Sid Eden, Lost Jazz Great

The last thing Manhattan needs is another homemade CD-R. As with the demo tapes that once littered our lives, every musician in town has slapped a circular label on a home-burned disc and crammed it into a case with lousy packaging off the home printer.

That's why you can't blame a person for being less than interested when an old guy hands over a CD-R of him performing standards in, as he puts it, "an ugly voice."

Look closer at that humble packaging, though, and the listed musicians include Joe Albany, Zoot Sims and Mel Lewis. Those names won't matter to pop fans, but they're all major figures in jazz. This is like a girl at the coffeehouse peddling a cassette on which she's backed by Joni Mitchell. This is a club kid pushing his homemade product with remixes by Moby. This is?well, in this case, it's Sidney Eden, dusting off those old tapes he had lying around his home.

"Yeah," says Eden, "it's the first time I've ever tried to do anything with these songs." He says it with the casual demeanor of a guy who's been busy with other things. Eden's career in New York would be the envy of most theatre professionals. But some things haven't changed since he was a young man working at Colony Records and letting Charlie Parker steal LPs from the store.

His life-long love of jazz led to Eden's booking a few fun sessions over the years. Now he's added some recent tracks to assemble the 20-song Then & Now CD. It's almost accidental how Eden's ended up with a great album with backing from legends-including some amazing work from the pioneering bop pianist Albany.

"Joe was really a good friend," recalls Eden. "I met him when Phil Schaff announced on his radio show that people should send postcards to Joe in the hospital. I was probably the only listener who actually sent one. Then one day, Joe comes knocking at my door. It turns out we were both living in Manhattan Plaza. First thing he did was borrow five bucks."

Albany, who made Chet Baker look like a guy with a careful career path, joined Eden in the studio for some 1984 sessions. It's fascinating to hear the seven tracks where Albany is let loose to run wild over what's being sung. One listen and you can hear the fabulous abandon that got Albany fired by the likes of Charles Mingus and Billie Holiday.

And this isn't even Albany at his best.

"I hate to say it," agrees Eden, "but Joe was in his decline. Maybe he was a little spastic in his right hand, and he didn't have the control to make smooth runs. But Joe could always do what he attempted to do. He's not even really accompanying me on those songs. I've got a letter from Jose Ferrer where he wrote, 'The piano and you really form a duet in the classical sense of the word.' And that's exactly what we intended to do."

The CD's cover is a caricature of Eden by Ferrer. The guy's made a lot of impressive friends like that. Eden's most recent sessions have him backed by Dave Schnitter on sax. Then & Now also features three tracks of Eden backed by an all-star band. In addition to Zoot Sims on sax and Mel Lewis on drums, the lineup has Jimmy Raney on guitar, Clark Terry on trumpet, Richard Davis on bass and arrangements by pianist Stosh McGlaughlin.

These '68 sessions lack the artiness of the Albany tracks, but the ace band is clearly inspired behind Eden. "I picked the musicians I wanted," says Eden, "and then my friend Joe Derise tried to reach them. He's had a successful career as a singer, and since he was the producer, the guys agreed to it. I didn't know any of them before the session, but they really kicked in."

Which brings us to how a guy with such a treasure trove is walking around with a CD-R. "What little I've tried with this record," says Eden, "has been kind of discouraging. I sent some major jazz labels an e-mail or fax asking if they'd care to hear a singer playing with this lineup, and there was absolutely no response. I gave Gary Giddins a copy of the CD in June, but he's never gotten back to me. I find it depressing."

There's also the matter of a tough marketplace. "The problem may be that I'm a new singer," says the 66-year-old Eden. "There's already talent like Diana Krall out there. What do they need in a Sid Eden? But bop fans really need to hear this record, because they don't know that Joe Albany could play this way. I'm thinking that people will listen to this when I die. If people are going to teach jazz, this has to be heard."

Then & Now is available at NYCD, 426 Amsterdam Ave. (betw. 80th & 81st Sts.), 724-4466.