Better Redd Than Dead

Freddie Redd that is- consummate improvising keyboardist/composer whose original score on Blue Note for Jack Gelber's searing play "The Connection" reverberates eternally down the marble halls of the charm(ed) school of indelible jazz, thanks to Freddie's bewitching melodicism, nimble pianistic pyrotechnique, and the keening cry of Jacke McLean on alto (there's also a recording of Freddie's score on Felsted acquired on a Japanese cd reissue some years ago, with trumpeter Howard McGhee an extra added ingredient in the original mix, his quintet actually listed as the featured artist, Freddie ghosting his own parts under the moniker "I Ching")...

and by Dead, above, I don't mean the grateful ones, below, eagerly embracing the succor of the eternal beyond as in Isaac Bashevis Singer's fantastic novel "The Family Moskat", with its climactic headspinning notion that, for troubled souls, "Death May Be the Messiah" (indeed); rather, I refer to the Living Dead here now on earth oblivious for the most part to the many-splendoured things/hidden treasures in plain sight yet out of (mass)mind, under the radar, off the beat(en) pathway, cultural artifacts glowing like hidden jewels, flowers beneath the cloven-hoofed that far too often never get a chance to reveal themselves to more than handful of bored and curious people, obscured/shouted down by the din of competing corporate marketing strategies/incessant industrial drumbeat rolling out a steady stream of new products, new panaceas, new wars for old...neu vey...

which is to say that outside of Herbie Nichols I'd rate Freddie Redd as one of the greatest unsung ivory-huntin' heroes of jazz (and a very nice man for sure, whom Caroline donated a couch to, oh, about 25 years ago when he was still living fairly hand-to-mouth underground in the West Village before heading for sunny California-- a comfy brown korduroy couch I inherited as a gift from my late friend the brilliant unsung playwright Jon Arlow when I moved to NYC in '77, which I subsequently gave to Caroline when she was still living in Montgomery Clift's old townhouse across Perry Street)...

and thanks to Brice Rosenbloom and the folks at Merkin Concert Hall, Freddie was given a hero's welcome/deserved festschrift/tumultuous ovation by the nearly sold-out, ecstatically cheering crowd at Merkin last Monday night, a joyous whooping throng which included such luminaries as Mosaic's Michael Cuscuna, Mighty Quinn chief Jerry Roche, poet Steve Dalechinsky, Living Theater living legend actress Judith Malina (with whom I shared a bill with at the Palermo Summer Festival in Sicilia in 1998), and others...Freddie was in tremendous form with his fluid technique and improvisational genius on full display, fully undimmed over the years, and was in the excellent company of hard bop saxmen Lou Donaldson in the first set and smoking Donald Harrison in the second, which featured "The Connection" suite...one cliff-hanging moment occurred when stalwart veteran bassist Mickey Bass's hand seized up at the top of the second set, and without a moment's hesitation young Dwayne Burno came up out of the audience, jumped onstage, stepped up to the plate, picked up Mickey's acoustic bass while they guided the ailing older jazzman gingerly offstage...and without missing more than about 4 bars mit out bass proceeded to kick it up a notch, or 2, or 3--BAM!!--(as in, Bassist A Mofo...or au Go Go...life's a flow-flow)--to the bass manner born, in other words (in point of fact Dwayne as it turns out is Donald Harrison's regular bassist and had actually played most of these Redd compositions before...so it wasn't QUITE the miracle it looked to be to the crowd...still, it was pretty damn awe-inspiring, as young Dwayne literally saved the day for night)..."Theme for Sister Salvation" was never so moving...as with so many overlooked artists, you couldn't exactly call this a comeback gig for Freddie Redd (although it was billed along those lines)--as his musical gifts had never deserted him...

Freddie Redd

Freddie Redd with Jerry Weldon, Minton's, NYC

Freddie Redd with Rene McLean (Jackie's son)

photos by Michael Gwynne | Click to enlarge

Tuesday night went to an opening of my pal the painter John Bowman's new show at the Winston Wachter Gallery on East 78th Street...lovely new work, particularly outstanding was the still life horn 'o Bad 'n Plenty titled "Royal with Cheese" after John Travolta's dumbshow riff on French McDo's and don'ts in "Pulp Fiction" (or maybe it was a reference to Segolene Royal, dunno)...then it was off to the Bohemian National Home on East 73rd where my pal Czech UN Ambassador Martin Palous threw a lovely party for John, good eats as usual including huhner-schnitzel, potato salad, John's art is on permanent display in one of the large halls on the second floor there, beautiful beautiful painting with an acid-etched message just under their pretty/opulent/beguiling surfaces...

And then on Wednesday night I went to the Great Hall of Cooper Union for the W.H. Auden aubade, lovingly conceived and assembled by Alice Quinn, poetry editor for The New Yorker and my pal and neighbor...lovely Alice gave some apposite remarks up top about Auden's enduring relevance, and then introduced a procession of gifted glitterati/readers of some of Auden's most beloved and best known poems, presented chronologically--Auden, who lived for a long spell just down the block from Cooper Union on St. Mark's Place with his partner Chester Kallmann, would have been amused and tickled by the variety of folks there to bear tribute to his visionary body of work, beginning with one of my favorite poets John Ashberry, who truth be known did a Factory screen-test for Andy Warhol years ago--"your Door is white as snow", John!-- Wayne Koestenbaum gave a forceful reading of "Who's Who" from 1934, Rebecca Warren (Robert Penn Warren's daughter) evoked an elegiac loss with her reading of "Autumn Song"...I had to leave after an hour and a half or so thus missing the second momente musicale, but loved the first musical interlude, a rendition of Benjamin Britten's settings of Auden's coy possibly homo-erotic "Johnny" and "Funeral Blues" (featured in "Four Weddings and a Funeral", remember?), this number particularly stunning, a clarion wake-up call to the living delivered with eclat by pianist Scott Rednour and the way more than compelling mezzo-soprano Jessica Miller (hell, pounding her fist on the piano lid and thrusting her self fowad mid-song, she was truly hot)...

the actress Maria Tucci was outstanding interpreting "As I Walked Out One Evening", commanding writer/intellect Francine Prose and sparring pardner Glynn Maxwell did a tag-team wrestling rendition of "Lullaby". Katha Pollitt, editor of one of my favorite journals "The Nation" (and Ernie Brooks' old classmate from Radcliffe--and no slouch as a poet herself) read a beautiful "September 1, 1939" with Wayne Koestenbaum (regal and resplendent in mauve dress shirt and jacket), Michael Cunningham, Saskia Hamilton, Carl Phillips--all tread the boards with aplomb, it was quite a magical, touching evening and I was sorry I had to split (oh yes, Rosanna Warren, reading an excerpt from "Anthem for St. Cecilia's Day". made me wonder if Sandy Pearlman, lyricist/producer/svengali for the Blue Oyster Cult, derived his "Ode to St. Cecilia" lyrics from this particular Auden poem back in the BOC's earlier incarnation as the Stalk-Forrest Group--check out the excellent reissue of their never-officially released Elektra album available on Rhino Handmade) (btw, Sandy is bringing me up to McGill University in Montreal April 2nd to lecture and play my solo guitar "Bruckner Fantasia" for a graduate seminar and undergraduate course he's teaching there in conjunction with Shulich School of Music Dean Don McLean entitled "Bruckner and Heavy Metal".

Unfortunately had to cut out early to make my way up to Iridium Jazz Club on Broadway and 51st Street, to check out Vince Giordano and his fabulous Nighthawks once again--Vince leads one of the country's best swing and trad. jazz ensembles, able to bring famous and obscure tunes by King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and so on to living breathing life...and he and his band did not fail to disappoint per usual, Vince moving effortlessly from acoustic bass to bass saxophone (of the Joseph Svorecky variety) to euphonium...joyful, joyous set by one of NYC's best...

and by the way, re my quiz last blog trying to determine the musical ensemble(s) heard on the "Swing Your Sinners!" Fleischer Bros. Talkartoon I linked into, Vince Giordano has come the closest so far to identifying the musicians to date--my own research on the net turned up a blogger who claimed he saw a print of this cartoon with a live action sequence at the top starring Red Nichols and his 5 Pennies-- which if true has been cut from all circulating release prints--I emailed the fellow who runs the Vitaphone Project website about this revelation, also the possibility that that blogger had mistaken Red Nichols for vibist/xylophone player Red Norvo,who actually did a duet with Betty Boop a few years later in the cartoon "The Music Goes Round and Round"--my thoughts were duly passed on by Vitaphone Project guy to Vince, who wrote back:

"To my humble ears, I think it's Joe Tarto on tuba [cop with hat/hat scene], Bob Effros [graveyard hot tpt] and Tommy Dorsey [ghost with trombone]. I can't place the hot trumpet player. His style is Bixish/Red Nichols though. Red Norvo was mentioned; he was a white xylophonist who was in Chicago at this time. I believe there's 2 groups on this, the white studio musicians and the black singing group."

Me, too, re the two groups theory--a Seinfeldian black and white cookie (monster) of a soundtrack...chalk up another blow for musical miscegenation in the melting pot of NYC!

Any other musical knowledge brothers out there care to weigh in here? (Phil Schapp? Will Friedwald?)...

See ya!

xxLove

Gary