S.S. Norway Jazz Cruise
December 2000

Part 1
Part 2

By Don Williamson

Like many of you, I had never experienced a jazz cruise. I had heard a lot about them, and I have a number of CD's that were recorded aboard the S.S. Norway.

So, as an anniversary gift to each other, rather than as a journalistic endeavor, my wife and I chose the S.S. Norway cruise of the week of October 14.

Preliminary information suggested that the cruise of the week of October 21 would involve mostly ghost bands, such as The Woody Herman Orchestra. However, the final schedule proved to be much more varied than expected. It included such luminaries as Shirley Horn, Kevin Mahogany and Les McCann. In addition, some of the performers from Week 1 stayed on for Week 2. So did many of the passengers.

I write this preface as a justification for not running back and forth--from aft to bow, from starboard to port side or whatever the sides of a ship are called--in order to jot down very significant facts on scratch pads, napkins, spiral-bound sheets, performance programs, palms of the hands, or even notebooks inside oh-so-impressive personalized vinyl holders. The objective of this activity, of course, would be to inform All About Jazz readers about the cruise.

Now, it is a well-known fact that AAJ is a vastly successful cash cow that throws off profits the way that sheep shed wool to the shearer, if you don't mind the mixing of metaphors that are not related at all to jazz or cruise ships. Let it be known that AAJ remains a financial juggernaut through its excellent management of costs.

The result? My wife and I financed the trip ourselves with no cash advances from the web site, nor from any other media conglomerate.

Thus, I assuredly felt entitled just to put on my S.S. Norway T-shirt, shorts and sandals; wander around as the mood struck me; get into the "no problem mon" geniality of the islands; and let the music wash over me in gigantic waves not unlike the Atlantic Ocean's on the second Dramamine-time day of the cruise. I intentionally disregarded the names of the tunes I heard, the times and dates of the performances, and even such vital facts as the performers' brands of instruments, hairstyles or apparel.

A few very serious, officious-looking people sat together during performances and dinners. They seemed to exchange thoughts and criticisms. I suspect those groups included the official journalists you should trust, even though they didn't seem to have much of a good time.

Everyone knows that the photographers are much easier to spot. They walk around from morning until after midnight in a photographer's jacket that includes multiple pockets for rolls of film, lenses, perhaps cables and other esoteric paraphernalia. Photographers always sit in the front row of performances. They are careful not to distract performers with artificial flash. They move very quickly to get the right angle and the perfect expression. They talk up the musicians after the performances, and the musicians are unfailingly polite with them. After all, the photographer could choose to submit a bad shot for publication if he walks away insulted. I visualize the photographers running to the film processors before they even return home from the cruise. I suppose that photographic memories are the best the cruise has to offer of the jazz performances, other than word of mouth; videotaping is prohibited.

I truly was merely a passenger on the S.S. Norway. Time stood still. I zoned out.

I return to write about the experience. Be forewarned, however, that none of this information is reliable. It is neither chronological nor comprehensive. It just is.

Nevertheless, I thought that unreliable information is better than no information at all.

Or is it?

A Little Bit About The S.S. Norway

The French built the S.S. Norway in 1960. Memory starts to fail me at this point, but Norwegian Cruise Line assumed ownership of the S.S. Norway in 1979 or thereabouts.

The Y2K version of the S.S. Norway jazz cruise is its last. Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) is selling the Norway to the Taiwanese in September, 2001, after which NCL will launch two new ships. A model of the S.S. Sky sits on the International Deck for all to see.

Don't despair if you've missed jazz cruises and wanted to plan one in the future. Rumor has it that Holland America is planning a jazz cruise for autumn, 2001.

How do I know all of this?

Well, I suited myself up and attended the Captain's Welcome Party on Sunday, October 15. I couldn't bear to break down and rent a tux. For what purpose? Maybe I'll rent a tux someday when I win the Nobel Prize in literature. Of course, I've written no literature to speak of. Thus, I shall remain tuxless.

The Captain's Welcome Party introduced the passengers to the S.S. Norway's managers, who project energy, approachability and an overpowering need to please. The S.S. Norway Showband played one or two bars of very familiar geographical-association songs when a manager's nation of origin was announced. One was "New York New York." You get the idea.

Captain Sverre Soevdsnes provided many other facts about the ship, as well as essential information about the menus, nautical speed in terms no one understood, the weather, the islands and the employees. Nothing about the music, though. He likes to say "out and about" a lot.

Now, Captain Soevdsnes is a very friendly sort who establishes a natural bond with his passengers. It's obvious that management and public relations are big parts of his job. Whether he actually knows how to steer the ship, I don't know. I do know that I found not one S.S. Norway employee who was rude and who gave less than 110% to make passengers happy. This can't be a coincidence. The captain and his direct reports hire the right people and somehow keep them motivated to strive for total passenger satisfaction, seemingly without sleep. I mean, I would see the same employee at 7:00 in the morning, at noon, at dinner and at 1:30 a.m. that night, and he would still be working like mad.

(The waiters scurry like directionless Dodge-Em cars along the aisles between the tables. One of my favorite, indelible statements I heard on the cruise as a waiter passed a tray of meals over another waiter's head on his way to the serving station: "I run like a horse!")

In spite of unceasing work to maintain the ship through the use of high-powered cleaning sprays, vacuum cleaners, on-the-spot repairs, painting, scrubbing, shining, light-bulb replacement and perky decorations, the S.S. Norway at times shows its age, particularly on the elevators. Because of the increasingly competitive cruise ship industry, I suspect that Norwegian Cruise Line made the business decision to replace the Norway with the more modern conveniences that Carnival has made famous.

Still, the S.S. Norway, with its 40-year tradition and graciousness, offered grandeur and a comfort level that other cruise ships may lack. The ship provided an impressive venue for jazz at sea, which is yet another tradition that is ending in its present form.

A Little Bit About The Jazz

All right, so you're probably getting frustrated because I haven't written about the music.

There's a reason for that.

The integration of jazz with cruise ship opportunities creates a synergistic experience that's unlike any other. It remains virtually indescribable. In any case, I'll give it a shot through the talents of my journalistic pretenses.

The innumerable chances to meet the performers and the ease with which all aboard approach conversation removed the separation between audience and stage. For example, Marlena Shaw may wow the audience with a version of "Yu Ma/Go Away Little Boy." However, ten minutes after the close of her performance, she could be in the audience fielding questions and asking about audience members' families. Freddy Cole did this, descending the front steps of the Saga Theater stage to greet audience members and pose for photographs. After Bernard Purdie had performed and the audience members were exiting the Theater, one of the more demure women stood in the front row of the balcony, pointed to him still on stage, and shouted, "Purdie, you stay there! I'm coming down! I want one of your CD's!" That's how informal it was.

I could walk out of my cabin and find John Pizzarelli and Tony Monte sunbathing at the pool. The same thing happened in the casino, where I found John and Martin Pizzarelli playing blackjack with the other passengers who happened to be there gambling without barriers between celebrity and enthusiast. On the tender from St. Thomas, I turned around to see Danny Mixon sitting there and conversing with the passengers who had enjoyed the day on the island as well. As I looked to my left in the buffet line on the International Deck, there was Bernard Purdie. Or it turned out that John Leitham and I shared an elevator. Jimmy Ponder sat at the bar of the Sports Illustrated Café after his performance with Dr. Lonnie Smith and seemed to invite conversation in his haunting way.

The performers enjoyed the cruise as much as the passengers. They enjoyed the mutual appreciation. They enjoyed the relaxation. They enjoyed the opportunity to be at sea when they could be on land in more stressful and demanding big-city conditions.

No Kidding: This Time I Write A Little Bit About The Jazz

It takes a full day to settle in on the S.S. Norway. But the jazz experience starts even at the airport. Meeting fellow cruise ship passengers, my wife and I started talking about jazz as soon as we determined the common interest. The excitement intensified when the bus dropped off the passengers at the embarkation facility.

"Oh look. There's Lonnie Smith." People swarmed around him like bees. He loved it. "There's Earl May. And look at his bass. It's contained in a white plastic case, no doubt to protect against heat and humidity." At first, Earl has trouble convincing one of the check-in personnel about the need to have his bass conveyed onto the ship in a timely manner. Lonnie Smith posed with a fan for the boarding photograph. "There's Jerry Weldon." Everyone was bursting with excitement, even the little man who stumbled on the escalator, dropping his suitcase that came to rest against my wife's leg. He almost rolled into the two of us before he caught himself. No exaggeration. And then he created a bottleneck and a mini panic at the top of the escalator when riders found no open space to move into.

It appeared that the performers have a separate check-in desk, and their cabins seem to be the very top "Sky" level of the ship where they can find a modicum of privacy. Not to mention a great view.

After the formalities of boarding, finding the cabin and going through the mandatory lifejacket drill, all of the passengers finally were able to settle back into their week-long routine of relaxation and music music music. (The lifejacket drill is a chaotic event unto itself, suggesting that all of those poor confused passengers would be in serious trouble in the event of a real emergency.) "Sailaway Music" is provided at poolside by the excellent calypso band, Up Ryzin'.

The jazz finally beings at 8:30 p.m. when Bucky Pizzarelli appears in the Club Internationale, a classy lounge with very few actual seats, and Lonnie Smith performs in the Sports Illustrated Café. I choose Lonnie Smith because Bucky Pizzarelli will be appearing throughout the week in the Saga Theater, while Lonnie Smith will not. My wife and I offered the two other chairs at our table to another couple, and we struck up a rewarding acquaintance with jazz enthusiasts from New Jersey who were excited about the prospect of hearing Lonnie Smith for the first time. The man, who shares my first name, owns Smith's "Afro Blue," as do I. There was a lot of scrambling as the staff covered the lockers with draping at the back of the stage and as they buzzed the sound equipment. The case for Smith's keyboard was opened and mounted on the stand. Jimmy Ponder calmly sat there creating gorgeous chords. When the group starts, Lonnie Smith apologized for the fact that the keyboard wasn't ready to go at 8:30. It was almost 9:00 by this time. Then the group began, and Smith didn't disappoint, virtually shattering glass with his blasts of accents, developing his own private drama in conjunction with the music, jangling his bracelets and making full theatrical use of his turban as he bowed his head fully at the end of each number. Art Gore enlivened the group with his polyrhythmic propulsion, and Dr. Lonnie complained between songs that Gore, once upon a time, left him to join the same-named Lonnie Liston Smith. This irked Dr. Lonnie.

After playing a tribute to Stanley Turrentine, Smith announced the fairly shocking news that Jack McDuff's health is failing and that McDuff may not perform again. Smith had talked to McDuff the day before. This seemed to put a damper on the evening, even as the sound technicians continued to tinker with the equipment, their heads in profile as they listened acutely to the music and moved cables and turned dials accordingly. One thing I learned about Dr. Lonnie from the cruise is that he is likely to make extemporaneous speeches to audiences about the brotherhood of jazz musicians and the fact that the music chooses them instead of their choosing to be musicians.

Keter Betts' group sounded interesting, and I wanted to catch some of his quintet's performance. So my wife and I ran down to the Pool Deck to hear them perform in the North Cape Lounge. On the way, I stuck my head in the door of the Saga Theater and was just in time to hear drummer and leader Sherrie Maricle's furious drum solo at the end of "Caravan." The band came in for maybe four more bars, and the show was over.

In any case, Betts' quintet did sound great, individually and collectively. Walking in on the middle of a tune, we sat down and enjoyed. Jerry Weldon, in particular, added energy to his solos and body language. I recalled seeing him direct Harry Connick, Jr.'s band through the motion of his body the year before. The newcomer to the group was trombonist David Steinmeyer, who stood impassively and courteously until it was his turn to solo. And then he let loose with melodic appeal that seemed to always end in the upper range of his instrument. Bill Charlap accompanied on piano, nary once mentioning that his new trio recording, Written In The Stars was just about to be released on Blue Note. It was my understanding that Charlap stayed on for Week 2 of the S.S. Norway cruise to perform with Phil Woods. Betts' drummer, Curtis Boyd, remained respectful, laying back for Betts' bass solos, and yet continuing to animate the music. This was one cohesive group, and the original compositions they played were entirely worthy of being recorded on CD..

The "Norwegian Way Cruise News" spelled Betts' group's name as the "Keta Betta Quintet."

Harry Allen, Shelly Berg and John Pizzarelli played into the wee hours of the morning. But this was the first day of the cruise, involving a snooze alarm ringing at 4:30 a.m., absolutely running from Atlanta Hartsfield Airport's Terminal E to Terminal A to catch the connecting flight, gathering bags, walking to the bus, standing in line to register for the cruise, boarding the ship, arranging the cabin and going through the Emergency Lifeboat Drill. I don't know how Harry Allen, Shelly Berg and John Pizzarelli kept their eyes open. I didn't. I went to bed…

…only to wake up rolling in bed on Sunday morning as the ship heaved and fell and swayed. The skies were gray; rain appeared in the distance. Were we going to encounter the perfect storm? I stood up and stumbled. I went back to bed to avoid having to gain sea legs before I was ready. I suspect that others did too. My wife and I ate breakfast in the cabin, eagerly tipping the person who delivered this delicious food and who delivered us from the need to walk to the dining room. When we dared to walk, few people were out and about.

I wanted to hear Marlena Shaw's "Sunday Gospel Hour" at 1:00 p.m. Finally dressing, we plopped ourselves near the front of the Saga Theater. Someone from the audience walked on stage, put his hands on his hips, emoted frustration, peeked behind the curtain, paced and generally made a fool of himself. My guess was that he was in charge. The show started late. But when Bernard Purdie took the stage and said, "We're gonna rock!" the audience was ready. With a tantalizing introduction by pianist and musical director David Hazeltine, the show began with, if I remember correctly, "Amazing Grace." After five minutes of an instrumental version, finally Marlena Shaw rushed on stage, saying, "I couldn't stand being back there any longer." And when she joined the trio in song, the audience started to clap and sway. I mean, they clapped and they swayed! Hands extended above his head, the man in front of us moved like a pendulum, saying, "Yes, Marlena! Amen!" She brought out vociferous testaments of faith when she sang "Then Say So," encouraging listeners not to be ashamed of their beliefs. By the final number, some of the audience members were dancing in the aisles; no one could remain immobile in the seats. Shaw asked the audience to sing along with "This Little Light Of Mine," and they did. All the way up the aisles and out the exits that emptied into the casino, which happened to have opened at 8:30 that Sunday morning.

I popped in to hear Eddie Higgins in the Club Internationale, which once again offered insufficient seating. Rickey Woodard sounded great on sax. Henry Johnson was on guitar, Don Wilner was on bass, and James Martin was on drums. But we had more urgent business to attend to: the St. Maarten Port & Information Talk in the North Cape Lounge. Driving around St. Maarten sounded like an exciting adventure, and we wanted all of the information we could soak up before embarking on it. Well, the St. Maarten Port & Information Talk was basically an infomercial for the Philipsburg merchants, and we left. What's more, we discovered that the Talk was broadcast on the cabin's televisions often before the tenders' departure to the island on Tuesday.

So later, I thought I would "meet the stars" in the North Cape Lounge. The stars on Sunday were John Pizzarelli, Keter Betts, Harry Allen and Ben Aronov. All of them were fairly quiet as they fielded questions that attendees asked through wireless mikes. All of them, that is, except for John Pizzarelli, who seemed compelled to compensate for the lull by entertaining everyone with a story about the only time he met Frank Sinatra. (Sinatra told him, "Eat something, kid. You look bad" as Sinatra walked past him to flirt with an available female.) Harry Allen talked to the sound technician about his performance that night, and she facetiously complained that "he made me move the piano." I asked John Pizzarelli to sign a postcard that I would send to one of his admirers who had recorded with Zoot Sims in the 1950's. Zoot Sims was a family friend of the Pizzarellis. (See interview.) Dr. Lonnie Smith sat in the back of the the North Cape Lounge and accepted conversation from his admirers.

The stars rotated as they were met throughout the week. On Thursday, Freddy Cole told a story about the time he first met a penniless Ross Tomkins at The New England Conservatory Of Music in the 1950s. Keter Betts told a story about Ella Fitzgerald's on-stage problems with some of her clothing. Meeting the stars in actuality consisted of prompting them to share humorous stories about their lives and answering such fascinating questions as "How many hours a day do you practice?" Few audience members actually "met" them personally during the session.

The big show at the Saga Theater that night was The John Pizzarelli Trio. Bucky and Ruth Pizzarelli sat behind us and were cordial. John Pizzarelli brought Tony Monte along on the cruise, explaining that his regular pianist, Ray Kennedy, is "allergic to motion." Besides, Ray's wife is expecting. John mentioned that Tony Monte was the first person to hire him when he was ready to go pro. John's brother and the trio's bass player, Martin, wordlessly stood ready to pounce when the music started. The trio delivered the romantic and humorous show the audience expected. Pizzarelli mostly sang tunes from his new Telarc CD, Kisses In The Rain, including "I'm In The Mood For Love," "When I Take My Sugar To Tea" and "I Wouldn't Trade You," which he wrote with his wife. He explained that the husband/wife team had written it for the movie, The Out-Of-Towners, but that the tune was edited out of the final version. Then he re-enacted the trio's impressive scene in that movie, which consumed all of, say, 30 seconds. (He left out the reaction shot as the people in Tavern In The Green gawked at Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn rutting on the lawn on Central Park.) A real crowd-pleaser was Pizzarelli's description of the famous Bugs Bunny cartoon that premiered the wascally wabbit as The Great Leopold, the opera conductor. More importantly, Piazzarelli gave an spell-binding performance on guitar when he set his mind to it, sometimes singing the instrumental improvisation in a quick-fire fashion that would leave a George Benson The Singer in the dust.

Monday: After checking out a swing dance class and leaving in embarrassment, my wife and I happened upon Keter Betts as he sat outside the Sports Illustrated Café with some conversationalists. After coffee and lunch, I introduced myself when Betts was talking to but one person. Betts had asked me to say Hi sometime when I interviewed him a while ago, and so I did. My wife got out the camera to take a picture, but the person sitting with Betts jumped up and told my wife to get in the photograph too. She demurred. Betts and I teased her about how women never like their driver's license photos. She finally agreed. The other person, who looked very familiar, took the picture. Trying to figure out where I saw him, I asked, "Are you Keter's agent?" He said, "No, but I'd like to be Keter's drummer." I: "You're a drummer?" He: "I've been working with Marlena Shaw during the cruise."

Like, double duh! "You're Bernard Purdie?" I, trying to recover: "I didn't recognize you without your hat." He was smiling at my embarrassment. I, flustered: "I was just listening to you on one of Eddie Harris' CD's on the way down to Miami." He was polite. My wife: "Why don't you two get together for a picture." Purdie posed next to me with his big natural smile, as he probably has done with others thousands of times before. I: "Oh, are you selling CD's?" Purdie: "Why sure. This one is my latest." [Get It While You Can by The Hudson River Rats, including Bernard Purdie and Rob Poparazzi] I: "I'd like to buy it then." I did. Bernard Purdie signed a preprinted photograph and handed it over with the CD. Betts showed no sign of being amused at my discomfort. My wife likes Bernard Purdie a lot now.

After that imbroglio, I told my wife I'd like to catch some of the Piano Spectacular in the Saga Theater. We got to hear the tail end of it, during which Shelly Berg, Lonnie Smith, Ross Tomkins and Ben Aronov played. Smith gave another extemporaneous speech about the camaraderie among musicians, even when they don't see each other for 25 years, and then he played a tribute to Monk sparely on piano. And then Shelly Berg…. Shelly Berg! Berg's body moved in an exaggerated, constantly flowing and possibly boneless fashion, as if Gepetto were pulling his strings. Berg's hands, evidently, remained on the keyboard as his torso swiveled. An amazing, energetic stride tune emerged. I had to catch this guy again! The Piano Spectacular ended with the lithe and outwardly quiet Diva pianist, Chihiro Yamanaka. Possibly shoehorned in to the end of the performance because she lacked name recognition, Yamanaka, once she sat down at the piano, altered Ellington's "Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me" into an enthralling and unassumingly confident interpretation that hushed the audience. Yamanaka swayed as if in a trance. Her performance of her own composition proved that the flawlessness of her previous performance was no fluke. Later in the week, I told her how much I enjoyed her performance and wished her a lot of deserved success in the future. She blushed demurely and politely thanked me for the comment.

A very significant personal event took place Monday afternoon: I sunbathed. If you, the reader, have no interest in such personal information, please move on.

Why was sunbathing significant? Well, this clueless Northerner used no sun block and received second-degree burns on his (my) leg and first-degree burns on his (my) chest and forehead. It hurt. Worse than that, his (my) ankle became infected from the burn. Later in the week when the waiters of the Windward Dining Room danced to the tune "Hot Hot Hot" while holding aloft flaming baked Alaska, the tune took on a whole new dimension.

Invigorated by such depressing news on the first sunny day of the cruise, I was ready for Monday evening's main show. Marlena Shaw. Marlena Shaw! The Saga Theater was filled and abuzz with anticipation before she performed. She had connected with her audience even before she sang her first note. She entered to uproarious applause and jumped right into her first number. Even though she said during the Gospel Hour that she had hurt her leg when she was in London, she didn't use a stool on Monday. Pacing the stage and dramatizing the meaning of the lyrics with fluid hand movements, she ran down some of her signature tunes with which the audience obviously was familiar. As always, the highlight of her performance as "Yu Ma/Go Away Little Boy," which has grown to a 15-minute long prefatory story about Shaw's journeys to find the perfect man, who turns out to be a boy pretending to be a man. Instead of relating incidents from a single relationship, Shaw has embellished the story with a flight to Spain, missing a connection at Kennedy Airport and deciding to stay in New York with her man/boy. This was the highlight that the audience had come to hear, and Shaw knew it. Much more than a singer, Shaw is an entertainer, and it's a wonder that she isn't more widely known among the public.

Afterward, while we were out and about, we tried to hear Bucky Pizzarelli's trio with Ben Aronov and Michael Moore in the Club Internationale. Even though Pizzarelli looked very photogenic performing under the 5-foot-high picture of King Harald of Norway, and no matter how gratifying the music was, the Club Internationale once again was sorely under-seated. We had no interest in the sushi being served near the bar, and we didn't want to listen below the club's main floor, all music and no image. So we went to the Sports Illustrated Café to end the evening by listening to Eddie Higgins excellent quintet.

On to part 2 of the S.S. Norway Jazz Cruise story