In Love With Voices: A Jazz Memoir [Paperback] Review

Over the course of a 30-plus year career in music, Brian Torff has performed with some of the greatest jazz talents of the past century.His new memoir, In Love with Voices, provides us with a rich first-hand recollection of learning the art form from many of those artists, while at the same time lamenting the gradual disappearance of an era when young players learned the improvisational genre from the masters live on the bandstand.

Starting in his early 20s, Torff connected with some very famous names: Frank Sinatra, who once in his inimitable style said of Torff, ¡§the kid is playing some pretty groovy notes¡¨; Mel Torme, the smooth-singing tenor nicknamed ¡§the Velvet Fog¡¨ who is widely remembered for writing ¡§the Christmas Song¡¨ (Chestnuts Roasting by an Open Fire); George Shearing, the pianist whose 300-plus compositions include Lullaby of Birdland; Marian McPartland, the grande dame of jazz piano who still hosts the weekly feature Piano Jazz on National Public Radio; and Stephane Grapelli, the gypsy violinist who with his guitarist contempory Django Reinhardt was one of the leading stars of the French ¡§hot house¡¨ jazz scene during and after World War II.

Torff succeeded in connecting at an early age with established artists through a combination of basic hard work and a knack for spotting opportunity and seizing the moment.He displayed that opportunism in the 1970s by dropping in on a rehearsal of Oliver Nelson¡¦s big band at the Bottom Line in New York¡¦s Greenwich Village.Watching the bass player get up and leave in the middle of the session (to watch a soap opera, it turned out), Torff summoned up his courage and asked Nelson if he could sit in, literally sprinting back to his apartment to grab his bass when Nelson assented.Impressed by Torff¡¦s talent and his hunger, Nelson fired the old bass player and hired Torff to play starting that night.

In this candid and introspective book, Torff opens up his past to reveal the people and events that shaped him both as a musician and as a person.Growing up in the quiet Chicago suburb of Hinsdale in the 1950s and 1960s, Torff¡¦s family seemed to live the typical American dream on the surface.He grew gradually distant from his father, Selwyn Torff, however, a successful Chicago lawyer given to mood swings and bouts of anger, while his mother Bev, a bright and progressive woman and former writer for Time magazine, looked on somewhat helplessly, occasionally breaking the tension with a bit of humor: ¡§I have only two hands, and I¡¦m busy wringing both of them.¡¨Dealing with the tension by becoming withdrawn and avoiding confrontation, Torff questions whether this behavior may have come to cost him in future relationships.In later chapters he delves into the strains on relationships inherent in spending months on the road as a musician.

But as Torff notes, for many a career in music is not a choice; it¡¦s ¡§a calling with such a strong pull, you¡¦d think a tide was sucking you under.¡¨Upon high school graduation in 1972 he was off to study, first at Berklee and then Manhattan schools of music, and to begin a career of live performance.

Rising quickly to the pinnacle of jazz, it¡¦s clear that Torff had more than just innate talent working in his favor.The picture that emerges from ¡§In Love with Voices¡¨ is of a voracious learner with a dedicated work ethic, an ability to connect with various musicians through a pleasant and sometimes humorous and self-effacing manner, the gumption to step up and introduce himself to famous players and ask for the opportunity to sit in, and the resilience early on to take his knocks when he committed a ¡§musical slaughter,¡¨ in his words, and go back to the practice room to work it out.

There were many mentors along the way.At age 20, a music school friend suggested he get to know Milt Hinton, a giant of the jazz bass who had played with Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Count Basie and others and once drove a van for Chicago gangster Al Capone.Hinton welcomed Torff into his home, where they played duets, and by the end of the evening Hinton had arranged for Torff to go on tour with Cleo Laine, with the first performance scheduled for Carnegie Hall.

Also formative in Torff¡¦s musical development was Mary Lou Williams, a legendary pianist/composer and pioneer woman in jazz whose Harlem apartment over the years had served as a salon to such jazz greats as Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker (Bird), among others.A stern task master with extremely high standards, Williams would temper occasional praise for Torff¡¦s playing with eviscerating criticism when she was disappointed.Her self-professed goal was to save jazz, a part of her people¡¦s heritage, from the ravages of commercial music, with the greatest threat being that young musicians didn¡¦t know how to play with feeling.¡§I was taught about more than merely the notes on the page; she made me fully aware of the feeling and soul it takes to play jazz.I can never repay her for that,¡¨ Torff writes.

As a music professor at Fairfield University in Connecticut, Torff worries deeply about the future of jazz as an art form.Not only have we lost the tradition of young musicians learning from the masters on the bandstand, but electronic listening devices and instruments have changed the entire way a generation listens to music, with improvisational forms like jazz being the casualties.Young music students today ¡§have no frame of reference,¡¨ Torff told me in a recent phone conversation.

Torff¡¦s charm and self-effacing sense of humor are sprinkled throughout the book.During the Reagan administration, Torff and George Shearing were invited to dine and perform at the White House.Afterward, President Reagan praised Torff¡¦s playing, and said, ¡§I always thought the bass was an instrument you either slapped or sawed in half.¡¨Standing behind the president, Torff grimaced at the hackneyed joke, an expression captured by an alert wire service photographer.Torff speculated that the result would be a lifetime of IRS audits, while also fearing that if his liberal political leanings were unveiled, he would be thrown with his bass out onto the White House lawn, creating an event destined to become part of future White House tour legend.

Jazz fans will enjoy In Love with Voices for Torff¡¦s vivid retelling of time spent with these masters of jazz and the lessons they imparted.Well done!

ÞJohn Reilly

John Reilly, a Boston communications executive and former newspaper reporter, grew up with Brian Torff in Hinsdale, Illinois, where the two of them spent countless hours playing waffle ball, sharing bench time on an undefeated junior high school basketball team, and rooting for the Chicago Cubs.They still hold out hope for a World Series victory for the northsiders.

Click Here to see more reviews about: In Love With Voices: A Jazz Memoir [Paperback]

Product Description:
"A career in music ... is a calling with such a strong pull; you'd think a tide was sucking you under. It becomes an intense obsession of such great intensity that you can almost think of nothing else, it drives you with a fever and fervor."In the early 70s, an idealistic young man - Brian Torff - arrived in New York to pursue his passion for music. During an excursion to Long Island, Brian found his dream instrument: a 1775 re-built Nicola Galliano bass.Such was the beginning of a career that led Torff from Cafe Carlyle to Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the White House. He has toured worldwide with the greatest: from Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, George Shearing, and Erroll Garner to Stephane Grappelli, Benny Goodman, Mary Lou Williams, and Marian McPartland.As Brian notes, "bass players do a lot of observing from the back of the bandstand." It is this supportive role that qualifies Torff to share his insight into jazz music, and its many personalities. Torff takes us beyond the music by adding depth with his vision of American music, and paints vivid portraits of the musicians with whom he played. Torff's memoir is one of creativity, and determination mixed with timing, and plain good luck. His sharp narrative not only brings the legends of jazz to life, but reading about them here will certainly motivate you to add some music to your collection.

Buy cheap In Love With Voices: A Jazz Memoir [Paperback] now