Roger Kellaway

I Was There - Beyond the Sea

Artist Interview by: Carla Rupp

  February 2005 - Roger Kellaway’s new solo piano recording coincided with the release of the film biography of Bobby Darin, Beyond the Sea. The recording, titled I Was There – Roger Kellaway Plays From the Bobby Darin Songbook (IPOC1006), features tunes that Kellaway performed with Bobby Darin when he was Darin’s musical director in the late 1960s, and is available at CD retailers around the country and through IPO Recordings distributor, Qualiton Imports. The label website is www.iporecordings.com. In this interview Kellaway talks about his relationship with Darin and with William F. Sorin, IPO founder and producer of I Was There. “Everybody just loves the CD. I haven’t gotten anything but enthusiastic reaction to it. Everyone is glad to hear from Roger again,” says Sorin.

JazzReview: Your music is so beautiful. I have been listening to it for the last several hours since we set the interview up. What do you think makes the music beautiful and so comforting?

Roger Kellaway: [He laughed.] That’s a very personal question. My wife is using the other phone, so there might be static. This is the fax line, so we won’t be interrupted.

JazzReview: My heart has been singing along while listening to you play the piano. You even sing in one song. What inspiration is it in you that let you play so lovely on the piano?

Roger Kellaway: I play from my heart, and I can’t do anything to how you react to the music. I love the way you react to it, but people will be different in their reactions. There is a certain vibration in my creativity that reacts with your creativity. You’d like to have several million people to the community that reacts this way. I’m looking for several million more like you. The idea is that we put the creativity out there in the cosmos and we’re looking for people to say, “Wow, that’s great.” That’s seems to be what works. The general response to the CD. I’m really happy about the general responses to the new CD, I Was There, especially since I have not been on the scene for a while. I’ve been behind the scenes guy for 25 years, even more--basically since the late ‘60s Basically I’ve spent my life not on the road but part of the industry, doing film scores and doing studio work in general. I did a lot of that. I made more than 200 albums.

You can get it on my website, Roger Kellaway. com. Also, we have four or five of the reviews so far on my website of I Was There.

Jazz Review: Tell me about the reviews.

Roger Kellaway: The reviews…it’s interesting. Some of the reviews really get the point about the swing aspect of the CD, the stride piano aspect. I don’t consider myself a stride piano player, but I can play the concept of stride. I’m a two-handed piano player, as opposed to more modern styles of piano, which don’t use the left hand. The left hand has a rhythmic function, which supports the right hand. In more modern styles of playing the piano, that doesn’t exist. The reason is: in that style it leaves room for the bass to have its space.

But when you’re playing solo piano, it’s good to know how to use both hands, and it’s traditional. Part of what happens with me; there is a lot of tradition. With me there’s also a lot of experimenting, not at the expense of the tradition, but it does go a long way with me.

Some of the reviewers, you see, are people who have been fans of mine for 30 years and are absolutely delighted that I’m back on the scene, which delights me: because it feels very supporting. I’m going back on the road and I’m going to start performing with my new trio.

JazzReview: Tell me about the trio, the people in it?

Roger Kellaway: Bruce Forman on guitar, and Dan Lutz on bass. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do: to have a piano, guitar, and bass trio. Most trios are piano, bass, and drums: that’s the normal trio. Piano, guitar, bass is a different kind of trio. It’s what Nat Cole did and what Oscar Peterson did. Oscar took from Nat Cole. I was influenced by both of them, but chiefly by Oscar.

JazzReview: Have you met Oscar? Tell us about meeting him.

Roger Kellaway: I met Oscar in Milan when he was doing a concert there. I was with my buddy Gene Lees, who was an old friend of Oscar’s and was Oscar’s biographer. Gene asked me, “What is it about Oscar?” I said, “It’s the will to swing,” and Gene said Gene said, '”That’s what I’m going to call my book” He lives about a mile from here [in California]. We talk almost every day. I played piano on one of his first recordings, the one of his first lyrics.

Gene wrote the tune Waltz for Debbie [a Bill Evans favorite] and many songs with Jobim. My friend Gene wrote the English lyrics to Quiet Nights and Quiet Stars. These are two of the most well known songs in the jazz literature, certainly Waltz for Debbie. When Gene was the editor of Down Beat, he interviewed Bobby Darin, so that’s kind of full circle.

JazzReview: How was your touring?

Roger Kellaway: You mean with Kevin? Great! Sold out everywhere. It was good timing for me to do a CD tribute to Bobby Darin. I had a good idea there would be some of kind of a tour with the movie. Once I finished the solo album I Was There, I called Bill Sorin and said, “How about a companion tribute?”

[The other telephone rings] That was a call from my friend who has my dog right now. We had four cats and a dog, and they're all gone; now we have a house that is filled with the kinds of things that animals and children shouldn’t be around-- too many knickknacks. But we have a cat Cindy that visits the house and collects all the mouse and rats, little gifts once a week.

JazzReview: Describe Kevin Spacey?

Roger Kellaway: Kevin has a lot of energy. He can be very explicit about the kinds of things he wants in a show, as he is in his own creativity. That is not unlike Bobby Darin; and that’s an easy kind of person to work with: someone who knows a lot about what they want, yeah, and what they want from me as a musical director. What is he like as a person? Very energetic; he’s very likeable. He’s an utmost professional, and those are the kinds of people I really like to work with. He raises the bar very high for himself, and then he goes for it. He challenges himself to a degree that he has to push himself to fantastic odds to meet his expectations and I have a lot of that in my creativity as well.

JazzReview: What movies of his have you seen?

Roger Kellaway: American Beauty, Usual Suspects, Seven.

JazzReview: I saw American Beauty.

Roger Kellaway: American Beauty was wonderful. I really loved it. I was a fan before I met Kevin. I didn’t know he was going to do a Bobby Darin movie. He called a mutual friend and said, “I want to meet somebody who was a musical director for Bobby.” That’s how it all started, in 1999. It might have been 1998, but I think it was in ‘99.

Roger Kellaway: I simply enjoyed the movie, Beyond the Sea, rather than just feeling it was a great movie or not. The movie reminded me of how emotionally connected I still was to Bobby, and the years I was with Bobby Darin and I how much I have felt about him since then..

JazzReview: How emotional were you?

Roger Kellaway: Well…yeah…there were a couple of spots [while watching the movie] I cried. That was a surprise to me. Wow, I still think a lot about Darin. The years we were together were really important to my life, those 2 ½ years--late '66 through '68.

JazzReview: Where you then?

Roger Kellaway: I was in California then. In the early '60s I was in New York. I came out to the West Coast with Jackie Leonard

JazzReview: That was the comedian from the borscht belt I read about in your bio.

Roger Kellaway: The borscht belt. Actually I played with Jackie at the Flamingo in Vegas. I also did the Flamingo with Bobbie. That was the main place Bobbie and I played. We played other places in Reno and Tahoe, but when we were in Vegas we were at the Flamingo. The first guy who opened for us was Richard Pryor. Yeah well, those were amazing years.

JazzReview: I lived in Lake Tahoe briefly.

Roger Kellaway: I had a condo in Tahoe, but I never visited it. It was one of those ski properties that several of us went into as a rental.

JazzReview: I’ve stayed at the Flamingo. I liked it. One time they were doing some renovations.

Roger Kellaway: We played the Wayne Newton Theatre at the Stardust Hotel.

JazzReview: How did you like it?

Roger Kellaway: Well, anything in Vegas is tough if you’re a non-smoker like I am now. I was a long-time smoker and now I’m a non-smoker. They still let everybody smoke at the machines, and you can’t get to your dressing room without walking by the machines. The answer to your question is that it’s difficult.

JazzReview: How about Atlantic City?

Roger Kellaway: The Taj Mahal has much better air conditioning than the Star Dust, which is an older hotel. If you’re sensitive about smoke, Vegas is difficult with that smoke. This is probably the second time I’ve been to Vegas since I left Bobby Darin, maybe the third time. That’s as long as I’ve done studio work.

Certainly I’ve had projects that have taken me all over Europe, including Italy, and in Cologne, Germany. I was in a wonderful trio out of Denmark. I’ve done a lot of traveling, but basically my life has not been about being on the road. It’s like I might go on a Scandinavian tour, then come home and go on another tour six months later. It’s not constant road tour for me.

JazzReview: Do you like the road?

Roger Kellaway: The month I was on the road with Kevin: that’s the longest time I was on the road. No, that’s not right. The longest time I was on the road was in 1988 when I was in Japan for six weeks.

JazzReview: What was that about?

Roger Kellaway: I did it five times: might have been 1987. It was called “100 Gold Fingers,” a Japanese concept. There were 10 piano players.

JazzReview: Who were the others?

Roger Kellaway: You could mention Hank Jones and Kenny Baron in the “100 fingers” group, and Tommy Flanagan and John Lewis were also on it. Eighty-six ['86] was the first tour I did. That was a great tour: piano players usually don’t get to hang out with piano players. There are CDs available. It could be called a “Piano Playhouse.” The CDs that we got were Japanese. Here, I found one from 1991. I have a CD: it is called “Fujitsu Presents 100 Gold Fingers, Vol. 1,” King Record Co., printed in Japan.

JazzReview: How did you like the Rose Hall in New York City?

Roger Kellaway: Loved it. New York was terrific. I loved the new hall. That whole building is really quite impressive. Everything. The whole architecture.

JazzReview: When are you coming back to New York?

Roger Kellaway: I think I was coming back in March, but it will probably be delayed because I’m working on a CD with a Russian cellist. We’re going to record in New York, but we got behind. You probably heard on the news we got 12 inches in Ojai. We got landslides and all kinds of things here in California. Everything is closed, we have one lane in and out.—still.

JazzReview: How did you fare?

Roger Kellaway: Actually, I didn’t go out for three weeks. We did fine, though. We did a considerable amount of building on our house because of leaks we had. This time it proved that everything we did was fine.

JazzReview: There’s you and your wife?

Roger Kellaway: Yes, and we have a boy, Colin.

JazzReview: What does he do?

Roger Kellaway: He does several things. One of the things he does is computer tech. He assists my wife (Jorjana) with her graphics, and she and I are in business together with our company, which is Kellaway LightWorks. It is our CD company which I would have recorded for, but then Bill Sorin came along. At the bottom on the CD, it says Roger appears courtesy of Kellaway LightWorks, because I am essentially signed to my own company.

JazzReview: How does the jazz business in this century compare to the decades of jazz in the last century?

Roger Kellaway: I don’t know how to answer that, except one of the things I feel is my legacy to the swing, and the reason for that is that some of the music I’ve heard in the last few years is that it doesn’t know anything about the tradition of jazz swinging--and most of the people I’ve done that with are gone. So I feel a responsibility about swinging.

JazzReview: In my courses in jazz, we learned that jazz equals swing.

Roger Kellaway: I’m 65 years old, so that comment makes total sense to me, because in the music in the years I grew up with came from that tradition. So my feeling is that it’s important to get that concept out there. It’s something I know how to do; it’s something I love to do, and it’s important to do it. Now there’s a lot of swing on I was There--it is solo piano style, but still there is intent to swing. When you hear Just in Time, or I’m Beginning to See the Light, or any of the tracks that aren’t ballads, it’s to swing.

There is also the intent to explore, because I’m always thinking that way. I’m always exploring. The trick is not to leave the swing behind. But I love the exploration. It’s good you’re getting this now, because you’ll hear it when you hear the new trio CD--we’re putting the cover on it now--Bill is working on producing it.

Our first gig in New York after doing the trio will be at the Iridium, but it’s not firm, but that’s the idea. What do you thin about the Iridium? No I haven’t seen the room. The last club I’ve played in New York was Birdland on 44th Street. It was with Bill Charlap. We did two pianos. How was that? Loved it. That was great. I’ve known Bill since he was a baby. He has a wonderful talent.

JazzReview: Where did you grow up?

Roger Kellaway: Boston, actually Waban, Massachusetts.

JazzReview: How does Atlantic City compare with Las Vegas?

Roger Kellaway: Atlantic City, we arrived at during the night. I was sick. I was losing my voice. We had one day off, and I spent 10 hours in bed. It was that bronchial cough. So I had that most of the tour.

JazzReview: Come on: give me some great Bobby Darin stories, could you? You said he was so cool, so energetic.

Roger Kellaway: You know, most of the time we spent together was on stage. I’ve told these stories several time, but not in print yet. Here’s one. He said that whenever he turned around that I had to be looking at him. I said, "How do I do that and conduct the band at the same time?" And he said, "That’s your problem."

JazzReview: What did you do?

Roger Kellaway: I worked it out. He needed the psychology of my always looking at him.

JazzReview: Did Kevin Spacey want you to do that, too?

Roger Kellaway: Kevin didn’t ask me, I just did it. That’s the way Bobby trained me.

JazzReview: Is it something that makes the performer seem more important?

Roger Kellaway: I would say so…it’s a feeling of security for the performer. He gets the feeling that I’m supporting him. That’s what accompanying is all about.

JazzReview: Right, it’s making the person feel comfortable.

Roger Kellaway: Yeah. It’s my job to make all the musical decisions about the band and how they play the arrangements. When I did this with Kevin or Bobby Darin did, they didn’t have to think about the band, because they know I’ve taken care of it. That‘s what a musical director wants. If you were on stage, that’s what you would want: a team of people making every thing so simple that you don’t have to have a thing to think about except your creativity.

JazzReview: Is that what made Darin creative?

Roger Kellaway: I can’t say that. He was already creative. I was there to support his creativity with my creativity. That way we do a show as team.

JazzReview: Will you work with Kevin again, or is it over?

Roger Kellaway: I don’t think it’s over. The question is, "When could it happen?" My feeling is that he’ll probably want to do it again. And if he asks me, and if the timing and the schedules work, I’ll do it. I imagine that it would be in Las Vegas. I do. But it all depends on schedules now. My projection is not to be doing studio work. It is to be out and performing, doing clubs and concerts.

JazzReview: Tell me about your early piano teachers. Who were they? What did they say?

Roger Kellaway: I started at seven years of age playing classical piano in this lifetime, and that teacher was not happy with me when I started being interested in jazz at the age of 12. I started pursuing that which led me into improvisation. And that led me into Dixieland, which led me to playing bass, which was my second instrument. That’s what happened in the Boston years. I was going to the number three high schools in the country. We were doing incredible things musically. We had a jazz band, a symphony orchestra and a marching band. The school I went to with the impressive music program was Newton High School. I played the bass for 10 years actually in the jazz band and in the orchestra. I couldn’t play bass in the marching band.

I stopped playing bass in the early '60s because I couldn't devote my life to composing, playing the piano--and anything else. Composing and arranging and playing the piano: that’s three lifetimes right there. So I’m not a bass player, and I write well for the bass-- and I write well for the orchestra because I’m a bass player. You’ll see some of the ballet and some orchestras I’ve written for on my website.

JazzReview: You look so happy in the photo on the newest CD. Why?

Roger Kellaway: Happy period in this life. It’s a good photo. The photographer was playing the music of Theolonius Monk all during the photography shoot. I was happy because I like Monk. I thought it was a very creative photographer, Kent Lacin, on the job.

JazzReview: Where are you from? I’d love to know some growing up revelations about you.

Roger Kellaway: You know, one of the most important times in my life was from around ages 16 to 19, which were the years I specifically played a lot of Dixieland. Playing a lot of Dixieland is how you learn to do swing in a traditional way, so there’s a very important correlation between those lessons I was learning from players who were twice my age--and you get the benefit of that on the way I play in I Was There.

JazzReview: Maybe that’s why I liked it so much?

Roger Kellaway: Well yes, that might be a key to something what you like: this is joyous. Maybe that traditional aspect is something you like in a player and I spark that. I have many people I know who like the tradition of jazz but don’t particularly like me. I have great respect for the tradition of jazz, but I am a risk taker. I like jumping off the cliff and seeing where I land. I take more risks than a traditional player takes. In other words, there used to be many Dixieland parties around the country and none of them hired me because I was too far out. That’s my sense of adventure. Whatever my sense of adventure, you like that. There’s something what I play that feeds a sense of joy with you. That’s great. That’s all I want to do is to take you for a ride, and I hope you like the journey.

JazzReview: I’m going to keep playing this CD after I’m done finishing this article.

Roger Kellaway: There’s a lot of tradition in the playing, in I Was There, and in all my playing--and there’s a lot of modernism.

JazzReview: Is your mother still alive? Does she like your music?

Roger Kellaway: If I don't get too far out--and I play things she can sing along to—she likes my music.

What’s her name?

Alice. She lives in Massachusetts. She just moved into an elderly housing. She’s 88. She used to play the piano and she played standards. That’s one of the things she used to always like. She’s much more conservative than I am.

JazzReview: But she must have been always proud of you.

Roger Kellaway: Yeah, she gets to hear my theme on the end of "All in the Family," the TV show. That’s one of my claims to fame--not the opening theme, but the closing theme. So she hears that everyday. She watches that show, I think, everyday and she loves that.

JazzReview: And your Dad?

Roger Kellaway: My Dad died in ’92. His name was Ralph. He did play the piano, and he only played one song that I remember: which was “The Bells of Saint Mary,” and I copied him playing that song at the age of seven--and that led to my studying piano. I didn’t know at that time I’d been doing it for hundreds of years. I always say seven [years of age] this lifetime [that I started the piano]. It always stops the conversation. It generally does. I guess I don’t talk to too many people who believe in the concept of reincarnation.

Somewhere in my twenties, I started asking myself the question, “Why is it that the creativity comes so easy to me and it’s so difficult for some other people?” And the answer was to me…actually I went to a few psychics and asked some questions…that I’ve been doing this for about 400 years, science and music. (I’m interested in mysticism anyway.) I’m sure it’s been longer than that. One psychic reading said it was more than 2,000 years. We’ve all been around for a while!

We grew up Protestant, actually Congregationalists, in my home when I grew up, and that’s about as loose as you can get in terms of dogma. I sang in the choir for about 11 years. That was some of the best training I could get.

JazzReview: Do you use the Internet to look up your interests?

Roger Kellaway: No, not really. I have DSL now, and I didn’t used to use the Internet as much because it was too slow, but now if I have to sit for an hour and do email I get angry. Well I went to the Internet recently because my wife typed in “Kevin Spacey” with “Roger Kellaway,” and she got 164 hits of interviews with Kevin that mentioned me. So I had to see that all for myself.

JazzReview: I remember when he was interviewed on television not long ago.

Roger Kellaway: He [Spacey] mentioned me on Larry King’s show. He’s been pretty good about that. Larry wanted to know how he started the movie and he said he was thinking about the movie for 10 years but started working on the songs with me about 1999. It wasn’t so much the adjectives and compliments Kevin gave me, but that he mentioned that he was happy that he had as his musical director one of Bobby Darin’s musical directors. I was flattered by that, and it was the truth. I liked it when he put it that way. The reason he came to me was because I knew Bobby and I knew Steve Blauner, Bobby’s manager, who’s still around. When Kevin did the Larry King show, he did it with Steve and Dodd Darin, the son of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee.

JazzReview: Did you meet Sandra Dee?

Roger Kellaway: My wife says yes, but we haven’t seen Sandra since we were at a party at Bobby Darin’s house in 1968. I hadn’t seen Dodd since them. He came up to me at the Wiltern Theatre recently and said hello; I remember him as very young, four years old, maybe. There’s also biography of Darin that just came out that I’m mentioned in [it].

JazzReview: How long have you known your wife?

Roger Kellaway: Thirty-nine years; she was there too. That’s why I wrote the original song, “I Was There.” I wanted an original song; I was thinking about Bobby, and I wanted to call it, I Was There.

JazzReview: Was it amazing being there?

Roger Kellaway: Yeah, and I thought that the song speaks the title well and the concept of the music. And it also works nicely for Bobby. It feels like the kind of a song that he might have sung. [I think you ought to know that I’ve moved on to a nice Cabernet [wine] after an hour and a half of talking together.]

JazzReview: I remember Bobby also, only from records and TV.

Roger Kellaway: Oh, you never saw him live?

JazzReview: No, I didn't. I wish I had. It seems sad that he died so young.

Roger Kellaway: He was extremely intense because of that. He had rheumatic fever when he was very young--and was told he wouldn’t live past 15. When we were together, feeling living past 30 was a blessing. Every moment was a gift. He didn’t think he was going to make it to 30. He made it to 37.

JazzReview: Do you think it takes a lot of character and strength to be a musician?

Roger Kellaway: Yes, to be a good one. Well, to be in the arts in the first place, I suppose that alone is a testament to strength; it’s so precarious [in the arts], and there’s very little security. But what else would I do. I’ve had this blessed life, playing with some of the greatest musicians in the history of jazz—and classical, too, for that matter. And then somebody great like Bill Sorin comes along—and asks me to do a solo CD as a tribute to Bobby Darin. It has been wonderful. I didn’t know he knew that I was there. I thought he thought this was just a marketing idea. But he sent me an email that he knew I was there.

Bill Sorin asked me to make a solo CD to one of the most important people in my life. That made me very happy. And how much happier could I be? All of the songs were performed on stage with Bobby. They were all selected from a huge number of songs we performed. I picked the songs I could have the most jazz fun with.

JazzReview: Is jazz fun?

Roger Kellaway: Yeah. If it isn’t [fun for you,] you better get out of it. But if you don’t get out, don’t play with me. You’ve heard the CD. There’s something about the fun aspect that I communicated.

JazzReview: You made me have fun [listening to the CD] while washing dishes, which I hate.

Roger Kellaway: I’ve had many people tell me what they’ve done listening to my music. When you mention jazz, joy is one of the first things that always come to mind. The only real hit is “Beyond the Sea” on my solo CD, and it was the biggest hit--and for more of the biggest hits, you’ll have to wait for our trio CD. Carla, I’m walking around the house while we’re talking on the phone.

JazzReview: What was the story behind your work with Barbra Streisand?

Roger Kellaway: Barbra Streisand? We worked together for months, in fact I wrote the closing gospel arrangement for Streisand when she played Vegas in the 70s, and I think that’s one of the reasons she called me for Star is Born.

JazzReview: Did she like what you did?

Roger Kellaway: [He laughed] I don’t have another hour and a half. She’s… I’ll give you a capsule. Barbra Streisand is the only other person other than Bobby Darin that I’ve ever worked with who is such an incredible expert on her own talent. What I mean by that is she knows what she wants, and she knows herself so well that she knows what she wants musically. Bobby is the only other person I have worked with who is that way. Now what’s interesting about that…Are you into astrology? They are both Taurus’s. I found that incredibly interesting. So again I got along with Barbra. She’s very demanding, and we had a good time together. That was also my first film. Phil Ramone produced the music for Star is Born. I was responsible for the music for the dramatic score.

JazzReview: What are you working on now?

Roger Kellaway: I have a writing deadline. At the moment, I’m proofreading a piece of mine for tuba and piano for a Swiss publisher, and then I’m going to do another trio CD for Bill Sorin. The first trio CD is done and will be out in two months. It will be called the Roger Kellaway Trio. We’re going to remember Bobby Darin: it’s going to be a tribute also, these songs also performed on stage, but you will hear Mack the Knife and Splish, Splash. They work well on a trio, but they didn’t work well on the solo album. I tried them as solo, but didn’t like them as solo material. They work perfectly on the trio album. Bill wants another trio album, and that’s what we will be recording.

JazzReview: Thank you so much, Roger, for this interview. It was great. I hope to see you in New York at the club! I’m glad Jim Eigo [of Jazz Promo Services], Suzi Price, [my editor from JazzReview.com], and Bill Sorin, your producer, could hook us up for this interview. We sure covered a lot of things.

You’re right. Goodbye, Carla. I enjoyed the interview.

Carla Marie Rupp is a freelance journalist specializing in music, film and travel writing. She lives in Lower Manhattan. Email her at Carla@visarun.com.

For more information: http://rogerkellaway.com

Photo by: © Kent Lacin

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