Once upon a time, ad-agency art directors dug jazz and the country viewed jazz musicians as exceptional artists. So, to make products seem exciting, Mad Men enlisted musicians to swing the merits of their clients' goods. Or in the case above from the '90s, a Louis look-alike to make its point.
Here are a hawker's dozen, uncovered on YouTube...
Sonny Rollins for Pioneer Home Stereo Electronics in 1977...
And this one, from the '60s, was too odd to pass up—a working man's fantasy played out: A refrigerator lined with beers and an accommodating housewife (we think) only too happy to pour him glass after glass...
Two weeks ago, the Hollywood Hills website asked me where I was on August 16, 1977 when I first heard that Elvis Presley had died. If you're unfamiliar with Hollywood Hills, it's devoted to radio, legendary disc jockeys and all things musical.
I thought I'd share with you what I wrote and sent along to Jack Roberts, the site's creator and host, who posted my recollections along with those of invited guests:
"Like most people, I thought at first the news was a prank. Then again, all of the major news events in New York City that summer were surreal. I was working at the New York Times as a college intern in August 1977. A month earlier the city had suffered a massive blackout that resulted in city-wide looting. On the last day of July, the so-called Son of Sam serial killer, who had been terrorizing the city for nearly a year, shot two 20-year-old lovers in a car parked in Queens. On August 10 he was caught by the police, reportedly motivated by a neighbor's barking dog.
"Six days later I was tearing newswire off of the Associated Press and United Press International ticker machines for the editors when I saw the bulletin: "ELVIS DEAD IN MEMPHIS." On a hot Wednesday morning, in the summer of '77, on the 10th floor of one of the country's most prominent newspapers, I had seen those fateful words first—before anyone else at the media giant knew. Just another traumatic event that took me minutes to fully absorb."
Kickstarter ads at JazzWax. Two Kickstarter projects that advertised at JazzWax in recent weeks raised enough money to meet their financial goals. Congratulations to vocalist JD Walter and documentary filmmaker Bret Primack!
Sonny and Cher. Husband-and-wife songwriting team Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil sent along the following link to a clip from the TV movie And the Beat Goes On: The Sonny and Cher Story (1999). It's remarkable how much actress Renee Faia in the clip below looks like Cher in the clips below—despite not wearing the headphones that would be required for her to hear the overdubbed orchestration. Faia's Cher-ish facial nuances are spot on. [Photo above: the real Sonny and Cher]
The song, I Love How You Love Me, was written by Barry Mann and Larry Kolberg when they were staffwriters at Don Kirshner's Aldon Music in New York, and it remains one of the great pop-rock ballads. Here's the clip...
CD Discoveries of the Week. One of the most beautiful vocal albums of 1989 was Ranee Lee's Deep Song: A Tribute to Billie Holiday. Thankfully, this 17-year-old masterpiece has just been reissued by Justin Time Records. Lee is a Canadian singer who also is a songwriter, actress, children's book writer and instrumentalist. And she still found time to record 10 albums. As you will hear, Deep Song should be a model for anyone considering recording a jazz vocal album. This one is worth downloading just to hear the album's exquisite arrangements and Milt Hinton on bass. Sample When a Woman Loves a Man, What a Little Moonlight Can Do and Easy Livin'.
If you're an Ellington fan, you'll dig Ellington Saxophone Encounters (Capri). Five saxophones arranged by Mark Masters swing and solo through 12 lesser-known tunes by the Duke. The saxes are Gary Foster and Don Shelton (altos), Pete Christlieb and Gene Cipriano (tenor) and Gary Smulyan (baritone). The reed section is backed by Bill Cunliffe (piano), Tom Warrington (bass) and Joe LaBarbera (drums). This isn't another Supersax or Pres Conference approach to Ellington but a quintet that's expertly arranged to feature the flavor of Duke's writing. Sample The Line Up and Love's Away. Notes by Doug Ramsey.
Readers of this blog know how much I love the jazz harp. The instrument has a fluid personality, shifting easily from angelic hipster to swinging soloist with a guitar feel. Carol Robbins demonstrates the harp's many sides on Moraga (Jazzcats). Pianist Billy Childs and bassist Darek Oles are perfect foils, operating as support and decoys. What's more, most of the tracks are spirited originals, which are lyrical with classical touches. Sample the title track, Dolore and Rotadendron. Delicate chamber-jazz in a little black dress.
Like the blues, smart country music touches you whether you like it or not. It's impossible not to be won over by The Trishas' High, Wide & Handsome (Trishas Music). None of these four female singer-musicians are named Trisha. They merely decided to name themselves the Trishas after covering a Trisha Yearwood hit. They have a Fleetwood Mac-ian flavor, with a stronger emphasis on country-folk roots. Sample Mother of Invention, Liars & Fools and Rainin' Inside.
Electric bassist Marcus Miller breaks out the jazz-funk on Renaissance (Concord). Miller's rich Fender powers the 13-track album, touching on a wide range of music genres—from soul to Brazilian. There are covers of War's Slippin' Into Darkness and Berry Gordy's I'll Be There. The album is so tightly executed and elegantly framed that the result is an air-tight concept album meant to be heard from start to finish. Sample any of the tracks for a sense of this album's extraordinary unity and rubbery soul.
Brooklyn's Antibalas has mastered the Afrobeat sound—an intoxicating fusion of soul, funk and African rhythms. Think Tower of Power meets Peter Brown and the contemporary artists of Ghana. The 12-member group's latest is Antibalas (Daptone), and it's jammed with spring-loaded surprises—horns coming and going, a wandering Hammond, a wailing trombone, grabby beats, and so on. Sample the Ratcatcher, Him Belly No Go Sweet and Ari Degbe. A joyous stew all the way through.
Trombonist Bill Cantrall leads his hard bop group Axiom on Live at the Kitano (UpSwing), the New York club. Six of the seven tracks are Cantrall originals, which mix toughness and tenderness. Cantrall is joined by two particularly dynamic players—Stacy Dillard (tenor saxophone) and Rick Germanson (piano). Sample B.B.M, Like I Said and Cole Porter's After You. Liner notes by Ted Gioia.
If you dig Gil Evans, you're going to love the Mobtown Modern Big Band's Re-Write of Spring (Innova). The orchestra has reloaded Adoration of the Earth and The Sacrifice—both from Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Like Evans, arranger Darryl Brenzel brings modern classical and jazz sensibilities to his orchestrations, with rising and falling moods and big band infusions. The album was recorded live at Baltimore's Metro Gallery in May 2010. Breathing fresh life into an already exciting work.
Oddball album cover of the week. There's something very Valley of the Dolls about this cover. Even though the art consists largely of those movie-theater almonds with candy coating, I can't help but hear Dionne Warwick singing the Previns' movie theme: Gotta get off, gonna get/Have to get off from this ride/Gotta get hold, gonna get/Need to get hold of my pride. Cha-cha-cha.
Slide Hampton's composition and arrangement of Newport was first performed at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1959 by Maynard Ferguson's orchestra. Later in the year the song was recorded in more modified form by Hampton on The Slide Hampton Octet and His Horn of Plenty (Strand).
Then Ferguson recorded Newport in March 1960 for his band's studio album Newport Suite (Roulette). In June, at the Newport Jazz Festival, the song finally appeared as Newport Suite, a title much more in keeping with its shifting structure.
A few days ago, JazzWax reader Jim Manley sent along a link to a newly posted YouTube clip of the Maynard Ferguson Orchestra in 1960 performing Newport as well as other tracks from its set:
Jazz fans are quicker than most to slap around other forms of music. Some fans are convinced that rock destroyed jazz (not so) while others insist that jazz sold out for commercial reasons (not so, either). New music comes with each generation, and that's how it played out in the mid-1950s and into the '60s. [Photo above of Marvin Stamm by Alan S. Orling]
Here's another revelation: Rock (and soul) kept many jazz artists employed and enabled them to meet college tuition payments in the late 1960s and 1970s. The demand for top jazz players grew with the advent of eight- and sixteen-track recorders, which allowed rock and soul artists and producers to use more elaborate orchestrations. Which in turn required great musicians.
Case in point: Paul and Linda McCartney's Ram. Recorded in November and December 1970 and January 1971, the album remains one of McCartney's finest post-Beatles albums (Band on the Run is, of course, another). Work on Ram began just after the Beatles' breakup and before McCartney's founding of Wings.
The only single from the album to hit No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart was Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey, which today is a hugely under-appreciated folk-rock masterpiece. At 2:19 into the song, there's a short but significant flugelhorn solo. It appears right after the ballad portion and deftly unites the first movement with the up-tempo second.
That solo was performed by jazz trumpeter Marvin Stamm, who was 30 years old at the time. By 1970, Marvin was already a veteran of top big bands led by Stan Kenton, Woody Herman and Thad Jones and Mel Lewis. [Photo above of Marvin Stamm and Woody Shaw in 1985]
Here's Marvin's emailed recollection of the Ram date...
"Leading up to the brass, woodwind, and string sessions, McCartney had, for six weeks, recorded the rhythm tracks with David Spinozza, Hugh McCracken and Denny Seiwell at Columbia Studios on E. 52nd St. Paul then worked with George Martin to fashion and arrange whatever he wanted to do with the orchestra musicians.
"Paul also hired Phil Ramone [above] and his A&R Recording studio on 7th Ave.—a big space with great sound—to overdub the orchestral instruments. Phil called the musicians, and the brass were hired for three sessions—overdubbing one tune per session.
"After we had recorded all the written brass parts to Uncle Albert, Paul came over to the trumpet section, which included Ray Crisara, Snooky Young, Mel Davis and me. Paul said he had a little horn tune he wanted someone to play. Mel Davis said, 'Let the kid play it,' meaning me. [Photo above of Paul McCartney at the Ram session]
"Paul told me that he wanted the solo to sound a bit like it was coming through an old radio cone. Then he sang it to me. I played it back to him several times until he said it was the way he wanted it. Then we recorded the solo. I played it on the flugelhorn. Then he and Phil did whatever sound alteration he wanted in the mixing session.
"Paul was great to work with. He knew exactly what he wanted from the musicians and was respectful and clear in relating it to us. This was unusual. Most rock stars in those days seldom listed the personnel on their albums. So for about a year, I was the most famous unknown trumpet player in the world. [Photo above of Paul and Linda McCartney]
"I'm sure I was flattered, but not much more than that. I didn't make much of it with people, since I have never cared to brag about stuff. I'm only telling you because you asked.
"When I did solo concerts, I sometimes referred to myself as 'The most famous unknown trumpeter,' and then proceeded to play the lick from Uncle Albert. The audience usually recognized it right away, loosening-up the crowd and drawing some laughs. [Photo above of Marvin Stamm by Marvin S. Orling]
"I didn't have kids at that time, and I don't know if they know now that the horn player was me. They love the music from our (their parents') period, but we didn't make a lot of my career with the kids. We kept our home life the center of our life—even though music was the center of my life.
"My kids have more appreciation of my career now than at that time. Even now, I'm really "Dad," and that's what is truly important."
JazzWax tracks: Paul and Linda McCartney's Ram was released earlier this year in remastered formats, and the result is excellent. You'll find it at Amazon here and here.
Back when the Beatles, the Stones, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield and all the rest were still toiling away in the U.K., one of the finest sophisto-pop vocalists on British TV was Millicent Martin. In the early '60s, the comedian, singer and film and theater actress was best known for her coiffed flip and appearances on the satirical and timely That Was the Week That Was (also known as TW3).
The show was an early Daily Show meets The Tonight Show, hosted by David Frost in 1962 and '63. After the British Invasion began in early 1964, NBC brought the show over to the U.S. along with Frost—but without Martin. She had left for bigger things at the end of '63. The show aired in the U.S. in 1964 and '65.
But back to Martin. The Enlgish version's hip, jazzy theme song—which had a difficult but addictive melody—was sung each week by Martin. At the end of '63, Martin bid farewell to the broadcast when she was given her own TV show. She would later appear in Alfie in 1966 before becoming more widely known in the U.S. as a theater and film actress.
Here is Martin in December 1963 singing a farewell to the show in a duet with herself—thanks to trick camerawork and a darn good ear. Those vocalese lyrics are pretty tough as well...
And here's the show's catchy theme by Martin, giving you a sense of how the song and Martin were integrated into each episode...
In all, there were three studio recording dates for what would eventually become known as the Birth of the Cool. The Miles Davis Nonet recorded on January 21, 1949, April 22, 1949 and March 9, 1950. On the last date, Gunther Schuller was hired in place of Sandy Siegelstein—Claude Thornhill's French hornist—who could not make the session. Nor could Junior Collins, the hornist on the first date.
Though the nonet was scheduled to record some of their moodiest pieces on March 9, 1950—Deception, Rocker, Darn That Dream and Moon Dreams—there was plenty of edge and tension to go around.
In his new memoir, A Life in Pursuit of Music and Beauty (University of Rochester Press), Gunther Schuller reflects on the session and how it nearly came undone.
Here's an excerpt:
"A few weeks prior to the scheduled [nonet] sessions, Miles actually came to the Met to meet with me, to personally check me out, since he had never heard me play, and to go over the horn parts with me. (I have to think that Miles may have been the first jazz or black musician to ever set foot in the musicians' locker room in the then lily-white, 67-year-old Metropolitan Opera House).
"The Nonet's pre-session rehearsals went quite well, especially on Rocker, Deception and Darn That Dream, although much less so for Moon Dreams. The problem there was that Gil Evans' recomposition of [Chummy] MacGregor's ballad included a coda, where two things happen: 1) the weight of the heavy, atonal chords in the six horns completely overpower the simple quarter-note time on the cymbal (in the drum part), thus, in effect, quashing any sense of a jazz or swing beat, so central to jazz playing, and 2) to complicate matters further, the 'horns' split into six separate polyphonic lines, with some of the most intricate, vertically uncoordinated rhythmic anticpations and suspensions ever heard in jazz up to that time.
"We kept falling apart in that section, except one time, when I asked Max Roach—for rehearsal purposes only—to play his quarter-note beats really loudly, with sticks rather than brushes. That, however, was not what Gil [pictured] had intended. I'm sure Gil did not realize how difficult those last twenty or so bars of Moon Dreams are. By the way, strangely, Gil was never at any of our rehearsals.
"I got to the record date a half hour early. I was really anxious, not only because it was my most important involvement with jazz to date—a virtual nobody, suddenly working with some of the finest jazz talents in the world—but also because, as a very experienced musician in classical preparation procedures (rarely exercised in jazz in those days), I worried about how we would be able to record so much new and difficult music in a three-hour record session. And so were J.J. [Johnson] and Bill Barber. We were especially worried about how we were going to get through the coda in Moon Dreams. [Photo above: Gunther Schuller]
"A few minutes after I got to the studio, I went to Miles [pictured] and said, 'Please, Miles, you know how difficult that Moon Dreams is, and you also know how tiring that piece is for our chops, especially for me and J.J., and probably for you, too.' He nodded a yes. 'So, please, don't do Moon Dreams last, that'll be dangerous. You don't have to do it first, but maybe second—just to get the most difficult piece out of the way early in the session, when our minds and chops are still fresh. Please, please don't leave it for last.'
"A bit later, I saw Miles go into the control room to talk to Lee Gillette [pictured], who was A&Ring the recording. Of course, I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I assumed it was something like: the guys in the band would like to do Moon Dreams fairly early on, not at the end of the session; it's the most difficult piece for us. OK?
"Well, for whatever reason, my request, my suggestion was ignored.
"We recorded Gerry Mulligan's Rocker first, and it went very well. When Gillette announced from the control room that we should do Deception next, I looked at Miles questioningly. He merely shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, 'I'm sorry, it's not my call. Lee wants us to do Deception now.' There was no time to argue, and I didn't feel I could intervene. I was only a sideman, not the leader. I was lucky to be on the date.
"Gerry's Deception also went well, although for some reason we did three takes, even when some of us thought the second one was really quite good. (Maybe something went wrong in the control room.) My heart sank when I heard that Darn That Dream with Kenny Hagood as vocalist, was scheduled next. It took a while to get the microphone levels and balances set between Kenny and the band, and again we were asked to do more takes than we thought necessary. [Pictured: Gunther Schuller]
"Darn That Dream is a good song, in fact one of Jimmy Van Heusen's best, and it was the easiest piece to record. But in the context of an essentially instrumental ensemble session, it seemed to me that this one vocal piece was odd man out, so to speak, maybe even expendable, and it certainly didn't warrant making more than two takes.
"We had only three hours for the entire session, but one has to subtract at least 20 minutes for intermission breaks. And here we were spending precious extra time on that song, rather than saving our energies and chops for the most tiring piece on the docket. (Slow-tempo pieces with lots of long notes are always more tiring for brass instruments.) And now we had only 35 minutes left in the session, and the most difficult piece by far yet to do.
"During a five-minute break, J.J. [pictured] turned to me and said, 'I hope I can get through this thing. My chops are beat.' 'Yeah, mine too.' Things were also made more difficult by the fact that the studio where we were recording was quite small, almost claustrophobically so—and everything sounded very dry. There was little reverberation in the room, no acoustic aura to the sound. I felt that the notes I played dropped immediately to the floor, with hardly any projection.
"The atmosphere in the studio was now getting really tense. (Miles mentions this also in his autobiography.) What I had worried about if Moon Dreams was left to the end of the session was coming true. I really felt we weren't going to make it, especially when Gillette announced over the studio intercom, 'Gentlemen, there's not overtime; don't even think about it! Capitol Records is not going to give us any!'
"It was not 10 minutes before the end of the session. During the final five-minute break, I decided, in desperation, that in order for us to get through the coda somebody would have to conduct, to keep us together rhythmically. And that someone was going to have to be me. [Pictured above: Miles Davis]
"I told Miles that's what we should do, to which, thank God, he readily agreed. I moved my chair and stand forward a foot or two, and told everyone to also move a little so that they could see me. (So far the six 'horns' had all sat in a straight row, with virtually no eye contact between us.)
Very few readers will know that playing the horn and conducting at the same time is a rather awkward and precarious business, for the simple reason that we hornists play with one right hand in the bell of the horn. If you take your hand out of the bell, your playing will automatically go a little sharp in intonation. To partially avoid that, I pulled out the main slide on my horn, and hoped that with some additional lipping down I would be able to conduct with my right hand and still play in tune. [Pictured above: Gunther Schuller]
"That's exactly what happened, and that is how we got through the piece in the last five minutes of the session without breaking down, and with at least an acceptable rendering of Gil's complex rhythms, although the intonation could still have been better."
JazzWax pages: You'll find Gunther Schuller: A Life in Pursuit of Music and Beauty at Amazon here.
JazzWax clip: Here's Moon Dreams from the March 9, 1950 recording session by the Miles Davis Nonet, featuring Gunther Schuller on French horn...
On July 20, I posted 10 movie trailers with a jazz kick. That post, of course, prompted suggestions from readers. [Pictured above: Film noir mainstay Cleo Moore]
Here are seven more—plus a line from each trailer to juice the action:
The Rebel Set(1959), courtesy of Jim Harrod of Jazz Research. The film takes place "in the hidden corners of the city, where the rebel set stokes the fires of its rebellion against respectable society." As Jim notes, that's Roy Harte on bongos...
The Subterraneans (1960), courtesy of reader Stan Jones. With Gerry Mulligan, Carmen McRae, Andre Previn, Shelly Manne, Red Mitchell, Art Farmer, Dave Bailey, Buddy Clark, Russ Freeman, Art Pepper, Bob Enevoldsen, Bill Perkins and Frank Hamilton. "God help the woman who looks in your eyes and thinks you really care..."
The Rat Race (1960), courtesy of reader Stan Jones. With Joe Bushkin, Sam Butera and Gerry Mulligan. "Selling herself for 10 cents a dance, left without a dime to buy a bed of her own..."
The Five Pennies (1959), courtesy of Takashi Furukawa. "Joseph Haydn." "Who?" Haydn" "Well let him come out..."
And I'll throw in three...
The Wrong Man (1956). "What twist of fate could take the quiet soul of a simple man and wring it into a shape like this?"
Party Girl (1958). "I'm a great believer in the quickest way."
And finally, The Big Combo (1955). No line here, but the soprano sax's cheap-whisky wail and nylon wiggle speak volumes...
Last week, bassist Bob Whitlock had a chance to clear his good name. Back in the early 1950s, he introduced trumpeter Chet Baker to baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan in Los Angeles. Along with Chico Hamilton, they went on to form the original Gerry Mulligan Quartet, and the rest is history. But Bob has also been tagged over the years as the one who introduced Baker to heroin, which Bob refuted and clarified in his conversation with me. [Photo above: Substrat 10, 2002, Thomas Ruff]
Interestingly, this part of my interview series with Bob seems to have triggered the biggest email wave, with readers insisting that Bob still bore some responsibility for Chet's addiction. Others placed the blame on Charlie Parker—citing his use of heroin as a major influence on the musicians who admired him.
A few words...
First, I never bought into the notion that Parker's use of heroin convinced dozens of jazz musicians to get hooked themselves. I've always thought this analysis was merely a convenient way for people to rationalize the widespread use of drugs by seemingly brilliant artists. [Photo above: Peripher 130 (Berlin), 2004, by Andreas Tschersich]
People don't start habits because those they admire favor them. If that were the case, we'd all be into something bad. Each of us makes choices all day long, and there is a range of established psychological and inherited issues that trigger self-destructive behavior. Addiction isn't the result of friends or colleagues but of a brain's chemical mix.
Second, Baker's willful decision to try heroin was a matter of his own weakness and addictive personality, not Bob's own issues. Baker just happened to be with Bob when it all went down. There were dozens of great musicians on junk in L.A. in the early 1950s, and Baker interacted with all of them. Bob shouldn't feel guilty, and he certainly shouldn't be held accountable for someone else's bad decisions. [Photo above: Sun Bather, Palermo, 2007, Wim Wenders]
Chet Baker, like many top-ranked jazz musicians of his generation, was a brilliant artist. But like many of his peers, he had a weak personality, which isn't a crime. Jazz musicians in the '50s, by definition, were outcasts and fluent speakers of a secret language known as improvisation. To create the music we hear on recordings, one needed to be exceptional—and withdrawn.
Hence, the music itself often attracted those who were both extraordinary and tormented, anti-social and troubled for reasons ranging from inherited biological stuff to a lousy family life. This isn't a knock. It's an observation. [Photo above: Ein-Fuß-Gänger, 1950, by Otto Steinert (1915-1978)]
Game-changing artists are different from the rest of us. Commitment, self-focus and a rejection of traditional and established values is part of their profile and modus operandi.
Where does this leave us? The use of drugs by jazz musicians owes much to the types of people who were drawn to the music. Chet Baker's use of heroin wasn't Bob's fault. Or Charlie Parker's fault. Both Bob and Chet had issues—as did Parker. It's why they became jazz musicians in the first place. The beauty you hear coming through your speakers is the music of issues—or the way great artists with issues expressed themselves. Enjoy. [Photo above: Photogram, ca.1923-25, by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946)]
Buddy Rich Kickstarter documentary. As you can see in the right-hand column under "Kickstarter" (higher up), Brian Morgan and Cathy Rich (Buddy Rich's daughter) are hoping to raise sufficient funds to make a documentary on drummer Buddy Rich. Here's the executive and creative lineup: Cathy Rich (producer), Brian Morgan (producer and director) and Alex Kluft (assistant director).
You can donate to help them make the film by clicking on the Kickstarter video box embedded in the right-hand column or by going here. Donated funds are automatically returned if the team does not make its stated financial goal by its self-imposed deadline. If you dig Buddy, at least hear-out their video pitch.
For those interestedin placing a Kickstarter ad at JazzWax, email me at marc@marcmyers.com for a rate.
Stan Kenton fan club. Ken Bordon of Toronto sent along the following photo and an explanation...
"Here are a few Club Kenton members from 1950 at Massey Hall in Toronto, Canada. It was taken on Thursday March 30, during Kenton's Innovations in Modern Music for 1950 concert.
"Stan and June posed with us after the show. In fact, the band all stood and gave us a hand as we sat in the fifth row, center. I'll never forget that evening!
"I should have stayed home to study for an exam. I didn't and flunked. But I'm not sorry. That's me, second from the right."
Oddball album cover of the week. When you see covers like this one, you wonder whether art directors back then created them just to get girlfriends—or girls they were wooing—into the limelight. Sort of the proverbial producer's couch among the darkroom set. Not sure why the focus needed to be a Breakfast at Tiffany's swell and her chauffeur rather than musicians. Or why, given her social status, she even had to be there, since the driver could have picked up the junk on his own. Did he just light her cigarette with a blow torch?
In July 1958, Sarah Vaughan was in Paris on tour with her trio when she took three days off to record Vaughan and Violins (Mercury). There was a full orchestra for the date, complete with woodwinds and strings arranged and conducted by Quincy Jones. Joining were pianist Ronnell Bright, Vaughan's accompanist; Richard Davis, her bassist; and Zoot Sims, blowing obbligatos behind her.
On the first date of the session (July 7), Vaughan recorded Misty, which she aced so thoroughly that the Erroll Garner composition would become one of her most requested songs.
This is the 1958 Mercury studio recording (dig how Vaughan lets her voice crinkle on the word "love" at the end)...
And here's Sass singing Misty in Stockholm in January 1964, backed by Kirk Stuart (piano), Buster Williams (bass) and George Hughes (drums)...
You deserve another. Here's Vaughan in Sweden in July 1958 singing Tenderly, with Ronnell Bright (piano), Richard Davis (bass) and Art Morgan (drums)...
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Vaughan and Violins at Amazon here. And you'll find the clips above on the DVD Jazz Icons: Sarah Vaughan Live in '58 & '64 here.
In the Wall Street Journal today, my interview with eclectic blues original Taj Mahal that's pegged to an upcoming two-CD set of previously unreleased material. The album, Hidden Treasures of Taj Mahal: 1969-1973 (Legacy), will be available at Amazon on Aug. 21 here.
For years, bassist Bob Whitlock has been blamed for getting Chet Baker hooked on heroin in 1952. Bob is named in several books as being the one who set Baker on his ruinous path. The problem is, according to Bob, it's not true. They were together when it happened, but Bob says he didn't encourage Baker to try it or even want him to do so. [Recent photo above of Bob Whitlock by Leslie Westbrook]
In Part 4 of my four-part interview with Bob, he talks about the day Baker first used, his own work as a Fulbright Scholar and his regrets...
JazzWax: Was Chet Baker a user when you knew him? Bob Whitlock: Chet was a latecomer to hard drugs. He smoked as much pot as anyone alive though. My god, that guy was insatiable. But he wasn’t a hard-drug user at first. I remember the first time Chet ever used drugs. In a way, I feel kind of guilty about it.
JW: How so? BW: In 1952, I was going to score from a guy down in San Pedro, Calif., about a half hour south of Los Angeles. Chet drove down with me and stayed in the car while I went into the guy’s house. But I was in there too long to suit him.
JW: What happened? BW: Eventually Chet came up and knocked on the door. It was an uncool thing to do, since anything could happen with paranoid people. Fortunately, the connection I was using knew that Chet was a musician and was cool.
JW: How did it play out? BW: Chet came up to the door and asked where I was and why was I there so long. They let him in. Chet could sense that the situation wasn’t cool immediately and that he shouldn’t have come in. A connection feels very threatened when someone unknown comes into his house, even if he knows who that person is.
JW: What happened next? BW: I had just gotten down, and the guy asked Chet, “You want to get off?” I think Chet was afraid not to because this guy represented some kind of threat.
JW: Threat how? BW: I really don’t know how to go any deeper into that. It might have just passed, but I think Chet felt he needed to prove to this guy he wasn’t someone who was going to be dangerous to him. I also think Chet felt that he had gotten me in trouble and needed to undo that. I never urged him to do a thing and told him there was no need.
JW: Did Baker get high? BW: Chet got down, and it was a terrible experience. He started vomiting. This stuff was very pure and strong. Chet got so whacked.
JW: Based on his personality, it sounds like if he hadn’t started with you, he would probably have done so with someone else. BW: He was hell-bound to do it. He always had that all-the-way-Jose mentality, whether it was playing the trumpet or smoking pot. He probably smoked enough pot by himself to last a lifetime. There was never any restraint or halfway with Chet.
JW: So you had nothing to do with convincing him to try heroin? BW: My god, no. That has been put on me for so long. He was with me when he started but I had absolutely nothing to do with pushing him into doing anything. Chet was always his own man. But to this day I feel guilty about the whole thing.
JW: How did you kick the habit? BW: In 1976 I went into Synanon, the drug-treatment program in Santa Monica. I kicked there. I had gotten caught stealing and was arrested. It’s amazing I made it as long as I did before getting caught. When I was on probation, I visited my probation officer and he was amazed that I was both a Fulbright Scholar and a junkie.
JW: How did you become a Fulbright Scholar? BW: I had written my masters thesis at UCLA on Anton Webern [pictured]. It won me a Fulbright. I studied as a Fulbright Scholar in Paris in 1961 and ’62. I originally was going to transcribe a manuscript but soon discovered that someone in London was already working on the project. I went to the Fulbright committee and told them about the project already in the works and that I wanted to make a switch.
JW: What did they say? BW: They showed [contemporary classical composer and conductor] Pierre Boulez my thesis on the early, pre-serial music of Webern. Boulez said he would see me weekly. I was beyond happy but also scared to death.
JW: Why? BW: My original intent was to transcribe a manuscript and here I was studying Schoenberg and Berg with Boulez [pictured]. But then Boulez received a letter notifying him that he had to go to Baden-Baden in Germany.
JW: Why? BW: Boulez was founder and head of a program there. He told me that he was sorry, that he couldn’t follow through. He lined me up with his old teacher, Max Deutsch. So I studied with Max for a year, mainly Schoenberg and Berg quartets.
JW: Did you gig in Paris as well as study? BW: Yes. About two weeks after I had arrived in Paris I was hired for drummer Kenny Clarke’s group, which included Rene Urtreger on piano and Jimmy Gourley on guitar.
JW: Who else did you gig with? BW: Zoot Sims came over from the States around December of ‘61. After that I worked with Kenny Drew. Only lousy thing about the gig was that the owner got to sing with the group every night.
JW: And Baker? BW: I played with him again but not as much as I would have liked. I left Paris in May ’62. Chet had been in jail in Italy, and I just missed him in Paris after he was released.
JW: What do you think about Chet looking back? BW: Chet never should have ever done that, and I should never have let it happen. I didn’t encourage it, but I should have done more to prevent it—myself included. I wish I had never gotten into drugs.
JW: Why did you? BW: I was just trying to be one of the big guys. All the people I worshipped were using: Art Pepper [pictured above], Zoot—all the guys. It was the thing to do.
JW: Who got you hooked? BW: Some guy I had known in junior high school. One day we were talking and it turned out that both of us were smoking weed. But he was also using.
JW: Why did you leave the Gerry Mulligan Quartet? BW: The first time I left was in the summer of ’53. We were playing at the Haig. We had recorded the one album and I was offered a job to accompany June Christy [pictured above] and Vido Musso. So I told Gerry I was leaving. We weren’t working, and I needed income. I said, “Gerry, all we do are these auditions and stuff. I have to go up for two weeks and work, and then I’ll be back.” The gig was at the Say When Club in San Francisco.
JW: How did Mulligan take it? BW: He was fine with it. But right after I left, Gerry and the quartet got booked into the Blackhawk in San Francisco.
JW: How did you feel? BW: I was ready to shoot myself [laughs]. Gerry had gotten Carson Smith [pictured above on bass]. A couple of weeks later Gerry offered me the job back. I have no idea why, but I took it. Playing behind June was OK, but I was kind of sorry I had taken the gig.
JW: Why? BW: She was great, but I had missed out on the quartet’s breakout. I worked with the quartet into the beginning of ‘53. I left the second time after Gerry and I got into a big fight.
JW: Over money? BW: No, Chet and I had gotten busted.
JW: How did that happen? BW: Carson Smith used to come into the Haig to check us out. One night we were out in Chet’s car—just Chet, Carson and me. We were smoking weed when we saw a squad car go by. Chet flipped the roach out the window. The cops saw it in their rear-view mirror and backed up and were right on us.
JW: You were arrested for a roach? BW: Not quite. It turned out that Chet and one of the cops were from the same town in Oklahoma and they got to talking. Which was great. I sighed and thought we weren’t going to go to jail. But then the other cop was a hard-ass and said they had to search the car. They wound up finding two full lids [ounces] of pot and took us all in.
JW: What was Mulligan’s reaction? BW: When I got out two days later, Gerry [pictured above] got all over me. “You and Chet are bad news for each other,” he said. I went back all over him. I said, “You’re a fucking hypocrite. How can you sit there and talk to me about using considering what you’ve done?” It was kind of threatening, like were going to get into it physically. But then we came to our senses. I told him he could shove the job up his ass. Gerry said you ain’t got no job. The irony, of course, is that Gerry got busted a short time later.
JW: What did you do? BW: I went back to Utah. Two of my cousins had come into the Haig and saw the condition I was in and were ready to kidnap me to get me back in health. I stayed back there for about seven months. There was no messing around up there. When I returned to L.A., I started working with Art Pepper again and Stan Getz for a while.
JW: What do you think when you look back on the Gerry Mulligan Quartet? BW: I feel proud to have been a part of it. I feel a lot of pride in that group. Those were the greatest months of my career. I felt very lucky. I was barely old enough to buy a drink and was already playing with one of the major groups in jazz. I was dumbfounded by it and impressed with myself. I wish I had made different choices back then. But I was young, excited and didn’t know any better. [Recent photo above of Bob Whitlock by Leslie Westbrook]
JazzWax tracks: A few of my favorites featuring Bob Whitlock...
JazzWax clip:Here's a tasty clip of You Go to My Head with Zoot Sims (ts) Henri Renaud (p) Bob Whitlock (b) and Jean-Louis Viale (d) in 1961 at the Paris Blue Note. It's from Zoot in Paris (United Artists), another great find...
Marc Myers writes frequently on music and the arts for the Wall Street Journal. He is author of "Why Jazz Happened" (University of California Press). In 2012, JazzWax was named the Jazz Journalists Association's "Blog of the Year."
