Cadenzas - Edition XXIX
Morphing into Steely Dan On our first day recording the horn section for Donald Fagen’s most recent CD, Morph,
the Cat, I got to the session early, the first musician to arrive. In the control booth was engineer/producer Eliot Scheiner whom I have known since he was apprenticing under master engineer and producer Phil Ramone. I worked with Eliot many times during those busy “studio years.”As we sat talking about various friends, Donald, whom I had never met, came into the booth, pointed at me and said, Portrait of an Artist, Charlie Mariano, 1963!” He was referring to the album I had made as a sideman with the great alto saxophonist Charlie Mariano. Though I had recorded five albums with Stan Kenton, this was the first small group I had ever recorded with.
The Mariano session had been recorded many years earlier, but Donald had owned and listened to that album when he was a young musician. And he remembered me! What a nice way to begin a relationship. (Walter Becker later related to me that he, too, had listened to that album as a young man.) A few months after recording Morph, the Cat, Donald was kind enough to come to the Kitano Hotel in New York to hear my quartet.
Fast forward! In April of this year, I received a phone call from Michael Leonhart, the trumpet player for the jazz/rock group Steely Dan. Michael, son of bassist Jay Leonhart, also does much of the arranging for Steely Dan’s horn section. Michael said that the group will be touring a good portion of the summer, including three weeks in Europe, and it is during this European segment that he and his wife are expecting their first child. Naturally, he doesn’t want to miss this marvelous moment in their lives. Michael's calling was to invite me to fill in for him on the European part of the Steely Dan tour. I was both flattered and delighted that they asked me, and I was pleased to accept.
This past week was spent rehearsing with the group, and I look forward very much to touring with them. They are all superb musicians! While I have yet to really get to know the rhythm section and background singers, I have worked with trombonist Jim Pugh and baritone saxophonist Roger Rosenberg over many years and had the pleasure of working closely with tenor saxophonist Walt Weiskopf on Morph, the Cat. At that time, Walt and I established an immediate musical rapport. Donald Fagen and his counterpart Walter Becker are fine composers and musicians to whose music my wife introduced me years ago, and I have always enjoyed listening to their work. I am excited about making this tour with Steely Dan and playing music with these exceptional musicians.
You can learn more about Steely Dan's summer touring and the musicians in the band by going to: http://www.steelydan.com/
Bernie Glow Brian O’Flaherty, whom I have known since he was Ron Modell’s student at Northern Illinois University, recently sent me two articles on the great lead trumpeter Bernie Glow. Brian is himself a wonderful lead trumpet player, having toured with Woody Herman and Louis Bellson among others, and, while living in New York City, was one of the busy musicians on the scene. Brian is also an excellent arranger and teacher. He now lives in the Clearwater, Florida, area.
The articles Brian sent were transcripts of Bernie’s two talks at the National Trumpet Symposium held in Denver in 1971 and an interview with trombonist Bill Spilka from one of the journals from Charles Colin’s New York Brass Conference that must have appeared around the same period. These two articles brought back wonderful memories of playing with so many great players, but most of all, it brought back memories of my dear friend, Bernie Glow.
From the time I was a young student in Memphis, I had many of the recordings upon which Bernie Glow played. He seemed to be on almost every great jazz record out of New York City (NYC). Among the most famous were, of course, the Miles Davis/Gil Evans collaborations. I first met Bernie at one of the recording sessions from the Charlie Mariano album mentioned earlier in this newsletter. Charlie and I had worked on the Stan Kenton Orchestra together and had also taught several summers at the Stan Kenton Clinics, so he asked me to come to NYC to play on his album. There were three segments to album, all arranged by Don Sebesky – Charlie performing with a string quartet, with a jazz quintet, and with a brass section. I was part of the quintet session (with pianist Jackie Byard, bassist Richard Davis, and drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath) and on the brass session. The trumpets on the brass session were Bernie, Jimmy Nottingham, Jimmy Sedlar, and me. There were also three trombones, two or three French horns and tuba. I remember Wayne Andre and Alan Raph among the trombones and Don Butterfield on tuba, and I believe Ray Alonge as one of the horns. Names of the other three musicians escape me. But it has been forty-six years!
Bernie Glow was the number one lead trumpet player in New York City during the ‘50s, ‘60s, and a good part of the ‘70s. When Bernie was booked on a recording session, the first trumpet chair was always reserved for him. There were many great lead players in NYC at this time, but they all respected and paid homage to Bernie. And Bernie, being the kind of person he was, never let any of this attention go to his head. He was well liked by everyone because he, in kind, paid respect to every one of his colleagues. These were good times in NYC. It was a very busy period and most of the really fine players were working all the time. Many great recordings were being made, among them many of the jazz classics that people of my generation were raised upon.
Bernie played lead on the first Sebesky arrangement for the Mariano recording. It was Leonard Bernstein’s “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story. I was thrilled to be in this trumpet section, and playing with Bernie “live” was amazing. What a sound! You had to sit in the section with him to understand the musical impact of his sound and interpretation. True to the usual format when making recordings in those days, Bernie passed the lead part for the second arrangement to Jimmy Sedlar and the third to Jimmy Nottingham. After finishing the three tunes, as we packed up after the session, Bernie came over to say he was happy to have met me and that he was sorry there wasn’t a fourth tune because I would have gotten to play the lead part on that one. I told him I was more than happy to have played fourth trumpet and was honored to have worked with him and the others.
The feelings among the players that day were extremely positive, and, when I moved to NYC in 1966, I found this attitude to truly be the norm. I attribute the unusually fast rise of my career in NYC to the trumpet community. People like Ernie Royal, Bernie Glow, Snooky Young, Marky Markowitz, Thad Jones, Bill Berry, Burt Collins, Clark Terry, Joe Newman, and others were immensely helpful to my becoming established there by their recommending me for work.
After the Mariano recording sessions in 1963, I went back to my hometown, Memphis, for a few months, and then moved to Reno, Nevada, in January of 1964. I worked in Reno till September or October of the following year when I joined Woody Herman. I left Woody in July, 1966, moving to NYC in November of that year. After I had been in NYC for a few months and was becoming established, I ran into Bernie one day on the street. We had not seen each other since the Mariano sessions, but we were quickly re-acquainted. (I was surprised that he remembered me!) When he asked how long I had been in New York and I told him that I had been in town several months, he exclaimed, “Why didn’t you call me? I would be glad to help you get started here!” From that time on, he was! And I wasn’t the only young arrival in town who Bernie helped. There was also Lew Soloff, Alan Rubin, and Randy Brecker, among others. That’s just the kind of man Bernie was.
Bernie and I worked together a lot, and we became fast friends. I often went to Bernie for advice when I was dealing with various problems. He invited me to his home a number of times, and after Nancy and I married, we had Bernie and his wife Gail to our place. He was a very close friend, and I admired so much about him. Many people felt the same as I. When Bernie walked into a room - whether there were four people or a hundred in the room - everyone knew someone special had entered. It wasn’t that Bernie called attention to himself; it was just his presence. He was that special.
Bernie’s career was cut short in his late 40’s by a blood disease so rare that it has been written up as one of Sloan-Kettering Cancer Research Center’s rare case histories. Bernie did recover somewhat and returned to playing, but, due to the nature of the disease, never achieved the form for which he was famous. I am not speaking out of turn here; Bernie was a dear and close friend, and he was quite open and honest about his medical problem. Bernie passed away at age fifty-sx. I spoke to him only a few days before he died, and his leave-taking was one of my saddest moments. Among all the great players I have known, I have never heard anyone who played lead trumpet like Bernie Glow. For me, he was absolutely the greatest!
Jack Cortner - Sound Check Jack Cortner has recently completed recording, mixing, and mastering his new CD – Sound Check - with his New York big band. It was truly gratifying to perform for Jack’s second outing, again as featured soloist along with pianist Bill Mays, trombonist Jim Pugh, and saxophonists Jon Gordon, and Dave Tofani. The response to Jack’s first CD, Fast Track, was very enthusiastic, and the critics had nothing but the highest praise for this recording. You can see the critics’ reviews on my on my Web site. If you missed buying it, it is still available from this Web site (CDs) and from Amazon, CD Baby, JazzedMedia, and other sites.
Having listened to the mastered Sound Check, I find this CD to be even more exciting than Fast Track - and that’s saying something! The band just roars and the rhythm section cooks! Everyone walked out of each day’s recording sessions smiling. It was wonderful to see such satisfaction in their faces. These guys came to play, and play they did!
The personnel for Sound Check is the basically the same as on Fast Track, with only a few minor changes due to players’ availabilities. This band is comprised of New York’s finest musicians, all of whom are much in demand for Maria Schneider’s orchestra, the Vanguard Band, the Bob Mintzer Band, the Westchester Jazz Orchestra, and others. Sound Check will be released in September, and I will let you all know of its availability. Meanwhile, if you haven’t already done so, check out Fast Track.
LA Jazz Institute - Stan Kenton Tribute I received a call the other day from Ken Poston, executive director of the LA Jazz Institute, inviting me to Los Angeles October 8 - 11 to perform in two or three big bands and a small group for a weekend Stan Kenton Tribute. I took part in an earlier Kenton tribute several years ago and enjoyed it immensely, so I quickly accepted Ken’s invitation. The many of you who have attended the LA Jazz Institute’s presentations can attest to their exceptional quality.
My two years with Stan’s orchestra (1961-62) were quite meaningful to me. I loved the man and the music. Stan took me under his wing as he did so many young musicians, giving us an important opportunity. During my two-year tenure with Stan, I recorded on five albums with the orchestra as the featured trumpet soloist. This exposure was certainly of great benefit in establishing my reputation as a player and jumpstarted my career. How can one repay such faith? My way is always to try to be the kind of player Stan would be proud to have in his orchestra and to pay tribute to one who contributed so much to my burgeoning career. I hope I will see many of you at the LA Jazz Institute’s Kenton Tribute weekend.
Times, They Have Changed Before I go any further, I have to tell you how much I love our country. I have traveled all over the world, but there is no place like ours. We are the most fortunate of people to live here. Having said this, I know most of you are aware of my frustration over many of our daily experiences. Everything has changed so dramatically since I was a youngster, and much of this is because of a national change in attitudes. However, my frustration is not so much for me. I have lived and continue to live my dream. No! Rather it is for my children and yours, and our grandchildren, who may never experience so many of the simple and subtle pleasures we knew growing up. Those pleasures existed probably because we were raised by parents who lived through the Great Depression. Our choices were more limited in those times. And success or failure of those choices depended primarily upon self-motivation and our individual work ethic. Much of whatever we might achieve in work and play and the level to which we might rise depended mostly upon our own efforts. But it also involved social contact and how we interacted with other people.
The acceleration of change and the development and expansion of modern technology has speeded life to a point where it seems our humanity is unable to keep up. Yes, we can think and work faster, but at the cost of things like a shorter attention span and the tendency to become insular, increasingly isolated from others. People today seem frustrated by the reality of their lives. Even in these times, many have more, but are not happier for it. They search to find what might fill the void they feel, but they look in the wrong places – accumulating more “things” instead of searching within themselves to find what might be missing.
Along with this personal frustration, a lot of people are very disappointed with our government. Many of the mechanisms set up to guarantee a government by and for the people are not working as they should. Instead, to paraphrase Senator Dick Durbin recently, the banks own our senate, and many corporations seem to have further ownership of our government. And, today, the populace is divided more than ever. It seems there is little, if any, desire to bridge that chasm. I remember very well – as I am sure do you – our parents believing and trusting in our president, our representatives, and other areas of government that were set up to serve and protect them. And when you went to work for a company like General Electric or General Motors, it was a lifetime job - with benefits! Today, we cannot say the same, and so many people are suffering because of it.
We also find much lacking in our institutions of higher education, many of whose administrations - according to what a large number of friends who teach in various universities tell me - have made our schools into a fund-raising industry for the institution rather than a place of learning, achievement, and elevation of the individual. It’s about the money, not the students.
I also remember when American manufacturing companies took pride in their products, always striving to build something better and more durable for their customers. A man who came recently to install my new (supposedly excellent quality) water heater said to me, “Plan on replacing this water heater in six to seven years. Unlike the old one I just took out that lasted seventeen years or so, it ain’t built the same. They don’t build ‘em to last anymore so’s they can sell as many as they can as often as they can.” Sad!
In earlier times, a handshake was all one ever needed to strike a deal. My father owned a small men’s dry goods store in downtown Memphis on Main Street, a block from Beale Street. Many of his customers were African-Americans who worked as farmers or in lower-wage jobs. They would buy dress clothes – suits, shirts, ties, and such – mainly to attend church. They couldn’t afford to pay for any of these items outright, so my father extended them credit, and they left the store with their purchases. Some, quite a number in fact, could afford to pay only fifty cents to a dollar a week on their accounts, but most all of them came in faithfully every week to pay whatever amount they had pledged. A handshake was all that was needed, and one’s word was his bond.
A large number of these customers remained friends with my father over many years and saw my brother Gordon and me grow up. Gordon would one day take over the business. When my father passed away in 1981, many of those same customers came to the funeral home service in his honor. Many said to me, “I remember when you were just a little boy, Marvin. And I remember your father so well. He was a good man.” While showing their respect for him, they were also reminding me that I had something to live up to. When I think about these old friends, most of whom must have now passed, it brings to mind many of the things I was taught through the years by family, friends, and mentors. I feel a strong obligation to try live up to those values they instilled in me.
Seeing today how so much has changed is indeed something to ponder. Should we just accept all this as being “just way things are?” Or should we seek to change things, try to revert to an earlier time? Should we (in fact, can we) attempt to re-instill those values - common sense, honesty and civility, and caring for others - instead of surrendering to those things that brought us to this place? Do we have the will to try? I wonder.