ONOFFON

[onoffon]

I recently received an email from Ted Gioia, author of a book called "West Coast Jazz" and owner of the new website, jazz.com. It indirectly involves my father but, once again, illustrates the impact of my father on jazz -"Von,I thought you might find this interesting. I will be running an article on Charlie Parker on the www.jazz.com website in a couple of months, and I commissioned artist Suzanne Cerny to do a portrait of Bird for this article. She included an image of your father in the background.I hope all is well with you.Best regards,Ted"The work is an artist rendition of the picture I've posted here with Charlie Parker, Chet Baker, and Harry Babasin, playing live at the Tiffany Club in 1952. When Mr. Parker arrived in L.A., he performed at a club in Inglewood called the Tradewinds, where my father hosted regular jam sessions. Charlie Parker and Chet Baker actually met for the first time at this particular session and the resulting recording is only the second of young Mr. Baker's illustrious career. His first, BTW, was also with my father at the Tradewinds earlier that same year...More later...

[onoffon]

A couple of cool things...I recently realized, in my pursuit to tell my father's story, I had given away all of my copies of the only Jazzpickers (my father's group he led on cello) album re-released on CD, even my own personal copy. So, I thought I might look around eBay to see if I couldn't find somewhere to buy a few copies. Then, I decided to see if I could contact the record company that pressed it. Lo and behold, I found the phone number and ended up speaking with the president of the company, Peter Jacobson of V.S.O.P. Records. What a nice guy! He was very complimentary of my father's career and talents and was excited to hear of my journey to produce the documentary. I mentioned my lack of CDs and he FedEx'ed a box of thirty to me today. How cool is that??!!?? He also asked me to keep him updated on my progress. And, if that wasn't enough to make this a great day, I just received comfirmation that, after being bumped from the two previous editions, the March issue of Jazziz Magazine has published Charles Levin's piece about my father and the documentary. It's only a 250 word article but they told me that once the film is complete, they would like to do a full blown feature on it.This is an extremely fortuitous time for this to happen for reasons that I hope to be telling about very soon...

[onoffon]

Taking a short break on the documentary front, I'm playing with my cover band tonight at a classy club called Coconuts in Capistrano Beach, between San Juan Capistrano and Dana Point. What a great location!Should be a LOT of fun!!!!! No cover charge...So, anyone in shouting distance should come on down and party with me!

[onoffon]

The other day, I gave Charles Levin a call. He's the writer who wrote the piece about my dad and the documentary for the March issue of Jazziz Magazine (still waiting for it to hit the stands). He wasn't home so I left a message thanking him for writing the article.Yesterday, I received this email from Mr. Levin -"Von,Got your message and also wanted to pass along this message: See "The Band's Visit." It's a foreign film about an Egyptian police department band's trip to Israel. You must see it for at least one line in the movie. I don't want to give it away. You will be touched.cl"I hated to tell him that I not only knew about the movie already but someone had given me the exact quote as well.He was, however, correct about how touched I am. About the movie, yes, that's very cool. But, what REALLY touches me is that people who I barely know are seeing this movie and contacting me to tell me about it! I'm absolutely beside myself. It's so wonderful that people are making the connection to just how amazing and important my father's contributions to jazz are...It's awe inspiring and humbling... it's so cool for my kids who never met their grandfather... it's so cool for my mother who still loves my dad with all her heart almost twenty years after his death...Thanks again, Charles Levin.It's all so incredible...

[onoffon]

Today would have been Harry Babasin's 87th birthday!So, have a toast to a great father, wonderful husband, all-around good guy, and one amazingly talented musician!!!!Cheers! Still waiting that March issue of Jazziz Magazine - maybe it will fittingly arrive at the newsstands today...

[onoffon]

Hooray!!!!!Finally got the Jazziz Magazine! It's a small but satisfying half page article, appropriately on page 13, with a great shot of my dad in 1946 when he was playing with Boyd Raeburn's orchestra. This is my favorite line (in reference to my struggle to produce this documentary) -"He's still short of cash to finance the film - tentatively called Harry Babasin's Jazz In Hollywood - but he's querying other foundations and drowning in research."Hahahaha... drowning in research... that's pretty cool... he doesn't realize how true that is.When I'm in my final edit on this baby, I'm really going to hate what I'll have to leave on the cutting room floor.Of course, what doesn't go into the movie could be part of the features section of the DVD release.

[onoffon]

Another radio station placed some ONOFFON in their playlists -"Hi Von -Just wanted to let you know I heard from our friend Terry Martin at KPIG Radio in Freedom, California - which went into national syndication last November. Terry hosts the graveyard show on KPIG and fills in for Sherman's show from 5-midnight at times. When Terry stopped by a say hi recently we loaded him up with more music. He sent a quick email this morning to let me know who was receiving airplay and ONOFFON is on the list."ONOFFON's thanks go out to Terry Martin for giving us a little late night exposure...

[onoffon]

Here's a great email I received yesterday from an artist who sumbled upon the ONOFFON website and was compelled to take note -"Good Morning, I discovered the onoffon website and really like it. What a wealth of information and lots of great links too. I will be visiting the site again to do further exploring but right away I noticed several links to great music sites. One of those being Les Lewellyn's Instrumental Madness Show. He played my song September Wind off my Back From Gone CD. By the way, I just mailed off some copies of my CD for air play consideration on PineKone Radio 100.1 FM. I included 2 extra copies for radio promotion. I look forward to learning more about onoffon.Thanks so much!Nad Neslowww.nadneslo.com"Thanks to Nad for the kind words and I'm glad our website provided links that he could make use of, also...

[onoffon]

How important is it when a new musical genre like the Bossa Nova is introduced to the world? For fifty years now, there are literally hundreds of thousands of artists that play this genre - there are festivals around the globe dedicated to Bossa Nova. Yet, few people know its true origins. Even respected journalist and historian, Marc Myers, thought the artform was birthed in the 60's, when it first was embraced by the public and it became an international craze. But, once made aware of the real story, he went to great ends to put the record straight. So, here is a letter he invited me to write that he published in his blog, with his own short preface, on Thursday, April 10. It's still available on his main page and will soon go into the archives. Jazz Wax http://www.jazzwax.com/ "Shortly after my interview series with Bud Shank last week on the alto saxophonist's critical contribution to the bossa nova's evolution, I received a lovely e-mail from Von Babasin. Von is the son of Harry "The Bear" Babasin, the late, great West Coast Jazz bassist who recorded the first Brazilian jazz albums with Bud Shank, Laurindo Almeida and Roy Harte in 1953 and 1954. Von is in the process of making a documentary about his dad and hosts the Jazz in Hollywood website. As you'll see below, Von adds valuable information to the West Coast Jazz-bossa nova story:'Dear Marc,Thank you for your three-part interview with Bud Shank on the origins of the bossa nova. It was great to read Mr. Shank's wonderful recollections about my dad, bassist Harry Babasin, and the importance of West Coast Jazz in the bossa nova's development. True creative originators rarely recognize or celebrate the magnitude of their accomplishments, and the job of clarification is often left to historians and documentarians. Musicians play what feels and sounds good to them at the time, and they leave the rest to us.For some reason, there are many writers who have neglected to give this group of West Coast musicians the credit they have long deserved. Too often Antonio Carlos Jobim, Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto are portrayed as the creators of the bossa nova—as if the history books aren't big enough to include the groundbreaking Brazilian jazz that Bud Shank, Laurindo Almeida, Harry Babasin and Roy Harte recorded in 1953 and 1954. This recognition by no means diminishes the genius of the musicians who continued Brazilian jazz's evolution. I merely suggest that those who started the genre should no longer remain in anonymity. If the 1953 Laurindo Almeida Quartet recordings aren't the true "birth of the bossa nova," as many believe (including me), they certainly are far more influential than Bud Shank humbly would care to take credit for. I, for one, feel it's time for this inventive group to receive the recognition it so richly deserves. There is enough documentation out there to support this theory:The story of bossa nova's start is told quite nicely by journalist John Tynan, in his article from the November 8, 1962, issue of Down Beat magazine called "The Real Story of the Bossa Nova." It states:"But despite several attempts at delineation in the press and liner commentary on recordings, a central fact concerning the practical beginnings of this jazz samba has been ignored: bossa nova, as we know it, is neither new nor wholly Brazilian. Its roots trail back a decade, and its practical application as a new form found birth in Hollywood, Calif."The article goes on to explain that Brazilian jazz actually had its start six years earlier. Harry Babasin's association with Laurindo Almeida dates back to 1947, when they met on the set of the movie, A Song Is Born, starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo. Harry was with Benny Goodman's rhythm section at the time and was the credited bassist in the film. Laurindo was hired as an extra in the large, group musical scenes. Harry and Laurindo immediately struck up a musical friendship. They would play between takes of the film and experiment with Laurindo's traditional Brazilian baiao rhythms. As they maintained their relationship over the years, they found themselves developing the idea in 1952. Almeida was quoted as saying, "The idea of putting samba and jazz together was different. As long as samba is 2/4 and jazz is a la breve, why not put the two together?" But, Babasin found the two-beat bass line to be too constraining, so he added notes in a syncopated fashion, and "the result was the basis for bossa nova," Tynan writes in the 1962 Down Beat article.In the same article, drummer Roy Harte adds, "[Combining Brazilian music and jazz] was Harry's idea, and his bass parts provided the lead rhythmically." Harte continues, "The whole thing, was to combine the baiao beat with jazz. That was what we were aiming at—a jazz baiao." As Mr. Tynan put it, "In almost total obscurity the first examples of bossa nova were put on tape in a small studio on Hollywood's Santa Monica Blvd. in 1953."As far as the spread of these particular recordings and the influence they contributed, the article states: "Later in 1953 Almeida returned to Brazil to visit. With him he took 25 copies of the album. 'I gave copies to many of my friends,' he said, 'and it was given close attention.'"One last note from the Down Beat article: Almeida credits a well-known Brazilian entertainer, Carioca, for coining the phrase "bossa nova." Alternately, Robert Farris Thompson of the Saturday Review wrote: "'Bossa' literally means 'hump on the back,' according to Prof. Malcolm C. Batchelor, who teaches Portuguese at Yale, and he adds that 'bossa nova' is slang for 'the new wrinkle.' According to Time, various experts claim the 'Portuguese slang expression 'bossa nova' can mean 'the latest thing' or 'the new beat' or 'the new wrinkle'."In that same issue of Down Beat, other articles on the bossa nova appeared, citing Bud, Laurindo, Harry and Roy as being very influential in the artform's development, if not its true originators. What I enjoyed most in the 1962 Down Beat, however, is a section of record reviews on page 24 called the Bossa Nova Bandwagon. It featured reviews of seven different bossa nova albums, including Brazilliance Vol. 1 and Brazilliance Vol. 2. The only album on the page to receive a full five-star rating is Brazilliance Vol. 1, a compilation of the original group's two 10-inch LPs on Pacific Jazz, with Harry and Roy on bass and drums. Many times, when a new artform is introduced, it has a rudimentary form that is then improved upon. In this case, the genre's originators set the bar high. Though Babasin had created that rhythmic structure first as a duo with Almeida and then as a trio with Harte, it truly was the addition of alto saxophonist Bud Shank that breathed life into the music. The sax became the voice that defined the modern jazz influence on the traditional Brazilian rhythms that became the style that set the standard for its artform. In 1994, John Goldsby, a New York bassist who, at the time, performed with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, and a scholar of bass history who teaches at William Paterson College in New Jersey, wrote an article in the April issue of Bass Player Magazine about Harry Babasin. In it, he states: "Traditional Brazilian bass parts are usually played with only half-notes, as shown in Ex. 1 [diagramed in the article]. Babasin changed the feel of these lines by adding eighth-notes (Ex. 2), and this is the basis for the bossa nova bass lines most of us play today. Babasin went further, exploring various embellishments on the bossa nova beat that give the bassist further freedom (Ex. 3). A recording of the seminal bossa nova jazz band with Babasin and Almeida was made in 1953 and has been reissued on CD called Brazilliance Vol. 1."Mr. Goldsby has since authored a book in 2002 called The Jazz Bass Book: Technique and Tradition. Apparently, he felt Harry Babasin and the bossa nova contribution, among other innovations introduced by Harry, were important enough to occupy a chapter. Whether or not you believe that what the Laurindo Almeida Quartet recorded was the actual birth of the bossa nova is neither here nor there. The truth of the matter is this group represented the first time in recorded history the fusion of traditional Brazilian rhythms and modern jazz. That event, in itself, is an innovation worthy of inclusion in the history books. It's been clearly documented that these albums made it into the hands of those who followed, so its influence cannot be ignored.Thank you, Marc, for giving jazz a great platform with such insightful commentary!Regards'" Harry was always so far ahead of his time... Von Babasin NYFA Fiscally Sponsored Filmmaker http://www.nyfa.org/nyfa_artists_detail.asp?pid=5613 http://www.onoffon.com/nyfa.html

[onoffon]

This is the most painful part of this journey - the world lost yet another great musician and someone who would have added wonderfully to my father's documentary.I was quite saddened to hear of Jimmy Giuffre's passing. My father and Giuffre went to North Texas State together and were members of the One O'Clock Jazz Band on campus. I have a picture on the Harry Babasin page of he and Giuffre playing in the Bill Ware Orchestra - it must have been one of their first gigs - they were only 20 years old at the time -http://jazzinhollywood.com/harrythebear.htmlI have a copy of a promotional publication from Capitol Records called Capitol News, dated January, 1948, Vol. 6, No. 1. Dad was splitting from playing with Benny Goodman and he was with Capitol Records so they pushed Harry's new group a little. The article was called "New Babasin Ork Hailed In L.A.". It is a nice article with a picture of the whole band - Harry on cello, doubling on bass, Arnold Ross on piano, Blinky Garner on drums, Dale Pearce on trumpet, Hal McKusick on alto, Herbie Harper on trombone, and Jimmy Giuffre on tenor. I also have recordings - one I found recently on an Italian album, that was recorded live from the McCormack Hospital in Pasadena in January, 1948, the very month of the Capitol article.The article states, "Babasin, a graduate of North Texas State College in Denton (where Annie Sheridan grew up), brought his college pal Jimmy Giuffre to Hollywood from the Lone Star State to help him get started."Later in the article, it goes on about Giuffre -"Giuffre is equally adept on alto as tenor sax, and his inventive, Sauter-inspired arrangements are so gone that Red Norvo, preparing to make jazz discs for Capitol last month, rushed out and asked Giuffre to handle the arranging for the session."He was an amazing musician and will be greatly missed. Giuffre was a household name in my home growing up, as was Arnold Ross and Herbie Harper. I spoke with Herbie recently and he told me, "If you want me in your documentary, you'd better hurry up." He's 89.That brings the number to six talented men who were deeply involved in my father's career, as well as having their own interesting stories, who have passed away in the 2+ years I've been seeking funding from the more than 500 foundations I've approached to make this film...It tears my heart out...