Words by Justin Turford

Five years after the release of his Sun Ensemble debut ‘Earthly Delights’, (see our review HERE) the brilliant spiritual jazz bassist and composer David Wertman hit the studio in 1983 to record the follow-up, ‘Wide Eye Culture’. BBE once again are on the reissue flex for this record and it is a beauty, with swinging ensemble cuts, funky oddities and delightful moments of pastoral playfulness. It is as open-hearted as it is ‘wide-eyed’. Two ridiculously rare 1981 flexi-discs and one 1982 two-track 7” make up this fifteen track compilation album and showcase Wertman’s musical evolution from the loft scene of NYC to his idyllic life in rural Massachusetts. Here we offer an excerpt from interviews (for the liner notes) between BBE’s Will Sumsuch and David Wertman’s wife and musical partner, Lynne Meryl, whose elastic, ecstatic voice propels many of the songs included here into the stratosphere.

LINER NOTES EXCERPT:

“Once he was with me, we were on a path. We shared the same vision. We came from different musical places and we just put it together.” – Lynne Meryl

When David Wertman met Lynne Meryl, she was singing in a popular Rhythm and Blues dance band, ‘The Paradise Rhythm Shoes’, named after the famous Lind quote. With a local cult following and seemingly on the cusp of wider fame, the group suddenly split. Wertman and Meryl already had mutual friends in the tight-knit scene, and it was only a matter of time before the two met. “A fan of my vocal style suggested that I should be singing jazz. He introduced me to his friend Dave, who played the upright bass,” says Meryl. “Coming from a background of folk, country, rock, and blues, I wasn’t even sure what jazz was! I thought jazz was Dixieland, or the ‘out’ stuff I would hear late at night on New York radio, like Coltrane. Dave explained to me that the hundreds of ‘standards’ I already knew from listening to the music my parents enjoyed, like Tony Bennett, Lena Horne, Nat King Cole, and Frank Sinatra was jazz too.”

Lynne clearly recalls the first time she saw David perform, outdoors at the University of Massachusetts in April, 1980, and the pair soon became inseparable. David brought in pianist Tom McClung, and they formed the Lynne Meryl Trio, playing jazz standards at universities, hotels, and taverns around New England.

“What Dave played was like nothing I’d heard before. I was inexperienced as a jazz singer, but I opened up quickly and started to improvise and scat. Coming from the New York loft free jazz scene, Dave had never played structured tunes before. So, he lifted me up and I grounded him. It was perfect.” – Lynne Meryl

By Lynne’s own admission, the Lynne Meryl Trio was ‘schizophrenic’. “On the one hand, we would go to a club and play standards, then at home we would do sessions where we would play Dave’s music. He would invite various drummers and horn players and we had a family of musicians on stage. You’d go to a Lynne Meryl gig and hear ‘Moonlight in Vermont’ and then we’d play, like, ‘Forest Dance” and it was very strange because the fanbase was so different. People who wanted to hear Dave’s music, the ‘out’ stuff, the creative music, didn’t want to hear the swing, and those people who wanted to hear the swing and standards were, like, ‘What is that??’ with the free stuff. It was an interesting time.”

“So, we met over the bass playing and we fell in love right away. And, then we were together for 33 years. It just went on and on.” – Lynne Meryl

“Dig this…” says Meryl “On much of the sheet music Dave left us, he didn’t notate his bass parts. He never dreamed, in his life, that he was gonna get cancer and go out at 61. He was always imagining he’d be there on stage … and the bass drove his music. Most of the songs he wrote had bass intros that had their own melodies, and then his amazing, deep grooves, but he rarely wrote them down. Also, he was constantly ‘cleaning up’, throwing stuff away. There were early musical scores that he had notated that were like art – graphically describing feelings and arrangements for the band to follow, and he burned it all. He threw out piles of albums because he said that no one listens to vinyl anymore. He said he didn’t want someone else to have to deal with it all after he was gone. He didn’t have an attitude or ego or expect to be famous. He was just doing it. He had a need to do it.”

In the course of researching these notes, words like ‘generous’, ‘selfless’, and ‘joyful’ have come up just as much as all the tributes to his musical brilliance. “Dave’s mission was love” says Meryl. “Dave’s mission was love and peace. His great discomfort on this planet was that there wasn’t enough love. I can’t say what his concept was except love. He was a spiritual person, not that he went to church or temple or anything. He didn’t. It was just about kindness, generosity of spirit, love, peace and protecting the planet. He just had a way of embracing everybody, and everybody felt that. ‘Come on in!’ And he made everyone else sound great. He listened – He gave his best at every performance. At his memorial, there were countless people testifying ‘Dave helped me to be this, Dave helped me to be that”. He helped us all.”

When we weigh our lives, when we truly consider how we want to live, and how we’d like to be remembered, it’s hard to think of a finer tribute than to be remembered as someone who helped. Someone who loved. A good friend. Before we signed off our conversation, Lynne Meryl shared with me that she’d been asked by Wertman’s long time collaborator and best friend, Dr. Lonnie Smith, to contribute lyrics for a song on his 2021 Blue Note album, ‘Breathe’. The piece, titled ‘Pilgrimage’, opens with her words…

‘Walking down the road, with a good friend of mine,

To a better place, a better time,

Where a world of peace, sweet love and harmony,

Right around the bend, is what we’ll find.’

“That’s Dave” says Lynne. “That’s for Dave. That is Dave.” Because David Wertman was that friend, it seems, for so many. His spirit still shines brightly through his compositions, and his passion both for music and for life itself surely lives on, somewhere out there, beyond the sun.

RELEASED ON 13 MARCH 2022 ON BBE

PRE-ORDER HERE! https://www.bbemusic.com/downloads/david-wertman-sun-ensemble-wide-eye-culture/