BMF to keep Butch's memory alive

By Tom Ineck

LINCOLN, Neb.—The Berman Music Foundation lost its guiding light and most passionate supporter when Butch Berman died Jan. 31.

More than simply the founder of the BMF, Butch was a veteran rocker and a friend to musicians and non-musicians alike. A master of networking, Butch touched so many lives in so many ways during his brief 58 years that it is impossible to document his impact in one story.

In an attempt to do him justice, we at the Berman Music Foundation will keep Butch’s memory alive by continuing to do interviews with the rock musicians with whom he played, the jazz artists who experienced his generosity and friendship and others whom he met and developed friendships with in every aspect of his life.

Bill Dye, a guitarist now living in Kansas City, Mo., is a former bandmate of Butch’s in The Megatones, a raucous rockabilly and rhythm ‘n’ blues band that ruled Lincoln from 1973 to 1976, once opening for bluesman Freddie King and frequently holding court in the early days of the Zoo Bar.

Dye fondly remembers Butch’s unique outlook on life.

“When you entered Butchworld, he had this weird little, rarified environment. On one hand, he was able to do everything on his own terms. I’m a spoiled, only child, too, so we had that in common,” Dye said. “The thing about Butch was that even though he saw the world through his own rose-colored glasses, he was always very generous and outgoing and friendly towards other people. He wasn’t a selfish man, at all. He was self-involved, but he was not selfish.”

The two met in the early ‘70s, when Berman was a member of a band called The Kaleidoscope. Because Butch had inherited his family’s wealth, “he lived in this little world, like, ‘I am the emperor of my domain and nothing challenges me.’ He hardly ever had to do a job in his life,” yet he kept busy collecting records and playing music, even when bandmates proved difficult to work with, Dye said. “One of the things that impressed me about Butch is that he didn’t like being angry or mad at people. He wanted to find a way to get away from it.”

Butch had a 1975 cassette tape recording of The Megatones performing at Little Bo’s, a notorious Cornhusker Highway club in Lincoln. In recent years, he dubbed it to CD and gave Dye a copy.

“I’ve put it on a couple times and thought, ‘Wow, this isn’t just nostalgia. We were ass-kickin’.’ The sound quality is just OK, but we sound like the MC5.” The two also shared the bandstand in The Excessives from 1980 to 1981, a rock ‘n’ roll experience Dye remembers fondly.

“That was pretty much his band, he was leading the group, and he was always an utterly reasonable, pleasure to work with,” he said. “He was always very organized, knew what was going on. And, he was always a very fair-minded guy. He wanted to be a fair-minded person, as a bandleader and just as a person.”

Another thing they had in common was collecting records.

“Over the years, we were always trying to turn each other on to things,” Dye said. A visit to Butch’s house would eventually turn to a listening session that involved an exchange of obscure 45s. “Sometimes I would bring stuff over for him, and he would be interested in that. He was open to other people bringing stuff to him, as well. He was more of a hardcore collector than I was. I used to be more of a collector than I am now, but Butch never let up.”

Most memorable for Dye was Butch’s thoughtfulness.

“Over the years, I can’t tell you how many times he would remember my birthday or give me some little gift and say, ‘I found this 45 and thought of you. Here.’ It was not just with me. He was one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever known.”

Dye also remembers Butch as a friendly conversationalist, even with people he hardly knew. After moving to Kansas City, he would occasionally return to visit family and friends.

“One of those times I was in town, my mom said, ‘Oh, I ran into Butch Berman the other day at the grocery store. I could barely get away from him. He wanted to talk and talk and talk about all kinds of things. What a nice fella, but boy he can talk!’ She got a kick out of Butch.”

Karrin Allyson’s association with Berman Music Foundation is the longest one on record, beginning with a March 1995 booking at the Zoo Bar in Lincoln. The foundation brought her back to the Capital City numerous times to play the Zoo Bar, a now-defunct club called Huey’s and eventually a concert performance in November 2001 at the Lied Center for Performing Arts, where Allyson was accompanied by a Kansas City rhythm section and string players from the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra.

Berman had first heard Allyson in Kansas City, where she often performed at The Phoenix Bar & Grill and at Jardine’s. He soon found new venues for her to practice her craft.

“He was so avid about giving artists venues and avenues to play,” Allyson said. “I was in the club scene, the bar scene, every day of my life, and he offered me one of the first opportunities to actually play for a real listening audience, like a concert setting. It gives you a different way to explore your art. He was always interested in doing different things. He was a very creative person, and he was excited about stuff. He always wanted to do more of something. It was never less of something.”

Allyson also met up with Berman when the foundation covered the Topeka Jazz Festival from the late 1990s until 2005. After-hours parties in the hotel were not uncommon, and Butch loved to be there.

“He always wanted to hang out,” Allyson said. “I’m always on the road, so I’m always trying to conserve energy a little bit. I like to hang out too, but I felt bad that I didn’t do it as often as I would have liked to with Butch. But we had our share.”

Russ Dantzler and Berman were still in there teens when they met in 1968. A resident of New York City for many years, Dantzler operates Hot Jazz Management and Production and has worked with jazz artists Claude “Fiddler” Williams, Benny Waters, Earl May and many others.

When he graduated from high school, Dantzler moved into a house in Lincoln with three roommates, all women. One of them was dating Berman, who would pick her up there. The two got to know each other better.

“He had a passion for turning people onto things, whatever they were,” Dantzler said. “He also had a passion for discovering new things. I don’t know which was greater, sharing it or finding it himself. That was one of the neatest things about him, and that rang true practically every time I saw him. He had some new band or some thing new that he had to share.”

Like many others who frequented the Zoo Bar and other rock venues in the mid-‘70s, Dantzler loved The Megatones and Berman’s rockabilly piano playing.

“That was the only band in Lincoln that made me want to dance just about every time I heard them. And, I’m not a good dancer. I loved Butch’s keyboards. I loved his guitar playing, but I really loved his keyboard work.”

Because of Dantzler’s long residence in New York City and his contacts with jazz musicians, Butch often called on him for long-distance help in making arrangements or helping with publicity. At times, Dantzler found himself at the mercy of Butch’s jazz obsessions and incapable of delivering exactly what Butch wanted. In the weeks before Berman’s death, they talked about organizing a benefit concert for Norman Hedman, leader of the Latin jazz group Tropique and a longtime friend and consultant of the Berman Music Foundation. Hedman also is having health problems related to cancer.

Dantzler said his final phone conversation with Berman illustrated Butch’s generosity and thoughtfulness.

“I’m still kind of knocked out by the last conversation, where it was all about helping someone else. He actually called me twice one week before he died, and it was about helping Norman, of course.”

It was Dantzler who introduced Butch to singer Kendra Shank in New York City in 1995.

“I was building a following in New York at that time,” Shank recalled. “Russ was finding every way possible for me to sit in with musicians and meet musicians and expand my presence on the New York jazz scene. Butch heard me sing, and I guess he really liked what he heard.”

A few months later, Berman booked Shank as part of a New York All-Stars performance in August 1995 at the Zoo Bar in Lincoln, with a side trip to Kansas City for another gig. The all-star band included Jaki Byard on piano, Jimmy Knepper on trombone, Claude “Fiddler” Williams on violin, Earl May on bass and Jackie Williams on drums.

“A whole lot of things came together out of that one trip. It was sort of a blossoming of a whole bunch of events that really propelled my career forward,” Shank said. “I just remember being so honored to be included because that was pretty early in my jazz career. To be included in something that was being called an ‘all-star’ event was very flattering and humbling.”

When Butch was in NYC, the two would get together for dinner, to check out a jazz club or just have “long, long talks about everything under the sun—life, relationships, music. I always appreciated his passion. It just seemed he lived his life every second. He never passed up a moment to enjoy his life.”

Shank was especially impressed with his burning desire to use his philanthropy to make good things happen.

“I feel really blessed to have been one of the people that he chose to support. It’s meant so much to me. You know how hard it is for artists. You know what this life is like. You have no financial security, no job security. You’re doing this thing that means the world to you, that’s a spiritual path as much as anything. You put yourself out there, not knowing whether anyone is going to give a damn. When someone like that supports you by producing me in concert a few times, that’s supporting my art.”

Shank also witnessed and understood Berman’s zeal to introduce audiences to unfamiliar artists.  

“One of the things I really admired about Butch is the way he seemed to have a vision and a sense of a mission and how he would bring artists to Lincoln who might not otherwise have been presented there, who might not have been in tune or in keeping with the general tastes of the audiences there,” she said. “He didn’t waver when he had a belief in something. I felt he was a person of great integrity. Maybe he was just stubborn. He was a jazz evangelist.”

Gerald Spaits, a Kansas City bassist and BMF consultant, met Berman at the Topeka Jazz Festival in the late 1990s. After the Russ Long Trio CD “Never Let Me Go” had been recorded in 2001, Spaits turned to Berman as one of several possible backers who would help to bankroll the release. Instead, he put up all the money necessary to issue the release.

The trio visited Lincoln and got better acquainted with Butch, always a requirement for his love of networking and camaraderie. The BMF later booked the trio—and other bands that utilized Spaits’ bass prowess—at P.O. Pears in Lincoln. Other gigs followed at Jazz in June and in planning the 2005 Topeka Jazz Festival, for which Berman served as music director. Eventually, Spaits and his wife, Leslie, became BMF consultants.  

“He was a unique individual,” Spaits said. “He put it all out there. He didn’t mince any words. If he didn’t like something, he’d let you know. It’s like he would have to clear the air once in a while. That was just Butch.”

Dave Fowler first heard of Berman many years ago, when he read a music magazine article that singled out a Lincoln guitar player for his “letter-perfect vocabulary of Scotty Moore,” the legendary guitarist best known for backing Elvis Presley in the early part of his career.

“That was my introduction to Butch. He was an expert in that straight-ahead, rockabilly guitar style.”

Fowler, a violinist, and Butch struck up a friendship over the years and eventually were occasional bandmates in an early version of Charlie Burton’s band, the Dorothy Lynch Mob. But Fowler also took an interest in the Berman Music Foundation’s collection of rare music videos by such artists as Claude “Fiddler” Williams and a group of jazz all-stars who the foundation brought to Lincoln’s Zoo Bar in the mid 1990s.

“The resources that he put together in that museum are just incredible,” Fowler said. “It ranges from obscure Homer and Jethro 45s to the very first time that (jazz pianist) Eldar Djangirov played in Lincoln. He covered so many different areas of jazz.”

One of the things that Fowler and Butch had in common was a love of “gypsy jazz,” that hybrid swing style made popular by guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli, founding members of the Hot Club of Paris quintet in the 1930s. 

“Right up until the last weeks that I saw him, we were still planning some musical ideas that he wanted to carry out. He had brought the Hot Club of San Francisco back. He was thinking of doing that again and having some local people play as part of a gypsy jazz festival.

“I find it very hard to think that he’s not around.”

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Memorial

BMF founder Butch Berman, 58, died Jan. 31

Dear readers: In case you missed the news stories on the passing of Butch Berman, or wish to know more details of his life, we offer the piece below, which appeared in a slightly different form in the Feb. 1 Lincoln Journal Star.

By Tom Ineck

LINCOLN, Neb.—Byron L. “Butch” Berman, 58, founder of the Berman Music Foundation and veteran of many Lincoln rock bands, died at home the evening of Jan. 31, after a four-month struggle with brain cancer.

Since its inception in spring 1995, the BMF has sponsored dozens of jazz concerts throughout the Midwest, including appearances in Lincoln by pianists George Cables, Eldar Djangirov, Kenny Barron, Monty Alexander, and Joe Cartwright; Norman Hedman’s Tropique; the Hot Club of San Francisco; singers Karrin Allyson, Kendra Shank, Giacomo Gates, Sheila Jordan, and Kevin Mahogany; saxophonists: Bobby Watson, Joe Lovano, and Greg Abate; trumpeter Claudio Roditi; guitarist Jerry Hahn; bassist Christian McBride; the Mingus Big Band and many others.

The foundation and the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra are collaborating on a May 23 tribute to the music of the late Kansas City pianist and composer Russ Long. Over the years, the foundation has sponsored many groups for the Jazz in June concerts in Lincoln, and right up to Butch’s death he was working on a lineup for this year’s series. We will share details as they become available.

Berman’s varied interests in music, however, go back a lot farther than the jazz foundation. At age seven, he was taking lessons in classical piano. An only child raised in 1950s Lincoln, the precocious audiophile had collected 300 rock ‘n’ roll 45s by age 10. He also had begun playing guitar and improvising on the keyboard.

Berman played in a succession of local rock bands in the early 1960s, including the Modds, who were inducted into the Nebraska Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. He grew his hair long and considered dropping out of school. At age 15, he was sent to Wentworth Military Academy, where, instead of discipline, the young cadet was introduced to all the thrills and excitement of Kansas City, just 40 miles down the road.

By the early 1970s, Berman was back on the rock scene in Lincoln, playing guitar and keyboards in a number of bands, including such regional favorites as The Megatones and Charlie Burton & Rock Therapy. He even toured Europe with rockabilly legend Sleepy LaBeef. The 1980s found him in San Francisco, hanging out at Jack’s Record Cellar, playing with Roy Loney & the Phantom Movers and beginning to acquire an interest in jazz.

Returning to Lincoln in the early 1990s, he continued to build a large and diverse record collection and began an eight-year stint as a jazz deejay, hosting “Bop Street Theater,” “Reboppin’,” “Reboppin’ Revisited” and “Soul Stew” on KZUM Community Radio. He also maintained his rock music career, most recently with the Cronin Brothers, with whom he performed his last gig Dec. 30 at the Zoo Bar.

In May 2003, Berman married his soul mate, Grace, whom he often referred to as his “saving Grace” and “loving angel.” Together, they traveled to New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Kansas City, Mo., and elsewhere and especially enjoyed going to concerts and dining with friends. Butch enjoyed interacting with Grace’s sons, Jenom and Bahji. He also had a lifelong love and respect for animals, wild and domestic, and adopted many dogs and cats over the years, most recently cat Muggles and dog Peanut.

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Concert Preview

Berman inspired May 23 Russ Long tribute with NJO

By Tom Ineck

It was Butch Berman who conceptualized the May 23 concert that will pair the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra and a coterie of Kansas City musicians for a tribute to the music of late KC pianist and composer Russ Long.

Through the auspices of the Berman Music Foundation, he funded the 2006 project to document Long’s compositions with new arrangements for septet and a recording entitled “Time to Go: The Music of Russ Long.” Long died Dec. 31, 2006, just weeks after the CD’s release.

The recording had been selling well in the Kansas City area, but Berman wanted to introduce the music to a Lincoln audience. He approached the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra, with whom the BMF had collaborated in bringing many guest artists, including saxophonists Bobby Watson and Greg Abate, trumpeter Claudio Roditi and singer Giacomo Gates.

“Butch had just finished this CD project with Russ, and he was all excited about that,” said Ed Love, NJO music director. “He said he would be very excited to fund a concert Russ Long’s music and all new arrangements and even bring up a rhythm section from Kansas City.”

Love chose three tunes with interesting chord changes that NJO musicians would enjoy playing and listeners would enjoy hearing. Bandmates Mark Benson, Dave Sharp and Peter Bouffard will arrange “Time to Go,” “Meatloaf” (based on the changes of “I Got Rhythm”) and “I Don’t Care Who.”

Berman also broached the subject with Gerald Spaits, Kansas City bassist and a BMF consultant. It was Spaits who had spearheaded the “Time to Go” arrangements and recording.

“It was really Butch’s idea,” Spaits said of the plan to involve the NJO. “He asked me if we could do some of those arrangements for a big band and do it with NJO. I thought that would be a great idea. It kind of came out of the blue, because it’s not something that I would have thought of, although I think it’s appropriate, and it’s something that Russ would have really liked.”

Spaits also will arrange three tunes for the NJO concert, “Parallel,” “Woodland Park” and “Can City.”

“We’ll see what happens,” he said with some trepidation. “It’s going to be really interesting to see because I have no idea what they’re going to do with the three tunes. I picked three that I thought would make good arrangements. I didn’t want to do all six of them, just because that’s a lot of work. It’s a long process for me. I’ve done big-band arrangements, but I haven’t done one for 10 or 15 years.”

Kansas City will be well represented at the May 23 performance. Accompanying Spaits for the trip are pianist Roger Wilder, drummer Ray DeMarchi and reed virtuoso Charles Perkins.

“I’m excited to work with those rhythm-section guys from Kansas City,” Love said. “They’re just amazing musicians. It will be quite fun.” In addition to their work with the NJO, the KC musicians will perform a short set of Long’s tunes as a quartet.

Butch was a big fan of Long's, funding the release of 2001’s “Never Let Me Go,” a trio recording with bassist Spaits and drummer DeMarchi. He was attracted by Long’s sense of ironic wit, his bluesy vocalizing, his modesty and, of course, his diverse talents as composer, song interpreter, pianist and singer. An important link in KC jazz history, Long had known or worked with some of the region’s greats, including Eddy “Cleanhead” Vinson, Claude “Fiddler” Williams, Jay McShann and Frank Smith.

A longtime friend and bandmate of Long’s, Spaits sees the Lincoln concert as a way to educate more people about the composer’s music.

“I think it’s significant because it is someone who didn’t get his due,” Spaits said. “We’re celebrating Russ’s talent. He made three recordings, and this last one we got in just before he passed. It documents the fact that he was a major talent, in my opinion. I also think he was a major contributor to Kansas City jazz.”

Both Russ Long CDs are nearly sold out and may be reissued with help from the BMF, a subject of conversation just weeks before Butch’s death. 

Editor's Note: To read more about Russ Long and his music in an interview the BMF did with him shortly before his death click here. To read about the CD release party for "Time to Go" click here. For a CD review click here.

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By Tom Ineck

LINCOLN, Neb.—Work and play were all the same to Butch Berman, who in the spring of 1995 formed the Berman Music Foundation to “protect and promote unique forms of jazz music” during his lifetime and beyond. With that mission statement as its legal underpinning, the foundation became not only Butch’s workplace, but his playground—a jazz sandbox where he could build majestic castles or just romp with his friends. 

Since my association with the foundation began as a writer in early 1996, Butch allowed me to do what I enjoy most, listening to and writing about jazz. Since the mid-1980s, I had been doing that for the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper—at least, as often as I could justify it to my editors. Butch let me indulge my passion for jazz to the extreme, a passion he shared.

Since then, I have assumed the additional roles of editor and webmaster for the BMF. In the last five years, since the periodical newsletter went to a completely digital publication, I worked especially closely with Butch, and I will miss our collaborations. To cover the latest in regional jazz, much of which was being presented by the Berman Music Foundation, we traveled to festivals in Kansas City, Mo., and Topeka, Kan., and met at local venues like the Lied Center for Performing Arts, the Cornhusker Hotel, the Embassy Suites, Westbrook Recital Hall, the Zoo Bar, the outdoor Jazz in June concert series, the Royal Grove, the Downtown Senior Center and the now-defunct P.O. Pears, Café de Mai, Huey’s, Ebenezer’s and Prime Time. 

One of the most enjoyable musical adventures was a road trip last summer to the Brownville Concert Hall to hear singer Klea Blackhurst with pianist Billy Stritch, bassist Gerald Spaits and drummer Ray DeMarchi. My wife, Mary Jane, and I joined Butch and his wife, Grace, for a pleasant Sunday afternoon of good conversation and good music.    

Working with Butch could be thrilling, educational, intoxicating, unpredictable, exasperating, even maddening. When I began editing all stories and he had gotten his first home (laptop) computer, he would invite me over to his basement office to take dictation. He would scribble his stories on paper beforehand, then attempt to read them back to me as I typed furiously on his unfamiliar keyboard, while his latest musical find was blaring on the stereo, the dogs were trying to lick my face, and the complementary wine and other party favors were beginning to go to my head. With Butch, work and play were always interchangeable.

Eventually, he learned how to write his stories on the computer and e-mail them to me for editing. It cut down on the work time, but it wasn’t nearly as memorable—or as much fun.

Like many who grew up in Lincoln, I became aware of Butch Berman as a musician, first seeing him perform at the Zoo Bar in 1974 with The Megatones, one of the great Midwest rock ‘n’ roll bands of that era. He was a manic piano player, perfectly suited to The Megatones’ raucous rockabilly antics, which were inspired and led by the frenzied singer-songwriter Charlie Burton.

Butch continued his rock ‘n’ roll career, and I would again hear him with Charlie Burton & Rock Therapy, Pinky Black and the Excessives, The Tablerockers and, in more recent years, Charlie Burton and the Dorothy Lynch Mob and The Cronin Brothers, his final band.  

When Butch launched the foundation in 1995, he called me at the Journal Star to ask me to write a story about it. We met for an interview and I wrote the story, the first local coverage for the BMF. In retrospect, it seems inevitable that we would work together—and play together.

Butch and I shared the astrological water sign of Pisces, and it formed a bond that was significant for both of us. He may not have considered himself a guru, but I do. To everyone he met and everyone he worked with, he taught the simple lesson: Enjoy life! 

I hope to have many more memorable experiences with the Berman Music Foundation, and Butch’s spirit will be present in everything we do. May the music never end.

For a glimpse into the future of the Berman Music Foundation, read Tony Rager’s column here.

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Editor's Note: This was the last story that Butch Berman wrote. Like so many other things about Butch, it illustrates his thoughtfulness, even in the final stages of his own terminal illness. 

By Butch Berman

After losing the wonderful and talented likes of the late great Frank Morgan and then Oscar Peterson at the end of 2007, I had high hopes that 2008 would bring more joy than sorrow.

Alas, one of the dearest, oldest friends and greatest gentlemen I’ve dealt with since I’ve been involved with the fabulous world of jazz the past 20-plus years passed away Jan. 4 from a heart attack at the age of 80. I’m talking about the legendary, left-handed Earl May, one of the best bassists in jazz history.

I met Earl through my old Lincoln buddy Russ Dantzler, whose Hot Jazz Management moved Russ to NYC many years ago. He lined me up to do my first interview on my original KZUM “Reboppin’” radio show during the early ‘80. I treasure those cassette phone interviews transferred to CDs and hope to make them available to the public sometime in the near future.

Earl told of his early start in music as a youngster listening to old jazz records at his aunt’s in New York before moving to the Sugar Hill section of Harlem and finally making music his career. Starting on the violin, and later wanting to be a drummer, he somehow got turned on to the upright bass in high school. Being a natural, with one of the best ears in the biz, he soon became one of the first-call players to accompany some of the all-time greats—everyone from Charlie Parker and John Coltrane to Carmen McRae, Gloria Lynne (all of the female vocalists raved of his ability to play behind them and bring out their finest recorded and live performances), Dr. Billy Taylor, Dizzy Gillespie, Junior Mance, Barry Harris and Doc Cheatham (those fantastic Sunday brunches with the sweet Doc at Sweet Basil’s), just to name a few. He led and fronted his own groups towards the later portion of his long tenure in music, recording many fine CDs for Matt Dobner’s Arbor Records that are all available and should be required for any true jazz record collector.

I was lucky enough to finally meet, dine and catch Earl live in New York playing with other artists whom I grew to know, love and call friends, such as Claude “Fiddler” Williams, Benny Waters, and Al Casey, to name a few that have passed on since then. I even got to book Earl at our Lincoln, Neb., hometown Zoo Bar when I first started the Berman Music Foundation. We called the group the New York All-Stars, which featured my good buddy Jackie Williams on drums, from the Mingus days the now-departed pianist Jaki Byard, trombone master Jimmy Knepper, and one of the first appearances of one of New York’s finest female vocalists today, Kendra Shank. I have videos of those shows that, like my interview, I would love to make public for all his vast array of friends and fans to behold. Hanging with Earl and his lovely wife Lee in my hometown will be remembered and carried in my heart forever.

I can close my eyes and still picture Earl schlepping his bass all over Manhattan, dealing with parking his car, getting to whatever gig he had and, as always, playing his ass off with more dignity, finesse, and pure raw talent through his 50s, into his 60s and right up until he expired at 80.

We should all be as fortunate to live out our dreams and goals with such passion and pleasure. I will always love you, Earl, and remember the good times for the rest of my life and enjoy the incredible legacy of recorded music you left behind for us all cherish forever. You truly were one of the best. God bless you, and rest in peace in jazz heaven for eternity.

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