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Larry Vuckovich
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- Calistoga, CA
- United States
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- What is your profession?
- Musician, songwriter, producer
- How did you find out about TGJN?
- JPL (Jazz Programmers List)
- About Me:
- San Francisco-based pianist Larry Vuckovich has played with many of the great jazz masters, from Dexter Gordon, Philly Joe Jones, Elvin Jones, Niels H. Orsted Pedersen to Bobby Hutcherson, Charlie Haden, Hein Van de Geyn, Tom Harrell, Charles McPherson, and others. Larry returned to New York in October, 2007, for the first time since he worked there at the top clubs, from 1985 to 1990, to present a quartet at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola and record with Marian McPartland for her NPR Piano Jazz show (air date: May, 2008).
His piano trio CD, Street Scene (Tetrachord Music, 2006), with its film noir flavor, featuring Larry Grenadier and Akira Tana with percussionists Hector Lugo and Vince Delgado on Latin Jazz selections, received top critical acclaim and placed #1 on XM Satellite Radio for six weeks and in the Top 10 of the JazzWeek and college radio jazz charts, remaining on the charts for four to five months. His current CD, to be released in June, 2008 on Tetrachord Music, is a followup to his previous film noir tribute, and includes two rhythm teams of Larry Grenadier with Eddie Marshall; and Paul Keller with Chuck McPherson, and includes appearances by percussionists Hector Lugo and Vince Delgado.
Larry Vuckovich is also a pioneer in world music jazz, after the 1980 release of his Blue Balkan LP on Inner City Records, featuring Bobby Hutcherson on vibes and marimba. and Erik Golub on violin. Gary Giddins in the Village Voice named his CD release of this recording, with additional new material, as one of the top CDs of 2002.
Larry Vuckovich, who was born in Yugoslavia, arrived in San Francisco in 1951, in his early teens, at the height of a flourishing jazz scene. Classically trained but an ardent jazz fan (thanks to Armed Forces radio), he began hanging out at clubs like the Black Hawk and the Jazz Workshop. Here he heard such greats as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bill Evans. At the Black Hawk he met Cal Tjader and Vince Guaraldi, who was Cal's pianist at the time. Larry later became Guaraldi's only piano student. During this period he was studying music at San Francisco State University where John Handy was a major influence on the school's jazz program. John brought visiting greats, including Milt Jackson, Rahsan Roland Kirk. Micky Roker, Bob Cranshaw, Larry Gales, and others, who, like John, performed with the students.
Larry began his professional career in 1959 with the legendary Lester Young inspired tenor saxophonist Brew Moore. He began subbing for Guaraldi in 1960 accompanying singers David Allyn, and Irene Kral. Around this time he also performed with John Handy and Monk Montgomery. In 1963 while accompanying Mel Torme he developed a close musical rapport with him and was his first call pianist in San Francisco.
Two years later, he began a 25-year association with vocalist and lyricist Jon Hendricks, appearing with him at major festivals and clubs around North America and Europe. He performed in Hendricks' long-running musical stage production, "Evolution of the Blues," and also appeared on two Hendricks recordings.
Besides touring with Hendricks, in the late '60s Larry led the house band at what was then Germany's top jazz club, The Domicile, in Munich. While there, he backed visiting jazz musicians, including Lucky Thompson, Slide Hampton, Pony Poindexter, Clifford Jordan, and Dusko Goykovich. Larry was a member of Dusko's International Quintet, recording a live album at the Domicle. It was also at the Domicile, where he worked with master drummer Philly Joe Jones, with whom he went on to tour Europe. He also performed with Dexter Gordon in Austria and in Copenhagen at the famous Montmartre jazz club.
Later in the '70s Larry worked with Philly Joe again in San Francisco as house pianist for five years at Keystone Korner. He also worked there with jazz masters Arnett Cobb, Buddy Tate, Charles McPherson, Leon Thomas, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, and Scott Hamilton until the club closed in 1983. A CD released on Savant Records featuring "Cleanhead" Vinson, recorded live at Keystone Korner, includes a rhythm section of Larry Vuckovich with James Leary and Eddie Marshall.
Two years later, Larry moved to New York where he appeared at major jazz clubs, including the Village Vanguard, the Blue Note, Bradley's Zinno, West End, Hanratty's, and others. Some of his musical associations there included Billy Higgins, Cecil Payne, Al Cohn, Curtis Fuller, Milt Hinton, Mel Lewis, Michael Moore, Tom Harrell, and Charles McPherson (the latter two have appeared on Larry's CDs). During his five years in New York, he received excellent reviews from the New York Times and the Village Voice from such critics as John S. Wilson, Jon Pareles, and Gary Giddins.
In 1990, Larry returned to San Francisco where he is one of the mainstays of the jazz scene. Fans remember his years as house pianist at Club 36, Grand Hyatt Hotel, where he presented top jazz programs with world-class musicians. He was also music director for the West Coast Jazz Festival and Napa Valley Jazz Festival, and has appeared numerous times at Monterey, San Francisco, Sonoma and San Jose jazz festivals. His Young At Heart Ensemble, a tribute band to Pres, Basie and Bird, featuring former Basie drummer Harold Jones, was a hit at the San Francisco Jazz Festival honoring critic Phil Elwood. His CD "Reunion" with Jon Hendricks, featuring the Young At Heart Ensemble, with guests John Santos and Orestes Vilato on Latin Jazz selections, received heavy airplay, reaching the Top 25 on national jazz charts.
He appears at major San Francisco venues such as, Yoshi's and Jazz at Pearl's, and in concerts at the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Herbst Theater and Palo Alto Jazz Alliance. Larry presented a successful piano clinic on the styles of Bill Evans, Erroll Garner, Bud Powell, and Red Garland at the 2005 IAJE convention in Long Beach. His outstanding trio, including Isla Eckinger on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums, received a standing ovation.
Larry recently was honored for his many years contributing to San Francisco's rich jazz scene. He had a special day named for him on his birthday, December 8, 2007, and was honored as a jazz pioneer at the new Fillmore Jazz Heritage Center, opened in November, 2007, housing a second location for the famed Yoshi's jazz night club, and signifying a rebirth of an area that was once the epicenter of Bay Area jazz.
Larry lives in Calistoga in Napa Valley, California, with his wife, Sanna Craig (who is a vocalist, percussionist, producer, and co-partner in their label, Tetrachord Music). He has a son Alexi who is a talented young classical and jazz pianist, and a stepson jazz guitarist Josh Workman. Larry also appears at jazz venues in Napa Valley, including the two major concert halls, The Napa Valley Opera House and COPIA . He appears in Napa Valley regularly with top Bay Area instrumentalists and vocalists including his own ensembles, such as, Blue Balkan, Young At Heart, and La Orquesta El Vuko.
- Website:
- http://www.larryvuckovich.com
About
The thing that is making jazz healthy today is that people are coming out of other backgrounds - from rock, folk, from ethnic music. It's changing the music, and for the better.~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Billy Taylor
Dear Tamm E:
Just a note to tell you that it is nice to read about you!!!
You share so much great info about others and about the music, but nice to know that you are WAILIN' yourself and getting appreciation!!
Global Jazz Network is a really important way for all of us to keep hooked up and informed and to SLOWLY BUT SURELY SPREAD THE MESSAGE AND THE PHILOSOPHY of what Jazz is in its many different forms and what the styles are/is all about.
Just played for Paquito's honoring and received gold medal
John Faddis, save Brubeck, James moody and a bunch of KILLER YOUNG players and we all played and spoke about Paquito and jazz and all fine music
and Roberta Gamborini, who was excellent.
wish you had been there!
Through you, Donald Harrison hooked me up with Pittsburgh Jazz info and I feel like i am living there just reading about all the great happenings.
As Fall is here, I am back to my normal insane schedule, but wanted to write you back BEFORE The STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS goes into effect. I am my own secretary, so I am dedicated but SLOW!
And I can't fire myself as my own secretary or I might get hit with an Age Discrimination Lawsuit (in case I decided to sue myself for clerical incompetence).
As of this moment, a new documentary film is being made about me, to be released a few months after my 80th birthday, which is coming up next year Nov. 17, 2010. (12 months from now).
The film will end with the videoing of the big 80th birthday bash at Symphony Space in NYC and then have snippets of films from the past, with all kinds of fun stuff from the 50's thru today.
It will be called "David Amram: The First 80 Years"
Fortunately, I don't have to edit the hundreds of hours of footage or do new music the score, since the film maker, Larry Kraman is also the founder of Newport Classics recordings and knows all my symphonic as well as operatic, theater, film and jazz and world music work, so I am in good hands!!
The same people at Newport Classics Recordings are also making a Spoken Word series for I-Tunes, with me reading from my three books Vibrations, Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac and Upbeat: Nine Lives of a Musical Cat.
And they are also recording some of my chamber music compositions and a new jazz record,
Next Spring my opera "12th Night", with libretto by Joe Papp (all words of Shakespeare), is having its eighth production and being FILMED!! Even most dead composers aren't that lucky!!!
This last five weeks I have appeared all over the country at concerts of my music, conducting and playing, doing spoken word with music, jazz, folk and world music festivals, film festivals and readings from my books.
Just the first week of October, I played Lowell Celebrates Kerouac festival in Lowell Mass, then the at midnight , following my last concert there , drove all night to Lagaurda Airport to catch the early Sunday mornng flight for the annual Farm Aid Concert in St Louis, where i played with Willie Nelson's band. The next morning (Monday the 5th , I flew bck to NYC in tme for my monthly concert at Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village.
The next night (Tuesday the 6th) the memorial at Symphony Space for Frank Mccourt, and the next day Wednesday the 7th) the celebration of the new authorized biography of Thelonious Monk with members of his family and musicians I have known since I first arrived in NYC in 1955!!
The 11th i flew off to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates,( i got at least get a few hours sleep) and tried to catch up on over 200 e-mails during the 13 hour flight, before arriving there and performing a concert of global music in conjunction with the score I composed for Teri McLuhan's new documentary feature film The Frontier Ghandi.
Then back in the USA in time to do programs centered around a performance of my Saxophone concerto Ode to Lord Buckley, in Loudoun Virginia ..
Then I went off to Toronto Nov 1st for a concert and appearance at the Diaspora Film Festival .
Now i am back at home hiding out composing and writing!
I am starting my fourth book "David Amram: The First 80 Years", (the same name as the new doc film being made about me), which will be finished at the end of next year and will end, like the film, with the monstro birthday bash concert for my Big 80... 12 months from now....(Nov 17 2010) in New York.
And every day, still finding time to continue composing a new orchestral work, having been doing it while on the run, and now every minute when I can hide out at the Farm in between travels.
And performing whenever possible with my three kids, each of whom have their own bands.
So as the BIG 80 approaches twelve months from now, (2010) while I may be still shy, I am not yet the retiring type.
Most of my ever-changing my schedule info. when i can get my elderly secretary (unfortunately myself) to type it up, is posted on my web page www.davidamram.com under Upcoming Events.
And my e-mail amramdavid@aol.com is always the best way to reach me as I carry my laptop with me everywhere, and Facebook, MySpace, etc., is hard to deal with and not always reliable!
You might find it fun to access an old performance of my 1971 Rondo a la Turca on the Internet for FREE!!!
The person who is conducting the Chicago Symphony and playing the middle eastern flute (who looks like my grandson) is actually a much younger looking me in 1977, recording for a PBS network TV show about my music. Pepper Adams and Jerry Dodgion are also playing.
In 1977, most of members of the Chicago Symphony who appear on the recording of this performance had never heard, much less ever played, very much music from the Middle East, and since I write everything out on paper accurately to indicate the way it should be played, that's what they were playing, and they actually began to sound like the Radio Beirut Orchestra, and suddenly as the piece went on, they started feeling something different than they had ever felt before, as they played.
It is really fun to watch their faces as they started getting ingo the old time magical groove that Middle eastern music creates and takes you into.
During the first few minutes of the piece, you can see the musicians all playing up a storm but looking as if they were thinking that I was an alien from another planet in outer space, and had brought some extra terrestrial music with me for them to play.
And then as the piece progresses, you can see, as well as hear, that by the end of the piece, the idiom of this music got them excited enough to be actually enjoying playing it!!
And playing it really well!
That's what music, like film, novels, poetry, painting, dance, language and good HOME COOKING does for all of us.
It takes you to that place from where it comes, and makes you feel that you now have a new home in a new part of the world.
I send cheers from that endless road and wish you joy and energy for all you do
David
I was just saying that you knocked this out of the park with TGJN. We have needed something like this for so long and I am telling my friends about this. I said that it is sort of like a myspace for jazz but it is actually so much more. This is real. The people here truly love jazz and we know people like that are not your average people.
I have felt for a long time that straight-ahead jazz has been slipping away from us. I have hope now that there will be a resurgence (or shall I say an insurgency:-) to bring this baby back full force!
You just knocked it out of the park. Thanks again.
xoxo,
Janie
Music
Events
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Mel Brown Quartet
March 25, 2009 at 8pm to March 27, 2013 at 11pm – Jimmy Mak's
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New CD release
December 14, 2009 at 1pm to January 1, 2010 at 1pm – My Website
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Lezlie Harrison and Saul Rubin Two-gether
December 28, 2009 from 12pm to 9pm – The Zinc Bar
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THE LADIES SOCIAL CLUB-New Year's Eve Party!
December 31, 2009 at 7:30pm to January 1, 2010 at 1:30am – Clarion Hotel
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BACK ALLEY PLAYERS@NUYORICAN POETS CAFE
January 2, 2010 from 9pm to 11pm – NUYORICAN POETS CAFE
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BACK ALLEY PLAYERS@NUYORICAN POETS CAFE
January 2, 2010 from 9pm to 11pm – NUYORICAN POETS CAFE
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Tish Oney - The Peggy Lee Project
January 8, 2010 from 9:45pm to 11pm – The Metropolitan Room
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Tish Oney
January 9, 2010 from 7:15pm to 7:30pm – Hilton Hotel - New York Suite
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Tish Oney - The Peggy Lee Project
January 9, 2010 from 10pm to 10:15pm – Hilton Hotel - Beekman Suite
Birthdays
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Comment Wall (12 comments)
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Mark
All the best,
Larry
Lady Haig
Djinn
Join us at WeBiKons, love
Thank you for your encouraging words.
Welcome to TGJN!
Please tell the world of Jazz what's going on over here.
Tamm E
Greetings!
Somehow I feel that our paths have crossed after visiting your website and reading "About Me."
In 1960, when my husband Al Haig was appearing with the Six Magic Violinists from Argentina, at the newly renovated Palm Court at The Sheraton Palace, we did go over to Sauscilito to visit with Brew Moore who was appearing there in June, as was Dodo Marmarosa...and Miles Davis was at the barely one year old - Black Hawk over on 200 Hyde Street.
When I saw Eddie Clean Head Vinson's magic face over on your website I had to get myself already to sing you a tune he wrote that has been attributed to Miles Davis and a tune I tried to mime after my favorite singer, at the time, Al's too, but it was always really Sarah (Sassy)...but it's me, Lady Haig trying to do tribute to truly my favorite tune: Ready?
FOUR
I've got my white doeskin gloves right up to my elbows,
My pearls are long.
There's not one boy for me -
I must have two or three,
I need Four
First, the man who's the type to like slippers and pipe at the door..
The if at all possible I'd like the kind
Who's not very bossable
But knows his mind.
If you add to these few
one that knows how to woo dogpatch style
Then this man of my world will be spangled and pearled with his smile
And though it's incredible
I've found it's true
That my four and one more is nobody else but you.
Grange "Lady Haig" Rutan - Author
Death of a Bebop Wife: Biography of AL HAIG
Cadence Jazz Books
www.ladyhaig.com
alhaigbebop@aol.com
www.myspace.com/grangeladyhaigrutan
Mark
Hey Mike - good to hear from you. Sanna and I appreciate all the great attention you gave my last CD, "Street Scene". I have a follow-up recording, with a similar "film noir" focus, to be released in June. Larry Grenadier returns for half the CD, with Eddie Marshall. Jon Hendricks is writing lyrics for one of my originals on it. I'll send you a copy.
Best, Larry
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