Jersey Jazz - New Jersey Jazz Society

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Hail to the Chief
Former NJJS president Andrea Tyson was
recognized for her four years of service at
the helm of the organization with the presentation
of a ceremonial gavel at a recent Society Board
meeting. The diminutive Ms. Tyson stood tall
during her terms as president and was known
to often bring a rambling board meeting back
to business with a well-placed rap of the gavel.
Asked to reflect on her time leading the organization
she said, “Let’s see…highlights…I started
to reach out to venues across the state and started
the venue lobby sitting process and free ticket
giveaway relationships that we now have in place.
I reached out to special people to join the board
and started the monthly membership meetings
(now called Jazz Socials). I guess with those new
active Board people we stopped losing members
and began to increase membership.”
Perhaps her favorite memory of many years of
involvement with the NJJS was the 1988 50th
Anniversary Concert of Benny Goodman’s historic
1938 Carnegie Hall performance where she was,
“Front and Center! I think Don and Mary
Robertson were in charge of ticket distribution
at that time. What a view I had! It was like the
opening night of a Broadway show! “
Andi continues to serve as a Board member is
currently Chair of the Education Committee. JJ
Photo by Frank Mulvaney
Sitting in with Stan Getz
And bowing Papa Haydn
By Hanne Ingerslev
COPENHAGEN — When
Jersey Jazz’s international
editor Fradley Garner
moved to Denmark
and became a freelance
writer in 1960, he
brought along the
plywood Kaye bass he
bought new for $175 in
Newark, after he came
home from Korea and
out of the Army in fall
1946. The same bass he
took to college the next
year, and sometimes
carted on his motor
scooter to jam sessions
in the late 1950s in
lower Manhattan lofts.
Frad’s original plan was
to open a jazz venue in
Copenhagen where he Fradley Garner, right, with bass section leader Ture Damhus, after a
could sit in, and he Haydn concert in Copenhagen-Gladsaxe. Photo by Hanne Ingerslev.
came close to taking a
share in the then closed Jazzhus Montmartre. But he had only $2,000 in the bank
and, newly married, decided to set himself up as a foreign correspondent instead.
“That proved to be a wise decision,” says Fradley.
The Montmartre, a mecca for expats, became home in the 1960s through the mid-
’70s for giants like Ben Webster, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon and Kenny Drew.
Financially strapped by the giants’ wages and forced to close for a generation, the
club has just been reopened —May 1, at the same inner city location. Niels Lan
Doky, 46, a world-class Danish-Vietnamese pianist and composer, and a brave
entrepreneur friend, Rune Bech, plan to run it as a non-profit organization.
Fradley, at first self-taught and still an amateur, had played in the Army’s 24th
Corps swing band in Seoul with Miller, Dorsey and Goodman alumni, and in the
27th Special Service Co. in pit bands for visiting USO shows touring Korea. He likes
to tell about sitting in with Stan Getz one night when the combo’s bassist didn’t
show up for a set at the Royal Roost on Broadway. He finally decided to learn the
instrument in Denmark, where he has taken classical lessons for over two decades
with the Norwegian-American teacher Tina Austad.
Frad has played in several amateur symphonies in Greater Copenhagen. Earlier this
season, as every year since 1992, he drove bass, bow and kitchen stool to rehearsals
and a concert of three Joseph Haydn works in the Gladsaxe-Haydn Orkester. “Not
my original bass, which I sold to the flutist,” says the old redhead, “but a new one
made in Romania. It’s putting on weight—every year it gets harder to schlep.” JJ
Hanne Ingerslev is a freelance writer, photographer and painter north of Copenhagen.
Her “Dreamscape” art and cloud photos can be seen at www.cloudappreciationsociety.org.
May 2010
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