Where were YOU in ’62?
Odds are, most of you were simple gametes and zygotes, waiting to become united parts and eventual living, independent entities. You’ve never grown up and lived in an environment that was not impacted by the musical and cultural paradigm shift known as The Beatles. Yes, there previously was Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Elvis Presley, but they were not the seismic shifts as much as the Fab Four. After all, it wasn’t just one entertainer, it was an actual group with its own identity that captured America during the age of Camelot. Their songs, mostly written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, not only identified the time that they lived in, but they eventually transcended their generation, c reating music that broke through ages and races and artistic styles. There are versions of Beatles tunes in every category: folk, jazz, heavy metal, funk, R&B, classical and even Muzak. And let us not forget William Schatner’s sui generis rendition of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
So, what exactly happened back then, and what is the state of music in the wake of The Beatles? Like George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life, is the world a better place because they came into our world? We asked a handful of jazz musicians to get their take on how John, Paul, George and Ringo affected their musical and social world.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS: I’VE JUST SEEN A FACE
Guitarist and vocalist John Pizzarelli is one of the few jazzers who dared to release an entire album of Beatles material, with his 1998 Meets the Beatles. Growing up in a jazz family, he got introduced to rock the old fashioned way; he inherited it from his sisters. As he recalls, “It must have been between 64 and 66, because it was from my two older sisters who were in our house from the get go. I remember listening to Meet The Beatles with the black cover with the four heads on it. I remember listening to that one since I can remember. Then there was the sepia colored one; they released three over here, which was only one of their records in England. I even remember later when we first got Rubber Soul, so I remember between the ages of 4 and 9 easily knowing all of those songs.”
“I think what I liked about it is the same thing that my daughter liked about when she saw and heard them the first time. I loved the guys sitting there playing guitars. I mean, there were these guys, standing there holding guitars; we had guitars around the house. I would get cardboard and cut out a guitar, so I could hold the guitar. I liked all of the mic stands, and all of the equipment. And the music was so fun to me.”
Vocalist Barbara Morrison was a teenager when she first got introduced to this new sound and style. She states, “I was born in 1949. I remember my mother taking me to the airport where I grew up greet the Beatles. Well, there was so much pandemonium I never realized I was watching the next American craze.”
Guitarist Bill Frisell just recently released a collection of John Lennon songs (All We Are Saying…) and has an indelible stamp of his introduction to the British Invasion. He remembers “Well, I got a transistor radio when I was 10 years old or something. There was already American Bandstand on TV, and all of that stuff. There were the Four Seasons and the Beach Boys, and The Ventures were before The Beatles. The first 45 that I ever bought was a Beach Boys record, “Little Deuce Coupe.” When I think back at that time, it’s so fast how many things were happening in just a few amount of years. It’s just incredible. The Beatles, and then all that came out. I remember the first real live concert I went to was Herman’s Hermits, and then within a couple of years I’d seen Jimi Hendrix and Ravi Shankar. It was crazy.”
“It’s weird that it was so huge that I was just starting to get fired up about music, and then when The Beatles came along it was like a bomb going off for me. It was powerful. I don’t think it was nostalgia either. It’s incredible how their music has stayed with us generation after generation. They keep coming back to it. It’s not like when I was a kid and my parents were listening to Benny Goodman or Glen Miller. There are young people listening to The Beatles now, just as there was then. “
BEATLES IMPACT ON JAZZ: GOT TO GET YOU INTO MY LIFE
Pianist/composer Joey Caldarazzo is better known for his associations with Michael Brecker and Branford Marsalis than his attraction to the band from Liverpool. Caldarazzo has seen their impact from the inside lane, as he observes “”I can only speak personally. I’ve heard jazz guys over the years take
Beatles tunes and just butcher … them. To me, these are
the musicians that don’t get it. I won’t name them, but they’re out
there. I’ve heard guys play “Michelle” that was re harmonized, a
changing of the chord changes, to the point where I didn’t even
recognize the song. And the thing is what makes Beatles songs so great
is how they are harmonically and melodically perfect. Those songs
don’t need any changes. I played Beatles tunes twenty-five years ago
in my jazz band, before Brad Mehldau was on the scene. I just never
recorded them because I never felt I could do them any justice. And I
didn’t want to do them differently because I was honest enough to say
that if I can’t do them what I believe is better or really add a
personal thing to it, man, I’m not going to really mess with them,
because they are that good. Those songs are as good as Gershwin,
Harold Arlen or Irving Berlin. I don’t know if I would say the same
thing about Mick Jagger and Keith Richards or Robert Plant and Jimmy
Page. But if you look at Led Zeppelin, that’s a completely totally
revolutionary band.”
Frisell, while appreciating all of the other bands that came from Britain, still believes that something was unique about The Beatles. “All of those bands were great, but there was something different about the chemistry of The Beatles. All of those four guys coming together at the same time. It was something that was gigantic. That music, somehow they were connected with something that was universal. It wasn’t about their time, but the human feeling, and that doesn’t really change.”
For Pizzarelli, the mixing of The Beatles and jazz took a bit of time before there was a mutual acceptance. He points out “there were only a few songs, in my opinion, that broke out right away: “Yesterday,” “Michelle,” “Here, There and Everywhere,” and “The Fool On The Hill.” Certain ones managed to run away from home. But, as time has gone on, it’s gotten better. When I made my record about 15 years ago, people couldn’t accept that I “messed” with it. As time wears on, you see something; there’s a great commercial where somebody is singing “In My Life.” It’s a beautiful guitar and singing version. So, people are starting see that they are amazing little songs on their own. “
“When I made my Beatles record, the hardest thing for me to try to figure out how to get away from the sound of the Beatles. I didn’t want to be a mimic, and when you listen to their music so much and it’s easy to lock into their sound, the way they sang songs and their phrasing. When we made our record, our key was to take the songs out of the Beatle clothing so that we could think of them more as songs. For me, it was interesting to listen to them outside of how they did it. Like, we took “Here Comes The Sun” and played it like Jobim bossa nova, thinking of the idea of the title and the weather, which is always prevalent in Jobim songs. The hardest thing was just taking it out of a sound that everyone was familiar with. For me, that was the downfall of our record, as the people our age were so locked into only Beatles versions of these songs. They couldn’t wrap their head around anything being different. It was interesting how some people couldn’t accept them NOT being “Beatles” songs. “
Morrison, who came to the Beatles from a soul/R&B background, saw the coexistence from a different perspective. “Being from the Motown area I just knew I had heard the best in the world so I wasn’t too excited until I got on the bus as a cheerleader and we would sing all the songs of this magnificent group. I went on to sing “Yesterday” in a high school scholarship competition and became the 1st Black Junior Miss of Huron Valley in Detroit Michigan with a 4 year Board of Regent Scholarship to college. When my heart turned to jazz and blues I’ve always included “And I Love Him” and “Yesterday” in my shows. They are some of the jazziest tunes I know.””
BEATLES LEGACY: LET IT BE
So, the Beatles made a big impact on music and culture in their generation, and they’ve been able to cross over into being accepted into every other musical style. What will people remember about them in the wake of time and space? Just what has made them so universally appreciated?
Calderazzo asserts “Without a doubt, The Beatles have changed music. And what is really
amazing, and I’ve watched this in all the generations, everybody, even
today, they come up and they go through a Beatles phase. The Beatles
are part of everybody’s life. I see it. My wife, who’s thirty-two
years old, so she’s a generation and a half behind me, she’s got every
Beatles record in her ipod. All her friends know them. The kids at the
school I teach at, North Carolina Central University, know the
Beatles. The same thing isn’t going to be said for Aerosmith or some
of those other groups. In my writing and my songs, the Beatles are a
clear influence. The Beatles are an influence as much as Chopin. I’m
not a classical pianist, but I studied when I was younger and I
listened to a lot of classical music. All the music that I’ve checked
out, one way or another, The Beatles are in there. Rock music impacted
me. I feel in love with McCoy Tyner. When I was in my teens, my
favorite rock band was Led Zeppelin. Coltane’s quartet, to me, was
like Led Zeppelin. Ahmad Jamal, I couldn’t even listen to. I thought
it was the cornyiest stuff in the world. Like Led Zeppelin, the power
of Coltrane’s quartet was something I could identify with.”
From a perspective as a fan, a performer and the father of a Beatles fan, Pizzarelli points out “Two things. The good news is that the Beatles are finite. So, there’s just eight records, masters and past masters. Only so much material, so you can really look at it as a period of time. The other thing is that the songs have lasted, as they are really well written. I think about the first time that my daughter heard them; we were in the country, and I had just moved in, and we met our neighbors. I was going over to my neighbor’s house, and they had a daughter who was about 12. Our daughter was 6-7 years old, and their daughter says, “I want to show you this movie.” And she put on HELP, and my daughter went through the roof and said, “Who are these guys? Not only is this great music, but they’re funny!”
But there is one point that no one else except Pizzarelli observed that put them above all of the other artists. Something that is lost on this day of angst and self absorption, and there are a plethora of musicians who could do well to learn a lesson from a sage. “There was this other connection that they had through their movies. When my daughter saw them, she said that she now wanted to hear all of their music. Literally, overnight she loved them, and she asked me one night, “Do you listen to them too?” and I told her, “Are you kidding? I was your age when I was first listening to them.”
“It’s amazing how from generation to generation they get discovered. Whether it’s from listening to their songs or seeing their movies. There were ways that they got to people. They were funny, especially HELP and A HARD DAY’S NIGHT. That just reached out to people. We thought, “Look how funny these guys are. And they make good music too, and it’s not cheap!”
“That was so great about them. The quality was there, a great preppy little vibe. Nothing to be ashamed of. It has stood the test of time, not like the other little groups that had their day by trying to copy them. The Beatles really seem to turn over with every generation; people keep discovering them, and they think, “Wow! They are amazing!””
From George Benson, to Cassandra Wilson, to Booker T and The MGs to Brad Mehldau and to some kid that’s learning his first guitar licks in his bedroom as you read this, the touch of The Beatles is part of your musical and social dna, making fans, musicians and performers all around this world…Come Together.
By Ollie Bivens and George Harris