Instruments Clarinet Record label Sms Jazz Labels SMS Jazz Associated acts Joey DeFrancesco | Name Mort Weiss Genres Jazz, Bebop Role Music performer | |
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Albums A Giant Step Out and Back, The B3 and Me, I'll Be Seeing You, Mort Weiss Is a Jazz Reality Show, The Three of Us Similar People Sam Most, Don Friedman, Ron Eschete, Bill Cunliffe, Joey DeFrancesco | ||
Mort weiss sam most with a song in my heart
Mort Weiss is a bebop oriented clarinet player with five albums as leader to date. On his first album as leader he performed with Joey DeFrancesco on the Hammond B3 organ, featured also on his second album B3 and Me (recorded in 2003 but not released until 2006). According to Scott Yanow, "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."
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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. In 2003, he emerged as a leader in his own right, with The Mort Weiss Quartet (AKA Mort Wiess 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 a.k.a. 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 162,000 views. He’s currently in the process of creating video versions of some of these stream-of-consciousness pieces, which will be posted on his YouTube channel.
Born in April, 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 teenage 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 release that launched Weiss'SMS Jazz label.