An Appreciation: George Jones (1931 – 2013)

He Stopped Loving Her Today

By Brick Wahl

I’ve never told anyone this before, but there was a two week stretch there maybe a decade and a half ago when I must have listened to “He Stopped Loving Her Today” a hundred times. Over and over. Once turned to twice turned to thrice turned to twenty times. I couldn’t tell you why, but there I was, in the dark, maybe a little stoned, George Jones singing this most perfect song ever in a tone I knew I could never match in words even if I spent a lifetime trying.

George Jones

I met a trumpet player once, a fine jazz musician, a bebopper, who confessed to me over a couple whiskeys that he wished he could play like George Jones sang. The other jazzers kind of laughed nervously, unsure what to say. I said nothing. I knew exactly what he meant.

I started writing this a verse or two into the tune. A couple sentences later I spun it again. And again. He stopped  loving her today fades, a piano descends five notes, strings disappear way into the background and are gone. They’re Nashville strings but you couldn’t tell here, they’re so subtle, the band is so subtle too, the drummer swings the thing like a funeral dirge. Which it is. They placed a wreath upon his door.

I had a fight with the wife once, said things I wish I hadn’t, hid in the living room in the dark, and kept thinking about those letters by his bed, all the I love you’s underlined in red.  I played the song. Played it again. Again. I went into the bedroom and said I love you. It was underlined in red.  In my mind I mean, three little words underlined in red.

This might sound like the dumbest thing you ever heard, but then I’m not talking to you people. I’m talking to the people who heard George Jones finally died, the ol’ Possum, and found themselves singing they left a wreath upon his door. You knew you would too. And you knew you’d cry just a little. Which you did. He stopped loving her today.

To screen a video of George Jones and “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” click HERE.

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To read more Brick Wahl posts on his personal web site click HERE. 

An Appreciation: Richie Havens (1)

By Brian Arsenault

Richie Havens (1941 – 2013) was not the greatest or most celebrated musical figure of his generation.  He was something better.

Richie Havens was an embodiment of the notion that we could all live together, black and white, all people, as people should live together. He was a gentle voice amidst a lot of anger.

Richie Havens

He seemed to say by just who he was, or who we thought he was, that we could live without bombs and guns, hatred and resentment, riots and repression. Without  careers, economic classes, endless competition to get ahead, get to the top, rule the world.

We could be color blind. Better. We could like whatever color you were because you were you, not your color. Whatever you were was cool, good to be, open to me. Open to you.

He could strum that guitar like no one before or after. It reverberated. It throbbed. It reached down deep in us with rhythms born in Africa and brought by ships to these shores. And simmered in the Delta, then sent up the Mississippi to Chicago and electrified.

He could sing with that deep voice with so much feeling and warmth and, yes, love. When people, some people at least, believed in love as the primary life force.  Or at least that it could be.

In that performance at Woodstock, all that was best in an era was on stage.  Was all our lives.  Was all our hope.

If it was a Camelot that couldn’t last, none can.  If it was a lie, if it was an illusion, it was a beautiful one and he was a beautiful man. And as long as he lived at least a little of that light lived. “Handsome Johnny” indeed.

The world is a little darker tonight.

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To read more posts, reviews and columns by Brian Arsenault click HERE.

An Appreciation: Richie Havens (2)

By Devon Wendell

I was very saddened to learn that Richie Havens passed away on Monday, April 22, 2013, of a heart attack at 72 years young.

I wasn’t born early enough to witness Havens during his heyday of the ‘60s, performing the small folk clubs in New York City in the early part of that decade to his electrifying performance at The Woodstock Festival in 1969.

The first time I heard Havens was at a free concert in Prospect Park, Brooklyn when I was 13 years old.  The way this fellow Brooklyn native strummed his guitar like a man possessed by some ancient divine spirit, and sang as, if he were channeling every form of American spiritual music brought tears to my eyes.

I remember getting to talk to the humble Havens after the show. I told him I played guitar and he smiled and said “never give up, ever!”

Richie Havens

I vividly recall Havens’ rendition of Fred Neil’s mournful “The Dolphins” being performed that hot Brooklyn afternoon. Sweat poured down his face, his eyes rolled to the back of his head; his entire body gyrated to every vocal phrase and percussive guitar strum like a preacher on the verge of speaking in tongues. He’d bar the neck of his guitar with his thumb, having reached a place where “proper” musical theory and technique could no longer be contained by the spirit within.

After that first encounter, I studied his records very closely. I also rented the Woodstock film and witnessed his performance of “Freedom” which left me transfixed and also sad.

I found there to be this extremely sad and pleading quality to Havens’ music as if he was able to capture that lost, searching feeling of those people seeking higher meaning on a socio and spiritual level but never quite reaching the mark. I imagined flocks of young people wandering the planet like tired Gypsies looking for answers or sometimes just a question that made sense, only to find dishonesty, greed, violence, and division at every turn.

Havens’ music personified all of that but always with optimism. There was great hope with that sadness and that dichotomy made his music so powerful and accessible to all people, from his debut album in 1965; Richie Havens’ Record (Douglas) to his final studio album in 2008; Nobody Left To Crown(Verve Forecast) And countless number of performances that left people riveted all over the world.

In a career that spanned over 50 years, Havens was not only a brilliant poet in his own right, but also an artist who could cover other musician’s material and make it his own.

His versions of The Beatles “Here Comes The Sun” and Bob Dylan’s “Just Like A Woman” made the originals feel stale to me. Haven’s courageously covered these songs when they were new, adding his own very personal style and arrangements to them.

Havens’ music will always be alive and relevant because so many of us are still searching, some more tired than others but I can see him smiling and saying “never give up, ever!”

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To read more posts, reviews and columns by Devon Wendell click HERE.

An Appreciation: Hugh McCracken — A Fond Remembrance

By Devon Wendell

I was saddened when I learned that Hugh McCracken passed away of leukemia yesterday – March 28^th, 2013 – in New York City.

While working at Donald Fagen’s recording studio in New York in the 90s, I was constantly surrounded by the top session musicians of the world on a constant basis, especially during a Steely Dan recording project. Some of these titans included: Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, Chuck Rainey, Paul Griffin, The Brecker Brothers, and Hugh McCracken. I was absolutely terrified and intimidated by just about all of them with the exception of McCracken. He didn’t have the ultra-cool, funky, macho boastfulness that Purdie and some of the others had that could make a wannabe, geeky musician and engineer like myself feel like the most un-hip person in the world.

Hugh McCracken

McCracken was very approachable and generous with his musical abilities. I wanted to meet him the most because I was not only a budding guitarist, but also a blues fanatic and I knew that McCracken played the original guitar rhythm track on B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone,” which is one of the most original and tasteful guitar parts ever recorded.

During down time, I’d be in the live room of the studio rapping cable or taking down microphones while McCracken would be laying down some sweet bluesy licks and chords, alone on a chair in the corner. He had a relaxed, pensive look on his face.

I was very young and played in an overly, flashy manner, not trusting in the economical power of the blues. Larry Carlton had donated a Gibson semi-hollobody guitar to the studio that I used to play all the time. On a few occasions, I’d talk to McCracken and show him some fast blues runs that I had learned. He’d look at me without judgment and say, “Well, try it this way,” while cutting everything I had shown him into a half or more. It made what I was playing sound sloppy and rushed. He knew exactly how to get right to the point with a few perfectly placed notes and with the right tone.

He taught me that you couldn’t always play like Godzilla behind a good singer or in a larger orchestral sound. All I thought about before then was the guitar solo and putting my stamp on everything too loud and too fast. Can you imagine if McCracken had tried to play like Buddy Guy or Hendrix on Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen?”

McCracken also changed my perception of playing the guitar with other artists in the studio. He made it work throughout his entire career with everyone from The Funatics in his youth in New Jersey, to Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, James Taylor, John Lennon, The Four Seasons, Van Morrison, Dr. John, Bob Dylan, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Aretha Franklin, and countless others as a primarily New York based player.

So many guitarists today could learn from MCracken’s example of not tossing out your entire technique within the first four bars and really complimenting a song in a extremely imaginative and funky fashion. I wouldn’t be a session player without having heard McCracken’s timeless guitar playing. He will be deeply missed.

To read more posts, reviews and columns by Devon Wendell click HERE.

An Appreciation: Alvin Lee of Ten Years After

So Long Alvin

 By Brian Arsenault

I clicked on the computer the other morning and there was one of those awful Daily News kind of headlines so prevalent on the internet; something like “Guitar Icon Dies.”  I inhaled sharply. I listened to them all. Which one was gone?

Then an even worse headline: “Alvin Lee Goes Home.”

Can you see him? Sweat pouring. Guitar speeding.  “Going Home“ coming out breathless, like no one else ever conceived it. He could play. Oh yes, he could play.

It’s like the time I walked into a book store years ago and saw the headline “Remembering Italo Calvino,“ by Gore Vidal, I think. Somehow I’d missed that Calvino had passed. I wish I still didn’t know.  You have this voice you’ve listened to and suddenly it’s shut off.

Alvin Lea dead in a Portuguese hospital after “routine surgery.”  There is never anything routine about surgery and long after Ten Years After mattered, Alvin Lee is gone. But he was still playing until close to the end. And still good.

One of the remarkable guitarists to leap out of England in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Based in the blues like Jimmy Paige, like Eric Clapton, like Jeff Beck. On to rock ‘n roll. They saved it.

He dazzled at Woodstock. Speed merchant and more. Nearly as big an impression as Hendrix made. Today largely forgotten or never known by many, but he was remarkable in his own right.

A dozen Ten Years After albums topped the charts in England in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Not so many in the States, but big here as well.  There were just so many stars in the constellation at the time.

So long, Alvin. The loss is felt. And it seems like just the beginning for a generation, at least the ones who didn’t die young.

Still, he might have been — young that is.  The original meaning of “Only the good die young” was that the good are young when they go, at any age.

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To read more reviews, posts and columns from Brian Arsenault click HERE

An Appreciation: Remembering Dave Brubeck

By Mike Katz

When Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” became a runaway hit, it was 1959 and I was in the third grade.  By the time I started seriously listening to jazz, in the late sixties, Brubeck’s original quartet had broken up and the jazz scene was in a flux. Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis were going electric. Freddie Hubbard and Stanley Turrentine, among others, had gravitated to the CTI label and would soon be flirting with disco. The jazz that found its way onto the college campuses Brubeck once cultivated had been repackaged as fusion, backing up bands like Blood Sweat & Tears or Chicago.

“Take Five,” meanwhile, had become sort of a pre-curser to Pac-Man, munching up everything else the Brubeck quartet had produced.  That would be some considerable munching, since Brubeck, Paul Desmond and company had spent a decade atop the charts, playing to SRO crowds, with Dave becoming the first jazz artist to grace the cover of Time Magazine long before the Time Out LP was ever conceived.  But for the general audience, “Take Five” was Brubeck and to a certain extent always would be.

One 1970-ish day I was idly flipping through a record store in Evanston and found a double album compilation of the Brubeck quartet called Adventures In Time. It had all of the famous Brubeck tunes (most of them unknown to me): “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” “Three To Get Ready,” “It’s a Raggy Waltz,” “Unsquare Dance,” many of them in different takes or performances than the originals. All the songs but one were composed by members of the quartet. All but one were in time signatures other than  4/4.  Listening and listening and listening some more, until the grooves were worn down, I finally figured out what these guys were doing – not that it was really necessary. Incessant foot tapping and aimless humming as I wandered the Northwestern campus were explanation enough.

Looking back, it seems strange that Brubeck endured criticism for not being, for lack of a better word, jazzy enough. Jazz is improvisation and experimentation, and what could be bolder than taking the basic 4/4 march time, not only of jazz but all popular music, and standing it on its ear? And there was more. When Brubeck, in 1957, released “Dave Digs Disney,” there was much sniggering from critics, yet “Someday My Prince Will Come” became a standard for Miles Davis and “Alice In Wonderland” one of Bill Evans’ best known tunes from the Village Vanguard sessions.  Still, while jazz searches for the “next” Miles Davis or John Coltrane or Bill Evans, we never hear about the “next” Dave Brubeck.

Perhaps that is because he really never left.

Although it’s been written that he devoted much of his post-original quartet years to larger orchestrations and cantatas, there was plenty of jazz left in the Brubeck oeuvre. Most musicians would have loved to have the mid-life career Brubeck shared with Gerry Mulligan in his second major quartet.  The baritone sax may seem the polar opposite to Paul Desmond’s “sound of a dry martini,” but it still sounded great. Check out LPs like Last Set At Newport, or some of the tracks with Mulligan on the Monterey Jazz Festival’s  release Live At The MJF. Brubeck continued to compose in the jazz space as well. His 1995 release Young Lions and Old Tigers featured lovely themes for Roy Hargrove, James Moody and flugelhornist Ronnie Buttacavoli, as well as two wonderful tunes with Mulligan and a duet with George Shearing on Brubeck’s classic, “In Her Own Sweet Way.” And that is just one CD out of dozens.

One of the joys of becoming a regular at the Monterey Jazz Festival was getting to see Brubeck perform live in a milieu that had become in many ways a second home for him. He was “discovered” by festival  co-founder Jimmy Lyons, played at MJF 1, MJF 50, MJF 52 and many, many times in between.  Two of my favorite memories are the cantata, co-written with his wife, Iola, based on John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, featuring Roberta Gambarini and Kurt Elling, performed at MJF 49 in 2006; and his MJF 50 duet with Jim Hall the next year. Their rendition of “Take Five” was stunning, and one can only hope both those performances, now in the MJF archives, will someday be shared with the public.

So, finally, Dave Brubeck has left us. Certainly “Take Five” never will, as long as there is someone walking down the street, humming and tapping and daydreaming.

To read more iRoM reviews and posts by Michael Katz, click HERE.

To visit Michael Katz’s personal blog, “Katz of the Day,” click HERE.

An Appreciation: Dave Brubeck

Michael Lang has been a busy member of the Los Angeles musicians’ community for most of his adult life.  He’s been an accompanist for performers reaching from Ella Fitzgerald to John Lennon.  He’s recorded more than 2000 film scores And he’s written songs for Stan Getz, Fourplay, Herb Alpert and numerous others. 

 By Mike Lang

Dave Brubeck: One of the most unique artists in jazz.

That’s the first thing that popped into my head upon hearing of his passing.  I’d like to improvise some random thoughts.

I discovered Dave’s music on a solo piano LP he did for Columbia, Brubeck Plays Brubeck (1956) which my parents gave me.  It made a singularly musical impression on me, and I especially liked “In Your Own Sweet Way” and “The Duke,” which were recorded in Miles Davis’ first collaboration with Gil Evans, Miles Ahead (1956), which was another large experience for me.

I was just reading about Dave’s solo album, only to find that all but two of his pieces were created on-the-spot at the sessions.  ”In Your Own Sweet Way” is one of these, and I cannot think of a better song, in terms of the quality of the melody, harmony and the form of the piece.  Absolutely extraordinary that it was born at the recording session.

All Brubeck-ites probably know the basic stuff of his music:  How he had this singular success with “Take Five” (composed by Paul Desmond), and so many of the amazing things that followed…. his long history with the Quartet, his forays into classical music, ballet, choral music, working with his talented sons, etc.

I would like to say personally that his talent for reaching and affecting so many with the special character his music and the persona of his performances opened the doors of jazz for so many… and therefore gave all performers more access to share their music.

He was also especially modest and generous.  With regard to being on the cover of Time Magazine, he responded (in London 1998), “I wanted Duke Ellington to have the cover before me”

Dave gave so much, with a very big heart! And people responded all over the world for decades.

Thank You So Much, Dave!

RIP,

Warmly,

Mike Lang

An Appreciation: Ray Bradbury

By Michael Katz

The news that Ray Bradbury passed away this week hit close to home for several reasons. Bradbury, though born in Waukegan, had long ago qualified as an Angelino native. I had seen him several times at UCLA Live music events at Royce Hall, and by now most people know what a great supporter he was of the LA Library system and the arts in general. Self-educated – he was a Depression era kid who couldn’t afford college, Bradbury had little use for university writing programs. He immersed himself in literature of all types and wrote prolifically, keeping to a self-imposed regimen of 1,000 words a day even, by all accounts,  into his eighties. I thought it was ironic that, on his death, the obituary writers all flocked to literature professors to assess his impact. Better they should have gone to a library and asked some kid sitting at a carrel, reading a story from Something Wicked This Way Comes, or The Cat’s Pajamas.

Ray Bradbury

Those of us who have written in “genres” have a special admiration for someone who elevates the writing into something special, at least in the eyes of the literary establishment. Bradbury didn’t consider himself a science fiction writer, but let’s not quibble. How many of us were drawn into reading by futuristic stories, or tales of fantasy with a touch of the macabre? When I was a teenager it was Bradbury and Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, not to mention Jules Verne,  H.G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe. That literature, often in the form of short stories perfected by Bradbury and others, has stoked the imagination of countless kids, not just for literature but for science, art, math, the whole academic spectrum. In these days of recession, huge public debts and talk of austerity, the arts are always the first to face budget cuts, as if cutting off the dreams and inspirations of kids will somehow make us more productive. Bradbury knew how ridiculous that concept was.

It was also ironic that Bradbury, the personification of futuristic writing, had such little use for the Internet and insisted for the longest time that his work not be available as E-books. But really, who can blame him? His life had been shaped in libraries, the physical act of holding a book and reading it was central to his existence. And truthfully, even for those of us who somewhat reluctantly embrace the new technology, the comfort of holding a dog-eared book (even if it has been dog-eared by someone else) remains at the core of our experience.

Reading a story by Bradbury was always a pleasure, the release of a new collection, usually including some older gems, was always a literary event. He loomed above the artistic community here, like an extra sun on a fictional planet. Or maybe a full moon on Halloween, grinning at us as he typed another thousand words.

We’ll miss him.

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To read more iRoM  posts by Michael Katz, click HERE.

To visit Michael Katz’s personal blog, “Katz of the Day,” click HERE.

An Appreciation: Jimmy Bond 1933 – 2012

Mike Lang has been a busy member of the Los Angeles musicians’ community for most of his adult life.  He’s been an accompanist for performers reaching from Ella Fitzgerald to John Lennon.  He’s recorded more than 2000 film scores And he’s written songs for Stan Getz, Fourplay, Herb Alpert and numerous others.  On many of those dates, he worked musically hand in hand with his good friend, Jimmy Bond.

By Mike Lang

Jimmy Bond left us on April 26th. He was and is arguably as close a friend as I could ever wish for, always on the lookout for ways to help others…. in music, in laughter, in living a full vibrant life of which he was “the benchmark” (!). I was a major recipient of his warmth, extraordinary generosity and humor…. Hanging out with “007″ was special!

Jimmy was mentored in Philadelphia, a jazz mecca, and the purity and swing of his bass playing was the result we’ve all enjoyed throughout the years. Jimmy made some historic recordings with Chet Baker, including the special presence of Bobby Timmons… his star was rising….

Jimmy Bond

When Jimmy came to LA, he quickly became in demand for all kinds of work…. live and recorded jazz, and then…. freelance recording gigs with an incredibly diverse list of artists in so many fields:  jazz, pop, rock, folk, gospel, R&B and more (!)….. Here’s a sampling:

Henry Mancini, Ella Fitzgerald, The Crusaders, Johnny Griffin, Maya Angelou, George Shearing, Paul Horn, Eric Dolphy, Chico Hamilton, Nina Simone, Randy Newman, Frank Zappa (Lumpy Gravy), Jimmy Witherspoon, Gerry Mulligan, Harry Nilsson, Lou Rawls, Quincy Jones, Tim Buckley, Sam Cook, Sonny Rollins, Tony Bennett, B B King, Don Shirley, Leon Russell, Terry Gibbs, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Brownie McGhee, Johnny Hartman, The Stone Poneys, Ike and Tina Turner. He was the “standup bass” fixture in many of Phil Spector’s recording sessions (now labeled “The Wrecking Crew”), and, if I’m not mistaken, that’s about when we met…. (two “Jazzers” on a rock date… perfect!)

As time evolved, Jimmy became busy as an arranger, working for producers Nick Venet, David Axelrod, Ed Michel and others with artists Linda Ronstadt, The Turtles, The Knickerbockers, Linda Ronstadt, Fred Neill and others.  Also, he was active as a composer and arranger of national jingles for Herman Edel, with film and television opportunities to follow.

His playing career continued to flourish, as he got busier and busier in film and television recording work… playing for the major studio orchestras including Alfred Newman at Fox, Joseph Gershenson at Universal and many others. At a time when very few African-American musicians were established in this field, Jimmy’s incredible grace, warmth, humor and skill opened all doors.

I am grateful to have shared so much with this incredible friend and musician. I miss him in all ways…. Thanks, Jimmy…. for all that you have done…

A memorial service for Jimmy Bond will take place at the Skirball Cultural Center on Saturday, May 26.  For more information, click HERE. 

An Appreciation: A Remembrance of Levon Helm

 Old Dixie Down

By Brian Arsenault

It’s been a couple of days since I could have written anything about Levon Helm’s passing other than to say, “I’m bummed.” Since the night at my friend Peter’s place when I first heard Music from Big Pink with its melancholy melodies and tunes that seemed rooted in a rural North America of long ago, I have been a fan of The Band.

And though Robbie Robertson was the clear leader and an accomplished guitar player and Garth Hudson was perhaps the group’s most talented musician, Levon somehow always seemed to me to be the true spirit of The Band. I just can’t imagine The Band without his frontier look, rhythmic drumming, and wild eyed singing that was equal parts Southern hill country and Celtic wailing.

Some articles that came out quickly after his death made a great deal about the fact that he was the only “American” member of the band, hailing from Arkansas as I recall, while the other members were “Canadian.” I think that misses the point.

They were all, after all, North Americans. It may be different to grow up in New Jersey than in north Ontario but it’s at least equally different to grow up in Texas or California. From a few hundred years ago forward, some of the same Scotch, Irish and old English folk music made its way into Nova Scotia as well as the hills of West Virginia.

No doubt, though, Helm brought a particularly Southern consciousness to The Band’s music. In Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, surely the best rock concert film and probably the best rock documentary ever made, Martin at one point listens to Levon talk about a youth where blues and country and riverboat show music all came together. Martin asks what came of all that. “Rock ‘n’ roll,” Levon replies.

The greatest musical moment in The Last Waltz is probably when Robbie and Clapton are bouncing lead guitar riffs off each other. But surely a close second is when Levon belts out “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” accompanied by a horn section which marvelously includes a tuba.

So many tunes. Can’t you hear “Ophelia” and “Up On Cripple Creek” in your head. Won’t you always? One of the ironies of The Band to me is that while Dylan was criticized for abandoning folk music when he went “electric,” so much of The Band’s music, especially that composed by Levon, is essentially folk music in nature. If by folk music you mean right out of the lives of regular people.

Throughout The Last Waltz‘s whole magical musical night, with so many great performances, Levon is the one on stage who seems to be smiling all the time. To find the joy in music is to beam that exuberance right out to the audience. Even to the other musicians. What was it Neil Young said when he came out to sing “Helpless”? That being on that stage on that night with those guys was one of the great joys of his life.

Bob Dylan, who first brought The Band to worldwide attention, of course came last in the show, wearing some version of a leopard skin pillbox hat. He sang “Forever Young” and it was touching in a concert by a group playing its last gig. It’s even more touching now that Levon’s gone.

Like I said, I’m bummed.