In April of this year, critically acclaimed clarinetist Mort Weiss celebrated his 80th birthday. Not quite two weeks before that big occasion, he celebrated another milestone: recording in New York with New York-based musicians for the first time in his most interesting career. Weiss traveled to Brooklyn to work at Systems Two, where he and the Don Friedman Trio romped and swung their way through the 13 songs (all standards except for the Weiss penned “Blues for Sandy”) that are captured on Mort Weiss Is a Jazz Reality Show, his 12th recording overall and his first in two years. That two year gap between recordings was marked by the sort of life changing events that led Weiss to title his album as he did. He had moved to rural Texas following the closing of his very successful Sheet Music Shoppe store in southern California but a few years after relocating, he and his wife, Jeanne, were diagnosed with cancer within five months of each other (both were treated successfully and are now cancer free). Jean filed for divorce after 40 years of marriage and Weiss had to sell the ranch that two had built. And in 2013 he found himself hospitalized due to some sudden, quite serious, health issues, detailed in the new album’s liner notes, which eventually convinced him to move this past January to the Washington, DC area, where his son Mike – a retired LAPD officer – now lives. That level of drama is nothing new to Weiss, of course, who only returned to playing jazz in 2001, after a forty-year self-imposed ‘hiatus’ which began in 1965 when his hedonistic lifestyle, together with a combination of drink and drug excesses brought him to a point where he found himself in jail, naked and alone. So he quit making music completely, resigned to working on the outskirts of the music business. Though his life certainly does have all the makings of a reality show, the hullabaloo that surrounds Weiss should in no way detract from the quality of music he’s been turning out. He is most certainly the oldest artist to have been named a “Rising Star Clarinetist” by Downbeat magazine, and his releases have received accolades from such media outlets as Allaboutjazz.com, which has featured numerous reviews of his work: “Weiss' approach on I'll Be Seeing You is the musical equivalent to what Salvador Dali did with the visual arts,” noted a review of that 2012 album. In his review of Raising the Bar (2002), writer San Chell said, “In terms of the language of jazz clarinet, Weiss appears not merely to have covered all aspects but to have both broadened and deepened the instrument's vocabulary and syntax.” Blogcritics called his return to music “triumphant,” and noted jazz journalist and author Scott Yanow stated in his All Music Guide review of The B3 and Me, "Clarinet-organ groups are far from common. In fact, prior to Mort Weiss' debut CD with organist Joey DeFrancesco, it is possible that combination had never been utilized before.” With praise such as that, it’s no wonder that Weiss has been able to attract such a high caliber of players – Joey DeFrancesco, Bill Cunliffe, Sam Most, Ramon Banda, Dave Carpenter, Roy McCurdy, and Luther Hughes among them – to join him on his recording adventures. Mort Weiss IS a Jazz Reality Show is no exception. He had known pianist Don Friedman for decades, and when he decided to record in New York, he reached out to his old pal, who still performed internationally with his trio while teaching in the jazz studies department of NYU. That two musicians who join Friedman in that group, bassist Phil Palombi and drummer Sinnosuke Takahasi, formed a core quartet with Weiss that propels the new album, which was recorded in one five hour session, to astonishing heights. Whether they are powering through “The Lamp is Low,” strolling easily along the romantic roads of “Body and Soul” and “Like Someone in Love,” or supporting Weiss’ vocal tribute to his daughter, Sandy (who committed suicide at only 32 years of age), on the album’s sole original track, “Blues for Sandy,” the quartet sounds as practiced as though they’d played together for years, rather than having met just before the session. The addition of guest clarinetist Michael Marcus (Bobby Blue Bland, Albert King, and the Cosmosamatics) is evidence of Weiss’ generosity of spirit and dedication to the music. And Carmella Randazzo, a vocal veteran of stage and screen, brings a jaunty sweetness to “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.” ABOUT MORT WEISS Clarinetist Mort Weiss’ prodigious musical gifts have been captured on a dozen recordings to date. That quantity of recordings is made considerably more impressive by the fact that all twelve albums were recorded over an equivalent span of twelve years, beginning in 2003 when Weiss was 68 years old. 2002, the year that marked Weiss return to recording, saw the release of a 2-CD set on Weiss’ own SMS Jazz label, No Place to Hide, on which he performed with guitarist Ron Eschete’. “Mort Weiss plays a highly personal, understated, silvery sounding clarinet. And Eschete’ is highly versatile with gorgeous harmonies and subtleties behind Weiss’s clarinet statements,” raved an early review in the Jazz Society of Oregon’s Jazz Scene newsletter. In 2003, he emerged as a leader in his own right, with The Mort Weiss Quartet (AKA Mort Weiss Meets Joey DeFrancesco). The critical response to those first two recordings provided ample evidence that the talents that Weiss had shelved for nearly forty years were as vital and dazzling as they’d been in the 1960s, when he’d last picked up his clarinet. According to jazz writer Scott Yanow, “Clarinet-organ groups are far from common. In fact, prior to Mort Weiss’ CD with organist Joey DeFrancesco, it is possible that combination had never been utilized before.” Yanow’s observation predicted Weiss’ penchant for rising to almost any musical challenge, one which has become a hallmark of his reinvigorated career. On ten of his recordings, Weiss has performed with a succession of renowned artists, including Bill Cunliffe, Sam Most, Ramon Banda, Dave Carpenter, Roy McCurdy, and Luther Hughes. He has also released two solo clarinet projects: Raising the Bar in 2010, and – in an outstanding departure from his be-bop roots – 2013’s A Giant Step Out and Back, on which he took the concept of ‘free jazz’ truly to heart. The album is all first takes, no edits, no rehearsals (and on one track no clarinet!), captured in a single five hour recording session. Something Else Reviews concluded that, “As a whole, A Giant Step Out And Back can confidently be named Weiss’ most daring work. At a time in his life where his peers are slowing down, playing it safe and retreading the same ground, he’s still looking for ways to extend his art to the outer limits.” His way with the spoken word, exhibited on that above-mentioned track (“Talkin’ about It”) is also evident in Weiss’ work as a writer, another talent that has come to fruition in Weiss’ ‘golden years.’ He has written 21 essays for the popular website All About Jazz, with titles ranging from A Brief History of Ragtime to 3/4 aka A Waltz through the Cosmic Thought Process to Love… Sorrow… Jazz… and Death, to the most widely read of all : Sex and the Jazz Musician: The Brutal Truth! Written between May 2012 and October 2014, Weiss’ articles have amassed over 200,000 views. He’s recently created video versions of some of these stream-of-consciousness pieces, which have been posted on his YouTube channel. Born in 1935 in Pennsylvania, Weiss began clarinet lessons when he was nine-years old. After moving with his family to Los Angeles, he continued playing classical music, and during his teens studied with the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra’s esteemed clarinetist, Antonio Remondi. After graduation and a year at the Westlake School of Music, the precocious teenaged Weiss soloed on several T.V. programs with the Freddie Martin Orchestra, a.k.a. “The Band of Tomorrow.” Weiss’ exposure to jazz began with Dixieland. But, when he first heard a Charlie Parker record, he was hooked. He frequented jazz clubs, participating in after-hours jam sessions, and spending many hours in the woodshed honing his craft. Bebop clarinetist Buddy DeFranco became his idol. At the age of 19, Weiss was drafted into the Armed Services and played tenor sax in the Army band. In the ten years following his discharge, there was a dearth of work for jazz clarinetists and the tenor saxophone became his bread and butter. Weiss’ life became lounges, minor jazz clubs, and work in R&B bands. Enter the 1960s. Travelling in the proverbial fast lane became a rapid trip down the wrong speedway. Weiss eventually found himself in jail, buck naked, his life in “total shambles,” playing the “wrong” instrument to support a dead-end life style. In that moment of clarity, Weiss decided to “put everything down, including playing music.” His love affair with his horn, that harshest of mistresses, was put on hiatus. Still, unable to disassociate himself from music completely, Weiss began working at a music store, and eventually opened his own store, The Sheet Music Shoppe which grew into the largest purveyor of printed music in Southern California. In the summer of 2001, Weiss read an advertising flyer that asked “Do You Want to Play Jazz?” The timing was perfect. It was enough to make him dust off his clarinet case, begin practicing, and soon invite guitarist Ron Eschete to jam. Their collaboration led to a recording session that became the 2-CD set No Place to Hide, the first release of Weiss’ own, newly created SMS Jazz label. He has since released an additional eleven albums.