Daryl Sherman

DARYL SHERMAN
Johnny Mercer Centennial Tribute

listen to Daryl on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz as broadcast June 26, 2009

(video)DARYL SHERMAN and WYCLIFFE GORDON: "Jeepers Creepers," June 8, 2009

(video)DARYL SHERMAN / WYCLIFFE GORDON :”The Bathtub Ran Over Again”

Selections:

1. I’m Shadowing You (Johnny Mercer, Blossom Dearie ) ( 3:42 )

2. Little Ingenue (Johnny Mercer, Jimmy Rowles) ( 5:21 )

3. Midnight Sun (Johnny Mercer, Francis “Sonny” Burke, Lionel Hampton) ( 5:11 )

4. Jeepers Creepers (Johnny Mercer, Harry Warren) ( 3:20 )

5. Come Rain or Come Shine (Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen) ( 4:37 )

6. The Bathtub Ran Over Again (Johnny Mercer, Michael Cleary) ( 4:24 )

7. Lazy Bones (Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael) ( 6:24 )

8. Peter Piper (Johnny Mercer, Richard Whiting) ( 2:52 )

9. I Thought About You (Johnny Mercer, Jimmy Van Heusen) ( 5:38 )

10. At the Jazz Band Ball (Johnny Mercer, Eddie Edwards, Nick La Rocca, Henry Ragas, Tony Sbarbaro, Larry Shields) ( 3:20 )

11. Charade (Johnny Mercer, Henry Mancini) ( 4:55 )

12. Dream (Johnny Mercer) ( 4:26 )

13. Twilight World (Johnny Mercer, Marian McPartland) ( 4:43 )

14. Here Come the British (Johnny Mercer, Bernard Hanighen) ( 3:42 )

Daryl Sherman Piano, Vocals

Jerry Dodgion Alto Sax

Wycliffe Gordon Trombone, Vocal (Tracks 6, 14)

Howard Alden Guitar, Banjo (Track 10)

Jay Leonhart Bass,Vocal (Tracks 10, 14)

Chuck Redd Drums, Vibraphone

Special Guests:

Marian McPartland Piano (Track 13)

Barbara Carroll Piano (Track 9)

Description:
"Even seasoned Mercer fans will find some new treasures here, revealed by that indefatigable guide to the Great American Songbook, Daryl Sherman. A musician as well as a singer, Daryl has a special affinity for Mercer and has been no stranger to his work ... Johnny Mercer, I´m certain, would have loved Daryl Sherman´s tribute, which avoids the obvious and illuminates the full range of his legacy. I doubt there´ll be a better one." - Dan Morgenstern, Director of Rutgers University´s Institute of Jazz Studies

Biography

One of the top swing singers to emerge during the past 30 years, Daryl Sherman has a light high voice that is influenced by Mildred Bailey and also by Ella Fitzgerald, Sylvia Syms, Billie Holiday, Blossom Dearie, and Barbara Carroll. She is also a skilled pianist whose playing on standards and obscurities from the Great American Songbook makes one realize that she could have a career as a non-singing instrumentalist if she chose to stop singing. But fortunately she does not have to choose between the two talents. The daughter of trombonist Sammy Sherman, Daryl grew up around jazz and was often taken by her father to jam sessions as a child. When she was six, she began playing piano, learning initially from her father (starting at the age of 12 she occasionally appeared at his gigs) and later on having formal piano lessons during college. She graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1971 and always planned to be a singer/pianist. After moving to New York in 1974, she was taken under the wing of many veteran instrumentalists and singers, including Dave McKenna, Sylvia Syms, Milt Hinton, Dick Sudhalter, Red Norvo, Ruby Braff, and Dick Hyman. Performing at Jilly's, Michael's Pub, and other New York clubs, she quickly gained a strong reputation for her cheerful and insightful interpretations of classic material. After making her first record, I'm a Dreamer, Aren't We All, she was picked by Artie Shaw to sing with his orchestra (directed by Dick Johnson) in 1983. She has since sung with the WDR Jazz Orchestra in Germany, the American Jazz Orchestra, Wynton Marsalis' Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and Vince Giordano's Nighthawks (in the show Park Avenue Whirl), but is mostly heard with her own combos, often touring Europe, appearing at classic jazz festivals and parties, and at intimate clubs. Daryl Sherman, who has recorded for Tono, Audiophile (including a tribute to Mildred Bailey and Red Norvo), After 9, Baldwin Street, and Arbors (including A Jazz Original, which features her late father's trombone playing), is a cheerful, delightful, and very musical performer who has revived many superior obscurities from the past, making the older material sound fresh and relevant. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

Jazz vocalist Daryl Sherman -- in spite of her masculine name, a woman noted for her lovely, feather-light voice -- first surfaced in 1988 as part of the group Mr. Tram Associates, lending her singing as well as her piano skills to the album Getting Some Fun Out of Life. In 1990, she issued her solo debut I've Got My Fingers Crossed: A Celebration of Jimmy McHugh, but then spent the next half of the decade away from the recording studio; only in 1996 did she resurface, teaming with vibraphonist John Cocuzzi for the LP Celebrating Mildred Bailey and Red Norvo, as well as releasing the solo Look What I Found. Jubilee followed in 2000.
Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

14 June 1950, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, USA. At the age of five Sherman was picking out tunes on the piano, and soon began singing along with her trombone-playing father, a local band leader. By her teenage years she was singing professionally with her father's band. She widened her base a little, singing also in the Boston area, until, in 1974, she moved to New York. There, she played various clubs, usually singing with jazz trios. When Artie Shaw formed a band, after 25 years in retirement, he asked Sherman to join him as the band singer. The inevitable publicity attending this venture benefited Sherman, and long engagements at the Fortune Garden and the Sheraton Center consolidated her impact. She appeared with many noted jazz musicians, including George Duvivier, Mel Lewis and Marian McPartland, on whose famed Piano Jazz radio show she was featured.In the early and mid-90s Sherman worked at many prestigious hotel and club venues in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Monterey, and elsewhere, and also appeared at festivals and other gatherings including the Atlanta Jazz Festival, the March of Jazz, in Clearwater, Florida, in Toronto, Canada, and with Dick Hyman, at the Jazz Society of Sarasota in Florida. Her love of good songs and fine interpretations of lyrics have made her a popular choice for gatherings and recordings that celebrate such arts: a Rex Reed tribute to Ira Gershwin, for example. A 1996 album celebrating the talent of a singer of an earlier generation, Mildred Bailey, with vibraphone player John Cocuzzi, superbly demonstrated this gifted singer's huge talent. Her voice, light and fluid, commands attention and her subtle sense of swing and adept phrasing is a constant joy.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.

Liner Notes by Dan Morgenstern

Music is a life enhancer, like a growing thing. There is no death in it. It is full of life, and the more perfect it is, the more life-giving, the more warming, the more comforting it becomes. --John Herndon Mercer (1909-1976)

Was Johnny Mercer the greatest of lyric writers, as well as the most prolific? The competition would have to include those he himself named as early models: "I was trying to be as witty as Larry Hart, as sophisticated as Cole Porter, as simple as Irving Berlin, as poetic as Oscar Hammerstein," he noted, adding that it was remarkable that an individual style emerged from so many influences, "even if they were the best." (One might add to this list an early mentor, Yip Harburg; an early--and again later--collaborator, Hoagy Carmichael, and a youthful favorite, Ira Gershwin--and there we have a veritable pantheon of this special art and craft.)

This marvelous CD provides a positive answer, for even seasoned Mercer fans will find some new treasures here, revealed by that indefatigable guide to the Great American Songbook, Daryl Sherman. A musician as well as a singer, Daryl has a special affinity for Mercer and has been no stranger to his work. Her discography includes such gems as Bob White, Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry (one of her Mildred Bailey specials); You're the One For Me (from her Jimmy McHugh tribute) Mooncountry on her LP She's A Great Great Girl, Dream Awhile, from her penultimate Arbors gem, Guess Who's In Town (ARCD 19341), and Moon River, one of Mercer's four Oscar winners. But here she has dug even deeper.

"The immense Mercer catalog offers everything a singer could hope for," said Daryl. "Songs for every emotion--romance, loss, yearning, nostalgia for comforts of home, or cheering on your hero at a football game. Some witty or funny tongue twisters that swing like mad. All brilliantly crafted, with a keen ear for vernacular, and the sensitivity to adapt especially to each composer he worked with." The list of Mercer collaborators is truly remarkable. In addition to those you will find here it includes Jerome Kern, Walter Donaldson, Rube Bloom, Gordon Jenkins, Victor Schertzinger, Arthur Schwartz, Andre Previn and Duke Ellington, among many others.

"He had a skill," Daryl continued "that not only conjured up folksy or exotic images but also lured the ear with their sound, using consonants (track/crack/back) or wide vowels (Iiiii Reeemember Yoooo). He wrote a zillion hits that you can sing, play or just listen to all your life and never tire of."

One of the clues to Mercer's success surely is that he was himself a singer; it might even be that singing was not only his first but also most abiding love--he made his recording debut in the spring of 1932 with Frank Trumbauer's band, offering hot renditions, including scat, was featured a few years later with Paul Whiteman, in solo and teamed with his friend, the great trombonist and vocalist Jack Teagarden, emceed Benny Goodman's radio show, often sang with the band, and later recorded about a hundred numbers in various settings for Capitol, the label he co-founded; as late as 1974 he recorded a couple of splendid LPs in London.

I had the immense pleasure of attending a super rare Mercer recital at New York's Town Hall in 1973 produced by Charles Bourgeois (who knows a thing or three about singers and jazz) teaming Johnny with Jimmy Rowles in his New York debut - a most memorable treat.

That wise man about popular song, Alec Wilder, surmised that "one of the reasons John Mercer's lyrics have an added zest, a crackle and a shine to them is that he probably sings them as he writes them, adding that Mercer "has always been hip-deep in the jazz world." Here, Daryl explores what she calls Mercer's "natural jazz sensibility,"not surprisingly, a special musical gift she shares. As she points out, "he was connected with so many greats - from Red Norvo to Louis Armstrong." (Louis was an early Mercer love; in Savannah , in his teens, he would listen to and buy records in stores catering to black customers discovering Armstrong Hot Fives and Sevens).

Daryl wanted to share this tribute with "birds of a feather" as Mercer would put it. "In addition to great musicianship, everyone in this cast has a special feeling for songs that are wide-ranging. They treat them (and me!) with sensitivity and great humor. Howard Alden and I have been friends all these years and done gigs together, but this is our first recording reunion since my debut on Dick Sudhalter's Friends With Pleasure LP.

It was just one song, Home, and we always refer to it as 'our hit'. Might we have another? Howard is not only a consummate guitarist but also a fine arranger, and made contributions here, notably on Peter Piper. Who else but this gang would take a chance with Here Come the British or The Bathtub Ran Over Again? That's trust!" (To this writer, those two Mercer rarities are among the highlights.)

Johnny Mercer met Blossom Dearie at a Jean and Bob Bach house party (the late Bob Bach collaborated with Johnny's widow Ginger on the memorial volume Our Huckleberry Friend: The Life, Time and Song Lyrics Of Johnny Mercer. Already entranced by her talent, Johnny also dug Blossom's pixie-like eccentricity. They became friends. I'm Shadowing You is one of two lyrics he set to her melodies (the other My New Celebrity Is You).

When Daryl first hit New York she became a regular at Blossom's live shows. The two have frequently been compared: singer-pianists with so-called girlish voices. Just before Blossom left us on February 7, 2009 after a lingering illness, Daryl had a chance to test just how much alike they may have sounded. On a visit to the ailing Blossom, Daryl brought a test copy of this CD along with home-made squash soup. "I'd wanted to play her my version of her song and when

I grabbed the player I noticed the CD already in there was Blossom's own. She liked listening to herself and would bob her head. That gave me the idea to replace her CD with mine and see if she'd notice the difference. As my version began, Blossom perked up a bit. 'Oh dear,’ I thought, 'even she thinks I sound like her!' Then suddenly she dropped right off to sleep - so I guess she did know it was me."

To this listener, Daryl's different treatment in a jazzy slower groove brings to mind what Blossom wrote of the lyric: "buffed and polished to a perfect finish." Longtime friend and frequent collaborator Jay Leonhart adds his lively commentary to this clever girl-boy chase song -as well he might, since he also recorded with Blossom. Howard joins the chase in all the right spots, and Chuck Redd's perfect brush- work adds just enough tease. And speaking of perfect finish, Daryl ends with a nod to both her heroes.

Little Ingenue introduces another of Daryl's kindred spirits, the formidable Jerry Dodgion. "We've worked together through the years and he's on Look What I Found (ARCD 19154)

(Daryl's first for Arbors) and A Lady Must Live. He's always been a great booster of mine and

ready for any oddball material I'd throw at him.” Daryl points out. Jerry doesn't double here

(he's also a standout on flute), "just the magnificent sound of his alto, and what he plays enhances this album immeasurably. He especially loved Little Ingenue, and you can hear how he got right inside the song." So does Daryl, who invests this late Mercer lyric, and Jimmy Rowles' subtle melody, with her own female perspective that is far from ingenue. It was originally recorded by Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald and others as Baby Don't Quit Now. During a TV interview in 1974 when Mercer was in London , producer Ken Barnes commented how much he liked that song, but noted that a portion of the lyric recalled something Lorenz Hart had done. This set Mercer to stewing. Not long afterwards, when Barnes was producing an album with Johnny and suggested that they do this song. Johnny surprised him with the new lyric entitled Little Ingenue. Lucky Jimmy Rowles got two songs for one!

Midnight Sun, composed by Lionel Hampton and Sonny Burke, is one of the vibist's greatest ballad recordings. Made in late 1947, it wasn't heard by Mercer until one day in l955, as he was driving home. As the story goes, he got to a phone, called the disc jockey and said: "This is Johnny Mercer. Would you mind playing it again? I love it." He then committed it to memory--a special skill of his since he neither read nor wrote music. (He had a system of letters for notes and up-and-down arrows that he called his "little hieroglyphics" and picked at the piano.) He worked out the words during the rest of the drive. The lyric captures the shimmering quality of the highly chromatic melody, and Daryl brings out all the poetry in what ranks with Mercer's very best. The bossa -like tempo gives Chuck Redd a chance to stretch out on vibes, and his blend with Howard's guitar lines casts a beautiful spell.

Jeepers Creepers, a collaboration with Harry Warren, who was among Johnny's favorite partners, musically and temperamentally, was written for the film Going Places and received an Oscar nomination, but lost out to Thanks For the Memory. It gave Mercer the chance to write for Louis Armstrong, featured in the film as the trainer of a race horse named--you guessed it, Jeepers Creepers. The horse won't run unless it hears Louis sing and play its song, and during the climactic race, the great man drives alongside the track doing his thing. The second male

lead in this opus was none other than Ronald Reagan (the star was Dick Powell). The melody lends itself to swinging, and the words abound in colorful colloquialisms; The venerable horse hasn't had it so good since Louis, as Daryl and Wycliffe Gordon give him a fabulous ride. It's just the two of them trading quips anchored by Daryl's rollicking piano." Wycliffe fit into my scheme adding oomph, heart and humor as only he can." Daryl said. Wycliffe is one of the best things to happen to jazz in recent times; he's one of those special ones who keep the spirit of the music alive.

Come Rain Or Come Shine is among the wonderful things Mercer and perhaps his most inspiring collaborator, Harold Arlen, created together. It's just Daryl and Howard here, another perfect combination. From the score of the Arlen--Mercer musical St. Louis Woman--alas, not a success on Broadway--it has often misled singers into theatricality, but not Daryl, who

becomes the medium for the message, with plenty of emotion, but always in control,

abetted by the beautiful sounds of Howard's guitar, also heard on its own. Mercer was a great Arlen fan. "We have a thing about jazz and blues, and about creativity and originality and structure," Mercer said. Johnny's innate musicality made him an especially good match for Arlen's distinctive harmonies and rhythmic complexities.

I'm delighted that I can claim credit for turning Daryl on to The Bathtub Ran Over Again. An avid reader of discographies (great for the bathroom), I long ago found this listed as Mercer's first recording under his own name, with a small jazz group including Jack Teagarden, made for the then brand-new Decca label in August 1934. It's a charming song, and Daryl, who knows a thing or two about charm, also finds it "a poignant love song--don't be fooled by the cuteness. My favorite phrase is 'the tub ran over as tubs will do.' " She duets with Wycliffe here, and his Armstrong-inflected voice and phrasing are a delight as well as a perfect complement to Daryl.

"Wycliffe and I got such a chuckle out of singing this to each other." says Daryl. Both are also active instrumentally, abetted by Howard, Jay and Chuck, who all contribute to the special ambiance, Howard even evoking running water in his solo spot. ( Mercer knew a thing or two about bathtubs--his very first own Manhattan apartment, in Greenwich Village , was a one-room

walkup with bathtub inside, doubling as kitchen sink, but not when the stove, lowered via a hinge above, was in use.)

With Lazy Bones, we arrive at another great team, Mercer and Carmichael. This was their first collaboration, and Mercer's first hit--the initial check, for over one thousand dollars, was so big he had to ask Mildred Bailey to help get it cashed for him. Although their personal vibe wasn't always the warmest, Hoagy and Johnny would do more great stuff together, including the Oscar-winning In the Cool Cool Cool of the Evening and the magnificent Skylark. But back to Lazy Bones, with its "perfect regional lyric," as Alec Wilder dubbed it; authentically rather than Tin Pan Alley southern, and not limited, as some have heard it, to racial profiling. It was relentlessly plugged by Walter Winchell and quickly recorded by, among others, Mildred Bailey with the Dorsey Brothers, Ted Lewis, The Mills Brothers, and Don Redman's band with a vocal by "Black Bing" Harlan Lattimore, and later on, in 1939, nailed by Louis Armstrong, in duet with the Casa Loma Band's Pee Wee Hunt, and still later with Gary Crosby, by whom it was shorn of its Great Depression overtones. But Daryl has a new angle on it, viewed from a different kind of depression--the sort that might be resolved by a little Viagra--and has taken a slight liberty with the lyric, changing watermelon to luscious melon ("Sounds sexier," she said). She opens with the verse and uses a bit of it again at the close, "to complete and enhance the mood." Jerry Dodgion's welcome alto is prominent in solo and also in evocatively blended harmony lines with Howard and Jay. Daryl's sparse piano keeps the tension in reserve, and the moody laid-back tempo afloat throughout.

Peter Piper introduces yet another partner, Richard Whiting. Famous for Too Marvelous For Words, they worked very well together, and Johnny was devastated when Whiting died of heart attack at only 46, after little more than a year of collaboration. Daryl was turned on to this happy tongue-twister by Mildred Bailey's recording. Howard Alden's arrangement is a joy, featuring fine octave-doubled voicing of his guitar with Jerry Dodgion's alto (Howard's a past master at this, notably with old pal Ken Peplowski, as on their Arbors CD, Pow-Wow, ARCD 19340). When Daryl played it for the composer's daughter, the great singer Margaret Whiting, she was thrilled to hear her dad's under-recorded little gem. "She chuckled and practically danced in her seat," Daryl reported, saying "Oh, that's fun. Howard Alden's terrific...I've heard him before

but didn't know he could arrange. And I don't know how you got all those words out!" "Neither do I," adds Daryl

I Thought About You is one of those Mercer rarities to which the lyrics came before there was a melody. On a train ride to New York from Los Angeles (ah, the days of great trains!) rolling past all these little towns with the lights and cars parked and the glow worms in the dark," he recalled in his unpublished autobiography, the words came to him. He gave them to great craftsman Jimmy Van Heusen. Introduced by (again) Mildred Bailey, with Benny Goodman's band, it became one of the great jazz standards.

Daryl and Barbara Carroll are long-time friends and fellow New Englanders as well as pianists-singers (Barbara added singing after having first established herself as a notable bebop stylist and is a New York jazz-and-cabaret favorite of long standing). Daryl is one of her greatest admirers and this is their first joint recording. "Barbara just sat down at the piano, asked me what key and tempo I felt like, noodled I Thought About You for a few bars, looked up, smiled at me, and said, 'Let's do it, baby!' We did, in one take." The tempo's perfect, as is Barbara's comping, and she takes a fine half-chorus solo. This is a good point at which to mention Daryl's diction--she never swallows a word--a not negligible factor in her artistry as an interpreter of songs.

Johnny Mercer liked all kinds of good jazz, but he was especially enamored of Dixieland, which he grew up with from records and performed with, among others, his friend Wingy Manone, the one-armed New Orleans trumpeter. At the Jazz Band Ball is one of the Original Dixieland Jazz

Band's best, and a very early example of how jazz musicians adopted and adapted material from various sources, the second (blowing) strain being based on Shine On Harvest Moon. Johnny's lyric is probably the last in a line that began with The Dixieland Band, written with Bernie

Hanighen and immortalized as one of Benny Goodman's first records with his own band, vocal by Helen Ward. The tempo is what it should be for this number, and a bit of a challenge for Daryl. "I knew it was going to be real hard to fit all those words in, but it felt so good and

swinging as Howard started it off that I took a deep breath and forced everything in my mouth to move faster and not fall off the tightrope. Sometimes the feeling of danger can be exhilarating." This sure is. Howard's on banjo here, an instrument rehabilitated by Bela Fleck but mastered by Mr. Alden well before--it's a kick to sometimes hear him play bebop licks on it. We also get a sample of Jay's special way with bow and voice, in the tradition of Slam Stewart and Major Holley, but flavored a la Leonhart. Daryl's stride piano is an added kick, and she has taken to include this number in her live repertory, to great popular acclaim. Johnny would have loved it!

Henry Mancini was Johnny's last great collaborator (and perhaps one of the last great melody

men before the Webber deluge). They won two Oscars together, for Moon River and Days Of Wine and Roses, but Charade lost to Call Me Irresponsible (maybe there's a message in that title to the Academy voters). "I'm drawn to the haunting melody, the sad little serenade with brilliantly woven theater terms to depict a love affair from beginning to end," Daryl explained.

"Plus, I love the film. During a boat ride on the Seine , Cary Grant chides an overly affectionate Audrey Hepburn with 'You sure do come on,' to which she quickly retorts, 'Well, then--come on!!'" But this Charade is serious business, from Jerry Dodgion's a capella introduction through Daryl's vocal witchcraft to the last fading note. It's just Daryl and Jerry, weaving together a little masterpiece. To quote from the lyric: Oh, what a hit (they) made...

Dream is one of the handful of songs for which Mercer created music as well as words. It began as a theme for a radio show he was hosting in 1944, The Chesterfield Supper Club. "I was just fooling around at the piano," he recalled, "and I got a series of chords that attracted

me....I fingered them out and everything, which is most unusual for me." (By then, Mercer had co-founded Capitol Records, the Pied Pipers recorded it, and then it belonged to the world.)

Daryl inherited Dream from her father, who used it as his closing theme. "He played that melody on the trombone so beautifully --it sounded like singing, and I still hear it in my ears today. The trombone range is supposed to be the closest to the human voice. Sammy did it in Bb. Gravity has now taken its toll, so I took it down a notch--but you'll hear Wycliffe's heavenly notes still way up there." Indeed the sounds made by Wycliffe are heavenly--this is his serious side--and don't miss that penultimate note of his solo, which undoubtedly reaches the angels. And Daryl goes on to sing like one.

Daryl and Marian McPartland go back a long way, to the days when Jimmy, the great cornet
music man, was still among us. Daryl has of course guested on Piano Jazz, that uniquely long-running gem of a radio show. Twilight World, one of Marian's finest compositions, is matched by Mercer's lyric. Their pairing on this song is a double gift to singers. It's a painting they have created--beautiful images of China seas, dancing butterflies--with wide vowels and a gorgeous expansive melodic line to luxuriate in.

“When Marian consented to play this with me I was thrilled, and she suggested we record at the studio where she tapes her program. Her producer then decided we might as well do a whole

Johnny Mercer show together. What an extra treat!" The empathy between these two is evident;

Marian's accompaniment is always supportive as well as lovely in its own right, with those

special voicings of hers, and Daryl responds--phrasing with exquisite taste and musicality.

This splendid tribute to the genius of Johnny Mercer ends, literally, with a bang. (Following Marian with Here Come The British is not to be construed as other than serendipitous.) Written in 1934 with the underrated Bernie Hanighen, it does not seem to stem from any play or show and we have no clue to what inspired the two friends to concoct this little history lesson--maybe it was in response to Rhythm Changed the World. Aside from its rendition by Mercer himself, and the Casa Loma Orchestra, vocal by Pee Wee Hunt, it seems not to have been recorded again until now.

Jean Bach says it is the first song she ever heard Johnny Mercer sing, back when she was in prep school. Daryl and her gang have loads of fun with this. It's a true ensemble effort. Jay's is the male voice heard first; he also offers his bowed bass-cum-voice thing, but this time he scats. Howard's chorded solo spot conjures up Carl Kress and Dick McDonough, and the way Wycliffe slides in has to be heard to be believed (no engineering tricks here, this is for real). We also hear his voice, after some neat Sherman piano and Jay and Daryl vocal banter, and some startling trombone whinnies, in response to the lyrics. Those of us lucky to be on hand in the studio were enlisted for the final vocal salvo.

Johnny Mercer, I'm certain, would have loved Daryl Sherman's tribute, which avoids the obvious and illuminates the full range of his legacy. I doubt there'll be a better one. As Frank Sinatra put it, "A Johnny Mercer lyric is all the wit you wished you had and all the love you ever lost," and Daryl touches all the bases here. As her fans know so well, she has a special way with tributes, applying all her knowledge of the rich tradition of 20th Century American song, unearthing buried treasures, shedding new light on songs we thought we knew all about, crafting just the right setting for each gem, and finding just the right companions to take along on her journeys.

Jeepers Creepers, don't be a Lazybones and let Daryl Sherman take you to Johnny's Jazz Band Ball!!!

Dan Morgenstern March 2009

P. S. Dan admits that he has made good use of Philip Furia's excellent Skylark: The Life and Times of Johnny Mercer ( St. Martin 's Press, 2003).

THE CREDITS

Produced by: Daryl Sherman

Executive Producers: Rachel and Mat Domber for Arbors Records, Inc.

Recorded: September 15 and 16, 2008 at Nola Studios, NYC, except

Marian McPartland recorded September 8, 2008 at Manhattan Beach Studios, NYC
by Duke Markos and mixed by David Mitchell

Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by: Jim Czak and Bill Moss

Cover Photo and Design: Eric Stephen Jacobs

Special thanks to Steve Taksler, Johnny Mercer Educational Archives, www.JohnnyMercer.com

OTHER ARBORS RECORDINGS BY DARYL SHERMAN

Daryl Sherman: Guess Who’s In Town ARCD 19341

Daryl Sherman: Look What I Found ARCD 19154

Daryl Sherman and Dave McKenna: Jubilee ARCD 19224. **** Down Beat

Daryl Sherman: A Hundred Million Miracles: The Music of Richard Rodgers ARCD 19279