Honoring the Brubeck jazz legacy in her own sweet way

Karla Harris

Singer Karla Harris celebrated the teamwork of Dave and Iola Brubeck on Friday, March 6 at the 35th annual Sarasota Jazz Festival. Few going into the concert may have been aware of the extent of Iola Brubeck's impact on her pianist husband's career, but they left with a much deeper understanding, thanks to Atlanta-based Harris' brief but insightful song introductions.

Iola was Dave's early manager and came up with the jazz goes to college concept in the 1950s that helped catapult his visibility and popularity.  She raised their six children while he was on the road, as much as nine months a year. And she wrote lyrics for a variety of his compositions, as well as the Brubeck recording staple "Take Five," which was composed by saxophonist Paul Desmond. In a few cases, Dave and Iola wrote the lyrics together.

Dave and Iola Brubeck *

The concert was built around the new recording Karla Harris Sings the Dave & Iola Brubeck Songbook, which was released last month on the Summit label. The recording was built around  a copy of a rare Dave Brubeck songbook published more than 30 years ago. Iola Brubeck had provided a copy to Howe through her estate, before her passing last year.  

In Sarasota, Harris was featured with her primary collaborator and arranger, pianist Ted Howe, as well as bassist Mark Neuenschwander, drummer Ric Craig and alto saxophonist Dan Jordan.

Ted Howe, Karla Harris

Howe's crafty arrangements transformed the feel of some of the original instrumental compositions in service to the lyrics, and Harris' vocal approach. For example, the buoyant ballad "In Your Own Sweet Way" was slowed and darkened to underscore Iola's pensive words.

The concert featured may Brubeck staples, such as his Ellington tribute "The Duke," "Take Five,"  and "My One Bad Habit," from the Brubecks' "The Real Ambassadors" project with Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. It also included "Strange Meadowlark," which Dave based on the call of the bird he heard growing up on his father's ranch in northern California. 

It included one tune not associated with the Brubecks. Harris sang Cole Porter's "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home to" as a tribute to the couple's 70 years together. Harris and Howe followed with a poignant vocal-piano duet on "Weep No More," which Dave wrote for Iola that also spoke to his homecomings after extended time on the road.

Harris kicked things up a notch with two of Brubeck's blues numbers, "Far More Blue"  and "Trav'lin Blues" Dave wrote the music and words to the former, Iola wrote the words to the latter.

"After doing this project, I'm now a huge Iola fan," Harris told the audience at the Riverview High School Performing Arts Center.

Howe, Harris, Neuenschwander, Jordan, Craig

Other concerts in the jazz festival's week-long run included singer-pianist Freddy Cole's quintet, and the Sarasota Jazz Project big band featuring bassist John Lamb and singer June Garber. The series winds down tonight with pianist Dick Hyman, reed player Ken Peplowski and singer Kitt Moran.

* The Brubecks were photographed on September 4, 2004 at the Tanglewood Jazz Festival in Lenox MA. © Ken Franckling

Abate on fire

Saxophonist Greg Abate is a bebopper pure and simple. He plays with a feverish intensity that on a great night is counterbalanced by his rhythm section. As a busy soloist, the rhythm section and city - and sometimes country - change from gig to gig.

Greg Abate and Kenny Drew Jr.

Last night, he performed in Port Charlotte, FL for the Charlotte County Jazz Society’s Artists Series at the Charlotte Cultural Center, bringing his intense brand of hard bop (think Charlie Parker and Phil Woods if you need comparisons) to an audience of about 350.

Not only cats love jazz

Cats make jazz and love jazz. In the case of loving jazz, so do mice. Well, at least one mouse in particular.

Next month, a Walt Disney Records imprint, Disney Pearl Series, will release Disney Jazz Volume 1: Everybody Wants to Be a Cat. It’s a 13-track collection of popular songs from the soundtracks of Disney films.

OK, maybe the analogy to Mickey Mouse was a stretch. But there is nothing mickey mouse about the participants, who include a wide range of today’s jazz stars. By jazz, I’m referring to mainstream jazz. There are no instrumental posters in this mix.

The emergence of this project should not be a surprise, given Walt Disney’s fondness for jazz, and the fondness that jazz musicians over the years have had for songs from his films. Need we mention more than Miles Davis’s classic take on “Some Day My Prince Will Come" from 1937's animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or pianist Dave Brubeck, who recorded an album’s worth of album of Disney music on Dave Digs Disney in 1957. Louis Armstrong and Gil Goldstein also recorded Disney projects.

Jason Olaine produced this new collection, asking participating musicians to pick through some 600 songs and record one of those Disney tunes – from classic films to newer animated hits like Toy Story and The Lion King.

Brubeck was one of the first artists to sign on, recording two tracks, "Some Day My Prince Will Come" and "Alice in Wonderland," the latter done with trio plus singer Roberta Gambarini.

The CD title track, derives from "Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat," from The Aristocats. It’s also the opening track, performed by trumpeter Roy Hargrove’s quintet. Other performers on this project include singer and bassist Esperanza Spalding, saxophonist, Joshua Redman, trumpeter Mark Rapp, pianist Alfredo Rodriguez, guitarists Kurt Rosenwinkel and Gilad Hekselman, the piano trio The Bad Plus, violinist Regina Carter, and singers Dianne Reeves and Nikki Yanofsky.

Talk about multi jazz generations. Brubeck turned 90 last month, and Canadian Yanofsky is still a teenager.

Here’s a rundown of the range of tracks. Redman selected "You've Got a Friend in Me," written by Randy Newman for Toy Story. Yanofsky opted for "It's a Small World." Rosenwinkel recorded "Free the Birds (Tuppence a Bag)" and Spalding recorded “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” both from Mary Poppins. Rodriguez re-arranged and recorded "The Bare Necessities" from The Jungle Book, with his mentor, Quincy Jones, producing. The Bad Plus selected “Gaston” and Hekselman choses “Belle,” both from Beauty and the Beast. Reeves sang “He’s a Tramp” from Lady and the Tramp, while Rapp opted to perform “Circle of Life” from The Lion King. Carter selected “Find Yourself” from Disney Pixar’s Cars.

In the CD’s liner notes, jazz journalist Ashley Kahn credited the top-drawer prowess of the performers pulled together for this project. "It's exceedingly rare that one finds this range of talent on one jazz album,” Kahn wrote. “If one desired an accurate measure of today's scene in all its flavors and formats, here it is on one disc."

With 600 songs in Olaine’s available library (actually 587 now), it’s not a stretch to think more volumes are coming in the months and years ahead. The Vol. 1 in the CD title is not just a matter of making a wish on a star. Not by any means.

A birthday twist

Dave Brubeck has given us a present for his 90th birthday on December 6. The pianist and prolific composer has released a two-disc compilation called Legacy of a Legend, it's releasing coming three days after Brubeck resumed touring. (He had a three-month layoff after doctors gave him a pacemaker.)

It’s a 21-track compilation on Columbia/Legacy that spans work from 1954 to 1970, documenting the evolution of his quartet into its classic makeup with Brubeck, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Joe Morello. Two of his later quartet members, bassist Jack Six and drummer Alan Dawson, are featured on tracks from a tour Brubeck made with Gerry Mulligan on baritone sax.

This hand-picked compilation also includes collaborations with singers Jimmy Rushing, Carmen McRae and Louis Armstrong. One of the highlights for Brubeck compleatists figures to be a previously unreleased live take of Brubeck’s tune “Three to Get Ready” that was recorded at his classic quartet’s final concert the day after Christmas 1967 in Pittsburgh.

There is more available for Brubeck fans this holiday season. Turner Classic Movies will dedicate the afternoon of December 6 to a pair of classic films featuring Brubeck. They are “All Night Long” (a jazz update of Shakespeare’s “Othello) and “Southern Crossing,” (which chronicles five-day jazz festival in Sydney, Australia). They will be followed at 5 p.m. by the premier of the Bruce Ricker-produced and directed documentary “Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way.” The executive producer of documentary is longtime Ricker collaborator Clint Eastwood.

Brubeck's Newport magic

Every time Dave Brubeck plays the Newport Jazz Festival, he breaks his own record.

The pianist, who will turn 90 this December 6, has performed at Newport more than any other jazz artist in the festival's storied, sometimes roller coaster history. He was there for the first festival in 1954 - and has been back more than 30 times since.

Last year, Brubeck's quartet played at Newport - and a later in the day he added a footnote to the Newport history book by joining Tony Bennett on stage for a rousing version of "That Old Black Magic" to end the weekend.

At this year's CareFusion Newport Jazz Festival, Brubeck will be back - without his own band - to join Wynton Marsalis on Sunday August 8 as a special guest with the trumpeter's quintet. It's also a natural progression from the 2005 festival. Marsalis sat in with Brubeck's band after playing appeared earlier in the day with his own quintet.

Producer George Wein loves it when his old friend is in town. Their friendship dates to the early 1950s - when Wein booked and promoted Brubeck's then-emerging quartet on a New England concert tour.

“The atmosphere of love that Dave Brubeck generates completely fills the beautiful harbor, and like last year’s festival surprise when Dave played a tune with Tony Bennett, a memorable piece of musical history will be made,” Wein said.

This year's festival runs August 6 to 8, with a Friday night opener at the historic Newport Casino and International Tennis Hall of Fame) featuring pianist-singer Jamie Cullum and saxophonist Grace Kelly. The action moves to Fort Adams State Park the following two days with an ambitious and wide-ranging schedule on three stages.