The story of how Bones Howe assembled the perfect band for Tom Waits
Tom Waits‘ Nighthawks at the Diner is the legendary musician’s third album and has been highly praised for how it managed to simulate the intimacy and mood of a live jazz club atmosphere. Waits and his band recorded the album live over four nights at the Record Plant Studio in Los Angeles.
Invited to the studio was a small audience, as producer Bones Howe felt that this would help to recreate a jazz club atmosphere. Howe said: “We did it as a live recording, which was unusual for an artist so new. Herb Cohen and I both had a sense that we needed to bring out the jazz in Waits more clearly. Tom was a great performer on stage. So we started talking about where we could do an album that would have a live feel to it.”
He added: “We thought about clubs, but the well-known ones like the Troubadour were toilets in those days. Then I remembered that Barbra Streisand had made a record at the old Record Plant studios when they were on 3rd Street near Cahuenga Boulevard. It’s a mall now. There was a room there that she got an entire orchestra into. Back in those days, they would just roll the consoles around to where they needed them. So Herb and I said let’s see if we can put tables and chairs in there and get an audience in and record a show.”
Evidently, it was crucial that the band that would play with Waits during the album’s recording process were the best in the business. Fortunately, Howe had an enviable contact list with some of the best jazz musicians of the time.
Howe explained: “I got Michael Melvoin on piano, and he was one of the greatest jazz arrangers ever; I had Jim Hughart on [upright] bass, Bill Goodwin on drums and Pete Christlieb on sax. It was a total jazz rhythm section. […] Waits came out and sang ‘Emotional Weather Report’. Then he turned around to face the band and read the classified section of the paper while they played. It was like Allen Ginsberg with a really, really good band.”
Jim Hughart, who, as Howe mentioned, played bass on Nighthawks, said: “When we did actually get it all prepared and go and record, that was the fastest two days of recording I’ve ever spent in my life. It was so fun. Some of the tunes were not what you’d call jazz tunes, but for the most part, that was like a jazz record.”
He added, “This was a jazz band. Bill Goodwin was a drummer who was associated with Phil Woods for years. Pete Christlieb is one of the best jazz tenor players who ever lived. And my old friend, Mike Melvoin, played piano. There’s a good reason why it was accepted as a jazz record.”
