Daily Dose Of Jazz…

William Orie Potts was born April 3, 1928 in Arlington, Virginia. As a child he played Hawaiian slide-lap steel guitar and the accordion in his teens. At 15 he won an accordion competition with a performance of Twilight Time. After hearing Count Basie on the radio he started studying the piano in high school. He went on to attend Catholic University of America in 1946–1947, then formed his own group under the name Bill Parks, which toured in Massachusetts and Florida.

While serving in the Army from 1949 to 1955 he transcribed charts for Army bands. During this time Bill composed and arranged for Joe Timer and Willis Conover’s ensemble, The Orchestra, which was broadcasted on Voice of America radio. He wrote four of the songs on The Orchestra’s 1954 Brunswick Records LP, and recorded some of their live shows, which occasionally featured guest appearances from Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

By 1956 he was leading a house band at Olivia Davis’ Patio Lounge in Washington, D.C. and Lester Young booked an engagement there. Potts convinced Young to record with him on two of the evenings. These recordings were later released as the Lester Young in Washington, D.C. sessions.

The following year he worked extensively as a composer, arranger, and performer for Freddy Merkle’s Jazz Under the Dome album which featured Earl and Rob Swope. Soon after this he suffered a crushed vertebra in a car crash and ended up in a body cast for three months. During his recuperation Bill began working on charts and arrangements for an album consisting of jazz reinterpretations of many songs from George Gershwin’s opera Porgy & Bess.

Fully recovered by 1959, he released a session under his own name titled The Jazz Soul of Porgy and Bess for United Artists Records. It featured a nineteen-piece band whose members included Al Cohn, Harry Edison, Art Farmer, Bill Evans, Bob Brookmeyer, Marky Markowitz, Zoot Sims, Charlie Shavers, Earl Swope, and Phil Woods. The album received a five out of five star rating from Down Beat magazine upon its release.

Following this, Potts spent several years working in New York City before returning to the D.C. area, where he worked locally in addition to touring with and/or arranging for Paul Anka, Eddie Fisher, Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz, Woody Herman, Quincy Jones, Stan Kenton, Ralph Marterie, Buddy Rich, Jeri Southern, Clark Terry, and Bobby Vinton.

In 1967 he released an album on Decca Records, How Insensitive, with a studio group called Brasilia Nueve. This group included Markowitz and Sims from the Porgy and Bess session , as well as Tito Puente, Chino Pozo, Mel Lewis, Barry Galbraith, and Louie Ramirez.

As an educator Bill taught music theory at Montgomery College from 1974 to 1990 and was the leader of the student jazz band. He also led a big band for occasional performances at Washington’s Blues Alley nightclub in the 1980s.

Retiring to Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1995, pianist and arranger Bill Potts died of cardiac arrest on February 16, 2005 in Plantation, Florida.

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Cag Cagnolatti was born Ernie Joseph Cagnolatti on April 2, 1911 in Madisonville, Louisiana. He was one of six children sharing Italian and African American parentage and raised Catholic.

Cagnolatti began on trumpet around 1929 and played with Herbert Leary from 1933 to 1942, as well as off and on with Sidney Desvigne and Papa Celestin. He was a recurring member of many of the major New Orleans brass bands; he worked in the bands of George Williams in the 1940s and 1950s, and with Alphonse Picou in the early 1950s.

He recorded with Paul Barbarin repeatedly over the course of the 1950s and 1960s. He and Jim Robinson collaborated in the early 1960s, and he also recorded with Harold Dejan in 1962 and with the Onward Brass Band in 1968. From 1974 to 1980 Cagnolatti was a mainstay at Preservation Hall.

He suffered a stroke in 1980 and did not play afterwards. Trumpeter Cag Cagnolatti, affectionately known as Little Cag, died in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 7, 1983.

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Jazz Poems

CREPUSCULE WITH NELLIE

For Ira

late one night.

Ruby my Dear, Epistrophy.

The place nearly empty

Because of the cold spell.

One beautiful black transvestite

alone up front,

Sipping his drink demurely.

The music Pythagorean,

one note at a time

Connecting the heavenly spheres,

While I leaned against the bar

surveying the premises

Through cigarette smoke.

of a memorable occasion…

The joy of it, the delicious melancholy…

This very strange manbent over the piano

shaking his head, humming…

Misterioso.

Then it was all over, thank you!

Chairs being stacked up on tables,

their legs up.

The prospect of the freeze outside,

the long walk home,

Making one procrastinatory.

Who said Americans don’t have history,

only endless nostalgia?

And where the hell was Nellie?

CHARLES (DUŠAN) SIMIĆ

from Jazz Poems ~ Selected and Edited by Kevin Young

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Harvey Wainapel  was born in Ellenville, New York on March 31, 1951. Growing up in the small town in the Catskills, he started his musical journey on clarinet at the age of eight. By high school he discovered jazz by playing along with tunes on New York City radio stations. Longing to play saxophone he didn’t get his first horn, an alto, until his freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania. Working at the college radio station, he discovered the music of Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane and Joe Henderson.

Initially intending to follow the family tradition of pursuing a career in medicine or science, he ended up taking the plunge into music at Berklee in 1971. It was a heady era, and Wainapel played with fellow students, guitarist John Scofield, pianist Kenny Werner, trumpeter Claudio Roditi, and tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano.

During his Boston years Harvey recorded and performed in Carnegie Hall with vibraphonist Gary Burton. After two years at Berklee he toured Tunisia with drummer Jamey Haddad, and made the trip to North Africa. Settling in Amsterdam, Netherlands he made a living before moving to Frankfurt, Germany with the HR Radio Big Band.

By 1979 he returned stateside, landing in New York City, and became enamored with Brazilian music. He quickly landed a gig playing with Thiago de Melo, alongside drummer Duduka da Fonseca, trumpeter Roditi and pianist Marcos Silva, the latter turning Wainapel on to other Brazilian artists. ​Not cut out for the city, he relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area, after a year on the road with Ray Charles. He became one of the most in-de-mand players in the region while keeping his European presence. Back at home, Wainapel can often be found playing Brazilian music, performing with Rio-born vocal improviser Claudia Villela.

Saxophonist and clarinetist Harvey Wainapel, who debuted as a leader with 1994’s At Home/On the Road, leads his own post-bop combos, freelances extensively, and performs with Beth Custer’s Clarinet Thing.

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Requisites

Midnight Sugar ~ Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio | By Eddie Carter

This morning’s choice from the library is one of my absolute favorites because each time I hear it, I’m transported back to one of my happiest memories as a young adult. If any of you lived in Cleveland, Ohio during the seventies and eighties, Audio Craft at 3915 Carnegie Avenue was the place to go if you wanted to purchase a quality entry-level, mid-level, or high-end audio system. My uncle Bob Franks was the manager there for many years and I got to help him on Monday and Thursday evenings, and each Saturday. He was instrumental in teaching me about excellent audio equipment, helping me put together my first system, and introducing me to The Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio.

Midnight Sugar (Three Blind Mice TBM-23) is the group’s 1974 debut for the Japanese jazz label and has long been a favorite to demonstrate high-end audio equipment at audio shows and audio salons worldwide.  It’s also become a collector’s item, a mint original LP or the 1977, 1979, and 1982 Stereo reissues can cost a few hundred dollars.  Joining the pianist are two giants in their own right, Isoo Fukui on bass and Tetsujiro Obara on drums.  My copy used for this report is the 1977 Japanese Stereo reissue (Three Blind Mice TBM-2523) and LP collectors take note.  Only the 1977, 1979 (TBM(P)-2523) and 1982 (Trio Records – Three Blind Mice PAP-2006) reissues list the group’s name as Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio.  All other LP reissues and the original release show the pianist’s last name first.

Midnight Sugar is a slow tempo blues beginning Side One with a brief bowed bass introduction by Isoo before Yamamoto takes over on the melody.  Tsuyoshi is the only soloist and is at his best on a lengthy interpretation that’s sublimely soulful and one of the highlights on the album, thanks to the rhythmic harmony provided by his colleagues.  I’m A Fool To Want You was written in 1951 by Frank Sinatra, Jack Wolf, and Joel Herron.  Sinatra recorded the song for Columbia Records, making it a hit.  It opens with a graceful introduction and wistful delivery of the melody.  The pace moves to midtempo for Yamamoto’s solo performance and he responds with a mesmerizing display and emotional depth preceding the closing chorus ending with fingertip delicacy.

The Nearness of You starts Side Two and was written in 1937 by Hoagy Carmichael and Ned Washington.  It became a hit for Ray Eberle who recorded it with The Glenn Miller Orchestra in 1940.  The trio dresses up this timeless evergreen with a blissful theme treatment and a sentimental swing on the song’s only interpretation by Yamamoto drawing the listener into this beautiful standard at a leisurely pace.  It Could Happen To You is by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke, this popular song was written in 1943 and was first recorded by vocalist Jo Stafford with the Paul Weston Orchestra.  Its first film appearance was in the 1944 musical comedy And The Angels Sing.  The trio’s interaction is stunning on the dreamy melody.  Tsuyoshi’s reading is skillfully constructed with tender lyricism on one of the most beautiful ballads ever written.

The album closes with Yamamoto’s Sweet Georgia Blues, an uptempo original sharing some similarities with the 1925 jazz and pop classic, Sweet Georgia Brown by Ben Bernie, Ken Casey, and Maceo Pinkard.  It opens with a vivacious theme by the trio, then a brief comment preceding Obara giving a short workout of explosive fireworks.  Tsuyoshi wraps up the album with a few final remarks of fun leading to the lively closing chorus.

Three Blind Mice began in 1970 with the premise of showcasing emerging jazz artists.  The label produced one-hundred thirty albums over thirty years and was known for their outstanding sound.  TBM also was instrumental in the development of Japanese jazz.  Many of the stars from Japan now known around the world recorded their debut albums on the label.  The album was produced by Takeshi Fujii who ran TBM for many years and recorded by Yoshihiko Kannari, the distinguished Japanese engineer who worked for TBM at the time, and now runs his own organization, Studio Lion since 2000.

The sound on Midnight Sugar is spectacular and a perfect choice to demonstrate any mid-level or high-end audio system.  Your sweet spot is right in the studio with the musicians because of the incredible lifelike detail coming from the piano, bass, and drums.  Tsuyoshi Yamamoto has an incredible discography of music, is still performing today and all of his albums on Three Blind Mice are worth occupying a spot in your library.  If you’re looking for a jazz trio album for the library or are a fan of piano jazz specifically, I happily submit for your approval, Midnight Sugar by Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio.  An album that’s quite a value for the music, sound quality, and a title that’ll provide its owner many hours of listening pleasure.

~ I’m A Fool To Want You (Columbia 39425); It Could Happen To You (Capitol Records 158); ~ The Nearness of You (Bluebird B-10745) – Source: Discogs.com

~ It Could Happen To You, The Nearness of You – Source: JazzStandards.com

~ I’m A Fool To Want You, Sweet Georgia Brown, Three Blind Mice – Source: Wikipedia.org

© 2021 by Edward Thomas Carter

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