JazzWax

Don Burrows, a multi-instrumentalist known largely in Australia, where he spent much of his professional career and where he became a significant jazz performer and recording artist, died on March 12, 2020. He was 91.

Burrows recorded on nearly every reed and woodwind instrument and in many different jazz styles, from Dixieland to fusion. In Australia, he was often called upon to play in orchestras backing marquee pop singers on tour, including Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Cleo Lane. He also performed with touring jazz stars such as Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole and Oscar Peterson.

While hugely popular in Australia, where he became a fixture on televised variety shows and concerts, Burrows was little known in the U.S. That's largely because his records weren't widely distributed here, probably because labels required touring to support their release. Burrows didn't tour much outside of Australia. That decision was likely a practical one, since travel abroad would have taken him away from home for sums that didn't sufficiently offset the cost or inconvenience.

At home, Burrows was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1973 and Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1987.

Here's a sampling of Burrows' sound on alto saxphone and flute:

Here's Love Is For The Very Young (also known as The Bad and the Beautiful)...

Love Is for the Very Young

Here's Esa Cara, with a Bud Shank feel...

Esa Cara

Here's Ivory Moss...

Ivory Moss

Here's The Shade of the Mango Tree with Luiz Bonfá...

The Shade of the Mango Tree

And here's Burrows with the Australian jazz choir, Adelaide Connection, singing Stolen Moments...

Stolen Moments

A special thanks to Dennis Galloway.

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed memoirist Glennon Doyle for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Glennon talked about her childhood and the bulimia she struggled with. Then she married, but wound up having a tough time in the relationship. So Glennon and her husband amicably divorced. [Photo of Glennon Doyle by Amy Paulson, courtesy of Glennon Doyle]

Not until Glennon saw retired pro-soccer star Abby Wambach at a book reading in 2016 did she realize she was attracted to her. They married in 2017, and they now live happily in Naples, Fla. Glennon's new memoir, Untamed, is honest and moving.

Here's Glennon delivering a Ted Talk in 2013...

Don Payne. Following my post last week on Don Payne (above, with glasses), the mystery man in the photo from the Getz/Gilberto album recording session in March 1963, Jim Eigo of Jazz Promo Services sent along a link to quite a few videos of Payne in action. Go here.

Brazilian Jazz Quartet. Following my post last week on the Brazilian Jazz Quartet and the saxophonist who I thought sounded most like Art Pepper, I received the following from Ruy de Lima e Silva in Brazil...

Dear Marc, An utmost honor to disagree with you. I'm a Brazilian, you know, (alas!) and a jazz fan. This Casé-Peixoto tandem have always been universally known here in Brazil as two fanatical Paul Desmond-Dave Brubeck followers (not Pepper or Williamson). They were from São Paulo, but they would frequently show up in my native Rio where they had many fans. Casé, by the way, was considered the topnotch Brazilian alto-sax for many years and would only find some new and real competitors in the 1960s with my very missed friend Victor Assis Brasil, the excellent Jorginho, who you could hear very often in hits by our pioneer rockstars Celly Campelo ("Broto Legal") and Sergio Murilo ("Marcianita"). Cheers!

And this one from Neal in Singapore...

Marc, Luiz Alves is an outstanding bass player, has toured with Joao Donato for decades, and played with all the greats. But he's only in his mid-70's. I wonder if he's a relative.

As the album is on Spotify, I'll definitely listen through. Took a quick listen to one tune, and easily hear the Russ Freeman influence, though not yet sure it has any of Freeman's puckish phrasings.

Thanks for making me aware of this one, Marc, and enjoy the weekend.

Hope you're coping with the virus in New York. Sounds like Blade Runner over in the States. Here in Singapore, things are well under control. No panic, no mayhem, just lots of caution but otherwise OK.

My Voyage to Italy. One of the great documentaries on Italian cinema is Martin Scorsese's loving and captivating tribute, My Voyage to Italy (1999). And a wonderful introduction to post-war Italian realism, if you're unfamiliar. Just jot down the movies Scorsese mentions and you'll be all set. Here's the entire documentary in English. Just ignore the subtitles...

Bill Evans. Pianist Dave Thompson sent along the following audio clip of pianist Bill Evans playing with the San Jose Symphony Orchestra in 1975...

Donald Byrd/Pepper Adams radio. Sid Gribetz is hosting Jazz Profiles this weekend on New York's WKCR-FM. On Sunday (March 15), he explores the album collaborations of trumpeter Donald Byrd and baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams. Tune in from 2 to 5 p.m. (EST). You can listen from anywhere in the world on your iPad, phone or computer by going here.

What the heck. Here's Shalamar performing Take That to the Bank in 1982...

Oddball album cover of the week.

Goodness. I guess Fisher's contract didn't include cover approval rights. Or maybe it did.

Last week, I was listening to early Brazilian bossa nova albums from the late 1950s when I came across an obscure one from 1958. The album was by a Rio group known as the Brazilian Jazz Quartet. Recorded in 1958 for Columbia, Coffee and Jazz featured alto saxophonist José Ferreira Godinho Filho (better known as Casé), pianist Moacyr Peixoto, bassist Luiz Alves and drummer Rubens Alberto.

What sets this album apart is that Casé sounds an awful lot like Art Pepper and Peixoto sounds like a mix between Russ Freeman and Claude Williamson. So much so that after my first listen, I thought this album might have been recorded by Pepper and Freeman on the sly for a sub rosa payday while under contract to another label. [Photo above of Casé]

I even shared it with Todd Selbert, whose West Coast jazz ears I trust implicitly. Todd is the editor of The Art Pepper Companion: Writings on a Jazz Original (here). Todd was convinced it wasn't Pepper or Williamson but agreed that the musicians were clearly deeply influenced by them.

That's when I remembered what Bud Shank told me during an interview back in 2008 (go here). We talked about his friendship with early bossa nova pioneers in the 1950s and about their passion for the relaxed approach of Chet Baker and West Coast jazz in general. [Photo above of Bud Shank]

How did they know about the music? Direct flights from Los Angeles to Rio in the late 1950s meant people returning from visits to L.A. often came home with armfuls of West Coast jazz albums. Many of those albums were also sold in Rio.

Interestingly, this is similar to the way American jazz musicians found out about the bossa nova years later when musician friends on tour in South America returned to the U.S. with Brazilian albums. Amazing how West Coast jazz initially influenced the bossa nova in the 1950s and then the bossa nova influenced jazz starting in the 1960s. [Pictured above on the album cover, from left, Russ Freeman and Chet Baker]

Clearly, the Brazilian Jazz Quartet had spent hours listening to West Coast jazz albums. Casé surely played along with all of Pepper's recordings until he had figured out how to sound like him. Peixoto must have fallen in love with the sound of Freeman and Williamson. So much so that when Coffee and Jazz was recorded, these two musicians could have passed for audio clones of their American idols.

But enough history. You'll find Coffee and Jazz here. And here's the full album at YouTube. You be the judge...