Mystery Singer Contest #4

Count the beans in this jar. . .no, I mean guess this Mystery Singer (mp3 link for a limited time only) and win a free copy of the Bill Black CD, Down in the Depths. Deadline for entries 10 am tomorrow, Ash Wednesday (starring Elizabeth Taylor). First person with correct answer wins. email me with guesses at cllr1@comcast.net . No employees of Landfill Productions or their relatives are eligible. Void where prohibited by law. If clear skin persists, see your dermatologist. Back to you now, Ralph!

Early Plastic?????

Disc o' the Day - Annie Ross

For years I searched to replace a pre-xerox photostat (ask your parents) of Annie Ross (see above) that I copied from either a Metronome or a Down Beat mag circa 1960. I then carried it around with me throughout my Sixties hippie (to put it mildly) perigrinations, but finally lost it somewhere along the way. . .On the Road.

Later, I would semi-regularly leaf thorough old copies of those two jazz publications at used mag stores (again I date myself) on Hollywood Blvd trying to find a replacement. But to no avail.

Then about five years ago--now a somewhat settled down good burgher---I was in a meeting with jazz photographer Ted Williams and going through his presentation book when---boinngggg---there it was. The ellusive Annie Ross photo. I tell you. . .it was downright Twilight Zone-y. TED had taken the photo. Along with skeenteen hundreds of others of Annie, along with Lambert and Hendricks, as well! One of which ended up on the cover of Down Beat, you know. . .the one where she's banging the boys' heads together a la the Three Stooges.

I told Ted the story of my obsession with the Annie portrait , and now a copy of it---signed by him, yet!--- hangs in my entrance hallway. Even nicer, Ted and I have become pals. A very fine man and a great artist. Is there a moral to this story? In the immortal words of Alistair Cooke, "I think not."

Happy Birthday to Fred Katz

Today is the 80-somethingth birthday of jazz composer-arranger-cellist Fred Katz. My path crossed that of his exactly once. . .more than forty years ago. I was working at a Marlboro Books---an amazing NYC remainder books chain of the late 50s and early 60s---on West 57th Street, immediately to the east of Carnegie Hall. It was the second job I had in the city, after being fired (for good reason) from my initial one as an apprentice recording engineer at the once noble Empire Sound. But that is a tale best left to another night around the campfire.

Everytime you turned around at Marlboro found you rubbing the stardust out of your eyes. Just for starters, I can recall Harlem Renaissance supporter Carl Van Vechten (I was actually in the presence of the inarguably legendary CVV!), Diahann Carroll (the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on before or since), Vivien Leigh (rail thin), Anthony Quinn (nice!), et al. And I remember a very pre-VOTD Jackie Susann coming in to poll the clerks on what she should call her new book about her poodle. We all, to a man, voted for Every Night Josephine. However, I digress ("Cut to the verb, Bill! Cut to the verb!"). As a neophyte jazzbo, the "celebrity" (of sorts) customer who truly meant the most to me was none of the above.

I didn't recognize him at first. That is, until he handed me a check bearing the name "Fred Katz," address (hot damn!) "Hollywood," California." Well, you could keep your Mrs. Larry Olivier, thank you very much. There standing right in front of me was the cellist with one of the top jazz groups in the world at the time, the Chico Hamilton Quintet. I simply could not contain my excitment.

"Are you THE Fred Katz?," I blurted out, my voice suddenly reverting to all it's cracked pre-pubescent glory. When Katz finished laughing, he haltingly replied, "Welll. . .I guess so."

Could it be that maybe you hadda be there?

Now, flash forward to just the other day when, at my urging, my friend, singer Melodye DeWine who is working with Katz on a project, recounted the incident to him.

Understandably, as it turns out, he didn't recall it. A near half-century of subsequent music making has obviously pushed it to one side in his mind. But, according to Melodye, nonetheless Katz apparently laughed just as hard as he had four decades ago. So maybe you didn't have to be there after all. Maybe all you really need to appreciate the story is to have been saddled for close on to ninety years with such a noble but nonetheless profoundly prosaic moniker as. . .Fred Katz.

Did I just hear someone cry out, "Sonny Tufts!"?

Happy Birthday to Michel Legrand

Not so widely known in the U.S. as he once was, still Michel Legrand (film composer, songwriter, pianist, film director, singer, actor, tennis player, etc.) continues to be one of the most beloved and respected musicians around. Especially in his native land of France where he has long resided in the Pantheon of that nation's artists. At one time, I knew Legrand fairly well, and as certifiable world class geniuses go, he struck me as remarkably (maybe not quite le mot juste) sane. To wit: How did overcome his, at one time, morbid fear of air travel? Why, by becoming a pilot!

Here's a ML rare track with lyrics by the Bergmans, originally written as a theme for an unreleased independent film, The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean. "One Day" (mp3 links for a limited time only) was given its debut performance in 1968 by Barbara Stresand at an anti-war concert concert at Lincoln Center in New York---Leonard Bernstein conducting.