R.I.P. Nancy Overton

[paul secor]

N.Y. Times obit: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/11/arts/mus...ref=todayspaper

[ValerieB]

i'm assuming Mrs. Overton was much younger than her husband who died in the '70s. does anyone know the occupation of their son, Rick? my ex-husband studied with Hall Overton in NY during the '60s.

[Larry Kart]

Hall Overton was born on Feb. 23, 1920, so he was six years older than his wife and only 52 when he died in 1972.

[JSngry]

does anyone know the occupation of their son, Rick?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Overton :

Richard "Rick" Overton (born August 10, 1954)[1] is an Emmy Award-winning American screenwriter, actor, and comedian. His writing credits include Dennis Miller Live, and his acting credits include Willow and The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne. Overton was born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, the son of Nancy Overton (née Swain), a singer, and Hall Overton, a teacher and music arranger. He grew up in Englewood, New Jersey, where he attended Dwight Morrow High School.

Also see:

http://www.rickoverton.net/

[ValerieB]

thanks to both Larry and JSngry for the info. i didn't remember that Hall Overton died so young. i asked about the son because his name was so familiar to me. now i know why!

[AllenLowe]

yes; an old friend, pianist Jeff Gardner, was studying with Overton at the time, and, as he told me, the death was quite sudden - I have several records of Overton's classical pieces, terrific composer; he was a solid pianist, but I was always surprised, on those '50s sessions, at how unadventurous his playing was, considering his compositional depth - but as Paul Bley said once, the problem in those early "progressive" days was that jazz soloists generally lacked an improvisational language to match some of the new ideas. Some had the right approach - Tristano, et al, but most soloists went back to bebop in a crunch - not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes stylistically jarring. John LaPorta, Teo Macero, were others who had the right idea - and I always wait for Overton to find it, but he never quite does -

[ValerieB]

apparently he was a very good teacher. at least that's what i remember hearing in the '60s.

[AllenLowe]

yes, teaching was where he left his most lasting mark -

[JSngry]

Well, that and his big band charts for Monk.

[Enterprise Server]

Sorry to hear this. Thanks for posting the obit. I was not aware......

[Brownian Motion]

Didn't Nancy sing-talk a selection on a Bob Brookmeyer album from the 1950's? Or is my memory playing tricks on me.

[Larry Kart]

I'm fond of the Overton-Teddy Charles-Oscar Pettiford all-Ellington trio album on Jubilee, "Three For Duke."

Date: May 29, 1957

Location: NY

Label: Jubilee

Teddy Charles (ldr), Teddy Charles (vib), Hall Overton (p), Oscar Pettiford (b)

a. JB902 Sherman Shuffle - 7:07 (Duke Ellington)

b. JB903 Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me (Concerto For Cootie) - 5:06 (Duke Ellington, Bob Russell)

c. JB904 Main Stem - 4:45 (Duke Ellington)

d. JB905 The Mooche - 6:20 (Duke Ellington, Irving Mills)

e. JB906 Don't Get Around Much Anymore (Never No Lament) - 5:57 (Duke Ellington, Bob Russell)

f. JB907 Sophisticated Lady - 9:36 (Duke Ellington, Mitchell Parish, Irving Mills)

Overton plays prototypical "arranger's piano" -- a bit stolid, not quite fluent/in the moment -- but his actual arranging ideas are fine, and Charles and especially Pettiford are in top form. Wish I had a clean copy; my old LP is noisy. Fresh Sound may get around to it, if they haven't already.

[AllenLowe]

yes - to above - there is an amazing sing-talk thing she did - if I ever finish my '50s book, it has a bit on that performance -

I'm going to add - I've never been a big fan of the Overton band-Monk concert - neither Monk nor Overton, I've always thought, and a poor integration of some of the horn soloists, who just seem to blow, counter to the whole sense of Monk.

just my opinion -

[Larry Kart]

yes - to above - there is an amazing sing-talk thing she did - if I ever finish my '50s book, it has a bit on that performance -

I'm going to add - I've never been a big fan of the Overton band-Monk concert - neither Monk nor Overton, I've always thought, and a poor integration of some of the horn soloists, who just seem to blow, counter to the whole sense of Monk.

just my opinion -

I think the 1963 Monk/Overton concert and recording was much more successful than the '59 one -- both in terms of writing and solo work (Steve Lacy and Thad Jones were present, in particular). The 1986 Chicago Jazz Festival re-creation of the '63 concert was fantastic. Art Lange comments on it thusly:

The ’59 concert, as everyone knows, was a huge success; the recording (Riverside/OJC) is one of jazz’s greatest treasures. Overton subsequently worked with Monk on his Philharmonic Hall concert of December 1963 (available on Columbia), and a third (unrecorded?) performance in 1966 (Martin Williams’ down beat article “Rehearsing with Monk,” which chronicles a rehearsal for this concert, has been reprinted in both his Jazz Heritage [Oxford] and Jazz Masters In Transition [Da Capo] collections). On a personal note, my small link in this chain occurred in 1986 when, as a member of the Chicago Jazz Festival programming committee, I suggested we present a recreation of the Town Hall concert. I contacted trumpeter and score-scholar Don Sickler, who was in charge of the Monk estate and let us know that only the 1963 charts were available at that time. We put together as close an ensemble to that of the Philharmonic Hall concert as we could, with three-fourths of the saxophone section present – Charlie Rouse, Phil Woods, and Steve Lacy – along with trombonist Eddie Bert. We wanted to have Pepper Adams, who played in ’59 but not ’63, play the baritone sax part, but he was too ill to participate and in fact passed away two weeks after the festival. (If you’re curious to know, we had Mal Waldron in the piano chair.) Like Martin Williams, I was privy to a rehearsal, though never wrote about it – the commitment and enthusiasm of the musicians was certainly worth documenting, but several of the stories I heard in between run-throughs are better left unpublished. The next night, out in Grant Park at the free-to-the-public festival, I was emcee, and had to literally beg the stage manager not to cut off the performance at the appointed closing time – a big deal in heavily unionized Chicago – so that the band could conclude with “Four in One,” the hardest chart of all and the one they had sweated bullets over getting right in rehearsal. We went overtime; it was a phenomenal night.

Me again: The baritone saxophonist in '86 was Howard Johnson IIRC. Also, I'll never forget the way the band lit into "Bye-Ya" that night. I was out on the lawn casually watching two kids move around to the music, and they almost buckled over with delight at the rhythmic play of the first four bars.

[Chuck Nessa]

Want to make a couple of points.

I started the Monk recreation set at the Chicago fest while Monk was alive. He died I was planning it and I killed the project, not wanting to look like a "grave robber". Art may have started from "ground zero" but I'm not sure. The fest performance that resulted is wonderful.

I think Overton is overpraised for his charts. I think of him as a reliable transcriber. His best quality for these projects was assigning instruments to play Monk's chords - he did a great job. He did much better than Oliver Nelson who didn't understand the whole deal.

[JSngry]

I think the 1963 Monk/Overton concert and recording was much more successful than the '59 one -- both in terms of writing and solo work (Steve Lacy and Thad Jones were present, in particular).

His best quality for these projects was assigning instruments to play Monk's chords - he did a great job. He did much better than Oliver Nelson who didn't understand the whole deal.

That's what I'm talking about.

Lacy playing parts, hey, great sound. Same w/Thad. Same for the solos, but the '63 ensembles cut the '59 mercilessly, I think. Then again, didn't that band or one much like it gig a tad before the big concert? No matter, file under "Lively And Frisky", that '63 date.

As for Nelson, I'm definitely a fan overall, but that he such what to me sounds like deadline-crunch rudimentary-ish by-the-book charts for a Monk date is one of the lowest points of his career, imo. That and the album with Oily Rags, which god forbid I ever hear again. Once was ten times too many.