Bruce Jenkins (2)

Bruce Jenkins' biography-cum-memoir about his father, the once-famous composer, conductor, orchestra leader and performer was, without a doubt, a true labor of love. It can't have been an easy job, trying to recreate a life twenty years after it had ended when so many of his father's closest friends and contemporaries were also gone. But apparently it was a long-term off-and-on project for Jenkins, long-time sports writer and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.

You don't have to remember Gordon Jenkins to enjoy this book though. If you loved Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole, Judy Garland or numerous other pop music stars of the past 70 years or so, then you have undoubtedly heard the music of Gordon Jenkins, who was, for over thirty years, one of the most sought after arrangers and orchestra leaders in the business. There is much here about the different Sinatra camps, for example, as in which one of his arrangers was best. Was it Nelson Riddle, Don Costa, Billy May, or Gordon Jenkins? And Jenkins' son is surprisingly even-handed and objective in his treatment of such things here. He is also extremely candid and frank in his memories of his father, who could at times be a very surly and even crude individual. But there is no mistaking the love between this father and son either. The author is also very frank in telling of his father's last several years, when his star had fallen some, and then when he discovered he had Lou Gehrig's Disease - a fatal ailment which Gordon Jenkins endured with great grace and an unquenchable sense of humor to the end. In the end, this was a man with class, and his son portrayed this very well.

My own first awareness of Gordon Jenkins came back in 1963 when I was 19 years old and serving in the US Army. I bought a Jenkins LP in the PX in Sinop, Turkey, a place where we had no access to radio or TV at the time. So records were one of our prime sources of entertainment. Although I was at the time primarily a fan of rock and roll (a genre Gordon Jenkins mostly despised), sometimes all those records would be gone by the time I could get to the PX. So that was the year I discovered the music of Frank Sinatra. This was a couple years before the now famous Sinatra-Jenkins collaboration on "The September of My Years." The Jenkins album I bought - almost on speculation - was a "mood music" LP called "In a Tender Mood," filled with lovely orchestra and chorus arrangements of standards like "When Your Lover Has Gone," "Gone with the Wind," "Begin the Beguine," "And the Angels Sing," and "Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise." And every one of those songs contain brief, haunting piano solos of the "one finger" technique of the lower octaves - a distinctive sound that made a number immediately identifiable as Gordon Jenkins. His son talks of this characteristic of his father's music, something many musicians criticized him for, calling it too simple, "hunt and peck" piano playing. But by God it set a mood. It worked! My roommates and I, all of us only 19 or 20, and ignorant of who Gordon Jenkins was, loved the album right off, and it was a favorite choice to put on our small record changer when we came off a mid shift and had to sleep during the light of day. It soothed, it brought sweet dreams - maybe even a few erotic ones, in fact. Today I went looking for that album. I hadn't played a real vinyl record in several years, but upon finishing the Jenkins bio, I wanted to hear him again. I got rid of several hundred albums out of a collection that once numbered over a thousand, but I found the Jenkins album on my shelf, right between Tommy James and Earl Klugh. I'm so glad I kept it. The magic was still there. The chorus and orchestra, that one-finger, low register piano solo. It took me back. I'm so glad I kept it.

Bruce Jenkins wrote of so many musicians and artists and song writers in this book that I simply devoured it, having been a music fan with pretty eclectic tastes for the past 40-some years. He told of Jenkins' discovery of The Weavers and Pete Seeger back in the late 40s, and how he helped catapult them into super stardom for a few brief years, before the McCarthy Red scare years, which nearly ruined them. I have vivid memories of singing along with my whole family on long car rides tunes the Weavers made famous in 1950: "Good-night Irene," "Tzena, Tzena," and "So Long, It's Been Good to Know Ya." Gordon Jenkins helped bring us those songs.

There is so much information here about the music industry, from the 1930s all the way up into the 80s. I was surprised to learn that Jenkins worked with Harry Nillson in the 70s on an album I have never heard, but plan to search out. Who knew "Schmillson" once did an album of standards, backed by a full orchestra?

Of course I couldn't agree with everything in this book. Jenkins hated the Beatles and much of pop music embraced by the youth of his time. Which I understand - now. Because there's not much current pop music that I like either. But enough, I suppose. If you like music, and want to know more about how it gets made, I can't recommend this book highly enough. Gordon Jenkins was a self-made musical genius. And his son is a damn good writer.… (mehr)