Your Own Story

Awhile back, a young musical artist I know wanted to write a book about an older musical artist who had been an influence but who died before they really got to know one another. [I am not mentioning names, not to be coy, but because it’s not germane.] The young artist, wanting to know more, and also wanting to pay tribute, interviewed many of the older artist’s friends and colleagues, and then sent me a manuscript with a request for my opinion. To be completely honest, I was so profoundly disappointed by what I saw that, at first, I did not know what to say. Clearly the young artist had done a great deal of research and leg-work in contacting folks, interviewing them and transcribing their thoughts; also in compiling large portions of other people’s writings. And that was the problem. The manuscript was one large compendium of other peoples work and words and as such was little more than a copyright nightmare. I know a lot of people who are not Writers with a capital W, by which I mean that they are not writers by profession and/or they have not studied the craft, either formally or through years of practice. They are either hobbyists or professionals in another field who have a burning interest, message, and/or a story to tell, and they need guidance. Here’s the gist of what I told the young artist.

What is missing, first and foremost, is YOU. I know you wanted to tell the artist’s story in the artist’s words, but you can’t. Furthermore, readers want to go on a journey with the author — that’s you. You have a unique perspective from which to tell your story of the older artist and how the experience impacted your life. You probably think that you don’t have enough to say about that artist on your own, but I am not suggesting that you not use the research, rather that you make it part of the story of your journey to discover and get to really know the artist after death took away the person-to-person opportunities.

* There is your life before actually meeting the artist – when did you first hear the artist’s music? On record? Radio? Live? What did you think/how did you feel? Who was with you and/or with whom did you discuss it later? How did the artist’s work influence your musical and professional growth?

* Then one day you met the artist in person. How? When? Where?

* Describe the events where you were in contact and/or worked with or around the artist.

* The artist’s funeral

* Then, feeling the loss of the opportunity to learn more from the artist, you decided to get to know the artist by interviewing friends and colleagues, and by reading everything you could find.

Get into all these events and focus on that artist as seen through your eyes – what did you feel? What did you think? What did you learn? Try to remember what you thought/felt back then, and if time has given you a different perspective today, say so. If someone tells you about something that artist did or said, share your thoughts and reactions with the reader.

As an artist yourself, you think about things like the relationships between leader and sidemen, criteria for picking material, and such. You can explore these topics by sharing what you learned from the artist, from firsthand observation and from what interviewees said. The interviews should be woven throughout, but you have to use only the golden nuggets, then paraphrase any salient info, and lose the rest. Readers don’t want to wade through the transcripts; that’s your job. The golden nuggets are those that share insight and perspective, rather than obvious historical facts.

Writing is a craft, and, just like music, it takes training and practice. Of course there are many books on the market written by people who are not professional writers, but most of those ‘writers’ hire editors, book doctors, or ghost writers to help them create a publishable manuscript.

I still believe you have a story worthy of telling, but the materials you sent represent only the accumulated research. What you need now is to prepare a proper structure and to tell your story. The structure can be mostly chronological, and one way to find your story is to look at each little section you compiled and ask “what does that mean to me.”

Craft

“To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself…Anybody can have ideas–the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.”
~~Mark Twain, in a Letter to Emeline Beach, 2/10/1868

Fifty Writing Tools: The workbench of Roy Peter Clark

Clark, a Senior Scholar at the Poynter Institute, has written a series of instructional tips for nonfiction writers , and this amazing crash course in the craft of writing, from the “sub-atomic to the metaphysical level” (in the words of Pulitzer Prize winning feature writer Tom French), is posted online and it’s free.

Clark writes:

“At times, it helps to think of writing as carpentry. That way, writers and editors can work from a plan and use tools stored on their workbench. You can borrow a writing tool at any time. And here’s a secret: Unlike hammers, chisels, and rakes, writing tools never have to be returned. They can be cleaned, sharpened, and passed on.”

And as he says, “These are tools and not rules.” Clark succintly defines each tool, then explains, examplifies, and end with suggested exercises. These lessons are invaluable for novices and experts alike.

Browsing Online

At Sketch For Nothing I found the fortune cookie that should have been mine yesterday.

At culturespace I found this post that I would describe as a prescription good for all that ails you.

At The Missouri Review, a web exclusive – On Reading Nonfiction by Michael Piafsky – where he quotes Samuel Johnson:

“the two most engaging powers of an author are to make something familiar new and to make something new familiar.”

Piafsky is partial to:

“a piece so skillfully crafted that despite its seeming mundanity, the author is able to bring to life for me something I’ve seen a million times but never quite looked at so closely, a piece whose writer could rivet me detailing an ant’s walk across my front yard.”

While Piafsky’s description could apply to fiction, here he is describing a genre called by many names, among them creative nonfiction or literary nonfiction. The University of Oregon, has online a good definition – What is Literary Nonfiction? – as well as a series of Q&As with some terrific writers including Ted Conover (Newjack), Melissa Fay Greene (Praying for Sheetrock) The New Yorker‘s Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief), Alex Kotlowitz (There Are No Children Here, The Other Side of the River), Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickle and Dimed), to name a few.

I’ve Got Mail: Addendum 2

I had really been hoping that Kenny Harris would not see my faux pas before I had corrected my mistake. Alas, no such luck. And to compound my embarassment, he informs me that he resides in Bermuda, not England, though he did hail from there at one time. This was truly sloppy work on my part, definitely not up to my journalistic standards. Geez! A gander at an email address will tell — .uk stands for United Kingdom, and I’m guessing .bm must be Bermuda . Mea culpa. I apologize.

I’ve Got Mail: Addendum

Rifftides wrote in from “somewhere in rainy, steamy, Maryland” to pull my coattails. Seems that in the haze of painkilling drugs I managed to type “bassist Kenny Harris’ in my last post, when I know full well he’s a drummer and colleague of an old family friend, drummer Allan Ganley. I have fixed that most eggregious error and am now going online to fix an error of ommission in my jazz education by ordering the Carmen Leggio CD. About him Rifftides wrote:

Carmen Leggio is a wonderful player. He should be rich, famous and winning polls. He sounds like no one else. Betcha can’t say that about one out a thousand tenor players under forty, probably under fifty.

I’ve Got Mail: Jazz Is In The Air

Jazz Outside of the City

Since Whiplash, lots of people have sent well-wishes, including bassist Bill Crow who also mentioned a new venue:

There’s a new restaurant, called Division Street, in Peekskill NY that is trying out a jazz policy. I played there Friday night with Carmen Leggio and Bucky Pizzarelli, and it was nice. Good sounding room, and the people actually shut up and listened to the music! The boss says he plans to buy a good piano soon, so we’re hopeful. I’ve closed several jazz clubs in Westchester over the years, and another one, 17 Main, just bit the dust in Mt. Kisco. So it is good to see a decent venue open up. Carmen is a rare treat…playing a style that ranges from Hawk and Byas to Al and Zoot, he’s one of the last of that breed of instinctive players with a great sound and easy swing.

I am not familiar with Mr. Leggio, so I did a little googling and found this recording of Smile/Tarrytown Tenor with Milt Hinton, Derek Smith, George Duvivier, Ronnie Bedford, John Bunch and Butch Miles, and a 1999 article – Carmen Leggio: Young Man With A Horn – by Fred Cicetti that included this intriguing analogy: Leggio blows tenor the way Willie Mays ran down a flyball. They both let you know from the get-go that you’ll never be able to do it their way.

Speaking of outside the city, I also received well wishes from drummer Kenny Harris in England. You can also find him on page 248 of Doug Ramsey‘s Desmond bio, Take Five.

Emails about Al McKibbon included

“Dear sweet Al…..” (a mutual friend)

“This summer has been tough on old bass players…I’m starting to look over my shoulder.” (a bassist)

and

“I had the opportunity to play with Al on several occasions throughout the years here in L.A., and the things that impressed and inspired me the most were his deep, dark sound and the notes he chose to play. Al played the bass in a manner that you felt as well as heard. His sound came up at you from the floor. And no matter how convoluted the chord changes might be on any given song, Al always seemed to find the best notes to play. He was truly the heartbeat and, to my way of thinking, one of the unsung heroes of the bass world.”

That last one was from drummer Michael Stephans, who just launched a very lovely website of his own.

Radio Days

I’ve been corresponding with discjockey/drummer Dick McGarvin (he was also at McKibbon’s funeral) and he wrote belatedly about last month’s Johnny Pate piece

The day you had the piece on Johnny Pate, I played my LP of “Round Trip” by Phil Woods – it hadn’t been off the shelf in years – and was reminded of what a good album it is. Oh, and thanks to your blog, I finally learned who was in the great sounding rhythm section on “Round Trip”. There was no mention of personnel on the album!

That’s why I blog – not for the thanks, but for the kick of introducing, or in this case, reintroducing someone to some good music, a great book, or even just an interesting thought. Spotlighting those who go unnoticed or unmentioned is another good reason.

McGarvin went on to reminsce about the good old days of radio:

I remember playing it [“Round Trip”] on the radio when it was released…and I wasn’t even working at a jazz station then. It was at KSFO, San Francisco, which was an AM personality oriented MOR station playing everything from Sinatra to Paul Simon, Peggy Lee to the Carpenters, Shearing to the Tijuana Brass. That list also included Ella, Steve Lawrence, Brazil 66, Otis Redding, The Fifth Dimension, Kenny Rankin, Stevie Wonder, Nancy Wilson, Cannonball’s MERCY MERCY MERCY, Van Morrison. Well, you get the idea. (WNEW probably would have been the closest New York equivalent at the time.) What’s amazing, considering today’s homogenized radio, is that each disc jockey in those days picked his own music, so I was able to mix in the occasional Oscar Peterson or something like one of the more familiar songs from the Phil Woods album. It was wonderful to be able to program such a wide variety of music into one show…and it worked. But, sadly, that kind of radio station is of another time and doesn’t exist anymore.

The pendulum is bound to swing again…someday. Meanwhile, I am wondering if it is time to check out the XM Satellite. TT seems to think so.

Missed Basses

When you get to be a certain age the number of entries in your address book across which you scribble “deceased” begins to increase. I know this, and given that my husband knows more dead people than live ones, I really shouldn’t be the one to comment. Still, I can’t help but notice that six world-class jazz bassists, five of whom I knew personally, have died in the last three-and-a-half months, starting with former Ellington bassist, Jimmy Woode, who passed away on April 22nd, and ending with Keter Betts who died this past weekend. In between, we lost Percy Heath (April), Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen (May), Pierre Michelot, and Al McKibbon (July). If I’ve forgotten anyone, let me know.


I first met Jimmy Woode in a recording studio in Berlin. It was June of 1969. We (Mom, me, and my best friend Daisy) were with Dad on one of his whirlwind tours – Paris, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Berlin all in two weeks. For some reason, we flew into East Berlin where Dad’s amplifier did not appear with the rest of our baggage. Thankfully, the bus stopped at an outer building where the amplifier was found, and then took us on to West Berlin. Of course the ride included the obligatory stop at Checkpoint Charlie, where, against explicit instructions, we took snapshots and got away with it. It was a trio recording (Daniel Humair on drums), and as producer Joachim E. Berendt pointed out, it was Dad’s first recording of his own in more than ten years. “It’s Nice To Be With You” was a family album, if you will, in that Mom wrote the title tune and I am on the cover. I wasn’t too thrilled with the cover back then – at thirteen I would have preferred something more glamorous than eating a bockwurst out of my father’s hand at the Berlin Zoo – but that was then, and today I wish I had a copy of the original photo.


It was Dad who first introduced me to Percy Heath. Percy was playing with The Modern Jazz Quartet – I think it was the 1966 concert at Carnegie Hall. Listening to my Dad, I was familiar with a tune called Bags’ Groove, and the MJQ played it that night; it was probably the only tune I recognized. In recent years, my husband, John, and I have had the pleasure of hanging out with all three Heath Brothers at annual events like Monterey and IAJE conventions. I especially enjoy it as Beverly and Mona (Mrs. Tootie and Mrs. Jimmy, respectively) often travel with them; seeing Percy’s wife, June, was a much rarer treat. It’s funny that we always see them on the road and seldom at home, even though Tootie & Beverly are neighbors. John had breakfast with Jimmy and Tootie at the Heritage Festival in New Orleans the day after Percy died.

I never knew Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen personally, but you can’t be a jazz lover and not know his playing, especially his work with Oscar Peterson. Ray Brown, who left us three years ago (it doesn’t seem like that long) recommended him to Peterson, reportedly saying, “He’s the only one I know that might keep up with you.” The word virtuoso is often over-used, but NHOP was one, and I’ve read that he can be heard on more than 400 recordings. Of the many Pedersen-Peterson recordings, The Paris Concert, recorded live in October of 1978, is often singled out.

Pierre was not so well-known in the U.S., save by those who recognized him as the unnamed bassist in the movie, ‘Round Midnight or knew his work with Miles Davis on Louis Malle’s 1957 film, Ascenseur Pour L’échafaud. Serious jazz fans, of course, knew him from recordings with Bud Powell, Coleman Hawkins and Buck Clayton, Django Reinhardt, Dizzy Gillespie, and Clifford Brown, among others. I was in my early twenties when I met him in Paris. He, along with pianist George Arvanitas, was working in the tiny cave (basement) of a little nightclub called Le petit Opportun’ (15, rue des Lavandières-Ste-Opportune) with saxophonist Jerome Richardson. I remember Pierre as always swinging and smiling, and I was sad to learn that during the last few years of his life he suffered with Alzheimers.


Al McKibbon I’ve written about recently (here and here). I am not sure when I first met Keter, but I think it was in Nice, France, at Le Grande Parade du Jazz (the festival produce by George Wein). I was an impressionable sixteen-year-old on a summer excursion, and he was on tour with Ella Fitzgerald. I saw him many times over the years, usually with Ella, sometimes with Joe Williams, later with Etta Jones, and at recording sessions with everyone who was anyone. At home, he was active in the Washington, D.C.-area schools and music programs, taught at Howard University, and coordinated jazz programming for Black Entertainment Television.

The beat will go on without them, or perhaps, because of them.

Al McKibbon’s Funeral

We attended Al’s funeral yesterday at Forest Lawn’s Church of the Hills, followed by a gathering at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Bass players in attendance included Richard Davis (he flew in from Wisconsin) Jimmy Bond, Jennifer Leitham, Richard Simon (who along with pianist Phil Wright, accompanied Ernie Andrews in his rendition of “My Way” with lyrics by Howlett Smith) and Howard Rumsey. Of course there were many other musicians on the scene — Kenny Burrell, Herman Riley, Charles Owens, Clora Bryant, Donald Vega, Michael Melvoin, and Jake Hanna, to name a few — but what touched me most were the tributes and reminiscences shared by other people whose lives he touched: his next door neighbor, his dentist, a fan, and his hanging and dining buddy Gary Chen-Stein.

Neither John nor I spoke at the service, but here’s what I would have said:

Big Al looked tough and mean – that is, until he smiled. He was also an exceptional listener and a loyal friend who refrained from judging people…unless they did him wrong. He mastered the art of overt generosity while still wringing blood from a nickel. He could grumble a lot, but he never gave up. He was 80 years old when his first recording as a leader was released. Tumbao Para Los Congueros Di Mi Vida was followed five years later by Black Orchid, and both albums are deeply steeped in Afro-Cuban flavors. If anything could surpass the joy he felt in creating those recordings, it was his trip to Cuba last November. There he found a beautiful country with smiling faces, warm sun and great music – everything the world should be. Despite its poverty, Cuba was his heaven.

Al was a proud man who maintained the best of “old-fashioned” values: he was a man of his word (and you’d best stick to yours, too), he liked to shop for clothes and dress well, he preferred for everything and everyone to run on time, (including his wives and daughters), and he was fiercely independent. Al always spoke his mind, regardless of the consequences, and yes, it got him fired plenty of times. But when it came to darker feelings, he was very private and hid any despair. He was extremely intelligent and well-read, but when asked what college he attended, he’d say “the one behind the Bass looking out at the world.” He loved to travel and meet people from all over the world. Whenever language was a barrier, music was always the solution.

Al was a big man with big heart and we will miss him.

Al & Lucky

Kudos to Jazz Portraits — while many jazz sites have noted the passing of both Al McKibbon and Lucky Thompson, Joe Moore is the only one I’ve found who has done so by posting a photo of the two playing together. I don’t know where the photo came from, but it’s a great one – check it out.

John Levy, longtime friend of Al’s and seven years his senior, also worked with Lucky Thompson back in the day. They played at The Three Deuces with Bobby Tucker on piano.

Life was good. I was 32 years old, and I was making a living in one of the most exciting places in the world—the only place in the world for an enterprising jazz musician to be. Club and concert dates, live broadcasts, and recordings kept me busy. My encounters with Ben Webster, Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson and Duke Ellington left me with many wonderful memories. I had engagements with other artists including Don Byas, Lucky Thompson, Mildred Bailey, Red Norvo, and Milt Jackson…

Whenever I could, I’d go off the street to hear other people play; I was always looking to hear a good bass player. I knew Milt Hinton was in New York now, but he wasn’t playing on 52nd Street at the time. I’d try to catch him whenever he was playing. Then one night I heard Al McKibbon playing with Tab Smith up on 135th Street. “Damn, he sure can play,” I told Jimmy [Jones] the next day.

[excerpted from “Men, Women, and Girl Singers“]

When John put down his bass, he hired Al to fill his spot on the bandstand with the George Shearing Quintet. John and Al remained lifelong friends.