Jazzman keeps
spirit in Lincoln
By Liza Holtmeeer
Senior Reporter
When Butch Berman was 7, he
started collecting records. By age 10,
he had 300 albums. Now, more than
30 years later, Berman’s music col
lection contains more than 20,000
albums, CDs, and videos.
“My goal is to live long enough
to hear and view them all,” he said.
Berman, a 48-year-old Lincoln
native, has spent most of his life
involved with the world of music,
specifically rock ’n’ roll. In 1964, he
started his first band, The Exploits,
as a student at Lincoln High School.
Since then, he has traveled from San
Francisco to New York, playing pro
fessional music in bands like Road
Side Attraction, the Kaleidoscopes,
the Perks and, most recently, the
Hobnobs.
But about two years ago, Berman
tired of rock ’n’ roll and rediscovered
his passion for jazz.
“There’s nothin’ like puttin’ on a
guitar and gettin’ in somebody’s
face,” Berman said. “But you get to a
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something else.”
Now, Berman is determined to
increase jazz awareness in the
Lincoln area.
“There’s a very small hard-core
jazz following in Lincoln,” Berman
explained. “Jazz has always been
there, but it’s always had to struggle.”
Hoping to end this struggle, he
established the Berman Music
Foundation, a charitable, nonprofit
organization involved in the promo
tion and protection of jazz music.
The foundation’s first project
was the conversion of Berman’s
house into a museum. He first con
sidered the idea after finding an
important jazz record at a Goodwill
Industries thrift store.
“There was this lawyer who was
not much older than me, who had
died, and somehow his stuff ended
up at Goodwill,” Berman said.
“There was this incredible record for
a quarter. I thought how there is no
one I can really leave all my stuff to
who I can really trust.”
Realizing the importance of shar
ing and preserving the volumes of
work he had amassed, Berman went
through legal motions to turn his
house into a museum in 1995. Since
then, many people have donated rare
albums to the foundation’s archives.
“They know the record will have
a home forever,” Berman said of
doqators. “Years from now, people
will be able to enjoy it because some
one kept it clean and playable.”
Though Berman would like
someday to move the collection into
a building and combine office space
and a performance venue, for now he
allows visitors to view the collection
by appointment at his home.
Berman Music Foundation also
promotes jazz by bringing musicians
to the Lincoln area to perform. Past
celebrity jazz musicians include sax
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Jane Jarvis and bassist Christian
McBride.
“It’s a great setup, because we
give the musicians work while
enriching the community and mak
ing friends for life,” Berman
explained. “I’ve now made friends
with most of my idols.”
The foundation has scheduled
performances by two guest musi
cians this fall. On Oct. 4, the organi
zation will help sponsor the Doug
Talley Quartet from Kansas City,
Mo., at Ebenezer’s. On Oct. 19, it
will co-produce with the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln Music
Department a concert of the
Minneapolis/St. Paul jazz sextet the
Motion Poets. The performance will
be at Westbrook Music Building.
In the meantime, Berman and the
foundation are busy funding two CD
projects with Arabesque Records.
MICHAEL WARREN/DN
ALONG WITH having a collection of thousands of records and compact discs, Butch Berman is also a gifted musi
cian. Berman can play the piano as well as the guitar. Berman has become known in the clubs of New York City
and Kansas City, Mo., because of his knowledge of jazz, and has earned himself the nickname the “Jazz Angel.”
On Feb. 1, 1998, Andrienne Wilson’s
“She’s Dangerous” will be released.
Berman said he was an avid admirer
of Wilson and took his greatest pride
in working with the making of her
album. Next year, Berman also will
fund a new CD by Norman Headman
and Tropique, who performed at the
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery’s Jazz
in June series this summer.
To help keep the public knowl
edgeable about the foundation’s
activities, Berman publishes a
monthly newsletter, “Jazz.” It’s com
piled by some of Berman’s col
leagues and includes stories about
jazz performances and CD reviews.
The newsletter’s July/August edi
tion gave full coverage to the Jazz in
June series and paid tribute to the
late jazzman Doc Cheatham.
Berman had the opportunity to meet
Cheatham at Sweet Basil, a New
York City jazz club.
While working with the founda
tion, Berman also DJs for local radio
station KZUM, 89.3 FM. Berman’s
show, “Reboppin’,” airs Thursday
afternoons from noon to 2:30 p.m.
“I started as a DJ about six years
ago with my friend Dave Hughes,”
Berman explained. “It was called
‘Bop Street’ and revolved around the
blues. When I got back into jazz, we
just changed the name.”
Berman said Lincoln’s response
to his endeavors has been positive.
The main problem he perceives with
a further increase of jazz in Lincoln
is the lack of a suitable venue.
“Ebenezer’s is the closest thing to
a jazz venue in Lincoln,” Berman
said. “If I could design one here, I
would make it like The Birdland in
New York - great sight lines, a good
menu, a lot of a variety in the musi
cians and steeped in jazz.”
The closest true jazz community,
Berman said, is Kansas City, Mo.
Lincoln could learn from Kansas
City’s endeavors, Berman said.
The jazzman has no plans to
leave Lincoln, however.
“I enjoy traveling, and I’ve been
all over, but I’m going to stay here
and see what we can accomplish,”
Berman said. “Lincoln presents a
challenge, and I’m having fun bring
ing all these people together for
jazz.”
By Bret Schulte
Senior Reporter
Corporate rock still sucks.
But you won’t get Jon Taylor of Mercy Rule
to admit that - yet.
Local rock darlings and vocal powerhouse
Mercy Rule worked for two years to release an
album and hoped that by signing with rock
music mastodon MCA, their wait would finally
be over.
Instead, they have encountered a new tangle
of legal technicalities and corporate upsets.
Recording demos at Fort Apache in Boston
and completing the album during the summer
of 1996 at Smart Studios in Madison, Wis.,
Mercy Rule waited for months for a response
from MCA.
The one they got wasn’t the one they want
ed to hear - the album would not be released.
“We’re just grumpy that we lost a lot of
time,” said Taylor, the trio’s guitarist. “We
expected it to come out last spring.”
For a label to decide not to release an album
is nothing unusual, but Mercy Rule’s response
was. Now, Taylor, bassist Heidi Ore and drum
mer Ron Albertson are trying to buy back the
legal rights to the MCA-produced album. The
arrangement would allow Mercy Rule to buy
the album’s reproduction rights for $6,000, a
fraction of the cost of ownership rights.
“Typically what happens is the band will
shop around to find another label to buy the
rights to (the album),” Taylor said. “We had
never intended to wait for another label to pick
up this record, so we started negotiating imme
diately to release it independently.”
Mercy Rule’s fir§t recording success came
with Relativity Records, where the band made
its biggest album to date: 1994’s “Providence.”
In early 1996, Mercy Rule recruited Bob
Mould’s former production partner, Lou
Giordano, to help produce its follow-up to
“Providence.” Before the album got under way,
however, Relativity shed its rock acts, opting,
instead, for the recent momentum of urban and
hip-hop groups.
Giordano stuck with Mercy Rule and orga
nized a Fort Apache studio demo session, where
the recordings sent to MCA Records were
recorded. The demo was well-received, and a
recording contract was signed. Mercy Rule fin
ished the album in less than four weeks and sub
mitted it to MCA, which still owns the record
the band so anxiously wants manufactured.
“(MCA) has difficulty dealing with any
band that isn’t a very large commercial success,
meaning: They put all their eggs in one basket,
and if the band doesn’t do extremely well in
commercial radio, they just drop the project,”
Taylor said.
MCA didn’t return phone calls seeking
comment for this story.
Taylor said that MCA felt Mercy Rule was
n’t commercial material, which is fine with
Taylor, who cites such examples as Superchunk
and Jesus Lizard in pointing out successful
bands that have not received much attention
from popular radio stations.
Mercy Rule’s staying power in the region
has always rested on its relationship with stu
dents, forged from the intimate rock howls and
cavernous bass and guitar of Ore and Taylor.
Taylor said while MCA may see success in
dollar signs, he believes it is measured in what
the band has produced.
“The big labels just limit themselves so
much,” Taylor said. “Either it goes on big radio
stations, or it doesn’t matter. I know that’s
where they get most of their sales, but if they
just slowed down and put put better records that
rock, they would take care of themselves.”
Ore agreed with Taylor and commented that
Mercy Rule never saw anyone from MCA while
recording. Their only real communication came
with the decision not to release the album, she
said.
For now, though, Mercy Rule has had
enough of labels.
“We are not that anxious to sign any more
contracts,” Taylor said.
But Mercy Rule has made a brief agreement
with the same company that produced their
infant indie offering, “God Protects Fools,” in
’91. By returning to Caulfield Records, the
local label that initiated Mercy Rule’s momen
tum to major label MCA, Mercy Rule should
have its latest album ready for distribution by
September.
Despite the anxiety and letdowns, Taylor
still believes in the benefits that large compa
nies such as MCA have to offer relatively
unknown bands.
“It’s not like we are bitter about any of this
label stuff, and we’re not pissed off,” he said.
. “I’m not saying that a band shouldn’t try to get
signed. I think these labels are good for helping
bands afford to go into a cool studio with a cool
producer and make a record better than the one
they made before.”
66
We are not that anxious
to sign any more contracts
Jon Taylor
guitarist for Mercy Rule
The opportunity to produce a record with
Giordano led Mercy Rule to MCA in the first
place, Taylor said, because working with pro
ducers of his stature cost more than the band
could muster by themselves. Taylor said
Giordano’s input on the recordings was essen
tial.
“Before we would just play real fast at the
end of songs and keep speeding up,” Taylor
said. “He made sure we didn’t do that, and we
would have taken the first takes because we’re
lazy, but he said, ‘No, try it again.’”
With Giordano’s influence and the new
album, Mercy Rule is taking its act on the road
for the first time in more than a year. The band
is traveling in its signature van through Iowa,
Nebraska and Kansas for the next few weeks.
The band hasn’t had any problems scheduling
dates, Taylor said. ,
“When I started calling bars to book some
shows, the response was great,” he said.
“Sometimes you feel like it’s a race and, if you
get out of it, you’re lost and out of the pack. It
seems like people just kind of stick with you.
Obviously, we’ve lost some momentum
because it’s been two years since our last record,
but obviously, it’s not that big of a deal.”