[Dixielandjazz] Mal Waldron passes (Billie's last accompaniest)

[Stephen Barbone]

Sad news, once again.

Steve Barbone


December 6, 2002 - New York Times

Mal Waldron, Composer of the Jazz Ballad 'Soul Eyes,' Is Dead at 77

By BEN RATLIFF

Mal Waldron, Billie Holiday's last accompanist and the composer of the
jazz classic "Soul Eyes," died on Monday in Brussels, where he had lived
for about a decade. He was 77.

The cause was cancer, his European management company said.

Mr. Waldron's long career as a pianist and arranger included leading his
own bands around the world. For much of the last four decades he played
and lived mostly in Europe, but his recordings with companions like Eric
Dolphy, John Coltrane and Steve Lacy kept his ideas in the ears of
American fans, especially other musicians.

Listening to Mr. Waldron was a fascinatingly dry, dark pleasure. He
belonged to no particular school or style, and his curt piano style
reflected that outsider status. He repeated short motifs endlessly, as
if meaning to grind them into the keyboard; a stylistic descendant of
Thelonious Monk, he pared down Monk's already quite cropped melodic
lines to percussive nubs. He focused his attention toward the lower half
of the keyboard, and completely avoided sentimentality.

Toward the end of his life he had a soft, muffled keyboard sound, almost
as if he were playing parlor music — but a kind of parlor music infused
with bebop harmony and rhythm.

Mr. Waldron grew up in New York and graduated from Queens College with a
bachelor's degree in composition. His first recordings were with Ike
Quebec in 1950, and later in the 50's he joined Charles Mingus's Jazz
Workshop. By 1956 he had formed his own quintet and became a mainstay of
Prestige Records.

Though the musicians were chosen by Bob Weinstock, the head of that
label, Mr. Waldron was frequently called upon to create on-the-spot
themes for albums by Gene Ammons, among others. Between 1956 and 1963,
he appeared on more than 40 Prestige albums, including several by
Coltrane, Dolphy and Jackie McLean. It was also during that period, from
1957 to 1959, that Mr. Waldron worked in Holiday's band.

His ballad "Soul Eyes" — first recorded on "Interplay for Two Trumpets
and Two Tenors" (1957), then magnificently recast by Coltrane in 1962 on
the album "Coltrane" — was Mr. Waldron's most famous composition and has
been part of the basic repertory of jazz performers ever since.

He is survived by seven children and two grandchildren.

Like so many jazz musicians in New York, Mr. Waldron fell into drug use;
he overdosed on heroin in 1963. His recovery came slowly, and he said
later that he did not realize how badly the overdose had affected him
until he tried to play in a recording session with Max Roach and could
not remember much about the keyboard aside from the position of middle
C. He made no recordings from 1963 to 1966, and had to teach himself how
to play again, partly by listening to his own records.

While working at the Five Spot in New York, where he took part in some
of the great live jazz recordings with the Dolphy quintet in 1961, he
met Mr. Lacy, the saxophonist, who would be one of his most consistent
colleagues. They specialized in duet performances, often playing the
music of Monk and, together with the bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel, they
recorded "One More Time" (Sketch) last January in France.

In 1965 Mr. Waldron moved to Europe, eventually settling in Munich. In
the 1990's he relocated to Brussels, where he kept up a career that
often took him throughout Europe and to Japan and for a time to the
United States, though less so during the last decade.

A brown cigarette between his long fingers was part of his image, along
with his tuft of white hair. After many jazz clubs in the United States
banned smoking in the mid-90's, he seldom played in them.