Archive for the ‘News’ Category

The Last Time I Saw Paris

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

The golden age of lounge entertainment in Atlantic City has been over for some years. The recent passing of saxophone giant Sam Butera, architect behind the sound of Louis Prima, just formalized the end of an area.

From the inception of casino gaming in 1978 until the early 1990s, virtually every casino/hotel had a lounge that featured live music. Some of the attractions were local, some were national. In the very beginning, Resorts International, the first casino to open, booked jazzers like Red Norvo and Teddy Wilson, and later, Sam Butera, Freddie Bell, R & B pioneers The Treniers, and jazz trumpeter Jack Sheldon.

Later on, The Golden Nugget booked everyone who was anyone from the world of Las Vegas lounges, including Buddy Greco, Frank D’Rone, Keely Smith, Billy Eckstine, Johnnie Ray, Billy Daniels, Joanie Sommers, Chris Connor, and many others.

The Claridge jumped into the fray after a while, as did Caesars, with attractions like Julius LaRosa. Dakota Staton and Buddy Greco, who, if memory serves, moved to The Claridge from The Golden Nugget and then to Caesars. There were bidding wars going on in those days.

It was party every night in those lounges. And remember, this was world class entertainment on view for the price of a drink.

I can’t pinpoint exactly when things began to change, but I do recall when I first saw the handwriting on the wall.

Sonny Averona was a Sinatra-type singer who had a substantial following at the shore and beyond. Sonny’s following was the “right” kind of following, i.e., high-rollers. He packed the lounge at The Taj Mahal six nights a week. I know. I was his drummer. When Sonny took a break, the crowds gambled–quite heavily, I was told–until we returned to the stage.

I was shocked when we were given two weeks’ notice. I had become acquainted with one of the Taj’s executives, also a regular visitor to the lounge, and told him that, for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why we were given notice, given the size the type of business we were doing.

“Come with me,” the exec said, while leading me to a quarter slot machine at the end of an aisle in a dark and rather secluded part of the casino floor. “See this machine? It may be in a dog of a location, but it’s still good for a minimum of $600 per hour. What’s replacing you in the lounge? Slot machines.”

As of summer, 2009, there are a number of lounges that do book live music, though the descriptions of the sounds within–provided by the casinos themselves–do not go beyond “live entertainment” or “rock cover bands.”

What hasn’t changed is that casino executives have to be creative in terms of who or what they book in their bigger rooms. A “name” is always a draw (when Sinatra was in town, all of Atlantic City was sold out) and given the economic climate and the fact that A.C. is no longer the only game in town, these places need all the help they can get.

Here’s some creativity at work for you: A recent advertisement for the Borgata casino/hotel listed none other than Paris Hilton as an upcoming attraction on Saturday, June 13th. You’ve got to hand it to the folks at the Borgata. What they’ve done in terms of appealing to the younger/upscale market has been astounding, and the operation has become a model for all other casinos in the area and beyond.

But Paris Hilton?

Those of us of a certain age knew that “actress” Zsa Zsa Gabor was basically famous for just being famous, though she did develop a character and demonstrated a flair for comedy, often at her own expense.

But Paris Hilton?

What does she do, and more importantly, what will she do at the Borgata on the evening of Saturday, June 13th?

The copy for the first newspaper advertisement I saw read, simply, “Paris Hilton, Music by Jesse Marco, Saturday, June 13.”

Music by Jesse Marco? Gee, maybe Hilton would be singing with a big band.

It turns out that Marco is one of the hottest, young D.J.’s around, so don’t look forward to hearing any Count Basie charts.

One of the Borgata’s web sites, borgatanightlife.com, offers another clue as to what Hilton will be doing on the evening of June 13.

Here, the copy reads PARIS HILTON (in very big letters), and underneath, in very small letters, “Hosts Mur.Mur,” and underneath that, also in small letters, “Music by Jesse Marco,” and underneath that, again in large letters, SATURDAY, JUNE 13.

Mur.Mur, it turns out, is a new nightspot within the Borgata, which they describe at “the nightclub with a personality all to itself.” In line with just what the Hilton appearance is all about, the key word here has got to be “hosts.”

That, evidently, is what Hilton does. She shows up. And on this night, she’ll be hostessing at a disco. Mur.Mur. The nightclub with a personality all to itself. Bet the joint will be mobbed.

I bear no ill will toward Hilton or Jesse Marco, the Borgata or Mur dot Mur. In fact, I’m jealous. I want the gig. I’d love to get paid for showing up. Nice work if you can get it, says the song.

More seriously, I miss Sam Butera and the era when Buddy Greco would be singing and swinging to a packed room. There was nothing canned about it and these performers gave their all and created an excitement and energy that hasn’t been surpassed. And it was all live.

I’ll pass on the famous hostess and the disc jockey. I’ll listen my Sam Butera records instead.

Update:

The ageless Buddy Greco appears regularly at his own spot in Cathedral City, CA, “Buddy Greco’s Dinner Club,” and will be touring the U.K. in August.

Julius LaRosa’s web site lists no appearances beyond November of last year.

Trumpeter Jack Sheldon is still out there swinging, and will be playing at The Playboy Jazz Festival at The Hollywood Bowl on June 13, the same date Paris Hilton will be hostessing at the Borgata.

Singer and guitarist Frank D’Rone, a vastly under-appreciated talent (boy, did we have some times at The Golden Nugget), continues to play to packed houses in and around his native Chicago, on the west coast and at other selected, national venues.

Vocalist Joanie Sommers is still singing and takes jobs, when offered, near her Los Angeles home base.

Several of the recorded works of legendary jazz singer Chris Connor are being reissued–finally–by a number of record companies in Japan. Her singular singing style will be the subject of pianist/composer/eductaor Ran Blake’s lecture series this summer at the New England Conservatory.

The golden voice of Keely Smith has not changed one iota since her days with Louis Prima. She appears in the “main rooms” — no longer the lounges — of nightspots and concert halls nationally and records for the Concord Jazz label.

Milt Trenier, the only surviving member of The Treniers, appears a few times per month in and around his Chicago home.

Jazz pianist Teddy Wilson died in 1986.

Billy (“That Old Black Magic”) Daniels died in 1988.

Singer and hit-maker Johnnie Ray died in 1990.

Singer and bandleader Billy Eckstine died in 1993.

Jazz vibraphonist Red Norvo died in 1999.

Jazz singer Dakota Staton died in 2007.

Vegas lounge maven Freddie Bell died in 2008.

SAM BUTERA: What Made Sammy Run

Saturday, June 6th, 2009

Note: I saw Sam Butera hundreds of times in the 1980s at various
casinos in Atlantic City, notably Resorts International. At that juncture,
I was writing for Atlantic City Magazine by day and playing in the lounges
by night, but I always made it my business to be in the lounge of
Resorts when Sam Butera and The Wildest were in residence. It
was the hottest show in town. Eventually, I became close with Sam
and the talented members of his band, including the late Buck Mainieri
and Chuck Stevens Ignolia (Connie’s brother) and keyboardist
and arranger Arnie Teich. Sam had me helping with sound, with
publicity, etc. In other words, I was a hanger-on with a purpose. Sam
and the boys gave me some of the most exciting and most
educational moments of my life. Though the following tribute
concentrates on Butera’s long association with Louis Prima, be
aware that he participated in many projects on his own, both before
and during the Prima years, including recording sessions as a
soloist, fabulous pairings with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Sammy
Davis, and even a film or two, including “The Rat Race.” Sam’s music,
with and without Prima, is timeless and will never, ever date or age.
Was it art? As Sam might have answered, “I don’t know, man…but it
was sure fun.”

Saxophonist Sam Butera, the architect behind the sound of the legendarysinger and trumpeter, Louis Prima, passed away in Las Vegas on June 3rd. He would have been 82 in August. Butera, who retired in 2004, died as a result of complications from Alzheimer’s Disease, said his wife of 62 years, Vera.

The Butera/Prima pairing constitutes one of the great show business stories. In 1954, young Butera was quite the sensation on the New Orleans club scene, with his raucous combination of jazz, dixieland and rhythm and blues sax solos and vocals winning over locals and tourists nightly. He was, in fact, already a national name, as he was voted as one of the most outstanding teenage jazz musicians in the country by Look Magazine a few years earlier.

Unfortunately, Louis Prima career was all but shot by 1954. Though he had enormous success in the late 1930s with a Dixieland combination on 52nd Street in New York city, a popular and quite entertaining big band throughout through the 1940s and plenty of hit records, by 1954, the big band era was long over and Prima’s “jumpin’ and jivin” style was pretty much considered old hat. Prima and then-wife, vocalist Keely Smith–they married in 1953– were working every dive imaginable, with local rhythm sections. “Louis had us playing in bowling alleys, or wherever else he could get us a job,” Smith said years later.

Prima needed a break, and he got one in the form of Bill Miller, Entertainment Director of Las Vegas’ Sahara Hotel, where Prima had once headlined. Miller gave Prima and Smith two weeks in December. In the lounge. On the midnight to 5 a.m. shift.

Though they went over well with the Vegas audience—they were extended throughout the month, and the musicians provided for them worked well–Louis Prima knew something was missing. Prima’s New Orleans-based brother, Leon, told Louis about this fabulous band in New Orleans, led by a swinging, honking, entertaining dynamo of a saxophone player, Sam Butera. Instinctively, Prima knew that Butera could give him the sound, and help realize the musical concept, he wanted. Prima begged Butera to come to Vegas on Christmas. Butera came out December 26th, and shortly after, the face of Las Vegas entertainment changed.

Louis Prima had already been through a number of musical styles, including swing, big band sounds, dixieland, Italian “jive” novelties like “Please Don’t Squeeza-Da Banana,” and several more. His goal was to somehow incorporate all of these in his act, with contemporary rhythm and blues overtones. At the same time, he was developing the role of his singing wife, Keely Smith, into that of bored, deadpan vocalist who could care less about Prima’s on-stage scatting, jiving, dancing, be-bopping and other musical shenanigans. Sonny and Cher were an updated version of Louis and Keely.

Sam Butera and his talented New Orleans crew, dubbed “The Witnesses,” brought it all together. Even Prima’s cornball novelties–like “Josephina Please Don’t Lean-A on the Bell”–were now catchy, electrric swingers, held together by a modified swing beat called a “shuffle.” It wasn’t rock and it wasn’t jazz and it wasn’t dixieland. The music of Louis Prima, as defined by Butera, had elements of them all.

Louis Prima, Keely Smith and Sam Butera and The Witness were a hit and took Las Vegas by storm. The Casbah Lounge at the Sahara was the spot in Vegas. Tables were impossible to come by and after-hours visits to the lounge by the headliners–which frequently included Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack co-horts–became the norm. The group signed a lucrative contract with Capital Records, had a bunch of hit records, made a movie or two and were all over television. Ed Sullivan, who employed them frequentely on his television program was fond of calling them “the hottest act in the country.”

And the songs? Venerable oldies like “That Old Black Magic,” “Just a Gigolo,” “Oh Marie,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and dozens of others were arranged by Sam Butera for maximum effectiveness, utilizing the skilled talents of Prima’s wild vocals and trumpet playing, Smith’s sweet singing, and on most every tune, the booting and rousing tenor saxophone of Butera.

Prima, Butera and The Witnesses remained Vegas staples–and toured the country– for years, even after the very public divorce of Keely Smith and Louis Prima in 1961. Though the hits stopped coming and audiences and tastes changed, they always had their following. In 1967, Prima, Butera and the Witnesses got a tremendous shot in the arm via their casting, albeit as cartoon characters, in Walt Disney’s “The Jungle Book.” Prima, naturally, was “King Louie,” King of the Apes. Youngsters are still mesmerized by the songs and the characters in that film today.

The man who Sam Butera called “The Chief” played his last gig in 1975, after lapsing into a coma during an operation to remove a brain tumor. Louis Prima died three years later. Butera understandably floundered a bit on his own in the beginning, and sadly, a pairing with Keely Smith didn’t work out. Vegas, of course, wasn’t the same.

But things changed with the advent of legalized casino gaming in Atlantic City in 1978. As Sam Butera and “The Wildest” (Prima widow Gia Miaone owned the name “The Witnesses” and wouldn’t allow Butera to use it), the rabble-rousing tenor man garnered an entire “new” audience who remembered and loved the music of Louis Prima. It was that Vegas excitement–every night–all over again. Butera had a fine, fine band which was seven or eight strong at one point, and for years, they were the stars of the lounge within Resorts International, often alternating with other Vegas lounge legends, The Treniers and Freddie Bell and The Bellboys. Again, everyone who was everyone came into the lounge to catch Sam Butera. Including Frank Sinatra.

Rocker David Lee Roth’s remake of Prima/Butera’s “Just a Gigolo” brought even more audiences, nationwide, to see and hear “the original,” as did The Gap’s use of the Butera arrangement of “Jump Jive and Wail.”

In 2004, Sam Butera formally retired, tired of the constant travel and having to deal with a changed Las Vegas and a changed Atlantic City. He didn’t need to work. He worked and played long and hard, and even during his last gigs at the age of 78, he played with more energy than I have ever seen on stage before or since.

I once asked, during a band break at Resorts International in the early 1980s, if there was any secret to to his longevity. “There are two things to remember,” he told me. “One is that it’s nice to be important but it’s more important to be nice. The second is, and I love pure jazz more than anyone else, that we don’t play for critics. We play what I call happy music, and as Louis used to say, ‘We play it pretty for the people.'”

Bruce Kaminsky: Playing for a higher authority

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

Bruce Kaminsky is a bassist, jazz educator, recording artist, and inventor of the popular, acoustic/electric hybrid, the KYDD bass. Since the early 1970s, when he burst on to Philadelphia’s then-bustling jazz scene as one of late bass guru Al Stauffer’s finest students, there has not been a style of music he hasn’t played. Those styles would include swing, bop, fusion, klezmer, and just about every type of world music imaginable, from Armenian to Israeli.

He has never lost sight, however, of respecting “the tradition,” whatever that musical or ethnic tradition might be. For the past several years–both independently and as director of several ensembles at Philadelphia’s Drexel University and University of the Arts–Kaminsky’s love for what he calls a “World Music/Philly-style tradition” is now geared toward a higher calling. World peace.

According to Kaminsky, “The Philadelphia Middle East music scene is steeped in a tradition crossing ethnic, religious and cultural boundaries. Greeks perform with Turks who perform with Armenians who perform with Arabs who perform with Jews. The music becomes the only issue.”

What’s left unsaid, of course, is, that if music is the only issue, there can be nothing but peace between all races, religions and creeds.

This incredibly uplifting vibration was very much in evidence at a June 3rd concert at Drexel University, entitled “Middle East Peace…Philly Style,” a program directed by Bruce Kaminsky that featured Drexel’s Mediterranean Ensemble and the Philadelphia-based Middle Eastern ensemble of Arab and Jewish musicians, “Atzilut.”

The packed, Mandell Theater house was singing, dancing, cheering and clapping throughout this touching, and yes, swinging, show. Very peacefully, of course.

Atzilut is a mini, musical United Nations, that features Hassan Jack Kessler, a Hebrew Cantor on guitar and vocals, and Maurice Chedid on Arabic vocals and ‘oud. Rounding out the group are Roger Mdgrichain on ‘oud, Joseph “Flip” Kessler on electric violin, Joseph Tayoun (son of the famous James) on doumbek, and Lenny Seidman on tabla. The group performs for the cause of peace all over the world, including, not surprisingly, at the United Nations, the Royal Opera Theater of Copenhagen and for Munich Gasteig.

The music they play, both written and in many, inventive improvisational passages, is not easy to master, given the system of micro-tones indigenous to many world music’s, and the time signatures that often veer from straight, four-four. The players, without exception, are technically astounding, and make everything sound and look simple. It’s clear that they love what they’re doing as well. Their enthusiasm knows no bounds and seats just cannot contain several of the players.

As “front men,” if that term applies in this case, Kessler and Chedid are affable and sensitive players and singers who cover a lot of international ground in their program. “Syrtos” is a composition that comes from the Jewish community of Greece. “Avram Avinu,” fmeaning, or “Abraham, our Father,” comes out of the Spanish Ladino tradition. There were solo numbers for each and a rousing Arabic/Hebrew closer called “Ranenu/Debke,” which translates roughly into, “Sing forth, all you righteous.” If only the world could be so joyous. And simple.

The second part of the evening’s concert featured Drexel’s Percussion Ensemble, also directed by Kaminsky, that had as a subtitle, “The Drum Solo” Show. Percussion ensembles, no matter what their level of talent, can sometimes be an acquired taste. This one, with accompaniment by The Drexel Brass Quintet, was refreshingly musical, with compositions that included Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” Lalo Schifrin’s “Mission Impossible” theme, Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon” and the venerable “Sing Sing Sing.” The 16-strong ensemble of drum sets, marimbas, xylophones, bass drums and assorted Latin percussion was quite musical throughout, but above all, this was about fun. Remember, that’s why it’s called “playing.”

On a personal note, I’ve known Bruce Kaminsky personally and professionally for over 30 years. It occurred to me, while sitting in the audience and experiencing all this, that his June 3rd event represented the absolute fruition of virtually everything he’s been doing, musically and otherwise, for the last 30 or so years. Indeed, his idealism and dedication has helped catapult his singular musical vision to the level of a much higher calling.

Those on stage and in the audience had no doubt that all of us can work, live and exist peacefully together. After all, as Bruce Kaminsky has said, “The music becomes the only issue.”

For further information on Bruce Kaminsky, log on to www.KyddBass.com.
For more info on Atzilut,” visit www.Atzilutmusic.com.
Drexel University music programs can be accessed on the web via www.Drexel.com

Benny Goodman’s 100th: Long Live the King

Monday, June 1st, 2009

On May 30, 2009, Benny Goodman, a.k.a. “The King of Swing,” would have been 100 years old. There were and are several Goodman tributes, including a BBC Radio “Centenary” episode, concerts by Paquito D’Rivera, the Boston Symphony and a Lincoln Center “Jazz for Young People” show entitled “Who is Benny Goodman?”

There are several players and leaders out there who do ensure that the Goodman legacy continues. Ken Peplowski (who will do a Goodman tribute concert at The Rochester Jazz Festival on June 13), Brooks Tegler, and especially Loren Schoenberg — who could and should write the definitive Benny Goodman story—are three who immediately come to mind. And Schoenberg, by the way, paid tribute to BG, and Lester Young, via several, recent WGBO radio programs. While all this is great stuff, it seems to me that there should be more, given the scope of Benny Goodman’s fame and more than substantial contributions. But memories fade as time goes on, so maybe we should be thankful for any tributes at all.

As much a part of the Goodman legend, if there is such a thing, is the not-so-fondly-remembered issue of his personality. Though I don’t like getting involved in the personal lives of any celebrity, the Goodman “personality,” or lack of it, is just so darn amusing and very, very public, that it just cannot be ignored. Especially on BG’s 100th.

One of Goodman’s biographers, perhaps James Lincoln Collier (and whatever happened to him?) once pointed out that, in all probability, not a day goes by without a story being told about the enigmatic behavior of BG. (Buddy Rich stories are another issue.) Gene Lees’ essential “Jazzletter” devoted a bunch of past issues to what went down on the famed tour of Russia in 1962, and Bill Crow’s “Jazz Anecdotes” retold some of the more infamous stories.

The one I particularly like is the one told in the late, Peter Levinson’s great biography of Tommy Dorsey, published in 2005, entitled “Tommy Dorsey: Livin’ in a Great Big Way.”

As the story goes, BG was doing a gig somewhere on November 27, 1956, the day after Dorsey died. One of Goodman’s sidemen told Benny the news about TD’s tragic and unexpected death. “Benny, I hate to tell you this bad news, “ the sideman related, “but Tommy Dorsey just died.” The King’s reply? “Is that so?” he said. You’ve got to love it.

Another frequently-told story through the years that has again been making the rounds of the internet, is pianist/vocalist Dave Frishberg’s hilarious tale of the evening Goodman sat in with Gene Krupa’s Quartet at The Metropole Cafe’ in New York city. Track that one down. It’s a riot.

I haven’t related my personal Benny Goodman story in years. In line with the 100th birthday business, this seems like an appropriate time to retell it.

In the mid-1980s, I had the bright idea of writing a biography of Gene Krupa, which later became “World of Gene Krupa: That Legendary Drummin’ Man,” published in 1990 and still in print via Pathfinder Publishing of California. For an unpublished author writing about someone relatively forgotten back then, the project was an uphill battle from the start. Still, I forged ahead, and though a good deal of the book was a compilation of edited, previously published materials, I obviously had to get some first-person interviews to give the project some credibility. When I started, I had no publisher and not much of anything else, other than my credentials as a drummer and newspaper editor, but players like Teddy Wilson, Eddie Wasserman, Carmen Leggio, John Bunch, Charlie Ventura, and later, Mel Torme’ (who wrote a wonderful introduction to the book, where he revealed that Gene was, in fact, Goodman’s absolute, favorite drummer of all time) were just marvelous to me.

But it was always in the back of my mind that any book about Krupa just had to have an interview with one, Benjamin David Goodman.

My plan was this: Find the New York phone number and ask BG’s’ long-time secretary, who I believe was still Muriel Zuckerman, if there was a chance at setting up a future phone interview. Goodman’s office number was listed, and having heard all the stories about this strange guy through the years, and the fact that he remained one of my musical idols, I really had to get some serious courage going before I dialed the phone.

Zuckerman answered the telephone, and I did not misrepresent my credentials or the project’s status. “I’m writing a book about Gene Krupa,” I told her, “and I was just wondering…next to setting up an interview with God, how difficult would it be to set a time to do a five-minute phone interview with Mr. Goodman?”

Always the merry prankster, I thought injecting a bit of humor into the proceedings might help pave the way.

“You’d have a better chance with God,” Zuckerman replied, and then asked if she could put me on hold for a moment.

Several moments later, someone picked up a telephone extension and said, “Hello?”

The voice was instantly recognizable. It was “Him.” I was not prepared for this at all.

“Mr. Goodman, I’m writing a book about one of your friends and colleagues, Gene Krupa, and I was wondering if I could set up a time to talk to you over phone about him for a few minutes,” I related.

“Well…what kind of questions do you want to ask?” was BG’s reply.

Man, was I on the spot, as I had absolutely nothing prepared, but I thought I came up with something reasonably intelligent.

“I’ve always wanted to know something, Mr. Goodman,” I answered while stalling for time. “You played with Gene at the very beginning of his career, and you played with him at the very end. Maybe you could explain the difference in how he accompanied you through the years.”

I thought that was a great question, and I still do. I’ll remember Goodman’s comments until the day I die.

“He played pretty much the same,” he explained. “He was rather consistent. As you know, he started with me and then formed his own band, which was rather successful. When did you say he died?”

“He died in 1973,” I told him.

“How old was he when he died,” asked BG.

“He was 64 years old, Mr. Goodman.”

“My, that was rather young, wasn’t it? Goodbye.”

Click.

That’s my Benny Goodman story and it was printed, verbatim, in my Krupa book. Several Goodman fans were not happy about it.

When players like Teddy Wilson gave a sensitive and intelligent analysis about how Krupa functioned—and evolved—as an accompanist and a soloist through the years, Benjamin David Goodman could only relate that Krupa’s playing “was pretty much the same” over a 40-plus year span.

But as one wag –who heard all the stories and more through the years—once put it: “Yeah, but he sure could play that clarinet.”

Happy 100th and long live The King.

Hal Blaine at 80: 35,000 Sessions and Counting

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

It is quite probable that, to this day, Hal Blaine remains the most recorded drummer in music history. He played on 40, number one single records, 150 that made it to the top ten, and by his own estimate, played on about 35,000 recordings. Blaine virtually defined the role of the modern-day studio session drummer, and was instrumental in developing the multi-tom set-ups we see today.

Especially via his work with the much-heralded “The Wrecking Crew” with everyone from The Beach Boys and Elvis to John Denver and Phil Spector, Blaine’s roots were in jazz. He was first influenced by Krupa and Rich, played with Basie, and cut his teeth backing singers like Patti Page, The Four Freshmen, The Hi-Lo’s, and one Francis Albert Sinatra.

Blaine’s 1990 autobiography is still essential reading. In February, he celebrated his 80th birthday, and announced the formation of a Hal Blaine Scholarship Fund. To donate, visit www.HalBlaine.com. And released last year was an award-winning documentary, The Wrecking Crew,” which tells the story of those ground-breaking studio rebels.

The following interview with Blaine was a part of a book project on the influential, early drummers of rock that for one reason or another, never happened. In this extensive interview, the still-colorful Blaine speaks of his early influences, love for jazz, work with Tommy Sands, Nancy Sinatra, Phil Spector, The Beach Boys and many more.

When did you first want to play drums?
Hal Blaine: You know, when I first realized that I wanted to play the drums, I was too young to realize that. I was a kid. I was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Nice little town. I was not around any music, although I actually had three cousins who played drums, well really, two cousins who were drummers and one who was a violinist. She was the only female who played the violin but she also played drums. I was sort of surrounded by people who played drums, but I never even thought about drums. I moved to Hartford. Connecticut when I was about seven or eight years old, and like so many Jewish boys, I was put into a Hebrew school to study for my Bar Mitzvah when I was 13 years old. During that period, from about nine to 12, 13 years old, I had an old rocking chair that my mother had, and I used to take the top of it off and take the doweling, which was on the back, and they became drum sticks for me. And I started fooling around like that. Our Hebrew school was right across the street from a Catholic school, which I think was Saint Anthony’s and they had a marching band. They had bugle, snare drum (being played by) young kids and I use to watch them all the time after Hebrew school. I would go out back and watch these kids playing and marching and the priest used to see me, so he came over to talk to me a few times and I told him I fool around on drums. He invited me in. All of sudden I became the only Jewish drummer in the Catholic brigade, which was kind of funny. My parents didn’t mind. The loved the idea. At least I wasn’t in the streets causing any trouble. And I liked being a show off. All drummers are show off’s… major show off’s, When I got my first drums I was about 13. My older sister bought me my first little set of drums. It was a bass drum, cymbal and little high hat. That was my set of drums. I used to set it up on my front veranda. We lived up on the second floor. Then my dad had fashioned a kazoo with a big piece of rubber on it that went around and I could play my own songs and accompany myself on these little drums that I had. That was the first time that I sort of felt show biz, because all the kids coming home from school would stand out front and listen to me. It was very infantile, but to me, I was doing a show. Also at that time, my father worked at the Connecticut Leather Company in Hartford, Connecticut, and the place where he worked was right across the street from the State Theater in Hartford. The State Theater was one of those theaters where every band played and my dad started bringing me there at a pretty young age. It was a quarter to get in. And the poor man could hardly afford that quarter but he would take me every Saturday morning, drop me off when he went to work at 8:00. I’d be the first one in line and when the house lights came up, I was always front and center in the theater. To this day, I can smell the powder off of the faces of the performers and I saw every major band, every major comedian, every dance act. I mean real burlesque. I saw everybody and everything. I sat there through every show every Saturday morning until maybe 9:30 at night when my dad would get off. But they would do a show, movie, show, movie, show, movie. I also got very interested in film because I’d see all these wonderful movies. So that was sort of the beginning. Then my dad was not feeling so well and the doctor said that he had some problem with his lungs. Connecticut was a major tobacco area and he told him he had to move to California to get away from this. That’s how we moved to California and I was about 15. We moved to Los Angeles and lived with my uncle and auntie for a while. Then I moved down to San Bernardino, California, where I moved in with my other sister, my sister Belle. It was one of those housing projects that was very cramped and we were surrounded by mostly black folks. I got to know a lot of the black musicians who would invite me in to fool around with them. We were still kids, 15, 16. One of my best friends, a kid by the name of Bob Kaminski, was the first kid I met in California when I moved to San Bernardino. Same birthday. Same age. Same date. We’ve been friends ever since to this day. Bob sort of became a singer with the band. He sang great. And he loved to sing, so I had this little band I finally put together; this little, four, five, six-piece band. We would play these little jobs for $5.00 and a chicken dinner. I use to attend all the jam sessions down in the black neighborhood. Place called JD’s Rose Room. Playing there I got to jam once with Dizzy Gillespie, for an example. That was the stuff that I loved. be-bop was coming in and I loved be-bop. I loved jazz. I loved swing. Gene Krupa was my main influence. Buddy Rich was my second main influence at the time when I was a kid. When I grew up, I went into the service. From San Bernadino I went to Korea. Spent almost three years, came back, took my GI bill and went to Chicago. Studied with Roy Knapp at the Roy Knapp School of Percussion, which was Gene Krupa’s alma mater. Louie Bellson was there. A lot of fine drummers. Buddy Harmon from Nashville was there.

From the studying in Chicago, and that was eight hours a day of school, then I happened to get a job in a strip club that was eight hours, from eight at night until four in the morning. I used to go from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon to school, try to do a little homework and practice in between. At eight p.m. I was on stage with a trio, playing for these strippers. Now my name got around. There were a lot of strip clubs in Chicago and I probably worked all of them. I finally wound up at one place called The Post Time Club. And it was one of those clubs that was owned by “dez, dems and doze guys”. They owned all the clubs. They were known as The Outfit and it was plain and simple, they were all Italian, they were all Outfit. They took a liking to me. One of the owners, Little Vince, was always loaded with armor and he actually was fooling around with drums himself. He caught me in the office one time. He had a set of drums there. He had been practicing. Then I found out he had played with Harry James.

My main reading experience started happening when I was backing up all these strippers. There were 10 or 12 strippers every night, sometimes not the same ones. You had to sight read their music and most of them had music. Of course, at the strip club you had the slow song, medium song and a fast song. I had gotten a lot of great experience sight reading. Reading became second nature to me. As I have said through the years when I do clinics, a lot of drummers are afraid to read music and I try to explain that reading music is no different then reading the newspaper. When you first start out, and you are saying “The man ran.” But all that becomes second nature. You don’t even think about when you’re reading music. You’re reading in bits and spurts of whatever the lick happens to be. You don’t have to start thinking “eight-one-e- and- a two- e and-a”. It’s nothing like that. You’re reading automatically and unconsciously. That’s especially important with big bands. The other thing that I try to tell drummers, is to get a hold of the trumpet parts, the saxophone parts, the trombone parts, see what these guys are playing. Make little notes on your own music to catch some of their stuff. So little by little, that’s exactly what happens.

I went back to California after school, graduated and started working with little bands around San Bernardino . There was a very fine disc jockey that known as “Bill the Bellman,” who played a lot of pop music, swing music, jazz music, and they had a little studio at the radio station. He had heard me playing with a couple of these little bands and he asked me if I would come in and do some demos with him, which I did, and those were my first real recordings. He had a record company called Rocket. I think it was Rocket Records and Melody House Records. He had several labels. Boy, I was really hooked on recording. Once again, the show off drummers, they want to hear themselves and like anything else, once you have had enough experience and know what not to play, that’s the big thing once you finally get into the studios. I moved back into Los Angeles and started working with just a group of guys nobody had ever heard of. Glenn Campbell, Leon Russell and Tommy Tedesco were just a bunch of nice guys. There were no drugs by the way. We were making demos for everybody. Glenn Campbell could sound like anybody. And in those days the record business was centered on songwriters wrote songs for particular artists. If you wanted a Nat King Cole, you wrote a Nat King Cole song. You made a demo of that song and then there were song pluggers who would take that demo to Nat Cole or his producers at Capitol. Nat Cole would hear the record and if he liked the song he would record the song and it would go on the air. Little by little, and the timing couldn’t have been better, there was a thing called rock and roll that was starting to infiltrate the music business. Most of the drummers in Hollywood– and this was in 1956, 1957, 1958–hated the name rock and roll. They refused to play rock and roll. Naturally, when producers decided they wanted to make a rock and roll record, they were calling the guys that were making the rock and roll demos. All of a sudden, we started working with Sam Cooke, H. B. Barnum (sp), Joe Saracino, and different people around Los Angeles. They were putting names to groups, and we became–I can’t even remember all of the silly names–The Four Fabs, whatever. They were putting records out and they were hits. Pretty soon, all the big movies studios wanted rock and roll in some of their movie scores. They started calling us “The Wrecking Crew.”

How influential to you was your early association with singer Tommy Sands, in terms of making the transition from straight ahead jazz drummer to developing a rock concept?

Hal Blaine: There was a young gentleman who was being managed by Colonel Parker. His name was Tommy Sands. No one had ever heard of Tommy. Colonel Parker, of course, was managing Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley had just gone into the service. Tommy Sands was offered a singing part in a movie. It was a big hit called “The Singing Idol”. All of a sudden, he needed a rock band. As a matter of fact, they called it rock-a-billy. Tommy Sands was from Houston originally, and he was kind of a country singer. He had played guitar and he was just the nicest kid in the world. It happened that one of these Mafia type guys came to me, saw me playing at the Garden of Allah in Hollywood. This was a very, very famous nightclub in Hollywood. I was working with a jazz trio. This guy came to me and said, “ I’ve got this young man and he has an audition for Capital Records and we need a drummer. I said, “What’s the music? “ He said, “Well it’s rock-a-billy, it’s country.” I said, “You know, I haven’t had a lot of experience in that.” This guy said, “Well, it’s really rock and roll.” Well, I’d been listening to rock and roll, and all I heard were after beats and bass drum. So I said, “I’m really not interested.” He said, “Would you be interested in just doing the audition? I’ll give you $50 bucks or $75 bucks, just come in and audition. I know that you’ll fit in with the group. And once that they say ‘yes’ and they sign him, then you can go on and do your thing.” So I said, “Okay!”

I went to the Algiers Hotel, then on South Vine Street and met Tommy Sands and these two guys, Eddie Edwards and Leon Bagwell. Young kids, right out of Texas. I mean they talked that Texas talk. You can always tell a Texan…but not very much! I sat and kind of played, rehearsed with them for just a few minutes. They were just the nicest kids in the world. And I was playing rock-a-billy. Tommy came in and we rehearsed. Tommy said “You’ll be fine for the group.” I didn’t want to say anything to him, that I wasn’t going to be with the group, but we started talking about this that and the other. It turns out that Tommy Sands tells me his real name is Tommy Sancheck and a bell went off in my head. My piano teacher in Chicago was Benny Sancheck. He was Tommy’s father. So we immediately had a mutual love society going and they offered me a lot of money to play with him and travel with him, to conduct at times, and to be road manager at times. We went all over the world a number of times and played. We just had a wonderful time. At that time, Tommy had met Nancy Sinatra. We were playing at the Ambassador Hotel, The Coconut Grove, where I recently did a movie with Jim Carrey, “Man on the Moon.” We all met Nancy Sinatra that night. I guess Nancy and Tommy fell in love and before you knew it, they got married. Prior to the marriage, Nancy traveled with us, and during those travels, her mother was always with us. We always referred to her as “Big Nancy.” Sweetheart of a lady. And during that period was when I met Frank Sinatra for the first time. That’s a whole ‘other book or a whole other story. I stayed with Tommy until he went into the service, then I joined Patti Page. With Tommy, all these arrangements that we had, it was just a little bit of rock and roll, but all arranged for big band. Just cookin’ stuff. There’s a great album we did called “Sands at the Sands”. Thank goodness for the experience that I had playing big bands and admiring big bands. That was my meat. While I was with Tommy, I did a couple of weeks with Count Basie, when Count’s drummer, Sonny Payne, wasn’t able to play. I had already been playing the show and Count Basie talked to me about filling in, and I said, “Sure.” It was one of the greatest times of my life playing with that band. Of course Louie Bellson played with him, everybody played with him. It was a wonderful, wonderful time. When I joined Patti Paige. Patti was singing, “How Much is that Doggie in the Window?” but she also had some great big band arrangements. She was on Columbia Records. Meanwhile, I was recording at Capital, which was my first major recording with Tommy Sands. I started recording at Columbia with Patti Paige. Patti’s then husband, Charles O’Curran, was a major choreographer at Paramount. He put me with Elvis. I spent four years doing movies with Elvis and also did his 1968 comeback special. It was during that period I kind of fell into it. It’s almost like a family. People get to know you. They know you’re responsible and you’re re reliable and that’s what rock and roll always meant to me. R & R meant responsible and reliability. They knew that I would be there on time to the next job. Anyway, working with Elvis and with Patti and with Tommy Sands, the word got around, who is the rock and roll drummer?

The developing of the concept to play rock and roll, was that difficult? How much work was that for you to become comfortable at rock and roll?

Hal Blaine: I would say that for me to become comfortable at rock and roll was absolutely overnight. It was nothing. It was just a matter of knowing what a song was, knowing what it was all about. Listening to the lyrics. Within a very short time, Phil Spector starting calling all these major producers in Hollywood. Earl Palmer, God bless him, was so jammed and busy with work, that he was throwing work to me all the time. That’s how so many of those people got to know me. Rock and roll was just another word for playing the drums. I was just playing the drums. I would listen to certain records on the radio. When I would hear a record and they were calling it rock and roll, I would listen to the drummer and he was just playing straight eights or dotted eights, whatever the feel was. There were only two feels of music: Straight eights or dotted eights. That was it. Many of the big drummers in Hollywood refused to play what they called “That loud, lousy crap.” I’ll tell you something. Within six months these guys were all calling me. “Can I come to one of your sessions? I want to see what you do”. That’s the way it was.

Who were the other players at that time that were doing the work?

Hal Blaine: Well when I got to LA, there was Irv Cottler. He was Frank Sinatra’s drummer. There was the guy with Les Brown, Jack Sperling, who was a wonderful big band drummer. Mel Lewis was there, and Shelly Manne, of course. Shelly and I became very good friends. He was a sweetheart. Larry Bunker, one of the great big band, be-bop drummers. Gene Estes.

So really at this point, there really was nobody, except for Earl, playing rock and roll in the studios. Were there any other drummers playing rock and roll in the studios?

Hal Blaine: There were several guys that were playing rock and roll in the studios. Earl Palmer. Sharkey Hall was great little drummer. I got to meet all these people, got to know all these people and we were all friends. We were in the same union. We would see each other at the union or sometimes pass each other in the hallways, in the studios. Somebody would be in Studio A and I would be in C and somebody would be in B. We would yak this way and that way. We were all friends. A lot of people thought that there was a terrible competition going. There really wasn’t. Not at all. It turned out I had my accounts, Earl had his accounts, Sharkey had his accounts. There were several other drummers.

There were a lot of guys of the old school that were sort of being phased out by us. When we came along, a lot of people asked me how we got the name The Wrecking Crew? Very simply, all the old established musicians with the three-piece suits, use to see us come into a date, wearing a pair of Levi’s and a tee shirt, smoking cigarettes, maybe unshaven, and they would say, “These kids are going to wreck the business.” I just automatically started calling us The Wrecking Crew. I finally had to have a secretary. She would book all the people. They would call my secretary and they’d say, “We need The Wrecking Crew.” She knew who to call, etc. It wasn’t always exactly the same guys but there were quite a bunch of guys that were all great musicians and if one wasn’t available the next one was, and so forth. They were all “A” players. Nobody was second or third or fourth string players. All the guys were really very, very good. They were very sober and reliable.

It’s a strange thing. Things will happen in the recording industry. I have a picture of four of the officials at Warner Brothers/Reprise. I have this beautiful picture of them handing me four Gold Records and they were for Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra and I forget who else. Beautiful picture. When I went to Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas with Nancy Sinatra, we did a great show, an incredible show there, and it became an Ed Sullivan special. At one point, there’s a solo that I do on a song called “Drummer Man” that Nancy did, beautiful, she did it gorgeous. At the end of the song, as she was coming down, she’s getting ready to appear on stage again, and she says, “Hal was very instrumental in one of the records that I did that was such a big hit for me. Hope you like it and we go into “Boots.” “These Boots Were Made for Walking” was a song written by Lee Hazelwood. Billy Strange conducted. It was like yesterday. Richie Frost claims he did that record. Jim Gordon, a fine drummer, claims he did that record. I have a contract. I have the Gold Record. I have Nancy saying on the Ed Sullivan Show that I did and yet these guys continue. I don’t know. And I have often said, “I don’t care, they can say anything they want to say.” It really doesn’t bother me. I know what I did, and I was the drummer on “These Boots Were Made for Walking.” I was her drummer and Lee Hazelwood’s drummer. Lee Hazelwood took me to France. We did shows all around the world with these people. And Nancy has referred to me as her drummer man for as long as I’ve known her, 40 years maybe. Just did this big beautiful show with Nancy at the Whiskey A Go-Go with Eric Burdon and The Animals. Now about 35 years ago, I was one of the guys that sort of opened the Whiskey A Go-Go with Johnny Rivers. We did his first live album there. After all these years the Whiskey A Go-Go is still the one Hollywood spot where all the major stars want to play. It’s just a big old nightclub, and they use to have girls up in birdcages doing the twist and dancing and so forth. It was quite a place.

Getting back to drummers. Drummers are either going to learn to accompany or they are going to be soloists. I have never been a soloist. I am an accompanist. I want to hear a song and I play the song the way I feel it. Fortunately for me, being the rock and roll guy at the beginning of rock, people use to say to me, “Just do your thing. We want a hit.” They didn’t want to bother me. I remember one time I was scared to death. I had my first call at 20th Century Fox. I had been working at other major studios, but there was something about 20th Century Fox, Lionel Newman, who was known to be one of the toughest guys in the business and a great conductor, was the head of music at 20th Century Fox. We went out there to do some little cue. There was one place where a couple people were driving in a car, they turn on the radio and you hear all this wild rock and roll music, just for a couple of seconds, Boom, then they shut it off. That’s why we, The Wrecking Crew, were hired. We played this wild and crazy rock and roll. At Fox Studios, they did all these epics and all these sagas with 150 piece orchestras, and they used two microphones. It was beautiful. But rock and roll is not two microphones. There was a producer there who said to me, “Hal, we’re not getting that rock and roll sound that we hear on the radio, you know, that you guys do”. I said, “Well you know, one of the problems is they have one microphone on a very short stand about four or five feet in front of me, and one or two overheads for the rest of the band. It was five, six, seven guys. I said, “You’re not getting the sound because it’s not isolated.” And I didn’t know that much technically about it, but I was learning. He said, “What can we do? I said, “Usually, there’s one overhead just over me to pick up everything. There’s one on the snare drum. There’s one on the bass drum, and maybe one or two in front of the guys over here.This old man, his name was Hal, came up screaming, “Are you crazy? We don’t have those kinds of inputs. We can’t do those kinds of things. What are you trying to pull here?” I said, “Excuse me.” I felt so bad because Lionel Newman was standing and you could see the smoke coming out of his ears saying to himself, “Why did I ever get these idiots in here?” I told him, “Sir, all I’m doing is telling this gentleman that what we do in the other studios. I realize that you don’t have the inputs.” Well, they fooled around with jerry-rigging something, and they got it and it came out perfect. From that day on I was getting calls practically every other day from 20th Century Fox. I was doing “Batman” and all these series that they were doing. All of a sudden I was the rock and roll drummer. They didn’t know any other rock and roll drummers. So it was pretty amazing.

How about The Wrecking Crew’s sessions with Phil Spector? ( (Note: This interview was conducted long before Spector’s legal problems.)

Hal Blaine: Many people ask me about Phil Spector. The mystic mystery of Phil Spector. Whenever we did a Phil Spector date, and as I recall it was usually a Friday night because we would sometimes go half the night, it was always a big party. A major party. There was a big sign on the door “Gold Star” (studios). And by the way, every Tuesday morning I had breakfast with the Goldstar gang, It was the “Goldstar Breakfast Gang.” There is no longer a Goldstar Studios–but Dave Gold, Stan Ross, Larry Levin, Randy Van Horn and some of the producers and singers who worked there– we get together every Tuesday morning and reminisce and kibitz about Gold Star and about the business in general. Anyway, there was a big sign on the front door, whenever Phil recorded, that said “Closed Session.” But anyone that stuck their head in and peeked in, Phil would grab them, drag them into the studio and say, “Hal give them a tambourine. Give them a cowbell, castanets, whatever.” We always had 15 percussionists, just guys smacking and cracking, including Sonny Bono, who was not a percussionist. I use to give him a tambourine or cowbell or a something.

How big was this band?

Hal Blaine: Our band at Gold Star was myself and generally rhythm sections with piano, bass, drums, guitar. We would have four, five, six, seven guitars. We would have three, sometimes four basses. There were always four keyboard players, playing regular, upright, tack, electric. I never knew how Phil used to work on this stuff. A lot of the producers would come by just to see how he made records. They use to use this phrase, they wanted to see how Philip “sprinkled the fairy dust over the record and made it gold.” Phil Spector was the talk of Hollywood. We were doing the Blossoms, of course, the singers who did “Bobby Socks and the Blue Jeans.”(Note: The Blossoms recorded under various names, including Bob B. Sox and Blue Jeans) featuring the high tenor lead of Bobby Sheen). We were doing, of course, the Ronnettes. and Phil had actually been married to one of the young girls of the Ronnettes. Cher was singing backgrounds. It was an amazing assembly of people, and once again they were the top musicians. Ray Pullman was always on bass. Lyle Ritz upright. Jimmy Bond upright. Carol Kaye would be on guitar, along with Tommy Tedesco. There’s nobody finer than Tommy Tedesco. Some of the great jazz players were sitting there playing with Phil like Herb Ellis, Howard Roberts and Barney Kessel. All the greats. And Phil played the piano and also played guitar. He loved all these guys and these were the guys that he would call. We always had Steve Douglas on saxophone. Jay Migliore on baritone sax. Jim Horn sometimes on tenor. We had all the great horn players. This was two-track. This was years ago. Larry Levin, the engineer, had a way of getting us all on there. And it was rather a small studio. We were packed in there like sardines. This was the Wrecking Crew, while Phil called it his “Wall of Sound.” Everybody called it the “Wall of Sound.” One of the reasons for their great sound was they were one of the first studios to have a natural echo chamber built up in the attic somewhere, some kind of cement chamber. They could turn on that echo, and this is long before electronics and everybody had echo. It was pretty amazing. Leon Russell would be on piano, Don Randion piano. Al Delari , who became a big producer at Capital on piano. Larry Necktel on piano, the guy that got the Grammy for the introduction on “Bridge Over Troubled Water” that we did with Simon and Garfunkel. These guys were all super players.

Everything we did with Spector was a hit. They were all Gold and Platinum records, and that included the last stuff with John Lennon prior to his death. People ask me quite often about how I got the sound on my drums in those days. It was just a normal, four-piece set. I had a snare, small tom, which was a 12, a floor tom, 16ish. One of the things that I did for Phil was I rarely used any cymbals. I played my bass drum, which was a normal 22 bass drum with a head on each side, and a little dampening on each head. I was using calf heads. What we did was, every backbeat was snare and floor tom, I was giving them the highs and lows of the backbeats. That was something that Phil liked. That’s something I did always with Phil. In fact, I always did it with the Beach Boys, but the snare drum was not quite as high as the Beach Boys. There was a lick that I played that I became famous for, and that was on a song called “Be My Baby.” Every drummer in the world was playing that lick somewhere after that record came out. People ask me about that lick. I did a record with Frank Sinatra called “Strangers in the Night,” I did the same lick. Drum parts were never written for me. In the case of this lick, when we were doing that record, it’s very possible that when somebody pushed the record button and said, “Here we go,” I may have missed that second beat. So anytime I make a mistake, I will continue that mistake. It’s happened to all drummers, obviously. But that mistake was one of the wildest things that ever happened to me.

How about Jan and Dean?

Hal Blaine: Jan and Dean were a couple of young very handsome guys who were doing nothing but selling records. Earl Palmer and I were doing double drums with them. We use to sit and write our parts out identically. Same tom-tom licks, same snare lick. Anything we did was done in unison. Came out great. That’s the way Jan wanted it, Nobody knows why or anything about it. They were major hits, “Little Old Lady from Pasadena” and all those records. At one point, they had a lot of hits and 20th Century Fox came along and they wanted to do a(television series, “Jan and Dean on the Run,” something like that. Jan Berry was a medical student. Dean Torrence was studying architecture. They were both going to USC. They called me and said, “We’ve got a chance to do this television pilot for 20th and we want you to play our road manager and drummer on the show.” I said, “Sure, of course.” We had talked about this before but I had been working in some film as an actor. I worked at Disney and Paramount. I was working with Sal Mineo, a wonderful kid who was quite the drummer himself. He had done “The Gene Krupa Story.” Sal and I became pretty good friends, I was photo doubling for Sal and doing some stunts and doing some bits in this some “Z”movie. “On the Run”was about a couple of young guys, Jan and Dean, on the road, playing concerts. At one point, we did a free concert in San Diego for about 5,000 screaming kids and I brought the whole band down from LA. Now we had filmed all over the country, but this happened to be a concert in San Diego, one of the big concert halls, and I do happen to have that on film. (My character) was called Clobber the Drummer, and I had a running gag where their manager would say, “Clob, you got the music?” I would always say, “Have I got the music?” Like, leave me alone. He was a very nervous guy, this guy, Clobber. “You got the music? Have I got the music?” Just as we were getting on the airplane or whatever, they would cut to me running away. “ Clob, where are you going?” “ I forgot the music.” That type of thing. It really was very cute. We got all signed contracts at 20th. We were going to be big stars. We did this concert at the end of this run and this crew was with us through the entire pilot. William Asher was the director. He was also married to Elizabeth Montgomery. She also did a cameo in it. We shot all over the place. I brought the band down, The Wrecking Crew, and we had one heck of a band. It was a blowing band. All these guys are great players. I saw it not long ago. All the guys in the crew, they only knew me as an actor. They were coming to me and saying, “Hal, how did you learn how to play the drums like that, so quick, for this concert?” I had a double bass drum set up like Louie Bellson’s set up. Eventually they realized that I was a drummer, really not an actor. We had all signed contracts, we were going to be stars, they were picking me up in a limo every day. Then Jan had his accident. Not to get too gory, but he went under a truck in his little Corvette, He was pronounced dead on the scene. Someone kind of noticed some life and they got him, they brought him back, but unfortunately he was in a coma, for God, I don’t know how long. I use to go there every Saturday and I would just talk to him as if he could hear me. That was the end of the show. That was the end of everything. He did survive. To this day, they still go out as Jan and Dean. They have a fan club. Jan is completely crippled one side, almost like a stroke victim. But one side does not work. He’s married to a very nice gal, Gertrude, who’s been taking care of him. Every now and then he calls.

A lot of people ask me about the Beach Boys. I think it is common knowledge that I played on just about all of their hit records. It kind of ties in with Phil Spector. as so many of those things tied in with the various producers, conductors and arrangers. Brian Wilson use to come to the Phil Spector sessions a lot, because any time Phil Spector called a session, it went around town like wild fire. Everybody knew that Friday night, Phil Spector was going to be at Goldstar with the band, so a lot of people used to want to be there and see it and catch it. Brian was no exception. Evidently, Brian was driving the car one day and had heard “Be My Baby, ” and it blew his mind. He said, “That’s the greatest record I have ever heard,” and to this day, he still says that. He went through finding out who it was and all of a sudden, he showed up at Goldstar and wanted to meet Phil Spector. Phil let him sit there and watch. Most of us at the time, were already working with The Four Freshman, The Hi-Lo’s, The Lettermen, these various great groups. They all had hit records. When we went in and worked with Brian, we were never hearing final vocals. We just heard some humming or something. Brian was trying to explain the record to us. It was all in his head. He would have a chord chart, just a map. Start here, stop here, another stop here and here’s an ending. This is what chord charts were anyway with most arrangers. Lot of the biggest name arrangers would give us chord charts and say, “Do your own thing. You have carte blanche. Just make me a hit record,” because we did. Brian called me and we became very, very friendly, very close. He used to come to my house all the time. He would put my little daughter Shelly on his knee and he would play the piano and bounce her up and down. It was just a wonderful time. Brian was totally together, just absolutely together. Now, we would never see the other guys. Once in a while I would see Dennis, the brother, the drummer, to see what we were doing. Or he’d say, “ I need a set of drums on certain day, we’re doing a concert.” People ask all the time, “Wasn’t Dennis upset that you played on the record?” Dennis was never upset. First of all, whenever we were doing sessions, and we were making $35, $40.00 in the afternoon, that night, Dennis would be on stage making $35,000, $40.000.00.

That afternoon, Dennis was out on his motorcycle or his boat. He was doing something with some gorgeous lady somewhere, maybe getting married. He lived on a 45 degree angle. I mean, I always knew that Dennis was going to be in deep trouble some day because he was just one of those guys. He just led with his forehead. Yet he really was a brilliant piano player. He wrote some wonderful songs. He was happy that I was doing the sessions and the proof of the pudding is he hired me to do his solo album. “Pacific Coast Blue,” or something like that

Some years later, Brian was writing all these songs. Once again with Brian, it was always “Fun, Fun, Fun,” just like we did that record. It was always fun. We just had a ball. One of the ingredients for hit records for all of us was having fun and making a record feel good. If a record felt good, and by then they were into four track and eight track, if a record felt good, they could fix a glitch. If something went wrong somewhere, they could always fix that. With Brian, he had it all in his head. Out of nowhere we did “Good Vibrations”, and out of nowhere he wanted a theremin. None of us had ever even heard of a theremin. I had to go find a theremin player. There was a bona fide player, a Mr. Tanner, who played the theremin on records. We all thought he was nuts, and we didn’t know what it was. When we did “Good Vibrations”, we did it in so many sections, I don’t know how many sessions we did, but we would go in and we would sit down and Brian would give us some sheets and we would run through it once, maybe twice. Brian would say “Thank you,” and he would leave. That was the three hour, 12 minute session. The next time it might be four hours. He was putting these sections together for the song “Good Vibrations”, which even the Beatles and so many people said that the way he put this stuff together was just incredible. And we never heard the vocals, but I do know that, often times, Jan sang on Beach Boys records and often times, Beach Boys sang on Jan and Dean records. Big family, same studio. But once again, it was fun. We went for a feel. If it felt good it was going to be a hit. I’ll tell ya, almost everything we touched turned to gold. We were so fortunate to have been working with these people. We walked in on the Byrds one day, being produced by Terry Melcher, who happened to be the son of Doris Day. Terry was a very fine producer and he got a job at Columbia Records. Everybody said, “Oh Doris Day got this kid a job this kid, what are they going to do?” Well, he came in and we did a record called “Mr. Tambourine Man.” It probably took Columbia Records out of the hole if they were in a hole. Terry was one of those sweethearts and everything he touched turned to gold. It was just amazing to think about how young some of these people were. Terry was about 17, 18 and in those days.”

The Genius of Billy Gladstone

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Books on jazz don’t get a lot of attention these days outside of some selected coverage in the jazz and drum press. But periodicals have only so much space, and with booksellers like Borders and Barnes and Noble in trouble, jazz books are rapidly losing the visibility—however limited it’s been—that they once had.

These days, potential readers have to know specifically what they’re looking for before ordering from a site like Amazon.com.

There is, however, something very close to a “jazz book store” on line, in the form of the fabulous EJazzLines.com. If it has to do with jazz, EJazzLines has it, and that includes CDs, DVDs, big band charts, instructional materials and a department devoted solely to rare imports on CD. If there is anything like a “jazz superstore” in this world, EJazzLines.com is it.

I recently visited the books section of their site and was pleased to find a new book by colleague and author Chet Falzerano. Known for his previous book on the history of the Gretsch Drum Company (his knowledge of Gretsch is encyclopedic), his newest work is devoted to the legendary drummer and inventor, Billy Gladstone (1893-1961). I can’t wait to get it.

No, Gladstone wasn’t a jazz drummer, rather, a show drummer best known for holding down the snare drum chair at Radio City Music Hall from 1932 to the latter 1940s.
Buddy Rich always praised Gladstone’s work, specifically his long roll. “My roll is probably the best roll in the world outside of one other drummer, and I’m not modest,” Buddy once said. “The greatest drummer that I have heard in my life as far as rudiments and the roll are concerned is Billy Gladstone.”
Of Gladstone, the Percussive Arts Society’s Frederick D. Fairchild said, “Few players in history had the talent, ability and drive to perfect their art and the tools of the trade to the degree that Billy Gladstone was able to achieve.”
Technically, Gladstone was an early proponent of finger control, i.e., use of the fingers to control the bounce of the sticks, and influenced a number of players in this regard, including Joe Morello and Shelly Manne.

What made Gladstone a true legend in the drum world was his work as an inventor, designer and manufacturer of drums, a “second career” he began after leaving Radio City.

Indeed, his snare drums—and the few, full sets he manufactured—are the most highly valued drum collectibles on the earth. Gene Krupa loved the Gladstone snare drum and used it on several recordings.

He began his association with the Gretsch company in 1937 as a Gretsch endorser. The same year, the Gretsch/Gladstone snare was introduced, which had some pretty fancy features, including the ability to tune both top and bottom heads at the same time, a lightning fast strainer, and something called “fingertip tone regulators.” After World War II, Gretsch gave up on the snare, and by 1949, after leaving Radio City, Gladstone set up shop in his New York city apartment and started building custom snares. The shells? Gretsch, of course. He never gave up playing, and he had a continued presence in Broadway pit bands. Indeed, he was the orchestra percussionist for “My Fair Lady.”

Chet Falzerano is a superior writer and a singular historian who has an unparalleled passion for subjects like this. I have no doubt that “Billy Gladstone: Drummer and Inventor” will be a library essential.

This 80-page work is available at EJazzLines.com—and other outlets as well—for a discounted price of $17.96

BUDDY RICH AND THE HOLY GRAIL: IN STORES NOW

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Most jazz fans have a list–written or otherwise–of the audio and video recordings they always wanted and wished for, but could never find.

Jazz historians are still hoping that a sound recording of the elusive trumpeter Buddy Bolden, said to have influenced King Oliver, Louis, Bix and the rest, will someday surface.

Drum fans would love to believe that more film will surface of Chick Webb and Dave Tough, as well as Max Roach and Kenny Clarke during their groundbreaking, mid-1940s period with Charlie Parker.

Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich aficianados are pretty specific about what they’re looking for. At JazzLegends.com, the most common requests are for:

A video of the 1938 Benny Goodman Carnegie Hall concert (only brief newsreel footage exists).

A video of the Gene Krupa/Buddy Rich drum battle of 1952 at Jazz at the Philharmonic (late JATP jazz impressario Norman Granz denies that any film was shot at JATP concerts, though newsreel footage of a 1953 JATP show in Helsinki has recently surfaced).

A video of a Gene Krupa/Buddy Rich drum battle on “The Tonight Show” (just a rumor right now).

The Buddy Rich/Statler Hilton shows of 1982.

The Statler Hilton programs have an interesting history. In 1981, Buddy was offered the chance at hosting his own television program, geared toward public television, entitled “The Buddy Rich Show.” Three programs were filmed at New York city’s venerable Statler Hilton Hotel, each featuring BR and the band, and special guests Ray Charles, Woody Herman, Lionel Hampton, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Mel Torme’, Anita O’Day and Cathy Rich.

The programs and the idea of a regular series were never sold. That’s a shame, too, as Buddy was as beloved as a “personality” as he was a drummer, which is one reason “The Tonight Shows” with Rich as a guest are so valuable. The idea behind “The Buddy Rich Show” was to feature the master himself, in a no-holds-barred hour of banter and music. Today, with a billion cable channels devoted to everything from dogs to golf, the program would have sold in a second.

What kept these programs on the “holy grail” list was the fact that, seemingly, no one actually saw them since they were filmed some 27 years ago. JazzLegends.com and various colleagues received several telephone calls over the years from someone claiming to own them–or knew someone who did–but outside of a few minutes’ worth of tantalizing footage that did come to light, the leads were dead ends.

DrumChannel.com, one of the great and most complete percussion sites on the worldwide web, got a similar telephone call not too long ago. This time the lead was quite alive: The legendary Statler Hilton programs are here, and DrumChannel plans to release all three, edited “Buddy Rich Shows” as they were intended for broadcast.

What’s available right now is something called “Buddy Rich Up Close,” a DVD that contains all the songs performed by Buddy and the band over the three-show span. In 1982, Rich was pretty much over his infatuation with rock and funk and had started featuring some of the more worthwhile, jazz charts the band had performed since 1966. “Buddy Rich Up Close” is highlighted by electric versions of “West Side Story,” “Bugle Call Rag,” “Love for Sale,” “Dancing Men,” “Greensleeves,” and what later became one of BR’s most requested numbers, Joe Zawinul’s “Birdland,” a big hit for the group Weather Report.

The band and its leader were at their individual and collective heights in this year. The playing of the master, was, of course, astounding. But those who knew Rich well would tell you that when he was enthused about something–and he was very, very enthused at the prospect of this television series–he would play way beyond astounding, as if that were possible. It was possible, and the evidence is on “Buddy Rich Up Close.”

The 116-minute total running time includes some stellar extras as well, including an interview with Buddy’s last pianist, rehearsal footage, alternate take of “Birdland,” a promo for “The Buddy Rich Show,” and two unique audio mixes. One mix favors the band. The other favors Buddy.

There’s a lot of Buddy Rich material out there, commercially issued and otherwise, and all of it is good. But “Buddy Rich Up Close,” as well as the future releases of The Statler Hilton programs, are quite special. They show a genius at work, to be sure, but the programs feature a happy, swinging, energetic and very real Buddy Rich not “playing the star,” but being the star that he was.

That’s why these were and are called “The Buddy Rich Show,” or as BR might have described them at the time, “Johnny Carson, eat your heart out.”

JazzLegends.com will do everything possible to make this available to our visitors. Right now, you can order by visiting www.DrumChannel.com. — Bruce Klauber

Jazz Greats Online: A Stellar Collection in State-of-the-Art Format

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

Octavian Direct is a British – based company run by one of the most knowledgeable and dedicated group of folks ever encountered. Indeed, they are the brains behind a singularly unique concept called “Jazz Greats,” a weekly, online full-color jazz magazine, with 20 digitally re mastered tracks of the certifiable legends of improvisational music. And incredibly, all this comes to subscribers via the web as a downloadable magazine and mp3 music tracks.

As the folks at Jazz Greats accurately state, “This unique collection will give you a rare insight into the lives, loves and music of the world’s greatest jazz artists. As you collect Jazz Greats, you will gain a greater insight into the real-life stories behind the music, and build an essential reference work to keep and to treasure.”

One of the key words here is “essential.”

There are 80 issues in all, and just some of the artists highlighted in print and in music are Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Nat Cole, Benny Goodman, Fats Waller, Count Basie, Bix Beiderbecke, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, Cab Calloway, Django Reinhardt, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Rex Stewart, The Dorsey Brothers, Roy Eldridge, Eddie Condon, Stan Kenton, Jack Teagarden, Charlie Barnet, Dizzy Gillespie, Teddy Wilson and countless others.

Here’s just a brief, editorial teaser of what subscribers can anticipate, this being from issue #67 devoted to Bunny Berigan:

The Magazine
I”n less than ten years, Berigan rose from obscure Midwestern bands to become the finest trumpet player of the Swing Era, famous for bravura displays and lowdown blues alike. He worked – and drank – himself to death at the age of 33. ”

The Music
“Focusing on Berigan’s exquisite small-group sides and sensitive accompaniments to singers such as Billie Holiday and Mildred Bailey, the compilation also includes famous jam sessions with his peers and a mixed handful of music from his big-bandleading days. ”

For an incredibly reasonable price of $19.96 per month–that’s four issues delivered weekly at $4.99 each–subscribers receive the full-color magazine that covers every area of the artists’ lives, a detailed analysis of the downloaded music, CD inlays for each issue, and two bonus audio tracks by players who influenced the careers of the artists.

Whether one is an experienced collector who wants to fill in the gaps and/or upgrade to the digital and online format, or someone just starting as a jazz aficionado, the Jazz Greats collection and concept, is, quite simply, a not-to-be missed “essential.”

Obtaining this stellar music and print collection could not be easier. Log onto www.JazzGreatsOnline.com. Subscribe to the collection via PayPal or any other credit card. Upon confirmation of your order, subscribers will receive a download of the new issue that can be downloaded them at any time. Each and every week, the music will arrive in the mp3 format, and a copy of the magazine and front and back CD inlays in pdf format. Jazz Greats subscribers will also have access to their extensive discussion forums.

The beauty of all of this is that a sample of all this can be downloaded at no cost and at no obligation. Just log on to www.JazzGreatsOnline.com and click on the “Free Sample” tab. That’s it.

Like JazzLegends.com, the mission of those behind Jazz Greats is to bring the rare and timeless music of the greatest musicians in history to a wide public at an unparalleled price, and in an attractive, state-of-the-art format. They’ve done it, and for that, they deserve the support of each and every JazzLegends.com visitor.

JACKIE GLEASON AND JAZZ? AND…AWAY WE GO!

Saturday, April 4th, 2009

You don’t hear much about comic Jackie Gleason anymore, unless it has to do with his involvement in ground-breaking sitcom, “The Honeymooners.” Then again, the names of Jack Benny and Bob Hope are rarely heard these days, and if it weren’t for the aggressive marketing of the “Best of Carson” DVDs, Johnny Carson would be pretty well forgotten as well.

Gleason, however, was the only one who had a connection to jazz, and it was a reasonably substantial one.

“The Great One,” as he was christened by Orson Welles after a long night on the town, had many talents and it was long a part of Hollywood folklore that he was a world-class composer and conductor. Several of Gleason’s biographers did set the record straight by saying that Gleason had not a whit of professional musicianship, though they did stress he was an enthusiastic fan and had a good idea of what would sell. His 43, best-selling albums of string-laden mood music for Capital Records were and are textbook examples..

Always a lover of the big bands, and frustrated by what he perceived to be their lack of proper presentation on television, Gleason first produced something called “America’s Greatest Bands,” hosted by Paul Whiteman in the summer of 1955. Guests included Basie, Ellington, Percy Faith, Ralph Flanagan, Gene Krupa and the host himself. It didn’t last, and unfortunately, video or audio of the series has yet to be discovered.

The same year, Gleason produced the summer replacement program, “Stage Show,” that starred the recently-reunited Dorsey Brothers, who played host for two seasons to some noteworthy guests. Those guests included Sarah Vaughan and Duke Ellington, and drummers in the Dorsey band were Louie Bellson and Buddy Rich. Oh, yes, a guy named Presley made his first television appearances on “Stage Show,” not the “Ed Sullivan Show.” As for the Dorsey’s, and it’s said that Gleason was actually behind the reconciliation, the tube exposure gave their band a much-needed shot in the arm and helped land them lucrative and steady engagements in the New York area and nationally. Had Tommy not died in 1956 and Jimmy a year later, the band could have lasted at least another 20 years.

The true story of Jackie Gleason’s mood music enterprise was another story. He certainly saw the market for “creating romance via the hi-fi,” but as the story goes, the original demos were awful and no record company was interested in the idea. Gleason financed all the sessions himself, and wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted, in terms of sound. In the beginning, that sound featured Bobby Hackett playing cornet against a big bank of strings. Capital eventually picked up the franchise, and though the details of Gleason’s deal with Capital hasn’t been revealed, the comic was a hard bargainer throughout his career, and I am certain that he retained some, if not all, ownership of the masters. Remember, too, that Gleason owned “Stage Show,” owned “America’s Greatest Bands,” and owned “The Honeymooners.” His deal with the gentle Bobby Hackett was said to be akin to indentured servitude. Again, this isn’t fact, but it has been reported that the cornetist not only received average, flat cash fees for his participation, but that he signed a “non-compete” clause that specified that he could not record in similar contexts under his own name. Ample evidence of this are the two mood music albums he made for Columbia Records in 1960, where the mood is set–not by strings–but by a pipe organ!

Over the years, and the mood LPs were issued until 1969, Gleason used a number of jazz players as soloists, including Toots Mondello, Roy Eldridge, Charlie Ventura, Buddy Morrow, Pee Wee Erwin, Bernie Leighton, arrangers Billy May, Pete King and George Williams; and sidemen such as Milt Hinton and Jimmy Crawford. The Gleason recordings are probably the only ones of their kind to remain continuously in print.

The jazz side of Jackie showed up again in 1959, when he hosted the forth and final “Timex All-Star Jazz Show,” subtitled “The Golden Age of Jazz.” Those of you who’ve obtained this title from JazzLegends.com are aware of the array and level of talent on this program, which is highlighted by the only existing film footage of Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie performing together. “The Golden Age of Jazz” accurately shows Gleason as the enthusiastic, breathless jazz fan that he was. It also appears he may have been partying it up a bit before broadcast, which was not unlike Gleason.

Eight years later, “The Great One” was still riding pretty high on CBS television as the host of the “American Scene Magazine” variety hour. The summer replacement show for “American Scene Magazine” was something called “Away We Go” (Gleason’s comedic catch line), starring none other than Buddy Greco, George Carlin and the brand new Buddy Rich band. It is not known whether Gleason owned “Away We Go,” but he had enough clout at CBS to strongly suggest they use Buddy and the big band.

Jackie and jazz? Who would have thought? Whatever stories you may have heard about the temperament of “The Great One,” he was one of the few high level celebs in show business to do something for the music and the musicians he loved. — Bruce Klauber

WHERE ARE THE DVDs I ORDERED????

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

For the past year or so, we have been receiving complaints from those of you who ordered CDs, books or DVDs from JazzLegends.com and never received them. When I get your emails, I have replied to each and every one of you personally, saying that I never received notification of your order, and blaming either PayPal or the Naples, FL post office. This has been happening quite often of late, and I began to get the sense that the root of the problem was elsewhere.

It was.

After spending several hours within the good offices of PayPal, we have collectively determined that the fault is not with PayPal or with Naples, FL. The problem lies in the internet service provider used by JazzLegends.com since its inception, and evidently happens with several ISP’s as well.

As explained to me by PayPal, the internet service provider has “randomly” decided which “Notifications of Payments Received” notices I received in my email, and which ones I don’t.

In the ideal world, and what has normally happened since JazzLegends.com started, is that I receive a “Notification of Payment Received Notice” in my DrumAlive@aol.com email each time an order is placed. Obviously, that hasn’t been happening on a consistent n basis.

PayPal has given me detailed instructions as to how I can get accurate, up-to-date reports several times daily on who orders what. This is great, great news, and to all of you who thought I forgot, or that mail was lost, my sincere apologies.

Those of you who have had some experience with JazzLegends.co0m know, by and large, that I’ll go to the ends of the earth to make each and every order a good one, no matter what it takes.

I am pleased that I got to the root of the problem. PayPal is a true innovator and has helped revolutionize the process of payment via the web. And the Naples, FL post office is a good one.

Welcome to the new world of each and every order received and fulfilled. — Bruce klauber