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January 2004 By Tom Ineck Ted Eschliman frequently and casually refers to himself as a
“hack.” In the Eschliman is just being modest. A talented multi-instrumentalist,
singer, composer and arranger with a degree in music education from
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he is part owner and marketing
director of Dietze Music House, where he’s been employed for more
than 23 years. Most recently his far-ranging interest in music has made him a
devotee of the jazz mandolin, as a player and collector of
mandolins, as well as a dogged promoter of the instruments and the
people who play them. He was largely responsible for bringing the
Don Stiernberg Quartet to Lincoln for last summer’s Jazz in June
concert series, and in 2003 he started his own website to preach the
gospel of jazz mandolin: www.jazzmando.com. He now sits on the Jazz
in June board of directors and was instrumental in adding guitarist
John Carlini (with guest artist Stiernberg) to the 2004 lineup. “I picked up the mandolin about 5½ years ago,” Eschliman recalls.
“It was an intriguing instrument and different from guitar. What
surprised me was how little was known about what this instrument
could do. As I got into it, I discovered that there is a really rich
tradition. My 96-year-old grandmother talked about the mandolin
clubs at the University of Nebraska back in the teens, almost a
hundred years ago.” With the advent of the banjo, the electric guitar, and swing
bands, the mandolin literally began to recede into the background of
popular music because its more delicate, high-register sound could
not be heard. There were few innovators outside the Smoky Mountains,
where mandolins still were figured prominently in bluegrass bands,
especially those of Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers. He says he was so enchanted by “the perfect symmetry and jazz
potential” of his first mandolin in 1998 that he became “very
passionate about bringing this genre to the front. People are
familiar with jazz guitar, with Joe Pass and Pat Metheny and George
Benson. I’m a little bit of a hack guitar player, but I’ve
discovered in picking up the mandolin that there’s a whole world out
there that has yet to be developed.” It is unfortunate, says Eschliman, the small, four-stringed
instrument has gotten itself a bad rap, as it is usually associated
with “toothless codgers sitting on the back porch in bib overalls.”
The stereotypical mandolin players are either hillbillies or
schmaltzy Italian troubadours, limiting the instrument’s appeal for
a larger audience. Unlike the structural freedom of jazz, tunes traditionally
associated with the fiddle and mandolin are constricted to a
diatonic scale that is very limiting for more adventurous players.
But to Eschliman’s educated ears, the mandolin seems ideal for jazz. “The acoustics of the instrument lends itself so well to the
genre that I’m amazed it hasn’t been tapped into sooner by more
people.” By nature, jazz broadens the palette from which the
mandolin artist can work. “Jazz gets you into not only a richer harmonic vocabulary; it
also pulls in multiple keys. If you listen to a good, jazzy Broadway
show tune, you’re going to have eight or nine different tonal
centers there, so harmonically it’s a lot more engaging. To some
bluegrass players, it’s frightening.” Eschliman is quick to point
out exceptions to this rule, virtuosos who have blended their
bluegrass roots with jazz dabbling, most notably Jethro Burns and
David Grisman. Eschliman and his wife have a five-year-old daughter, and he has
nothing but praise for his wife’s patience and understanding. “She’s gotten used to the fact that she never knows what I’m
going to be doing and what I’m going to get deeply into and
passionate about. Lately, it’s been this whole jazz mandolin thing.
It’s been my ticket to the world.” Eschliman launched the website as a way to journal the things he
was learning about his new instrument. He began transcribing
exercises from the keyboard to the mandolin fret board to share with
others online, first in music notation, then in tablature. Through his website, Eschliman corresponds with mandolin
students, musicians and fellow “hacks” from around the globe,
including Belgium, Australia, New Zealand and France. Jazz mandolin,
it seems, is growing in popularity and awareness, especially in
Europe, he said. Searching the Web a couple of years ago, he came up with Don
Stiernberg, the Chicago-based jazz mandolinist whose quartet
performed in Lincoln last June. “Coincidently, I had gone to a mandolin festival in Lawrence,
Kansas, 2½ years ago, and he was doing a clinic there. I got to meet
him there, and we got to be pretty good friends. Our dream is that
our kids will think of the mandolin as just as much a jazz
instrument as a trombone or a sax. That’s a pretty tall dream.” Part of that dream may be realized soon. The popular Mel Bay
Publishing company has asked Eschliman to write a book on jazz
mandolin. He already has written a couple of instructional articles
for mandolinsessions.com, another way of expanding interest in the
instrument. “That’s just such virgin territory right now that a hack like me
can come up with stuff like that. It’s funny that I could be an
expert when there are people who are more qualified. The thing I’ve
known in being involved in the arts is that there are plenty of
professional players that are just monster virtuosos and
technicians, but they couldn’t tell you anything about what they’re
doing. They couldn’t explain it.” Eschliman’s own collection of mandolins includes an Ovation for
plugged-in acoustic playing; a blue, custom-made Rigel; a
traditional Gibson for bluegrass playing; an Epiphone that used to
belong to bluegrass legend Jethro Burns; and a miniature gypsy-style
Djangolin. The market for mandolins and acoustic string music in general has
grown, perhaps due to the phenomenal success of the recent film “Oh
Brother, Where art Thou?” Eschliman thinks it also may be a reaction
to the deluge of electric guitars and guitar players in pop music. To help counter the emphasis on guitars and other more
traditional jazz instruments, Eschliman currently is touting jazz
mandolinists Michael Lampert and Will Patton; and similarly flavored
French gypsy jazz. By Dan Demuth COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Master guitarist Johnny Smith was kind Perhaps most people remember him from the “Moonlight in Vermont”
recording of 1952 on Roost which garnered Downbeat’s “Jazz Record of
the Year” award and led to a meteoric rise to fame, but this was not
an overnight happening. A little background is in order at this
point.
“Sitting in” with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Symphony
Orchestra and Dimitri Mitropoulis and the New York Philharmonic.
Studio work with the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini,
who he describes as a tyrannical genius, and for network shows
including Sullivan, Godfrey, Garroway and Fireside Theater. Nightly
gigs on 52nd Street with virtually every musician of note. For the interview I had some prepared questions, but also had
brought along some of his recordings for points of discussion, the
liner notes providing somewhat of a retrospective look at his
career. Dan Demuth: Artie Shaw’s career somewhat paralleled yours
in that he was working ‘round the clock, studio work in the daytime,
gigs every night and then he eventually walked away from it all. How
did you survive these types of schedules, was it youth, the
adrenalin, both? Johnny Smith: (Chuckling) I don’t know. One of my favorite
things I have mentioned, I was playing an engagement in Birdland,
and I also was doing a thing with the New York Philharmonic under
Mitropoulis. I finished Birdland at 4 a.m. and at 9 o’clock that
morning I was sitting in the middle of the Philharmonic Orchestra.
At the time I left New York I was doing studio, television,
recording, night clubs. I was working around the clock. DD: The reason for leaving all of this—perhaps a
combination of the grueling schedules and a personal situation? JS: It was a tragic situation. My wife died. Our daughter
was four years old. No way could I take care of her, working around
the clock. I would have to hire nursemaids. I had family here in
Colorado Springs, so I figured that was the best excuse I would ever
have to get the hell out of New York. DD: Why Colorado Springs? JS: I had been out here once. I had two brothers who were
out here, and they had moved our parents out here from New York
City. I came out to see my father for the last time, who had
terminal cancer. It was within a month or so back in New York that
my wife died. DD: Over the years you had recorded and toured with the
likes of Kenton, Goodman and Basie. The Basie tour makes me ask,
where was Freddie Green? Was he away at that time? JS: No, No. I tell people that Freddie Green was with
Count Basie longer than Count Basie. Freddie Green was strictly a
rhythm guitar player, I was a soloist. He was there on the tour. He
was one of my very favorite people. DD: I had mentioned Artie Shaw earlier. Did you ever
record with Shaw? DD: Was he as irascible as everyone said? He has always
seemed to have a penchant for saying what was on his mind. JS: Well I only knew him on a personal basis. It’s when
you work with somebody that the truth comes out, but I never worked
with Artie. DD: I have brought along some of my collection of your
recordings to help me with the notes. (Producing the Royal Roost 78
“Moonlight in Vermont”) Am I correct, is this your first recording?
JS: Yes, this is the original one. “Tabu” is on the other
side.
DD: The story goes that you felt “Tabu” might be the side
that had a chance to succeed? JS: Yes, it was kind of an uptempo flashy type of thing.
And what happened was “Moonlight in Vermont” was really kind of a
fluke. The jazz disc jockeys started using it as a background while
they talked, and that’s how that caught on. DD: The group with you on that recording—Stan Getz, Eddie
Safranski, Don Lamond and Sanford Gold. I admit I am not all that
familiar with Gold. Not being a musician, I have always been
interested in how a group comes together for a recording. JS: Back in the ‘40s, for the radio shows, I formed a
little trio. I had heard about Sanford, and I was able to get NBC to
hire him as a piano player for my trio. This went on for several
years, and the contractor who was hiring the musicians, Dr. Roy
Shields, formed this big orchestra for a weekly radio show. He asked
me to form a small group within the orchestra, and to write weekly
arrangements to perform during the show. I met Stan Getz at a party.
He knew I was with NBC and expressed a desire to get off the road
and get some studio work. I was able to get NBC to hire him and I
formed this quintet. Don Lamond, Eddie Safranski and Sanford Gold
were all on staff. Sanford had a friend, Teddy Reig, who owned Roost
Records and gave him an air check tape. Teddy said, “Heck, we’ll do
a couple of tunes,” and that’s how that original thing happened. DD: Amazing! (Producing Roost 10" LP “Johnny Smith
Quintet”) I believe this is your first LP? JS: That’s correct. As a result of the success of
“Moonlight in Vermont,” we recorded other things which they put
together for this LP. DD: Two of these, “Tabu” and “Jaguar,” are credited to
you. Were these some of your first efforts which you wanted on this
LP? JS: Well, prior to that I did arranging for Benny Goodman
and other people. Knowing this, the record labels would always try
to get the artist to come up with some originals so they wouldn’t
have to pay copyright fees. As a matter of fact, “Jaguar” was a song
I wrote that we performed with the small group within the big
orchestra I mentioned earlier. DD: (Producing the Roost 10" LP, “In A Sentimental Mood,”
with a shaded green cover, obviously a photo of Johnnie, guitar in
lap, hands over his face as in a funk). Would you say this photo is
of a pensive, perhaps moody guitarist? I think he looks familiar! JS: Gosh, I don’t even remember this. Maybe I was hiding
my face in shame! DD: I doubt that. My question is regarding the amount of
input you had as an artist as to what went on the cover of the LPs,
as they offered so much more physical space than modern CDs. JS: Virtually none. I did on one of the string albums. I
had a photographer take a picture of some of the score I was doing . DD: This LP has “Walk Don’t Run” on it. It must have been
quite a thrill when some years later the Ventures had a huge hit
with it. JS: Well, Chet Atkins had recorded it. The Ventures
covered his recording, which then became the big hit. I really had
very little to do with it. I didn’t even name the song. I just
called it “Opus,” and the record company owner came up with “Walk
Don’t Run”. DD: (Producing the Roost LP “Easy Listening”). OK, on this
cover there is a photo of a guitarist and a very attractive young
lady reclining in front of a fireplace, but I don’t think that
gentleman is you. JS: No, no, sorry it isn’t! DD: (Producing the Roost LP “Designed for You,” which
features four guitars superimposed over each other to form a clover
effect). The Guild brand is very prominent on the guitars. Is this
just happenstance? JS: I had designed a guitar for Guild. I think they just
borrowed one of them and used it for the cover design. DD: (Producing the Forum LP “Jeri Southern meets Johnny
Smith”). Perhaps of interest to Nebraska newsletter readers as Jeri
is from Royal, Neb. Have you done other recordings with Jeri? How
does a session such as this come about? JS: No, this was the only one. I had worked on the same
bill before with Jeri at Birdland on quite a few occasions. When
this LP was done, she was not at her peak—bless her heart, her voice
was kind of gone—and they asked me if I would do the arrangements,
which is kind of a hidden thought, because they knew I would do
them, and wouldn’t charge them. And if you notice, it’s never
mentioned, “Arrangements by Johnny Smith.” DD: (Producing a copy of Decca recording “Jazz Studio”).
There is a guitarist listed on here as Sir John Gasser, someone I
think you know very well. Can you tell me the story behind this
recording? JS: Stan Getz had gone back on the road, and to satisfy
recording requests we were to add Paul Quinichette. Paul didn’t want
Decca (a competing label) to use my name, so I was listed as Sir
Jonathan Gasser, a terrible thing! DD: Mosaic recently issued an eight-CD set limited edition
containing 178 of your Roost sessions. Are you able to share in the
royalties on this? JS: Unfortunately no. I did most of the arranging on all
of those sessions, but if you don’t have a song copyrighted to you,
there is nothing to collect. DD: Your peers have all been very complimentary of your
playing through the years. Did you have any guitarists that you
particularly enjoyed? JS: Oh gosh yes. Starting before WWII, I practically
worshiped Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, and of course Les
Paul. I was so heavily involved in studio work that afterwards I
would go around listening to such fine players like Chuck Wayne,
Jimmy Raney. I keenly appreciated all of these good players. DD: Several years back you and Chet Atkins played together
at a Dick Gibson Jazz Party, at the Paramount in Denver. Attendees
have told me it was great, that you two appeared as if you had
played together forever. JS: We were very dear friends, all through the years. I
went down to Nashville on a couple of occasions to record things for
Chet. (One with) Don Gibson. I did some arranging for other people.
We were very close friends.
DD: I have several Atkins and Gibson LPs. Anything in
particular I could seek out that you arranged? JS: One thing in particular I did with Don Gibson, called
“Gibson, Guitars & Girls.” I don’t think I even have it. DD: I will check mine to see if I have it. (I did, and
have given Johnny a tape). Is there any definitive book or
discography on your life and recordings? JS: No, I have had several people want to do this, but I
tell them they’re wasting their time. I’ve never been busted for pot
or arrested or anything, so my biography would be very dull reading.
There have been quite a few things put out regarding a discography,
but not a biography. DD: Have you kept copies of all your recordings? JS: My wife kind of keeps the recordings in tow. I think
with all of the reissues I probably do. I really don’t keep track of
it. DD: Have you ever looked back and thought to yourself, if
you hadn’t quit the business, what might have been? JS: No. I tell everybody—which is really true—I have got
to be one of the most fortunate people in the world because
everything that I ever dreamed of doing, really wanted to do, well
all those dreams came true. Fortunately, making huge amounts of
money wasn’t one of them. Now I’m at peace with everything. I’ve
often felt sorry for the people who were on the way out saying,
“Gee, I wish I would have done this or that.” I’m not one of them. After the interview, Johnny invited me into his “room” for a
libation. We continued discussing things (not taped). He has a
modest amount of memorabilia on the walls, fully retaining what
really counts, the memories in his mind. Photos of Rosie Clooney and
her sons flying in here to get mountain flying lessons from Johnny
(his failed Air Corps ambition later realized by being a long time
private pilot and teacher). He spoke of his great love of fishing—he
and friends go twice a year deep sea fishing off of Mexico. He
toured several times with Bing Crosby, relating how on the last
tour’s end he bid Bing goodbye in England on a Monday, and Bing died
on the golf course in Spain four days later. All interviews must end somewhere, but I did not feel as if I had
been part of an interview. It was more of a conversation with an old
friend I had never met before.
By Tom Ineck A longtime member of
Norman Hedman’s Tropique and a friend of the Furnace last appeared in Lincoln with Hedman’s tropical jazz
ensemble for a BMF-sponsored Jazz in June performance last summer.
His accomplishments, however, went far beyond his tenure with Hedman. Furnace was a multi-reedist, composer and arranger and had
performed with Jaki Byard, Art Blakey, Abdullah Ibrahim, McCoy
Tyner, Randy Weston, Al Hibbler, Tito Puente, Machito, Charlie
Persip, Chico O’Farrill and Bernard Purdie. He can be heard on
recordings with Mongo Santamaria, Milt Hinton, Craig Harris, Johnny
Copeland, Elliot Sharp, The Julius Hemphill Saxophone Sextet, The
New York Jazz Composer Orchestra, the Jazz Passengers, and Wayne
Gorbea, as well as Tropique. One of his longtime associations was as alto and baritone
saxophonist with the Brooklyn Sax Quartet, which also included Fred
Ho (baritone and alto sax), David Bindman (tenor sax), and Chris
Jonas (soprano sax). The quartet’s debut recording is “The Way Of
the Saxophone” (Innova, 2000). Bindman and Ho formed the group in 1995, associating the project
with the members’ home base, the borough of Brooklyn. With a fiery and sharp sound, Furnace, came out of the r&b camp
of Johnny “Clyde” Copeland’s “Texas Twister” and the Cuban
bandleader Mongo Santamaria in the ’80s. In the ’90s he worked
extensively with Julius Hemphill; including in the all-sax Julius
Hemphill Sextet, which teamed him with Marty Ehrlich, Andrew White,
James Carter, Fred Ho, and (in Hemphill’s absence) Tim Berne. Furnace played alto sax and flute on five tracks from Tropique’s
release of 2000, “Taken By Surprise.”
Feature Articles
October 2003
May 2003
January 2003
Articles 2002
Feature Articles
Profiles, music news, memorials
broadest sense, the word is short for “hackney” and usually refers
to someone who does something in a banal, routine or commercial
manner.
Colorado Correspondent
Guitarist Smith tells of an illustrious career
![Johnny Smith [File Photo]](media/104smith2.jpg)
enough to grant me an interview at his home on Jan. 25. He has lived
in Colorado Springs since leaving New York in the late 1950s, a move
dictated by the loss of his wife, his determination to raise their
four-year-old daughter in a better environment, and a growing
distaste for the requirements to remain a headliner in the music
scene. A difficult decision for someone of his stature at that time?
In an interview in the Colorado Springs Independent he was quoted as
saying, “The greatest view I ever had of New York City was when I
emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel on the New Jersey side and watched
the Manhattan skyline recede in my rearview mirror.”
His
first “professional” gigs were as a teen in a self descriptive band,
Uncle Lem and His Mountain Boys. Into the Army as WWII escalated, he
aspired to be a pilot in the Air Corps but failed on a vision test.
He was assigned to a band unit whose patriotism-inspired chart
requirements did not include a guitarist but rather a need for a
trumpeter. With no prior experience but a ton of due diligence, he
mastered the trumpet and later was assigned to a unit that allowed
him to play his first love, jazz. Returning to Vermont after the
war, his job as a staff musician at a local NBC affiliate offered
the chance of getting a demo tape auditioned at NBC headquarters in
New York. The door had been opened.
JS: No, I never did. I was too busy. He had formed a group called
the Gramercy Five. I never worked with them, as I was too busy doing
studios and everything else. If I remember correctly, he used Tal
Farlow. But, I knew Artie. We used to hang out after hours.
Memorial
Tropique saxophonist Sam
Furnace dies
Berman Music Foundation, saxophonist Sam Furnace died
recently of liver cancer at age 48.
Editor’s Note:
At your request, we will mail a printed version
of the newsletter. The online newsletter also is available at this
website in pdf format for printing. Just click here: Newsletter