Violinist and Composer Andrew Bird Turns to the Great American Songbook on ‘Sunday Morning Put-On’

By Greg Cahill | From the July-August 2024 issue of Strings Magazine

When quirky violinist, songwriter, singer, producer, and whistler extraordinaire Andrew Bird, 50, went looking for somewhere to dive into the small-combo jazz and Great American Songbook material of his youth, he found the perfect place: the recently renovated Valentine Recording Studios on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood, where Bing Crosby, Stan Kenton, and Burl Ives, among others, laid down classic sides. “It’s like stepping into the past,” Bird told Billboard, “from the elegant, nostalgic feel of its vintage furniture and classic decor to the warm, comforting tones of its aged tube amps and ribbon microphones. If the space feels frozen in time, that’s because it has been.”

The legendary analog studio served as home base for Bird’s latest recording, Sunday Morning Put-On (Loma Vista), which harks back to the halcyon days when Bird awoke in his low-rent Chicago apartment to the sounds of golden-era jazz from the ’30s and ’40s played on Dick Buckley’s eclectic WBEZ radio show. “My love for a certain era of jazz up through the mid-20th century has been constant through many transmutations in my own work,” Bird said in a release, “the bulk of which is not jazz at all. Once I had some distance between myself and this time when I was under its spell, I wanted to immerse myself in it again.”

Accompanied by trio compatriots drummer Ted Poor and bassist Alan Hampton—joined by guest artists Jeff Parker on guitar and Larry Goldings on piano—the Grammy-nominated Bird winds his way through a set of jazz and film score standards by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Lerner and Loewe, and Rodgers and Hart, among others.

The sessions featured Bird’s Peter Seman five-string violin played through a vintage ’60s Fender Deluxe Reverb amplifier. “That low C is what helps get into that tenor-sax tone,” he explains.  

Strings asks Bird about the Sunday Morning Put-On sessions.

What was the impetus for this project?

We had recorded a few Vince Guaraldi tunes for my holiday album, Hark!, and I thought I’d like to make a whole album of small-group jazz. After my last album, Inside Problems, I didn’t feel like writing yet, and I wanted to immerse myself in improvisation based on my favorite period in jazz: 1950s small-group, late-era swing to cool-period jazz, especially the great tenor players.  

The American songbook is vast, and I loved that you included the chestnut “Caravan.” What led you to this particular set of songs?

“Caravan” I’ve been playing since I was 19, playing in Chicago clubs. People always go wild for it. Never gets old. When the bridge hits and you sing “this is so exciting,” it always feels right. The sinister vibraphone part that Ted Poor came up with really takes it somewhere new. Also, Lester Young’s Jazz Giants ’56 is a massive album for me. The instrumental version of “I Didn’t Know what Time it Was” is a masterpiece. Then I looked at the lyrics, which are brilliant, urbane, and clever. “I didn’t know what time it was, life was no prize”—I thought we would make an instrumental album, but I can’t resist singing. “I Fall in Love Too Easily” I’ve been doing for 15 to 20 years, since I heard Chet Baker’s version. How often does an instrumental soloist finish a solo and then sing, making the listener connect your vocal phrasing with your instrument? Think about it. Not too often, at least not with a linear instrument like horn or violin. The rest are just my favorite tunes from this era. We recorded many others, but found that anything too hot or New Orleans style didn’t feel right with this set.  

What did you seek to bring to these songs, often played on brass, as a violinist?

Deciding to keep it as a trio recording live, mostly without chordal accompaniment, was the most important decision. So, you’ve got two fretless instruments and drums creating a ton of space, allowing the violin’s full tonal range to be heard. It was incredibly intimate and at times fragile. It’s scary to sing with only upright bass to center you. Sometimes I’d pizz[icato] the notes I sing just to keep it nailed down.  

Why have composers like Gershwin and Cole Porter found an enduring place in our hearts throughout the decades?

I think it’s the romanticism paired with the literary wit that causes them to endure. Also, the economy of the writing. “I Fall in Love Too Easily” is only 16 bars of perfection. I realized in making this album that despite my forays into pop songwriting, I can’t help but write songs in the shape of these standards, the 32-bar AABA form. To this day, I have the hardest time writing an obvious chorus.  

Stéphane Grappelli, Svend Asmussen, Stuff Smith, and Ray Nance are among the famed jazz players that recorded some of these classics. Did these violinists, or any others, influence you?

Honestly, no. They did influence me in my 20s, but I encourage myself and any other string players interested in jazz to think beyond their instrument. I learned this first when I transcribed John Coltrane’s “Blue Train” in music school. I found myself using bow pressure to match tone, and it cracked open a whole new way of playing. One with longer melismatic phrases and thinking of my violin like a reed instrument, where bow pressure is like forcing breaths of air into a mouthpiece sometimes going over the edge into chaos. The result is much less articulated and choppy than the hot-jazz style that was violin’s heyday. 

How is that reflected in the recording?

Well, like I said, I spent a lot of time with those great jazz violinists in my early years, but when it comes to this era of ’50s hi-fi jazz and the [producer Rudy] Van Gelder’s recordings for Blue Note and Verve, I wasn’t hearing the tone and patience from those players that you get from Coleman Hawkins or Lester Young. In a way, I wanted to fill that vacancy and show that violin can work in this context with a more guttural, deep-rich sound. 

What do you hope listeners take away from this album?

In the end, it’s not so much me doing jazz—it’s me taking jazz and making an Andrew Bird album.