On April 3, I posted about three Warne Marsh clips at YouTube taped during a San Francisco performance in October 1987, just two months before the tenor saxophonist's death. Here's one of them to refresh your memory...
In my post, I wondered who captured the concert with a hand-held camera and why the clips were appearing now. Guitarist John Klopotowski, who posted them to YouTube, sent along the following email:
"Hi Marc. In late 1987, I was living on New York's Long Island operating a music teaching studio. I had studied with Warne Marsh in New York from 1982 to '84 and kept in touch with hm after he moved back to Los Angeles. I also visited him in 1986 and '87, and sent him cassette tapes of my practice sessions so he could evaluate my progress. I had friends in San Francisco and knew about his gig in October 1987 and also his duo concert a week earlier at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., with guitarist Larry Koonse (who's in the video). As we know, we lost Warne in December 1987.
"Fast forward to 1999. I was living in San Francisco and had developed a close friendship with jazz collector Jack Goodwin in England. Jack was the principal archivist of Warne’s recordings. Jack and I exchanged some audio recordings around that time. One of them was the San Francisco concert on Oct. 18, 1987.
"The concert originally had been broadcast live on KJAZ. It had been recorded privately to cassette and then copied both to cassettes and CDs. At some point, Jack let me know that there was a video made of the concert by someone named Bill Schweitzer. Bill had operated a small record store in San Francisco and filmed the concert on a handheld VHS camcorder.
"I met with Bill around 2003, and he gave me a copy of the original VHS tape. However, when I played it, there was sound in only one channel, and it wasn't very good. I immediately wondered if there might be a way to combine the audio cassette and the VHS tape. If so, I imagined it would be a powerful document of the concert and a great testament to Warne’s mastery.
"My idea remained dormant until 2013. At that time, I met with K.C. Marsh, Warne's son, to tape an interview for his soon-to-be-completed documentary about his father—An Improvised Life. It was a great meeting, and toward the end I gave him copies of the audio and video from the San Francisco concert. By then I had transferred the VHS to a DVD. I also let K.C. know of my idea to combine the two. K.C. said it might be possible to merge them with the Adobe Premiere video editing software.
"A couple of years later, I acquired the software and began learning how to use it. Last month I again thought about the concert video and started experimenting with the video and audio files. The result was What Is This Thing Called Love, the first tune in the second set. I was happy with the result and sent it to K.C. and the Marsh family. They, too, were pleased.
"At this point I’ve posted the three videos that are on YouTube and will work on three or four more performances from the concert that will be included with K.C.’s film. He plans to finish editing soon and to release the film this year.
"Unfortunately, the original VHS tape did not include the entire concert. The full set list is available online at the Warne Marsh Information website here created by Jack Goodwin and maintained by Seth Kaplan. You can find it in Warne's discography here. Fortunately, in addition to the three songs posted, I have a full performance of 317 E. 32nd and a couple of other gems.
"This is the story for now, but I want to reiterate that it was a real honor for me to know, study with, and play music with Warne. I am particularly struck in the video by his active eyes and amazing breathing, he was a brilliant man and played great right up to the end."
JazzWax note: To view John Klopotowski's book, A Jazz Life: Memories and Studies Drawn from 
from JazzWax http://ift.tt/2oUPheE
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