In my March column I reviewed an album by Triangle-area jazz
artist Gary Brunotte. The disc is titled Manic Moments and features Brunotte on
keyboards — piano, organ and accordion — and several North Carolina jazz
players — including Gregg Gelb, Glen Ingram, Scott Sawyer, Jim Ketch and John
Simonetti. Drummer Bill Berg, a long-time friend and collaborator, is based in
California.
Manic Moments is an excellent jazz outing; it’s definitely a
disc fans should explore. Brunotte is an accomplished player, as are his
compadres, and he even sings convincingly.
Brunotte is a native of Minnesota, and it was in the great
white north that he first got into music.
During a recent conversation, Brunotte recalled that: “Back
in the ’50s, my family was into the traditional polka and fox-trot kind of
music. My uncles played — one played accordion and the other played guitar —
and my stepfather played guitar as well.
“They started me on accordion lessons at age 9,” he said. “I
got my first Hammond organ when I was around 20. I was playing in an R&B
band. I had a Farfisa organ when I was a teenager and played in some high
school rock bands. I started listening to jazz when I was in my later teens.”
Brunotte did his time in college at the University of
Minnesota, eventually graduating with a degree in business.
“I left U of M for a while when I was 21; I did a brief
stint on the road with this band playing Hammond B3,” he said. “They called
them show bands back then, horns and bells and whistles and such. We did a
little bit of jazz, but a lot of it was stuff like ‘MacArthur Park.’ We got to
do some jazz in the warm-up sets. My feature was the old Jimmy Smith ‘Walk On
The Wild Side’ number.”
Upon graduation, Brunotte determined that he wasn’t feeling
a desire to buy the suit and plunge into the business environment. Instead, he
moved to Boston to attend the Berklee College of Music.
“I went off to Berklee to learn jazz, which was what I
really wanted to do. I was 25 at the time, and I remained there for seven
years.”
Brunotte eventually graduated from Berklee with high honors.
“I was getting a lot of writing opportunities through the
Herb Pomeroy Band, so Berklee hired me as a teacher,” he noted. “I taught there
for about three years, until 1980, and then I left because I really didn’t like
teaching that much.
“I felt like I needed to go out and learn more and really
live it, rather than going right into teaching after just learning how to write
big-band stuff,” he explained. “I had about four years of big-band writing, but
my theory was that I had to get out and do more. I really wanted to go to New
York and try my luck.”
A lot of people go to New York City to try their luck and
that strategy frequently does not produce the desired result. Brunotte’s New
York sortie ended up benefiting him more in terms of business than music.
“I actually got a gig at Rodney Dangerfield’s Comedy Club,”
he said. “They had a trio, and you got to play a little bit of jazz up front,
and then they’d have a singer each week and you’d back his or her show. Then
you’d play up the comedian on stage, and then they’d release you. I did three
per night. I did it for a few months. It was late-night stuff, and I was making
about $300 per week and living in New York.”
Brunotte decided it might be time to invoke his degree in
business.
“I was lucky enough to get on as a financial analyst at
CBS,” he said. “I worked for them for a good five years. My wife and I moved
out of the city to a little town called Peekskill, NY, and I worked some gigs
up in that area. There were a few jazz clubs up there, and I met some good
players.”
During this time, Brunotte also landed a grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts that enabled him to put together a big band and
write material for the project. This culminated in a concert by the Herb
Pomeroy Big Band in New York City. It proved to be another boost to his jazz
credibility, but it wasn’t enough to keep him in the New York area.
“After about a year-and-a-half we decided to move back to
St. Paul, so we sold the house in Peekskill and bought four-times the house in
Minnesota.
“While I was at CBS I switched from finance to learning
about computers,” he explained. “When I got back to Minnesota I actually went
to work for a music software company; they put out a high-end product called
Finale. I was the R&D director of that for a while, and then I became the
manager of the whole business. The owner was getting ready to shut it down, and
I said, ‘Well, I have a business degree, let me run it.’ We turned it around,
saved the company and I got a big bonus. I took that opportunity to pursue
music full time again, so I took off for three years and put out my first CD in
’93 [Yesterday’s Dream].
“I’d met a good many musicians through my work with this
software company, including Chick Corea. I used one of the guys in his band,
Eric Marienthal, as well as some cats from LA, from the group Flim & the
BBs.”
In 1995 Brunotte went back to work in the day world. Soon,
however, he and his wife had had their fill of the great white north. North
Carolina beckoned and they headed for a milder climate.
Brunotte has cut four albums and is currently planning an
organ trio recording for his fifth CD. All his records are available on the Web
at: www.cdbaby.com, and Brunotte has a Web site as well: www.garybrunotte .com.
DISCOLOGY
Counting Crows:
Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings (Geffen)
This album amounts to the resurrection of the promise
Counting Crows displayed back on the album August and Everything After. The
band’s career trajectory since then has been anything but consistent. The
albums they’ve released have either been less-than-riveting live recordings or
one-hit wonders such as Hard Candy, from which came the single “American
Girls.” They also wrote the song “Accidentally In Love,” a hit single that came
to us via the film Shrek 2. Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is all about
lead singer-songwriter Adam Duritz remembering how to rock. When Duritz is in
his groove, there’s no more compelling lyricist in rock today, and he’s deep in
his groove here. The album opens with a truly killer rock number, “1492” — the
sort of furious rock number Counting Crows hasn’t nailed in quite a while. A
taste of the same vibe echoes throughout “Cowboys.” We get a different, bluesy
feel from “Los Angeles,” while “Washington Square” and “On Almost Any Sunday
Morning” are relatively quiet songs that are nearly folk-rock. Of course,
Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is something of a concept album. The
first six tunes constitute the Saturday nights, and they rock, while the
remaining eight tracks comprise the Sunday mornings, and they’re generally
quieter, more pensive numbers. Taken as a whole, the CD is a superb piece of
work. Stylistically, the songs embody everything that’s right about Counting
Crows, and they’re also the best collection of lyrics Duritz has authored since
August and Everything After.
Michael Burks: Iron
Man (Alligator)
This is the best CD bluesman Michael Burks has ever tracked.
He took his road band into the studio for this project, and that made all the
difference in terms of the punch these tunes deliver. Burks is a powerhouse
vocalist and lead guitarist, and on Iron Man he benefits from the chops of his
road guys: Chuck “Popcorn” Louden (drums), Wayne Sharp (organ and piano) and
Don Garrett (bass). Cue up the first track, “Love Disease,” and fasten your
seatbelt. The song delivers a sonic blast that portends things to come. Burks’
guitar work is stellar throughout, his vocals are deep, and his rhythm section
is in the pocket. For those who fancy the slow-burning blues joint, try “Empty
Promises.” Some of the most potent tracks on the album are mid-tempo numbers
such as “Salty Tears” and “Hard Come, Easy Go.” Burks always works a
particularly hard-hitting lead guitar on songs that fall in the mid-tempo
range. Also check out “Don’t Waste My Time” — a very cool piece very much in
the classic soul groove. Blues fans will definitely benefit from a spin through
this disc; it’s one of the top blues releases of ’08.