Anna Nalick Starts Her Tour

No, she's not jazz but her taste for great music started with Gershwin but sounding more textured like Fiona Apple. Make no mistake about her, this girl can write! "Words sometimes keep rattling around in my head" she told me. There is no one set formula with her, because she can play guitar and piano and so the music can come first or the words.

Beaverton Oregon was a first stop for Anna's tour after her Tuesday album release. Anna has been on Regis and Kelly and heads to Late Night with Jay Leno on Monday.

Anna is almost 21 years young, yet she knows how to play with her audience. When Anna asked the soundman for some reverb, he said "wish I could give it to you"; Anna said quickly, if we can't get reverb, "would you just repeat everything I say"

Miss Nalick will be here for a long time, don't pass her up, my bet is you'll be a fan on first listen!

Joe Pass - Going My Way!

In the early 80's, Joe Pass, one of the finest solo guitar players that ever lived, had just finished his last set at Fat Tuesday's. I was alone that night, sitting at the bar. I had my car right outside and I said, Joe "which way do you need to go?" He said, "I'm staying around the corner from the Plaza. Since I lived in Queens, it didn't matter which way I went home, so I said, "sure I'll take you".

It felt so cool seeing this Jazz Great was just a regular guy. As I dropped Joe off, I told him that if he ever needed a ride, I'd be glad to pick him up. Joe told me "you pick me up tomorrow and you can get in for free" - So, I did that for the next 12 years.

Who is Eddie Durham and Why Should I Care

Well, if you care anything about Jazz History, you'll appreciate that Eddie Durham was one of the people that influenced the very sound of jazz. He was a prolific arranger and was the first guitarist to play amplified guitar on record!

This week in Harlem there is a swing dance in his dedication, where you can have swing dance lessons too, from the legendary Mama Lu Parks Dancers.

durhamjazz.com

Jaco Pastorius Finds New Sneakers

The beauty that went on inside Jaco's head never ceases to amaze me. Whenever I heard Jaco play a song his presence was always so strong. He didn't have to overplay or overpower a song to make that presence known either.
I only got to see Jaco play in a group setting 2 times, once with Weather Report in 1977 or 1978 when they played in Virginia Beach and the second time in Forest Hills stadium when Jaco was the leader of Joni Mitchell's Band. Both times were amazing! Up to that point the best electric bass player I'd ever seen was Stanley Clarke, but Jaco had so many more sophisticated harmonies going on and to me his sense of "space" was perfect.
It was in the early 80's that I got to meet Jaco at the 55 Bar where he came down to hear his friend Mike Stern play. I had taken a few lessons on guitar from Mike's wife Leni. Jaco was a Greenwich Village regular and so I met him on numerous occasions just stopping to chat here and there.
One day as I was walking into Tower Records near NYU and there was Jaco yelling at the employees of Tower and saying "You people should be giving me these records, I'm the greatest musician in the world" I could see the employees were kind of intimidated and so I walked up to Jaco and said "hey Jaco what's wrong?" he just turned to me and smiled and said "You know me" - Yeah, Jaco was just trying to get a charge out of these people and nothing more. He was just being playful and didn't mean any harm at all. He asked me where I was headed and I said that my car was about 10 blocks away, because I couldn't find a parking place any closer, he said well hop in my cab. Jaco had a cab sitting outside of Tower while he went in there, as we started to walk to the car he looked into this garbage can and saw these old Ked style canvas sneakers with huge holes in the tops and said "hey I could use a new pair of sneakers" and took them out of the garbage. Jaco was such a funny guy. He was always zany and just a one of a kind person. Now who could forget a guy like that!

Charlie Parker Washed The Dishes

So many people will swear by Charlie Parker and say what a great musician he was - AND RIGHTLY SO! But, Charlie himself learned by listening and one person that he knew was worth listening to was Art Tatum.

Art Tatum had so many ways to harmonize in this head that Charlie Parker worked a month in a club washing dishes just so he could listen to Art. Now, if that doesn't make you want to rush out and listen a bit more closely to Art Tatum, I don't know what will!

Where Wayne Wright Went Wrong!

You can thank Wayne Wright for getting Les Paul out of retirement over 22 years ago. It was Wayne that approached Les and said, “Hey, I can get us a gig at Fat Tuesdays on Monday Nights” Les told Wayne, that he was feeling some pain from arthritis and he had already retired, so why would he want to play again. Wayne’s answer is classic Wayne Wright “Because you need the therapy and I need the gig!” So, for about two and a half years Wayne Wright played rhythm guitar with Les at Fat Tuesdays.

Joe Pass introduced Wayne and me over 20 years ago, knowing that we both had a zany sense of humor and he told us, you two will be good friends and he was right. You can’t help but like Wayne. This Detroit Native grew up playing the guitar backwards – yeah, he’s a lefty. And that’s where Wayne Wright went wrong. But without all the books that many of us had for forming chords, Wayne learned to play by ear. The 19 hours a day playing must have helped, because he has played with some of the greats, like Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Sammy Davis Junior and seven albums with Ruby Braff and George Barnes.

Wayne opened up my ears to Art Tatum’s harmonies and Carl Kress’ wonderful rhythm playing also. Coming from Detroit gave Wayne some opportunities to play with the great Wes Montgomery.

If you are interested in hearing some really great jazz check out the following.

• Ruby Braff and George Barnes Play Gershwin
• Ruby Braff and George Barnes Quartet Plays Rogers & Hart

Lotte Jacobi And One Degree of Separation

Years ago, I went door to door speaking to people about the Bible. It was something I grew up doing. It was on one of these times going door to door in Dearing, New Hampshire that I came upon a little woman that was in her mid seventies. She opened the door and said “come on in, look around and I’ll be right with you.”

I was quite surprised that someone up in years, would be so trusting, but I thought maybe I have a friendly face. When she came back and asked “are you ready?” I was surprised, and then she realized that I wasn’t there to have my photograph taken. As I could see in the few minutes I was there, she was a wonderful photographer and had pictures on her wall of people that anyone could identify as well as others that just looked important and interesting. I saw before me pictures of Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Robert Frost J. D. Salinger, Paul Robeson and Max Planck.

After laughing at the fact that we both assumed to know who the other was, and were both wrong, she told me a little about herself. Her name was Lotte Jacobi and she had been a photographer since she was a young girl in Germany.

About a month after first meeting Lotte, I asked if I could interview her. I would love to write a story about her for Readers Digest, I told her. I brought her some cut flowers the day of our meeting and she spent about 10 minutes looking all over for a vase that would accommodate them, after which she told me, should I come back again, please don’t bring me flowers. She had plenty in her back yard and she even had her own beehives too, as she was a beekeeper.

Lotte told me that she had been a friend of Albert Einstein in Germany and that her friendship continued after they both arrived in America, after fleeing Hitler. You will see Lotte’s pictures in many books on Einstein, because he always insisted that her photos be used.

This past year, while I was still living in New York City, I had a chance to visit the Jewish Museum. The museum was having a full exhibit of Lotte Jacobi, who has been called by some to be the finest female photographer of the 20^th Century. Gracing much of a full wing of the Museum, I was able to view many of the same pictures I had seen back in 1973 on the walls of her studio there in Deering, N.H.

Lotte was someone that befriended many of the talented musicians, dancers and scientists of her day. She portrayed them in ways that no one else did prior to her. Lotte was very clear to point out that she didn’t wish to have any preconceived ideas about any of her subjects.

Recently I was thinking about the game that is played called “The Six Degrees of Separation Of Kevin Bacon”. The idea of the game is that Kevin Bacon as an end point can be linked in Hollywood by six degrees or less to almost any other performer. It made me laugh, because using that premise, having known Lotte Jacobi means that there is only one degree of separation from me to Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, J.D. Salinger or Robert Frost as well as other very famous people. Of course, in reality it doesn’t mean anything, since I never met any of them. But, what is something I’ll always be grateful for is to have met such a gracious artist as the one and only Lotte Jacobi herself!