JazzWax

Interview: Hal McKusick (Part 1)

Few alto saxophonists alive today have seen and played as much jazz as Hal McKusick. His first paying job was in 1939, at age 15. Then, starting in 1943, he played alto in many of the most challenging bands of the time—from Les Brown, Woody Herman and Boyd Raeburn to Claude Thornhill and Elliot Lawrence.

Hal also played with virtually every major jazz great—including Art Farmer, Al Cohn, Bill Evans, Eddie Costa, Paul Chambers, Connie Kay, Barry Galbraith and John Coltrane.

What made and makes Hal significant is the purity of his sound and his ability to handle and swing the most complex arrangements. Even Charlie Parker in 1945 was wowed by Hal's feathery tone. And Lee Konitz and Paul Desmond surely must have been taken with Hal, since they seemingly adapted virtually the same delicate, melodic phrasing that Hal pioneered.

I spoke with Hal by phone last week and, interestingly, his voice and personality are strikingly similar to the sound of his horn—calming and lyrical yet firmly in command.

These days, many jazz listeners are unfamiliar with Hal McKusick's name or his music, which is a shame. That probably owes something to the fact that Hal spent 1958 through 1972 with the CBS Staff Orchestra doing studio work for  popular television shows of the time. Today, Hal performs selectively and teaches at a local private school, where he writes and arranges for the student band.

Back in the 1940s and 1950s, Hal had a sound all his own and one that was much in demand. During this period, altos with a distinct sound included Parker, Benny Carter, Johnny Hodges, Art Pepper, Lee Konitz, Paul Desmond, Phil Woods, Jackie McLean, Cannonball Adderley and Hal McKusick—and that's not an overstatement.

To understand Hal's significance, you have to look at his rapid rise and strong relationships early on with many of jazz's most influential players. Hal was born in 1924, in Medford, Mass., and his story is remarkable. Let Hal tell it:

"When I was young, my family moved from Medford to Newton, where my father managed Noble's Milk Farm. While my dad ran the farm, we bred and raised horses. When I was 8, my mother asked me what I wanted for a Christmas present. I said a clarinet. She agreed to buy one only if I promised to practice seven days a week and take a lesson once a week. I promised. [Pictured: Franklin Park in Medford, MA.]

When she gave me that instrument, I wouldn't let it go. I practiced for hours and was really fortunate to have a terrific teacher at school—Frank Tanner. He used me in the school band to play clarinet and alto at age 9. For some reason I caught onto reading music very quickly.

When I was 15 years old, I played at the Old Howard Theater in Scollay Square in Boston. It was a big burlesque house back in the late 1930s. That same year I formed my own band, and we played a bar-club in Dorchester backing a guy whose act consisted of shooting cigarettes out of his wife's mouth as she stood sideways. She had an indentation between her eyes caused by a grazed bullet. He'd also throw knives at her while she stood against a board, with the knives landing around her outline.

One night, the guy's wife got sick. So he offered me an extra $5 to stand in for her. That was more money than I was making playing on the job, so I said sure. He said he wouldn't use the pistol, he'd just use the knives. He said he'd blindfold me so I wouldn't flinch. [Pictured: Boston's Scollay Square]

So he covered my eyes and stood me up against the board. He was wired but he was steady so I trusted him. What did I know at 15? So he starts throwing the knives at me and just then, my mother showed up to get me. She never allowed me to go back there again. She must have freaked out seeing those knives fly at my head. 

My first big-band break was in 1942 with Don Bestor [pictured], who had a handful of hits in the 1930s and backed up Jack Benny on the radio. We toured on the road that summer when Bestor wasn't playing with Benny.

Don retired in early 1943, but because he liked my playing so much he made an appointment for me to see Joe Glaser in New York. Glaser was a huge music agent and Louis Armstrong's manager. So I took the train from Boston to New York and sat in Glaser's waiting area from 10 am to 5 pm.

Finally Glaser came out and said, "What are you doing here?" I said "I have an appointment with you." He asked what I played. I told him alto sax. He asked if I had my horn. I  said I did. He went back into his office and came out with  Don Kramer, Les Brown's manager. Don asked if I had time to go over to Newark, N.J., to the Adams Theater to audition. I said I did. So off I went. [Pictured: Louis Armstrong and Joe Glaser]

When I got there, Les Brown's [pictured] band came off the stage, and I went down into the basement with the sax section to audition. The guy who was leaving was the second alto player—Hank D'Amico, who was going into the service or into Benny Goodman's band, I can't recall exactly.

I auditioned for Les, he liked they way I played, and I got the job on the spot. I was 18. I was with Les for about six months, into mid-1943. That's when I received my draft notice. I left the band in Chicago and took the train to Boston. When I got to the draft office there, they gave me a choice of going into the Army immediately or waiting to be called later for the infantry. I decided to take my chances by deferring until the next round. Eventually I was able to do my service in a band entertaining troops in the U.S.

By the time I wrapped up the draft issue, Les Brown was in California, and I got a nice offer to be lead alto in Dean Hudson's band and to write charts. I stayed with Hudson for a few months until Woody Herman needed an alto.

I joined Woody's band around Christmas and was with him for two or three months into 1944. Then alto saxophonist Johnny Bothwell called me to join Boyd Raeburn. Bothwell had been in Woody's band and liked my sound. So I left Woody just when Allen Eager was being replaced by Ben Webster.

I joined Raeburn [pictured] at the Lincoln Hotel in New York. Raeburn was far out. His band was probably one of the best orchestras in the mid-1940s . Man, what a band. Dizzy Gillespie was there. So was Benny Harris, Al Cohn, Serge Chaloff, Trummy Young, Tadd Dameron and Don Lamond. The arrangers were Johnny Mandel, George Handy and Johnny Richards. We were the first to record Dizzy's A Night in Tunisia. It was beautiful playing with those guys.

Oscar Pettiford [pictured] also was in the band. We were roommates on the road. He was a great guy but was tough to handle when he drank, and he drank often. Benny Harris and I had to hold him down many times. Oscar was way into the music, and we shared a lot of it together. He was a good buddy. I was very taken with his playing and honored to share private time with him. We'd talk music. It was so sad how he died. He loved riding his bike, and one day in 1960 he was riding stoned and hit a curb in Copenhagen. He went over the handlebars and never recovered.

Raeburn was way ahead of his time. He wasn't much of a player on the tenor, baritone or bass saxes, with the last one largely for show. But he enjoyed music and brought together an amazing group of musicians.

Boyd was friendly but there was an edge. I think he recognized his failings as a musician. He wasn't really a top player. He always ran out of money and work. And then there was that fire at Palisades Amusement Park in Jersey in August 1944 that burned up many of his charts. That was tough.

After the fire, things started to turn with Raeburn. We were at the Raymore-Playmore Ballroom in Boston before Christmas in 1944. Al Cohn was in the band then. I loved Al's playing but he was losing all his solos to Johnny Bothwell, and that didn't make me happy. So I split from the band with pianist George Handy [pictured] right after a performance. The two of us went out to California, and that was the start of a new life for me.

Raeburn called in mid-1945 to ask me to rejoin in the band. He said Johnny Bothwell was no longer in the band and that he wanted me to take the solo spot. So in May 1945, I rejoined the band for five months.

During this period, Raeburn was dating his vocalist, Ginnie Powell [pictured]. She was beautiful, and they had a stormy relationship. Once she left him for another band and was rumored to be having an affair. When she came back to Raeburn's band, Boyd roughed her up at the hotel. After that, the two of them were back together as if nothing had ever happened and they eventually married.

Not too longer after we were in Hollywood recording V-Discs—those records made by the government for soldiers overseas. Dizzy, Bird, Milt Jackson and Stan Levey were there recording, too. I was playing a ballad for alto that George Handy and I had written. A beautiful orchestration.

I was playing with my eyes closed and when I was done, I opened them and there was Charlie Parker sitting right in front of me. He had just come out to California. Bird said, 'Oh man, man, jeeze, what a sound, what a sound!' I was blown away.  I said to him, 'Do you realize what you're saying?' I had heard everything he had recorded up until that point, which wasn't a lot. What he said to me that day was so inspiring. Afterward, I used to go to Billy Berg's on Vine Street to hear him and Dizzy every night. He was incredible out there."

Tomorrow, I'll have more of my interview with Hal on his band days with Claude Thornhill, the quirky humor of Al Cohn, a critical meeting with George Russell in a Greenwich Village shop, working with Bill Evans, Art Farmer and others.

JazzWax tracks: In 1944, Boyd Raeburn's band was ahead of Stan Kenton's when it came to experimenting with jazz and roaring  band arrangements. Raeburn's charts were complex, textured swingers, and his sound was for listening  and marveling rather than for dancing, which is probably why the orchestra never caught on with the buying public.

As a side note, Chet Baker's brilliantly sentimental recording of Forgetful is nearly a direct lift from the version recorded by Raeburn's vocalist, David Allyn, in 1945.

Raeburn's 1944-45 band—featuring Hal McKusick and many of the top musicians mentioned above—can be found on many excellent CDs here. Among the best ones are Jewells (Savoy) and Boyd Raeburn: 1944-45 (Circle). Jewells is available at iTunes for $11.99.

JazzWax video clips: There are two interesting Boyd Raeburn clips on the web. One is here and features vocalist Ginny Powell. The other is a bio clip that will give you a full sense of why Raeburn was so important to the development of jazz. It can be found here.

Miles on Harry

"In the late winter of 1953, the Harry James band was booked at the Bandbox. Next to the Bandbox was Birdland, 'the Jazz Corner of the World.' Between sets, Harry James frequently went to see Miles Davis play with his group...Surprisingly, Miles Davis had admired Harry James's sound while he was growing up in East St. Louis, Illinois. 'I just love the way [Harry James] played. I almost broke my teeth trying to get that big vibrato sound that Harry had. You've got to start way back before you can play bop. You've got to have a foundation.' From their meeting at Birdland, a lasting friendship was formed between the two trumpet titans."

—Peter J. Levinson, Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James (1999)

Hands of Fire

In the spring, record and concert producer Ivan Acosta invited me to a birthday party celebration for Candido Camero at the recording studios of  RazorHead Music on West 26th St. in New York.

The legendary conga player had just turned 86 years old—an age when most people walk on a boardwalk someplace and talk to the television set.

Instead, we were at the studio to fete not only Candido's longevity but also listen to an unmastered recording of his new Latin-jazz album, which was captured live in June and November of 2006.

I've known Candido for some years through Ivan Acosta, so as a present I burned him a CD with about 20 different tracks on which he accompanied different jazz musicians. Just burning that CD was a mind-blower. Included on there were dates Candido played with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Erroll Garner, Billy Taylor and Dinah Washington. That's all that would fit. Candido recorded with more than 200 jazz greats, from Duke Ellington and Ray Charles to Stan Kenton and John Coltrane. You'd have an easier time listing the ones he didn't play with.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Candido, along with a handful of other Cuban and Puerto Rican percussionists, were the go-to guys for jazz artists looking for a Latin-flavored backdrop. Starting with Chano Pozo in the 1940s, there was Candido, Sabu Martinez, Carlos "Patato" Valdes, Ray Barretto and others who could deliver the complex and much sought-after authentic conga and bongo beats.

But no one except Candido played with more jazz superstars. Sitting next to Candido that afternoon at the party, I asked him how the Dinah Washington date in 1954 came about (After Hours With Miss D), since he and Jackie Davis, the organist, play on only two tracks (A Foggy Day and Pennies From Heaven, which features Paul Quinichette).

"We were playing on another session when she came in that day," Candido said. "She loved our sound so much she asked us to stay. They just added us to the group." I love it: The Queen of the Blues goes Latin at the spur of the moment! You can almost hear Dinah say in that whip-snap voice, "Heyyyy. I dig that. No, no, man, you guys stay, sit, sit. We're gonna work you in."

Shortly after our chat, Candido's new recording began to pour through the studio's monitor speakers. Then the elevator doors opened and in walked Tony Bennett dressed to the nines. Bennett was on his way to some affair later than afternoon. The two old masters embraced, and Tony shook hands with everyone. Their friendship dates back to The Beat of My Heart, Bennett's 1957 album for Columbia, and Candido appears on several Bennett albums throughout the 1960s.

Tony sat down and for the next hour hung out listening with the rest of us to Candido's remarkable live performance.

The album I heard that afternoon has just been released. It's called Candido/Hands of Fire: 60 Years of Cuban Music Exuberance.

Produced by Acosta, the album offers a full range of Candido's beats and rhythms, featuring a strong band of Latin superstars playing boleros, mambos and you name it. One of the great Latin vocalists, David Oquendo, sings on a number of tracks.

I spent the day listening to the CD yesterday, and the recording is quite exciting and hypnotic. Candido's passion for life and for playing is unmatched, and his history is singular. Candido took the conga, which had been something of a novelty addition to recordings, and made it a serious jazz instrument.

Candido has had quite a run of late. This past Tuesday, the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Program announced that Candido—along with Quincy Jones, Andrew Hill, Tom McIntosh, Joe Wilder and Gunther Schuller—would be the group's 2008 jazz masters.

About a year ago I ran into Candido at a large supermarket on the Upper West Side. As we shook hands, I couldn't help but notice that his hand was still leathery, stone-like and fierce. As his vice-like grip enveloped mine, I also realized that my hand was holding what every great jazz musician over the last 60 years had held in admiration.

Wax tracks: Candido's Hands of Fire: 60 Years of Cuban Music Exuberance can be found here.

For a sampling of Candido downloads, grab the two tracks mentioned above from After Hours With Miss D, Erroll Garner's Night and Day from Erroll Garner's Finest Hour and Dizzy Gillespie's A Night in Tunisia and Con Alma from Afro.

My favorite Candido album is The Billy Taylor Trio with Candido (1954), which appears here. It's the perfect blend of great jazz piano and sublime Latin percussion. Unfortunately, it's not available at iTunes.

Wax tracks: To see Candido perform at Birdland in 2003, go here.

Wax doc: Ivan Acosta's 2005 documentary of Candido, Hands of Fire, can be found here or by e-mailing Acosta at Latinjazzusa@rcn.com.

The Montgomery Sound

When Wes Montgomery went into New York's Reeves Sound Studios in January 1960 to record The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery, no one anticipated the excitement the album would generate. While Montgomery's ability on electric guitar was already evident and the song selection for the date was ideal (three standards and five cutting-edge originals), how the album would play out with the jazz listening public and critics was a wild card.

By the time the LP was released later in the year, the critics were raving and Montgomery, with one album, had solidified his position as a jazz great. He would never again record as a sideman.

The reason why Incredible was—and remains—exceptional is that it exhibits brilliantly Montgomery's full range of improvisational tricks—known as the "the three-tier technique."

Incredible—in addition to functioning as a chops showcase—was fresh and ambitious, and unlike anything recorded before by a jazz guitarist. Montgomery's reach, strength and ideas were a significant cut above—equivalent, in this raw regard, to Erroll Garner. Both were self-taught, and through their musical ignorance invented impossible, ingenious styles because, frankly, they didn't know any better.

Montgomery's "three-tier technique" unleashed a trio of improvisational styles—each different than the other and each delivering a different impact on the ear. There was the peculiar downward thumb stroke technique, the dramatic use of octaves to run lines, and block chords that put what one critic called a big band in Montgomery's hands.

As Montgomery told critic Ralph J. Gleason in an interview for Guitar Player Magazine in the 1960s:

"My aim is to move from one vein to the other without any trouble. Like, if you're going to take a melody or counterpoint or a unison line with another instrument, do that, then maybe drop out at a certain point, then maybe next time you'll play phrases and chords, or maybe you'll take an octave or something. That way you'll have a lot of variation there. The only difference is if you can control each of them. Still, the biggest thing to me is keeping a feeling, regardless [of] what you play. So many cats lose their feeling at various times, not through the whole tune, but at various times, and it causes them to have to build up and drop down, and you can feel it."

What Montgomery also brings to Incredible that we don't hear in previous jazz guitar albums is soul. There's an earthiness to his playing that's warm and exuberant, almost as if he's playing an acoustic guitar. To the listener, his sound is everything you want the guitar to be. It swaggers, it flirts, it's coy, it's dexterous and it's darting.

Montgomery's quote from James Sallis' 1982 book, The Guitar Players: One Instrument and Its Masters in American Music (1982) says it all:

"I began working hard and experimenting with techniques, seeking out the ones that felt good and were more expressive of my thoughts. My explorations continued for quite a while. My technique improved, developing out of particular playing situations. More and more of me passed through my amplifier to those who took the time to listen."

Most jazz guitarists before Montgomery used a plectrum (or "pick") made of plastic, wood or bone in their right hand. It took the stress off the thumb and delivered precision. Montgomery gave up the pick in favor of his right thumb early on because he didn't like the hard sound. Asked if he had decided on his own to play with his thumb, Montgomery told an interviewer back in 1965:

"That just came accidentally. You see, at the time [1943], after I had accepted the fact that I was going to play with my thumb, it was still for my own amusement. If I had deiced to be a professional musician, I'd have gone right back to the pick."

As for Montgomery's octave playing, it was almost impossible to copy at the time because of the speed needed to execute the sound and the required use of the pinky in the player's weaker hand.

And then there were Montgomery's block chords. Montgomery usually worked in these chunky clusters as textured filler when running improvisational lines or, to even greater effect, when medium-tempo songs hit their crescendo.

Using just one approach to improvise was too restrictive for Montgomery and only scratched the surface of what he could do with the electric guitar.

Montgomery recorded Incredible on January 26 and 28 of 1960 while recording as a sideman on Nat Adderley's Work Song album for Riverside on January 25 and 27.

Pull out Incredible and listen to Airegin. It opens with Montgomery blazing with his thumb technique. He soon shifts to the octave technique on the song's bridge. His opening solo is so astonishing that Tommy Flanagan at first seems lost though he soon get traction and starts laying down silvery runs.

D-Natural Blues follows with a completely different sound. This walking blues employs the octave technique first, followed by the thumb technique. Four on Six is a tour de force of Montgomery's thumb technique.

West Coast Blues is a moderate waltz and features all three techniques. The song opens with the thumb technique, moves to the octave technique, and then comes the block chords.

Interestingly, Mr. Walker starts with blocks chords, moves to the octave technique and then shifts to the thumb technique.

Gone With the Wind, which is probably my favorite track, opens with the thumb technique, shifts to octaves and peaks with block chords. Gone With the Wind never ceases to amaze me, not only for these techniques but also for its relentless swing. Whenever this track ends, I often find myself starting it over again, and I always hear something new.

Incredible won Montgomery the 1960 Downbeat Critics' New Star Award. In 1964, Montgomery moved to Verve Records for a series of albums with orchestra and strings. Then, in 1967, he joined Creed Taylor at A&M, where he recorded pop-rock standards of the day, attracting criticism for selling out. But with seven kids, Montgomery had little choice but to follow the money. Montgomery died of a heart attack in June 1968 at age 42.

The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery remains ahead of its time today, and the reason it's revered by everyone who hears it will be evident with the first track's opening notes.

Wax tracks: This CD must be heard as a remaster. I purchased a Japanese import of Incredible some years ago, and the sound is as warm and clear as can be. It can be found here. But don't overspend; the newly remastered version here is terrific.

Wax pages: Professor-guitarist Reno De Stefano of the University of Montreal wrote his 1995 doctoral dissertation on Wes Montgomery. The Montgomery quotes above are from his paper. You'll find excerpts from his excellent work, "Wes Montgomery's Improvisational Style, 1959-1963: The Riverside Years," here.

Wax clips: Dig Montgomery's mix of techniques on Impressions from March 1965 here. Then check out Mr. Walker here. Pay particular attention to Montgomery's pinky, which helps run the octave technique.

Grant Stewart

The mail arrived two days ago with a surprise—a copy of In the Still of the Night, the latest CD from Grant Stewart recorded a year ago and released in February by Sharp Nine. The package was from the album's producer, Marc Edelman, the same person who produced the Tardo Hammer CD I wrote about on Monday.

I'm always suspect of CDs by contemporary jazz artists and producers' claims of excellence, probably because so many recordings today are soul-less, superficial and bereft of ideas, which is what jazz in its essence is all about.

When I popped in the Stewart CD and hit "play," I was taken aback. Up came the title track, and Stewart's tone sounded eerily similar to Sonny Rollins'. Not a clone, mind you, but a sound that was deeply influenced by Newk's approach, intellect and sophisticated sense of humor. 

As the first track played, I slipped out the liner notes and saw  they were by Ira Gitler, the jazz critic and literary legend. I had to laugh when I read Ira's lines:

"Whenever you hear the first bars of the opening, title number of In the Still of the Night, you will think, just as I did, talking out loud inside my head, 'This guy can play!' And that conviction continues to build as he plays.' "

Tell me about it. That's exactly what happened to me. As I listened, I began to realize that more than just the opener was special. Track after track was exceptional, and the song lineup was perfect. Backed by Tardo Hammer on piano, Peter Washington on bass and Joe Farnsworth, Stewart takes runs with enormous energy and agility. Like Sonny, the 36-year-old Toronto native  who lives in New York knows when to pause, blow, circle and slash. And he doesn't run dry of ideas.

As I mentioned, the taste in song selection is superlative:

In the Still of the Night is taken at breakneck speed, yet Stewart never gets lazy or coasts. Stewart loves the bottom of the tenor and makes great use of the lower register.

Theme for Ernie is a medium-tempo ballad that lets Stewart dart and soar, and he does so with verve and control.

Stewart smartly avoids being cliche on Burt Bacharach's Wives and Lovers, opting instead for a burnished interpretation that feeds off the waltz rather than sucking up to the melody. This is a dangerous song to take on by any jazz artist, since there's enormous risk in sounding like you're gigging at the Hilton. Stewart wisely keeps it real.

On Autumn in New York, Stewart uses a Dexter Gordon-esque approach to this moody Vernon Duke ballad. And like Dex, Stewart's choices are pretty without being mawkish.

The high point of the album for me is If Ever I Would Leave You. It's taken at a spirited pace that generously shows off Stewart's chops. Rollins' rendition from 1962 (What's New?/RCA) used a bossa nova beat and featured Jim Hall on guitar. Stewart plays the tune straight but doubles Rollins' pace to great effect.

For kicks, I played Sonny's and Stewart's recordings simultaneously to see what would happen. Both recordings appear to be in the same key, and the two tenors sounded as if they were playing a duet.

If you buy Stewart's album or download the tune, try this if you own the Sonny Rollins version. The contrast is a gas, especially when Sonny sits out and Jim Hall solos, which occurs exactly while Stewart is playing. Hall appears to be playing on both albums! Then when Stewart sits out and his trio plays, they're backing Sonny, who has returned at this point. Extraordinary. It's truly a joy to hear them play "together."

Thelonious Monk's Work and Billy Strayhorn's Lush Life are jazz classics, and Stewart handles Monk playfully while pulling back for the Strayhorn ballad.

The CD ends with a clever choice—Loads of Love from No Strings, an obscure Richard Rodgers' Broadway show from 1962. Like Rollins, Stewart can take any good pop tune and turn it into an original work.

Stewart is due in the studio again at the end of the month. I, for one, am looking forward to hearing what's next for this tenor.

Wax tracks: By my count, this is Grant Stewart's eighth CD as a leader. You can find In the Still of the Night here. If you're just downloading tracks at iTunes, grab In the Still of the Night, If Ever I Would Leave You and Loads of Love. Or just download the whole thing. It's tops from start to finish. To hear samples of the album at Stewart's web site, go here.

Wax clips: Doubt the Rollins comparison? See and hear Stewart in action blowing on This Could Be the Start of Something Big and two other tracks here. Click on the song titles.

Taylor and the Fair Lady

Last week I decided to spring for a new pair of monitor speakers for my office. My turntable had been seized some years ago by my daughter when she developed a passion for vinyl and all things authentic and good.

At the time, I wired up a pair of inexpensive, juice-box sized Radio Shack speakers for her—in case her interest was short lived. It wasn't, but when she headed off to college a couple of months ago, I reclaimed my Technics SL-1100A from the mid-1970s, and the newly purchased B&W 686 2-way bookshelf speakers sound great. She's going to love them when she returns on break.

I adore jazz CDs—especially those that have been remastered here or abroad. But I still have a warm spot for records, and for the past couple of years, each time I've passed a used book store, I've popped in to see what albums have surfaced.

And like every vinyl nut temporarily without a turntable, I still picked up records—even though I knew I wouldn't be able to listen to them with any satisfaction for a couple of years.

So it was with great pleasure, after wiring up the new speakers over the weekend, that I finally got to listen to my recent LP booty. (Yeah, I'm heading down to the basement to spring open my corrugated boxes of rare LPs this weekend; don't tell my wife.)

The first record I put on was a beaut that I found in a dusty neighborhood book store back in June. The album is a mint LP of Billy Taylor's My Fair Lady Loves Jazz (1957). When I brought the disc up to the front of the store and asked the old owner if we could do the deal for $10 cash, he slid the disc out, turned it around and around, and finally barked, "fine." Then, with a dismissive wave of his hand, added, "The show was a piece of crap."

Maybe so, but not this album. It features (on various tracks) Gerry Mulligan, Jimmy Cleveland, Don Elliott, Charlie Fowlkes, Tony Ortega, Ernie Royal, Jay McAllister and Don Butterfield—with arrangements by Quincy Jones.

Long out of print (the CD is going for around $26 used while the LP on Impulse is selling for around $20 on eBay), this recording is pure delight. I'm not especially big on My Fair Lady (though I wouldn't go so far as to say the score was "crap"). The breezy, skippy Broadway tunes don't typically lend themselves neatly to jazz interpretation. Most recorded attempts to hip up the transformed Cockney lass sound too candy-coated and silly to be of much interest to the serious jazz ear.

But this album is different. The charts find Quincy Jones still in a serious jazz mode, and the Billy Taylor Trio (Ed Thigpen on drums and Earl May on bass) plays bright and jazz-centric throughout. To quote from George Hoefer's liner notes:

"Quincy Jones selected a medium-size ensemble of top instrumentalists  to achieve a variety of tonal colors and unexpected voicings in his arrangements. There are short solos by the members of the ensemble, sensitive and dynamically phrased ensembles, but most of the emphasis is on Taylor's piano.

The arranger's intention was to retain the character of the score while making use of the various elements of the jazz language. With the fine musicianship available, collectively and individually, and intelligent writing, Jones has succeeded in presenting an imaginative album that should please all the numerous fans of My Fair Lady."

Interestingly, the album was originally released on ABC Paramount Records in 1957 as a mainstream easy listening LP but then re-released in the early 1960s by Creed Taylor on ABC's new Impulse label as a jazz disc. Creed knew a good thing when he heard it, and with Billy Taylor on the date, the jazz integrity was securely in place.

My favorite track is I Could Have Danced All Night, which is taken at a splendid pace, with Taylor's rich playing framed by the gentlest, cat-like, late-1950s instrumental writing by Jones.

And that's what makes this album so pretty and impressive. It's jazz first, My Fair Lady second. 

Wax tracks: My Fair Lady Loves Jazz was released in 1994 as a CD and can be found here. To listen to a few mp3 snippets of this album, go here and scroll half-way down to the album.

But wait—if you want the tracks, you'll find them here on a Billy Taylor CD import called Billy Taylor Meets the Jazz Greats (Lone Hill).

Wax clips: To see Billy Taylor and Tommy Flanagan play Tadd Dameron's Our Delight, go here. A fascinating duet.

Then go here to see Barney Kessel play I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face.

A pleasant reading, but Taylor's recording from 1957 still tops the Fair Lady chart for me.

Jo and Benny

Between West Coast arranging dates in August 1962 and June 1963 for Sarah Vaughan, Benny Carter squeezed off a handful of charts in February 1963 for Jo Stafford's Getting Sentimental Over Tommy.

Why the Stafford album for Reprise features arrangements by Carter, Billy May and Nelson Riddle is beyond me. Reprise was Sinatra's label at the time, so perhaps spreading the work around was payback of some kind. Or more likely one of the three pen men couldn't knock off all the charts due to other obligations, so the task kept getting passed down the line.

At any rate, one of Carter's arrangements for the Stafford album—The One I Love—is a nifty and powerful piece of big band writing that shouldn't be missed.

By any measure, the two Carter-Vaughan albums for Roulette Records in 1962 and 1963 were a terrible mistake. The charts for The Explosive Side of Sarah Vaughan and The Lonely Hours range from mediocre to downright awful.

Not only were the song choices miserable but Vaughan appears bored out of her mind. Consider the hallelujah time rock beat Carter chose for I Believe in You, or the relentlessly accelerating Falling in Love With Love that  finds Sassy virtually shouting the words over the orchestra toward the end.

Except for the charts for Honeysuckle Rose and Great Day, the rest are, to put it politely, not Carter's best outings.

These two albums (and many others like them from the dawn of the 1960s) remind you that many money-minded jazz artists and sticky West Coast producers of the time must be held partly responsible for the artform's demise. When you hear albums like these, you find your soul frantically waiting at the airport for the Beatles.

By contrast, Carter's The One I Love and Oh Look at Me Now from the Jo Stafford album are solid works. While the Stafford album, to be fair, is cloy, these two tracks are marvelous  executions.

At this point, I must confess a certain fondness for Stafford. Her warm delivery always sounds like someone's apron-clad mother singing in the kitchen while baking pies. A good percentage of the recordings Stafford made in the 1950s were arranged by her husband, Paul Weston, and many were brilliant charts. 

Swingin' Down Broadway (Columbia/1958), for example, is perhaps the best example of Weston's chart work created for Stafford's powdery execution. The album includes Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe, Speak Low, It Never Entered My Mind, How High the Moon and others. The arrangements are all knockouts, and Stafford is at her peak.

Carter's The One I Love from 1963 is a brassy tribute to Sy Oliver, who wrote song's original chart for Tommy Dorsey in 1940, when Sinatra, backed by Jo Stafford and the Pied Pipers, made it a hit.

Carter opens the 1963 chart with the trombones and trumpets hitting the same downbeat hard and then has the reeds and trombones work off each other in the early bars. Then Jo comes in swinging with the lyrics as Carter has the reeds run riffs around her.

You can't help but notice the purity and strength of Stafford's voice here. While much has been written about Sinatra's breath control and how he learned this trick from Dorsey's trombone playing, Stafford also could sing without seeming to catch a breath. You have to listen hard on this track to hear where she inhales.

After the first chorus, a vocal group jumps in behind Jo, similar to the Dorsey recording. Then the band returns, followed by a break filled by a tenor sax solo. It's pure finger-popping pop, and Carter's chart is a driving foot-tapper.

Stafford and the vocal group take the song out, and Carter's arrangement winds down in a fashion similar to the way Billy May wrapped up Nat Cole's Walking My Baby Back Home—with that tight, celery-snap ending.

Much of Stafford's "easy listening" work in the 1950s and 1960s is touch and go for jazz listeners. Some albums are more successful than others, and too many of them suffer from syrupy treatments and too-earnest vocals. But for my money, the album Swingin' Down Broadway and Carter's chart for The One I Love are supreme Jo, apron and all.

Wax tracks: The rights to Swingin' Down Broadway and many of Stafford's Columbia albums during this period are now owned by Stafford's Corinthian label.

While mint copies of the original album appear on vinyl from time to time for about $35, the album's tracks can be found on the Stafford CD, Broadway Revisited. The CD is available here.

The Benny Carter chart for The One I Love is available on Jo Stafford: The Big Band Sound and can be found here.

Unfortunately, neither is available at iTunes.

Wax clips: To see Jo Stafford in 1947 singing The Gentleman Is a Dope, go here.

Even better, check out Jo and Ella Fitzgerald together on a TV special in 1961 here. Dig these cool pros working over a medley of love songs.

Both singers are keenly aware of each other's talents and circle each other like cougars. Listen as Jo brazenly hits high notes effortlessly and bends notes. And despite the scripted wisecracks, dig Jo and Ella change keys and play with the songs. Ella knows she's getting a run for her money yet she remains in control.

The two are clearly having a blast—and they're doing it sitting down!