Category : diary

U.S. Air Force Airmen of Note, Washington D.C.

I woke up at 7am after a wonderfully exhilarating and sparkling night with The Airmen of Note. They are a big band jazz group from the U.S. Air Force. Right now I’m on a really early morning flight to Chicago and the fact is that I’m refreshed, uplifted, touched, and stimulated… After three days of pretty intense rehearsing and performing, and here I go to a fourth day. Guess what—I’m not tired, but stoked. (All before 11am!) I was touched by an angel.

I won’t start to do the long role call of the players in the band and people to thank because they have special names like 11th Wing Commander Colonel Kenneth Rizer and Technical Sargeant Joe Jackson, Musical Director of the Airmen of Note. And President Knapp of The George Washington University. Lots of titles.

Maybe it was all about these people who serve and people being of service that touched me. I think it must be right after the First Commandment of “Thou shall not have any other gods before me” that there is a Commandment about helping each other. Commandment 1a. Sometimes the years can make people a little cynical and ‘just old hat’ and ‘been there before’ and ‘blah blah blah’ in thinking. But when you stare the tear filled eyes of sincerity in the face, you’ll know it, and something will be different.

It’s an 18-piece jazz band with soloists as good as it gets anywhere plus four background singers and a down-front featured vocalist who sent me home talkin’ to myself. She sang jazz and scat licks with Ella, and the next moment was standing right there alongside Aretha Franklin doing gospel licks. (Hi, Paige!)… AND she LOADS OUT after the gig.

Washington, DC turned up at Lisner Hall on the campus of George Washington University and their shouting and applauding welcome from the very first note really set the tone.

After our second rehearsal, I sat down with Joe Jackson (Director of ‘Air’) for an interview with Dick Golden (journalist, radio host, musical aficionado, and historian). It became one of the most beautiful ‘human-being conversations’ I’ve ever had. I hope someone is doing a story about Dick Golden. He really gets it. In all its length and breadth, and implications, and derivations. It was special. Thank you Dick and Joe.

The big band did special arrangements of Sticky Wicket, So Good, Jacaranda Bougainvillea, Spain, Teach Me Tonight, Boogie Down, and Mornin’. It was a new listen for anyone who came. And the performance and interview will be distributed to over 800 media outlets for broadcast in Spring 2011. Get ready! Colonel Rizer presented me with a trophy and a framed photo, and a medal, commemorating the whole occasion.

Thanks to everyone whose hard work made this event work so well.

Love, Al — Goin’ to Chicago!

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Al in Milwaukee

I’m back. The Marcus Corporation, Steve Marcus, and son Greg, invited me to come celebrate their 75th anniversary, and sing at their black tie gala. I was 22 years old when Papa Ben Marcus, founder of the corporation, hired me to sing in their lobby lounge. The marquee outside advertised, “Singing Psychologist Al Jarreau.” I was still a student studying rehabilitation at State University of Iowa.

Get a load of this—Ben Marcus’ first corporate venture was to buy and operate the Campus Theatre-Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1935. As a student at Ripon, I was often in that theatre between 1958 and 1962, and had no idea of Papa Ben’s relationship to Ripon when I worked for him between ’62 and ’64. He has always been a major financial donor to the college, none more important…. I didn’t discover this until 13 years and 11 albums into my career. Surprise! There we were on the same rostrum receiving honorary degrees and it blew my mind to make the above discovery. During those days, I saw and interacted with Steve Marcus (we’re around the same age), who was already very active at the Pfister Hotel and the corporation in Milwaukee. Today there are 19 hotels and resorts, and 55 theaters with 684 screens around the world- Way bigger than the Campus Theatre in Ripon… It is still going.

Many of the dignitaries at the gala have attended inaugural balls in Washington, DC. The gala raised a check for $75,000 each to United Way and United Performing Arts Fund. They even made a wonderful donation to the Tom Cheeks Scholarship Fund, one of my pet projects.

At the end of the dinner and presentations, the band and I—you know the guys—did a 50 minute burn that I would describe as one of the most intense and delightful performances of my life. It was ‘the zone’ where time slows down to the point where you can reach out and move the pieces on the chessboard at will and in slow motion. Athletes talk about it all the time.

I know they got it, and told me so at the reception. My handwritten letter of thanks to Steve and Greg and the Marcus Corporation included congratulations on building a corporation with thousands of happy employees who understand and live with a couple of great mottos of Papa Ben Marcus: “Our people are our most valuable asset.” And “We do well by doing good.”

I beg you to teach that in our great Universities. AND… I got to see my family and friends from grade school. I was glad to be me this weekend. Thank you everyone

I’ll talk to you after the Airmen of Note Air Force Big Band Extraordinaire event in Washington, DC.

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Al’s recent visits with young Jazzers

Jazz Vocal Competition at the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC. Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz—Organizers.

I wouldn’t have won. I’m thinking this must be my third time with the Monk Institute and Herbie Hancock, the Institute Chairman, doing programs at the Kennedy Center. The Monk Institute, in honor and memory of Thelonious himself, is an educational outreach to young Jazzers, actually providing scholarships for continuing studies. I was invited this year to judge the vocals competition with Patti Austin, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Diane Reeves, and Kurt Elling. We judges were all very impressed and reassured by what we heard.

The competition was international. Wonderful to open it up so broadly! One of the three finalists was French. The winner, however, was Cécile McLorin Salvant from Miami, Florida, who just knocked everybody out…Not so much with her scatting like Ella, Jon Hendricks, et al., but her own unique and personal warmth of voice and presentation that signaled ‘her own thing.’

These recent years have been anything but the Golden Era of Jazz in The United States of America. In fact, many think that it’s Europe and the rest of the world who have picked up the baton and are moving forward with the banner of Jazz. So we all look at the Monk Institute with pride, gratitude, and great respect for their bold stance and continuing efforts to hold onto this unique and especially American art form. I regret not having the opportunity to say to all the singers and the audience the message, “If you are here, you have already won. We’ll pick one final winner, but it just might be someone who did not make the final 3 who stays with it and keeps working and finds their own thumbprint and becomes the new Sarah, or Nat Cole.” And what all the singers have all found is this thing they do that has changed their lives and given them a joy that makes them special people to be around as friends and family and neighbors, as citizens of the world.

OK, enough said, thank you, T. Monk Institute for inviting me again—

Love, Al

Moving on, Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, CA

Amazing that in two weeks time, I should be not only at the Monk Institute, but now visiting with some young high school students who have found music and getting to be real accomplished at it. I was invited by Larry Handelman to join him at Hamilton and listen to some wonderful performances of these local high school students who represent an enormous group of kids across the country who have lost music in the schools. Uniquely, these students have found themselves at a charter school that is offering music and the arts. Larry and friends are looking at a unique way of attempting to reverse this trend of music programs being dropped, and have asked me to join them in saving music in our school systems. It goes without saying that all of the arts are included under this umbrella of thought.

We heard a classical chamber group. We heard a Jazz Combo with 2 horns, guitar, and rhythm section. We heard a Jazz choir that sang so close to a professional level that you wouldn’t be surprised if they were recording tomorrow… So in tune that I was envious. And they sang scat solos… real good.

It’s too early to announce what Larry and the guys are planning, but I hope it works and I hope I’m a part of it.

THANK YOU, HAMILTON HIGH SCHOOL! All of you were wonderful. By the way, I did get a chance to make the comment to these students that I regretted not being able to pass onto the Thelonious Monk competitors, about all being winners. Keep it up.

I can’t wait to tell you about going back to Milwaukee for a very special event and occasion.

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Barcelonnette and Marseille Round 2

After the Marseille show, with spirits running high, we got in the tour bus and headed up the hill to Barcelonnette. Well, the ‘hill’ turns out to be a climb to many thousands of feet and a very serious case of shortness of breath. This is not the first time in the past three years that this nagging little shortness of breath situation has had me on high alert and consulting with my medical experts. But this time, I was literally on my way to work, and that got my attention. Big time. We regretfully canceled the Barcelonnette appearance and I temporarily checked into a facility in Gap, France, and transferred almost immediately to the Timone Hospital Cardiac Group in Marseille, France.

Doctor Bonnet is serious, boberious, banana-fana-fo-ferious. I love him, he’s brilliant. He and his staff poked and prodded… looked down my throat, up my nose, in my ears, and across my bowel. And he convinced me to cancel several more dates and spend some time with them, figuring out what was really going on with me.

I had a very low risk catheter ablation procedure that showed immediate improvement on the heart monitoring devices. They showed a greatly reduced heart rate and much more regular rhythm, close to normal that very afternoon. The food at the hospital was fabulous. NOT! [If I could use a bigger type here, I would.] Bland, and no salt, and kiddie portions. Dr. Bonnet is fabulous—A cardiologist of rare expertise who even stayed up one night studying all the performance videos he could find of me to see who I really am as a performer, including my energy output… I don’t sit on a stool. He and his colleagues and staff and especially the ablation expert changed my life, and I’m sure will have added years to my life and quality of life.

I owe Dr. Bonnet and Timone Cardiology more thank yous than I know how to say and offer. Surely following their list of Do’s and Don’ts that support a healthier heart is high on the list of what I owe. So far, so good. Go Al!

Next time I am in the neighborhood, I’ll be finding a way to say hello and I insist that anyone on staff who helped me—Doctors, nurses, nurse’s aids, volunteers—be in touch with me at whatever venue I am performing, and I’d like to make arrangements for a proper hello and tickets to the show.

I’ve done 14 performances since I left Marseille, and could have done more if they’d been scheduled. God Bless You All, À bientôt!

Here’s a picture of me and the girls! Sorry, Dr. Bonnet—This is the important stuff. First things first!

diary

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