Vocal Musical Moments

Have you ever been asked to name a few of your favorite songs and drawn a blank? Too many choices. How about favorite musical moments? I know I have many, but I can’t mention them without a little prodding. Favorite songs and memorable moments don’t always coincide. The moments that catch one’s ear don’t always come from songs that would make it onto your personal Top 100. Recently I was listening to the oldies station and was reminded of a few of my favorite musical moments in the vocal category. They can all be found on YouTube, and surprisingly enough, the four I’ll mention all come from the 1960’s. Am I dating myself? Absolutely. But there’s little argument that the 60’s was a terrific musical decade.

The first one I could call a lightweight, a one-hit wonder by The Castaways called “Liar Liar,” and the best moment in it was “the scream,” one of the greatest ever heard in a pop song. This YouTube link will take you to one of the three or four videos of The Castaways. I chose this one for the added humor as they perform on what looks like American Bandstand or a similar show. The lip syncing is incredibly bad, and musicians will immediately notice no microphones, no guitar cords, and the distinctive Farfisa organ sound throughout the song is being “played” on a Fender Rhodes electric piano. But back to the moment. At :48 into the song the guitar player lets loose a scream worthy of a B grade horror movie, and it always caught my ear — the highlight of their one-hit. If you go to one of the other videos of the same song you will see the same scream, this time sung by the keyboard player. That’s what I call a democratic band.

The next two examples are eerily similar, both hits from 1968, both involve the singing of an impossibly high note that I first misidentified as a wind instrument. Sly and the Family Stone produced numerous hits; none more distinctive than “Dance to the Music,” one of the best examples of a song about music itself. After the initial hook, we hear the band reduced to the drummer for people who only need a beat, then the subsequent layering of the other instruments. As the song approaches the 2:00 mark, Sly nails a high G, a vocal feat that I was sure was a screaming tenor sax until Sly slid into his distinctive “yeah!” Perfect.

The 1968 hit by the Rascals “People Got to be Free” offers a similar moment. This particular Rascals song includes a powerful brass arrangement by Arif Mardin which made me think that the incredibly high note heard at 2:11 had to be played by what musicians call a “screech trumpet” — an understandable conclusion with a trumpet section being on board. But if you listen closely, this is indeed Felix Cavaliere hitting a note that most vocalists only dream about. The clue to identifying it as Felix is the same as with Sly, the note slides down into the once again classic “yeah.” You’ll find it at about 1:52.

The last song I’ll offer is a rarely heard vocal tour de force. The singer’s name was Billy Stewart. He sang for Chess Records, and died at the age of 33 in a car accident. He waxed this incredible vocal performance in 1966, an outrageous version of the song “Summertime.” This tune, originally from the opera “Porgy & Bess” is most often performed as a slow, sultry ballad, and also functions as a lullaby, as in “hush little baby don’t you cry.” Billy Stewart turned in a vocal performance that covers it all. Most distinctive is a sound that is hard to describe in words. Wikipedia calls it a “trilling of his lips.” More specifically it’s the sound that you make with your tongue if you speak Spanish or Italian — the rolling of the R’s — in this case taking it as far as it can go. We hear it during the intro at :42, then later in Billy’s improvised cadenza at 4:21. Check out the whole tune. In addition to this distinctive sound, Billy offers vocal gymnastics including scatting, improvisation, and unbelievable articulation. A terrific saxophone solo is an added bonus. Every other version of “Summertime” pales in comparison.

Of course I hope you’re inspired to listen to all of these songs in full, because the musical moments work best in context. Next up we’ll look at some memorable musical moments that involve dynamics.

Joe Muranyi: The Last All-Star

Clarinetist Joe Muranyi passed away on April 20, 2012, and was the last surviving member of the Louis Armstrong All-Star Band. Joe was born in Martin’s Ferry, Ohio on July 14, 1928. Joe was of Hungarian descent and the ethnic influence played a role in his early musical development.

JM:        Hungarians had a natural affinity for music like Italians, Irish, something like that. And in recent years, the past 20 years or so, I’ve gone there a lot and I find that I was basing my opinion of Hungarians on my parents and my family. But music was a very important part and you know I’m getting to the age where I’ve had thoughts and funny thoughts and I cheer up easily. And I’m an emotional being. Of course we all are. But the other night, there was something about “Pennies From Heaven.” The song came up. And I’m thinking about myself, you know, at what age did I start thinking about the music and considering music and whatever. And I remembered that I learned “Pennies From Heaven” [sings] every time it rains it rains — to this day I mean I know the words very well — directly connected back to when I was six or seven. And so I used to go to the movies on Saturday morning for a nickel in those days, you know, in Martin’s Ferry, Ohio, Bellair, Ohio, way far away like that. Steel mines and coal mines and a lot of the immigrant beau hunk you know and all that kind of stuff. Polacks and Italians. So I used to go to the movies. I might have seen it there, and maybe I heard it on the radio. My parents at that time didn’t have a gramophone, so I learned “Pennies From Heaven” because I liked it and by ear. And the words and all. And they used to stand me up, that’s the only one I remember, stand me up onto the chair, like seven years old, and I would perform.

Diverse influences continued as Joe progressed from a child musician to a working artist, where he found himself balancing education from the classroom and the bandstand.

MR:        Well in reading about you it seems like an interesting trip from balalaika orchestras to Lenny Tristano to Louis Armstrong to what you’re doing now.

JM:        Well that balalaika is one of those things, you know, you say something that off-beat or not in the normal events in the course of normal events, and that triggers up. Yeah. When I was going to college, you know, I went to Columbia and Manhattan School of Music, I sort of gigged around. I played with, I actually played with an old time Italian band, you know a street band sort of. We didn’t play in the street, but it was in Springfield, Mass. in some Catholic church basement. And that was an experience you know. You had no music, these old guys, it’s like New Orleans or something. And they played standard classical repertoire and they had flute, clarinet, oboe, you know, it was like, the balalaika were like the violins and the violas and all that stuff. And they played classical stuff and Glinka and things like that from the Russian days. And they also played Russian folk songs [sings] which was ethnic again. It was kind of fun.

MR:        Well it’s a great mix for your ears to be doing all that kind of stuff, right?

JM:        Oh yeah. I love so-called ethnic music you know. I used to have quite a collection of Klezmer stuff, which I like very much, and there again, the earlier the better. In the twenty-something it was just wonderful. The new Klezmer bands well they’re fun and stuff but they don’t have the level of anything like the old timers did.

One thing I love about interviewing veteran jazz artists is the anecdotes and offhand comments they make along the way. There’s a well-worn phrase in jazz called “every tub.” I’ve heard it used before, and the meaning never seems to stick with me. Joe reminded me of what the phrase means:

JM:        We were in this place and we go down, there’s a restaurant in the place, in the bowling alley, and we’re going to have something to eat. And it was Pops Foster. And I knew who he was, I loved him and I respected him you know. And he looks at the menu and he said “is this every tub?” I said, “Pops, what’s every tub?” “Oh,” he says, “don’t you know what that means?” I said, “no.” He said, “every tub on its own bottom, do we pay or does the boss pay?” And then you know there’s a King Oliver record called “Every Tub.”

MR:        Sure there is. And a Basie record too.

JM:        Yeah, yeah. And there’s — I think I heard Louis Armstrong say a couple of times, you know an ensemble when you start playing? “Every tub.” You know, it’d be every guy on his own, you know, going to improvise.

MR:        So he meant everybody was paying for their own food?

JM:         Everybody on his own.

MR:        Everybody on his own.

JM:         By every tub means every tub on its own bottom. Everybody on his own.

MR:        That’s cool.

JM:        Okay? And that could apply to paying or it could apply to improvising. You know we’re not going to read music or don’t play the melody, unison. Improvise, yeah.

While most people recognize Joe Muranyi’s name from his association with Louis Armstrong, he also had an association with other artists, including the Eddie Condon gang, the Village Stompers (of which he was a founding member), and also as a producer for RCA Victor. He had strong opinions about jazz education and what he saw as the unfortunate separating of jazz styles and the audience for jazz and its musicians.

MR:        You expressed some feelings about jazz education before we started today.

JM:        Oh yeah. Well I don’t think there’s anything wrong with somebody going to a conservatory to study music and to study jazz. But I’ve never yet met a program, I mean just consider what they produce. They produce people that know about Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and Pops and everything like that. And I guess some courses they treat history. But forget it. And then they all play the latest thing — oh about the definition of jazz. It’s got to have freedom, yeah. And I like the idea of modern jazz and what they produce but I don’t actually like the music you know. It’s a very curious thing. As I said before, if somebody just asked me do I like jazz, I say no, because I know what they’re thinking and I don’t like it. And let’s put it this way: jazz is so compartmentalized. There are so many aspects. And America’s got this bad history of antagonism between the styles of jazz.

He treasured his stint with Louis Armstrong and the All-Stars, and added his opinion about Satchmo to the thousands of pages that have been written about America’s greatest jazz artist:

JM:        I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it and for me jazz is the music that Louis Armstrong plays. It’s very simple, you can understand, you know when I say that you know what I’m talking about don’t you?

MR:        I do until, but Louis Armstrong played a lot of music after the twenties and thirties also that may not have been really jazz. He jazzed it up.

JM:        Well his music, jazzing it up, what is jazz? Jazz is a feeling. You can play the straight — now Louis Armstrong, you know, he was the same man when he died as he was when he was young you know. That flame in him never died. And he could play the straight melody and melt your heart and that’s jazz. You could tell the difference between somebody very square and somebody swinging. Now this gets into the definition very much, you made a good point there. You say well “Hello Dolly” time is, you know, it’s certainly not as interesting as “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue” or “Potato Head Blues,” you know, naked creativity. The situation was completely different. But he never lost his fire. He always showed something. Louis, he was a saint. And it was the biggest thing in my life, and I’m going to get teary, I’m near to. He was a wonderful guy. And he could be a bastard and he could be, oh a terrible, he could hurt you so badly and nobody in the world could do that. But anyhow the point is I liked him and he liked me. And the thing is I’ve never yet, and you know I’ve talked to people for a hundred years, “you ever see Louis?” And you know you hear the most interesting things. And most everybody that got to know him or knew him a little, Louis was his best friend. You know Louis had this quality. He was very gregarious and very good with people and he liked people, and he would really go out of his way and you would think well the big man doesn’t have time for that, but he did make time.

And so we bid farewell to Joe, and thank him for his contribution to the uplifting music of the Louis Armstrong All-Stars.

Gig Reality Check

The call comes in at 10 PM for a gig two days hence. As a working musician, being available means you take the date, a sideman engagement in a jazz quintet. This is an event which will involve playing before a speaker who is expected to draw a large crowd to a cavernous gym. The performance time for the gig will be for one and a half hours as the audience is being seated.

I expected this might be a difficult load in, so I arrived well in advance of the scheduled start time. Security Guard #1 in the parking lot asks my business, then directs me to the area where I will have to unload. After driving around a small circle, Security Guard #2 again asks the same question, implying I suppose that Security Guard #1 wasn’t doing his job. After walkie-talkie-check with Security Chief, I am directed to the area near the back of the stage which will facilitate the best load in. Once again I encounter, this time, Security Guard #3, who points to the door where I will unload, but cautioning that I will not be able to leave my SUV in this vicinity, I can merely unload but then will have to move my vehicle to an appropriate space, approximately a quarter of a mile away. Said door is firmly locked from the inside. Athletic pounding by Security Guard #3 eventually gains entry.

The book we’re playing from has no order in it, and the leader calls the tunes out of earshot. Since playing with these musicians is rare, there are no expectations of what’s to be called, and you’re reading down charts for the whole time. But this is not what I will remember about the gig.

I was reminded of the amusing story Phil Woods told of what training should be required of players who will become working musicians in the future.

MR:    There’s a couple of statements that I read that were kind of humorous from you yourself, that part of jazz education should be getting in a bus and riding around.

PW:    Yeah. Get some ill-fitting uniforms, you know, very uncomfortable. The lightweight in winter, the heavyweight in the summer. A bus whose windows don’t open and no air conditioning, no walkmans allowed. Everybody’s got to double. All the saxophones have got to have at least four or five cases to carry, and a big thick book of about 400 charts. Put everybody on the bus and just drive around in circles on the campus for about twelve, fifteen hours. Then get off the bus, everybody put on these terrible uniforms, call out a set, and the book is never in order. It’s like Gene Quill style, you know, one, two, forty-seven, ninety-three, two hundred and seven, five. Call out the set real quick — everybody gets all their instruments out. Okay, put the instruments back. Put the music back. Put your book in order. Hang up your suit. Get back on the bus. Drive around for another twelve or fifteen hours. Do it once again. And I think you might cut the wheat from the chaff. Who wants to do this? I mean it’s an exaggeration on all points, because there are no more big bands where you could even do this. But I mean that’s the way it used to be. I don’t think it has to be that way. But nevertheless the hardest part of the music business is the traveling, whether it’s a bus or a plane, or just the idea of existing. I mean it ain’t about playing. The playing is easy. It’s all the nonsense you go through to bring your horn up to the bandstand. That’s the altar. That’s the safe place.

Fortunately for me on my speaker-warm-up date, the exit was the easy part, though it has not always been so. The drummer and myself threw all our gear out the back entrance, to be packed up and loaded into the car as the speaker began. I recall a gig years ago where I played a pre-game gig before a Syracuse-Georgetown basketball game at the Carrier Dome. SU Orange versus the Georgetown Hoyas is one of the fiercest rivalries in the NCAA. Because of the expected audience of 20,000+, an early arrival and load-in was required. In hindsight, this was the easy part. We performed on the far side of a huge blue curtain which divided the Carrier Dome in half. Again, the music itself was not the frustrating exercise on this gig. As the band ended, the game started. After packing up I was informed that the only way to exit the Carrier Dome was the way I came in, at the far end of the basketball court. My plea to the Security Guard for another exit from the stage fell on deaf ears. Two choices were presented to me: neither of them good. First, I could have piled up all my gear and left it for the time being, found a seat and watched the game. As an Orange fan, this option was tempting, but this would also mean I would have to go “up the down staircase” at the end of the game, against a tidal wave of 20,000 fans. Option two required me to carry my gear (electric keyboard, amp, keyboard stand and accessory bag) down the sideline as the game played on. I chose option two since I had already invested six hours of time for this “one hour gig.” I loaded myself down like a packhorse and stood at the end of the court waiting for a break in the action. When the ref blew the whistle for a time out, I negotiated my way down the sideline, terrified that I would hear the second whistle that resumed play. My relief in reaching the exit was dampened by my realization that I now had to find a safe corner to store my gear as I fetched my car from the eight-story garage. Of course I was not allowed to park in close proximity. All the way home I told myself “never again.” As you can see from the opening paragraph, there will always be an “again.”