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April 17, 2009:

AND ALL THAT JAZZ

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, one of the things that made me happiest when I was recording CDs like crazy was bringing jazz covers of Broadway shows back into popularity (not REAL popularity, but after our fifth one suddenly others started doing it, too). When I was growing up I loved jazz covers of Broadway shows – some of them I loved almost as much as the cast albums. I think my first contact with a jazz cover of a show was Flower Drum Song, with a jazz trio on Warner Bros. Records. I loved that album and I recently got a copy again and it’s just as good as I remembered. I also had several Gypsy in jazz LPs, all great. Of course, I was amazed and awed by Stan Kenton’s take on West Side Story (which I loved even more because the album cover was a scene from the movie, which I was obsessed with), and then I equally loved Oscar Peterson’s take on West Side Story and Dave Brubeck’s take on West Side Story, each one totally different and very distinctive. I bought all the Percy Faith instrumental covers of shows, too, but those weren’t jazz and while I dearly loved instrumental covers of shows, the jazz covers, for me, were more exciting. I bought Gary McFarland’s take on How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying and adored it. Later, I found several other jazz versions of Flower Drum Song, including a great one with the Cy Coleman Trio. You could find jazz covers of not only big hit shows, but also stuff like Hank Jones doing Here’s Love, and a jazz version of Jamaica. But it had been at least two decades, I think, since there’d been a jazz cover of a current Broadway show until I got the bright idea one fine day that I wanted to do a jazz version of Sondheim’s Passion. I don’t know why that was the show that jumped out at me – I’d seen it and certainly hadn’t loved it, but I just felt there would be a really interesting way to do it in jazz. It was just an instinct, but one that ultimately proved to be spectacularly right. But I had no idea who to go to – I’d recently seen Gerry Wiggins and his trio play and he’d done several jazz covers of shows back in the day, but I knew he wasn’t right for Passion – what was right for Passion was a jazz pianist in the Bill Evans mode – an introspective, poetic pianist who could dig deep into the score and come up with something interesting. I called everyone I knew asking for suggestions and I got some good ones, including the premiere film score pianist. One day, an arranger/songwriter I’d worked with heard what I was looking for and he called me and had a strong recommendation – in fact, he said his recommendation was the ONLY choice. The name of the person was Terry Trotter. I’d never heard of Terry but I told my friend to have him call me. Terry called the next day, then came in to meet with me and we got along very well. I told him I was a very hands-on producer and that I would be very involved every step of the way, from the arrangements to the choices of takes. He was fine with that. He left me a CD he’d done called It’s About Time. After he left, I popped it on and five minutes later I called him (he lived two minutes from the Varese office, and literally four houses from where I now live) and told him the job was his if he wanted it. It had only taken me one minute of hearing the first track for me to know I’d found the perfect person.

I gave Terry the cast album of Passion, and my close personal friend, Mr. Stephen Sondheim, arranged for me to get the score. Mr. Sondheim was wary, as he didn’t know anything about jazz and what he’d heard he didn’t care for, but he was totally up for anything that would get his work and especially Passion out there. After hearing the CD, Terry called me, petrified, and expressing grave concerns about Passion working as a jazz album. I encouraged him to start with the most melodic of the songs, Happiness. He called me the next day and asked me to come over and hear what he’d come up with. And what he’d come up with was pure magic. It was perfection, as I knew it would be. Encouraged, he moved on to the other songs in the score. I’d go over to his house every few days and he’d play me new arrangements as he did them – I always had comments and thoughts, and he was always great about taking them and incorporating them into what he’d done. It was becoming very apparent that we were complete artistic soul mates.

We went in the studio – Terry had brought on board Tom Warrington on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums. I was especially excited about Joe because Joe had been Bill Evans’s final drummer right up until Bill died. Tom was a weird but great bass player. Tom was especially wary of Vinnie and I, but as soon as we got a take in the can and they heard the playback, they were ours forever. Sometimes magic just happens and that’s what happened on the Passion session. It was the perfect studio, the perfect piano, the perfect miking, everything just worked. It was all “live” to two-track – no mixing, no editing, we just did a take until we knew we had a keeper. Terry and I were ALWAYS on the same page about the keeper – sometimes it was the first take, sometimes the fourth, but we both always knew. Sometimes I’d go in after the first take and give Terry some direction, some image, like I did with the singers. He loved that, because it inspired him to look elsewhere in terms of what he was doing. Tom and Joe were amazing compatriots – Joe’s playing was so subtle and beautiful, and Tom was always in the right place at the right time.

The CD came out and somehow sold astonishingly well, which surprised all of us. It was wonderfully reviewed by both Broadway and jazz people. Sondheim heard it and loved it, and loved it even more once I explained the nature of what to listen for in the improv sections. At the cast party of Passion (we recorded the album and got it into stores before the show actually opened), they played OUR album. I took it out and listened to it not too long ago and boy does it hold up – and it still sounds amazing. Terry and I went on to do many albums together – a bunch more Sondheim in jazz – full scores for several of his shows including Follies, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music (my idea for that one was Terry solo, which worked incredibly well), A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, and Company. Terry and I also did a terrific Michel Legrand album, and a pretty weird and wonderful Star Wars In Jazz album. I still hope that we can do another one at some point – we were working on one, but Terry is just moving at his own pace these days.

In addition to the Trotter CDs, I did a couple with Brad Ellis and his Little Big Band. We did Ragtime first – we got it out before the cast album, and it sold like crazy – more than most of the vocalist albums. People just loved that CD, and it was a really great version of the score. We also did Chicago…And All That Jazz, which was terrific, and Cabaret, as well. And then the imitators appeared and, as is frequently the case with me, when that happens I lose interest in doing more. Of course, when I stopped, they stopped. Go know. I did go back and do a very nice Broadway jazz album with Grant Geissman, and that one did pretty well, too. Funnily, the only score I’ve heard in the last decade that I would have done in jazz was Sondheim’s Road Show – I didn’t love the show, but I thought its score would really translate well in jazz, especially with Terry and company. But I can’t think of another recent Broadway score that would have jazzed me into thinking about a jazz version.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because it is late and I must be up very early because I have a LOT to do this very day.

Yesterday was one of those days when I was just behind the entire day. I could not catch up and was rushing here and there and also there and here all the livelong day. I got up early, did the long jog, then had to answer a slew of e-mails, and have some telephonic calls. Then I had a visit from Mr. Kevin Spirtas, and that lasted a little longer than it was supposed to. I then had to rush to the audio place, but unfortunately, I needed to put gas in the car first, and that threw me behind, then I realized I hadn’t brought the audio guy’s check so I had to go home and get that and put all the tape boxes in the car so I could go directly to the MGM vaults afterward. I got to the audio guy right on time (barely), paid him, picked up the tapes, but then got waylaid in a conversation with the owner of Film Score Monthly. I finally got out of there and back over the hill. I drove to the tape vaults but wasn’t paying attention and passed the freeway exit – that little bit of idiocy cost me twenty minutes, as it was very convoluted to get back where I was going. I finally got to the vaults and returned the tapes and picked up new tapes including four huge and really heavy boxes of two-inch sixteen-track tapes. Luckily, after glancing through one box I realized I’m not going to need those, so they’ll just stay in the car until I return them come Monday. By that time it was already three-thirty and I was starving, so I stopped at Dino’s Pizza and had pizza, which is a good thing to have at Dino’s Pizza. I never got to the bank, but did pick up two packages and some mail. I then had many more e-mails, several orders (also didn’t get those done and will have to today), and by the time all THAT was done, I had one more errand to do in Hollywood, and I was so frazzled by then that I stopped at the House of Pies and had another piece of their yummilicious peanut butter pie, after which I came home and sat at my computer like so much fish.

Today, I shall be up early, shall do the long jog, shall have a ninety-minute work session, then I have to make a quick trip to West LA, then come back before the traffic gets horrendous, then do my banking and shipping and deal with casting matters for the Brain, and at some point I’ll have to grab a bite to eat. Tomorrow, I’m happy to say, I have no plans that I know of, other than a potential meal with dear reader Jeanne – that is if she ever answers her cell phone or, heaven forbid, sets up her voice mail so someone can actually leave a message.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, have a work session, go to West LA, do errands and whatnot, and find time to grab a meal. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/video player? I’ll start – CD, two Previn masterpieces – Inside Daisy Clover and, of course, Two For The Seesaw. DVD, next up is Fuzz, with Burt Reynolds. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and all that jazz.

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