JazzWax

Interview: Russ Garcia (Part 3)

After interviewing legendary composer and arranger Russ Garcia by phone last week, I happened upon the photo you see above. It was taken in 1952. The more I looked at the image, the more the older gentleman to Russ' right looked familiar. I thought to myself, "It couldn't be, could it?" So I typed "Russell Garcia + Charlie Chaplin" into Google. Up came an interview from 1985, in which Russ was quoted as saying that he was the one who had written the arrangement for Chaplin's Limelight (1952).

Stunned that this topic never came up in my series of conversations with Russ, I clicked over to the Internet Movie Database, the granddaddy of film websites, and called up Limelight. There I found Russ' name along with someone named Larry Russell listed as "uncredited" music arrangers. I also noticed that Limelight won an Oscar in 1972 for best original dramatic score.

So I went over to the site of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. There, I discovered that three Oscar statues for Limelight's score were awarded to Chaplin, Raymond Rasch (the credited arranger) and Larry Russell. Russ Garcia was not among the recipients.

How odd, I thought. Could the Academy have goofed? Why wasn't Russ included? What could have happened? Was there some confusion, given that  Russ' first name (Russell) and Larry's last name were identical? So I called Bruce Davis, executive director of the Academy. When I relayed what I learned to a member of his staff, I was told to call the next day for a comment. But on Wednesday, when I phoned back, I was told that Mr. Davis "would not have a comment but looked forward to reading my post."

So I called Russ for his side of the story. Russ was resistant at first, preferring to let sleeping Oscars lie. It's not in his gentle nature to rehash the past. But with a little coaxing, he told me about his work on Limelight, collaborating with Chaplin, his orchestration for the 65-piece studio symphony, how the Academy might have understandably erred when the 1972 Oscars were handed out, and why Russ has resisted talking about it until now:

JazzWax: Did you arrange Limelight?
Russ Garcia: Yes. I worked with Charlie Chaplin on it. He played the movie's theme when I was over his house with one finger on the piano. Then I scored the theme and composed and arranged the film's incidental music. I also was in the engineer’s booth when it was recorded.

JW: Why weren’t you credited originally as the score’s sole arranger?
RG: That credit went to Charlie. It was his film. I worked anonymously on hundreds of movies that I never got credit for. You have to understand, that's how it worked. And probably still does. In the case of Limelight, Charlie was the creative force on all aspects of this film, from directing, writing and acting to the music. While he composed the film's theme, he obviously didn't know how to arrange for a symphony-sized orchestra. Neither did Ray Rasch, Charlie’s piano player, an arranger and a friend of mine.

JW: Who was Larry Russell?
RG: He was a composer and movie arranger, and a good one. He also was a nice guy.

JW: What role did he play on Limelight?
RG: None, I’m afraid. He had nothing to do with the picture. 

JW: Who recommended you for the job?
RG: I was working in the Hollywood studios at the time and knew Ray [Rasch]. So Ray must have told Charlie about me. At the time, I was already known for being able to write for large-size orchestras and do so fairly quickly. Chaplin had already worked through the theme with Ray when I was first called over to his house.

JW: What was Charlie like?
RG: He was wonderful, a real talent. At one point, Ray told me Charlie had said to him, "Ray, why don't you score this film? I've written all the melodies, why don't you score it?" Ray agreed but he didn’t know how to do it for such a symphony. So he called me in to work on it. I orchestrated the score, which is what you hear when you watch the movie. 

JW: You also mentioned composing the incidental or background music.
RG: I had to do a lot of composing based on Chaplin's single theme. When I first went over to his house, Chaplin played the theme on the piano and I had to write it down. There was no written music.

JW: Was it improvised on the spot?
RG: Oh, no. Charlie clearly had thought it out in advance. From there I had to build music for an entire movie, and time the music so it was in sync with what was up on the screen.

JW: Was Chaplin funny?
RG: Funny? He wasn’t dressed like a tramp or clowning when we were working together. [laughs] But he was a gentleman. He had the music he wanted planned in his head. The guy was a genius. He could do it all—the ballet steps, the choreography, every camera angle, the script, and the musical theme. Charlie was a perfectionist. He knew what he wanted, and he’d get it, too.

JW: Did you conduct the orchestra?
RG: No. Charlie had a conductor named Keith Williams.

JW: Did you score the film while it was in production or upon completion?
RG: I believe I had to wait until it was done. Remember, they used to shoot every scene in those days with a long shot, medium shot and close up. The film's editor then would edit the film from these shots. So from the scoring perspective, you don’t know how long scenes are going to be until they're pieced together.

JW: Who has the score now?
RG: I don't know. I suspect the studio archive or Chaplin’s estate.

JW: Is your name on the score?
RG: It might have been. I had score pads with my name embossed on them. Or I could have been using score pads that Chaplin’s studio gave me. Given that the Academy didn't know who wrote the score when they researched it, probably not.

JW: How do you think this mix-up occurred?
RG: From what I understand, the Academy wanted to give Chaplin an Oscar to recognize his work on the film while he was still alive.

[Editor's note: Limelight's score was nominated for an Oscar 20 years after it was completed because the film wasn't released in the U.S. until 1972. In 1953, after the movie's London premier, the Justice Department began investigating Chaplin's "subversive tendencies," and pressure was placed on U.S. theaters not to show it. The investigation caused Chaplin to relocate to Switzerland. He died in 1977.]

JW: How do you think they went about doing that?
RG: From what I understand, when the Academy asked Chaplin, "Who arranged the music?," he told them Ray Rasch. When they went to Ray’s widow and asked who else arranged the score, she said, "Someone named Russell.” The only person who came to their minds was Larry Russell, who also was a film arranger. But Larry, too, had passed away, and when they asked his widow if he had scored it, she said yes, he must have. So Oscars were given to Larry and Ray posthumously along with Charlie. Actually, I'm not that comfortable talking about this because I don't want to make trouble for anyone or spoil anyone’s fond thoughts or memories.

JW: Understood, but setting the record straight is important. What happened after the Oscar was awarded?
RG: The next day my phone in New Zealand rang off the hook. Keith Williams, the conductor of the Limelight score, called to apologize. So did Larry Russell’s son. I'm not sure why everyone was sorry after the award was given. Maybe they didn't realize my role until those who were actually there started talking. I don't know. I'm sure it didn't help that I lived so far away.

JW: Did you ever call the Academy to make a fuss?
RG: Goodness, no. I’m a Baha'i. It’s part of my faith never to be the source of grief to anyone. I didn't want Larry's widow or family or anyone to feel bad. I still don't. I've won plenty of awards. I just forgot about it.

JW: Are you upset by what happened?
RG: Me? [laughs] Of course not. I know that I arranged the score for the film. And so do those who were there and those who have spoken to those who know. At my age, 92, I'm more focused on moving forward.

Interview: Russ Garcia (Part 2)

In the late 1940s Russ Garcia studied extensively with cutting-edge European theorists and composers in Hollywood. Yet he always retained his jazz sensibility. After arranging a series of terrific albums in the early 1950s that established him as one of the West Coast's fastest and most complete orchestrators, Verve producer Norman Granz tapped him in 1957 for Porgy and Bess. The session paired Ella Fitzgerald's warm maternal sound with Louis' gravelly vocal style, and the result remains a classic. [Pictured: Louis, Ella and Russ]

In the years that followed, prior to his 1968 New Zealand relocation, Russ arranged albums primarily for his own orchestra and vocalists. The list of singers is extensive and included Anita O'Day, Frances Faye, Helen Grayco, Bobby Troup, Herb Jeffries, Julie London, Tony Travis, the Axidentals, Margaret Whiting, Sylvia Mora, Blossom Dearie, Mel Torme and others.

In Part 2 of my three-part interview with Russ, the arranger recalls the West Coast trumpeters he worked with, vocalists Anita O'Day and Julie London, Ella and Louis, Stan Getz, and the album Russ recorded that he likes most of all:

JazzWax: You've worked with some of the West Coast's best trumpeters in the 1950s. Who did you dig most?
Russ Garcia: I loved Don Fagerquist [pictured]. We recorded many albums together. He played so pretty and could play strong lead. Most people didn't know that. He was just a natural, good musician who today is largely overlooked. I also loved Buddy Childers. He died in May 2007. When I came to the States on a visit last year, the first thing on my list was to call Buddy. When I did, I learned he had died a few days earlier. I was so sad to hear that.

JW: Is Buddy under-appreciated?
RG: Oh for sure. Buddy [pictured in the 1950s] had played lead trumpet with Stan Kenton when he was 16 years old. That wasn't an easy chair. That was just before Maynard came on the band. I always used Buddy as a lead player. He could play such pretty jazz. I heard him playing in the early 1990s with just guitar and bass. Afterward I said we should do an album with strings. The next day he called and asked if I was serious. So we did a CD, Artistry in Jazz. It turned out quite well. We did it on spec. Buddy paid for the musicians and the studio and I did the arranging and conducting. Then Buddy sold it to a record company.

JW: Who else?
RG: I loved the strength of Maynard. Conrad Gozzo also played great lead. There were so many good brass players in Hollywood and New York in the 1950s.

JW: When you arranged back then, you were thinking about these guys the way a painter thinks about different colors, yes?
RG: That's right. I would write one way or another depending on who I was writing for and who would be on the date. I also knew many of those guys personally, which added another dimension to my writing.

JW: What was singer Julie London like?
RG: When I worked with her on About the Blues, Julie had recorded Julie Is Her Name a year earlier with only guitar and bass. It sold very well. It was a very easy-going album. She had a soft, sexy voice. In most cases, I get with a singer and we pick the keys that the singer is comfortable with. Some singers know what they want. For example, Mel Torme would tell me he wants specific chords to go up a half step and so on. Sammy Davis Jr. said, "Surprise me." He'd come to the date not knowing what to expect and fit in beautifully. With Julie, for About the Blues, I knew how she sang, with a soft easy approach, so I built on that. I guess I got a pretty good contrast with that screaming brass behind her.

JW: In 1957, Norman Granz brought you in to arrange Porgy and Bess for Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.
RG: I loved both of them. Louis was such a wonderful, nice person. He loved everybody. Nothing could wipe that beautiful, loving smile off his face. Which is amazing considering what he must have gone through with racism when he was young. When we were recording Porgy and Bess, I ran down the orchestra part for the first tune, and Louis said in that rough voice, "Russ, you're a genius. If I ever get rich I'm going to put you on salary." Louis didn't know he was already extremely wealthy. His agent would give him $400 or $500 to keep in his pocket and then pay his hotel and restaurant bills. Louis didn't want to hear about money.

JW: How were Louis and Ella in the studio?
RG: They were a joy. We'd record all day. It took us two days to do the album. After the first session, Louis had dinner and then went down to Central Avenue in Los Angeles and jammed half the night at the clubs. The next morning he came in and pointed his trumpet against the wall. He tried to blow through it, but air came out from the sides of his lips. No sound. He'd keep this up, and then all of a sudden—bang, the sound would come, and his lips would be vibrating and he'd be off and doing fine.

JW: He had quite a prep process for his lips, didn't he?
RG: Did he ever. Louis always had two or three guys along with him carrying suitcases filled with stuff. He had lip salve, gargle and Swiss Kriss, a laxative he was always pushing. I told him he should stop by the Thrifty Drug Store to see if they needed anything. [laughs] There was one tune on the Porgy session that he didn't know, Bess Oh Where's My Bess. He had never heard it before. So I had the orchestra play the background while I sang, and recorded onto a tape. Louis took the tape back to Las Vegas, where he was working, to listen and learn the tune. He called me at midnight one night and said, "Russ, I'm listening to you every night before I go to sleep." Then he flew in and we recorded it.

JW: So he picked up the song from your vocal?
RG: Yes. I did this with a lot of singers. I had done it for Frances Faye, Mel Torme and Johnny Hartman a year earlier for The Complete Porgy and Bess for Bethlehem. In later years, Frances would play the tapes for people up at her house and ask, "Guess who's singing." I don't think anyone ever guessed correctly. [laughs]

JW: Why did those singers need help on Porgy?
RG: The Porgy production I did with Frances [pictured], Mel, Johnny Hartman was different. It has become a cult classic. There was so much weird music in there, incidental things. We did the whole opera, but with new arrangements. The singers didn't know a lot of the incidental music, so I had to sing and record lots of the parts for them. I brought in a piano man in and recorded the music. Then I gave it to Faye and Torme to learn. I did this with Johnny Hartman, too.

JW: How was Ella to work with on Porgy?
RG: She was a wonderful singer. You know, she was so shy. We'd be at a jazz festival in Europe and before she'd go on she was in a complete panic. But the minute she'd get that mike in her hand and sing her first note, she'd be into her song and sing like an angel.

JW: Do you think the stage fright was fear she'd forget the words to songs?
RG: I really don't know. Here she is, the world's champion singer, and she's worried about singing in front of an audience. Once she was into the music, she forgot herself.

JW: How did she play off of Louis on the Porgy date?
RG: Louis annoyed her a little bit. When she was singing a beautiful passage, he'd come in with his growling. [laughs] She'd shoot him a sharp look and go on. It would throw her for a second.  But it came off beautifully. Some people call that album "Whipped Cream and Sandpaper." [laughs]

JW: You arranged Anita O'Day Sings the Winners. How was she to work with?
RG: I loved how Anita sang. So many singers dragged behind the beat, which interfered with the harmony exchange. Anita was always right on. And she always made the band swing. She sang like an instrument would play. But she was kind of a kook.

JW: How so?
RG: She walked into one of the first sessions we did for that album and Bud Shank was warming up on the flute. She says to me, "Who's that? I don't like his embouchure." Bud Shank—can you imagine! I think she was showing off a new word she had learned and was trying to act tough. Of course, she backed off her attitude as soon as she heard him play.

JW: Did you have any difficult moments with anyone else?
RG: Not really. I was warned in advance to watch out for Buddy Childers. I was told he was tough, that if he didn't like your arrangements he'd say so out loud. That never happened. Or trombonist Bill Watrous was the same thing. When I walked into a session with him, he said, "I can't use this mike. I've got to have an X4." Then he looked at the charts and said, "We'll never do all this music in five hours."

JW: What did you think?
RG: I thought this guy was going to give me trouble. But the minute we started the music, he was an angel. Buddy was always an angel, too.

JW: And Anita?
RG: She loved music and was a natural. A wonderful artist. She sang with feeling and really swung the meaning of the lyrics. She could really go on with the scatting. I write differently for different singers. I just imagine them singing and write the background of what I think they're going to do.

JW: Were you a fast arranger?
RG: Extremely. I don't use the piano or any instrument to write. I just sit at my desk with score pads. Anything I hear or can imagine I can write down. I'm very lucky.

JW: How do you do that?
RG: You're a writer, so you can write down what I'm saying and what you think about what I'm saying. I can do that with music. I hear the whole work in my head. Then I just have to write it down. I do a lot of work in my sleep.

JW: In your sleep?
RG: That's right. It's so strange. If I have an arrangement or two to write, I'll go to sleep and wake up in the morning and they'll be all planned out. I just need a quick sit-down to sketch them out. It's kind of cheating I guess, working in your sleep. [laughs]

JW: You recorded Stan Getz's Cool Velvet in 1960. Why did you record it in Germany?
RG: That's where Stan was at the time. We had a lot of fun. He panicked in the beginning. We recorded the album with a symphony orchestra and did the date near Baden-Baden in Germany. Stan told me he was a bit nervous when he saw that big orchestra. But he's such a natural, good musician. He plays so beautifully. No matter what chord progression you write, he'll hear it immediately and play all those beautiful notes against it. The album turned out just fine.

JW: Who picked the songs?
RG: We picked them together. We were staying at a hotel 50 miles north of Stuttgart. We'd drive to the studio each day. He was like Anita. They could booze it or whatever half the night. You'd see them the next morning, and they look like all-American cheerleader kids. I don't know how they did it.

JW: If there's one artist you remember more than any other, who would it be?
RG: I loved Oscar Peterson as a person and as an artist. I enjoyed the album we did with brass.

JW: Which of your albums do you listen to most?
RG: The soundtrack to The Time Machine, which was made in 1962. Recently Film Score Monthly went to MGM and got the original 24-track tape I did for The Time Machine and Atlantis: The Lost Continent. FSM reissued both of them and did a wonderful job on the sound.

JW: Why do you love The Time Machine soundtrack so much?
RG: I think it's quite creative. I get emails from all over the world about it. There are clubs and web sites, and you can download plans to build your own time machine. It's still a popular film. The score gave me a chance to write something for me.

Tomorrow in Part 3 of my conversation with Russ, some breaking news. My research shows Russ arranged the score to Charlie Chaplin's Limelight (1952). Yet in 1973, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences appears to have mistakenly awarded an honorary Oscar for original dramatic score to the wrong arranger. Russ has never spoken publicly about the mix-up—until I brought it up last Friday. Tomorrow I'll feature the incredible story behind the misplaced Oscar, what Russ said when I spoke to him about it, and the Academy's response.

JazzWax tracks: All of the albums mentioned above are available at iTunes or CD retail sites.  

Two superb Verve albums Russ arranged for Oscar Peterson—In a Romantic Mood and Swinging Brass—are both out of print but have been combined on The Oscar Peterson Songbook.

Also, Russ arranged several albums that featured trumpeter Don Fagerquist. A roundup of these sessions can be found on the Fresh Sound CD, Don Fagerquist: Portrait of a Great Jazz Artist here.

Interview: Russ Garcia (Part 1)

One of the founding fathers of the West Coast big-band sound is Russ Garcia. Born in April 1916, Russ was and remains a tireless orchestrator and was an early pioneer of atonal arranging. Starting as a trumpet player in the bands of Al Donahue and Horace Heidt, Garcia first recorded with the Harry James bands of 1947 and1948. Intensive private composing and arranging studies followed in Hollywood before Russ began teaching at a local college. There, the class workbook he developed would become The Professional Arranger-Composer, a classic that nearly every up-and-coming West Coast arranger in the early 1950s and beyond read.

At 92, Russ is still active on the jazz scene. Now residing with his wife, Gina, in New Zealand, Russ recently arranged and conducted singer Shaynee Rainbolt's new album, Charmed Life: Shaynee Rainbolt Sings Russell Garcia. It's the first vocal album of Russ' original work, and Russ used four trombones for the date, a sound he made famous in the early 1950s. Russ also flew in from New Zealand to tour with Rainbolt and conduct the four-trombone band. Both will appear with the four-trombone band in New York on September 23d at the Highline Ballroom.

In Part 1 of my three-part interview with Russ, he talks about getting his start with Harry James [pictured], his years of study in the late 1940s, writing the book that changed arranging, how producer Norman Granz gave him his big break, the groundbreaking Wigville sessions of 1955, and why he loves writing for trombones:

JazzWax: When did you fall in love with big bands?
Russ Garcia: I grew up in the 1930s in Oakland, CA, when the big bands were just coming in. At first you had Ellington and Lunceford. Then the others came along. I always loved that exciting big band sound. All we had back in those days was radio, no television. I grew up with jazz, and when I was just a kid, I played the trumpet. I had a good ear from an early age. [Pictured: Oakland in 1930]

JW: Were you good?
RG: Not really, but when I became a professional player, the bands all wanted me. I played third or fourth trumpet, but the real reason they wanted me was because I could write a good arrangement.

JW: How did you come to arranging so early?
RG: I was gung-ho about music as a kid. My brother bought me an old cornet for $5 held together with Band Aids. I quickly taught myself to play it, and then my parents got me a better horn. In grade school, me and my friends started a little jazz band. I wanted to write for it, so I had to figure out logically how to transpose for the instruments. For my first arrangement, I tried to put everything into parts from a piano sheet.

JW: What was the first song?
RG: Me and My Shadow.

JW: How did it sound?
RG: Terrible. I asked myself why it sounded so bad. To find out, I took a stock arrangement and analyzed it to see what the writer did. Everything I had done was all wrong. That’s when I started listening very analytically to records to figure out what was being done by the arranger. Later when I went to high school, I was lucky to have two great teachers who were wonderful musicians. In high school, we had two orchestras, a concert band, a marching band—and the jazz band my friends and I still had. So I was playing all the time and thinking about music constantly. Those two teachers taught me harmony, counterpoint, conducting and orchestration. I was very fortunate.

JW: Your earliest recordings in 1947 were with Harry James. What was he like?
RG: He was a strange guy. If I’d meet him on the street, one time he’d greet me like a long lost brother. The next time he’d just look at me like he didn’t even know me. I guess he was in his own world.

JW: Why do you suppose that was?
RG: Hey, if I were married to Betty Grable [pictured], I guess I’d be lost in my thoughts, too. [laughs] Seriously, Harry was a fabulous trumpet player, even when he was a kid. He was with the Benny Goodman band when he was 16 years old and played like a demon.

JW: Was James an inspiration?
RG: Oh yeah. I collected a lot of jazz trumpet-player records when I was a kid, and he was one of them. Bix and Louis, and Bobby Hackett, too. Years later, Louis was so happy when I told him that I had learned I could write when I transcribed his solo on I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby. I wrote it down note for note just by hearing it off the record.

JW: Did arranging just come to you, or did you have to work hard at it?
RG: I studied very hard, mostly privately. After high school I went to San Francisco University but quit after a year. I wasn't learning anything. I was already a professional composer and arranger at that point, and my teachers couldn’t do what by then I could. So I quit and went on the road with bands led by Al Donahue, Horace Heidt and Bob Crosby. I didn't play trumpet in the Crosby band, though. I wrote arrangements.

JW: Your book, The Professional Arranger-Composer, was and continues to be a huge success. It's still sold on Amazon.com. Bill Holman told me that it was your class workbook when you taught him in the late 1940s.
RG: Yes, the book's success has been amazing. When I got out of the army after World War II, I needed a job. So I took one teaching at the Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles. Once they gave me the job, I asked myself what I would teach my students. So I wrote a four-page outline. Then I added musical examples to illustrate the points. That became the book.

JW: How did you print it?
RG: My wife and I ground it out on an old Gestetner machine, getting ink on our fingers. We printed 60 copies, and they sold in a couple of days. So I said we had better do a better job. We rented an electric typewriter and made up a cleaner copy. Then we ran two ads in Down Beat magazine. Every time a university would order one copy, I guess as a look-see, an order would come back for 50 or 100. Eventually filling orders got too big a job for my wife to handle plus all the bookkeeping. So we gave it to a publisher, and it was officially printed in 1954. The second book was an update of the first one. You know, both books are in six different languages and still selling all over the world.

JW: Why do you think it was so successful?
RG: I don't know. I guess I’ve always been a synthesizer, finding ways to make things simpler. I just took what I knew about arranging and composing, broke it up into parts, added musical illustrations and put it in a book. I guess the techniques were explained in a way that many musicians could grasp quickly.

JW: Bill Holman told me your book changed his thinking about arranging early on.  
RG: Oh that's wonderful to hear. Bill came into my class as a kid. He had a very high IQ, a brilliant mind. He not only went to school, he also took private lessons with me. I'm glad a few things I taught helped him in his terrific career. 

JW: How was the West Coast jazz scene back in the early 1950s?
RG: It was a good environment because it allowed many of us to do something different and original with arranging. It was an experimental time. I had studied every style of music I could. I took lessons in the Schillinger System, which was mathematical theory for composing. Joseph Schillinger never wrote anything I’d like to hear twice, but I studied it. Then I studied tone-row method. I think I was the one of the first arrangers to use tone rows in my 1955 Wigville album.

JW: I want to ask you about that album. But first, for those who don't know, what does "tone rows" mean?
RG: There are 12 notes in an octave. Schoenberg used to put those in a random order and sometimes play them upside down or backward, and he'd build harmonies out of them. But his approach didn't have enough order for me. See, if I can’t sing something I can't write it down after hearing it. And his things are impossible to sing. I also analyzed [Bela] Bartok and other composers. I took tricks from them all and learned to write in every style. That work really paid off. It's probably why I'm still working today.

JW: How were you able to absorb so much so early?
RG: I think I would have done it without the teachers I had, I was so determined. But it would have taken me much longer. After I quit San Francisco University and played with big bands for a year, I went to Hollywood and studied with the finest teachers I could find there. They included Ernst Toch, Edmund Ross and  Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. I also studied conducting with Sir Albert Coates. Every Wednesday, I got to conduct a movement from a tone poem or a symphony. For two years I got to do this in West Hollywood. It was a great experience.

JW: Did you ever feel discouraged along the way?
RG: You know, I don’t think so. Maybe I need humility lessons. [laughs] I always enjoyed what I did and worked hard at it. I did a good job. I never sloughed off anything, and it paid off. I never had to work a day in my life. I wrote music, and they gave me money for it. [laughs] I never had to look for work either. It always found its way to me.

JW: By the early 1950s, you were arranging for jazz sessions and studio dates in Los Angeles. How did that happen?
RG: I caught a lucky break. Someone told Norman Granz, the owner and producer of Clef and Norgran Records, about me. He decided to use me to score part of an album with Buddy DeFranco's Orchestra in 1953. Then he brought me in at the end of 1954 to arrange strings for an entire Buddy DeFranco and Oscar Peterson album called The George Gershwin Songbook. I loved working with Oscar and Buddy.

JW: You mentioned Wigville. The personnel on that early 1955 album is incredible—the Candolis, Charlie Mariano, Bill Holman, Jimmy Giuffre just to name a few. It doesn't sound far out at all. It swings.
RG: [laughs] Thank you. That was fun. I remember Conte had a tough time. I wrote that album for four saxes and a trumpet. I gave Conte the parts two weeks ahead of time. When he came to the session, he hadn’t even opened the envelope. He was used to just going into a studio and playing solos. Suddenly he opened the music, took one look at it and said to me, "Help, help call my brother!" So he called Pete [Candoli], and Pete came down to the studio.

JW: Why did he need his brother?
RG: Pete was an excellent sight-reader and could handle more modern kinds of things. This atonal arrangement stuff was new to Conte [pictured]. He was just used to playing warm jazz solos on standards and normal originals. Wigville required playing solos on tone rows or some weird scale structure. It kind of scared him when he looked at it. So Pete came down. Conte and Pete shared the parts, with Conte playing the solos and Pete helping on the ensemble things, the written parts. 

JW: Four Horns and a Lush Life, recorded several months later, featured your original four-trombone concept. Who came up with the song title, I'll Never Forget What's Her Name?
RG: [laughs] Oh, that was trombonist Frank Rosolino. The tune actually was Fine and Dandy, but there wasn’t much left of that. I just took the chord structure and wrote an original. I said, "What do I call this?" Frank was a funny, funny guy. He shot out, how about "I’ll Never Forget What’s Her Name." It was too good to pass up.

JW: What is it about writing for the trombone that you love so much?
RG: The instrument can be strong and gutsy and swinging, or it can be soft and beautiful, like a French horn. And it’s in a tenor range, which is always very pleasant. I just kind of enjoy the instrument. I played a wee bit of trombone. After that Four Horns album, I wound up writing a number of trombone-oriented albums in the 50s for Frances Faye and Anita O'Day.

Tomorrow, in Part 2 of my three-part conversation with Russ, the legendary arranger talks about trumpeter Buddy Childers, vocalists Julie London and Anita O'Day, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald (Porgy and Bess), how Louis learned Bess Oh Where's My Bess, Ella's backstage secret, Stan Getz's reaction when he saw the size of the orchestra for Cool Velvet, and the time of day when Russ does most of his best writing.

JazzWax tracks: To hear the delicate touch of Russ Garcia in 1954, you can download Buddy DeFranco and Oscar Peterson Play George Gershwin at iTunes or Amazon. The track I Was Doing Alright is a standout. Russ put a gentle, sophisticated bed of swinging strings down for DeFranco and Peterson. Shrewd string arrangements throughout that avoid going over the top.

If you're unfamiliar with Wigville, buy the CD. It's a tremendous, little-known album. Don't be put off by Russ' talk of tones and scales. It's as brisk and breezy as can be, and far removed from the ponderous Third Stream stuff that would come later from other modal composers. And dig the lineup on the date: Pete Candoli and Conte Candoli (trumpets), Bob Enevoldsen (valve trombone), Russ Cheever and Charlie Mariano (alto saxes), Bill Holman (tenor sax), Jimmy Giuffre (baritone sax), Marty Paich (piano), Max Bennett (bass) and Stan Levey (drums). The Fresh Sound CD pairs the instrumental Wigville album with Russ Garcia's Wigville Band Featuring Peggy Connelly, a charming singer who wound up marrying Dick Martin of Laugh-In fame. Connelly's voice and Russ' charts are sensational. You'll find the Wigville CD here.

Four Horns and a Lush Life is also a superb album. If you love trombones arranged uptempo and in sync, this one's a beaut. The album featured Maynard Ferguson (valve trombone), Herbie Harper, Tommy Pederson and Frank Rosolino (trombones), Dick Houlgate (baritone sax), Marty Paich (piano), Red Mitchell (bass) and Stan Levey (drums). The album is on Fresh Sound here paired with sides Russ arranged for Frances Faye.

Interview: Benny Golson (Part 5)

After proving himself as a dynamic composer, arranger and tenor saxophonist, Benny Golson emerged in the late 1950s as a commanding leader and orchestrator. In 1958, as a member of the Jazz Messengers, Benny was instrumental in uniting and focusing the group's creative direction. After departing the Jazz Messengers late that year, Benny and Art Farmer began playing and recording together. In 1960, they formed the Jazztet—six musicians who were concerned more with collective subtlety and beauty than individual power and prowess.

In this regard, the Jazztet was a radically new and fresh cool-soul ensemble that found itself in the long modal shadow of groups led by Miles Davis and John Coltrane. The Jazztet's first recordings in 1960 arrived in the wake of Miles' Kind of Blue and Coltrane's Giant Steps, and at a time when jazz increasingly found itself developing spiritual and political overtones. Miraculously, the Jazztet managed to skirt these trends during its three-year run. Arrangements were sultry and caressing, with soloists shooting for round, curvy tones that penetrated and reverberated. [Photo of Art Farmer, McCoy Tyner and Benny Golson by Chuck Stewart]

In the final part of my interview series with Benny, he talks about Art Blakey's problems with Blue Note Records, how he helped set the Jazz Messengers on a firm course, the difference between Quincy Jones' and Ernie Wilkins' arranging styles, the formation of the great Jazztet, and the musician Benny misses most: 

JazzWax: Once Bobby Timmons completed Moanin' with your help, did Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers record it right away?
Benny Golson: No. Alfred Lion of Blue Note Records didn't want to record Art anymore. Alfred said Art [pictured] had been on so many different recordings with virtually every musician that he was overexposed.

JW: In retrospect, that sounds shortsighted.
BG: I know. In Art Blakey's defense, I said, “Alfred, you're missing the point. Art's on all those recordings because he's that great.” I continued, “We've got a new group, a new young trumpet player [Lee Morgan] and a new piano player [Bobby Timmons]. Come down to the Five Spot and hear us. You owe it to yourself. It's different.”

JW: What did he say?
BG: Alfred said, “I've been recording Hank Mobley [pictured] a lot lately and I like him.” I said, “Alfred, it's different.” So Alfred came to where we were playing in New York and heard a set. After we played, he came up to me and said, “When do you want to record?”

JW: Why did Alfred Lion ask you and not Art Blakey?
BG: At this point I had taken charge of everything. Art had given me that license. Before I joined the band, everyone was late. When I came on, I used to pick up Art for work and then took him home afterward. I also made sure everyone returned from intermission at clubs when they were supposed to. And I got everyone to wear a suit and tie.

JW: So you brought order to the group?
BG: Just before I joined the Jazz Messengers, the owner of Small's Paradise said he didn't want Art back because he had taken two-hour intermissions, and the customers would leave. When I joined, I told the group that our first goal was to have Small's Paradise ask us to come back. Art said, “You're crazy. That will never happen.”

JW: What did you do?
BG: Well, first we recorded Moanin' for Blue Note. I told Alfred I wanted to use a picture of Art on the cover that a fan had taken. Alfred said fine. I also told Alfred I wanted to call the album Moanin', and he did. Everyone was going along with my calls. I told Art we needed to tour Europe to raise our visibility, and we did. I said we needed to play a concert at New York's Town Hall [pictured]. We got a concert date at Town Hall. I said we're going to play the concert in full dress-suits and ties. Art said, “Benny, are you crazy?” I said, “Art, people see you before they hear you. They've got to know what we think of ourselves before we play a note.”

JW: What else did Blue Note do for the group?
BG: They had 45-rpms then, and Alfred recorded Bobby's song Moanin' as a single. It was on all the jukeboxes, including the one at Small's Paradise. One day, the phone rings. The person on the other end says, “Is Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers available? It's Small's Paradise calling.” When I told Art, he said, “I'll be damned.” Our paydays were going up too, everything was good. When I left the group in late 1958 after returning from Europe, I told Art to keep doing the same thing we had done. People didn't realize that going forward, whenever there was a problem, Art would call me for advice.

JW: You were a part of Quincy Jones' game-changing big band of 1959 and 1960. Why was Quincy so important?
BG: Quincy had a unique writing style. It was the way he voiced his instruments and harmonies. He was clever at that. It had a way of catching the ear, and that's what it's all about. If it doesn't catch the ear, the audience isn't going to pay attention to it. Quincy always had that in mind.

JW: How do Quincy Jones and Ernie Wilkins differ?
BG: Both are great writers and arrangers. But Quincy has that harmonic thing together, with clusters and sonorities and things like that. Ernie Wilkins' [pictured]  stuff hits you like a razor. The impact is like breaking open a fresh head of lettuce, that crisp sound. Ernie's charts could hit hard, with impact. I learned how to hit hard musically from him. He was shocked when I told him years later what I had learned from him.

JW: How did you come up with the idea for the Jazztet in late 1959?
BG: It was a group I always had in mind. I first met trumpeter Art Farmer [pictured] when I joined Lionel Hampton's band in 1953. Art and I formed a friendship. When the band split up, Art and I would wind up on record dates together and on radio and TV commercials. I also used him as my contractor hiring musicians.

JW: Why six musicians?
BG: At this time I knew there were a lot of quintets and quartets playing. I thought, "Hey, there might be room for a sextet." I thought Art Farmer would be perfect as my trumpet player. So I called Art and told him my idea. He broke out laughing. “You're never going to believe this,” he said, “But I was thinking about putting a sextet together, too, and using you as my tenor player." I said, “Why don't you come by the pad and we'll talk about it.” [Pictured: Art Farmer and Benny Golson]

JW: When he got there, what did you discuss?
BG: We chose the rest of the group. We both agreed on trombonist Curtis Fuller. I told Art about this 19-year-old piano player in Philadelphia I had heard. Art asked me his name. I said, McCoy Tyner. Art asked if he could play. I said yes. [laughs] We hired him. Art hired his twin brother Addison Farmer on bass and Dave Bailey on drums. This was the first Jazztet. [Photo of McCoy Tyner by Gisle Hannemyr]

JW: What was the first new song you wrote for the group?
BG: I wanted to try writing a tune inspired by what I used to see at Birdland—the pimps coming in with their ladies on each arm, their Cadillac Eldorados parked by the doorman at the curb, their fingernails done with clear polish, their shiny suits with the black shirt and white tie and hat, and hair processed. Coming up as a kid, everybody who was involved in illegal things in Philadelphia—bootlegging, numbers running and so on was named “Killer”—like Killer Johnson. The name epitomized everything that was illegal. I saw these guys in Chicago, Los Angeles and in New York at Birdland every night. So I named the song Killer Joe.

JW: Why did you move to Los Angeles in the late 1960s?
BG: I was studying in New York with Henry Brandt, an avant-garde composer and orchestrator who later won a Pulitzer Prize for music in 1992 and died this past April [2008]. He orchestrated for movie composer Alex North, and orchestrated Cleopatra, Spartacus and other films. He taught at Juilliard and at Bennington College. He taught me so much. I was learning new composing techniques that went way beyond writing jazz for Count Basie or the Jazz Messengers. I wanted to use what I had learned, such as symmetrical chords and mirror writing. My only outlet would be to go to Hollywood and write dramatic stuff. Quincy Jones and Oliver Nelson were already there, and both urged me to come out.

JW: What did you do when you arrived in Los Angeles?
BG: The first studio that hired me was Universal, which was bigger at the time than all the other studios put together. For my first TV composing assignment in 1968, my buddy Quincy Jones was sitting there on the sound stage when we recorded. The session was for It Takes a Thief.

JW: Looking back, how would you describe the distinct sound of your compositions?
BG: I've always loved melody. My heroes are Puccini, Brahms, Chopin and Duke Ellington. Intuitively, whenever I write, I want my music to last past my time. It's not about ego. If a song lasts past my time, it will show that the song was truly worthy. I don't keep track of how many versions of my songs have been recorded. Like a sculptor, when a song is done, it's done. I go on to the next thing.

JW: What's your favorite Benny Golson composition?
BG: I haven't written it yet. [laughs] Tomorrow's always another day. As the future crouches beneath my window waiting unashamedly to reveal itself, I hope it consequentially sees me doing something that's moving ahead, that I'm in tandem with time. Time never backs up, so a guilty conscience or mistakes are irrelevant. If I can be in sync with time, then I'm always moving ahead and on the cutting edge of things.

JW: Of all the artists you've known, who do you miss most?
BG: I'd have to say Art Farmer. He and I were joined at the hip. We could finish each other's sentences musically. He was as beautiful a person as he was an artist. [Photo of Art Farmer by Ydo Sol]

JazzWax tracks: After recording Moanin' with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Benny toured with the group, which recorded a series of live dates. Upon returning to the U.S. in December 1958, Benny recorded as a sideman on a string of albums, including Blue Mitchell's Out of the Blue, Jimmy Cleveland's Rhythm Crazy, Wynton Kelly's Kelly Blue and Curtis Fuller's Sliding Easy.

There also were big band dates with Buddy Rich (Richcraft), Philly Joe Jones (Drums Around the World) and Ernie Wilkins (Here Comes the Swingin' Mr. Wilkins) among others. By May 1959, Benny was with Quincy Jones' "Birth of a Big Band," which recorded several of Benny's compositions, including Whisper Not, Along Came Betty and I Remember Clifford.

The Jazztet's first recording was Meet the Jazztet (May 1960). The initial sextet on the session was made up of Art Farmer (trumpet), Curtis Fuller (trombone), Benny Golson (tenor sax), McCoy Tyner (piano), Addison Farmer (bass) and Lex Humphries (drums). You can find this album at iTunes or Amazon.

The problem is you're going to love what you hear and want more. If you adore the Jazztet's high-heeled sound, the better investment is The Complete Mercury Art Farmer and Benny Golson Jazztet Sessions from Mosaic Records. At $119, the seven-CD box may seem pricey, but the remastered music is sensational and timeless. I listened to the entire set yesterday, and I can tell you that there isn't one bad or even sub-par track. In fact, the seven discs function as a complete work or a suite. You start on the 1st track and end on the 95th track. You're listening to bright, inventive arrangements throughout, and the smoky solos by Benny and Art are consistently tasteful and soulful. Just listening to Jerome Kern's In Love In Vain from The Jazztet: Here and Now—with swooning solos by Benny, Art and Harold Mabern on piano—is a rush.

Given what would follow in the years after 1962, the Jazztet is in many ways the last pure jazz ensemble before the music became the message.

Interview: Benny Golson (Part 4)

Miles Davis' recording of Stablemates in 1955 instantly established Benny Golson as one of jazz's hot new composers. But Benny was much more than a songwriter. By the end of 1956, Benny was both arranging for  Dizzy Gillespie's big band and performing standout tenor saxophone solos that were sensitive and knowing. At the start of 1957, Benny was a jazz star and a triple threat.

Influenced by Tadd Dameron's love of melody and poetic harmonies, Benny in 1957 leveraged his mentor's approach, adding a cool, stylish sensibility to hard bop. Unlike many of the period's composers who channeled raw heat or tonal scales, Benny was fundamentally concerned with the beauty of simplicity, lacing pure melodies with sensual harmonies. The result was music that seduced and packed a punch. [Pictured at left: Tadd Dameron]

In Part 4 of my five-part conversation with the jazz legend, Benny talks about writing I Remember Clifford, Step Lightly and Venetian Breeze; fighting off Dinah Washington's advances; rising to Art Blakey's challenge; and helping Bobby Timmons craft a gospel-funk masterpiece:

JazzWax: In 1956 you wrote I Remember Clifford. How did you hear about Brownie's death?
Benny Golson: That June day in 1956 was a heart- wrenching one. It was horrible. I was playing at the Apollo Theater on 125th St. in Harlem with Dizzy's big band. During one of the breaks on the 27th, pianist Walter Davis Jr. came from a bar around the corner on Eighth Ave. to the rear of the theater. He was crying and waving his arms and saying something we couldn't hear or understand right away. When he got close enough, we could hear the chilling words: “Clifford Brown was killed in an automobile accident last night.”

JW: What was the reaction?

BG: We froze with disbelief. It broke our hearts. Brownie had so much promise. The next week Dizzy's band was in Los Angeles. I decided to write a song to help people remember Clifford. The song wasn't published until 1957. Little did I know that Brownie didn't need any help from me. He was a harbinger of great things to come that would never be fulfilled. I set about to write it, and the song took me the whole two weeks we were there.

JW: What were you thinking as you wrote it? Today, the song is the jazz equivalent of taps.
BG: I wanted every note to represent the way Clifford played, because I knew him that well. I wanted every note to reflect Clifford Brown. And I've always said I wished I had never written it, that he was still with us today.

JW: It sounds like you miss him.
BG: Oh, I do, I do. I still miss Clifford and John. John and I were like brothers. We were together every day as kids. Yeah, I miss those two guys.

JW: In October 1957 you recorded The New York Scene. What was the inspiration for the song Step Lightly?
BG: I just had a feeling, and those notes came out that way. Incidentally, I turned on the radio the other day and heard Step Lightly. I told my wife, “They're playing my version of Step Lightly.” But as the saxophone started to play, I said, “Wait a minute, that's not me.” It turned out it was Shelly Manne, on a 1959 Contemporary recording.

JW: One of my favorite albums of yours is The Modern Touch from 1957. Two of your songs on there are incredible—Out of the Past and Venetian Breeze.
BG: On Out of the Past, I wanted the song to sound like something from the past, reminiscent of a black-and-white film. I wanted it to have a nostalgic feel that would tug at the heart a little bit. It's meant to feel a little like Tadd Dameron's Nostalgia.

JW: What about Venetian Breeze?

BG: Venetian Breeze was written when I was working down in Miami for the summer. We used to go from Miami to Miami Beach over the Venetian Causeway [pictured], a bridge that connects the two areas of Miami. The ride was so nice, and the breeze was beautiful. The car windows were down, the weather was perfect and there was water on each side. It was a beautiful ride.

JW: On your November 1958 album, The Other Side of Benny Golson, your tenor sax on Are You Real has a Coltrane feel. Were you thinking of him when you were playing?
BG: Absolutely not. It just came out that way. I also wrote that song in Miami.

JW: You recorded with Dinah Washington in 1957. Was she as tough as they say?
BG: Oh, my girl Ruth Jones. She almost seduced me. She invited me over for dinner up on 145th St. I knew she had two boys and a maid. Even though I knew she had a reputation with men, I figured I was safe with all those people in the house. But when I got there Dinah answered the door, not her maid. When I walked in, I asked Dinah, “Where's Theresa?” Dinah said, “Oh I gave her the night off.” “Well, where are the boys?,” I asked. “Oh, they're at their grandmother's,” she said. That's when I said to myself, “Uh, oh.”

JW: What happened?

BG: I noticed the lights were dimmed and the music was playing softly. We had dinner and after sat on the couch. That's when things started to change. I knew I had to get out of there. I looked at my watch and said, “Oh, dog-gone it. What a drag. I forgot I have to be at so and so. Dinah I'm late, please forgive me.”

JW: Did you escape in one piece?

BG: I did. But after that night, Dinah never called me Benny again. She called me Reverend. Every time. Wherever I was. [laughs]

JW: Who taught you the most about jazz?
BG: Art Blakey, without a doubt. He taught me how to play forcefully. When I joined him, I was playing the tenor soft and smooth and mellifluous. So he'd play those press rolls behind me, and I would disappear. Nobody could hear me. It seemed as if I were pantomiming. He kept playing those press rolls, and I didn't get what he was doing.

JW: How did he get his message across to you?

BG: One night, instead of playing a press roll for two bars before we came into the new chorus, he started that press roll eight bars early. He was so loud I thought he had lost his senses. When he came down for the new chorus, every two or three beats he'd hit a loud crash. I said to myself, “What is wrong with this guy?” I still didn't get it. Finally, he hollered over at me, “Get up out of that hole!” I said to myself, “Man, I guess I am in a hole. Nobody can hear me.” So I started playing harder and with more bite.

JW: What else did Blakey teach you?

BG: He taught me how to play meaningfully. He'd say to the guys in the group, “You play so long on your solo that when the audience applauds, you don't know whether they're applauding because they liked what you played or they're glad you stopped.” [laughs] Art said to play with dynamics and that everything doesn't have to be loud. Art was a natural teacher.

JW: You recorded your compositions Along Came Betty and Blues March with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in October 1958. What did Art Blakey think of Blues March?
BG: Oh, man, Blakey didn't want to record it. He thought I was crazy. He said nobody plays a march except in New Orleans when they're going to the cemetery. “No, no,” I said, “I'm not talking about a military march. Have you ever heard that black college in the South, Grambling? Have you ever heard them play marches? It's soulful, it's greasy, it's funky.”

JW: What did Blakey say?

BG: Art said, “Aw, Golson, it will never work.” I said, “Let me try.” I put the thing together. We were playing at Small's Paradise in New York. I gave the song a big buildup before we played it: “Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to play something you've never heard before in jazz.” We started to play the cadence and then the tune.

JW: How did they take it?

BG: People suddenly got up and started dancing and bumping the tables and knocking drinks over. Small's was just a place for drinks. While we were playing and people were dancing, Art looked over at me and said, “I'll be damned.”

JW: Bobby Timmons' Moanin' was on the same album. What role did you play in that song's creation?
BG: I just pushed Bobby to take it seriously. Bobby used to have a lick he liked to play every time we finished a tune. He'd play what would become Moanin's theme. Then he'd stop and laugh, and say, “Ah, that sure is funky.” That went on for a few weeks. By the time we got to Marty's, a club in Columbus, Ohio, he had the first eight bars, the second eight and the last eight after the bridge. All he needed was a bridge.

JW: How did the bridge come about?
BG: I called a rehearsal. Everyone wanted to know why we were rehearsing, since we had the band's book down. I said we were going to do something new. At the club, I told Bobby we were going to put a bridge on the song he always played in between tunes. He said, “That thing? Oh that's nothing. That's just an old lick.” I said, “No Bobby, I hear a tune there. We're all going to sit down here, and you're going to go up on the bandstand and write a bridge to the tune. He didn't want to do it. I said, “Trust me, this is the making of a great tune. Write a bridge.” [Photo of Bobby Timmons: Eric T. Vogel]

JW: What did he do?

BG: We went and sat down. After about a half hour, Bobby said, “Come see what you think of this.” I came up and he played it. I said, “No, no Bobby, it misses the point. You don't have the same groove as the other melody.” He says, “Well you write it then.” I said, “No, this has to be you, Bobby. Come on, try again.” I sat back down, and about 15 minutes later, Bobby said, “Here it is.” I listened and said, “That's it!” We learned the tune, played it that night and got everyone in the audience up dancing.

Tomorrow, in the final part of my five-part conversation with Benny, he talks about reviving the Jazz Messengers after Blue Note Records nearly abandoned Art Blakey, Quincy Jones' big band of 1959-1960, the birth of the great Jazztet and why Benny moved to the West Coast.

JazzWax tracks: There are more than 300 recorded jazz versions of I Remember Clifford, all of them special and each one different. Perhaps the most interesting one is Dizzy's interpretation (with Benny in the reed section), which appears on Dizzy Gillespie at Newport, recorded in June 1957. It can be found at iTunes.

Terrific versions of Whisper Not and Step Lightly are on Benny's New York Scene, an album recorded in October 1957. It features Art Farmer (trumpet) Jimmy Cleveland (trombone), Julius Watkins (French horn), Gigi Gryce (alto sax), Benny Golson (tenor sax), Sahib Shihab (baritone sax), Wynton Kelly (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), Charlie Persip (drums).

Benny recorded two albums for Mercury Records with Dinah Washington in October and November of 1957. They were Dinah Washington Sings Fats Waller, with the Ernie Wilkins Orchestra; and The Queen!, with Eddie Chamblee's orchestra.

One of my favorite Benny Golson albums is The Modern Touch, recorded in December 1957. Every single song on the album is beautifully arranged and played. The artists are Kenny Dorham (trumpet), J.J. Johnson (trombone), Benny Golson (tenor sax), Wynton Kelly (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Charlie Persip (drums).

Modern Art, of course, is a must. Recorded in September 1958, the artists were Art Farmer (trumpet), Benny Golson (tenor sax), Bill Evans (piano), Addison Farmer (bass) and Dave Bailey (drums). Farmer and Benny split the arranging duties.

The big turning point for Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers was Moanin', recorded in October 1958. The lineup was Lee Morgan (trumpet), Benny Golson (tenor sax), Bobby Timmons (piano), Jymie Merritt (bass) and Art Blakey (drums). Three of the six tracks recorded (Are You Real?, Along Came Betty and Blues March) were by Benny.

The Other Side of Benny Golson was recorded in November 1958 and includes Curtis Fuller (trombone), Benny Golson (tenor sax), Barry Harris (piano), Jymie Merritt (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums).

Stablemates was recorded by Benny on Benny Golson and the Philadelphians in November 1958. The artists on the date were Lee Morgan (trumpet), Benny Golson (tenor sax), Ray Bryant (piano), Percy Heath (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums).

Interview: Benny Golson (Part 3)

By early 1955, Benny Golson was convinced he would make it as a composer. For four years Benny had recorded steadily with leading r&b bands, spending much of his down time writing songs and playing jazz club dates. When he wasn't laboring over sheet music or playing the tenor saxophone, Benny was pressing his music into the hands of established jazz artists, urging them to give his songs a shot. Recognition as a composer, Benny felt, was just one song away. Motivated by mentor Tadd Dameron, Benny continued to work hard on his writing and hustling the results. Finally, in early 1956, that big break came.

In Part 3 of my five-part conversation with Benny, the jazz legend talks about the origins of Blue Walk and Stablemates, how Stablemates wound up in the hands of Miles Davis [photo by Herb Snitzer], the recording that established Benny as a serious songwriter, and the big lesson Benny learned from Dizzy Gillespie:

JazzWax: While you were with Earl Bostic in 1955, saxophonist James Moody recorded your composition Blue Walk. How did that song get its name?
Benny Golson: I just gave it a name, that's all. It sounded like a blues walk. Years later, I was at the Pershing Club in Chicago listening to pianist Ahmad Jamal [pictured]. At the end of the night, Ahmad and I used to go out to get breakfast and talk. During an intermission at the club, a recording of Blue Walk came on and he said, “Oh, I love that song.” I said, “Thank you.” He said, “Did you write that?” I said, “Uh, yes.” [laughs] Blue Walk is a typical blues, but the melody doesn't lead one to think it's a straight blues. Moody loved it. So did Ahmad.

JW: You wrote Stablemates around this time, too. How did that jazz standard get its name?
BG: When I was with Earl Bostic, we used to play up in Massachusetts at towns like Holyoke, Peabody and Revere Beach. We'd spend our days off in Boston. There was a nice elegant restaurant off Copley Square. If you went to the back of this restaurant and down the steps, you'd be in a jazz club called The Stable. Herb Pomeroy, the trumpet player, was there [pictured with Duke Ellington] along with Varty Haroutunian on tenor, John Neves on bass and others. Herb and I became friends, and I would sit in and jam with them.

JW: Playing jazz at The Stable must have been a relief from the repetition of Bostic's band.
BG: It was. Herb knew I was writing and asked me to write him some songs. One of the first compositions I wrote for the group was a crazy tune because of the number of bars it had—14 bars followed by an 8-bar bridge, then 14 more bars. This was most unusual. I didn't have a name for the tune and wondered what I would call it. As I thought about it, I said to myself, “I'm sending it to Herb. Well, he works at The Stable. Hey, stablemates means good friends. We're stablemates. I'll name it Stablemates.” And that's what happened.

JW: The song moves major and minor, it sounds pretty complicated.
BG: It moves around quite a bit. I'm still trying to learn how to play it. [laughs]

JW: When Miles Davis recorded Stablemates in 1955 for Prestige, you were still with Bostic.
BG: Let me roll back the story a bit. In Philadelphia in 1955, Philly Joe had to give up a spot in our local jam session group to take a job with Miles. Miles loved the way Philly played. Around that time, Hank Mobley was leaving Miles' group, and Miles asked Philly if he knew a tenor player from Philadelphia who could take Mobley's place. Miles figured, given the way Philly played, if he's going to ask for a recommendation, he wanted someone of the same ilk. So Philly answers, “Yeah, I know someone.” Miles says, “What's his name?” Philly says, “John Coltrane.”

JW: What did Miles say?
BG: Miles says, “Never heard of him. Can he play?” Philly probably made the understatement of his life. He simply said, “Uh, huh.” [laughs] That's when John also left our little coterie of musicians in Philadelphia and went to New York to start rehearsing with Miles.

JW: How did Stablemates wind up in Miles' hands?
BG: About a week after John left, I saw him on Philadelphia's Columbia Ave. I asked him how it was going. “It's going great, he said, “but Miles needs some music. Do you have any?” Did I have any? All I had was music. When I look back now, it was embarrassing. I gave everyone I met back then a lead sheet from one of my compositions. You had to do that if you wanted your songs played. But nothing had ever happened. So when John took the tune I gave him, I didn't think any more of it.

JW: What happened?
BG: About a month later, I ran into John Coltrane again. John said, “You know that tune you gave me? We recorded it.” I said, “What? Miles recorded my tune?” John said, “Yeah, he dug it.” Man, I couldn't believe it. Sure enough, when the album, Miles, came out, there was the Prestige label with the yellow field, black printing and Stablemates printed on there with my name underneath as composer.

JW: This record changed everything for you, didn't it?
BG: All the people I had passed out lead sheets to, they heard Miles play this song and saw my name under it and said, “Wait a minute, is this the same guy?” John Coltrane had taken Stablemates to Miles, and Miles' recording of it validated me and put me on the map as a jazz composer. After that, everybody started recording my stuff.

JW: You and Miles would have been perfect. Did you ever play together?
BG: No, but we almost did. I was playing in Chicago back in the early 1950s, when not many club owners knew who Miles Davis was. I was working with Gigi Gryce at a club on Cottage Grove. During the intermission, Miles came in and asked me if he could sit in. I said I didn't know, that the owner was kind of funny about that. When I asked the owner if Miles Davis could sit in, he said, “Look, I'm paying you guys to play. I don't need no strangers coming in here.” “But this is Miles Davis,” I said, a little astonished. The guy said, “I don't give a so and so who he is.” So I had to go back and tell Miles, “Sorry, man, he won't let you sit in.” [laughs] Can you believe it? We never recorded or played together.

JW: When Philly Joe recommended John Coltrane to Miles, did you ever wish he had recommended you?
BG: No, no, no. I'm a realist. John had something special, Marc. Everybody knew that. He used to be over at my house every day when we were kids, in the living room, just the two of us, listening to 78-rpm records and absorbing everything. He used to sit in an overstuffed chair by the window with his alto and the cushion. We had an old beat up upright piano. I would play some sad chords while John tried to solo. Then he'd come to the piano, and I'd play the tenor. His chords were sadder than mine. We only had each other then. We'd do that all day that way and then go to jam sessions together, trying to get our stuff together. [Photo of John Coltrane: Herb Snitzer]

JW: What made John Coltrane so special early on? His intensity?
BG: His ability made him different. Ever go to school with a student who got A's in everything effortlessly? John was that kind of person. When we got to where he was musically, he was somewhere else. And when we got to that spot, he was somewhere else again. He had something special. So when Miles used him, I said "fantastic."

JW: Getting back to the day Earl Bostic fired you in 1956, where did you go?
BG: The next morning, before I caught a plane out of Seattle, I got a call from Quincy Jones [pictured], who was playing with Dizzy Gillespie's big band. Quincy was the band's straw boss, taking care of all the business. Quincy said that Ernie Wilkins was leaving the band, and he wanted to know if I could join. I said, “Yeah.” He said, “When?” I said, “Right now!” So I joined Dizzy's band right away the next day in Washington, D.C.

JW: Was playing in Dizzy's band in 1956 a turning point for you as a saxophonist?
BG: With Dizzy, I learned the importance of being exceptional. When I joined Dizzy's band, I was five or six feet from him, because he stood in front of the reeds. With a musician like Dizzy, you're either encouraged or discouraged beyond belief. He played so much stuff during that first show in Washington, D.C. I actually became discouraged. I told myself I'd never be able to play like that. [Photo: Herb Snitzer]

JW: Did you talk to him after the show?
BG: When the first show was over, the curtains closed, the lights went out and everybody was leaving the stage. He and I happened to be the last two there. I said to myself that I had to say something to him, I've got to tell him know how I feel about what he's doing. That's when I probably said the corniest thing I ever said in my life, Marc. I said, “Gee, Diz, you sure did blow.” Man, I wanted to grab those words back immediately. They sounded so silly after I said them. But he was so humbled, he blushed and sputtered, “Uh, uh, uh, it was nothing.” But it was everything, man, it was everything.

JW: Dizzy saw huge potential in you, didn't he?
BG: Yes, he did. I went over to his house in Corona, Queens, in New York. We went down to his studio, and I spent an afternoon with him. He changed my thinking. The things he showed me musically that day were a revelation.

JW: While you were with Dizzy, the band recorded Whisper Not, with your arrangement.

BG: I wrote that song in 20 minutes while at Storyville in Boston. Most of my songs have a story attached to them. That one didn't. I just liked the two words together. When it came out, all the jazz journalists were intellectualizing about what I meant. It meant absolutely nothing. I wrote it at the club during the day, with the club's chairs on the tables and the bartender preparing for that night's business. The ideas were coming so fast back then I could barely write them all down. I thought composing was nothing because it took me so fast to write songs.

Tomorrow, in Part 4, Benny talks about writing I Remember Clifford, the stories behind Step Lightly and Venetian Breeze, fending off Dinah Washington's after-dinner advances, convincing Art Blakey to record Blues March, and Benny's role helping Bobby Timmons' write Moanin'.

JazzWax tracks: James Moody's 1955 creamy recording of Benny's Blue Walk can be found on the CD Moody's Mood for the Blues here or at iTunes on The Ultimate Jazz Archive (Vol. 27): James Moody, 1951-55.

Stablemates was recorded by the Miles Davis Quintet in November 1955, featuring Miles on trumpet, John Coltrane on tenor sax, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. The Prestige recording is available as a download at Amazon here.

Benny's tremendous work as a soloist, composer and arranger with the Dizzy Gillespie big band in 1957 can be heard on a double-CD set called Dizzy Gillespie: Birks Works, The Verve Big Band Sessions. Benny can be heard soloing on Birks' Works and Left Hand Corner. The band recorded Benny's Whisper Not and Stablemates. He arranged both. These appeared originally on LPs called Birks' Works, Dizzy in Greece and the Big Band Sound of Dizzy Gillespie. You'll find the set at Amazon or as a download at iTunes.

Interview: Benny Golson (Part 2)

Like many young jazz musicians in the early 1950s, Benny Golson came up through the rhythm-and-blues bands of the period. But while many musicians disappeared into the world of jump boogie, Benny retained his jazz vision and sensibilities. The problem with r&b for a saxophonist of  Benny's creative caliber was that a band's horns didn't have much to do other than add texture here and there, and emphasize the all-important beat. Improvisation beyond the blues, for the most part, was out.

So while r&b paid the bills, Benny composed, played jazz clubs and remained in close touch with his jazz peers from Philadelphia. Fortunately for Benny, jazz artists such as pianist-arranger Tadd Dameron [pictured], bassist Jymie Merritt, pianist Freddy Redd, drummer Philly Joe Jones, saxophonist Charlie Rouse and many others also were playing with r&b bands. Even Benny's childhood friend John Coltrane paid his r&b dues.

In Part 2 of my five-part conversation with the legendary saxophonist-composer, Benny talks about college and his r&b years with Tiny Grimes, Bull Moose Jackson and Earl Bostic:

JazzWax: Was it tough attending Howard University rather than play jazz right away as a professional musician?
Benny Golson: No, no, no. My mother worked her fingers to the bone, and my father sent me money each week to help me get by. College wasn't as expensive as it is now. Back then I wanted to study music at Howard [pictured] to learn the basics. But I was disappointed at school because there were so many music rules. So many of the lessons I was taught contradicted the ideas I had in my head.

JW: What do you mean?
BG: Teachers kept telling me about the rules, and I said, “Can't I break them?” They said the rules were made for a reason. I said, “Well someone made the rules. Why can't they be broken if the ear accepts the result?” They said no, the rules were the rules. I questioned everything in college. Oh I was a pill. [laughs]

JW: What did you do when you graduated from Howard in 1950?
BG: I began playing professionally right away. One of my early jobs was with guitarist Tiny Grimes [pictured]. Ray Bryant, who also grew up in Philadelphia, brought me in. Tiny had played with Art Tatum in the mid-1940s, so he was something of a legend. Art Tatum played in any key that struck his fancy. Tiny was the same way. When I played with Tiny, I thought I was going crazy.

JW: Why?
BG: We played the same tunes every night but we never knew what key they would be in. The key was wherever Tiny's hands fell on that darn guitar. So I had to learn to play in all keys. Tiny would play a short intro to let everyone know the key. You had just a few notes to pick out the key. I was a nervous wreck. We had to wear kilts, because the group was called Tiny Grimes and His Rockin' Highlanders. I had to walk on the bar to get off the bandstand. So in the beginning I'm stepping over drinks, and the women sitting at the bar are picking up my darn kilt. And I've got my boxer underwear on. After the first night, a friend said, “No boxers, man, you have to wear a tight bathing suit.” [laughs]

JW: In 1951, you joined Reginald Benjamin “Bull Moose” Jackson, an r&b band. Big change?
BG: Oh yes. Tadd Dameron played piano in that band and provided me with so much inspiration. Tadd was an anachronism in that band. He and Bull Moose [pictured] had grown up in Cleveland together. Tadd wasn't working at the time, and Bull Moose needed a piano player. He said to Tadd, “Look, if you're not working, come on and make a few gigs with me, and you'll get to earn some money. You can always leave when you choose.” So Tadd joined.

JW: Working with Tadd must have been great.
BG: When I joined, Tadd liked the way I played. I was able to get drummer Philly Joe Jones [pictured] in the band. Philly was a great rhythm-and-blues player. Not many people know that. I also brought in Johnny Coles and Jymie Merritt. We played Bull Moose's stuff to make the hits and the money. And the band played Tadd's jazz arrangements, too. Eventually we had two audiences—a jazz audience and the r&b audience. And then I started to write.

JW: What did Tadd think of your arrangements?
BG: He was so proud of me. He came over one night, really tongue in cheek, with that voice of his, and said, “What a drag. We played one of your arrangements and people came over and told me they loved my arrangement. What a drag.” Tadd [pictured] was so proud of me because I was picking up. But I didn't just stick to him as an influence. I added to what he taught me and tried to develop my own thing.

JW: But Tadd was a major influence, yes?
BG: Whatever progress I made is owed to Tadd. He was so melodic and a great mentor. Tadd [pictured] said to me, “The next time I go to Europe I'm taking you with me.” But he never went. Mind you, how I played the tenor sax back then wasn't the way I played later or now. When I look back on those days, my playing style wasn't that great. It was too smooth and silky. Art Blakey taught me to put bite in the stuff.

JW: In June 1953, you recorded with Clifford Brown, Gigi Gryce, Tadd and an all-star group. What did that experience teach you?
BG: You know what happens when you take two knives and scrape them together so they both get sharp? That's how it was with me and Brownie [pictured]. What I didn't know Clifford knew. And what Clifford didn't know I knew. Playing together for the whole summer was something else. When we played gigs, Philly Joe was on drums, Jymie Merritt was on bass, Cecil Payne was on baritone sax for a minute, Gigi was on alto, and Clifford and Johnny Coles were on trumpets.

JW: What was the recording session like?
BG: When we did the Prestige recording, the studio was so small that Brownie's microphone was by my left shoulder. When he stood up to play his solo, the bell of his trumpet was near my left ear. At the end of that session, I said “Clifford, I know you better now than anyone else.” [laughs] Every time he played that day, it went right into my left ear. [Pictured: Benny Golson]

JW: In 1954-56, you were recording with alto saxophonist Earl Bostic's band.
BG: Yes, until he fired me. It was the only time I was fired from a band. I deserved that firing. Bostic was the best technician on the alto sax I had ever heard. Charlie Parker couldn't touch him, not on technique. Style was a different matter, of course. John Coltrane and Stan Turrentine worked with Bostic before I did. John told me about his technique. Bostic was like a demon, that guy. He would play the things that made him money, like Flamingo, ad nauseam. The rest of the group would play a chord or a triad at the end and just stand there most of the time. There was nothing for us to play.

JW: Why did you get fired?
BG: For a series of things. The first happened down South. In addition to being a saxophonist, Bostic played guitar. Whenever he'd pull out that guitar, I said to myself, “Man this is driving me crazy.” That's because the rest of the band would have virtually nothing to do. So one time when we took a half-hour intermission at a dance, I sneaked back up onto the bandstand and tightened some of the strings and loosened others. When we went back on stage, Bostic didn't bother tuning up because his guitar was already in tune. He'd kick off the song, start playing and the guitar was crazy and all out of tune. He couldn't figure out what was wrong with the instrument. He kept looking at it. Then the guys started laughing and looking at me. So he knew.

JW: What happened next?
BG: We were playing a dance one night and the reeds were just standing there, as usual. I said to myself, “I think I'm going to do what I saw Illinois Jacquet [pictured] do." So I went all the way to the back of the stage by the drummer, I took my saxophone off the strap and started running toward the audience drawing my instrument back like I was going to throw it. When I got to the edge of the platform, I made believe I was going to hurl it. But, of course, the sax never left my hands. Everyone standing around at the foot of the stage ducked. Just when this happened, Bostic started his solo. Bostic didn't like that. [laughs] He said, “Do what you want on your solo but don't you dare do that on mine.”

JW: What was the final straw?
BG: Nobody had ever sat in with the Earl Bostic band. He wouldn't let them. When we were on the road in Seattle, Walter Benton [pictured], a tenor saxophonist and good friend of mine, came by and had his horn with him. He asked if he could sit in. I said, “Sure.” [laughs] When Bostic finished his solo and opened his eyes, this stranger stepped up to the mike and started playing. Bostic said, "Who the heck is that?" When Walter finished his solo, Bostic asked Walter what he thought he was doing. Walter said, “Benny told me I could play.” That's when I got fired. Bostic gave me my two weeks.

Tomorrow, Benny talks in Part 3 about the origin of Stablemates, how Miles Davis came to record the song in 1955, how the recording changed Benny's career, what made childhood friend John Coltrane special, and the words Benny said to Dizzy Gillespie in 1956 that he wished he could have taken back.

JazzWax tracks: Benny Golson's recording dates with Tiny Grimes are captured on Tiny Grimes 1949-1951 here. Benny recorded two sides with Bull Moose Jackson in 1951—I'll Be Home for Christmas and I Never Loved Anyone But You. Both are on Bull Moose Jackson 1950-1953 here.

In June 1953, Benny appeared on his most important jazz record session to date. Playing tenor sax, he joined Clifford Brown and Idrees Sulieman (trumpets), Herb Mullins (trombone), Gigi Gryce (alto sax), Oscar Estelle (baritone sax), Tadd Dameron (piano), Percy Heath (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums). The group recorded four tracks. Arranged by Dameron, they were Philly Joe Jones, Choose Now, Dial "B" for Beauty and Theme of No Repeat. The tracks are available as a download at Amazon here on Clifford Brown Memorial.

This was Tadd Dameron's Big Ten group and a seminal session that established the groundwork for hard bop. If you want the CD, the tracks are on Clifford Brown: Complete Metronome & Vogue Master Takes here. It's going for about $23 used or $31 new. If you don't own this double-CD set, just buy it. Trust me, it's groundbreaking music, and once this CD is out of print, you'll be sorry you didn't snap it up when you could.

Benny recorded with Earl Bostic between 1954 and 1956. To hip you to Bostic's swinging scene, below is a YouTube clip of his 1954 recording of Night and Day. It features Blue Mitchell and Eldridge Morris (trumpets), Earl Bostic (alto sax), Benny Golson (tenor sax), Teddy Charles (vibes), Stash O'Laughlin (piano), Jimmy Shirley (guitar), George Tucker (bass) and Granville T. Hogan (drums). If you dig his sound with Benny Golson, there's another clip on YouTube of Embraceable You with the same group. Both are available at iTunes. Clearly, Jimmy Dorsey's sound on So Rare (1956) owes quite a bit to Bostic's attack:

Interview: Benny Golson (Part 1)

Benny Golson is without question jazz's most significant living composer. The 79-year-old tenor saxophonist and arranger has written hundreds of songs, including some of jazz's most staggeringly beautiful and enduring standards. Benny's magnificent canon includes I Remember Clifford, Killer Joe, Stablemates, Whisper Not, Along Came Betty, Blues March, Are You Real?, Park Avenue Petite, Venetian Breeze, and many others.

Next year, on January 24, Benny's 60-year career and indelible contribution to jazz will be saluted on a grand scale at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Guest performers will include Al Jarreau singing Whisper Not, pianist Lara Downes playing one of Benny's classical pieces, Max Roach's daughter Maxine performing Blues March with her string quartet, and John Clayton's big band. Also, Benny's New Jazztet will perform.

In Part 1 of my five-part conversation with Benny, the legendary artist talks about composing, growing up in Philadelphia, precisely when he fell in love with the tenor saxophone, how his mother scraped together enough money to buy him one, and the day his mom turned up at his high school and caught him in a fib:

JazzWax: As one of jazz's greatest composers, do you always hear melodies forming in your head?
Benny Golson: Absolutely. Early in my career I'd write two or three songs in a day and record them as soon as possible. Now I have songs that I haven't completed yet in 10 years. They're in a pile in a box. I just pulled one out a few months ago that I forgot about. Over the years, I've shaped it up a little bit and added some new thinking. I think it's OK. But I won't send a song out to Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Al Jarreau [pictured] or other singers until I'm sure about it. I'll put the song on the piano and walk past it every day, looking at it, testing it and changing it. When I really think I have a song in a place that's as good as I can get it, then I say it's ready.

JW: What about song titles?
BG: Sometimes it takes me as long to come up with a title as it does to write the song itself. I'm a big believer that a title should convey something about the song before you hear it.

JW: What did your father do for a living?
BG: My father did several things. When I was growing up in Philadelphia in the 1930s [pictured], my father was a foreman for the gas company, until he punched out another foreman. [laughs] He also worked at the railroad station, he was in charge of a night clean-up crew in office buildings, and he worked for Nabisco [pictured]. I don't remember everything he did because I didn't grow up with my father. He left home before I was born so it was always just me and my mother. She remarried later, in the late 1940s. But I saw my natural father on occasion, and I loved him.

JW: What did your mom do to make ends meet?
BG: My mother was a hard working lady. She was a seamstress and made a minimal amount of money. She also worked as a waitress for $6 a week plus tips. My mother used to sing, but not professionally. When pianist Ray Bryant and his brother and I had a gig at an after-hours spot in the late 1940s, my mother was the singer. [laughs] My stepfather got jealous because everyone was coming on to her, so she had to quit. But my mom was a pretty good singer. I learned a lot of the old songs from her.

JW: What drew you to the tenor sax?
BG: It wasn't records. I went to see Lionel Hampton in 1945 at the Earle Theater [pictured] at 11th and Market St. in Philadelphia. It was the first time I had seen a live band. I had started playing piano at age 9 and fancied I'd become a concert pianist one day. But during the Hampton concert, the band played an intro and Arnett Cobb [pictured] stepped out from the reed section to the front of the stage with his tenor sax. A microphone came up out of the floor, and Arnett started playing Flying Home. At that moment, the piano for me started to lose its appeal. [laughs] I told Arnett years later in Nice, France, that he was the reason I was playing the tenor sax. Tears welled up in his eyes.

JW: Did you have brothers and sisters?
BG: No. I was an only child.

JW: So you got all the attention?
BG: I suppose, but it wasn't much. We were on welfare. And everyone in school knew it. Everyone knew we got cans of corned beef hash that really consisted of horse meat. The cans had big bold letters that said, “Not to Be Sold.” But we had no other food. We weren't doing well. I remember coming home from school one day to find my mother with the washboard in a tub. She was crying. When I asked why, she wouldn't tell me. It turned out she didn't have 5 cents to buy a bar of soap to wash the clothes.

JW: How did your mother treat you?
BG: My mother would have gone to the wall for me, and she often did. She carried me above her head when things got bad. She did such a good job that I never knew how bad things really were.

JW: How did you wind up with a saxophone?
BG: After I heard Arnett, I started listening to the radio at night waiting to hear saxophone solos. My mother noticed my interest and asked why I was doing it. I said I had heard the saxophone, loved it and that I wished I had one. She asked me what kind. I said the kind with the curve in the neck, because the alto went straight up. What did I know? [laughs]

JW: When did you get it?
BG: One day when she came home from work, I was sitting outside on our front steps and saw she had something in her hand. I could see this long case but I couldn't tell what it was. When she crossed the street and came up to me, I could see it was a sax case. She said, “I've got something for you, baby.” I went crazy. We went in the house and she put the case on the couch and opened it up. It wasn't a used sax from the pawnshop. It was a brand new one, a Martin that she bought at Wurlitzer's music store on 11th and Chestnut St.

JW: How could she afford it?
BG: She paid a dollar down and would have to pay a dollar a month virtually for life. Raymond Ziegler was my teacher. He had played with Charlie Barnet's band and had wanted to come off the road. So he gave student lessons to earn a living. I was one of his students, and he gave me a lot of his time. I guess he thought I had talent. He really went at it hard with me. Years later, while he was still with Wurlitzer's, I came back as a performer at the Earle Theater [pictured]. It was a block away from the music store. That man was so proud of me.

JW: When did you start playing jazz?
BG: As soon as I could play a few songs. Local friends would get together to have so-called jam sessions in my living room. They were more like “am” sessions. We earned the “j” later. [laughs] I guess we drove the neighbors nuts because we didn't know what were doing at first. We knew we were getting better when, one summer, with the windows open, neighbors started shouting song requests. [laughs] I look back on those days fondly. By that time, we were off welfare and living in a three-story house. My mother had to pay $30 a month in rent. To help pay the bills, she rented out three rooms, and I had to make all the beds when I came home from school and scrub the floors on Fridays. My mom was good to me. But there were times when I felt the anger of her strap. [Pictured: Benny in 1944 at age 15]

JW: What brought it on?
BG: I was terrible in school. Teachers would send notes home, and I'd sign my mother's name and take them back to the teachers. Then one day they had an open house, and all the parents came. I wasn't worried because my mother had to work every day. But lo and behold, my heart almost stopped when my mother turned up at the classroom door.

JW: What happened?
BG: I realized then that my mom was going to find out the truth. The teacher said to her, “I'm so sorry Mrs. Golson that I had to write all those letters to you.” My mother said, “What letters?” Mrs. Shapiro asked me to come up to her desk. Now all my boys were looking. I walked up there like I was big and brave, but I was almost peeing on myself. She said, “Benny, who signed those letters?” I said, “I did.” I was almost dying with fear. My mother said, “Oh, you did? I'll see you when you come home.” And I strolled back to my seat brazenly.

JW: What happened when you got home?
BG: I got it that night. One time my mother was trying to beat me with the strap but the ironing cord was in the way. When she finished, I looked like a zebra. [laughs]. But my mother kept me in line, and she taught me to appreciate values.

Tomorrow, in Part 2, Benny reflects on his experiences with Tiny Grimes, Bull Moose Jackson, Tadd Dameron, Clifford Brown, Gigi Gryce and how getting fired from Earl Bostic's band in mid-1956 kicked off an important new phase of his jazz career.

JazzWax tracks: If you want to hear what Benny heard in Lionel Hampton's 1945 band, download Lionel Hampton: Hamp's Boogie Woogie at iTunes. It's the complete April 1945 concert at Carnegie Hall featuring Lionel Hampton and his orchestra with Arnett Cobb and Flying Home. It's virtually the same touring show that wound up at the Earle Theater in Philadelphia that year.

Hampton's band on this date included Al Killian, Joe Morris, Dave Page, Lammar Wright and Wendell Culley (trumpets); Abdul Hamid, Al Hayse, John Morris and Andrew Penn (trombones); Herbie Fields and Gus Evans (clarinets and alto saxes); Arnett Cobb and Jay Peters (tenor saxes); Charlie Fowlkes (baritone sax); Lionel Hampton (vibes, piano and drums); Milt Buckner (piano); Billy Mackel (guitar); Charlie Harris and Ted Sinclair (bass); and Fred Radcliffe (drums).

You'll hear Dizzy Gillespie on Red Cross, and  Dinah Washington with Leonard Feather on piano replacing Buckner on Evil Gal Blues.

Buddy Rich and Hal McKusick

Behind every photo is a story, especially a jazz photo. The older the image, the less first-hand information there is about who's in the picture and what was going on the moment the flashbulb popped. When I saw the photo above of the Buddy Rich band on Monday (click on it to enlarge), my mind immediately started to wander. Where was it taken and who was in the band? Fortunately I spotted a friend in the reed section who was able to shed some light. More in a minute.

This tale starts with pianist George Ziskind, who sent me an e-mail on Monday reflecting on tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh. In his e-mail, George directed me to a site devoted to Marsh, specifically to a picture George snapped of a slimmed-down Warne entering George's apartment in 1984 [pictured]. It's a fun shot; George calls it "Two Skinny Cats."

But while I was at the site, another image caught my eye: a photo of the Buddy Rich band in 1948. As I looked at the picture, I wondered why there is a big "A" on the music stands if it was Buddy's band? Who was the vocalist? Who was the guy next to Buddy not holding an instrument? Who else was in the band? And what was going on when the photo was taken?

Hal McKusick was in the 1948 Buddy Rich band, along with other Young Turks of the period. Hal's the alto saxophonist in the middle of the reeds, leaning forward. So I asked Hal [pictured] to remember what he could about the photo and the musicians in it:

"That photo was taken in New York, in the fall of 1948, shortly after we ended a cross-country trip. The "A" is for the name of the Avalon Ballroom, where we were playing, near 42d and Broadway. It was a great dance hall, always packed. As you can see, we were serious about playing well. We may have looked road-weary in the photo but we weren't. We were always eager to perform to our utmost. 

The reeds [from left to right] are Harvey Lavine on baritone, Jimmy Giuffre on tenor, me on alto, Warne Marsh on tenor and Ben Lary on tenor. I'm not sure who the vocalist was, maybe Muriel James. The trombones [from left to right] are Rob Swope, Mario Daone,  Rob's brother Earl Swope, and I can't make out the other one. The bass player is Teddy Kotick and the pianist is Harvey "The Tiger" Leonard. Buddy's on drums, and that's Stanley Kay [pictured] next to him. Stanley played drums whenever Buddy sang or danced. The trumpets [from left to right] are Tommy Allison, Dale Pierce, I can't make out the third guy, and Charlie Walp on the right. Tommy and Charlie always sat on either end of the section.

The sax section in this band was one of my favorites. We were always swinging, blending and phrasing together. Buddy had just brought in Sy Oliver [pictured] to do some arranging, and everyone got along great. Ben Lary had an incredible sound on the tenor, an offshoot of Pres with his own touch. I always enjoyed his musicianship. Tiger Leonard got his name because of how he paced when he wasn't playing the piano. Tommy Allison was a great trumpet soloist and section player. He had his own style, and it was splendid. We called him "Funlover"—he was always ready to laugh and had good things to say. Baritone saxophonist Harvey Lavine was called "The Goof." Al Cohn's The Goof and I was named for Harvey because he was always forgetting stuff at the hotels where we stayed.

Before this band arrived in New York in the fall of 1948, we had started on the West Coast playing the Hollywood Palladium in July and appearing that month in a film short [pictured; that's Hal behind Buddy]. Then the band hit the road, traveling north through Oregon and Washington State, playing the Grape Festivals. Next we traveled east across to Toronto and came down through Niagara Falls and into New York to open the Clique Club in December with George Shearing and Sarah Vaughan. The Clique Club, of course, was renamed Birdland in December 1949.

This Avalon photo must have been taken just before the Clique Club job, since I seem to remember leaving the band shortly after that. From a musicianship standpoint, this was one of Buddy's best bands."

JazzWax Tracks: To hear how good this band was, download Buddy Rich: The Legendary '47-'48 Orchestra Vol. 1 at iTunes or Amazon here. Or just grab the tracks Four Rich Brothers and Good Bait. The rare Four Rich Brothers features Jimmy Giuffre, the song's writer and arranger, in the sax section. The more famous Woody Herman version (Four Brothers), recorded for Columbia in October 1947, does not. Good Bait is a Tadd Dameron arrangement.

JazzWax video clip: For a sense of what this band sounded like, here's a clip of the short Hal refers to above—filmed before the band departed Los Angeles in the summer of 1948. Hal is just behind and to the right of Buddy on the long shots and directly behind Buddy during his solo: