Nancy Harrow is a marvelous imaginer and an explorer of feeling. Her singing has a quiet resonance, her performances opening up with emotional candor. No matter what the song may be, she gives it a singular shape: it could be tenderness, sorrow, or bite. In addition, she is also a songwriter (MY SHIP is by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin; the others are hers) a dramatist, a writer. In person, she is thoughtful, eager to laugh at absurdities, vividly alive.
Nancy Harrow and John Lewis, 1962
I had known Nancy’s music for a long time, primarily through her first record, WILD WOMEN DON’T HAVE THE BLUES (with Buck Clayton, Dicky Wells, Kenny Burrell, and Dick Wellstood) but had to wait until 2017 to be introduced to her and hear her sing, thanks to Dan Morgenstern. Nancy and I talked of doing a video interview, but events, both global and personal, interfered until now.
About a week ago, Nancy spoke with me, candidly and gleefully, of music and musicians. It was an honor to be a small part of this conversation. I invite you to join us, to eavesdrop, to be moved and enlightened.
and more:
More conversations will follow. I hope you take this post as an invitation to explore Nancy’s worlds. You can read more about her here.
Bent Persson, Kenny Davern, James Dapogny, Tomas Ornberg
CHINATOWN, MY CHINATOWN, written in 1910 by two denizens of Tin Pan Alley, Jean Schwartz and W.M. Jerome, became popular with jazz organizations in the late Twenties: you can be uplifted by the recordings made by Red Nichols, Fletcher Henderson, and of course Louis. Later creations starred Louis Prima, the Quintette of the Hot Club of France, Art Tatum, Lionel Hampton, Slim Gaillard, and on into the present. It’s a good tune to jam on, although the lyrics are no longer desirable or digestible.
My friend, the late Joseph Shepherd, either shot this video or presented it: a sublime performance from the Manassas Jazz Festival created by Bent Persson, trumpet; Kenny Davern, clarinet; Tomas Ornberg, soprano saxophone; James Dapogny, piano; Steve Jordan, guitar; Johnny Williams, double bass; Dick Proctor, drums.
It has some of the endearing flaws of live performance: Kenny wants to stage a conversation between himself and Tomas that doesn’t quite come off (the glory of on-stage improvisation) but I find it thrilling from first to last. Joe didn’t annotate this one fully for YouTube; perhaps he was on his way to a gig, being a fine hot trumpet player for decades, so it was nearly-hidden, but what Louis-inspired joys!
It might not be everyone’s perfect band, but I wish they had recorded several lps for Johnson McRee and that the whole video existed, somewhere . . . it feels perfect to me, with Jim Dapogny guiding the soloists and ensemble as only he could.
Help yourself to hot!
In case you’d like more CHINATOWN, here’s one of my favorite versions. Ever:
and in the spirit of “Why not?” here’s Louis, live, in 1933:
and, just because, Louis in 1949 on the Eddie Condon Floor Show, with Earl Hines, Pee Wee Russell, Jack Teagarden, Eddie, Jack Lesberg, George Wettling:
I hope the bright light of Louis, his friends, and his disciples, illuminates your days.
POOR BUTTERFLY, its subject the abandoned heroine of Puccini’s MADAME BUTTERFLY, was an incredible popular hit in 1916.
Between 1944 and 1980, Teddy Wilson recorded POOR BUTTERFLY more than a dozen times, and I am sure he played it many more. In 1959, he told Tom Scanlan of the first handful of recordings that impressed him in early 1928; the first one he recalled was the Frank Trumbauer – Bix Beiderbecke SINGIN’ THE BLUES.
I’ve been listening to Teddy with admiration since adolescence, and I can’t recall an instance where he quotes a passage from another composition as part of his own improvisation. Other musicians do this often for a variety of reasons, but not Teddy.
Here is a wonderful miniature by Teddy; Major Holley, double bass; Bobby Rosengarden, drums, performed on June 5, 1977, in New Jersey. A lovely two-chorus rendition of the 1916 hit that Teddy had played and recorded countless times, mixing a reverent approach to the melody and graceful chord-based arpeggios.
But wait! There’s more!
At the two-minute mark, Teddy, atypically, nods explicitly to SINGIN’ THE BLUES. We cannot know why: perhaps it came out of a pre-set conversation with someone about that record? — an earnest hot-jazz fan asking, “Teddy, did you ever play with Bix?” — but I think of it as a bouquet thrown over his shoulder into the past, to an indelible work of art.
And should anyone tell you that Teddy was “on autopilot” in his later years, play them this recording:
Now, play it again. It’s a small touching marvel. Thank you, Teddy, Frank, and Bix.
I am not alone in mourning the death of the irreplaceable Rebecca Kilgore. I wrote at length about her here a few days ago. Reading that, you might think, “Michael is sad because someone he was fond of has died,” and you would be right. But there is more to contemplate than just unalloyed grief.
Our Becky was a consummate artist, particularly skilled in the deepest art of making the difficult look easy. She worked at her craft for decades. Yes, her speaking voice was like her singing voice; her wit came out in conversation as well as in song; she did not appear to put on a whole new dramatic persona when she went on stage. But singers, instrumentalists, and close observers know that what she did was the result of hard work, work that she was very adept at concealing. That in itself is something to celebrate.
I would have you admire, if you care to, her unerring pitch. Her internal clock: she doesn’t drag or rush. Her swing. Her casual yet delightful phrasing: she honored the words as more than syllables tied to rhythmic pitches. She was talking to us in song. She had stories to tell. Her subtly impeccable microphone technique, something you might not notice unless you have singers having intimate or hostile relations with the microphone. Her playfulness. Her glee. Her absolute control in sharing melody with us and respectfully improvising on it. Her wit. Her deep emotional intelligence: her awareness that the sly comedy of EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO ME was not the same thing as what was in COMES LOVE. Her outstretched forefinger, a visual emphasis, an unspoken, “Hey, listen to THIS!” and her jubilant pedaling fists when she is enthralled by the music.
Her joy in song.
Here is a brief but rich set of examples: a very compact interlude, four songs only, with just a pianist. But oh! what a pianist: the ferociously subtle Dave McKenna. I have chosen to write nothing about his wizardry, but he loved Rebecca and will, I hope forgive me.
The songs are THOU SWELL; EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO ME; COMES LOVE; BYE BYE BLACKBIRD. None of them could be called new, but she makes them so.
This performance took place at Joe Boughton’s magical carnival of sounds and friends, Jazz at Chautauqua. He and I share the same feelings: he didn’t want the magic to move out of reach, to become a memory, so he had as much as he could captured on audiotape and videotape. You will see him introduce our Becky. That we can watch and hear her now is due to Joe’s devotion and the kindness of Bill Boughton and Sarah Boughton Holt.
The video that captures them is not the razor-sharp image we expect from our iPhones. But the sound is fine, and, frankly, the slightly blurry image is an incentive to stop staring and start listening.
Through the technology of the time, we have here a kind of sweet immortality. We can stop time and keep her vibrantly alive. But it is bittersweet. Rebecca is so close. We can hear her, we can even, if we are so moved, reach out and touch the screen. But she is also gone, gone far away.
It might sound melodramatic, but the sky is darker because our dear Rebecca Kilgore is no longer with us. I learned the news on the morning of January 8, that she had died peacefully the evening before, having suffered a long debilitating illness. I could not wish for that state to be prolonged a moment longer, but I expect to miss her as long as I have consciousness and hearing.
Earlier today, I posted these few lines on Facebook:
I learned this morning that the wonderful singer Rebecca Kilgore has died. Writing these words is difficult. She was the gentlest of human beings and when she was comfortable on stage or in the recording studio, she gave us hours of melodious happiness. I grieve for her loss and also for the long illness that preceded it, which I can only describe as ungentle. I know that I and others will not forget her, her sweet presence, her concern that the music should go perfectly, her care for the song, her delight in submerging herself in the music so that we could fully receive the gifts the composers had created. I will write more and offer examples of her sweet subtle touching art, but thought that the people who love our Becky would like to know.
Let me offer some of her music before proceeding on.
I first heard her on record in 1994, with an Arbors Records release called I SAW STARS, which she and Dan Barrett were featured, and I bought her CDs as they came out. Luckily for all of us, she recorded often for about thirty-five years. Mat and Rachel Domber became enthusiastic champions, and her work sold well for them. I met her in person at my first Jazz at Chautauqua, September 2004, although she knew my prose from reviews I’d written for the late lamented MISSISSIPPI RAG. She was not someone who tried to be witty; I never heard her tell a joke or make a wisecrack, but our conversations were full of laughter.
She was a star, no question. But every kind of behavior you would expect from one was abhorrent to her. I never saw her make a scene; in fact, she was (to my eyes) overly cooperative and compliant, and as a result I think people took advantage of this. She was at heart a shy person, and although she loved the songs and the musicians, I often thought that she was uncomfortable with the limelight, the very opposite of the bold prima donna. Many women singers, whether by habit, convention, or expectation, dress in ways that attract male attention: the tight red dress is a cliche. Becky seemed to choose consciously unobtrusive clothing: I remember a brown dress and flat shoes. It was as if she was saying, “Don’t come to stare at me. Listen to the song instead. Listen to me disappear into it.” There was one exception, which I have caught in a photograph. On one of her New York visits, she went down to Chinatown and found a golden jacket, completely flattering, which she wore with shy pride. But she wasn’t there to woo us, to slither sexily. As the Elders said, she stood flat-footed and sang the damn’ song, no tricks.
This business of music, by which I mean creating music in front of people for pay, is not easy. When you look at the small island that I will call pre-Coltrane jazz (call it what you will, at your leisure) you see quickly that it is much more stressful. Many more musicians than gigs. Some of the prime gigs go to those who effectively self-promote. It is very easy to become resentful, competitive, hysterically grasping, paranoid.
In all the conversations and correspondence I had with our Becky, I never saw her become small-minded or mean. The worst she said was that she was happier singing with X instead of Y accompanying her. She knew what made her at peace: finding a new song that had been passed over, and working to make her performance of it a tribute to the song and its creators. She loved reading, and we traded names of books we were delighting in. When the weather was fine, she sat in her garden and admired the plants. She loved cats, and many emails had as their subject one Stanley, who turned out to be a neighbor’s cat, visiting intermittently. Incidentally, these details are firm in my memory: I dare not look at our emails of a decade. Reading her words would be more than I could take right now.
She was a great melodist and a great subtle improviser, but she never went in for classic-jazz-singer extroversion. She liked medium swinging tempos, and she wanted to make sure we heard the lyrics, so no scat-singing. Almost all of the songs she chose were, to quote Austen, light and bright and swinging. She left the deep self-pity, the wallowing in melancholy heartbreak to others. This isn’t that she couldn’t convey emotion: there’s a version of YOU LET ME DOWN that shows what she might have done if she had chosen. She was also a professional musician: she had a set list; she had rehearsed when possible; she gave the musicians lead sheets; she knew her key; she came in when she was expected to. And all of the musicians she worked with respected her. As a thoroughly skilled rhythm guitarist, she had good time and knew the harmonies.
She was the real thing, an artist completely devoted to the music.
I was fortunate in that she encouraged me to cross the invisible barrier between musicians and civilians. I didn’t want anything from her except for her to sing and be comfortable; I didn’t push her around, and I got friendship in return: an email correspondence, and (something I treasured then and now think of with tears) my phone would ring on my birthday and there would be Becky, singing a chorus of some appropriate song. This happened before smartphones, so I saved none of those moments, but I know they happened. If this sounds like boasting, I apologize, and I know that Michael was not large in Becky’s life, that she probably had fifty people whose birthdays she remembered, but it still is one of the things I think of with pride and now, sadness: that the emails and phone calls are memories rather than events.
In a past life, I was a college English professor, which might account for these long paragraphs. John Berryman wrote, after the deaths of several dear friends and contemporaries, “I’m cross with god . . . ” (it’s the opening line of Dream Song 153). When I saw in early 2023 that Becky was not herself, and then learned the news of her debilitating illness, I could only think to myself, “Why her? She did no one any harm and she brought us beauty in both hands.” I don’t expect to have an answer, am not asking for one, and the orthodox ones don’t work for me. But I note with sadness and puzzlement that my path into and through this music has been marked by beautiful open-handedness and the deaths of people I saw at close range and loved. The list is long, but I think of James Dapogny, Joe Wilder, Mike Burgevin, and a hundred others. Our dear Becky has joined that list.
Oh: the names in my title. I first knew her as Rebecca Kilgore. At what point she became Becky I can’t say, but she did. And I was honored beyond words to progress to Roo, which is how she signed emails, a sweet one-syllable tag from her days in Western Swing, where she was Beck-a-Roo.
I want to add some beautiful words from the peerless singer Dawn Lambeth, words I would be proud to have written: I first heard Rebecca about 25 years ago when I was just starting to learn about older jazz styles. At the time I was listening to lot of late 30’s Billie Holiday, Lee Wiley, and other greats of that time but hadn’t really figured out what felt ‘authentic’ to me. Then I got to see Rebecca perform with Hal Smith’s Roadrunners at the Sacramento Jubilee. On stage she blended in with the rest of band, relaxed, unassuming, and often sitting casually behind her guitar. But when she started singing she invited she you in to a very special world of warmth and light. My husband, Marc Caparone, called her ‘the singer with the smile in her voice’ and there was something transporting listening to her, it just made you feel good. Even watching her in a big room felt like an intimate living room performance- we all were just enjoying each others’ company and the music we cherished.Her performances and recordings opened up worlds of possibilities for me, not just in how to interpret songs, but also showing me the depth of the Great American Songbook and how many great songs there are to perform beyond the usual suspects. Her singing style and repertoire introduced me to other wonderful singers she pulled from – Maxine Sullivan, Doris Day, Ivie Anderson and more. She invited me up to a sing a song a few times at different festivals, which was always a bit intimidating – I admired her so much and hoped she wouldn’t hear (or at least wouldn’t mind), how much I studied her recordings at home. Earlier this fall Michael posted a video of her and Jim Dapogny from 2004 that takes me right back to the festivals of that time and getting to watch her. It’s got all the elements I remember of her performances – relaxed melodies, easy swing, gentle humor, even a little sass on the Ethel Waters tune. I know the last few years were tough for her and her loved ones and I wish everyone peace with her passing. R.I.P. Becky and thank you for all the wonderful music – you’ve got a date with an angel 💞
Thanks for everything, dear Roo. You increased everyone’s happiness by just being.
One of the most rewarding events of 2025 and onward has been the monthly appearances of Danny Tobias’ groups at Winnie’s Jazz Bar in the Refinery Hotel, address above. I’ve missed two, but have been at all the others, and they have been both fun and enlightening.
Fun because Danny is not only an easy-going lyrical hot player who likes great melodies, but also a leader who makes the band and the audience comfortable. It’s not Easy Listening, but it is easy to listen to. And for intense, leaning-forward, note-taking listeners like myself, Danny and friends show on every tune what can be done with material that others would consider overworked. He and the band don’t strive for long solos where the melody has to be hunted for; they prefer music that makes people feel the emotions its composers had when they wrote it. As such, Danny’s Lucky Seven is spiritually uplifting and another reason I will never leave New York.
The most recent incarnation of the Lucky Seven, aptly named, is Danny, trumpet and Eb alto horn; John Allred, trombone; Harry Allen, tenor saxophone; Steve Ash, piano; Felix Lemerle, guitar; Jen Hodge, double bass; Kevin Dorn, drums.
Here are four nifty and completely typical performances from their October 2025 evening.
AM I BLUE?:
COQUETTE:
CREOLE LOVE CALL:
9:20 SPECIAL:
Now, that’s the (fairly) recent past. How about the future, just around the corner?
I will point out, as a consumer of such things, that Winnie’s is a singularly friendly place, with solicitous yet casual staff and tasty food. Drinking and videoing don’t mix, so I can’t testify to the cocktails, but I know they are well and carefully made.
That’s the end of the subtlety: if you miss Danny and the band, you are missing something great.
I present a record date, eight songs recorded, originally issued on a 10″ lp, with a British septet led by clarinetist and satirical cartoonist [“Trog”] Wally Fawkes, devoted to the recordings Billie Holiday made in the second half of the Thirties.
What you would have seen in the record store in 1958 or 1959:
and the reverse, here for the sake of authenticity and nostalgia for those who remember such icons:
and let’s go even deeper:
and
For some of us, this is the tangible equivalent of Proust’s madeline (even though I was not yet buying records in 1958-9). The music will follow, but first a few words about the trail leading to it in 2026.
For me, it all begins with trumpeter Spike Mackintosh. I first met him in Dave Gelly’s entrancing book:
Even before I heard Spike’s too-few recordings, I was thrilled by another person who not only bowed low before the majesty of Louis Armstrong, but who played the trumpet. When Louis visited England and a group of trumpeters serenaded him as he got off the airplane, Spike was the man who impressed him.
I was also delighted to read that when Spike was at a party and the host had put a record on the phonograph, Spike would (however secretly or openly I do not know) take the record off the turntable and replace it with one of Louis’. My kind of apostle.
My research into Spike was as deep as I could do, and I published the results (conversations with the few musicians who knew him, even writing to his famous son Cameron) here. Between 2014 and 2015, I published half a dozen posts about him, and if you care to type MACKINTOSH into the Search bar, I can promise you good stories and memorable music.
Nearly a dozen years later, I was searching eBay for music and holy relics related to my idols, although I try hard to not buy them. I typed “wally fawkes” and saw the record above, wanted it with furious covetousness, but calmed myself down because between the total cost would be fifty dollars, more or less. Once I had gotten my heart rate back to near-normal, I checked Tom Lord’s online discography, which is curiously lacking in its Spike listing, but saw under Fawkes that this music had been issued on LAKE LACD 143, which I was relieved to find I had. That CD And it is the source of the music which will follow.
The facts? BILLIE’S BLUES / MOANIN’ LOW / I WISHED ON THE MOON / TELL ME MORE / MISS BROWN TO YOU / WITHOUT YOUR LOVE / THEM THERE EYES / WHY WAS I BORN? Wally Fawkes, clarinet; Spike Mackintosh, trumpet; Jeremy French, trombone; Lennie Felix, piano; Russ Allen, double bass; J.M. “Jackie” Turner (May 20, 1958) or Dave Pearson (June 2 and 4, 1958), drums, as indicated on the label above.
Fawkes was categorized as a “trad” or “Dixieland” player, his influences being New Orleans players and Sidney Bechet. But like younger Americans in the Fifties, he and his colleagues listened to everything they could, in person and on record, and it is not surprising that they approach these songs with heartfelt affection and reverence, copying a turn of phrase here or there, but more often emulating what they had played and played along with countless times.
Happily, there is no singer attempting to copy Billie, no tenor saxophonist doing the same for Lester Young. Jeremy French at times honors Bennie Morton, Lennie Felix has Teddy Wilson in his mind, and Spike leavens his worship of mid-period Louis by thinking now and again of Buck Clayton, but who would object to that?
Sharp-eyed readers will notice that the notes are by Kingsley Amis, author of LUCKY JIM and much more. Like his poet friend Philip Larkin, Amis loved hot jazz with all his heart.
It is a delightfully homespun session, heartfelt rather than exact. Occasionally the rough edges show: on one or two songs, it’s clear that these humble acolytes imperfectly remember the harmonies of the original composition, and no one has the sheet music or a lead sheet to rely on. When this record came out, I doubt that Billie, in her last year, saw the cover with its somewhat awkward jest, but I imagine her reaction would not have been whole-hearted laughter. But these are small things when compared to the sweet lyrical energy of the music.
Although Fawkes is justly the leader and the star, when Spike solos, I want to stand up, put my hand over my heart, and face in the general direction of Corona, Queens, New York. Hooray for this little band, propelled by love, a love that doesn’t seek to imitate, but to honor.
One, the quotation comes from tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin, and I and others believe it like a gospel. I also think of it as a prayer, a benediction, and a low bow.
Two, the three musicians celebrated here are Dan Block, tenor saxophone and clarinet; Robert Redd, piano; Sean Smith, double bass. Subtle alchemists, humane transformationalists through vibration of the best kind.
Three, they will be playing again this coming Wednesday, January 7, at Cafe Ornithology, 1037 Broadway at Suydam Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York City, beginning at 7:30 PM for two extended sets.
Here are some selections from their first set of October 30:
Legendary but unseen until now, unless you were there.
Adolphe Sax bass saxophone (Paris, ca. 1877) at the National Music Museum, Vermillion, South Dakota.
Here is a wonderful set from Jazz at Chautauqua, Saturday brunch, September 15, 2001.
Dan Barrett, trombone; Bob Barnard, cornet; Scott Robinson, bass saxophone, assorted reeds; Vince Giordano, bass saxophone, aluminum double bass; Keith Ingham, piano; Marty Grosz, guitar; John Von Ohlen, drums. DO YOU EVER THINK OF ME? (2 bass saxophones, Robinson and Giordano) / BLUE AGAIN (Barnard) / THAT DA DA STRAIN //
Great fun and unforgettable music, with the musicians having a good time being playful and play-full.
This music was made possible by the blessed jazz enthusiast and organizer Joe Boughton; made available to us through the kindness of Sarah Boughton Holt and Bill Boughton:
I am told that a bass saxophone weighs between 18 and 25 pounds, so imagine that around your neck on a strap. Also, novels are written about violins and pianos and the people who play them (most recently, Ian McEwan’s emotionally grueling tale:
but there is also a wonderful novella by the Czech author Josef Skvorecky,
Few readers come to JAZZ LIVES for literary recommendations, but these books are extraordinary.
Happily, through the magic of recordings, we can hear how Vic Dickenson remains vividly himself, even though he hasn’t been gigging for forty years. He was a sublime and surprising ensemble player, a truly touching singer, but I sometimes enjoy most those brief and infrequent interludes where he had three choruses with a sympathetic rhythm section, no one to, as he said, “mess up his cool.”
What follows is, to me, a distillation of all things Vic: remarkable comedy and heartfelt melody, a sound-kaleidoscope I think unmatched by any other instrumentalist.
His playing is sometimes categorized as “sly wit” or “double-entendre,” but there is more here than a man brilliantly leering at us through brass tubing. You could think of him as a sculptor of pitches and tonalities, taking a melody and toying with it, bending this, accenting that, leaving a phrase ornately ornamented or seeming to play to us in the simplest terms. My crypto-poetic approach may not work for you, or you might say, “That’s just Vic being Vic,” but he is at once a gracious singer, a surrealist rearranging the familiar, and someone laughing, both at himself and at the song.
Vic’s memory for songs was legendary, and I don’t know why he might have chosen the venerable DOWN BY THE OLD MILL STREAM for this moment with these players. I would guess that everyone in this quartet (his dear friend Bobby Hackett sat this one out) was looking for alternatives to the songs the crowd asked for, BASIN STREET BLUES and SWEET GEORGIA BROWN being two favorites beaten to shreds by an over-abundance of love. Vic told Stanley Dance, “I always liked melodies,” and DOWN BY THE OLD MILL STREAM is certainly hummable.
Vic was born in Xenia, Ohio, in 1906, and the song was a tremendous hit in 1910: people played it on the parlor piano for others to sing; I envision it being played, politely, for dancing. Its composer was an Ohio boy, I have learned. So I imagine a very young Vic hearing this song, possibly joining in with others to sing it. And we know that the music we hear in childhood sticks with us.
The other musicians here are the brotherly pair of Jimmy Andrews, piano; Mike Burgevin, drums, subtle, thoughtful, and respectful players. Jimmy might have suggested the song; he liked the once-familiar repertoire, now played less often as jazz: I’ve heard him lead an ensemble through MY MAN and BESAME MUCHO, neither of them common choices even in 1972. Mike loved Dave Tough, George Wettling, and drummers who kept sympathetic time, as he does here. Larry Kitt was not primarily a working musician, but his choices make sense (more so than some more famous bassists who worked with Jimmy and Mike).
And Vic is at his ease. I find few sonic embraces more warming than that:
I referred above to the music, so dear, that we hear in childhood. I heard Vic on Louis’ SUGAR and I WANT A LITTLE GIRL when I was ten or eleven, then, the second volume of the Vanguard VIC DICKENSON SHOWCASE and his contributions to THE SOUND OF JAZZ. I didn’t see him in person until I was nineteen, and he moved on a dozen years later, but he is as real to me today as the sound of any living person. I expect to have him in my ear as long as I am alive, and, if I am lucky, after that as well.
I would like to be younger, but I do not regret my age, because being around for this long means that I got to see Jimmy Rushing, Buck Clayton, Ruby Braff, Vic Dickenson, Bud Freeman, Freddie Green, and Buzzy Drootin, sometimes close enough to have conversations. So when I hear their music I see them in front of me, in motion, having a good time, fulfilling their purpose on the planet, joyously. But even if you, reading this, know them only as vibrations in your earbuds, we are so fortunate that they left their soul-stirring (no cliche!) sounds for us to hear.
I present them, gloriously alive.
I’M GONNA SIT RIGHT DOWN AND WRITE MYSELF A LETTER / GOIN’ TO CHICAGO / ST. LOUIS BLUES. Announcer (not all that amusing) Willis Conover. Newport Jazz Festival, July 2, 1959.
Jimmy Rushing, vocal; Buck Clayton, trumpet; Ruby Braff, cornet; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Bud Freeman, tenor saxophone; Pee Wee Russell, clarinet; Ray Bryant, piano; Freddie Green, guitar; Champ Jones, double bass; Buzzy Drootin, drums. Originally broadcast by the Voice of America:
I saw Jimmy Rushing only once, on April 4, 1972. He died on June 8 from leukemia. That April night at the Half Note, where he was accompanied by Ruby Braff, he had difficulty climbing the three or four steps to the bandstand, and he sang, seated. Each time he sang, his performance was lengthy, not perfunctory. He never faltered.
When the performance was over, we walked past him on the way to the street. I said the only words that seemed appropriate, “God bless you, Mr. Rushing,” and he thanked me. I should have said, “Thank you, Mr. Rushing, for the blessings you give us.”
Wishing you all joy, health, music, and freedoms in 2026.
The sentiments are from legendary tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin, and they were never not true. Music uplifts us if we allow it entrance, and we can always choose to do so. I offer you living, breathing evidence: quietly brilliant music from three lyrical swinging explorers: Dan Block, tenor saxophone and clarinet; Robert Redd, piano; Sean Smith, double bass.
October 30, 2025, at Cafe Ornithology, 1037 Suydam Street, Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York City.
BLUE ROOM / PURPLE GAZELLE / TIME ON MY HANDS / EMILY / IT’S ALL RIGHT WITH ME.
Please allow yourself the luxury of watching and listening at leisure: the singular and collective creativity here is a great reward.
Even better: this trio will be playing, in as many dimensions as you care to tabulate, at Cafe Ornithology, on January 7, 2026.
Wear your warm coat, bring cash for the tip jar, and prepare for an infusion of what Ruby Braff called “aesthetic vitamins.” In fewer syllables, I call it joy.
Thanks to a gracious literary benefactor, I visited Dublin, twenty years ago. When she couldn’t find something, she would cast her eyes to the ceiling and say, “St. Anthony, St. Anthony, help me look around. Something is lost and must be found.” Sometimes the set of keys would appear. When they were recalcitrant, other things would get said, but we need not detail those prayers here.
I am not Catholic, but I hope the Saint will understand that what follows is respectful, not blasphemous.
I have been in love with jazz for more decades than I care to annotate here, and I had a pre-computer childhood, so my access to the music was severely limited by today’s standards. No YouTube, no Internet Archive, no Spotify. Rather, the record departments at local department stores; the radio, records in thrift stores; trading cassettes with friends and collectors.
In its own constricted way, that was lovely. If you don’t know that something exists, you can’t pine for it.
The floodgates began to open in my college years, with collectors’ lps, foreign issues, and obsessive tape-trading. I remember the life-altering sensation of hearing the Ellington Fargo concert for the first time, the 1944 Metropolitan Opera House jam session, the 1940 Goodman Octet with Christian and Lester, seeing Louis in Copenhagen, JAMMIN’ THE BLUES, and more. In the years that followed, I accumulated discographies; Jan Evensmo generously opened his treasure-boxes to me, as did a host of generous collectors.
But as the hoard grew, so did the desire to hear music beyond my reach. The inaccessible seems sweeter than what is at hand, although sometimes the rarities disappoint after decades of yearning.
I should note that I am not a “completist.” I revere many musicians with the ardor usually reserved for deities, but I can sleep at night knowing that there is, let us say, a four-bar break by ___________ that I will never hear. But some Grails, out of my reach forever, do glimmer, so thrillingly inaccessible.
I thought, in the spirit of earnest heartfelt whimsy, I would list the music I have been yearning to hear for years and see what happens. Maybe St. Anthony knows where those OKeh test pressings are.
In no order of yearning, I offer the following.
More broadcast material, radio airshots, from Cafe Society, with Teddy Wilson’s band, Frank Newton’s, and Joe Sullivan’s.
The second set of kinescopes from the Eddie Condon Floor Show.
The complete recordings from the 1944 Fats Waller Memorial Concert (Jerry Valburn issued some of this) featuring Frank Newton, Ben Webster, Sidney Catlett, and others.
The three tapes from the CHANGING TIMES jazz parties that I lack.
Any yet-unheard discs from John Hammond’s house in 1933: the one I know about has Joe Sullivan, Benny Carter, Chu Berry, and Eddie Condon.
Late in life (I do not recall the source) jazz enthusiast and promoter Ernest Anderson told of being hired by a wealthy executive to make some one-of-a-kind jazz records for his son, a deep fan. Anderson got Bobby Hackett, Sidney Catlett, and Harry Gibson (not yet “the Hipster”) into a studio and they recorded an album — how many 12″ discs I do not know — of which one copy was pressed.
Jo Jones told Phil Schaap about hearing Lester Young, before meeting him, by means of “a little silver record” (those who know may imitate Jo’s distinctive voice here). When I spoke to Jo at Frank Ippolito’s drum shop, I asked him what had happened to the record. You can imagine his facial expression.
The 16″ discs recorded by Ralph Berton of the 1941 Village Vanguard jam sessions, which Berton may have played on his WNYC radio show.
The rejected take of I’M GONNA STOMP MISTER HENRY LEE recorded by Jack Teagarden and Louis, Happy Caldwell, Sullivan, Eddie Lang, and Kaiser Marshall at the KNOCKIN’ A JUG session. Also, if the Saint wouldn’t mind, Louis’ OKeh of LITTLE BY LITTLE.
Sheet music, with the verse, to HE’S A SON OF THE SOUTH.
We have this, though:
More of the discs Jerry Newman recorded uptown.
The acetate discs (recorded but then broken and presumably discarded) of the jam session featuring the Count Basie and Bob Crosby reed sections.
The discs recorded at Squirrel Ashcraft’s house in Evanston, Illinois.
A complete run of the music recorded at Stuyvesant Casino, Central Plaza, and other shrines, preferably when the crowd was placid and the piano in tune (I know, I dream too much).
One that requires a long prelude: impatient readers may skip it. In March 1972, a concert was held at Queens College celebrating “American music between the wars.” It was really a fancy name for the familiar “history of jazz,” and in two parts, it went from MAPLE LEAF RAG to NOW’S THE TIME. The band was breath-taking even for 1972: Ray Nance, Joe Newman, Garnett Brown, Frank Wess, Herb Hall, Hank Jones, Milt Hinton, Billy Butler, Al Foster. And how they swung! I had brought my cassette recorder, hoping to get it all down for posterity (read: my delight) and one of my nervous friends, who shall not be named here, anxiously convinced me to let the first half of the concert go unrecorded because he was sure we would be thrown out. (When the second half started, I turned the recorder on and told him, “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” and I recorded it. I will post that tape in 2026.) But because of his fear and my unwillingness to argue, I missed Ray Nance singing and playing MARGIE and I’M IN THE MARKET FOR YOU. I know MARKET was recorded and issued on a Black Lion disc, but MARGIE, never, as far as I know. I would ask St. Anthony to let me hear MARGIE once again. Please?
I write all this with amusement.
If you came to the room (is it my “studio” or my “office”?) where I am writing this, you would see an abundance of music, everything but reel-to-reel tapes and cylinders: 78s, 45s, 10″ and 12″ lps (let others call them vinyls), cassette tapes, external hard drives full of videos, YouTube both audio and video as yet not shared with the world, compact discs.
I would have to live several lifetimes to make a dent in this glorious hoard.
This year, 2025, I have gained access to collections I never dreamed of hearing, thanks to gracious people. So, as they say, I ain’t starving. But St. Anthony might like jazz.
Stranger things have happened. If you’d asked me when I was fifteen if I would ever hear a recording of Frank Newton and Art Tatum, or one of Hot Lips Page and Fats Waller, I would have said, “Impossible.” But these things have come to pass.
A year and two days ago, the OAO and I were visiting New Orleans, and one of the highlights was the music we heard and saw aboard the Steamboat Natchez on two balmy afternoons. I’ve posted the good sounds from James Francis Evans, Steve Pistorius, and Tom Saunders here and here; a day later, the trio was Duke Heitger, trumpet and vocal; David Boeddinghaus, piano; Tom Saunders, tuba. Watch and hear!
Here I am, at home in New York, thinking with affection of that music.
So I will share with you the second set from the steamboat.
WHY DON’T YOU GO DOWN TO NEW ORLEANS? (vocal Duke) / BLUE AND BROKEN-HEARTED / SHREVEPORT STOMP / LET IT SNOW! (vocal Duke) / IT HAD TO BE YOU (vocal Duke) / THAT’S A-PLENTY / ALLIGATOR CRAWL / ST. JAMES INFIRMARY BLUES (vocal Duke) / AS TIME GOES BY / WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN (vocal Duke):
Wonderful musically, and all in the land of dreamy dreams, with the red paddlewheel spinning. Faye Marable, Louis, Jelly Roll, and Earl have moved to other neighborhoods, but their energized loving spirits live on vividly through these artists.
And if the music above doesn’t whet your aesthetic appetite for a trip to NOLA, maybe the photograph below will: my blindingly delicious dinner plate on December 27, fried chicken over red beans, rice, and sausage: a cardiologist’s nightmare and more than enough for two people, and, no, I didn’t eat it all.
If, as so many do, you associate Dave Brubeck and his colleagues only with relentless excerpts from TAKE FIVE as telephone hold-music, you do him a disservice.
Thanks to saxophonist-scholar Jon De Lucia, I’ve had many opportunities to discover music by Brubeck, Lee Konitz, Jimmy Giuffre, Gerry Mulligan, Ted Brown, Warne Marsh, and others. The music Jon and friends study and offer is surprising and delightful: intricate yet impassioned tapestries of sound and texture.
I first encountered Jon at the fabled Brooklyn studio of Michael Kanan and Stephanie Greig, The Drawing Room, where his Octet was accompanying the wondrous saxophonist Ted Brown. This was in April 2016, and although some think (wrongly) that my musical tastes begin and end with ROYAL GARDEN BLUES, I was enthralled by his music.
In the intervening almost-decade, I’ve followed Jon and friends, sometimes this sleek Octet, sometimes ad hoc groups, sometimes a surprise sitting-in, and have always been delighted and restored by the music he creates, both himself and his groups, and his devout, careful, but never ostentatious scholarship.
Here’s a most recent example. Jon has been working on his doctorate, where his studies focus on the music of the Dave Brubeck Octet, which existed from 1949 to 1953. In previous concerts, he has worked from sometimes partial scores to reconstruct and reimagine music the Octet recorded. Here, as a result of deep archival study, he presented music never recorded, with apt compact commentary. This free concert was a prelude to Jon’s second recording of this music: out early in 2026. (Watch this space.)
Photographs by RSG Studios.
Jon De Lucia, leader, alto saxophone; Brandon Lee, trumpet; Becca Patterson, trombone; Jay Rattman, clarinet, baritone saxophone; Scott Robinson, tenor saxophone; Danny Fox, piano; Kevin Thomas, double bass; Keith Balla, drums.
Monday, December 8, 2025, at the CUNY Graduate Center: HAPPY IN LOVE / GOODNIGHT EILEEN / I WANT TO BE HAPPY / FUGUE TWO / TEA FOR TWO / STARDUST / HOW ABOUT YOU? / CHORALE / LULLABY IN RHYTHM / MY HEART / PERDIDO:
“Cerebral,” but never cold: full of energy, wit, precision, and power. Warm music for a very chilly night.
Hail to those musicians who turn dots on paper into tangible joys.
Finding something that you know exists — perhaps you misplaced it or, worse, put it “in a safe place” and you come upon it again — is a pleasure and a relief. Finding something you didn’t know existed is a hundred thousand times better.
I had a tape recording of Joe Thomas, trumpet; Jimmy Andrews, piano; Mike Burgevin, drums, that Mike had copied for me. (Our friendship was based at first in admiration for Joe, Louis, Bing, Dave, George, and of course Big Sid.) No date and no exact place, though I assumed it was the early Seventies in New Jersey. The tape was incomplete, but it offered three of Joe’s Keynote classics, performed with two of his dear friends and admirers: YOU CAN DEPEND ON ME; BLACK BUTTERFLY; HOME. The tape ran out in the middle of HOME, and I assumed that this fragment was all that existed.
But a few months ago, a friend deep into New Jersey jazz offered me the tape you will hear below, nearly forty-five minutes by the same trio with guest tenor saxophonist Bill Kimode sitting in on ROSE ROOM and the two songs that follow.
Here are the titles performed: YOU CAN DEPEND ON ME / BLACK BUTTERFLY / HOME* / AVALON / ROSE ROOM [add Bill Kimode, tenor saxophone] / CRAZY RHYTHM / GEORGIA ON MY MIND* [NC] //
For those who know Joe’s luminous earlier recordings, it’s clear that some of the ease and gloss is gone. The trumpet is an especially unforgiving instrument!
Compare this impromptu performance to the Decca sides with Lil Armstrong, Art Tatum, Big Joe Turner; the BBC jam session; the recordings with Teddy Wilson, Sidney Catlett, Ed Hall; the Keynotes with Jack Teagarden, George Wettling, Coleman Hawkins, Earl Hines, Cozy Cole, Tyree Glenn, Roy Eldridge, Emmett Berry, Barney Bigard, Red Norvo, Vic Dickenson; the HRS sides with the Ellingtonians; the Jamboree sides with Don Byas, Dave Tough; the Buck Clayton Jam Session; the Tony Scott BLUES FOR THE STREET; the Prestige-Swingville dates, the Atlantic MAINSTREAM, and more. Whitney Balliett wrote of a session that paired Joe with Ellis Larkins, which never appeared. Catnip.
As an aside, if we are known by the company we keep, Joe was a bright light of the first rank.
But as we know in our own lives, the forty-year old cannot run the dash as she did at eighteen. If we criticize the elder, we are in danger of having the blinding light turned into our own eyes, to punish us for being ungenerous. Rather, let us celebrate Joe for honing his musical intelligence, his expressiveness, so that those who know Joe Thomas recognize him immediately. He knew who he was, and such self-knowledge is incredible valuable, a sign of maturity. And let us celebrate Mike Burgevin and Jimmy Andrews, who loved Joe dearly, the unknown Bill Kimode, who plays his part well.
Just in case you would like compact evidence of Joe in his prime, here he is in 1941, in admittedly low fidelity, leading a peerless group on THEM THERE EYES, his playing both grand and subtle:
Joe is not part of the Star System. He is often confused with Jimmie Lunceford’s tenor star with the same first and last names. The major online jazz discography lists a double bassist on some Herbie Hancock records as our trumpet man.
When Joe was in his great period (however you define it) the woods were thick with the greatest jazz trumpeters, all Louis-inspired in their own ways. I don’t think he ached to be a leader, so he was second or third trumpet on many recordings: Alex Hill, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter, and Fats Waller. His name is in the discographies, but his solos didn’t get recorded (although on a treasure trove of Carter broadcasts from the Savoy Ballroom, 1939-40, now no longer accessible to me, he and Vic get many solo spots). Happily, he always had people who understood his singular voice: Harry Lim, Steve Smith, Albert McCarthy, and Mike Burgevin. But he didn’t have the push (can there be a better word?) of a Roy Eldridge or the good fortune of a Buck Clayton, so his discography is marked by long absences.
Those absences make this interlude even more touching for those who understand.
I know I saw Joe perhaps a half-dozen times: at Brew’s with Mike and Jimmy; outdoors in Battery Park with Mike and two others; four times at Newport — twice with Eddie Condon, twice with Benny Carter’s SWING MASTERS big band. I cherish those moments. And I cherish these forty-five minutes of Joe and friends that we can hear today, years after the steaks and baked potatoes became historical artifacts. Bless the people like Chuck Slate and Mike Burgevin, who made such music possible. Great gifts.
I’m not alone in this, but a deep pleasure is hearing hot bands play pop tunes. Bunk’s MARIA ELENA. Louis’ SOMETHING TELLS ME. Ivie’s MEXICALI ROSE. Basie’s I’LL ALWAYS BE IN LOVE WITH YOU. You can compile your own list.
I am listening right now to a new CD that brings these grateful thought to the fore. It’s pictured above, and the link is here. It’s a truly engaging evocation of a band and a style perhaps not well-known: Ted Shafer’s Jelly Roll Jazz Band (which I saw live once, in its later incarnation, perhaps 2010). And the fine musicians on it are Dave Kosmyna, cornet; Clint Baker, trombone; Natalie Scharf, clarinet; Charles Chen, piano; Jacob Alspach, banjo; Bill Reinhart, string bass; Hal Smith, drums/leader; T.J. Muller, vocal.
I love this performance of the 1925 hit, A CUP OF COFFEE, A SANDWICH, AND YOU (music by Joseph Meyer; clever lyrics by Al Dubin, who enjoyed his food perhaps to excess, and perhaps some wayward ideas by Billy Rose).
Dave Kosmyna, cornet; Clint Baker, trombone; Natalie Scharf, clarinet; Charles Chen, piano; Jacob Alspach, banjo; Bill Reinhart, string bass; Hal Smith, drums/leader; T.J. Muller, vocal.
The performance by the Telegraph Avenue Jazz Band reminds us, or at least me, that what we call “traditional jazz” or “classic jazz” was once performed for dancers. So this COFFEE is at an easy stepping tempo, nothing rushed or in boldface, the band’s tone dictated by Dave Kosmyna’s terse but lyrical lead, Natalie Scharf’s delicate melodic improvisation, with the rhythm section taking neat bites of the sandwich and sipping the hot coffee decorously.
The other songs on this digital issue are Sweet Lovin’ Man / Terrible Blues / Charleston / Muddy Water / Down Among The Sheltering Palms / At The Christmas Ball / Who’s It? — a pleasing offering of pop songs, jazz classics, and more, however you wish to define the music.
I never talk about prices, but since this is the holiday season and everything has a price tag, I will note that one can purchase the digital download from bandcamp.com for a pittance of eight dollars. I don’t know what economics-data-driven scale you measure cost by, but in my world both the lunch special at the Chinese takeout (broccoli with garlic sauce, spicy, and brown rice) of that New York standard, bacon-egg-and-cheese-on-a-roll-with-or-without-catsup, are both more than eight dollars these days. They’re both delicious, and they disappear in minutes. The CD is also delicious . . . and you know the rest.
Yes, such things happened. Improvisations both subtle and intense. And here is the evidence to prove it, from Jazz at Chautauqua, Chautauqua, New York. September 18, 1999.
The creators are Scott Hamilton, Ken Peplowski, tenor saxophones; Dick Hyman, piano; Howard Alden, guitar; Jay Leonhart, double bass; John Von Ohlen, drums. JOHNNY COME LATELY / TOO LATE NOW (Ken) / WHEN I GROW TOO OLD TO DREAM / SKYLARK (Scott) / BLUES UP AND DOWN //
Of course we owe everything to the musicians, but the occasion was created and the performance was preserved because of jazz enthusiast and producer Joe Boughton. It is shared here through the kindness of Sarah Boughton Holt and Bill Boughton:
I’ve heard inventive swinging jazz like this all my life on records. But to see it created, fresh and fervent, in front of an audience, without retakes or studio-alterations, is the deepest pleasure.
So much has been written about Benjamin David Goodman, including a superb screenplay, that I declare a prose holiday. I write only this. How fortunate we are that he and a clarinet found each other in Chicago, that he loved to play, and kept doing so until the end.
And let us thank Bobby Hackett, not only for glorious playing and keeping things on track, but for recording the music that follows on his Tandberg tape recorder. Never was a “hobby” such a beneficence.
Benny Goodman, clarinet; Bobby Hackett, trumpet; George Masso, trombone; Bucky Pizzarelli, guitar; John Bunch, piano; Peter Appleyard, vibraphone; Slam Stewart, double bass; Joe Corsello, drums. South Yarmouth, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, August 12, 1973. The tape I possess offers these excerpts from the concert:
UNDECIDED / THE GOOD LIFE (Bobby) / A SMOOTH ONE / THE ONE I LOVE (Masso) / ROSE ROOM / DON’T BE THAT WAY – STOMPIN’ AT THE SAVOY / THE DUKE (Bunch) / MEMORIES OF YOU / POOR BUTTERFLY / MISTY (Bucky – Bobby) / IF I HAD YOU / BEI MEIR BIS DU SCHOEN / INDIANA / I’M COMIN’ VIRGINIA / GOOD-BYE / applause / THAT’S A-PLENTY //
In mid-December, the volume level of advertising rises to a collective howl. Whether you are celebrating the winter solstice, Hanukah, the end of the semester, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or something else, you’re encircled by guilt-inducing ads for “that special someone.” Bathrobes. Scarves. Pears in tissue paper.
I’ve never done a JAZZ LIVES holiday list, but six CDs I admire greatly are in view, so here is my brief Gift Guide for people who thrive on inventive heartfelt music. Alphabetical order, no ranking.
JOSH COLLAZO’S JAZZBOREE — “a band of merry players”!
I know Josh as a wonderful swinging drummer, a warm-hearted team player, and an engaging intuitive composer of hummable songs. His original compositions are full of small surprises, and they stick very comfortably in the mental jukebox. JAZZBOREE is his new band, and this CD shows off some truly inventive players: Marc Caparone, Nate Ketner, Riley Baker, Carl Sonny Leyland, Sam Rocha, and Josh.
Here’s CAROUSEL, which to me is ten pounds of groove in a sandwich-size Ziplock. Available as CD, “vinyl,” or download at bandcamp.com.
Colin Hancock’s Jazz Hounds featuring Catherine Russell, CAT & THE HOUNDS (Turtle Bay Records)
Colin and Catherine take us on a brightly-colored tour of the Black music of the Twenties: dance numbers, saucy vaudeville routines, sly love songs, and the occasional downhearted lament. It’s a wholly entertaining pageant of sounds and feelings, and their effort to reset the compass, to return the music to its authentic selves. (Brilliant deep notes by Colin.) The rousing band is, along with Colin and Catherine, Dion Tucker, Evan Christopher, Jerron Paxton, Jon Thomas, Ahmad Johnson, Kerry Lewis, and Vince Giordano. For her part, Catherine could sing the menu at the local Chinese takeout and we would order everything, enchanted. Here’s YOU’VE GOT EVERYTHING A SWEET MAMA NEEDS BUT ME. I delight in imagining ELEVATOR PAPA, SWITCHBOARD MAMA as an essential addition to the holiday soundtrack. Available in the three forms above at turtlebayrecords.com or bandcamp.com.
This is a lively cohesive unit, everyone deeply aware of each song’s background and performance conventions. But they don’t “play old records live”; rather they are enthusiastic individualists. They are having fun and their audiences at Birdland (where they have a steady weekly gig and where this CD was recorded) are also. This single disc shows off the depth of their repertoire: Jelly Roll Morton, Freddie Keppard, a New Orleans funeral, venerable pop tunes, dance hall standards, a nod to San Francisco jazz, and more. HERE COMES THE HOT TAMALE MAN is properly spicy, and the band passes my test for this number when we hear, “Red hot!” “That’s what!” If band members don’t know to do that, send them back to the woodshed. These inspired musicians are Simon Wettenhall, Conal Fowkes, Harvey Tibbs, Tom Abbott, Josh Dunn, Brian Nalepka, and Kevin Dorn. Get it at bandcamp.com.
The word I have for double bassist-composer Neal Miner is eloquent, although he is cheerfully modest and self-deprecating. But a Miner solo often reminds me of Churchill inspiring the British on BBC in 1940. Not loud or oratorical, but focused and deeply communicative. And his compositions have some of the same quality. INVISIBILITY is his seventh CD as a leader, the latest in that consistently rewarding series. Chris Byars and Jason Tiemann offer contrapuntal frolics, lullabies, midnight introspections, strolls and saunters, soundtracks for a yet-unshot film noir, love songs, conversations overheard at the diner, and more. The session has some of the playful seriousness I associate with chamber-jazz recordings by Lucky Thompson, Sonny Rollins, and Oscar Pettiford. Here’s one of my favorites, BLUE VIEW — to my ears, as if Strayhorn and Monk had collaborated. Find this disc at bandcamp.com.
Michael Kanan always offers deep emotion that murmurs. He has made a number of resonant sessions with his long-time colleague, vibraphonist Jorge Rossy, another quiet melodic engine, but this is their first recorded duet, a meeting of kindred souls. SOMEWHERE is a lovely example of what these two masters of emotion do: for those who know WEST SIDE STORY, this performance so deeply evokes hope with an undercurrent of melancholy. I selected that track because I had made my own rule: only one performance per disc, but I played all of RED ON MAROON with awe, wanting to post every note, and finally resigning myself to the final track. Tony and Maria agreed. Incidentally, the elegantly vibrating cover art is by the splendid double bassist Stephanie Greig. This session is available at bandcamp.com.
Angela’s singing always feels so unaffected; each song feels like an unexpected phone call from a dear faraway friend. Tenderness is her native soundtrack, but on some performances she sounds as if she is about to burst into laughter and is containing it, barely, until the last note is sounded. Pianist Ray Gallon is a superb accompanist in the great line of Ellis Larkins and John Lewis: I found myself playing performances a second time, attempting to ignore Angela (nearly impossible) to concentrate on Ray’s dancing but never obtrusive lines. Of the eleven performances here, slightly less than half are her originals, which stand up solidly next to the great standards. Hear I’M 99% SURE OF YOU (co-written with Cathy Gyorgy) — honest and hilarious in the best Frishberg manner. I regret that AM radio and television variety shows have vanished: these performances would be pop hits, and that is not faint praise. Streaming in the expected places, and it can be purchased at Angela’s website.
If the list seems too short, here are four marvels I’ve already rhapsodized over: two books, two discs.
I know of no photographer who has photographed people as inwardly as Lisette Model. Berenice Abbott
Jazz aims straight at our ears. Since so much of the music we treasure comes to us on recordings, we are accustomed to receiving the delightful information in a visual void. (Live performances and the now-ubiquitous video-recordings are exceptions.)
But the eye thirsts for some ways to deepen the experience. Those who have record collections have spent their listening hours staring at photographs, each a foot square, that ornamented and deepened the experience. And since the Forties, books and magazines have offered photographs of fabled players and singers. But often those photographs have been restricted by convention and circumstance. How many portraits of women singers at the microphone, mouths unintentionally contorted, have we seen? How many trumpeters, cheeks bulging? How many tenor saxophonists in profile, how many trombonists, their faces half-obscured by the bell of the horn?
The photographs that stay longest in the memory tell deep stories: Louis Armstrong on the bus, half in another world and not too happy with the one surrounding him; Lester Young in his bedroom, trying to accept that someone with a camera has intruded; dancers at the Savoy Ballroom, aloft and grinning.
The photographer Lisette Model understood the possibilities and the limitations of the form, and found her own way in both cases. The new book, LISETTE MODEL: THE JAZZ PICTURES, edited by Audrey Sands with an original essay by Langston Hughes and an afterword by Loren Schoenberg (Eakins Press Foundation, $65) is a world between covers.
Model said of these photographs, “I was absolutely overwhelmed by jazz because I knew that was America. And that was something I really wanted to photograph.”
Some books of jazz photographs are burdened by commentary tone-deaf, inaccurate, or both. THE JAZZ PICTURES begins with a warm precise introduction to Model and her jazz work, more than seventy pages, written and researched by Audrey Sands. At every turn, Sands’ writing is sensitive, light-footed, and wise, navigating the double worlds of jazz and photography with grace. She does in words what Model does with her camera. When I reached Sands’ closing page, I felt satisfied: I’d already gotten my money’s worth, even though the photographs still lay before me. It is not often we encounter a writer so sympathetic and deft. (You may read more about her here — and I found out that her 2019 dissertation had Model as its subject. I hope that is another book on its own.)
The photographs by Model that illustrate Sands’ essay are completely remarkable because unformulaic (although I have seen other photographers attempting to copy it for themselves). Jazz is a way of communicating through vibrations wrapped in emotion, or the other way around. So Model’s photographs are sometimes consciously “unsharp,” the better to catch mobile energy. And although she created full-face portraits of Eddie Condon and Harry James, she is often focused on the rapt joyous audiences, reflecting the music in their faces and bodies.
Some jazz photographs are memorable primarily as documents of people we revere occupying the same space: I think of one of Milt Hinton’s photographs that presents Ben Webster and Pee Wee Russell as seated neighbors. But often such photographs do not compel us as art. Model’s work does. The book opens with a portrait of Ella Fitzgerald, standing, singing. We have seen countless photographs of Ella. But Model’s portrait is both photo-journalism and a vision of Ella as living sculpture, and that doubleness is entrancing.
The format of the book is at once inviting and practical. The photographs Model chose to print are presented full-size, one to a page. Her negatives have been printed as positive images, and are grouped as smaller but still eminently readable photographs on other pages. Looking at her images, I found myself wondering whether she was, at heart, a great painter, a novelist, or the head of an artistic detective agency. The majority of the photos capture musicians and audiences in action — what we call “candid” photography. But I felt, over and over, that “candid” really referred to its root in “candor,” that Model is first and foremost a truth-teller. Her photographs of Bud Powell in performance in 1957 are strongly revealing studies of the person and the performer.
Two other examples of Model unearthing something as deep as any biography or perhaps extended psychoanalysis will suffice. A good number of photographs of Louis Armstrong and his All-Stars summon up the joyous energies of that band: Louis grinning, Velma Middleton powerfully gesturing. But looking more closely, one sees, now and again, that Louis’ eyes are sharp, even cold and assessing: performance of his music was a life-and-death matter to him, and every thirty-second note mattered more than we knew, behind the jolly visage. Another trumpeter, Miles Davis, is seen at his ease. Or so one might think. Although his body is relaxed, he is watchful, a sentry on duty among possible enemies. Model sees these depths and shares them with us.
The book contains too many delights and surprises to list here. Not every musician of renown from 1954-1959 appears, but Model’s fascination with jazz was expansive and free from ideological accretions. So we see Zutty Singleton, Gene Sedric, and Vic Dickenson at Central Plaza; we see Teddy Wilson and Jutta Hipp at the Newport Jazz Festival. We find both Toshiko Akiyoshi and Dizzy Gillespie with cameras, his a fine Rolleiflex. We peer in at Erroll Garner, Paul Chambers, Wilbur Ware. We visit Maely Dufty’s house to witness Billie Holiday rehearsing new material; we catch her on the telephone and perhaps we overhear her conversation; we see Herbie Nichols leaning against the stove in the Dufty kitchen. At Music Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts, Willie “the Lion” Smith plays piano for Charles Mingus and Oscar Pettiford. Many have heard the Atlantic recording of a concert there, combining Rex Stewart, Pee Wee Russell, Pettiford, and Jimmy Giuffre: we can now gaze at Model’s photographs of that performance.
Even more rewarding to me are her photographs of audiences, occasionally with famous figures in the seats, John Hammond, Quincy Jones, Elaine and Louis Lorillard. More often the people captured are never to be known, but their faces tell all without words: women under ponchos in the rain at Newport, someone ecstatic, another woman in gloves, her hands protecting herself, whether cold or impatient to go home, we cannot know.
Many of the previously-unseen photographs are of Billie Holiday, looking more at ease and healthy than the famously unsparing studies of that decade. The last photographs are eerie: Model was given three minutes to photograph Lady Day in her coffin. I cannot describe that series; readers will find themselves both drawn in and wounded.
After that, no photographs could follow. The book concludes with prose: Langston Hughes’ brief playful rhapsody, “Jazz as Communication,” and Loren Schoenberg’s “Overtones,” which places Model in the larger world of the Fifties and in that decade’s jazz cosmos.
A personal note: some books, when I have finished an initial reading or inspection, I move to the bookcases, in hopes of future tidiness and order. I have immersed myself in that book’s experience, and for the moment, see no need to revisit it. I will not be shelving THE JAZZ PICTURES any time soon, because its pages reveal more on each visit. It will be a sustaining pleasure.
Obviously this book would please and enlighten any jazz enthusiast or youthful musician who wants to get under the surface of the sounds. It is also valuable as a political document of what was once repressed, and certainly as a collection of gorgeous photographs of a time and a place. (There are enough details of clothing and furniture to keep anyone, even someone uninterested in jazz, enthralled.)
If the recipient of this gift asks “Who’s that on the cover?” and has never heard of Bud Powell, no matter. Encourage them to turn to the inside front and back cover photographs of people so jubilant that we can hear their laughter, and they will begin the journey, happily following Model into a world she makes her own, while inviting us to visit.
I use the present tense in my title because Model’s photographs are alive. This beautiful book is no museum.
And at a time when gorgeous large-format books like this are often priced, of necessity, in three figures, this one is a bargain. You will have enough money left over to snag a lovely (perhaps secondhand) wooden coffee table to hold it.
JAZZ LIVES 
