Mike Zwerin, jazz journalist, musician, bon vivant dies at 79

A trombonist in Miles Davis’ Birth of the Cool band,Â memoirist whoseÂ The Parisian Jazz ChroniclesÂ set a standard for wit and candor in self-examination, andÂ writer for the International Herald Tribune and Bloomberg News, Mike Zwerin diedÂ April 2 in Paris, where he’d lived since 1969. Recipient in 2009 of the Jazz Journalists Association’s Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism Award, Mike was an inspiration ever since I read his reports from the jazz scene in the Village Voice in the 1960s, and I’m glad to say I got to know him as a friend.

Zwerin typically brought a light but penetrating touch to portraits, interviews and reviews he penned as a journalist covering mostly American vernacular artists but really whoever he was sent to hear (except what he called “serious music”) from his enviable post in the most sophisticated of European capitals. He was interested in everybody from Astor Piazzolla to Stevie Wonder, never pulled rank or pretense, and had such explicit jazz ways that, as he wrote in the preface to The Parisian Jazz Chronicles (published by Yale University Press in 2005,Â which I suggested he title “The International Herald Trombone”) Â –Â

I have overdubbed the book’s subjects . . . with “improvisations” consisting of interludes, modulations, tangents, introductions, codas, the running of changes, and shock-cuts leading to images of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. . .

Among his other books, La Tristesse de Saint Louis (reprinted as Swing Under The Nazis: Jazz as a Metaphor for Freedom) and Round About Close To Midnight: The Jazz Writings of Boris VianÂ (he edited and translated Vian’s post-WWII critiques) were equally personal, though in a sometimes oblique way. He also wrote The Silent Sound of NeedlesÂ (about drug rehabilitation), A Case for the Balkanization of Practically Everyone (about small European countries) some text to Jazz in L.A., a book evidently featuring the photos of Bob Willoughby, a book that’s exceedingly rare; I’ve never seen it, and Amazon offers a paperback of it, new, for $1032.46.

Of Mike’s musical legacy, it will always be recalled that Miles Davis walked up to the teenage trombonist and said, “I like your sound,” a high compliment indeed. Mike soloed on a live version of “Move” fromÂ The Birth of the Cool repertoireÂ but has little exposure within the tentet arrangements on the famous Capitol recording.

It’s not as well known that Mike toured Russia with Earl “Fatha” Hines under US State Department auspices, recorded with Michel Petrucciani, Archie Shepp and, on an album led by Alexis Korner, Eric Clapton, and wasÂ producer, arranger, director and bass trumpeter for Mack the Knife: The Sextet of Orchestra USA Plays Jazz Versions of the Berlin Theater Music of Kurt Weill (recorded in 1966, featuring Thad Jones, Eric Dolphy and John Lewis among an all-star cast). He worked with poet Ted Joans and produced an amusing album titled Gettin’ X-Perimental Over U in 1996, which includes hip-hop touches and processing along with some lovely, relaxed straightahead cuts. These pieces are all posted at his websiteÂ — along with a generous sampling of his articles — but are otherwise not readily available.

Also from the preface of Chronicles:

Mike [as he used the 3rd person to get a little distance] is a misfit, addicted to margins, a dreamer, something of a jerk, innocent in the ways of the world. Although he traveled widely, learned a lot, and had good luck along the way, he was the type of person who always expected worse-case scenarios=. He could not find meaning in a life without drugs. Our heartwarming story is about Mike’s heroic, uphill, ultimately victorious battle for sobriety and fulfillment.

It’s gratifying Zwerin felt he was “ultimatelyÂ victorious.” He was very proud of his son Ben, a bassist who picked up his dad’s Lifetime Achievement Award Â (presented by Mike’s pal Rafi Zabor, author of The Bear Comes Home) at the Jazz Standard last June. I was sorry he couldn’t be there, but his illness made travel problematic.

Well, thanks for the companionship, Mike. It was fun and I wish I’d met you sooner so I could have enjoyed hanging out with you longer. But I was reading you all the while, so that was something. Quite something. . .

howardmandel.com
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