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Norway – Kristiansand and Baerum

Norway, you say? Didn’t I tell you about getting lost, jogging in the snow, that afternoon before we played Club 7 down stairs? Oh, and didn’t I tell you about the time our equipment truck slid off the freeway and onto an icy fjord, and we were two hours late starting the concert? Well, yes, of course, Norway.

When George and I were playing at the Half Note back in 1965, there was a little San Francisco enclave of Norwegians that used to come. It’s starting a little fire glowing in my mind about how wonderful it would be to play in Norway some time, in all that ice and snow and cold. I thought about Saint Olaf college, and Carlton College, in Northfield Minnesota, and all those nieces and nephews of Saint Olaf, warrior king. I played on their basketball courts for four years when I was at Ripon College.  Norway, you say?? Why not Argentina? Why not Italy? Why not France? In fact, why not Germany? Hello!!! The answer is OF COURSE! All of those places. Music is a powerful language and a healing force. I have dreamed of doing music everywhere in the world. Ask me about Skudeneshavn. Small fishing village on the coast of Norway. I love telling Norwegian audiences that this is where I really was born. So yes, Norway, since 1978.

So here we go, making an early run to Norway’s Kristiansand and Baerum, with the “new me” again. That is, the Al Jarreau and the Nord Deutsche Rundfunk Big Band. I would have never set up the schedule so that our second and third performances would be outside of Germany. Germany is home base for the NDR national treasure Big Band. I would have allowed our confidence in this new Ellington program to have a few more concerts at home before going to any other country outside of Germany. It’s kind of like after a good solid opening at home, we jumped right into the deep end.

Pow. Super pow! You guys in Kristiansand and Baerum gave us such a wonderful reaction from outside of Germany, that we came back to Germany for our 4^th and 5^th nights, with a special confidence about this Ellington program. I’m a bit late with these comments, but I want you to be aware of my special thank you to my Norwegian friends and family.

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Hamburg – start of tour with NDR BigBand!

We arrived in Hamburg to do the final rehearsals for our new Duke Ellington program. Hamburg’s heading into fall and winter, so it was expectedly overcast and grey, and could have given us a real good sprinkle of rain, but not quite yet. The trees hadn’t moved into their autumn golds and reds yet, but it was on the way soon. The first time I came here, in 1976, I had been a Californian for more than ten years, and even then, looked forward to the changing seasons, like at home in Wisconsin. I was enjoying this cool fall weather, with leaves about to change, and in my mind, bringing on a kind of early pre-Christmas season (in high school, the acapella choir helped all this notion by rehearsing Christmas music, which would make you feel the spirit of Christmas for a long long Christmas eve starting the first day of the fall semester). So here we were again, I was beginning to have a bit of that spirit in me, but this time we would be rehearsing the Ellington program.

It seemed like such a long way off when we began those first exploratory rehearsals with arrangements which were still in formation, back sixteen months ago… but abracadabra. Here we were, three rehearsal days from the opening night. The NDR BigBand (Nord Duetscher Rundfunk) and it’s organization has been around since 1946. They fell in love with American jazz, and studied it, and practiced it, and played it, and you would think these guys from little towns in Germany were all from Chicago, Harlem, or St. Louis. That’s how well they play  jazz. I became deeply aware of this when Joe Sample and I did a tour with them a few years ago. They did Joe’s entire album called “Children of the Sun”  (a poetic name for slaves), and I did songs from Porgy and Bess. It was a big success. When someone suggested that we think about doing the Ellington songbook, I was shouting, “Let’s go!” And here we are, just finishing opening night, tired and out of breath, but thrilled with the reaction of my home audience in Hamburg.

They opened the doors for me in all of Europe, and as a matter a fact, helped open up a lot of doors in America during my early career, when the U.S. began to get word that one of their very own was knocking it out of the park in Europe. Berlin, Paris, Rome, Madrid, etc. And so we arrived to put the finishing touches on rehearsal stuff and start the tour. I’ve been doing this stuff for fifty years, boys and girls, but let me assure you, this had me shakin’ in my boots! Ellington was not entirely new to me, but these arrangements are a real challenge. Jorg Keller, our arranger and conductor for the program, really set his genius and brilliance to work, and came up with some show stopping beautiful stuff. Every band solo was accompanied by interesting and new cordial voicings, and then big band shouts and hits, and the soloing is as good as it gets! If I can just get me to cooperate, remember lines, entrances and exits, we will be ok. I would have been happy if that opening night in Hamburg was just “ok.” Well, it was over the moon. It was out of sight, and Hamburg welcomed me back home with their own NDR Big Band, with thunder response. I had worried and fretted about how I would make that journey from the stage door, twelve yards down stage, towards the audience, down two steps, and then fifteen yards across the stage. That was Mount Kilimanjaro for me! I was exhausted by the time I got to position for my note, except they applauded me the whole way, making me feel good about the “the effort”… making the effort. I’m aware of all of this now as we sit here and talk, but at the time, it was a bit clouded by the fact that I was praying so hard, “Oh, dear God, let me sing this stuff correctly tonight.”

I don’t want to give away the entire program for the evening, but we did do “Drop me off in Harlem”, and “Take the A Train”, and included a Brubeck composition called “The Duke”. It was an intermission program, and I was stunned how quickly the intermission came and went, and we did a second half of great adventuresome arrangements of Jorg Keller, with wonderful solos, and by then, I could feel and had a sense of the audience being in a “wow” mood and mode.

At the end of the program, they stood up and wouldn’t stop clapping until we were obviously headed toward and encore. Well, we did a few, including “Take 5”. The audience response was as much as I’ve ever felt for any performance. I can still feel a real return of love to this audience and Hamburg. I can’t find the words, but suffice it to say that I’m thrilled with this reunion. I couldn’t sleep. Grinning all night long. I did some autographs backstage and said hello to Werner, and to Gerrit Glaner from Steinway & Sons… but it didn’t stop there.  Just before boarding the plane the next day, I met with Petra. She had been at the concert, and she could not stop grinning and smiling and laughing, and gave me such a strong, heartfelt, warm handshake, I thought, “wow! I can’t wait to get on stage and do it again!” Ok… I’m done with superlatives… for now! Thank you, Hamburg. I love you so much! Next stop, Norway!

-Al Jarreau

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St Louis – Jazz at the Bistro

As I sat there, doing my morning gratitudes and looking out the window, I realized that we were just 200 yards from the gateway arch in Saint Louis, said to be the doorway to the Western United States, which early settlers traveled as they went west, from the great eastern cities. For me, it took a moment for this symbol and its significance to personally settle in, and give me that “Oh, wow” experience. Oh, wow, of course! Here we were in Saint Louis for two nights at the Bistro, introducing the Al Jarreau duo – Me and Joe Turano.  Joe and I will do our fifth and sixth outings as a duo here, in America.

This duo concept is not entirely new. Between 1968 and 1975, I had a lot of success with an Al Jarreau and Julio Martinez guitar/vocal duo, which has beginnings in Sausolito at Gatsby’s bar, then moved to LA to Dean Martin’s Deano’s, on Sunset Strip. You’ll remember “77 Sunset Strip!” A television show, with “Kookie Burns.” Then came a pianist, Richard Dworsky, to expand the sound with Rhodes at the Blabla Cafe, who was followed by Tom Canning, who played on the first four records. Since pre-Gatsby’s in San Francisco, I was incorporating the cabaca, a brazilian rhythm instrument, and thumping on the mic stand with my foot to get the bass sound. As elementary in scope as this may seem, we were getting a lot of music out of two people. All of this went away after the first record, “We Got By,” until recently.   Our eyes reopened to that format, and its amazing possibilities… simply put, intimacy and personal communication. Just the basic thing, in your face.

The wonderful Saint Louis connection occurred at a small institute of musical studies (especially jazz), with an adjacent performing studio called “The Bistro.” center is having a wonderful impact on the lives of Saint Louis youngsters. We came to have these realizations about The Bistro, and their outreach, and the tremendous support of both by local philanthropists, at about the time when Joe Turano and I began to look at each other and found ourselves falling more and more “in like” with the concept of a duo performing unit, as well as the Jarreau six piece band.

Late September seemed so far away when we made the booking. Suddenly, there it was. Just days away and too little rehearsing and playing of the duo repertoire… but there it was, opening night. I made my way to center stage, next to Joe and an grand piano and an electric keyboard. Dinner and drinks were being served and I was so close to the front tables, I could have helped myself to their wine! Almost nobody in the world has seen me in that setting. Over the two seventy five minute performances of the evening, we would talk about the beauty of that sort of intimacy. They got it.  Not all of the songs were brand new… “Better than Anything,” “Take 5,” “We Got By” are often in the regular band set.  But it’s quite a different listening experience when the performance is so simplistic and basic, as it is with the duo.

Over and over again, before this two nighter was through, folks were commenting, “Wow… what a personal experience… all those stories, Al… etc etc.” I could hardly talk with excitement, so I didn’t. You can be sure I was inhaling that wonderful reaction. I think we got something here, ladies and gentleman. Hello Fanny from Milwaukee and son. We grew up two blocks from each other. It was her first time hanging out with me like that.

Ok, everybody, I have to go home to Milwaukee for more gas, oil, lube, and a hug and a kiss! So watch out for the Al Jarreau Duo!!! Tis autumn.

-Al Jarreau

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Cleveland, Ohio – Tri-C Jazz Festival

This is an amazing and wonderful jazz festival, that invites all of the premier jazzers in America (some from abroad), to come and perform on any of the six stages, composed of both outdoor and indoor venues, which happens over three or four days. This is in the real classic tradition of “the jazz festival”. We’ve become accustomed to the newer brand of festival that very often happens on one day, with eight or nine acts, appearing between eleven in the morning and ten at night. This is exhausting for an audience.

Even if you go no farther than this description, which also includes its thirty seven years in existence, you describe a pretty special kind of festival event. This is my third time here. This time  was to honor Tommy LiPuma, who’s from Cleveland, and celebrate his career as an extraordinary world class music entrepreneur, with credits that read like a phone book. His projects and artists describe who we are today musically, and the pathway that we took for getting here. You can even say Tommy and his colleagues’ form of music had an impact and an influence on who we are culturally, how we think, and what our attitudes are. Surely, we are the influence of people like Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley, and the Beatles who studied them, and Herb Alpert and Moss, Bill Evans, Willy Nelson, Miles Davis, Dan Hicks, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Barbra Streisand. This music and its message and attitude and posture has impacted who we are socially and culturally. We walked like them, we talked like them, we thought like them, and even pretended to be them.

Tommy and Al Schmidt produced and engineered my “Look to the Rainbow” album, a live double album, from 1978, thought by many to be my best recorded work. That was almost 40 years ago. Wow! Well, I was with a stage full of people, who also had long and wonderful relationships with Tommy (Al, too!), and who sang and played his music, and laughed and told funny stories and choked back tears from time to time. During my segment on stage, I meant to thank his wife, Jill, who has taken such good care of him over the years. For all his brilliance and competence in the studio, anyone who knows Tommy knows that the same guy might be walking around with oatmeal on his tie or jacket and desperately be looking for his car keys. The beautiful thing is that he can laugh about that and still has the spirit and exuberance and excited eyes of a six year old. He can laugh about that. Jill has always been there by his side and sometimes clearing a path. Thank you, Jill.

And so, Leon Russell, Dr. John, Diana Krall, Ben Sidran, Christian McBride, Gerald Wilson, Terrance Blanchard, and I rehearsed the day before, along with John Clayton’s big band. Oh, what a band! One of two or three working big bands in America.

These occasions always have the feel of reunions with old friends, from college, or high school. You can see grown men huggin’ and kissin’ and cryin’ sitting around sharing war stories, sometimes called “laughin’ and lyin'”. Pat Rains, my first manager, and I just looked at each other, shakin’ our heads, with sh__ eatin’ grins, all the way back to our ears. Almost unable to talk. There are no words to describe it… the unfolding of the dreams that began so long ago.

One of the most unexpected surprises was Wendy Rains, knocking on my dressing room door, all smiles and giggles, just like she was when I saw her the last time, too long ago. Talk about a free spirit from another realm. We couldn’t’ stop yakking away.

I sang two songs that Tommy LiPuma produced on my album “Accentuate the Positive” album, that “none of you bought”, I said to the audience, and it’s true. Tommy and I thought we had done the long awaited true jazz project, with Al Jarreau singing some jazzy classics. I think we sold 23 copies, that’s the size the of my family and just a couple of immediate friends.  The third song we did was a request song from the festival, featuring the duo, me and Joe Turano. Joe and I jumped at it. And with two people, him playing and singing a couple of background lines, and me singing with an occasional click on the cabasa, we introduced ourselves with a great response to our first two thousand seater jazz audience. It worked. More to come about this new duo….

There are way too many people to thank, so I’ll pass on that. You know who you are, and I bow to you and say thanks.

Ok, I’ll see you in New York at Town Hall on Saturday or in Poland next week!

-Al Jarreau

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Kansas City: American Jazz Walk of Fame Concert

Wow, I wish you had been there!  You’ve heard me say that before, and I mean it every time… but did I say that about singing in the rose garden for President Obama and family and administration on International Jazz Day a month ago? Well, I mean it.

Congressman Cleaver coined the term “somebodyness,” and it seems to refer especially to Kansas City’s efforts to acknowledge some special activities and achievements that came out of black communities. They opened the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and more recently the American Jazz Walk of Fame. There are so many recognizable names and faces of jazz greats, who either were born and lived in Kansas City, or who began their international careers in Kansas City. And, if you open this whole subject matter to include St Louis, Missouri, then the importance and impact of this community is huge. Look out, New Orleans! I was at the Baseball Museum’s opening, and now I’ve been a part of an induction ceremony this weekend.

I shared an evening’s performance with Ellis Marsalis and Queen Bey. The evening was electric. Everybody seemed plugged in, and in the verge of jumping out of their seats. They didn’t miss a lick, and Congressman Cleaver and Alcee Hastings with his classy and classic white suit, were right down in front, first ones to clap hands and dance. Sometimes, supercharged evenings like this are disappointing… maybe too much hype. Well, not this time! Everybody was in the zone. Athletes talk about the zone and go there all the time. I do, too. It happened in Kansas City. I sang the right things, I made the right comments, I pushed and pulled at the right time, and the band was smokin’, and right there with me!

An outstanding moment for me was when after several Jarreau pieces, R&B’ish and pop, we did our quiet, poignant version of one of the greatest jazz songs of all time – “The Midnight Sun.” We weren’t done, and went on to do “We’re in this Love Together,” and “Roof Garden.” What a night! They stood up and ovationed us. Thank you, Kansas City. It’s so wonderful to be with you again. A special thanks to the American Jazz Walk of Fame, Congressman Cleaver, Alcee Hastings, Gayle Holliday, and the JDRC. Let’s do it again.

Love

Al

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