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Backgrounder: - Happen to Bossa Nova (1963)
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
For July 4th, America's birthday, I thought The Hi-Lo's Happen to Bossa Nova (Reprise), from 1963, would be a fitting Backgrounder. It's summery, breezy and my favorite Hi-Lo's album. Arranged by Chuck Sagle, the Hi-Lo's are in top form and in sync with the surfy feel of the bossa nova, BG/G. That's short for “Before Getz/Gilberto," when the Brazil's bossa still had a wistful, pop articulation. After the release of Getz/Gilberto, featuring The Girl From Ipanema, the form grew more ...
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Perfection: Elliot Lawrence - But Not For Me (1955)
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
In need of cash in the late 1940s, Gerry Mulligan sold bandleader Elliot Lawrence a trove of arrangements. As Elliot told me in an interview before his death in 2021, “Early on, I had bought all of Gerry's arrangements. I paid him $50 per chart. If he wrote an original and arranged it, I’d pay him $150. Naturally, I signed up the publishing so they would remain with my band." One of those Mulligan arrangements was the masterful “But Not ...
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Perfection: Keely Smith - The Song Is You (1958)
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Few pop singers in the 1950s could swing like Keely Smith. Anita O'Day was certainly one of them, but Smith was the finer vocalist and surely knew more songs and required fewer takes in the studio. In some respects, Smith was the female Frank Sinatra, able to move ahead of the beat, behind it and go a different way on song lines and pull them off. So many of her albums are excellent with a different feeling on each one. ...
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Forget it, Jake, It's Chinatown
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Whenever temperatures soar into the high 90s, my thoughts turn to the Chinatown film score. My Pavlovian reaction dates back to the summer of 1974, when I worked as a ticker-ripper and usher at a General Cinema duplex movie theater before the start of college. Among the many great movies out that summer was the Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway classic, allowing me to see it some 40-odd times. The summer of 1974 was particularly hot in exurban New York, ...
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Backgrounder: Joe Puma - East Coast Jazz/3
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
I love precious jazz guitarists who place a premium on harmony, swing and compelling chords. One of the best in this category was Joe Puma. In the 1950s, Puma was a session sideman on many recordings and led his own groups. He recorded into the 1990s and died in 2000 at age 72. One of his finest early albums was Joe Puma Quintet: East Coast Jazz/3, which was part of a series produced by Creed Taylor for Bethlehem, in November ...
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Sly Stone (1943-2025)
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Sly Stone, whose late-1960s eclectic brand of polished Bay Area funk-pop launched a music revolution that influenced artists ranging from Miles Davis to Stevie Wonder, Prince and all the major funk bands that followed in the 1970s and beyond, died yesterday. He was 82. The singer-songwriter, arranger and multi-instrumentalist was a fashion trend-setter and tireless composer whose drug habit began as a way to ease the stress of delivering albums, hits and performances. While many bands in the late 1960s ...
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Denny Zeitlin: With a Song in My Heart
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Pianist Denny Zeitlin's very first recording was for Columbia in 1963, as a sideman on Jeremy Steig's Flute Fever. His first trio leadership album, Cathexis, came next for Columbia in February 1964, with Cecil McBee on bass and Freddie Waits on drums. Carnival followed in October, with Charlie Haden on bass and Jerry Granelli on drums. By then, Denny was on the map as an innovative trio leader. [Photo above of Denny Zeitlin] Two more trio LPs were recorded for ...
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Perfection: Hal McKusick: You're Everywhere (1958)
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
By now, vocalists and musicians are surely tired of hearing me urge them to find great little-known songs to record and perform instead of tired old songbook standards. You don't stand out by following the crowd. A perfect example of a great little-known song is You're Everywhere, by Robert Nemiroff and Burt D'Lugoff, who were often credited as Robert Barron and Burt Long, their pseudonyms. (Burt was the brother of Art D'Lugoff, who owned New York's Village Gate and Top ...
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