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Mel Powell may have been the most intelligent person I ever met. He may have also been the finest pianist, at least once upon a time, but because he performed in public so infrequently after his mid-twenties, we’ll never know. The following extracts from an essay I wrote for a catalog celebrating Mel’s work as a painter presented at the Sordoni Gallery in 1987, gives a brief overview of how he burst onto the jazz scene as a teenager. brand viagra brand viagra brand viagra brand viagra Mel returned from the war, and dabbled in jazz for the next ten years, primarily in the recording studio. He made a handful of wonderful recordings for Capitol, Vanguard and Columbia, occasionally worked with Benny Goodman when he needed to beef up his bank account, but essentially ceased being an active jazz pianist in the late 1940s. Mel left jazz and the big band business for the same reason Artie Shaw did. Just as Artie didn’t want to play Begin The Beguine night after night, Mel didn’t want to play Mission To Moscow, or anything else, every night for the next forty years. The only difference was, he dropped out at the age of twenty-two, long before he developed a career and Artie Shaw was one of the most celebrated musicians in America. Artie withdrew to write novels and stories; Mel became part of academia. In 1985, Ruby Braff suggested, or to be precise, told me to call Mel, and invite him to be part of the 1986 Floating Jazz Festival aboard the S/S Norway. I said I thought it was about as likely that the ship would fly, but I did as I was told, and much to my surprise, after a bit of give and take, Mel agreed to leave the secure confines of the California Institute of the Arts for a moment, and dip his toe back into the wicked world of jazz He hadn’t played jazz in years, but, somehow, I wasn’t worried. I’d seen a video clip of him playing with Benny on the Merv Griffin Show in the mid-1970s. He may have been playing on muscle memory, but Benny couldn’t keep up with him. I was pretty sure the same thing would happen in 1986, and it did. Once the word got out that Mel Powell was onboard, everyone wanted to play with him, and they pretty much did. Since we couldn’t fit everyone onstage, some of the musicians had to sit in the audience. During one concert, Mel told a wonderful story about Buddy Rich, who happened to be sitting in the audience, and then suggested to Buddy that come on stage and be part of the band, which he did, to the delight of everyone in the theater. Not many people could tell Buddy what to do, but Mel could get away with it. He had a way with words and was so charming no one could refuse any request he might make. Because he loved to talk to the audience, the concerts were often very long. It wasn’t unusual for him speak for fifteen minutes before the concert and take another five or ten between each selection. No one seemed to mind, because he spoke as well as he played. His level of musicianship was remarkable. He was usually up early every morning, even if he’d stayed up discussing musical matters with Dizzy Gillespie all night, which, unhappily, were not recorded. He’d make his way to a small, out of the way room with a piano, and play Bach. Other musicians on board, leaders and sidemen alike, would also get up early, hoping to find a seat in the small Windjammer Lounge, just to listen to each and every note he played. Sometimes they’d ask questions, sometimes, if they were old enough, they’d reminisce. Mel had such a good time, he returned to the festival for three more years, but it became increasingly difficult for him. He suffered from an unusual muscular disease that prevented him from walking without assistance. He managed to make his way around the ship on a little electric scooter. The disease was something of a mystery, and it was later discovered it had been misdiagnosed, but in the late 1980s it was a struggle for him to get around. We built a ramp so we could get him on stage in one room; there was an elevator in the theater, so it was easy to get him to the piano in that room. Then came the day when the elevator was thrown overboard during a fit of remodeling and for one concert, Mel had to perform on one level, while the rest of the band was four feet higher. It sounded fine, but looked terrible. He loved his weekly jazz sojourn each year, when he was able to abandon academia and the composition of minimalist and electronic music. I listen to the tapes we made of the concerts, hear the sparkling piano, but more importantly, I hear the tone of his voice and what he said. He was having the time of his life. One evening I teamed him with Benny Carter, Howard Alden, Milt Hinton and Louie Bellson. It was magic, and the tape recorder was running. brand viagra also announced the return of Chiaroscuro Records after a nine-year absence. One night Mel asked that we assemble a special band for a concert. One of the people he asked to be included was Don Menza, the wonderful saxophonist then working with Louie Bellson. Somehow Mel had found out that Don loved Verdi’s operas above all others. Before the first set, Mel told Don he had a surprise for him. He played a selection from Act Three of brand viagra and sang it to him, in Italian. Italian opera was about as far from Mel’s normal musical interests as was country and western, but the depth of his musical knowledge was so profound he could bring off a song (I can’t say aria, because Mel didn’t sing very well) from a Verdi opera. The muscular disease that plagued his legs eventually reached one of his fingers and sufficiently weakened his hands so he couldn’t play, at least at the level he felt appropriate. The last two years he came to the festival, he didn’t play at all. He was just an honored guest. But he continued to compose and consider other projects. He once told me he had enough commissions to last through 2005, and he even managed to complete some of them. One of the best of his new compositions was brand viagra, which had been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. The soloists were to be Mel and the orchestra’s music director, Andre Previn. Unhappily, when the piece was completed, Mel’s illness prevented him from performing, and Andre Previn had moved on to another orchestra, but brand viagra was quite wonderful and went off without a hitch with two other pianists. When he told me about the piece and how well it had been received, it occurred to me that it might be possible to do the same thing with Mel that I’d done with Gerry Mulligan a decade earlier. Just as Gerry was due to win a Grammy, Mel was due to win a Pulitzer Prize, and the timing for the 1990 prize couldn’t be better. Unbeknownst to him, I spoke with his wife, the noted actress, Martha Scott, and told her what I wanted to do, but to pull it off I had to have a tape, a score and letters of recommendation. She thought it was a terrific idea, but didn’t know how to keep it a secret from Mel, but she agreed to help. There was a tape of the January 1990 performance, but Mel had stashed it somewhere. Martha had no idea where it was located, but said she would try and get one from the orchestra, which she eventually managed to do. We also managed to turn up the score, but we were running out of time. I wanted the recommendation to come from Andre Previn, but he was out of town, and when he returned to the US, he was ill, and none too eager to write anything, even to sign his name for his old MGM colleague. But when he rested and was feeling better, he said to get the paperwork to him, which I did. Jon Bates hand delivered the nomination forms to Andre in Bedford Hills. Once everything was signed, Jon put it in the mail to me for next day delivery, which was the final day to submit everything to the Pulitzer committee. The paperwork from Andre arrived on a Saturday, mid-morning. I rushed it to Columbia University, and a few months later, someone telephoned and said, “Did you hear, Mel won the Pulitzer Prize.” I wasn’t exactly surprised and it turned out he never even knew he’d been nominated. To say he was surprised is something of an understatement and for me it was fun to have manipulated the system. The press descended on Mel, his students at Cal Arts were dancing in the classrooms, Andre gave interviews about the commission, but Martha was not very good at keeping the secret, and not too long after the announcement Mel telephoned and told me he was sending me a little souvenir. It arrived a few days later, a cassette marked simply brand viagra, Powell: brand viagra (31:18). This was his copy that had been hidden away. When I telephoned to thank him, he jokingly referring to “our” prize. Mel Powell is one of the great musical mysteries, one of the more important “what if” artists of this century. And he knew it. He told me any number of times he knew he was writing music that would be appreciated by very few, that he wasn’t sure he’d made the right decision in turning his back on more accessible forms of music. Maybe jazz was just too easy for him, success came so quickly, with so little effort, and there was little musical challenge. His comments about returning after the war to hear Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in full bloom and being frightened to death just don’t stand up. He could have assimilated everything they were doing in a heartbeat. His decision remains a mystery. Towards the end, in late 1997 or early 1998, we had a short conversation that touched on it. A new composition had been performed; I seem to recall it featured a clarinet. He said it was well received, and after the performance, he was greeted by many well-wishers. He told me that a young man had come up to him and complimented him on the new piece, but added, “I like Mission To Moscow better.” To which, Mel said he replied, “So do I.” Mel’s health deteriorated rapidly in 1998 and he was hospitalized. He’d been elected into the American Academy Of Arts and Letters and was due to be inducted in May, but it was clear he wouldn’t last that long. Precedent was broken and there was a bedside ceremony in April, a few weeks before he died. A moving tribute was offer at the formal ceremony by his old friend and colleague, Milton Babbitt. Mel would have enjoyed Babbitt’s remarks, but would have been even happier if Benny Goodman could have said a few things as well. Time passed. Mel’s wife, the noted actress, Martha Scott, died and their possessions were dispersed to children and grandchildren. Some wound up with their daughter, Kati. One day she telephoned and said she’d found something she thought I might like. A dusty plaque arrived a few days later. Downbeat Magazine awarded it to Mel as the outstanding pianist in jazz for 1947, probably based on the few months he spent with Benny Goodman in 1946, and the handful of records me made under his own name. He didn’t win in 1948; he’d left the jazz world by then. The plaque hangs on my office wall next to a small watercolor he did in the 1970s. He told me he called the abstract painting of what is clearly a pianist in action, brand viagra. He always came back to the music of his youth. |
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brand viagra pricesPosted in on August 27, 2010 by |
Mel Powell in his studio, Van Nuys, California, May 16, 1987
