Ed Reed
pays homage to the King Cole Trio on his album with 13 songs the group recorded
during the 1940s, plus the post-trio Nat King Cole favorite
"Unforgettable" from 1951. The song selection includes Reed's
distinctive treatments of the trio hits "That Ain't Right," "I'm
Lost," "Straighten Up and Fly Right," "I Just Can't See for
Lookin'," "It's Only a Paper Moon," and "I'm a Shy
Guy," as well such lesser-known trio gems as "Baby, Baby All the
Time," "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby," "Meet Me at No
Special Place," "'Tis Autumn," and "This Will Make You
Laugh."
In
choosing the repertoire for I'm a Shy Guy, his fourth album, the acclaimed Bay
Area jazz vocalist Ed Reed reached way back to an early inspiration and musical
hero: Nat King Cole and the King Cole Trio. "Nobody else sounded like
that," Reed recalls, "and the musicianship was just fantastic." Reed's
affinity with the material is obvious from the first notes of the new CD, which
will be released by the singer's Blue Shorts label on October 1. "I
revisited over 200 tunes recorded by the Trio," says Reed, now 84,
"and it was difficult trying to narrow them down to just a few."
"Once
Ed got settled in on that first day in the studio, the 'first takes' started
coming one after the other," says vocalist and educator Laurie Antonioli,
who co-produced the date with Ed and his wife, Diane Reed. "He'd do a song
and my comment was: "That's as good as I can imagine the song sounding.
Let's move on while you're on a roll!' And so he did. The end result is a
recording that is completely fluid and swinging."
Empathetic
support is supplied by Reed's longtime accompanists of choice: pianist Randy
Porter, guitarist Jamie Fox, bassist John Wiitala, drummer Akira Tana, and
tenor saxophonist Anton Schwartz.
As a
teenager in Los Angeles, Reed was an ardent fan of the King Cole Trio and had
the opportunity to see them perform at his school, Jordan High in Watts.
"I wanted to be just like him," Ed recalls. But after the concert,
"seeing Nat in person, I was filled with such awe that when he spoke to me
and held out his hand, I was too shy to even say hello, and I couldn't even
shake his hand."
Reed's
path to his current profession as a jazz vocalist was circuitous, even
torturous. A 40-year heroin addiction undermined attempts to launch a singing
career. He was in and out of prison during much of the 1950s and '60s, yet
managed to continue singing. During his last of his three stretches at San
Quentin, he performed with the Warden's Band, a 17-piece jazz orchestra that
also included saxophonist Art Pepper.
He got
into recovery from alcohol and other drugs in 1986, and by the early '90s had started
singing again in public. In 2005 he attended JazzCamp West, where instructor
Peck Allmond heard student Reed at a fireside jam session. The singer made such
a strong impression on Allmond that the multi-instrumentalist, along with
drummer Bud Spangler, ended up producing Ed Reed Sings Love Stories in 2007.
The
following year came The Song Is You, along with expanded touring opportunities,
a guest spot on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, and a Wall Street Journal
profile by Nat Hentoff. Reed has also regularly placed in the "Rising Star
Male Vocalist" category of the DownBeat Critics Poll since 2008.
His 2011
release, Born to Be Blue, was praised for "possess[ing] all the distilled
emotion and narrative coherence of a jazz masterpiece" (Andrew Gilbert,
San Jose Mercury News). In a DownBeat Editors' Pick review of the disc, Frank
Alkyer wrote: "When Ed Reed sings, don't expect scat -- instead look for
an intimate story every time."
Ed
Reed's CD release show for I'm a Shy Guy will take place 11/4 at Yoshi's
Oakland, with members of the recording band. Reed will also be appearing 10/6
at Jazz at Peace, Peace Lutheran Church in Danville (5-7pm) and 2/7 at Piedmont
Piano Co. in Oakland. He'll be interviewed by Alisa Clancy on KCSM.org 10/30 at
9am.
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