BAXD fitJM JP In person interview with Tommy LiPuma, prod ucer of Diana Krall CDs.. .and many others. A story about four kids in a van going across the U.S. filming a docu­ mentary about today’s Big Bands. A profile of arranger/ conductor/musician Benny Carter, known to fellow musicians as “The King.’’ Humorous stories about Duke Ellington and his sometimes unusual approach to music. BIG B A J m JIMP NEWSLETTER SECOND ISSUE OF 24th YEfiR OF PUBLICATION VOLUME 141 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JULY-AUGUST, 2012 INTERVIEW - TOMMY LiPUMA THE BACKGROUND You may legitimately ask “Who is Tommy LiPuma.” The answer is he’s one of the men nearly unknown by the general public who has been responsible for a number of hit recordings, and was for a time the CEO of the Verve Music Group. Chances are very good were it not for Tommy LiPuma we’d never heard of Diana Krall, or not had the opportunity to hear Natalie Cole sing with her legendary father, years after his death. He produced some of Michael Buble’s new albums and over the years had direct responsibility in making hit recordings of Barbra Streisand as well as scores of artists whose names would not be significant to fans of the Big Band Era. Tommy LiPuma is interviewed here because of his work with Diana Krall, most recently teaming her with Paul McCartney to put some standard titles in front of a new public. When he transitioned into the position of Chair­ man Emeritus in 2004 he decided to spend more time in The carefully posed LiPuma the studio. In doing that, he brought to the recording business a keen insight into what will work musically. BBJ How does a sax player in Cleveland become When commenting on that insight he said, “I can’t CEO of a gigantic record company? always put my finger on why I know something will work. It’s more the chills factor I look for-honing in on that TL Part of it you’d have to chalk up to being artist whose music reaches inside you and takes you some­ desperate. I was a musician but I made my where. There’s no scientific formula for hitting the mark, but living as a barber, which I hated with an intenseness I that’s part of the excitement and challenge for me.” can’t even explain. I never wanted to go back to that so when I got in the record business as a promotion man I We arranged for a time to interview Tommy LiPuma by realized I had to do well in the business I got into. Being phone. He was to call us from New York at noon. We a musician, the more I was in the record business I got set up to record him and precisely at noon the proper a sense of what the producer did. I like everything about phone line rang and there he was. Impressive, and that’s it. I like putting things together and making records. I how the conversation began. was always a big record fan. I'd been buying records from the time I had an income. BBJ Are you on time! It’s exactly noon. Do you BBJ How did you get from Cleveland to Los Angeles? have some experience timing things? (A face­ tious question, of course, to break the ice.) TL I was very fortunate. It turns out as fate would have it the barbershop I owned was in what TL (Laughs) Don’t count on that every time. they called the ‘Playhouse District’ of Cleveland where all of the radio stations were, and all of the disk jockeys VOLUME 141 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JULY-AUGUST, 2012 of that day... we’re talking about the fifties... were all who was a pro by that time, and I was so nervous. my customers. I met a lot of people and at one point I Things were going badly, mistakes were being made just realized I could not keep doing this because of my and at one point he hit the talkback and said, “OK. intense dislike for cutting hair, so to make a long story Today, guys, you’re on the honor system.” That sort of short, one of my customers who was a record distributor snapped me to, and that’s one of the most important offered me a job packing records for fifty bucks a week things. You’ve got to be very attentive while you’re in and that’s where I started. From there I went into the studio and things are going on to make sure you promotion. I was asked to go to Los Angeles to work for have the right tempos... to make sure you have the right Liberty Records, the manufacturer, and I came up take! Artists, for all the obvious reasons, have a through the ranks. I met a few people out there I became tendency to be subjective and you have to be the close friends with: Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert and they objective one. They’re more concerned about their asked me to be the staff producer for their new A&M performance, vocal or instrumental, and you have to be Records. This was October of 1965. That’s when I had concerned about the overall to make sure the feel is my first hit record, GUANTANAMERA by the Sand­ right and everything about it is right. pipers. BBJ Is there always a balance between spontaneity BB J If things should fall apart, do you sti 11 have your and perfection? barber’s license? TL If s one and the same. When I do Big Band TL (Laughs) Interesting you ask that because my albums, I like going in with a small rhythm father, who was a barber, would always pull me section.. .bass, piano, guitar, drums...a chord chart. I aside when I’d go home to visit and show me his license use top rate musicians. At one point you come up with and tell me in his broken Italian/English he kept his something I refer to as ‘magic.’ You’ve got to keep license. He renewed it every year until the day he died. your ears open for when that moment happens. BBJ Explain to those of us who just play the music BBJ Do you spend most of your time in the control what a producer does. room or the studio? TL A producer is, in a sense, very much like the TL No, in the studio. So years ago I realized that director of a film. He finds the material in the glass between the booth and the studio was a music producer’s taste. This is particularly if the artist big hindrance to me. It was very difficult for me to talk doesn’t write his own material. Even if he writes his to people being thirty or forty feet away from them and own material you have to work with the numerous having just a talkback. At one point, just by accident, things he writes to point out which are the best ones, I had some things I wanted to explain to them. I asked what the weaknesses are of the things you’re hearing, the second engineer to set up a chair and some ear­ what needs to be improved. And then you have some­ phones and a microphone so everybody could hear me, thing to do with the casting of the musicians, making and I realized that’s where I felt the most comfortable. sure I get the right players for the right artist. When the take is over I can give them an immediate response and it’s not just a voice coming over a talkback. From the beginning of the project, picking the songs, all the way through, while you’re in the studio you have to BBJ How technical do you get? make sure everything is going the way it should be, that the tempos are right...it’s a very...how shall I put it? TL In my estimation I have one of the best, if not Not difficult.. .well, it is difficult, but it’s a process you THE best, engineers who’s around, and that’s have to be very intent about. Just to give you an idea: A1 Schmidt. He’s from the old school where mic When I first started making records, the first session I technique was everything. He recorded PETER GUNN had was with an engineer by the name of Bones Howe with Henry Mancini and all the Mancini films and we 2 VOLUME 141 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JULY-AUGUST, 2012 became friends in TL I had sent Paul a Fats Waller boxed set. I the fifties when I thought maybe there’d be something he found. first came to L.A. He loved it and as it turns out he had been aware of Fats I let him take care from YOUR FEET’S TOO BIG. He said he and John, of the technical early on when they first started playing, they would play things. Of course that. They didn’t record it, of course, but when they first I’m conscious of the started doing gigs. sound and what it is I want to hear. I do BBJ Will the public enthusiasm for instrumentals own some of my ever be rekindled? own microphones that I use for vocals TL I don’t know in my lifetime.