JazzWax

Who Was Bobby Scott?

Bobby Scott is one of those virtually unknown jazz artists today who had a brief career as a top-flight pianist, composer and arranger in the 1950s. Then he moved into the pop world and disappeared from the jazz scene as a leader, working instead mostly as a studio sideman. In the 1960s and beyond, Scott worked extensively with Quincy Jones and wrote the music for two enormous pop hits: A Taste of Honey with Ric Marlow and He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother with Bob Russell. But before his pop success, Scott was a fascinating jazz player, composer and arranger, as evidenced by three albums now on one CD from the early 1950s. Yesterday I spoke with Ira Gitler and Hal McKusick, both of whom knew Scott.

Born in 1937, pianist Scott was a music prodigy. By age 8 he was studying composition intensively, and he worked his first professional gig at age 11. By the time he was 15, Scott had performed with Louis Prima and other name bands. In the mid-1950s he played with Tony Scott (no relation), Hal McKusick and Gene Krupa. He also recorded as a leader on his own trio dates. In the late 1950s he resumed his studies, and recorded several albums as a singer.

In 1960, after A Taste of Honey was released, Scott recorded with Jackie Paris (The Song Is Paris), Coleman Hawkins, Wes Montgomery, and Quincy Jones, appearing on a dozen or more of the West Coast arranger's albums. In the 1970s and beyond, Scott turned up as the arranger and pianist on albums jazz-pop albums. Scott died in November 1990.

It's a shame Scott's jazz work isn't better known today. In late 1954 he recorded The Compositions of Bobby Scott Vol. 1, which featured Ronnie Woellemer (trumpet), Eddie Bert (trombone), Hal McKusick (alto sax), Al Epstein (baritone sax), Scott (piano), Milt Hinton (bass) and Osie Johnson (drums). A little over a month later, Scott recorded Vol. 2 in Los Angeles with an all-star West Coast personnel: Conte Candoli (trumpet), Frank Rosolino (trombone), Charlie Mariano (alto sax), Bill Holman (tenor sax), Jimmy Giuffre (baritone sax), Scott (piano), Max Bennett (bass) and Stan Levey (drums).

In 1956, Scott recorded Bobby Scott and Two Horns for ABC Paramount with John Murtaugh (tenor sax), Marty Flax (baritone sax), Scott (piano), Whitey Mitchell (bass) and Howie Mann (drums).

All of these sessions have a certain understated confidence and charisma that sound terrific today. Clearly inspired by Gerry Mulligan's writing of the time, Scott had a seductive way with counterpoint, choosing to have instruments function as choral voices rather than relentlessly resolving competitors. He also had a fine ear for the distinct sounds of individual instrumentalists and where each should solo. You also can hear the kind of restlessness in the writing that comes from someone whose intellect is ahead of his years.

Recalls jazz writer and historian Ira Gitler...

"I knew Bobby very well. When we'd meet in the supermarket on the Upper West Side from time to time in the 1950s, that would be the end of shopping. He'd jump into subjects, and we'd cover many topics in a single chance meeting. Bobby had a brilliant mind that went far beyond music. He was tall and lanky and also a bit manic. He had kind of a hyper edge, going a mile a minute on a topic. When I think of Bobby I remember a guy who was very passionate about jazz." [Photo of Ira Gitler by Michael Wolff]

In 1955, Scott wrote and arranged Immortal for Hal  McKusick's In a Twentieth-Century Drawing Room LP (RCA). The composition was an elegy to Charlie Parker just months after the alto saxophonist's death. Scott also teamed up with Hal on Triple Exposure (1957), arranging Saturday Night, A Touch of Spring, Con Alma, and The Settlers and the Indians. This Prestige album is staggeringly great and features Billy Byers (trombone), Hal McKusick (clarinet, tenor sax and alto sax), Eddie Costa (piano), Paul Chambers (bass) and Charlie Persip (drums).

Recalls Hal:

"When I first started working with Bobby in the early 1950s, he was 16 years old. He put together a band for a summer job at a hotel in the Catskill Mountains. Bobby was playing piano and composing and arranging—at that age. The rest of us were already in our 20s, so seeing Bobby in action was amazing. I remember Jack Eagle was on trumpet. Jack [pictured] went on to do a lot of work in advertising as an actor, including playing a monk in ads for Xerox in the 1970s.

"Up in the Catskills, Bobby wrote all these wild, far out things in strange keys. It was a nice Jewish hotel, and the people vacationing there couldn't figure out what he was doing. But they liked him because of his energy and spirit. We had a blast.

"Soon after we did those sessions for Bethlehem Records [The Compositions of Bobby Scott]. I remember Bobby as being proud, self-confident and cocky. He was friendly, but as time went on he became more and more concerned about being perfect. I remember sitting with him in his Upper West Side apartment for many hours as he'd crank out charts.

"Toward the end of his life in the late 1980s, I was going to play a concert at Southampton College [on the east end of New York's Long Island]. Bobby called and I asked him to play with us. He said he wasn't in the best of health. I urged him to come out to Southampton, saying that playing would probably make him feel better. So he did, and it raised his spirits. He played piano with my quartet, a few piano solo numbers, and he sang a few. I remember he didn't like the position of the enormous concert grand on the stage, so we had to turn it and set up the mikes in a special way for him. That was the last I saw of Bobby. He passed away not long afterward. What a great talent." [Pictured: Hal McKusick]

Brash and musically mature beyond his years, Scott's writing in the early 1950s was lyrical and compelling. As arranger Sy Oliver said at one of Scott's early recording sessions, "How did he get so good so young?"

JazzWax tracks: Scott's two albums for Bethlehem, in November 1954 and January 1955, as well as Bobby Scott and Two Horns in 1956 for ABC Paramount, have been issued on one CD: The Compositions of Bobby Scott (Fresh Sound). The material is terrific, using a patient linear approach that meshes both East and West coast jazz sounds of the time. The "Birth of the Cool" recordings by Mulligan and Miles Davis were certain influences. Scott also had a marvelous ear for voicing and texture. Arrangements have horns coming and going in harmony and then uniting to gently move a composition's rich melody forward. Tender stuff with edgy soloists.

The Compositions of Bobby Scott can be found here used from independent sellers. 

As for Scott's work with Hal McKusick, you'll find In a Twentieth-Century Drawing Room as part of a two-CD set from Lonehill Records here, and Triple Exposure is here. Both are shrewd examples of mid-1950s small-group writing, arranging and playing, featuring leading first-call musicians of the day.

Interview: Jackie Cain (Part 5)

By the mid-1960s, Jackie Cain and Roy Kral were slowly becoming victims of a dramatic shift in music tastes. As rock swept away a generation of young listeners, Jackie and Roy's tightly choreographed vocal sound no longer was as radical as it once had been. The couple recorded from time to time and, to reach their already established fan base, they toured extensively. No matter what the couple sang, they always adhered to the same formula of swing, clever chord changes and exploding optimism. From time to time they also squeezed in a few advertisement jingles to pay the bills. [Photo of Jackie and Roy in 1982 by Brian McMillen]

As luck would have it, today is Jackie Cain's birthday. (Happy Birthday, Jackie!) Here in the East, it's a gorgeous, fragrant spring day. Which is exactly the kind of weather you'd want for someone like Jackie, who has made so many jazz fans feel positively great.

In Part 5 of my interview with Jackie, the legendary singer talks about Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan, recording jingles with husband Roy, making records with Andre and Dory Previn and Don Sebesky, and the tragic death of her daughter Niki in 1973:

JazzWax: Many jazz singers were fans of Jackie and Roy, yes?
Jackie Cain: Oh sure. Billie Holiday was a fan. I remember she took a blindfold test for Metronome in the early 1950s. They played one of our records for her, and she said something like, "Oh, that’s Jackie and Roy. That’s wonderful. If people want to sing this way, this is how to do it.” We were in her company a lot. She always wanted to touch my hair because it was unusually silky. Billie was very complimentary and very sweet. We’d sit together and listen to music.

JW: Who else did you know well?
JC: Sarah Vaughan also liked us. She called me her “Buddy Girl.” We worked on the same strip in Evanston, IL. I’d go over to hear her on my intermission and she’d come hear us on hers. Carmen McRae didn’t say much, but you could sense she liked us. Musicians and singers aren’t fawning kind of people. They’re genuine. They just give you a big hug and are warm to you, and you just know from that that they like you.

JW: Did you enjoy recording for Columbia Records starting in 1960?
JC: We had a good time. A producer there put us together with Andre Previn. In 1962, Andre and his wife Dory wrote a few songs for us. We recorded an album of their music [Like Sing: Songs by Dory and Andre Previn] and had a great time. Dory and Andre provided a blurb on the back. It said: “Jackie and Roy is our favorite singer.” Which I thought was quite clever. They were very aware of how together we were.

JW: You recorded for a range of labels after that.
JC: The rock thing had become very popular, and our manager insisted we do some songs of the day. We didn’t want to do it because we weren’t familiar with the music. But then we figured out a few artists whose music would work, like Simon and Garfunkel. We did an album in 1966 called Changes for Verve. Roy wrote the vocal arrangements to a handful of songs he had found and Claus Ogerman adapted them for a large orchestra and added some colors, too. I think there were a bunch of Beatles songs on there as well.

JW: How did you and Roy earn a living as rock began to dominate?
JC: We toured and played a lot of clubs, occasionally recording jingles. Probably the best-known one at the time was an ad for Halo Shampoo. It was a little bossa nova thing. We were out of town when we got a call from our bassist, who said the ad executives wanted us singing in the spot. I said, “Oh, we can't, we’re going to be away.”

JW: What did your bassist say?
JC: He kept saying we had to do it, that it was too good to pass up. He told us to postpone our flight. He said: “You won’t be sorry. This will be worth something to you.” So we did it. We canceled our flight and made the ad, which was easy and wonderful to do. When we got back to our gig, we just kept thinking, “Wow that’s great, we did a commercial.”

JW: Was the ad profitable to do?
JC: Yes. The checks started coming and in and we couldn't believe it. In one check we had made more than we had in a month. It was a wordless song. Then we did a Cheerios commercial in which we sang, “Feelin’ groovy, I just had my Cheerios, Groovy, groovy" [laughs]. Joe Beck wrote the arrangement.

JW: Which recording of yours still gives you the biggest thrill?
JC: Probably Time and Love for CTI [1972], with the huge orchestra arranged by Don Sebesky.

JW: How did the session work?
JC: Roy and I put down the vocal tracks. Then Don came in and overdubbed the orchestra. Roy and I already had a recording of all the tracks at home so we could learn the arrangements. Don made it for us. [Producer] Creed [Taylor] and Don helped us through it. A lot of places had to be conducted for us because there were so many open spaces. Don would bring me in with his hand conducting when it was time for me to sing. Creed was in the control room, listening to us and enjoying it. We recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in New Jersey. Rudy was ecstatic. He kept saying, “This is the way albums should sound” [laughs].

JW: Was working with Creed at CTI different than when he was at ABC?
JC: No, not really. What I've always liked about Creed is  that he cared but he wasn’t going to make you do what he wanted. He was very understanding and had a good vibe in the studio. You didn’t feel a lot of anxiety. I also liked some of the things we did on Sweet and Low Down [1960]. Roy had just discovered a new niche with his harmonies. But the LP has never gone to CD, which is a shame. [Photo: Bobby Short, Jean Bach and Jackie in the 1990s]

JW: Alec Wilder wrote Niki's Song for your daughter, Niki, didn't he?
JC: Yes. Niki died in 1973 when she was almost 21 years old, in an auto accident. It was horrible. We were like zombies for years after that. We didn’t work. We were stricken. Dana, our other daughter, was only 16, and she and Niki were very close. They traveled with us when they weren’t in school as kids. They had to be best buddies because all they had was each other on those trips.

JW: Did the girls enjoy those cross-country trips?
JC: Yes. We all drove across country several times on Route 66. But we never tried to cover too much ground in one day. We’d leave four to five days for the trip so we had plenty of time. Each afternoon we’d look for a motel and a pool. And the next day we’d get up and go sightseeing. It was so much fun. 

JW: What happened to Niki?
JC: The accident happened in 1973. It was the day we had moved into a new house in New Jersey. We had had to vacate our place in Riverdale, N.Y., because after 11 years the owners of the home we were subletting were returning from abroad. We had friends living in the area in New Jersey, and it was a nice town. Five days after we moved in, Niki died.

JW: Was it a drunken driver?
JC: No, no, she fell asleep at the wheel early in the morning, and her car hit a tree. Niki loved horses. She and her boyfriend were planning to buy a horse eventually. They both liked to ride and were outdoorsy. She was driving to a local racetrack every morning to cool the horses down, by walking them around and drying them off. She had a little car that she had recently bought. Driving to the track that morning, there was a shoulder that wasn't too deep. That’s where it happened. When she fell asleep, the car went off the road there. It was horrible. 

JW: Where were you and Roy when you got the call?
JC: Roy and I had worked the night before in New York and had gotten to sleep very late. The next morning, early, the phone rang. The person on the other end said, “Your daughter’s been in an accident. You had better get here.” So just we jumped in our clothes and went down. When we got there, she was already dead. I never even got to see her.

JW: How did that terrible day affect you and Roy?
JC: It was so hard to pick our spirits up. A lot of our friends were a tremendous help. One friend came by and rang the doorbell just to bring food and show us a rainbow outside. Irene, Roy’s sister, and her family, were very helpful even though they were in California and we were in New York.

JW: How was Dana?
JC: I think Niki’s accident had a profound effect on her. I think she still has that feeling of loss, as do I. I still think of Niki all the time.

JW: You and Roy personify sunny optimism. Her death must have nearly crushed you.
JC: It was tough. I remember we went on tour afterward. Every place we went we knew people from working there previously. They would come up to us and ask, “How are your daughters?” Then I’d have to tell them, and it wasn’t easy. Then they’d feel bad for asking. I realized early on that Niki's death was a fact of life and that I had to live with it. I also found that the more I talked about it and faced it, the easier it was to get past it. Not to "get over it" but to get past it. You never get over it. Never.

JW: An event that tragic could have split up you and Roy.
JC: Yes. We turned to each other for support, though. We had been married for 24 years at that point and grew even closer.

JW: What would you say was one of the most exciting moments of your career?
JC: Wow, that’s a big question. On the Dick Van Dyke Show, there was an episode where Dick and Mary Tyler Moore had to get up and perform at a party. When it was their turn, they did our arrangement of Mountain Greenery. The only reason I know this is because someone heard Mary Tyler Moore being interviewed by David Letterman. He asked her, "What’s one of the hardest things you've had to do?" Mary said, “Well, I had to learn this song by Jackie and Roy, and sing it on the show. I was so nervous.” She was a good singer. But that was a tough thing to try and duplicate. It felt great to be recognized that way.

JazzWax clip: In 1961, on their Double Take LP, Jackie and Roy revived You Smell So Good, which they first recorded in 1955. Focus carefully on what the duo does in the second half, speeding up some lyrics and then switching into vocalese. This Tommy Wolf tune is a perfect example of why Jackie and Roy were so special—and so often mischaracterized as pop singers rather than the swinging jazz artists they were...

And here's what I believe is the "groovy" Cheerios ad Jackie referred to above...

Interview: Jackie Cain (Part 4)

The popularization of the 12-inch LP in 1956 boosted the fortunes of Jackie Cain and Roy Kral. On the larger color covers, the attractive duo was portrayed as hopelessly upbeat lovebirds, while their vocals inside sounded more like personal diary entries than the works of third-party songwriters. Producers and LP art directors cast Jackie and Roy as typical fun-loving suburbanites, but nothing could have been further from the truth.

By the mid-1950s, Jackie and Roy were the parents of two young daughters, and the couple had to perform, record and tour to earn a living and raise a family. Club dates meant rehearsals and working out routines for new material. Record dates meant working with top studio perfectionists on the East and West coasts. Yet despite career and family pressures, Jackie and Roy's love for each other never diminished.

In Part 4 of my conversation with Jackie, the legendary singer talks about being both a mother and recording artist, working for producer Creed Taylor at ABC Paramount in the late 1950s, walking a fine line between jazz and pop, and why one of the most challenging songs of her career was for an album recorded just five years ago:

JazzWax: In 1956, your second daughter, Dana, was born. At this point, you had two children. How were you and Roy managing with your hectic national work schedule?
Jackie Cain: We couldn’t do as much as we wanted to, of course. We were offered a lot of jobs we couldn’t take because we always thought of our kids first.

JW: How did you manage when you had to travel all over the country to perform and record?
JC: Solving that problem was always on our minds. In the mid-1950s, we stopped over in Las Vegas while driving from Los Angeles to Chicago to open at Mister Kelly’s. Roy was walking down the street and bumped into Don Palmer, Charlie Ventura's manager. Don said, “Gee Roy, am I glad to see you. I have a band due to open at the Thunderbird, but they were in an automobile accident and can't appear. Could you and Jackie open instead?” Roy told him about our Chicago commitment. We liked to get to a place about four days early to rehearse. But Don pleaded. He said if we could just open, it would give him enough time to find someone else. Roy told Don that he didn’t have his arrangements with him nor did he have any members of our group.

JW: What did Palmer say?
JC: Don said he'd get us a rhythm section. Roy agreed, and Don got us a group that had never played our music, but it worked out just fine. The guy who managed the lounge at the Thunderbird really liked us. He offered us a contract to play the room anytime we were in town. So Roy and I got to thinking on our drive to Chicago. We decided that after our gig at Mister Kelly's, we'd return to Vegas. 

JW: What about your daughters?
JC: When we went back to Chicago, we brought the kids with us. They were at my mother's house. We'd often take them with us on our cross-country road trips when they were young. When they got older and were in school, we'd leave them at home with my mother and stepfather.

JW: Did you ever feel bad about doing that, since your mom had done that to you?
JC: I did feel kind of guilty about it. I used to talk to my daughters’ teachers about this. They’d say if you're not happy, your children aren't going to be happy. I was a big believer in Margaret Mead [pictured]. She said countries that gave their kids more freedom were better off.

JW: What did performing in Las Vegas teach you?
JC: That we were really good at what we did and really connected with audiences. We also realized that that if we bought a house there, we could live there and work in clubs throughout the gambling circuit. Both of our daughters were very young, and we had been crossing the country by car when Dana was just six months old. You can’t believe the amount of preparation I had to go through with the portions of food in jars and heating them up in the cigarette lighter.

JW: How was it working with producer Creed Taylor at ABC Paramount from 1956 to 1958?
JC: Every time we worked with Creed he left us alone. He wouldn't drive you crazy with endless instructions like many producers back then. He let you come in and do what you did best. And he always put us together with great musicians. Or in other situations there were superb musicians we wanted to work with, and Creed got them for us.

JW: Creed had been a big fan of yours since hearing you and Roy sing I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles in the late 1940s.
JC: [Laughs] Really? Well, it showed. On one session, I said, “Creed, you know it would be so great if you could turn down the overhead florescent lights and put in music stands with lights." I wasn’t actually asking for those changes. I was just wishing off the top of my head. Well the next day, Creed had cables running through the studio, the lights were dim, and all the music stands had lights. He had created a club atmosphere. It was quite nice. Everyone was amazed that Creed had done that. I was amazed. Creed was always in our corner. There was even a time when work slowed up and we were at the beach the whole summer. So we called Creed to see if we could record for him. He said yes right away, and we recorded Time and Love in 1972. I’m sorry we didn’t make more money for him.

JW: In 1960 you recorded Sweet and Low Down, your first album for Columbia.
JC: We were supposed to do that album with Red Norvo on vibes. This was right after his tour and recording in 1959 with Frank Sinatra. But Sinatra’s manager wouldn't let him record with us, saying he didn’t want Norvo on any other singer’s album. So we got Larry Bunker, who was no slouch [laughs].

JW: Did your approach to learning songs with Roy change by this point?
JC: Not really. It's just that we'd do it at home. When Roy was working out changes on our piano, I’d be around the house somewhere and I’d hear him. After he mapped out a song, he’d teach it to me. Then we'd add the harmony. We wanted to make sure we knew the song so that audiences could recognize it. 

JW: Your material became increasingly sophisticated, yes?
JC: It did. We'd do the first eight bars slowly so we'd get every note right. Then we’d try to improve it. All the music came from Roy's head. He’d find ways to phrase a song to give it a jazz feel, which is something that came naturally to him. He was a good improviser. He’d improvise and find hooks he could use. Neither of us had to struggle to reach notes since we both had the same vocal range. I could go a little higher, but he got to be really good and stretched his voice higher.

JW: How did you work in the cute togetherness feel we hear on the ABC Paramount dates?
JC: We always wanted to phrase lyrics the way you speak. We wanted it to sound almost conversational between us. Like we were reading a book to each other, a little drama. The song Glory of Love is a perfect example. It was a story, and it was about us. We’d also be able to relate to each other while we were performing or recording. While Roy was at the piano playing and singing, I’d be in the crook of the piano making eye contact with him. That was essential for us to stay together and read each other as we sang.

JW: Did you ever push back on Roy’s musical ideas?
JC: Push back? Not me. Roy was the expert. He was an arranger and trained musician. He had experience and had studied music. I didn’t. He always sounded great. I miss his sound. His sound was very rich in harmony. And very deep.

JW: How did you strike the right balance between jazz and pop, and avoid being too, well, hammy?
JC: By striving to be natural and relaxed, and not too dramatic or showy-acty. That's the fine line we had to walk. If you’re not careful, it’s easy to go too far with lyrics, and you wind up acting them out too literally. We always wanted to sound smart and in the groove, not sticky sweet. So our performance had to be just right.

JW: But how exactly did you avoid that?
JC: By just drawing from our own wells and expressing how we felt about what we were singing. We could relate that way because we were married and cared about each other and were in love. Singing our way was like a string quartet rehearsing or playing a great piece of music that’s instrumental. You play it, and your goal is to be consistent, get everything right, and not forget any sections of it.

JW: How did you ever remember the lyrics to all those tricky songs?
JC: It wasn’t hard. I’m very good with lyrics. I remember practically every song I ever knew. If you have a good  memory to learn something, then you can do it. You just learn it and keep going over it in your mind. Sometimes I kept a lyric sheet on the piano in case I'd forget lyrics. But I never forgot, so I never had to use the sheets. I suppose it was comforting to know it was there.

JW: Which song's lyrics gave you the most trouble?
JC: Probably Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most. It has a lot of range, unusual intervals, and you have to attune your mind to it.

JW: What was the most challenging song?
JC: A few years ago I recorded tracks for an album by saxophonist Bill Kirchner [pictured]. Bill's compositions were avant-garde, with a lot of dissonance in them. I had trouble at first because I wasn’t used to singing those kinds of things. But I learned the songs, and I thought they came off well.

Tomorrow in Part 5, Jackie talks about the rise of rock and how it affected her routine with Roy, the couple's decision to record advertising jingles, recording for Creed Taylor at Verve and CTI Records, and the tragic death of their younger daughter Niki in 1973.

JazzWax tracks: Jackie and Roy's ABC Paramount albums, Bits and Pieces and Glory of Love, are available on one CD here from Jasmine Music. A terrific compilation of the couple's ABC years is available here.

Bill Kirchner's 2004 album, Everything I Love, which features Jackie singing on two tracks, is available here. The compositions are a bit outside of the box for Jackie, but that's what makes them exciting and novel. You hear Jackie feeling her way through the difficult, unconventional material, ultimately giving them a Jackie Cain touch.

Interview: Jackie Cain (Part 3)

Working with Charlie Ventura in 1948 and 1949 thrust Jackie Cain and her singing partner Roy Kral into a high-anxiety environment. In addition to performing with Ventura almost nightly, Roy had to arrange the band's book, rehearse the Ventura group when charts were completed, and work with Jackie on complex vocalese treatments. During this period of high stress and little sleep, the duo fell in love as they provided each other with emotional and creative support. But by mid-1949, the Ventura experience had run its course for the couple, and they were ready strike out on their own.

When Jackie talks of her late husband today, the brightness in her voice dims ever so slightly. This is to be expected, considering they were married for more than 50 years and spent virtually every waking minute together. As we spoke recently, Jackie softy reminded me that she has been a widow for seven years, always aware of how long she has been on her own, without her other loving, creative half.

In Part 3 of my interview series with Jackie, the legendary singer talks about working with Ventura, the basis for Roy's Euphoria, leaving Ventura, and meeting Tommy Wolf and Fran Landesman in the early 1950s:

JazzWax: Charlie Ventura sounds like a guy who could hold a grudge.
Jackie Cain: He was. When we were singing at the Blue Note in Chicago, if I got too much audience attention on my solo number, Charlie wouldn’t let me do another during the next set. This went on for the entire time Roy and I were with the band. On other occasions Charlie wouldn't even talk to us. After the press mix-up early on [when a newspaper wrote about Jackie and Roy rather than Ventura], Charlie raised hell with his manager, saying, “Hey, I’m paying for the publicity and the press is focusing on them?” I never understood his reaction. We were part of his band. We couldn't control what the newspaper was going to report. And whatever happened good for us was good for him, too. I think he was just terribly sensitive. And jealous, I guess.

JW: Was he like this even at the famed Pasadena Concert in May 1949?
JC: Yes, even then Charlie was still holding a grudge, although it wasn’t as noticeable. The Pasadena Concert actually was our last concert with the band. Roy and I left shortly afterward.

JW: During that famed concert, you and Roy had many standout moments, particularly on Euphoria.
JC: [Laughs] That was wonderful. No words, just voices singing like instruments, which is what vocalese is, really. Charlie had asked Roy for an arrangement of 'S Wonderful, as an instrumental for the band. As Roy wrote it, he came up with this bop riff. We took the riff and turned it into Euphoria, which is based on 'S Wonderful's chord changes. We just lengthened the riff and put something in there that was distinctly ours.

JW: That was a very popular hit for you two. It still is.
JC: Yes. Funny, as we toured with Charlie, we were often on the radio. The announcer would sometimes be back in the studio announcing the songs as though he was there. One time an announcer read the title [Euphoria] and said, “Now here’s a lovely ballad by trombonist Kai Winding." And on would come Euphoria [laughs]. Which was hardly a lovely ballad, you know. Other times radio DJs thought "Jackie" was a "he" and would announce me that way [laughs] [Photo from the Pasadena Concert].

JW: The Ventura band was pretty popular when you left.
JC: Yes, that was the year the band won Down Beat's award  for best group of the year. We attracted a lot of attention. Looking back, it was stupid that we left the band when we did. It was just getting hot. But we had had enough and wanted to do new things.

JW: Had your relationship with Roy changed by this point?
JC: Yes. We had begun to date while we were in Charlie's band. I had had my eye on Roy right away, of course. I thought he was great. He was Czech and I’m part Polish and part German. So the chemistry felt right. He had started driving me home when I was living with Jay Burkhart's family in 1946. He’d borrow his father’s car and take me all the way out to where the Burkharts lived near Gary [Indiana]. I know Roy was starting to think differently about me.

JW: When did the relationship change?
JC: We became an item gradually. It started in Chicago when we were at the Beehive, just before we joined Charlie. We both lived in Hyde Park Manor, an apartment hotel near the club. I had a room there. Roy had a room on another floor. By the time we were with Ventura, we were seeing each other.

JW: What did you think about Roy toward the end of your stay with Ventura?
JC: Roy was seven years older than me and had been married twice before. He had married his high school sweetheart and had a child with her. He also had met someone while he was in Detroit after being discharged from the army. Some female disc jockey who had gotten the hots for him and kept coming into the club to see him. He had a child with her. By the time we met, he was divorced.

JW: Wow, talk about warning signs…
JC: I know, but I was still gung-ho because I really cared about him. We saw everything the same way. My mother was shocked when I told her I wanted to marry a musician who had been married twice and had two children [laughs]. Both my mother and father were kind of upset at first. They said, “This isn’t good for you.” But once they met Roy and we had been together for a while, they saw what I saw and approved. Roy and I got married in 1949, after leaving Charlie's band.

JW: In late 1949, you and Roy recorded for Atlantic with your own sextet. Then your discography is quiet until 1953. Why?
JC: Because we decided to start a family. We sang a great deal in clubs, and I had my first child, Nicoli, in 1952. We called her Niki. My girlfriend always used to call me Niki so we decided to call Nicoli by that name.

JW: In 1954, you and Roy recorded with Neal Hefti for Coral Records.
JC: Neal [pictured] was wonderful. Bob Thiele, the producer, was there and unfortunately made us record songs we didn’t like, like Banana Split and Take Me to the Circus. Tunes that were so dumb and not much fun.

JW: In 1955, it looks as though you were billed for the first time on an album as “Jackie and Roy.”
JC: By then we were known for choosing hip, little-known songs or tunes that were new and nobody was aware of yet. Roy found many of them by doing research in a lot of songbooks. We liked songs that were offbeat and playful but sophisticated. We loved to surprise audiences with out-of-the-way songs by great composers.

JW: Once you became a duo act, the voices-as-instruments sound began to recede and was replaced with a more modern, cooler duet sound. How did you and Roy work that?
JC: The times were changing and we could hear that. There was only so much vocalese you could do before audience interest would wear thin. Audiences wanted to hear stories in the songs. When Roy and I worked together, the first thing that had to be perfect were the chord changes. Once Roy found a song he liked, he’d work on it alone to find the chord changes that he liked while I took care of chores around the house. This made the songs different and more fun to listen to. Roy would always alter the chord changes to make them more intricate or more dissonant but trying not to go too far. Then we'd work out our routine until it was perfect.

JW: In 1955 you were the first to record Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most. Did you know the song's composer?
JC: Actually we did. We had met Tommy Wolf in St. Louis in 1954. Tommy had come to hear us at a local club. After we finished, he came up and introduced himself to us. He was very ecstatic about what we had done, and he told us we were great and how much he loved our work. He made us feel real good. He pointed out parts of the song that he liked best. Some things we did were contrapuntal, and we used a lot of harmony and we went in and out of harmony. So there was a lot to listen to. Tommy got it all.

JW: What happened next?
JC: Tommy asked us to come see him at the Crystal Palace nearby, where he was the house pianist. The Crystal Palace was co-owned by the husband of Fran Landesman, a songwriter. Fran would write lovely lyrics and Tommy would put them to music. So we went over to hear him at the Crystal Palace on our night off. [Photo of Fran Landesman seated atop the piano and Tommy Wolf at the keyboard]

JW: How was Tommy?
JC: Seeing him perform was an eye-opener. He was doing all these wonderful original tunes he had written with Fran. Tommy played and sang at the piano. His songs written with Fran included Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, You Inspire Me and I Love You Real. Their songs were very clever and sounded as if they had been written for us. After the set, Tommy told us about Fran.

JW: What did you tell him?
JC: We asked Tommy to send us a copy of Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most. He said many people had wanted to record it since he and Fran wrote it [in 1952] but that no one ever did.

JW: Why?
JC: Tommy said it was too avant-garde for some audiences. Which is true. It's not an easy song. Once you hear a song enough and know it. It has become an underground hit and standard just by being done by so many artists because artist who do it love it. The lyrics don’t circle back and repeat. It’s not like a true pop song. It’s poignant, beautiful and one big, long story.

 

JW: You really paved the way for other modern singers who specialized in choosing off-beat songs.
JC: [Laughs] We were always ahead of our time. That’s what arranger Ralph Burns [pictured] always used to tell us. “You guys are just too far ahead of your time.” We didn’t think about the audience so much. I mean we wanted to please people so we chose things that were strong pieces that we loved. But we knew that if we loved a song, we could do it well and that would translate to audiences. Most of the time it did. 

JW: Your careers and visibility really start to take off once you signed with ABC Paramount in 1956.
JC: Yes, that was Creed Taylor’s doing. He loved what we had done in the late 1940s with Charlie Ventura. At ABC, we started to shift into little-known songs and standards. We wanted to focus on an upbeat approach, with tight harmonies.

Tomorrow, Jackie talks about moving to Las Vegas with Roy, further refining their sound, the song that gave her the most trouble, and joining Columbia Records in 1961.

JazzWax tracks: Jackie Cain and Roy Kral's period with Charlie Ventura is well documented on a four disc box from Proper Records called Charlie Ventura: Bop for the People. It includes the complete Pasadena Concert of May 1949, which remains one of the great live concert recordings. You'll find it on CD here. Or the concert is available on a single disc from Fresh Sound, also called Bop for the People here.

JazzWax clip: Here's a clip of Jackie and Roy riffing on Daahoud, from their 1961 Columbia release, Double Take...

Interview: Jackie Cain (Part 2)

By age 17, Jackie Cain was earning a living in Chicago as a big-band and small-group singer. But unlike many up-and-coming club singers who emerged during the late 1940s, Jackie had not spent a single day on New York's 52nd Street. Instead, the Milwaukee native listened carefully to records, studied with a vocal coach and sang with local jazz groups, one of which featured pianist Roy Kral. At first, Roy was hesitant to accompany a female vocalist. But once he heard Jackie, the pair were inseparable. The couple worked tirelessly on songs to create clever modern voicings, and the formula kept them steadily booked into clubs. Eventually they caught the ear of nationally known jazz artists, including Charlie Ventura, who hired Jackie and Roy in 1948. [Photo of Jackie Cain and Charlie Ventura in 1948, top, courtesy of Jeff Austin]

When you talk to Jackie today, the first thing you hear in her soft melodic voice is a firm Milwaukee accent. The second is her kindness. Jackie is as sweet to talk to as her records sound, and she's just as upbeat and excited about music and life. Though she still misses her husband Roy, who died in 2002, Jackie is as positive and as joyous as ever. 

In Part 2 of my interview series with Jackie, the legendary vocalese singer talks about working with Roy on what would become their signature style, joining Charlie Ventura's band, and why Ventura held a grudge for the entire time they were in his band:

JazzWax: When your appearances with Roy in the George Davis Quartet started to fill seats at Jump Town in Chicago, did you quit Jay Burkhart’s band?
Jackie Cain: No. I sang weekends with Roy [Kral] and George, and I worked with Jay’s big band three nights a week.

JW: In Chicago, when you were singing with Roy, were you two romantically involved at this point?
JC: Oh, no. Roy had a girlfriend at the time, and I was just a kid. Well, not exactly a kid. I was 17 years old but more emotionally mature than most people my age. I was into music and had spent time hanging around with musicians who turned me on to the records of Billie Holiday [pictured] and other great singers.
We were just close friends at first.

JW: Which of the two bands did you enjoy singing with most?
JC: Both were great, but the energy was more exciting with George because of Roy. One night at Jump Town, Chicago radio host Dave Garroway [pictured] came in to hear us. I think the club owner was going to buy time on his station so more people would become familiar with his club. Jump Town was kind of out of the way, on the west side of Chicago.

JW: What did Garroway think?
JC: Dave was real taken with us and started talking about us on the air. It was about the time he was gung-ho about Sarah Vaughan [pictured]. He was the one who dubbed her The Divine One. He had a midnight radio show called The 1160 Club, which reached Evanston and other towns near Chicago at night. Dave had this great radio voice and was very charming on the air. He had a great way of explaining things, and everyone loved him.

JW: Did you start to get press?
JC: I don’t know, but we started getting more business at the club. And we were getting a lot of radio talk, thanks to Dave. So we were booked solid into Jump Town for some time. During this period, the club started attracting big-name jazz musicians, like Miles Davis. He was there in 1947, just after he won Esquire's New Star award. We were working at the club at the time. [Photo of Miles Davis by Herman Leonard]

JW: Did you meet Davis?
JC: Oh yes. We met him that night. And we knew Miles through the years after that and always got along with him. Some people didn’t, you know. Soon, Dave Garroway started putting on concerts once every couple of months.

JW: Where were they held?
JC: At the Morrison Hotel [pictured]. It was a big, nice wonderful room with a stage and a good space for the audience. He’d book big names but he'd also feature local talent like us. The headliner was always the group coming through town. One time he booked Charlie Ventura. Roy and I had already started playing with vocalese arrangements and thought what we were doing could sound good with Charlie.

JW: How did you both begin singing vocalese?
JC: We had heard Davey Lambert and Buddy Stewart's records with Gene Krupa’s band, and Charlie Ventura had come out of Krupa’s band. One night, after listening to What's This? I said, “Hey Roy, why don’t we try to do something like that, only our own thing? You could write something.” So we gave it a shot.

JW: How did you become so hip so fast?
JC: Just naturally. I had listened to a lot of jazz records. You see, I had always tried to learn solos from musical instruments. One was a solo on an Allen Eager tune. Listening to instrumental solos inspired us. Roy would write out a solo and I’d sing it. We were very lucky because Roy and I sang in the same range, which was rare. I may have had a little more in the high end, but we were very close.

JW: Did Roy know how to sing?
JC: Not at first. He had never sung before. I taught him how. He was a natural.

JW: How did you teach him?
JC: I had had a good vocal teacher in Chicago for about a year. My coach provided me with good ways to develop the voice and build up the diaphragm, and to sing on the breath.

JW: How does that work?
JC: On the first chorus we’d do a verse that set up the vocalese. I always worked out my own solos. Years later at record dates, I would go into a room that was empty to find a way to phrase my solo. Phrasing is all-important in singing. You always try to make it like a conversation, with commas and punctuation. That’s how you try to think about it when you’re phrasing while singing. So we'd take the first chorus straight. On the second chorus we’d use our voices as instruments, which is what vocalese is all about. Roy wrote all of that out.

JW: How did Roy work?
JC: He’d start by soloing on the song on the piano. Just blowing. When he found nice little phrases, he'd write them down. That’s how we’d develop the things we sang.

JW: How could you follow what Roy wrote if you didn’t read music?
JC: First Roy would play the song for me so I could learn the melody notes. Then he'd play for me the lines he wrote. He'd play them once or twice. If there was a phrase that was especially difficult, we’d take it slow. As we worked through it, we’d speed it up to the correct tempo. After that, we’d work on the syllables. We wanted to hit the syllables in the song's words the way instruments would. Once we had that down, we’d sing the entire song together. In some cases I had short solos in songs. But I never felt comfortable doing that. I preferred singing together with Roy. It was more fun running those tight harmonies.

JW: How did you and Roy come to join Ventura?
JC:  When we learned Dave Garroway was using him in a concert with us, Roy and I looked at each other and said, “We better do good.” We realized that we might be able to get a break through the concert. Of course, unbeknownst to us, we did.

JW: How did that happen?
JC: A good part of Charlie's band, including Buddy Stewart, Shelly Manne, Lou Stein and Kai Winding, gave him two weeks' notice right around the time he hit Chicago. By this point, Roy and I had moved from Jump Town to the Bee Hive, a better-known club on the south side of Chicago. Charlie and his manager, Don Palmer, wanted to hear us before the concert. They also were probably scouting for band replacements.

JW: Were you and Roy nervous when Ventura and Palmer showed up?
JC: Not at all. We were comfortable. Once we knew our routine, we knew it. We just did the best we could, like we always did. We always wanted to be consistent, and it was fun to try our best. There was a lot of improv with Roy on piano. We'd do a chorus followed by piano. Then we’d go into a freer singing part.

JW: What did Ventura and Palmer think after hearing you?
JC: They really liked us. After the concert, we got a call from Don asking if we wanted to join Ventura’s band.

JW: What did you think?
JC: We were ready for it. It was the next step and we were excited to tour. We didn’t think of it as a move to the big time, just a great opportunity. We were just happy to be doing something different.

JW: Why, were you tired of the Chicago club scene?
JC: No, not at all. But repetition and endurance are the two tough guys as a singer. When you sing, you’re not pressing a button down on an instrument and blowing. You’re using a part of your body. It’s much harder than people would imagine. And singing the same thing night after night can wear you down.

JW: Where was your first gig with the Ventura band?
JC: Charlie wanted to start the new band at the Blue Note in Chicago. He wanted Roy to write the book for the opening. Charlie also brought in his brothers. One played the baritone sax, one played tenor and the third played trumpet. Charlie wanted to help his brothers and inspire them and help them get started in the music business. So Roy wrote these charts and rehearsed the band. We found that the Ventura brothers could play well. The baritone and trumpet players were very good. The tenor player wasn’t as good as the other two.

JW: That sounds like a pretty grueling day.
JC: By the time we opened at the Blue Note, we were tired. Roy was up late writing. We rehearsed and then opened that night. Somehow we managed to pull it off. After doing a few jobs with his brothers, Charlie realized that it was going to be too tough. To pull it off, Charlie could see that they’d need too much attention and that he'd have to be the father figure. He’d have to tell them what to do and everything. He knew it was too big an order. He did keep Ben, the baritone sax player, though.

JW: The Ventura band changed while you were there.
JC: Yes, the new band had a lot of bop guys, including Boots Mussulli, Conte Candoli, Kenny O'Brien and Ed Shaughnessy with his two bass drums. We had a good time touring all over the country. And we were getting a lot of press.

JW: Was the press always good?
JC: Mostly, but things got messy just after we joined the band. We were going into the Royal Roost in New York in the summer of 1948. So Charlie hired Virginia Wicks, a big publicity agent, to work on his name and get the band a bigger following.

JW: What happened?
JC: Charlie told us that we needed to meet with a guy from a big New York newspaper at the Royal Roost the next afternoon. Charlie said the guy was going to come in at a certain time to interview the band and take pictures in the club. So we went down there. Roy, me and the band were on time, but Charlie didn’t show up. So this guy who was sitting there started asking Roy and me how we met and how we got into music. He was writing all this stuff down.

 

JW: Did Ventura ever show up?
JC: About an hour later. When he saw the guy talking to us, Charlie was kind of miffed. It wasn’t our fault. He was late. When the article came out in the paper, the headline was The Voice-Horn Blend. It was the truth, so I didn't know why Charlie was so angry. It was his band. He hired the people. Why should he be jealous of us? But he was. Charlie was a great guy and we loved him and had fun with him. But he took his issues out on us. He didn't talk to us the entire time we were with the band after that.

Tomorrow, Jackie talks about the famed "Bop for the People" concert with Ventura in May 1949, how she and Roy came up with the vocalese for Euphoria, when their relationship turned amorous, leaving Ventura's band, getting married and starting a family—all while singing in clubs and making records on the East and West coasts.

JazzWax tracks: Jackie and Roy's earliest recording with Charlie Ventura were captured at the Royal Roost in August 1948 and featured Conte Candoli (trumpet), Bennie Green (trombone), Charlie Ventura (tenor sax), Ben Ventura (baritone sax), Kenny O'Brien (bass) and Ed Shaughnessy (drums). The LP is available at eBay.

Interview: Jackie Cain (Part 1)

There is no cheerier voice in jazz than Jackie Cain's. A teenage singing sensation in Milwaukee and then Chicago in the mid-1940s, Jackie met her life-long husband and singing partner Roy Kral by accident after dropping in at a local club. Shortly after the vocalese duo joined Charlie Ventura in 1948, they rose rapidly to prominence and were featured in the high-octane "Bop for the People" concert in Pasadena, CA, in May 1949. In the 1950s, Jackie and Roy's popularity soared along with wood-decorated station wagons and picket fences. The couple's charm emanated from a newlywed innocence and unabashed love for each other. But it was their hip and swinging vocals, clever band arrangements and superb taste in little-known songs that won critics' acclaim. They were first to record Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most in 1955.

I've always adored Jackie's sound, especially on the Jackie and Roy recordings for ABC/Paramount from 1956 to 1958. The pair were vocal bookends, singing and swinging in the same range, and always coming up with daring ways to make songs modern and catchy. Upping the ante, Roy played piano while he sang and Jackie typically took wide harmonic risks. Toss in a tasteful quartet arranged by Roy or a big band scored by Bill Holman or Neal Hefti, and the results made you feel great. Jackie and Roy sang together for 53 years, finishing each other's lines with uplifting finesse. Roy died in 2002.

In Part 1 of my five-part conversation with Jackie Cain, 80, the legendary vocalese singer talks about growing up hard in Milwaukee, joining Jay Burkhart's band in Chicago at 17 years old, and how she met pianist and eventual husband Roy Kral:

JazzWax: Where were you born?
Jackie Cain: I was born in Milwaukee in 1928. When I   arrived my parents were already having financial problems. My dad sold office furniture and my mother didn't work. The Depression didn't help. Growing up in the 1930s, my parents fought a lot. They were discreet but I knew things weren’t right. They were unhappy, and they finally divorced when I was 7 or 8 years old. I’m surprised they held out that long.

JW: How did you take their split?
JC: It was hard at first. I was very fond of my father. My mother and I lived with my grandmother until my mother finally landed a job with a photo imaging company. My mother went away for 10 days to train on the company's equipment. When she returned, she went to work selling their services at The Boston Store, a big mid-line department store in Milwaukee.

JW: How did you feel about your mom when she came back?
JC: I was happy to see her. My grandmother didn’t like me much. She didn’t like my father, and I reminded her of him. It was tough. After my mother returned, she had to work to support us and was gone every day. When my mother made enough money, we moved to a rooming house in a big wonderful mansion that overlooked Lake Michigan, near where she worked. We had a big room in the front with French windows and a porch. It was a well-kept place. I was 10 years old.

JW: Were you listening to music at this point?
JC: Oh, yes. Whatever I could hear on the radio. We didn’t have money for a phonograph or records. I always had been musical. From the time I was born, my mother played piano and used to learn songs off the radio and teach them to me. I could sing right away as a kid. I was always in the chorus at school, and in the a cappella choir in high school. I had a great ear.

JW: Did you read music?
JC: No. I was born with good intonation, though and have natural pitch. I wish I did read music, but I was never taught. I could follow music well, though. I was lucky. I soon was singing at small events around town that were pretty simple. Organizations always needed someone to entertain, and I had a good voice as a kid.

JW: You caught an early break on local radio.
JC: Yes, when I was young I was on a show called Cousin Betty. It was a show for children. If people wanted someone remembered on their birthday, they’d send cards in or call the station with requests: “Please have Little Miss Cain sing this or that” [laughs]. It was a good experience.

JW: Were you afraid?
JC: When you’re that young you’re not frightened. You get scared later. I also was singing with the Wurlitzer Melody Kids—a band that the local Wurlitzer music store had assembled. I sang Rhythm Is My Business and other hip stuff.

JW: What was your first big break?
JC: My dad got me a job singing with a commercial band that had been traveling around the Midwest for proms and parties. It was a society band, and the leader played the violin. I sang with the band when it settled into a downtown Milwaukee club called Lakota's. This was roughly 1945,

JW: How long did that last?
JC: A few months. One night some people came into the club, and after I sang they asked me to come over to their table. There was a gentleman there who was visiting his family in Milwaukee. He said, “Gee, you’re a very good singer. Would you be interested in singing with a band that I have in Chicago?” 

JW: What did you say?
JC: I said, “Gee, I’ll have to ask my mother." I had just graduated high school and was 17 years old at the time.  When I asked my mother, she promptly said no. I kept begging her and carrying on. She still said no. So I disappeared into my room at home for a couple of days and didn’t want to talk to her. I was angry. When the man called the house, I told him my mother wouldn’t let me go alone to Chicago. I would have had to take a train down there, and I had never been out of Milwaukee.

JW: What did he say?
JC: He said, “Look, I’ll have my mother call your mother. And if she goes along with it, you can come and live at our house in Chicago.” His family had a business—a grocery store and meat market. He said they lived behind the store and had just redone the living quarters. He said he was living there with his wife and baby, and said I could share a room with his sister.

JW: What did you think?
JC: Well I had never met his sister, of course, but I was up for anything [laughs]. So his mother called my mother. She said I could stay at the house and that she’d keep her eye on me. She also said I could have dinners with them.

JW: Did your mother give in?
JC: My mother agreed, and it was the first time I had ever lived in a situation with a family around me. It felt great. I think I paid $10 a week to have these wonderful family meals every night. His mother was a great cook. Every time we’d be eating dinner, if the bell rang, someone had to get up from the table and wait on the person in their store. All of those family things felt good to an only child, especially one with divorced parents. I was very grateful for everything.

JW: What was the name of the bandleader who invited you to Chicago?
JC: Jay Burkhart. He had been in the army and was an arranger. He was arranging for the band, and he had a lot of great players who also could write and arrange. They even wrote a couple of special charts for me. I was really thrilled, but I was kind of scared. It was a big band, and I kept thinking, “I hope I can hear the note I’m supposed to come in on” [laughs]. When you’re inexperienced and you're doing something new that’s more advanced than what you’ve done before, you’re always a little worried. But I didn’t have any problems.

JW: How was Burkhart’s band?
JC: It was actually very good. It was called the Jay Burkhart Jazz  Cradle, and the band lasted quite some time. In fact, a lot of people sang the same arrangements I did after I left. Roy’s sister Irene [pictured] sang in the band. So did Joe Williams. Guitarist Jimmy Raney played with Burkhart. So did guitarist Jimmy Gourley.

JW: Did your mother remarry?
JC: Yes, right around this time. Her new husband was a nice man but I missed my father so at first I wasn’t very welcoming to him. But he turned out to be great. I was very lucky.

JW: Was Jay Burkhart's band in step with the times?
JC: Yes. The music scene was getting hipper, and he wrote some great charts with a little dissonance in them. At one point I wanted more work, to get more experience. So I hooked up with Bob Anderson, a tenor saxophonist who was writing my arrangements. He took me to Jump Town, a jazz club in Chicago. When we got there, the George Davis Quartet was playing.

JW: Who was the pianist?
JC: Roy [Kral] [laughs].

JW: Did you talk to him?
JC: Not immediately. After the set, Bob went up to Roy and said, “You ought to let Jackie sit in. She’s a good singer.” Roy said, “Nah, I don’t like to play for girl singers.” Bob said, “Why?” Roy said, “Well, because they never know what they want to sing, and when they tell you their key, it’s usually in the key of Z.”

JW: Was that the end of it?
JC: Bob came back and told me and we laughed about it. We went to the bar to have a drink with Roy, and Bob asked again. Well Roy and I got to talking and it just so happened that I knew a song that Roy knew. So suddenly he wasn’t so negative about playing behind me.

JW: What was the song?
JC: Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe. It was a song that Frances Wayne [pictured] had sung with Woody Herman. I sang it as Roy played, and he was taken by the fact that I not only knew the song but that I sang it in the same key in which Frances recorded it. Actually, I didn’t know what key she or I sang it in [laughs]. I still don’t. 

JW: How did the song and Roy's playing go over at the club?
JC: When we finished the song, it broke up the place. The club went nuts. The reaction was great. The club owner was there and told George Davis, “You need a singer.” George didn’t resist [laughs].

Tomorrow, Jackie talks about being discovered by Chicago radio host Dave Garroway, why Charlie Ventura wouldn't talk to Jackie and Roy for almost a year after hiring them, how Jackie taught Roy Kral to sing, and the intricate way in which the couple choreographed their breezy brand of vocalese.

Interview: Creed Taylor (Part 19)

Creed Taylor has never before granted an interview about the events leading up to the bankruptcy of CTI Records in 1978. Until now, that is. In an exclusive conversation with JazzWax, the maverick producer looks back at one of the most painful periods of his career, reflecting on the shifting record-industry business practices during that decade and how the jazz label he started attempted to survive. [Photo of Creed Taylor in the early 1980s by Chuck Stewart]

First, it should be noted that few record producers have had as big an impact on jazz as Creed. Whatever you ultimately think of CTI's influence on jazz in the 1970s, Creed stands alone as a six-decade industry game-changer. Here's just a sampling of Creed's "greatest hits" —radical innovations at the time that we now tend to take for granted:

1960—Conceived and launched Impulse Records.

1961—Introduced the first modern gatefold album cover (Impulse).

1963—Produced Bill Evans' Conversations with Myself (Verve), the first sophisticated jazz-piano overdub album.

1964—Produced Getz/Gilberto (Verve), which ushered in the cool-jazz bossa nova movement.

1965—Produced Wes Montgomery's Going' Out of My Head (Verve), kicking off the 1960s jazz-Top 40 movement.

1967—Introduced high-art album covers by photographer Pete Turner with the release of Wave (A&M).

1970—Produced Freddie Hubbard's Red Clay (CTI), which launched the jazz-fusion movement.

1971—Produced Grover Washington Jr.'s Inner City Blues (CTI), which inaugurated the jazz-soul movement.

1972—Produced Deodato's Prelude (CTI), launching the electronic orchestral-jazz movement.

1974—Started the jazz-legend revival movement with the release of Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker's Carnegie Hall Concert (CTI).

And this list doesn't even touch on the Grammy Awards Creed has won or the many significant jazz albums he has produced since 1954. For these, see my earlier posts on the producer (under "JazzWax Interviews in the right-hand column). Initially hesitant to talk about CTI's disappointing decline, Creed agreed to look back at the struggles the label faced:

JazzWax: Is this the first time you’re discussing publicly the problems CTI encountered in the 1970s?
Creed Taylor: Yes. 

JW: When did problems start to emerge at CTI?
CT: Not long after we had a hit with Deodato’s Prelude in1973, and CTI was named the No. 1 jazz label by Billboard magazine.

JW: What happened?
CT: In 1974, CTI's financial controller convinced me that we should handle our own record distribution. His argument was, “Why should we give the middleman a cut if we can handle it ourselves?” At the time, we were using independent distributors to move our records into stores.

JW: How did record distribution work back then?
CT: In the record business in the 1970s, you either got your product into stores nationwide yourself—or you turned that task over to other companies for a percentage of sales. Distributing records came with a wide range of costs, including hiring a sales staff, generating and taking orders from retailers, and a back office forwarding those orders to the record companies for shipment to retailers. There also were shipping and fulfillment costs if stores didn’t sell all that they had ordered.

JW: What did you do?
CT: Right after Prelude hit in 1973, Warner Bros. Records came by the CTI offices, followed soon afterward by Columbia Records. Both companies wanted to handle the distribution of CTI Records. Both labels knew that CTI’s sales were very strong. Their senior executives back at their headquarters wondered why CTI had the No. 1 jazz label in the country and they didn’t.

JW: What did you tell them?
CT: I told them that CTI was going to handle its own distribution.

JW: Did they push back?
CT: A Warner Bros. executive said that if CTI didn’t do a deal, the label was going to pick off CTI’s artists one by one and sign them to Warner Bros.

JW: So CTI went ahead into the distribution business?
CT: Yes. We opened fully staffed distribution offices in eight cities, including in Canada. But once Prelude sold through, we didn’t have other albums generating those kinds of huge numbers. There simply wasn't enough revenue coming in to cover all of our expanded costs.

JW: What did you do?
CT: I had to close down all of our distribution offices. This was a huge expense. Before our financial troubles started, our financial controller actually wanted to load a cargo ship with CTI product and send it to Cologne, Germany, to distribute records throughout Europe [laughs]. That’s how far out in front of our revenue we were.

JW: Did you consider recording disco and soul, which were hugely popular in the mid-1970s?
CT: We did. CTI had a Top 20 disco hit in 1975 with Esther Phillips’ What a Difference a Day Makes. The single sold a million-plus units. But we were still struggling to maintain our distribution offices and make records. To do well, you had to have many different artists doing a lot of different things, not just jazz.

JW: Did you follow up with more disco albums?

CT: Yes, we did some other tasteless things [laughs].

JW: The record business had become much more cut-throat in the 1970s than it had been in the 1950s and 1960s, didn’t it?
CT: Yes.

JW: How did you offset mounting costs?
CT: In 1975, Warner Bros. came by our offices again to propose a deal. They suggested that CTI and Warner Bros. alternate albums with [guitarist] George Benson, who was with CTI at the time. The plan was George would record an album for Warner Bros., then the next one would be for CTI, and then back to Warner, and so on.

JW: What was in it for CTI?
CT: The hope was that if George had a big hit with Warner Bros., we’d get the next album. The thinking was that if he had a hit, the momentum of the hit would carry over and help CTI’s sales. So we did the deal, and George recorded the first album for Warner Bros.

JW: What happened?
CT: As luck would have it, George recorded Breezin’ in January 1976, which included This Masquerade. The song was a massive hit. Which was great, since we’d get the next album with George.

JW: What did you record with him?
CT: We didn’t. Warner Bros. prevented him from recording with CTI as a solo act. While we did record George on Benson & Farrell in late 1976, it wasn’t his date. Warner Bros. had reneged on our deal, under the assumption that they’d rather fight us in court and drag it out if necessary than risk letting us get his next big-selling album.

JW: The following year you turned to Columbia Records, yes?
CT: Yes. We cut a distribution deal with Columbia. Months earlier we had had to close all of CTI’s distribution offices, so we had little choice.

JW: What was the deal with Columbia?
CT: Columbia would distribute CTI records. Patti had been recording with CTI's Kudu label as a session singer since 1976. We then signed her as a pop solo artist for CTI, and she was having great success on the label. I took her down to Muscle Shoals [Alabama] to record her next album with the studio band there that had backed up Paul Anka, Otis Redding and so many others.

JW: How was the album?
CT: Very strong. But Columbia's marketing efforts were all wrong. They attempted to market her without any black radio promotion. A big mistake at the time. The album fell on its face, leaving CTI in a bind.

JW: What did Columbia do?
CT: Columbia loaned CTI $600,000 to continue operating. But when CTI couldn’t meet the loan payments in 1978, CTI had to file for bankruptcy, and Columbia got the CTI catalog. The catalog was collateral for the loan.

JW: Who has the CTI catalog today?
CT: Sony.

JW: Are you happy with how the CTI catalog has been handled?
CT: No. The releases have been uneven, and many have not been remastered. Also, in the CD age, many CTI albums have been issued with one or more alternate takes that I would never have released. Other albums are out of print.

JW: This must have been a frustrating period for you, yes?
CT: Well, sure. Aside from the monetary part, I have all these albums in my office. I listen to Eric Gale and Joe Farrell and hear all this great stuff. But it’s gathering dust in some corner of Sony’s vaults now. That’s frustrating beyond all the monetary value.

JW: In the late 1970s you went into court and sued Warner Bros. over their attempts to block you from recording Benson.
CT: Yes. Once the jury heard that Warner Bros. had threatened to pick off CTI artists one at a time, it ruled in CTI's favor. The total award was $9 million, $6 million of which was part of the triple damages. But the judge decided to cut it to $3 million. My lawyer screamed, but the judge said we could appeal if we wanted to. We realized that would take years to even get back on the court's calendar, so we agreed to the lower amount.

JW: Knowing what you know now, would you have moved forward in a different way with CTI?
CT: We should have stopped opening branch distribution offices, that's for sure [laughs]. I was going straight ahead with producing music and didn’t think about the impact of my controller’s advice. We had become a distributor instead of a major label with a large catalog in the pipeline. We should not have gone into the distribution business.

JazzWax note I: This summer Creed is producing a series of performances by the CTI All-Stars. Eight European jazz festivals are planned, while a series of appearances at Asian jazz festivals are in the works. The reunion band is comprised of Randy Brecker, Hubert Laws, [saxophonist] Bill Evans, Russell Malone, Niels Lan Doky, Mark Egan, Billy Cobham, Airto, Flora Purim and Jamie Cullum. The first concert will be held at the Montreux Jazz Festival on July 7th.

JazzWax note II: My entire series of conversations with Creed can be found in the "JazzWax Interviews" section in the right-hand column. Clicking on a "Creed Taylor" link will bring up the first part of that series. For the next part in the series, simply click on the link at the top of each page.

Harry James: In a Mist

Trumpeter Harry James recorded Bix Beiderbecke's In a Mist just twice—once in 1949 and again in mid-1950. One was a studio date, the other a live radio remote. What's interesting here, of course, is that Bix never recorded his own composition on cornet. For Bix, In a Mist was a piano solo recorded in September 1927. What prompted James to apply his trumpet to the piano piece? In 1949, James was fresh off recording the music for the ersatz Beiderbecke biopic Man With a Horn and was feeling nostalgic. So he asked arranger Neal Hefti to write a chart of the song. But was James paying tribute only to Bix—or did he have another trumpeter in mind?

The Hefti chart is fascinating for what it does and doesn't do. Naturally, Hefti made strong use of band pianist Bruce McDonald, having him perform as Bix's ghost, with James and the band swirling around his notes. The score also employs a complex choreography of shifting sections—with the trumpets, trombones and saxes sliding in and out, narrowly missing each other in the process.

But what's most odd about Hefti's arrangement is that it never really breaks modern. Which is strange for 1949, considering the breakneck bop writing he had been doing for James at the time. To be sure, there are subtle contemporary touches here and there. But for the most part, the arrangement is rather restrained and formal—even dated.  

Also surprising is that James doesn't sound much like Bix [pictured], which you'd expect considering the song. In fact, James doesn't even sound much like James here. Instead, what you hear is part Bix, part James and part someone else. Which made me wonder whether James had a hidden message in his halting phrasing and use of Hefti's hamstrung chart.

So I did a little digging—and a little listening. Turns out Hefti's chart, as brilliant as it is, sounds all-too close to another great trumpeter's recording of the same Beiderbecke song. In November 1938, Bunny Berigan recorded In a Mist for RCA with an arrangement by pianist Joe Lipman. Interestingly, the Hefti and Lipman charts have several distinct similarities, including how the sections are voiced. There's also a quirky "ticking clock" bridge theme. There are enough other similarities that make me think James had Hefti rework the Berigan recording so James could pay tribute to two deceased trumpet legends simultaneously—Bix and Bunny.

James adored Berigan, even though the two were paired only once in a studio setting—a live New York radio broadcast in June 1940 led by Coleman Hawkins. Coming up in the 1930s, James also was heavily influenced by Berigan. Writes Peter J. Levinson in Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James:

"The radio announcer and former big band musician Jerry Roy believes Harry's style of playing during the [Benny] Goodman years owed something to Bunny Berigan. 'When you get to the low notes, a low C and D, you're hearing the way Bunny played with Benny in the '35 and '36 days,' he contends. No wonder then that in the midst of filming Springtime in the Rockies, Harry [James] felt a great indebtedness to Bunny, who had died suddenly [in June 1942] of pneumonia brought on by alcoholism. [Harry] arranged a benefit dance date at the Palladium on June 20, and the proceeds went to Berigan's widow, Donna."

James also may have had something to do with getting the ailing Berigan hired to work on his previous film, Syncopation (1942), which traces the history of jazz from World War I to World War II. James appears in the film during a jam session toward the end with other greats of the day. Each of the musicians in the movie was chosen by fans through a contest held by the Saturday Evening Post.

In the movie, Jackie Cooper plays the lead role, a trumpet player. Since Cooper didn't play trumpet, his parts were ghosted. Some believe they were played by Berigan, who, according to Russ Connor's BG on the Record, also overdubbed Rex Stewart's playing parts in the film:

"To complicate matters still further, trumpeter Rex Stewart, ex-Ellingtonian, has a speaking and playing role in the film—but Bunny Berigan recorded all of Rex's trumpet solos."

And then there's this bit of information posted by Anton Crouch in an online chat room this past January:

"According to materials contained in the RKO Archives Production Information Files at the UCLA Arts Library, Special Collections, legendary trumpet player Bunny Berigan [pictured] was hired, early in January 1942, to dub the cornet passages, which had been filmed earlier using guide tracks. However, that was not an easy task to perform and a modern source suggests that Berigan, who was battling alcoholism and would die six months later, may have had part or all of his work redone by George Thow."

In 1949, James was moved by his off-screen participation in Man with a Horn and felt compelled to pay extra homage to Beiderbecke. But since he had no personal connection to Beiderbecke other than the cornetist's influential recordings, my guess is that James decided to eulogize Berigan and Beiderbecke in one arrangement.

What's fascinating is that you're hearing James pay tribute to Bunny by retooling an arrangement Bunny used to pay tribute to Bix, thereby completing the circle.

JazzWax tracks: Bunny Berigan's recording of In a Mist can be found on Bunny Berigan: Gangbusters, which you can download at iTunes. It features many of Berigan's recordings in the fall of 1938.

Harry James' In a Mist was recorded in June 1950 at the Marine Ballroom on Atlantic City's Steel Pier. It's on Harry James and His Music Makers: Eight Bar Riff '43-'50 (Hep). You'll find it on CD here. The entire album is a fascinating look at four different James bands during this seven-year period. For reasons that escape me, James remains a lesser big band light today—despite the fact that he had one of the most consistently excellent orchestras of the 1940s and was by far the most popular. 

Bob Brookmeyer: The '54 Quartets

In 1952, Bob Brookmeyer wasn't yet quite the aggressive valve trombonist and dynamic arranger who would emerge in the mid-1950s. Prior to 1952, Brookmeyer played piano in Tex Beneke's band, played some slide trombone, and by his own admission had very little contact with jazz musicians. Brookmeyer at the time had plans to spend his life as a composer and music teacher. [Photo: William Claxton]

The turning point came during an audition in 1952 for Claude Thornhill's [pictured] band, when Brookmeyer tried his hand at the valve trombone. The instrument is a hybrid, featuring trumpet-like valves mounted on a slide-less trombone. The valves make the instrument quicker on the trigger, producing a more distinct break between notes than the slide. Brookmeyer took to the instrument instantly, realizing that it was perfectly suited to his spirited and punctuating attack.

In March 1953, Brookmeyer joined the newly formed Stan Getz quintet in Boston. The valve trombone was the ideal foil for Getz's dry-ice tenor saxophone, delivering a sound that was warmer than a trumpet but more declarative than the blurring tones generated by a traditional slide trombone. A week after joining Getz, Brookmeyer took a six-week hiatus to play with Woody Herman's band. The opportunity was too good to miss.

When Brookmeyer rejoined Getz in Boston in the late spring of 1953, the quintet traveled to Hollywood. In May, July and August the quintet recorded for Clef and Norgran records. But as Getz's drug habit intensified on the West Coast, his health and gigs went south. So Brookmeyer returned to New York to record. The new 10-inch LP format was in full swing, and labels were looking for jazz artists to fill out the longer discs.

In New York, Brookmeyer recorded three LPs in early 1954—one as part of the Teddy Charles Quartet and the other two as head of two different quintets. The first album was recorded in January for Prestige with Teddy Charles on vibes. It showed off Brookmeyer's skills as a swinging valve trombonist and pianist. Nancy Overton, Hall Overton's wife, provided a beat narration on one track. Brookmeyer's second session in January was a quintet date featuring tenor saxophonist Al Cohn. The third session in April included tenor saxophonist Phil Urso and pianist Horace Silver.

In March 1954, Gerry Mulligan called Brookmeyer and asked  him to replace Chet Baker in a newly formed piano-less quartet. The band played George Wein's Storyville in Boston before heading off to Paris, where a concert performance at the Salle Pleyel was recorded. But Brookmeyer was unhappy that the resonating basso sound of his valve trombone was so close to Mulligan's deep baritone saxophone. There just wasn't enough creative contrast between the horns. Brookmeyer left the group and returned to the States to compose and arrange.

But within weeks after Brookmeyer arrived back in New York, Dick Bock of Pacific Jazz Records called asking him to record. In July 1954, Brookmeyer recorded The Bob Brookmeyer Quartet, with John Williams on piano, Bill Anthony on bass and Frank Isola on drums. Sessions with Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Bud Shank and Gerry Mulligan followed on the West Coast. Then in December 1954, Brookmeyer recorded The Modernity of Bob Brookmeyer for Norgran Records in Los Angeles with Jimmy Rowles on piano, Buddy Clark on piano and Mel Lewis on drums.

Brookmeyer's two 1954 quartet albums are remarkable for their lyricism, swing and advanced playing and writing skills. Too often during this period of enormous session activity Brookmeyer was featured as a component—a member of a larger ensemble or teamed with other horns. As a result, you don't get to hear nearly enough of his technique or idea development.

But on these quartet dates, Brookmeyer is all yours, swinging away with just strong trios behind him. Even more fabulous is Brookmeyer's playing. It's fascinating to hear the tension he created pushing and restraining his instrument. Like someone walking two strong hunting dogs. Brookmeyer is both in control and at the mercy of the valves. His warm sound is a product of this struggle.

Instead of going all out and converting the instrument into a beefy trumpet, Brookmeyer uses the valves to replicate the natural softness of the slide trombone. At the same time, he adds just enough staccato on the notes to make them distinct, veering away from the rubbery slurring of the slide. These are performances of mellow grace, powerful nuances and artistic dexterity.

Among the high points on these sessions include a purring What is There to Say, a snappy He Ain't Got Rhythm, and two sterling originals: Sticks and Stems and Jasmin. The other instrumental delights on these sessions are the piano solos by Jimmy Rowles and John Williams. Brookmeyer, of course, would go on to become one of the great arranger-players of his generation. But in 1954, Brookmeyer still had to prove himself, and on the quartet sessions, you hear him emerging with enormous confidence and beauty.

JazzWax tracks: The Bob Brookmeyer Quartet and The Modernity of Bob Brookmeyer have been combined on one CD called The Modernity of Bob Brookmeyer (Fresh Sound) here. Or you can find the first 1954 album for Pacific Jazz along with later leadership dates on Mosaic Select: Bob Brookmeyer here.