Change: The Album

Fred Kaz is perhaps most widely known as the longtime musical director for The Second City, where his extraordinary musical talents were for almost 30 years utilized to accent, illustrate and direct the onstage work of the casts of improvisational actors, a considerable number of whom were destined to become luminaries of stage and screen today. Fred Kaz was a consummate musician. He was playing complex pianoforte pieces at age 3, performing publicly at 13 and earned a degree in classical music and composition while still in his teens. Before the age of 16 he developed what was to become a lifelong passion for jazz, inspired and encouraged by time spent at the Paris Club with the legendary Chicago trumpeter King Kolax from whom Fred learned 'The only way to a man's jazz is through his blues' - a haunting truth that was made only too devastatingly clear when a factory accident in Fred's early 20's resulted in the loss of two fingers from his left hand. With any dreams he had of a classical musical career shattered, Fred immersed himself in the Chicago jazz scene and formed The Fred Kaz Trio. He devised techniques to compensate for his damaged left hand that contributed to the stamp of his absolutely unique pianistic style and that continue to be emulated by other musicians today. The Fred Kaz Trio was featured on bills starring such jazz greats as Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Cannonball Adderley, Duke Ellington and Oscar Peterson. The trio were the house band for the first Playboy Club in Chicago. Fred shared the stage with Miles Davis at The Modern Jazz Room; and with Harry 'Sweets' Edison, Louis Bellson and Pearl Bailey at the Chez Paree Club. In the mid 1950's Fred met Paul Sills, then a student at the University of Chicago, who had the idea to create in theatrical form what he observed in improvised jazz ... a skeletal structure given shape and substance by the connected interaction of the players, riffing on a theme. And in the early 1960's thus began the second chapter along Fred's musical path, that was to continue until his retirement from The Second City Theater in 1989. During his Second City years Fred composed the music and lyrics for numerous memorable blockbuster revues, scored two full length movies and several shorts, and forged many lifelong friendships along the way. He possessed incomparable intuition, wisdom and clarity, and had a passion for truth and real justice. He was hip. He was cool. An incomparable musician, artist and poet, Fred Kaz was a remarkable and totally unique human being and a most beautiful soul. Fred never retired from music ... during his final 25 years he was even more personally creative than before. He continued to actively contribute to the theatrical community when asked to score, compose and perform - and the independent works he wrote and performed had a liberation that continued to mature and grow until his death. Fred Kaz never stopped creating, and his creations will live forever. This latest release: 'Change - The Album' - is an eclectic collection of Fred's original compositions and one cover song, all recorded in a single session in 2011 and performed in his inimitable pianistic style. Six of the nine tracks also feature his poetic lyrics, voiced in the sing/speak style he favored, and include two compositions that until now were only available as instrumentals. 'Change - The Album' encompasses many moods - from poignant retrospection, wit and humor to political comment. Every piece is musical and lyrical perfection. The title track 'Change', with it's exquisite phrasing and haunting lyrics, is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. It is a retrospective view of life, inspired in part by Fred's personal growing awareness of the many ironies of old age, and by a man he had met who died suddenly, destitute and homeless, leaving only a pair of tap shoes to tell his story. 'Anybody Listenin'?' and 'Offering' both speak eloquently of music and love, and the direct pathway of music to the heart and soul. We have only to be open, and to listen. Fred wrote the lyri