We Breathed the Same Air

Some people I’ve known, pressed flesh with, bumped into and knocked down, ridden in the elevator with, or. . . ?

Nico, Dusty Springfield, John F. Kennedy, Lotte Lenya, Sir Ian McKellen, Sammy Davis. Ricardo Montalban, Bette Midler, Priscilla Presley, Norman Rockwell, Salvador Dali, Frank Zappa, Brian Wilson, Chris Connor, Miles Davis, Michel Legrand, Cloris Leachman, Cybil Shepperd, Gore Vidal, Djuna Barnes, Tim Hardin, Janis Joplin, Barbara Parkins, John Philip Law, Charles Manson, Nanette Fabray, Charles Mingus, Danny Proper, Allen Ginsburg, Timothy Leary, Michael Feinstein, Elizabeth Montgomery, Anita O'Day, Santa Claus, Billy Wilder, Mieko Hirota, Grady Sutton, Charles Lane, Myrna Loy, Neal Cassady, Lily Tomlin, Chet Baker, Wavy Gravy, Helen Merrill, Jo Stafford, William Burroughs, Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan, Benny Carter, Oscar Brown, Jr., Elmer Bernstein, The Nicholas Brothers, Joan Collins, Diahann Carroll, Carl Van Vechten, Fred Katz, Fuzzy Knight, Ruta Lee, Chuck Berry, Frankie Lymon, Ruth Brown, William Claxton, Tony Bennett, Anthony Quinn, Betty Carter, Blossom Dearie, Matt Dennis, Mary Ann McCall, Jon Hendricks, Annie Ross, Piper Laurie, Stan Freberg, Jackie Paris, Charles Laughton, Jacques Demy, Margaret Whiting, John Hammond, Betty Garrett, John Kerr, Peter Bogdanovich, Eve Arden, Sarah Vaughan, Paul Weston, Carol Channing, Cecil Taylor, Page Cavanaugh, Jean Bach, Little Richard, Donald O’Connor, Donyale Luna, Maurice Sendak, Yma Sumac, Maxine Sullivan, Dorothy Lamour, Jackie Cooper, Michael Moore, William Steig, Algier Hiss, James Baldwin, William Saroyan, Diana Sands, Peter Marshall, Fran Allison, Marsha Hunt, Lash Larue, Gene Raeburn, Soupy Sales, Big Jon Arthur, Rex Reed, Polly Bergen, Johnnie Ray, Link Wray, Connie Frances, Christine Jorgenson, James Taylor, Little Jimmy Scott, Sam Fuller, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert DeNiro, Herbert Huncke, Tuesday Weld, Barbara Harris, Julia Sweeney, Barbara Stanwyck, Leslie Nielson, Jackie DeShannon, Richard Berry, Margaret Leighton, Joe Franklin. . .

A smattering appear in my memoir Early Plastic.

Vocal Jazz Rarities

1. It's Like Love - Mark Murphy
2. Fly Away Sadness - Mark Murphy
3. No More - Jon Hendricks
4. Rainbow's End - Jon Hendricks
5. The Alphabet - Annie Ross & Andre Hodeir
6. Who's Afraid - Frank D'Rone
7. I Am Your Love - Kitty White
8. The Old Man and the Sea - Kitty White
9. More Than You Know - Jennie Smith
10. Morning Star - Mel Torme
11. That's Your Red Wagon - Jackie Paris
12. Skylark - Jackie Paris
13. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow - Babs Gonzales
14. Dem Bums - Babs Gonzales
15. It's a Wonderful World - Mary Ann McCall
16. Busy as a Bee - Mary Ann McCall
17. Open - Bob Dorough
18. Home on the Range - Helen Merrill / Marian McPartland

From various 45s & 78s, except for 5 (lp), 17 (demo lp) and 18 (radio broadcast)

Download available for next 48 hours only

Stop the presses!

That perfectly reliable CD cyber seller, Dusty Groove, actually has not only Jane Harvey's SSJ Stephen Sondheim CD in stock (they are almost always out of stock on SSJ items) but also---get this!!---Jane's even newer SSJ CD, I've Been There, also currently available. The nice thing about Dusty Groove, in addition to being dependable, is that their prices on Japanese import SSJ discs (unlike most other sites) don't exactly neccessate mortgaging one's first born. High-ish but, in most cases, worth it! Here are the links:

I've Been There

Jane Harvey Sings Sondheim

And the ship must have arrived from around the cape, for they seem to have an unprecedented number of other SSJ titles in stock, including those by Jennie Smith, Kurt Reichenbach, David Allyn, Mal Fitch, Dick & Kiz Harp, Bev Kelly, Beverly Kenney, Leslie Lewis, Perry Como, Linda Merrill, Frankie Randall, Frances Lynne, Carol Fredette, Corky Shayne, Jackie Paris, Richie Kamuca, Carole Simpson and Carol Sloane. If you are interested in ordering any of these titles, better act fast. Based on Dusty Groove past history, most of these are unlikely to last out the day.

UPDATE: THE JANE HARVEY SONDHEIM CD HAS JUST BECOME AVAILABLE AT CDBABY.COMhttp://www.cdbaby.com/cd/harveyjane

More public domain and out-of-print rarities

I Am Your Love - Kitty White
Old Man and the Sea - Kitty White
More Than You Know - Jennie Smith
Morning Star - Mel Torme
That's Your Red Wagon - Jackie Paris
Skylark - Jackie Paris

Jackie-ing

For fans of the great singer Jackie Paris, know that the fine blog site, Big 10 Inch Record , currently has Paris' first LP available for download.

Note: a bit of amplification on the blogger's comment re: my association with Paris. It's a bit of a stretch to say that I knew him "personally." But I did meet and see Jackie perform once, received a few letters from him, which I cherish, and had a couple of phone calls from the man. A bit remarkably, he even sent me a couple of his Japanese CDs when I was having trouble finding copies of them---pre-cyber shopping---stateside. One hears tales of his imapatience with various record biz functionaries, but he sure was nice to his fans, i.e. me.

Iro-Iro

Pages and pages in the current Rolling Stone devoted to the recent demise of Atlantic Records head Ahmet Ertegun, and exactly ONE SENTENCE devoted to their vast and influential jazz catalogue. Just the same old same old litany of kozmic kid music superstars. Oh well, it did at least acknowledge the existence of the extra-generically sui generis Ray Charles. Of the writer, who shall remain nameless, I can only invoke the immortal words of the great Bugs Bunny, "What a marroon!"

Nice final days footage of Jackie Paris singing "Tis Autumn" on youtube from Raymond DeFelitta's film of the same name.

Check this guy out!

Just heard Scooter Libby referred to on the terebi as LOUIS Scooter Libby. But there is no Louis Libby; both Scooter and Louis were invented to cover up the fact of his real name. . .IRVINGGGGGGG. ( Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Working on the weekend

I am the associate producer of this CD. I just now--i.e., "working on the weekend"--finished writing the following copy for Lincoln's website that will be up and running very soon (address forthcoming).
___________________________________
Despite a professional recording career stretching back over two decades, Foreign Affair is the first full-length solo album (not counting the unreleased demo disc entitled "5"), to be released by singer Lincoln Briney. His debut CD!

It took the confidence and vision of respected Japanese music figure Yasuo Sangu to bring Lincoln to the forefront.

In the Fall of 2006, Sangu began his new jazz label SSJ Records. With its appealing catalogue mix of both new and old recordings by the likes of Rosemary Clooney, Frankie Randall, Jack Jones, Jackie Paris, Pinky Winters and David Allyn, the success of SSJ has been immediate. Thus enabling the label to begin thinking about signing talent not so widely known and recognizable. And when Sangu heard Lincoln's demo CD in Winter 2005-06, his response was positve and immediate. He signed Lincoln to SSJ.

It was in Seattle that Northern California native Briney began solo recording (as opposed to hundreds of group session commericals and jingles) a few years ago. Most of the tracks on Foreign Affair were cut there.

Here's how Lincoln describes his sound: "I suppose I am a student of speech level singing. The directness and honesty of in-your-ear singing. I really like that. When I first started singing jazz I identified strongly with the west coast sound, that breezy, laid back, minimalist sound. Marty Paich, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker. All those late fifties L.A. players."

Foreign Affair is an appealing mix of the new (2 x Sade), the familiar (Besame Mucho, Violets For Your Furs, etc), alongside the enticement of several Brazilian classics by the likes of Jobim and Bonfa. On the new CD's 13 tracks, in addition to the widely-known guitarist Bill Frisell, Lincoln is backed by an array of some of the country's finest young players.

It should come as no surprise that Briney looks to Brazil for much of his musical inspiration. That country's language has a word, "saudade." Sort of untranslatable, but meaning an inexplicable amalgam of melancholy, tempered with recollections of happiness. Listen to Lincoln and you will begin to comprehend.

The release of Foreign Affair is scheduled for Japan, Fall 2006 on SSJ Records, to be followed Summer 2007 by release in the U.S. and elsewhere.

"Words by Beverly Kenney"

. . .and music by Ray Passman, copyright 1963* Kips Bay Music

"I Don't Believe in Love"

Don't tell me that the robins sing any sweeter in Spring than in Fall
I never hear their song at all 'cause I don't believe in love
Don't sell me on the sound of the sea or the pound of waves on the shore,
for my ears are deaf to the roar 'cause I don't believe in love
I've yet to feel the soft caress of a breeze upon my cheek,
the perfume of roses, or the lilacs at their peak
Please don't insist that a lover's kiss can be warm as the hot sun above
'cause I've been deceived, so I don't believe, no, I don't believe in love!

*This was sent to me by Ray Passman, a record producer, songwriter---co-lyricist w. Herb Wasserman on Sonny Rollins' St. Thomas, Haven't We Me. Also, he can be seen reminiscing about the biographical subject of Raymond DeFelitta's new documentary'Tis Autumn: The Seach for Jackie Paris.

"Don't Believe" was published in 1963, three years after Kenney's death in 1960 at age 28. I'm guessing, then, that the music might have been added posthumously. Kenney also wrote or co-wrote at least one other song that I'm aware of, I Hate Rock and Roll, which she is believed to have sung on a Steve Allen Show. Presumably under the influence of a circle of Greenwich Village writers with whom the singer associated, she also was a budding poet. Here's one effort, reprinted from Jonathan Schwartz' 11/92 GQ magazine profile of Kenney:

On Cesarean Birth

I curled my body small
in hiding
to escape the view
of those who sought to start the
flow
of waters long since overdue.
And watched in horror
Cautious silver
part the roof of my Capri,
and heard the cry of anguished
protest,
The first of many wrought from
me.

Jackie-Ing

Earlier today, I got an advance look at 'Tis Autumn - The Search for Jackie Paris, the new documentary about the great jazz singer. It was one of the most moving cinematic experiences I've had in quite some time. In anticipation of viewing the film, I first wrote about it here last October.

I was especially touched by footage of the last public performance of Jackie just before he died in 2004. In his late seventies at the time, he was never better. The film also contains a handful of rare archival footage of Jackie in action. . .just about all that there is.

Lest I over-indulge myself in my penchant for Handelian roulades of adjectival overkill, I would just like to say I totally agree with the rave accorded the film in Variety when it premiered at Sundance in Janaury. And let it go at that.

Until recently, it was hard for me to grasp that Jackie Paris was "famous" only with myself and a relative handful of other jazz vocal devotees aroound the world. After viewing 'Tis Autumn, that appears to be the case.

To paraphrase something I wrote here recently about singer Bill Black: on the slim offchance there might something resembling an afterlife, then Jackie Paris, finally getting his propers, must be having a ball right now. Doubtful though.

Prior to official release, 'Tis Autumn will be shown at several other major film festivals.

I can hardly wait to see it

Rave Variety review of new documentary about great jazz singer Jackie Paris

Rare Jackie Paris track

Earlier blog entry re: Paris docu 'Tis Autumn

Jackie Paris "found"

Jackie Paris must be the most under-appreciated and unknown, but inarguably great, artist in the entire canon of jazz singing. Since the mid-1940s, followers of that scene have never ceased to wonder why he didn't "happen." He was supposed to have been a shoe-in, but somehow it was not to be. And so, he swingingly soldiered on for more than a half-century with a dozen or so one-offs on various record labels, and increasingly peripatetically in less than the highest of profile venues.

When I finally saw Paris perform "live" in L.A. in the early 1990s (on a double bill with Chris Connor!), he was absolutely at the peak of his powers. Leading me to wonder more than ever exactly how his career had failed to ignite the way that most jazz critics and Paris' fans had predicted all those years. Thus, I set out to track him down, did so rather easily thanks to the powers of the internet, and we began a correspondence that culminated in his sending me (unbidden) three Japan-only CDs that I hadn't even known existed.

And when Paris died on June 17, 2004 at age 79, only (it seemed to me like) days after giving what might have been his most well reviewed gig ever (see Variety 3/15/04), it was another one of those cosmic jokes that I always turn to for renewed proof of the randomness and meaninglessness of it all.

Fortunately, Paris did not die alone and forgotten like so many overlooked artists, but instead surrounded by, among others, several filmmaker-friends who had been looking after him for the last few months of his life.

What a day!

For a lover, such as myself, of the Great American Songbook and its singing jazz-inclined practitioners, yesterday was quite a day. In exactly one shipment of U.S. mail I received:

1.) The new Japanese CD reissue from The Frank Sinatra Society of Japan, The Jackie Paris Sound

2.) The new Annie Ross CD, Let Me Sing

3.) A copy of a Japanese jazz magazine featuring an article about Wild and Wonderful West Virginia jazz singer (now retired) Jennie Smith

And last but not---if anything was ever not--- least. . .

4.) A rare tap dance 78 rpm tap dance instruction record sung by my all-time favorite, Beverly Kenney. Signed, yet! It was given to me by a close friend of Kenney, who died in 1960. Holding the unopened box containing the 78, my hands were shaking almost uncontrollably, both from the fear that the fragile disc might have cracked in transit from Florida or else that I would inflict similar damage when I opened it. Gakkk! But all is well, and maybe when I get it transferred I might put a portion of it up here as an mp3.

As for the new Annie Ross CD, it was cut in August. This is the way she sounds now, and according to the New York reviews of her current date at Danny's Skylight Room in NYC, she still looks beyond fabulous. When you hear the CD you will understand why trumpet player Warren Vache is working with her. Her voice, as some seem to be somewhat tiresomely pointing out, is "not what it once was" (but they don't care), and that might be true. But if so, Vache goes a long way on the recording--and presumably in person at Danny's---in offsetting this with all his brilliant fills, filigrees and obbligatos around Annie's singing. It is a brilliant combination. So many lovely things about the CD. The acappella version of Nobody's Heart, Lush Life...well, it is just terrific. And she is a great star! I love this CD!

A couple of weeks ago I received an email, prompted by my blog, from a Japanese jazz critic. He wrote:

Dear Mr. Bill Reed,
How do you do. I am a Japanese writer and also a physician. I was very much surprised and highly pleased to find Jennie Smith's information in your blog recently. Like you, I also have been searching to find out about how she is getting along. In addition to the access of internet, I have tried every possible means such as making an inquiry to the former far-east manager of Dot records. But, it was in vain. I am a strong fan of Jennie Smith here in Japan. I have four LPs of her own. I have been fascinated by her precise, clear, extended, and even charming voice. I am also a writer and in 2004, I introduced her as a wonderful vocalist to Japanese jazz fans. I feel she has been underrated. Thank you very much for your efforts to find her. By way of showing appreciation, I would like to send you my article about Jennie Smith if you let me know your address. Also, if it is OK, please send one more issue to issue to Jennie Smith. Anyway, I am very happy to know that she is living right in L.A. I am waiting for your reply. Thank you

Yesterday I received the mags, had the very sweet article translated and sent it off to Ms. Smith.. . .even in the midst of all the other excitement (see above). I trust she will enjoy it.

As for the 1958 Jackie Paris Sound, long out-of-print but now restored to circulation, it is simply one of the ---pardon the adjectival overkill---greatest jazz vocal albums I have ever heard. Yesterday, I was happy to be able to throw my old taped copy away and finally hear it in all its digitally remastered glory from the SSJ of Japan. Kind of pricey I guess, but worth every penny. And what an honor to have two records that I produced, by singers Pinky Winters and Bill Black, issued in the same first wave of five SSJ releases as the Jackie Paris.