A real blast from the past. I would have missed this if I hadn't been in Philadelphia for the American Postal Workers Union convention. I picked up the New York Times on Saturday and there was a nice, long column on the Jerry Hahn Brotherhood.
Verlyn Klinkenborg writes:
Indeed! I heard the JHB live several times circa 1970. The album is very good, but live they were something else.The other day a song popped into my head, just a few up-tempo instrumental phrases — guitar, bass, drums and a Hammond B3 organ. I knew instantly what it was, though I hadn’t heard it in at least 20 years. It was a passing moment from “Martha’s Madman,” the first song on the first side of an LP called “The Jerry Hahn Brotherhood.” I bought the record when it was released in 1970. I was a freshman at Berkeley.
It would have been easy to see the Jerry Hahn Brotherhood performing that year, though I never did. Its lone record was a sunny mixture of straight-up jazz with a blues spine, a music that wants the latter-day word “fusion,” though that word does so little good. Above all, it was a reminder of the eclecticism of the time. Audiences that would soon diverge found themselves packed in a hall together all night long, like one October weekend at Fillmore West when the Jerry Hahn Brotherhood shared the bill with Van Morrison and Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band.
There will probably never be a movie based on the Jerry Hahn Brotherhood, no commercial incentive to remaster and rerelease this album. The story of the band is a good one but all too familiar — the inevitable clash between the artistic and business sides of the recording industry. The band fell apart disputing the honesty of its manager.
What’s left is an orphaned vinyl LP. The inner sleeve, a space for record company promotion, says, “If It’s in Recorded Form, You Know It’ll Be Available on Records.” Well, I wish it were available on CD.
I talked to Jerry Hahn the other day. He teaches jazz guitar in Wichita, his hometown. He’ll be 66 in September, with grandkids. He sounds good. “You should have heard us,” he said
Klinkenborg concludes with this plea
...someone needs to find those master tapes, breathe some air into them, and do this minor masterpiece (and all the outtakes) justice at lastIt would be also be nice if someone rescued the slightly earlier LP by Mike Finnegan and the Serfs. Finnegan was the Hammand B-3 player and vocalist for the JHB. Finnegan and a couple of his mates from the band are heard on the jam songs on Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland.
5 comments:
Jerry is the finest guitar player I have heard! I am proud also to say I studied jazz improve from him and was in Jazz Arts at Wichita State when he was in charge. I have this album and love it.
I recently talked to Mike finnegan and he said he had talked to Jerry, lets say theres a chance they could hook up again.
This is one of my favorites, too. Being from Wichita, I'd heard quite a bit of music by Finnegan and Lane Tietgen, who wrote most of the stuff on the Brotherhood LP. Later, long after the vinyl version had returned to dust, I got the itch to find it all again, contacted Jerry H. while he was living in Portland and he sent me a CD of the Brotherhood album. It was a digitized version of the LP: you can hear the crackle of a used LP, but the music is great. It remains a favorite.
By the way, I heard Jerry H. play in Wichita in a dinner place a couple of years ago. He teaches jazz at Friends University in Wichita.
Thanks for your posting.
Jim
Yes, Jerry Hahn plays quite regularly in various restaurants and clubs in the Wichita area. He is more of a straight ahead jazz player today. His tone is clean, no more effects. I see him play fairly regularly and got to sit in for him at a jazz jam on a couple of occasions. I never had lessons from him, but, wish I would have when I was younger.
He's tellin' her the world is full of freaks and geeks and cripples
And she keeps finding Leprechauns and Gnomes among the ripples
Of the pool of time she thought she knew - someone threw a stone into it
And it broke up the surface and it's making her nervous...
It seems that the pool of time has swallowed this great piece of work.
I was playing in a wild weeds band when these guys were making fine tunes. Met Finnegan once. He didn't like the way I played bass..probably right. I heard a few weeks ago,Finnegan was playing the B-3 for CS&N. Funny how these guys seem to always show up. Keep it alive guys, it still is fun.
Lepak
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