Tasty Tangents for 8/28/08

Tales, videos, and links inspired by this week's playlist

LEONARD COHEN'S LONG WALTZ WITH AUSTIN

Today's radio broadcast was a tribute to the many musical contributions of the late Bill Ginn, a show inspired by his mid-'70s jazz fusion composition which ended last week's broadcast. One of the most constant threads in Ginn's career from 1979 onward was his relationship to Leonard Cohen and his music, so this week's Tasty Tangents segment looks at several aspects of Cohen's long relationship with Austin musicians, Ginn included.

FRONT SEAT PASSENGER

In 1979, after moving from Austin to Los Angeles to work with Joni Mitchell in a project that fell through, the jazz fusion band Passenger was tapped by Leonard Cohen to be the core band of his latest album and follow-up tour that year (see the Cohen-related excerpt from Tasty Tangents for 8/16/07 at the end of this feature for more details). Ginn was the keyboardist for Passenger and the resultant Cohen band.

Below, Cohen performs "Passing Through" on the European leg of his 1979 tour. Here we have solos from two members of Passenger, Mitch Watkins on guitar and Ginn on organ. Note Jennifer Warnes as one of the backing singers:

Here Passenger's Paul Ostermayer takes a saxophone solo in the same concert on the older Cohen song "So Long, Marianne":

Cohen's relationship with Austin continues. Repeating a role he has performed in the past, Passenger's Roscoe Beck was the musical director for this year's summer tour, and the drummer for the tour was longtime Austin musician Rafael Gayol (wikipedia). Below, in England earlier this month on "Anthem," the final song of the tour, Cohen introduced the band:

Earlier on the tour in June, the band performed "Hallelujah" in Dublin:

THE DIVINE MISS CHRISTENSEN

Another longtime collaborator of Cohen was his former backup singer Julie Christensen. (Enlightening bios are found at a Cohen site and embedded in an album review, and Household Ink Records hosts a very thorough compendium of reviews, interviews, and articles on Christensen.) An Iowan who moved to Austin around 1976 to participate in its emerging music scene, Christensen eventually was singing at weekly jazz/blues gigs that hosted many local and touring musicians. Her quartets included members of Passenger, and Passenger's Roscoe Beck would become her link to Cohen in the late '80s. The only Austin recording I recall featuring Christensen is her version of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" from the first edition of The Austin Christmas Collection on Felicity Records, 1981.

Christensen left Austin for L.A. that year, and from '83 to '87 was best known for her part in the country-tinged post punk band the Divine Horsemen (wikipedia), marrying the band's Chris D, and ending her relationship with the band when she and hubby parted ways. Here is the Trouser Press bio of the band, and here's a review of the 2006 reissue of their first album.

In 1988, the year after her departure from the Divine Horsemen, Roscoe Beck approached Christensen about working with Leonard Cohen, who hired her after their first introduction. She was a back-up singer on his '88 and '93 world tours and in numerous concert and television appearances, performed on Cohen albums like I'm Your Man, The Future, and Cohen Live, and has participated in Cohen documentaries and tribute concerts.

Here are several videos with Christensen that appear to be from the '88 Cohen tours and television appearances:

"Take This Waltz" features a sensuous duet between Cohen and Christensen.

"Everybody Knows"

"If It Be Your Will"

"Hallelujah"

Below, in a video of unknown vintage, Christensen backs Cohen in one of my favorite clips of their collaborations due to the powerful presence of Sonny Rollins on sax, a mesmerizing beat, and additional backing singers who appear to be from Jimmie Vaughan's Tilt-a-Whirl Band:

Obviously more recent, Christensen backs a graying Cohen on his "Dance Me to the End of Love":

Christensen sings lead with Perla Batalla, her longtime partner backing Cohen, on his "Anthem." This comes from one of the Sydney, Australia tribute concerts to Cohen in January of 2005:

Although the audio quality is poorer, this rendition of "Anthem" by Christensen and Batalla from a 2004 Cohen tribute at the Knitting Factory in NYC is notable for the appearance of Passenger's Paul Ostermayer on sax:

Christensen has been putting out solo albums since 1996. Recording as Julie Christensen and Stone Cupid (myspace), here's the video for the title song of her 2008 album, Where the Fireworks Are:

JENNIFER WARNES COMMUNES AT JACOB'S WELL IN HER FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT - A THOROUGHLY AUSTIN STORY
(excerpt regarding Cohen and Warnes from Tasty Tangents for 8/16/2007)

Famous Blue Raincoat 20th Anniversary Edition
It's hard to believe that it's been 20 years since the original release of Jennifer Warnes' most acclaimed CD, Famous Blue Raincoat, which firmly established her as a leading interpreter of the songs of Leonard Cohen, a territory which Judy Collins had staked out in the '60s. The album was re-issued on August 7, remastered and with four additional tunes, three of which involve Austin artistry, including this track. I first heard "Ballad of the Runaway Horse" in 1988 on bassist Rob Wasserman's then brand-new Duets CD, and the duet on that track was Wasserman's bass and Warnes' quiet vocals [find Wasserman's website here]. The version appearing on the Famous Blue Raincoat re-release is a much fuller production arranged by none other than Austin's own Stephen Barber, keyboardist of Austin's most legendary 1970s jazz fusion band, the Electromagnets, a band which featured a very young Eric Johnson on guitar. Hidden among the instrumentalists on "Ballad of the Runaway Horse" is another well-known Austin musician, blues rocker Doyle Bramhall II (see next section) on guitar. Two of the other bonus tracks on the new version of Famous Blue Raincoat feature accompaniment from Austin's Mitch Watkins (Antones interview [scroll past Bob Schneider]), and on the nine tracks from the original album you'll find several other current or former Austinites as producers, arrangers, or musicians, including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Roscoe Beck, Paul Ostermayer, and Bill Ginn. Some of these artists were also found on her following two albums, The Hunter and The Well, along with other past or current Austin musicians Eric Johnson, Doyle Bramhall (senior), David Grissom ([website], [myspace]), and Rob Meurer.

Sidetrip to Doyle Bramhall II
Bramhall ([website], [myspace]) is known for his work with the Arc Angels, his solo career, and guest spots with artists like Eric Clapton, B.B. King, and Roger Waters. Here are some interesting video excerpts of Bramhall playing at the Alamo (with the Arc Angels) and at the Great Wall of China (with Eric Clapton's highly complementary voice-over). Here's a DVD source for the Alamo concert and a listing of other internet material of interest regarding Bramhall.

The Passenger connection
In researching this feature, I learned that the story of the connection between Warnes and many of the above-named musicians began long before her collaborations in the mid-'80s on Famous Blue Raincoat, but went back to 1979 when Leonard Cohen recruited members of Austin's second-most legendary '70s jazz fusion band Passenger (which included Beck, Ginn, Ostermayer, Watkins, and drummer Steve Meador) to record on his album Recent Songs and be part of his band in the tour to promote it, roles which they have reprised for decades now (here's a link about the 2001 album of the tour with mini bios of the band members; here is a great series of backstage and on stage photos from the tour; and a rare documentary of the tour was also filmed). Warnes attended studio sessions for the recording of Recent Songs, and was a back-up singer on the tour afterwards. In fact, through the relationship that Warnes began with Passenger bassist Roscoe Beck, she moved to Austin after the '79 Cohen tour and lived here absorbing the sounds and stories of Austin's music scene until her return to L.A. in '81. She also lived in Austin during the mid-'90s while working on the music that led to her album The Well, her collaboration with Doyle Bramhall (father of Doyle Bramhall II), whose centerpiece song was inspired by the natural beauty of the spring at Wimberley's Jacob's Well near Bramhall's Wimberley home. The story of Warnes' Austin connection, especially how it led to the creation of The Well, is beautifully told in an article by Brad Buccholz (accessed from the bottom of Warnes' home page by clicking on "about the well"), and her 2002 interview with Jody Denburg covers some of the same topics.

Postscripts
Rob Meurer, who had much to do with shaping the smash hits of Christopher Cross, with whom he has continued to collaborate through the years, was music director for Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre series on Showtime, and is now writing musical comedy with the Knack's Berton Averre!
Paul Ostermayer (scroll down here), currently residing in New Jersey, has maintained a varied musical career since moving to New York City in 1987.

Posted by Charlie Martin at August 29, 2008 09:06 AM