Vin D’Onofrio: An Old Friend’s Dreams and Schemes

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Reconnecting this year, after many decades, with Vin D’Onofrio is a treat. Vin was one of a close knit group of my musician/friends during high school. Vin and his brother, Joe, traveled with me in my 1949 Chevy from Greenlawn, NY to the 1970 Newport Jazz Festival in RI.

We barely had the money to get to Newport and back, but it didn’t matter. We just wanted to hear the music. We paid $5.00 general admission to sit on the ground in an open field. We could see and hear the acts fine, but we baked in the sun. In the end, outdoor showers at a public beach enabled us to wash off and cool down a bit.

But that night, the Power to the People crowd, deciding $5.00 was too much to pay for a day of jazz music performed by great musicians, rioted, and killed the 1970 Newport Jazz Festival.

Down Beat published my letter apologizing for that segment of “my generation” responsible for the rioting, assuring Down Beat readers there were plenty of teenagers who loved jazz, and who hated the closing of Newport 1970. That group included me and the D’Onofrio brothers: Joe and Vin.

Dreams and Schemes is the title of Vin D’Onofrio’s new EP. My last memories of Vin are of his guitar playing/singing in a band, C.B. Fish, playing at Nicky’s Tavern in Centerport Harbor, NY. From I Heard It Through the Grapevine, to San Francisco Bay Blues, to Truckin’, to My Way — what a mix! (I was the drummer/singer.)

Wouldn’t you know it. My first listening of Vin’s Dreams and Schemes songs reminded me, in its variety of styles, of the songs played at Nicky’s Tavern.

I’m very glad Vin is starting to share his life stories online. He is exactly the kind of musician who should be doing just that.

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Audio: Frankie Dunlop: Never Rehearsed With Monk 12/13/84

Posted on November 12, 2016 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Frankie Dunlop agreed to a feature interview for Modern Drummer magazine, which was published in 1984. I didn’t know at the time my interview sessions with Frankie would be his only full-length interview. Now, 30 plus years later I am digitizing Frankie’s interview. Here is a second brief excerpt, part of  a longer interview session taped in my living room in Washington, CT on December 13, 1984.

There are three voices on this excerpt. I ask the opening question. Most of the audio is Frankie Dunlop. My landlord at the time, Jack Jackson, was present for this interview session, sometimes joined the conversation, and is heard laughing during this segment.

Also, listeners will hear, probably for the first time, Frankie Dunlop mimicking Thelonious Monk’s voice. Throughout our interview sessions, Frankie — who was an exceptional mime — became Monk, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins. I am very glad to be able to share that part of Frankie Dunlop.

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Gerry Mulligan: What Music is Supposed to Be About

Posted on November 11, 2016 by Scott K Fish

mulligan_gerry

Gerry Mulligan: “We lose track of what music is supposed to be about. The primary function of music is not for the listener, nor the dancer. It’s for the person who is making it. That’s the first function of music.”

Source: Gerry Mulligan, Jeru’s Views, by Arnold Jay Smith, Down Beat, July 15, 1976

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Freddie Waits: Drummer on ‘Dancing in the Streets’

Posted on November 4, 2016 by Scott K Fish

freddie-waitsSKF NOTE: Freddie Waits is the drummer on Martha and the Vandellas’ Dancing in the Street? Neither had I seen Freddie Waits spoken of as one of Motown’s legendary “Funk Brothers.” I learn something everyday. Here is a snippet of Marc Myers’s ARTS ANATOMY OF A SONG from the Wall Street Journal (Nov. 1, 2016).

When Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street” was released on July 31, 1964, the single was unlike anything Motown had ever produced: funkier, with a throbbing bass line and explosive drum shots on the [back] beats.

Recently, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Stevenson, arranger Paul Riser and lead singer Martha Reeves recalled the song’s evolution.

Ivy Jo Hunter (songwriter): In early 1964, I had just joined Motown as a songwriter. I knew how to create chords and rhythms on the piano but [couldn’t] play them together with melodies.

I often started songs by playing a bass line on the keyboard. As I played this one, I stuck to a single note, rocking my pinky and thumb back and forth an octave apart. I came up with this pulsating figure, starting with the higher note.

…I came up with a melody and chords…. [Then] I went to find Paul Riser….

Paul Riser (Motown arranger): My job was to enhance and expand [Ivy’s] ideas…for the song.

myers_marc_anatomy_of_a_song…I…created a skeleton chord sheet for the Funk Brothers — Motown’s house rhythm section. If you gave them the basics of what you wanted, they would invent something extraordinary.

[W]e brought the rhythm section into the studio: Earl Van Dyke on keyboards, guitarist Robert White, bassist James Jamerson and drummer Freddie Waits. The drums and bass were most important, …they always set the feel for a Motown song.

Mr. Hunter: The goal was…a [taped] rhythm track…I could listen to while writing lyrics. The Funk Brothers played the music…Paul had written…and then did their thing and locked it in the pocket. Wow, they always came up with something great.

Most Motown songs were based on the Charleston. This song was more like a freight train with a heavy backbeat.

William “Mickey” Stevenson (co-writer/producer): I overdubbed some percussion, including the claves…on the off-beats and a tambourine hit hard by Jack Ashford with a drum stick on the second and fourth beats to add snap.

To make the tambourine sound even bigger, I fed the track through our echo chamber, which was a hole in the bathroom wall. By re-recording the tambourine track bouncing off that tile wall, we got a bigger dance beat.

Marc Myers is the author of “Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop” (Grove), based on The Wall Street Journal column 

Full Story

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Audio: Frankie Dunlop: Monk Said, “Keep the Time, Regardless”

Posted on October 30, 2016 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Frankie Dunlop agreed to a feature interview for Modern Drummer magazine, which was published in 1984. I didn’t know at the time my interview sessions with Frankie would be his only full-length interview. Now, 30 plus years later I am digitizing Frankie’s interview. Here is a brief excerpt, part of  a longer interview session taped in my living room in Washington, CT on December 13, 1984.

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