Jazz great makes
'Friends Along the Way'
By Kelly Feser Eells

Though he has chosen in live in sunny and warm Ojai, Gene Lees keeps his cool.

The man can't help it: he lives and breathes jazz. Or, as composer Johnny Mandel puts it, "Most people write of this music and musicians like they are fish in an aquarium. Gene is always in there swimming with them."

Born in Ontario, Canada 75 years ago, Lees trained as a commercial artist at the Ontario College of Art and studied music both at home and at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass., before returning to Canada and embarking on a career as a journalist. He was 27, with six years of reporting experience under his belt, when he decided he needed a change of scenery.

In his newest book, "Friends Along the Way: A Journey through Jazz" (2003), Lees recalls the day he told his editor, George Ferguson of the Montreal Star, he planned on leaving the paper's employ.

"Where do you plan to go?" Ferguson asked Lees.
"England or the United States," Lees replied.

"Go to the United States," Ferguson said, "they pay better."
That, Lees says, was a turning point.

His decision to take a job with the Louisville Times, whose managing editor wanted Lees to be its music critic, was another turning point. "I've often considered what might have been my life had I taken the Washington Post job" (he'd been offered).

Little wonder: His life has been every bit as colorful as the jazz greats and near-greats he writes about.

A three-time winner of the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) Deems Taylor award, Lees is, in many respects, a jazz great himself. His lyrics have been recorded by everyone who was anyone, including: Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee, Mabel Mercer, Tony Bennett, Carmen McRae and Ella Fitzgerald.

When he isn't writing and publishing the Jazzletter - the monthly publication he founded in 1981, "written for musicians, dealing with matters that concern musicians" - he's composing, oftentimes with longtime pal and neighbor Roger Kellaway, jazz pianist extraordinaire. "Gene Lees is the glowing jewel of jazz, for his understanding of it, for his writing about it, and for his lyrics, which are always perfect for the music," said his late friend, Dizzy Gillespie

The man can sing, too, most recently on "Yesterday I Heard the Rain: Gene Lees Sings Gene Lees," released in 1995.

"Back in the early 1970s, when I was living in Toronto, I did a lot of singing; much of it on television," Lees notes. "I like it, but I prefer to write."

Yes, he does - everything but criticism.

In fact, Lees hadn't been at his Louisville job long when " I discovered I had an intense distaste for writing criticism. I disliked passing judgment on the work of others."

Complicating matters further, an increasing number of big-name singers began recording his songs, putting him in somewhat of a compromised position, and he was also collaborating on songs with a good number of major musicians, "many of whom became my friends, some of them close friends."

This isn't to say Lees couldn't manage two hats. Indeed, he edited Downbeat magazine, wrote columns for High Fidelity and Stereo Review magazines, collaborated on songs with musicians like Antonio Carlos Jobim and wrote lyrics all at the same time for awhile.

Nor is it to say he has any trouble dismissing something as "pure crap" when his educated ear tells him that's precisely what is.
He just sees no point in it, not when there are so many other things to write about.

"I have written very little jazz criticism," Lees wrote in the introduction to his critically acclaimed "Cats of any Color," a collection of intimate recollections, vignettes and interviews chronicling racism in the jazz scene. "Which is why in early years I was discomfited to see myself referred to as a 'jazz critic'" - not coincidentally, the way he's referred to on the jacket of his latest book, "Friends Along the Way."

Of course, he's also referred to as a jazz historian and educator, descriptions much closer to the mark: the Jazzletter is a point of reference used by musicians, teachers, and "anyone who just loves jazz" worldwide.

But Lees is perhaps best described as jazz's best friend.
Though he has "an enormous number of friends and acquaintances in all walks of life, including people in politics (including Congressman John Conyers, a Jazzletter subscriber and 'great jazz lover'); I'd say that most of my friendships have been shaped and even formed out of an interest in music," said Lees, "jazz in particular."

The 25-year Ojai resident even met his wife, Janet, "through a mutual friend, jazz musician Herbie Mann."
Is he a jazz snob?

"I'm a snob about everything," Lees says with a serious smile; "including the use of the English language, the French language, classical music, literature. I feel like Duke Ellington, who said, more or less: 'I'm easily pleased. I only want the best.' It is the decay of snobbery that is putting this civilization down the drain."

"Friends along the Way" is anything but snobbish, in the sense that snobbish means 'inaccessible' or 'hard to digest.' On the contrary, Lees 13th book is eminently readable, a delight to read, actually, even for those who might have never heard or ever cared to hear a lick of jazz. "Friends" is a collection of 15 mini-biographies of friends Lees hadn't, until now, profiled - some well-known jazz musicians, some certain to become well-known, and some, like talent agent Helen Keane and Voice of America broadcaster Willis Conover, other "best friends" of jazz.

The story of Willis Conover, whose "Music USA" program turned millions of oppressed people living in communist bloc countries on to jazz (as well as a reason to tune into Voice of America) in his 42-year career, still vexes Lees.

"The government resolutely continues to ignore Willis' contribution" - to the fields of both entertainment and diplomacy - "while giving the Medal of Freedom to all sorts of improbable people."

Conover, who died in 1996, was twice nominated for the presidential Medal of Freedom award; the first time during the George H.W. Bush administration, the second time during President Clinton's. Twice his nominations were ignored.

"My God," Lees writes, "aside from his VOA broadcasts, the White House had used him repeatedly over the years," for everything from inaugural events to government-sponsored festivals. The author was speaking to his friend Leonard Garment (former president Nixon's personal counsel and executor of Conover's estate) about Conover recently; both agree "it's an ongoing disgrace."

Together and individually, the stories in "Friends" provide an insightful and thoroughly entertaining look at American culture.

True to form, Lees isn't letting any grass grow under his feet: A biography of Johnny Mercer (yet another good friend) is almost ready for release.

"Friends along the Way" is available at Amazon.com, directly through the publisher, Yale University Press, and at many leading bookstores.

© 2003 The Ojai Valley News

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