GerE Lrc ,M Libitwm & Iazzletter PO Box 240, OiaiCA93024-0240

date, but it's still a great song. Do you know how it came to Mail Bag be written? Was itjust one of those tunes that he heard on the radio, or was he commissioned to write it? I am delighted to tell you that I have been wrong in my Once again, thank you for a most informative and obvi- expressed fear of racist influence on the election. I'm sure ously affectionate book about the man, his 1ife, and his work. some exists but it has become irrelevant in our modern - Stuart Freed culture. This is truly the demonstrated historic turning point in the political and social life of our nation. We should be Among the better bits of advice on writing are these grateful for the opportunity to take part in this transformation. aphorisms: We should be humble in victory and proud of America. As soon as you write a line you like, strike it out. Congratulations to us. And to our next president, thank you Kill yOur darlings. for your consistent embodiment of our better nature, our Writers often get hung up on lines or phrases, which tend vision for the future, and the values that made America the to distort the whole. When my father waqa young man in great light of the world. November 4,2008, will be regarded England, studying painting and violin, his art teacher saying, by future historians as the moment we tumed away from fear criticized aportrait he hadiust done. He defended it, "You're and embraced hope. I have never in my life been happier to be "Look at the detail in the eye!" The teacher said, wrong' not painting an eye, you're painting aface." Mike Melvoin, Los Angeles And, myfather said, the teacher was right. - It reminds me of something Dizzy used to say: "It's not I have just spent a hugely pleasant tim e teading Portrait of the notes you play, it's the notes you leave out." " pet Johnny,I want to thank you for a book that really needed As for " Kill your darlings, it rneans to get rid of your writing. I was beginning to despair of anybody producing a phrases lest they distort the whole. One of the reasons I kill his book about Mercer. Sadly I am not a writer and did no more distikeThe Alexandria Quartetis that Durrell doesn't read than cherish the thought that I might one day retire and write darlings. I recently made my umpteenth attempt to pages one myself. Ihhispering Sideways might have been a good Jam,es Joyce's Ulysses only to penetrate a bareforty titlel Anyhow, you've saved me a job. Having finished into its briar patch. Joyce purportedly said something to the to decipher reading the book, the picture that you paint is of a "lovely effect that it would take scholars a hundredyears some woman is said to man, but a lousy drunk.'l the meaning of his writing, to which "It the career I had plannedfor my I do agree with your critique of Seven Brides for Seven have commented, is not others to obfuscate Brothersbut would take issue about the lyric of Spring Spring children." Some writers write to reveal, great Harburgian rhymes in and, I sometimes think, to conceal that they don't have all Spring.I think that there are some "I up with that much to say. I like what Norman Mailer said: write the song and you gotta hand it to a guy who can come "' "How busy can a bumble bee?" to find out what I think. writing came, as Incidentally, do you know Ella Fitzgerald's rendering of One of the best things I ever read about The greatest style is no This Time the Dream's on Me? I know of no finer interpreta- I recall, from Somerset Maugham: tion of a Mercer lyric, and the icing on top is a jaw-dropping style at all. "How a bumble bee?" I would alto solo from Benny Carter. Had I written busy can have considered Finally you make no mention of Ellington's Satin Doll. have stricken it out. But then I never would place. The words may seem a little dated, if class can ever be said to it in thefirst

June 2008 the good alrangers did indeed And I find the lyric for Satin Doll to be too cute. two or more instruments, and resources, and As I mentioned in the book, Mercer nearly put me on the impress me, for they were able to utilize these as I've mentioned sideumlkwith laughter one night in New York singing what he the best of them beautifully. Bill Evans, composition" for called "a medley of myJloPs." before, used the term "contemplative written music, and "spontaneous composition" for any kind term to jazz' Gene: Just finishing Woody's biography. I read chunks of improvised music, not limiting the with morning coffee and you are really fucking up my (Brookmeyer and Bill made a fascinating two-piano album said that any music that mornings. I have to tearmyself away to get a day started. Also called The lvory Hunters.) Bill also the process of improvisa- have Cats of Any Color to read. was not in some way in touch with the com- I too loved Woody and it ends with a heartbreak, all too tion was likely to be sterile. What, I asked, about paper? Bill said, "He usual for this country. poser sitting writing on apiece of score So, many thanks for such a lovely flow and for bringing may well be improvising." 1959,1realized back some dear memories. Hope you are well, thriving and When I joinedDown Beat in that May of writing' that I would be dealing with all sorts of people whom I had Bob Brookmeyer long admired from a distance. I was not intimidated as much - as leery. What were they all like? I asked one of my prede- cessors as editor, Jack Tracy, who might prove difficult' Brookmeyer Without hesitation he said, "Miles Davis, Buddy Rich, and Gerry Mulligan." As events unfolded, I became friends with me to Mulli- Brookmeyer undoubtedly has no idea what an important place all three. It was Brookmeyer who introduced he holds in my life. My admiration for him as a trombonist gan. magazine. Some- and pianist and, particularly, arranger and composer' knows I was in New York on business for the hangouts no bounds. one took me to Charlie's Tavern, one of the several knew Not long after I became editor of Down Beat inthe spring of jazz musicians, and I ran into Jimmy Raney. I editor the of 1959, I wrote a column about Robert Farnon. At that time Jimmy from my days as music and drama of and I met the editors of Jazz Review were Nat Hentoff and Hsiu Wen Louisville Times.Jimmy was a native of Louisville, Shi. Hentoff (who had worked as New York editor of Down him during one of his trips home to visit family' Beat)hadan abiding contempt for Down Beatwhich, in due Jimmy was sitting at the bar with Bob Brookmeyer, join them. Brookmeyer course, I came to share. Hsiu Wen Shi wrote apiece attacking having a few drinks. He asked me to me for writing about Farnon, saying that I seemed to be had just driven non-stop from his home town, Kansas City, a Morris unduly impressed by arrangers. Anyone with ears is im- Missouri, in a small car he had at that time - with Bob pressed by the good ones, and in my pantheon at that time Minor, if memory serves me. I spent that evening graciousness to me. Years later, were Sy Oliver, Paul Weston, Ralph Burns, Ernie Wilkins (oh and Jimmy. I remember his joiningDown Beatlwas the exquisite detail of his writing!), Frank Comstock, Eddie I reminded him of it, saying that on "Well, the least we Sauter, Bill Finegan, Billy May, Billy Byers, Pete Rugulo, a little scared. He said, with a smile, Buck Clayton, Neal Hefti, Mel Powell, Gerry Mulligan, Bob could do was to make you comfortable." through the Brookmeyer, and quite a few more. I find myself wondering I had known Brookmeyer's playing chiefly was if Hsiu Wen Shi was incapable of hearing multiple lines. Or Gerry Mulligan Quartet after he replaced Art Farmer. He and Mulli- he may well have thought that one should only write about with the group from 1954 to 1957. Brookmeyer often jazz in Down Beat and Farnon's glorious writing for large gan both had a taste for counterpoint. The quartet was strange orchestra wasn't jazz. The fact was that a lot of jazz soloists, referred to as pianoless, as if this were a truly quartet doesn't including J.J. Johnson and Oscar Peterson, wanted to and aberration of instrumentation. But the string keyboards eventually did record with Farnon, and every jazz arratger use piano, and there is a certain logic to it. The of tones I've ever known acknowledges debts to Farnon, whom Andr6 use the tempered scale, which entails a falsification in this "equal Previn called "the world's greatest string writer." to permit playing in various keys. The tones "pure". Get rid of Jazz solos, excepting that of keyboard players and to a temperament" system are very subtly not both lesser extent guitarists, are largely a matter of single lines, the piano, and you can make true pitch. Interestingly, as as horn one-note-at-a-time. For harmony and counterpoint, you need Mulligan and Brookmeyer were pianists well

June 2008 She was in players. (And Bill played.flute and violin.) much involved with actress Judy Holiday. had dropped out Mulligan told me that he formed what came to be known hospital in New York for a mastectomy: she The despicable, indeed monstrous as the"Gerry Mulligan Concert JazzBand in order to have an of a play for that reason. had written that it instrument to write for, but he soon found himself caught up and Lruel, columnist Dorothy Kilgallen a certain actress could invent to in the workaday duties of business that he had little time to was amazing what a story was absolutely untrue, write. The writing duties fell to Brookmeyer, who in essence get out of a play she didn't like. It During that Sutherland was the straw boss of that orchestra, effectually its concert uit", fttny und indolertly dishonest. the gig each night and master. engagement, Mulligan would finish York to be with and I first heard the band at the Newportlazz Festival in July red-eye flight to New 'Iudy "urci " to Chicago late in the day in time 1960" Night had fallen. and it was raining. I was chatting with reassure her, then fly back held up that week' Dizzy Gillespie in the band tent behind the stage when the for the gig. I am to amazedthat he in which Brookmeyer Mulligan band was announced. It was, if I recall, its premiere But that was the circumstance Mulligan. And Mulligan and I became performance , andDizzy said, "I have to hear this," and went introduced me to very close friends. The friendship out. I followed. The Voice ofAmerica was filming the festival friends and in due course that year, and their crew had set up a shed at stage left. It lasted until the end of his life. the habitu6s of protected their equipment from the rain. The band played Brookmeyer and Mulligan were among four bars in New York pahonized by what has been called Diango's Castle in America. In France, Jim and Andy's, one of by far the favorite, and it is called Manoir de mes r€ves, Manor of My Dreams, a jazzmusicians. Jim and Andy's was At the end ofan afternoon, lovely title. The chart, which I did not know at the time, is a lot ofus used to hang out there. ended, the place would Brookmeyer's, and it is one of the most beautiful pieces of when the recording studio sessions famous names, Zoot Sims' Al Cohn, Clark ballad writing in the history of iazz.The experience ofhearing fill it up with Eddie Safranski and it that night was almost surrealistic: I could see what the Terry, iockjaw Davis, Will Bradley, our lives revolved around that place' camera was seeing on the TV monitors, and at the same time many more. It seemed during the two weeks of the Cuban see the reality almost at eye level. The camera panned across In October, 1962, that New York City would the crowds of black umbrellas with raindrops dancing off missile crisis, everyone thought seemed the certainty of an them, and then just at the point when Mulligan began his be the primary target in what absolutely nothing one could do obligato passage, it came to rest on a puddle on the stage in atomic war, and there was by staying halfloaded' Indeed, which was reflected, upside down, Mulligan's image' When, about it. I endured the tension every afternoon, I would sit in one of quite a while later, I told Gerry about this experience, he said I remember that almost drinking with gallows that even the description of it gave him chills. "It made the the booths with Brookmeyer, - mules. hair stand up on my arm," he said. humor - Moscow After that Newport performance, Mulligan came to At one point, I got a call from Mulligan from somewhere had had a recurrence of Chicago location of the Down Beat office to play a on the .oud. H. said that Judy - for the results of the latest tests' week at the- Sutherland Hotel on the South Side. It was in a symptoms and was waiting there, and she was frightened, and black neighborhood in a time when Chicago was much more Iie said he couldn't be to her apartment and keep her segregatJ than it is now. I talked to Brookmeyer, and at an asked me if I would go over only a few,blocks intirmission, he invited me up to the "band room" on the company, which of course I did. She lived that venerable castle on 72'd Street second floor for a drink. It was actually a suite comprising a from me in the Dakota, so did everyone who large living room and a bedroom. Mulligan was in the facing Cenffal Park. I adoredJudy, and national prominence with her perfor- bedroom in the middle of a row with one of the musicians knew her. She came to in the film Born Yesterday opposite over a rhythmic question. When they came out of that room, mance as Billie Dawn That role came to haunt her, because he took one look at me and said, "Who the hell are you?" I Broderick Crawford. after her to reprise it in told him and he said, "That's all I need right now the producers and others were always - was anything but the dumb blonde of ptress." Lther projects. But she that part in the stage version of the I said, "You don't think I'd write anything about this, do that story. She had taken dropped out. She wasn't even the you?" And he simmered down. show when Jean Arthur memorized the part in Mulligan was especially cranky during that engagement, understudy. Legend had it that she or forty-eight hours and went on to perform it for a reason Brookmeyer told me about later. Gerry was very twenty-four

June 2008 who impeccably and brilliantly. The legend was true. She had an Gerry and Judy both loved the playing of Zoot Sims, he and Judy went LQ. of 178. was Irish. Mulligan told me that one night Curiously, she almost didn't get the part in the movie to hear ZootandAl Cohn, and as Zootplayed a descending version. Harry Cohn, the loathsome head of Columbia figure, she said, "There he goes playing that Barry - ah-ha-ha Pictures, tested everyone in sight for it. He said Judy was "too Fitzgerald tenor." And she imitated Fitzgerald's Jewish." But in the end he had to surrender. Cohn was famous descending laugh. for treating every girl he signed to pictures as part of his Judy was deeply musical. She sang well; she had been play private harem. He threatened to destroy the career of Evelyn doing it since she was four; and she was leaming to Keyes, eventually the wife of Artie Shaw, and if he didn't flute from Julius Baker of the New York Philharmonic. She been to be a writer succeed in that, he certainly damaged it. Another girl signed was also her childhood ambition had - She and Mulligan wrote to Columbia was a British actress named Valerie French, who or a director an excellent lyricist. - Loos play became a close friend of mine when she did a publicity tour a full score for a musical based on the Anita me. It has for the western Jubal, in which she played opposite Glenn Happy Birthday. She and Gerry performed it for some of the Ford and Ernest Borgnine. She wrote me a letter saying that never been performed on the stage, although made together. Harry Cohn had finally hit on her. She turned him down, and songs are found in an LP she and Mulligan project down, she wrote, "I guess my career in Hollylvood is over." It was. The story is Irish. Hal Prince turned the go to bars." She went back to the stage in New York. saying, "Jews go to theater. The Irish jazz Judy knew Cohn's reputation. After signing the contract Her circle of friends included Willis Conover,whose my opinion (and for Born Yesterday,she told me, she went for her {irst meeting broadcasts under the name Music []SA, in than with him in his office. He tried to grope her. She pushed him I am not alone) did more to bring down the lron Curtain westem away and Judy was physically quite strong. (She once all the military bluster and threatening presidents the Desmond, threw Leonard- Bernstein, whom she despised, down the flight world couldmuster, composerAlec Wilder, Paul of stairs in front of her apartment door in the Dakota.) Cohn Brookmeyer, and myself. at the bottom of the stairs at fell into a fypist's chair, which rolled across the floor. During The last time I saw Judy was to listen to those seconds, she thought, "There goes my movie career." Birdland: Mulligan was great at pub-crawling another test, The chair hit the wall, dumping Cohn on the floor. He looked other musicians. I knew she had been through "How're you feeling, at her in rage, and then started to laugh. Why, she did not and I put my arms around her and said, I know not know. But her movie career flourished, and she made some my darling?" She said, "Rotten, but at least I'm she ever said to me. superb pictures, such as The Solid Gold Cadillac, all ofwhich going to die." It was the last thing some of I find painful to watch. I was in Paris for a while to write adaptations of show on Broad- She had a warn and generous heart, and, like so many Charles Aznavour's songs for his one-man a strike under way' I people gifted at comedy, a deeply melancholy nature. She told way. When I got home there was taxi planning to pick Willis Conover that she'd spent her childhood pulling her took the subway to get to Jim and Andy's, came up from underground on mother's head out of a gas oven. She once told an interviewer up my luggage later. When I newspapers, the New York that she hardly remembered her childhood. She was incredibly Sixth Avenue I saw a stack of Dies. sensitive to people, right down to reading the timbre of the Post, with a big front-page headline: Judy Holiday where no doubt I voice. Once, in a mood bordering on the despondent, I called Quite shaken, ientered Jim and Andy's, Mulligan, looking for companionship, but he didn't answer, encountered a lot of the regulars, including Brookmeyer' Willis so I called Judy, thinking he might be with her. She said he Mulligan was so devastated that informally was out of town, and then asked, "What's the matter?" Conover, the novelist Joseph Heller, and I took up a round- alone. Judy's funeral Nothing,I said. She said, "It doesn't sound like it. You sound the-clock vigil to see that he was not I was one ofthose invited. as if you need a little body warmth. Why don't you come was limited to family and friends. stayed awake, and when over?" She lived three and a half blocks from me, so I made I could not sleep the night before. I myself to attend' it over to her place in the Dakota in, probably, ten minutes, the morning came I simply couldn't bring learned that he too and spent another evening with her, talking about all sorts of When I next ran into Brookmeyer, I things. I think every man who knew her was in some dimen- couldn't bring himself to attend. as a soloist is the sion in love with her. That was true, by the way, of Valerie Brookmeyer's singular characteristic playing. There are various ways French as well. compositional nature of his

June 2008 to play jazz. You can learn the scales and know which scales go wiihwfrich chords attd use them in whole or in part. Other Jeru devices may be incorporated into the work. But Bob's playing By Bill Crow Gerry Mulligan was especially notable for his way of taking a musical idea I think it's time for a reminder about the large musical footprint from the and developing it in the course of a solo, almost as if he were eruin jazz. Gerry left a very isn't mentioned a lot at the desk writing it on paper. Roger Kellaway does this. He fifties through the nineties, but he dominant told me once that he got it from Brookmeyer, especially lately. At the height of his success, Gerry was the his inventions in big during the period when he played piano with the quartet led baritone saxophonist in the world, and group structure left a lasting by Brookmeyer and Clark Terry, one of the inspired pairings band arranging and in small jazz ear. in all jazz because they were so different but so compatible' mark on the collective Gerry developed That group's home base was the old BlueNote on Houston While he was mastering his instrument, foremost sitter-in' He Street in the warehouse district of the lower Village in that a reputation for being the world's his hom and would part of New York old enough that the streets were still paved *orrld walk onto any bandstand with playing superbly. At the first with the original bricks. prove his right to be there by to sit in with every If you remember the place, run by the Canterino family, iew NewportlazzFestivals he managed Dizzy. For one festival, you will recall the bandstand that was placed between the bar one of his idols, from Duke to featuring Gerry and and the full dining room. Roger said that the piano was so Ellington wrote a special composition placed that he couldn't see Clark and Bob: his back was to Harry Carney in duet. as an aranger, but didn't know his them. And so he listenedwith full, undistracted concentration' I knew about Gerry jamsession at the studio And he absorbed a lot of Brookmeyer's compositional playing until I met him in 1950 at a Rivers. (I was a valve trombone approach. ofpainter/saxophonist Larry city during the I mentioned this to Bob once. And he said that he got it pliyer in those days.) I saw Gerry around the to play the bass' and from Jimmy Raney. Jimmy was a gentle, highly intelligent n"it y"ut or so while I was learning once on a drummer's pick-up job, man who in his later days returned to Louisville, where a cruel then played bass with him he spent some time fate gradually rendered him deaf, and his years ofdrinking but we didn't get to be friends until after his piano-less quartet with finally deprived him of life. in Califomia, where he developed he came back to New York with Bob was a founding member of and alranger for the Mel Chet Baker. In 1954, when departing Peck Morri- Lewis-Thad Jones band, then moved to Holland where he a sextet and called me to replace the year association with wrote for several years. Musicians ate cognizant of his son, I began what became an eleven gave me the opporru- abilities, but I don't think he has ever had the recognition by Gerry that developed my playing and musicians. the public or, for that matter, the press that he deserves. nity to work with some wonderful Sims, Bob Brookmeyer, Jon Of the crowd that populated Jim and Andy's, Brookmeyer Gerryr's '54 sextet, with Zoot me, soon became a quartet again, is one of the few who are still left. This may be sad, but it is Eardley, Dave Bailey and quartet, Brookmeyer was inevitable. Generations come and go. But I am especially glad with Brookmeyer. In a later happily toured with that grouP, that Bob is still here, and perhaps you'll see why his letter had replaced by Art Farmer. I remain in New York when special meaning to me. And while I'm at it, let me say that but in late 1959I decided to stay' His quartet Bob's chart on Manoir de Mes R€ves remains one of the Gerry went to California for an extended and Bailey left to form the haunting experiences of my musical life' brokl up there when Farmer I am eternally grateful to Bob for initiating my friendship Iazztet with BennY Golson. Gerry put with Mulligan. And that in turn led to my friendship with the After making a couple of movies in California, was something he'd had outstanding bass player Bill Crow, who, with Mel Lewis on together his Concert Jazzpand.It and the movie money made it drums with the Gerry Mulligan concert band, constituted one in mind for quite a while, together right away, he had ofthe finest rhythm sections I've ever heard. possible. To get a music library gill quartet and sextet material' Some of Bill's earliest essays were published in the Hol-un expand some of the Mandel's wonderful compo- Jazzletter. And he used several of Johnny 1 to Live. Gerry's intention was Recently Bill some ofwhose first writing was published sitions from the movie Want - always to get back to big band writing, but his duties as inthe Jazzletter - sent me this:

June 2008 goes quite a while on bandleader and soloist took up most of his time, so his Actually, even though it on for longer originally. Gerry arrangements for the Concert JazzBand were few. record, that rendition was much a couple of minutes could be When they returned to New York from a tour of Europe, found a spot on the tape where short enough for an LP. Conte Candoli and Buddy Clark left the band to go home to seamlessly excised, to make it one ofGerry's finest achieve- L.A., and Clark Terry and I replaced them. Between bookings The Concert JazzBandwas of the for the band, Gerry again worked with a quartet, with ments, but it couldn't survive the economic realities up after the summer of Brookmeyer, Mel Lewis and myself. (When the band finally 1960s. Gerry reluctantly broke it over the next expired. Gus Johnson replaced Mel in the quartet.) We 1961, getting it together again occasionally at Birdland" rehearsed once a week, whether or not there were gigs, and couple of years for a week or two piece called Night Lights around the band attracted the interest of arrangers like Al Cohn, Gary Gerry wrote a beautiful on which it was the title McFarland and Wayne Shorter, who all wrote things for us' 1962. For the 1963 Philips album sextet, with Art Farmer, Bob And, of course, Brookmeyer was writing, too. tune, he put together a new Dave Bailey and me. But the group At one rehearsal, Gerry brought in a stack of music paper Brookmeyer, Jim Hall, to keep together for club work' and began handing out parts. We all thought, "Ah, Gerry has was too expensive for Gerry quartet, with Brookmeyer. begun to write again!" Butwhen we played whathe had given We went back to the were a happy couple us, it turned out to be the same eight-bar phrase orchestrated Gerry and the actress Judy Holliday wrote then, like Night ten different ways. He was thinking about arranging, but in those days, and the songs that he reflected that happiness' hadn't come up with an arrangement yet. Lights and Buttedty With Hiccups, They worked on a musical Even though he or Brookmeyer would sometimes play a Judy had a flair for writinglyrics Happy Birthday. My wife and tr tune on the piano, Gerry wanted the core sound ofthe Concert version of Anita Loos's Washingtonville where Jazz Band to be the pianoless quartet. The band played spent an evening at Judy's house in at the piano. They were moderately softly most ofthe time, always coming back down she sang all the songs, with Gerry but it fell apart when Loos to that quartet sound for the beginnings of solos. Gerry told very excited about the project, the necessary rewriting to turn the play us at a rehearsal, "We can have just as much dynamic effect lost interest in doing going from mezzo piano to forte as we can from forte to into a musical. It never reached the stage. the songs they wrote for Happy triple-forte. But at the softer level, you can hear all the inside Judy recorded some of an augmented version of parts, and that's what I want to hear." Birthday on a studio album with unhappy with her singing, and We concentrated on blend and tone quality, and the sound Gerry's big band. Judy was postponed until she could return of the band was always rich. Mel Lewis and I got along well the release ofthe album was But she died in 1965 without together as the rhythm section, and the section leaders, Nick to the studio to redo her work. performances were Travis, Bob Brookmeyer and Gene Quill, knew how to keep getting it done. In 1980 the originai with Mulligarz, on the DRG label' the sound where Gerry wanted it. finally relea sed as Holliday 1965 for some steady Another thing that made that band unusual was Gerry's I left Gerry's quartet at the end of never played together again, approach to the accompaniment of soloists. With the quartets, work in New York, and we followed his music with tri titeA to improvise harmony lines on his baritone behind the though we remained friendly. I years. When my first book, other horn, and liked to hear the same thing behind his own interest for the ensuing thirty into Japanese in 1995,I got solos. On the big band, he would have the rest of the musi- Jazz Anecdotes,was translated the Venus Records label in cians join in on the backgrounds. Behind a soloist, Gerry an offer to produce a CD for quartet together, with Carmen Leggio, Joe would set a figure and the saxes would harmonize it, and then Japan. I put a record date at Rudy Van the brass would add counter-figures. While this was develop- Cohn and David Jones for a ofthe tunes ing, the soloist might get five or six choruses. Except on Gelder's studio in Englewood, New Jersey. One Night Lights. i liked the way bailads, we never went on to the next written section until I chose for the date was Gerry's notes dedicated it to Gerry' Gerry gave us the cue. As a result, arrangements often were it came out, and in the liner I the CD arrived at my home in opened up into very long versions When the first copies of As I reached Blueport,on the album Verve recorded live at the Village January,lgg6,Iwanted to send one to Gerry. him about it, itrang. It was Vanguard, displays the inventiveness of the band during a for the phone to call him and tell that Gerry had just passed very long exchange of fours between Gerry and Clark Terry' a friend giving me the sad news away. I wish he could have heard the music. - B'C'

June 2008