Criss Cross Records - The Best Jazz Label You've Never Heard Of

In the wake of World War II, America's political, economic and cultural influence loomed large over Europe.  Jazz music, which U.S. GIs had helped spread throughout the continent, was enormously popular.  After years of unimaginable suffering, death, and destruction, young people in particular were drawn to the spontaneity and freedom of jazz.

Gerry Teekins in 2005

One of the many European youths who became enamored with jazz was a 12-year-old Dutch boy by the name of Gerry Teekens.  In an interview published in 2005, Teekens recalled how in the late 1940s in The Netherlands "Jazz was very popular, even the girls in the street knew (big band leader Stan) Kenton and (saxophone player Lee) Konitz. We had jazz bands for all the school festivities, so I started getting interested in the music and started buying 78s by the Dutch Swing College Band, Bob Crosby, Harry James, Meade Lux Lewis, and then LPs by Erroll Garner, J.A.T.P., (Oscar) Peterson, Blakey, Miles, Trane, Ornette, and all those records on Savoy, Prestige, Blue Note, Impulse, and Riverside."

By the time he finished high school and college in the late 50s, Teekens had become a jazz drummer and spent much of the 1960s gigging around Europe.  However, he finally got married, settled down, and accepted a teaching position, giving up his music career.  But he never lost his love for jazz and remained connected to the jazz scene in his native Holland.  In the late 1970s, Teekens began doing some promotion work, booking jazz bands to play at his school and using his contacts to help organize concerts and tours for American musicians coming to the Netherlands and Europe.  He says: "I brought in guys like Jimmy Raney and his son Doug Raney, Warne Marsh, Lee Konitz, Lou Levy, Teddy Edwards, and Allan Eager.  I also organized concerts with Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin, Tete Montoliu with Albert Heath, Barney Wilen, and Peter Ind (Lee Tristano's bassist) plus his group."

Criss Cross Jazz 1001

Teekens organized tours for guitar great Jimmy Raney in 1976 and 1977, and the two developed a good relationship.  In early 1981, Teekens put together a five-week concert tour in the Netherlands.  Accompanying Raney were his son, Doug, (a fine guitarist in his own right), Dutch drummer Eric Ineke, and Danish bassist Jesper Lundgaard.  The band had great chemistry, and the tour was a big success, playing to sold-out audiences around the country.  

Hoping to capture the excellent vibe from the concert tour, Teekens and Raney decided to take the group into a studio to record an album before Raney headed back to the U.S.  The resulting album, Raney '81 (right), became the first ever release for Teekens' new label, Criss Cross Jazz.  Teekens says he chose the name Criss Cross because it described how jazz and jazz musicians traveled back and forth between the US and Europe - crisscrossing the Atlantic.  (And maybe a shout-out to the Thelonious Monk album of the same name?)  Over a period of nearly 40 years, until his death in 2019, Teekens would produce and release more than 400 albums on Criss Cross. 

In the early years of the label, Teekens focused on recording jazz musicians who were touring in Holland or Europe.  For example, in August of 1982, with the North Sea Jazz Festival taking place in the Dutch capital of The Hague, Teekens recruited tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh and the Hank Jones Trio to record a session together. 

Since Marsh's group and Jones's trio were appearing every night at different venues during the festival, Teekens had to find a studio near the city where he could record during the day and still get the musicians to their gigs in the evening.  As luck would have it, he had recently met an optometrist and part-time drummer named Max Bolleman, who had a small home recording studio just outside of the city who was looking for clients.  [Hang on.  An optometrist with a Dutch name who records jazz music in his home studio.  Sounds vaguely familiar, no? Rudy? Rudy Van something?]  

In his recently-published autobiography, called Sounds (photo below), Bolleman recalls that Teekens called him on Thursday and asked if he could do a recording session on Saturday at noon.  Bolleman says he agreed, but forgot to ask who would be coming.  He called back and was floored (and not a little nervous) to learn that one of his first real recording dates would be with an all-star group made up of Warne Marsh, Hank Jones, Mel Lewis, and George Mraz.  Despite the fact that Marsh had never played with any of the other musicians before, Bolleman says they laid down 10 tracks in about five hours before Teekens bundled everyone out the door.  The resulting album, Star Highs (the second release on Criss Cross Jazz, below), was picked by Downbeat magazine as one of the top jazz albums of the year. 

Criss Cross Jazz 1002

After a few years, Teekens got tired of trying to line up visiting musicians for recording sessions and began to make biannual trips to the US where it was much easier to book players for gigs.  For several years, he hired the other Dutch optometrist recording engineer, Rudy Van Gelder, to record his sessions at his New Jersey studio.  Working on a tight schedule, Teekens was able to churn out an album a day for six or eight days straight and generate enough material to provide a year's worth of releases for Criss Cross.  In the late 1980s, in order to save money, Teekens (who operated Criss Cross on a shoestring budget) began booking studio time in New York City and bringing along his buddy Bolleman to engineer the sessions. 

Saxophonist Sam Newsome recorded his first date with Teekens in 1989.  He recalls how "Teekens used to stroll into town during the Christmas holiday with a sack full of record contracts in tow.  He’d stay at a two-star hotel in Union Square, book a studio for two weeks and commence to make a record per day, along with his partner in crime, recording engineer and drummer Max Bolleman."  According to Newsome, Teekens paid the leaders on his dates $1,000, with $500 apiece for the sidemen.  (Which, Newsome adds, wasn't a bad rate for a day's work.)

While Teekens featured many top tier jazz players on his label, including the likes of Chet Baker, Clifford Jordon, Milt Jackson, and Johnny Coles, he also is credited with giving many young players their first break.  David Adler, in a 2003 article about Teekens in All About Jazz, notes that "Most of Criss Cross' artists are American and relatively young, and Teekens' approach to recruiting them couldn't be simpler: 'If I hear someone I like," he says, "I record them, regardless of whether they'll sell.' His track record is remarkable: Kenny Garrett, Steve Wilson, Benny Green, Bill Charlap, Chris Potter, Mark Turner, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Orrin Evans, and Seamus Blake are among those who made either their debuts or their earliest recordings for Criss Cross."

Perhaps because he grew up listening to the classic bebop of the 50s, Teekens liked straight-ahead jazz, nothing experimental or avant garde.  Beyond that, his only rule was that the music had to "swing."  As a result, most Criss Cross releases (especially the early ones) have a kind of house sound -- fluid, no-nonsense bebop with lots of standards.  If you like one title, chances are you'll like them all.  

Criss Cross Records

When I first began to collect Criss Cross LPs, I was struck not only by the fine playing by a lot of cats I had never heard of, but also by the fabulous sound quality.  Sam Newsome says that all of the early albums were recorded live direct to two-track, which accounts for the natural, spontaneous feel of the sessions.  Of course, having Rudy Van Gelder or Max Bolleman at the controls certainly didn't hurt either.  Unfortunately, only the first 39 titles in the Criss Cross catalog (the releases from 1981-1989) were issued on vinyl.  After 1989, Criss Cross releases are CD only.  The LPs, by the way, were all pressed in Holland or Germany, and the quality is outstanding.  Every disk I have is flat and quiet. [12/2022 update: Since I wrote this blog post, Criss Cross has teamed up with Elemental Music to release two more LPs: Brad Mehldau's 2000 album Consenting Adults (2021), and Melvin Rhyne's 1994 release Boss Organ (2022).]

Over the last year or so, I've been on a mission to collect all 39 Criss Cross LPs.  To date, I have 30.  I was lucky enough to score more than half of them from a dealer who had a stash of mint "new old stock."  Most of the LPs are available and not too expensive, though some of the ones I'm still missing are proving hard to find in good condition.  If all else fails (and once we're allowed to travel again), it would make a great excuse to plan a trip to Holland to see if I can track down the remaining titles.  In the meantime, if you run across any Criss Cross titles, don't hesitate to give them a try even if you've never heard of the musicians.  Teekens had excellent taste.

Max Bolleman (who recently retired), went on to become one of the most in-demand recording engineers in Europe and worked on lots of great albums -- in addition to the many sides he did with Teekens for Criss Cross Jazz.  His book (left) is filled with great stories of his years in the studio recording the famous and not so famous.  It includes a priceless tale about the time Rudy Van Gelder threw him out of his Englewood Cliffs, NJ studio because he thought Bolleman was trying to steal information about his recording techniques and mic placements (he was).

Finally, I'm happy to note that Criss Cross Jazz is alive and well and is now being run by Teekens' son, Gerry Jr.  Next year (2021) will mark their 40th anniversary as a label.  You can check out their excellent website and the more than 400 releases in the Criss Cross catalog here.

Enjoy the music!

Ramsey Lewis VS. The Jazz Police

How do we feel about Ramsey Lewis? 

I ask because a few weeks ago I picked up a nice used copy of the 1966 release Swingin' by the Ramsey Lewis Trio.  It's an intriguing combination of cool jazz, blues, and classical, played with panache and youthful exuberance.  It sounds more than a little like early stuff by The Modern Jazz Quartet or The Chico Hamilton Group.  The eclectic mix of tracks on the album includes "My Funny Valentine," the Habanero aria from the opera Carmen, the Yiddish classic "Bie Mir Bist Du Schoen," Gerry Mulligan's "Limelight," as well as three originals by Lewis and Young.  

But hold the phone.  By 1966, Ramsey Lewis was well into his contemporary jazz pop phase and was no longer playing straight ahead jazz.  So what the heck is going on?

I'm glad you asked.  I have about 30 albums by Ramsey Lewis.  When I found Swingin', I was pretty sure I didn't have a copy.   I certainly didn't recall the photo on the front of the jacket.  As it turns out (and I would have realized this if I had read the liner notes) Swingin' is a 1966 reissue of the trio's 1956 debut album called Gentle-Men Of Swing (right).  In addition to Ramsey on piano, the original trio featured Isaac "Red" Holt on drums and Eldee Young on bass.  It was an auspicious debut that announced to the jazz world that these three young guys from Chicago had a fresh sound and, more importantly, something worthwhile to say.

And they said it a lot, releasing 20 albums by the end of 1965, including three each in 1960, 1961, 1962, and 1963.  Many are noteworthy for the unusual, wide-ranging choice of songs.  The group liberally mixed together folk melodies, gospel songs, nursery rhymes, soundtracks, current Broadway and pop hits, Bossa Nova, soul, and even some country western.  

The trio's style was generally mainstream, with some cool poly-rhythmical bass and drums.  The majority of the tracks clock in at only three to four minutes; there isn't much stretching out on these early albums.  But even if nothing like a hot jam session ever threatened to break out, Lewis and his band mates were clearly talented jazz musicians who could swing.  They competed for record sales with piano trios like Oscar Peterson and (fellow Chicagoan and ARGO label-mate) Ahmad Jamal.  In short, their jazz bona fides were solid.

After a decade together, the group had a loyal fan base and steady albums sales.  They were a popular fixture at Chicago clubs and also toured and played at venues like Birdland and the Village Vanguard in New York.  But their big commercial break came with their 17nd (!) album, the 1965 release called The In Crowd.  The record was recorded live during a three-night stand at the Bohemian Cavern club in Washington, D.C.  The instrumental version of the title track (which had been a big hit for singer Dobie Gray earlier in 1965) made it to number five on the Hot 200 Chart, and all the way to number two on the R&B chart.  The album won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance.  And more importantly, the light jazz treatment of current pop hits that made The In Crowd such a hit proved to be the winning formula to propel Ramsey Lewis to a string of chart-topping albums and a massive new audience.  As Lewis noted in an interview years later: "All of a sudden this huge hit was on the chart, and we were up there in the Top Five with Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Barbra Streisand . . . So of course our money just sky-rocketed.  And suddenly we were making five to ten times more than we had been.  So I guess, while it did take time to get used to that, those are certainly days that I'll always remember." 

From bottom: Ramsey Lewis, Eldee Young, and Red Holt

Alas, as is often the case, the trio didn't survive their sudden celebrity and the huge infusion of cash that followed.  In an interview with Down Beat magazine, Lewis mentions growing artistic differences as a reason for the breakup and says: "We weren't relating to each other musically."  Which may very well be true.  But apparently another factor was that Young and Holt were unhappy that Lewis was getting most of the attention that accompanied the group's new-found fame.  As a result, the trio broke up before they could record a follow-up to their hit album.  Young and Holt left to form their own group, The Young-Holt Trio, which was renamed Young-Holt Limited after about a year.  They put out some 10 albums of R&B and soul jazz, and had one top five hit with the catchy "Soulful Strut."  Lewis, meanwhile, quickly rebuilt his trio with veteran musician Cleveland Eaton on bass and session man Maurice White on drums.  [Years later, White would go on to become a founding member of the group Earth, Wind, And Fire.]

Lewis and his label wasted no time getting the new trio into the studio to take advantage of the chart-topping success of The In Crowd.  The newly-formed group released five albums in the next two years, and a total of 10 albums before the end of the decade.  It is worth noting that following The In Crowd, Lewis no longer billed his group as the Ramsey Lewis Trio.  From now on, it was just Ramsey Lewis.  

In retrospect, I feel certain that Swingin' -- the album I picked up recently -- was reissued by the label in 1966 to cash in on the popularity of The In Crowd.  No doubt they were counting on the fact that lots of new fans wouldn't notice that Swingin' was a reissue of the group's first album.  However, I have to assume that most fans of The In Crowd were disappointed if they expected Swingin' to be a follow-up album.

1975's Sun Goddess

Back at the ranch, things were going great for Lewis.  He was now a huge popular success, selling more albums than ever, and, by his own admission, making lots more money than ever.  In the 70s, Lewis expanded his group to a septet and began to experiment with fusion, electronic, and soul jazz.  Many of his 70s releases, including the 1975 hit album, Sun Goddess, went gold.  (Not my favorite musically, but one of the all-time great album covers, at left.)  Lewis continued recording well into the 2000s and also devoted considerable time and energy into teaching and promoting jazz education.  In 2007, he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts.  However, if you're thinking there must be a fly somewhere in the ointment, you'd be right.

Despite his growing popularity, after The In Crowd, Lewis lost nearly all of his street cred.  Fellow jazz musicians and critics viewed Lewis as a sellout with his shift to a watered-down jazz/pop style.  In a 1982 review, critic Brian Harrigan wrote that Lewis's once brilliant technique was "totally submerged by the presence of horn sections, additional keyboards, backing singers and - although I didn't actually hear it - probably someone taping on the side of a kitchen sink."  In a 1993 review, Down Beat magazine said "[His] acoustic piano breezes blandly through a set of diluted pop tunes and insipid originals, lightly scattering bluesy signature riffs upon the tepid waters."  Ouch. 

Lewis mostly shrugged off the negative press, saying that he had been mixing jazz and pop from the start.  In a 2013 interview, he says that after The In Crowd, "The jazz police disowned us.  But at the same time, people like Duke Ellington and Oscar Peterson would come by and put their arms around us and say you guys have something unique, stick with what you have."  Presumably the ever-increasing royalty checks helped assuage any remaining hurt feelings.  

Ramsey Lewis in 2020

While I understand the reaction by the "jazz police" when Lewis decided to follow the money starting in the mid 1960s, it's hard to blame him.  Except for a handful of marquee musicians like Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, and Stan Getz, most jazz musicians in the 50s and 60s were just trying to make ends meet.  And when it comes right down to it, Lewis's jazz/pop albums like The In Crowd, Wade In The Water, and Dancing In The Streets, are great fun to listen to.

After playing my newly-acquired copy of Swingin' (which, by the way, wasn't a total loss since the reissue is a stereo version to go with my original mono copy of Gentle-Men Of Swing), I pulled out a few more of Lewis's early albums, including Down To Earth from 1959 (maybe my favorite album by Lewis) and Barefoot Sunday Blues from 1963.  I hadn't listened to these LPs in a while, and I was struck by how Lewis, Young, and Holt had carved out a really interesting niche with their jazz treatment of folk, blues, and gospel.  

To date, Ramsey Lewis has recorded more than 80 albums.  Most of them are readily available for no more than $10 in VG+ or NM condition.  I frequently see his albums in the dollar bins or priced at $3 to $5 at used record stores.  Nearly anything from the 1950s or 60s is worth picking up.  And while I'm not a big fan of 1975's Sun Goddess, it's worth a few bucks just to have the great cover.

Enjoy the music!

Flim & the BB's - The Case Of The Disappearing Debut Album

A couple of months ago I was reading the new issue of Record Collector magazine.  It's by far the best magazine on the planet for vinyl collectors, with dozens of reviews of new and re-released vinyl, extensive notes about upcoming releases, regular columns about rare and unusual vinyl, features on vinyl collectors, as well as in-depth articles about music and musicians.  Since the magazine is based in London and gets mailed from the UK, my copies tend to arrive about a month after publication.  That's usually not a problem.  But from time to time, I'll open the magazine and find out about a new release -- maybe an obscure pressing or limited edition -- and break into a cold sweat that I may have missed my chance to grab a copy.  At the very least I'm likely to yell "Why wasn't I informed that this was coming out on vinyl?" and sprint to my computer to see if I can find a copy of the release before the Ebay resellers buy them all up and double the price.  

My most recent shriek came after seeing an ad announcing the release of a vinyl version of a 1983 CD-only album called Tricycle by the terrifically-talented group Flim & the BB's.  Flim and the what?  Exactly.  In the 1970s in Minneapolis, bass player Jimmy "Flim" Johnson hooked up with a couple of other studio musicians named Billy Barber (piano) and Bill Berg (drums), and created a jazz group they whimsically called Flim & The BB's. (Billy Barber, Bill Berg - BB's - OK, you got it.)  Woodwind/reed player Dick Oatts was an integral part of the group as well, but his name wasn't part of the group's name because (I'm guessing) Flim & the BB's and Oatts just didn't have the right ring to it.

Their music is best described as fusion or contemporary jazz, which would normally make me run for the hills.  But these guys are different: They are inventive, technically superb, and seem to always inject a touch of whimsy into their playing.  As one reviewer put it, "They're playing is the perfect combination of tight and loose."  The whimsy shows up in the band's name of course, but also in their album titles and artwork.

Tricycle was the first release by Flim and the boys on the DMP (Digital Music Products) label, created in 1982 by Minneapolis-based engineer and digital music pioneer Tom Jung.  Jung was a veteran recording engineer and producer, who, along with partner Herb Pilhofer, founded Sound 80 Studios in the Twin Cities in 1969.  [Fun fact: In 1978, Bob Dylan rejected the over-produced New York sessions for his new album Blood On The Tracks and decided to re-recorded the entire album at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis.  Bill Berg was the cat called in to play the drums.]  Between 1983 and 1988, Flim & the BB's released five studio albums (Tricycle, Tunnel, Big Notes, Neon, and The Further Adventures of) and one best-of collection on the DMP label.  Their last two albums (New Pants and This Is A Recording) were released by Warner Brothers in 1990 and 1992.  None of their catalog has ever appeared on vinyl before, which is why I was so excited to see that Tricycle was being released as a two-disk set cut at 45 RPM.  

Flim & the BB's seven studio albums in chronological order starting at top left.

I quickly went online to find a copy of the LP and discovered it was being reissued by the in-akustik (sic) label from Germany.  Copies were scarce, and I couldn't find any offered by a dealer in the U.S.  There were several copies available from Germany and the U.K., but with postage, the price was going to be upwards of $70-80.  I sent off a couple of email enquiries to dealers in Germany about shipping times while I kept looking.  After a couple of days I found a copy offered by a dealer in California and immediately ordered it.  It arrived about a week later.  The sound is incredible.  I already knew that the CD had stunning sound, including some of the lowest bass notes I've ever heard on record.  (Flim Johnson plays a five-string bass, and the lowest string is tuned to low B at around 30 Hz.  Combined with Berg's kick drum, the bass will give your subwoofers a great workout.)  But as paradoxical as it sounds, converting the digital recording to vinyl somehow adds a layer of realism, warmth, and texture that makes the music even more wonderful and compelling.  It's the kind of listening experience that leaves me shaking my head and muttering "Wow!" over and over.  

There is no indication of where the disk was pressed, but I suspect it may be MY45, a facility based in Tiefenbach, Germany that specializes in limited, high-quality releases.  The Direct Metal Master was cut by Hendrik Pauler at Pauler Acoustics in Northeim, Germany.  Pauler Acoustics is owned by Hendrik's brother, Gunther, who also owns Stockfisch Records.

Back to our mystery story.  In the 80s and 90s I bought all of Flim & the BB's CDs and assumed I owned the entire catalog.  So imagine my surprise when about 20 years ago I was at a used record store and came across an LP titled Flim and the BB's (note the 'and' instead of the '&'), which was released in 1978 on the Sound 80 Records label.  What the heck?

The copy I found was in NM/NM condition, and though it was a little pricey, of course I had to have it.  (I don't recall what I paid, but it was nothing like now, when NM copies are going for $150 or more.)  The front of the jacket hypes the record as "A Special Direct-To-Digital Recording."  It was one of the earliest digital recordings released in the Unites States, and the liner notes contain a lengthy explanation of the technology.  All well and good, but my real question was how come I never heard of the album or knew that they had released a record before they signed with DMP?  And why does Sound 80 Records sound vaguely familiar?

A little sleuthing turned up the answers.  In the mid 1970s, a few years after Flim & the BB's got together, and just a few miles down the road, the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (better known as 3M) was hard at work trying to develop a digital recording system for use in music studios.  According to the liner notes in Tricycle by Flim Johnson, "When 3M techs got tired of listening to oscillator test tones, they would ask us to come down and play some music into their latest box of integrated circuits.  Early results were . . . well . . . interesting."

In the spring of 1978, 3M was ready to test their creation and installed a prototype digital recorder at Sound 80 Studios.  (Aha!)  The first recording they made was of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra playing Aaron Copeland's "Appalachian Spring" and Charles Ives' "Three Places In England."  The LP was supposed to be a direct-to-disk recording, that is, a live recording cut directly to a lacquer.  (The lacquer is what is used to create a metal master from which stampers are made to press records.)  The direct-to-disk process cuts out the transfer from a tape recording to the lacquer.  Skipping this step can create a more immediate and realistic-sounding recording.  (I have a number of direct-to-disk records, and the sound is generally fantastic. )  However, recording direct-to-disk means there is no way to remix or correct anything.  What you hear is what you get.  If the orchestra makes a mistake, they have to start all over again.

  

To test the new 3M digital recording console, it was set to run in parallel to the direct-to-disk recording so that 3M's technicians could compare the digital sound to a state-of-the art analogue pressing.  Apparently everyone was blown away at how much better the digital copy sounded.  No doubt it was the first time most of them had ever heard the startling effect of digital's wider dynamic range and vanishingly low signal-to-noise ratio, as well as the absence of any surface or background noise.  So they decided to scrap the direct-to-disk record and release it as a digitally recorded LP.  The result (above) was the first digital recording issued by Sound 80 Records (catalog number S80-DLR-101).  It became the first digital LP ever to win a Grammy award.

Next up for the studio was a planned direct-to-disk recording with Flim and the BB's.  Once again, 3M's techs ran the digital recorder in parallel with the analogue recording.  And once again the digital copy was judged to sound better than the direct recording and was used to cut the lacquer for the record.  The album Flim and the BB's was put out as a limited release and became the second ever digital LP from Sound 80 Records (catalog number S80-DLR-102).  Flim Johnson explains why the album became so rare in the liner notes to Tricycle: "In '78 we actually did a 'direct-to-digital' recording using one of these prototype (digital) machines. That machine worked quite well, but was soon dismantled, making our master tape obsolete.  No machine could decode that particular code. The record (Flim & The BB's) became a collectors item by default."  

Since the digital master tape could no longer be decoded, there was no way to reissue the album or convert it to CD.  It would be interesting to know how many copies were pressed, but however many it was, there will never be any more.  So, there you have it:  The mystery of the disappearing debut album is solved.

Let's hope that in-akustik in Germany releases more of the original DMP catalog on vinyl in the future.  I've sent an email asking them to please keep me posted so I won't have any more surprises.  My heart can't take it.

Last fun facts: 

Bassist Jimmy "Flim" Johnson (below) has played on countless standout sessions with everyone from Stan Getz to Ray Charles.  Since 1991, he has recorded and toured regularly with James Taylor.

Drummer Bill Berg (below), who was never credited for his work on Blood On The Tracks, is a native of Hibbing, Minnesota, birthplace of Bob Dylan.  He now lives in western North Carolina where he plays gigs from time to time.

 

Pianist, composer, filmmaker, screenwriter (etc., etc.) Billy Barber (below) wrote the theme song for the long-running ABC soap opera All My Children, along with a whole bunch of other stuff you've probably heard of.

Enjoy the music!

I Owe Leo Sayer An Apology

I'd like to take this opportunity to say "I'm sorry" to Leo Sayer for ignoring him for the last 50 years.  Until very recently, I never owned any of his albums or really paid any attention to him whatsoever.  As a devotee of serious rock 'n' roll like the Beatles, Stones, CSNY, The Allman Brothers, The Who, etc., I lumped Sayer in with soft rock icons like The Captain & Tennille, Seals & Crofts, Gilbert O'Sullivan, and whoever did that godawful song called "Afternoon Delight."  Sure, back in the mid 70s I heard Sayer's hit singles "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" and "When I Need You" on the radio about every five minutes, but I didn't rush out and buy them or the album they were featured on, Endless Flight.

But life is funny sometimes.  A few weeks ago I put on my mask and ventured out of the music cave quarantine to a nearby antiques mall which has a couple of used vinyl dealers.  It's one of my regular haunts, and I usually go by every couple of months to see what's new.  With the virus, I've been doing all my vinyl shopping online, so hadn't been there in about six months.

As luck would have it, one of the dealers had an amazing sale going on, offering any 20 albums for $15.  Seventy-five cent records?  Yes, please.  

Unfortunately for me, the sale had been going on for nearly a month, so the selection was a little picked over.  Nevertheless, I managed to find 60 albums in pretty short order.  I got some nice jazz titles, a couple of albums by French crooner Charles Aznavour, a handful of minty classical LPs, a bunch of R&B (that I enjoy but don't listen to all that much), and 10-12 rock albums that I already own but bought anyway because the copies looked cleaner than mine.  And I also found 12-15 albums by performers that (as I mentioned in a post from last year about the New Christy Minstrels) I'm normally sort of embarrassed to buy.  One of these was Leo Sayer's 1976 album Endless Flight.  To be honest, the main reason I bought it was because it looked absolutely pristine -- like it just came out of the rack at Tower Records in 1976.  I have an archaeological interest in just about any 45-year-old album that looks brand new.

With so many albums languishing in my intake pile, it normally would have been months before Endless Flight resurfaced.  However, I knocked over a pile of records that were stacked near my desk, and the cover (above, of Leo in midair) caught my eye.  So I thought "what the heck," cleaned it and gave it a spin.  

The first thing I noticed was that the musicians are tight.  The band is locked in like session pros from the The Wrecking Crew.  And then I noticed the sound; the production is excellent, with a natural sound stage and great dynamics.  So I grabbed the dust sleeve to check the credits.  Holy cow!  Everybody plays on this thing, including Lee Ritenour, Ray Parker, Nigel Olsson, Trevor Lawrence, Chuck Rainey, Steve fricking Gadd, Larry Carlton, Willie Weeks, Jeff Porcaro, Michael Omartian, Bill Payne, and Lee Sklar, just to name about half.  Well, hell, no wonder it sounds so good.  

Sayer and Producer Richard Perry

Next I checked the technical credits.  It was produced by Richard Perry, who has helmed more than 800 albums ranging from Ringo Starr to Carly Simon to Rod Stewart to Captain Beefheart.  The album was engineered by veterans Bill Schnee and Howard Steele, and mastered by Brian Gardner at Allen Zentz Mastering in San Clemente, CA.  It's on the Warner Brothers label.  With so many ace session guys, a first-rate production team, and a custom, full-color dust sleeve, this was a big-budget production that the label clearly supported.

At this point I started to pay a little more attention to the music.  By the end of the record it hit me that this is not only an exceptionally well-produced and well-played album, the songs are really good.  I don't mean Bob Dylan Blonde On Blonde good for Pete's sake, but well-crafted pop songs that Sayer really nails.  He wrote or co-wrote about half the songs, and others were penned by pros like Carol Bayer Sager, Andrew Gold, Barry Mann, and Motown's Holland-Dozier-Holland team.

I don't want to go overboard.  It's not my new favorite album, and I'm not planning to run out and buy Sayer's entire back catalog.  But listening to Endless Flight reminded me once again that some of the music that I am kind of embarrassed to admit I own, is actually really good stuff.  No question I will pull this out from time to time to enjoy.

Daltrey, from 1973

Since I knew next to nothing about Sayer, I did a little research.  He was born in Sussex, England in 1948, and like a lot of the UK's future rock stars (John Lennon, Keith Richards, Freddy Mercury, Jimmy Page, David Bowie, and Pete Townshend for starters), he went to an arts college where he studied art and design.  In the early 70s, he started co-writing songs with David Courtney (who later produced Sayer's first two albums), and the pair had their first top ten single in 1973 with a song called "Giving It All Away" off of Roger Daltrey's self-titled solo album, Daltrey (left).  In addition to the hit single, Sayer and Courtney co-wrote a total of 10 of the 12 songs on the album, while Courtney played guitar and piano and also produced the album.  That same year, Sayer released the first of his own singles (once again produced by Courtney).  The second one out of the gate, "The Show Must Go On," made it to number 2 on the UK pop charts.  In 1974, Sayer had several more top ten singles in the UK, and his first top ten single in the U.S.  His early albums also sold well, including Just A Boy, which made it to number 16 in the U.S. in 1974.

Sayer's breakout success came with the release of Endless Flight, which reached number 4 in the UK and number 10 in the U.S. album charts.  (Though released at the end of 1976, the album and the singles from it charted in 1977.)  Two singles from the album,"You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" and "When I Need Love," were both number one hits in the U.S.  "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" ended up being the number 13 best-selling single of 1977.  By way of comparison, the number one Billboard hit that year was the cringe-worthy "Tonight's The Night" by Rod Stewart.  I know which one I'd rather hear on the radio every five minutes. 

Sayer's next few albums did well, but by the early to mid 80s he had mostly dropped from sight.  He had a series of financial and legal problems due a larcenous agent and corrupt financial advisers.  (In a 2019 article in The Times of London, Sayer says he lost five million pounds.)  However, he continued to record and had chart hits in the UK as recently as 2006.  In 2005 he moved to Australia, and became and Australian citizen in 2009.  He continues to write and record in his home studio.  His latest release from 2019 is called Selfie.

Sayer in a 2019 photo.

Once again, my apologies to Leo Sayer, but better late than never.

Enjoy the music!

Music In The Time Of Cholera

Well, not really cholera (or the plague for that matter), but a pandemic all the same.  For the past several months while we've been staying home to avoid the virus, I've spent most of my time listening to albums.  It is relaxing and helps distract from the never-ending stream of bad news.  Although to be honest, before the virus hit I already spent most of my time sitting at home listening to music.  So not much has changed, except that now I get to feel slightly virtuous for doing my part to flatten the curve.

But I haven't just been sitting and listening to music.  I've also been working to clean and catalog albums from my intake pile.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, when I stumble on a bunch of interesting looking albums in the $1 box at a record store or buy a box of miscellaneous LPs at an estate sale, I often end up bringing home 30 or 40 albums at a pop.  So there are usually 100 or so albums waiting to be cataloged at any given time.  I have albums that I bought months (years?) ago that are still languishing in the pile, and I've been able to add dozens of them to the permanent collection over the last few months.

The only problem is that since I have so much free time on my hands, I've been ordering records faster than I can catalog them.  With so many record stores closed and their owners struggling to stay afloat through online sales, it feels like my civic duty to buy as many albums as possible.  I know, I know, but that's just the kind of guy I am.  The good news is that I've discovered lots of interesting new bands and music that I (mostly) had never heard of before.  Let's have a look.

First up is an intriguing release that has been in the pile so long I forgot where I found it.  It's called Wackering Heights, released in 1971 by a group called - you guessed it - The Wackers.  This album would have fit right in with a blog I wrote a few years ago entitled "How Did I Miss These Guys?," about performers from the 60s and 70s who I somehow was never aware of back in the day.

Cribbing from Wikipedia: "The Wackers were formed in 1970 out of another band called Roxy, by singer and songwriter Bob Segarini and multi-instrumentalist Randy Bishop. They joined with singer-guitarist-keyboardist Michael Stull to form the new group. Bassist Bill 'Kootch' Trochim and drummer Spencer Earnshaw completed The Wackers lineup to record their debut album Wackering Heights.

Allmusic reviewer Steven McDonald calls Wackering Heights "A charming, sunny debut disc from a group that somehow managed to blend the Byrds and the Monkees into a pop sound that was as intelligent as it was catchy."  Alas, The Whackers never really caught on, and after a couple of years and two more albums (including their wonderfully titled third and final LP, Hot Wacks), the Wackers ceased to be.  Leader Sagarini tried his luck with a couple of other bands and had a brief solo career before becoming a successful disc jockey/radio personality in Toronto.

My 49 year old copy of Wackering Heights is in NM condition and looks like it was never played (which may tell you all you need to know about why the band didn't do so well commercially).  The gatefold jacket has only very light wear and rates a solid VG+.  The album was released on Elektra Records, which must have had high hopes for The Wackers since they went to the trouble of creating a special logo showing The Wackers' name spanning the globe.  It is printed on the label and also embossed in gold on the front of the jacket cover (above).

The next goodie I dug out of the pile was Bossa Nova Plus, a 1963 release by tenor sax man Willis Jackson.  Jackson was a prolific recording artist, releasing dozens of albums - almost all on the Prestige label - beginning in 1959.  Though his early influences were Lester Young and Illinois Jacquet, Jackson later became a part of the soul jazz movement.  Along with tenor players Gene Ammons, Stanley Turrentine, Eddie Harris, and others, Jackson helped create a more gritty, funkier (and more commercial) sound.  Reflecting this shift, Jackson's later albums had titles such as Grease 'N Gravy and Soul Grabber.

However, Bossa Nova Plus captures Jackson in a mellow mood, playing a lineup of current hits and Latin melodies in a lightly swinging bossa nova style.  The interesting thing about the album is that it was originally issued with the title Shuckin', featuring a photo of Willis on the cover (left).  But it was reissued almost immediately with a new title and a more colorful cover (above) in order to cash in on the bossa nova craze which was sweeping the U.S. after the release of Stan Getz' 1962 albums Big Band Bossa Nova and Jazz Samba.  I'm a big fan of bossa nova and would have bought the album anyway, but what really sold me was reading the liner notes and seeing that the sidemen include Kenny Burrell on guitar, Roy Haynes on drums, and Tommy Flanagan on piano.  A super lineup.  Unfortunately, none of the musicians really stretches out, but it's a balm in these troubled times.  And the samba version of "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" is a gas.

The next album I pulled out was a copy of Lee Morgan's 1971 release, Live at the Lighthouse.  It's a fairly obscure Blue Note/United Artists release, a double live album recorded at the famous West Coast jazz club in Hermosa Beach, CA in July of 1970.  The Lighthouse, owned by bass player Howard Rumsey, was the launching pad for a host of West Coast jazz artists, including Bud Shank, Max Roach, Sonny Criss, Hampton Hawes, Shelly Manne, Russ Freeman, and Chet Baker.

As reviewer Scott Yanow notes: "By the time of this LP, Morgan's music had become much more modal, heavily influenced by John Coltrane."  A kind of sheets of sound on trumpet if you will.  I'm not crazy about Coltrane's later albums, and not surprisingly, "sheets of sound" on trumpet doesn't do much for me either. 

Apparently the general public felt the same way since the album sold poorly and as a result it is pretty hard to find today.

Blue Note released a three-CD box set in 1996 that expanded the original album to include all of the music from Morgan's three-night stand at The Lighthouse. 

If you look online for the album, you are likely to get a lot of hits for a CD called Live At The Lighthouse '70.  Be aware that this is a different album entirely from the Blue Note release.  Lighthouse '70 was issued as a two-CD set in 1991 by a Spanish label called Fresh Sounds Records (the same group responsible for a lot of the public domain jazz LP pressings coming out of Europe).  The notes on the Fresh Sounds CD, which (just to confuse things even more) has an expanded image of the head shot of Morgan from the original Blue Note cover (right and above), says it was recorded in July, 1970 at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach.  It was not.  According to several online sleuths, the Fresh Sounds release was recorded live at a place called "The Both/And Club" in San Francisco, probably in June of 1970.  Apparently Morgan and the band played some gigs in San Francisco to tune up before heading down to Hermosa Beach (near L.A.) for their appearance at the Lighthouse.  The San Francisco shows were taped to air on a local radio station, (though it's not clear if they ever did) and those tapes are what is on the Fresh Sounds CD.  I've heard the CD, and while you could argue that the music is actually better -- the band is loose and the music is more straight-ahead bop -- the recording quality is poor and the sound is marred by a drunk/stoned guy sitting (seemingly) right beside the microphone screaming "Yeah, man!" about every 10 seconds for long periods of the recording.  That said, there is a version of Ceora, a song originally released on Morgan's album "Cornbread," that is fabulous.

Last up is the 1969 release, Truly Fine Citizen, by San Francisco's own Moby Grape.  I didn't actually miss Moby Grape, I just wasn't a fan and didn't buy their albums.  On the other hand, I was a big fan of Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Grateful Dead, and a lot of the other groups that exploded out of San Francisco's psychedelic scene in the 1960s.  [Fun fact: Skip Spence, founding member of the Grape, played drums on the Airplane's first LP.]

Truly Fine Citizen was Moby Grape's fifth album in three years (the third release in 1969 alone!).  Since their 1967 debut, the band had become locked in a contentious legal battle with their manager and was beset with drug abuse and mental health issues, which led to the departure of founding members Skip Spence and Bob Mosley.  By 1969, the three remaining members of the band decided to get away from it all and decamped to Nashville to record their next album with Bob Johnson, the white-hot producer who had already made Blonde On Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited with Bob Dylan, the Sound Of Silence with Simon and Garfunkel, Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison, as well as a slew of other seminal rock albums.

Since they no longer had a bass player (Bob Mosley left the group and joined the Marines -- no, really), producer Johnson brought in ace session player Bob Moore, who played on many of Elvis's albums and was one of the crack musicians who made up the famous Nashville "A Team."  [Fun fact: Moore's official web site says that "With more than 17,000 recording sessions to his credit, he may well have played on more recordings than any other musician in the world."  Almost inconceivably, that works out to at least one session every day for 46 years, including Sundays and holidays.  Wow.]  But despite the presence of ringers Bob Johnson and Bob Moore, Truly Fine Citizen is generally considered to be a middlin' effort.  Music critic Mark Deming gives it three stars and notes that (given all their legal and personal issues) "It's a pleasant surprise that Truly Fine Citizen isn't a disaster -- it's a loose but amiable set of sunny psychedelic pop-rock with a decided country influence."  I find it well played but unmemorable, except for the fabulous, jazzy cut called "Love Song, Part Two" that closes the album.  The copy of the album that I found is a minty original Columbia two-eye that sounds very fine.  

Moby Grape's 1967 self-titled debut album

For whatever reason, Moby Grape albums have become quite collectible in recent years, and copies in good condition sell for more than you'd expect.  Near mint copies of Truly Fine Citizen are going for $25-30 on Discogs.  The most collectible of their LPs is the first pressing of their debut album, 1967's self-titled Moby Grape.  [Fun fact: The band's name is the answer to a bad riddle: What's big and purple and lives in the ocean?  Answer: Moby Grape.  Drugs may or may not have been involved in the decision.]  The cover of the album is a photo of the band members in front of a second-hand store holding various props from the store.  Drummer Don Stevenson, who is smack dab in the middle, is giving the finger on top of an old washboard he's holding.  Apparently the suits at Columbia Records were not amused, and the press run was stopped while the cover (and included poster) were swapped out with an airbrushed image without the middle finger (below).  As always seems to be the case, a number of the original covers made it into stores anyway.  I have a VG+ copy of the original which shows the middle finger, and even if it's not my favorite album, it's still a nice bit of rock memorabilia.  NM copies of the unexpurgated Moby Grape will set you back in the neighborhood of $75-100.  So keep your eyes pealed.

Last fun fact: The flag at the back right of the photo in the original cover is an American flag that was air-brushed to make it red/orange so as not to offend the anti-war fervor of the youth of 1969.  But wait!  When they airbrushed out the middle finger, they changed the flag from red to black, presumably to avoid any possible association with communism.  It all seems kind of quaint now.

Enjoy the music!

Frank Sinatra And Me (Really)

I once had dinner with Frank Sinatra.  Well, sort of. 
I mention that (details below) because I've just finished reading the massive two-volume biography of Sinatra by James Kaplan.  All together it's about 2,000 pages (including footnotes and sources), but Kaplan's prose is breezy and the many stories and anecdotes from Sinatra's friends and acquaintances make the pages fly by.  If you are a fan of "The Voice," (and if not, why not?) it's well worth your time.  If you're not up for all 2,000 pages, I'll give you a one-line summary: Frank was a world-class S.O.B., but also one of the greatest entertainers in the history of popular music.  While reading the bio, I played Frank's records -- matching up the LPs to the timeline in the biography, beginning with the  early hits on Columbia, the pivotal years with Tommy Dorsey's band, his long heyday on Capitol and Reprise, and ending with his last two studio albums, Duets and Duets II, released in 1993 and 1994 respectively.  He died in 1998.

During his lifetime, Sinatra released 78 LPs: 59 studio albums, five live albums, and 14 compilation albums.  In addition, he released 297 singles, many of them 78s from the days of the screaming bobbysoxers in the 1940s and 50s.  Checking my collection, I find I have 68 Sinatra LPs.  However, I have duplicates and triplicates of numerous titles, as well as a couple of posthumous compilations and foreign releases, so I actually only have 44 of the 78 albums released while Sinatra was alive.  Clearly I've got to pick up the pace.  (If you really want to go crazy, the official Sinatra family website has a list of 10,066 Sinatra albums that have been released all time worldwide.)

To mark what would have been Sinatra's 100th birthday in 2015 (Frank was born in 1915), Universal Music (UMe) remastered and reissued a bunch of Sinatra's best-selling and most-loved albums.  Listening again to my Sinatra albums as I read the bio, I realized that some of the original copies I have are not in great shape and decided to order a few of the new pressings to see how they sound.  I bought Come Fly With Me, Come Dance With Me, Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim, Nice 'N' Easy, Ring-A-Ding-Ding, and In The Wee Small Hours.  All are classic, must-have Sinatra albums.

 After comparing the new versions to my original pressings (the only one I didn't already have was Ring-A-Ding-Ding), I am happy to report that the new releases sound terrific.  I couldn't find any information about who did the remasters or whether the sources used were the original tapes or digital copies.  But to my ear, they sound ring-a-ding-ding: The strings are lush, the brass is fat and sassy, and Sinatra's baritone is rich and beautifully burnished.  The disks are extremely well pressed on quiet 180-gram vinyl by Record Industry in the Netherlands.  All the records come with poly-lined dust sleeves, and the replica jackets look swell.  If you have some holes in your Sinatra collection, my advice is don't bother trying to find originals, which, though widely available, have often been played to death.  For $20 a pop (some even less), you can have new copies complete with that new record smell.  Ahhh.

My Dinner With Frank

OK, now my Sinatra story.  My wife and I were working at the U.S. Embassy in Rome in September of 1991 when Frank came to town to perform a concert as part of his Diamond Jubilee World Tour.  The U.S. Ambassador hosted a gala dinner for Frank and his fourth wife Barbara (the former Mrs. Zeppo Marx) at the Villa Taverna, the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador in Rome.  Since my wife and I were fairly junior officers, we were nowhere near being on the guest list for the soiree.  However, late in the afternoon on the day of the dinner, we got a call from the Ambassador's staff to say that one of the invited couples had cancelled at the last minute, and they needed us to get dressed and get over to the residence to fill the empty seats right now.  Well, sure.  And on the way, we should stop at the Hotel Excelsior to pick up TV personality John McLoughlin and give him a ride.  OK. 

The Villa Taverna in Rome

We quickly got ready, raced across town to fetch McLoughlin, and got to the Villa Taverna just before the other guests began to arrive.  As my wife was taking McLoughlin inside to meet the Ambassador, the Ambassador's secretary frantically pulled me aside and said, "There's nobody here to greet the guests.  You speak Italian, so stay here and welcome everyone and make sure they all sign the guest book."  OK.  (Foreign Service Officers are nothing if not adaptable.)  I took up my post under the portico of the main door (above) and greeted everyone as they arrived, including Gina Lollobrigida, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme (who were the opening act for Sinatra), and actor/funnyman George Segal who was in Rome filming a TV show.  There were a number of other well-known Italian personalities and business moguls who I can't remember.  Almost everyone was somebody since dinner with Frank was the hottest ticket in town. [Fun facts: Gina Lollobrigida co-starred with Sinatra in the 1959 movie Never So Few, a film set in wartime Burma.  Contrary to some malicious wags, Kaplan says that Frank and Gina did not hook up during filming.  The film also features a young Steve McQueen.]

Frank and Barbara were two of the last to arrive for the dinner.  As they got out of the limo, I welcomed them to the residence and asked if they would please sign the Ambassador's guest book.  Frank gave me a look like he had just stepped in dog poop and muttered, "I ain't signing the goddamn guest book."  Barbara smiled at me and whispered to Frank, "Be nice."  She quickly signed for the two of them, and I ushered them inside. 

George Segal

Dinner was outside in the magnificent gardens behind the Villa.  I don't recall precisely, but believe there were 6-8 round tables set out for about 50 guests.  I was seated next to George Segal, who was a very nice guy and a lot of fun to talk to.  Out of the blue he asked me if I knew where he could get a banjo, because he thought he might play it on his TV appearance the next evening.  (Segal is a fine banjo player.)  He was delighted when I told him that I played a little banjo myself and would be happy to loan him mine.  (In the end, the studio found a banjo for him, so my five-string missed its moment in the spotlight.) 

Steve and Eydie

Frank and Barbara were seated at the head table with the Ambassador and his wife, along with Steve and Eydie and Gina Lollobrigida.  It was a gorgeous September evening in Rome, with twinkly lights strung overhead in the garden.  I don't remember much else about the dinner except that after coffee and desert the Ambassador made brief remarks and then asked if Frank could possibly favor us with a song (the staff had moved the residence's baby grand onto a nearby side patio and had hired a pianist to be on standby just in case.)  I couldn't hear Frank, but he had the same look as when I asked him to sign the guest book earlier.  After a brief, awkward pause, Steve and Eydie got up and graciously agreed to do a couple of numbers.  The Sinatras left soon afterward, but the party moved inside and continued for some time afterward.

It was a pretty memorable evening for my wife and me, and all these years later I'm sorry to note that we didn't even get a mention in Kaplan's book.  

Enjoy the music!