A Brief History

by Gregory Wilburn Amerind

Beginnings

In the dying moments of the 20th century, people invented a myriad of devices to reproduce electronically just about any existing musical instrument, all but eliminating the need for a full compliment of musicians to play a given piece.  A talented keyboardist with a multi-track recording system was all that was required.  The human voice continues to defy this type of artificial reproduction, particularly when it comes to singing. There is no instrument that can duplicate the unique sound that is produced when the lungs shoot a stream of air through the laryngeal gates, sending a tonal vibration at the exit point that becomes the mother of speech and song.

Harmony.  The singing of two or more lines that together generate a new sound, sometimes dissonant, sometimes sonorant, but at all times fuller and richer in sum than in part.  Although these thoughts had not consciously developed in my mind at the time I received Earl’s phone call, the idea behind the thoughts was in complete charge of my life.

Choral music was IT for me, beginning with my first childhood memories of singing harmony in church, to joining the choir in High School, and singing with college and professional ensembles of all shapes, sizes and styles.  My obsession with jazz vocal ensembles began one afternoon during my freshman year at Cal State Northridge, a university north of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley.  Although the school had a strong vocal program, they had not yet become enlightened to the emerging ensemble art form of vocal jazz.  In the early 1970’s, groups like The Manhattan Transfer and Singers Unlimited had sparked a national movement at colleges and universities to rediscover the tight, poly-chordal harmonies first made popular in the 1950’s by The Hi-Los and Lambert, Hendricks and Ross.  The Hal Leonard publishing company and others flooded the market with a tsunami of compositions and arrangements to meet the demand.  It was in this atmosphere that one of the instrumental teachers at CSUN, Joel Leach, announced the formation of the CSUN Jazz Vocal Ensemble.  It would be a non-credited class at first, just an off-shoot of the Jazz Band, performing as an auxiliary at their concerts.  I was one of a dozen or so that showed up that fateful afternoon for the first meeting.  After a short audition to make sure we could read and carry a tune, we were off and running, reading through Gene Puerling arrangements, some of the most difficult and strikingly beautiful choral music I’d ever heard or sung.

I continued with this group, along with my other studies, even as I transferred to UCLA during my junior year.  Under the direction of Joanne Wasserman, the group began to be taken pretty seriously.  I tried my hand at scat singing, and even tried doing a couple of arrangements of my own.  They were horrible.  But I would keep trying.  Then, at the ballistic age of 22, I decided to quit school. It was time to make a living doing what I truly loved, singing. One day, at one of the last rehearsals I would attend at CSUN, I spied the flyer from a man named Earl Starks on the bulletin board outside our practice room.  He was forming a 6-voice jazz group, 3 men and 3 women. Although I knew nothing about him except that he was studying vocal arranging at the Dick Grove school in North Hollywood, I jotted down the number, called him, auditioned and was invited to join the next week. I soon found out that two of my CSUN Vocal Jazz compatriots, Don Sisting and Emilie Diehl were also in the group, along with two other women I hadn't yet met, Kate Markowitz and Joanie Diener.

Hexagon

We didn't actually have a name for the group at that point. It was just "Earl's Group" for lack of anything else, and he intended it as more of a workshop for his arrangements than an actual performing group. But I didn't care. I had a sense that something important for me had begun. I used the opportunity to try my hand at some more writing. It was still primitive but I was so grateful to have the chance and look back on those early attempts with deep nostalgia.

After a few months and one unpaid public performance (a recording of which survives to this day), Earl left town. But before he left, we went into the studio and laid down three songs that could serve as a demo for future endeavors. It also served as a memento for Earl. They are on the download page in all their unpolished and glorious innocence.

Perhaps a bit amateurish, the tape helped us line up our first paid gig. To fill in for Earl, I called a former colleague from the CSUN group, Steve Landau. This would be the genesis of a very prolific writing and arranging team as Steve was very gifted in both categories. We gelled immediately and began collaborating as well as offering our own compositions and arrangements soon thereafter. So we did the gig (see photos) as a sextet under the name of "Hexagon" with myself, Steve, Don, Emilie, Joanie and Kate. This would be the last time Joanie and Kate would sing with us as they had decided to move on to other things.

Rebirth and a New Name

The four of us left, 3 guys and a gal decided to soldier on. After a brief and fruitless search for another alto, we decided to stay a quartet, with me singing alto. It turned out to be a really unique sound, kind of a guy group but with a soaring high soprano in Emilie. Sort of like Singers Unlimited on acid. I had been imagining an edgier hybrid like this for some time and circumstances brought it into being. After junking the now-inappropriate name of "Hexagon" it was time to come up with a new name for us. I was spending the day at my father's house in Malibu. It was a beautifully clear day and the view got me to thinking about incorporating the ocean into our moniker. Something led me to the idea of playing on the name of the Northern California power company, Pacific Gas and Electric and Pacific Jazz & Electric was born. The name was an instant hit as it described the basic musical elements we were striving to combine along with an allusion to our native location. Later it spawned our slogan, "Catch the Electric Fever" which we used on our publicity material.

Music

So, we had a sound and a name. Next on the agenda, material. We had been relying mainly on stock arrangements and decided that would no longer do. Steve and I began to bring in original songs along with our own arrangements of standards. Don and Emilie also contributed here and there. Regardless of whose name was on the piece, the end result was always a collaborative effort with all four singers contributing ideas to make it better. We experimented a lot. Steve played keyboard and another friend of ours, Gary Pratt, who played bass, got hooked on what we were doing. Don and I played trombone and trumpet and Emilie played a little recorder, so we tried to incorporate all of that into the stuff we were writing. Few recordings of this stage survive, and those that do are pretty poor quality. But all of the experimenting would lead to some fun and interesting results. Gradually it started to come together and we started performing regularly around L.A. Gary became our music director and in 1981, Cris Franco, a dear friend and gifted writer/performer, became our manager and stage advisor. Trudi Aemett served as our official publicity photographer and would have done all of our albums if we had gotten that far. She took almost all of the photos that appear here.

For three years, 1979 to 1982, we were staples at clubs like 2 Dollar Bill's, Coffee Emporium, Natural Fudge Company, The Horn, Rapisardi's Ristorante and other now-defunct establishments as well as classy joints like the Biltmore Hotel. We got airplay on KCSN, played a live concert on Pacifica Radio's station, KPFK and entertained at the LA Vocal Jazz Festival one year. We did several studio recordings, including a memorable session in the basement studio of the Crystal Cathedral in Anaheim. Gary was our primary bass player throughout. Steve Kaplan would often play keyboard along with Gordon Goodwin and Steve Landau. Joe Greco was our primary drummer from almost the beginning, after Bob Weller played on our first studio cuts. In 1982 we added vocalist and dancer Luretta McCray and became a quintet. Emilie left shortly after Luretta joined and was replaced briefly by Chris White. Jan Aldrin and Lynne Levine later did one-shots as our soprano. Jan was with us on our final performance at 2 Dollar Bill's in August 1982 and Lynne did our final studio recording later that year. 

As is often the case in the music business, just when we started to get pretty good, we broke up. Although Luretta, Don and I would re-unite in the studio one more time in 1984, we were done. I made several attempts over the past 2 decades to reform the group with Luretta, but with limited success. Either the timing or the personnel didn't jibe. For three years I had caught lightning in a bottle, a feat I was never able to duplicate. It was a fun ride for 3 years though.

So this is sort of an online scrapbook for anyone who was there or is curious. I've included some mp3 files of the PJ&E catalogue along with some photos and memorabilia. 

Here is a quick "where are they now" of some of the people you will hear in the music and see in the pictures along with the behind-the-scenes folks. I've been in touch with many but had to "Google" the rest for updates.

The Singers

The Band

The Rest

 

 

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