Blindfold Test, Bill Evans Part 2 by Leonard Feather
“What is this thing called love?” from LP Flute Fever, Columbia
I’ve heard this before. I met Jeremy in Daytona Beach when he came down with Paul Winter. Warren Bernhardt played me this record, and I was struck by the fierce intensity of this flute playing. In fact, the energy of it was so overwhelming that I couldn’t listen to more than about two tracks. First of all, flute is so delicate an instrument you have to take it in small doses, and when he comes on this intense with it, I can hardly take it.
Anyhow, I think a lot of his talent and his ability already. I played flute myself for a quite a few years, and I know how difficult it is. He plays the flute well and naturally. He has some interesting ideas there, with children’s melodies and all; he’s very sensitive.
The pianist on that record is also great. Denny Zeitlin, right? We got together one afternoon, and he played me a trio record of his own, which is very interesting also. He gets a very original type of format going. He almost tells a story, sort of a programatic (sic) thing, but in jazz–very free.
But back to the record. As far as rating it, I think Jeremy probably could be represented better on record. This is good first record, and I think it is going to do a lot for him; but I think if he could handle a project completely and be given a sympathetic environment in which to record–not that this wasn’t–but I think he just went in and did the date, rather than preparing a sort of a project that would reflect his own ideas.
For potential, I’d give it a full rating and for what it really attained, perhaps three stars.
Flute Fever in Japan
Asako Steig
The LP Flute Fever came out in the U.S. in 1964, but in Japan, it was released under the title, Jeremy Steig First Album after he had already been heard in 1969 on What’s New (Verve). In the liner notes for the “First Album”, a Japanese critique explained that Flute Fever had been released in Japan before, but it quickly disappeared from the market because few people had heard of Jeremy and also because listeners in Japan were simply not ready for his sensational sound. If this was true, not too many Japanese have read the original liner notes written in Q&A style by Willis Conover.
Asked why there is so much door-slamming strength in his playing, Jeremy replies: “I save it up. Since I was a kid I’ve had a kind of impotent anger. I’ve never been able to get angry–except in music. Actually, it’s an expression of frustration, but not of hate.”
Mr. Conover concludes as follows: You’ll recognize Jeremy easily. He looks 16, he’s beardless even though he carries a sketchbook, and when he plays flute he sounds like this. (At this point, play the record.)
Unfortunately, the much more legible liner notes penned by a Japanese critic for the CD Flute Fever (2013) did not include any of Jeremy’s comments from the original. I wish the record company had printed a Japanese translation of the original on the CD too.
A long time ago, in our apartment in New York, I found the cutout of “Blindfold test with Roland Kirk” on Down Beat from 1968. (8. 8, 1968 Down Beat on the Articles page) In it, Mr. Kirk says, “He (Jeremy) doesn’t even speak to me today when he sees me in a music store. All this kind of stuff is New York sickness to me. It’s what record companies and parents do to musicians to divide us.” I asked Jeremy what had happened. He cracked up and said, “I was just shy.” It’s always important to hear from the horse’s mouth,