit, Banaszak encountered a jazz band playing there. Benny Soans was the drummer with the local band and Banaszak, in a typical impromptu move, played a few numbers with this band. During the customary break taken by the band, Greg Banaszak requested Benny to play a saxophone-drums duet. They played Charlie Parker’s insanely hectic paced composition, Donna Lee. One was fortunate to have witnessed this event. They played at breakneck tempo for almost fifteen minutes! Sweat pouring from both, Banaszak and Soans realised that they had created a sensational jazz performance as they embraced each other.
 
When Greg Banaszak returned in 2016 with his American band, he insisted that Benny Soans played the drums with the band, which included Theron Brown, a pianist who played the part of Herbie Hancock in the recent Miles Davis biopic, Miles Ahead and Christopher Anderson, who plays regularly in Aretha Franklin’s band.
 
When contacted about Benny’s demise, Banaszak said, “‘he was one of the finest jazz drummers around. I had hoped to include Benny in my band for a European tour next summer”. Alas, the fates decreed otherwise.
 
Benny has been a part of Mumbai’s jazz scene since the 1960s. He was the drummer in Johnny Baptist’s big band which had a full section of saxophones, trumpets and trombones and at any time one or two vocalists. It was a vibrant, exciting time for “Bombay” jazz and Soans was part of it as were others like Tony Pinto, ‘Baby’ Menezes, Winston D’Silva and trumpeter Pete D’Mello.
 
This phase of jazz waned in the 70s and work was hard to come by. The purist in Soans adjusted to the economic realities and played in several others genres of music. He played the drums and toured with classical Hindustani musicians Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan, created and led a versatile band playing Beatles’ music in two moods, one in the style of the Beatles and also in jazz style!
 
Soans’ first love was always the challenge of bebop and in the late 80s and 90s he teamed up with Noel and Ramona Borthwick to play serious bop. They also made a few successful albums together. This phase too came to an end when the Borthwicks emigrated from India.
 
Benny Soans was also Louis Banks’ drummer for a number of years. He has played with almost all local and several visiting international musicians. He was also a part of Ash Chandler’s Redux jazz band, for whom he played his last ever gig in December 2016.
 
Jazz music is used extensively as ‘entertainment’, as background music or simply to create an atmosphere. At it’s best, Jazz is a pure art form. It transcends the mundane, utilitarian and ‘popular’ types of music. Benny Soans was always striving for and lived for the “art” in jazz. He was not just a timekeeper behind the drums. He was a true artist and devotee of jazz. His will be a void which will be hard to fill.

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http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/rip-benny-soans-a-true-artist-devotee-of-jazz-and-drummer-par-excellence-3198636.html
 
RIP Benny Soans: A true artist, devotee of jazz and drummer par excellence
 
It seems ironic to write of Benny Soans in the past tense. He was a vital, active person with a quiet sense of humour. Sadly, Benny, born Benoni Asher Soans, jazz drummer par excellence, passed away quite suddenly on 6 January at age 70.
 
In the fairly rarefied space that jazz occupies on the Indian music scene, Soans has been a rarity himself, a one off. Much like jazz guitarist Carlton Kitto of Kolkata, Benny Soans was immersed in the music of Bebop in jazz. Both these stalwarts left us within a month of each other.
 

File image of Benny Soans. Twitter @bandra_buzz
 
In the past decade or so, Benny Soans achieved a fair amount of international recognition as the fine musician he was. In 2013, during the festival “Jus’ Jazz” held in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune, and which featured such American jazz greats as Renee Rosnes, Houston Person, Regina Carter, Helen Sung, Lewis Nash and others, Benny Soans led a band which featured Japanese jazz stars Hideaki and Junichi. Ever modest and self-effacing, Soans asked to be introduced to the world renowned drummer Lewis Nash, who was actually a fellow musician of Benny’s on the programme!
 
In the summer of 2015, American saxophonist Greg Banaszak visited Mumbai and played a concert at the NCPA. During an “after hours” nightclub visit, Banaszak encountered a jazz band playing there. Benny Soans was the drummer with the local band and Banaszak, in a typical impromptu move, played a few numbers with this band. During the customary break taken by the band, Greg Banaszak requested Benny to play a saxophone-drums duet. They played Charlie Parker’s insanely hectic paced composition, Donna Lee. One was fortunate to have witnessed this event. They played at breakneck tempo for almost fifteen minutes! Sweat pouring from both, Banaszak and Soans realised that they had created a sensational jazz performance as they embraced each other.
 
When Greg Banaszak returned in 2016 with his American band, he insisted that Benny Soans played the drums with the band, which included Theron Brown, a pianist who played the part of Herbie Hancock in the recent Miles Davis biopic, Miles Ahead and Christopher Anderson, who plays regularly in Aretha Franklin’s band.
 
When contacted about Benny’s demise, Banaszak said, “‘he was one of the finest jazz drummers around. I had hoped to include Benny in my band for a European tour next summer”. Alas, the fates decreed otherwise.
 
Benny has been a part of Mumbai’s jazz scene since the 1960s. He was the drummer in Johnny Baptist’s big band which had a full section of saxophones, trumpets and trombones and at any time one or two vocalists. It was a vibrant, exciting time for “Bombay” jazz and Soans was part of it as were others like Tony Pinto, ‘Baby’ Menezes, Winston D’Silva and trumpeter Pete D’Mello.
 
This phase of jazz waned in the 70s and work was hard to come by. The purist in Soans adjusted to the economic realities and played in several others genres of music. He played the drums and toured with classical Hindustani musicians Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan, created and led a versatile band playing Beatles’ music in two moods, one in the style of the Beatles and also in jazz style!
 
Soans’ first love was always the challenge of bebop and in the late 80s and 90s he teamed up with Noel and Ramona Borthwick to play serious bop. They also made a few successful albums together. This phase too came to an end when the Borthwicks emigrated from India.
 
Benny Soans was also Louis Banks’ drummer for a number of years. He has played with almost all local and several visiting international musicians. He was also a part of Ash Chandler’s Redux jazz band, for whom he played his last ever gig in December 2016.
 
Jazz music is used extensively as ‘entertainment’, as background music or simply to create an atmosphere. At it’s best, Jazz is a pure art form. It transcends the mundane, utilitarian and ‘popular’ types of music. Benny Soans was always striving for and lived for the “art” in jazz. He was not just a timekeeper behind the drums. He was a true artist and devotee of jazz. His will be a void which will be hard to fill.

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

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn7yGWQ1SU8

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

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:Goblins’ Gavotte 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. Waltz for Jane    
 
Fall in, Men. is another march, and the full title could be Fall Inthen they leave the same way- singly.” 
is a “round with the instruments following each other into the play until the whole orchestra is working, and      Roundelay
 
is a satirical version of the sailors’ hornpipe.. Naughty Nautical 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 unitsMarch Forth    
 
.”Harper’s Bazaar or Vogue 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 Lady of Fashion, 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.” Shopping Spree    
 
is meant to spin a background to the kind of love dramas you’re apt to hear by radio during the day.Love Story is a characteristic Viennese waltz. Imagine a large ballroom; an historical romance; and you’ll have the context intended. Valse Viennese     
 
, is described by the composer as a “kind of sophisticated New York type of melody. “Fifth is Fifth Avenue.”East of Fifth, as the title indicates, is traveling music and aims at connoting the motions- physical and emotional- of a trip. Cross County Tour     Tamburello begins a new career with this album as a composer of instrumental music, music that tells stories and underlines moods.
 
     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.
 
– by Anthony Tamburello and recorded in London in the 400- year –old Friends Meeting House.Separate TablesThis multi- colored kaleidoscopic series of musical impressions was written- with the exception of
 
 
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.”
 

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.
 
MetalJazz.com
Selections: Nat Hentoff’s liner notes. Letting the writer speak for himself. 

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

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:Goblins’ Gavotte 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. Waltz for Jane    
 
Fall in, Men. is another march, and the full title could be Fall Inthen they leave the same way- singly.” 
is a “round with the instruments following each other into the play until the whole orchestra is working, and      Roundelay
 
is a satirical version of the sailors’ hornpipe.. Naughty Nautical 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 unitsMarch Forth    
 
.”Harper’s Bazaar or Vogue 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 Lady of Fashion, 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.” Shopping Spree    
 
is meant to spin a background to the kind of love dramas you’re apt to hear by radio during the day.Love Story is a characteristic Viennese waltz. Imagine a large ballroom; an historical romance; and you’ll have the context intended. Valse Viennese     
 
, is described by the composer as a “kind of sophisticated New York type of melody. “Fifth is Fifth Avenue.”East of Fifth, as the title indicates, is traveling music and aims at connoting the motions- physical and emotional- of a trip. Cross County Tour     Tamburello begins a new career with this album as a composer of instrumental music, music that tells stories and underlines moods.
 
     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.
 
– by Anthony Tamburello and recorded in London in the 400- year –old Friends Meeting House.Separate TablesThis multi- colored kaleidoscopic series of musical impressions was written- with the exception of
 
 
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.”
 

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.
 
MetalJazz.com
Selections: Nat Hentoff’s liner notes. Letting the writer speak for himself. 

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

When Buddy Greco was booked into Iridium back in 2012 I brought my copy of Buddy’s Scepter album “Let the Sunshine In” down to the club.
 
This record has the all-time best lounge version of Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone.
 
Opening night just about every goombah in town was in attendance including cast members from the Soprano’s and actors who were in the original Godfather films.
 
It was quite a scene.
 
 
Buddy Greco & Jim Eigo @ Iridium 2012

Holding 1969 Scepter Records release “Let the Sunshine In”
“Like a Rolling Stone”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB7bdq6WSLI
 
R.I.P. Buddy Greco
 

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When Buddy Greco was booked into Iridium back in 2012 I brought my copy of Buddy’s Scepter album “Let the Sunshine In” down to the club.
 
This record has the all-time best lounge version of Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone.
 
Opening night just about every goombah in town was in attendance including cast members from the Soprano’s and actors who were in the original Godfather films.
 
It was quite a scene.
 
 
Buddy Greco & Jim Eigo @ Iridium 2012

Holding 1969 Scepter Records release “Let the Sunshine In”
“Like a Rolling Stone”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB7bdq6WSLI
 
R.I.P. Buddy Greco
 

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