Further brushes with jazz greatness

I’ve had several encounters with Miles Davis. Once on a flight back from Paris. Perfectly pleasant, with my laying on him a copy of a bio of the first jazz musician, trumpeter Buddy Bolden, that I’d just finished a few minutes earlier. Talk about your post-bop synchronicity!

Another time was of a Sunday afternoon in 1961 at the Village Vanguard where Davis was splitting the bill with Blossom Dearie. I was the guest of Jean (Great Day in Harlem) Bach. Davis sat with us between sets, and at one point a man approached him and gave out with the following piece of advice:

“Miles, you should do a concert at Carnegie Hall and then release the album and call it “Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall.” Duh! As chance and music history would have it, Davis had only recently done that very thing and the record that resulted from the performance had just been released. Gee, it must be tough to be famous especially when one has to suffer fools like this one. But, to paraphrase the immortal words of Oscar Brown, Jr., He (Miles) was cool: “Thanks, man,” he replied to the fan without even so much as looking up at him.

But my favorite Miles story is one extracted from my memoir, Early Plastic. An incident that I witnessed with my very own not quite baby blues (hell, they’re hazel). To wit:

Shortly after jazz pianist Cecil Taylor and I met in 1965, I went to see the opening night of an engagement of his at the popular and long-running Village Vanguard. In the middle of his first set, who should walk in---looking very unlike his late period Electoid From Planet Ten self of later years---but a natty, dapper and Saville Rowed Miles Davis. All eyes left Cecil on stage and turned to focus on Miles and his still somewhat socially taboo blonde date as the two made their way to one of the club's postage stamp-size tables. They sat down in front of the bandstand, downed one drink apiece, stayed for all of five minutes, then when Miles gave the signal to his date, they split.

I was there again the next night when, at nearly the same time, Davis came in once more, this time with a different, but equally stunning Aryan number, and proceeded to do exactly the same thing: five minutes, and gone! Cecil later told me that this jazz equivalent of a head-on clash between Godzilla and Rodan took place for several more nights running!

Davis' obvious rancor probably stemmed from feeling that Cecil's improperly uncloseted homosexuality, unlike his own more discreet gay ways (including a rather torrid affair with a North American reggae singer), reflected badly on the macho image of jazz. Or maybe he just hated Cecil's off the charts AND walls musicality. It's not just the bitchy world of opera that has its divas.

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Oscar Brown, Jr.

If it hadn't been for the great Oscar Brown, Jr., who died day before yesterday in Chicago at age 78, I would never have had the chance to sing with Charles Mingus. Let me explain.

(Flashback accompanied by music from Mingus' "Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.")

It's a quarter-century-or-so ago---maybe more---and my friend Jo Hart, who's had a long, checkered and complicated past with Mingus, has invited my good friend and constant traveling companion of (now) the last 35 years, David Ehrenstein, and I to spend an evening with herself, Mingus, and a few others at New York's (another now) legendary jazz club, the Five Spot.

My longterm memory remains killer (just can't remember what I had for breakfast) for I can still recall that the band that night was Jackie McLean's with a guest appearance by Japanese trumpet player, Terumasa Hino, who today is a household name in Japan. The Miles Davis of. . . I suppose. I don't know if he was so famous back then, though. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't digress, and so I will "Cut to the verb!," as my friends are sometimes wont to scream at discursive little me. And so, back to the flashback:

At one point, Mingus says to no one in particular (maybe McLean has just played the song):

"Someone should write lyrics to Bobby Timmons' "Dat Dere.'"

And I have the brassbound temerity to say (as if any further proof were needed that great minds truly do think alike):

"Oscar Brown, Jr. already has."

And with very little in the way of prompting from Mingus I then proceed to sing the lyrics, with him joining me midway, humming along. "Hey daddy, what dat dere and what dat over dere and daddy, etc."

Suddenly I'm reminding myself of Gloria ("Well, it was the very semi-finals of the ping pong tournament. And the door was locked. Well, don't you see? The very semi-finals!") Upson in Auntie Mame. i.e., "I mean there I was singing 'Dat Dere' with Charles Mingus. At the Five Spot! Can you imagine?!"

Not too long ago I even had a brush with Oscar Brown Jr. greatness at the California Afro-American Museum where I was curating a show about the history of blacks in Hollywood. I was sitting at my desk, when the door opened and one of my co-workers walked in accompanied by a pleasant looking black man somewhere in his sixties.

"I think here's someone you'd like to meet," my associate said. I recognized the "someone" at once as none other other than:

"Oscar Brown, Jr. It's an honor!"

I stood up, we shook hands, and Brown seemed genuinely stunned that I actually knew who he was. Or perhaps he was just surprised at seeing a white face in what he probably perceived as an otherwise all-black operation.

We chatted for a while, and he couldn't have been nicer. No points for that in my book. But for all the wonderful music he wrote. . . lots and lots of points. The twilight of the gods, I tell you. The twilight of the gods. Or as the Incomparable Hildegarde was overheard saying not long ago to a friend while standing in line at the Planetarium Station post office on New York's Upper West Side: "Talent is a thing of the past." Or as I was saying to David only this morning, "How can I be expected to take the high road when it's not just shut down for repairs, but permanently closed." Courage!

I wonder? Is this the only "hit" you'll get on Google if you put in: "Charles Mingus" + "Jackie McLean" + "Oscar Brown, Jr" + "Hildegarde" + "Auntie Mame"?

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While we're on the subject of . . .

. . .lesser known jazz singers, like Beverly Kenney, whose voices were suddenly stilled while they were still at the peak of their powers, take a look at the site---near the bottom of the page--- of the sister of fifties baritone Ronnie Deauville. He was another of those singers, like Kenney, who I once fretted over as to what exactly caused them to suddenly fall below show biz radar. Ronnie Deauville is such an obviously gifted singer that not even the mid-fifties coming of rock and roll is sufficient to explain the sudden demise of his career.

Eventually, I had some nice phone conversations with Sheryl Deauville. One thing that I learned is that she---a lifelong Los Angelino--- and I had most likely been in the same room/hall/space/venue on any number of occasions.

Of all that Sheryl told me, perhaps the most interesting fact was that her brother's singing voice was not really taken from him. Though he was paralyzed from the neck down, due to a 1956 auto accident, for a while he continued to perform: a Steve Allen TV appearance, gigs in "A" list clubs, etc. But in those pre-handicap access days, it was all just too much for him and so he packed it in for good somewhere around the late-1950s.

Sheryl Deauville is totally aware---it is obvious from her web site---of how great an artist was lost when her brother's singing voice was more or less silenced. I was happy to learn from her that Ronnie was still able to live a relatively good life, finally settling down in Florida with his wife and four children. He died in Florida in 1990. The last time Sheryl saw her brother, not long before his passing, he gave an impromptu concert for her, and his singing voice, she said, was as strong and rich as it had ever been.

Beverly Kenney. . .from a reader

Dear Bill,

I was totally shocked and moved by your texts on Beverly Kenney. I am a Japanese fan of Beverly Kenney (as you have written, one of many). It was my custom to search in Google about Beverly Kenney, and at last after the long years of my online research I discovered your newly written blog entries. Recently [Swedish jazz singer] Monica Zetterlund has died a tragic death in fire, and not a few Japanese articles described her death with the phrase “like Beverly Kenney.” It is still believed that Beverly Kenney was burned alive to death in some Hotel. It is possible that somebody (jazz critic?) in Japan misunderstood the news of her cremation as an accident in fire and it became the generally accepted opinion until now in Japan (if she was cremated at all). If not so, it is a strange coincidence between the misunderstanding on the Japan side and Beverly’s own wish for cremation. I am also in no sense New-Ager, but your report of the interview with Millie Perkins was shocking enough….. May Beverly’s soul rest in Heaven now. That Beverly Kenney is popular among Japanese jazz fans is no wonder. She is cute, sophisticated, has an air of innocence and sang with highly original phrasing. These are just the elements that appeal especially to the taste of the Japanese. But the best way to describe her appeal to Japanese is her “hakanasa”. Hakanasa is a word difficult to translate into English. It is “fragility” or “frailty” in good and highly aesthetic sense. We have perhaps somehow intuitively sensed, aestheticized and adored that tragic side of her personality which you revealed through your interviews. Thank you very much for your interest in Beverly Kenney and your wonderful texts on her!

Od (Tokyo, Japan)

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My email reply:

"Thank you for your kind words about my blog and Beverly Kenney. I usually believe that there is strong logic behind Japanese aesthetic choices and your remark about hakanasa was very enlightening. I played Beverly Kenney the other day for a Japanese friend who is not a jazz fan and had never heard her before. He was fascinated and somewhat moved by her. He said, 'What an interesting voice. I have never heard anyone who sounded like that before.' Interesting."
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In other matters vocally jazzical, a couple of weeks ago I announced the "1st Annual Dr. Chilledair Mystery Vocalist Sweepstakes." To say that I was swamped with entries is a vast overstatement. Two! For all those who've written in---One---asking for the correct answer , the singer is Beverly Kelly. Usually, Kelly's style is best described, especially on her two sixties abums for Riverside, as "far out." However, on the highly commercial recordings made for British Reader's Digest, a snippet of which was heard here in the contest, she is the very model of a singer who (in the words of friend describing Julie London) just sings the songs and goes home. Not that there's anything wrong with "far out."

She resides in Southern California and is now the interesting hyphenate of jazz singer-psychotherapist, Dr. Bev Kelly (she still records). We have spoken on the phone a bit recently, and in one conversation she told me about how people continue to confuse her---Beverly KELLY---with Beverly KENNEY and express amazement that "You're not dead after all" (or words to that effect). Until fairly recently, there was an online obit for her. Clearly it was Beverly KENNEY who the writer was describing. I wrote in disabusing him of his thanatopsical notion, and in one of those increasingly rare net interactions, the change was made within 24 hours.

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