Posthumous Legacy
Contributed by Michael Heller
The Passing of Erroll Garner
Erroll Garner passed away on January 2, 1977 in his apartment building in Beverly Hills, CA, after a two-year battle with lung cancer. His passing left an enormous void in music world, as he had been among the top instrumental performers for decades. According to biographer James Doran, Garner's body was accompanied across the country by his brother Linton, to be honored and interred in his native Pittsburgh. Services were held on January 6-7 at the Spriggs-Watson Funeral Home, and Garner was laid to rest in Pittsburgh's Homewood Cemetery. The program for the funeral services (discussed at length in a 2015 blog post by Billy D. Scott) can be seen here. Numerous jazz luminaries were in attendance, including Earl Hines and Teddy Wilson, and Garner's pall bearers included several Pittsburgh artists such as pianist Walt Harper, saxophonist Leroy Brown, and drummer James Minor. The service included a mix of traditional hymns and jazz standards (several of which were incorporated into an organ prelude), and the eulogy was followed by an organ rendition of Garner's best-known composition "Misty."
In many artist biographies this would be where the story ends. It would certainly be the end of the involvement of many managers. Yet for Martha Glaser, her engagement with and dedication to the legacy of Garner would continue for the remaining decades of her life, right up until her own passing in 2014. This page, then, will chronicle Glaser's ongoing efforts in support of Garner that continued in the ensuing years, ultimately leading to the current work being undertaken by Garner estate, including the consolidation of the archive at the University of Pittsburgh.
In Garner's will, prepared the year before his passing (click on the image to see the full document), Glaser was named co-executor of Garner's estate, along with accountant Theodore Present. She would also remain the primary administrator in control of Garner's music, continuing in the professional relationship they had built together over the preceding decades. Future revenues from the estate would be split 50-50 between, on one hand, Glaser and her niece Susan Rosenberg, and, on the other, between Garner's five siblings Bernice, Ruth, Martha, Linton, and Ernest.
Even as Garner's funeral services were being arranged, Glaser's work for Garner continued without pause. On January 4, Glaser sent representatives to take a handwritten inventory of Garner's apartment. Further inventories would be taken later in the year, creating an early basis (alongside Glaser's own office files) of what would become the Garner archive.
An extended post about these inventories was written in early 2021 by Yu Hao Chen. Chronicling in meticulous detail the physical objects that surrounded Garner at the time of his death, the lists feel simultaneously profound and banal; both physical co-presences at the time of his transition and lawyerly exercises in property and ownership. From the standpoint of Glaser's engagement, we can also see these lists as both an ending and a beginning: her last act on behalf of Garner her friend and colleague, and her first in consolidating the physical and cultural legacy of the pianist in the decades to come.
Managing a Legacy, pt. 1: Perpetual Administration
As co-executor of the estate, Glaser's work on behalf of Garner's legacy would continue uninterrupted in the decades to follow. Such work took a number of forms. On one hand, it entailed continuing to oversee the extensive administrative work that an artist of Garner's stature requires. This work included coordinating record releases and reissues, corresponding with record companies and publishing organizations, maintaining and double-checking copyrights and royalty statements, and the maintenance of the ever-growing Garner archive.
Here, we see one such example of such day-to-day work. In 1982, the estate renewed the copyright for Garner's composition "Misty." Glaser and Present were now listed as assignees of the piece's royalties, on behalf of the estate. As Garner's most famous piece, "Misty" would be the one most frequently in demand for other uses.
Keeping such copyrights up-to-date was an important administrative task, even for a piece that had already been as heavily litigated as Misty. Over a decade after the above renewal, the piece would once again become the subject of a dispute, this time also involving the estate of lyricist Johnny Burke.
In 1994, the producers of a stage musical review approached Glaser about using "Misty" as part of their production. Glaser, who remained quite selective about what productions she would allow to use Garner's music declined the request. Rather than giving up, the producers attempted to make an end run by requesting permission from the Burke estate instead, since Burke had been a co-registrant for the lyric version of the piece in 1955 (Garner had already copyrighted the instrumental version the previous year).
Glaser's lawyers had to intervene, as shown in this letter from Glaser's lawyer David Nimmer to the legal department of the Warner/Chappell Music Group. The letter crafts an intricate argument about the nature of the copyright, the relationship with Burke, and Burke's contribution as being specifically limited to the addition of new material via the lyric (marked in their own registration as "NM: words.") If nothing else, the episode shows how even decades after an artist's death, protecting their rights and creations remained a complex and labor-intensive process. If not for the continual diligence of Glaser and her colleagues, such actions could easily fall through the cracks, allowing others to use Garner's material with impunity. This one incident alone led to a series of letters and correspondence that continued for much of the year. Glaser was consantly working to put out such fires.
Overseeing royalties constituted a similar administrative burden. Regular royalty statements continued to come in for the sale and licensing of Garner's work; even in the 1990s such payments could reach into hundreds of thousands of dollars. But just because such statements were sent, does not mean that they were always accurate. As a result, Glaser kept a close eye on them to make sure all of the details were correct.
Here, from 2007, we can see an example of such oversight. In a letter to the American Society for Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) Glaser's accountant Steven Smallowitz notices a discrepancy in the royalty amounts issued, and writes to inquire and (hopefully) rectify the situation.
Managing a Legacy, pt. 2: Advocacy, Image, and Continued Performance
As recipient of half-of-the estate's profits, Glaser's continued work on behalf of Garner was, of course, not purely altruistic or historiographic. She benefitted from this close oversight as well, and remained as powerful a businesswoman in the 2000s as she had been in the 1950s and 60s. Yet her activities preserved in the archive are more than simply finance-oriented. Glaser's correspondence consistantly documents her efforts to gain Garner the recognition and respect he deserved on a broader cultural level. Glaser frequently turned down opportunities if she felt they weren't befitting of the pianist's image, even if such usage could have turned a profit for the estate. Cementing Garner's place within 20th century American culture remained a primary motivating factor that comes across strongly throughout these decades.
One way that Glaser continued to promote Garner's legacy was to encourage living artists to perform Garner's compositions. The estate even published a songbook of Garner pieces in the 1990s, in an attempt to get them performed more widely, and Glaser wrote numerous letters promoting it. She reached out to artists whom she knew and artists whom she didn't, encouraging all to explore Garner's works. This included a wide range of artists, from smooth jazz icon Kenny G., to Jazz at Lincoln Center Director Wynton Marsalis, to avant garde icon Arthur Blythe. Her 1996 letter to Blythe can be seen here, referencing Glaser's admiration for Blythe's rendition of "Misty," recorded fifteen years earlier on his album Blythe Spirit. The package also included three other Garner ballads in case Blythe wanted to perform them: "Dreamy," "Solitaire," and (possibly) "Something Happens."
Reissues and archival releases of Garner recordings were another way that Glaser kept the pianist in the public eye form the 1980s-2000s. Numerous reissues were produced in the CD era, prepared in collaboration with the estate. In all of these projects, Glaser maintained the same closely-curated approach to shaping Garner's image. She kept close watch over what material was issued, while also making sure record companies didn't issue unapproved material without the estate's explicit permission. Here, we see a letter to an executive at Sony Music stating Glaser's strong objections after Sony made several aborted attempts to issue material without her approval.
Similarly, in the letter seen here to a "Mr. Brands" (possibly a music publisher), Glaser notes her reluctance to license Garner's music for commercials, excepting those which she felt would benefit the pianist's image. She writes "Although some offers have been substantial, we want in all matters, including commercials, to keep a high standard and quality re Garner's works." At the same time, she goes on to note the many activities the estate had pursued, including, "numerous projects, recordings, songbooks, posthumous concert tributes throughout the U.S., awards, a postage stamp here in his honor, etc etc."
Glaser wasn't hesitant to bring her advocacy efforts into the public when she deemed it effective. In 2000, much of the jazz world erupted in controversies over the broadcast of Ken Burns' nineteen-hour documentary Jazz. The series was widely publicized and circulated, but numerous historians bemoaned aspects of the production. The series' complete omission of Garner became something of a touchstone for the controversy. While Glaser initially tried to look past the slight, an interview with Burns from the L.A. Times claiming that Garner was "not a seminal inventor" set Glaser into motion to demonstrate the historical importance and influence of the pianist.
Glaser penned a scathing open letter regarding the series and the interview, seen here. In addition to her words, she solicited further statements support from a range of musicians and historians, including Jimmy Rowles, Dick Katz, Jan van Diepenbeek and others. The archive reveals the amount of effort put into the campaign, including multiple drafts of the letter and correspondence with various supporters.
Conclusion: Garner's Living Legacy
In summary, in the years following Garner's death, Martha Glaser continued to powerfully advocate on behalf of the pianist's legacy, and endeavored to keep that legacy alive and present before the general public.
Pitt's Erroll Garner Archive, and by extension this exhibit, constitute a living continuation of those efforts. And happily, Garner (and Glaser) left a wealth of materials documenting his career that will be integral to scholarship for decades. As Glaser notes in the letter seen here, he left "the proverbial trunk overflowing." Yet Glaser worked to expand that archive as well. As the second letter pictured here notes, she even founded an oral history project surrounding the pianist, whose materials are included within the archive today.
More recent projects, such as the Garner foundation's reissues of classic Garner recordings, the podcast "Erroll Garner Uncovered," and a dense slate of upcoming events for Garner's centennial speak to her continued efforts on Garner's behalf.