EXPLORE DONATE SIGN UP SIGN IN SEARCH All About Jazz Home » Articles » Proòle ADVERTISE | FOR PROS 26 RECOMMEND LIVESTREAM! Amarcord Hal Willner Sun, Jun 14 Dominick Farinacci With Special VIEW SLIDESHOW Guests Songbook Watch Party By LUDOVICO Cleveland, OH GRANVASSU 7:00 pm April 15, 2020 Sign in to view read count The iconic producer Hal Willner passed away a little over a week ago, on Tuesday 7 April 2020. LEARN MORE The same day, John Prine and Eddy Davis also took off. It felt like a COVID-19-induced Black Tuesday for the music world, but maybe Hal had SHOWCASE simply invited them to join him for a follow-up to Lost in the Stars, together with Sun Ra, William S. Burroughs, Lou Reed, Allen Ginsberg, Jaki Byard, Hunter S. Thompson, Dr. John, Ken Nordine, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jimmy Scott, Jeff Buckley and a whole bunch of other merry friends who had been waiting for Hal to finally bring his brand of controlled chaos and unbridled fun to heaven. The last few days have been, to paraphrase the title of one of Willner's most acclaimed projects, a weird nightmare. The disbelief and sorrow that overtook social media is a testimony of how BUY NOW many people Hal Willner's work touched. Swallow Tales To celebrate his visionary legacy, we have By John Scoòeld collected remembrances, anecdotes and reflecti oEXPLOREns from many aDONAmongTE his closest SIGN UP SIGN IN SEARCH collaborators, friends and admirers. To be FEATURED ALBUMS consistent with the Hal Willner style of music production, all contributors were asked to bring Afan's Dance to the table whatever they felt was right. As a SIMON DEELEY result, the contributions are quite varied in BUY NOW terms of length, format and style. All perfect in their own way. Going through these gems, several recurring themes emerge, which manage Swallow Tales to perfectly illustrate who Hal Willner was, and JOHN SCOFIELD why people loved him. Read together, these BUY NOW "Sketches of Hal" also give an insight into why he liked to work and spend time with these artists. You can go through these remembrances Brasiliana and feel the original voices behind all of them, AL DANIELS appreciate the total absence of cliches, and BUY NOW enjoy the underlying sense of humor and fun despite the circumstances in which they've been written. Thus, they collectively mirror the spirit behind the projects that Hal Willner liked to concoct. I'm sure that this article is going to be just one of many tributes that will be paid to honor Hal Willner in the months to come, especially as we will be emerging from our seclusion. Producer and engineer Marc Urselli, a long-time friend and collaborator of Hal (see his remembrance below), has already started working on a website and a tribute to his legacy that will bring together many of the musicians that knew and worked with Hal. An homage to Marc Bolan PREMIUM and T.Rex, the latest recording produced by Hal Willner, should be released in the coming months. Hopefully, the tribute to Nino Rota at Lincoln Center, produced by Hal Willner, will be finally staged after it got cancelled in June 2018 due to weather problems. And, a few days ago, Saturday Night Live ran a touching homage video (see below). So stay tuned, because even though Hal Willner is no longer with us his legacy will always be, through the work of those Luca Dell'Anna who admired him. piano The article includes contributions, organized in alphabetical order, by: Art Baron; Steven Bernstein; Mark Bingham; Carla Bley; Greg Cohen; John Corbett; Adam Dorn; Terry Edwards; Donald Fagen; Sharyn Felder; Bill Frisell; Amy Gordon; Robin Holcomb; Iggy Pop; Kramer; Mary Lee Kortes; Michael Leonhart; Gary Lucas; Karen Mantler; Eric Mingus; Roy Nathanson; Janine Nichols; John Patitucci; Shawn Pelton; Bobby Previte; Marc Ribot; Marcus Rojas; David Sanborn; Jenny Scheinman; John Scofield; Syd Straw; Matt Sweeney; Marc Urselli; Suzanne Vega; Steve Weisberg; Doug Wieselman; and Robert Wilson. RADIO Art Baron EXPLOREmusiciaDONAn TE SIGN UP SIGN IN SEARCH There are a few Giants who walk the Earth, and beyond a doubt, Hal Willner was absolutely at the top. Since his passing I have thought a lot about him. He was a Gentle Giant. At first glance you might have missed his brilliance, his amazing depth, all those kinds of things. And beyond that he made GIFTS & MESSAGES what he did look easy. He just did it! 50th Anniversary Blue Notes For June With Marc Cohn I am fortunate to have worked for him since 1989, starting with Weird Nightmare (Meditations on Mingus). At the time I was too SHOP busy to notice, but now I have the time to, that he brought together the most outrageous Jazz at Amazon groups of musicians, singers, spoken artists and Hal Willner Go engineers. He had a gift for this, and he gave the right people music to arrange, create and live in a Hal kind of world. At first, I did wonder what he actually was doing, sitting quietly in the control room of the recording studio; really quiet, indeed! And when Stay Awake: Various Weird Nightmare: things weren't moving he would gently chortle Interpretations of Music … Meditations on Mingus "C'mon, ya bastaaaads." $13.44 $89.99 (82) (18) But now I get it. He was the most "hands-on" type of producer, in the most subtle of ways. He was a remarkable catalyst in creating a multitude of works, an incredible body of work for one man to have been the major force in creating. What brilliance, having Elvis Costello singing the title song "Weird Nightmare" or West Bird up : The Charlie Parker Remix Project Leonard Cohen reading Mingus poetry on "Eclipse" or Lou Reed and James Carter playing $6.40 $10.39 $9.85 together, enticing each other to go to the next (263) (31) level, and the next, and the next... Ads by Amazon I do have one final request; a couple of summers ago we rehearsed the music for the concert version of his Amarcord Nino Rota recording. Yet again, it was an astonishing group of artists gathered together for this beautiful experience. Some came in from Europe as well! There were rehearsals, and then the Lincoln Center Out of Doors soundcheck. During the soundcheck (outdoors) the skies were darkening, and the stage manager was monitoring the coming storm, a big electrical storm. We were hastened off the stage. We waited and waited. Some rain fell, and we finally were told we would not be playing. Everyone felt beyond dismayed. The core orchestra got amazingly tight in a short period of time. What a let-down, not to perform. The line to get into the event went around the block... We were so saddened, and Hal was so fired up he wanted us to get a studio and record it that night! It didn't happen, yet we all held hope that it would. So here is my wish: that Woodstock, 1988. It took us 24 hours to mix Gart hEXPLORE Hudson's "FeeDONAd the TEBirds" for Stay SIGN UP SIGN IN SEARCH Awake (Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films) (A&M). Joe Ferla, Hal and me. Los Angeles 1985. Mixing Lost in the Stars at A+M. We went to Club Lingerie to see Thelonious Monster. The waitress had a name tag that said "Aidszilla." Hal tried to get her to give it to him. She refused. Los Angeles, 1999. I'm down and out after my 19-year marriage ends. Broke. Hal "hires" me, uncredited, to watch the movie Finding Forrester with him and "help" him choose music for the soundtrack. He pays me when he didn't have to. We take bike rides from Venice Beach to Sunset Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway and back. New Orleans, 2017. U2 is ready to record "Bang a Gong." With Marc Urselli engineering, we try to use the old Piety Street studio, which is now a private studio. It's my first recording session with alleged ex-Mossad agents protecting the studio. I bring mics and help get players. Hal pulls it off. New York, 1988. We record a version of "Alice in Wonderland" for Stay Awake using porn stars as vocalists. Disney has been hard to deal with and we are foolishly trying to fuck with them. The track is great but in the mastering process, Bob Ludwig convinced Hal not to include it. Hal ended up calling one of the medleys "3 inches is such a wretched height." Los Angeles, Summer of 1987—Stay Awake sessions. Hal lives an entire week on challah bread, mustard and Hebrew National Salami. Throw in a few Pink's hot dogs. Summer 1987. Hal and I share a 2AM "Festive Fruit Cup" with Allen Ginsberg at Vim and Vigor, a 24-hour health food place which no longer exists, gearing up for the recording session of The Lion For Real. New York, 1985. Crashing at Hal's 58th Street apartment while he's gone, I discover the old dude sleeping on the couch is Terry Southern. New York, 2005. Hal picks the Davell Crawford song "Gather by the River" as the "hit" from the Our New Orleans record. He was right. New York, 1983. Hal lets me do a track for the Monk tribute album That's the Way I Feel Now: A Tribute to Thelonious Monk. "Brilliant Corners" is well received, which changes my life forever. New Orleans, 2010. Hal asks about local hip- hop.