You’ll be reading plenty about the great music historian and, in his own words, “jazz advocate” (a term I have since appropriated for myself) Dan Morgenstern, who left us yesterday, roughly a month before what would have been his 95th birthday. The New York Times obit, by Barry Singer, has already appeared, and there are lovely reminiscences of him by both Dave Ostwald and the Caro of Satchmo, Ricky Riccardi on the facce libre - marking the first time I have actually cat my eyes on the Zuckerberg curse in years. And Michael Steinman, in his fine blog Jazz Lives, has been picking Dan’s brain for years - for the benefit of all of us.
I wanted to add one more very brief anecdote - as far as I know, this has never made it into print, at least I can’t find it anywhere on the world wide interwebs:
In the mid-1950s, Dan was working at one of the most celebrated record stores in New York, Sam Goody’s on West 42nd Street. (My father, who was six years younger than Dan, also had some interesting anecdotes about that establishment, and he was only a customer.) Dan told the story once about a certain persistent customer: it was an elderly Hispanice gentlemen. He came in more than once asking for records by an artist no one in the shop had ever heard of: someone apparently called ‘Pussy Face.”
Finally, after multiple visits, somebody caught wise. The artist this client was looking for was actually, none other than, drum roll please …. Percy Faith. (I can see the discography now: Pussy Face Plays Music from the Broadway Production, My Fair Lady, Pussy Face Plays George Gershwin, Pussy Face Plays Malagueña: Music of Cuba” - you get the general idea.
Dan’s 90th birthday, hosted at Birdland by Dave Ostwald and the Louis Armstrong Eternity Band, October 23, 2019. Dan’s son Josh Morgenstern, the late Phil Schaap, Scout Opatut, Michael Steinman, Dan Morgenstern, Scott Wenzel (Mosaic Records), Unknown bald guy (in hat), David Oswald, Ricky Riccardi.
coming next:
The Dinah Washington Centennial -
A Complete Annotated Filmography
Part One:
The “Showtime at the Apollo” Films (1954)
Part Two:
Bandstand Revue (1955)
Crescendo (1957)
Part Three:
Jazz on a Summer’s Day (filmed 1957, released 1958)
Part Four
CBC (1959)
The Singin’, Swingin’ Years (1959)
Very Special thanks to the fabulous Ms. Elizabeth Zimmer, for expert proofreading of this page, and scanning for typos, mistakes, and other assorted boo-boos!
Sing! Sing! Sing! : My tagline is, “Celebrating the great jazz - and jazz-adjacent - singers, as well as the composers, lyricists, arrangers, soloists, and sidemen, who help to make them great.”
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SING! SING! SING!
June 29 - Americana - For the Fourth of July - Songs of Civil Rights & The African American Experience
July 6 - The Four Freshmen & Other Great Jazz Vocal Groups of the 1950s
July 13 - Bastille Day: Guest Co-Host ERIC COMSTOCK shares his favorite French songs! Formidable!
July 20 - The Margaret Whiting Centennial: “Happy Birthday Maggie!”
July 27 - “Calypso Blues” OR “It’s The New Calypso Bebop!”
August 3 - The Tony Bennett Birthday Special: Tony Sings the Cole Porter Songbook
August 10 - “A Little Moonlight & A Little Tenderness: The Harry Woods Songbook”
August 17 - “Fat Daddies & Skinny Mamas: The Body Positive Show”
August 24 - “The Dinah Washington Centennial: Back to The Blues”
August 31 - “Songs in the Key of Sea - Nautical But Nice“
September 7 - “Lerner & Loewe - The Jazz & Pop MixTape”
September 14 - “The Mel Torme Birthday Special: At The Movies”
SLOUCHING TOWARDS BIRDLAND is a subStack newsletter by Will Friedwald. The best way to support my work is with a paid subscription, for which I am asking either $5 a month or $50 per year. Thank you for considering. (Thanks as always to Beth Naji & Arlen Schumer for special graphics.) Word up, peace out, go forth and sin no more! (And always remember: “A man is born, but he’s no good no how, without a song.”)
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RIP Mr. Morgenstern. Your contributions to jazz as a critic, a multiple-Grammy winning liner notes writer, and a leading force behind making jazz an academic subject will not be forgotten, at least by me.
Love the "pussy face" story--and the photo too!