Giacomo Gates, consummate jazz artist,

to appear April 7 with Joe Cartwright Trio

By Tom Ineck

The consummate jazz artist is a collection of all that has passed before—in personal experiences and in the history of the art. He also has an ear always open to the present moment.

Singer Giacomo Gates is such an artist. He draws on a blue-collar New England upbringing, a natural inclination to song and a deep respect for the elders of the jazz vocal art form. When he launches his expressive baritone voice in the interpretation of a jazz standard, what comes out is pure Giacomo Gates.

Gates will perform in Lincoln April 7 at the Melting Spot, 227 N. Ninth St. He will be accompanied by the Joe Cartwright Trio of Kansas City, with pianist Joe Cartwright, bassist Gerald Spaits and drummer Ray DeMarchi.

Rather like the smell of greasepaint for the Broadway child actor, Gates grew up with the smell of grease and paint in his nostrils. His father was an auto body-and-fender repairman who operated his own shop in small-town Connecticut.

“My parents were married about eight or nine years before I was born,” Gates recalled in a recent phone interview from his home in the Bridgeport, Conn., area. “When I was going to be born, they built an apartment on the back of the garage. So, I grew up smellin’ thinner.”

Born in 1950, it wasn’t until his 40^th year that Gates turned his lifelong passion for music into a profession. Before that he had toiled, like his father before him, at a wide variety of blue-collar jobs, including a 14-year stint in Alaska. But the move to music wasn’t as sudden or unpredictable as it sounds.  

“That transition was like a return, actually, because as a kid I grew up around my father, who played classical music around the house—records—and he also played the violin. And he played pretty well. Here’s a guy doin’ body and fender work but he played classical violin, and he played one of those ‘crying gypsy’ violins. He didn’t play for a living, but he played very good.”

So early on, Gates was exposed to classical music, as well as the swing music of Basie, Ellington and Cab Calloway. His formal instruction in music began at age 8 on the guitar.

“I took lessons for about seven years. I could play OK, but I couldn’t play what I heard in my head. But I could sing what I heard in my head.”

While still in his teens, he sang for a few wedding gigs with a group of older guys, introducing him to the tunes of Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart and other composers of the great American songbook. But, after all, Gates was a child of the ‘60s, so he also was hip to the soul music of James Brown, The Four Tops and The Isley Brothers and enjoyed the rock music of The Rolling Stones. Jazz, however, was never far away.

“I would play Dexter Gordon for my friends and they would say, ‘Who’s that? What’s that?’ I’d play Thelonious Monk and they’d look at me like, ‘Whaaa?’ But I was fortunate that I was aware of that music.” For a real education, the young Gates tuned in jazz radio stations based in New York City. Among his favorite singers were the trio of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross and Joe Williams. But his own leap into a jazz vocal career came much later.

“I went to college for about a year, and took civil engineering. Mathematics is not my strong point, so here I am in an engineering school, right? I was putting myself through school, working part-time. I was working really hard to just about pass, and paying for it myself, and I said maybe this is not for me.”

Always interested in the construction of things, he worked as a laborer, paving roads, installing catch basins, laying pipe. He drove everything from trucks and tractor-trailers to bulldozers and loaders. In 1975, he took his accumulated skills north to Alaska, where oil pipeline construction had created an economic boom unrivaled since the Gold Rush days.

He landed in Fairbanks, but was unable to score a decent job. “It was the tail-end of the boom,” he recalled. So he hung sheetrock, clerked in a liquor store and even worked as a bouncer at an illegal gambling joint.

“It was great. I was 25 years old and I was having a hell of a time. I liked the vibe. It was like the last frontier.”

Eventually, his construction trade skills proved a valuable asset for Gates. He would be flown with a crew to a remote, isolated location, where barges carrying construction materials would be unloaded.

“You’d build a place to live, then you’d build a place to eat, then you’d start to build a road.” He would work wherever he was needed, including the North Slope, the Aleutian Islands and the Brooks Range. Sometimes, the closest settlement was an Eskimo village 80 miles away.

It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that he was introduced to the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. There he attended a two-week vocal workshop conducted by cabaret singer Chris Calloway, daughter of the legendary bandleader Cab Calloway. Seduced by the possibility of a music career—and tired of life in the Alaskan wilderness—he returned to his home state, closer to the urban environment where his art could flourish.

“It was certainly culture shock, coming back here. It was crowded when I left, and it was more crowded when I got back. I still miss those open spaces and the solitude and the beauty of it (Alaska). But I went back up there to teach in ’99, and it’s turning into America. It’s not crowded yet, but there’s McDonald’s and Burger King and Subway and 7-Eleven and Cinema 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.”

Encouraged by educator and jazz writer Grover Sales, Gates began to test the waters, singing locally and regionally. Sales, who died in 2004, was so influential in his support that Gates dedicated his most recent release, “Centerpiece,” to his memory.

“I was just trying to get heard. I made my own little cassette because you had to have a demo to give people.”

DMP Records liked Gates well enough to release his first recording, 1995’s “Blues Skies,” which was produced by Helen Keane, best known for her long tenure with pianist Bill Evans. The CD featured the reed virtuoso Jerome Richardson and the impressive rhythm section of pianist Harold Danko, bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Akira Tana and accurately reflected the singer’s penchant for the hip, relaxed vocal style of Jon Hendricks and Eddie Jefferson, which few other singers are emulating. Gates even contributed lyrics to Monk’s “Five Spot Blues,” retitled “Five Cooper Square.” Also displaying his talent for vocalese and mimicking the sound of instruments, it was an impressive debut.

“That helped me get a little more recognition, and I started to travel a little bit, do some festivals.” A second recording, “Fly Rite,” followed in 1998 on Sharp Nine Records. Again he was in very good company, backed by pianist David Hazeltine, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Ben Riley, with guest soloist Jim Rotondi on trumpet and flugelhorn. The repertoire drew heavily on standards and featured a Gates lyric to Lee Morgan’s “Speedball.”

The Origin label released “Centerpiece” in 2004. Harold Danko is back on piano, along with bassist Ray Drummond, drummer Greg Bandy, guitarist Vic Juris and saxophonist Vincent Herring. Its song list is a similar mix of familiar standards—“Summertime,” “All of Me,” “Route 66”—and more obscure gems, including “I Told You I Love You, Now Get Out,” “Scotch and Soda,” and King Pleasure’s “Swan Song,“ a lyrical take on Gene Ammons’ “Hittin’ the Jug.” Gates contributed new lyrics for “Milestones.” For a review of "Centerpiece," click here.

Gates also is featured prominently on organist Eddie Landsberg’s 2002 release “Remembering Eddie Jefferson,” even penning the opening track, “Mr. Jefferson.” For a review of "Remembering Eddie Jefferson," click here.

Modest and cautious by nature, Gates downplays his relatively rapid rise to success since his decision to go professional in 1990.

“I’m still trying to make something happen after 15 years, 16 years,” he says. “It doesn’t feel that quickly, but then again, when you’re in it, you can’t tell.”

Gates is quick to recognize his influences and his respect for those who have gone before him. He recites a long litany of the great vocalists and instrumental “vocalizers.”

“I’m certainly a Frank Sinatra fan, a great singer. I’m certainly a Dean Martin fan. Who’s more relaxed and takes himself less seriously than Dean Martin? That’s why he’s fun, because he’s just havin’ a good time. I like Sammy Davis Jr., great pipes. I like Betty Carter and I like Carmen McRae, and I like Mose Allison and Nat Cole. I’m certainly influenced by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross and Eddie Jefferson, Joe Williams, Joe Carroll, and Babs Gonzales, a great scat singer. I also think I’m influenced by the horn players who ‘sang,’ like Lester Young and Ben Webster and Stan Getz. Lou Donaldson is right out of Charlie Parker and Sonny Stitt. They’re very lyrical players. When I listen to somebody like Lou or Dexter (Gordon), I can hear the words. Moody, Miles is very lyrical, Chet Baker. I don’t sing like Chet Baker, but I hope I’m influenced by him.”

His ability to write vocalese—note-perfect and rhythmically faithful lyrics to difficult instrumental pieces often written many years before—is no mystery to Gates, who said he simply combines his vocal tendencies with his instrumental background. With near-missionary zeal, he explained the process.

“When I heard Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, when I heard Eddie Jefferson, to me they were singers who were in the band. They weren’t in front of the band. They were in the band. That’s what made it happen for me. And, you could tell the musicians were having a good time. The singer was having a good time. When you listened to that music, you couldn’t help but have a good time.

“They weren’t just singing rhythmically flat-footed melodies. They were singing the triplets and the dotted quarters, and there was a rhythmic pulse to their singing, and the story was always a little more involved than just the lyric to the chorus. I’m a fan of this music, so that’s how I ended up doing it.”

A big Monk fan, Gates has written lyrics to "Let's Cool One," "Think of One," and "Epistrophy," in addition to "Five Spot Blues."

What attracts him most to the sound of the jazz masters was the sound of an individual, a unique personality finding expression in song, whether as an instrumentalist or a vocalist. Whether a listener understands music theory is irrelevant.

“The people who don’t know the theory of it still know what they like and know what they hear. I never play an audience cheap. Audiences know what they’re listening to.”

Gates has two recording projects in the works. One is a Gershwin tribute with a piano trio led by former Nebraskan Rex Cadwallader, now living in Connecticut. For many years a contributor of compositions to the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra’s repertoire, Cadwallader returned in 2005 to perform with the NJO. Gates expects his next CD as a leader to see the light of day by the end of the year. As planned, it will feature a piano trio, plus three of four horns.

Like many jazz artists as his level of ability, Gates also is in demand as an educator, dividing his time between Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., the Hartford Conservatory of Music and New Haven’s Neighborhood Music School. While on the road, he also conducts workshops and clinics. Students and school administrators appreciate the fact that he’s a working instructor, but Gates says he also benefits from teaching.

“Every time I work with someone, I get something out of what they’re doing, and I’m realizing something else myself.”

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BMF turns focus toward local scene in 2006

By Tom Ineck

When the Berman Music Foundation gathered to conduct its annual meeting Jan. 31 at the Dish restaurant in downtown Lincoln, it was with a cautiously optimistic outlook for the coming year.

Despite its business meeting agenda, the occasion also brought together many old-time friends and associates to celebrate the BMF’s many accomplishments in its 11-year history. Musician and foundation consultant Norman Hedman had recently arrived from his home in New York City, and consultant Dan Demuth had driven from his home in Colorado Springs, Colo. Also on hand were BMF president Butch Berman and his wife and most trusted advisor, Grace Sankey Berman; assistant Ruthann Nahorny; photographer Rich Hoover; attorney Tony Rager;  and yours truly—writer, editor and website manager for the foundation.

Without dampening the celebrative mood, Rager said the BMF would continue to produce the foundation’s online newsletter (currently publishing three or four times a year), but would turn its attention and financial focus more exclusively toward working with local jazz artists and local venues, including two recent additions to downtown Lincoln—La Krem Bistro and The Melting Spot.

Aside from those plans, Rager emphasized, there are no large financial commitments in the offing for the coming year, a year of retrenchment in the hopes of brighter days ahead, as the BMF builds its asset base.

Lest we forget, the foundation already has done much in its first 11 years. What follows is a partial list of jazz artists the BMF has presented in Lincoln since its inception in March 1995: singer Karrin Allyson, Claude "Fiddler" Williams, the Quintet of the Hot Club of San Francisco, saxophonist Greg Abate, trumpeter Claudio Roditi, singer Kevin Mahogany, the Kenny Barron Trio, saxophonist Joe Lovano, bassist Christian McBride, saxophonist Benny Waters, pianist Jane Jarvis, singer-flutist Andrienne Wilson, Norman Hedman’s Tropique, the Mingus Big Band, Bobby Watson and Horizon, pianist Eldar Djangirov, pianist Monty Alexander, the George Cables Trio, singer Sheila Jordan, bassist Cameron Brown, and guitarist Jerry Hahn.

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"Sherman, the Boy Wonder," R.I.P.

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