Barbara Morrison: Lady swings the blues

When: Monday, Jan. 5, 2008 • Where: Dakota • Who: Barbara Morrison, voice; Lee Blaske, piano; Dave Karr, tenor saxophone; Gary Raynor, bass; Joe Pulice, drums

I love Barbara Morrison, and I don't just want to hear her sing. I want to be her girlfriend and go shopping and take long lunches with lots of wine, or maybe martinis. I'd hope she'd be in the mood to tell stories from her 30-plus years as an entertainer, performing with jazz and blues legends including Dizzy Gillespie and Ray Charles, Etta James and Joe Williams. I'd try to make her laugh because her laughter, like her singing and her stories, is such a pleasure.

How many times have I seen her? Three, four, maybe five? It's been almost two years since she was last in the Twin Cities, as a headliner at the 2007 Summer Jazz festival. The audience for her second set at the Dakota on Monday was small. I was embarrassed for us as a community of people who are supposed to know something about music. As a friend said later, "There should have been a line out the door." I came home and stayed up late to write a review.

Photo by John Whiting.

Nancy Harms

When: Friday, Sept. 12, 2008 • Where: Dakota • Who: Nancy Harms, voice; Tanner Taylor, piano; Keith Boyles, bass; Spencer McGinnis, drums; Dave Karr, saxophone and flute

Tanner's trio and Dave Karr warm up with "Brer Rabbit" and another upbeat tune. Nancy comes through the curtain looking fabulous, from her upswept bangs to the tips of her leopard-print peeptoe shoes. She swings "Bye Bye Blackbird" and "Our Love Is Here to Stay." Then "Some Day My Prince Will Come."



Let's digress. "Prince" was written for the 1937 Disney animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Dave Brubeck recorded the first jazz version in 1957 on Dave Digs Disney. Ever since, it has been a jazz standard, played and recorded often; probably the best-known recordings are those by Oscar Peterson, Chet Baker, and Miles Davis (Miles is the one I hear in my head). Usually, unless I'm mistaken, it's performed/recorded as an instrumental, not surprising given the lyrics:

Some day my prince will come
Some day we'll meet again
And away to his castle we'll go
To be happy forever I know

Some day when spring is here
We'll find our love anew
And the birds will sing
And wedding bells will ring
Some day when my dreams come true.

Pure corn, but Nancy pulls it off. She's wistful, hopeful, utterly believable. No small accomplishment when one sings this particular tune.

"How High the Moon," "Pennies from Heaven." A break between sets. Nancy stops by to say hi. She says she's nervous about performing at the Dakota on a Friday night, which usually attracts a crowd. Her nervousness doesn't show. She has a big house tonight and a typically chatty weekend audience, but she owns the stage and plenty of people are paying attention.



Second set: a lovely "Summertime" with Dave on flute. "All of Me." "Softly As in the Morning Sunlight." "Fly Me to the Moon." All standards, no originals; she's writing lyrics but not yet composing music. She doesn't scat. She's a former schoolteacher trying to make it as a jazz singer. I like her voice very much, her tone and how she forms words, and her strong sense of timing; she doesn't sound like anyone else I have heard. I think someday she'll sing and no one will talk--everyone will listen.

Photos by John Whiting, who figured we had enough pictures of Tanner and didn't take any this time, even though Tanner was wearing a nice suit instead of a polo shirt.

Connie Evingson at the Bloomington Jazz Festival

When: Sunday, August 10, 2008 • Where: Bloomington Jazz Festival (Normandale Lake Bandshell) • Who: Connie Evingson, voice; Bryan Nichols, piano; Dave Karr, saxophones, flute, and clarinet; Terry Burns, bass; Jay Epstein, drums

When I previewed this festival for MinnPost, I hoped to attend more than just Connie's set but that's all we could do. It turned out to be a perfect start to the evening: beautiful location, lovely weather, and a fine set from the singer and her band. "Nature Boy," "some Peggy Lee songs ("I Don't Know Enough About You," "Gone Fishin'"), Toots Thieleman's "Bluesette," an arrangement Connie did with Dave Karr blending "I Love Paris in the Springtime" with "It's All Right with Me," selections from her recent CD with Dave Frishberg including "Peel Me a Grape" and "My Attorney Bernie," tunes from her Swedish Hot Club CD, "Comes Love" with Karr on clarinet. Kids were running around and dancing in front of the stage. Some people in the audience were attentive, some not so much. It was Carmen's first jazz festival and she seemed to like it.


Photo of Carmen the wiener dog by Andrea Canter.

Jazz Jam at the AQ

When: Friday, June 20, 2008 • Where: Artists’ Quarter • Who: Mikkel Romstad, piano; Gary Berg, saxophone; Chris Bates, bass, Kenny Horst, drums



It’s a Twin Cities Jazz Festival tradition: Following the concerts in Mears Park on Friday and Saturday nights, musicians head to the Artists’ Quarter to jam. Last year, after Kenny Garrett’s fiery set, his drummer, Jamire Williams, came to the AQ and played for much of the night. This year, people were hoping that members of the Fort Apache Band would show. They didn’t. Maybe they were already en route to their next gig, or maybe they were too irritated by the graceless end to their Mears Park show.



No matter; it was a jam after all. Dave Karr brought his sax and so did Jim Marentic. For a while, a mysterious stranger sat in on congas. Sometimes we heard one horn player; sometimes two or all three. The music was straight-ahead, standards everyone knew. The musicians had fun and so did we.


Photos by John Whiting.

Christine Rosholt

When: 3/24/08
Where: Dakota
Who: Christine Rosholt (vocals), Dave Karr (saxophone and flute), Vinnie Rose (guitar), Tanner Taylor (piano), Graydon Peterson (bass), Jay Epstein (drums)

Christine has become a regular at the Dakota, I'm happy to say, and she always draws a good crowd. Tonight she premieres several new songs: Jobim's "Waters of March," Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life," "Something Cool" by Billy Barnes. We also hear old favorites: "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," "Blues in the Night," "Savoy."

"Waters of March" is a mouthful with challenging, nonsensical lyrics ("A stick, a stone/It's the end of the road/It's the rest of a stump/It's a little alone.... The plan of the house/The body in bed/And the car that got stuck/It's the mud, it's the mud"). Say what? The only singer I've heard pull it off in live performance without a hitch is Jane Monheit. I credit Christine with taking it on.

Her band, as always, is wonderful. I like the addition of guitarist Rose, a college friend of bassist Peterson. Read what Andrea Canter says about Christine's band.



Photos by John Whiting.

Connie Evingson

When: 2/25/08
Where: Dakota
Who: Connie Evingson (vocals), Phil Aaron (piano), Dave Karr (tenor saxophone, flute), Gordy Johnson (bass), Phil Hey (drums)

It’s the CD release party for Connie Evingson’s eighth recording and maybe her strongest, Little Did I Dream. (The “maybe” is because I’m not familiar with her 2000 release, Some Cats Know, which a lot of singers love.) All 14 tracks are by St. Paul native, jazz legend, and wiseacre Dave Frishberg, who plays piano on the CD and is in the house tonight. It’s an open curtain show and looks sold out. Minneapolis and St. Paul love Connie.

The band warms up with an old song (1938) by Rudolf Friml called “Only a Rose.” Then Connie comes on stage looking fabulous in a sparkly, lacy cocktail dress and shrug. This is her night and she’s ready. She opens with the title track from the CD, “Little Did I Dream,” a swinging, sophisticated tune. Next up is the saucy “Peel Me a Grape,” a song I first heard sung by Diana Krall; it has also been recorded by Blossom Dearie, Shirley Horn, and Anita O’Day, among many others. This is a new arrangement Frishberg created for Connie, speedier than the languid, late-night Krall version.

She follows with the ballad “Our Love Rolls On,” then “Can’t Take You Nowhere,” more smart-aleck Frishberg. She tells us that Frishberg wrote the next tune, “Listen Here,” for Mary Tyler Moore in the 1980s. Before beginning “My Attorney Bernie” (as on the CD, she’s alternating more straight-ahead numbers with the witty lyrics Frishberg is famous for), she tells us that Bernie is in the room tonight as well.

After “Bernie,” Frishberg is persuaded to take the stage. He and the quartet play a song they recorded earlier that day, Fats Waller’s “Sweet and Slow.” Then Frishberg introduces “Quality Time,” a tongue-in-cheek tune about a couple too upwardly mobile for romance (“Come fly with me/Unwind, kick back, relax/I’ll bring my laptop fax/You’ll bring your new screenplay….”). He thanks Connie for making the record and all of us for coming: “This is probably the biggest audience I’ve ever had.” It’s a warm and affectionate segue to “Snowbound,” the song they sing together on the CD.

The first set ends with “Zoot Walks In,” with a spoken lead, Beat Poet style, by Karr (“Jazz is a saxophone sound...”). The second set continues to take us through the CD: a sweet and lovely “Eastwood Lane,” “In the Evening” (just Phil Aaron and Connie on this one), “Zanzibar,” “I Want to Be a Sideman,” “Heart’s Desire.” Connie is relaxed and easy with this music, and she nails every tune.

Frishberg’s Web site is full of fun stuff.

Gordy and Connie. Photo by John Whiting.

Christine Rosholt

When: 1/31/08
Where: The Dakota
Who: Christine Rosholt (vocals), Dave Karr (saxophone and flute), Tanner Taylor (piano), Graydon Peterson (bass), Jay Epstein (drums)

Christine recorded her next CD over two nights at the Dakota. We were there for the second night, and so were many of Christine's friends and family members, and a table full of people celebrating the birthday of someone named Ginger.

Did Ginger et al. realize a live CD was being recorded? Did they care? Might someone have announced this from the stage at the start and respectfully requested the whole audience hold it down a bit under the circumstances? Might a manager have gone to the table to politely suggest they modulate their voices or at least not shriek with laughter and hiccup loudly?

(deep breath)

Christine sang beautifully, and her band was right there with her. I liked their Latin arrangement of "If I Were a Bell," and their speedy (maybe a little too speedy?) "Surrey with the Fringe on Top," and the lovely "Estate" (where Christine's voice became lower, more resonant and emotional), and the Harold Arlen tunes; someday I hope she will do an all-Arlen CD, because it's clear she loves his music and it's a good fit for her voice. Dave Karr's flute on the "Tea for Two" cha-cha was charming. I enjoyed "Alone Together" arranged for bass, drums, and voice, "One More for the Road" for piano and voice, and their fresh take on "Summertime," one of the world's most recorded songs. Christine looked happy and relaxed. I look forward to the CD.

Read a brief interview with Christine on MinnPost.

Photo of Christine Rosholt and Graydon Peterson by John Whiting.