Flat Baroque - instrumentalist dies Feb. 4

[Marty TX]

This won't mean much to many of you, but Norman Herzberg, the bassoonist who plays the fun little riff in Flat Baroque died on February 4th of this year. I'm a bassoonist myself, and I've long revered Mr. Herzberg. He taught at USC for many years and has trained many of the world's best bassoonists. It's amazing that Richard got him to play on Flat Baroque, because Mr. Herzberg was quite ornery and in great demand for studio recording (just listen to a lot of those great Warner Bros. cartoons). I recently wrote to him and asked him about playing for Richard and Karen, and he said he remembered the recording session wel, and he thought they were talented. It's sad for the bassoon world that he's gone, and even more sad that he died the same day as Karen.

 

[seashorepiano]

He also played bassoon on SP 3035, Sergio Mendes Presents Lobo.

 

[Johnny Angel]

In the liner notes for the SONG FOR YOU Gold CD, Richard makes this comment:

Credit must be given to Norm Herzberg for his performance on bassoon and for his comment in the studio following completion of his part... "This isn't exactly what I had in mind when I left the house!"

 

[brycem]

If my memory serves me right didn't he show up at the recording session of For All We Know where Richard asked him to play the opening duet part just for kicks which he ended up liking and wanted to use for the release but he got a call from Herzbergs management who told Richard that he wasn't authorized to use the recording? I think it was in the Coleman book......

 

[Gordo]

On the official website (I think it's in the Fans Ask section), Richard says that José Feliciano played the original opening to For All We Know, but that José's management canned it.

 

[brycem]

Have just found it on the official website...

Richard said :

"For All We Know" remains one of my favorites as well. No, I didn't have oboe in mind originally. We had run into Jose Feliciano at one of our favorite restaurants- and a music business hangout- Martoni's. He really admired our records and asked if he could play on an upcoming one. It so happened to be just at the time we were rush recording "For All We Know". Karen and I were honored, answered in the affirmative and in no time we were in Studio A at A&M Studios. Jose came up with that lovely intro and played here and there on his nylon string acoustic through the rest of the recording and all ended well. Or so we thought. The following day I received a call from his manager, an incredibly rude man who so much as ordered me to remove Jose from the recording. I took an instant dislike to this SOB- who did not remain Jose's manager for very long- and explained that, with all due respect to Feliciano, the Carpenters were one helluva lot hotter than Jose and in addition, it was Jose's idea to begin with. We then simply replaced the guitar intro with the oboe.

 

[Dave]

Aside from the now finding out the disappointment of José Felicianno not being able to play on "For All We Know" (--Which he could'a done a real hot version of, if he recorded it himself!!!) I do enjoy that "Hot, Classy OBOE"--that still to this day makes the song what it is, along with the "Laaaaaahhhh"'s of Karen & Richard and even Richard's piano-lead making it through "to the front of" the song...!!!



Dave

 

[Johnny Angel]

I wonder if the Feliciano track still exists... I still hope that someday Richard will release a "first track" CD... I'm curious to hear what the first version of "Close To You" sounded like... And a version of "For All We Know" with Feliciano's playing guitar at the intro and throughout would be fun to listen to, also...