The Mort Report
Sex and the Jazz Musician: The Brutal Truth!
by Mort Weiss
The following is taken from the chronicles of a gold panel Committee of select persons from the international confines of various state institutions that hold such findings sacred--the long-term commitment of these individuals that have given rant to their multitudinous ravings on this highly personal topic.In my course of dumpster diving for salvation, I found these discarded records from the Harding administration that are the most revealing about these ubiquitous and reoccurring problems.And Now the Brutal ...
Continue ReadingWhy Do I Write These Articles?
by Mort Weiss
The following will be an exercise in candor. I like to see my name in print on a Major--the major jazz web site. And I hope it will further better my record sales. I like to think that folks/people are finding things of interest in my remembrances that I've accumulated within my persona over a long life time--most of which was lived in and around the highly complex (yet very simple) world of jazz. And last but not least, it ...
Continue ReadingReefer Madness and Me
by Mort Weiss
How the above title turned me on to the love of jazz. It was 1939 and I was four years old and my parents took me to my first moving picture show that being the above (I kinda had eyes for Gone with the Wind) and to hear Clark Gable say that filthy word at the end of the movie--but they had other plans--maybe because the title on its release was Tell your Children. It was financed by a church ...
Continue ReadingJoey DeFrancesco Projects Showed The Difference Between Music, And The Music "Business"
by Mort Weiss
This is the story of two collaborations with Joey DeFrancesco that you almost never saw--or the difference between music ... and the music “business." The first unreleased album I recorded with Joey DeFrancesco is now known as the Mort Weiss Quartet CD featuring Joey, Ron Eschete and Ramon Banda, followed by 2006's The B3 and Me. Both of them eventually appeared on my own SMS Jazz label, but more on that in a minute. The ...
Continue ReadingGetting Ready For Showtime – When You’re The Show
by Mort Weiss
This time out, I'd like to delineate how it is for me when I go somewhere to appear as a guest artist. Specifically, I'm thinking about the time I headlined the Cathedral Park Jazz Festival in Portland, Oregon.The phone rings, and it's Joe Beeler, the artistic director and producer of said festival. We had talked before about my appearing at the festival, but now Joe had a problem: Jack Sheldon and Ernestine Anderson were to appear, but a ...
Continue ReadingThere Were Big Stars At This LA Party, But I Didn’t Shine So Brightly
by Mort Weiss
Let's set the scene: Actress Polly Bergen's Malibu Beach house, 1965. The cast of participants includes Jack Lemmon and his wife Felicia Farr, Kirk Douglas, Jackie Gleason, Steve Allen and his wife Jayne Meadows, Sandra Dee, Cary Grant, William Powell, a bevy of young starlets and many more show folks. And the bands! A Guy Lombardo mini combo had been flown in from New York City, just to play this gig. When they took their break, the other band--get this!--was ...
Continue ReadingLet’s Compare Your Average Jazz Cat To Those With Classical Gas
by Mort Weiss
This question goes way back, but is still relevant in 2012: Who's the better musician--a jazz or classical player? I remember talking to someone, about someone, and the cat asking: Is he jazz or legit?For those of you who don't know what Mort Weiss is about, I will restate that when I use the word jazz, I'm talking about America's only indigenous art form (sorry, baseball isn't) circa 1900-1960. I also recommend the reading of my previous article: ...
Continue ReadingA First-Take Life, With Everything From Hard Times To Hard Rock
by Mort Weiss
When I first started doing these articles I gave no thought as to the chronological order in which they occurred. Because of all the response regarding these little tidbits of the various happenings in my life as a jazzman (hey, there's no other name for it is there?) I will endeavor to fill in the blanks as we go forward on this journey of my life in jazz and and other minor obsessions. Who knows? Some of these ...
Continue ReadingPaul Whiteman’s TV show, and spending New Year’s Eve with Ella Fitzgerald
by Mort Weiss
I was quite active in the early days of live television, most of which was shot in Hollywood, California. Sometime in the latter part of 1951, I got a call from the director and producer of many teen-oriented TV shows.His name is Al Burton, and he went on to become a mega-dude in the industry. I'll just give one credit from many: He was the executive producer of the show “Charles in Charge." (A friend of mine from ...
Continue ReadingOrnette Coleman and Don Cherry Once Blew Us Away Under LA’s Big Top
by Mort Weiss
Los Angeles/Hollywood, California, in the late 1940s through the early 1960s was a happening place for jazz and jazz musicians. There was always a place to play a jam session, or more correctly session(s)--mostly in beer bars. (I'm not counting the ones that went on all night in some one's pad, if they were lucky enough to live up in one of the many canyons in the Hollywood hills) I've seen many a sunrise from the Laurel and Topanga canyons, ...
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