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Bud Brisbois- "Woody 'n You"
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Jay and Kai - J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding - Tonal Trombone Textures
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Jay Jay Johnson and Kai Winding have formed a group. Why didn't such a natural combination band together before? It's almost like asking why jaii musicians don't work more often. The important fact is that they are together and Jan will benefit.
Their association is not necessarily a new one [on a permanent basis that is) and although it may not have been the dream of each to have a combo jointly, it very likely might have been a subconscious desire because there has always been a respect for and enjoyment of each others' playing.
They started from opposite directions, Kai from hit birthplace in Aachui Denmark and Jay Jay from his in Indianapolis. Kai came to the United States with his parents in 1934. Both served their apprenticeship with various jmall-name bands. After this came the name bands. Kai played with Benny Goodman and Stan Kenton. At the same time Jay Jay was with Benny Carter and Count Basie. And then came New York. Who that knew them, will ever forget the halcyon days of the Forties when the music that they tagged "bop” flowered on both 52nd St. and Broadway. I remember nearly falling off my chair at the Spotlite Club in 1946 when I first heard Jay Jay sit in with Dizzy Gillespie and rip off intricate ensemble and solo passages with fluency equal to that of Diz.
There were other nights at the same club, and Jay Jay fronting a quartet with an old grey felt beanie hanging on the bell of his horn to give a singularly delightful tonal effect. Then there was the Roost in 1948 with Kai coming into his own in a group with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Allen Eager and blowing mightily every night from under the artificial tree.
Their careers have crossed and run parallel at different times. When the great Miles Davis band recorded for Capitol, Kai was in on the first sessions and Jay Jay replaced him on the later ones. The Chubby Jackson All Star Band (Prestige 105) had both as its trombone section and their "conversation" choruses on "Flying The Coop" were actually the forerunners of their present group.
Don't get the idea that I'm going overboard into the sea of nostalgia. i in just standing by the rail on the ship of reality looking back over the ror-izon. Jay Jay and Kai played great in those days but they are playing greater today. They have combined as mature and polished musicians who still have the love of jazz and the fire to play it.”
- Ira Gitler, insert notes to Kai and Jay Bennie Green and Strings [Prestige OJCCD -1727-2/Prestige 7070]
Somewhat ironically, my first exposure to the quintet co-led by trombonists J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding was on a Columbia LP that they shared with the Dave Brubeck Quartet.
It was recorded in performance at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival and emcee Willis Conover says at the beginning of their set that their appearance at the NSJ constituted a sort of farewell appearance as a unit! Nothing like coming in at the end.
As George Avakian, the producer of the LP further explains in the liner notes to the album: “Their amicable parting was based purely on a desire each one has to pursue again a separate career after having brought off a daring experiment. J. J. has since formed a quintet of his own and Kai has a septet featuring four trombones. Both groups will shortly be heard on Columbia Records.”
Although I came in at the end, so to speak, had great fun, then [during the analog era] and now [during the digital era] amassing a collection of the group’s recorded output and listening to the very enjoyable music created by these giants of modern Jazz trombone.
Here’s more information about the background of both trombonists, the formation of their group and a description of some of the music on their recordings. If you haven’t heard the music made by the singular quintet, you might want to check it out for all the reasons detailed below.
“The dominant bebop trombonist, J.J. Johnson's saxophone-influenced sound has been criticized as unidiomatic and insufficiently 'brassy' - whatever that means - but there is no mistaking his preeminence in the recent history of jazz. Born in Indianapolis [1924-2001], Johnson emerged in Benny Carter's orchestra and as part of Jazz at the Philharmonic, but he left an indelible mark as half of Jay and Kai with fellow-trombonist Winding. ...
Johnson is one of the most important figures in modern jazz. Once voguish, the trombone, like the clarinet, largely fell from favour with younger players with the faster articulations of bebop, Johnson's unworthily low standing nowadays (his partnership with Kai Winding, as 'Jay and Kai', was once resonantly popular) is largely due to a perceived absence of trombone players with whom to compare him. In fact, Johnson turned an occasionally unwieldy instrument into an agile and pure-toned bop voice; so good was his articulation that single-note runs in the higher register often sounded like trumpet. He frequently hung an old beret over the bell of his horn to soften his (one and bring it into line with the sound of the saxophones around him.
Kai Winding [1922-83] was born in Denmark and came to America in his early teens. He was around to see the birth of bebop and helped to devise a fast, clear-toned delivery for the trombone, a development which also had an impact on how the horn sections of big bands could sound. His long partnership with J.J. Johnson is definitive of the modern history of the instrument.
The success of Jay and Kai was, in the end, not altogether equitably shared. J.J. Johnson's unchallenged dominance on the trombone as a bop voice was always questionable, Whereas J.J. brought a saxophone-like articulation to the instrument, it was Winding who showed how it could follow the woodwind players fast vibrato and percussive attack and still retain its distinctive character. While with the Kenton hand, Winding worked on ways of producing a very tight vibrato with the lip rather than using the slide, and this had a marked impact on a younger generation of players. … There remains, to be sure, something a little cold about Winding's work. Certainly, compared to J.J., he couldn't give a ballad more than a gruff expressiveness, but that was not his forte. What he did, he did well, and he deserves more credit for it.”
[Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.]
Johnson is the most important postwar jazz trombonist and a major Influence on all players of the instrument. His earliest recorded solos up to 1945 reveal a thick tone, aggressive manner, and impressive mobility. They are not yet far removed, though, from the solos of his early influences - Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, and the trombonist Fred Beckett, who emphasized the linear qualities of the instrument rather than the effects of the slide.
During the 1940s Johnson developed such an astounding technical facility that some record reviewers insisted, erroneously, that he played a valve trombone; the speed of his playing and the clarity and accuracy he achieves at fast tempos have never been surpassed. In 1947 he began to play with a lighter tone (occasionally enhanced by a felt mute) and reserved vibrato for special effects. The result was a rather dry but attractive sound resembling that of a french horn. Johnson also worked diligently at this period to adapt bop patterns to the trombone, and his solos suffer from an emphasis on speed and an overreliance on memorized formulas incorporating such bop trademarks as the flatted 5lh. His performances on both versions of Crazeology with Charlie Parker (1947) begin with the same phrase and contain other whole phrases in common. The same is true of the two renditions of Johnson's celebrated solo on Blue Mode (1949), despite their very different tempos.
During the late 1950s Johnson's playing matured: he relied less on formulas and speed, and more on a scalar approach and motivic development. Recordings of live performances dating from this time provide examples of brilliant developmental sequences that were delivered with powerful emotion.”
- Lewis Porter
“Winding was one of the first bop trombonists and one of the most important. The distinct sound he brought to Kenton's trombone section was achieved partly by his persuading the players to produce a vibrato with the lip rather then with the slide (van Engelen). His solo work was characterized initially by a rough, exuberant, biting tone, recalling earlier trombone styles (a fine example may be heard on Kenton's recording of Lover, 1947), though a more restrained manner is evident in the brief solos he contributed to the first of Miles Davis's sessions that resulted in the Birth of the Cool (1949). On forming the group Jay and Kai, Winding began to produce a delicate sound; he improvised in a manner so close to that of Johnson that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the two musicians.”
- Les Jeske
[ The Porter/Jeske annotations are in Barry Kernfeld, Ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz.]
“Another remarkable trombone section, totally different from Ellington's was that of Stan Kenton's orchestra. Beginning in the mid-1940s, its style initiated and set by Kai Winding, it revolutionized trombone playing stylistically, especially in terms of sound (brassier, more prominent in the ensemble) and type of vibrato (slower, and mostly lack thereof), as well as by adding the "new sound" of a bass trombone (Bart Varsalona, later George Roberts). The Kenton trombone section's influence was enormous and pervasive, and continues to this day. Although the section's personnel changed often over the decades, it retained an astonishing stylistic consistency, not only because such stalwarts as Milt Bernhart and Bob Fitzpatrick held long tenures in the orchestra, but because incoming players, such as Hob Burgess and Frank Rosolino and a host of others, were expected to fit into the by-then-famous Kenton brass sound. …
But the biggest breakthrough on the trombone toward full membership in the bop fraternity was accomplished by J. J. Johnson, who essentially proved convincingly that anything Gillespie could do on the trumpet could now also be matched on the trombone. Johnson is regarded as the true founder of the modern school of jazz trombone, developing astounding (for the time) speed and agility on the instrument, and thus becoming a charter member of the bop evolution/revolution. These outstanding qualities, as well as his solid, full, rich, centered tone, can be happily savored on "The Champ" (DeeGee, with Dizzy Gillespie) and "Jay and Kai" (Columbia, 1955).
Johnson spawned a host of followers, foremost among them Jimmy Cleveland, whose speed and dexterity on the trombone were even more dazzling than J. J.'s (which led to him being called "the Snake"), the Danish-born player Kai Winding (with whom J. J. teamed up in a highly successful two-trombone duo) in the 1950s, the Swedish trombonist Ake Persson, and young turks like Frank Rosolino, Frank Rehak, Urbie Green, and Jimmy Knepper. All were spectacular technicians, easily expanding the range of the trombone to the trumpet's (!) upper register (high B flat and C), and with their new-won technical wizardry capable of playing things that a few years earlier could have only been played on a trumpet, or a flute or violin.”
- Gunther Schuller from his essay The Trombone in Jazz, in Bill Kirchner, Ed., The Oxford Companion to Jazz
When J.J. and Kai first formed their unit in the mid-1950s, it was quite common for the LP producer to also write the liner notes [referred to today as insert or sleeve notes].
George Avakian produced a number of the Jay and Kai recordings for Columbia and we can learn quite a lot about the background of how their group came to be and their approach to arranging the music for it from the following excerpts from his liner/sleeve notes.
“'You can’t play all night in a club with just two trombones and rhythm!’ a friend told Kai Winding when he announced that he and J. J. Johnson were going to do just that.
He was wrong, but awfully right at the same time. The answer is that you can do it. But not with 'just two trombones." You have to have the best — Kai Winding and J.J.Johnson.
Their ability as trombonists is only part of the story. The entire "book" for the group has also been written by them, and it is their imagination as arrangers which has carried off this tour de force even more than their extraordinary talent as soloists.
Jay and Kai have done it the musicianly way, with no gimmicks — just solid musicianship. Working without a guitar, which would have given them variety in the coloring of the solos as well as another voice in the ensembles, makes their job that much harder. But in order to get engagements in clubs, they had to confine the group to five men and the added challenge has only spurred them to greater creative height.
Each has had a wealth of big band and small combo experience. During the bop era, Jay was in the rare position of establishing a school of trombone playing which consisted of himself alone; no one else was remotely in his class. Kai came up through the big band field, achieving prominence as a soloist with Stan Kenton in 1946. In recent years, both men have gigged extensively with small groups, and Kai still keeps his hand in as a studio sideman between the guintet's bookings.
The arranging of the book has been divided equally between them, and each man has contributed several fine originals. Their choice of repertoire is discriminating; they seem to have a knack of choosing half-forgotten but exceptional show tunes and songs which are fine vehicles for "class" singers. (Perhaps the lyric quality of their trombone playing is responsible for this taste.) Both play with a technical ease which is the envy of lesser slide men. Although they play quite unlike each other most ol the time, there are many occasions on which it is impossible for even their closest followers to tell them apart.
Watching them at work is almost as much fun as listening. When they trade off alternating muted phrases on a fast tune, as in Let's Get Away From It All and The Whiffenpoof Song, it's a wild sight to see them each keep pace with the lightning routine of mute up, mute in, blow, mute out, mute down, new mute up, mute in, blow, and so on. Never once during these sessions did either ever flub a phrase or even blow a bad one. Nor were there any easy cliches. Even under pressure, each listened carefully to what the other was playing and kept a logical line flowing.”
From his insert notes to Trombone for Two J.J. Johnson - Kai Winding [Columbia LP CL 742 in 1955; Collectibles CD 6674; Sony A-50662]]
George Avakian also shared more of his thoughts about the special qualities of Jay and Kai as performances and the distinctive qualities of their trombone Jazz in these excerpts Jai & Kai + 6: The Jay and Kai Trombone Octet; [Columbia CL 892 in 1956; Collectibles CD-5677; Sony A-26542].
“It is not true (not yet, anyway) that trombonists throughout the world have been raising funds to erect a monument to Kai Winding and J.J. Johnson in recognition of their unique contributions to the elevation of the estate of trombone playing.
This is about the only honor left for their fellow practitioners to bestow upon this extraordinary pair of musicians. The public has shown its appreciation of their work as co-leaders of one of the most unusual quintets in the jazz field (two trombones and a rhythm section), and there are even true-blue jazz fans who have given their ultimate recognition in the form of declaring that Jay and Kai are so popular that they must be out of bounds--although the day of the starving but uncompromising jazzman is being rendered a little passe' by the public's ever-growing interest in jazz [would that this would continue to prove true, sadly, it didn’t].
Jay and Kai, who are apparently fearless, have set themselves another difficult goal in this album, but the results literally speak for themselves. Their self-imposed challenge was to make an entire album with eight trombones (six orthodox-type horns and two bass trombones) and their usual rhythm section of piano, bass, and drums. On some of the tunes, they themselves play tromboniums, which are upright valve instruments of similar range and nearly the same tone, developed to replace the more cumbersome slide trombones in marching bands. (Slide trombones have to be placed up front so they can be played freely, which isn't the best set-up for tonal balance.) ….
The arrangements for this eight-trombone idea were executed by Jay and Kai themselves. Juist how they managed to do this - and do it so well-during their busy personal appearance tours is something I haven't figured out yet, and I'm sure neither Jay nor Kai are as yet in condition to explain coherently, either. Suffice to say that they made it despite some mighty close deadlines. Coffee - very strong and black - was one of the principal ingredients that made it possible.
Getting the right men to play these difficult arrangements was a problem, too, but fortunately the sessions came at a time when six of the best trombonists in New York were available for all the sessions. They are Urbie Green, Bob Alexander, Eddie Bert, and Jimmy Cleveland, with bass trombonists Bart Varsalone and Tom Mitchell. Their rhythm section consists of Hank Jones (piano), Milt Hinton (bass), and Osie Johnson (drums), except on Night in Tunisia, All At Once You Love Her, The Peanut Vendor, Four Plus Four, and The Continental, in which Hinton was replaced by Ray Brown. Candido Camera is added on conga drum and bongos as noted in the analyses of the individual arrangements, given below.
An extraordinary variety of sounds were created by this unique ensemble. The final results are a tribute to the Columbia engineering department, as well as the arranging skill ol Jay and Kai and the extraordinary performances of these two fine trombonists, and their six cohorts. There are times when the brass choir sounds as though it is divided into middle-register trumpets blended with trombones, and occasionally there is even some of the quality of an unusually rich saxophone section blended with trombones. No tricky effects were used to get these sounds; they are all in the scoring. What you get is the full artistry of two gifted arrangers and eight spectacularly fine trombonists. …”
And Dick Katz, who played piano with the quintet for a number of years, wrote the notes for The Great Kai and J.J./ J.J. Johnson & Kai Winding [Impulse 225] which was recorded as a sort of reunion LP in 1960 and from which the following excerpts are taken.
“"I don't know anything about music, but I know what I like."
This bon mot is usually attributed to the celebrated Common Man, and while the sophisticate might wince upon hearing such a bromide, an element of truth is present. The sentence often indicates that knowing how music is made does not necessarily assure one's enjoyment, or even enlightenment.
The intellectual, armed with the tools of musical analysis, will not experience music any more intensely than someone not blessed with musical scholarship — if the conditions for being "moved," or emotionally stimulated, do not occur in the music. Indeed, knowing too much can actually interfere with hearing the music. You see, music has to do with feelings, and the knowledge of what makes it tick should be a bonus that adds to or enhances the listener's understanding. It should never be a substitute for emotional involvement.
Now, the "conditions" referred to above are what concern us here. Good jazz does not come out of the air like magic. True, a genius sometimes creates this illusion, but in the main, it is the result of an artistic balance between the planned and the unplanned. Even the great improviser is very selective, and constantly edits himself.
Throughout the relatively short history of jazz, many of the great performances have been ensemble performances where the improvised solo was just a part of the whole. This tradition of group playing, as exemplified by Henderson, Basie, Ellington, Lunceford, John Kirby, Benny Goodman's small groups, the great midwestern and southwestern bands, big and small (Kansas City, et. al.), almost came to a rather abrupt halt with The Revolution.
And that is exactly the effect Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and their colleagues (J. J. Johnson among them) had on jazz music. Their extreme improvising virtuosity seemed to take the focus off the need to play as a group. But herein lies the irony — the precision with which they played their complex tours de force was due in large measure to the extensive ensemble experience they gleaned as members of disciplined bands like Hines, Eckstine, etc. It was their talented, and not-so-talented, followers who often missed the point. Musically stranded without the opportunity to get the type of experience their idols had (due to many factors, economic and otherwise), they resorted to all they knew how to do — wait their turn to play their solos. This type of waiting-in-line-to-play kind of jazz has nearly dominated the scene for many years. Although it has produced an abundance of first-rate jazzmen, many excellent performances, and has advanced some aspects of jazz, the lack of organization has often strained the poor listener to the point where he doesn't "know what he likes."
So, in 1954, when J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding formed their now celebrated partnership, one of their prime considerations was to help remedy this chaotic state of affairs. Both men, in addition to being the best modern jazz trombone stylists around, were fortunate enough to have had considerable big and small band experience. They astutely realized that a return to time-tested principles was in order. Variety, contrast, dynamics, structure (integrating the improvised solos with the written parts) — these elements and others which give a musical performance completeness — were accepted by Kai and J.J. as both a challenge and an obligation to the listener. This awareness, combined with their individual composing and arranging talents, plus an uncanny affinity for each other's playing, made their success almost a certainty.
That success is now a happy fact. From their Birdland debut in 1954 to their climactic performance at the 1956 Jazz Festival at Newport, they built up an enviable following. Also, they have created an impressive collection of impeccable performances on records. That they overcame the skeptical
reaction to the idea of two trombones is now a near-legend. One only need listen to any of these performances to demonstrate once again the old adage — "It ain't what you do, but the way that..."
The respective accomplishments of J.J. and Kai have been lauded in print many times before. Their poll victories, festival and jazz-club successes are well known. Not so obvious, however, is the beneficial effect they have had on jazz presentation. Their approach to their audience, the variety of their library (a good balance between original compositions and imaginative arrangements of jazz standards and show tunes), together with their marvelous teamwork, helped to wake up both musicians and public alike to the fruits of organized presentation. With the jazz of the future, organization will be an artistic necessity; the future of jazz will be partially dependent on it, as is every mature art form.”
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Bud Shank, Baritone Sax - "Sultry Serenade" - From "New Groove" (1961)
Working on a two part Bud Shank feature that starts tomorrow on my blog.
The following video features Bud Shank, baritone sax, Carmell Jones, trumpet, Dennis Budimir, guitar, Gary Peacock, bass and Mel Lewis, drums.
An unusual setting for Shank as he is primarily an alto saxophonist but the sonority he creates with Carmell's rich tone on trumpet is quite compelling especially when combined with the minimist and spare rhythm section featuring Budimir, Peacock and Lewis.
Try listening to this a second time and focus your ears on Peacock's bass lines. To my ears, they are so fat and juicy that they become a delectable bass clef comfort food for the other members of the group to feast on.
The following video features Bud Shank, baritone sax, Carmell Jones, trumpet, Dennis Budimir, guitar, Gary Peacock, bass and Mel Lewis, drums.
An unusual setting for Shank as he is primarily an alto saxophonist but the sonority he creates with Carmell's rich tone on trumpet is quite compelling especially when combined with the minimist and spare rhythm section featuring Budimir, Peacock and Lewis.
Try listening to this a second time and focus your ears on Peacock's bass lines. To my ears, they are so fat and juicy that they become a delectable bass clef comfort food for the other members of the group to feast on.
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Bud Shank: Part 1 – by Doug Ramsey
- © Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Bud Shank is too much. I told him I had his contract ready but I can’t get him to leave California. He was the greatest part of the Kenton Neophonic concert the other night, and he was even greater with us the last two days [recording the film score for Assault on a Queen]. He even shook up Johnny Hodges. Bud Shank is something else.”
– Duke Ellington, 1966
Much of the music from Bud’s early career has been collected and released as CDs in the Mosaic Records set entitled: The Pacific Jazz Bud Shank Studio Sessions [MD5-180].
What comes to mind when I listen to Bud play is his honesty. Anyone who has ever attempted to play Jazz knows that you ultimately express who you are through your horn. With Bud, I always have the feeling of an unending search as he tries to arrive at an honest expression of his feelings through the music.
Another result of Bud’s constant quest is that his style is constantly changing, sometimes, dramatically. Ted Gioia also notes this tendency:
“Shank’s musical evolution … [in] the decade of the 1950s found … [him] undergoing a gradual shift from a cool player to a hot one, a change that reached its culmination in the 1980s. … Unlike the stylistic continuity that marked the work of Chet Baker, Shorty Rogers, or Paul Desmond, Shank’s playing has continued to evolve….”
[West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960, p. 216].
Listening to Bud play also reminds me of the anecdote that Chuck Israels tells about alto saxophonist Phil Woods while attending a rehearsal of the Quincy Jones band.
“I listened to a number of pieces in which there were solos played by various members of the band. It would be unfair to say that those solos were perfunctory, but later, when Phil Woods stood up from the lead alto chair to play his solo feature, the atmosphere changed. Phil played as if there were no tomorrow. [emphasis mine]
The contrast was striking and I have always remembered the impression it left. If you practice rehearsing, then when it comes time to perform, you are ready to rehearse. Phil practiced performing.”
I can’t think of a more apt way to describe a Bud Shank solo than to say that he, too, brings it all every time. He doesn’t short-change anyone, least of all himself.
Not surprisingly, these qualities of honesty and integrity carry over from music into Bud’s verbal expressions as well. If you ask him for an opinion, you’d better be prepared for an answer – his!
For example, as the Jazz scene began to wane in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s, Shank was asked by a critic in a 1987 interview if, upon reflection, he thought his move into the studios was a cop out. Bud responded:
“You have to eat. You have to survive. When I became a full-time studio musician, I had been unemployed for a long time since jazz music left us in 1962-63 or whenever. At that time, I don’t think a lot of us realized what was going on, but some American jazz musicians ended up here in Europe, some gave up playing all together, some went off into never-never land by whatever chemical they could find, and there were some who went into another business. That’s what I did. I went into another business using the tools that I had, which was playing the flute and the saxophone. Consider that a cop out? I don’t.”
[Roger Cotterrell, “Bud Shank: A New Image,” Jazz Forum, March, 1987, p. 25 as quoted in Ted Gioia’s West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960, p. 218].
Fortunately for the Jazz world, Bud made the decision to leave the studios and return to playing Jazz. As part of his re-involvement with the music, he also began making a number of appearances beginning in the 1990s and continuing up to the current year at the 4-day weekend events put on each year in May and October under the auspices of the Los Angeles Jazz Institute [LAJI].
In keeping with the mission of the LAJI, many of the themes for these events have to do specifically with Stan Kenton and more generally with Jazz on the West Coast Jazz from about 1945 – 1965.
It’s was a cornucopia of riches to hear him at these events in small group, big band and even in panel discussion settings and he is still speaking his mind [and his heart] very directly in all of them. Bud died in 2009.
Frequent visitors to the Jazz Profiles site are by now familiar with the custom of its editorial staff to try, whenever possible, to represent not only Jazz music and its makers, but also to bring forward great writing on the subject of Jazz.
In keeping with these efforts, Michael Cuscuna of Mosaic Records and Doug Ramsey, writer par excellence on all things Jazz, have graciously consented to allow Jazz Profiles to reprint the 1998 interview that Doug conducted with Bud for the insert notes to the Mosaic Bud Shank anthology [the album covers and photographs are our choices].
It doesn’t get any better than Doug Ramsey and Bud Shank talking about Jazz, except, of course, listening to Bud play it.
© Doug Ramsey [Michael Cuscuna/Mosaic Records] copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.
“When I spent a couple of days with Shank and his wife Linda at their house in the woods near Port Townsend, Washington, he hadn't listened to this music since the original LP, THE BUD SHANK QUARTET, was released 42 years earlier. If the child is father of the man, then the thin, crew cut, diffident, inward-looking Bud Shank begat his opposite number. His substantial figure comfortable on a couch in a music room above a spacious lawn surrounded by tall pines, Shank agreed to do something he detests, look backward in music. With a mane of grey hair and a beard that squares off a solid jaw, he has the look of a Victorian sea captain. His appearance is appropriate to the history of the seafaring town he lives in, but one floor below is a garage containing his collection of Porsches and an Infiniti Q45. Shank's laugh comes often and usually accompanies strong opinions. It has resonance and a certain wryness. I persuaded him to listen to BAG OF BLUES, Bob Cooper's unusual composition.
(A) January 25, 1956
When it was over, he said, laughing, "I was very young at the time. Formative period. Still learning. Still searching.
I could see evidence of some of those influences we talked about. Spots of Zoot Sims, spots of Lee Konitz, spots of Charlie Parker."
I told him, "When you were listening to yourself play a double-time passage, you said, 'Show-off."'
"Well, yeah, but I really wasn't into showing off in those days. It came from some musical reason, but it didn't fit the flow of what I was doing before or after. I guess that's why it disturbed me. Again, that's the mish-mosh of different influences that were in me in those days. I didn't have it together yet."
I asked him about the rhythm section.
"Claude was all Bud Powell, and Chuck was all Philly Joe Jones. Don Prell was still back in the '30s somewhere - four on the floor, boom-boom - with all due respect to Don, who's a very close friend of mine. It was just a matter of the concept. Don's playing that way held us all together, in fact. He was one of the first people I met when I got to L.A. in 1946. We just sort of started a friendship off and on. I had a tremendous respect for his musicianship. He later ended up with the San Francisco Symphony for years. He retired from the orchestra two or three years ago. Every time I go to San Francisco, we see each other."
Flores, five days into his 22nd year, had just left the edition of Woody Herman's herd known as the Road Band. With Herman, he attracted widespread admiration for his ability to kick a big band into a state of sustained, heated swing.
"Actually," Shank said, "when he started with us, he was still playing the same way. In The Haig, that didn't work too well. Little bit too much, but that fixed itself after a while. I was really surprised the way he was playing here. Sounded great. I loved those bombs he was dropping."
NATURE BOY and NOCTURNE FOR FLUTE are in the mood of LOTUS BUD, a Shorty Rogers ballad that Shank recorded in 1954 on a Nocturne session later issued on Pacific Jazz. Audiences seemed to demand the flute. Shank complied, not happily.
"At The Haig, I would be playing things with the saxophone and I would notice that I was losing the audience. Quickly, I'd pick up the flute, using it as a crutch. I did this for years, saying, 'well, there must be something wrong with my saxophone playing.' This is analysis, looking back; I didn't know what the hell was going on when I was doing it."
How little was wrong with his saxophone playing is made clear in WALKIN', ALL THIS AND HEAVEN TOO, DO NOTHING TILL YOU HEAR FROM ME, JUBILATION and CARIOCA. His treatment of Vincent Youmans' classic Latin knock-off begins with the sensibility of his collaborations with Laurindo Almeida and quickly transmutes into pure hop. With the exception of those caught in the war between beboppers and moldy figs that was manufactured by know-nothing critics in the 1940s, no musicians have been more unfairly typecast than the young jazz players of Los Angeles in the 1950s.
"Neither Claude nor Chuck nor I was playing what was known as 'west coast jazz' music at that time," Shank said. "That happened a few years before then, and we were all breaking away from that."
"Meaning what?" I asked. "What were you breaking away from?"
"The very delicate way that we all played in earlier years...," he stopped in mid-sentence. "I don't even know what the hell west coast Jazz is," he said, with exasperation and no wry laugh. "It was something different from what they were doing in New York, so the critics called it west coast jazz. That Miles Davis BIRTH OF THE COOL album, out of New York, probably started west coast jazz. It was also very organized, predetermined, written. It was a little bit more intellectual, shall I say, than had happened before. Jimmy Giuffre, Buddy Childers, Shorty, Shelly Marine, Marty Paich, Coop, almost everybody involved; we all came from somewhere else, New York, Texas, Chicago, Ohio. The fact that we were in L.A. around the orange trees had nothing to do with it. I really think that everybody played the way they would have played no matter where they were. New York writers, they're the ones who invented west coast jazz.,,
"Those bastards," I said.
"Those bastards," he said, laughing uproariously.
Between 1951 and 1956, The Haig was a jazz delivery room. In the little house on Wilshire Boulevard across from the Ambassador Hotel, a block from The Brown Derby, were born the quartets of Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Laurindo Almeida, Shorty Rogers and Bud Shank. The club was tiny. The owner, John Bennett, ran it on a shoestring so short that although by law the club had to serve food, there was no kitchen. When a customer ordered a sandwich, the waiter stalled him while someone ran down the street to The Brown Derby for takeout. If someone ordered a brand of liquor not in stock, he had to wait until the band took a break and one of the musicians was dispatched to the nearest jar shop. In Shank's quartet, that was usually Chuck Flores's job; he was the youngest.
"It was a marvelous place to work in," Shank said. "It was so intimate, no sound system was necessary. It held maybe 50 people. Business was always good. We did very well while we were in there, from January until July. It was a great period. The place lasted until a year or so after that. Then somebody bought the property and bulldozed the whole thing."
I asked Shank how much he was paid at The Haig. A meticulous keeper of records, he went to an anteroom and retrieved a ledger listing 50 years of gigs.
"One-hundred forty-two bucks a week," he said. "Cleared $112. Everyone was paid individually."
In the summer of 1956, Shank and his band hit the road. From the ledger, here's the itinerary: The Newport Jazz Festival; a week at the Blue Note in Philadelphia; a concert in Shanks hometown, Dayton; the Rouge Lounge in Detroit; the Cotton Club in Cleveland; The Continental in Hartford; Olivia's Patio Lounge in Washington, D.C.; the New York jazz Festival; Olivia's again; The Modern Jazz Room in Chicago; Basin Street in New York; the Colonial Tavern in Toronto; a concert in Buffalo; the Storyville club in Boston; Chicago and the Blue Note again; a return to Detroit and the Rouge Lounge; back to L.A. in November for a series of dates at Jazz City in Hollywood; and into The Haig in December.
(B) NOVEMBER 7 & 8,1956
It was a tight, seasoned quartet Shank took into the studio after nearly half a year on the road. The confidence and increased mastery in his playing are obvious throughout; in the Lester Young drive and relaxation of his solo on JIVE AT FIVE; in the appropriateness and naturalness of the Charlie Parker quote in SOFTLY AS IN A MORNING SUNRISE; in his energy and effortless changes of pace in Williamson's suite, TERTIA. Even his flute work, particularly in A NIGHT IN TUNISIA, has a harder edge, a toughness.
Gazing into the trees, Shank says, "I can hear myself become more and more a stronger player through this period."
Always in demand by fellow musicians for recording dates, Shank's jazz studio activity intensified in 1957. He recorded as a sideman with Pete Rugolo, Mel Torme, June Christy, Russ Freeman, Bill Perkins, Peggy Lee, The Modernaires, Georgie Auld, his close friend Bob Cooper and dozens of others. As motion picture and television studios began slowly to accept the idea that jazz players might be real musicians, Shank's versatility and dependable musicianship put him onto a new path. That path would lead to financial comfort and artistic frustration. Years later, Shank would jump off it, with dramatic results. For now, he was doing well in both worlds. His next recording was an anomaly, a surprise, a re-emphasis of his jazz roots.
(C) NOVEMBER 29, 1957
Shank had played tenor as a sideman on a few record dates, but for the most part his old 10M Conn stayed in the closet after his rhythm and blues days with George Redmond. Having learned that Chuck Flores was about to be drafted, he told Dick Bock of Pacific Jazz that he wanted to make a record before Flores left. Bock asked him what kind of record. Shank - he doesn't remember why - said he would record some standards on tenor.
"After that heavy discussion," he told me, "we went in and did the record. There was no preparation. There were no arrangements. We just did it. HAVE BLUES, WILL TRAVEL was done for one of Dick's anthologies, not the original tenor album."
Like the tenor players he admires most - Stan Getz, Zoot Sims and Al Cohn - Shank was clearly under the spell of Lester Young, but only the most superficial listener would mistake him for any of those tenor men. What did he think, hearing himself on tenor after all these years?
"I'm pleasantly surprised. I like it. I wouldn't have known who the hell it was," he said with a laugh. "I think I would have recognized myself on some of the tracks here. The one we were listening to, ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE, I would probably not have been able to guess that it was me. I started as a tenor player. It's still in me. But I never developed any particular 'style' of playing, an identifiable style. It takes time to do that, but I was very pleased with what I heard."
(D) APRIL 23, 1958
Shank and Cooper had made a quick tour of Europe in 1957. In early 1958, they returned for a package tour with their quintet and Cooper’s wife, the singer June Christy. Drummer Jimmy Pratt substituted for Flores, who didn't want to go back on the road. The six-month expedition included a side trip for a series of concerts in South Africa, sponsored by Natal University. While they were there, Shank was urged by fans to record. He called Bock in Los Angeles to see whether Pacific Jazz wanted to pay for an album. Pacific Jazz did not. The South African enthusiasts raised the money, and one day Shank, Williamson, Prell and Pratt found themselves in what was described as a studio.
"It was just a room," Shank told me, "not much bigger than this one, and it had a solid wood floor and cement sides. It was full of people. We got rid of them. Then we played a tune. It just boomed. Every note would reverberate, 'buduhdoot.' I can't imagine what they ever recorded in there. I said, 'bring blankets, blankets, blankets.' So, they went out and got blankets from somewhere and started putting them around the room to deaden the sound a little bit. Well, it didn't do enough, but we decided to go ahead."
Then came the pennywhistle challenge. The record company people learned that admirers had given Shank one of the ubiquitous instruments beloved of children and amateurs and heard on street corners everywhere in South Africa. He had experimented with it in his hotel room. He had no thought of recording on it. The producers (to conjure up a job title for them) insisted that the quartet do something to honor African music. They produced a thumb piano for Williamson, gave Pratt a native drum and Prell a Nigerian bamboo harp. The result was A TRIBUTE TO THE AFRICAN PENNYWHISTLERS.
"I just made up something," Shank said. "It was a blues. The stupid pennywhistle ended up, as I remember, in the key of A-flat, by accident, because nobody down there ever played a pennywhistle with anything other than just a rhythm section, not another keyed instrument. I learned how to play the damn thing while I was making this record. When I first start playing it, I'm squeaking and very tentative and as it goes along, after about 20 choruses, I begin to figure it out."
Goofy as the assignment may have been, the performance has a good deal of charm and Shank seems to take modified pride in having subdued and adapted an instrument not remotely suitable for jazz improvisation. The band returned to their customary instruments for the other six tunes, which include three impressive Shank compositions, CHARITY RAG, MISTY EYES and WALTZIN' THE BLUES AWAY. After a shadowy life on obscure European labels, some of them pirates, this is the AFRICA album's first release in the United States.
(E) JUNE 30, 1958
The second version of MISTY EYES is not an alternate take from the South Africa album but a studio recording made later in Los Angeles and issued on a Playboy anthology. If any more material was recorded with this group, it no longer exists.
(F) APRIL 18, 1959
Bruce Brown was a Southern California surfer who wanted to make a documentary film about his sport. Shank thinks that they first met when he was playing at the Drift Inn in Malibu. Brown's plan was to do live in-person narration when he showed the movie. He approached Shank about providing music to accompany the picture, and Bud wrote themes that fit assigned sequences of the film SLIPPERY WHEN WET. Later he expanded them for a quartet recording. By this time, early 1959, his band had changed. Flores was back, but Williamson and Prell were replaced by guitarist Billy Bean and bassist Gary Peacock.
Bean was an experienced Philadelphia guitarist who worked with Charlie Ventura for a year and a half before he moved to Los Angeles in 1958. He played with Buddy De Franco, Calvin Jackson and Paul Horn, among others, before joining Shank at the Drift Inn. "A facile and impressively inventive guitarist," Leonard Feather called him in the 1960 edition of The Encyclopedia of Jazz.
"Good player," Shank says. "Very, very quiet. Liked to get up about 6 pm, have something to eat, go to work, stay up all night and go to bed at 7 am. Never saw the daylight. Around 1960, he just up one day and says 'I'm going home.' He went back to Philadelphia, and I've never heard of him since. I don't know what happened to him."
He knows what happened to Peacock. Anyone who follows jazz does. He began playing bass when he was in the Army in Germany in late 1955. By 1957, he was good enough to play with Shank and Cooper on their first European tour. Peacock was advanced technically and harmonically far beyond the norm for the period. He worked with pianist Bill Evans for a time in the 1960s, and later with Paul Bley, Miles Davis, Jimmy Giuffre, George Russell, Keith Jarrett and avant-gardes like Albert Ayler and Don Cherry. He is one of the giants of the instrument.
"His development," Shank says, "was phenomenal. He turned into one of the most creative bass players that ever happened."
I asked Peacock about his experience with Shank.
"Because of his own presence and his own interest, it created a space for me to be very, very flexible. That was a strong component of our connection during that time. There was a much greater sensitivity to sound quality than there is now, and when we recorded, we were all in the same room. We didn't get stuck in little cells or boxes. We played like we were playing a gig. I think that made an enormous difference in terms of the quality of the music. And Bud was – well everyone knows – the guy’s a master with the instrument. It takes someone like him to work in a framework like that. It was wonderful working with him.”
(G) May 1961
Peacock stayed with Shank well into 1961. With Bean back in Philadelphia, Shank hired Dennis Budimir, as adventurous on guitar as Peacock was on bass. The three of them generated sparks of creativity. Shank’s music moved onto a new plateau.
"Dennis was another intellectual, like Gary. He was his own man. He was very young when we made this record, 22 or 23. He never wanted to travel. He was by nature an improvising jazz player, a very good one. Very creative. But, he chose to forego that so he could stay home, stay in L.A. He became an extremely successful studio guitarist, still is to this day, probably the first-call guy even now. Very successful, and deserved to be. Of the jazz recordings he has made, this is one of the few. He did a solo or duo thing, in somebody's living room for Bill Hardy's little label called Revelation. This is the band, with the exception of Mel Lewis, that was working at the Drift Inn in Malibu at the time we recorded this."
For this session, issued as NEW GROOVE, Shank called Lewis in after drummer Frank Butler, on the morning of the record date, found himself in a bit of legal unpleasantness. One of the great big-band drummers, Lewis was also one of the great small-band drummers, and he proves it here.
When he moved from Kansas City to Los Angeles in 1960, trumpeter Carmell Jones called his friend John William Hardy (the Revelation man) to ask if he knew of work possibilities. Hardy recommended Jones to Shank, who said, "Sure," and hired him for the Drift Inn gig. A superb player in the Clifford Brown mold, Jones made a significant splash in jazz during his California years. He made several Pacific Jazz albums of his own, before joining Horace Silver in 1964 in time to appear on the SONG FOR MY FATHER album. His star, but not his ability, faded when he spent 15 years doing staff orchestra work in Germany before he returned to Kansas City in 1980. He died there in 1996.
Shank is on baritone as well as alto for this date, at the direction of Dick Bock. Bock had noticed that Shank ranked on baritone in a music magazine poll and thought there might be record sales impetus in the big horn.
"Funny how those things happen," Shank told me. "I was becoming more confident and more aggressive, but when somebody like Dick Bock said do something, I did it. Shortly after, if that would have happened, I'd have said, 'Later.' If I'd had to play another saxophone, I would much rather have played tenor."
The robustness of his baritone work is welcome on Duke Ellington and Tyree Glenn's SULTRY SERENADE and the others, but it is the intensity, even ferocity, of his alto on WHITE LIGHTNIN' and WELL, YOU NEEDN'T that signals a change in Bud Shank.
After we listened to NEW GROOVE, I asked him, "You said, ,same horn, same mouthpiece, but different.' How is it different?"
"I hear different things in my playing. It's aggressive, different harmonically, by all means. Different notes, different parts of the chord changes that I'm playing in. And I think that working with Gary Peacock and Dennis Budimir probably got me thinking along those lines. I was becoming more adventurous. I was becoming a better musician, a better saxophone player. More confident. Getting away from the way I was playing eight years before. There's a hell of an advancement between 27 and 35. I really broke through musically. I'm starting to get it together."
(H) NOVEMBER 1961
Bruce Brown, the surfing filmmaker, did well with SLIPPERY WHEN WET. His career in motion pictures was well under way and although he would soon join the '60s trend for rock and roll on sound tracks, he wanted Shank to provide the music for his next moist epic BAREFOOT ADVENTURE. The band was Shank, Peacock, Budimir, Shank's frequent alter ego Bob Cooper on tenor sax, and the busiest (for good reason) drummer in Los Angeles, Shelly Manne. As he did for SLIPPERY WHEN WET, Shank wrote the entire score. The music, tied to the lighthearted subject matter, has less specific gravity than NEW GROOVE, but the players get in plenty of heavy licks.
The film turned out to be extremely popular, and when Brown toured with it, he sold the sound track albums, lots of them. BAREFOOT ADVENTURE became the closest thing Shank had ever had to a hit. That created for Pacific Jazz a fiscal crisis.
"This record sold a whole bunch," Shank said, "like about 10,000 copies, which for that time was a lot of records. Dick Bock had to get the accountants, and they figured out, all of a sudden, that he owed me money. And he had never owed anybody money before. He didn't have any money to pay royalties. So he went down to Hollywood Electronics and bought me a very, very, very good sound system. I've still got the speakers, AR3s. My nephew has the Dynakit tube amp. This was my first hit, my first royalties. A big deal. I never got any royalties after it, either, for anything."
With BAREFOOT ADVENTURE under his belt, Shank had evolved into a mature artist, secure in his abilities, enjoying his work more than ever, on the threshold of great possibilities, and about to be absolutely stymied. By now, he was increasingly dependent on his income from studio work because jazz was beginning to dry up. With the success of Henry Mancini's music for the "Peter Gunn" television series, the traditional Hollywood studio music system finally collapsed in both TV and motion pictures. The executives discovered that jazzmen could fill their needs. Freelancers were in. Big staff orchestras on permanent payrolls were out. As that happened, popular music changed, and so did jazz. Shank thinks the serious damage started in 1962 or 1963.
"The real thing was The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. Then John came along, Coltrane. Things started to get so complex that it was difficult for the audience. And we were starting to get complex. I was. Nowhere near where John was, but in a club Gary Peacock was all over the place, way ahead of where Scott LaFaro was. And Dennis was also. We kept things under control on the record, but we were all getting more adventurous. I think we'd got to the point where as Coltrane became more well-known and going the direction he wanted to go, it became so complex that we not only lost the audience, but we lost the musicians because even they weren't able to understand where it was going. That's what drove the consumer, the audience, to the simpler music of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and those things. They didn't have to think."
By 1965, Shank, Manne, Cooper and dozens of other stars of the Southern California music scene were rolling in studio work. They hated it, but the money was great. Jazz gigs were a low-paying luxury. Between 1965 and 1975, Shank says, he worked two or three times at Shelly's Manne Hole and two or three times at Donte's.
"The whole jazz business went in the toilet, and I didn't have a chance to make any more records, really, except the commercial albums with Michel LeGrand and all that junk that I did in the mid-60s. I didn't have a chance to make any more records until the mid-70s, and I had to start all over again. The bizarre thing is that I started all over again with The L.A. Four, with Laurindo Almeida. NEW GROOVE and BAREFOOT ADVENTURE are where it lay dormant for 15 or more years. It all just laid there and started to re-emerge when I re-emerged, 14 years later."
Shank fell in love with Port Townsend on a festival tour in 1979. He bought a house there in 1981. In 1985, he finally cut his connection to the studios, got rid of the flute, moved to Port Townsend, founded the Bud Shank Workshop, became the artistic director of the Centrum Jazz Festival and declared himself, then and forever, a bebop alto player.
Doug Ramsey, April 1998 @Doug Ramsey 1998 Doug Ramsey is the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of Its Makers (University of Arkansas Press). A regular contributor to Jazz Times, he is the winner of an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for writing about music. [Of course, Doug is also the author of Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond, Parkside Publications and you can visit him directly at his website - http://www.artsjournal.com/rifftides/ .]
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Bud Shank: Part 2 - by Gordon Jack
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“The Jazz improviser … is in a very pure sense, a creator of melodies. In common with any composer, he is constantly making decisions which will determine not only the outcome of a given line but its overall effect on the sensibilities of his listeners.
… the improviser’s decisions are extempore, made on the spot. There is little opportunity to try out a given pattern in a given situation, giving it a dry run, then rejecting it and moving on to another if it fails to please ear and sensibilities.
The possibilities are all but limitless, as are the chances of a misstep, a choice which, though harmonically and technically sound, will break the spell, snap the thread, brings things irremediably to earth.”
-Richard Sudhalter
“[Although] he has appeared on numberless sessions, Shank’s playing has remained sharp, piercingly thoughtful and swinging in a lean, persuasive way.”
- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD – 6th Ed.:
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Gordon Jack is a frequent contributor to the Jazz Journaland a very generous friend in allowingJazzProfilesto re-publish many of his descriptive and discerning writings on these pages.
Gordon is the author of Fifties Jazz Talk An Oral Retrospectiveand he also developed the Gerry Mulligan discography in Raymond Horricks’ bookGerry Mulligan’s Ark.
The following article was first published in Jazz Journal on May 1998.
For more information and subscriptions please visitwww.jazzjournal.co.uk
© -Jazz Journal - Gordon Jack, copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.
“Clifford "Bud" Shank was born in Dayton, Ohio, on May 27, 1926, and his primary instrument is the alto saxophone, although for many years he doubled very successfully on the flute. During the fifties he made several fine recordings on the baritone, and none better than a 1954 Chet Baker L.P, where he fashioned a lyrical solo of quite exquisite beauty on "I'm Glad There Is You. " We met in July 1995, when he was appearing at London's Pizza Express, and I began by asking him why he no longer played the baritone.
That was such a short period in my life because it was never an instrument that fascinated me. I was always attracted to the alto saxophone, and any explorations on the tenor, baritone, or even the flute were just sidetracks. The alto was always my main thing. The reason why my recordings on the baritone came off so well was because I really didn't care; I just picked up the horn and played it without getting too involved. It was the same thing about ten years ago when I stopped playing the flute. I woke up one day and asked myself what I wanted, and I realized that all I ever wanted to be was an alto saxophone player, so I put the flute in the case and it hasn't been out since, which doesn't please Linda, my wife. All my flutes are in a safe deposit box, and I will probably start selling them soon. There's a lot of money invested in them, so why not? Bill Perkins has my Conn tenor and Conn baritone, which he borrowed for a recording date.
To start more or less at the beginning, I auditioned for Stan Kenton at the Capitol Records studio in L.A. in 1949, thanks to a recommendation from Buddy Childers. Stan had a whole sax section set up, with parts that included woodwinds, and it was actually my flute playing that got me the job. He had already hired Bob Cooper, Art Pepper, and Bob Gioga, so the only open spots were lead alto doubling flute and second tenor doubling bassoon. He kept alternating both chairs with several players until he settled on Bart Caldarell and myself, and that was the only time I auditioned for anything in my life.
On the road, Art played all the alto solos because that was his job and mine was to lead the section. As you know, it was a very loud band, not just because of the ten brass but also because of the way it was written, and when I first joined during the "Innovations in Modern Music" period, there were two French horns and a tuba in addition to all that other lovely noise. It was thrilling, though, to hear that mass of sound behind you, although I don't know if anybody actually heard the saxes when the brass were playing. I was on the second recorded version of Bob Graettinger's "City of Glass," which I thought was marvelous, and still do -and even today, people don't realize how great that piece really was.
Bob's girlfriend was Gail Madden, and she was also Gerry Mulligan's girlfriend too. There were some others that used to hang out with them, and they were all a bunch of free-thinkers, especially Graettinger, Gail, and Gerry. They didn't think or act like anybody else. But Gerry, being Gerry, was able to survive in the everyday world, whereas a lot of that group just kept right on going! Graettinger died in 1957, and those of us who knew him felt that it was from a broken heart, although he had physical problems as well. He never found anyone to really understand him, and although Gail used to minister to him, she was just as out of it as he was. They weren't married, but she took her name from a tenor player called Dave Madden, who was also pretty strange.
She and Graettinger lived together, and Gerry and Dave were involved: just one, big, happy, funny family! I don't know all the inside details. and I probably wouldn't relate them if I did, because they must have been pretty odd. As far as Gerry was concerned, he cleaned up his act and very soon got a handle on reality, and even after all these years, he is still playing marvelously. Getting back to Kenton, I think the best album he ever did was Contemporary Concepts, with the Bill Holman and Gerry Mulligan arrangements. The peak was reached with that band and that writing.3
After I left Kenton in 1952, I worked in a group fronted by a drummer called George Redman. We played rhythm 'n' blues six nights a week for about a year around a circuit of L.A. clubs, and it was just me on alto and tenor with a rhythm section. Occasionally, Maynard Ferguson and Bob Gordon would play with us, and if I couldn't make it, Bill Perkins used to sub for me. Bob Gordon was my closest personal friend. He was a great person and a superb player, and it was a terrible loss to the music when he was killed in 1955. I also used to dep for Herb Geller and Joe Maini at a burlesque club called Duffy's Gaiety, where Lenny Bruce was the M.C. I was a fan of Lenny's because he was hilarious, but I didn't hang out with him like Herb and Joe, who had a free seat every night.
While I was with George Redman, I also made some rhythm 'n' blues records with "Boots Brown" and his Buddies. Not everyone knows this but "Boots Brown" was actually Shorty Rogers, who was recording that material for a laugh. It was just a put-on, and I'm probably letting some tales out of the closet here, but there were some very good players on those dates, like Zoot, Gerry, Marty Paich, Milt Bernhart, and Jimmy Giuffre - good musicians playing pretty raunchy music, but doing it well. It all started with a piece that Jimmy wrote for the Lighthouse All Stars called "Big Boy," which was a takeoff of the sort of thing the Lionel Hampton band used to do. Jack Lewis, the record producer, asked Shorty to write some more material in that style, and we got to make quite a few records with "Boots Brown."'
During 1953 when Gerry and Chet were at the Haig, I played there on Mondays, which were the off-nights, with Laurindo Almeida, Harry Babasin, and Roy Harte. The Haig was where that group with Laurindo was born, and it was Harry's idea for us to get together. We used to rehearse in Roy's drum shop, and after about six Monday nights, we made that first record for Pacific Jazz.' I also played on Mulligan's tentet album in '53, which is when I recorded my first alto solo, on "Flash."' Chet was on the date, and he could certainly read music, though not as fast as everyone else. During the fifties I worked a lot with Claude Williamson at the Lighthouse, and when I left there, Claude came with me. We toured Europe and South Africa and stayed together until about 1958. Later on in the sixties, he did a lot of television work as a rehearsal pianist on shows like Sonny and Cher. Both Claude and his brother Stu, who was a marvelous trumpeter, had personal problems, but Claude is beginning to resurface as a jazz player and is recording again. Unfortunately, Stu gave up playing, and before he died a few years ago, I believe he was driving a truck. I knew them both very well and was very close to them in the fifties.
In 1958, along with Art Farmer, Gerry Mulligan, Frank Rosolino, Pete Jolly, Red Mitchell, and Shelly Manne, I played on Johnny Mandel's first film score for the Susan Hayward movie I Want to Live. I recently taped it off the T.V., but I couldn't watch it all because it's so depressing. The group played in some nightclub scenes, and our set was next to the gas chamber set where the Susan Hayward character was executed at the end of the film. It was right there while we were playing, just made out of plywood, but it looked awful! I also did the writing for a couple of films myself: Slippery When Wet in 1959, which was a surfing film, and Robert Redford's first movie, War Hunt, in 1961.
In the fifties there was a long stretch when I was very close to Frank Rosolino - and what a player he was, just fabulous. When he was doing all that fast playing, the slide didn't seem to be moving; somehow it was all done with his lip and tongue. I remember, at the Lighthouse, he always sang at least one number every night where he would be yodeling and doing all those crazy things, and the crowd loved it, as did the band, because he was a very funny guy. I didn't see him very much towards the end, before his suicide in 1978, because he never made it much as a studio player like the other jazz musicians. It's horrible, dumb music, and he would have found that kind of work very difficult, especially as you spend a lot of time just sitting there, doing nothing.
None of that would have impressed Frank, who was so active and always bubbling around. He was probably not playing that much jazz in the seventies, which might have been part of the problem. He'd also been through a couple of wives, but shooting his kids and then killing himself was a dreadful shock. The whole thing was scary, because he was torn up inside, despite the front he presented of all humor and fun. He was a proverbial clown, like Pagliacci; a very sad clown, but nobody knew it. One of his children survived in a terrible state and is supported by an organization called "Musicians' Wives Inc.," which my former wife was instrumental in starting.
From about 1960 to 1963, I often played at the Drift Inn in Malibu, usually, with Carmell Jones, Dennis Budimir, and Gary Peacock. Dennis and Gary were very adventurous, especially in their conception of time, and being the early sixties it was a little early for that, so I used to hire some very straight ahead drummers to keep it all together. I didn't want to tell them to cool it. because I wanted them to have their freedom. So the drummers tended to vary, but more often than not, we had Frank Butler with us. Lee Marvin used to come to the club all the time, as did a lot of movie people, because many of them lived in Malibu. We recorded for Richard Bock in 1961, and although I only played alto with the group at the club, Dick wanted me to play baritone on a couple of numbers, because I had just come second in the baritone section of the Playboy Readers' Poll. We used Mel Lewis on the album because. on the morning of the date, Dick Bock telephoned to say that our drummer had just been busted, so I said, "Get Mel, real quick!" That was the last jazz record I made for a long time, because right after that our music seemed to disappear; it was the end of that era.
In January 1966 Duke Ellington came out to Hollywood to record the music he'd written for a Sinatra film called Assault on a Queen. I was playing in L.A. with Stan Kenton's Neophonic Orchestra at the time, and we were doing monthly concerts of new material which actually featured me quite a lot. Duke came to one of the concerts and asked me to join his orchestra on lead alto. Of course I was very flattered, but I wasn't in a position to leave L.A. at the time, and with the difficulties jazz was having, it wasn't a good time to be on the road with any band, even Duke's. I also had some family problems that would have made it difficult for me to be away, and I was just getting established in the studios, doing the better work. For the film score he had a nucleus of his own sidemen, like Cat Anderson, Cootie Williams, Jimmy Hamilton, Johnny Hodges, Paul Gonsalves, and Harry Carney, supplemented local studio players, Conte Candoli, Al Porcino, Milt Bernhart, Buddy Collette, and myself."
During the sixties a lot of young people, who were the potential new audience for jazz, were attracted to groups like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, and the older listeners had become put off by some of the experimentation that was going on then. Eventually John Coltrane reached a level that wasn't accessible to the public, or even to other musicians, because the world wasn't ready for it, which is why we haven't had a Messiah since. Everything now has gone backwards with all this "return to the fifties" stuff, because with Coltrane we had gone as far as we could. The jazz-buying public wanted to go back and pick up the pieces, so guys like myself have been given a second chance. Historically we had gone from Louis Armstrong to Lester Young and Charlie Parker to John Coltrane in fairly quick jumps, but we've been in this retrospective phase now for about thirty years, which has never happened before. In the mid seventies, when we put the L.A. Four together, it was like putting your toe in the water, since Shelly Manne, Ray Brown, and I hadn't worked as jazz players for about ten years. We were a chamber jazz group rather than a straight-ahead jazz group, but it turned out that there was still an audience out there. That was when I phased myself out of the studio scene, because the more I was out of town, the less the phone rang. Soon they didn't bother to call at all, which was fine with me, since I didn't want to do it anymore.
One of my CDs that has recently been released, although we recorded it back in 1993, is New Gold, and it has Conte Candoli, Bill Perkins, and Jack Nimitz in the front line, who are old friends. We had a piano-less rhythm section, with John Clayton on bass and Sherman Ferguson on drums, and playing without the piano gives you a lot of freedom. It's easier to get into the altered notes of a chord, because you don't conflict with the pianist, but you must pay attention. Before we made the CD, we worked a few jobs at the Catalina Bar and Grill, and the guys were really concerned at not having a piano, but by the second night they all loved it. Bill's playing has changed over the years, and on this new recording, he's really out there, but a lot of his friends are forever giving him sermons about going back to playing the way he used to. Dick Bank in L.A. arranged for him to make a CD featuring some Lester Young transcriptions and doing them in a Prez style." Dick called me recently and played some of it over the phone, and it's marvelous. Lester used to play a Conn, and Bill asked if he could borrow mine, but in the event he used one of his old Selmer’s. He sounds just gorgeous, because he can change mouthpieces and go right back to the old Perkins, and I love him - he's wild! He plays a lot of baritone these days, and he is also amazing on soprano, because he finds it easy to play anything, but the real Bill Perkins is a tenor player.
Somewhere along the way there's going to be something new in jazz, but it won't come from the avant-garde guys, who seem to be saying: "I'm it, man. I'm the new Messiah. Follow me!" They make a lot of noise and forget about playing their instruments, and that really bothers me, because these people are leading us into another blind alley. It's going to take someone who masters his horn, because ego alone isn't going to make it.
The three people right now who are doing the most important writing are Manny Albam, Bob Brookmeyer, and Bill Holman." They've been around a long time, but there is more adventure and advanced thought with those three as writers than with any horn player I know, and maybe that's going to be the next phase-the writing only.”
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Harry Carney With Strings (1955) (Full Album)
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Marco Pacassoni - Frank and Ruth
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Although I’ve never met him because of the geographical distance between California and Fano [near Urbino], in the northeast Tuscan-Romagnolo Apennines region of Italy where he lives, percussionist, composer and teacher, Marco Pacassoni and I have become social networking friends.
It’s a friendship that I value not only because of some obvious points - I’m Italian-American and he’s Italian; I play drums as does he and other percussion instruments as well; our shared interest in Jazz - but because my “friendship” with Marco helps keep me in touch with what’s going on in Jazz today.
Keeping current is a challenge for me; to be honest, I don’t like much of what I hear that passes for Jazz today. It just doesn’t speak to me. On the other hand, I don’t want to isolate myself from contemporary Jazz while relegating myself solely to the music, which I do favor, as it existed in previous periods of its development.
Jazz has always been ecumencial and ecclectic - it’s a music open to influences from a wide variety of socio-cultural sources - so it’s probably healthy for me to have associations with young musicians who hear and play the music differently and who help keep my ears moving in different directions.
But if that wasn’t enough, there’s another “connection” between Marco and I brought about by the concept of his most recent CD and that is, it’s theme is based on the music of Frank Zappa.
In 1962, the actor Timothy Carey wrote directed and starred in The World’s Greatest Sinner, a horror movie. Frank Zappa wrote the film score and I played percussion on it.
Along with about 60 other musicians who all agreed to play the music for a flat fee and a boxed lunch as our way of helping Frank keep the costs down, it was recorded during the summer of 1961 in the newly appointed recording studio that was part of the Claremont Colleges. [Claremont is a city on the eastern edge of Los Angeles in the Pomona Valley, at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.]
At the time this film score was recorded, Frank Zappa was not the big Rock Star he would later become. To me, he was just another working musician who happened to have a gig that I played on.
And although I was aware of his later astronomical career rise - I especially liked the humor in Zappa’s song and record titles - I didn’t follow it closely because of the Rock ‘n Rock orientation of the music.
Now, thanks to the MARCO PACASSONI GROUP - Marco Pacassoni: vibraphone and marimba Alberto Lombardi: electric, acoustic and classical guitars Enzo Bocciero: piano and keyboards Lorenzo De Angeli: bass Gregory Hutchinson: drums - I’ve had the opportunity to revisit some of Zappa’s music through the Jazz-inflected Frank and Ruth. Released on Esordisco, the CD is available via Amazon and other online retailers. You can also visit Marco at his website.
Pierre Ruiz is the producer of Frank and Ruth and his notes to the recording will provide you with more information about its background and the musicians who created the music for it.
PRODUCER’S NOTES
“I cannot exactly remember when the idea of this album was born in my mind. What I am sure of is that I always wanted to complete such a project, which was to realize the dream of a vibraphone and marimba tribute to the music of my favorite musician composer, Frank Zappa.
I met Marco Pacassoni about six years ago. I called him because we were looking for a vibraphonist for a tour with the artist Bungaro. We immediately developed a real friendship and when I told him about my idea and my fascination with [keyboardist] Ruth Underwood, explaining that for me the best Zappa albums were the ones on which she played, he admitted that he knew only a part of that music, but that he would love to learn more. So I began to feed him tunes to listen to, sharing with him an imaginary track list. When Marco decided to really go for it (about two years ago), his first statement was that it was impossible not to include Peaches en Regalia and The Black Page on the album. That made me very happy because those are two of my favorites, and there was no better way to acknowledge the technical challenges behind this adventure. Marco studied Ionisation by Edgard Varese when he was in Conservatorio Rossini of Pesaro, even before he graduated in percussion at the Berklee College of Music [Boston, MA]. It was strange for me that he could know more about Varese than about Zappa! I liked his idea of playing The Black Page alone at the marimba, just adding the beat, as if hearing the footsteps of an imaginary listener turning around. Who could it be?
My very first wish was to include Pink Napkins with Zappa’s guitar solo played at the vibraphone. Marco worked on Steve Vai’s score for guitar to create this incredible adaptation. Linking this to Black Napkins was the plan, as they are actually the same tune – but then Alberto Lombardi came on board. His unique guitar fingerstyle offered us the opportunity to add Sleep Dirt (which has often been also called Sleep Napkins). I thought it would be nice to call this arrangement Sleep, Pink and Black (the Napkins Suite).
From the beginning, when we first spoke of possible musicians, it was very clear to Marco that he needed to invite Lorenzo De Angeli [classical, acoustic, electric guitars] and Enzo Bocciero [piano and keyboards] to this project. Both talented musicians, and members of his quartet, I agreed that they would perfectly fit. Marco and I both wanted a guitarist – and since is a very courageous decision for a tribute to Zappa – I was convinced that Alberto Lombardi, with whom I had worked on another album, was equally technically and artistically perfect for such a project.
I discovered Gregory Hutchinson when he was playing drums with Joshua Redman in 2000. Since then, he’d been for me one of my top-of-mind drummers. He is so incredibly inspired, rich with nuance and musicality. When I called him, I felt like I was excusing myself. “I have to tell you that this will be a tribute to Frank Zappa’s music.” His answer was akin to, “hey man, what’s the problem?” I felt blessed that he accepted the project.
The first arrangements that Marco made was for Blessed Relief, and soon after, Echidna’s Arf. Both are completely revisited, which was the entire purpose of our project; there is no copy and paste here. No doubt that if Zappa was still alive, he too would be permanently rearranging his music – he always did.
Marco also wanted to pay tribute to Ruth. That’s why he wrote For Ruth. I love it, and hope one day she can listen to it.
The Zappa Songbook represents more than half of the music that he published. It would have been illogical not to include at least a couple of songs. Alberto is actually an accomplished singer, having recorded two albums. The Idiot Bastard Son is one of his favorites, and this selection was met with much enthusiasm by Marco because we’d had this particular tune on our shortlist.
I also had in mind to feature Petra Magoni on this album. She is one of my favorite Italian voices, and in my opinion, Petra’s tone is perfect for Zappa music. She is not merely rock, pop, jazz or classic, but rather so versatile that she can perform all genres. It is for this reason that she is an inimitable talent. She and I met and talked about the meaning of the lyrics of Planet of the Baritone Women. Then I proposed this absolutely free improvisation with Marco’s marimba in the middle of the tune, and the result has made me exquisitely happy. It all happened here.
We had three days to record the album. At the end of the second day, we were ahead of schedule, so we decided to record one more tune – Stolen Moments – the day after. We all adored the cover that Zappa did on Broadway the Hard Way. Well, that third and last day did not run as smoothly as we had hoped, and had little time left. However, we still recorded the tune, even with only minimal rehearsal of a few bars. The version you’ll hear is take one, with no edit.
There are no words to thank Marco, Alberto, Enzo, Lorenzo, Greg and Petra. What they have given to the album is awesome.
Music is the best. Pierre Ruiz”
Baltimore, 19 April 2018
Album concept by Pierre Ruiz and Marco Pacassoni.
Executive Producer: Pierre Ruiz for Esordisco.
Produced and mixed by Alberto Lombardi.
All songs arranged by Marco Pacassoni except: Sleep, Pink and Black (the napkins suite) by Alberto Lombardi.
Vocal arrangement of Planet of Baritone Women by Petra Magoni.
Illustrations by Beppe Stasi.
MARCO PACASSONI GROUP Marco Pacassoni: vibraphone and marimba Alberto Lombardi: electric, acoustic and classical guitars Enzo Bocciero: piano and keyboards Lorenzo De Angeli: bass Gregory Hutchinson: drums Special Guest: Petra Magoni on “Planet of the Baritone Women”
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"The Forming of Philly Joe Jones" - by Ralph J. Gleason
© - Steven A. Cerra - copyright protected; all rights reserved.
The year 1960 arguably found Philly Joe Jones at the top of the heap of modern Jazz drummers. He had just finished a five-year association with trumpeter Miles Davis on the strength of which he was able to form and tour with his own group.
He was issuing LP’s under his own name with Riverside Records and was in constant demand at Blue Note, Prestige and other New York-based record labels that specialized in modern Jazz.
Miles would ask him to return to work on his themed LP based on the music from Porgy and Bess which was arranged by Gil Evans and he would close-out the decade of the 1960’s with frequent appearances as a member of pianist Bill Evans’ trio.
All Jazz musicians “come from somebody” and the following 1960 interview that Philly gave to the Jazz columnist, writer and reviewer, Ralph J. Gleason describes Philly’s journey through his drumming influences.
Philly was also a fairly astute observer on the Jazz scene as it was unfolding around him in 1960.
Kenny Clarke started it all, but Art Blakey, Max Roach and Philly Joe Jones became the heart and soul of East Coast Jazz. The pulse of the music would never have been the same without them.
Without getting into the East Coast versus West Coast Jazz thing that seemed to haunt the music and its makers from about 1955-65, there is a certain irony in having Ralph J. Gleason provide a comprehensive interview with one of the scions of East Coast Jazz drumming as Ralph was for many years the writer of all things Jazz for the San Francisco Chronicle.
To his credit, however much Ralph was a supporter of Dave Brubeck Cal Tjader, Paul Desmond, Vince Guaraldi, Shelly Manne and other musicians who were unfairly grouped into the West Coast school, Ralph, like most lovers of the music, embraced good Jazz wherever it was being played.
The Forming of Philly Joe Jones
- Ralph J. Gleason
"I always say a drummer has to find himself; seasoning means so much," said Philly Joe Jones, the drummer who shot to the forefront of modern drumming with the Miles Davis group and is now leading his own combo.
"Young drummers today are coming up in an era where all of us, all the drummers the young ones admire, are playing modern drums. Therefore, the young drummer doesn't have in his mind the older drummers, Chick Webb, Baby Dodds, or Sid Catlett. They haven't ever seen Baby Dodds or sat and watched him play like I did.
Or Sid. These are the drummers for the next 20 years. I don't care how the drums move. If any drummer can tell me he can't go back and listen to Chick and Dave Tough and Baby and Sid . . . and tell me that's not drums, I'll break up the drums and forget it!"
Let Philly Joe tell about Baby:
"When I was working with Joe Morris opposite George Shearing in the Three Deuces on 52nd St., I went across the street one night to the Onyx. Just casually, you know. And I happened to look at the placards outside that said BABY DODDS. Well, I had always been reading books and things and so I knew that Gene Krupa had been influenced by Baby and Baby had been hanging out with Gene.
"So, wanting to play the drums as bad as I wanted to, I said, I'm goin' to listen to this drummer.' So what I did, I went in the Onyx, and Baby was playing in there with a bass drum, and a snare drum, and ONE cymbal, a ride cymbal. It wasn't a sock cymbal. He was swingin' SO MUCH I was late an entire set! I didn't get back to work. I missed the entire set, and Joe fined me. I think it was a $30 fine. I couldn't leave, I sat down and just stayed."
Let Philly Joe tell about Sid:
"Sid was very close with me, he liked me. And I loved him, and I used to want to be around him as much as I could. Everywhere he was, I was there. I got most of my brush work from him. Sid Catlett used to sit down and show me the things I wanted to know. Of course, all the things I dream up now, I try to dream up original things. But the direction I got earlier, the foundation, the right way to go, Sid showed me. He taught Teddy Stewart of Kansas City, too. We used to practice together, and it came out that Sid showed Teddy the same things. We used to talk about how Sid used to play the brushes with so much finesse that it was just fabulous."
And Chick:
"I had heard Jo Jones years ago with the Basie band and I always admired Jo's drumming, and I loved him, and I loved the things he played. Jo Jones was merely a heck of an influence on me when I was a kid. But my mind used to go past Jo Jones because at the same time, the Savoy was hollerin', and Chick Webb was playin'."
"Chick was the drummer I used to listen to. I'd be listenin' to those broadcasts, and my mother used to really holler at me because I kept the radio on all night! Chick used to have a theme song called Liza. I memorized that tune, it's in my mind right now, I could hum the tune the way he played it. I used to listen to the drum solos that he played in between . . . That's the reason why I fashioned with this quintet I'm trying to get together the theme I'm using. Of course, I'm using Blue and Boogie, but I'm inserting drum things in between here and there; let them play a few, and then I play some drums and then go out with a big smash. Chick used to do that with Liza. It always impressed me. It was a beautiful thing."
On O'Neil Spencer:
"I changed my mind about drums when I met O'Neil Spencer [Mills Blue Rhythm Band which later became the Lucky Millinder big band]. O'Neil was the first name drummer I met, and, as I often say to myself, thank God I met him at the time I did. John Kirby was working in town, and he came by one of our sessions and liked what, we were playing, and he brought his drummer to hear me.
"When I met O'Neil, something just dawned on me. This man was such a beautiful drummer, he did so many things that I dreamed of. He made me think about drums differently. O'Neil used to say to me, 'Why don't you do this and do that? Why don't you play an afterbeat on the two and four with the sock cymbals?' And that used to fascinate me. I had never heard anybody do this, and John Kirby used to say, 'That's it! That's the way it's supposed to be.' O'Neil was the first person I ever heard do it with the 2, 4 thing."
On Slim Gaillard:
"Slim Gaillard used to teach me all the cow bell tricks, and the things that he plays on cow bell are authentic. Other guys might not dig it, might not get close to Slim and listen. I had to listen to him - I was playing with him every night. And he plays authentic, actual rhythms on that cow bell. That throwing the cow-bell-up-in-the-air bit is something different. But he taught me the things to play on the top of the cymbal. Slim was responsible for all the Latin things that I've learned."
On local drummers who influenced him when he was a youth:
"There's an old fellow in Philadelphia, who's still there playin'— he's playin' every night—named Coatesville. He used to teach me how to play the drums, and I used to sit underneath the bandstand in the club because I was too young to be there, but he'd sneak me in. He's still one of the swingingest older cats I've met. In 1938, '39 I used to watch this guy and another old man. He used to play drums, used to sit up with a pipe in his mouth and play every night.
"I lived across the street from a place called the Lennox Grill in Philadelphia, and I used to peek through the windows in the back of the club, they had bars on the windows, and I used to always stand there and look at this drummer. He had a pipe in his mouth and a regular old setup of drums — you know, no high hat, nothing like that — just a bass drum and a little cymbal, cymbals were small then. But he was swinging like I don't know what. My mother used to come around the corner and look up and see me peeking in the window and say, 'Come on now,' and I'd go home — I only lived across the street. But I used to sneak out of the house sometimes at night because they'd be playin' after my bedtime ... I had to go to school . . . but I used to sneak out, run across the street, 10:30, 11 o'clock at night and peek in that window and listen to him playing drums."
On Max Roach and Art Blakey:
"I left Philadelphia in 1947 and came to New York to live because during and before those years Max and Art used to come to Philly, and I'd be working in the clubs when they came to town, and I idolized them, and they used to say, 'Why don't you come to New York?' In fact, Art or Max would confirm that they've ridden with me when I was driving on the streetcar, and then Max came back a few years later when I was driving a grocery truck and used to ride with me in the afternoons, and we'd talk.
"I loved Max and Art, and I wanted to talk to them and be with them, and I couldn't because I was in Philly so I used to buy a train ticket. I used to commute from Philly to New York and go to Max' house over on Monroe St. in Brooklyn with Kenny Davis. I'd eat dinner and stay maybe six, seven hours, and we'd play. We'd go into his bedroom, and Max would be showing Kenny and myself different things. We'd be, so to speak, swapping notes. Max introduced me to Kenny Clarke. He told me, This is Kenny Clarke the forerunner of all of us!'"
On Miles Davis:
"Miles had this uncanny sense of time and rhythm, real different from anybody I've ever met. And he often said that my sense of time is strange and so between the two of us having these strange senses of time, we just seemed to get together with the sense of time, and I could never lose him, and he could never lose me. I always knew where he was. As much as I like to play the melody in things on the drums, I could get with Miles and go into anything, just like he does with me; he never stays with the drummer; he goes way out. But I know where he's at, and I know what he's doing, and with Miles I could play some drum things without having to stick close to the melody on the drums to let him know where I was at 'cause he had such an uncanny sense of time. He would know the amount of time that I had to be playing, and I'd come out right, and it would bring him right back, and he'd come right back where ONE was . . . and it was always beautiful.
"The greatest experience of my life was with Miles, of course ... I could never deny that — the greatest experience of my life other than the few times I worked with Charlie, meaning Charlie Parker. They were the greatest experiences of my life. To work with Miles later gassed me because I knew that he got all of his seasoning from Charlie.
"In Miles group, Miles would let me play 'most anything I felt like playing. He used to have a firm hand on me. With Miles, I'm a sideman, and there's so much I can do and so much I can't do. Miles used to get angry about some things I would do and limit me and have me play certain things and tie me down and I couldn't progress. I feel that if a drummer can experiment on the bandstand without upsetting the rhythm and disturbing people, it's good for you and makes you progress. But Miles wouldn't let me experiment too much, because he'd say I'd be getting in the way. With my own group, I can experiment the way I feel because it's my group! With my own group I feel more at liberty. If I feel something, to go into it. I used to feel things with Miles that might have been some spectacular things, but I wouldn't do them because I was afraid he would reprimand me.
"I believe in everybody in the band letting them play their own arrangements. That makes them a happy group. When I was in Miles' band that was the thing that I didn't like in the band. Miles would never play anything that I would write or that anybody else in the band would write. Course we could suggest, which I did. I suggested on numerous occasions how the format of an arrangement should be. "I'll play brushes here" like on All of You. Different things like that. That concept was me. I said, 'Miles, I want to play brushes in front of that' when he started the opening of All of You. That's my idea. We dreamed that up on a plane flying to Detroit or somewhere."
On young, outstanding drummers:
"Louis Hayes! He's going to be an excellent drummer. And a student of mine named Andrew Serrill — he's becoming a very good drummer. And a protege of mine from Philadelphia, a young boy named Endlove. They're going to be very excellent drummers."
On tricks and stick twirling:
"It looks good. It's flash. It looks very good with those sticks being twirled in your hands, but you should be kept on the drums. You're supposed to be playing the drums. A lot of guys will say, 'Ah, man, I left my tom-toms home, and my other cymbal is gone.' Drums can be played with the bass drum, snare drum, and ONE cymbal. Or if you don't have the cymbal, you can use the snare drum. I know a lot of guys can sit down and play the snare drum.
"I don't like tricks, I don't like to resort to tricks. Now I try to do some kind of trick things with the cymbals, but I want to do them in the rhythm. It's not just a trick, and you don't hear it; it's a trick and you hear it. Twirl the sticks and that's a trick, and nobody hears it; it's all right, it looks flashy, but what looks flashy is one thing— what you hear is still rhythm that keeps it swinging. Don't do pantomime drums! 'Cause pantomime drums cannot be heard on a record.
"I've seen Buddy Rich do all kinds of solos, any way you can think of, and I've never seen him do tricks. He plays drums and cymbals all the time, both the hands and the feet. Buddy does things that are unbelievable for any drummer. I used to play the conga on stage while he was playing drums in his solo. I'd be playing rhythm, and I used to look over at him to see when he was going to come out of his solo . . . and I couldn't see his hands! I couldn't see them! They were a blur, the sticks were a blur. He's the greatest drummer I've listened to when you start saying, 'Go in there and play those drums.'"
On playing loudly:
"I am comparatively a heavy drummer. I like to play heavy, and I play forceful, and sometimes I tend to get loud, and it might be overbearing because I've seen some customers who sit close to the drums get up and move. So I understand.
"A lot of drummers play for themselves and don't think about the audience. I do. I think about the audience at all times when I'm playing. I have a feeling for their ears as far as volume is concerned. But on some tunes, you just cannot come down and make the tune effective, so I have to play loud. If I would play it much softer, it wouldn't be any good. It would kill the brilliance of the tune.
"But even though a drummer can play loud, I notice the public will accept it if the drums are loud and musical. If you're loud and not musical, they won't accept it."
On the future of drums:
"The era has changed, and it's getting so that people are getting more modern-minded. We're talking about the moon. The drums have got to go to the moon! You can't be playing the drums in 1923; it's 1960 now, and the drums have got to move along and progress, too. I think drums are changing constantly.
"We have so many young drummers that are coming up, and they listen to me and Art and Max and different cats that are playing, and they want to play different. They're constantly trying to surpass. That's the way I felt about the older drummers. I wanted to surpass what they did, so that I can be doing something progressive and get recognition, and the younger drummers that are younger than I are doing the same thing. Youth just comes on. Youth comes through, and it's with a different flavor. They're constantly searching, and there's no end to drums, what you can do with drums.
"The only thing I can say is for all drummers, including myself — and I'm really scuffling just to stay this way — I want to keep time behind me and don't let it catch up. When time catches up with you, you become passe, so I'm striving to keep time behind me. I don't want time to pass me, and go ahead, and wake up someday and I'm old-fashioned. I say, don't let "emit"— that's "time" spelled backwards — don't let "emit" get you."’
Source: March 3, 1960 edition of Downbeat magazine.
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Lennie Niehaus - Best Of 3H (Thou Swell, Whose Blues?, Bunko and more...)
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Lennie Niehaus - A Consummate Pro
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
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For different reasons, the author Max Harrison and the alto saxophonist, composer and arranger, Lennie Niehaus have been people I have admired over the years, so what better way to celebrate them on JazzProfiles than to feature a Marx Harrison article on Lennie Niehaus that was originally published in the March, 1958 edition of Jazz Monthly?
Somewhat ironically, as Ted Gioia points out in his seminal West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960 [p. 163]:
“Despite the striking virtues of his playing, Niehaus never achieved more than passing notice from the critics. One notable exception, however, was Max Harrison,…, whose insightful essay on Niehaus captures the essential virtues of the altoist’s work ….”
Both Lennie’s plaintive wail on many of the Stan Kenton’s mid-1950s albums such as Back to Balboa, Cuban Fire and The Stage Door Swings, to my ears the quintessential sound of West Coast Jazz, and Max Harrison’s acerbic wit and unconventional views had a powerful impact on my appreciation of Jazz at a very early [impressionable?] age.
I do disagree with Mr. Harrison on one aspect of Lennie’s career as I happen to very much enjoy Stan Kenton and Lennie‘s playing during his stints with the Kenton Orchestra. However, not to belabor the point, Max and I do agree on the four wonderful recordings that Lennie made for Contemporary records in the 1950s that are the subject of his essay.
I have taken the liberty of augmenting Max’s essay with the addition of Volume 4: The Quintets and Strings [Contemporary C-3510; OJCCD 1858-2] which was not referenced in Max’s essay, as well as, with the inclusion of excerpts from the original Contemporary LP liner notes by John S. Wilson, Arnold Shaw, Lester Koenig, and Barry Ulanov, respectively. Lennie was also very gracious in granting me time to answer a few interview questions about these albums at recent events sponsored by the Los Angeles Jazz Institute at which he appeared.
Individual Voice: Lennie Niehaus - Max Harrison
“It was unfortunate Niehaus first became widely known as a result of the tours he undertook in the mid-1950s with Stan Kenton’s band, for the records he was then producing under his own name made it obvious that he had nothing in common with that master of the unintentionally comic bombast.
The second thing to be learnt from them was that Niehaus had little to learn about playing the alto saxophone. His ease and fluency conveyed a feeling of relaxation and security that is always rare, and his attack and swing were almost equally striking.
But the most notable feature of the twenty-six performances considered here is the consistency of his inventive power in improvisation. He never seems to be at a loss for a good melodic idea, and even though his phrasing is concise and pre-eminently logical, an element of the unexpected is never absent.
Lester Koenig noted: “He is a remarkable alto soloist, with a sense of flowing melodic line, lovely cool tone, and a strong feeling for rhythm. He is a thoughtful and serious musician, who composes in his own style, with definite ideas of where he is going and what he wants to achieve.”
In some ways, Niehaus first LP – Lennie Niehaus Vol. 1 ‘The Quintets’ [Contemporary C-3518; OJCCD- 1933-2] – with a quintet instrumentation remains the most informative of his abilities as a soloist.
The scored passages are generally brief, and, apart from a few meandering contributions from Jack Montrose and Bob Gordon on tenor and baritone saxophones respectively, the leader fills all the available solo space with notable effect.
His consistency makes it hard to single out an performance as exceptional, though the quick-fire Whose Blues? Is a reminder that real spontaneity is less a matter of technical command than of a steady flow of ideas. Almost impressive in this respect are Prime Rib, with its double-time phrases, and the breaks of You Stepped Out of a Dream.
Niehaus wrote the arrangements for all the recordings dealt with here, and these show a nicely understated skill, nearly always being shorn of unnecessary gesture. As his was a musical family, he began his studies early and thus had a better chance of acquiring sound theoretical knowledge than many jazzmen. This places an agreeable variety of writing techniques at his disposal, but he is aware of the dangers of over-elaboration in the modest circumstances of small combo jazz.
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[The Original Jazz Classic CD tray plate notes offer this overview of the recording.
“Lennie Niehaus’s first album is his most intimate. The music is rich in the colorful, complex writing that he would pursue on larger canvasses as his career progressed, while the compact sound of the quintet focuses attention on Niehaus, the fluent, Parker-inspired yet quite personal alto saxophonist. What emerges are well-balanced performances from two distinct ensembles.
Eight tracks recorded in 1954 … feature an inspired three-saxophone front line with Jack Montrose and Bob Gordon, plus the great Monty Budwig/Shelly Manne rhythm section. Four additional titles by a 1956 unit with Manne, Stu Williamson, Hampton Hawes, and red Mitchell were added for a 12-inch release, and represent Niehaus, a paragon of West Coast Jazz, in his most East Coast mood.”
On the sleeve of his second LP [Zounds! The Lennie Niehaus Octet! – Contemporary C-3540; OJCCD- 1892-2] Lennie writes:
“With the more intellectual and academic approach there is a tendency for … work to become contrived and esoteric. It must be remembered that most modern jazz compositions written during the past few years are no more ‘modern’ than things Bartok, Berg, Schoenberg and others wrote twenty of thirty years ago.”]
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[Max continues] Such a viewpoint is healthy, first because it is historically and technically realistic, and second because it is a corrective to the attitude of many jazzmen who in the past have imagined themselves to be daring iconoclasts while purveying what actually was simple and conservative music.
On the octet performances on his second LP Niehaus still occupies most of the solo space and is fully able to justify this. His arrangements are similar in general style to many others being written on the West Coast at that time, and what individual character they possess is due more to certain technical details than to an overall new approach. Such features most often arise from his concern with unity, and he is fond of deriving introductions, bridge passages and codas from the theme, or part of it, whenever possible. Instances are Night Life, Have You Met Miss Jones? and Circling the Blues; also typical of Niehaus is the way the introduction to The Night We Called It A Day recurs in sequential form to effect a modulation.
The first batch of octet scores have a pleasingly full texture, with the themes announced mainly in block chords. By the jazz standards of his time, Niehaus had a quite extensive, though in no way personal, harmonic vocabulary, so these parallel chords often are interesting, and are effectively distributed over the ensemble.
The result, however, could easily have been a rather too consistent harmonic richness, so he occasionally scores a passage for the horns without the rhythm section, as in How About You?, or has the drums only supply interjections, as on Figure Eight. He has many similar procedures to ensure variety, such as the bridge to Night Life, first played in block chords then scored contrapuntally on its return.
Another example is the first section of the code on The Way You Look Tonight, where each horn plays a separate line based on a different part of the theme; the result is of considerable harmonic and contrapuntal interest, and one regrets this passage only being four bars long. Even drum solos are made to further the development of the piece, as in The Way You Look Tonight, where, the piano and bass silent, the percussionist for a while alternates bars with the front line. There is a similar episode on Seaside.
Such devices, though, are very far from exhausting the scope of an ensemble … [featuring Lennie - alto sax, Jack Montrose - tenor sax and Bill Perkins - baritone sax, Stu Williamson - trumpet, Bob Enevoldsen - value trombone, Lou Levy – piano, Monty Budwig – bass and Shelly Manne – drums], and Niehaus appears to have been conscious of the almost unrelieved homophony of the above scores.
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[Since Max doesn’t discuss the four compositions featuring Octet No. 2, made up of Lennie – alto sax, Bill Perkins moving to tenor sax, Pepper Adams – baritone sax, Vince De Rosa – French Horn, Frank Rosolino – trombone, James McAlister – tuba, Red Mitchell – bass, and Mel Lewis – drums, that also appear on Zounds!, I thought perhaps the following comments from the original LP liner notes by Arnold Shaw might prove descriptive in this regard:
“ The fact is that the four new arrangements are less linear. The various horns do not have completely free, independent lines, and the drive is toward a coordinated swinging beat. ‘I still don’t go for blowing arrangements,’ Lennie said recently. ‘I like to write backgrounds and interludes, and my goal is a swinging line’ Whether the octet is taking an ensemble chorus or Lennie weaving, at break-neck speed around the ensemble, the Niehaus combo jumps and rocks and swings.”]
[Max continues] In his third LP [Lennie Niehaus The Octet #2, Vol. 3 Contemporary C-3503; OJCCD 1767-2] there is a certain amount of section differentiation though not enough.
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Alto saxophone and trombone contrast tellingly with the full band on Cooling It, as do alto and tenor in Bunko, yet such antiphony is infrequent, and counterpoint mainly conspicuous by its absence.
[Since Max gives rather short shrift to this album in his essay, the following comments about the recording’s personnel and Lennie’s playing from John S. Wilson’s liner notes to the album might prove germane.
“The present bath of octet selections is played by a slightly different group than the preceding set. Newcomers to this octet, but familiar figures on the West Coast jazz scene, are Jimmy Giuffre on baritone saxophone, Bill Holman on tenor and Pete Jolly on piano. Along with the holdovers – Stu Williamson on trumpet, Bob Enevoldsen on valve trombone, Monty Budwig on bass, Shelly Manne on drums and, of course, Niehaus himself – they make up a select group of top-ranking Coast jazzmen.
Niehaus’ playing has an ease, an unharried continuity which can only be accomplished by a musician who is beyond being consciously concerned with technique, whose feeling in performance is instinctively a swinging one and who can, consequently, devote himself completely to the creative requirements of his performance. There can be no doubt that these creative requirements are exceedingly demanding. ….
[Niehaus’] tone is almost unique among modern alto saxophonists. It is rich, rounded and warmly full-blooded and yet light enough not to clog up the quickly moving line of his style. It gives a vitality to his playing which is missing in some of the more wraith-like attacks adopted by current alto men.
A rich tone and a riding sense of swing would be of little use to Niehaus, of course, if his ideas were routine. Fortunately, his concepts are fresh and provocative not only in his individual solo performances but in his writing, too.”
As previously noted, not included in Max’s article was any reference to Lennie Niehaus, Vol. 4: The Quintets and Strings [Contemporary C 3510; OJCCD 1858-2] that tracks with strings and Lennie on alto, strings augmented by Lennie on alto, Bill Perkins on tenor and Bob Gordon on baritone and four cuts with a quintet fronted by Lennie on alto and Stu Williamson on trumpet with a rhythm section of Hawes, Budwig and Manne.
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[In his liner notes, Barry Ulanov offered the following reflections on Lennie’s playing:
“The alto is to the present jazz era what the tenor saxophone was to the one just before it; a great many musicians play it, and some of them inordinately well. As a result, the instrument currently enjoys much favor with the jazz public …. But if it has reached high jazz rank, it has also suffered: there is a terrible sameness about the work of all too many of these stars, a monotony based on the brilliant examples of a Parker, a Konitz or the like ….
All of which explains why I enjoy the playing of Lennie Niehaus as much as I do ….
One can say that it is his sound, a quite modern one, that makes him so welcome betwixt and alongside his colleagues; but others offer a not dissimilar sound. Perhaps, then, it is his beat; but that too, though not as familiar among present-day altoists, can be heard and felt on his horn. If not the sound and the beat, then the length of his lines. This, maybe, but not all by itself, for the long line is very much with us these days on alto, and good to have, but not any guarantee of identity.
No, not one of these things, but all of them in copious abundance, and held together, as he holds everything else in the proceedings in balance and bearing, by a widely resourceful musicianship. Thus diversity, thus originality; thus ripeness and no monotony and, for what it is worth, my very high esteem for Lennie Niehaus."]
[Max continues] On his fifth record [Lennie Niehaus Vol. 5: The Sextet, Contemporary C-3524; OJCCD 1944-2] for sextet, however, Niehaus included well-paced duets between alto and tenor saxophones and trumpet and baritone saxophone in Thou Swell, and Three of a Kind has an adroit fugal introduction and coda.
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There are effective dialogues between soloist and ensemble here, also, particularly on Belle of the Ball and As Long As I Live, some imaginative scored background to solos ….
[The Original Jazz Classic CD tray plate notes offer this overview of the recording.
“In the mid-1950’s, Lennie Niehaus avoided cliché, incorporated audacious harmonic ideas, and distilled the essentials of big band writing into arrangements for small groups. His recordings are still notable in the 21st century for their freshness and daring.
In this fifth of his series of albums for the Contemporary label, Niehaus sets himself the chamber music challenge of achieving proportion among four horns, bass and drums, without piano to cushion the sound, delineate the harmonies, and unify the ensemble.
The result was a collection of pieces performed with gem-like clarity by players who executed his writing perfectly and brought to their solos the creativity that made them star improvisers.
Niehaus’ alto saxophone was matched by Bill Perkins, Jimmy Giuffre, Stu Williamson, Shelly Manne, and the brilliant, underappreciated bassist Buddy Clark.”]
[Max concludes] In solo Niehaus is as good as before, although the only other improvisations of real merit on these recordings are by pianist Lou Levy in the first octet disc and by Stu Williamson on both trumpet and valve trombone in the sextet LP. Indeed, the assurance and conviction of the latter’s work on the former instrument in Thou Swell, I Wished on the Moon, Knee Deep and As Long As I Live mark it as being among his best on record. Bill Perkins, on tenor saxophone, is also heard to pleasing, if rather nonchalant, effect in Three of a Kind and As Long As I Live. The gulf (in terms of invention) between the leader and several of his other bandsmen, however, is rather clearly shown by the chase passages of Whose Blues? and Rick’s Tricks, and even more by the long series of twelve- and – twenty-four bar solos in Circling the Blues.
The point is confirmed in a different way by Niehaus’ success with slow ballads, particularly The Night We Called It a Day and Our Love is Here To Stay on the octet records. Best, however, is the quintet Day by Day, which begins and ends with some exceptionally subtle harmonic writing that creates a feeling of remoteness which is quite contrary to the original melody’s banality and exactly appropriate to Niehaus’ very sensitive improvisation.
This can stand beside Jimmy Giuffre’s beautiful Lotus Bud recorded with Shorty Rogers or Art Pepper’s Jazz Chorale recorded with John Graas. The same side of Niehaus’ musical personality is also reflected in two compositions, Night Life and Debbie, slow lyrical pieces of some melodic distinction. Also attractive are Take It from Me, which has a forty bar chorus instead of the usual thirty-two, and Elbow Room, a blues with a bridge.
Writing and playing like this did show perfectly explicit promise for Niehaus’ further growth. Despite a few excellent later recordings [I Swing for You, Mercury MG 36118; Lone Hill Jazz CD 10241], such as his striking version of Perkins’s Little Girl Blues and Benny Golson’s Four Eleven West, that promise was not really fulfilled, eventually he stopped making LPs, and, finally, dropped out of sight. Presumably Niehaus must be regarded as another casualty of the hostile circumstances in which jazz has always found itself.
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The “hostile environment” for Jazz that Max refers to was to become even more hostile as the years rolled along, and Lennie was to survive it by taking his orchestrating skills into the Hollywood studies and to become a prolific writer for films. But we’ll save that part of Lennie’s story for another time.
The editors of JazzProfiles certainly agree with Ted Gioia’s following assessment of Lennie Niehaus:
“His powerful technical command of the saxophone, his intuitive linear approach to improvisation, and his sweet tone made Niehaus a likely candidate as the next alto star on the coast.” West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960 [p. 163].
And while a Niehaus' star did ascend, it would take on a different form.
Somewhat ironically, as Ted Gioia points out in his seminal West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960 [p. 163]:
“Despite the striking virtues of his playing, Niehaus never achieved more than passing notice from the critics. One notable exception, however, was Max Harrison,…, whose insightful essay on Niehaus captures the essential virtues of the altoist’s work ….”
Both Lennie’s plaintive wail on many of the Stan Kenton’s mid-1950s albums such as Back to Balboa, Cuban Fire and The Stage Door Swings, to my ears the quintessential sound of West Coast Jazz, and Max Harrison’s acerbic wit and unconventional views had a powerful impact on my appreciation of Jazz at a very early [impressionable?] age.
I do disagree with Mr. Harrison on one aspect of Lennie’s career as I happen to very much enjoy Stan Kenton and Lennie‘s playing during his stints with the Kenton Orchestra. However, not to belabor the point, Max and I do agree on the four wonderful recordings that Lennie made for Contemporary records in the 1950s that are the subject of his essay.
I have taken the liberty of augmenting Max’s essay with the addition of Volume 4: The Quintets and Strings [Contemporary C-3510; OJCCD 1858-2] which was not referenced in Max’s essay, as well as, with the inclusion of excerpts from the original Contemporary LP liner notes by John S. Wilson, Arnold Shaw, Lester Koenig, and Barry Ulanov, respectively. Lennie was also very gracious in granting me time to answer a few interview questions about these albums at recent events sponsored by the Los Angeles Jazz Institute at which he appeared.
Individual Voice: Lennie Niehaus - Max Harrison
“It was unfortunate Niehaus first became widely known as a result of the tours he undertook in the mid-1950s with Stan Kenton’s band, for the records he was then producing under his own name made it obvious that he had nothing in common with that master of the unintentionally comic bombast.
The second thing to be learnt from them was that Niehaus had little to learn about playing the alto saxophone. His ease and fluency conveyed a feeling of relaxation and security that is always rare, and his attack and swing were almost equally striking.
But the most notable feature of the twenty-six performances considered here is the consistency of his inventive power in improvisation. He never seems to be at a loss for a good melodic idea, and even though his phrasing is concise and pre-eminently logical, an element of the unexpected is never absent.
Lester Koenig noted: “He is a remarkable alto soloist, with a sense of flowing melodic line, lovely cool tone, and a strong feeling for rhythm. He is a thoughtful and serious musician, who composes in his own style, with definite ideas of where he is going and what he wants to achieve.”
In some ways, Niehaus first LP – Lennie Niehaus Vol. 1 ‘The Quintets’ [Contemporary C-3518; OJCCD- 1933-2] – with a quintet instrumentation remains the most informative of his abilities as a soloist.
The scored passages are generally brief, and, apart from a few meandering contributions from Jack Montrose and Bob Gordon on tenor and baritone saxophones respectively, the leader fills all the available solo space with notable effect.
His consistency makes it hard to single out an performance as exceptional, though the quick-fire Whose Blues? Is a reminder that real spontaneity is less a matter of technical command than of a steady flow of ideas. Almost impressive in this respect are Prime Rib, with its double-time phrases, and the breaks of You Stepped Out of a Dream.
Niehaus wrote the arrangements for all the recordings dealt with here, and these show a nicely understated skill, nearly always being shorn of unnecessary gesture. As his was a musical family, he began his studies early and thus had a better chance of acquiring sound theoretical knowledge than many jazzmen. This places an agreeable variety of writing techniques at his disposal, but he is aware of the dangers of over-elaboration in the modest circumstances of small combo jazz.
“Lennie Niehaus’s first album is his most intimate. The music is rich in the colorful, complex writing that he would pursue on larger canvasses as his career progressed, while the compact sound of the quintet focuses attention on Niehaus, the fluent, Parker-inspired yet quite personal alto saxophonist. What emerges are well-balanced performances from two distinct ensembles.
Eight tracks recorded in 1954 … feature an inspired three-saxophone front line with Jack Montrose and Bob Gordon, plus the great Monty Budwig/Shelly Manne rhythm section. Four additional titles by a 1956 unit with Manne, Stu Williamson, Hampton Hawes, and red Mitchell were added for a 12-inch release, and represent Niehaus, a paragon of West Coast Jazz, in his most East Coast mood.”
On the sleeve of his second LP [Zounds! The Lennie Niehaus Octet! – Contemporary C-3540; OJCCD- 1892-2] Lennie writes:
“With the more intellectual and academic approach there is a tendency for … work to become contrived and esoteric. It must be remembered that most modern jazz compositions written during the past few years are no more ‘modern’ than things Bartok, Berg, Schoenberg and others wrote twenty of thirty years ago.”]
[Max continues] Such a viewpoint is healthy, first because it is historically and technically realistic, and second because it is a corrective to the attitude of many jazzmen who in the past have imagined themselves to be daring iconoclasts while purveying what actually was simple and conservative music.
On the octet performances on his second LP Niehaus still occupies most of the solo space and is fully able to justify this. His arrangements are similar in general style to many others being written on the West Coast at that time, and what individual character they possess is due more to certain technical details than to an overall new approach. Such features most often arise from his concern with unity, and he is fond of deriving introductions, bridge passages and codas from the theme, or part of it, whenever possible. Instances are Night Life, Have You Met Miss Jones? and Circling the Blues; also typical of Niehaus is the way the introduction to The Night We Called It A Day recurs in sequential form to effect a modulation.
The first batch of octet scores have a pleasingly full texture, with the themes announced mainly in block chords. By the jazz standards of his time, Niehaus had a quite extensive, though in no way personal, harmonic vocabulary, so these parallel chords often are interesting, and are effectively distributed over the ensemble.
The result, however, could easily have been a rather too consistent harmonic richness, so he occasionally scores a passage for the horns without the rhythm section, as in How About You?, or has the drums only supply interjections, as on Figure Eight. He has many similar procedures to ensure variety, such as the bridge to Night Life, first played in block chords then scored contrapuntally on its return.
Another example is the first section of the code on The Way You Look Tonight, where each horn plays a separate line based on a different part of the theme; the result is of considerable harmonic and contrapuntal interest, and one regrets this passage only being four bars long. Even drum solos are made to further the development of the piece, as in The Way You Look Tonight, where, the piano and bass silent, the percussionist for a while alternates bars with the front line. There is a similar episode on Seaside.
Such devices, though, are very far from exhausting the scope of an ensemble … [featuring Lennie - alto sax, Jack Montrose - tenor sax and Bill Perkins - baritone sax, Stu Williamson - trumpet, Bob Enevoldsen - value trombone, Lou Levy – piano, Monty Budwig – bass and Shelly Manne – drums], and Niehaus appears to have been conscious of the almost unrelieved homophony of the above scores.
[Since Max doesn’t discuss the four compositions featuring Octet No. 2, made up of Lennie – alto sax, Bill Perkins moving to tenor sax, Pepper Adams – baritone sax, Vince De Rosa – French Horn, Frank Rosolino – trombone, James McAlister – tuba, Red Mitchell – bass, and Mel Lewis – drums, that also appear on Zounds!, I thought perhaps the following comments from the original LP liner notes by Arnold Shaw might prove descriptive in this regard:“ The fact is that the four new arrangements are less linear. The various horns do not have completely free, independent lines, and the drive is toward a coordinated swinging beat. ‘I still don’t go for blowing arrangements,’ Lennie said recently. ‘I like to write backgrounds and interludes, and my goal is a swinging line’ Whether the octet is taking an ensemble chorus or Lennie weaving, at break-neck speed around the ensemble, the Niehaus combo jumps and rocks and swings.”]
[Max continues] In his third LP [Lennie Niehaus The Octet #2, Vol. 3 Contemporary C-3503; OJCCD 1767-2] there is a certain amount of section differentiation though not enough.
[Since Max gives rather short shrift to this album in his essay, the following comments about the recording’s personnel and Lennie’s playing from John S. Wilson’s liner notes to the album might prove germane.
“The present bath of octet selections is played by a slightly different group than the preceding set. Newcomers to this octet, but familiar figures on the West Coast jazz scene, are Jimmy Giuffre on baritone saxophone, Bill Holman on tenor and Pete Jolly on piano. Along with the holdovers – Stu Williamson on trumpet, Bob Enevoldsen on valve trombone, Monty Budwig on bass, Shelly Manne on drums and, of course, Niehaus himself – they make up a select group of top-ranking Coast jazzmen.
Niehaus’ playing has an ease, an unharried continuity which can only be accomplished by a musician who is beyond being consciously concerned with technique, whose feeling in performance is instinctively a swinging one and who can, consequently, devote himself completely to the creative requirements of his performance. There can be no doubt that these creative requirements are exceedingly demanding. ….
[Niehaus’] tone is almost unique among modern alto saxophonists. It is rich, rounded and warmly full-blooded and yet light enough not to clog up the quickly moving line of his style. It gives a vitality to his playing which is missing in some of the more wraith-like attacks adopted by current alto men.
A rich tone and a riding sense of swing would be of little use to Niehaus, of course, if his ideas were routine. Fortunately, his concepts are fresh and provocative not only in his individual solo performances but in his writing, too.”
As previously noted, not included in Max’s article was any reference to Lennie Niehaus, Vol. 4: The Quintets and Strings [Contemporary C 3510; OJCCD 1858-2] that tracks with strings and Lennie on alto, strings augmented by Lennie on alto, Bill Perkins on tenor and Bob Gordon on baritone and four cuts with a quintet fronted by Lennie on alto and Stu Williamson on trumpet with a rhythm section of Hawes, Budwig and Manne.
[In his liner notes, Barry Ulanov offered the following reflections on Lennie’s playing:
“The alto is to the present jazz era what the tenor saxophone was to the one just before it; a great many musicians play it, and some of them inordinately well. As a result, the instrument currently enjoys much favor with the jazz public …. But if it has reached high jazz rank, it has also suffered: there is a terrible sameness about the work of all too many of these stars, a monotony based on the brilliant examples of a Parker, a Konitz or the like ….
All of which explains why I enjoy the playing of Lennie Niehaus as much as I do ….
One can say that it is his sound, a quite modern one, that makes him so welcome betwixt and alongside his colleagues; but others offer a not dissimilar sound. Perhaps, then, it is his beat; but that too, though not as familiar among present-day altoists, can be heard and felt on his horn. If not the sound and the beat, then the length of his lines. This, maybe, but not all by itself, for the long line is very much with us these days on alto, and good to have, but not any guarantee of identity.
No, not one of these things, but all of them in copious abundance, and held together, as he holds everything else in the proceedings in balance and bearing, by a widely resourceful musicianship. Thus diversity, thus originality; thus ripeness and no monotony and, for what it is worth, my very high esteem for Lennie Niehaus."]
[Max continues] On his fifth record [Lennie Niehaus Vol. 5: The Sextet, Contemporary C-3524; OJCCD 1944-2] for sextet, however, Niehaus included well-paced duets between alto and tenor saxophones and trumpet and baritone saxophone in Thou Swell, and Three of a Kind has an adroit fugal introduction and coda.
There are effective dialogues between soloist and ensemble here, also, particularly on Belle of the Ball and As Long As I Live, some imaginative scored background to solos ….
[The Original Jazz Classic CD tray plate notes offer this overview of the recording.
“In the mid-1950’s, Lennie Niehaus avoided cliché, incorporated audacious harmonic ideas, and distilled the essentials of big band writing into arrangements for small groups. His recordings are still notable in the 21st century for their freshness and daring.
In this fifth of his series of albums for the Contemporary label, Niehaus sets himself the chamber music challenge of achieving proportion among four horns, bass and drums, without piano to cushion the sound, delineate the harmonies, and unify the ensemble.
The result was a collection of pieces performed with gem-like clarity by players who executed his writing perfectly and brought to their solos the creativity that made them star improvisers.
Niehaus’ alto saxophone was matched by Bill Perkins, Jimmy Giuffre, Stu Williamson, Shelly Manne, and the brilliant, underappreciated bassist Buddy Clark.”]
[Max concludes] In solo Niehaus is as good as before, although the only other improvisations of real merit on these recordings are by pianist Lou Levy in the first octet disc and by Stu Williamson on both trumpet and valve trombone in the sextet LP. Indeed, the assurance and conviction of the latter’s work on the former instrument in Thou Swell, I Wished on the Moon, Knee Deep and As Long As I Live mark it as being among his best on record. Bill Perkins, on tenor saxophone, is also heard to pleasing, if rather nonchalant, effect in Three of a Kind and As Long As I Live. The gulf (in terms of invention) between the leader and several of his other bandsmen, however, is rather clearly shown by the chase passages of Whose Blues? and Rick’s Tricks, and even more by the long series of twelve- and – twenty-four bar solos in Circling the Blues.
The point is confirmed in a different way by Niehaus’ success with slow ballads, particularly The Night We Called It a Day and Our Love is Here To Stay on the octet records. Best, however, is the quintet Day by Day, which begins and ends with some exceptionally subtle harmonic writing that creates a feeling of remoteness which is quite contrary to the original melody’s banality and exactly appropriate to Niehaus’ very sensitive improvisation.
This can stand beside Jimmy Giuffre’s beautiful Lotus Bud recorded with Shorty Rogers or Art Pepper’s Jazz Chorale recorded with John Graas. The same side of Niehaus’ musical personality is also reflected in two compositions, Night Life and Debbie, slow lyrical pieces of some melodic distinction. Also attractive are Take It from Me, which has a forty bar chorus instead of the usual thirty-two, and Elbow Room, a blues with a bridge.
Writing and playing like this did show perfectly explicit promise for Niehaus’ further growth. Despite a few excellent later recordings [I Swing for You, Mercury MG 36118; Lone Hill Jazz CD 10241], such as his striking version of Perkins’s Little Girl Blues and Benny Golson’s Four Eleven West, that promise was not really fulfilled, eventually he stopped making LPs, and, finally, dropped out of sight. Presumably Niehaus must be regarded as another casualty of the hostile circumstances in which jazz has always found itself.
The “hostile environment” for Jazz that Max refers to was to become even more hostile as the years rolled along, and Lennie was to survive it by taking his orchestrating skills into the Hollywood studies and to become a prolific writer for films. But we’ll save that part of Lennie’s story for another time.
The editors of JazzProfiles certainly agree with Ted Gioia’s following assessment of Lennie Niehaus:
“His powerful technical command of the saxophone, his intuitive linear approach to improvisation, and his sweet tone made Niehaus a likely candidate as the next alto star on the coast.” West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960 [p. 163].
And while a Niehaus' star did ascend, it would take on a different form.
↧
Stanley Turrentine/Oliver Nelson Big Band - "A Kettle of Fish" (feat. Herbie Hancock and Grady Tate)
Stanley, Herbie and Oliver! Herbie Hancock was still working as a sideman when this was recorded in 1965. Checkout what he does with a simple figure beginning at 0.44 to set the groove for the track. This was Stanley Turrentine's first big band album and Oliver Nelson arranged it masterfully. Don't miss the shout chorus at 3:26 with Ernie Royal's trumpet skying over the band and drummer Grady's Tate's fireworks, Throughout, Grady puts on a clinic on how to kick a big band from the drum chair.
↧
The Mastersounds on Fresh Sound
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
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“With almost the same instrumentation as the Modern Jazz Quartet, The Mastersounds burst on the late 1950s scene when the MJQ was already established as the pre-eminent small group in jazz. But they were no imitators. Where the MJQ was all seriousness and sophisticated classical borrowings, the Mastersounds set out to get feet tapping, aided by the distinctive sound of Monk Montgomery's Fender bass. It worked. After securing a three-month booking at a club in Seattle during January 1957, the group went to play at San Francisco's Jazz Showcase, where producer Dick Bock discovered them. They were on their way, becoming the most successful quartet since the MJQ's advent. (... voted best new small combo in Down Beat's critics poll). … This CD presents their debut recordings, redolent of the time when they first caught the moment.”
- Jordi Pujol, Fresh Sound Records
One of the earliest pieces to appear on these pages was about The Mastersounds. It dates back to May 31, 2008.
The editorial staff at JazzProfiles revised it and re-posted it on October 16, 2013 to celebrate the issuance of a compact disc that contained music from a reunion of the group in the recording studios of Fantasy Records on August 10 and November 2, 1960 and the two albums that group made on these dates [Fantasy 3305 and 8862] which were combined and issued as Fantasy FCD 24770-2. The cover art for this CD by Ray Avery was used as the graphic lead-in to that article.
But sadly, even at this later date, none of the Pacific Jazz recorded legacy of the Mastersounds had found its way onto compact disc.
The music The Mastersounds recorded for Dick Bock’s Pacific Jazz [later known as World Pacific] fell primarily into two categories: [1] the ubiquitous, for the times, Jazz interpretation of Broadway shows, in this case, The King and I, Kismet and The Flower Drum Song and [2] their arrangements of Jazz standards [e.g. an entire album devoted to Horace Silver tunes] and their interpretations of the Great American Songbook; the albums in this category consisting of both studio and in concert recordings.
Now for the good news as implied in the title of this feature - Jordi Pujol, the owner-operator of Fresh Sound Records has done the Jazz world a huge service by issuing two CDs that encompass The Mastersounds entire Pacific Jazz Jazz Standards and Great American Songbook output.
The first of these Fresh Sound CD releases in entitled Introducing The Mastersounds: Water’s Edge [FSR-CD 500] and you can locate CD or Mp3 order information about it as well as sample tracks via this link.
The second offering - The Mastersounds Play [FRS-CD 621-622] is even more impressive as it combines 3 LPs on 2 CDs including The Mastersounds Play The Music of Horace Silver, The Mastersounds Play Blues and Ballads and The Mastersounds in Concert, all of which are also available for order and track sampling via this link.
By way of background, the Mastersounds were formed in 1957 and included Charles Frederick “Buddy” Montgomery on vibes, Richie Crabtree on piano, William Howard “Monk” Montgomery on bass [originally a Fender electric bass, but later an upright string bass] and Benny Barth on drums. The Montgomery Brothers were natives of Indianapolis, IN as was their more famous guitar playing brother Wes, who was to join with them on two of their group LPs.
Monk Montgomery developed the idea for the combo while living in Seattle after he got off the road with the Lionel Hampton Big Band in 1956. According to Ralph J. Gleason, a down beat columnist at that time: “Monk, from his experience in Seattle, was convinced a good jazz group would have a chance to work in that city and he was right.”
The Mastersounds opened at Dave’s Blue Room on January 14, 1957 for a successful three month engagement. However, a dearth of work followed prompting the group to pool its meager resources and send Monk Montgomery on a trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles looking for gigs and a recording contract.
Shortly after arriving in San Francisco, Monk Montgomery stopped by The Jazz Showcase, a then newly formed club on venerable Market Street with a unique “soft drink only” policy. Dave Glickman and Ray Gorum, owner and manager of the club, respectively, upon hearing the Mastersounds tapes Monk Montgomery had brought along, booked the group into the room beginning in September, 1957 for an unlimited engagement.
The fairy-tale quality of Monk Montgomery’s California trip was to get even better when he continued his ‘quest’ down to Hollywood. There he met fellow bassist Leroy Vinnegar whose immediate reaction to listening to the Mastersounds demo tapes was to call Dick Bock, president of World Pacific Records. Upon hearing them, Bock signed the group to a contract that would result in six albums being produced for the World Pacific/Pacific Jazz Series until The Mastersounds disbanded as a performing group in December, 1959.
The following are the liner notes from the World Pacific 12” Jazz Showcase Introducing the Mastersounds LP [WP-1271] by the noted Jazz columnist are writer, Ralph J. Gleason [1917-1975].
“There is a really terrifying tendency today, particularly in the music field, to believe that success can be bought, that talent and hard work count less than connections and "the hype."
And of course there are occasions when this seems to be true. Everyone connected with jazz has seen times when one group or one musician seems to have advanced far beyond true value merely because of the favor of someone with power and connections in the business.
The persistent talk of "payola," the fact that as a jazz musician pursues his career he will find, on occasion, a disc jockey who will take his money, a manager or an A&R [Artists and Repertoire] man who will want a piece of his original tune, merely makes the cynicism understandable.
Actually these events are the exception rather than the rule, as one eventually learns. "The hype" cannot sell something, in jazz, that is not intrinsically of value; or at least cannot sell it on any long-range, substantial basis. For every success which, rumor has it, was produced by the power of money rather than talent, there is a Dave Brubeck who, throughout his career, has operated without benefit of press agent, "payola" or personal manager.
And there's also the more and more frequent story of a good group which was able to be heard, to launch its career and to start the climb to financial success by straight life methods, aided along the way by men of good will.
The Mastersounds are such a group and the story of their success and this album is a beautiful illustration of all the truths that the cynics deny.
One day in the summer of 1957, Leroy Vinnegar called Dick Bock, president of World Pacific Records, and said "I have a tape I want you to hear. It's a terrific group." It was just as simple as that. Bock heard the group and this is the LP.
But there's a background to this which needs telling. The Mastersounds didn't spring forth full blown, full swinging, a success. They worked for it first. And hard.
In the winter of 1956, William Howard "Monk" Montgomery returned to his native Indianapolis for a visit. He had been living in Seattle for a few months following several years on the road with Lionel Hampton. With Hamp, Monk played bass—Fender bass, that electronic, oversized guitar-shaped bass.
When Monk came back from Seattle he was burning with the idea of starting a jazz group. He and his brother, Charles Frederick "Buddy" Montgomery, had always wanted to do this and on that winter 1956 visit they decided to go ahead. For drummer they chose another Indianapolis jazz player, Ben Caldwell Barth, who had played with them previously. For piano they sought out Richard Arthur Crabtree whom they remembered from jam sessions when the Johnny "Scat" Davis band had passed through town.
So the Mastersounds were born. The name, incidentally, was suggested by Buddy Montgomery's wife, Lois Ann.
Monk, from his experience in Seattle, was convinced a good jazz group would have a chance to work in that city and he was right. On January 14, 1957 they opened a three month engagement at Dave's Blue Room in Seattle. The group was set up as a co-operative one (it still is). "The whole idea was Buddy's," Monk says, "with each man in charge of one department." Monk, for instance, acts as spokesman for the others; Richie handles the book-work and the uniforms; Buddy sets the tempos and calls the tunes, and Benny is in charge of the rehearsals, among other duties.
After the initial success in Seattle, the group was prepared for anything but the drought of the next three months. "We just struggled after that, playing wherever we could," Monk says. "We were so far from home, there was nothing else to do but fight it out." They tried contacting record companies, musicians they knew — everything. But nothing worked. Then they made a demo tape, pooled their money and sent Monk on a trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles to look for a job and to try to get a record date. "It was just about the last gasp, took all our money," Monk says, "but waiting it out with the right fellows you don't mind it so much."
On the way to Hollywood, Monk stopped off in San Francisco and met Ray Gorum who was managing the Jazz Showcase", a non-alcoholic nightclub on Market Street. Gorum heard the tapes and decided immediately to book the group into the club.
Thus, from a real "scuffle" in Seattle, The Mastersounds were transported to San Francisco, a featured spot at a nightclub and a record contract with a jazz label. All without the benefit of a press agent, a manager, "payola" or any of the things some cynics consider necessary.
"It's still almost unbelievable," Monk says. "I never thought it would happen like this. All I can say is that we are so grateful."
The Mastersounds' instrumentation is the same as that of the Modern Jazz Quartet but there is no similarity in sound or approach. Their originality is so pronounced that they are able to play some of the same tunes as the MJQ does without leaving themselves open to charges of imitation.
Their approach is based on the concept of swinging ("The first thing is it must swing," Monk says) and on working out arrangements (they have almost 100 numbers in the book, each of them planned arrangements).
However, they seldom work from music, relying on heads and voicings worked out in rehearsals. Their repertoire includes original numbers by the group and by Wes Montgomery, Buddy's and Monk's guitar-playing brother. Both Buddy Montgomery and Richie Crabtree contribute extensively to the book and it all has the benefit of Monk's road time experience with Lionel Hampton. "I learned a lot from Hamp," he says, "and we've been so lucky so far."
On hearing the Mastersounds in person you are at once struck by the odd-looking bass Monk plays. He began playing on an upright bass but switched to the Fender bass when he joined Hampton. "You can make it swing," Monk says. "It won't replace the upright bass, and I'm a long way from mastering it after playing it five years, but it has advantages. For one thing, I don't get tired playing it. It's so much less work, it's more accurate and you have more speed. I can't play a tempo that's too fast for it. And I can't run a clear scale on a big bass!" Of the sides on this LP, Wes Montgomery arranged "Wes’ Tune" (which he also wrote) and "Dexter's Deck" (written by Dexter Gordon). Bud Powell's arrangement of "Un Poco Loco" is used and Richie Crab-tree arranged his own composition "Water's Edge" for the group. Otherwise all the arrangements are by Buddy Montgomery who also wrote "Drum Tune."
Here are capsule biographies of these four young men: Charles Frederick "Buddy" Montgomery: vibes, born 1/30/30, Indianapolis, Ind., hobby is checkers, favorite artists include Tatum, Milt Jackson, Garner, Wes Montgomery, Earl Grandy (a blind Indianapolis pianist). William Howard "Monk" Montgomery: bass, born 10/10/21, Indianapolis, Ind., has played with Lionel Hampton, Georgie Auld, Art Farmer, Jerry Coker; digs Percy Heath, Johnny Griffin and says he "just picked up" bass. Richard Arthur "Richie" Crabtree: piano, born 2/23/34, Sidney, Montana; has worked with Conte Candoli, Johnnie Davis; says painting and reading and writing are his hobbies; digs Bird, Diz, Miles, Bud, Philly Joe, Sonny Rollins, Ray Brown and wants "to play good someday." Ben Caldwell "Benny" Barth: drums, born 2/16/29, Indianapolis, Ind.; attended Butler University and, he says, "Indiana Ave. School of the Blues"; also plays trumpet and tap dances; has played with Lennie Niehaus, Conte Candoli, Lee Katzman, Slide Hampton, his hobbies are tennis, records, fishing and eating; digs Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, Diz, Vinnegar, Basie, Max, Bird, Buddy Rich, Pres, Clifford, says his inspirations have been Krupa, Dave Tough, Jo Jones, and Big Sid and that his ambition is to be either a fish and game warden or a jazz disc jockey and critic!”
—Ralph J. Gleason Down Beat columnist Editor, JAM SESSION (Putnam's)
The sixteen-foot speaker displayed behind the Mastersounds on the cover is, according to Bill Loughborough, the world's largest—photographed in Sausalito, California by William Claxton.
As noted at the outset, the second Fresh Sound CD offering - The Mastersounds Play [FRS-CD 621-622] combines 3 LPs on 2 CDs including The Mastersounds Play The Music of Horace Silver, The Mastersounds Play Blues and Ballads and The Mastersounds in Concert,
Here are the original liner notes from the 12" World Pacific Records album The Mastersounds Play Compositions of Horace Silver at the Jazz Workshop (Stereo-1284)
Speaking as a composer, it's a great thrill to listen to another artist or group of artists interpret your composition. Every artist will give them a new and different concept. I am especially thrilled that The Mastersounds have chosen to do an album of my composition because I have long admired the group. I've listened to them at Birdland and at the Newport Jazz Festival, and they are a well-rehearsed, well arranged (but not over arranged), swingin', blowin' group.
I'm sure that everyone who hears this album will be as pleased with the interpretations given my composition as I am, and equally pleased by the solos.
- Horace Silver
“The Mastersounds at the Jazz Workshop have come to be something of a San Francisco institution. Shortly after the success of their second album for World-Pacific (Rogers & Hammerstein's The King And I), recorded late in 1957, they played their first engagement at the famed North Beach jazz club. Although the group has played across the country from the Blue Note in Chicago to Birdland in New York, and up to Newport for the Jazz Festivals, they spend much of their playing time at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco, the city of their adoption (Monk, Buddy and Benny hail from Indianapolis, Indiana; Richie is from Sidney, Montana).
The music of Horace Silver provides a perfect vehicle for The Mastersounds to project their very earthy yet sophisticated jazz conception. The group has never been recorded in better form. This performance points up how well integrated these four sensitive musicians have become. The arrangements stem from the imagination of Richie Crabtree, with the spontaneous assistance of the rest of the players. All of the group's arrangements eventually become a group project, usually starting from a point suggested by Buddy or Richie. I have yet to see any written scores within the group. The arrangements, as they develop, become indelibly impressed on each musician's consciousness.
The Mastersounds have reached a jazz maturity that has developed from over three years of playing together. This collection of the music of Horace Silver, one of jazz' greatest new composer-arrangers, represents a high point in The Mastersounds' career.” —Richard Bock
Below are Jon Hendricks original liner notes from the 12" World Pacific Records album Ballads & Blues (Stereo-2019)
When I first got the gig to write Album Notes for this MASTEROUNDS album, I was goin' along coolin' at the prospect of having a "captive audience"— an audience before which I could say things that would get me arrested from a soap box, but which, on the back of an album, would be hailed as "entertaining and informative." Then I began to wonder how I could say anything at all about the MASTERSOUNDS without comparing them with the MODERN JAZZ QUARTET.
Both groups use the same instrumentation, except for the basic difference between Monk Montgomery's Fender electric fiddle and Percy Heath's wood. Both groups consist of a vibraphone surrounded by rhythm. They must sound somewhat alike. Comparisons are inevitable. At the same time, comparisons usually denote competition, and there really is no competition called for in jazz. Although Buddy Montgomery loves "Bags" out loud and Richie Crabtree pays musical respect to John Lewis on occasion, they are imitating no more than two preachers preaching the same sermon. The MASTERSOUNDS are as fresh as they want to be. If they sound like anyone else it's because they want to—and don't mind spreadin' the word.
Concerning the MASTERSOUNDS' work, Monk Montgomery, who acts as spokesman for the group, says, "The first thing, it must swing." This it does, as the success of their other albums for World-Pacific indicates. The group is a cooperative one in every sense, and was Buddy Montgomery's idea. This is a further indication of the more mature outlook of jazz musicians in general, for only in a cooperative group can the full potential of each individual be realized. It also serves to hold a group together longer, giving each of them the invaluable opportunity to become thoroughly aware of the artistic attributes of the others — thereby paving the way for a pure give-and-take rapport that is a joy to see and hear. As one deeply and vitally interested in jazz and its practitioners, I am happy that the MASTERSOUNDS have chosen this cooperative approach. It exemplifies the true spirit of jazz much more than the leader-sideman relationship. And most important of all — it gives each man a feeling of dignity in his work. This is something jazz musicians sorely need to offset the sometimes undignified surroundings in which they must perform. As we say in the vernacular, "It's a way it 'po'd t'be."
If there are those among you who will hear the MASTERSOUNDS for the first time, you have a refreshing musical treat in store. For those of you who already know and appreciate them, Ballads and Blues will be a welcome addition to your collection. I shall not make pointed comments on specific aspects of the music herein by calling your attention to the 4th bar in the second 8 bars of the third chorus, or any such thing as that — because by the time you go to all that trouble you'll be so confused you won't listen. And that's all you really have to do.”
And finally, these liner notes were written by C. H. Garrigues for the 12" World Pacific Records album The Mastersounds in Concert (Stereo-1026)
The release of "The Mastersounds in Concert" marks another very important step in the solution of a problem which these four very remarkable musicians set for themselves at the beginning of their careen the problem of producing jazz which is delicately dynamic, subtle in melodic content, rich in harmonic development—and which yet swings freely and unrestrainedly.
When I first heard them at the Jazz Showcase in San Francisco in the summer of 1957 there was no doubt that they were swingers. Their best number—one which always brought cheers from the crowd and kept the Showcase jammed night after night—was a romping, roaring, tempestuous version of Bud Powell's "Un Poco Loco": a version much more loco than poco and one which never failed to delight.
But even then they had a problem. It was all very well to play uptempo numbers—but a group which cannot swing at medium and ballad tempos is only half a group. Yet, how could a group consisting of vibes, bass, piano and drums play delicately, play subtly, play ballads and blues, without either becoming "soft" and ceasing to swing or, alternatively, invading the territory of the Modern Jazz Quartet? How, in other words, could they enter this area—voiced as they were—and still manage to be completely themselves?
The history of their recordings—climaxed by this one—is the story of how well they have succeeded, a step at a time, in solving that problem.
Their first LR "Introducing the Mastersounds (WP-1271) was made a few weeks after Richard Bock, President of World-Pacific discovered them at the Showcase. It showed them a thumping jumping gang who could bring a crowd to its feet cheering but which would hardly be celebrated for its subtlety and nuance.
A few months later, though, something wonderful happened. Whether by some curious insight, or through the simple fact that show tune albums were selling well, Buddy Montgomery asked Bock for permission to do a jazz version of "The King and I." Agreement was reached. The Mastersounds came up with a hit record (WP-1272): a beautifully conceived, beautifully executed LP which will go down in history as one of the loveliest sets of songs and ballads ever recorded.
In the excitement, few took the trouble to note that there was very little pure jazz in "The King And I" (though Ralph J. Gleason, writing the liner notes, pointed it out); there was melody, there were arrangements of sheer loveliness but it wasn't the jazz as jazz that the listener remembered.
Next came "Kismet" (WP 1243) and "The Flower Drum Song" (WP 1252) each was a step in the further integration of the opposite tendencies shown in (say) "Un Poco Loco" and "The Puzzlement." Each was a popular and critical success. But in neither, perhaps, was there a complete unfolding simultaneously of both the excitement of the Showcase album and the delicacy of "The King and I."
That, however, was soon to come. Late in 1958 the Mastersounds boldly tackled the problem of proving that the field of delicacy and nuance in the vibes quartet was by no means preempted by the MJQ. The album was called "Ballads and Blues" (WP 1260), and as though to emphasize a declaration of independence which was never really needed, they chose John Lewis'"Fontessa," long a hallmark of the MJQ, as one of the tunes on their blues medley.
This record, too, was an immediate and continuing success—so much so that Bock decided to record them "live" in a program of jazz standards where they could display the degree of continuing maturity since their 1957 debut. By this time the Mastersounds were on the road almost constantly; a tour of the Midwest culminating in a successful engagement at Chicago's Blue Note was succeeded by a long SRO run at San Francisco's Jazz Workshop. But when they returned to Southern California early in 1959 for an engagement at Jazzville and a college concert tour, Bock picked their concert at Pasadena Junior College on April 11 as the date to record.
The record within this envelope is the result. From the delicately romping opening of "Stompin"' through the charming, tongue-in-cheek sentimentality of "In a Sentimental Mood," into the flying carpet of "Love for Sale," through the thoughtfully lyric development of "Two Different Worlds"... it would be difficult to find any area of sincere jazz feeling in which they are not at home.
To pick out any particular moment for comment would be to slight many others. But, just for taste of the whole, take the openingfigures of "Stompin"'—notice how gently Buddy's vibes come in to overlay Richie's piano and take the solo away so gracefully that you fancy you hear the ghost of Richie's fingers still tripping behind Buddy's mallets. But notice, too, how Benny's firm, insistent rhythm {and a little later, Richie's chopping, staccato chords) break up any tendency for the lyricism to become over-sentimental. Note, too, a similar development in "Star Eyes"; then observe how deftly Benny's drums continue to develop the melody after Benny's first solo... and note how different are Benny's propulsions and patterns behind Buddy and behind Richie. Listen to Monk's fine solid anchor support... and then listen again and hear his electric bass wandering like a third hand among the lower piano chords. You will agree, I think, that the answer to their problem has been found: the swinging of "Un Poco Loco" and the delicacy of "Something Wonderful" have come together into the same number. After completing these tracks, the Mastersounds took off for a successful engagement at Birdland—punctuated by an appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival. Such is the measure of success.
—C. H. Garrigues
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Dave Tough: 1908 -1948 [From the Archives]
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
[The following piece on drummer Davy Tough was one of the earliest posted to the blog and I am re-posting it in order to correct a number of technical errors and in the hopes that those of you who may have missed it the first time can enjoy it now.]
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It’s not often that that the career of a great musician can be summed up in two sentences, but this may be the case when Dave Dexter said of Davy Tough:
“One of the two or three greatest drummers of all time. A sad guy, such a sad little guy.”
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I always thought that Bix Beiderbecke was the saddest story in Jazz until I researched the life of Davy Tough for this JazzProfiles feature.
I have played in big bands as a drummer and, for a variety of reasons, I think it may be an experience that is somewhat like piloting a jet fighter plane [okay, humor me here].
To begin with, very few arrangers know how to write drum charts, so looking at the music is like piloting the fighter, but now you are doing it blindfolded.
Once the downbeat is given, an audio G-force is unleashed and the music starts coming at you fast and furious all of which you are supposed to catch and do something with: accent, fill, kick, employ a short solo, crescendo, decrescendo, stop, lay out, start, fill and kick again, employ another short solo, play stop time, double the time: all the while moving the music along, keeping it in balance and not allowing it to slow down or speed up.
And the anxiety associated with this dynamic is heighten by the fact that in most cases, you have no visual road map to help guide you toward where the big band is supposedly going. And of course, once played, rightly or wrongly, you can’t take anything back.
When it all comes together and you successfully navigate the band through the arrangements, it’s an immensely satisfying experience. But when it fails, you are responsible for taking 15 or so fellow musicians and driving them into the musical equivalent of a train wreck. [I know I'm mixing metaphors, but it's fun].
One learns to survive, avoid the crack-ups [after the loss of a few engines and their tenders] and – more often than not - actually steer the band “safely” to its final destination.
Ultimately, I learned to navigate myself through these challenging and treacherous big band charts by looking at the first trumpet and the first alto parts because therein lies the key/s to anything that’s happening in an arrangement. I would then take these notations and pencil-them-in at the appropriate places in the drum part.
Larry Bunker [drummer in the original Gerry Mulligan Quartet, Shorty Rogers Quintet, Bill Evans Trio and Clare Fischer's Big Band] was the person who taught me this “science” of super-imposing lead sheet parts. He also urged me to listen to how drummers like Jo Jones with Count Basie’s band and Davy Tough with the Woody Herman First Herd Big Band artfully propelled their bands as though they were pushed by the wind. I also attended the Mel Lewis Big Band drumming “clinic” [in the informal sense of the word] which he conducted every Monday night while performing with the Terry Gibbs Big Band at various Hollywood venues during the late 1950s.
Both Jo and Mel became very well-publicized figures in my lifetime and deservedly so as they were each masterful big band drummers. But who was this Davy Tough?
Thanks to my father’s extensive collection of Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw and Woody Herman 78 rpm records, I did have the opportunity to listen to Davy’s fluid style of big band drumming. He was a wonderful drummer and gave all of these bands a “personality” filled with excitement and energy and he did all of this without ever seeming to put himself first. The drums were never overpowering. They were more like a pulse that you just felt: what Burt Korall calls “The Heartbeat of Jazz.”
But I never knew much about Davy Tough the person and the tragedy that became his life until I read this insightful piece by the dean of Jazz writers, Whitney Balliett.
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“Dave Tough was born in Oak Park, Illinois, the youngest child of James and Hannah Fullerton Tough, both of whom were born in Aberdeen, Scotland. He had two brothers, George and James, and a sister, Agnes. His father was a bank teller, who dabbled in real estate and the commodities market. His mother died, of apoplexy, in 1916, when he was nine, and in 1921 his father married a sister of his mother's. Tough continued to call her "aunt," even though she was now his stepmother, and this gave rise to half truth that he lived with his aunt and uncle. He went to Oak Park High School, but he never graduated. By the time he was fifteen or sixteen, he was playing drums and hanging out with the Austin High School Gang. Tough was already, as Art Hodes puts it, a "runner-around." He was also two people - the hard-drinking drummer and the bohemian, who read voraciously, did some painting and drawing, took language and literature courses at the Lewis Institute, and hung out at a nightclub called the Green Mask, where he accompanied poetry readings such as Max Bodenheim, Langston Hughes, and Kenneth Rexroth. His friend Bud Freeman says in his book "You Don't Look Like a Musician" Tough took him to a Cezanne show at the Chicago Art Institute.
Mezz Mezzrow, the clarinetist, hustler, and embroiderer of tales, recalls lin his "Really the Blues" how Tough talked:
Dave Tough, who tipped delicately over his words like they were thin ice, always used to lecture me on how important it was to keep your speech pure, pointing out that the French and people like that formed their vowels lovingly, shaping their lips just right when they spoke, while Americans spoke tough out of the corners of their mouths ... I thought Dave's careful way of talking was too precise and effeminate. He thought I was kind of illiterate, even though he admired my musical taste and knowledge. He was always making me conscious of the way I talked because he kept on parodying the slurs and colloquial kicks in my speech, saying that I was just trying to ape the colored man.
Tough's profession and drinking had already estranged him from his family. In 1927, barely twenty, he married and went to Europe with his wife and the clarinetist Danny Polo. He worked with various bands in Paris, Ostend, Berlin, and Nice. The Prince of Wales, who seemed to do little else at this period, sat in on his drums, and Tough drank a great deal. Bud Freeman says that Tough wrote limericks with Scott Fitzgerald, and that Tough was shocked when he discovered that Freeman, over on a short visit, hadn't read "The Sun Also Rises." Tough returned to America in 1929, worked for a time with Red Nichols, and went back to Chicago, where he entered what his biographer, Harold S. Kaye, calls his "dark period." He seems, for the next four or five years, to have been a derelict.
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Jess Stacy was in Chicago in the early thirties, and he remembers Tough. "He'd always had trouble with drinking," he said recently. "I used to see him all the time before I joined Benny Goodman, in 1935, and he was in terrible shape. He looked like a bum and he hung out with bums. He'd go along Randolph Street and panhandle, then he'd buy canned heat and strain off the alcohol and drink it-this being during Prohibition. I played with him in Goodman's band in 1938, right after Krupa left and Goodman was running through drummers a mile a minute. Goodman said to Tough one day just before show time, 'Hey, Davy, I want you to send me,' and Tough replied, 'Where do you want to be sent?' He was a brilliant little guy, and I always wondered if he wasn't torn between being a writer and being a drummer."
Tough moved on to New York in 1935, but he still wasn't well enough to work regularly. Joe Bushkin has said, "I was with Bunny Berigan at the old Famous Door, on Fifty-second Street, in 1935, and Davy'd come by with his drums and set up and sit in. It was the fashion then to take the Benzedrine strip out of an inhaler and put it in a Coke, and he'd do that for courage. When he drank too much, he was gone. He was totally out of body. Sometimes, when I was still batching it, I'd take him home with me. He weighed less than I did. I've always been around a hundred and twenty-eight, but he must have been close to a hundred pounds. He was so much of an artist that having a bank account would have been appalling to him. He was a natural musician who did things effortlessly, and that always made you comfortable."
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Half of Tough's career was over, and he didn't seem to have much to show for it. But this was deceptive. He certainly had helped inspire the great rhythmic drive of the Chicago players, and he must have helped shape whatever subtlety they had. He had worked his way through the styles of the New Orleans drummers Baby Dodds and Zutty Singleton, and, by ceaselessly experimenting, had become a first-rate, original drummer.
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He knew books and art, and this added stature and class to the popular image of the jazz musician as an uncouth primitive. His great gifts were far more visible during the last half of his career. Tommy Dorsey, starting his own band, hired Tough in 1936, and appears to have helped him back to some sort of normality. (Tough and his wife were divorced the same year.) He stayed with Dorsey for more than two years, lifting his soloists and giving what was basically a big Dixieland band a fresh and buoyant feeling. He also took on an advice-to-drummers column for the monthly music magazine Metronome. Much of what he wrote tends to be facetious, but it knocked out his peers and gave him the reputation of being a writer. He considers drummers and chewing gum:
After considerable spade work on my research into the effects of chewing gum on swing-drumming, I have turned up a few hitherto unpublished secrets of world-shattering importance: George Wettling and Maurice Purtill chew nothing but Juicy Fruit. James Crawford, the gent who beats out all that gyve [jive] with Lunceford -solid man! - prefers Spearmint. The two Rays, McKinley and Bauduc, are Black Jack men down to the ground.
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Once in a while he would get down to business:
This discussion reminds me of Ed Straight, the old Chicago drum teacher, to whom stick grips were a phobia. He was a kind, likable old chap who was usually very calm and patient in his methods. That is, was calm and courteous until you tightened the first two fingers of your left hand around the stick in an attempt to close up your roll. Then he'd raise hell. You'd be rolling along trying to smooth it out nice and even, and suddenly he'd knock the stick out of your left hand. If it flicked out easily, he'd smile; if it didn't, you were in the dog-house. His rule was: at all times during the roll, the left stick should be held so loosely-with the wrist, the thumb and third finger doing all the work-that it can be easily dislodged with just a light flick.
Or even do a one-sentence Hemingway parody:
But I can say this, sir, that Chick Webb is much better than whom and who and he's good and he's very, very good and he does everything there is to be done to a drum and he does it beautifully and sometimes he plays with such stupefying technique that he leaves you in a punch drunk stupor and ecstatically bewildered as this sentence has wound up to be.
Tough left Dorsey early in 1938, and during the rest of the year moved erratically from Bunny Berigan back to Dorsey to Benny Goodman to Bud Freeman, establishing behavior patterns that would become more and more unpredictable. He passed through Jack Teagarden's big band in 1939 and was with Joe Marsala's jumping small band on Fifty-second Street in 1940. He rejoined Goodman in 1941, was with Marsala again, had a good stint with Artie Shaw, and was briefly with Woody Herman. He was in Charlie Spivak's band in 1942, and then he became part of Artie Shaw's Navy band.
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Shaw has said, “I first knew Davy in the thirties when he was with Tommy Dorsey, and we'd go up to Harlem to listen to music. He was a sweet man, a gentle man, and not easy to get to. He was shy and reclusive. He had great respect for the English language. He read a lot and I read a lot, so we had that in common. During the Second World War, he was in my Navy band, and we'd manage to get together once in a while 124 American Musicians and talk. He was an alcoholic, and, like all alcoholics, he always found things to drink. I'd assign a man to him if we had an important concert coming up-say, for the crew of an aircraft carrier-and that man would keep an eye on him all day. This was so he wouldn't get drunk and fall off the bandstand, which he had done a couple of times. I think he was the most underrated big-band drummer in jazz, and he got a beautiful sound out of his instrument. He tuned his drums, he tried to achieve on them what he heard in his head, as we all do, and I think he came as close as you can get. He refused to take solos. Whenever I pointed to him for twelve or eight or four bars, he'd smile and shake his head and go on playing rhythm drums."
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The Shaw band spent the year of 1943 in the South Pacific, and Tough, worn out, was discharged in 1944. When he recovered, he married Casey Majors, a black woman he had met in Philadelphia, and he rejoined Woody Herman, who had a wild new, young band. Tough, showing verve and brilliance, became the foundation of the First Herman Herd, which lasted until 1946 and was one of the hardest-swinging of all big jazz bands. He suddenly began winning music-magazine polls, and became a star.
Tough's style had evolved steadily. By the time he rejoined Tommy Dorsey, it had pretty well set, although there were still traces in it of New Orleans drumming-press rolls, ricky-tick on the drum rims. His cymbal playing as well as his bass-drum work grew increasingly dominant. Bob Wilber has said, "His cymbal playing was completely legato - that is, each cymbal ring melted into the next one. He fashioned a kind of cymbal shimmer behind whatever band he played with. It was a lateral flow. He kept his bass-drum heads very loose, so that he got a dull thud instead of a boom-boom-boom. And he used a great many bass-drum off beats, in the manner of the early bebop drummers. He also developed a habit on slow tempos of implying double time, thus giving the tempo a lift and a double edge. It's a device every modern drummer uses."
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The drummer Ed Shaughnessy, long in the "Tonight Show" band, hung around Tough when he was fifteen or sixteen and Tough was with Woody Herman. He once said of him, "No drummer could match his intensity. He used a heavy stick with a round tip, He had the widest tempo, the broadest time sense, and in that way he was like Elvin Jones. He was always at the center of the beat, even though he gave the impression he was laid back. He played loosely, with not much tension on the stick, and he tuned his drums loosely. He kept a glass of water and a cloth on the bandstand, and before each set he would dampen the cloth and wipe the foot-pedal head of his bass drum with a circular motion. That drumhead was so loose it almost had wrinkles in it. He told me he did this because he didn't want the bass drum to be in the same range as the bass fiddle. He didn't want the two to compete. And he tuned his snare and tom toms the same way, so that they were almost flabby. He was a master cymbal player-maybe the greatest of all time. He had a couple of fifteen-inchers on his bass drum, plus a Chinese cymbal and what we call a fast cymbal - a small cymbal you use for short, quick strokes. And he had thirteen-inch high-hat cymbals. He'd use his high hat, either half open or open-and-shut behind ensembles, and when things roared he would shift to the big, furry sound of the Chinese cymbal.
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He had a very loose high-hat technique, and he was always dropping in off beats on it with his left hand. He often used cymbals for punctuation where other drummers used rim shots or tom tom beats. He told me he didn't want to interrupt the rhythmic wave. When he played, he looked sort of like a bird, his arms moving in birdlike arcs. But they moved as if he were playing under the water - not very heavy water. He was a surprisingly strong brush player, and he could easily carry a big-band number with brushes. He hated soloing. I remember in 1946, when he'd won the down beat poll and he was with Joe Marsala at Loew's State Theatre, and Marsala announced, 'We will now have a drum solo from Dave Tough, winner of the down beat Poll,' Davy looked like he was having his wisdom teeth pulled. He was always putting himself down, by saying things like 'I can't even roll on the goddam snare,' or, talking about bebop drumming, 'I can't change gears now and play the way you guys do.' He always liked everything that was new, though. He listened to all the young drummers, and he thought Max Roach was terrific."
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The bassist Chubby Jackson worked beside Tough in the Herman band, and he spoke of him: "He was a champion of my life. We'd sit together on the bus between gigs and endlessly talk rhythm. In those days, there was great motivation between the drummer and the bass player, and the relationship could be like a happy marriage. He taught me to play non-metronomic time-that is, to play organized time. He said that human beings weren't metronomes, and drummers shouldn't be, either. Sometimes he would slow the beat down slightly so that the band would have a bigger sound, and sometimes he would speed up half a peg if things were getting sluggish. Or he'd hit five quarter notes in a row as a signal to the boys to pep up. He was the little general of that First Herman Herd. He did strange things to his cymbals. He'd remove all the sizzles except one or two from his Chinese cymbal, and he'd cut a wedge out of a ride cymbal to get a broader sound. He played differently behind each soloist. He'd say Bill Harris plays on the top of the beat, and Flip Phillips plays in the center of the beat-and he'd do specific things for each of them.
But during the final ensembles he and I went our way, and some of those ensembles lifted off the roof. I don't think there has ever been a big band with more feeling and excitement. It was Woody's idea to hire Davy, and we all though,- he was nuts. We were in our twenties and here was this old guy who had been around forever. Because he was the oldest guy in the band, he lived in fear of being thought old. So he thought young, and he was always doing things in his drumming to make it sound modern. And he was always looking for approval. We'd finish a set, and he'd say, 'Hey, Snuggy' which is what he called me-'how was that? How'd you like that?' He never talked like a musician-no lingo or cutie-pie -Hey-man-what's-happenin' sort of thing. He talked more like a writer or lecturer."
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The sound of Tough's cymbals changed constantly in the background. The splashing opening high hat gave way to the shining ride cymbal (behind a clarinet), which gave way to a roaring Chinese cymbal (behind a trombone), which gave way to a tightfisted closed high hat, with clicking afterbeats struck on the high-hat post with one stick (behind a piano), which gave way to pouring half-open high-hat figures (behind a trumpet), and, finally, to the open high hat or Chinese cymbal (behind the closing ensemble). He used occasional, often indistinct accents on his snare drum and a steady panoply of jarring bass-drum accents. He created a ringing jubilance with his cymbals. They were also the canvas for the soloists to paint on. It was never clear whether his dislike of drum soloing-in a time when drum solos were the height of jazz fashion-was because he wasn't good at it (his solos, always short, generally consisted of rolling, with accents on the rims, and concluding cymbal splashes) or because he simply disapproved of the custom. Jimmy McPartland has said that Tough's beat was "relentless," and it was. There was no place for laggards or fakes in his musical world, and he would either change them or demolish them.
Tough's drinking, quite controlled with Herman, finally drove him out of the band in September of 1945. He went back to Joe Marsala, and in 1946 he helped Eddie Condon open his new night club in Greenwich Village. (This was when William Gottlieb took his famous gamin-like photograph of Tough in Condon's cellar-his eyes sad and bleared, a cigarette in his mouth, his sticks poised over a rubber practice pad.) He worked on Fifty Second Street with Charlie Ventura and Bill Harris, the former Woody Herman trombonist. In 1947, he went to Chicago with his old friend Muggsy Spanier. He was deteriorating physically, and he was worried by bebop, whose rhythmic intricacies he was certain (wrongly) he could never absorb. He was losing his saturnine good looks. He had a long, wandering, bony face, a high, domed forehead, and black hair with a widow's peak-it was a face, perched on his tiny shoulders, of a bigger man. He spent most of his last four months of his life in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Lyons, New Jersey. Late in the afternoon of December 8, 1948, when he was apparently on his way to the apartment he and his wife had in Newark, he slipped on the street, hit his head on a curb, and fractured his skull. It was dark and he was drunk. He died in a hospital the next morning. He had no identification, and his wife did not find him for three days.
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Tributes and Reflections about Davy from Burt Korall’s Drummin’ Men:The Heartbeat of Jazz – The Swing Years.
“His energy force was so strong that you’d think there was a 400-pound guy sitting up there.” – Buddy Rich
“I think Dave Tough played more than any white drummer I ever heard. I admired him very much. He was one of my favorites. … Yeah! Dave Tough. He could play!- Arthur Taylor
“Dave’s time was so perfect that your fingers flowed over the horn. He did it for you.”- Max Kaminsky
“He never made an irritating sound.”- Johnny Mince
“He was the most imaginative drummer we ever had in the business. Everything the man hit was musical. If he tapped the floor, it was musical.”- Lionel Hampton
“Dave would lay down such a beat you’d go out of your mind. … And man, did Louis [Armstrong] love Davy.”- Jimmy McPartland
“He was a natural musician who did things effortlessly, and that always made you comfortable.”- Joe Bushkin
“Some of the most revered players in history could hardly execute at all in the scholastic, rudimental sense. What they did to an extraordinary degree was relate to the musical situation at hand, and to comment with their instruments in a unique and individual manner. This is a far more effective means of becoming indispensable than striving to be a drum athlete.”- Jim Chapin
“A giant rhythm player! With the least amount of ‘chops,’ Dave inspired a whole big screamin’ band with his subtleties and strong feeling for time. And he was probably the most gentle, the kindest, one of the grooviest cats you’d ever want to know."– Woody Herman
“Dave Tough was probably the most underestimated drummer of all and … so musical.” - Artie Shaw
“Dave never got in the way; he didn’t overplay. What we need today are a few more Dave Tough’s”
-Dizzy Gillespie
[The following piece on drummer Davy Tough was one of the earliest posted to the blog and I am re-posting it in order to correct a number of technical errors and in the hopes that those of you who may have missed it the first time can enjoy it now.]
“One thing about Dave Tough: he always was Dave Tough, just as Buddy Rich always was what he was. Tough realized we are what we are. The important thing is to be put into a musical situation where what you are can ‘happen.’ Tough found his place with Woody Herman.”
- Mel Lewis, Jazz drummer and band leader
“Saturday afternoon at the Paramount Theater in New York City. The year: 1945. The place was crowded for that time of day. The word was out about Woody Herman’s First Herd.
A bluish light hit the rising stage as the Herman band rose out of the pit, playing Woody’s familiar theme, ‘Blue Flame.’ When the 16-piece band hit stage level, it exploded into ‘Apple Honey’ and immediately displayed great ensemble power as it dashed though this up-tempo ‘head’ arrangement. My eyes were on the little drummer.
He went about his business with little of the grace of a Krupa and Jones, and none of the fireworks of Rich. But the excitement built as Tough, without physically giving the impression of strength, manipulated the band much as an animal trainer would a beautiful hard-to-control beast, making it respond to him. He cracked the whip under the ensemble and brass solo passages adding juice and muscle to the pulse and accents. Each soloist got individual treatment – a stroke here, an accent there, a fill further on, all perfectly placed.
He moved the band from one plateau to another, higher and higher. By the time the band was about to go into the final segment, the audience was totally captured. There was a point during this last section when it felt as though the band would take us through the roof.
When the piece came to an end with four rapid bass drum strokes, I couldn’t figure out what he had done. He had been in the foreground only once during a four bar break, …, otherwise his was the least self-serving performance I had ever witnessed. I turned to my friend. ‘He has no chops. How’d he do it? What happened?’
He smiled, not quite as puzzled as I. ‘It might not have seemed like much,’ he said. ‘But whatever he did, he sure lit a fire under that band.’”
– Burt Korall, Jazz author and critic
“One of the two or three greatest drummers of all time. A sad guy, such a sad little guy.”
I have played in big bands as a drummer and, for a variety of reasons, I think it may be an experience that is somewhat like piloting a jet fighter plane [okay, humor me here].
To begin with, very few arrangers know how to write drum charts, so looking at the music is like piloting the fighter, but now you are doing it blindfolded.
Once the downbeat is given, an audio G-force is unleashed and the music starts coming at you fast and furious all of which you are supposed to catch and do something with: accent, fill, kick, employ a short solo, crescendo, decrescendo, stop, lay out, start, fill and kick again, employ another short solo, play stop time, double the time: all the while moving the music along, keeping it in balance and not allowing it to slow down or speed up.
And the anxiety associated with this dynamic is heighten by the fact that in most cases, you have no visual road map to help guide you toward where the big band is supposedly going. And of course, once played, rightly or wrongly, you can’t take anything back.
When it all comes together and you successfully navigate the band through the arrangements, it’s an immensely satisfying experience. But when it fails, you are responsible for taking 15 or so fellow musicians and driving them into the musical equivalent of a train wreck. [I know I'm mixing metaphors, but it's fun].
One learns to survive, avoid the crack-ups [after the loss of a few engines and their tenders] and – more often than not - actually steer the band “safely” to its final destination.
Ultimately, I learned to navigate myself through these challenging and treacherous big band charts by looking at the first trumpet and the first alto parts because therein lies the key/s to anything that’s happening in an arrangement. I would then take these notations and pencil-them-in at the appropriate places in the drum part.
Larry Bunker [drummer in the original Gerry Mulligan Quartet, Shorty Rogers Quintet, Bill Evans Trio and Clare Fischer's Big Band] was the person who taught me this “science” of super-imposing lead sheet parts. He also urged me to listen to how drummers like Jo Jones with Count Basie’s band and Davy Tough with the Woody Herman First Herd Big Band artfully propelled their bands as though they were pushed by the wind. I also attended the Mel Lewis Big Band drumming “clinic” [in the informal sense of the word] which he conducted every Monday night while performing with the Terry Gibbs Big Band at various Hollywood venues during the late 1950s.
Both Jo and Mel became very well-publicized figures in my lifetime and deservedly so as they were each masterful big band drummers. But who was this Davy Tough?
Thanks to my father’s extensive collection of Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw and Woody Herman 78 rpm records, I did have the opportunity to listen to Davy’s fluid style of big band drumming. He was a wonderful drummer and gave all of these bands a “personality” filled with excitement and energy and he did all of this without ever seeming to put himself first. The drums were never overpowering. They were more like a pulse that you just felt: what Burt Korall calls “The Heartbeat of Jazz.”
But I never knew much about Davy Tough the person and the tragedy that became his life until I read this insightful piece by the dean of Jazz writers, Whitney Balliett.
Mezz Mezzrow, the clarinetist, hustler, and embroiderer of tales, recalls lin his "Really the Blues" how Tough talked:
Dave Tough, who tipped delicately over his words like they were thin ice, always used to lecture me on how important it was to keep your speech pure, pointing out that the French and people like that formed their vowels lovingly, shaping their lips just right when they spoke, while Americans spoke tough out of the corners of their mouths ... I thought Dave's careful way of talking was too precise and effeminate. He thought I was kind of illiterate, even though he admired my musical taste and knowledge. He was always making me conscious of the way I talked because he kept on parodying the slurs and colloquial kicks in my speech, saying that I was just trying to ape the colored man.
Tough's profession and drinking had already estranged him from his family. In 1927, barely twenty, he married and went to Europe with his wife and the clarinetist Danny Polo. He worked with various bands in Paris, Ostend, Berlin, and Nice. The Prince of Wales, who seemed to do little else at this period, sat in on his drums, and Tough drank a great deal. Bud Freeman says that Tough wrote limericks with Scott Fitzgerald, and that Tough was shocked when he discovered that Freeman, over on a short visit, hadn't read "The Sun Also Rises." Tough returned to America in 1929, worked for a time with Red Nichols, and went back to Chicago, where he entered what his biographer, Harold S. Kaye, calls his "dark period." He seems, for the next four or five years, to have been a derelict.
Jess Stacy was in Chicago in the early thirties, and he remembers Tough. "He'd always had trouble with drinking," he said recently. "I used to see him all the time before I joined Benny Goodman, in 1935, and he was in terrible shape. He looked like a bum and he hung out with bums. He'd go along Randolph Street and panhandle, then he'd buy canned heat and strain off the alcohol and drink it-this being during Prohibition. I played with him in Goodman's band in 1938, right after Krupa left and Goodman was running through drummers a mile a minute. Goodman said to Tough one day just before show time, 'Hey, Davy, I want you to send me,' and Tough replied, 'Where do you want to be sent?' He was a brilliant little guy, and I always wondered if he wasn't torn between being a writer and being a drummer."Tough moved on to New York in 1935, but he still wasn't well enough to work regularly. Joe Bushkin has said, "I was with Bunny Berigan at the old Famous Door, on Fifty-second Street, in 1935, and Davy'd come by with his drums and set up and sit in. It was the fashion then to take the Benzedrine strip out of an inhaler and put it in a Coke, and he'd do that for courage. When he drank too much, he was gone. He was totally out of body. Sometimes, when I was still batching it, I'd take him home with me. He weighed less than I did. I've always been around a hundred and twenty-eight, but he must have been close to a hundred pounds. He was so much of an artist that having a bank account would have been appalling to him. He was a natural musician who did things effortlessly, and that always made you comfortable."
Half of Tough's career was over, and he didn't seem to have much to show for it. But this was deceptive. He certainly had helped inspire the great rhythmic drive of the Chicago players, and he must have helped shape whatever subtlety they had. He had worked his way through the styles of the New Orleans drummers Baby Dodds and Zutty Singleton, and, by ceaselessly experimenting, had become a first-rate, original drummer.
He knew books and art, and this added stature and class to the popular image of the jazz musician as an uncouth primitive. His great gifts were far more visible during the last half of his career. Tommy Dorsey, starting his own band, hired Tough in 1936, and appears to have helped him back to some sort of normality. (Tough and his wife were divorced the same year.) He stayed with Dorsey for more than two years, lifting his soloists and giving what was basically a big Dixieland band a fresh and buoyant feeling. He also took on an advice-to-drummers column for the monthly music magazine Metronome. Much of what he wrote tends to be facetious, but it knocked out his peers and gave him the reputation of being a writer. He considers drummers and chewing gum:After considerable spade work on my research into the effects of chewing gum on swing-drumming, I have turned up a few hitherto unpublished secrets of world-shattering importance: George Wettling and Maurice Purtill chew nothing but Juicy Fruit. James Crawford, the gent who beats out all that gyve [jive] with Lunceford -solid man! - prefers Spearmint. The two Rays, McKinley and Bauduc, are Black Jack men down to the ground.
Once in a while he would get down to business:This discussion reminds me of Ed Straight, the old Chicago drum teacher, to whom stick grips were a phobia. He was a kind, likable old chap who was usually very calm and patient in his methods. That is, was calm and courteous until you tightened the first two fingers of your left hand around the stick in an attempt to close up your roll. Then he'd raise hell. You'd be rolling along trying to smooth it out nice and even, and suddenly he'd knock the stick out of your left hand. If it flicked out easily, he'd smile; if it didn't, you were in the dog-house. His rule was: at all times during the roll, the left stick should be held so loosely-with the wrist, the thumb and third finger doing all the work-that it can be easily dislodged with just a light flick.
Or even do a one-sentence Hemingway parody:
But I can say this, sir, that Chick Webb is much better than whom and who and he's good and he's very, very good and he does everything there is to be done to a drum and he does it beautifully and sometimes he plays with such stupefying technique that he leaves you in a punch drunk stupor and ecstatically bewildered as this sentence has wound up to be.
Tough left Dorsey early in 1938, and during the rest of the year moved erratically from Bunny Berigan back to Dorsey to Benny Goodman to Bud Freeman, establishing behavior patterns that would become more and more unpredictable. He passed through Jack Teagarden's big band in 1939 and was with Joe Marsala's jumping small band on Fifty-second Street in 1940. He rejoined Goodman in 1941, was with Marsala again, had a good stint with Artie Shaw, and was briefly with Woody Herman. He was in Charlie Spivak's band in 1942, and then he became part of Artie Shaw's Navy band.
Shaw has said, “I first knew Davy in the thirties when he was with Tommy Dorsey, and we'd go up to Harlem to listen to music. He was a sweet man, a gentle man, and not easy to get to. He was shy and reclusive. He had great respect for the English language. He read a lot and I read a lot, so we had that in common. During the Second World War, he was in my Navy band, and we'd manage to get together once in a while 124 American Musicians and talk. He was an alcoholic, and, like all alcoholics, he always found things to drink. I'd assign a man to him if we had an important concert coming up-say, for the crew of an aircraft carrier-and that man would keep an eye on him all day. This was so he wouldn't get drunk and fall off the bandstand, which he had done a couple of times. I think he was the most underrated big-band drummer in jazz, and he got a beautiful sound out of his instrument. He tuned his drums, he tried to achieve on them what he heard in his head, as we all do, and I think he came as close as you can get. He refused to take solos. Whenever I pointed to him for twelve or eight or four bars, he'd smile and shake his head and go on playing rhythm drums."
The Shaw band spent the year of 1943 in the South Pacific, and Tough, worn out, was discharged in 1944. When he recovered, he married Casey Majors, a black woman he had met in Philadelphia, and he rejoined Woody Herman, who had a wild new, young band. Tough, showing verve and brilliance, became the foundation of the First Herman Herd, which lasted until 1946 and was one of the hardest-swinging of all big jazz bands. He suddenly began winning music-magazine polls, and became a star.
Tough's style had evolved steadily. By the time he rejoined Tommy Dorsey, it had pretty well set, although there were still traces in it of New Orleans drumming-press rolls, ricky-tick on the drum rims. His cymbal playing as well as his bass-drum work grew increasingly dominant. Bob Wilber has said, "His cymbal playing was completely legato - that is, each cymbal ring melted into the next one. He fashioned a kind of cymbal shimmer behind whatever band he played with. It was a lateral flow. He kept his bass-drum heads very loose, so that he got a dull thud instead of a boom-boom-boom. And he used a great many bass-drum off beats, in the manner of the early bebop drummers. He also developed a habit on slow tempos of implying double time, thus giving the tempo a lift and a double edge. It's a device every modern drummer uses."
The drummer Ed Shaughnessy, long in the "Tonight Show" band, hung around Tough when he was fifteen or sixteen and Tough was with Woody Herman. He once said of him, "No drummer could match his intensity. He used a heavy stick with a round tip, He had the widest tempo, the broadest time sense, and in that way he was like Elvin Jones. He was always at the center of the beat, even though he gave the impression he was laid back. He played loosely, with not much tension on the stick, and he tuned his drums loosely. He kept a glass of water and a cloth on the bandstand, and before each set he would dampen the cloth and wipe the foot-pedal head of his bass drum with a circular motion. That drumhead was so loose it almost had wrinkles in it. He told me he did this because he didn't want the bass drum to be in the same range as the bass fiddle. He didn't want the two to compete. And he tuned his snare and tom toms the same way, so that they were almost flabby. He was a master cymbal player-maybe the greatest of all time. He had a couple of fifteen-inchers on his bass drum, plus a Chinese cymbal and what we call a fast cymbal - a small cymbal you use for short, quick strokes. And he had thirteen-inch high-hat cymbals. He'd use his high hat, either half open or open-and-shut behind ensembles, and when things roared he would shift to the big, furry sound of the Chinese cymbal.
He had a very loose high-hat technique, and he was always dropping in off beats on it with his left hand. He often used cymbals for punctuation where other drummers used rim shots or tom tom beats. He told me he didn't want to interrupt the rhythmic wave. When he played, he looked sort of like a bird, his arms moving in birdlike arcs. But they moved as if he were playing under the water - not very heavy water. He was a surprisingly strong brush player, and he could easily carry a big-band number with brushes. He hated soloing. I remember in 1946, when he'd won the down beat poll and he was with Joe Marsala at Loew's State Theatre, and Marsala announced, 'We will now have a drum solo from Dave Tough, winner of the down beat Poll,' Davy looked like he was having his wisdom teeth pulled. He was always putting himself down, by saying things like 'I can't even roll on the goddam snare,' or, talking about bebop drumming, 'I can't change gears now and play the way you guys do.' He always liked everything that was new, though. He listened to all the young drummers, and he thought Max Roach was terrific."
The bassist Chubby Jackson worked beside Tough in the Herman band, and he spoke of him: "He was a champion of my life. We'd sit together on the bus between gigs and endlessly talk rhythm. In those days, there was great motivation between the drummer and the bass player, and the relationship could be like a happy marriage. He taught me to play non-metronomic time-that is, to play organized time. He said that human beings weren't metronomes, and drummers shouldn't be, either. Sometimes he would slow the beat down slightly so that the band would have a bigger sound, and sometimes he would speed up half a peg if things were getting sluggish. Or he'd hit five quarter notes in a row as a signal to the boys to pep up. He was the little general of that First Herman Herd. He did strange things to his cymbals. He'd remove all the sizzles except one or two from his Chinese cymbal, and he'd cut a wedge out of a ride cymbal to get a broader sound. He played differently behind each soloist. He'd say Bill Harris plays on the top of the beat, and Flip Phillips plays in the center of the beat-and he'd do specific things for each of them.But during the final ensembles he and I went our way, and some of those ensembles lifted off the roof. I don't think there has ever been a big band with more feeling and excitement. It was Woody's idea to hire Davy, and we all though,- he was nuts. We were in our twenties and here was this old guy who had been around forever. Because he was the oldest guy in the band, he lived in fear of being thought old. So he thought young, and he was always doing things in his drumming to make it sound modern. And he was always looking for approval. We'd finish a set, and he'd say, 'Hey, Snuggy' which is what he called me-'how was that? How'd you like that?' He never talked like a musician-no lingo or cutie-pie -Hey-man-what's-happenin' sort of thing. He talked more like a writer or lecturer."
The sound of Tough's cymbals changed constantly in the background. The splashing opening high hat gave way to the shining ride cymbal (behind a clarinet), which gave way to a roaring Chinese cymbal (behind a trombone), which gave way to a tightfisted closed high hat, with clicking afterbeats struck on the high-hat post with one stick (behind a piano), which gave way to pouring half-open high-hat figures (behind a trumpet), and, finally, to the open high hat or Chinese cymbal (behind the closing ensemble). He used occasional, often indistinct accents on his snare drum and a steady panoply of jarring bass-drum accents. He created a ringing jubilance with his cymbals. They were also the canvas for the soloists to paint on. It was never clear whether his dislike of drum soloing-in a time when drum solos were the height of jazz fashion-was because he wasn't good at it (his solos, always short, generally consisted of rolling, with accents on the rims, and concluding cymbal splashes) or because he simply disapproved of the custom. Jimmy McPartland has said that Tough's beat was "relentless," and it was. There was no place for laggards or fakes in his musical world, and he would either change them or demolish them.Tough's drinking, quite controlled with Herman, finally drove him out of the band in September of 1945. He went back to Joe Marsala, and in 1946 he helped Eddie Condon open his new night club in Greenwich Village. (This was when William Gottlieb took his famous gamin-like photograph of Tough in Condon's cellar-his eyes sad and bleared, a cigarette in his mouth, his sticks poised over a rubber practice pad.) He worked on Fifty Second Street with Charlie Ventura and Bill Harris, the former Woody Herman trombonist. In 1947, he went to Chicago with his old friend Muggsy Spanier. He was deteriorating physically, and he was worried by bebop, whose rhythmic intricacies he was certain (wrongly) he could never absorb. He was losing his saturnine good looks. He had a long, wandering, bony face, a high, domed forehead, and black hair with a widow's peak-it was a face, perched on his tiny shoulders, of a bigger man. He spent most of his last four months of his life in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Lyons, New Jersey. Late in the afternoon of December 8, 1948, when he was apparently on his way to the apartment he and his wife had in Newark, he slipped on the street, hit his head on a curb, and fractured his skull. It was dark and he was drunk. He died in a hospital the next morning. He had no identification, and his wife did not find him for three days.
Tributes and Reflections about Davy from Burt Korall’s Drummin’ Men:The Heartbeat of Jazz – The Swing Years. “I think Dave Tough played more than any white drummer I ever heard. I admired him very much. He was one of my favorites. … Yeah! Dave Tough. He could play!- Arthur Taylor
“Dave’s time was so perfect that your fingers flowed over the horn. He did it for you.”- Max Kaminsky
“He never made an irritating sound.”- Johnny Mince
“He was the most imaginative drummer we ever had in the business. Everything the man hit was musical. If he tapped the floor, it was musical.”- Lionel Hampton
“Dave would lay down such a beat you’d go out of your mind. … And man, did Louis [Armstrong] love Davy.”- Jimmy McPartland
“He was a natural musician who did things effortlessly, and that always made you comfortable.”- Joe Bushkin
“Some of the most revered players in history could hardly execute at all in the scholastic, rudimental sense. What they did to an extraordinary degree was relate to the musical situation at hand, and to comment with their instruments in a unique and individual manner. This is a far more effective means of becoming indispensable than striving to be a drum athlete.”- Jim Chapin
“A giant rhythm player! With the least amount of ‘chops,’ Dave inspired a whole big screamin’ band with his subtleties and strong feeling for time. And he was probably the most gentle, the kindest, one of the grooviest cats you’d ever want to know."– Woody Herman
“Dave Tough was probably the most underestimated drummer of all and … so musical.” - Artie Shaw
“Dave never got in the way; he didn’t overplay. What we need today are a few more Dave Tough’s”
-Dizzy Gillespie
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↧
Bill Perkins - The Gordon Jack Interview
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
"Nobody could have been luckier" than to play with Herman and Kenton, Perkins told the Los Angeles Times."Though they were both very different, they were both forward-looking and never told you how to play. Stan especially gave me a “feeling of worth" -- a sense that "being a jazz musician was something of great value."
- Bill Perkins to Leonard Feather
Gordon Jack is a frequent contributor to the Jazz Journaland a very generous friend in allowingJazzProfilesto re-publish of his insightful and discerning writings on these pages.
Gordon is the author of Fifties Jazz Talk An Oral Retrospectiveand he also developed the Gerry Mulligan discography in Raymond Horricks’ bookGerry Mulligan’s Ark.
The following article was first published in Jazz Journal August 2001.
For more information and subscriptions please visitwww.jazzjournal.co.uk
© -Gordon Jack/JazzJournal, copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.
This interview with Bill Perkins took place at the 1999 "Stan Kenton Rendezvous" in Egham, England. He reminisced about Kenton and Woody Herman as well as colleagues like Dave Madden and Steve White, who are almost forgotten today. He was also quite happy to discuss the dramatic stylistic change that occurred in his playing during the early eighties.
“I was born on July 22,1924, in San Francisco, and my first big-time job was around 1951, when I worked with Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. He was a fiery Latin type who would punch first and ask questions later, so it was quite an experience, because I was pretty green. Lucille, of course, was a great comedienne, but Desi had a lot more to do with their success than he has been credited with. He was a brilliant man and the brains behind I Love Lucy. Later that year, thanks to Shorty Rogers, I joined Woody Herman. Shorty was often my benefactor, because he also recommended me to Stan Kenton, although I didn't know it at the time —I had to find out from someone else.
I took Phil Urso's place with Woody and showed up at the L.A. Palladium still wet behind the ears and scared to death. He put up with me for a long time, so he must have figured I would amount to something, and God bless him for that. Jack Dulong, who has since passed away, was the lead tenor, and he was a lovely player, although he didn't get much solo space with the band. He also played baritone and later on became a copyist in the studios for many years. Don Fagerquist. Doug Mettome, and Dick Collins were in the trumpet section, and they were just remarkable. Don was also an outstanding lead player, and Carl Saunders, who plays with me in Bill Holman's band, idolizes him.
Woody disbanded around Christmas 1953 and Dave Madden, for whom I had a great regard and respect, eventually took my place.1 He and his partner. Gail, were a couple at the time, and they were really avant-garde in every way. Dave and I had been to the Westlake School of Music together with Bob
Graettinger, and I was very impressed with the sound he got from his old Conn. I recommended him to Woody, which turned out to be a mistake, because he'd changed his approach and become pretty far out. Today his playing would be fascinating, but everyone was in that "Stan Getz" groove at the time, and I don't think Woody was too pleased with him.1
I was very lucky to be part of the Stan Kenton band, which I joined after I left Herman. Dave Schildkraut, who was a personal favorite, was on alto along with Charlie Mariano. One of our concert tours featured both Charlie Parker and Lee Konitz as guests, which was a great experience for me. still a pretty dumb kid. Anyway the player Bird liked the best was Davey. who was a complete original, and he played tenor well, too. although in a totally different way. We got along beautifully, but he was a worrier, always bugged with himself. I felt privileged to be playing Bob Graettinger's music with Stan, and I try to dispel the myth created by those who only know "City of Glass." He was not like a monkey with a brush tied to its tail, producing something that is subsequently sold as modern art. I really appreciate that piece now, although at the time I didn't know what to make of it. When we were at Westlake. he wrote every type of music and wrote it well, and whether you like "City of Glass" or not, he knew exactly what he was doing. I like it because I enjoy twentieth-century composers, and boy, was he a twentieth-century composer!
While I was with Kenton, Mel Lewis was my roommate, and he was one of my dearest friends. Times have changed, but he was one of the great big band drummers, and everyone got a little from Mel, just as he did from people like Tiny Kahn. He was the most unselfish drummer I've ever heard, though his personality was about as abrasive as sixty-grit sandpaper. He didn't bother me because I used to pull the pillow over my head and just go to sleep! Inside, though, he was very kind hearted and he played for you. He worked out much better in New York than in the L.A. studios, where you have to keep your mouth shut and do what you're told; individualists don't really make it in L.A. I wish I could have played in the band he had with Thad Jones, because the writing gave it a small band feel, which I like.
Towards the end of the fifties, Kenton decided to drop one of the altos and add a tuba and two French horns. Being the first tenor with a four-man sax section, I became in essence the second alto. That was great for my chops, especially with Charlie Mariano on lead, because he plays like there is no tomorrow, but it was tough competing with all that brass. The conventional sax section has been around for a long time with good reason, but Stan wanted a different sound. Not wanting to stand still, he was always looking for a new approach, but it made things very difficult for us. We kept telling him that we wanted another saxophone, so he got a second baritone, which we needed like a hole in the head, because it made the band even more bottom heavy. While I was with him I also worked in local L.A. clubs with Bob Gordon in George Redman's little group, and we also tried to get Bob on the Kenton band. He was the "Zoot Sims" of the baritone but was tragically killed in a car crash in 1955. He was a marvelously ebullient player and a really neat guy to be around, but he could get pretty down on himself if he thought he wasn't playing well.2
Another legendary guy from those days was Steve White, who played clarinet, all the saxes, and he sang as well. On tenor, which was his primary instrument, he sounded like Lester Young, and I mean the real Lester from the late thirties recordings, when Prez was awesome. That's the way Steve played, just a complete natural. He was a real character, and there have been a lot of stories about him, which are all true! I remember staying on Hymie Gunkler's powerboat after a New Year's Eve gig. when I had been working with Murray McEachern's band on Catalina Island. We were woken up around 3 a.m. by the sound of a baritone coming from Avalon Harbor, which turned out to be Steve playing alone on the pier. Unfortunately, he stumbled and the baritone went over the side into the ocean, but he managed to fish it out the next day. He lives in San Fernando Valley and still plays, as far as I know. Stu Williamson, who died in 1991, is someone else who is forgotten today, which is a tragedy because he was a remarkable soloist. He was a gentle man and a real sweetheart, as is his brother Claude, who I'm glad to say is playing again quite beautifully.
Al Cohn and Zoot Sims have always been heroes of mine, and along with Richie Kamuca. I recorded with Al in 1955.3 I tended more towards Al, I suppose, because his mournful sound appealed to my personality, whereas Zoot was always so happy in his playing. Everybody knows Al had a great sense of humor, but Zoot could be pretty funny, too. Stan Getz once said to him,"Al prefers your playing to mine," and Zoot replied. "Don't you?"
I recorded with John Lewis in 1956, and that was a marvelous experience, because he had heard me play and knew exactly what my pluses and minuses were.4 I have always been grateful to John for arranging that date with Dick Bock and for making it so easy for me, just like falling off a log. Afterwards, when I went out into the real world. I found that record dates were not usually like that; they don't set them up just for you. Later that same year, I did an album with Richie Kamuca and Art Pepper, and one of the titles was my arrangement of "All of Me."5 I remember saying on the sleevenote that for all the effort I put into that chart, I could have had an original. Unfortunately you can't copyright an orchestration, which is something a lot of people regret, and that's why Bill Holman writes so many originals now. Jimmy Rowles played on that date, and he was another hero of mine, because he was a towering giant of individuality. A single bar on a record is enough for me to recognize him, which isn't easy on a piano. His daughter Stacy is a beautiful flugelhorn player, and I would love to do an album with her. She doesn't work much because she is dedicated to jazz music, and she is a girl on top of that, which is two strikes against her right there!
What a fine player Art Pepper was, and what a writer. People who remember his playing today have probably forgotten what beautiful lines he wrote. We were not close, so I didn't see him that often, but many years later we used to rehearse at my house, along with David Angel. That's when I really appreciated him, because when you are older, you stop focussing on yourself quite so much, and whatever chair Art played, alto or tenor, he always gave his part such life. Everybody around him responded to that, and Bob Cooper, whose tenor I have today, was the same sort of guy. Players like that can sit in the section and just lift you up. Towards the end of Art's life he could hear all the new stuff going on around him, and I think he felt left out. If he had lived, he would have assimilated the avant-garde things, and with his genius for playing, the results would have been priceless. I like guys that can add change to what they already have.
In the mid fifties I often worked with Lennie Niehaus at Jazz City and the Tiffany, and Hampton Hawes sometimes played with us. At the time I was usually bugged with myself too much and worried about my own playing, but in recent years I've begun to appreciate just how good some of these people were, which is the only advantage from growing old I suppose. Hampton was marvelous, and I only wish I could play with him now. He had his problems, like a lot of others, but he was a very nice and gentle man. It's funny, but when I listen to the album I made with him and Bud Shank in 1956, I wonder where I got all that energy.6
In the early sixties I played quite a lot with Marty Paich in his Dek-tette, and I really loved him. He did a lot for my career, and just like Bill Holman, he never wrote a note in haste or turned out a schlock bar. He was an old bebop piano player, but he was so dedicated and intense, he became a martinet on the podium. That could be misunderstood, but he thought it was the best way to get discipline. I was on a few albums with Marty and Mel Torme, and almost until he died, Mel's singing was right on the money. He was one of the best in-tune singers ever, just a paragon of excellence, although he sometimes forgot lyrics towards the end. but then, I forget a lot of stuff too! He was also a good arranger and drummer, but for my personal taste I prefer baritone singers like Joe Williams, because I don't care for high-pitched voices so much. You can't take anything away from Mel, though, because he started it all. influencing groups like the Hi-Lo's with his own Mel-Tones. He was a very exacting guy, but you can accept a lot from someone who can sing like that, with his intonation.
While I was working with Marty Paich, I was also playing in Terry Gibbs' Dream Band with one of my all-time favorite musicians. Joe Maini, on lead
alto. Sadly, through his own fault, very few people are aware of him today, but those who played with him will never forget him. Along with Lanny Morgan he was the greatest, most dynamic jazz-oriented lead alto I ever played with. He was also a wonderful soloist who didn't get much exposure, but every now and then some young player will say, "I heard a solo by this guy Joe Maini which was terrific." He was a larger than life character who would do anything without fear, living life on the edge, just a great person to be around and someone who could light the room up.
During the sixties I worked mostly in the studios, and I was on some Frank Sinatra singles like "Strangers in the Night," which is best forgotten. Chuck Berghofer was on that, and he also did Nancy's hit, "These Boots Are Made for Walking." and we are never going to let him forget that! Sinatra of course was a pro, none of this twenty-take business. By the time he had done three, that was it and you'd better be right, too. It was always an experience with him. because he would have a big entourage with lots of attractive girls in the studio. I remember once seeing a beautiful lady standing by herself, looking very quiet and lonely. She smiled at me. and it was Marilyn Monroe.
In the early days of Supersax, they rehearsed in my garage, and we were casting around, looking for a second tenor. Med Flory may deny this (and he's bigger than me!) but I recall him saying, "Warne Marsh is available but he doesn't play so good." Anyway. Warne joined the group, and one night Med turned him loose on "Cherokee" and the rest is history, because after about six choruses it was obvious just how good Warne really was. Supersax was hard to play with, and there wasn't much solo room for the saxes, but I had to leave anyway, because of my studio commitments. I don't do studio dates anymore, as I have retired, except for playing jazz.
In the early eighties I started changing my approach because I felt I had to do something else. I'm not ashamed of my previous style and sound, but I wanted to move on, even if it was sideways, and jazz is all about being able to adapt, otherwise you become stagnant. Of course you can't change overnight, and at first it was painful and I didn't play well. I remember in 1983 when Zoot Sims and I were touring Switzerland with Woody's band. I was already striking out in a new direction, and sometimes really striking out. Zoot. though, was very nice and supportive to me. Hopefully things have smoothed out a little, because you have to be true to yourself; you can't be another person. In recent years I have started to play the baritone, and I've been very influenced by Pepper Adams, although I don't have his technique, because he was a monster. He was a true original, and even when he was with Kenton, he was such a radical player that he really turned me around. He's still the daddy of guys like Gary Smulyan and Nick Brignola, who are wonderful players, incidentally. Pepper grew up in Detroit with Tommy Flanagan, and this may surprise you, but their playing is very similar. I know it's hard to equate the baritone and piano, but their lines are very close, and it was [pianist] Frank Strazzeri who pointed it out to me.
I currently play with a marvelous young trumpeter. John Daversa, whose father, Jay, played with Stan Kenton. Everyone in the band is about half my age, and I keep handing in my resignation but he won't accept it. John's writing is fascinating because he uses a lot of mixed meters, which makes things interesting. I have to admit, though, that I'm tired of playing in big bands, although I make an exception for Bill Holman, who is an absolute genius. I play second alto with him and it is tough music, but he has given me a chance to learn the book and kindly given me solo space. Some of today's bands are so regimented, almost Kentonian, whereas I prefer bands that are loose, like Duke Ellington's was. Part of the problem is the college system, where Stan performed an invaluable service in his desire to educate, but there is now a tendency to discipline music too much. I'm tired of playing regimented music, and that was the only aspect of Stan's band that became burdensome. A lot of the stuff we did with him sounded better than it played. I'll tell you that. With Bill's band, not only do the charts sound great but they play great as well.
What must be respected, however, is that Stan Kenton always looked forward, often at great financial hazard to himself. They were totally different personalities, but Woody Herman was just the same, and that's what makes them heroes.”
Four years after this interview took place. Bill Perkins died on August 9th, 2003. A memorial was held for him at the Local 47 Musicians' Union on Vine Street in Los Angeles, where a packed crowd heard, among other attractions, Bill Holman's big band.
NOTES
1. Dave Madden's career with Woody Herman seems to have lasted for about three months in 1954. He left after the band played the Hollywood Palladium in September and was replaced by Richie Kamuca. He went on to play with Jerry Gray. Si Zentner, and Harry James.
2. Bob Gordon did a studio recording with the Kenton band in 1954 but, unfortunately, did not solo.
3. Al Cohn, The Brothers. RCA Victor LPM 1162.
4. John Lewis. Grand Encounter. Pacific Jazz CDP 7 456 592.
5. Bill Perkins, Just Friends. LAE 12088 (subsequently issued in Japan on Toshiba TOCJ 5427).
6. Bud Shank/Bill Perkins. Pacific Jazz CDP 7243 4 93159 2 1.
↧
Yesterdays featuring Bill Perkins on Tenor Sax
↧
A Jazz Conversation with Composer-Arranger Lisa Maxwell
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
For Immediate Release Please
Composer/Arranger Lisa Maxwell to release highly-anticipated project
Shiny!
Boasts all-star big band lineup, dedicated to trumpeter Lew Soloff
CD AND DIGITAL FORMATS AVAILABLE IN STORES AND ONLINE ON
MAY 17, 2019.
RECORD RELEASE EVENT AT THE CUTTING ROOM, NEW YORK CITY,
MONDAY, MAY 27, 2019 (MEMORIAL DAY) AT 7.30 PM
TO WATCH THE VIDEO: http://bit.ly/Shinypromo
- Antje Hubner, Hubtone PR
The genesis for this Jazz conversation started with this press release sent to me by Antje Hubner of Hubtone PR. [You’ll find more details from it at the end of this piece.].
When I first received Shiny! Lisa Maxwell’s Jazz Orchestra, the recording which accompanied Antje’s media release, I had no idea who “Lisa Maxwell” was but I always try to do what I can to support Jazz artists represented by promotional professional whom I respect, so I put up what Hubtone PR sent “as is” in the sidebar of my bar.
It was my way of giving Shiny! Lisa Maxwell’s Jazz Orchestra some exposure until I could spend more time listening to the music to see if it “spoke to me” and, if it did, to determine how I was going to handle developing a feature about it for my blog.
After listening to her efforts, I realized that Lisa’s music represented a generational leap forward for me and offered a connection with an era in the development of large ensemble Jazz that I had largely passed over for a variety of reasons, not the least of which involved earning a living and helping to raise a family.
While I was very familiar with the Jazz-inflected movie and television music from the 1950s and 60s, think Henry Mancini, Peter Rugolo, Elmer Bernstein, Johnny Mandel, and Lalo Schifrin, I really hadn’t paid much attention to this type of writing as it further progressed into a period where Jazz was combined with Rock and electronic instruments to the point that many of the orchestrations were played over heavily accented and repetitive grooves, as compared to the more free flowing or swinging rhythm of the earlier eras.
Ring modulators, wah wah pedals, synthesizers, Moogs, electronic drums, et al - all of these “colors” were familiar and yet foreign to me, because while I’d heard them as part of my listening experience while viewing films or watching television in the late 1960s and into the 1970s and beyond, I hadn’t incorporated them into an appreciation for how they had become compositional and arranging elements in the hands of people skilled at using them - people like Lisa Maxwell.
What was especially intriguing to me about Lisa was that she had actually lived through the media exposure that featured these fused musical elements; she had grown up watching and listening to these films and programs in much the same way that I had grown up watching and listening to Hank Mancini’s Peter Gunn, Pete Rugolo’s Thriller and Richard Diamond, Elmer Bernstein’s Johnny Staccato, Johnny Mandel’s I Want to Live and Lalo Schifrin's Bullet.
Now that my interest was engaged, I wanted to know more about how this music was made.
So I reached out to Lisa and asked if I could add her name to previous composer-arranger Jazz conversations on these pages which have included Mike Abene, Bill Kirchner, and John Altman.
Needless to say I was thrilled when she agreed and gave this interview.
You can learn more about Lisa by visiting her website at -
How and when did music first come into your life?
Is this a trick question?
Probably in the womb, since my mother [Joanne] was a classical pianist and cellist. She had her chamber group rehearsals at our house all the time, and practiced piano every night after I went to bed. I remember being very small and thinking there was a whole orchestra downstairs.
Do you play an instrument?
I started playing piano when I was 6, and still play. I don't perform on piano but that's where I write all my music!
I switched to saxophone relatively late, at 16, and played until recently. I started having problems with my neck and had to put down the horn for awhile.
I also play flute, electric bass, and some drums. I've done a bunch of gigs on bass and I love it. I play along with (The Brothers Johnson's) "Stomp" and King Curtis almost every day.
What are your earliest recollections of Jazz?
The first show I saw was Sammy Davis, Jr. at the Cocoanut Grove in L.A. when I was 7. I loved everything about it!
My dad [Maxwell] played a lot of Ella Fitzgerald and Helen O'Connell, Anita O'Day, Oscar Peterson, and the dance bands. There was also a lot of Sergio Mendes Brasil '66 in my environment.
I really connected with all the TV themes that were playing when I was growing up, which were written by some of the great jazz composers – Mancini, Lalo Schifrin, Quincy Jones, Neal Hefti, Earle Hagen, Patrick Williams – although I didn't know at the time that it was jazz, just music! The first tune I remember actually thinking about was the I Love Lucy theme.
My dad grew up in New York and went to jazz clubs with his buddy, Jack Kerouac (the story was that Billie Holliday once called my dad a Motherfucker!). He taught me how to play an arrangement of "Deep Purple," which was the only thing he remembered from his piano lessons. It had a stride left hand, and I knew it was jazz. He also had a stack of sheet music on the piano and when I was able to sight read, I used to play through those. I was really into "Stardust."
Where did you go to listen to Jazz in performance when you were first learning about the music?
I lived in Paris during my junior year of high school when I was 15, and that's where I really "discovered" jazz. I went to the American School of Paris, and we went to hear George Benson, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, maybe Mahavishnu Orchestra?
Back in L.A., when I was 16 I got a car and started going to all the jazz clubs. Smokey Hormel lived down the street and turned me on to Marla's Memory Lane (where I saw Gerald Wilson's Orchestra), Donte's, Carmelo's, The Flying Jib, Pasquale's, The Baked Potato... I went to the Playboy Jazz Festival every year.
Back in L.A., when I was 16 I got a car and started going to all the jazz clubs. Smokey Hormel lived down the street and turned me on to Marla's Memory Lane (where I saw Gerald Wilson's Orchestra), Donte's, Carmelo's, The Flying Jib, Pasquale's, The Baked Potato... I went to the Playboy Jazz Festival every year.
Many conversations about Jazz invariably turn to “impressions” and “favorites.” Okay, so let’s turn to “impressions; who were the Jazz musicians who first impressed you and why?
Sarah Vaughan's singing...
Stan Getz's tone and phrasing. I had been listening to Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, and wanted to be a bebop singer. Someone told me to listen to sax players to learn how to improvise, and when I heard Stan Getz, I thought, "Screw singing, I want to play THAT!"
Sonny Rollins - My favorite tenor player, and what a guy!! When I first heard him, I connected right away. I love his spirit, his sound, his choices, his feeling. I have a Sonny Rollins tattoo on my forearm for inspiration.
Staying with your impressions for a while, what comes to mind when I mention the following Jazz musicians:
- Louis Armstrong:
Founding Father of Jazz whose influence is still felt today. Joy, talent, chops and personality, and he turned the world on to jazz!
- Duke Ellington
Master composer and arranger, who broke through the traditional dance band orchestration conventions. He wrote with the soloists in mind – his arrangements and repertoire were dependent on the individual players to complete the whole!
A vessel of the God of music.
- Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker
Game changers, without whom the history of music would have been totally different!
They created bebop and its vernacular. I saw Dizzy play several times.
- Gil Evans
The legendary arranger with ears of gold. He forged new paths in music, especially his collaborations with Miles. Miles Ahead and Birth of the Cool changed my life! Gil's coloristic use of rich textures was innovative, incorporating jazz + Ravel. I always identified with the non-vanilla voicings!! Gil was a big influence on me, and I saw the Gil Evans Orchestra play every Monday night for years. A lovely man.
- Stan Kenton
A key bandleader who launched the career of many greats: Art Pepper, Stan Getz – a gateway for the L.A. cats. On my dad's playlist.
- Gerry Mulligan
West Coast Jazz icon. Fantastic bari player and arranger! I listened to Birth of the Cool one year almost every night when I went to sleep. Godchild is one of my favorites!
- Bob Brookmeyer
Fantastic arranger and trombone player. Thad Jones/Mel Lewis band. Just learned he was in Claude Thornhill's band!
- Herb Pomeroy
Played trumpet in Ellington's band; great arranging teacher. Strong Boston accent.
- Dick Grove
Inimitable composing/arranging teacher in Studio City. A quote a minute: "Music is written for dancing or fucking,""Time is money and people are sight-reading."
- Wayne Shorter
One of my main guys! A beautiful tenor player, composer, and person. His melodic structures and sophisticated use of harmonies, had a big influence on me as a writer (also as a player). I love Wayne's music, from the Messengers to his solo stuff!
- Manny Albam
Key arranger in the 60's and 70's. Used a lot of West Coast guys.
I not as familiar with his repertoire as I'd like to be. On my to-do list!!
- Maria Schneider
A pioneering woman in jazz, who composes and arranges beautiful music. Also a huge advocate for trying to get fair compensation and legislation for musicians in today's atmosphere of streaming. Inspirational and someone I admire. Of course, she also worked with Gil. Weirdly, we never met, even though I was around at the same time. I guess I was hanging more with the band.
- Oliver Nelson
One of my arranging heroes. His arrangements satisfy the brain's love of symmetry. Blues and the Abstract Truth, Screamin' the Blues, and the Goin' Out of My Head and the Wes Montgomery albums were on heavy rotation. I also had an Oliver Nelson/King Curtis album that I loved. Maybe Soul Battle? [Yes, recorded in 1960 also included Jimmy Forrest].
- Bill Holman
One of L.A.'s legendary arrangers who wrote for many key big bands, including Buddy Rich's band. Dick Grove often referred to him, and growing up, I used to hear the Bill Holman big band around L.A.
Switching to the subject of “favorites:”
- What are some of your favorite Jazz recordings?
Definitely just SOME of them...
Kind of Blue (album)
Sonny Rollins - Newk's Time
Dizzy, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt - Eternal Triangle (song)
Miles Ahead
Mingus Ah Um
Herbie Hancock - Headhunters
Bill Evans Trio - Explorations
King Curtis live at Fillmore West
Wes Montgomery - Four on Six
Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 -Look Around
Getz/Gilberto
Brecker Brothers - Heavy Metal Bebop
Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley
Cannonball Adderley Coast to Coast
The Happy Horns of Clark Terry
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - Ugetsu
Oliver Nelson - Blues and the Abstract Truth
Jaco Pastorius (first album)
Charlie Haden - Silence
Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane
Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane
Miles in the Sky
Clare Fischer - Salsa Picante
any Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington albums
- Who are your favorite big band arrangers?
A lot of the guys you mentioned!
Gil Evans
Ellington
Mingus
Clare Fischer (I wore out my copy of Salsa Picante!)
Dizzy Gillespie
Quincy Jones
Count Basie
Oliver Nelson
Don Ellis
- Who are your favorite Jazz vocalists?
LOVE Sarah Vaughan (Sassy's my girl, although I do have 4 of Ella Fitzgerald's stereo speakers...)
Lambert, Hendricks and Ross!
Eddie Jefferson
Eddie Jefferson
Nancy Wilson
Sinatra
Nat King Cole
Mark Murphy
- Who among current Jazz musicians do you enjoy listening to?
As well as jazz, I listen to a lot funk, r&b, I love Rai music, Indian music, New Orleans music, hybrid electronica stuff, which all intersect with jazz. I'd put them all on the list!
Everyone who plays on Shiny!, obviously...
I just heard Eryn Allen Kane (fantastic R&B singer) at The Shed in NYC, and she was unreal!
Geoff Keezer has always been one of my favorite jazz pianists.
Carmen Staaf ( introduced to me by Keezer), who plays on 2 tunes on Shiny! is a super talented pianist. She and Allison Miller, a fantastic jazz drummer, have been doing a lot of projects together, and I love listening to them both!
I love Trombone Shorty
Jon Batiste is divine.
Catherine Russell is a gorgeous singer
Stanton Moore, a New Orleans drummer with a hit, "Here Come the Girls," that I can't get enough of.
Cheb Mami
Hybrid stuff/electronica like Parov Stellar,
Groove Collective, Jamieroquai, Mark Guiliana,
Ray Angry's doing cool stuff at Nublu!
Please describe what your time at UCLA and the Berklee School of Music was like in terms of coursework, instructors, projects and how these educational institutions helped prepare you to become a composer-arranger.
UCLA was 2 classes taught by Don Ray, who was an L.A. TV composer/arranger. He showed us how to figure out timings and make the music fit. Our final project was to record a cue from a Hawaii Five-O (original) episode at a recording studio! That was the first time I heard anything I wrote played by anyone else, and it was quite a thrill! The 20th Century Music class included writing for various small groups: string quartet, woodwind quintet, and other configurations. There again, hearing it in real time with live instruments was invaluable, and I learned about what types of chamber groups exist, and instrument ranges. I realized that I had the ability to write down exactly what I was hearing in my head. I'm not sure how that happened. Don was very encouraging.
Berklee was an amazing experience. My coursework was all music! I was coming from Dick Grove, so I looked at it like graduate school, to get my sax playing chops together (Joe Viola and Bill Pierce), and to write for the recording and performing bands. Every week, I signed up to have a new chart played by a rehearsal band. [Drummer] Steve Wolf played in that band a lot. That was great for workshopping new ideas. But the main gift of going to Berklee was that I made so many great friends and connections. There was an incredible body of talented musicians there at that time: Roy Hargrove, Donny McCaslin, Seamus Blake, Geoff Keezer, Lalah and Kenya Hathaway, Jim Black, Brian Tishy, Steven Wolf, Adam Dorn, John De Servio, Sarah Smith, Jeff Parker, Kenny Rampton, Antonio Hart, Sam Newsome, Andrew Sherman and more! I'm still close friends with a lot of these people, and so grateful for that. I have early recordings of my arrangements these guys played on at Berklee, which is pretty cool!
Let’s talk about how you technically approached creating some of your arrangements. You have been quoted as saying: “My writing is heavily influenced by the TV themes of the 1970s.” Could you elaborate in terms of how you incorporate this specific influence into your charts.
As I am a product of the late 60's and 70's, my writing no doubt reflects the cultural influences of that time. It was a great time for music, and a lot of funk and electric instruments had snuck into traditional jazz. There are so many classic movie themes from that era as well (which I revisited when I was older), but I mainly identified with the music from the TV shows, since I watched them week after week: Love American Style, Dick Van Dyke, Bob Newhart, The Odd Couple, Sanford and Son, The Dating Game, Medical Center, and on and on. All those TV and movie themes are so lyrical and memorable, really well-crafted. And have you ever listened to how funky the theme from Medical Center is? That one makes me so happy. The Moog ascends higher and higher until it becomes an ambulance siren! Lalo Schifrin's a genius.
And to me, that melodic sense and crafting the arrangements stylistically are what it's all about. America isn't walking around singing their favorite 12-tone melody!
The music I listened to on my stereo, however, was The Kinks, Stevie Wonder, Zeppelin, Sly and the Family Stone, Hair (the musical). I didn't consciously start listening to jazz until my teens. When I write now, I draw on all the music I've listened to. Usually, I'll write something, and then afterwards realize it reminds me of a show I used to watch from that era. But, for some reason, I think of composing in terms of scoring a TV show or a movie. It's always been my quirky process.
That said, "Ludie" [track # 3 on Shiny!] was directly inspired by theMannixtheme song! I wanted to write a tune for Lew [Soloff] (whose grandparents had nicknamed him Ludie). When I sat down to write it, the theme from Mannix came into my head, and I couldn't stop singing it. I loved the major feel of the waltz, and it really reminded me of happy Lew! I remembered a melody I had written a few years ago in 4/4, that had that same feel. So I changed the meter to 3/4, and imagined I was writing the theme for a show about Lew. Haha!! Now that would have been a funny show!
"Shiny!" [Track 1] is also a nod to that time. That one had been brewing for awhile, and I'll discuss later how it came about.
You’ve mentioned Dick Grove and Herb Pomeroy as “mentors.” In what way have they shaped your approached to arranging?
I don't know if I'd call Herb Pomeroy a mentor, exactly. He was a great teacher for me, but kind of ... gruff. I learned about writing in the Ellington style, though, which opened up a whole new avenue for me in terms of orchestration and voicings. I still have a lot of exploring to do in that area, but "The Craw" [Track 8] is very Duke-ish, and in "Hello, Wayne?" [Track 5] I used line writing. It's important to pick key placed to use it, where it will be most effective. Herb also had excellent rehearsal skills, and showed me how to make the best use of time on the stand.
Dick Grove was a mentor, and I feel so lucky to have studied with him. He helped shape my approach to arranging more than anyone. Prior to that, I had taken film scoring and 20th Century music classes at UCLA when I was 17 or 18, and I had studied arranging privately with Ray Copeland (trumpeter with Monk and Randy Weston), who taught me about II-V-I, blues, and voice-leading. I knew how to write music, how to get my ideas on paper, but I didn't have a system in place. Dick gave me all that, and opened up my ears to the jazz orchestra. He was brilliant. Not only did he develop a comprehensive jazz harmony method, but he also had techniques for creating an arrangement from start to finish. I had to write for a different style of music every week for one year, including copying the charts, conducting them, and having them played and recorded by hired studio musicians. I wrote the arrangement for "We'll Be Together Again" when I was 22 at Dick Grove, and that was Lew's favorite chart of mine!
Dick was unapologetically honest, dry, hilarious, chain-smoked Saratoga 1000's, and looked me in the eye and told me I had what it took to make it and that I could go far. He listened thoroughly to every chart I wrote, analyzed the scores, and gave me invaluable suggestions, as well as plenty of praise and encouragement. He cared a lot about his students, and no one was happier than he was when one of us hit a home run with a chart. That was a great feeling all around!
You have a new recording coming out on May 17, 2019 entitled Shiny! Could you select two or three tracks from this recording and explain how you approached arranging them?
1. "Shiny!" has the components of two different styles. I originally heard the melody as Pink Panther-ish: mysterious, laid back, sparse rhythm section. But I had also been wanting to write an authentic-sounding 1974 boogaloo chase theme for awhile. I knew I didn't have time to write two more tunes before the recording session so I combined them into one and finessed it until they fit. I hear the rhythm of the boogaloo bass line first. The notes came to me when I decided to make it a blues with a 4-bar vamp at the end, like Watermelon Man. Knowing Will [Lee] was going to be playing, I had no doubt the feel was going to be really groovin'!
The instrumentation was dictated by the style: alto flute, wah-wah guitar, clavinet or B-3 organ, Fender Rhodes, and Randy's wah-wah trumpet (a sound he pioneered)!
I made the intro sound stealthy, a la Schifrin, to foreshadow the A section of the melody. Then the tempo picks up and goes into a boogaloo long enough to establish it, and switches back to mystery when the melody does come in. It contains wide leaps and chromaticism, while still being lyrical. In contrast, B section of the tune is totally simple. It's swingin' with a lighter, "whack-a-doo" feel, and flows right into a ridiculously funky rhythm section pocket for the solos.
The same way I combined two “feels” into one song, I wanted 2 guitar players to solo, and instead of choosing one, I decided to use them both (but it wasn't like a planned Noah's Ark thing...LOL). I was going to have guitar solo/trumpet solo/guitar solo, but decided to put Smokey and Oz back-to-back for contrast, which would build to Randy. When the interlude section repeats in the outro, I thought it would be cool to have Dave Taylor solo over that, initially as a sparse background and building up in dynamics and orchestral weight until it practically drowned him out. That kind of thing happened spontaneously all the time in Gil's band, so I just laid down the framework for Dave. The ending is the B section shout chorus with a tag. Boom!
2. "Son of Creeper" was a tune I was so excited to arrange. When Hiram [Bullock] left us, the world lost one of the greatest guitar players ever! It devastated those of us who were close to him, including Lew, and not a day goes by that I don't think of Hiram. He was a gem and a friend like no other. So there was no question that I was going to use one of his tunes.
I chose "Son of Creeper" because I had always loved that tune (it's got a really great melody) and it was a shuffle, which I didn't have on the album. I had heard him play it so many times as in a power trio with Will and Charley (Drayton), or Jaco and Kenwood. So I started singing it, and realized it would sound great with guitar and alto playing the melody, kind of an SNL vibe with fat chords and funky background lines. And it could be really effective to use the entire band at the end to take it out screaming.
I basically left of the melody in tact and kept the shuffle, but changed the form, and played with the melody and phrasing on the B section (rock). Much like Gil's band, when Hiram played live, the solos could go into completely different styles, forcing a tune to take a hard left into another zone of consciousness. I had been listening to a lot of New Orleans music when I wrote the arrangement, and it certainly seemed like a plausible direction he might have gone in during one of his solos. So I added a "spontaneous" New Orleans brass segment between the B and C sections after the guitar solo. I wanted Mike Stern's guitar solo to be the only full-length solo, so having a bunch of the guys to trade 4's with Paul Shaffer on organ was a great way to get more solos without having 20-minute tunes.
People are curious about how creative people do their work. Do you have a set routine? A particular place or setting that you like to write in? Do you use a piano when you arrange.
I do use a piano when I compose and arrange.
I don't have a set routine for how the ideas come. It all depends on what the arrangement is for. In terms of planning the arrangement, I still go through the same process I did when I was starting out: draw an emotional contour for the chart, figure out who's going to play what where to achieve the desired effects, do a top note sketch, and it's off to the races!
In a big band context, what qualities do you look for in a lead trumpet player; a lead alto player; a rhythm section?
Certain qualities in musicians across the board are important in a large band setting: shows up on time, has a good attitude, brings a pencil, doesn't do the crossword puzzle or play Scrabble during a take...
More specifically, a lead trumpet player's name should always start with Tony and end with Kadleck. (haha!!) Seriously, Tony's one of the best, and a great guy as well. A lead trumpet player who has a versatile tone is always nice. I use Tony as an example because he can play virtually any style and have get the exact right sound, on the money. That's something that I, personally, appreciate and covet, because I don't write in just one style. As opposed to a powerhouse lead player who's only belts out double fortes...who might be better on a pure rock gig. On Shiny!, I used Bryan Davis on second trumpet, an incredibly strong lead player in his own right, who gave Tony solid support and really added a lot to the section sound. He and Tony alternated a couple of the tunes on lead as well, which gave Tony's chops a break.
Lawrence Feldman is the perfect example of a great lead alto player. He's versatile and can deliver in any style, an unbelievable reader, equally accomplished on all the doubles, excellent at sight transposing, a great blender, and he's a great section leader.
A rhythm section has to swing and has to groove. Listening and feel are key.
What projects are you working on? What projects would you like to work on?
Is there a “concept album” that you’d like to write for?
Right now I'm preparing for my album release show on Monday, May 27th (Memorial Day) at The Cutting Room NYC, which everybody should come to. Tickets are available at www.thecuttingroomnyc.com.
I'm eager to start working on a few new ideas I have for tunes and arrangements for the next album.
I'd love to write a concept album! How about a Broadway show, or the songs of The Brothers Johnson, or... music for the Oscars?
I'm available for any and all of that, and can't wait to see what's next on the wacky highway of life!
If you could create a drinks and dinner fantasy scenario, what Jazz luminaries, past and/or present, would you invite and why?
Hiram, Lew, Jaco, Gil, Billie Holiday, Bird and Miles, Monk, Lee Morgan... as well as a bunch of comedians like George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Garry Shandling, Don Rickles, Redd Foxx, Joan Rivers. It would be moderated by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner! And just for fun, I'd invite Buddy Rich and all the Buddy Rich Band alumni, and let them yell at him! Why?... Why not??
Have you written any articles or books about Jazz arranging? If not, do you plan to?
I haven't, but I would love to!
Do you agree with the adage that Jazz can't be taught but it can be learned. If you do, why?
I do. Jazz is about feel and swing. And that can't be taught. You can do finger exercises, play scales, learn harmony, play with metronomes, study voicings and orchestration, but if you don't have that feel and swing inside, telling you to let it out, skill and technique don't mean anything. I hear plenty of music that is well-executed and well-crafted, but if it doesn't move me in some way, I find it boring. The Duke said it best: It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
For Immediate Release Please
Composer/Arranger Lisa Maxwell to release
highly-anticipated project
Shiny!
Boasts all-star big band lineup, dedicated to trumpeter
Lew Soloff
CD AND DIGITAL FORMATS AVAILABLE IN STORES AND ONLINE ON
MAY 17, 2019.
RECORD RELEASE EVENT AT THE CUTTING ROOM, NEW YORK CITY,
MONDAY, MAY 27, 2019 (MEMORIAL DAY) AT 7.30 PM
TO WATCH THE VIDEO: http://bit.ly/Shinypromo
Randy Brecker, Tony Kadleck, Chris Rogers, Trumpets
Wayne du Maine, Bryan Davis
Lawrence Feldman, Alex Foster, Lou Marini, Ada Rovatti, Woodwinds
David Mann, Roger Rosenberg, Claire Daly
Tom "Bones" Malone, Dan Levine, Trombones
Mike Davis, Dave Taylor
John Clark French Horn
Paul Shaffer, Pete Levin, David Delhomme Keyboards
Carmen Staaf, Andy Ezrin Piano
Will Lee, Mark Egan, David Finck Bass
Mike Stern, Oz Noy, Leni Stern, Smokey Hormel Guitar
Danny Gottlieb, Steven Wolf, Ben Perowsky Drums
Will Lee, Daniel Sadownick Percussion
Kenya Hathaway, Will Lee Vocals
Beth Gottlieb Vibraphone
Special Guest: Mocean Worker (Bonus Track Remix)
New York, April 10, 2019 - Celebrated within the jazz community as a multi-talented musician, Lisa
Maxwell, finally releases a long-awaited album of her own material, dedicated to a special cohort.
The lineup reads like a Who's Who of the music world.
TRACKS
1. Shiny! [9:37]
2. Son of Creeper [6:41]
3. Ludie [4:01]
4. We’ll be together again [5:28]
5. Hellow, Wayne? [6:07]
6. Beauty and the Beast [8:53]
7. Israel [4:51]
8. The Craw [4:38]
9. Shiny! Remix [5:18]
All Arrangements by Lisa Maxwell
Compositions by: Lisa Maxwell, Wayne Shorter, Hiram Bullock, John Carisi, and Carl Fischer
Recording Engineer: Noah Evans Recorded at Sear Sound NYC 2018
Mixing Engineer: Paul Wickliffe at Skyline Productions
PRESS CONTACT
Antje Hübner
hubtone PR | New York
phone: 212-932-1667
cell: +49-174-584-6063
antje.huebner@hubtonepr.com
www.hubtonepr.com
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Cal Tjader - An Understated Vibraphonist
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Tjader’s playing, however, was nothing like this. Although he was a drummer and percussionist by background, he seemed to draw on the instincts of a horn player in shaping his improvised lines. They did breathe.” [Ted Gioia, West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960, p.103].
Cal always maintained that his two main influences on vibes were Lionel Hampton and Milt [“Bags’] Jackson. “Hamp” was a banger and “Bags” was a bopper and a blues player without equal. How in the world did Cal fuse such dissimilar styles?
Ted Gioia also notes this divergence and takes this point a step further:
“These disparate strains in his playing came out most clearly in his Jazz work. Where Tjader melded them into a melodic, often introspective style that was very much his own. Even when playing more high-energy Latin numbers Tjader kept a low-key demeanor, building off the intensity of the rhythm section rather than trying to supplant it. For the most part, he came across as an introvert on an instrument meant for extroverts.” [Ibid, pp.103-104].
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Charlie Parker - The 1949 Downbeat Interview
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
The following interview appeared in the September 9, 1949 edition of Downbeat magazine, although at times, the style employed by Michael Levin and John S. Wilson feels more like an interrogation than an interview.
“Pushed further,” “He Admits,” “Whether He’ll Admit it or Not,” these are not phrases usually employed to generate an atmosphere of warmth and cordiality aimed at putting the interviewee at ease.
On the other hand, six years after this was published, Charlie would be dead at the tragically early age of 35, so any primary source about him is invaluable, especially given the hagiography that followed his death. And further to its credit is the amount of accurate and detailed information the article contains about the earlier years of Charlie’s development as an instrumentalist who would uniquely alter the course of Jazz.
The interview appeared in the magazine under the following by-line:
NEW YORK—"Bop is no love-child of jazz," says Charlie Parker.
“The creator of bop, in a series of interviews that took more than two weeks, told us he felt that "bop is something entirely separate and apart" from the older tradition; that it drew little from jazz, has no roots in it. The chubby little alto man, who has made himself an international music name in the last five years, added that bop, for the most part, had to be played by small bands.
"Gillespie's playing has changed from being stuck in front of a big band. Anybody's does. He's a fine musician. The leopard coats and the wild hats are just another part of the managers' routines to make him box office. The same thing happened a couple of years ago when they stuck his name on some tunes of mine to give him a better commercial reputation."
Asked to define bop, after several evenings of arguing, Charlie still was not precise in his definition.
"It's just music," he said. "It's trying to play clean and looking for the pretty notes."
Pushed further, he said that a distinctive feature of bop is its strong feeling for beat.
"The beat in a bop band is with the music, against it, behind it," Charlie said. "It pushes it. It helps it. Help is the big thing. It has no continuity of beat, no steady chug-chug. Jazz has, and that's why bop is more flexible."
He admits the music eventually may be atonal. Parker himself is a devout admirer of Paul Hindemith, the German neo-classicist. He raves about his Kammer-musik and Sonata for Viola and Cello. He insists, however, that bop is not moving in the same direction as modern classical. He feels that it will be more flexible, more emotional, more colorful.
He reiterated constantly that bop is only just beginning to form as a school, that it can barely label its present trends, much less make prognostications about the future.
The closest Parker will come to an exact, technical description of what may happen is to say that he would like to emulate the precise, complex harmonic structures of Hindemith, but with an emotional coloring and dynamic shading that he feels modern classical lacks.
Parker's indifference to the revered jazz tradition certainly will leave some of his own devotees in a state of surprise. But, actually, he himself has no roots in traditional jazz. During the few years he worked with traditional jazzmen he wandered like a lost soul. In his formative years, he never heard any of the music that is traditionally supposed to inspire young jazzists—no Louis, no Bix, no Hawk, no Benny, no nothing. His first musical idol, the musician who so moved and inspired him that he went out and bought his first saxophone at the age of 11, was Rudy Vallee.
Tossed into the jazz world of the mid-'30s with this kind of background, he had no familiar ground on which to stand. For three years he fumbled unhappily until he suddenly stumbled on the music that appealed to him, which had meaning to him. For Charlie insists. "Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn."
Charlie's horn first came alive in a chili house on Seventh Avenue between 139th Street and 140th Street in December 1939. He was jamming there with a guitarist named Biddy Fleet. At the time, Charlie says, he was bored with the stereotyped changes being used then.
"I kept thinking there's bound to be something else," he recalls. "I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn't play it."
Working over "Cherokee" with Fleet. Charlie suddenly found that by using higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, he could play this thing he had been "hearing." Fleet picked it up behind him and bop was born.
Or, at least, it is reasonable to assume that this was the birth of bop. All available facts indicate this is true. But Parker, an unassuming character who carries self-effacement to fantastic lengths, will not say this in so many words. The closest Charlie will come to such a statement is, "I'm accused of having been one of the pioneers."
But inescapable facts pin him down. He says he always has tried to play in more or less the same way he does now. His earliest records, which were cut with Jay McShann in 1940 (on Decca), back him up on this. They reveal a style that is rudimentary compared to his present work, but definitely along the same lines: light, vibrato-less tone; running phrases, perkily turned; complex rhythmic and harmonic structures.
From 1939 to 1942, Charlie worked on his discovery. He admits he thought he was playing differently from other jazzmen during this period. Indicative of his queasiness about saying who did what before with which to whom is his answer to our query: Did Dizzy also play differently from the rest during the same period?
"I don't think so," Charlie replied. Then, after a moment, he added, "I don't know. He could have been. Quote me as saying, 'Yeah.'"
Dizzy himself has said that he wasn't aware of playing bop changes before 1942.
Whether he'll admit it or not, the calendar shows that Charlie inaugurated what has come to be known as bop. In some circles he is considered to be the only legitimate boppist.
"There's only one man who really plays bop," one New York reed musician said recently. "That's Charlie Parker. All the others who say they're playing bop are only trying to imitate him."
Despite his unwillingness to put anybody down, a slight note of irritation creeps into Charlie's usual bland mien when he considers the things that have been done by others in an attempt to give his music a flamboyant, commercial appeal. The fact that Dizzy Gillespie's extroversion led the commercially minded to his door irks Charlie in more ways than one. As part of Dizzy's buildup, he was forced to add his name to several of Charlie's numbers, among them "Anthropology,""Confirmation" and "Shaw ‘Nuff."
Dizzy had nothing to do with any of them, according to Charlie.
As for the accompanying gimmicks that, to many people, represent bop, Charlie views them with a cynical eye.
"Some guys said, 'Here's bop,'" he explains. "Wham! They said, 'Here's something we can make money on.' Wham! 'Here's a comedian.' Wham! 'Here's a guy who talks funny talk.'" Charlie shakes his head sadly.
Charlie himself has stayed away from a big band because the proper place for bop, he feels, is a small group. Big bands tend to get over-scored, he says, and bop goes out the window. The only big band that managed to play bop in 1944, in Charlie's estimation, was Billy Eckstine's. Dizzy's present band, he says, plays bop, [but it] could be better with more settling down and less personnel shifting.
"That big band is a bad thing for Diz," he says. "A big band slows anybody down because you don't get a chance to play enough. Diz has an awful lot of ideas when he wants to, but if he stays with the big band he'll forget everything he ever played. He isn't repeating notes yet, but he is repeating patterns."
The only possibility for a big band, he feels, is to get really big, practically on a symphonic scale with loads of strings.
"This has more chance than the standard jazz instrumentation," he says. "You can pull away some of the harshness with the strings and get a variety of coloration."
Born in Kansas City, Kan., in 1921, to a family that was in relatively comfortable circumstances at the time, Charlie moved with his parents to Olive Street, in Kansas City, Mo., when he was seven. There were no musicians in his family, but Charlie got into his high school band playing baritone horn and clarinet. He had a special fondness for the baritone horn because it helped him win medals awarded to outstanding musicians in the band. Not that he played the horn particularly well, but it was loud and boisterous and dominated the band so much the judges scarcely ignore it.
In 1931, Charlie discovered jazz, heavily disguised as Rudy Vallee. So that he could emulate Rudy, his mother bought him an alto for $45. Charlie settled on the alto because he felt the C melody wasn't stylish and a tenor didn't look good. His interest in the alto was short-lived, however, for a sax-playing friend in high school borrowed it and kept it for two years. Charlie forgot all about it until he was out of school and needed it to earn a living.
It was back in his school days, he says, that his name started to go through a series of mutations that finally resulted in Bird. As Charlie reconstructs it, it went from Charlie to Yarlie to Yarl to Yard to Yard-bird to Bird.
After his brief exhilaration over Vallee, Charlie heard no music that interested him, outside of boogie-woogie records, until he quit high school in 1935 and went out to make a living with his alto horn at the age of 14. As has been mentioned, he was under the influence of none of the jazz greats. He had never heard them. He was influenced only by the necessity of making a living, and he chose music because it seemed glamorous, looked easy and there was nothing else around.
This primary lack of influence continued as the years went by. The sax men he listened to and admired — Herschel Evans, Johnny Hodges, Willie Smith. Hen Webster, Don Byas. Budd Johnson — all played with a pronounced vibrato, but no semblance of a vibrato ever crept into Charlie's style.
"I never cared for vibrato," he says, "because they used to get a chin vibrato in Kansas City (opposed to the hand vibrato popular with white bands) and I didn't like it. I don't think I'll ever use vibrato."
"The only reed man on Charlie's list of favorites who approached the Bird's vibrato-less style was Lester Young.
"I was crazy about Lester," he says. "He played so clean and beautiful. But I wasn't influenced by Lester. Our ideas ran on differently."
When Charlie first ventured onto the music scene in Kansas City, the joints were running full blast from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Usual pay was $1.25 a night, although somebody special could command $1.50. There were about 15 bands in town, with Pete Johnson's crew at the Sunset cafe one of the most popular. Harlan Leonard was in town then, along with George Lee's and Bus Mosten's little bands. Lester Young, Herschel Evans, and Eddie Barefield were playing around. Top local pianists were Roselle Claxton, Mary Lou Williams, Edith Williams and Basie.
Charlie spent several months picking up on his alto. On Thanksgiving night, 1935, he got his first chance to play for pay when he was rounded up with a small group of others to do a gig in Eldon, Mo. He was offered $7 for the night, not because he was any good but because practically every musician in Kansas City was working that night and the guy who hired him was going crazy trying to find men to fill the date. Driving to Eldon, they had a crackup. Two of the men were killed, and Charlie got out of it with three broken ribs and a broken horn. The man who had hired him paid his medical expenses and bought him a new horn.
In February 1936, Charlie started out for Eldon again with another group, and this time he made it. The rest of the combo was a shade older than Charlie. J.K. William, the bass player, was 72. The rest were in their 30s and 40s. Charlie was 15. But, as the baby of the group, he got a lot of attention and advice. He had taken guitar, piano and sax books with him and set about learning to read seriously. The pianist, Carrie Powell, played for him and taught him simple major, minor, seventh and diminished chords.
By the end of the Eldon job, in April, he could read fairly well but not quickly. He went back to Kansas City and got his first club job at 18th and Lydia at either the Panama or the Florida Blossom (he can't remember which). It paid him 75 cents a night.
"The main idea of the job," Charlie recalls, "was to he there and hold a note."
Soon after this, he tried jamming for the first time at High Hat, at 22nd and Vine. He knew a little of "Lazy River" and "Honeysuckle Rose" and played what he could. He didn't find it difficult to hear the changes because the numbers were easy and the reedmen set a riff only for the brass, never behind a reedman. No two horns jammed at the same time.
"I was doing all right until I tried doing some double tempo on 'Body and Soul,' Charlie says. "Everybody fell out laughing. I went home and cried and didn't play again for three months."
In 1937 he joined Jay McShann's band, but left after two weeks. Later he was arrested for refusing to pay a cab fare. His mother, who didn't approve of his conduct then, wouldn't help him out, and he was jugged for 22 days. When he got out, he left his saxophone behind and bummed his way to New York.
For three months he washed dishes in Jimmy's Chicken Shack in Harlem. This was at the time Art Tatum was spellbinding late-hour Shack habitues. Charlie got $9 a week and meals. Then he quit and bummed around a while, sleeping where he could.
"I didn't have any trouble with cops," he recalls. "I was lucky. I guess it was because I looked so young." He was 17.
After he had been in New York for eight months, some guys at a jam session bought him a horn. With it he got a job in Kew Gardens that lasted for four months. even though he hadn't touched a horn in one and a half years. Then he moved into Monroe's Uptown House with Ebenezer Paul on drums, Dave Riddick on trumpet, and two or three other guys. There was no scale at Monroe's. Sometimes Charlie got 40 or 50 cents a night. If business was good, he might get up to $6.
"Nobody paid me much mind then except Bobby Moore, one of Count Basie’s trumpet players," Charlie says. "He liked me. Everybody else was trying to get me to sound like Benny Carter."
Around this time, the middle of 1939, he heard some Bach and Beethoven for the first time. He was impressed with Bach's patterns.
"I found out that what the guys were jamming then already had been put down and, in most cases, a lot better."
At the end of 1939, shortly after his chili house session with Biddy Fleet, he
went to Annapolis, Md., to play a hotel job with Banjo Burney. Then his father died and he went back to Kansas City, where he rejoined McShann.
Charlie cut his first records in Dallas, in the summer of 1940, with McShann. His first sides were "Confessin’,""Hootie Blues" (which he wrote), "Swingmatism" and "Vine Street Boogie."
His solos with McShann are on "Hootie,""Swingmatism,""Sepian Bounce,""Lonely Boy Blues" and "Jumpin’ Boy Blues." He tried doing a little arranging then but he didn't know much about it.
"I used to end up with the reeds blowin' above the trumpets," he explains.
The McShann band went from Texas to the Carolinas to Chicago, back to Kansas City headed east through Indiana and then to New York and the Savoy. Charlie drove the instrument truck all the way from Kansas City. While they were at the Savoy, Charlie doubled into Monroe's, where he played with Allen Terry, piano; George Treadwell (Sarah Vaughan's husband) and Victor Coulsen, trumpets; Ebenezer Paul, bass; and Mole, drums.
He left McShann at the end of 1941 and joined Earl Hines in New York early in 1942. This was the Hines band that also had Dizzy, Billy Eckstine and Sarah Vaughan. Charlie had known Dizzy vaguely before this, and it was about this time they both started getting into the sessions at Minton's.
It was on this visit to New York, in late 1942 after he had worked out his basic approach to complex harmony, that Charlie heard Stravinsky for the first time when Ziggy Kelly played Firebird for him.
Charlie played tenor for the next 10 months he was with Hines. He started out getting more money than he had ever seen before — $105 a week. With McShann he had gotten $55 to $60. But the Bird was sent on an Army camp tour in a Pabst Blue Ribbon Salute package put together by Ralph Cooper, and their salaries started going down. This, with ongoing hassles, eventually broke up the band. Charlie dropped out in Washington, in 1943, and joined with Charles Thompson ("Robbins Nest" composer) at the Chrystal Caverns.
Later he came back to New York and cut his first sides since the McShann discs—the Tiny Grimes "Red Cross" and "Romance Without Finance" session for Savoy. Charlie worked off and on around New York during 1943 and 1944. In the spring of 1944 he was playing the Spotlite on 52nd Street, managed by Clark Monroe of Monroe's and on the site of the old Famous Door, when Doris Sydnor, the hatcheck girl there, raised an interested eye at him. Charlie, according to Doris, didn't notice it.
"He ignored me very coldly," she reports.
But Doris was a persistent girl. She didn't even know what instrument Charlie played when she first met him, but she stacked records by the Bird and Lester Young on her phonograph and listened and listened until she caught on to what they were doing. She and Charlie were married on Nov. 18, 1945, in New York.
Right after his wedding, Charlie went out to the coast with Dizzy to play at Billy Berg's. He stayed there after the Berg's date was finished.
On the coast he started cutting sides for Ross Russell's Dial label until his physical [mental?] breakdown in August 1946 landed him in a hospital. His opinion of these Dial discs is low.
"'Bird Lore' and 'Lover Man' should be stomped into the ground," he says. "I made them the day before I went into the hospital. I had to drink a quart of whiskey to make the date."
Charlie stayed in the hospital until January 1947. Russell, who had hired a psychiatrist and a lawyer, got him released then into his custody and staged a benefit for the Bird, which produced some cash and two plane tickets back east.
But Parker is bitter about Russell's role in this. He says that Charlie Emge of DownBeat was equally helpful, that Russell refused to sign the papers releasing him unless he. Parker, renewed his contract with Dial. Later, Parker claims, he found that he had needed no outside help to get out.
When he originally signed with Russell, Charlie was already under contract to Herman Lubinsky, of Savoy records. Before leaving New York, he had signed with Lubinsky to cut some 30 sides. Four of these were done before he went to the coast—"Ko-Ko,""Billie's Bounce,""Now's the Time" and "Anthropology." Lubinsky bought all four tunes from Charlie for $50 apiece.
Today Charlie has come full cycle. As he did in 1939, when he kicked off bop in the Seventh Avenue chili house, he's beginning to think there's bound to be something more. He's hearing things again, things that he can't play yet. Just what these new things are, Charlie isn't sure yet. But from the direction of his present musical interests — Hindemith, etc. — it seems likely he's heading toward atonality. Charlie protests when he is mentioned in the same sentence with Hindemith, but, despite their vastly different starting points, he admits he might be working toward the same end.
This doesn't mean Charlie is through with bop. He thinks bop still is far from perfection and looks on any further steps he may take as further developments of bop.
"They teach you there's a boundary line to music," he says, "but, man, there's no boundary line to art."
For the future, he'd like to go to the Academy of Music in Paris for a couple of years, then relax for a while and then write. The things he writes all will be concentrated toward one point: warmth. While he's writing, he also wants to play experimentally with small groups. Ideally, he'd like to spend six months to a year in France and six months here.
"You've got to do it that way," he explains. "You've got to be here for the commercial things and in France for relaxing facilities."
Relaxation is something Charlie constantly has missed. Lack of relaxation, he thinks, has spoiled most of the records he has made. To hear him tell it, he has never cut a good side. Some of the things he did on the Continental label he considers more relaxed than the rest. But every record he has made could stand improvement, he says. We tried to pin him down, to get him to name a few sides that were at least better than the rest.
"Suppose a guy came up to us," we said, "and said. 'I've got four bucks and I want to buy three Charlie Parker records. What'll I buy?' What should we tell him?"
Charlie laughed.
"Tell him to keep his money," he said.
Coda
We both were tremendously impressed by the cogency and clarity of Parker's thinking about music. Musicians, classical or jazz, are traditionally unanalytical about the things they create. Parker, however, has a definite idea of where he wants to go and what he wants to do, though he is properly vague as to the results.
His insistent vagueness as to exactly what bop is to him is no pose. Parker is a musician fighting for his proper mode of expression, a vastly talented man who hasn't the schooling yet to expand as completely and properly as his musical instincts would have him do.
If we understand his crypticisms correctly, Parker feels that traditional jazz has strongly lacked variety and economy of form as well as the wealth of discipline and control of ideas to be found in modern formalistic music. On the other hand, he feels the symphonic score of today lacks drive (contained, perhaps, in his concept of dynamics) and warmth, and that his group of musicians will help inject these aspects traditional to the jazz scene.
Parker's insistence that bop has no connection with jazz is interesting as an example of a younger musician bursting through forms that he finds constricting and that he feels have outlived their usefulness. We suspect his position might be difficult to maintain.
He undoubtedly is seriously searching for a synthesis of the best in formalistic and folk music. If he can achieve it, he will pull off a feat seldom before accomplished in music. Many composers have utilized folk themes and folk feeling, but none has completely integrated the colors and emotional patterns into scored music.
He is, like all good musicians, inordinately impressed with technique. He has a fondness for lush string tones that, as he uses more of it, will settle more into balance, as will his taste for such technical musicians as Jimmy Dorsey.
Parker feels very strongly on the subject of dope in all its forms. He told us that while he was still a young boy in Kansas City he was offered some in a men's room by a stranger, when he hardly knew what it was. He continued to use it off and on for years until his crackup in 1946, and says bitterly that people who prey on kids this way should be shot.
Parker told us flatly: "Any musician who says he is playing better either on tea, the needle or when he is juiced is a plain, straight liar. When I get too much to drink. I can't even finger well, let alone play decent ideas. And in the days when I was on the stuff, I may have thought I was playing better, but listening to some of the records now, I know I wasn't. Some of these smart kids who think you have to be completely knocked out to be a good horn-man are just plain crazy. It isn't true. I know, believe me."
Parker struck us as being direct, honest and searching. He is constantly dissatisfied with his own work and with the music he hears around him. What will come of it, where his quite prodigious talent will take him, even he doesn't know at this stage.
But his ceaseless efforts to find out, to correct, to improve, only bode well for himself and that elderly progenitor, Jazz.”
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『Charlie Parker with Strings：The Master Takes』
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Baby Dodds by George Wettling
© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Jazz drumming has on occasion been referred to as The Engine Room with the obvious implication that the drummer powers the music.
Of course, there have been many groups throughout the history of the music that didn’t use a drummer, but the vast majority of Jazz groups employ a drummer and, in some cases, it’s hard to imagine the music without one - think Big Band Jazz.
Drummers push the music according to the way they feel it and play it over the instrument. Some do this very quietly, but no less insistently, while others play aggressively to the point of dominating the music instead of directing it.
Some musicians like to be pushed while others resent the direction that an assertive drummer takes them.
Like the bass player, the drummer plays all the time, but unlike the bass player, a drummer can be heard to be playing all the time - the instrument becomes a force that helps to give the music a sense of momentum [along with the bass].
I think that a crucial element in the continuity and consistency of sound rendered by the drummer is how it answers the question of what this effort is in the service of - to wit -showing off or accompanying?
The point is not to overshadow the music but to get underneath it and lift it by giving it a pulse.
And although it may not sound fashionable, I’ve always thought that the best way for a drummer to become the “heartbeat” of a Jazz group is by using the bass drum, whether sounded or implied [feathered].
As the following tribute to Baby Dodds by George Wettling explains, this precept goes back to the earliest days of Jazz drumming when the Jazz beat and the bass drum were practically synonymous.
“You take a 28-inch bass drum; a 61/2-inch, all-metal snare drum; an overhead pedal; four tuned cowbells; a woodblock; a slapstick; a 16-inch Chinese crash cymbal; a 16-inch Zildjian cymbal; and a 10-inch Chinese tom-tom. You've got the drum setup that Baby Dodds used at the Lincoln Gardens (formerly Royal Garden Cafe) in Chicago when he played there with Joe Oliver in the middle 1920s.
I'll never forget the first time I heard Baby with the great Oliver band. The band had a beat that guys are still trying to get. I can still feel and hear it. From that time on, I became a Baby Dodds fan.
After the Oliver band left the Lincoln Gardens, Baby went with Lil Hardin, Johnny Dodds, and Louis Armstrong to the Dreamland Cafe. This was at the time Louis made his famous Hot Five and Hot Seven records for Okeh.
The Dreamland had a balcony, and you could sit up there and look down on the band, and many a night Dave Tough and I would pool our money and sit up there as long as our money held out and dig Baby. We both agreed that Baby played with a clean, forceful beat and, above all, didn't mess up the band with a lot of technical nonsense.
Baby used both feet and hands when he played. In those days the important thing was keeping time, and that meant a steady foot on the bass drum. The only time fancy foot beats were put in was where they belonged — that is, when you fit them in with the rhythm of the tune they were playing.
Baby was what you would call a subtle drummer with a variety of color and effects. He also had the greatest press, or shimmy, roll I have ever heard.
When Armstrong left the Dreamland for New York to join Fletcher Henderson's band, Baby went to Kelly's Stables with brother Johnny's combo.
The Stables was slightly different from the Lincoln Gardens and the Dreamland, mainly because the prices were higher. I did manage to get in often, but many times Muggsy Spanier, Frank Teschemacher, and I would sit outside on Rush St. in my old Nash sedan and just listen to the wonderful rhythm and sounds coming from inside upstairs, especially Baby's drums, Johnny's clarinet, and Natty Dominique's trumpet.
In the days when Baby was doing his greatest drumming, the recording engineers were not as booted as they are today, so you can't really get the entire picture of what Baby was up to by listening to his records. Most drummers who recorded then were confined to playing on woodblocks or the rims of both snare and bass drum and now and then were allowed to hit a cymbal.
When it came to playing on rims and woodblock, Baby was a master. He had a triplet beat that was really something, and Dave Tough, George Stafford, Chick Webb, and I all did our own versions of it. We used it mostly behind a piano chorus. Listen to Dave Tough with Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven playing Twilight in Turkey, George Stafford playing I Want to Stomp, Mr. Henry Lee with Eddie Condon, Chick Webb playing Liza with his own band, or some of the recordings I made for Commodore records with the Bud Freeman Trio, and you will hear what I mean.
If you want to get a good idea of Baby's style, I suggest you try to get the drum solos he recorded for Rudi Blesh on Circle records. These are strictly drum solos with no other accompaniment, and the recording is far superior to that of the '20s.
As I remember, Baby was the first drummer I ever heard play the basic cymbal beat that we all use today on our ride cymbal, that is, in 4/4 time, a quarter and two-eighths and a quarter and two-eighths, or one, two an, three, four an, etc.
Baby usually played this beat on his 16-inch Zildjian cymbal. I often told Baby how crazy I was about the cymbal and how I wished I had one like it.
In what I thought to be a kidding way, Baby said he would will it to me. All through the years, whenever I would go to hear Baby play or we would happen to meet some place, Baby would always say "Don't forget, George, I'm willing you that Zildjian — that's yours." The last time I saw Baby was at a party I played for Francoise Sagan, the French writer. We posed for pictures together. Baby was crippled by a couple of strokes he had had. Shortly after that night, Baby went back to Chicago. After a couple more strokes, he died.
A few weeks later, I received a phone call from Frances Reitmeyer, who had also been a friend of Baby's. Miss Reitmeyer told me that she had attended Baby's funeral and had talked with Dorothy Dodds, a relative of Baby's.
Miss Dodds told her that Baby's drums were being sent to Tulane University in New Orleans for posterity, but she had told the men who came to pick up the drums that everything could go except the Zildjian cymbal. That was to go to George Wettling. You can imagine how that touched me — to know that Baby had remembered after all those years.
I wrote to my nephew, David Shutter, who lives in Chicago, and had him pick up the cymbal. He brought the cymbal to me in New York, and I made some recordings recently using it.
It sounds better than it ever did.”
Source:
March 29, 1962
Down Beat
Source:
March 29, 1962
Down Beat
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