Category : diary

Hammond, Indiana – December, 2015

To all my friends at Kappa Alpha Psi: I want to send you a belated Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, for inviting me to sing at your scholarship fundraiser evening. I feel honored… This work that you’re doing to help kids go to school is quintessential. Education has always been the answer, and will continue to be the answer, until kingdom come. You can get on the wings of a book, and become a doctor, lawyer, or in another moment, you can be transported in a novel to another galaxy and time.  This is God’s work, and you guys have been doing it for more than thirty years. So thank you again for allowing me to add to your effort.

Love,

Al Jarreau

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Los Angeles – Monk Institute Vocalists Competition

If you don’t know about the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, you really should look it up for all its glorious details.  But for short, Thelonious Monk III, Maria Fisher, and Clark Terry created it in 1986 for the purpose of furthering the legacy of jazz by finding and educating young musicians and singers. Amazingly, they have also partnered with the United Nations to put on an international Jazz Day. Each year, on April 30, over 80 nations around the world celebrate jazz, and its contribution and influence.

I’ve been blessed to be a part of International Jazz day for a few years now.  Last April, we were in Paris. A couple of years before, we were in Istanbul. Herbie Hancock is Chairman of the Board and is an eloquent spokesman for the group. This year, along with featuring a wonderful group of singers in competition, the institute did a tribute to Quincy Jones, with a large audience with a 20 piece band directed and rehearsed by John Beasley at Dolby Theater, in Hollywood. Anyone has to say that this is a wonderful upscale undertaking that really does jazz proud, for its wonderful importance and significance. We did the preliminary judging at UCLA basking in the sunshine and glow of one of the great universities on the planet. All for jazz!

I can’t say enough about the whole affair, and it would take too long if I could. Just try to believe me when I say that you’d have totally impressed with this year’s group of singers, taught and tutored by a cadre of well known professionals, including Kenny Burrel.   They were amazing… knocked my socks off.

There were singers in this class who are already singing at a high quality professional level. It’s too bad that the competition forces us to pick one winner, and a second and third place place finalist, but in doing so we are also rewarding these leaders with valuable scholarships. Each of the judges wishes we could do it for all of the contestants. The semifinals we on Saturday, we had the finals of the singing competition on Sunday, along the tribute to Quincy Jones, featuring appearances and comments by actor/director/singer Seth McFarlane, Jeff Goldblum, Billy D. Williams, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Freddy Cole, Patti Austin, Deedee Bridgewater, Luciana Souza,  and myself. I did a duet with Gretchen Parlato (a recent winner of the vocal competition), of “Human Nature,” one of Quincy’s massive musical successes. All in all, this was a magnificent two day celebration of jazz and the legacy of jazz, with its special contribution of improvisation, that lives even in today’s rock guitarists. Hello, Eric Clapton, and Slash, too! They took the queue from jazz to improvise.

By the way, let’s not overlook the wonderful support of this event by Concord Music Group, United Airlines, and Northrup Grumman… these guys get it!

And so, as the sun sinks slowly in the west, we say “see you soon!” to the wonderful Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. This time, in Los Angeles and Hollywood, the world’s Mecca of stardom and entertainment. Smile 🙂

I’ll see you next time!

-Al

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Cincinnati

Oh, you Buckeyes! How I love you Buckeyes! And yes, I know what a Buckeye is, it’s more than a football team.  Way bigger than a chestnut. Oops, sorry! Just havin’ fun. Fact: I know for sure that I’ve played more dates in the state of Ohio during my career than in any other state in the union. Fact: As Ohio goes, so goes the nation in so far as big important elections, while the hawkeyes of Iowa are right in there too. But their total population doesn’t approach the total population of Ohio voters and there’s a huge number of people from that population who have been Jarreau fans since the first record. They’ve come to concerts at Bogarts, Tri-City Jazz Festival, Ohio Theatre… etc …, oh, you Buckeyes, indeed! *See foot note*

Each and every time I’ve come to Cincinnati, I find myself exclaiming to myself, “Wow, they did it! They saved their down town! They kept their wonderful solid structures from the city’s early beginnings, including red brick warehouses, and lovely great buildings that housed the first businesses office buildings and department stores and restaurants and shops. They saved it!!!” And it feels so good to drive through down town and see PEOPLE! People going about their wonderful day of going to and from work, popping into a coffee shop, or John’s Hamburger Joint, which has been there for 50 years. This scene is disappearing in America. But ongratulations, Cincinnati- you did it, I love you for that. It makes me feel so good and reassured.

That’s what I felt last night, when I drove into town. When we got to the hotel, I saw Jackie, who surprised me and the guys. She is a very lovely wonderful rep. from the hotel’s front office. Her enthusiasm is so warm and gracious, that it really overflows.   And then when I went to my room, I looked out my window and “glory be,” there below me, was ice skating rink like Rockefeller Center Plaza in New York. I shouted to Brian, my assistant, “Look at that!” He smiled and also said, “wow.” Brian is from California and seeing people ice skate before his eyes was quite something; on the other hand,  it transports me to a time in Milwaukee, when I was in grade school, and junior high school, and was at a skating rink just like this. Not as fancy, they flooded the baseball field at Garfield Park, where they even had a pavilion where you could get a hot chocolate and warm up.

Show Day! I took a quick peek out the window, just to be sure the skating rink was still there. It was. And we headed off to sound check.

And there it was again, the spirit of Cincinnati! An old theater that’s been saved and kept functioning, AND this one’s with me and Jeffrey Osborne. One of you rascals out there is reading this and thinking, “yeah Al, old things still functioning.” And you’re right! You better believe it, baby. Bring your mama, bring your papa, we gonna do it for real. No lip-syncing, no pre-recorded anything. Real people doing it for real, with a happy healthy intention.

As I start singing “Mornin’,” I know that out there, somewhere, is some Sam Moore, from grade school and junior high school, and high school, and he was just in Milwaukee in the front row, with Jesse Nixon, and Willy Luster three weeks ago. I smile inside and feel warm and good. When he smiles and calls back to me, “yeah, Al, I’m here!”

I could hear Jeffrey and the audience from my dressing me, and believe me, the place was on fire. Jeffrey hits hard, folks. He’s got a big voice, with great range, and almost sounds classically trained with a funky edge. He’s a friend of George Duke’s, too. He sang on my new George Duke celebration record.

When we sang “My Old Friend,” I was kind of peeking over my shoulder to see if Jeffrey would come over and sing with me as he did on the record. Nope, not this time, but that did not stop me and the band from just “killing it” on this new sensitive arrangement of “My Old Friend.” Oh, by the way, check this out, here’s one for you, “My Old Friend” was written by the same guys who wrote “Nita Koo”: I will be here for you. Richard Paige and Steve George, originally from Pages, who became Mister Mister, and they are, in fact, a couple of blue-eyed, blonde haired “valley boys”, from Los Angeles. Don’t ya love it? You should.

We’ve returned to “We Got By,” and “Midnight Sun,” these days, and here is another audience that is right with us in lovin’ it all. That causes other stuff to sparkle, like old “Roof Garden,” and “Boogie Down.” We bowed a long time and headed for the lobby, to sign CD’s and autographs. This was a long one, but way cool that people are buying lots of CD’s after concerts. You can’t walk into a record store anymore. What a loss, but how wonderful tonight that we can sell CD’s right here after the gig. Great to say hi to Sam Moore and his son, who looks exactly like Sam, big broad smile, great spirit and attitude. We also said hi to Jackie’s son, all grown up now… 13 or 14, smile. So thank you again, Cincinnati, happy holidays, every day is Thanksgiving.

-Al

*Fact: I went to school at University of Iowa’s rehabilitation counseling program; however, I’ve only played three or four times in Iowa (all at the university) in my career since I started recording and touring.

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Cranston, RI

I love this time of year, which begins a four month long Christmas Eve Holiday season, that includes the golden harvest season, pumpkin orange, THANKS GIVING, Christmas carols and Christmas shopping, Christmas trees, the smell of nutmeg and cinnamon, and good things in the oven the night before Christmas. Now that’s a Christmas Eve!!! And of course, if you’re preparing some sort of Christmas Performance, you immediately begin practicing the day you get back to school, in September.

I’m so happy we did a lot of dates back East and in New England this fall. We watched the leaves turn and jackets and scarves come out of the closet.

I’ve found myself these days, talking to some new audiences. And I love that. I’m finally getting to some New England destinations for the first time, and feeling a long overdue satisfaction. New England people are a special breed, just like mid westerners, and Californians, and New Yorkers. I won’t try to describe the long list of specialnesses that set you apart from everyone else in the world, but the specialnesses are pretty fabulous, and will surely include clam chowder and evergreens. We rolled into Cranston around 12:30pm. Driving into Cranston, you say, “Oh, yes, this is America today. This is a great look at wonderful, beautiful middle class america!” Unvarnished, needing a few repairs, and a paint job, but it is in large part who we are. It’s who I am, and what I came from. Many of these people have a reliable old lunch pail at home, that helped pay college tuitions, and made us “upwardly mobile,” doing better than our moms and dads.  God bless our hearts when they showed up that night. I could see them, as I stood there in the wings, waiting to begin,  and I was so proud to be here my people!

Our first time here.  But when we hit the stage, it felt like we were old friends returning home. Hey, that’s the greatest and it’s happening a lot these days, as we meet new audiences for the first time, and play and sing with them the stuff they’ve been listening to  for thirty years. That experience occupies a special place in audience reactions and response that is really quite unlike anything else. Excuse the elaboration and oversimplification, but that audience situation is different than playing and performing, in front of an audience that sees me every sixteen months. There’s an “at last” sigh and response, that is a thing unto itself!

I’m remembering now pictures lining the backstage walls of Engelbert Humperdinck, The Wailers, Tower of Power, Boney James, Stanley Jordan, etc. They must have had the same reaction, including, “Wow, I can’t believe it! Let’s call the agency and get booked again as soon as possible.”

Well that was my reaction too. They rocked in their seats, and danced on their feets. And they pull encores out of me and the band as we stood with eyebrows raised to the hairline in surprise to this fantastic reaction. All grins and smiles.

Some people in the first row even had brought pristine LP’s of “Breakin’ Away,” “High Crime,” and “Look to the Rainbow,” that I did quick signatures on from stage. Later we did an hour long CD signing in the lobby. And that was great fun, really enjoyable. Here it was again, that sigh of “at last.” I could really feel it, y’all.

So I said, I’m looking forward to getting back to Cranston, and I’m grateful and thankful to my new found friends there. You really did spread the word about me very early on. Stay tuned and I’ll see you soon!

-Love Al

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Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

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