 |
New
Album Release - July 2001 |
| 1 | 
Listen Here - (Dave
Frishberg) |
|
| 2 |
Wheelers and Dealers - (Dave Frishberg) |
|
| 3 | I Wonder Why - (Brodsky & Cahn) | |
| 4 |
My Attorney Bernie
- (Dave Frishberg) |
|
| 5 | You Are There - (Dave Frishberg / Johnny Mandel) | |
| 6 | Blackberry Winter - (Alec Wilder / Loonis McGlohon) | |
| 7 | The Trouble With Love - (Francesca Blumenthal) | |
| 8 | It Amazes Me - (Cy Coleman / Carolyn Leigh) | |
| 9 |
Love You Madly
- (Duke Ellington / Luther Henderson Jr.) |
|
| 10 | I Told You So - (Duncan Lamont) | |
| 11 |
A Flower is
a Lovesome Thing - (Billy Strayhorn) |
|
| 12 | Give me the Simple Life - (Harry Ruby / Rube Bloom) | |
| 13 | Our Love is Here to Stay - (George & Ira Gershwin) |
Record Insert:
I first heard of Dave Frishberg when I was living in London in the 70's. Around that time Blossom Dearie made her London appearances at Ronnie Scott's club in Soho and nightly she would sing Frishberg's 'Peel Me A Grape' and 'I'm Hip'. Like everyone else, I was blown away with Frishberg's songs; with their unique take on the world and wonderful wit. I found work as a professional singer in London and Europe during those years; as a soloist with various BBC orchestras and small groups, session singer with the Mike Samme Singers, at Festivals in France and Holland, and even in Ghana. I performed at Ronnie Scott's Club and toured the UK with the John Dankworth big band. For a time I worked on the liner QE11. I was a band singer and shared a cabin with an alcoholic pianist who in the dead of night had difficulty finding the toilet, frequently mistaking the wardrobe for the WC. He wasn't a great piano player either. But the cruises got me to New York - and my first glimpse of that wondrous city was at sunrise, sailing past the Ambrose Lighthouse into New York Harbour; the skyscrapers, gleaming rose-pink and golden in morning light. Like the movies! Blossom had invited me to call on her when I visited New York. With a only a few hours before the ship returned across the Atlantic to Southampton, I made my way over to her Greenwich Village apartment where, without any false modesty or fuss, Blossom offered to play and sing for me. So I sat alongside her on her piano stool as she played her soft toned, upright piano. Song after song of the most wonderful melodic and harmonic richness she shared with me. It was one of the best lessons of my life. Her immaculate piano-voicing of chords was always spot-on - always serving the song. Her playing and singing economic and refined, swinging when it needed to.
As well as compositions by Dave Frishberg and Michel Legrand she sang the Cy Coleman / Carolyn Leigh song that day 'It Amazes Me'. This has remained one of my very favourites and one I have waited 25 years to record. Fewer people are interested in this music these days - but that doesn't take away anything from a masterpiece, or alter the pleasure it gives when you hear it. Blossom's flawless artistry has championed many fine songs and songwriters over the years. I feel immensely grateful to her for introducing me to Dave Frishberg's music. Much of the inspiration of this recording, I owe to her.
I came back to New Zealand late 70's and have mostly lived here since. I grew tired of the long winters and the interminable greyness of London and longed for the clean clear light of home. I brought with me a bundle of new songs, including Alec Wilder's, 'Blackberry Winter' first heard in London. (I had done a concert of Wilder and Fran Landesman's songs in London.)
Wilder's quiet introspection was pretty much out of kilter with burgeoning international taste for the three-chord pop song. (Every mother's son a songwriter!) Yet over the years, I have found little crevices in the rock where these flowers can find a place.
When the opportunity to record with Dave Frishberg came up, I jumped at it. I had always wanted to record with some Yanks. As luck would have it I was already on my way over to New York for some performances. I knew Dave to be the real McCoy - one of the great jazz musicians of the age. Many of his wry, witty songs were part of my repertoire for some time, and I knew his piano playing as refreshing and inventive. His many recordings, both as a side-man for great jazzmen and performing his own songs, are a testament to his unwavering respect for the music he plays. He encapsulates a huge chunk of Jazz history from 'stride' right through be-bop and out the other side. Dave has accompanied so many major jazz musicians such as Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Pee Wee Russell, Anita O'Day, Carmen McRae , Bobby Hackett, Charlie Shavers, Ben Webster, Gene Krupa, Wild Bill Davison, Bud Freeman, Jack Sheldon, Joe Pass to name just a few.
It was great being in Dave's company : I enjoyed his profound knowledge of jazz : not academic knowledge, but a life lived through music - the jazz life - seldom available to younger musicians nowadays. And he's funny. I am a lucky man to have the opportunity to hang out with him, and in the process make some good music.
For this session I was pleased Dave already knew Billy Strayhorn's ravishingly lovely 'A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing'. It has haunted me for at least a decade. 'Listen Here' was new to me - Dave tells me he wrote it for Mary Tyler Moore to sing on her TV show. Songs frequently come through friends; from Cleo Laine and John Dankworth, to whom this album is gratefully dedicated, I learned Scottish songwriter Duncan Lamont's bitter-sweet 'I Told You So'. Richard Rodney Bennett taught me Ellington's 'Love You Madly'. Francesca Blumenthal sends me songs from time to time so I am delighted to debut her cheerfully ironic 'The Trouble With Love'. Other pieces on this CD had been on my mind: essentially we just called tunes as we felt. I was pleasantly surprised that we recorded so many in the space of an afternoon.
Some sessions just roll along nicely. This recording was like that; a total pleasure from start to finish. We stopped briefly late in the afternoon for a pizza, then continued till the energy ran out. Dave, Scott and Neil made me feel at home, and musically it felt very comfortable. Scott Steed's warmly sonorous bass sound and perfect intonation, is as good as it gets; Neil Masson's sensitive, restrained, yet swinging playing - a lesson in how to accompany a singer. As well being a first rate recording engineer, Randy Porter is fine pianist in his own right. He immediately got a good sound. In all it was a joy to record a collection of excellent songs. The location was unique, a studio out back of Randy's home amongst the magnificent redwoods by Lake Oswego; what a treat. The lovely feeling of that Oregon afternoon is, I trust, evident in the work.
Malcolm McNeill