ALL MY FRIENDS ARE HERE Arif Mardin, one of the seminal recording producers of the past 40 years, must have lost count of the times his collaborators were brought up short by the recognition that he was also a brilliant musician. Dianne Reeves tells a typical story, or that moment (hers came when checking out the arranging credit on “Haunting,” from Carly Simon’s Boys in the Trees album) when this acknowledged studio wizard was revealed as something more. “I didn’t know,” she marvels in retrospect, “that he was a great composer.” As a jazz fan, I too had one of those Mardin moments, though mine was in reverse. It arrived when a friend sat me down to hear the Rascals album Once Upon a Dream, and I noticed the production credit. “Wait a minute,” I exclaimed, “this is the guy who has been recorded by Coleman Hawkins and Dizzy Gillespie. And he can produce pop records, too?” For me, Mardin was a known (if only partly-known) quantity, a young Turkish composer with a fascinating back-story whose work had quickly been championed by some of the greatest names in jazz. A native of Istanbul born in 1932, Mardin discovered American music by exploring his sisters’ record collection. By his teenage years, he was avidly reading Down Beat and Metronome and ordering cutting-edge bebop and Duke Ellington records from America. His interest had remained keen as he pursued business studies at Istanbul University and the London School of Economics. When the Dizzy Gillespie big band visited Turkey in 1956, Mardin was a 24-year-old fan who had written a few songs and arrangements. Meeting Gillespie and his straw boss, Quincy Jones, inspired the young businessman to share some of his early creations. A year later, he became the recipient of the first Quincy Jones Scholarship awarded by the then Berklee School of Music. It did not take the jazz world long to recognize Mardin’s nascent talent. During his matriculation at Berklee began, the International Youth Band had performed his precocious arrangement of the standard “Imagination” at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. Herb Pomeroy, one of Mardin’s Berklee professors, led a big band that recorded his challenging arrangements of classics by Gillespie and Billy Strayhorn. John Lewis, pianist and musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet, recorded Mardin compositions with his own group and the jazz/classical chamber ensemble Orchestra U.S.A., with such giants as Hawkins and Eric Dolphy as featured soloists. Gillespie himself included a Mardin original on the beyond-bebop side of the album Something Old, Something New. The Arif Mardin heard in these early efforts was a composer who could, and eventually did, write everything, including string quartets, operas and lieder. George Martin, another rare musician/producer, insists “Arif was capable of writing and scoring for any combination, from a symphony orchestra down to a penny whistle.” Mardin’s output was rooted in the cosmopolitan spirit of his Turkish homeland and a lifelong love of jazz. Impresario George Wein credits this love and Mardin’s roots in jazz music as the key to his pop success; Dianne Reeves once told him “In your heart, you’re a jazz musician.” Yet Mardin’s career trajectory changed once again. Nesuhi Ertegun, another Turkish expatriate who helped his brother Ahmet create the legendary Atlantic Records, had heard some of Mardin’s compositions at the School of Jazz in Lenox, Massachusetts in 1958. Nesuhi was responsible for Atlantic’s jazz projects, and hired Mardin as his assistant n 1963, a job that at first involved primarily administrative tasks as studio manager. It was not until a BMI awards dinner a short time later, when musical director King Curtis called upon Mardin to provide the evening’s arrangements, that the Atlantic brain trust had its version of the Mardin moment, a revelation that led to his appointment as house arranger, and ultimately producer. Working with producer Jerry Wexler and engineer Tom Dowd, Mardin became part of a legendary production unit; but, as Ahmet Ertegun emphasized, “Arif was the only person…who was a musician, and a great musician. And he was therefore irreplaceable.” In one of the interviews included in The Greatest Ears in Town, a documentary on Mardin’s life and the making of this album, Ertegun goes on to note that “Arif became one of the greatest producers of the 20th Century, and the only one I know who operated on many levels. Probably more than anyone else, he combined an understanding of American taste, American folk roots and great musical ability.” So Mardin became a key member of the Atlantic team, helping dozens of artists achieve popular success and finding precious little time for his own music in the process. Glass Onion, an orchestral take on pop hits, was a self-proclaimed “arranger’s showcase” recorded in 1968, and Journey included jazz-influenced original compositions from 1973-74. Mardin continued to write and record music for all manner of ensembles; but his constant success as a producer quickly eclipsed his fame as a great musician. It would be more than 30 years before the third Arif Mardin album began to take shape. All of which is background to All My Friends are Here, one of the most atmospheric, challenging and powerful projects of Mardin’s storied career. A project that had been gestating for years, it was begun in earnest as a response to the pancreatic cancer that claimed Mardin’s life in 2006, and was completed after his death with the invaluable assistance of his son Joe. As such, this collection of what Mardin also described as “weird songs and interesting lyrics” is a testament to both his own genius and that of many of the artists with whom he collaborated, fueled by his encyclopedic musical knowledge and his love of film noir. Beyond the joys of the individual tracks, the album confirms Mardin’s brilliance at portraiture. From the outset of his career, on tracks such as “The Stranger” (John Lewis, featuring Herb Pomeroy and Eric Dolphy) and “Duke Bey” (Orchestra U.S.A., featuring Coleman Hawkins), Mardin had a knack for crafting profiles in sound, then finding the perfect voice to bring these images to life. He took the process a step further here, as he made visual collages for each song that visualized the narratives; yet both music and lyrics, and the interpretations of this all-star assemblage, convey a precision that allows us to see the emotional underpinnings with our eyes closed. Some of the songs were written over the course of Mardin’s career, with “Longing for You” dating back to his days in Turkey. Both music and lyrics originated in 1955 (with Michael Margulies collaborating on the latter), when the Istanbul Radio Orchestra recorded the piece. Here, Mardin wrote an arrangement for jazz quintet, with a fitting allusion to the Gillespie/Parker/Sarah Vaughan version of “Lover Man” at the outset. Norah Jones, a relatively recent Mardin collaborator, calls this “the hardest song I ever sang,” yet she and the band capture the unrequited desire of the lyric perfectly. Jon Faddis’ muted trumpet and Joe Lovano’s tenor saxophone split a chorus, then pianist Lee Musiker takes four bars at the bridge before Jones returns. The music for “Dual Blues” was written while Mardin was a Berklee student, and originally functioned as a piano piece with each hand in a different key. The influence of Thelonious Monk is obvious and carries over to Mardin’s more recent lyrics, which also nod to Mardin’s preferred beverage. The film noir scenario, complete with a spoken section of which Mardin was especially proud, concerns an “under the covers” female detective who finds her suspect a bit too alluring. Amy Kohn, a young singer who Joe Mardin introduced to his father, nails the sleazy atmospherics, which are further enhanced by her accordion solo, Phillipe Saisse’s vibes, and pianist Rob Schwimmer’s theramin. Mardin wanted to include some younger musicians on this track, and specifically proposed the talented rhythm section of Schwimmer, bassist Ben Street and drummer Ben Perowsky. The composer wanted a seedy musical atmosphere to complement the lyrics, and the band delivers. “Chez Twang’s,” originally titled “Byarding” in tribute to multi-instrumentalist Jaki Byard, also originated during Mardin’s student years. The lyrics reflect both his love of New Orleans (with particular fondness for crime novelist James Lee Burke) and his disgust with America’s response to Hurricane Katrina, and the collage he created for this song juxtaposed photos of a traditional brass band and the flooded Ninth Ward. Dr. John, the ideal voice for such dualities, was advised by Mardin regarding his piano part, “Don’t go by the chords, float over them, be like Stravinsky.” He took the advice to heart, as did the musicians who comprise the unique jazz/funk/Zydeco ensemble, especially Jim Compilongo and his “twang noir” guitar. The main melodic stanza of “Goodbye to Rio” first appeared in 1963 as “This Lovely Feeling” on the aforementioned Gillespie album. Mardin added a bridge and the lyrics in 1998, while visiting the Brazilian city. Though originally conceived for piano, the piece translates seamlessly to a traditional bossa nova trio, thanks to the guitar, singing and trumpet-like vocalizing of Raul Midon, Mardin’s first artist signing in his final label affiliation at Manhattan Records. The sense of Rio as a metaphor for paradise irrevocably lost is captured both by Midon’s wistful vocal and an arrangement that testifies to Mardin’s perpetual openness to new ideas. “I learned not to crowd things from Norah Jones,” he noted at the time of this session, “so the strings are far away, almost nonexistent.” Willie Nelson’s track was a jam session on a Mardin blues line, recorded in 1973 when Mardin produced the sessions that yielded Shotgun Willie and The Troublemaker. The soloists include Jimmy Day on pedal steel guitar, Nelson on acoustic guitar and Mardin on Fender Rhodes keyboard (his only full-blown recorded keyboard solo). Both the Ellington-inspired horn section and the lyrics, sung by Saturday Night Live musical director Katreese Barnes, were added by Mardin over 30 years after the original recording. “Calls a Soft Voice” is the most emotionally naked track on the album. Mardin worked on it over a period of years in the 1990s as a reflection of his mother’s advancing senility, though when he presented the song to Carly Simon he described the character as a grandmother from the World War II era. “Wow, I really took something on,” Simon says of the piece. “It’s not like the music of anybody I’ve ever known, and is one of the most challenging melodies that I have ever sung; but somehow I became the woman who I now know was Arif’s mother.” While much credit is due longtime Mardin associate Steve Skinner, who collaborated on the arrangement and added programming that creates a ballroom atmosphere haunted by both nostalgia and menace, the primary triumph is Simon’s, whose vulnerability is, in the current vernacular, so not vain. “Wistful,” also written in the mid-nineties, is unaccompanied Mardin piano and a fitting benediction to the program. While not originally intended for inclusion in this collection, Joe Mardin convinced his father to both add it and perform it himself. Mardin was no keyboard virtuoso, but he knew how to voice, phrase and set a mood. (His terse electric piano introduction to “A Sunday Morning Feeling” from Journey is another example.) “So Blue,” with lyrics by Roxanne Seeman, went through several iterations over the course of a decade. It was the first track recorded for this collection, with Joe Mardin stepping in to supervise the tracking and instrumental sessions when Arif was hospitalized due to complications from his chemotherapy regimen. It features Chaka Khan, one of the artists closest to Mardin both professionally and personally, and once again finds a singer stretching herself beyond what many may consider her comfort zone. David Sanborn’s alto sax conveys the same depth of feeling. Mardin would later acknowledge that Khan’s and Sanborn’s riveting performance here “opened up the floodgates.” “No Way Out,” one of the last songs Mardin composed, is his take on the classic femme fatale, and was inspired by the Jack Lemon film How to Murder Your Wife. Joe Mardin also suggests that the lyrics reflect his father’s health struggles, with the singer as angel of death. Nicki Parrott, the Australian native who has been heard with a legion of jazz greats, including a weekly gig with the late Les Paul, handles both vocals and bass expertly, and the seductive flute commentary is by Jerry Dodgion. Mardin delivered the string arrangement to Joe the night before he passed away. Dianne Reeves describes “No One,” one of Mardin’s older melodies with lyrics by Margo Guryan, as “challenging like `Lush Life’ is challenging, with all of these very strange intervals.” Michael Leonhart’s trumpet and Robbie Kondor’s piano are perfect complements to Reeves’ ravishing interpretation. “So Many Nights” looks at longing from the male perspective, with cinema classics Laura and A Portrait of Jennie as admitted models. The track closest to what might be called an “art song,” it features a fittingly tormented vocal by Danny O’Keefe, whose 1973 hit “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues” was produced by Mardin, and a Mardin arrangement highlighted by Dianne Lesser’s mournful oboe. Joe Mardin emphasizes that the harmonic vocabulary and gentle orchestral drama of this piece capture the essence of his father. As the album neared completion, Mardin decided to create a vehicle for many of the other artists he had worked with over the years. So he wrote one final song, “All My Friends are Here,” and brought together members of the Average White Band, The Rascals, the Bee Gees, Hall & Oates, Boy Meets Girl, Phil Collins, David “Fathead” Newman and Donny Hathaway’s daughter Lalah Hathaway for a celebratory jam with echoes of the Meters and Stevie Wonder in Robbie Kondor’s clavinet. Mardin himself was planning to provide what his score called the “Sly bass voice,” but his illness forced him to cede the part to his son. Barry Gibb would eventually add the falsetto line “I’m gonna sing the top,” as specified by the composer. That leaves the affectionate and hilarious opening track, the only non-Mardin composition in the collection. Bette Midler insisted on contributing her own song, and together with longtime collaborator Marc Shaiman delivered what can serve as Mardin’s resume in song, “The Greatest Ears in Town.” With the big band era as template, the arranging team of Mardin pere and fils, plus the Polygraph Lounge duo of Rob Schwimmer and Mark Stewart manage to work in snippets of virtually every style that Mardin loved, including a bit of Turkish tinge. “Arif added the instrumental melody that he had written for the Bee Gees’ `Jive Talkin’ to the arrangement,” Joe explains. “He said, `I’m going to Middle Easternize it, and I want Barry [Gibb] to sing it,’” a part that Gibb could only add after Mardin’s passing. The in-studio dialogue among Mardin, Midler and Shaiman is essentially a reenactment of exchanges at sessions Mardin supervised, complete with his notorious studio catch phrase “Perfect! Try one more,” his gentlemanly way of telling an artist that another take was required. “It’s just things that were said over the years at Arif sessions,” according to Shaiman. “My main memory of working with him and Bette is laughter, laughter.” Mardin was dedicated to the music he made with all of his famous friends, but he was no less committed to his own muse. Over four decades of popular success, he snatched odd moments to mold his art, and the sonic images he preserved here serve as both a more complete gauge of Mardin’s gifts and an unabashed love letter to those with whom they were shared. It is this sense of unmitigated affection, suffusing every track of noir-tinged jazz, bitonal blues and sophisticated samba in this collection, that confirms the feelings Mardin elicited from all who knew him. Ahmet Ertegun noted that “Arif developed a sense of artist loyalty and friendship that few producers I know have ever done, because of his natural nobility,” and longtime friend George Wein adds that “I never knew anyone else who had such an aura of love around him.” That aura surrounds every note on this album, which proves, if proof were needed, that the man with the biggest ears also had the biggest heart. Bob Blumenthal 2009.