JazzWax

Backgrounder: Ray Brown Trio - 'Don't Get Sassy'

On April 21 and 22, 1994, the Ray Brown Trio went in to studio A at Signet Sound in West Hollywood to record an album called Don't Get Sassy for Robert Woods and Jack Renner's Telarc label. The trio was comprised of Benny Green on piano, Ray Brown on bass and Jeff Hamilton on drums, and there appears to have been an audience on hand in the studio.

This trio had been playing and recording together since 1991, when they backed James Morrison on Two the Max. Bass Face was next in 1993, followed by It's a Wonderful World backing vocalist Allan Harris with Claudio Roditi (tp,flhrn) and Tom Varner (fhr) and Mark Whitfield (g) in 1995. That same year, drummer Gregory Hutchinson replaced Hamilton, and other albums were recorded in 1995 and in 1996. In 1997, the trio was joined by Oscar Peterson on Oscar & Benny. [Photo above, from left, Jeff Hamilton, Ray Brown and Benny Green at Bermuda Onion Club in Toronto by Barry Thomson]

On Don't Get Sassy, the album not only features a powerful Ray Brown but also showcases Benny, whose playing is magnificent with Peterson's influence on glorious display. The album is spectacular all the way through, so I figured I'd post it today as a Backgrounder—an album you can enjoy uninterrupted without ads. If you'd like to buy it, you'll find Don't Get Sassy here as a CD and digital download.

Here's the album...

Other ad-free Backgrounders in this series:

• Zoot Sims Plays Bossa Nova, go here.
• Lee Morgan: Lee-Way, go here.
• Bossa Nova for Swinging Lovers, go here.
• Leon Spencer: Louisiana Slim, go here.
• Bossa Nova Modern Quartet: Bossa Nova Jazz Samba, go here.
• Bill Evans & Luiz Eça: Piano Four Hands, go here.

Eddie Bert: 'Musician of the Year'

Today is Eddie Bert's centenary. The trombonist was born May 16, 1922 and died in 2012. Eddie was an extraordinary musician, a solid swinger and a great guy. And if we're looking at East Coast and West Coast doppelgängers, then Eddie can be compared with Frank Rosolino in Los Angeles for his powerful and hungry improvisational lines, a seasoned approach and touches of wit. One of Eddie's most remarkable leadership albums was Eddie Bert: Musician of the Year, recorded for Savoy in 1955. [Photo above of Eddie Bert in the 1940s]

Joining Eddie on the album is Hank Jones (p), Wendell Marshall (b) and Kenny Clarke (d). What makes this album special is that there are really five musicians on the date. Joining Eddie was, well, Eddie. As he told me in a JazzWax interview in 2007, just months after I started this blog:

In 1955, I won Metronome magazine's Musician of the Year. Savoy’s head of A&R, Ozzie Cadena, called and asked if I wanted to do a date with two trombones. "Who’s the other trombone?" I asked. He said, "You. We’re going to overdub you." So I taught myself how to overdub and showed Rudy Van Gelder how I'd do it—playing the straight line first and then recording a second track over it that harmonized with the straight line. When the album came out, Jimmy Cleveland took a blindfold test and said it was J.J. and Kai at their best. That was funny.

Eddie started recording with Red Norvo in 1942 before moving on to Charlie Barnet, Woody Herman, Horace Henderson, Sam Donahue, Herbie Fields and Stan Kenton, in 1947. Not a bad five-year break-in experience. Eddie is on the first recording of Kenton's Interlude (1947), which Pete Rugolo scored for just the trombones and rhythm section. Benny Goodman's Capitol bebop band was next in 1948 and 1949. Eddie also was part of Gene Roland's Band That Never Was, a massive New York rehearsal orchestra between 1948 and '50 with Charlie Parker that was taped. Next came Artie Shaw in 1950 and Chico O'Farrill's Second Afro Cuban Jazz Suite and other Latin sessions for Verve in 1951, including Dance One, Bright One, Flamingo and Last One. [Photo above, from left, drummer Shelly Manne; trombonists Eddie Bert, Harry Forbes, Milt Bernhart, Harry Betts, Bart Varsalona; and trumpeter Conte Candoli in Stan Kenton's band in the fall of 1947]

Eddie began playing in small groups in 1952, as the 10-inch LP replaced the 78 and created new opportunities for musicians as ensemble leaders. These included Eddie's record dates with the Bill Harris Herd, Gil Melle's New Faces—New Sounds and Eddie's first leadership session in March 1952. There are no bad Eddie Bert recordings. [Photo above of Eddie Bert with Charlie Parker at one of Gene Roland's "Band That Never Was" rehearsals]

On Musician of the Year, Eddie's overdubbing is remarkable and paved new ground. Overdubbing became possible only with the emergence of magnetic tape in recording studios. Not easy to accomplish back then and no clear way to create the right harmony, since so little overdubbing had been done except, perhaps, for pop recordings by Les Paul and Mary Ford.

Here's the entire album, featuring two Eddies with the Hank Jones Trio...

Here's Eddie with Eddie Safranski and the Poll Cats playing Sa-frantic in an early Atlantic date in 1947. On the session: Ray Wetzel (tp), Eddie Bert (tb), Art Pepper (as), Bob Cooper (ts), Pete Rugolo (p,arr), Eddie Safranski (b) and Shelly Manne (d)...

Here's Eddie in Stan Kenton's trombone section on Interlude in 1947...

Here's Eddie's trombone solo on June Christy's famed recording of How High the Moon with Stan Kenton in 1947...

Here's Eddie soloing on Benny Goodman's Undercurrent Blues in 1949...

Here's Chico O'Farrill's Last One in 1951. Talk about a knockout East Coast band: Al Porcino and Roy Eldridge (tp); Eddie Bert, Bill Harris, Ollie Wilson, Bart Varsalona (tb); Lenny Hambro and Charlie Kennedy (as); Flip Phillips (ts); Pete Mondello (ts,bar); Ralph Burns (p); Billy Bauer (g); Ray Brown (b) and Jo Jones (d), with Chico O'Farrill (arr,cond)...

Here's Eddie soloing on Hoot, a Ben Webster combo date from 1953 arranged by Johnny Richards...

Here's Eddie on Bobby Scott's Aunt Sarah in 1954, produced by Creed Taylor...

Here's Eddie playing and singing He Ain't Got Rhythm in 1954...

Here's Eddie with Coleman Hawkins on a mid-tempo rendition of Out of Nowhere in 1954. Eddie's solo follows the Hawk's. The personnel: Emmett Berry (tp), Eddie Bert (tb), Coleman Hawkins (ts), Billy Taylor (p), Milt Hinton (b) and Jo Jones (d)...

And here's Eddie's solo following Cecil Payne on a nifty Kenny Clarke-Ernie Wilkins date in 1955 before recording his Musician of the Year album. The band: Eddie Bert (tb), Ernie Wilkins (as,ts,arr), George Barrow (ts,bar), Cecil Payne (bar), Hank Jones (p), Wendell Marshall (b) and Kenny Clarke (d)...

Obviously, this is just the start of Eddie's fabulous discography, since he would play and record for many decades after.

To read my multipart interview with Eddie Bert in 2007, start here. There are four parts. To read the second, third and fourth parts, scroll above the red date for the link. This was one of my earliest interviews, when I just ran the subject in on a long narrative rather than a Q&A. It's also before I figured out how to embed images.

Mike, Mick and Cannonball

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed actor-comedian Mike Myers for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). A fun interview, as you might imagine, and great to finally talk to the person I'm most often confused with when I dial in to a customer service rep. For example, whenever I call a restaurant, FedEx or a store, I'll spell my name and they wind up calling me Mike anyway before we hang up. [Photo above of Mike Myers's many characters in The Pentaverate, courtesy of Netflix]

Mike's latest project is a Netflix miniseries called The Pentaverate. It sounds like there's going to be a fourth installment of Austin Powers, but Mike wouldn't give me a full-throated commitment. But as we say in the media business, he didn't deny it either. Here's the Pentaverate trailer...

Here's Mike in Inglorious Bastards (2009), a rare appearance in a dramatic role...

Also in the WSJ, my monthly essay for the Opinion pages on important rock and soul albums that changed music history and are celebrating an anniversary this year, I took a fresh look at the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street, released in May 1972. Go here.

Ahoy there! Somewhere near Grand Cayman, Dan, a friend and eagle-eyed JazzWax reader, was aboard a cruise last week and snapped the photo above. Looks like he took along the perfect book for an afternoon of reading on the high seas. The whisky sour and melting sunset were a bonus. You'll find my latest book, Rock Concert, here.

Mike Abene, the jazz pianist and arranger pictured above, sent along an email last week following my post on lead trumpeter Bernie Glow...

Hello Marc, I especially loved the article on Bernie Glow. I had the pleasure of using him on a number of dates. He was a fantastic lead player, and we had a great time. Bernie also played on the Burt Collins and Joe Shepley Time, Space and the Blues and Lennon and McCartney Live albums. Whenever the Maynard Ferguson Band played the Cork 'n' Bib in Westbury on Long Island, Bernie was usually there hanging out.

For my post on Time, Space and the Blues, go here.

Cannonball Adderley. Here's a quintet that doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves: The Cannonball Adderley Quintet, in 1960, playing Jeannine, featuring Cannonball Adderley (as), Nat Adderley (cnt), Victor Feldman (p), Sam Jones (b) and Louis Hayes (d)...

Sonny Stitt. Fifty years ago, saxophonist Sonny Stitt released Tune Up! on the Cobblestone label. On the album was I Can't Get Started, played as a mid-tempo ballad, with Barry Harris on piano, Sam Jones on bass and Alan Dawson on drums. Here's the track...

On Saturday, (today, May 14), radio host Fritz Byers on NPR's WGTE in Toledo, Ohio, will focus on saxophonist Bill Kirchner's new album, For All We Know, featuring Carol Fredette and pianist Marc Copland. I posted about the album here. Since 1989, Fritz has hosted one of jazz radio's longest-running shows and he'll be on tonight from 8 p.m. to midnight (ET). To listen from anywhere in the world, go here, click the "Radio" tab at the top and then the "Listen Now" button.

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, the rock guitarist on the bottom left of the album cover above who has played most notably with Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers during the 1970s and Spirit in the 1980s recently was celebrated during a two-hour Greasy Tracks radio show hosted by Chris Cowles of WRTC-FM in Hartford, Ct. To listen, go here. 

Zabar's. Anyone who has visited New York most assuredly was urged to make the trek to Manhattan's Upper West Side to visit Zabar's, the food emporium. It's crowded every afternoon, seven days a week, with locals shopping for dinner—buying prosciutto from Italy, cheeses from Europe and New England, freshly sliced smoked salmon for a weekend breakfast, and fresh ground coffee and bagels, to name just a few of the thousands of things you can buy and eat in this stuff-jammed store. There are hundreds of everything, from jam, to mustard, pasta sauce, olives, you name it.

If you've been, you may have wondered about the store's history and pedigree. Now your curiosity can be fed, too, with a new book by Lori Zabar, a member of food's first family. The store opened in 1934 and has grown ever since. And if you frequent the counters, everyone who works there knows your name. Which adds to the neighborhood charm. I happen to live near by, so Zabar's is my extended refrigerator. A fun book loaded with historic pictures, stories and recipes. To buy, go here. 

Pianist Dave Thompson has something he'd like to play for you. Go here...

And finally, here's pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi with then husband and alto saxophonist Charlie Mariano playing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes in 1963, featuring Masanaga Harada on bass and Takeshi Inomata on drums...