The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma Ben Sidran

Th e Ballad of Tommy LiPuma
Ben Sidran
Madison, WI: Nardis Books
2020: 274 + x pages

Ben Sidran, based on conversations he had with the legendary record producer, has provided a biography of Tommy LiPuma, tp who making music was more about the music than a product. To quote the book jacket; "It is also an amazing picaresque journey that opens with the murder of a man on a dirt path in Sicily and concludes with five trips up the Grammy red carpet, a real-life Horatio Alger adventure that touches on bootleggers, gangsters, artists, hipsters, and the industry that changed popular culture around the world. Finally, it’s a deeply personal account of how music saved one man’s life, and how he went on to affect the lives of millions of others."

That book jacket blurb provides a very concise summary of Sidran's biography of one of the most significant record men of the past fifty years. it takes us from brothers emigrating from a small Sicilian village to the United States to seek revenge on a murderer with one brother ending up in Cleveland when Tommy is born and grows up. He gets hurt playing baseball which unexpectedly leads to hospitalizations and a handicap.

Music becomes part of his life as he experiences health issues arising from a baseball injury. He becomes a jazz saxophonist as well as starts working at a record store. Eventually connections lead him to enter the world of record promotion at the same time he also works as a barber. Eventually, he enters the world of record promotion and starts working at first with independent labels and then major labels. He goes from Liberty Records to Blue Thumb and then Warner Brothers, as he recounts his efforts and some of behind the scenes activities.

LiPuma also learns about songwriting and record production. He serves as an Artist and Repertoire person as well as becomes well known for his productions by such artists as George Benson, Al Jarreau, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Bill Evans, Dr. John, Yellowjackets, Michael Brecker, Bob James & Dave Sanborn, Miles Davis, Little Jimmy Scott, Natalie Cole, Diane Krall, Horace Silver, Russell Malone, Shirley Horn, Barbara Streisand, Paul McCartney, and Willie Nelson.

To give a touch of the flavor of this biography, here is an excerpt of the text that discusses recording  Little Jimmy Scott;

        "Over the years, Tommy produced many albums because he felt they needed to be made, regardless of whether he thought they had a big sales potential. Of course he never wanted to lose money, but money was not the driving factor in a lot of the projects he took on. He always believed that if the music was right, the money would follow.
        
        After the huge success of Natalie Cole’s album, he had the leisure to make one of these projects. He decided to record Little Jimmy Scott, a jazz singer who had never sold more than a few thousand records but was a soulful guy who influenced a lot of other singers and moved a lot of hearts. “I loved his music back in the day,” says Tommy. “His style reminded me of Dinah Washington—and later on I discovered that he also came from Cleveland. In fact, we had grown up a few blocks of each other, but because he was ten years older, I never knew him there, though I certainly knew of him.”
        
        Jimmy had had a particularly hard life. He was born with a rare hormonal disorder that affected not only his voice—he sounded like a woman when he sang, which is why he influenced so many female singers, especially Nancy Wilson—but his physical appearance as well; he had no facial hair and seemed a little soft, but there was no doubt he loved women. “He was a man through and through,” says Tommy.
   
        “I had a meeting with Jimmy and he turned out to be such a sweet guy. From the moment I met him, we were in total harmony. We talked about music and he was so relaxed and open to my ideas. is is so rare, to find a stylist who is so down with themselves that they’re totally comfortable letting you do what you do.”
       
        With Jimmy, the production was simple: Bring in a first-rate jazz trio and then dress the lady up in strings. “We approached the recording like an old-school jazz date,” says Tommy. “ e pianist, Kenny Barron, wrote out the chord charts and we just came up with the arrangements in the studio. I had Ron Carter on bass and Grady Tate on drums. I knew that I was going to surround Jimmy with an orchestra, so I really wanted the basic tracks to be pretty simple.”"
       
The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma on pages 198-199.

There are plenty of other stories describing how many of these recordings happened and LiPuma's unusual practice of sitting among the musicians as opposed to staying in the control room. He also becomes an art collector of a definite reputation as well. Ben Sidran has put together a fascinating and illuminating story of the life of a real record man as opposed to the bean counters that view music solely as a product that run the music industry today.

I received a pdf download from a publicist.