Time for Jazz

Coming soon, on Saturday October 10 at 2:00 pm, is one of the most unique and touching music documentaries you will ever see. Although it contains some rare performance footage, it is mainly a loving tribute to the men (and women, although there are fewer of them) who made jazz.

A Great Day in Harlem , a 1994 Oscar-nominated film documents the story behind the Summer day in 1985 when freelance photographer Art Kane gathered 57 jazz greats for a group portrait. The film highlights such seminal artists as Dizzy Gillespe, Thelonious Monk, Count Basie, and Gerry Mulligan. This film captures the past, or as the film's web site describes it:

"A Great Day in Harlem captures the spirit of an era when New York City was the center of the jazz world, when music history was constantly being made, and when creativity was fostered by an intense and nurturing community of musicians and fans. It was indeed a great day when musicians met and joked with friends, family, and community residents - in one instance even blowing a few jazz riffs - on a side street in Harlem in 1958. Like the photograph it documents, A Great Day in Harlem is a vivid portrait of a unique community."

RIP Mary Travers, the heart of Peter, Paul & Mary

As a young performer, she was heartbreakingly beautiful, to me as a young girl, an icon of what grown up beauty could be. And she had a clear, strong soprano that soared above the mellow tenors of her singing partners, Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey. She was Mary Travers, the Mary of Peter, Paul & Mary, a 60s group that had a surprising and long- lasting revival in 1978, but is now one voice less.

As Rolling Stone puts it, she was "...best known as the visual focal point of ...Peter, Paul & Mary. With her fervent stage moves and long, straight blond hair...Travers brought both powerful lungs and sex appeal to folk music."

Born in Louisville, KY, the daughter of journalists, Travers grew up in New York’s Greenwich Village, the perfect setting for an aspiring artist. She benefited from exposure to the folk music scene of the early 1960s. Influenced by the folk tunes of the Weavers, Ledbelly, and Woody Guthrie, she became a regular performer in the weekend folk sessions at Washington Square Park while still in her teens. As a member of a teen group, The Song Swappers, she performed at Carnegie Hall and recorded with folk icon Pete Seeger.

Albert Grossman, famous as the manager of Bob Dylan, introduced Travers to Peter Yarrow and later to Noel Paul Stookey, suggesting that they form a trio. After an initial reluctance-- she never pictured herself making a career of folk singing-- Travers became a founding member of Peter, Paul & Mary, which debuted at The Bitter End in Greenwich Village in 1961. The group’s debut album, Peter, Paul & Mary was a top ten seller for ten months, and their single, “If I Had a Hammer”, written by Pete Seeger, became an anthem of the civil rights movement, as did their later recording of Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind.”

The trio, whose work together was infused with social commentary, separated in 1970. Travers, by now mother to two daughters, remained active as a solo artist, recording four albums by 1974. She also remained a political and social activist, even after the end of the Vietnam War following President Nixon's resignation in 1974.

Peter, Paul, & Mary reunited in 1978 for a benefit concert that went so well they agreed to resume the trio. That year they released the album Reunion and embarked on an ambitious concert schedule that they maintained until the present day, despite Traver’s diagnosis of leukemia in 2004. The group also continued their political activism, taking on such causes as human rights in Central and South America, homelessness, and world hunger among many other issues. Mary Travers died of cancer on September 16 at the age of 72.

Sources: Rolling Stone website (linked above) and Allmusic

You Tubes

P, P & M singing John Denver's Leaving on a Jet Plane, their only number one hit single, and one of my favorite songs.

If I Had a Hammer, a protest anthem by Pete Seeger, sung by P, P & M at the Newport Folk Festival of 1963.

Blowin in the Wind, an elegant presentation.

The Brill Building

Ellie Greenwich died last week at the age of 68. I don't expect that you've heard of her; her's isn't exactly a household name. With her husband, Jeff Barry, she was a hit song writer of the early 1960s. She is most famous for such truly great girl group songs as "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "Chapel of Love". Do yourself a favor and listen to these.

But I digress. Because reading about Ellie Greenwich put me in mind of the Brill Building, an 11 story office building at 1619 Broadway in New York City. Even before the 1950s, the Brill Building was home to pop music publishers and composers who wrote for the great swing bands of the 40s. But in the late 1950s into the early 60s, the Brill Building became the venue for the hottest and most influential commercial music ever produced. This stream of music, influenced by Latin music and rhythm and blues, gave rise to such songwriters as:

Burt Bacharach and Hal David

Neil Diamond

Gerry Goffen and Carole King

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil

Laura Nyro

Paul Simon (under the name Jerry Landis)

Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield

Phil Spector

Among the hundreds of hits produced by these and other composers are Yakety Yak, Save the Last Dance For Me, The Look of Love, Calendar Girl, The Loco-Motion, We Gotta Get Out of This Place, River Deep Mountain High, Be My Baby, and Natural Woman. Be My Baby, written by Greenwich and Barry, for a while was the only song that played on Beach Boy Brian Wilson's home jukebox

Carole King, quoted in Wikipedia, described the atmosphere of the Brill Building:

"Every day we squeezed into our respective cubby holes with just enough room for a piano, a bench, and maybe a chair for the lyricist if you were lucky. You'd sit there and write and you could hear someone in the next cubby hole composing a song exactly like yours. The pressure in the Brill Building was really terrific...."