Jazz songwriter Dave Frishberg, whose sarcastic wit as a songwriter and melodic wit as a composer has placed him at the top of his craft, died Wednesday in Portland, Ore, at the age of 88.
His wife, April Magnusson, confirmed the death.
Mr. Frishberg, who also played and sang the piano, was an anomaly, if not an anachronism, in American popular music: an accomplished, indomitable jazz pianist who had succeeded in surviving the eras of rock, soul, disco, punk, and hip-hop. Writing hyper-literate songs that go back to Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer through Stephen Sondheim.
His songwriting was aimed at adults, but he reached his widest audience with snipers for children, regularly contributing musicals to ABC’s long-running Saturday morning television show “Schoolhouse Rock!”.
Just being aware of Dave Frishberg and his songs conveyed a familiar complexity. He made fun of this self-congratulatory coolness in his lyrics. “I’m Hip” A no-nonsense classic written by a jazz songwriter friend to a melody Bob Dorough:
Look, I’m cool. I am not square.
I’m awake, awake, aware.
I’m always on stage.
Making tours, digging sounds.
I’m reading People magazine.
‘Because I’m cool.
The original lyric for “I’m Hip”, written by Mr. Frishberg in 1966, was “I read Playboy magazine”, but he later changed it.
People magazine refused to profile him (although it briefly reviewed one of his albums from the 1980s). But the cabaret smart set’s place in the niche-songwriting world (while such a genre still exists) was supreme. Gorgeous ballroom singers became known for their Frishberg tunes. one of those singers flower dearIn Mr. Frishberg’s view, his “Peel Grape Me” comment was definitive.
Still, no one has sung a Dave Frishberg song like Dave Frishberg with its thin, high-pitched voice and compellingly narrowed vocal range. Mr. Frishberg’s acerbic chant performance “My lawyer, Bernie” it was unique, especially the succinct humming of the chorus:
Bernie tells me what to do
Bernie puts it on the line
Bernie says we’re suing, we’re suing
Bernie says we sign, we sign.
Mr. Frishberg’s gift of songwriting went far beyond satirical print. He composed some beautiful ballads and was an elegant nostalgic who wrote longingly (albeit on purpose) about the mists of time and loss. “Did You Miss New York?” had the bitter Frishberg, “Sweet Kentucky Ham” had the painful Frishberg, and “Van Lingle Mungo,” a poignant ballad composed only of interconnected names, had the masterly eloquent Frishberg. Major league baseball players a long time ago.
David Lee Frishberg was born on March 23, 1933 in St. Paul was born in Minn., the youngest of three sons to Harry and Sarah (Cohen) Frishberg. His father, who owned a clothing store, was a Polish immigrant; his mother was a native Minnesotan.
He began drawing athletes from news photos at the age of 7 and hoped to become a sports illustrator, but also listened closely to music growing up and was able to sing the entire score of “The Mikado” and other Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. His brother Mort, a self-taught blues pianist, soon led him to jazz and blues recordings and keyboards, which the young Mr. Frishberg copied by word of mouth before discovering the boogie-woogie styles of Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis. bebop’s modernist pianism.
“Jazz musicians were popular,” Mr. Frishberg wrote in his memoir “My Dear Departed Past” (2017); “They were funny, they were sensitive, they were clan members, and they seemed to have the best girlfriends.”
st. After graduating from Paul Central High School, Mr. Frishberg briefly attended Stanford University before returning home to enroll at the University of Minnesota. Although he was already a semi-regular in the local jazz scene, his sight-reading skills were too poor for an official music degree. Instead, she flirted with majoring in psychology before turning to journalism and earning her degree in 1955.
He served two years as a recruiter in the Air Force to fulfill his ROTC obligations, and was then hired by New York radio station WNEW in 1957 to write commercials and other material for disc jockeys and announcers. He quickly gave up WNEW to write catalog copy for RCA Victor Records, eventually making his debut as a solo pianist working late into the night at the Duplex cabaret in Greenwich Village.
Mr. Frishberg has been a sought-after assistant in jazz spots like Birdland and Village Vanguard for jazz luminaries like saxophonists Ben Webster, Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, and drummer Gene Krupa. Also, Carmen McRae, Anita O’Day, and Ms. While backing O’Day at the Half Note, he joined a host of great singers, including the timid Judy Garland, who sat timidly and sang “Over the Rainbow” on a dizzying night. ” Then he asked Mr. Frishberg to be the music director. He objected.
In the early 1960s, Mr. Frishberg began writing songs – “songs of all kinds,” as he recalled in “My Dear Departed Past.” When singer Fran Jeffries asked him if he could write a piece of special material that he could “hang around while singing”, he replied with “Peel Me Grape”:
peel me a grape
break me some ice
Peel me a peach, hide the feathers on my pillow
start me a cigarette
talk to me nicely
you should give me wine
And eat me.
Written in 1962, “Peel Me a Grape” was Mr. Frishberg’s first published tune—but the publishing company that bought it, Frank Music, owned by the famous Frank Loesser, did little with it. “As far as I know, the song was a pretty secret piece,” Mr. Frishberg later wrote, “until Blossom Dearie’s version.” Still, he started Mr. Frishberg as a songwriter.
Then in 1966 “I’m Hip” gave rise to a large portfolio of songs. The demos he cut to teach his songs began to tickle the insular jazz recording industry. Finally, Mr. Frishberg entered the studio to record an album of his own compositions. The recording was released in 1970 on the newly formed CTI label under the title “Oklahoma Toad”.
Mr. Frishberg fled to Los Angeles in 1971, ostensibly to write material for “The Funny Side,” a new NBC variety show starring Gene Kelly. The show only lasted nine episodes, but working as a studio musician kept Mr. Frishberg afloat. He also began to sing his songs regularly in local clubs.
In 1975, Mr. Dorough invited him to contribute to “Schoolhouse Rock!”, of which Mr. Dorough was the music director and co-writer. Mr. Frishberg’s first contribution in the show’s third season was “I’m Just a Bill,” a revealing swinger about the legislative process sung by the jazz trumpeter and vocalist. Jack Sheldon. This brought him unexpected acclaim and long-lasting holdovers for the song, which he later regretfully considered “his best-known song”.
“The Dave Frishberg Songbook, Volume No. 1” earned a 1982 Grammy Award nomination for best male jazz vocal performance. The following year, “The Dave Frishberg Songbook, Volume No. 2” did the same. In support of this album, Mr. Frishberg appeared on “The Tonight Show”. Two more Frishberg albums were nominated for Grammys, “Live at Vine Street” in 1985 and “Can’t Take You Nowhere” in 1987.
Mr. Frishberg’s 1959 marriage to Stella Giammasi ended in divorce. He later married Cynthia Wagman.
In 1986, his wife and one-year-old son, Harry, moved to Portland, escaping highway traffic and what he once called the “malicious environment” of Los Angeles. For the rest of her life she lived more or less happily in Portland, producing a second son, Max; divorce for the second time; and married Ms. Magnusson in 2000. In addition to him, he is survived by his sons.
In Portland, he collaborated regularly with vocalist Rebecca Kilgore. Mr. Frishberg often enjoyed playing solo piano in crowded hotel bars. When health problems took over him late in life, he never stopped writing, just as he mortally predicted in 1981’s “My Swan Song”:
I popped them like waffles once
The good and the terrible
A new one every day. But now
I find myself uninspired, my wig is no longer wired
I have nothing left to say. …
But I will say it anyway.
Alex Traub contributing reporting.