In the 1970s and '80s, pianist/vocalist/composer Bob Dorough was Music Director of Schoolhouse Rock!, a three-minute vignette aired by ABC Television as part of its Saturday morning cartoons. Dorough wrote songs about mathematics, grammar, history, and civics with titles such as "My Hero Zero", "Three is a Magic Number", "Conjunction Junction", and "Sufferin' Til Suffrage".
Through his connections in the music business, he was able to recruit other well-known musicians to get involved with some of the songs. Vocalist Blossom Dearie sang "Figure Eight" and "Unpack Your Adjectives," and pianist/vocalist/composer Dave Frishberg wrote "I'm Just a Bill" about the legislative process.
On Sunday afternoon, January 7, pianist/vocalist Daryl Sherman and bassist/vocalist Jay Leonhart will pay tribute to Dorough, Dearie, and Frishberg at the New Jersey Jazz Society's Jersey Jazz LIVE! concert at the Madison Community Arts Center. They will be reprising a similar tribute performed last August at Birdland in New York City.
Leonhart says he connected with the whimsical writing style of Dave Frishberg.
"Frishberg was the main influence for me to go ahead and write stuff. He didn't say anything to me. Here's a jazz piano player who I played with a lot who was writing all these wonderful songs and I said I'm going to try that."
Leonhart has played with a who's who of the jazz and pop world. Among the vocalists he accompanied were Judy Garland, Peggy Lee, and Mel Torme, and he has shared the bandstand with jazz legends such as Duke Ellington, Thad Jones, and Marian McPartland.
Daryl Sherman says she feel Blossom Dearie is the connecting thread between Frishberg and Dorough.
"I met both men before I met Blossom. I got to know Bob's work best of all because he was regularly on Sundays at Iridium. He was playing his own songs, playing standards and doing his most famous and still popular tunes from School House Rock!"
Sherman has been part of the New York City jazz scene since the mid-1970s. She is perhaps best known for her 15 years of playing on the Cole Porter piano at the Waldorf-Astoria. In 2012, Sherman released an album called Mississippi Belle: Cole Porter in the Quarter on the Audiophile label.
Both Sherman and Leonhart say the New Jersey Jazz Society is a wonderful community of like-minded individuals who want to see this genre thrive.
Why have Daryl and Jay been so popular playing together?
Leonhart says they enjoy each other so much and the fun just pours out of them on stage.
"We both know a lot of the same music. She's a funky jazz player one minute and a beautiful ballad player the next. I think music fun is the real connection for me. Our rehearsals are the most fun.
Author, historian, and Jersey Jazz Magazine columnist Dan Morgenstern, writing about the Birdland appearance, said, "No duo could be better suited to salute those three diversely talented legends. Both Daryl and Jay, being singers, instrumentalists, and songwriters, also share their subjects' artistry, humor, plus individual mastery of interpretation. Jay Leonhart appears on many Blossom Dearie recordings, and Daryl has recorded with Dave Frishberg and Bob Dorough."
Leonhart and Sherman will be preceded by a Rising Stars opening act featuring a duo led by violinist/vocalist Jacquie Lee, a Montclair resident and a freshman at the Manhattan School of Music. She will be accompanied by guitarist Derick Campos, who grew up in Fort Lee, NJ. He was a 2022 New Jersey Jazz Society scholarship recipient.
Lee was the Rising Star in the April 2023 issue of Jersey Jazz. At the Charles Mingus Festival & High School Competition, held last February at The New School, Lee received an Outstanding Soloist Award. One of the songs she performed was Mingus' "The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines" with lyrics by Joni Mitchell, who sang it on her1979 Asylum album, Mingus. Asked about her favorite jazz violinist of the past, Lee said, "Stuff Smith, one of the most swinging cats of all time."
The Madison Community Arts Center is located at 10 Kings Road in Madison, NJ. The January 7 Jersey Jazz LIVE! concert will begin at 3 p.m. You can get more information here.
You can SEE the entire interview with Daryl Sherman and Jay Leonhart here.
