San Diego’s Ira B. Liss Big Band Jazz Machine releases its sixth album, “Mazel Tov Kocktail!,” on Jan. 15. The tall, bearded guy in the back is conductor, producer and artistic director Ira B. Liss, who founded the band in 1979.
The group’s album features bass great Nathan East. A recording with country-music star and Eagles’ member Vince Gill is also in the offing
By George Varga
Nov. 18, 2021 9AM PT
Counting down a song is a way of life for many musicians, but Ira B. Liss and the 16 members of his Big Band Jazz Machine have two especially notable countdowns coming up in the next four days.
On Saturday, the group will headline the 40th anniversary celebration of Kehilat Ariel Messianic Synagogue. It will be the brassy ensemble’s first public gig since late 2019, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down performances around the world. By coincidence, the band — which Liss has led through a number of iterations over the decades — earlier this year celebrated its own 40th anniversary.
On Tuesday, an even more notable event could occur when the nominations for the 64th annual Grammy Awards are announced. Liss and his band mates are waiting with bated breath to find out if their sixth and most recent album made the cut.
Released in January after being completed remotely during the pandemic lockdown, “Mazel Tov Kocktail!” is the first Big Band Jazz Machine album to be submitted for Grammy consideration.
“We finished the recording on March 1, 2020, 10 days prior to the lockdown. Then, I had to mix the recording and do all the post-production work, which started about seven weeks after the lockdown. It was done in very, very controlled and unprecedented conditions, and it was really difficult.
- Ira
Even a single listen to “Mazel Tov Kocktail!” affirms that it was worth the extra effort.
Accordingly, the audacious album has earned the most favorable reviews of the group’s career, including in Jazziz magazine. In addition to being featured on numerous U.S. radio stations, “Mazel Tov Kocktail!” has earned airplay in Europe, Japan and Brazil.
“It would be a real real honor and thrill to get a Grammy nomination,” Liss said. “It’s something you dream about your whole life, and I know it would be very exciting for the band and me.”
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Liss is not a member of the Recording Academy, under whose auspices the Grammys are held. But the Big Band Jazz Machine’s Los Angeles-based publicist, Holly Cooper, is a member. She submitted “Mazel Tov Kocktail!” in five Grammy categories, including Best Large Jazz Ensemble and Best Original Instrumental Composition (for the song “Bass: The Final Frontier”).
A showcase for San Diego-bred electric bass guitar great Nathan East, “Bass: The Final Frontier” was also submitted for Grammy nomination consideration in the Best Improvised Jazz Solo category.
Liss and East had previously encountered one another in the late 1960s and early 1970s when each played in rival high school jazz ensembles here, Liss at Patrick Henry and East at Crawford.
Liss approached East about recording with the Big Band Jazz Machine in 2015 at Sherwood Auditorium. The bassist was at the now-defunct La Jolla venue for a Union-Tribune-sponsored event to perform solo, screen “For the Record” (a film documentary about his career), and discuss his musical collaborations with Whitney Houston, Daft Punk, Eric Clapton, Herbie Hancock, George Harrison, Beyonce and many more.
“When Ira sent me the recording of ‘Bass: The Final Frontier’ for me to add my parts to, it sounded so great I thought: ‘He really doesn’t need me on it’,” East recalled with a chuckle from his San Fernando Valley home.
“I put down a bass track fairly similar to what he had had sent me. Ira heard it, and said: ‘No, I want you to do you and to stretch out and go for it.’ So I re-recorded my part at my studio, during lockdown, and sent it to him. I was surprised and very happy to learn they submitted it for Grammy consideration.”
East has been nominated for six previous Grammys as a member of leading pop-jazz band Fourplay. He also earned a nomination for his self-titled 2007 debut solo album. If “Bass: The Final Frontier” is nominated and receives enough votes, the UC San Diego alum could have his first-ever Grammy win.
“It would be sort of ironic that it wasn’t for one of my own projects, but it would be amazing!” East said. “Leading a big band is a real labor of love, and I have a lot of admiration for Ira and his musicians.”
Country-music star Vince Gill, who is now a member of the Eagles, is one of the artists with whom East has collaborated.
By coincidence, Liss independently reached out to Gill during the pandemic to ask if he’d like to record a track for the Big Band Jazz Machine’s next album, which will feature guest artists who rarely if ever record jazz.
Liss was surprised and delighted when Gill enthusiastically responded. The veteran country-music star told Liss that, not only had he longed wanted to dip his feet into big-band music, but that he had written a song precisely for such an opportunity.
“The two guys at the top of my list were Vince Gill and Asleep at the Wheel’s Ray Benson, and I thought we could do a Western Swing song with each of them,” Liss said.
“When Vince phoned me, he said: ‘I really don’t want to do any thing Western Swing-oriented. I really want to do something different, and your call was so timely.’ Then he said: ‘One of my biggest bucket list items for years is I always wanted to be a crooner.”
Had all gone as planned, Gill would have joined Liss and his band in October at San Diego’s Studio West to record Gill’s “I’m Counting on You,” which Liss describes as a slow swing tune.
That recording session was postponed, Liss said, after the members of the Eagles road crew contracted COVID-19 and the band’s management asked the Eagles to stay in a tight bubble for their fall tour.
“It looks like we’ll be getting together to record in March, and the Big Band Jazz Machine has its arrangement all ready,” Liss said.
“Whenever Vince is good to go, we’re ready. He’s pretty amazing, And it’s not everyday you get to work with somebody who’s won 22 Grammy awards.”