'Jazz in S.L.C.' benefits from trio's CD sales

People who love jazz now have one more thing to like about the local jazz scene — "Day by Day," a new CD from the Craig Larson Trio (featuring Terry Harrington).

The disc is being released to help support the "Jazz in Salt Lake City" series. The nonprofit GAM Foundation puts on 10 concerts a year — in the past featuring such powerhouse talents as Dave Brubeck, Diana Krall, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock. And some concerts have been benefits for jazz scholarships at the University of Utah.

With the CD, however, the beneficiary is the "Jazz in Salt Lake City" series.

Larson said that he approached series-founder Gordon Hanks with the idea. "If subscribers had something they got in return for a contribution, it might help in terms of adding money to the coffers," said Larson.

Originally they considered putting a CD together of cameo appearances made by the various artists on the schedule, recorded as they came through town. "But we decided that, contractually, that might create some difficulties, so we just made it an independent project."

Larson sought out the top local jazz musicians to join him on the disc — including vocalist Kelly Eisenhour and saxophonist Ray Smith. "There are a lot of local musicians of considerable talent. I've been really impressed with the players here."

And then he thought it would be nice to add a good regional player. "I woke up one night about 2 in the morning. I had my CD player there with a headset, and I put it on to listen to JazzWorks, which is an all-night program. And I heard this Terry Harrington, this clarinetist from the West Coast, playing with the Patrick Williams Orchestra. He just absolutely knocked me out, so I did a little research on him the next day, called him, and asked him if he would be part of the recording."

As it turns out, Larson said, Harrington has been a studio musician for about 35 years. "He has played with everybody you can think of, has done hundreds of albums. He's the saxophone voice for Lisa Simpson on the Simpsons. He's the one that plays all the saxophone parts. That's kind of his claim to fame."

And then there was the question of which music to choose. "We wanted it to be a really user-friendly project, one that was really accessible to listeners. It has almost a '40s or '30s quality because we drew heavily from that Tin Pan Alley era, Great American Songbook era."

Tracks include "Fly Me to the Moon," "It Don't Mean a Thing," and "Somebody Loves Me." "Those standards have been done a lot, but we opted to do something more familiar than something more arcane."