Junior Mance 1928-2021

 

It has been my privilege to meet and converse with a long list of notable jazz personalities, and I thought of pianist Junior Mance as one of my favorite guys. His wife, Gloria Clayborne Mance, announced his passing at home yesterday after a long illness. My first reaction to hearing this news was to fetch my autographed copy of the 1960s era “Harlem Lullaby” LP and play the title track. It took me back to my junior high days when I listened to an all-night jazz station and first heard this evocative Junior Mance composition.

We interviewed Junior twice for the Fillius Jazz Archive and he shared fascinating stories about his learning process, career path, and notable collaborations. Junior worked as a sideman with none other than Cannonball Adderley, Joe Williams, and many others, but spent most of his career as a leader of his own trio.

In a fortuitous aligning of the stars, we were able to facilitate a CD of a previously unreleased live date from 1964 with Joe Williams and the Junior Mance Trio with Ben Webster as special guest. “Havin’ A Good Time” was produced by Joel Dorn who also supervised Junior’s “Harlem Lullaby” LP.

In 2015 I was able to bring The Junior Mance Trio to Hamilton for what turned out to be his last road trip. He showed early signs of poor health, but his distinctive brand of blues-drenched bop won over students and faculty alike.

From the Fillius archive, here is a link to the first YouTube interview conducted with Junior on July 27, 1995. The second interview, conducted on January 18, 1999, can be found here.

The archive sends its deepest sympathy to Gloria, as we mourn the passing of yet another jazz luminary.

Playlists!

 In January of 2017 we began uploading our video interviews to YouTube. The Fillius Jazz YouTube channel now contains 400 interview sessions with a diverse list of jazz personalities. We have now created 20 playlists by categories which enables an alphabetical search through players of the same instrument or specialty. Our categories include the following sections:

Banjo Player Interviews

Bassist Interviews

Clarinetist Interviews

Composer/Arranger Interviews

Covid Interviews

Drummer Interviews

Filmmaker Interviews

Flute Player Interviews

Guitarist Interviews

Jazz Historian Interviews

Pianist Interviews 

Producer Interviews

Saxophone/Woodwind Player Interviews

Trombonist Interviews

Trumpet Player Interviews

Tuba Player Interviews

Vibraphonist Interviews

Violinist Interviews 

Vocalist Interviews

Writer Interviews 

To choose, or just browse through the interview playlists, click here.

Fillius YouTube Channel Opens

I am pleased to announce the launch of the Fillius Jazz Archive at Hamilton College YouTube channel which is now up and running. On it we are uploading complete video interviews we have recorded from our body of over 330 sessions with jazz luminaries here and abroad. Syncing the closed captioning transcripts with the video takes some time, so as of now there are twelve interviews uploaded. We will be adding more weekly, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the fun.

Click this link to get you to the channel.

The Producer's Hat

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Autumn at Hamilton College brings a much-anticipated and welcomed event. World-class jazz on Friday night of Fallcoming weekend has been a tradition for 23 years. This event takes place in the acoustically friendly environment of the Fillius Events Barn. The list of jazz musicians who have taken part in this concert is impressive and includes Milt Hinton, Clark Terry, Bucky Pizzarelli and Kenny Davern.

In the early years of my job as Director of the Fillius Jazz Archive, I assisted Milt Fillius in producing this event. After his passing in 2002, the responsibility became mine. As with any event that involves performers and an audience, the devil can be in the details. The following are some of those individual logistics that need to be addressed: book the musicians (a year ahead of the event) and reserve the concert space; create posters and programs; book local travel and accommodations for the artists; organize for a pre-concert dinner for 20 guests; arrange for proper lighting and audio in the concert space; and collaborate with physical plant on the desired room set-up.

This particular year brought a new and exciting set of challenges to our fall jazz event. The recommendation from a respected jazz artist led us to book two outstanding pianists for a duo piano concert. Dick Hyman, at age 89, is still at the top of his game, and his game includes performing virtually any style of jazz and classical music. The only piano player I’m aware of who can match Mr. Hyman’s abilities is his co-performer for the evening, Rossano Sportiello, 47 years younger than Mr. Hyman but equally adept at playing with dazzling technique and consummate musicianship.

 Rossano Sportiello, Monk Rowe and Dick Hyman

Photo by John Herr

When the idea of a two piano performance was presented and accepted by both artists, Mr. Hyman said, “Well, we ought to record this.” This rang a bell with me. Never in the 23 years of this event had we done a recording with the ultimate goal of release on a jazz label in mind. Both Dick and Rossano record frequently for Arbors Records, and so the plan proceeded. This led to more logistics, some of which were new to me: locate and rent two top-of-the-line matching pianos, and arrange for a delivery by a piano moving company; secure an insurance rider and extra security for two nine-foot grands; assure availability of the piano tuner to tune both pianos twice, once before rehearsal and again before the concert; discuss logistics with the record label; locate and negotiate with a recording studio who had remote recording capabilities to capture the concert; and finally, process check requests for the entire weekend.

Unexpected details always arise. In this case, unwanted noise in the room was interfering with capturing clean audio. An aggressive foot tapping by one pianist was solved by locating a small rug. The steady hum of a ventilation fan also was polluting the audio, requiring a last minute call to physical plant. The concert on October 7 came off without a hitch, and first reviews of the audio that resulted were highly encouraging.

The next steps included digital review of audio, transfers to CD and cassettes (yes, cassettes!) for review by the artists, and collaboration with a graphic designer on the cover. In the hopper are composing liner notes, discussing song choices, collaborating on necessary audio edits, and arranging for the final mastering.

Stay tuned for part 2 when Dick Hyman and Rossano Sportiello Live at Hamilton is released on Arbors, anticipated in the spring of 2017.

The Jazz MOOC

The Jazz MOOC

Last summer Hamilton College offered me the opportunity to teach a MOOC on jazz. Like most people, I had to ask for an explanation. MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course, and some of you may be familiar with this new approach to online learning that many academic institutions are engaging in. Our course is entitled Jazz: The Music, The Stories, The Players. It is designed for both the casual listener, the avid fan and the practicing musician. The course runs for six weeks, it is FREE and it is open to anyone around the globe who wants to expand their musical horizons. Students can work at their own pace as individual schedules allow.

During these weeks we ask and answer some questions: Why does jazz sound like it does? What is improvisation and what guides a player’s choices? How do musicians communicate on the bandstand? And how did jazz move from entertainment to an art form?

Interspersed in the course are poignant and fascinating stories offered by Fillius Jazz Archive interviewees in never-before-seen video clips. Students will see and hear anecdotes from jazz icons like Lionel Hampton, Jon Hendricks, and Dave Brubeck, as well as significant current players such as Rossano Sportiello, Ralph LaLama and John Fedchock.

MOOCers will be invited to join a discussion board to exchange opinions and experiences with fellow course participants. Currently over 5000 people have registered for this course, from 154 countries around the world. Jazz resources and relevant links offer students an opportunity to continue their jazz exploration further than the confines of material presented in this course.

The course is sponsored by edX (edX.org). For further information about this course and how to sign up, visit www.Hamilton.edu/jazzcourse, where you can also see this MOOC’s trailer. Jazz: The Music, The Stories, The Players launches this Tuesday, February 2^nd.

Harlem Lullaby

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As a follow-up to our previous post about the MOOC project, I recently engaged in an interesting activity. For the last week of the MOOC I decided to include my own Top Ten list of jazz recordings as a basis for discussion and feedback. The list is not intended as the “most important jazz recordings ever,” but is simply a collection of songs that affected me when I first heard them, and still have a special spot in my mind.

In my teen years I used to tune in to an all-night jazz station in Rochester, New York, hosted by Harry Abraham. Harry had the quintessential late night jazz DJ voice, and my transistor radio enabled me to listen underneath the sheets, long after I was supposed to be asleep. One night Harry announced the tune “HarlemLullaby” by Junior Mance. Something about this piano trio recording grabbed me that night and made me seek out the record, and it has remained a favorite ever since. Its evocative, bluesy mood conjures up a feeling —a déjà vu for something I know I have not experienced in this life.

“Harlem Lullaby” begins and ends with a rubato piano solo based on a phrase from the French song “Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup.” Junior’s A section employs a mix of blues and Gospel chord changes, and links to a powerful bridge in the relative minor. Throughout, his identifiable style is front and center. Listen to the improvised lick at 2:35 to 2:55. Pure blues bliss.

Almost 40 years later, thanks to the Fillius Jazz Archive, I sat with Junior Mance and related my late night epiphany. Junior had his own radio story:

Junior Mance, in 1999

JM: What you say about under the sheets, well I guess I was about ten years old and my dad asked me one Christmas, “what do you want for Christmas?” I said, “I want a table radio.” You know this was before they had the little battery portables and all of that. And he was shocked. He thought what does he want a radio for? Well they would listen to all the broadcasts at night, you know like Earl Hines would broadcast from the Grand Terrace. And there was another place in Chicago I think called the Gerrick Show Lounge, where I remember Don Byas and J.C. Higginbotham were in a small group there. And they would catch all — you know that was the days when there were more radio broadcasts than there were records. But they came on so late and my folks wouldn’t let me stay up to listen. But I’d ease up and crack the door and I’d sit there and listen. So I says I’ll fix this, you know, and I asked for a radio. So they gave me the radio for Christmas. So I remember I would listen and Earl Hines would come on I’d search and I’d turn the volume down real low until I found it. Then I would get under the covers with the pillow and all, and listen to it. And every night this went on and they were none the wiser so then after it was over I’d put it back on the table. After it was over that was a time when mothers usually come in and tuck you in, you know, and I’d fake like I’m sleeping. Well one night, I fell asleep before the broadcast was over. The radio and me and everything is under the pillow and I’m sound asleep. So it woke me up and she pulled the pillow back and I says uh oh, this is it, I’m know I’m going to get it. She called me father in and they laughed. They said look at that. So then after that they started letting me listen, as long as I was in bed, and I could turn it on and listen to it.

Junior’s anecdote is echoed by many other jazz artists who grew up in the decades when radio was the main source of home entertainment. The serendipity connected with “Harlem Lullaby” did not end with my interview with Junior. Along the way I met producer Joel Dorn who was a later interviewee, and I noticed that he produced the album “Harlem Lullaby.” The liner notes were written by a second jazz producer, Orrin Keepnews, who also granted us a fascinating interview.

On my CD release in 1999, “Jazz Life,” I decided to tackle this tune, and I was quite pleased with the outcome. You can listen to that version here.

Two years ago I completed the circle with Junior by booking him and his trio at Hamilton College during a celebration of Jazz Appreciation Month. He retained that upbeat blues approach to his music, and was a pleasure to have on campus.