It’s beautiful outside and I have many things to do, but everything must wait. I feel compelled to write something after reading about Joe Andersen’s death in today’s Wisconsin State Journal. “Cadillac Joe,” as he liked to be called, was a well respected jazz and blues Hammond B3 organist for over 30 years in the Madison area. He played as a sideman for years until starting the Blind Wolf Blues Band, and later the Cadillac Joe Band, and the Joe Andersen Jazz Organ Group. Among other accomplishments his band originated the Monday night Hammond B3 Night that became a tradition at Cafe Montmartre, was the house band at Luther’s Blues during it’s heyday, played at Jazz at Five, and won the 2001 Isthmus Readers Poll as Madison’s best blues band.
Joe had been dealing with a rare cancer over the last 3 years, but it still comes as a shock. Last week a friend told me Joe had been admitted to the hospital with a bad infection, the result of a weakened immune system from all the cancer treatments. Now Joe’s gone.
I knew Joe through his brother Don, another sax player. Our sax quartet recorded a few times in his basement studio, and once played as a horn section behind The Blind Wolf Blues Band. I went to hear his bands play, and I ran into him occasionally around town.
The last time I saw him was a few years ago when the great jazz organist, Tony Monaco, played at Jazz At Five. Joe was very excited to hear Tony. He described frequent emails and conversations with Tony and referred to him as his mentor. At the time, Joe had just finished his first series of chemo treatments, but was focused on improving his playing and reforming a band. He needed a new guitar player since his son was now extremely busy with his own band, Aaron Williams and the Hoodoo.
I did not know Joe well but I know he was a dedicated musician, and a genuinely good guy. He will be missed by his family, friends, and the music community. You can read more about Joe at this site set up to promote a benefit for him last December, and in the excerpt below from the International Archives for the Jazz Organ site when he was chosen organist of the month.
According to the newspaper obituary, a memorial service will be held at 11 AM, Tuesday, August 4th at the Olson-Holzhuter-Cress Funeal Home in Deefield. The family will greet friends from 10 AM until the time of the service.
From the IAJO site:
Joe tells his story
how he came to the organ:
In the mid 60’s I bought a Farfisa organ and taught myself to play best I could by listening and playing along with records. I learned songs like 96 Tears, House of the Rising Sun and other “garage band tunes” of the day. I bought every record I could that had some organ on it. One of those records was a Spencer Davis Group album …
There was a tune called “Blues In F” on this album that totally knocked me out. In fact I can listen to that cut today and still be amazed by the incredible Hammond/Leslie sound on that cut. At the time I had no idea who the organist was or how he got that sound, but I literally wore out that track listening to it. It didn’t take long however to figure out that I couldn’t make my Farfisa sound like that. A trip to the local “hippie” music store revealed the truth to me. In a separate little room was what I thought was a church organ. Of course it was a B3. I was not initially impressed. At the time it looked like something that should be in my grandma’s parlor. They assured me this was the best, so they started it for me and I sat down to play a little. I don’t know how to really describe what happened next but when the store closed, they politely asked me to leave. Frankly I was still a kid and not much of a player yet, but this instrument brought out things in me I didn’t know existed. I think that may be the true beauty of the Hammond organ, if you have anything at all inside you, it will coax it out of you if you let it. That was 1969 and I’m of course still playing the Hammond. I’ve also played pianos and synthesizers over the years but have never gone with out a Hammond. I think most Hammond players probably feel the same, but when I sit down in front of the instrument, it’s like I’m home, everything is right and day to day hassles are gone, at least for the time I get to play. Gigs are great, some amount of notoriety is nice, but simply playing the instrument is my greatest musical pleasure.
The Jeff Peronto Big Band, and the trombone quintet, Hot Cross Bones, warmed up the crowd before the Drums On Parade Drum & Bugle Corps show June 28th in Baraboo. Here’s a link to pictures of the concert. It’s good to see Jeff Peronto appearing healthy.
The NY Times has a very positive review in this morning’s paper about Floriculture, a group led by former Madison pianist, Carl Maguire, relating to their Tuesday evening’s performance in Brooklyn. The group is celebrating their new CD, SIDED SILVER SOLID. The music on the CD has a decidedly avant guard flavor, but with Carl’s intelligently composed structures readily apparent throughout. It is very good! Let’s hope that Carl and his group can do a Madison performance soon!
Now here’s a legitimate award. Dave is in the top tier of Madison jazz artists and has been active in the Madison jazz scene in many differerent settings for years. He currently plays weekly solo gigs at the Magnus, with the New Breed on Wednesdays, with the Tony Castaneda Latin Jazz band, the Madison Jazz Orchestra, periodically with his trio, and is first call for big name musicians traveling through needing a pianist. In addition, he has been active with the Madison Music Collective, serving previously as president and recently as a board member.
His award will be presented prior to the David Sanchez concert 8pm this Saturday at the Memorial Union Theater. Congratulations, Dave!
Many of you are wondering how Jeff Peronto is doing. Just to bring everyone up to speed, in January I wrote an article about Jeff’s retirement from MATC after thirty-some years as the band and jazz band director. A short time later Jeff wrote a very popular retrospective recalling pleasant memories from his time at MATC. Since then, Jeff had major surgery to remove a tumor on his spine, one of several growths that are part of the incurable cancer he has been dealing with in recent years. Here’s Jeff ’s report:
I made it through the surgery which ended up being the most painful of the three that I have had. The tumor ended up to be the size of a fist and they had to go through the muscles around it to make sure it was all gone. Since the tumor had destroyed part of my spine, I had to have it fused with a piece of metal. The pain afterwards took time to get under control, but I am able to walk without a limp and with less pain. I received clearance to start a new cancer medication named Afinitor. Despite its cost which is well over $7000 for 28 pills, my body is not accepting it very well. All of the muscles in my back including those around the surgical area have swollen up causing pain similar to that of post surgery. We have tried to control the pain but so far it has had a huge affect on my sleep, limited movement, and no pill has been able to help. I have just stopped taking it since the side effects are taking quite a toll.
Jeff also reports that Jon Schipper has taken over conducting the Jeff Peronto Big Band (The band is essentially the MATC jazz band that MATC cut from its curriculum last year). They have been practicing at Memorial High School where Jon is the band director. Jeff made it to the two spring performances but his health has limited his role to that of an advisor. The band plays again 6/28 at Drums on Parade, and in Baraboo on 7/30.
Let’s all wish Jeff some healing vibes. As one commenter said, ” He’s one of the good guys.”
Well it’s been a lot longer than a week since I put up a new sample from a Madison jazz artist, but I started this series with that title and I’m going to stick with it. Patrick has been featured here before as a solo artist and with his New York Trio. This week we have Patrick with his new Madison based trio. They will be playing their first gig 9:30 tonight at Magnus, and following that up next Friday with a performance at the Isthmus Jazz Festival.
This is a Steve Lacy tune entitled, “The Bath.” The trio is:
Patrick Breiner – Tenor Saxophone
Michael Brenneis – Drums
John Christensen – Bass
Patrick has a bio and more tunes up on his website. If you want to get inside his head a bit you must read this previous blog post by him, a great piece of writing that reveals the drive behind Madison’s most exciting sax player.
This is information from Genie’s comment that I moved into a separate post because it deserves attention.
Memorial services for Uncle Larry will be Thursday from 4 to 5 at the Chapel of the Holy Family (I’m assuming that is in Milwaukee). Here is a link to his obituary.
Richard Davis is one of the most recorded bassists in all of music. It could easily take several years to listen through all 344 records he has been a part of. This week Madison Jazz is featuring a recording that was discussed at last week’s Richard Davis Bass Foundation Conference.
First let me digress for a moment and talk about the conference. I went to the Faculty Concert on Friday night and sat way up in front. That’s the first time I sat that close and it made a huge difference. Anyone who has attended concerts at Mills Auditorium knows how awful the acoustics can be, but where I was the sound was very good.
You might imagine a concert of only bassists to be quite limited, but that was not the case. Each bass had it’s own unique tone, and there were many configurations: solos with and without piano accompaniment, duets, trios, and full bass orchestras. The performances also covered the full emotional spectrum. The show opened with a mournful, moving interpretation of “Bottesini Elegy,” performed by Andy Raciti and dedicated to a bassist colleague who died last year. At the other extreme was David Murray’s ”First Audition,” a humorous narrative in which he used his bass and props to recall early experiences playing the bass. Donovan Stokes gave an eye-popping display of technical wizardry and showmanship, distorting the sound of his upright bass with electronic pedals, and playing it behind the back and on it’s side like a guitar. The highlight of the evening was a beautiful unaccompanied version of Cole Porter’s, “I Love You,” by Rufus Reid that received a standing ovation.
Mr.Reid’s performance was followed by a duet with Richard Davis on the standard, “Summertime.” Mr. Reid explained their performance was intended as a sort of recreation of a recording he greatly admired by Elvin Jones and Richard Davis on the 1968 record, Heavy Sounds. Richard added that he and Elvin were set to record a trio verison but the guitarist didn’t show so they recorded as a duet.
After hearing the Rufus Reid and Richard Davis performance of Summertime on Friday night I was compelled to track down the original. With playing like this one can see how Davis garnered the Downbeat International Critics Poll award for best bassist from 1967 – 1974. Here it is:
You may have noticed that the weekly jazz hasn’t been very weekly lately. There’s a shortage of tunes being sent in for me to stream. If you’d like to have your music featured in this space check out the instructions here.
Dave Cooper’s music has already been featured on Madison Jazz but we seem to have made our way through the pack and are coming around again. Besides, all the music on his CD, “Petite Monde,” is very high quality. This is another original called Giuoco.
Musicians on the CD are:
David Cooper – trumpet
Woody Mankowski – sax
Vincent Fuh/Paul Hastil – piano
Jeff Eckels/ Tim Gilson – bass
Dane Richeson – drums
Spring break is here and many Madison students and residents are headed out of town. Here’s how one of Madison’s most successful jazz artists will be spending the weekend. Tim Whalen sent the following message to his mailing list and I’m sure he doesn’t mind if I share it. Tim already has a Grammy but this has to rank right up there.
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This is going to be a special week!
I’m flying down to Atlanta to perform the music of The Who with the Cobb Symphony Orchestra this Friday and Saturday (March 13 and 14). We’re talking about a 5-piece band and a 60-piece orchestra.
The orchestra will be playing 80 minutes of music that I orchestrated for them.
