Judee Sill the Flight of an Angel - Part Three

 The Turtles Cover Judee Sill's "Lady-O" (1969)

Judee was fond of Sunday brunches with the “crew”. Generally, these drunken verbal orgies took place at the El Coyote restaurant on Beverly Blvd. 

In the early seventies the crew consisted of Tom Peltier, Lynn Blessing, myself, Linda Ronstadt, J.D. Souther, and a host of hanger-oners and personal attendants that her “highness” loved to have around her. In some odd way, she had the status of a Queen, reminding me of Queen Elizabeth the 1st. Judee would have been right at home during the Renaissance.

She would always treat those who didn’t have enough money on them which  included almost everyone at the table from time to time.  Judee also adored downtown LA on Sundays.  One of her favorite haunts was Alavera Street and the Mexican market in the plaza.  The “crew” would wander around sucking on tacos at two in the afternoon taking in the sights.  One Sunday downtown on Alavera Street, we were all walking together in two and threes and suddenly we came upon two older Mexican men who had been drinking heavily, arguing loudly, and beginning to come to blows.  From out of nowhere, Judee broke from the rest of us and ran towards the two malcontents yelling at the top of her lungs, 

“...Hey, whoa! What in the hell do you think you guys are doing, it’s Sunday for Christ’s sake, you don’t fight on his day...” and on and on.

 I expected to have to run over and save her life but the two old drunkards actually looked embarrassed as if their school teacher Ms. Sill was scolding them out for not doing their homework. 

She had this kind of magic as well as many other displays of power. Judee was invested with magical powers, being that refined intelligence coupled with an educated imagination.

 It was not unusual for her to be talking with a group of friends with her guitar nearby and start receiving a “message” from the collective consciousness of the universe.  Sounds deep, I know, but it was true.  All of a sudden she would go off in a trance and pick up the guitar and sing and play a complete new song.  At the completion, she would look at all of us who sat bewildered and she would say, 

 “...What the hell was that all about?” and start laughing and then turn serious again to try to recapture what she had just created.  She always found it again.

I too had my powers of protection for this fragile creature.  One afternoon, I went to a gig with her in LA where she was opening up solo for God knows who, I’ve forgotten, though it may have been Randy Newman.  We were being driven in a limo and some “Manny-cigar-breath” type was begging her to listen to this new guy from England who was just now becoming exposed to America, Elton John.   She was straining to be courteous but the attitude was fading fast.  I jumped in and asked the aggressive agent if Elton John knew who Judee Sill was? 
   
“Gee, I don’t know to be honest,” replied the agent. 

“Then why is it important for Judee to know who he is?” I retorted. 

“Maybe someday they should meet in person just like human beings, what do you think?”

The agent now realizing I was fucking up his pitch handed Judee a cassette and said “...Yea, well, have a listen some time.”

 looked over at Judee and she mouthed the words, “thank you” and gave me a big smile.

There is a good deal of conjecture after the fact as to what hindered Judee from realizing a great career.  Yes, she was erratic, and a drug user, but so was everyone else who made the big time. She sang as well if not better than her contemporaries and of course her composing skills were way above average, and actually very inspired in both lyric and harmonic facets. 

David Geffen believed in her enough to sign her before he signed any other female artist.  But then along came Joni. 

It is a well known “rumor” in Hollywood that Joni was a tad jealous of Judee.  At least Joni was somewhat intimidated by having another woman around who wrote “ethereal” music which charmed the likes of David Geffen.

According to some unnamed sources, Joni had more than a little influence on how David Geffen handled the two of them on the same label and that Joni had told Geffen that there was only room for one superstar female on Asylum records.  Who knows?  One thing for sure that influenced the decline of Judee’s career would be her car accident in the mid-seventies.

One night in LA while driving around with friends, she was rear-ended by the actor Danny Kaye: some fate.  She survived the accident but her back didn’t.  She began to have heavy lower back pains that although were buffered by drugs and pills, wouldn’t go away.  Consulting doctors decided that she needed disc surgery and this actually marked the beginning of the end.  Although the surgery was considered a success, Judee was never physically stable for the rest of her life.  The pain and the constant lack of comfort, standing or sitting caused her to become more dependent on medication for relief.

During this period Judee was living with a woman named Judy Himmel, who was a scientist and oboist.  The house located in the Wilshire district became a meeting place for all of Judee’s “followers” at the time.  She was bed-ridden yet still possessed her powers of influence and a massive sense of humor.

She called me in the mid-seventies to see if I would cover a gig for her.  She was supposed to perform at the then, “Barnsdall Park Festival” that occurred every summer during the seventies.  She asked me if I would take her place and fingerpick and sing my own tunes.  It was quite a compliment indeed to have her think enough of my material and talent to take her place.  I covered the concert date for her, and on a video clip taken by Lynn Blessing’s wife at the time, you can watch me do a tribute to Sill.  I performed my own songs but I worked really hard to play one of my favorite tunes by Judee, “The Vigilante”, which, if I do say so myself, came off quite well.  I learned her guitar part, note for note.  Judee was as self-centered as any artist must be, but she shared all the warmth she had inside with others.  We took the video tape up to her room the day after my concert trying to fill her shoes.  She watched the whole set with her eyes half closed.  At the completion of the tape, she looked at me and held my hand.  With an intensity I have often seen in her eyes with others she said,

“...You deserve more than the best!”

Judee Sill is the eponymous debut album by the American singer-songwriter and musician Judee Sill. Released on September 15, 1971, it was the first album on David Geffen's Asylum label.^[3] Backing musicians include John Beck and Jim Pons from The Leaves. While the majority of the album was produced by Henry Lewy, Graham Nash handled the duties for the single "Jesus Was a Cross Maker", with his production designed to aim for radio airplay.

This was one of the biggest thrills of my life. 

One day Bill Plummer called me to tell me that Judee wanted to go into the studio and record with her friends.  Marc McClure, Bill, Tom Peltier, myself, Kevin Kelly on drums, and Vicki McClure, Marc’s younger sister who is a sensational singer. Vicki McClure sang the National Anthem at the 1984 Olympics in LA.  Incredible!  

After I hung up the phone with Bill, I called Judee.  She sounded like her old self.  We joked around for awhile then got down to the essence of the project.  She was pain-free for the moment and wanted desperately to get some new songs down on tape.  I told her I would come and rehearse just the two of us to get our parts arranged.  She said in her usual mock-official voice,

“...yes indeed, you shall be my designated musical aaaaaaaranger!”

We both laughed and I headed for her house.

Memory fails me for many details of this project, but the posthumously released CD “Dreams Come True” on Runt records in 2005 tells the tale.  My guitar can be heard doubling her right hand on the piano for all her blues-gospel licks, and if I do say so myself, I played rather tastefully throughout the recording.  Inside my heart, I knew this might be the last go-around for Judee, her overall health was not that good at the time.  

It was 1974 and only a few more precious years of life were left for Judee.  We shifted in and out of each others lives until Thanksgiving day, 1979.

At the time I was married to my second wife and living in studio City.  Judee was living in a court style brick apartment complex around the corner near Lankersheim. Judee called my house late in the afternoon and said she was feeling very alone.  I didn’t hesitate to go pick her up and bring her to the house for dinner that night.  She had such a melancholy, forlorn look on her face when she got into my car.  I immediately started joking with her and telling her Lena Horne stories, for I was touring with Ms. Horne at the time.  She lightened up a little, but by the time we arrived at the house she was back into a dark mood.  All went fairly well for a couple of hours but I could sense that she was not at peace within herself.  She took me aside and asked me if I could take her back to her apartment, she had things to do.  I didn’t argue, just grabbed the car keys and headed out the door. 

The ride back was executed in total silence.  When we arrived she slowly opened the car door and gave me a brief kiss on my cheek before departing.

Lynn Blessing the the Art Johnson Trio - Tribute - For Judee

I will never forget the look on her face:  dismay, fatigue and also a peaceful acceptance of the things around her.  I watched her amble towards the door never looking back at me.  Two days later I got the call from Lynn Blessing: Judee was dead—unknown reasons, possibly a drug overdose.  What can I say?  Clarence White – Tim Buckley and now the queen of Hearts, Judee Sill.  I’m sure that her trip back to Heaven was a comfortable journey and hopefully, she resides to this day in an exalted state.

Judee Sill the Flight of an Angel - Part Two

This is my personal experiences with her and not an historical account of her life.  Her history has been, and continues to be mentioned in many books written on the pop music scene, as well as websites dedicated to her and about her from the thousands of fans that still remains true to her soul, and miss her very much. Judee Sill was truly unique.  In my over forty five years of experience in the music field I have never know anyone with more talent.  

She played the guitar really well in her own style of finger-picking which was carefully arranged and designed to accompany her original vocal music with counterpoint, both bass and treble which would offer the ear three part harmony on most of her songs.  This skill was directly derived from her studies of classical music, formally and informally.  Her piano playing was natural, highly influenced by gospel music and flowed out of her fingers.  She could make a bad piano sound good: the true mark of an artist. 

Her voice had wonderful range, and even now when I hear it on recordings, it still sounds like an angel from heaven.  Her vocals were always honest, never forced the way things are today. There was no “phony-baloney” show-biz attitude to her singing, it was straight from her heart to yours, whoever you may be.  Her lyrics were not just that.  She was a poetess whose constant revision or her “vision” was non-stop. 

Once I sat with her in her Mill Valley house that David Geffen had acquired for her and watched as she made a list of words.  She was looking for a very special rhyme.  She made lists of words long into the night searching for just the right symbol, the right moment in time and space. The intent of her lyrics and songs in general was cathartic—she wanted to change you, for better or worse, that was not the point, the point was all about change! 
 
Judee dug deep for her songs, taking in all life had to offer whether it was relationships, people’s sorrows, paintings in a museum, drugs, sex, the music of Gabriel Fauré which she was extremely fond of, or the simplest of life’s experiences. Her “radar” was always up.  The “receiver” was always tuned in. She lived to observe and write about what it meant to her, whether in journals, songs, poems or even in her sketches and paintings which were of a professional quality.  She was simply a creative machine with an enormous gift to entice people and make them laugh.  The world was basically her canvas, she could use it or abuse it—nothing mattered but the end result: Art.

For a brief time we were lovers. She had an insatiable hunger for experiences with others. Her life was full of incongruities. She was a dope addict, at one time a “hooker” and for a brief spell a criminal. She once told me laughing herself silly, that while in the midst of robbing a liquor store to get some drug money that she ran in with a gun in her hand and yelled at the owner, “...raise your hands mother sticker, this is a fuckup!!!”  Judee was something else!

Even the least sensitive of listeners can easily hear the spirituality in Judee’s music—she was always playing for God, hoping he was listening.  


Her song “Jesus was a Cross Maker” focused a lot of attention upon her when the English group the “Hollies” covered it in the early seventies.  Rock and roll gospel as heartfelt as it gets.  That’s what Sill was all about.  She aptly named her album for Geffen records, “Heart Food.”  

I remember being at A&M records when she recorded the tracks and had some of Hollywood’s finest on overdubs.  One of her spiritual and musical mentors Lynn Blessing, the vibraphonist talked about a lot in this book, played drums on some of the sessions.  Lynn and Jim Keltner, studio/tour drummer to the stars, often played the drums with towels draped over them to soften the sound.  Lynn used this technique on Judee’s album to be “....out of the way of the music!”

I think I sang a background part or two on the album, under Judee’s scrupulous direction, but the memory that sticks out the most is this: 

One day I arrived at A&M with Lynn Blessing to observe Judee conducting her own string parts for the album.

Yep, that’s right, she was so schooled that she could write a string arrangement for forty or more strings in counterpoint and also conduct it.  

We’re not talking your average “Hippie-sixties” guitar strummer and singer here. Judee was also a great electric bass player and along the way in her musical background she played the clarinet professionally.  But with all of her talents and the capacity to be one of the most outrageous people on the planet earth, I remember her most for her kindness and encouragement towards others.  

Everyone around her became an unofficial disciple. She, who was eager to learn, was always teaching in an open way, with a smile, just suggesting a melody, or a chord or a way to phrase a rhythm.  She was totally spontaneous. If you were driving around LA together and all of a sudden she saw someone or something you missed, boom!  She’d yell, 

     “...Hey, stop right here, right now!” 

Most of the time, you wouldn’t know what the hell it was all about until she pointed it out.  Maybe a painting barely visible in a window: a small church no one had noticed: a street person with a guitar playing out of tune and singing worse, but there you’d be, watching Judee observing, taking it all in with her eyes closed, listening to the moment, watching God in action.  She had a great saying that always stayed with you if you heard it. 

      “Upwards and onwards, fuck the odds!”        
 

Judee Sill the Flight of an Angel - Part One

Judee and I met when Lynn Blessing and I were sharing an old Victorian house in Hollywood.  The date would be 1971. It was up on Berendo St. right below Barnsdall Park. 

Lynn had his entire rare Metaphysical library in the house. As this place was to become the new “First Temple of Freedom,” we decided to do it up right for a house warming party.  I drove to Echo Park and bought a pound of grass for about $75.00.  Lynn and I decided to roll up around 100 joints and just leave them spread around the house for anyone who cared to enjoy them.  It’s incredible that with the noise and the smoke that we weren’t busted.  And of course, people just walking down the street saw the party and invited themselves in, they’d see the joints all over the place and start to stash some in their pockets.  Lynn and I would just hand them a fistful with a big smile! 

Judee came to our party late in the evening (she had been Lynn’s friend for a few years at the time).  I took out my classical guitar, (I had been studying furiously at the time with Phil Boroff) and played a Courante by J.S. Bach. Judee sat there as if she were in a trance.  When I finished she looked softly into my eyes and said with her great and sarcastic wit, 

‘You know too much for your own good!’  

I knew exactly what she meant. Later that night she crept into my room and slept with me, and I mean slept only!  We held each other and she said, “I love your Bach”.  I replied, “Your tunes remind me of him!”  Soon we were asleep. This began a friendship that lasted through smooth and rough terrain until she died.”

“We were this group of gypsies deeply bonded through shared experience.  We meant a lot to each other.  It was a period in time unlike any that has preceded it or come since.  We were all full of the spirit of the times but were deadly serious musicians trying to capture the joy and pain of our existence and never thought of tomorrow and its consequences.  Life was to be lived and music was its central theme:  jazz, classical, folk, rock, you name it, it all counted!”  

“Judee was one of the most unique individuals I ever had the privilege of knowing.  I remember the day she signed with Asylum records, she asked me to go with her to her meeting with David Geffen.  We ran into Joni Mitchell at the Sunset Blvd. office.  Watching the two of them in the same room was an experience.  Joni knew who Judi was.  Let’s just say their cautious conversation was memorable.”

I had a huge participation in Judee’s posthumously released CD recording “Dreams Come True” by Runt Records in 2005, which were done at Mike Nesmith’s, of Monkees fame, “Country Studio” in Van Nuys in 1974.  I helped Judee arrange the music and paid particular attention to my electric guitar parts and sound, so that my playing would often double the right hand of her piano licks and blend as well with her acoustic guitar work.  

It is very odd for me to have such a vague memory about such a “memorable” piece of Hollywood pop music history.  After all, it was her last efforts in the studio before her untimely passing.  For some reason all my memory has truly retained is the great dinner afterwards at her favorite Russian restaurant in Burbank, a “Sill” tradition.  I think she would be happy about this. 

Miles Davis improvises the soundtrack to Louis Malle’s ‘Elevator To The Gallows’

Ascenseur pour l’échafaud was the celebrated director Louis Malle’s feature film debut and starred Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet as lovers planning a murder. The two day recording session was held at Le Poste Parisien Studio in Paris on December 4th and 5th, 1957 and featured French session musicians René Urtreger, Pierre Michelot and Barney Wilen along with American drummer Kenny Clarke. After getting some basic cues and the key from Davis, the soundtrack was totally improvised while the musicians watched the movie on a screen.  The soundtrack seems to be a well-kept secret in the Miles Davis discography which is odd considering that the modal experimentations laid down for Malle’s film clearly led to what came soon afterwards in a similar vein, Milestones and his all time classic Kind of Blue album.

It could be argued that Malle’s cinematic style and the unique pacing and character of this particular film—which Miles obviously had to conform to in order score it properly—had a noticeable influence on his music. Jazz critic Phil Johnson described the Ascenseur pour l’échafaud soundtrack as having “the loneliest trumpet sound you will ever hear.” 

Miles Davis and Jeanne Moreau, Paris, 1957

Miles Davis watches Louis Malle’s French film noir, Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (“Elevator to the Gallows”) and improvises his moody soundtrack score.  


Reposted from Dangerous Minds 

 

Brothers Amati and Nicoló Amati

Though violin making reached its zenith in the hands of Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù , the story of the violin begins much earlier in Cremona. Andrea Amati was a luthier, from Cremona, Italy.  It was in the workshop of Andrea Amati, Italy, in the middle of the 16th century that the form of the instruments of the violin family as we know them today first crystallized.

This violin, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, may have been part of a set made for the marriage of Philip II of Spain to Elisabeth of Valois in 1559, which would make it one of the earliest known violins in existence.

Lorenzo De Medici

The first violin was ordered by Lorenzo De Medici in 1555. His letter to Amati stated the instrument was to be made of the highest quality materials like that of a lute, but simple to play". The first violin was intended to be used by illiterate musicians, so the design was simple and it was easy to play.

Nicolo Amati

Several of his instruments survive to the present day, and some of them can still be played. Many of the surviving instruments were among a consignment of 38 instruments delivered to Charles IX of France in 1564.

His sons Antonio and Girolamo, commonly referred to as the Brothers Amati, took over the shop after his death. Nicoló Amati, the most famous member of the family, was born to Girolamo in 1596 and took over the family business after 1630. For centuries, musicians and connoisseurs have prized Nicoló Amati violins for their superb craftsmanship and wonderfully responsive tone. During the 17th century, the name Amati was virtually a synonym for a fine violin.

As important as Nicoló Amati was as a violin maker, he was perhaps even more significant to the ultimate success and perfection of the violin as a teacher and inspiration. As a result of his pupils and followers, nearly all violins made in the 17th century were based in some way on Amati models either from direct contact with the master or through imitation of his instruments.

Peter McGuire of the Minnesota Orchestra play the 'King Henry IV' Brothers Amati violin

 

Cello or Violoncello

   
The cello, originally called the violoncello, is about twice as large as the violin and has four strings tuned an octave lower than those of the viola. As the bass viola da bracchio it was originally tuned a tone lower than it now is, but the present tuning had become standard by 1700. Because of its size, it is played between the knees like members of the viol family. The bass viol was favored for solo playing in the 17th and early 18th cent., and the cello became an important solo instrument only after the disappearance of the viols and the subsequent refinement of cello technique by Jean Louis Duport (1749-1819). The cello was, from its beginning, an important member of the orchestra and is also indispensable in chamber music. It now has an extensive solo literature of its own.


 

"The King" Violoncello by Andrea Amati, Cremona,  after 1538 ca. 

   Violin by Nicolo Amati, Cremona, 1628

  NMM 3356.  Violin by Nicolo Amati, Cremona, 1628.  Ex colls.:  C. J. Read, Salisbury, England; Rev. James Moore; W. H. Symes; R. E. Brandt; E. A. Willmott; Richard Bennett; George Kemp; William MacNeil Rodewald, Jr., Paris and Palm Beach, Florida.  Witten-Rawlins Collection, 1984.

This violin bears an authentic label from the shop of Antonio and Girolamo Amati, run at that time by Nicolo's father, Girolamo. Nicolo assisted his father in the shop and, from about 1615-1620 onwards, Nicolo's was the dominant hand in the instruments bearing the label of the Brothers Amati. This violin, made when Nicolo was about thirty-two years old, is a very well-preserved, grand pattern instrument of the long-cornered design, emulating the work of Nicolo's grandfather, Andrea Amati.

Just a few years after he completed the NMM's violin, Nicolo Amati (1596-1684) found himself in the position of being the pre-eminent violin maker in Italy. This was due not only to the fact that he was a highly talented luthier, but also by virtue of the fact that he miraculously survived the plague that decimated northern Italy in 1629-1630. Subsequent census records document the fact that Nicolo Amati regularly had several non-family members living in his home, including some presumably taken in as orphans of the plague. Others were apprentices in Nicolo's shop, young men representing what was to become the next generation of Cremonese luthiers, including such notables as Andrea Guarneri (ca. 1626-1698) and Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737). 

 

 

“Michel On Air”

Hey jazz fans!

I am discovering some incredible jazz artists along the Mediterranean of which this quartet of French and Italian players truly excels. "Michel in air" is now available on ITI records. More to come! 

“Michel On Air”

Alessandro Collina, Rodolfo Cervetto,

Marc Peillon, 

Fabrizio Bosso

ITI Records Catalog # 201407

July 29, 2014       

"By agreement with our European connection, “Pepita Musiques et Cultures", we are proud to present this tribute album to Michel Petrucciani. 

Alessandro Collina on piano, has performed as steady member of Paul Jeffrey’s Europe Tour group,  brothers Luis and Philippe Petrucciani long tours with several important italian Jazz Festivals. Ale Collina’s latest achievement is this collaboration with trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso. 

Rodolfo Cervetto on drums plays in festivals, clubs and theaters in Italy and abroad. Currently plays in the several  groups, including Alberti, Kandinsky project with Leveratto,  Zunino, Silvestri and Conversano. Symphony Orchestra of Savona, Red Holloway, Benny Golson, Gary Bartz, Paul Jeffrey, Lisa Pollard, Bruce Forman, Buster Williams.  

Marc Peillon the bassist is the French connection to the group.  He has performed and recorded with many of the French and Italian Jazz musicians throughout Europe. A mainstay with Ingrid James, Jilly Jackson, Ryoko Trio to name a few.

Fabrizio Bosso is an Italian post-bop jazz trumpet player.  Bosso's first album as a bandleader was under name Fabrizio Bosso Quintet for album "Fast Flight" (2000) on Red Records. His second outing as frontman was for the Blue Note label with "You've Changed" (2007). Since 2008, he has been working regularly with saxophonist Max Ionata, Casa Del Jazz All Stars, Fabrizio Bosso Quintet, Franco D'Andrea & Two Horns, High Five Quintet, The Italian Trumpet Summit, Lydian Sound Orchestra, Nicola Conte And His Group, Schema Sextet. “Some have called him the Wynton Marsalis of Italy”.

Tracks include:

1. Cantabile  5:37

2. Little Peace in C  3:18

3. Guadeloupe  5:20

4. Hidden Joy  4:43

5. Chloe meets Gershwin  5:09

6. Play Me  5:06

7. Thirteenth (13TH)  5:38 

8. Take the “A” Train  4:04*

9. It’s a Dance  3:57

10. Brazilian Like  5:52

11. In a Sentimental Mood  5:11* 

12. I Wrote You a Song  5:48 



ITI Records/Warrant Music

 

Two Gentlemen of Cremona

During the late 17th and early 18th centuries, two violinmakers from the same small town, indeed, the same block, were making the most sought-after violins ever created. Everyone has heard of Antonio Stradivari, but few know the name Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù. Through interviews with historians, experts, luthiers, and virtuosos, this documentary tells the story of these two masters of violinmaking and why today their stringed instruments are worth millions of dollars to musicians and collectors the world over.

Check out the Full Documentary of Violin Masters