Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Nathan Tate Davis ws born February 15, 1937 in Kansas City, Kansas. He apprenticed in the Jay McShann band before heading off to college to receive his degree in Music Education. After being discharged from military service post World War II, he traveled extensively around Europe before settling in Paris, France in 1962.
Moving back to the States he went on to attain a Ph.D in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University and was a professor of music and director of jazz studies at the University of Pittsburgh from 1969, an academic program that he helped initiate. During his tenure he was founder and director of the University of Pittsburgh Annual Jazz Seminar and Concert, the first academic jazz event of its kind in the United States.
Nathan helped to found the university’s William Robinson Recording Studio as well as establish the International Academy of Jazz Hall of Fame located in the school’s William Pitt Union and the University of Pittsburgh-Sonny Rollins International Jazz Archives.
Retiring as director of the Jazz Studies Program at Pitt in 2013, Davis also served as the editor of the International Jazz Archives Journal. One of Davis’ best known musical associations was heading the Paris Reunion Band from 1985 to 1989, which at different times included Nat Adderley, Kenny Drew, Johnny Griffin, Slide Hampton, Joe Henderson, Idris Muhammad, Dizzy Reece, Woody Shaw, and Jimmy Woode.
Over the course of his career he worked with Eric Dolphy, Kenny Clarke, Ray Charles, Slide Hampton, Kenny “Klook” Clarke and Art Blakey. He toured and recorded with the post-bop ensemble leading Roots which he formed in 1991. As a composer, Nathan created various pieces, including a 2004 opera entitled Just Above My Head.
Tenor and soprano saxophonist, bass clarinetist and flutist Nathan Davis, who recorded eighteen albums as a leader, passed away on April 8, 2018 in Palm Beach, Florida, at the age of 81.
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Requisites
Flute Fever ~ The Jeremy Steig Quartet | By Eddie Carter
The word impossible as defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is “something that’s incapable of being or of occurring”. In the annals of music, some amazing musicians and vocalists have met the challenge of their disabilities head-on and in doing so, changed the word impossible to I’m possible instead! Jeremy Steig was an artist, graphic designer, and musician who began playing the flute at twelve and jazz at fifteen. At age nineteen, a motorcycle accident paralyzed one side of his face that might have ended his music career. It didn’t, because he used the paralysis within his mouth to blow air into the flute with the help of a special blinder-like mouthpiece that was placed inside his cheek, allowing him to play.
This morning’s album from my library is titled Flute Fever (Columbia CL 2136/CS 8936) by The Jeremy Steig Quartet. The other members are Denny Zeitlin on piano, Ben Tucker on bass, and Ben Riley on drums. An example of Jeremy’s artistic talent appears on the front cover. He also penned four drawings of the group on the back cover, and my copy used in this report is the 1964 Stereo LP.
Side One opens with Oleo by Sonny Rollins, he wrote it in 1954 and premiered it on the album, Miles Davis With Sonny Rollins. Jeremy and Tucker start the song as a duet with a strong rhythmic beat that takes off by leaps and bounds when Denny and Riley come in for the collective theme. Jeremy infuses the opening reading with zestful virtuosity as he vocalizes along on a vigorously swinging interpretation. Denny revs up the short and sweet closing statement with a soaring, exhilarating lyricism ahead of the leader’s ending theme and abrupt climax.
Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?) by Jimmy Davis, Roger Ramirez, and Jimmy Sherman was composed in 1941 for singer-songwriter Billie Holiday. The quartet’s rendition opens with Steig leading a delicately gentle melody. Zeitlin gives a very touching performance on the song’s only solo preceding the foursome’s haunting tenderness on the coda. Sadly, omitted from this version are two elegant performances by Steig and Tucker, and a well-deserved compliment from the engineer at the song’s end that appears on the CD-album.
What Is This Thing Called Love?The Cole Porter song from the 1930 Broadway musical, Wake Up and Dream takes the foursome back to uptempo. After an effervescent melody, Jeremy begins with an exhilarating reading. Denny answers the flutist with an electrifying solo that excites intensely until the foursome’s coda. Miles Davis’ So What begins with Steig wailing on the opening, then continuing with a lengthy adrenaline rush of energy on the first interpretation. Zeitlin takes the next reading for a sizzling rollercoaster ride, then Tucker briskly walks on the closer.
The quartet takes on Thelonious Monk’sWell You Needn’t to begin Side Two. Monk wrote the tune in 1944 and was going to name it after jazz vocalist, Charlie Beamon, who upon hearing that replied, “Well, you need not”. The song starts at medium-fast speed for the quartet’s collective opening chorus. Jeremy steps into the spotlight first, igniting his solo with the brightness of an incandescent sun. Denny begins the final statement with no accompaniment for one chorus, before settling into a dazzling performance that’s a bebopper’s dream.
The beautiful 1932 song Willow Weep For Me by Ann Ronell is enchantingly rendered collectively with Jeremy’s flute conversing her lyrics daintily over a politely subdued supplement from the rhythm section. Denny contributes a brief interlude that’s beautifully constructed in between the opening and ending melodies by Jeremy culminating with a heart-warming finale. The LP ends with the album’s longest tune, Blue Seven by Sonny Rollins. The guys have fun right out of the gate with Steig and Tucker starting an easy-flowing duet that develops into a bluesy mid tempo opening chorus when Zeitlin and Riley join them. Jeremy and Denny have the two lengthiest statements and both men provide two meticulous but playful performances that take no prisoners. Tucker lays down some new soil on the next reading with a laid-back lyricism shadowed closely by Riley who doesn’t solo but contributes some bouncy brushwork that’s infectiously light-hearted and complements the soloists very well.
Jeremy Steig is the son of cartoonist William Steig whose work appeared in the weekly magazine, The New Yorker. His father also created the character Shrek, and Jeremy played the role of The Pied Piper on flute for the film, Shrek Forever After (2010). His mother, Elizabeth Mead Steig is the head of the fine arts department at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He recorded with pianist Bill Evans on the album, What’s New (1969), a critical success for both musicians. Steig became even more successful in the jazz-rock fusion genre in the seventies, recording a total of twenty-two albums during his career. Jeremy lived with his wife Asako in Japan and passed away from cancer at age seventy-three on April 13, 2016.
Pianist Denny Zeitlin, the lone survivor of the quartet, impressed producer John Hammond so much with his performance on Flute Fever, he also produced his debut album, Cathexis (1964). He recorded three more LP’s over the next three years, Carnival (1964), Shining Hour – Live at The Trident (1966), and Zeitgeist (1967). Denny recorded thirty-five albums over his five-decade career playing with some of the greatest names in jazz. He’s currently a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California in San Francisco, and also has a private practice there and in Marin County.
Bassist Ben Tucker has a very lengthy resume of the albums he appeared on and the musicians he played with. Ben worked with The Dave Bailey Quintet in 1961 and composed the song Comin’ Home Baby. It became a hit for Bailey on 2 Feet In The Gutter that year, and flutist Herbie Mann on Herbie Mann at The Village Gate (1962). Tucker owned two stations in his hometown of Savannah, Georgia, WSOK-AM and WLVH-FM. He passed away at age eighty-two in a traffic collision on June 4, 2013.
It might be easier to tell you who Ben Riley didn’t play with because his list of recordings is also enormous. He’s most known as the drummer in The Thelonious Monk Quartet. He was also a member of The New York Quartet and in the group Sphere. He passed away on November 18, 2017, at the age of eighty-four.
The album was produced by John Hammond but does not offer any other information on the recording engineer. However, the sound quality is absolutely sensational with a superb soundstage that’s startingly clear from your speakers to your sweet spot. If you’re a fan of jazz flute, I submit for your consideration on your next vinyl hunt, Flute Fever by The Jeremy Steig Quartet. It’s one illness, you won’t mind catching and requires only one listen to make you feel much better!
~ Carnival (Columbia CL 2340/CS 9140); Cathexis (Columbia CL 2182/CS 8982); Herbie Mann at The Village Gate (Atlantic 1380/SD 1380); Miles Davis With Sonny Rollins (Prestige PRLP 187); Shining Hour – Live at The Trident (Columbia CL 2463/CS 9263); 2 Feet In The Gutter (Epic LA 16021/BA 17021); What’s New (Verve Records V6-8777); Zeitgeist (Columbia CL 2748/CS 9548) – Source: Discogs.com
~ Oleo, Well You Needn’t, What Is This Thing Called Love? – Source: JazzStandards.com
~ John Hammond, Ben Riley, Ann Ronell, Jeremy Steig, William Steig, Elizabeth Mead Steig, Ben Tucker, Denny Zeitlin – Source: Wikipedia.org
~ Oleo – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1bX-9Q6Qsc
~ So What – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsBruIp_qnI
© 2021 by Edward Thomas Carter
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Jack Lesberg was born February 14, 1920 in Boston, Massachusetts. He had the misfortune of playing in that city’s Cocoanut Grove on the night in 1942 when 492 people lost their lives in a fire. His escape was memorialized by fellow bassist Charles Mingus.
Jack performed in the New York City Symphony under Leonard Bernstein in the 1940s. Lesberg continued to tour in the 1980s and performed in Menlo Park, California in 1984. Jack played with Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Jack Teagarden, Coleman Hawkins, Sarah Vaughan, Urbie Green, George Barnes, Ruth Brown, Tony Bennett, Johnny Hodges and Benny Goodman among others, He went on several international tours.
Double-bassist Jack Lesberg, who co~led two sessions and twenty-one as a sideman, passed away from Alzheimer’s Disease in Englewood, California at the age of 85 on September 17, 2005.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Irving “Irv” Cottler was born February 13, 1918 in Brooklyn, New York. He would become a sometime member of Los Angeles, California based The Wrecking Crew, who recorded with Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Dinah Shore, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others.
Best known as the drummer for Frank Sinatra, with whom he worked for over 30 years beginning in 1955, Irv’s first recording session with Sinatra was in October 1955 on ‘Love Is Here To Stay’ and he played on many of the remaining Songs For Swingin’ Lovers tracks, alternating with Alvin Stoller.
From 1956 on, Irv was Sinatra’s preferred drummer and played a world tour with Sinatra during 1962, as well as on his many TV recordings. He also performed for twelve years with The Dinah Shore Show house band.
Drummer Irv Cottler passed away of a heart attack on August 8, 1989 in Templeton, California at the age of 71.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Bernard Privin was born of Jewish ancestry on February 12, 1919 in New York City. An autodidact on trumpet, he played professionally while in his teens. When he was 13, he bought a trumpet the day after he heard Louis Armstrong perform.
In 1937 Berniee became a member of Harry Reser’s band, and in the same year also worked with Bunny Berigan and Tommy Dorsey. The following year, he joined the Artie Shaw Orchestra, and then worked with Charlie Barnet, Mal Hallett, and Benny Goodman. Drafted in 1943 Bernie played from 1943 to 1946 with the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band in Europe.
Returning to the United States, he worked with Goodman once more, then became a staff musician for radio and television, working with NBC and then CBS, the latter well into the 1960s. Concomitantly he played as a session musician, especially with Goodman throughout the 1950s, as well as for musicians such as Sy Oliver and Al Caiola.
Privin played frequently in Europe from the Sixties onward, playing in Sweden multiple times in the decade, and was a member of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, under the direction of Warren Covington and Pee Wee Erwin, for tours of Europe in the mid-1970s. He was a member of the New York Jazz Repertory Company when it toured the Soviet Union in 1975.
Trumpeter Bernie Privin passed away on October 8, 1999 in the city of his birth.
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