Fourth of July

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THE FOURTH OF JULY was recorded in NYC in two sessions.  The first on the 7th of December 1990 and the second on February 7, 1991.  I had made recordings of my music before, but the tunes on this Cd were from a period when I was traveling in Jazz, cabaret, and musical theatre circles.  I got some free studio time at The Center For The Media Arts in Manhattan and I had wanted to hear these four tunes, so Viola! 

The musicians are top notch.  I had known Gerry Niewood and Bob Devos since the late seventies, having done gigs with both of them with my Octet at the, now defunct, upper West Side jazz club “Eric's”. I always will regret not having brought into the studio that ensemble of fine players which consisted of Lew Soloff, Barry Rogers, Lawrence Feldman, Arnie Snitzer,  Billy Mintz and myself.  We enjoyed almost weekly sessions for about a year in the late 1970’s.  We played at my large rented apartment within this large Victorian house in Richmond Hill, Queens.

I left New York City in 1978 for a teaching position at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY.  Thus began my love affair with upstate New York and its wealth of natural beauty.  A new town and new musical associations  lead me to write my first musical theatre piece - “Graffiti”.  That theatre experience and a vast array of personal circumstances brought me to this recording session more than ten years later, having returned to New York City in 1984.

I had met the talented drummer Ron Davis back in the late 1980’s when I began to revive the octet project.  We had been doing jazz gigs and club dates together for several years.  Ron passed away in 1996. I’m not sure he ever heard a recording of this session.  I think, you’ll agree, he sounds great.  I hope he would have been proud of our playing effort.

John Ray and Scott Coley share the Bass chairs - both superbly.  Bob Devos has become a recognized Guitar jazz virtuoso since this 1991 session and Gerry Niewood’s credits as a Saxophonist are far too numerous to explore within the structure of these program notes.

The music on this CD varies from cool jazz that gets hotter and hotter like on “Soliloquy” and “Like A Flower” to vocal jazz where there are plenty of instrumental solos to go around.  Even a spanish lyric to “Vida” which also happens to appear as the principal theme in the 3rd movement of my Alto Saxophone concerto.  You can check that piece out on my “Mr. Heckendorn’s Opus” CD played by none other than Gerry Niewood.

“It All Happens To You”, “Why Not?”, and “I Feel Just Fine” also appear in my most recent musical theatre piece “I Thought forever meant Forever”. The other tunes: ”The Fourth Of July”, “Pretty Lover”, “Broken Dream”,”Love Friend”, and “A Long Time Ago” are all stories unto themselves.  The Fourth Of July is fun and so was the making of this CD. I hope you enjoy it.

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Musicians

David Heckendorn: Vocals, Piano
Gerry Niewood: Flute, Soprano, Alto, Tenor Saxophone
Bob Devos: Guitar
Scott Colie: Bass (on the 2/7/91 session)
John Ray: Bass (on the 12/7/90 session)
Ron Davis: Drum

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