Claus Ogerman

[Jimster]

If you know, you know.

Been on a Claus bender for this week. His catalog is staggering, and runs from "It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To)" to Jobim, Sinatra, Creed Taylor of CTI ( ) and his own works like "Gate of Dreams". The work with Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans and that 1967 Sinatra/Jobim Collabo is all fantastic.

One thing about him is that there is very little on him, other than his reputation in the industry. He was not interested in fame. But I found a great interview here which, if you are a music nerd, and I suspect you are, will be of interest. He fled Poland as a child and ended up bezzie mates with Quincy Jones.

https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2018/03/claus-ogerman-reminder-of-finer-things.html

"We fled overnight. My mother died during the expulsion. She couldn't make it, carrying the luggage. She was exhausted. She died, and we left her by the side of the road. We had to move on. I walked with my elder sister and one of my older brothers.

We walked about 600 miles with luggage, and then we caught a train near Prague that brought us close to Bavaria, which luckily was occupied by the American Army. Then life sort of began again, but under unbelievable circumstances. My father found us eventually through the Red Cross. He'd been in a prison camp somewhere."

https://youtu.be/5IAg6XY-0rI?si=y7N9keCdvNIx5ip-
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLoq71s8h6ON3XNvndPvTyKGrKuZRQMwW&si=seYz-nhkUAHLDzsi
https://youtu.be/3fTP3k-2TSE?si=yFnLmU1_dEz5qZjh
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNgtaFzkPVKr3petnuG5N_9eKXFwR7PT1&si=x0fMDN8qPtHedt-C
https://youtu.be/fa8veDOssuA?si=nc8R2J2-glXGL6z8

 

[Electrode]

And I thought temporarily losing my luggage at Jobim airport was a nightmare...

He also produced George Benson's "Breezin'". "Gate Of Dreams" is an amazing record.

https://youtu.be/6bcNNW7drBU?feature=shared

It's very cinematic because it was originally set to a ballet. This led me look up his film soundtrack credits. I didn't notice any titles I have seen before, but apparently he provided the music for a forgettable sex comedy which was re-edited and partially directed by some young guy named Francis Ford Coppola.

https://youtu.be/y_so4KpjYbs?feature=shared

 

[Jimster]

Electrode said:

forgettable sex comedy... directed by some young guy named Francis Ford Coppola.

Not the cream of some young guy then? #waynesworld

I also learned this week that Bill Evans has a son called Evan Evans who is in the movie scoring business and it's probably a bad idea to pedal anything on the piano if you want to be taken seriously #sustainisforquitters

 

[Electrode]

Jimster said:Not the cream of some young guy then? #waynesworld




I hoped that someone would catch that.

 

[Electrode]

I saw the "Elis & Tom" doc yesterday, which I recommend. There were some simmering tensions between César Mariano (Elis' husband) and Tom. At one point Jobim lost his cool (?!?) and demanded that Claus be brought in the studio!

I was listening to this last week and it is beautiful:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZhpF547YvcXcWsr-Vey1iMLiJkbRUXyv&feature=shared

 

[Jimster]

A great album and this is the deepest tune, a tour of the Amazon no? With Ron Carter bonus.

Jobim was always fond of journeys and checking the sights and sounds. Otherwise it seems random AF. Brazilian culture accepts lyrics from a way broader church than the West.

That's the depth of this music.

 

[ppadilha]

Jimster said:

A great album and this is the deepest tune, a tour of the Amazon no? With Ron Carter bonus.

Jobim was always fond of journeys and checking the sights and sounds. Otherwise it seems random AF. Brazilian culture accepts lyrics from a way broader church than the West.

That's the depth of this music.





I guess I end up feeling the opposite, like so much English-language music has boring lyrics because they always talk about the same things? There's definitely an openness to Brazilian lyrics that you don't see as much in English. Things can be much more abstract and poetic, but even old school samba can get philosophical in ways that something like a jazz standard doesn't even attempt. Or maybe if you did that in English you just end up sounding something like "In and around the lake / The mountains come out of the sky / AND STAND THERE!!!!"
BTW the chorus in O Boto is actually quoting an old tune called Do Piláhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_AdkR5I4YcI like this version, it's from a project that rerecorded old tunes that had been recorded on 78s. This badly needs a vinyl release, I'd love a box of 45s of the tracks on there.

 

[Jimster]

ppadilha said:



Jimster said:

A great album and this is the deepest tune, a tour of the Amazon no? With Ron Carter bonus.

Jobim was always fond of journeys and checking the sights and sounds. Otherwise it seems random AF. Brazilian culture accepts lyrics from a way broader church than the West.

That's the depth of this music.





There's definitely an openness to Brazilian lyrics that you don't see as much in English. Things can be much more abstract and poetic, but even old school samba can get philosophical in ways that something like a jazz standard doesn't even attempt.



That's what I meant by it being more accepting and deeper than English-language.

I mean, there are always outliers like Zappa, Prog, Metal that will entertain fantasy with a straight face, But mainstream? I can't think of a recent mainstream English-language artist that gets money put behind their work if it has anything woo-woo about it. Kate Bush maybe the last of them?

But I gotta be honest...

 

[klezmer electro-thug beats]

Yeah man I remember being like 12 and first getting into Brazilian stuff, I don't know how but I ended up with some samba compilations and like João Gilberto Live in Montreux and some 90s Gilberto Gil, and looking up lyrics and song titles (either in Portuguese dictionaries or online, I can't remember) and being like... "is Gilberto Gil singing about gigabytes? is this song about crabs?"

 

[Jimster]

My introduction to Brasilian culture was in the late 80s when I was at Uni in Manchester. On my course was a woman from Brasil, first time meeting anyone from there for me. Her dad was/had been the mayor of Salvador in Bahia. She was five or six years older than me and married to a Frenchman. She had been in Europe for a few years and they had an apartment in Didsbury and were good friends to me, just a poor boy (from a poor family). She told me what it was really like for her and that she loved living normally in Manchester with no servants etc. Obviously Brasil has many different vibes and local ways so there is no typical experience.

She had stuff from Milton Nascimento, Pepeu Gomes, Gilberto Gil, Elis Regina... Her husband was into super-obscure UK indie bands that he'd discovered in France, that I'd never heard of - Eyeless in Gaza, and Duritti Column. Pre-internet, so parallel worlds. He was fantastic with languages and had gotten well in with Alan Erasmus and Vini Reilly. I got to stay with them in their place in Normandy and fixed up his old Alfa Romeo with him. They had to go back to warmer climes (Cannes IIRC) because she got Lupus.

We've lost touch since then but yeah, as Jobim himself said, it seems... "Brasil is not for beginners."

 

[kala]

Gate of dreams is on par with any of Axelrod's best stuff.
Michael Colmbier is another late motherfucker who didn't get enough shine as axe did while being very prolific and brilliant around the same time -which leads me to ponder who was listening to who and when?

 

[Jimster]

Maybe the lack of internet allowed such parallel universes to exist? For example with Claus, the classical reviewer was struggling to find anything on him in classical books, whereas if he'd copped a jazz book, there was at least something known about him in those circles.

Good to see Kala active