Tribute to a Legend

The Roger Humphries All Star Big Band led by Gerald Wilson 2005

In the summer of 2005, I co-taught the course The Development of Jazz at UCLA with the Jazz legend Gerald Wilson. I have known Gerald since 1998 and have worked for him before as a teaching assistant. During this course I got the bright idea to pair up Gerald with the Roger Humphries Big Band for a concert of Gerald's compositions. I had known Roger for many years and I knew he had a big band that performed regularly. I discussed the idea with Roger and Gerald and they agreed to do it. It took an incredible amount of work, but I made all the arrangements and the concert took place on October 8, 2005 at the Byham Theatre in Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was Gerald's first performance in Pittsburgh since the 1950s. I produced and promoted the concert and produced a recording of the evening, which is still under consideration for release on CD.

Click the titles below to hear the full tracks (rough mixes): Blues For The Count (Featuring Sean Jones) Theme For Monterey (Featuring Tony Campbell) This would be a limited edition double CD, numbered out of 2000 copies. This handsomely designed CD features nearly 2 hours of music and a twenty-page booklet about Gerald and Roger. This concert was recorded live using a 32-track Otari RADAR System	An Amazing CD Yearning to be Heard!
"Pittsburgh is hallowed ground for jazz." - Gerald Wilson
All Photos of Gerald's Visit to Pittsburgh Were Graciously Taken by Dave Denoma

The Freddie Redd Fiasco

When I was in Pittsburgh for the Gerald Wilson concert, a friend of mine trombonist Dr. Nelson Harrison, informed me that the great jazzman Freddie Redd was living in dire straights out in Los Angeles. He told me he was healthy and ready to get back to work. I had been a fan of Freddie's since the 80s, so, when I returned to LA, I sought him out. I met him at the Cat and Fiddle in Hollywood. I liked Freddie immediately and he seemed very lucid and eager to get started resurrecting his career. Over lunch, we mapped out the strategy for his return to fame.

Freddie Redd 2005

The following day we met with Billy Sullivan owner of Cloverland Studios to discuss using his facilities for the recording aspect of the project. Billy was super accommodating and made arrangements to have his grand piano brought into the studio. He tuned it and made it available to Freddie for rehearsing. The other problem was Freddie was living in an RV and needed a better environment in which to create. Billy graciously made available, and I rented, the house attached to his studio for the length of the project. It seemed all was in place and we were ready to go.

A couple of weeks later, when Freddie felt he was ready, we set the first recording session. Freddie and his musicians showed up two hours late, stoned, and took another hour and a half to set up. They began playing, but the drummer got stuck on a beat that came on the 4-and. They struggled with it for 30 minutes then took a break. When they returned, conditions had worsened to the point that I called off the rest of the session. The next session was more of the same. I talked with Freddie about it and he assured me they were just working out the kinks.

Around this time Freddie was becoming increasingly more mysterious and would disappear for days at a time. He began to make unusual monetary demands and became more erratic in his playing and his studio presence. It was 105 degrees in the valley everyday and he continuously wore the same green velour long-sleeved shirt. To me, it seemed as though he was using heroin again, but he vehemently denied it. We were woefully off schedule by now and it was important to get some recordings "in the can." At this stage I became doubtful that Freddie still had the ability to make a comeback. He could still play the piano, but every aspect of his life was in such shambles that it interfered with his musicianship.

For the next session, I hired the great bassist Roberto Miranda, and drummer Clayton Cameron (Tony Bennett Trio). Freddie agreed in advance, but the night of the session he made it obvious he was not inspired. Despite that, we managed to record two basic rhythm tracks. When we took a break for lunch, he told me he would rather play with his own musicians. I told him I would gladly agree if they would promise to get something done. I set another session for Friday that week. The following day, after breaking the door on Billy's studio with a shovel trying to get in, Freddie Redd and his RV disappeared into the sunset.

Freddie Redd at Cloverland

Three weeks later he called me and asked me if I could help him get his car running. I went out to the valley where he was and he showed me the car. He told me he needed $500 to get it running and if he had the money the mechanic would fix it right away. No sooner did I give him the money, he jumped on a Metro bus to Hollywood leaving his car sitting there on the side of the road. The next day he had no explanation for why his car was still broken and he had no money. He quit returning my calls and I never heard from him again. The last I heard he had found another sucker on the east coast and left LA. I wish him well.

Here is a taste of Freddie Redd, Roberto Miranda and Clayton Cameron:

Blues Is News - 4:01

With the planned addition of Al "Tootie" Heath, Red Holloway, Kenny Burrell, Phil Ranelin, Dave Carpenter (since deceased), Peter Erskine, Herb Mickman and Buddy Collette this comeback CD had great promise. Que Será. As you can see not all projects work out.

The Whistling Elves - We're Having a Dot Com Christmas

Saturday Night Blues

Throughout the 1990s I produced many concerts for national blues artists in Pittsburgh, Pa. The main reason was that many of them passed right through there on their way to other places east. I was disappointed that many of the folks of Pittsburgh had little clue of what the blues truly were. I heard one person state that Eric Clapton was the inventor of the blues. On the radio all you heard were rock 'n' roll blues and there was only one radio show that played the real thing on Saturdays. I decided to create a series of blues concerts that were held in various clubs around town, but finally settled in at a seedy little place in the city's freight district. The series hosted incredible greats like: Guitar Gabriel, Jimmy Rogers, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Casey Jones, Big Wheeler, and Sugar Blue. The series also featured many local blues bands, giving them an opportunity to play and associate with legendary blues musicians. Many of these legends are sadly no longer with us. It was rewarding for everyone involved. We had a great time!!

Portrait Brasileiro on WYEP 91.3 FM 1989-1991

During the mid to late 1980s I spent an extraordinary amount of time in New York City basking in the jazz and Brazilian music that was abundant there. Over the years I cobbled together some great friendships with many jazz musicians, poets, producers and artists. (I always felt a warm rush come over me when I ran into them, or someone recognized me). My time there was rich with culture on a level I could not find in Pittsburgh, and it influenced me greatly. I noticed a change in my music, my artwork and, perhaps most importantly, my world view. I truly love Manhattan.

One of the great perks to being in New York are the record stores. (At this time, you could not find ONE post-bossa nova (after 1965) Brazilian record in any record store anywhere in Pittsburgh)! When I started hanging in NYC CDs had not yet become the format of choice. I purchased hundreds of jazz and Brazilian long-playing records (LPs) and soaked up the music every night. Before long, I was spending small fortunes on CDs of rare previously unavailable Brazilian music. On one trip, I met some very important figures in the Brazilian community, who, impressed with my interest in Brazilian Music, encouraged me to develop a radio program of Brazilian music in Pittsburgh. I did not believe I possessed enough knowledge to produce such a program, but I did have an incredible amount of music I really wanted to share with the world. I began an intensive research project to gather as much information as I could about the history of Brazilian Popular Music, or MPB. In the pre-Internet world, such research was not easy. However, my Brazilian friends in NY were immeasurably helpful in giving me a strong overview of the history and main figures of Brazilian music.

With a mere 20 LPs and 10 CDs as my library, I wrote up a proposal to produce, at no cost to the station, a one hour informative music program to air weekly. I submitted the proposal to WYEP 91.3 FM, a community-based public radio station with a very progressive approach to music. They accepted my proposal and by June 1989, the program was on the air. I served as the program's producer and on air host. Since I had hit the ground running with such a small library and such thin background information it was necessary for me to work extremely hard building up both areas.

To access more information, I began to study Portuguese at the University of Pittsburgh. This was the key that opened the door to an incredible wealth of knowledge and made the program a very rich, educational vehicle that helped usher in the era of world music.

Between 1989 and 1991, I produced 106 programs and built the library to over 2,000 CDs and a library of over 100 books in Portuguese and English. When the show began, the consumer was hard pressed to find any of the music they had heard on the radio show for sale in the stores. (Most of the music used on my program had been imported directly from Brazil or New York). However, within a year, every store in town had ‘world music’ and ‘international music’ sections. It was the birth of a new genre.

Thank You for Looking!