Questions For legendary jazz producer Orrin Keepnews

Orrin Keepnews is a famous record producer who recently joined the Hoffman forums. He asked me for a good way to "enter the fray" here so I thought I'd start this thread.

I love the work he did when he ran the Riverside label. His recordings of artists he signed to the label (Thelonious Monk, Wes Montgomery, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley... well, you get the picture...), these great records were all made under his watchful eye.

http://www.fantasyjazz.com/html/anniversary_riverside.html

http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Labels/rivrside.htm

http://www.jazzdisco.org/riverside/

Here's a thread to "ask away".

Kevin

 

How did Orrin get to know Bill? What was he doing before he signed with Riverside, and when did Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian enter the picture? What was it like working with LaFaro?

After LaFaro's death, Bill took a year off from performing. What did Bill do exactly and how did Orrin coax him back into recording? Or did Bill approach Orrin?

If it's not too personal, how did Orrin and Bill's friends handle his drug addiction? I heard that Bill's friends stopped lending him money but it didn't work. I don't know what kind of programs there were back then but I doubt you had the kind of care you can get today and I'm curious as to how tough it was in that climate.

 

I wanted to know what the process of recording Monk was like. I've read that Monk could be unrelieable, but the Riverside LP's are all very tightly focused and well performed. Did Mr. Keepnews suggest material or did Monk have a set idea of what he wanted to record? Was it Monk's idea to record solo, etc?

 

Wow. Very glad to see Mr. Keepnews here!

 

As I look at my collection of jazz CDs, one player whose departure from the US that always intrigued me was Kenny Drew. Why did he leave? It seems he left fairly early on... the late 50's if I'm reading it right. Wasn't the jazz world still cooking around then? The great decline of the mid-60's hadn't hit, right?

Was it racial? Was it financial? Was he happy over in Europe?

Kevin

 

Well, Mr. Keepnews, I am interested in this Fats Waller project you mentioned in a previous thread from last month.

I know you are a busy man. The last time you posted it was tax time. A stressfull period for sure. I would love to read any insite on this forthcoming project.

Thank You

 

Upcoming BBC show

 

I have lots of questions...

First off, thanks to Mr. Keepnews for taking an interest in this forum. I hope he has had an opportunity to hear some of the incredible 45 rpm reissues that Steve has done.

My first question goes back to the very early days of Mr. Keepnew's career. How did you and Bill Grauer get such a wonderful sound out of the old masters for the "X" label 10" lps?

I have compared some of these to the original 78s that I have and they really stack up. They are some of the best 78 rpm era reissues I have ever heard. Ridin' With Red (Allen) is one of my all time favorite lps.

My second question is about the Gannet metal parts. Are the rumors true? Did Bill Grauer buy them? If so, what happened to them?

I'm sure I can think of a million more questions, but I'll stick to these two for now.

Lastly, I would like to thank you for all your efforts at capturing so much wonderful music.

Jason

 

I have been waiting for Mr Keepnews to make an appearance with baited breath....and now I can't think of anything to ask!

I look forward to reading his comments though.

By the way Kevin, how did you get to know him?

 

During the early days of the Internet, before chat boards were common, I used to log onto a relative's AOL dial-up account and check out this "internet-thingy". I found a Jazz chat room and there was a user who spoke with some authority and his name was something like Orrin. I put two & two together. Too bad, the room was pretty much Orrin and a bunch of people who didn't know much about Jazz!

A few months ago on another discussion board, someone was talking about Riverside so I took a shot that maybe Orrin's E-mail hadn't changed. Luckily, it hadn't. We conversed via E-mail a few times.

Well, when I decided to hang out here a few months ago, I thought this board offered a great place for him to come chat with some passionate fans... who, unlike those that old AOL chat room, might actually be able to get some great dialog going.

I am looking forward to his stories... much as I love hearing Steve's stories.

Kevin

 

If he's going to bait his breath . . . I'd like to watch.

Ok, everybody needs a little "grammar humor" once in awhile.

Though not as heavily into jazz as many here, my stash is growing fast and I know Mr. Keepnews is a genuine heavyweight in the field. I look forward to his responses! What a great site!

doug

 

Kenny Drew left USA in 1964 and moved to Copenhagen and stayed here until his death in 1993.
He recorded some danish melodies with the recently deceased Bass player Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen. He also had a trio with bass Mads Vinding and drummer Ed Thigpen, who toured Europe and Japan.

 

Be sure and see Kenny Drew's son, Kenny Drew Jr. He's very good live.

I have a friend who has argued often with Orin on at least one chat site. I won't mention his name for fear of scaring Mr. Keepnews off. I told my friend that I would take Mr. Keepnew's side in any argument about jazz.

Jason

 

I thought of a couple of questions over the weekend:

1. Which of the records that he has produced, does Mr Keepnews believe are essential and why?
2. What are his favourite books to do with jazz and for what reasons.
3. Many of us are aware that Thelonious monk suffered from mental problems, was he difficult to work with?
4. Would Mr Keepnews like to bequeath me his LP collection?

 

I just got an E-mail from Orrin and he's trying to get the hang of the board's software. He did seem a bit caught off guard by the number of questions he got in such a short time. Maybe we should limit ourselves to one question per person to start?

Also, I don't know if diving right into Bill Evans' drug use is a good kick-off point in any discussion about his work with Riverside. We might want to save that one for a later date.

Kevin

 

Posting a reply

Okay, after a whole bunch of individual messages -- I think it gets up to #16 -- placed here in the last few days, I come to the very last one (it's your message to everyone about the complaining/confused email from me) and after that, for the very first time, I see the magic words "Post Reply." So I'm writing a message to you, intended to be me "posting a reply" -- but that doesn't explain how I go about dealing with the previous fifteen or so questioners. Please keep on explaining; I obviously still need it.

Orrin

 

Hi Orrin,

To reply to the other questions you may want to quote the individual like I have done here with your post. To do this you click the little button in the lower righ-hand corner of this posted reply, or any post for that matter, marked quote. Hope this helps a little.

 

Orrin,

I just clicked on the "Quote" button on the screen to get the screen I'm typing into. As you can see, when I hit the "Submit Reply" button, everyone can see my reply. This board's "Reply" button posts your words to the whole board, not to an individual. To chat one-on-one, you need to continue using E-mail. The board software has a personal messaging system, but we'll get into that later.

Just click the "Reply" button like you just did and reply away... we'll understand if you don't address one individual question at a time. We're very patient guys here!

Kevin

 

Glad to see Mr Keepnews here. As to questions, mine is in regards his time recording Thelonious Monk - my favorite jazz master.

How difficult was Monk to work with. I mean, what sort of artist was he - demanding, play-it-and-move-on, ect. And, how much did Monk care about the recording quality? From what I've been able to gather, he could be cantankorus at times, and at others not. Just curious, as a Monk fan.

Also, how would feel he would react to the manner others have used in covering his tunes?

 

Mr. Keepnews, of the records of yours that have been really successful, which one makes you cringe the most?

 

More questions from me!

1. What is your favourite Jazz anecdote/story that you have experienced personally or been a part of?
2. What is your favourite jazz anecdote/story that you weren't necessarily involved in?
3. The original thread that prompted kevin to contact you was me asking who you were (I know I should have known). the reason I asked was because you were the producer of one of my favourite CD's - Pure Ella. I have the Japanese version of Ella in a Mellow mood (1/2 of Pure Ella) which has loads more hiss and sounds as if she is singing from a long way away. How did you guys manage to get the cd to sound so intimate and yet avoid the hiss?
4. What caused Riverside to go out of business?
5. How much input did you have into how recording sessions were structured and what music was actually recorded.
What artist or artists would you have liked to record that you were unable to?

I better stop now.

Thanks for taking the trouble to consider our questions and for taking part in the forum.

Regards

raymon

 

Bill Evans....

Picking up the thread -- Motian was in the picture almost from the start, being the drummer on some of Bill's early Greenwich Village sideman gigs and being his choice for the first trio album. Two years later, after Bill's eight months in the Miles Davis Sextet, when I finally persuaded Bill to do a second album (the one I brashly titled "Everybody Digs Bill Evans"), he used players he had met out in the big world: Philly Joe Jones was the first of two drummers in the Davis sextet, and both Philly and Sam Jones (no relative) had been Cannonball's choices (along with Bill and Blue Mitchell) as the cast of characters on Adderley's first Riverside album. But shortly thereafter, when Bill got up the courage to form his own working group, he turned back to Motian. There was no set bass player at first and Bill was actively looking until the night young Scott LaFaro asked to sit in and was quickly hired. They worked together for less than two years, and I only recorded them on three occasions -- two studio dates and the memorable final June 1961 Sunday matinee and evening at the Village Vanguard. The working relationship was close and intense and creative from the start, but the personal vibes were not always the smoothest. Scott had a big ego, and Bill had a heroin problem -- and I specifically recall a running argument during one of the studio recording dates. Scott was expressing reluctance to going out on the road with Bill unless he was given a solid pay raise (his argument was that going out of town with a junkie exposed him to the danger of being stranded out there, and it was not an entirely unreasonable fear). But on the whole they bonded closely, and Bill was extremely proud of the way his trio was developing into a unit consisting of three close-knit improvising artists -- NOT just the standard piano player-plus-two-sidemen. After Scotty's sudden highway-accident death, Bill didn't play at all for months, and then just took some solo jobs (I don't think he even wanted to consider a new bass player. I did get him to play on an occasional recording session (the only really notable one was the Tadd Dameron band date), but his return to full action was very largely the result of (a) the inevitable numbing down of the sense of loss and (b) pressure from a talented and (fortunately) aggressive young bassist he had met, Chuck Israels. And of course the realization that the musical relationship with LaFaro had been unique; it was never going to be duplicated, so he might as well concentrate on doing something else, some more 'normal' trio work.

As for the other question -- about how friends dealt with his addiction -- I don't intend to be more than superficial about that. Junk was a big problem in the Fifties and Sixties (probably in the late Forties, too, but I wasn't yet on the jazz scene then), and some people seriously feel that a number of musicians were influenced by the fact that Charlie Parker was a user. I do know that some major players were addicted and worked their way out of it (John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, JJ Johnson among others) and some never went there and some never beat it. With most musicians I knew and worked with, the financial demands of a habit were the biggest part of the problem. I'll say that it wasn't easy -- reduced to the bluntest terms, it's a matter of not wanting to 'help' the habit by providing money, but realizing that if you don't provide it you are not making the habit go away. Considering the alternatives (he must have the money; would you recommend that he get it from a loan shark or by mugging a little old lady), what would you suggest?

And on that happy note, let me sign off for now. But whoever is interested in reading this sort of thing might as well let me know if this is what you're looking for -- and if you're willing to wait for me to, from time to time, get into the right move to provide it.

Orrin Keepnews

 

Wow!!! I would say that is what we were looking for and more. Thanks, Mr. Keepnews.

 

Wow, thanks for the tremendous insight.

My girlfriend met Mr. Evans on a number of occasions and said that he was a very interesting and intelligent person to talk to so long as he was not under the influence of anything at that moment.

Do you have any stories about the personalities you worked with? What sort of people were all these great jazz folks?

THanks,
Jason