Sonny Berman?

[ghost of miles]

Hey all, I'm working on a Night Lights show about Sonny Berman--taping is scheduled for tomorrow, but I may have to postpone, as the usually-reliable IU School of Music library has hardly any of the articles about him that have appeared over the years. I'm looking for these in particular:

Alun Morgan, "The Short Life of Saul Berman" in The Note 14/2 (Summer 2005, pg. 6-8)

Bob Melvin, "Sonny Berman" in Joslin's Jazz Journal, 24/4 (Nov. 2005, pg. 5-6)

Harold S. Kaye, "Sonny Speaks" in IAJRC Journal, 14/2 (April 1981, pg. 6-8)

Ira Gitler talks about Sonny Berman in JAZZ MASTERS OF THE 1940s, Eugene Chadbourne did a write-up for AMG, and there's some discussion of Berman in Loren Schoenberg's great notes for the Herman Columbia Mosaic. If anybody out there has access to any of the above articles, or knows of any others on Berman, could you drop me a PM? Many thanks!

Edited May 15, 2007 by ghost of miles

[AllenLowe]

there were, as I recall, good notes on an Onyx release -

[bertrand]

Word on the street is that he wrote 'Solar', but don't tell the Miles estate I told you so.

Bertrand.

PS: I fucked up; see below.

Edited May 16, 2007 by bertrand

[ghost of miles]

Allen, thanks for the tip--another board member just PM'd me & offered to fax said notes. I also tracked down a 1962 Harvey Pekar article from Jazz Journal; IU has it on microform, so I should be able to get a copy of that tomorrow.

It's been great revisiting Berman's work--I love his solos on tracks like "Nocturne" and "Lost Weekend." A friend here at the university loaned me a mess of live broadcasts that I'd never heard before, and I've been making my way through those as well... much more Berman floating around than I'd previously realized. (For anybody who's a fan or interested, it's yet another reason to pick up the Herman Mosaic, too.)

[Larry Kart]

Word on the street is that he wrote 'Solar', but don't tell the Miles estate I told you so.

Bertrand.

It was guitarist Chuck Wayne who wrote "Solar" -- or so I've always heard and from many sources, including Wayne himself.

[jazzbo]

I hear that Solar was actually originally titled "Alternate Energy."

[jazzbo]

Sonny was awesome, I've loved all I've heard of him.

[bertrand]

Larry,

You're absolutely right. That's the story - Chuck Wayne. What I have heard is that it was written for Berman (Solar - Sunny). I stand corrected.

Bertrand.

[Larry Kart]

Check out Berman's brief, hair-raising solo on Herman's "That's What Uncle Remus Said" (though you'll have to deal with some minstrel-show lyrics).

[ghost of miles]

Right on both counts re: "Uncle Remus," Larry. That Mosaic Herman was a real godsend for Berman fans... not just alternate takes, iirc, but material that either had never been issued or had only come out on 78s long, long ago.

BTW last week I pulled out the Mosaic Pacific Jazz Piano Trio set for totally unrelated reasons and noticed that Jimmy Rowles does Berman's "Sonny Speaks" on it.

[AllenLowe]

there's a very fine pianist, Mark Berman, from New Haven, with whom I used to work years ago - I found out belatedly that his father was Sonny Berman's cousin and he told me once about what a hard luck family it was, lots of tragedy; unfortuntalte his father got very sick before I could talk to him in greater detail. I wish I had realized at the time how significant Sonny was as I would have tried to get to some other family members -

[ghost of miles]

That's really interesting, Allen; another board member sent me those Onyx notes, and Ira Gitler's liners quote a 1945 Metronome profile of Sonny (from a W. Herman special issue), something to the effect that Sonny took up the trumpet after his brother, who was also a trumpeter, died in some sort of swimming accident.

[AllenLowe]

that was it, what his father mentioned to me - I think it was from a high dive -

[ghost of miles]

Does anybody know of decent-sized images of either Sonny Berman or his Dial record covers online--or have any they could post? I'm trying to find one to use for the info page for the Sept. 8 Night Lights show ("The Incomplete Sonny Berman").

Edit: found this one--evidently posted on this board at some point.

Edited September 1, 2007 by ghost of miles

[Brad]

I've got a Berman Cd by way of Japan that's quite neat: Jazz Immortal 1946 - Esoteric Records ES-532 (Venus Records 79505)

Edited September 2, 2007 by Brad

[Don Brown]

The Onyx LP that Allen Lowe mentions - "Beautiful Jewish Music" - is the same as the Esoteric LP which the Japanese Venus issue has been taken from. Mind you, the Onyx LP corrected all of the titles. The titles on the original Esoteric issue were made up by Jerry Newman. What titles are shown on the Venus?

Edited September 2, 2007 by Don Brown