Jazzman Frishberg Charts Own Tuneful Territory

One of the great joys of L.A. jazz, from the mid-1970s to the mid-'80s, was the blossoming of jazz pianist Dave Frishberg into a singer-songwriter of quirky, yet warmly satisfying, material. His tunes navigated a pathway that sidestepped melodramatic cabaret material on one hand and self-absorbed pop music on the other. Frishberg created a growing catalog of songs that took a jaundiced view of the era and had stylistic ties to earlier masters like Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer. His unlikely ascendance was one of the most delightful jazz developments of that period.

His songs have a Midwestern straightforwardness; he's a St. Paul native. They are nostalgic and often ache for a bygone simplicity. One of Frishberg's earliest successes was a passionate bossa, brilliant in its simplicity. The lyrics consist solely of names of forgotten baseball players: “Heeney Majeski, Johnny Gee, Eddie Joost, Johnny Pesky, Thornton Lee, Danny Gardello, Van Lingle Mungo...."

Frishberg, who appears Wednesday at Jeannine Frank's Parlor Performances series, has long been a Portland resident whose yearly visits are few. He has an exquisite sense of ennui, as in the paean to loneliness on the road, “Sweet Kentucky Ham": “It's one a.m. They're serving up last call in Cincinnati. But it's still a nighttime town if you know your way around, and despite yourself find you're wide awake, and you're staring at your scrambled eggs and steak..."