Waxing and musings. Are jazz releases from Spain the dirty little secret of passionate jazz listeners? A close friend wrote me an email last week crisply reminding me that the Definitive label out of Spain is among the most abusive 'rip-off' labels of the European Union. Last week I had mentioned that the complete Buddy De Franco-Sonny Clark sessions were available on Definitive in my interview series with Buddy.
For those unaware of what the fuss is about, here's a recap—and my friend isn't completely off base. European copyright laws last 50 years, tossing recordings into the public domain once that period elapses. What does this mean? Anyone in Europe can copy recordings and sell them—including all U.S. albums released prior to 1961—and not be in violation of laws or owe a Euro in royalties. So labels like Fresh Sound, LoneHill Jazz, Definitive and others find clean LPs or CDs, make copies, re-package them with cover and liner-notes art and issue them to consumers worldwide, including in the U.S. [The U.S. version of the Teddy Charles Tentet, left, and the European Complete Teddy Charles Tentet version, right]
Two problems: First, the artists don't receive royalty payments. Second, these European releases often are timed to coincide with the issue of U.S. box sets. U.S. labels typically invest hard time and money to create lovingly restored jazz discs, often with comprehensive liner notes. Definitive's goal is to create a dirt cheap (by comparison) set and provide a knock-off alternative at roughly the same time.
Which is dirty pool and a shame. But my response to my concerned friend was "So what?" Let me explain from the listener's perspective. No one loves jazz artists more than I do. If it were up to me, they'd receive a sizable government check each month just for their artistic service to this country. But 50 years after the fact, artists rarely see much in the way of royalties even when their material is reissued here. Creative accounting takes care of that. As for Euro labels submarining U.S. box sets, there's really no comparison between the high-end boxes created here and the Euro equivalent in terms of care and consistent quality (I recently read liner notes to a European set that consistently referred to the big band trombonist as "Tony Dorsey").
I think even the original artists would agree that after 50 years, they'd rather see their material available to young and old rather than watch the mailbox each day for a small royalty check. If there's a villain, it's the U.S. record companies that continue to sit on great music from the 1950s rather than issue it digitally. Which would undercut the European labels, since they are only available on CD here. Ask yourself this: Where would jazz listeners be if all those great recordings from the 1950s weren't available at all?
Ed Thigpen (1930-2010), a graceful drummer best known as a member of the Oscar Peterson Trio in the late 1950s and 1960s and whose brush technique could be as forceful as his stick work, died January 13th in Copenhagen, where he had lived since 1972. He was 79. [Photo by Philippe Lévy-Stab]
In the 1950s, Thigpen recorded with a wide range of leading artists, including Dinah Washington (After Hours with Miss D), Joe Newman (Jazz for Playboys), Billy Taylor (My Fair Lady Loves Jazz) and Gil Melle (Thigpen is on many of the Blue Note and Prestige recordings I wrote about last week here).
But it was Thigpen's lengthy tour of duty with Peterson and Ray Brown that brought him the most acclaim. His first album with the pianist was A Jazz Portrait of Frank Sinatra in 1959. The release was quickly followed by a marathon recording session in August 1959 during which the trio recorded songbook-album tributes to nine different composers.
Perhaps the highpoint of Thigpen's work with Peterson was West Side Story, which featured the drummer employing a seemingly endless series of drum techniques. Among my favorite examples of Thigpen's later work can be found on Wig Is Here, an album led by Gerald Wiggins on piano and Major Holley on bass. The 1974 Thigpen tracks are You Are the Sunshine of My Live, Oh Give Me Something to Remember You By, Lover, FBOT, Edith Is the Sweetest and There Is No Greater Love.
Here's Thigpen on Cubano Chant, exhibiting his broad range of delicate drumming techniques...
Nelson Riddle. Wish you had been on hand to see Nelson Riddle conduct a studio orchestra? On March 5th and 6th, singer Shawnn Monteiro will perform backed by a 17-piece orchestra in The Nelson Riddle Show: Studio Sessions, featuring arrangements by the late, great arranger-conductor.
The Riddle family has pulled original arrangements from their vault for the event. Many have not been performed in a generation. These include Lorelei from Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Gershwin Songbook, Peggy Lee's Jump for Joy and Sinatra's At Long Last Love. On hand will be Chris Riddle and sister Rosemary Acerra to recount memories of their legendary dad.
Where: Tim McLoone's Supper Club in Asbury Park, N.J. Time: Dinner at 6 pm; show at 7 pm. Tickets: $79.95, which includes a prix fixe dinner. More information: 732-774-1400.
Video clip 1: It's 11 degrees in New York. You know what that means? Time for another great bossa nova clip (stay with the opening dialogue)...
Video clip 2: Carl Woideck found this interesting mashup featuring Ellington's music against Beyonce's Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)...
Saluting the producers. Following my post last Sunday praising the contribution of jazz producers of the 1950s, Chris Fine, son of C. Robert Fine, the legendary engineer on sessions for Verve, EmArcy and other labels, sent along the following:
"I totally agree with you about the contribution jazz producers made. I would extend those comments to music in general of the time (late 1940s through the late 1960s). So many great albums of all genres owed their success to these producers as well as the musicians. Non-jazz pop examples: George Martin, Tommy Dowd, Paul Rothchild, Mitch Miller, Phil Spector, Lou Adler, Jerry Wexler [pictured] and many others. Classical examples abound as well.
In those days, you couldn’t have a credible record company without a professional producing staff. Lots of these folks were highly-trained musicians in their own right and could play right along, compose part or all of a tune, arrange or challenge the most ornery musician."
New blog. Pianist Joe Alterman had a field day at the recent National Endowment for the Arts event featuring a virtual who's who of jazz legends. You can read about Joe's stellar interactions here.
CD discovery of the week. Dig swinging big bands? Really raging, swinging bands? Back in 1996, drummer Frank Capp recorded Play It Again Sam (Concord) with his Juggernaut band. All of the compositions and arrangements are by Sammy Nestico (that's Sammy on the cover on the upright piano). The album rocks and purrs like crazy from beginning to end. Capp is a Stan Kenton veteran and a monster small group and big band West Coast stick-man. The album includes trumpeter Conte Candoli, saxophonists Jackie Kelso and Pete Christlieb, and pianist Gerald Wiggins. Best of all, this is a band led by a fierce drummer, and you can hear his leadership on every track.
By the way, if you're in Canoga Park, CA on February 12th, you can catch Capp with West Coast jazz legends Dave Pell, Med Flory, Bill Fulton and Jim Hughes at the Back Room at Henri's. More information: (818) 348-5582.
Sadly, Frank Capp's Play It Again Sam is out of print on CD but may be available at online download retailers. Try typing the album's name into Google. Hats off to Peter Sokolowski for bringing it to my attention.
Oddball album cover of the week. This gem showcasing three jazz cats swinging on a line was issued by Allegro in the 12-inch LP era. It included Standard radio transcriptions from 1951 with Norvo, guitarist Tal Farlow and bassist Charles Mingus. The art director was no mouse and certainly gets points for picking up the tabs.
By 1954, the clarinet was all but finished as a solo instrument. Benny Goodman was largely a nostalgia act. Artie Shaw was completing his final recordings with his Gramercy Five. And other leading jazz musicians who played the "stick" did so out of necessity for studio work or as a secondary instrument. One of the only full-time practitioners exploring new ground was Buddy De Franco. But Buddy was fully aware of the clarinet's image problem. Its happy, pleading sound was dated and too closely linked to pre-war jazz styles such as Dixieland, Chicago jazz and swing. So Buddy set out to reinvent the clarinet and its image by playing bebop. He was determined to find a way to make the clarinet relevant at a time when more hard-charging jazz styles were emerging and the trumpet was again becoming the dominant solo instrument of young jazz stars. [Photo of Buddy De Franco by Ray Avery/CTSImages.com]
In Part 2 of my interview with Buddy on his Sonny Clark recordings between 1954 and 1956, the legendary clarinetist talks about Clark's style, the group's breakup and the musician he and Clark worshiped most:
JazzWax: What was Clark like as a bandmember? Buddy De Franco: Sonny was a great person. He not only was a great jazz player but he also was easy to work with. Some players you get in your group have an air of hostility or they present problems. Sonny was different. He was upbeat most of the time and had a great sense of humor.
JW: What made his playing style different? BDF: He emulated Bud Powell and idolized Art Tatum [pictured]. At the time, Sonny was listening to all the good players. He loved Oscar Peterson, for instance. But his idolization of Tatum was essential to who he was. Many people forget that Tatum was the first truly modern jazz player—on any instrument.
JW: Is the appeal of Clark's sound in his chord voicings? BDF: It wasn’t that the chords were different. It was how he employed them. It was the pulse and happy feeling he got on the keyboard. Some players I’ve had over time were excellent but had a more morose feeling to what they were doing. The bond between a soloist and pianist in a small group is strong. What one plays is often reflected in the other. That's what you hear on those recordings with Sonny. JW: Do you have a favorite quartet or quintet recording with Clark? BDF: I don't listen to them that way. The problem is that after I record and the tape is in the can, it’s very difficult for me to comfortably listen to the result. Even though there are plenty of good and exciting things on there, I’ll hear a number of areas I wish I had done differently. JW: Why did the group break up? BDF: In part because of the growing number of recordings that I was doing for [Verve producer] Norman Granz [pictured] as the 12-inch LP era started in 1956. Remember, I was in Los Angeles during that period recording, which is where Norman was based, so the work picked up considerably. But mostly, there comes a time in any group's lifetime when you realize you did what you wanted to do and that’s it.
JW: So there was no single turning point or event? BDF: No, there was nothing specific. There just comes a time and place where you say, “Well, let’s try something else.” You realize that you've contributed what you wanted to. I kept in touch with Sonny over the years until he died in 1963.
JW: Were these your most cutting-edge recordings? BF: [Laughs] No. That would probably have to go to the albums I made in the early 1960s with accordionist Tommy Gumina. We were dealing with polytonal expression. It was the most technically advanced group I had worked with. So advanced that we could empty a room in 10 minutes [laughs]. Toward the latter months of that group's existence, Tommy had to go to the bank just to make payroll. The group was a refreshing experience for me.
JW: Where do your recordings with Sonny Clark stand in your list of accomplishments? BDF: Definitely high up the list. Along with my recordings with Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, Terry Gibbs and Rob Pronk with the Metropole Orchestra in Holland.
JW: Just curious—what did you and Sonny talk about during your down time? BDF: We spent a lot of time talking about music. We’d meet for breakfast and spend the day doing different things and talking about the group and our musical preferences. For us, Charlie Parker was always in the picture. He influenced all of us and taught everyone who listened carefully that phrasing and the intuitive feeling of jazz have to come from you. [Photo of Charlie Parker by Esther Bubley]
JW: So what are we hearing in Parker’s playing that makes everyone stop and take notice? BDF: You’re hearing the depth of his soul and being.
JazzWax tracks: The Buddy De Franco quartet recordings for Verve with Art Blakey, Kenny Drew and Milt Hinton can be found on Mr. Clarinethere or The Complete Mr. Clarinet Sessionhere, which includes two additional tracks. Unfortunately, the MGM sessions (from June and July 1952) are available only on a Japanese CD. The Metropole Orchestra album (1981), Nobody Else But Me, with arrangements by Rob Pronk, is available here.
JazzWax clip: Here's a fascinating clip from Mr. Clarinet in April 1953. It's swing meets bop meets hard bop all in one track. The song is But Not For Me. Buddy is on clarinet, Kenny Drew on piano, Milt Hinton on bass and Art Blakey on drums. Pay particular attention to Buddy and Blakey playing off each other and the percussive chords used by Drew...
Clarinetist Buddy De Franco has had a series of astonishing careers. He has been a leading swing era musician, a big band leader, a bebop headliner, an early participant in merging small-group jazz with the American Songbook, a polytonal experimenter, and champion of all forms of the music. Buddy's first 10 years alone are remarkable. In 1943 he recorded with Gene Krupa, then joined Tommy Dorsey and Charlie Barnet's bands in the mid-1940s, played with George Shearing in the late 1940s, led his own orchestra from 1949-52, recorded in Count Basie's small group in 1950 and teamed up with Oscar Peterson starting in 1953. But in 1954, Buddy hired pianist Sonny Clark and for 2 1/2 years, the two musicians made a series of recordings that remain a gorgeous fusion of swing, bebop and hard bop.
In Part 1 of my two-part interview with Buddy, 86, the legendary clarinetist talks about forming a small bebop group and hiring pianist Sonny Clark:
JazzWax: Your bebop quartet actually started in 1952 and featured pianist Kenny Drew, bassist Curly Russell and drummer Art Blakey. Buddy De Franco: Yes. Milt Hinton replaced Curly. That was an exciting group. Then in early 1954, Art [pictured] wanted to form his own group, The Jazz Messengers. That group became so successful that people would come up to me in later years and say that they remembered when I was in Art’s group [laughs].
JW: How did Sonny Clark replace Drew? BDF: In 1954, Kenny Drew [pictured] gave notice and told me he had his replacement lined up. He said once we got to San Francisco, he’d have the pianist sit in so I could hear him. When we arrived at the Blackhawk [in San Francisco], Kenny brought Sonny Clark in. I loved him right away. He was interesting and intelligent, and played with a happy, skippy feel. When I heard Sonny, I knew instantly we were musically compatible in terms of what we were trying to do with modern jazz. Drummer Bobby White and bassist Gene Wright joined around this time, too.
JW: What was special about Clark from a musician's perspective? BDF: It’s the give and take. I might be improvising a line and Sonny [pictured] would come through with an idea. And in a split second he’d embellish it. Everything happened fast, but in harmony. It was so exciting.
JW: Who wrote the arrangements for the group? BDF: Everybody wrote. We’d start playing a song, and as we played, ideas would come and they’d become part of the song.
JW: Did your period with Clark change you as a musician? BDF: I wouldn’t say the experience changed me. It’s not a question of someone simply pointing you in another direction. Our playing went along with my constant development. As a musician, you have to progress. And as you progress, whoever is playing with you either will hinder or help you. Kenny Drew and Sonny Clark [pictured] both were supportive. They helped and fueled my idea of what I was playing and where I wanted to go.
JW: What direction were you heading in? BDF: I was aiming for a different harmonic approach, which finally became my signature sound on the clarinet. I had been listening a great deal to the classical composers—Ravel, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Stravinsky, of course. All those classical writers influenced jazz players. They influenced my harmonic concept.
JW: How so? BDF: I wanted to create a continuum, a free-thinking form. Even though the music in our quartet was structured, I played along those upper structured triads. Without getting too technical, they're the additional notes that belong to a basic, three-note chord.
JW: That's a lot to think about on the job. BDF: [Laughs] You have to think about it when you’re practicing, not while you’re playing. The idea is to play fluently among three separate upper structure triads. And create and invent ideas while doing so. Sonny was doing the same thing. He was feeding me the basic chord structures and alternates at the same time. He would know in a split second which alternates I was working on at the time. You don’t do this stuff deliberately. It comes naturally. I used to practice six hours a day to ensure that it did.
JW: What was Clark's personality like? BDF: Sonny was a lot of fun. He was lighthearted and happy, which is why we connected. I remember we were in Hawaii on tour. We had a job for four weeks in some club near Waikiki Beach [pictured in the 1950s]. During the day, we’d all go swimming. Sonny had a lady friend with him so he liked to spend time lounging on the sand. Bobby White, my drummer, was teaching me to snorkel. One day I was in the water by myself snorkeling, as an amateur. Sonny was on the beach. All of a sudden I panicked and started flailing around like an idiot. In my panic I lost the snorkel and thought I was going to drown.
JW: What happened? BDF: In the middle of this turmoil, I remembered what Bobby had told me: "If you get in trouble, cool your brain, lie on your back and get your wits." So I did that. I relaxed on my back and I came around. Reason returned, and I swam back to the beach.
JW: What did Clark say? BDF: When I came out of the water, Sonny said, “What were you doing out there?” I said, “Collecting my wits.” Sonny said, “It looked like you were collecting the blank out of your wits” [laughs]. That was Sonny. He always had that subtle little twist.
Tomorrow,Buddy talks about what made Clark special as a pianist, the musician who Clark and Buddy most admired, and why the group broke up.
JazzWax tracks: The Complete Verve Recordings of the Buddy De Franco Quartet/Quintet with Sonny Clark box set from Mosaic is out of print. But the Sonny Clark and Buddy De Franco Quartet Complete Sessions, a two-CD set (Definitive) is available here. And the quintet recordings (with guitarist Tal Farlow added) are on Cookin' the Blues and Sweet and Lovely (LoneHill) here. Buddy's playing on all of the Sonny Clark sessions swings with inspired determination. You can actually hear the musical conversation unfold. As for Clark, the pianist's melodic and harmonic ideas build and swell, making him a creative partner on these sessions rather than just a spirited sideman.
JazzWax note: For my complete series of interviews with Buddy De Franco, go to the right-hand column under "JazzWax Interviews."
JaxWax clip: Here's a clip of Buddy with Kenny Drew, Milt Hinton and Art Blakey in 1953 from the Mr. Clarinet sessions for Verve. It was recorded a little less than a year before Sonny Clark, Bobby White and Gene Wright came aboard. Dig how slippery Buddy's clarinet is on this uptempo bop execution with early hard-bop sidemen...
Had Charlie Christian not died of tuberculosis at age 25 in 1942, he certainly would have been the first guitarist to record bebop. His single-string attack on Up on Teddy's Hill with Dizzy Gillespie, captured live at Minton's in 1941, was clearly ahead of its time. But the solo was more blues than bop, a jazz form that hadn't been fully formed yet. The first bebop guitar solo recorded in a studio would come three years later, on February 9, 1945 when Dizzy Gillespie led a sextet on two tracks for Guild Records. The guitarist on the date was Chuck Wayne, who today is more closely associated with the George Shearing Quintet and Tony Bennett's early records. During the 1950s, Wayne appeared extensively as a sideman on other artists' recordings, making only three albums as a leader during the decade. Among the finest was String Fever in 1957.
Wayne was born in New York and began his career as a mandolinist in a Russian balalaika band. When his mandolin began to warp, he reportedly tossed it into the furnace and bought a guitar. To earn a living, Wayne worked as an elevator operator and began to play guitar professionally in 1941, quickly becoming a regular in the clubs on New York's 52nd Street.
Wayne first recorded with Gillespie on New Year's Eve of 1944, when they backed singer Sarah Vaughan, with saxophonist Georgie Auld, pianist Leonard Feather and others for the Continental label. Wayne and Gillespie recorded together again with clarinetist Joe Marsala in January 1945. By early February, Gillespie was ready to record two sides as a leader for Guild: Groovin' High and Blue 'n' Boogie. Gillespie used Dexter Gordon on tenor sax, Frank Paparelli on piano (who transcribed the music parts), Wayne on guitar, Murray Shipinski on bass and Shelly Manne on drums.
This is the first Groovin' High, which preceded by several weeks the more popularly known version with Charlie Parker. Wayne clearly understands the new music, and his solo lines are confident and distinctly bop. Throughout 1945 and into 1946, Wayne freelanced extensively, recording with a range of different leaders. In mid-1946, Wayne joined Woody Herman's band, remaining until mid-1947.
Later in 1947 Wayne recorded with Coleman Hawkins, and in late 1948 with Lester Young. In early 1949, Wayne joined the George Shearing Quintet [pictured] and was a key ingredient in the group's sound through 1951. Wayne's first leadership recording came in 1953 for Savoy with tenor saxophonists Brew Moore and Zoot Sims. In 1954, Tony Bennett used him on Cloud 7, arguably the singer's best pure jazz recording, and kept him on as his musical director until 1957. Wayne's next leadership date was for tracks included on Four Most Guitars in 1956.
Then came String Fever in 1957, Wayne's most ambitious LP session. He arranged and conducted the date, which featured Tommy Allison, Don Joseph and Alvin Golbert (trumpets); Sonny Truitt (trombone), Sam Marowitz (alto sax); Caesar DiMauro, Eddie Wasserman and Sol Schlinger (tenor saxes), Wayne (guitar), Eddie Costa (piano and vibes), Clyde Lombardi (bass) and Sonny Igoe (drums).
What's sublime about String Fever is how Wayne swings on top as the album's primary soloist. On the album's tracks, Wayne shows off enormous sensitivity for space while letting single notes ring. On the uptempo Lullaby in Rhythm, Wayne runs his signature staccato picking technique. On the ballad Embraceable You, Wayne envelops the song with a range of approaches, all with enormous taste. My favorite track is Along with Me, which Mel Torme recorded with Artie Shaw in 1946. Here, Wayne voiced the saxes almost like an accordion, providing a breathy backdrop to his bee-in-a-bonnet lines. Or dig Body and Soul, with Wayne's delicate single-note choices and full chords. [Pictured above, from left: Al Cohn, Brew Moore, Dave Lambert, Gus Grant, Ray Turner and Chuck Wayne in the early 1950s]
Wayne worked extensively in the television studios of CBS between 1959 and 1971, and continued to record into the mid-1990s. He died of emphysema in 1997 at age 74.
JazzWax tracks: Chuck Wayne's String Fever is available at Amazon here. The album was originally released on RCA's Vik label. It's now on Sundazed with alternate and unreleased tracks. Tony Bennett's Cloud 7, featuring Wayne on guitar, is available at iTunes and here.
JazzWax clip: Here's the George Shearing Quintet in 1950 playing Conception, with Shearing on piano, Chuck Wayne on guitar, John Levy on bass, Don Elliott on vibes and Denzil Best on drums...
It's been a while since I crawled around inside iTunes and emerged with a clutch of hidden downloads. I call this series "hidden downloads" not because iTunes is trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. These albums are hidden because they were released digitally without much fanfare and added to artists' iTunes folders (or online retail sites) without consumers being aware of them. That's how the online music-shopping world works today. You either know what you want or you never find out about what you've missed.
In some cases the following five albums have been available for a while. In other cases, they only recently hit artists' "bins." In either case, I thought you should know about them:
Dizzy Gillespie: Dizzy in Paris (1952)—Like Charlie Parker, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie recorded with strings early on, but he had to go to Paris to do it. On April 5, 1952, Gillespie recorded in Paris with "His Operatic Strings," an orchestra of 24 instrumentalists with arrangements by Jo Boyer and Daniel White. The next day, Dizzy fronted a small group featuring tenor saxophonist Don Byas, pianist Arnold Ross, bassist Joe Benjamin and drummer Bill Clark. A sampling of this studied experiment appears on this album.
Hal McKusick: Triple Exposure—(1957). This is one of Hal's finest recordings and for years was available only as a Japanese import. On track after track, Hal here exhibits his beautiful tone and phrasing, perfect time, and a seemingly endless stream of warm, improvised ideas. Dig Hal's woody clarinet on I'm Glad There Is Your. Or Hal on tenor on Don't Worry About Me. The "triple" aspect of the album is that Hal plays clarinet, tenor sax and alto sax. Joining Hal were Billy Byers (trombone), Eddie Costa (piano) Paul Chambers (bass) and Charlie Persip (drums). Bobby Scott handled the arrangements.
Phil Sunkel's Jazz Band(1956). Trumpeter Sunkel arranged and recorded a terrific album for ABC Paramount in May and June 1956 of that featured Al Stewart and Ziggy Schatz (trumpets), Gene Hessler (trombone), Dick Meldonian (alto sax), Buddy Arnold (tenor sax), Gene Allen (baritone sax), George Syran (piano), Bob Peterson (bass) and Harold Granowsky (drums). The album has been reissued by iTunes with this strange cover (not sure why the top of a bass is featured). Sunkel had a crisp, punctuating attack on the horn, and the tracks here exhibit some fine New York playing.
Count Basie: On My Way and Shoutin' Again—(1962). Basie's recordings for Verve in the 1960s were radical hits and misses. Some were completely out of the park while others were tragic mistakes. This one was spot on, thanks to the crafty arranging pen of Neal Hefti. Here, Hefti's tippy-toe flute and reed writing, and gossipy section exchanges, contrast perfectly with the hammering tick-tock of Basie's rhythm section. Standouts include Ducky Bumps and Eee Dee, a showcase for tenor saxophonist Eric Dixon.
Marcos Valle: Samba '68—(1968). If you're as big a sucker for breezy 1960s bossa nova as I am, you're going to love this one. Brazilian singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer Valle emerged in the early 1960s as the bossa craze took off in the U.S. His compositions and vocals were catchy and seductive, and this album of duets on mostly original tunes makes you feel as though Ipanema Beach sand somehow wound up in your shoes.
JazzWax note: For the other nine volumes in the "Hidden Download" series, scroll down the right-hand margin of this blog to "Hidden CDs."
In the 1950s, there were jazz musicians who lived so far into the future intellectually that other musicians from the period called them "far out." Gil Melle was one of those "out of sight" artists. But to merely refer to Melle (pronounced Mell-AY) as a jazz baritone saxophonist doesn't fully explain this creative dynamo who today is largely forgotten. In addition to recording fascinating albums of atonal and linear jazz for Blue Note and Prestige between 1952 and 1957, Melle created artwork for the covers of LPs by Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins and others. During the 1960s and beyond Melle composed steadily for TV and the movies, and his inventions of electronic instruments and recordings also broke new ground.
I spoke with saxophonist and Melle bandmate Hal McKusick and film director Raymond De Felitta, who as a teen often wandered over to Melle's house. More with both gentlemen in a moment.
What perhaps is most remarkable about Melle is that he never had a formal music lesson. Much of his ability, he said in his writings, was learned through associations with jazz musicians and their music. As Melle developed, he had little patience for standards and tended to focus instead on composing original jazz-classical works that were highly imaginative and invigorating both to jazz musicians and advanced listeners.
Melle was a quick study, often able to absorb the complexities of jazz and classical with a single listen. In Melle's favor was his complete lack of fear and concern about what others thought, which freed him to create and drew powerful risk-takers near. He had no trouble doing his own futurist thing and had a gift for convincing those around him to join him on his journey.
Born in New York in 1931, Melle was abandoned by his parents at age 2 and was raised by a family friend. He began composing and painting as a child, won awards, and began gigging in Greenwich Village on saxophone at age 15. At age 16, Melle lied about his age to enlist in the Marines and spent some of his service time in California. Upon his discharge and return to New Jersey two years later, Melle played jazz nightly in New York, often with organist Freddie Roach and pianist Joe Manning.
In 1952, Melle met Blue Note founder Alfred Lion [pictured, with Rudy Van Gelder, left], who signed him to a one-year contract that was extended repeatedly for five years. Melle referred to himself as a "jazz chemist" who routinely tried new approaches to the music, never hesitating to rush after possibilities. As a result, he was first to perform electronic music at the 1968 Monterey Jazz Festival, first to compose an electronic film score for the Andromeda Strain (1971), first to compose an electronic TV score for Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1970-71) and was one of the first to record an all-electronic jazz album, TOME VI, for Verve (1968).
Stylistically, Melle's 1950s playing on the baritone sax shares stylistic similarities with Gerry Mulligan's swinging, linear sound. But Melle tended to loiter in the instrument's middle register and was more at home on melody-less original compositions than jazz standards. Melle's works had a West Coast feel but with a more introspective and restless East Coast finish. In some cases, his pieces sounded like Capitol's "Birth of the Cool" singles played backward.
Melle's jazz recordings from the 1950s can be divided neatly into two distinct periods: 1952-56 for Blue Note and 1956-57 for Prestige.
On the Blue Note sessions, you hear Melle's development from early space-age modernist on tracks such as Four Moon, Venus and The Gears on New Faces, New Sounds to more straight-up linear jazz like Timepiece and The Nearness of You on Quintet, Vol. 2. His Blue Note recordings featured trombonist Eddie Bert, drummer Max Roach, bassist Oscar Pettiford, guitarist Tal Farlow and trombonist Urbie Green. Among my favorites are the albums he made with little-known guitarist Lou Mecca—for The Gil Melle Quartet Featuring Lou Mecca and Five Impressions of Color.
Starting in 1956, Melle recorded three 10-inch LPs for Prestige as well as three tracks for a12-inch Prestige LP that was never completed. On these sessions, Melle explored new atonal approaches that attracted top jazz artists of the day, including trumpeters Art Farmer and Kenny Dorham, saxophonist Hal McKusick, vibraphonist Teddy Charles and others. Particularly fascinating was the album Gil's Guests, which included Block Island and Genghis.
After his Prestige sessions, Melle moved to Los Angeles and in the 1960s composed extensively for television and the movies, settling in Malibu. Melle recorded from time to time but focused intensively on his hobbies—cars, planes and microscopes. Melle died in 2004 of a heart attack.
Yesterday I spoke to Hal McKusick [pictured], who played on Melle's recordings for Prestige:
"I only knew Gil on those dates and had great respect for his choice of musicians. He knew what he wanted and the sound he preferred. The chord changes were not easy to maneuver through smoothly, although we all managed to tell our stories on our instruments anyway.
"Gil had his own unique way of orchestrating, and, later I could see why he was successful writing for films with space-age, far out themes. I know little of his background or influences, although I'm sure he was aware of Pres [Lester Young], Basie, Duke, Bird, Monk, Dizzy and, most likely some modern classical composers. His sidekick was Joe Cinderella, a quiet, mild-mannered guitarist with good capabilities.
"A lot of the credit for those sides should go to Rudy Van Gelder and his living room studio out in New Jersey where we recorded for Prestige in the early days. Rudy was one of the best sound people I ever worked with. Of course, the musicians were into doing their best as well. It was hard to beat the combo. [Photo of Rudy Van Gelder by Hank O'Neal]
"Gil was nice to work with, highly respectful and sure of what he wanted, including each player's input and where you were on your own. To his credit, he brought in the musicians for the dates, some of the best in the field, who he knew could do the most with his slant on music."
During a five-hour dinner last week with director Raymond De Felitta (City Island) [pictured], we talked quite a bit about Melle. Raymond grew up near Melle's Malibu home and often spent time chatting with his eccentric and creative neighbor:
"When I was about 13 years old, I said to Gil [pictured], 'How do you manage to be into so many different cool things?' Gil loved and collected airplanes,
music, sports cars, synthesizers, art, microscopes and other neat things. Gil said: 'When I was younger I used to hear older people talking about all the things they wished they'd done with their lives. I decided that would never be me.' "
JazzWax tracks: Gil Melle's Blue Note sessions were gathered recently on a two-CD set called Gil Melle: The Complete Blue Note Fifties Sessions. Unfortunately, the set is out of print but available here for $47. It also turns up on eBay from time to time. The Prestige sessions are still in print and available on a two-CD set called Gil Melle Quartet: Complete Prestige Recordings. You'll find it here.
JazzWax trivia. Gil Melle introduced Rudy Van Gelder to Alfred Lion, and Melle's first album (Blue Note 5020) [pictured], marked the start of Van Gelder's relationship with the label. The dramatic photo at the top of this post for the 10-inch LP Gil Melle Quartet Featuring Lou Mecca was taken by Bill Hughes during a Christmas concert at Town Hall in 1954.
JazzWax clip:Here's a taste of Gil Melle during his Prestige period, with Ballet Time from Primitive Modern (1956), featuring Melle on baritone sax, Joe Cinderella on guitar, Bill Phipps on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums...
Waxing and musings. Back in the 1950s, jazz artists regularly groused about the rigidity of the 12-inch LP format. The big beef was that the "money men" programmed the albums for the mass market and cared more about the cash register than the art. In most cases, musicians' barbs were aimed at record producers—the guys at the record labels and in the studio booths who had big ideas about what would sell, set seemingly rigid standards and often demanded excessive takes from musicians. [Photo: Riverside producer Orrin Keepnews with alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley]
Today, of course, we know that producers like George Avakian, Teo Macero, Creed Taylor, Orrin Keepnews, Alfred Lion, Bob Weinstock [pictured], Norman Granz, Lester Koenig, Teddy Reig, Dick Bock and so many others did indeed have one eye on the bottom line. But there also was genius behind their vision, their decision to include standards on albums, and their perfectionism. They cared about the discerning listener who spent money on the record and expected a big deal when the needle was lowered onto the vinyl disc. Today, the fruits of their vision, toughness and pestering are thousands of albums from the 1950s that remain superb and timeless in their creative explosiveness and punch. For example, it's almost impossible to find an album recorded in 1958 that isn't a knockout.
By comparison, many of the new jazz CDs that cross my desk lack packaging focus or artistic cohesiveness. The reason has nothing to do with the artists, who are nearly always enormously talented. The problem is a lack of creative supervision and commercial foresight, a job that used to be handled by those hen-like producers. I, for one, miss the days when albums were thought through in advance as a single package and someone who knew the business was in charge of ensuring that the result was stunning from start to finish. [Photo of Lester Koenig of Contemporary Records by Ray Avery/CTSImages.com]
Even the greatest jazz artists needed direction, and the best producers of the 1950s had a strong concept of what they wanted and knew how to get it. In truth, these producers are the unsung heroes of the great jazz LP era. We're fortunate they worked as hard as they did behind the scenes to help brilliant artists create their greatest works. Next time you put on a CD you love, take a look at the producer's name. We owe them all a debt of gratitude.
Coltrane and rock. In the wake of my comments last week on John Coltrane's direct influence on rock's extended solo, reader Carl Woideck sent along the following comment:
"Regarding jazz's influence on rock, the Byrds also listened to John Coltrane. The four-note melody played by Roger McGuinn on 12-sting guitar near the beginning of Eight Miles High was consciously lifted from Coltrane's India. McGuinn has specifically said so and demonstrated it.
"And then there's the live recording of Somebody to Love by The Great Society, singer Grace Slick's band before she joined Jefferson Airplane. The group's bassist switches to soprano sax for a Coltrane-inspired extended opening jam.
"When I moved to Berkeley, CA, in 1968, I played in concerts with Jerry Garcia, Jorma Kaukonen [pictured] of Jefferson Airplane, and others who were always ready for extended solos. In the rock history class I teach here at the University of Oregon, we just finished listening to psychedelic rock musicians who employed extended solos."
French clips. Reader Peter Sokolowski sent along a link to a French site that sells downloads and DVDs of jazz videos taped in France. I cannot tell whether users from the U.S. are able to purchase them. But there's plenty to sample here. The site is hosted by France's Institut National de l'Audiovisuel, which is charged with collecting and preserving televised presentations of all kinds, including jazz. Type Bill Evans into the search bar and you'll wind up with a sample of his 1972 performance of Quiet Now. Type in Thelonious Monk and you'll find a sample of an interview from 1969. Type in Sonny Rollins and you'll get a slice from a fascinating interview and performance from 1981. The site is here.
Sonny and Thelonious. Jazz video journalist Bret Primack produced this video documenting the collaboration of Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk...
CD discoveries of the week. I'm always overjoyed when I slice open a CD, pop in the disc and instantly fall in love with the result. That happened last week with pianist Sumi Tonooka and Erica Lindsay's Initiation. Both have played together since 1994 but this new release, recorded in 2005, was their first studio date. Rufus Reid is on bass and Bob Braye is on drums. About a year after the recording was completed, Braye died of pancreatic cancer.
Initiation is rich with technique and soul, and brings together four musicians who work perfectly together. Tonooka's piano has enormous strength and conviction, but also a penetrating sensitivity and touch. Lindsay's saxophone is fluid, but there's sufficient chest-poking to make you feel her creative points. Reid bounces along while Braye keeps the session exciting, rarely playing the same figure for more than a few measures. He was a fascinating drummer. If you're sampling, try the ballads Somewhere Near Heaven and Mingus Mood. Or the uptempo hard bop opener Mari. [Pictured: Sumi Tonooka and Erica Lindsay]
Jan McDonald, a trumpeter and former band director from Los Alamos, N.M., just released Sweet, his first CD, and it's lyrical and relaxed. Perhaps it's the Southwestern landscape down McDonald's way, but he has a fine understanding of space and phrasing. Which makes this an accessible album, featuring McDonald's musician-friends from the Santa Fe area as sidemen. Album highlights include Thad Jones' Three in One and Bert Dalton's Where Sea Meets Sky.
Oddball album cover of the week. This unfortunate 1954 experiment paired the piano of Erroll Garner with the unsteady singing voice of Woody Herman. Not an ideal matchup, I'm afraid, as the models on the cover seem to illustrate. Judging by the woman's expression, I'm not sure whether the music was being positioned to buyers as soothing or a wake-up call. Clearly, our female friend isn't tired. Ticked maybe, but not tired.
Trumpeter Jonah Jones began recording in 1936 and worked steadily in Cab Calloway's band between 1941 and 1950. In the 1950s, Jones recorded mostly for Capitol, churning out themed albums with crisp jazz renditions of standards. I love this photo of Jones by Hank O'Neal because it captured a certain melancholy in Jones' eyes while the plastic on the chair abstractly symbolizes Jones' lengthy pop recording career. Hank picks up the Jonah Jones story:
"When I took the photo above of trumpeter Jonah Jones in 1987, we had already known each other for many years. We first worked together when Jonah recorded for my label, Chiaroscuro, in 1972. Back then, Jonah hadn’t made a record in a few years and was all but forgotten. Jonah, of course, had made a ton of records for Capitol and made lots of money. He switched to Decca in 1965, and recorded for Motown in 1968. Then he didn’t make any more albums until he recorded for me four years later. [Photo of Hank O'Neal by Ian Clifford]
"When I was conducting interviews for my Ghosts of Harlem book in the late 1980s, Jonah was living in New York’s Washington Square Village, which is just off LaGuardia Place. I wandered over with my camera and tape recorder, and we talked for two long sessions, each running a couple of hours. Jonah loved to talk, and his interview is the longest one in my book.
"When the interview finished and it was time to take photos, I set up my camera. All of the images of the 43 jazz musicians I interviewed were taken in their homes or in a park across the street or in a location where they were most comfortable. None of the images were set up. The only thing I took into consideration during a photo session was getting a subject into natural light.
"As I prepared to photograph Jonah, our banter was about my big, stupid wooden camera [laughs].
I used a Deardorff 5x7 mounted on a tripod. All of the musicians I
photographed for the series were captivated by it. They had remembered
the camera from when they were young. They also were curious about the
complicated steps I had to go through just to make an image. I surely
looked ludicrous going under the black cloth each time and emerging
with my hair all messed up.
"My goal was to capture Jonah’s calm, peaceful look. It was his decision
to hold his horn. What emerged in the photo, however, was a certain
sadness and loneliness. In 1987, Jonah was well into his 70s. No one had recorded him consistently, and no one much cared
about him. His long-time manager, Sam Berk, was gone, as was his wife.
For a musician of his era, Jonah lived extremely well because Sam had
carefully managed his money.
"The chair in which Jonah was sitting was the one he sat in during our
conversation. As for the plastic on the chair, the same was true in
Dizzy’s house and other musicians’ homes. In all cases, their wives had
put the plastic on there to preserve and protect the upholstery.
"My conversation with Jonah ran late, so it was dark when we turned to taking the photos. Which meant there was no longer any available natural light. So I had to use a fill light that I bounced off the ceiling to illuminate him. You’ll notice that there are no shadows on Jonah’s face. I wasn’t intending to make a moody picture. I simply wanted to show what Jonah was like, without an artsy feel.
"The Deardorff required negative holders that you loaded up with 4x5-inch negative sheets. I customarily took enough to capture 12 images of a subject. For Jonah, I probably was about four feet away and above looking down. I used Tri-X 400 ASA film with a half-second exposure. For the color image above, I used a Roloflex and Kodak's Vericolor II film.
"Jonah was a wonderful man. One of the sweetest people you’d ever meet."
JazzWax pages: The black-and-white photo at the top of this post appears in Hank O'Neal's Ghosts of Harlem(Vanderbilt University Press), a 488-page collection of Hank's interviews and photographs of 43 jazz legends. Interview subjects include Jonah Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Hinton, Erskine Hawkins, Benny Carter, Sy Oliver, Buck Clayton and many others. JazzWax tracks: Chiaroscuro Records' catalog can be found here. Jonah Jones' Back on the Street for the label can be found here.
More PhotoStories:
I started this feature to showcase iconic jazz images and the stories
of the photographers who took them. You'll find the other PhotoStory posts in this series
under the "PhotoStory" heading in the right-hand column of this blog (JazzWax).
Gunther Schuller has composed more than 160 original classical and jazz-classical works. In 1994, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Of Reminiscences and Recollections, a memorial composition for his wife, Marjorie Black. Gunther also is the winner of many other awards, including Columbia University's William Schuman Award for lifetime achievement in American music composition. And then there are the two Grammy Awards—one for best classical liner notes (Footlifters, 1976) and best chamber music performance (Joplin: The Red Back Book, 1974). [Photo at top by Hiroyki Ito]
When you speak with Gunther, you immediately feel the heat of his curiosity, his passion for life and his inexhaustible excitement. What's especially fascinating are the similarities between Gunther's personality and the jazz-classical music he adores. There's a formal European charm about Gunther, but within that structure exists an improvisational mischief-maker. Gunther understands that excellence comes from discipline but that art comes from the surfacing of emotions and the willingness to take intellectual risks. [Photo: Gunther Schuller with Roy Haynes]
In Part 4 of my four-part interview series with Gunther, the composer-arranger and jazz-classical pioneer talks about Leonard Bernstein, Miles Davis, and the Third Stream:
JazzWax: I hear elements of Cool from West Side Story in your Brandeis Jazz Festival composition Transformations. Yours came first. Did Leonard Bernstein hear your work? Gunther Schuller: He probably did. We were very good friends at various times and worked closely together. He was a great admirer of my music. Lenny never said, “Oh, Gunther, you don’t know how much you influenced me.” But the feeling was there.
JW: Do you think Bernstein came to a finer recognition of jazz as a result of your work in the mid-1950s? GS: Lenny wasn’t influenced only by me. He learned from a great many jazz-classical artists. He was a quick study when it came to jazz. But in terms of the musical language, Lenny would never go into jazz-classical styles beyond tonality. Rhythmically, he learned a lot from Count Basie and Stan Kenton. Basically, Lenny’s jazz sensibility was from the 1920s. He was real cornball. When he used to play piano at parties, I had to close my ears because he was so corny. He thought he was as good as Art Tatum [laughs].
JW: You played French horn on Miles Davis’ Porgy and Bess. How did your involvement come about? GS: The idea for that 1958 session was actually producer George Avakian’s, before he left Columbia. George was a great admirer of the recordings that Miles and Gil had done between 1948 and 1950 [later known as "Birth of the Cool"]. He couldn’t understand why they weren’t more popular. And they weren’t until they were brought together on an LP in 1957 and the album was named Birth of the Cool. Even before Capitol decided to bring them together on an LP, George had decided to unite Gil and Miles for a broader interpretation of that concept on music that was widely known. That was his conception.
JW: What was your role? GS: I say this with all modesty: George went to Miles and said, “Listen, I think there are only two people here who can turn Gershwin into modern jazz orchestral works—Gunther Schuller and Gil Evans." Miles went with Gil, and I played French horn.
JW: Would you have done something different with it? GS: No, probably not. I was as enamored of Gil’s style as I was of my own. I knew what Gil was doing with the orchestration and why. Since the music had to be, at its core, Gershwin, it couldn’t be mine. If I had arranged it, the session would have come out something like that. I might have had some different orchestral ideas now and then. But I was thrilled to play horn on that recording.
JW: Is there anything that most people aren’t aware of about that session? GS: Probably how difficult it was to play. Porgy and Bess is not a perfect recording. There’s a lot of sloppiness in there if you listen closely. We had to add three more sessions to capture what was needed in good enough shape to be issued. Cal Lampley, the album's producer, had to do an enormous amount of editing with the tape. We couldn’t play any of those pieces perfectly all the way through.
JW: Was it that the music was hard or that the musicians on the date weren’t well trained enough? GS: Both. That was a pretty big orchestra, with 19 instrumentalists including Miles. Some of those musicians were unfamiliar with Gil’s great music and the harmonies were a mystery to them. You have to remember, there was no other jazz like that at the time to refer to. No band was playing anything like that with the sounds that Gil produced—not Benny Goodman or Dizzy Gillespie. And Gil did that with horns and flutes and muting of other instruments. That was all unfamiliar. As a result, it’s pretty ragged at times.
JW: As you listen to Miles Davis during the recording, what were you hearing? GS: I know how he struggled. At one session, his lip started to bleed. The endurance, all that slow playing. It’s very hard on a trumpet player. But he came through beautifully. Again, a lot of editing by Cal Lampley took place. He first had to take care of Miles, which in some cases meant choosing great trumpet takes even if the orchestra behind him was uneven. There are probably 800 splices in that thing.
JW: What was it like recording John Lewis’ score in 1959 for the film Odds Against Tomorrow? GS: Remarkable. John was stretching out on there. There’s a lot of intense, almost harsh, nasty chords when some of the bad things happen in the film. It was years since we had first met, and by then he had learned so much. He was trying to get out of traditional tonality more and more.
JW: How did you come up with the term "Third Stream?" What was the thought process? GS: It was very simple. Back in 1957, there were two main streams of music—jazz and classical music. Today, of course, you can argue that there are many more streams—rock and roll, hip-hop, ethnic music and so on. In 1957, I called one the First Stream and the other the Second Stream. The two streams got married and they begat a child, like in the Bible says [laughs], and a Third Stream was born. But a Third Stream meant that that the other streams would have to amalgamate or fuse in a thorough, deep way—not in some superficial construction by laying a few clichés on top of each other.
JW: So the two would have to give up something? GS: No, why? You just combine the best of both musics.
JW: But if they’re fusing, by definition they’re becoming something else entirely, yes? GS: Yes, that’s the true definition of a fusion. But that didn’t mean these music forms had to give up anything in Third Stream. Both retained their characteristics as they formed something new.
JW: What did the critics say? GS: The critics said you can’t mix oil and water. They pounced on me. I was crucified. But their reaction was as dumb as racial prejudice. Their notion that jazz and classical should not be polluted by each other’s sensibilities was dumb. Both jazz and classical critics said basically the same thing.
JW: Was the Third Stream a successful adventure? GS: Oh, yes, totally. The new music form spread to other great ethnic musics in the world. By 1975, Third Stream had influenced Turkish music and Greek music and Indian music. That’s apparent now. The record companies don’t call the result Third Stream. They call it fusion or crossover. You now can have three or four different forms of music together as long as it’s done creatively. And honestly.
JazzWax tracks: Many of Gunther Schuller's major classical works have a large, dramatic, atonal feel. His Reminiscences and Reflections recorded by Radio-Philharmonie Hannover des Norddeutscher Rundfunk can be sampled and downloaded here.
Another Gunther delight is Turn of the Century Cornet Favorites, recorded by the Columbia Chamber Ensemble, conducted by Gunther and Gerard Schwarz, music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. The album can be sampled and downloaded here.
A fascinating jazz-classical work by Gunther is Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee, (GM Recordings), in particular Little Blue Devil, named after one of Klee's paintings. It's available at iTunes along with a wealth of other recordings by Gunther.
For other classical and jazz recordings on Gunther's GM Recordings label, go here.
JazzWax pages: Two invaluable jazz books by Gunther Schuller are Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development and The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz 1930-1945. They can be found here and here, respectively.
JazzWax clip: Here's Gunther and other musicians talking about Charles Mingus' Epitaph, a 4,000-measure opus that was discovered after the bassist's death and conducted by Gunther Schuller in 1989, 10 years after Mingus' death...
Between 1955 and 1957, Gunther Schuller participated in three fascinating jazz recordings: the Modern Jazz Society (Verve) with John Lewis, Gigi Gryce's Nica's Tempo (Signal) and Birth of the Third Stream (Columbia), which featured music recorded at the 1957 Brandeis Jazz Festival.Each explored jazz-classical concepts, though Nica's Tempo owed more to the linear sound of Gil Evans and Tadd Dameron than pure classical motifs.
In Part 3 of my four-part interview series with Gunther, the composer, arranger, French hornist and agent provocateur for Third Stream music, talks about all three albums:
JazzWax: What made pianist John Lewis special? Gunther Schuller: He was the gentlest soul. Kind, quiet, intelligent and an intellectual who was well versed in all of the arts. And just a beautiful person. He could be stern and tough in rehearsals when producing his music. But he was very good at getting the music right. And he could make anybody get it right. But deep down he was a sweetheart. All of the jazz musicians I knew were—and are. They are all beautiful people.
JW: Was Lewis instrumental in helping to merge classical and jazz? GS: Oh yes, early on. Then the influence spread to people like Ralph Burns, Bob Brookmeyer and many other great musicians who came into the jazz-classical field. That was how exciting the post-war period was.
JW: What was the Modern Jazz Society? GS: John and I founded the ensemble in 1955 because we felt we had to put teeth into what we were saying about jazz-classical fusion. We soon renamed it the Jazz and Classical Music Society.
JW: Looking back, do you view the group as a success? GS: Yes, absolutely. That doesn’t mean the group and our attempts were all perfection. But the group was a success in terms of helping the new music break through. All the things that happened after we put those jazz-classical ideas together happened because of what John and I did. I won’t say we were the only ones. Pete Rugolo and Stan Kenton [pictured] and others had been doing things with jazz and classical. But they were doing it in a slightly different way.
JW: Was your timing right? GS: I think so. The concept was in the air at the time. John and I advanced the cause in New York and for the first time used the word "classical" in what we were doing. Stan Kenton didn’t do that with his Innovations Orchestra in 1950, much of which is uneven and awful. Pianist Lennie Tristano did not use the word classical, either. Many musicians felt they would wind up in trouble with the critics if they did. And they were right. John and I did use it, and that of course made it controversial.
JW: Classical gradually became more accepted by jazz musicians and listeners. GS: Yes, eventually the jazz-classical language changed to the extent of breaking into atonality. That happened later, though, with Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus and so many others. Everything went forward tremendously through the 1960s and then settled down into a sort of standardization. There was little experimentation after that.
JW: In 1955, you were in another exciting jazz ensemble led by Gigi Gryce. What made Gryce so special? GS: His personality. He’s such an underrated player. Sadly, he's nearly forgotten today. These guys were such talents and maybe geniuses. Whatever they put their hands on would emerge with their special personality attached. That’s the greatness of jazz—the individualism, the distinctiveness of each of these great players. Unfortunately, we don’t have that today. Instead, we have 10,000 John Coltrane clones.
JW: What are we hearing with Gryce that sounds so fascinating? GS: His sound was different. He arranged the reeds for a thinner feel, and he had in his ear a different conception. The result was a very light, flowing sound. And that’s also how his harmonizations worked. He was another one of these quiet guys who had studied classical music of all kinds. On a personal level, he was very witty. It’s amazing how interesting they all were and yet how different.
JW: In 1957, you and George Russell arranged and conducted the Brandeis Jazz Festival concerts in New York. That was pretty incredible music. GS: I don’t know what you mean by incredible. It was damn hard [laughs].
JW: Why? GS: Milton Babbitt’s All Set? Can you imagine? That piece was 150 years ahead of its time. I can’t even begin to describe what I had to go through to get that recording made. No one had ever played anything like it. All Set is just on the periphery of jazz. We couldn’t really play it as jazz, so the initial recording was pretty stiff.
JW: Tough stuff? GS: We never were able to play All Set live. This was especially true during the first Brandeis Jazz Festival concert in June 1957. The next morning, at the second concert, we repeated the program from the night before. We had lost our jitters by then and played it much better. But we still didn’t perform the piece like it was supposed to be played. I wound up spending about 35 hours editing that piece together on tape for the record. Wow, that was some piece. I mean, come on. That could have been written by Arnold Schoenberg or Anton Webern.
JW: This was a very different form of classical music, wasn't it? GS: Absolutely. When we talk about jazz musicians studying classical music, we’re mostly talking about musicians exploring Ravel, Debussy, maybe Brahms, and English classical music. Most didn’t study Schoenberg or any of the 12-tone composers. My god, All Set was a hard-core 12-tone piece.
JW: Did you ever perform the piece to your satisfaction? GS: I have performed it at least a dozen times over the years since 1957. I will say, though, that there was only one time in Cleveland [pictured] that I felt we had finally performed that piece correctly. And it happened by sheer luck. It was a coincidence that I had all the right players in place. And this is only several years ago. Between 1957 and then I had the best musicians on sessions, but it was still like walking on the moon. Forty years later, we had just the right musicians for whom that atonal material had finally become familiar.
JW: Has the Cleveland rendition been released? GS: No. We recorded it, of course, but we haven't released it. Every style, no matter how difficult or unfamiliar at first, eventually becomes assimilated. Even atonal pieces. Now I can put together a performance of All Set and know that it would be damn good. All of those Brandeis pieces were hard initially because the feel and approach was completely new to the musicians.
JW: How about your Brandeis composition, Transformation? GS: It, too, was hard, for the same reasons. Transformation is an atonal piece, and the language was new. Jazz musicians who had classical training were familiar with the language of Ravel [pictured], Debussy, 11th chords, 9th chords, flatted fifths and all that stuff. Atonality was completely different. But I put enough swinging stuff in there so at least the musicians could feel it rhythmically [laughs].
JW: What about Bill Evans’ solo on All About Rosie? GS: Bill was unbelievable. That was an epiphanal experience. Bill was the one guy… [pause]. He had studied so much classical music that he was able to sight read all of this stuff. He could even sight read Milton Babbitt's All Set perfectly. I didn't have to coach him on that.
JW: What was so remarkable about his playing during that concert series? GS: We were astonished that all of the material was so easy for him. He not only could deal with it straightaway, he also could improvise on it. Then Bill played one of the greatest piano solos of all time on All Abut Rosie. I become speechless when I think back on Bill and that solo. We were all staggered. We were all looking at each other while his solo was taking place.
JW: How was that possible? GS: We weren’t playing. We were playing stop-time chords. We’d play one chord at the beginning of each chorus and stop. As Bill improvised, we all looked at each other in amazement at what we were hearing.
JW: What was so exciting about it? GS: I just didn’t know that someone could create such an incredible full-speed jazz-classical solo and have it turn out to be so perfect.
JW: When All About Rosie was finished, what happened? GS: I don’t recall exactly but I think it was like at the end of World Series game, when the winning players all leap on the guy who made the last out. I’m sure we all jumped on Bill.
Tomorrow, Gunther talks about Leonard Bernstein, Miles Davis' Porgy and Bess, John Lewis' score for the film Odds Against Tomorrow, and how he came up with the term "Third Stream."
JazzWax tracks: John Lewis and Gunther Schuller's Modern Jazz Society was recorded for Verve in 1955. The musicians on the date were Gunther Schuller (French horn and arranger), J.J. Johnson (trombone), Jim Politis (flute), Manny Ziegler (bassoon), Tony Scott (clarinet), Stan Getz (tenor sax), John Lewis (piano and arranger), Janet Putnam (harp), Billy Bauer (guitar), Percy Heath (bass) and Connie Kay (drums). The album is part of a John Lewis set that has to be among iTunes' greatest hidden deals: All four albums in the set are available for $7.99.
In 1955, Gunther played French horn on four tracks that were featured on one of Gigi Gryce's finest albums, Nica's Tempo (Signal). The tracks are Smoke Signal, In a Meditating Mood, Speculation and Kerry Dance. The band on those tracks featured Art Farmer (trumpet), Jimmy Cleveland (trombone), Gunther Schuller (French horn), Bill Barber (tuba), Gigi Gryce (alto sax), Danny Bank (baritone sax), Horace Silver (piano), Oscar Pettiford (bass) and Kenny Clarke (drums). Gryce's nonet leveraged the "Birth of the Cool" sound, adding a bit more elan and assertiveness. Nica's Tempo is available as a download at iTunes and Amazon here.
For its 1957 Festival of the Arts, Brandeis University commissioned jazz pieces along with classical compositions. This was a first for the festival. Jazz artists who were asked to create works were Charles Mingus (Revelations), Gunther Schuller (Transformation), George Russell (All About Rosie), Milton Babbitt (All Set), Jimmy Giuffre (Suspensions) and Harold Shapiro (On Green Mountain). The pieces were recorded at the Brandeis Jazz Festival in New York on June 10th, 18th and 20th. All of the recordings are available here.
JazzWax clip:Here's Jimmy Giuffre's Suspensions from the Brandeis Jazz Festival in 1957...
Marc Myers writes on music for the Wall Street Journal. His book, "Why Jazz Happened," will be published by the University of California Press in December 2012.
these producers as well as the musicians. Non-jazz pop examples: George Martin, Tommy Dowd, Paul Rothchild, Mitch Miller, Phil Spector, Lou Adler, Jerry Wexler [pictured] and many others. Classical examples abound as well.
