John La Chapelle was a legendary jazz guitarist here in the Pacific Northwest, and also taught many students the art of playing the guitar over the years. John passed away at the age of 91 in March of this year, and is greatly missed by all of us who knew him. Below is a photo (courtesy of Dr. Krishnaswami - thanks Kannan!) of John with Larry Coryell, one of John's more notable guitar students, playing jazz together in a local auditorium.
Some of the most enjoyable evenings I have had while living in this area were spent with my friends John and Joan La Chapelle at their home, learning to play the guitar, laughing and talking, and enjoying a glass of wine or two. Those were magic times!
Those of you who are my friends on Facebook know that I frequently post a photo of an LP as I'm listening to it and say a few words about it. Steve La Chapelle - John & Joan's son - is my friend on Facebook too, and Steve told Joan about how I still listen to LPs all the time (actually that's all I listen to, I don't even have a digital front end set up in the main system!) and that they ought to have me go through John's jazz records to see if there's anything there I'd like to have (thanks Steve & Joan for thinking of me!). Steve & Joan wanted the records to be with someone who would love and appreciate them, and as you know there's not many people that would love and appreciate them more than I would!
Joan and I met to go have a little lunch and catch up, then we looked through some of John's record collection. I'm creating a list of John's records in an Excel spreadsheet for Joan's reference, and I have been going through and cleaning them on my VPI record cleaner, demagnetizing them on the Acoustic Revive demagnetizer, and listening to them to evaluate their condition. As you would expect from a vintage record collection, some of the records are in great condition, some are in not so great of condition, and so forth. John used to loan his records out to his students to help them learn, and those records are all marked with a Sharpie saying "This record was stolen from John La Chapelle" as a reminder for the students to bring the record back. John's sense of humor still brings a smile to my face! As you can imagine, going through these records has been quite an emotional event for me, with both tears and smiles as I revisit past times.
Once we get everything figured out with the records then we'll find out what they are worth and I'll buy as many of them from Joan as I can afford - I might have to take out a loan on the house!
Many - if not most - of the albums in John's collection are not in print anymore. Like a lot of jazz albums they were pressed in relatively small numbers, and have never been remastered and re-released to the public after their initial offering. For me, each and every one of these records is a treasure, first because they belonged to John & Joan and are remembrances of the times we spent together, laughing and talking about jazz (and everything else!), but also because I love this music and listen to it every day.
Many of the guitarists & musicians on these records we spent evenings talking about, the way they played, they way they lived, and they way they died. If you think that the rock & roll period was hard on musicians - and it was - then read about jazz musicians. I suspect you would find it quite sobering.
As I go through John's records I'll let you all know about the real stand-outs I come across so you can keep an eye out for them as you shuffle through the used record bins. For those of you who remaster records from master tapes and offer them to enthusiasts to enjoy (I'm thinking Analogue Productions, Speakers Corner, et al), I'll let you know which ones are musical treasures and are good candidates for re-release, and maybe you can get a hold of the master tapes and re-release some of these long forgotten titles so they can warm the hearts of a new generation. I think John La Chapelle would be excited by that - I know I would!
So in future posts of Today's Fresh Catch you can expect to see combinations of something old and something new ... which brings me to the 'something new' for today:
The Analogue Productions 45 RPM reissue of the Verve album Empathy with Shelly Manne (drums), Bill Evans (piano), and Monty Budwig (bass).
This album was recorded in 1962 after performances at the Village Vanguard in New York (from the Acoustic Sounds web site):
"This album came about through a fortuitous convergence of circumstances. Shelly Manne & His Men were appearing at New York's Village Vanguard, sharing the bill with the Bill Evans Trio. Getting Riverside's permission to let the pianist participate, Creed Taylor set up a session at Rudy Van Gelder's studio with Evans and Manne sharing top billing. Manne's bass player, Monty Budwig, made up the trio. This was a busman's holiday for Evans, who was freed from the musical parameters he had set for his then-current trio. The result is that his playing seemed lighter, freer, and more relaxed than it had for a while. The album kicks off with a jaunty version of Irving Berlin's "The Washington Twist" from the unsuccessful Mr. President with Budwig sharing the honors with Evans as much as Manne. Manne spends most of his time driving Evans into more diminished and sharper playing than was usually Evans' wont. Another relatively unfamiliar Berlin work, "Let's Go Back to the Waltz," gives full reign to Evans' lyricism. The longest tune on the set is an audacious, almost lampooned version of "With a Song in My Heart" with light chordal phrasing that pretty much characterized much of the tone coming from this session."
The sound and music is remarkably good on this 45 RPM Empathy reissue, and I think all you jazz lovers out there will want to have this record in your music library for sure! Highly recommended!
Well that's it for now.
From my home to yours, may the music warm your heart!
