The Quarantined Jazz Voyager
Willow Weep for Me is a jazz album recorded in 1965 by guitarist Wes Montgomery and was posthumously released in 1969. The arranger and conductor on the session was Claus Ogerman.
The album reached number 12 on the Billboard Jazz album chart in 1969. At the 1970 Grammy Awards Willow Weep for Me won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group.
After Montgomery’s death in 1968, Verve Records used recordings from the sessions that produced Smokin’ at the Half Note and the label hired arranger Claus Ogerman to write string and brass arrangements for “Willow Weep for Me”, “Portrait of Jennie,” “Oh! You Crazy Moon,” and “Misty.” Subsequent reissues erased the new backing arrangements.
Track Listing | 41:09- Willow Weep for Me (Ann Ronell) – 7:42
- Impressions (John Coltrane) – 5:01
- Portrait of Jenny (Burdge, Robinson) – 2:45
- The Surrey with the Fringe on Top (Rodgers, Hammerstein II) – 5:20
- Oh, You Crazy Moon (Burke, Jimmy Van Heusen) – 5:27
- Four on Six (Wes Montgomery) – 9:29
- Misty (Johnny Burke, Erroll Garner) – 6:45
- Wes Montgomery – guitar
- Wynton Kelly – piano
- Paul Chambers – bass
- Jimmy Cobb – drums
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Michael Arlt was born in Bünde, Westfalen, Germany on July 1, 1960 and began playing guitar as a teenager. From the beginning, he was interested in a musical gamut, playing in rock, blues, fusion, and free bands. Going to Boston, Massachusetts in the mid-Eighties, he studied at Berklee College of Music, took private lessons from Mike Metheny, and then continued his studies in the Netherlands at the Amsterdam Academy of Arts under Wim Overgaauw.
Since that time, Michael has performed in a variety of ensembles with musicians like Maria de Fatima, Jerry Granelli, Sigi Busch, Rick Hollander, Leszek Zadlo, Wolfgang Ekholt, Joris Teepe, Paquito D’Rivera, Herbert Joos, and Luciano Biondini. He has recorded with Roman Schwaller, Houston Person and Red Holloway. He founded his own trio and the group Brassless with who he recorded. With Don Kostelnik and Duck Scott he forms the organ trio We Three who recorded several albums.
Arlt has been a part of the Lemongrass and Weathertunes music projects, which were founded by the brothers Roland and Daniel Voss. Since the late 1990s, Arlt has been playing with Rick Hollander, in the trio of Reinette van Zijtveld and in a duo with Christian Eckert. As a lecturer, he has taught jazz guitar and harmony at the University of Music in Würzburg since 1990. Guitarist Michael Arlt continues to explore and perform in the genre. of modern jazz.
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Robert Uno Normann was born on June 27, 1916 in Borge, Østfold, Norway. An autodidact performer on the banjo, accordion and tenor saxophone, he would eventually make the guitar as his main instrument. He was one of the swing era’s most sought after guitar soloists in Norway and was also a pioneer of the electric guitar.
He began his musical career as a wandering street and backyard musician at age 12 and became a professional musician in 1937. As a part of the Oslo jazz scene, he performed in several swing jazz groups, Freddy Valier, String Swing, and Gunnar Due. He simultaneously led his own quartet. During this period he played tenor saxophone with the Pete Brown Big Band from 1945 and various random jazz groups such as Frank Ottersen, and Willy Andresen. He got several career offers from international artists, including from Benny Goodman and Barney Kessel, that he turned down.
He never listened to recordings by Django Reinhardt but got his inspiration from listening to Teddy Wilson and Leon Chu Berry, and various accordionists. From 1955, he was less active in the jazz context because of significant alcohol problems. As a studio musician, Robert participated in close to 1300 productions, composed music to multiple folk texts, film, theater, and small pieces of music inspired by jazz and traditional Norwegian folk music.
Normann retired as an active musician in 1982 and devoted his time to small scale farming and inventions. Guitarist and jazz guitar pioneer Robert Normann, who made his first electric guitar in 1939 by constructing a pickup of copper wire, magnets and pitch stolen from public phones, passed away at the age of 81 on May 20, 1998 in Kvastebyen, Sarpsborg, Østfold, Norway.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Marcus Miller, born William Henry Marcus Miller Jr. on June 14, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York and raised in a musical family. Classically trained as a clarinetist, he also plays keyboards, saxophone and guitar. He began to work regularly in New York City, eventually playing bass and writing music for jazz flutist Bobbi Humphrey and keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith.
Spending 15 years as a session musician, he arranged and produced frequently, was a member of the Saturday Night Live band from 1979 to 1981, and co-wrote Aretha Franklin’s Jump To It along with Luther Vandross. He has played bass on over 500 recordings, appearing on over 500 albums by such artists as Herbie Hancock, The Crusaders, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Frank Sinatra, George Benson, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, Eric Clapton, Dr. John, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Joe Walsh, Jean-Michel Jarre, Grover Washington Jr., Donald Fagen, Bill Withers, Bernard Wright, Kazumi Watanabe, Chaka Khan, LL Cool J, and Flavio Sala.
He won the Most Valuable Player award given by NARAS to recognize studio musicians three years in a row and was subsequently awarded Player Emeritus status and retired from eligibility. In the nineties, Miller began to write his own music and make his own records, putting a band together and touring regularly.
Between 1988 and 1990 he appeared regularly both as a musical director and as the house band bass player in the Sunday Night Band during two seasons of Sunday Night on NBC late-night television, hosted by David Sanborn.
As a composer, Miller co-wrote and produced several songs on the Miles Davis album Tutu, including its title track. He also composed Chicago Song for David Sanborn and co-wrote ‘Til My Baby Comes Home, It’s Over Now, For You To Love, and Power of Love for Luther Vandross and wrote Da Butt, which was featured in Spike Lee’s School Daze.
Miller hosts a jazz history show called Miller Time with Marcus Miller, is a film score composer, was nominated and won several Grammy Awards. Bassist Marcus Miller continues to perform, record and tour.
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James Pasco Gourley, Jr. was born on June 9, 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri. He met saxophonist Lee Konitz in Chicago, Illinois when both were members of the same high school band, crediting Konitz with encouraging him to become a serious musician.
Jimmy’s father started the Monarch Conservatory of Music in Hammond, Indiana, and though he didn’t teach, he bought him his first guitar. Taken his first guitar classes at the school. He became interested in jazz while listening to the radio, enjoying in particular Nat King Cole. For his first professional experience as a performer, he dropped out of high school to play with a jazz band in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
From 1944 to 1946, Gourley served in the U.S. Navy then returned to Chicago, where he met guitarist Jimmy Raney and wanted to play like him. He worked in bars and clubs with Jackie Cain & Roy Kral, Anita O’Day, Sonny Stitt, and Gene Ammons. Through the G.I. Bill, he received tuition for three years to any college in the world.
By 1951, he spent the rest of his life in France, working with Henri Renaud, Lou Bennett, Kenny Clarke, Richard Galliano, Stéphane Grappelli, Bobby Jaspar, Eddy Louiss, Martial Solal, and Barney Wilen. He played with American musicians who were passing through, including Bob Brookmeyer, Clifford Brown, Stan Getz, Gigi Gryce, Roy Haynes, Bud Powell, Zoot Sims, Lucky Thompson, Lester Young and his friend Lee Konitz. Guitarist Jimmy Gourley passed away on December 7, 2008 in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, France at the age of 82.
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