JazzWax

Art Pepper: Stuttgart, May 25, 1981

In May 1981, Art Pepper and his wife Laurie along with pianist Milcho Leviev, bassist Bob Magnusson and drummer Carl Burnett left for Europe. For the entire month, the alto saxophonist and his trio were on the road playing 18 concerts across the continent. In recent years, Laurie has released several recordings of Art in action on her Widow's Taste label, including Art Pepper: The Croydon Concert, a U.K. event that was recorded during the May 1981 tour (see review here). 

Now Laurie has released a fifth volume of Pepper's previously unissued work, and it's a mind-blowing powerhouse example of Pepper in superb form. The album, Stuttgart May 25, 1981 is a double CD set that features Pepper in Germany in an almost trance state, roaring out stellar versions of For Freddie, Straight Life, Yours Is My Heart Alone, Over the Rainbow and others. The recording's sound is vivid and clear to the ear, and the heat the group throws off is coherent and spring-loaded. To me, Stuttgart is Pepper's finest live work from this period and Laurie's best CD set to date.

Yesterday, I called Laurie to chat about Art Pepper and the new album:

JazzWax: How far into the tour was the concert held in Stuttgart, Germany?
Laurie Pepper: This stop was right near the end. The tour of Europe lasted from May 8th to the 29th and was very intense. We were in a different city nearly every day or traveling to one, mostly by bus. Art and the group played a two-hour concert at each stop with one intermission. We only had a day or two of real downtime. It was very hard physically on Art given his health problems.

JW: What were Art’s health problems?
LP: He had this really monstrous hiatal hernia. His belly would bulge out, so he had to wear a corset when he played to keep everything in.

JW: Did he get the hernia on the road?
LP: It happened to him while he was attempting a comeback with Buddy Rich in the late 1960s.

JW: What was the cause?
LP: We figured the hernia had to have been caused by one or more factors. We suspected it was a result of his girlfriend at the time constantly sucker punching him in the stomach.

JW: Why did she do that?
LP: Art met her when he came out of prison for the last time in the mid-1960s. They both drank enormous amounts. She would never tell him she was angry with him. She’d just go over to him and then submarine him in the gut. Then she’d tell him why.

JW: What were some of the reasons?
LP: Accusations of infidelity, which was ridiculous, since Art was a pathologically faithful mate. She was just a paranoid woman, and they were drunk all of the time. He was only with her for a few years.

JW: Was there another possible reason for his stomach problems?
LP: We weren’t sure whether it was all the hitting and  drinking or if it was an ailment he and I discovered while watching an episode of Marcus Welby, M.D. on TV.

JW: What was the ailment?
LP: Thalassemia, which is similar to sickle cell anemia and tends to affect people of Italian origin. Art had the minor version, which meant he could survive. But it also meant his spleen was constantly in danger of rupturing, and drinking certainly didn’t help.

JW: Was there anything else?
LP: He also had the usual kinds of digestive problems. And he was on methadone maintenance.

JW: Did he ever seek treatment for the hernia?
LP: No, he never sought treatment for anything. He never went to the doctor in his early life. He didn’t want to think about anything that might be wrong with him, health-wise.

JW: How did he manage to play as hard and as beautifully as he did in May 1981 on so little rest—and for such long stretches in performance at each stop of the tour?
LP: For Art, there was nothing like being up on that stage. He lived for it. He was spectacular on tour and he always delivered, no matter what.

JW: Where did the Stuttgart tapes come from?
LP: A guy from Europe got in touch with me. Fans from all over the world send me recordings of Art's gigs. Apparently, Europe during this period was rife with people recording concerts and club performances. In some cases, the very guys who were miking the events or engineering recorded him without his knowledge. Those recordings are usually superb. My contact also sent me a long list of illegitimate Art Pepper recordings, sort of discography from the dark side.

JW: The Stuttgart concert sounds remarkably excellent.
LP: A friend listened to it on headphones and believes  that a few different sources may have been used. But the average ear can't really hear the divisions. We can thank Wayne Peet [of Newzone Studios in Los Angeles] for the remastering. Wayne is also a musician and has incredible ears. He does beautiful work.

JW: You were on tour with the band. Do you remember the Stuttgart concert?
LP: No. Nobody remembers it in any detail. I spoke to Carl Burnett recently and he doesn’t remember it either. You have to remember, this was one stop out of 18 from 29 years ago. Everything blends together. For us, it was just another day at the office, another stop.

JW: Where was Art’s head during this tour?
LP: Focused. I loved being on the road with Art. He wasn’t doing anything else but playing. He didn’t have the time or the energy to be bad. Each concert was so important for him.

JW: What’s coming next?
LP: I'm working on a couple of projects. The next release likely will be a concert from the Konigsberg Festival in Norway recorded on June 30, 1980. It was a special date. We had just flown from London, and with the summer light, it never really got dark. When we arrived in Norway from England, we had a cup of coffee and Art went right on stage and played magically. What they call the "midnight sun" was amazing.

JW: And after the Norway project?
LP: Then I will likely issue a very large volume of material recorded at Ronnie Scott’s club in London, also from June 1980. There are three or four nights' worth of material. This will probably be available only as a download given the large volume of recordings. Art loved Ronnie Scott’s, and you can hear that in his playing there.

JazzWax tracks: Art Pepper's Stuttgart May 27, 1981 (Widow's Taste) can be found on CD here or in two-part downloads for $4.95 each here and here. Liner notes are by Laurie Pepper.

JazzWax clip: Here's For Freddie, which will give you a taste of the album's energy and power...

David Allyn and Johnny Mandel

They go back 65 years, all the way back to Boyd Raeburn's band, and last night David Allyn [pictured] and Johnny Mandel were reunited for the first time in years at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola in New York. David, 90, is a singer's singer and still among the most sensitive big band vocalists in the business. David was in town to see Johnny, 84, lead the DIVA Jazz Orchestra through 10 songs he arranged. In most cases, the songs were Johnny's own blockbuster compositions. The song lineup included The Shadow of Your Smile, Emily, I Want to Live theme, Cinnamon and Clove and Not Really the Blues. [Photos by Marc Myers]

David and Johnny [pictured] joined Raeburn's band in 1945 in San Francisco, with Johnny on trombone and David as the orchestra's male vocalist. Johnny's charts for Raeburn at the time included Eagle Flies and How Deep Is the Ocean. David's hits with Raeburn included Forgetful (which Chet Baker later adapted), Out of This World, There Is No You and If I Loved You, which Johnny arranged.

But perhaps Johnny and David's greatest work together would come in 1957, when Johnny arranged David's A Sure Thing:  David Allyn Sings Jerome Kern, which today remains one of the most remarkable vocalist-with-strings albums ever recorded (see my in-depth interview with David here and Johnny here). It's also extremely rare on LP or CD.

Certainly the funniest moment occurred just after the first set, when someone came up to David, shook his hand and asked if he wanted to meet Johnny Mandel. David looked at me puzzled, shook his head and said, "Kids."

JazzWax clip: I can't get Johnny Mandel's addictive M*A*S*H melody (Suicide Is Painless) out of my head, which the DIVA Jazz Orchestra peformed last night. Now it's going to be in your head for the day here (lyrics by director Robert Altman's son Mike)...

Interview: Buddy Collette (Part 5)

Few events epitomize the disarray jazz was beginning to experience at the start of the 1960s than Charles Mingus’ Town Hall concert of October 12, 1962. During this period, musicians increasingly were wresting control of their recordings away from producers who for years had imposed rigid structure on sessions. Mingus, for all of his creative vision and genius, could be volatile, mercurial and a royal pain in the neck. But he was widely regarded by most musicians of the period, including Buddy Collette, as one of the most inventive, exciting and artistically honest composers and political activists of his generation.

In 1962, Mingus was hired by United Artists to perform at New York’s Town Hall. The label planned to record the concert for an album release, and Mingus set to work preparing with supersized ambitions (he envisioned upward of 45 musicians). Then the already-tight schedule grew even tighter when the original November concert date was pushed up to October. Under enormous stress, Mingus struggled to finish his arrangements in time and badgered friends into helping.

Angry at himself, angry at the musicians helping him, angry at United Artists, and angry at concert promoter George Wein [pictured] (a grudge that had been going on for two years), Mingus became an unstoppable bully in a china shop. Naturally, in this climate, the concert became part protest, part opus. Mingus insisted on stopping and starting the band at will, and the concert ran late. Yet on the recording of the concert, the completed tracks are indisputable works of art.

In Part 5 of my conversation with Buddy, the legendary West Coast reed and woodwind musician talks about Charles Mingus (his childhood friend) and the 1962 Town Hall concert in which he participated:

JazzWax: What did you think of the music Charles Mingus put together for his Town Hall concert in 1962?
Buddy Collettte: It was excellent. The music was so alive and exciting.

JW: Being a busy West Coast musician, how did you wind up in an East Coast concert?
BC: I was very busy in Hollywood, but Mingus liked to have me around if he could. We’d known each other since we were 12 years old. So I got a call from United Artists Records asking me to come to New York. I told them I was busy but the person on the phone called back and said that Mingus said if I didn’t come, there would be no concert. He even called me to tell me that.

JW: Did you have high expectations before you left for New York?
BC: I knew that if Mingus was in the kind of mood he was in on the phone, making threats about the concert, he probably would eventually turn on me, too. But we always got along, so I agreed.

JW: What happened when you arrived in New York?
BC: The first thing I did was go to Mingus’ apartment on Fifth Avenue. When I got there dressed in my topcoat and hat, I saw that the lamp was kicked over and the house was in disarray.

JW: What had happened?
BC: Mingus told me he had hit trombonist Jimmy Knepper in the mouth. Jimmy had been helping Mingus with all of the arrangement. Mingus said, “Jimmy called me a name so I hit him.” Which I doubt was true knowing Jimmy. But when Mingus got wound up, there was nothing you could do to stop that energy short of letting it all come out.

JW: Mingus had been working hard to get ready for the concert.
BC: He did have a ton of pressure to get all this music done for so many people. He told me the band was rehearsing at night after their record dates. Sometimes starting at midnight.  [Pictured: Jimmy Knepper]

JW: What else did you notice at Mingus’ apartment?
BC: He was still uptight when I arrived. He had music all over the floor. He asked me to help him arrange some of the pieces. I wrote a few 12-tone things. As long as the pieces were interesting, he loved it.

JW: When did you rehearse with the band?
BC: The night of the day I arrived. But Mingus wasn’t into what he heard. Jimmy was still being helpful and could play again a little toward the end of the rehearsal. Mingus finally said, “I’m going to cancel this concert.” I knew what that was about.

JW: What?
BC: When Mingus grew angry about something, he would either go through with such a threat or he’d make an event a very undesirable situation.

JW: Did you ask Mingus what was bothering him deep down?
BC: Yes. He said that George Wein was producing the event and that George wanted a traditional concert.

JW: Isn’t that what it was supposed to be?
BC: I said to Mingus, “So what’s wrong with that?” Mingus said, “I want an open recording session so the audience can see how you really make a record.” George [pictured] turned down that idea flat, fearing the process would wear thin on an audience that had paid to hear music.

JW: So the stage was set for a showdown.
BC: Yes. After rehearsal, Mingus said he wanted everyone to wear tuxedos on stage at the concert. I had mine, because I always traveled with it.

JW: How did everyone look that night?
BC: Great. Except when Mingus came on stage, he had on jeans, a wash and wear shirt, a leather vest and sandals without socks.

JW: Why did he do that?
BC: I think to stand out from the band. But his protest didn’t stop there. He came to the microphone and said something like, “I have an announcement. George Wein says this is going to be a concert but it’s an open recording session. I’m going to stop and start the band where I want.”

JW: Wow, George must have been livid.
BC: I’m sure he was. Mingus was going to make sure George didn’t get a concert.

JW: How did the audience react from your perspective on stage?
BC: They thought at first Mingus was doing comedy.

JW: How did the music go over?
BC: We started the first piece, and it sounded good. But about three minutes into it, Mingus dropped his hand down for us to stop. He then goes up to the mike and says, “I wouldn’t buy that would you?” I had known all along that was going to happen.

JW: That must have been insulting to the musicians on stage, no?
BC: All of the musicians' faces changed. As a musician, you sensed immediately that this kind of thing was going to go on for a very long time that night. On the second song, Mingus didn’t like it either. He kept starting and stopping tunes all the way up to intermission. Then Mingus’ 67-year-old uncle came out with his Dixieland band and played for a half hour or so. Now it was close to 11 p.m. We were supposed to have been finished by 11 so the theater could close.

JW: What happened?
BC: We all got back on the stage. We figured Mingus was going to straighten up and play. But he went and did the same thing again with the stopping and restarting. Eventually, the stagehands started closing the curtain.

JW: What did the audience do?
BC: Some of them went to the left and right and pulled the curtains open [laughs]. At one point toward the end, Clark Terry grew fed up and started playing In a Mellow Tone. Everyone was so hungry to play, we all jumped in started jamming on the tune. You can hear that on the recording. We were all dying together and the guys figured we’d all jam to let it out. There were a lot of musicians jamming [laughs].

JW: Did you ever ask Mingus why he did what he did that night?
BC: He was going after George for whatever reason. I always knew Mingus was going to do it his way, and he did.

JazzWax tracks: For all of Charles Mingus' drama, the United Artists recording of his Town Hall concert won the 1963 Down Beat International Critics Poll as best album of the year. Originally, the album was 36 minutes long. But for the digital release, all of the completed tracks recorded were included.

Who was on the stage that night? Are you sitting down? The band featured Clark Terry, Ernie Royal, Snooky Young, Richard Williams, Rolf Ericson, Ed Armour, Lonnie Hillyer (tp), Britt Woodman, Quentin Jackson, Willie Dennis, Eddie Bert, Jimmy Cleveland, Paul Faulise (tb), Don Butterfield (tu), Danny Bank (contrabass-cl), Romeo Penque (oboe), Eric Dolphy, Charlie Mariano, Charles McPherson, Buddy Collette (as), Zoot Sims, George Berg (ts), Pepper Adams, Jerome Richardson (bar), Warren Smith (vib,perc), Toshiko Akiyoshi, Jaki Byard (p), Les Spann (g), Charles Mingus (b,narrator-1), Milt Hinton (b), Dannie Richmond (d), Grady Tate (perc), Melba Liston (arr,cond) and Bob Hammer, Gene Roland (arr).

You'll find Charles Mingus: The Complete Town Hall Concert at iTunes or here.

JazzWax clip: Here's Peggy's Blue Skylight from the Charles Mingus Town Hall concert in 1962, with Buddy Collette in the reed section...

Interview: Buddy Collette (Part 4)

In 1953, a full year before the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, Buddy Collette and other California musicians helped end the "separate but equal" practices of the American Federation of Musicians in Los Angeles. For decades, there were two union locals in the city—one for whites and another for blacks. Buddy, like many musicians at the time, viewed the split structure as unfair. Respected for his musicianship and his engaging, relaxed personality, Buddy was instrumental in helping to amalgamate the two locals and end the union's policies of segregation. [Pictured: Buddy Collette with Giuseppe Barazzetta, an Italian jazz writer and producer]

Once the two union locals were unified, Buddy went on to a sterling career in the 1950s and beyond as a leading jazz and studio musician. A dominant force in Los Angeles on the alto and tenor sax as well as clarinet and flute, Buddy appeared on hundreds of recordings, including many he led. But for what Buddy did to merge the two unions, all L.A. musicians—black and white—owe him a debt of gratitude for ending segregation, creating more competition, and ultimately improving the pool of musicians available for studio work.

In Part 4 of my five-part interview with Buddy, the early civil rights leader and exceptional reed and woodwind player, talks about unifying the Los Angeles union, his favorite flute albums, and recording with Frank Sinatra.

JazzWax: The American Federation of Musicians actually had two locals in Los Angeles that were segregated until 1953?
Buddy Collette: Yes, that’s the way it was. Local 47 was for white musicians and Local 767 was for blacks. Many cities had the same two-local setup. New York and Detroit’s locals were the only ones that had been integrated from the beginning.

JW: How did segregation translate into less opportunity for black musicians?
BC: The union dues may have been about the same but the opportunities and benefits were quite different. For example, the white local originally was downtown on Georgia St. Then it moved to a new building near Hollywood and Vine. The black local was on Central Ave. and 17th St.

JW: What did that mean?
BC: The white local's executives had closer proximity to the studios, which were in Hollywood. The black local was far away from where the money was being made. Also, the white union would always be called first by employers to provide musicians for jobs. This gave the white local a lot of power.

JW: How did the black local react?
BC: Carefully. The black local was dependent on the white local for work and for smart ways of operating in town. The black local never made a move without first asking the white union. It wasn’t a permission thing. It was a systems thing. The white union knew how things worked, so when the black union needed advice, the officials called their contacts at the white local. Over time, the black local became completely dependent on the white local for help and advice.

JW: What was your role in unifying the black and white locals?
BC: Many of us didn’t understand why there were two union locals. So I decided to run for president of the Local 767 in the early 1950s but I lost to the incumbent, who actually was a nice guy. The next year we ran Benny Carter. But he lost to the same incumbent, too. That year I ran for a seat on the local's board and won. So did a couple of the other guys like Bill Douglass and Marl Young [pictured], guys who felt the same way I did about the two locals. Soon we began urging Local 47 to unite. But Local 47 stalled.

JW: What did you do?
BC: The white musicians I knew weren’t concerned with race. It’s hard to explain, but back then, musicians didn’t think much about skin color. Everyone else seemed to, but not musicians. It was always about whether you could handle the music in front of you and what flavor you brought to the session. So we kept asking Local 47 if their delay was about race. They said, "No, it wasn’t about that." Meanwhile, we figured out how to bring the locals together legally to eliminate that as a stall tactic. Finally, in early 1953, the two locals agreed to unite. [Pictured: Representatives of Local 767 and Local 47 signing papers to unite in 1953]

JW: How did the unification improve music in L.A.?
BC: Well, you learned pretty fast who could play and who couldn’t—white or black [laughs]. You now had a chance to know what all musicians played like and who could handle what and who couldn't. I had been the first black musician hired by a television studio in 1948, so I saw first-hand that the selection of talent for studios wasn't always based on ability.

JW: Which TV show?
BC: The Groucho Marx Show. Jerry Fielding brought me in.

JW: Did you feel pressure as one of the first black musicians hired for TV, record and movie studios?
BC: I didn’t feel white-black pressure at all. I never did. I grew up in Central Gardens. All races lived there—blacks and whites. So when I went to work in the studios, it was the same way it was when I was a kid in my neighborhood.

JW: Did white players ever ask you if you were uncomfortable?
BC: Yes. But I told them, “Not at all. I grew up like this.” After a while, they felt more comfortable with me there, too. I remember one musician said, “You play a Selmer?” with the air that a Selmer saxophone was only for serious musicians and that somehow I wasn’t. I just said, “What do you mean? All good players play a Selmer.”

JW: So your strategy was never to make a person feel bad, just to adjust their premise?
BC: Exactly. I never put anyone down or set out to make someone feel bad. I’m just a likable person. That came from my mother. 

JW: How so?
BC: My mother didn’t dislike anyone unless someone did something to her. And then it was just a personal thing. She never referred to “those white people.” She never used that kind of language in our home. Neither did my father.

JW: You made quite a few albums on flute.
BC: Yes, it’s an instrument that came naturally to me. Which is your favorite record?

JW: I think Swinging Shepherds and Shepherds at the Cinema. You, Paul Horn, Harry Klee and Bud Shank on flutes—wow.
BC: Oh, yes. those came out beautifully. We played so well, we didn’t even listen to the playbacks in the studio. We all had to go and record on other dates and knew they had come out perfectly. 

JW: You and arranger Pete Rugolo on those sessions pioneered the four-flutes sound, didn’t you?
BC: Yes. Before these albums [in 1958 and 1959], most bands used one flute in the woodwind section, with a bass clarinet on the bottom to set off the contrast. But when we used just four flutes in that group and pulled it off, the sound was different and other arrangers picked up on it.

JW: Which arrangers?
BC: At a recording session with Nelson Riddle one time, I noticed that one of the charts called for four flutes. When I looked up at Nelson, he winked at me and said, “Do you recognize that?” I sure did. We pioneered that sound.

JW: What was the studio scene like back in the 1950s and 1960s? Describe a typical session?
BC: You’d go to Hollywood, usually to the Capitol Records tower. You’d come in early and see the music for the first time.

JW: What type of musician was there?
BC: Only the top guys who could play the stuff they saw once. If a date was at 2 p.m., I’d get there a half-hour early for parking. Then I’d go in and warm up and see what I’d have to play.

JW: What if one didn’t leave enough time?
BC: You might wind up with a handful of notes that were tough to sight read—even if you practiced every day.

JW: Were you ever concerned that an arrangement would be too far out?
BC: Never. I was playing so much music during the week that everything and anything was do-able. Once in a while you’d get a creative writer whose charts could be particularly challenging. Pete Rugolo, for example, wrote hard but none of it was ever labored.

JW: You recorded with Frank Sinatra on many albums. What were those sessions like?
BC: Great. Once he got to know me, I worked a couple of parties of his. In recording sessions, he wasn’t above changing an arrangement.

JW: How so?
BC: There was a time when Nelson [Riddle] arranged the orchestra for four cellos. That’s a big sound. Frank listened to the run down and then told Nelson to have just one cello play. He was right.

JW:  Sinatra's Swingin’ Session in August 1960 was your first recording date with the singer.
BC: That’s right. I was so excited. On one of the songs [Should I], I had a tenor sax solo. It was an eight-bar solo, which is a lot in a studio. When we played down the chart, Frank was checking me out.

JW: How did you handle the solo?
BC: I had heard Frank's phrasing on records and realized that the way to go was to make my notes round, to enrich his sound. When I took off on the melody during the take, I didn’t watch him. I just stayed within the context of the song. I also didn’t go off on my own.

JW: What happened afterward?
BC: After the tune and my solo, they turned to him for a reaction. He said he wanted to hear it back. So they played the track back. After listening to my solo, Frank just laughed, like he was so content with what he had heard. He loved what I had done. Frank had a way of knowing how a song and a solo had to feel.

JW: What happened after Swingin’ Session?
BC: After that I was in business. Whenever Frank was on the West Coast playing or recording, he’d ask for me. I got a lot of work with him. Frank said, “I need a soloist who can play pretty.” So I wound up on many of his record dates.

JW: Sinatra was loyal to the jazz musicians on his dates?
BC: Very. One time we did a session later in his life. I was one of the guys who had been with him for about 20 years. The first thing he did when he came in was look down the reed section. When he saw me, he said, “Hi Buddy.”

JW: Sinatra liked to see familiar guys in the band?
BC: Who doesn’t? You want to hear guys who know your style. Frank always liked familiar faces in the band. When the older guys who had recorded with him no longer could make the sessions, Frank would come in and say, “Where’s Goz [trumpeter Conrad Gozzo]? Where’s Pete [Candoli]?” Things like that.

Tomorrow, Buddy talks about Charles Mingus' controversial 1962 Town Hall concert.

JazzWax tracks: If you dig jazz flute, here are three Buddy Collette must-owns. The first is Flute Fraternity, with Buddy Collette and Herbie Mann. This 1957 album for Mode is gorgeous from start to finish. Buddy and Mann are backed by Jimmy Rowles (p), Buddy Clark (b) and Mel Lewis (d). This is available at iTunes or here.

Two of my favorites are by the Swinging Shepherds, a flute quartet Buddy formed briefly for two recording sessions in 1958 and 1959 for Mercury. Arranged by Pete Rugolo, At the Cinema and Four Swinging Shepherds showcase flutists Buddy Collette, Paul Horn, Bud Shank and Harry Klee with a Four Brothers arranging style applied to the flute. The rhythm sections on both albums are top-shelf. Both are out of print. Try typing the album names into Google to see what you come up with.

JazzWax clip: Here's Buddy on flute and tenor sax playing Emaline, the love theme he wrote for the film Trauma (1983)...

Interview: Buddy Collette (Part 3)

Between 1945 and 1972, only about a dozen groups changed the sound of jazz. In almost all cases, these highly influential ensembles introduced a completely new jazz style through innovative composition and instrument configuration. One of those groups was the Chico Hamilton Quintet, which in 1955 brought a new level of sophistication to jazz. Chico's vision was a group of enormously skilled players who also were highly sensitive and intuitive. Front and center was Buddy Collette, often on flute. [Photo of Buddy Collette above at the 1993 Chicago Jazz Festival by Mark Ladenson]

In fact, Buddy may well be the first post-war jazz flutist. As early as 1946 he was recording on the instrument (Jerome Richardson's first flute session was in 1949 and Frank Wess' was in 1954). Up until that point, the flute was viewed largely as a classical instrument most closely identified with the French Impressionist composers (think afternoons and fauns). In Chico Hamilton's group, however, Buddy used the flute as both a soother and an agent provocateur—creating warm textures as well as bold ideas that elicited equally exciting lines from the other musicians.

In Part 3 of my five-part series with Buddy, the virtuoso flutist talks about how the Chico Hamilton Quintet was formed:

JazzWax: Just curious. You were born William. How did you get your nickname?
Buddy Collette: From my mom. My father was Willie and my grandfather was William. My mom called me Buddy, so I'd stand out. That name stuck for the jazz world. And it became kind of funny when Bud Shank and I worked together often on record dates. We were Bud and Buddy, sitting right next to each other.

JW: You were in the original Chico Hamilton Quintet. How long had you known Chico?
BC: I had known Chico since I was 10 years old. He lived in the area where my grandmother lived. Also Jackie Kelso. I met them at the Ross Snyder Playground in Southeast Los Angeles. I also had recorded with Chico in other groups before he put together the quintet.

JW: How was that quintet formed?
BC: Chico and Fred Katz were out on the road backing Lena Horne. Katz was playing piano then, with Chico on drums. Chico always wanted to start a band, especially after working with Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker. He was a natural leader. We always talked about it when he was home in L.A. Then one day Chico and Fred quit Lena. Fred liked to play solo cello more than piano or anything. I knew about that but had never played with him.

JW: How did you come to be in Chico’s group?
BC: One day Chico called and said, “Bee"—that's what he called me, Bee or Mr. Bee—"we have a job at the Strollers in a week.” The Strollers was down in Long Beach, CA. I said, “I’m working with Scatman Crothers but Scatman said he’d let me come down after a week.”

JW: What happened next?
BC: Chico started at the Strollers in the summer of 1955 but he didn’t have the sound that he had in mind for the group. He had hired Bob Hardaway, a tenor sax player. That group played the Strollers for a week. Then Hardaway had to leave. When I arrived, I brought in four or five tunes, like Blue Sands, that were different. Chico liked the sound, but we weren't completely there yet. Something was missing.

JW: What instrument were you playing?
BC: The sax, but I could tell the group needed a different sound. Chico was stirring it up. He loved to improvise—and still does. Man, Chico can do it even when he can’t. At that point, I was a good flute player and had played it since 1940. I brought the flute in because I saw the cello and guitar and Chico improvising on the drums. I was thinking of this as a jazz-classical group. The flute would enhance that feel. [Photos of the Chico Hamilton Quintet here and below by Gordon Parks for Life]

JW: What did you think of the group’s sound?
BC: I had to respect the cello. We had a chamber thing going. But Chico at first didn’t figure the cello to play with the band.

JW: What do you mean?
BC: Chico figured on having Fred continue to play piano with the group and cello during intermissions. But I didn’t know this when I came in, and I started using the flute more because I saw the cello there and knew we needed a lighter sound from me. The cello is an instrument that loves to play alone. Loves to get out in front and play any wonderful solo—picking and bowing.

JW: So Katz played cello in between sets?
BC: Yes, he’d play piano with the group and cello on the breaks. But Fred had a tendency to stay on stage too long on the breaks. Once he got going with the bow, there was no stopping him. One night he stayed too long, for 45 minutes or so, lost in thought while playing.

JW: What did Chico think of Katz’s extended solo that night?
BC: Chico didn’t like that. After 45 minutes, Fred was still out front playing away on his cello with his eyes half open in the groove. I said to Chico, “Let’s sneak on and start"—me, Chico, bassist Carson Smith and guitarist Jim Hall.”

JW: Did you?
BC: We got past Fred easily enough. He was still on the step to the bandstand lost in his own world. The piano where Fred was supposed to be was in the back but my horn was up front. I’m the lead player so I needed to be where people could see me.

JW: Did Katz ever come up for air?
BC: Everyone got in their place on stage. Then Chico started playing, and Fred finally snapped out of it. But Fred couldn't get to the piano fast enough. We were all there and were starting to play. So Fred started bowing something and I played something on the flute. We didn’t have a pianist but we did have a guitar player in Jim Hall that no one can beat. When Fred played the piano, we couldn’t really hear him anyway. As we played, Jim left space for the cello. That’s why the group’s sound was no one’s idea. It just happened by accident, as a prank that turned into a sound we all dug immediately.

JW: Tell the truth, did you block Fred from getting to the piano?
BC: No way. Honest. He couldn’t get back to the piano once we started, so it worked out. The chamber-jazz thing gave us freedom to explore new ways of presenting the music. Jim had a different taste than other guitarists. It was more conversational than just keeping time. It was an equal voice in the group's sound, in terms of playing and listening and responding. The group was meant to sound like all of us were having an important musical conversation.

JW: So what was the precise turning point for the Chico Hamilton Quintet?
BC: When Fred moved onto the cello and off the piano, Jim suddenly could be heard playing as an equal sound, not a backup. If Fred had remained on piano, we wouldn’t have heard that special sound.

Tomorrow, Buddy talks about the historic unification of Los Angeles' white and black locals of the musicians' union, and pioneering the flute sound in the recording studios.

JazzWax tracks: The Chico Hamilton Quintet with Buddy Collette can be found on two Fresh Sound CDs: Live at the Strollers (here) and The Complete Studio Recordings of the Chico Hamilton Quintet (here).

Another great Buddy Collette album from this period features Buddy as a sideman on a session in 1955 led by bassist Red Callender. It's available on Swingin' Suite (Fresh Sound) here.

Buddy's first leadership album was Man of Many Parts in early 1956 for Contemporary. This brilliant album featured Buddy on alto and tenor saxes and flute. Other key sessions for Buddy in 1956 included Music to Listen to Barney Kessel By (Contemporary), Buddy Rich's This One's for Basie (Verve), Tanganyika Jazz (Dig) and Nice Day with Buddy Collette (Fantasy).

JazzWax clip: Here's the Chico Hamilton Quintet playing Nice Day (1955) with Buddy Collette on clarinet...

Interview: Buddy Collette (Part 2)

Like many aspiring musicians in Los Angeles in the 1930s, Buddy Collette picked up the clarinet and never looked back. During the Depression and into the 1940s, music was the only way out of the city's dense-packed black neighborhoods. But in the very late 1940s, with the rapid rise of television and expansion of the movie and record studios, music offered opportunities and possibilities that exceeded just a job. If you were disciplined, highly proficient and easygoing, a remarkably good living could be earned as a musician working in all three industries. [Photo at top of Buddy Collette by Ray Avery/CTSImages.com]

When you talk to Buddy today, you instantly realize how measured and deliberate he is. There's a certain pragmatism and sobriety to Buddy's view, a determined, no-nonsense outlook that comes from years of practice and formal study and hundreds of record dates with artists ranging from Benny Carter to Frank Sinatra. 

In Part 2 of my five-part interview series with Buddy, the West Coast reed and woodwind master talks about his rivalry with alto saxophonist Marshall Royal in an Army band during World War II, turning down Duke Ellington, and how the Gerry Mulligan Quartet got its sound: 

JazzWax: What did you do after high school?
Buddy Collette: I enlisted in the Navy in 1941. I came in as a Musician Third Class and left as a Musician First Class. Before I enlisted, I went up to San Francisco with Mingus and drummer Bill Douglass to audition for the base band. Bill and I got in, but Mingus talked himself out of enlisting when he heard he’d have to play bass drum in a marching band rather than the string bass. So Bill and I were sent to Oakland. Mingus was 4F. He had a bad heart and bad feet.

JW: What did you do on the base once enlisted?
BC: Up in Oakland, there were 45 guys on the base. There were two bands—one made up of good musicians and the other bad ones. I was supposed to be in the band that could play but it was already filled up.

JW: Who was in that band?
BC: Saxophonist Marshall Royal was the head of the good band. Marshall had arrived at the base earlier than I did. So did his brother and trumpeter Ernie Royal. Jerome Richardson was there. So was Jackie Kelso, Andy Anderson, Que Martyn and a bunch of others. They got all the latest Count Basie arrangements from someplace, but Marshall and Ernie took all the solos. Marshall wanted me in the band but it was mostly filled up by then.

JW: What did he want you to play?
BC: Baritone sax, but I didn’t play baritone. And I didn’t want to. It was too heavy. So I told him I was only going to play clarinet. He told the chief about what I had said, but the chief didn’t bother me. They just put me in the other band with all the not-so-good players.

JW: What did you do in that band?
BC: We just sat around and mopped and cleaned. A lot of the guys had been barbers and postmen, so as the only musician, I became head of the band. Worst of all, we had to mop the floor when Marshall’s band was finished with its two-hour rehearsal.

JW: What was Marshall Royal like?
BC: He was kind of a toughie. He had a big ego and thought he was the best ever. The Royal brothers would take all the solos. Or if they gave you a solo, you’d have it when no one was there. [Pictured: Ernie Royal]

JW: Where did your band rehearse?
BC: The chief wouldn’t let us rehearse in the main hall. So we hung out on the hills out back, near the trees. We were all daydreamers. Finally the guys in the band said to me, “Why don’t you teach us what you want? We can play. Just tell us what to do.” There were no echoes out there on the hills to fool you, like when you played in bathrooms. When you hit those tones in the open air, you either had a tone or you didn’t, so it was a great environment for practicing.

JW: What did your band play?
BC: We bought stock charts from a store in downtown Oakland.

JW: How did the band manage those?
BC: One day we were rehearsing outside when an officer brought a brigade by to show them the hills. The ranking officer had me salute. We called ourselves the Top Flighters. He asked me why were out there playing. I said we had nowhere else to rehearse. The officer said he’d speak to the chief. At the time, we were rehearsing All Or Nothing at All, which was a pretty straightforward arrangement. The officer liked it, and it turned out so did the chief. Marshall was playing Count Basie’s charts, but the chief liked what we were doing better. So he wanted us to play for the officers, and he had Marshall’s band sweep up for us [laughs].

JW: Did you study under the GI Bill when you were discharged in 1945?
BC: Yes, for four years with different teachers from the Los Angeles Conservatory. I studied with classical teachers. One was Henry Woempner, who played flute on a lot of MGM pictures. He was a tough guy and helped get me in shape. I lucked out.

JW: Did formal study change you as a musician?
BC: It did. I studied the Schillinger System on flute, clarinet and saxophone. I also was composing and writing. I was disciplined, and four years was a long time to be in school. I even said no to Duke Ellington?

JW: What happened?
BC: One day my phone rang and the voice at the other end said, “Hello, this is Edward Kennedy Ellington. I want you in my band.”

JW: What did you say?
BC: I said, “Duke, at any other time I would say yes in a second. But I have to say no. I have to finish my studies." Had I said yes to Duke, I often wonder how my life and career would have turned out differently.

JW: You knew Chico Hamilton and Gerry Mulligan in 1952.
BC: The first time that quartet rehearsed was at my apartment. Gerry was there at my place because he knew that Chico and I were friends. My apartment was at 1406 St. Andrews Place (Apt. 1). Everyone was at my place, listening to music or at parties. At first, what Gerry and Chet were doing didn’t sound too good.

JW: Why not?
BC: They didn’t have the right concept. Chetty was playing melody and Gerry was trying to harmonize on the baritone. But they were miles apart. Gerry was trying to do it like he would normally play.

JW: Which was how?
BC: Using the baritone like a bass. He was just playing harmony in same rhythm as the melody. Then he began trying counterpoint. He was moving around differently than just following the melody.

JW: Did Mulligan know the group’s sound was all wrong at first?
BC: Yes, they all knew it. Gerry didn’t want a piano in there. He was filling in for the piano on the baritone with notes a pianist might play if he had that instrument in the group. They finally got it and hit their sound by accident.

Tomorrow, Buddy talks about how the Chico Hamilton Quintet got its accidental start and the rise of West Coast chamber jazz.

JazzWax tracks: In the early 1950s, Buddy played at a sideman on three interesting recordings.

First, in 1953, he recorded on tenor sax with the Jerry Fielding Orchestra, in a band that featured Conrad Gozzo in the lead trumpet chair. Sam Donahue and Phil Urso were in the reed section, and there are early tracks by the Hi-Lo's vocal group. Buddy's sides with Fielding can be found on Jerry Fielding: Faintly Reminiscent (Jasmine) here.

The second was Lyle "Spud" Murphy's groundbreaking 12-tone ensemble in 1954. The band featured Russ Cheever (sop), Frank Morgan and Benny Carter (as), Buddy Collette (ts), Bob Gordon (bar), Buddy Clark (b) and Chico Hamilton (d). The recording can be found on New Orbits in Sound (Gene Norman) here. It's a must-own. 

Third, Buddy played alto sax and flute on Best From the West (1954), featuring Conte Candoli (tp), Buddy Collette (fl,as), Jimmy Giuffre (ts,cl, bar), Gerald Wiggins (p) Howard Roberts (g), Curtis Counce (b) and Stan Levey (d). You'll find this album on a CD called Modern Sounds From the West (Lonehill) here.

Interview: Buddy Collette (Part 1)

Buddy Collette is famous for a bunch of things: The reed and woodwind player helped develop West Coast chamber jazz in the mid-1950s. He was one of first black musicians to work steadily in the Los Angeles studios and the first to perform on television. Buddy recorded playing upward of 10 instruments and appeared on more than 325 recording sessions. He also was one of the earliest jazz flutists and jazz-flute arrangers. [Photo of Buddy Collette in 1956 by Gordon Parks for Life]

And then there's his contribution to integration. In 1953, Buddy helped amalgamate the American Federation of Musicians' white and black locals in Los Angeles. Back then, two different union locals operated in many major cities—one for white musicians and one for blacks. Buddy not only brought the two locals together in L.A., but he also went on to have a sterling recording career, which is a testament to his sunny personality and extraordinary musical skills.

In Part 1 of my five-part interview with Buddy, 88, the saxophonist, flutist and clarinetist talks about growing up in Los Angeles, his father's charm, his grandmother's passion for music, forming a band at age 12, and hiring a pre-teen Charles Mingus.

JazzWax: Where did you grow up in Los Angeles?
Buddy Collette: In the Watts area. There were a lot of good black musicians out there in the 1930s, many from prestigious musical families. Lester Young’s family lived in the area. So did Britt Woodman’s.  [Los Angeles in the 1930s]

JW: How did you come to music?
BC: My grandmother wanted at least one professional musician in the family so she insisted that my brother, sister and I take lessons. Starting at age 10, I had piano lessons every Saturday with my sister at a church lady’s house near my grandmother’s home. My grandmother’s house was 10 miles away by streetcar, so my sister and I would go over there on Fridays, practice a bit, and sleep over.

JW: How many students in the class?
BC: Quite a few but only girls. I was the only boy. Girls were kind of silly at the time. Each person had to play in front of everyone, which was hard to do for me with girls watching [laughs].

JW: What did your dad do for a living?
BC: My dad drove a city garbage truck. He was so proud of his job and was very well liked. When he pulled up and waved, people would come out of their homes and give him fruit and pies to take home. Not that he was hungry. He just had a great personality, worked hard and charmed everyone he met.

JW: Did you father like music?
BC: Very much. When I was 15 years old in the late 1930s, he took me to see Louis Armstrong at the Elks Hall Club on Central Avenue. When Louis played, I was hit with the biggest thing I ever saw. Louis was in top shape at the time. He’d play, and toward the end of each song, people in the audience would scream, “Higher, higher.” He’d make a face like the note he had just hit was as high as he could go. But then he’d put his horn to his lips and find higher notes. I realized then that I wanted to be a musician, to improvise and play all those solos.

JW: Did your dad encourage you?
BC: He didn’t openly encourage me to be a musician, but he supported what I wanted to do. As I was coming up, my dad always asked if I was making enough money. When I told him early on that I was making $35 a week as a musician, he said, “Wow, that’s more than I make.”

JW: Did he ever hear you play live?
BC: Most of my work was for records and movies. But five years before he passed away, I played the flute on the radio in Los Angeles. This was around 1980. My dad said, "Wow, you sounded just like a little bird on that instrument.”

JW: How did you come to the saxophone?
BC: When I was in junior high school I picked up the sax and clarinet. They came fast and easy to me, but I knew that switching from piano to these instruments was going to cause a fuss at home.

JW: Why?
BC: My grandmother had wanted me to become a famous concert pianist and travel all over the world. I was close with my grandmother. She was respected in our home. When she said something, my family responded to her wishes right away. She was also generous. Each year she had a Christmas dinner at her house. Her birthday was on Christmas Eve, but she never officially celebrated it because she was so busy cooking and getting everything ready. When I asked her why we didn't celebrate it, she said, “It’s Christmas.” Everyone was always in such a rush to have turkey they forgot about her day. But she didn't mind. My grandmother was very much about making everyone else happy. Except when it came to music [laughs].

JW: How did you get the sax home?
BC: My brother had a sax but wouldn’t practice it. His lack of interest might have come from having a bad teacher or some other reason. So I took my brother’s sax, which was hidden under his bed. I finally got up the courage to tell my grandmother about my wish to switch from the piano to the sax.

JW: What did she say?
BC: She was devastated. She said, “I thought eventually I would hear this from you. All of my kids quit the piano.” I felt bad and promised I’d work hard on the sax, but she still fell out with me. We didn’t talk for a while.

JW: Which instrument did you study first?
BC: I took up the clarinet. William Woodman Jr. gave me my first lesson. His brother was trombonist Britt Woodman [pictured], and their dad William Sr. was a trombone player who had played with Duke Ellington early on. Mr. Woodman once told Duke that he was going to teach all his kids to be top musicians. And that's exactly what he did.

JW: How did Britt Woodman sound when he was a kid?
BC: Britt was playing all the trombone you needed to hear by age 13. Mr. Woodman was so confident in Britt that he told Duke [Ellington], “I’m going to prepare my son to be in your band.” Well, 25 years later, Britt Woodman was in Duke’s band.

JW: Were you a fast learner?
BC: Very much so. By the time I was 12 years old, I was leading a local band. At around that age, my friends told me about a guy our age named Charles Mingus. They said, "He's heavyset and plays the cello," which sounded odd to me. We soon met—by accident. I was walking down the street one day and here comes this guy my age who’s heavyset with bowed legs and is carrying a shoeshine box. But the box was strange. It looked like a chicken coop with tall legs on it and a little door.

JW: Did you stop him?
BC: I did. I said, “Are you a shoeshiner? I am, too. You don’t need a box that tall.” The kid said, “I like my guys to sit on a car fender so I don’t have to carry a chair around with me. The box has long legs so their feet can reach.” Finally he said, “I’m Charles Mingus, I play the cello.” I said to him, “If you can get your dad to trade in the cello for the bass, you can be in my band.”

JW: Did he?
BC: I didn’t see him for a week or two. When I did, Charles came up to me and said, “Guess what? My dad got me a bass for the cello.” Charles joined my band, which also included Britt.

JW: Not a bad band for 13 year olds.
BC: Tell me about it [laughs].

Tomorrow: Buddy Collette talks about his Navy years, studying formally after World War II under the G.I. Bill, turning down Duke Ellington's offer to join his band, and listening to Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker figure out their new sound at his apartment in 1952.

JazzWax tracks: Buddy Collette's earliest recordings feature him in 1946 in Los Angeles playing the baritone sax behind singer Ivie Anderson with Charles Mingus on bass. You'll find I Got It Bad, Sunny Side of the Street, I Thought You Ought to Know and Voot Is Here to Stay on an Ivie Anderson CD here.

Buddy Collette, Charles Mingus and Britt Woodman were all together in 1946 on a session led by Mingus. You'll find the tracks—Make Believe, Honey Take a Chance With Me, Bedspread, This Subdues My Passion, Pipe Dream, Mingus Fingers and These Foolish Things—on Charles "Baron" Mingus: West Coast 1945-49 (Uptown) as a CD or download here.

JazzWax clip: Here's a perfect introduction to Buddy's sound on the alto sax. In this clip, Buddy is playing unaccompanied in museum space some years back. Dig the polished purity of his intonation and fluidity of his improvised ideas...

Tony Bennett: Movie Song Album

One of Tony Bennett's most spectacular recordings of the 1960s is The Movie Song Album. On this 1965 tribute to Hollywood, Bennett is at his artistic and vocal best, delivering deeply personal and emotionally reflective renditions of the day's movie themes. For my money, there's no finer Bennett than the singer interpreting 1960s movie and Broadway hits. I even dig Bennett on pop-rock material of the period (Something, Love Story, etc.)

But make no mistake—The Movie Song Album isn't a pop disc. It's a stealth jazz album on par with the best jazz-vocal strings recordings (Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin, Frank Sinatra's Only the Lonely, Ella Fitzgerald's Rodgers and Hart Songbook and David Allyn's A Perfect Match). At the helm on this date was Johnny Mandel, who as musical director perfectly selected the arrangers for the songs and arranged three himself—two of which he composed. Johnny also conducted the orchestra on a number of the tracks.

First, a word about movie music. In the 1960s, with the decline of the MGM musical and rise of the adult drama, more films began to feature a theme song that had a dual purpose. If the song was beautifully crafted, you left the theater feeling more emotional about what you saw on the screen. What's more, the song could be used to sell soundtrack LPs and 45-rpms and would wind up being covered by singers of the day. Interestingly, many movie themes from the early and mid-1960s were piercing ballads (More, Alfie, Valley of the Dolls, Jean, Romeo and Juliette, Born Free, Moon River and so on).

The Movie Song Album captures the ballad era in movie music perfectly. As Bennett sings, you can hear him immersing himself in the various lush arrangements and weighing his phrasing of every lyric. On each song, Bennett delivers a passionate and penetrating rendition without ever abandoning his up-close intimacy or street-singer optimism.

For the date, Johnny Mandel pulled in the era's greatest studio and arrangers and players. There are charts by Al Cohn (Smile, The Second Time Around and The Trolley Song) and Larry Wilcox (a dazzling Maybe September, Days of Wine and Roses). Other arrangers were the songs' composers: Neal Hefti [pictured] (Girl Talk), Quincy Jones (The Pawnbroker), Luiz Bonfa (Samba de Orfeu) and a spectacular arrangement of Never Too Late by David Rose. And, of course, Johnny Mandel wrote nonpareil charts for The Gentle Rain and his own Emily and The Shadow of Your Smile.

The sidemen? A virtual It's a Mad Mad Mad World of the jazz business. That's Lou Levy's doodling piano opening Girl Talk, pianist Jimmy Rowles providing the key-spray intro to The Shadow of Your Smile and Tommy Flanagan offering tender chord voicings on his accompaniment to Smile. Johnny knew what he was doing: Each pianist put his own stamp on the song. The tenor solo on The Trolley Song (the only non-60s theme and the session's only uptempo tune)? Zoot Sims [pictured].

As Johnny Mandel told me yesterday, "I had the best studio and jazz musicians in the world on that album."

What I love most about this album are the now-forgotten hits—Quincy Jones' The Pawnbroker, David Rose's Never Too Late and Percy Faith's Maybe September, a powerful ballad from The Oscar, a now-hammy 1966 movie in which Tony Bennett had a co-starring role (as Hymie Kelly). As you listen to these songs, you're transported back to another time: the twilight years of film songcraft, jazz studio sensibilities and powerful vocal interpretations.  

Bennett here is more than matched by the majesty of the arrangements. Listen to David Rose's [pictured] surging nuances in Never Too Late or the smoldering intensity Johnny captures on his own Shadow of Your Smile. Or the crisp snappy delivery Hefti brings to his composition Girl Talk. Or the somber pathos Quincy Jones adds to his work The Pawnbroker. This album has it all—and on multiple levels.

Johnny's reflection yesterday on his masterpiece The Movie Song Album:

"I love that record. We did a good version of The Shadow and Emily. Tony always sings the definitive  version of every song I write. His interpretations are always the best. He comes to the territory, stakes his turf and winds up owning the song. There wasn't much agonizing in the studio during those sessions. We ran down some things and then just went to work, and the other composer-conductors were all enormous pros. We just did it, and the result was gorgeous, just great."

JazzWax tracks: Tony Bennett's The Movie Song Album (Columbia) is available at iTunes and here. Even if you already have some of these songs on compilations, download the remastered version. Trust me, this is one of those albums where you want to hear these tracks in order, as producer Ernie Altschuler intended. Or if you can find it on vinyl, even better. I recently purchased a sealed original copy, and the sound is warm and spectacular. Bennett sounds like he's in the room.

JazzWax clip: Here's Tony Bennett singing The Shadow of Your Smile from The Movie Song Album—composed, arranged and conducted here by Johnny Mandel. Listen to Jimmy Rowles' tender piano intro. And dig how warm Tony becomes and how he turns on the power three minutes in. And most of all, dig the fluttering flutes Johnny added at the end....

Bill Holman: I Told You So

Bill Holman arranged only one album for the Count Basie band while Basie was alive. The little-known album is I Told You So, recorded in January 1976 for Pablo Records. What makes this Basie album exceptional is Bill's powerful musical intellect and explosive sense of swing.

Throughout Bill's career, Basie has been a recurring influence. Bill's decision in the late 1940s to become an arranger was influenced largely by the intoxicating appeal of the Basie band of that era. Then when Bill was arranging for Stan Kenton's orchestra in the early 1950s, Bill was already listening to Basie's newly formed "New Testament" band. The Basie-inspired results included Kenton Showcase: Music of Bill Holman (1954) and Contemporary Concepts (1955). Naturally, the opportunity to arrange for the Basie band in 1976 was a full-circle moment for Bill.

Yesterday I spoke to Bill Holman about his arrangements for Basie's I Told You So:

JazzWax: What do you think of the album 26 years later?
Bill Holman: I like it, but I don’t think most people have heard it. It’s an obscure Basie album. I was trying to get into the Basie sound but I was so far into my own thing at the time I don’t think I got all the way there. But it was an interesting assignment.

JW: Who called you to write the arrangements?
BH: Norman Granz, who owned Pablo. Norman just said, “I want you to write 10 arrangements for a Basie album, and we’ll record it in early January.” All of the charts were written in a couple of months.

JW: Did you have specific band members in mind when writing?
BH: Yes. On Tree Frog, I wrote a feature for trombonist Al Grey [pictured], who likes to use the plunger. I had the other trombones riff on a line that Grey had played back in 1954. When Al heard the trombones, he said, “Hey, that’s mine.” I also wrote Plain Brown Wrapper with tenor saxophonist Jimmy Forrest in mind.

JW: Were you happy with the results?
BH: For the most part. Ideally, the band should have had those charts out on the road for a few months before recording them. The Basie orchestra was never a sight-reading band and they had just come off a Christmas holiday break. The band also had two new trumpet players. So there was a lot working against the flow.

JW: What did you think conducting a band you had idolized since you were a kid?
BH: I was kind of awe-struck. Here I am in front of the Basie band for the first time. It kind of woke me up [laughs].

JW: Any bumps along the way?
BH: I did have trouble getting Norman to make a few takes on each tune. After the first take, Norman would say, "That’s great. Let’s go on to the next one.” I finally said,” Norman, hold it. We can improve on these.”

JW: What happened?
BH: Norman gave in, and I got a few takes on each piece.

JW: How was the Basie band different from bands you were conducting on the West Coast?
BH: In a local Los Angeles band like mine, the guys are concentrating on the reading and on executing the charts. Basie’s band was more interested in that fantastic sound. As a result, they weren’t used to sight-reading new charts. Virtually everything they played had been in their book for years. Of course, Los Angeles is a studio culture to begin with, so guys there are into execution, reading, intonation and things like that. None of this is about being better. It's just a different approach.

JW: Were you trying to move the Basie band out of its sound and into precision?
BH: No, no, not at all. I wasn’t trying to pull them away from anything. I was just trying to get a decent performance out of the band. By and large, the session came off OK. But the record is sloppy in intonation. The feeling is there, though.

JW: Did the band struggle with the material?
BH: Yes, they had a tough time with most of the charts. All seemed very logical to me, but for many of the guys, it was the first time they had seen any of my writing. So the charts were a little strange for them.

JW: Were there charts in particular that were tough?
BH: Plain Brown Wrapper was particularly difficult for the band and caused them to bog down at one point. Basie sensed this. He stopped the band and gave them a lecture.

JW: What did he say?
BH: He said, “This guy has written a masterpiece and it’s up to us to execute it.” That helped. Basie knew how to speak to his band with authority. I was trying to get them in that direction but I didn’t know the right words. 

JW: Was it scary conducting that band?
BH: Terrifying in a way, but I could see that the band was on my side. The Basie band I had fallen in love with in the 1940s was a different animal, of course, with Lester Young and Jo Jones in there. But in 1954, when Stan Kenton sent me to New York for a couple of months to write What’s New and I’ve Got You Under My Skin, I often caught Basie at Birdland. So the new Basie sound was a big influence as well. [Photo of Bill Holman by Mark Sheldon]

JW: One of your songs is called Told You So—yet the album is called I Told You So. How did that happen?
BH: Norman and I had a little argument over the song title. My song is Told You So. Norman called me up and said, “You know, the phrase is ‘I told you so.’ ” I said, “Well yeah, Norman, but this is conversational. The 'I' gets in the way.” He wasn’t buying it. When the album came out, he had called it I Told You So and my song remained Told You So.

JW: Something to Live For is a knockout, with that swirling Early Autumn pick-up intro.
BH: I like that, too. I put that song in there even though it was by Billy Strayhorn and in Duke Ellington’s book.

JW: What are your favorites on the album?
BH: Probably Ticker and Swea’ Pea. Tree Frog, too. All have a great tempo and swing.

JW: Was Basie a strong leader in the studio?
BH: He was. Basie got the big picture. He knew how to run that band and make it an extension of himself.

JW: Anything you learned about Basie that most people don’t realize?
BH: That Basie can talk [laughs]. Basie is usually thought of as a silent man who sits quietly on the bandstand. He just does something with his fingers or plays some notes and the band knows exactly what to play and how to play it. But when needed, Basie can indeed talk.

JW: What did he say?
BH: He spent time urging the band to try harder with unfamiliar material. He could hear and read what I was shooting for in the charts. Admittedly, some of the phrasing was a little odd for them. But he told them to buckle down and it worked.

JW: What did Basie ultimately think of the record?
BH: I spoke to Basie a few weeks after the session. He loved it and was very enthusiastic about doing another one. But sadly he got sick soon afterward and we never had a chance.

JazzWax tracks: Bill Holman is a modest genius. Count Basie's I Told You So is a rip-roaring album with stunning arrangements that constantly twist and turn. And don't let Bill's modesty fool you. His charts for the Basie band  make hairs stand on end. The album is available as a download at iTunes or here. Sample Bill's writing on Something to Live For and The Git.

A special JazzWax thanks to David Langner.

JazzWax clip: Here's the Chicago Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra playing Bill Holman's Basie-influenced chart of Stompin' at the Savoy, which Bill arranged originally for Stan Kenton's Contemporary Concepts in 1955...

Hal McKusick: Cross Section-Saxes

Hal McKusick was and remains a jazz musician’s musician. Even in his earliest days in Boyd Raeburn’s band in the mid-1940s, Hal’s distinct sound on the alto saxophone was admired by bandmates Lucky Thompson, Oscar Pettiford and Dizzy Gillespie as well as contemporaries like Charlie Parker, Claude Thornhill and Quincy Jones. Hal’s ability to navigate the most complex arrangements effortlessly while delivering a cool, urgent sound made him one of the most sought-after session musicians of the 1950s and beyond.

Hal’s extraordinary sight-reading and performance skills on all reed and woodwind instruments landed him in the most challenging big bands and small groups of the period. His recordings as a leader between 1955 and 1958, often teamed with trumpeter Art Farmer [pictured], are marked by adventurous risk-taking and a dazzling outcome.

Over three days in late March and early April 1958, Hal recorded one of his most ambitious and fascinating albums: Cross Section—Saxes (Decca). What makes this album so compelling is its ambition and sound. Hal commissioned George Handy, Jimmy Giuffre, George Russell and Ernie Wilkins, four of the most dynamic arrangers of the day, to write charts for Hal's quintet, sextet and septet. Then Hal assembled the most skilled musicians of the day, including Art Farmer and Bill Evans, to record them.

This past Friday, I spoke with Hal about this important album:

JazzWax: What does the album’s title mean?
Hal McKusick: It’s a cross-section or variety of saxophone conceptions by leading arrangers. I think Marv Holtzman, the album’s producer, came up with the title. He may have had a vision for other "cross section" albums with trumpets and trombones down the line but I don’t think they were ever done.

JW: Which tells you something about your concept’s stark challenges.
HM: I was leading a seven-piece working band in late 1957 and early 1958—four saxes with a rhythm section that included Bill Evans and Eddie Costa on piano, depending on who was available. The emphasis was on the voicings of those saxes and our collective sound.

JW: Who wrote the arrangements?
HM: Al Cohn [pictured] and Johnny Carisi. The arrangements were amazing. Unfortunately, I have no idea what happened to those charts and we never recorded them.

JW: Who was in your working band?
HM: Davey Schildkraut was on second alto, Dick Hafer was on tenor, and Gene Allen or Jay Cameron was on baritone.

JW: Where did the band play?
HM: We played for a few months at a club on Long Island, out by Levittown. The reception was great. There were always people in the club.

JW: When did you bring the concept to Decca?
HM: I had been recording for Coral, Decca’s jazz subsidiary. I told Marv Holtzman about my group, and he said, “Great, let’s do it.”

JW: What was the next step?
HM: Commissioning arrangements for the concept I had in mind. I had known George Handy [pictured] for years, starting with Boyd Raeburn's band in the mid-1940s. I knew George Russell since the early 1950s, when we worked on his Lydian Chromatic Concept. Jimmy Giuffre I knew from my days on the West Coast in the mid-1940s and Buddy Rich’s band in 1948. And Ernie Wilkins I knew from working with him on record dates in 1955 and 1956.

JW: How much guidance did you give the arrangers?
HM: Not much. I simply told them the songs I wanted and the instruments that would be featured. Then I told them to give me their best, most advanced thinking. I wanted their stamp on these songs, their approach, their particular sounds and flavor.

JW: That’s an unusually respectful approach, not to mention risky, since you would have no idea what they would turn in.
HW: Each of these arrangers had a feel that I loved. I wanted to showcase their distinctions and not have all of the charts sound the same.

JW: It certainly helped that you and the musicians you chose had the ability to flawlessly play anything they came up with.
HM: I think that’s why the arrangers had as much fun as they did with the charts. When the arrangements came in, the groups didn’t have any trouble with them.

JW: Still, it’s pretty tough to bring so much talent together and have the result sound so polished so quickly.
HM: Everyone I used I chose very carefully. All of them had been working steadily with me in the New York record studios. They knew exactly what to do and the flavor that was needed. 

JW: Where was the album recorded?
HM: At Decca’s Pythian Temple studios on West 70th Street off Broadway [pictured].

JW: You were close with Bill Evans before he became Bill Evans.
HM: We had known each other for years. We first recorded together in 1956 on George Russell’s Jazz Workshop album for RCA and then the following year on the Brandeis Jazz Festival album.

JW: Was Cross Section—Saxes sort of a miniaturized version of Brandeis?
HM: No. I had already used this concept of bringing in leading arrangers like George Russell and giving them plenty of creative room while I was recording at RCA a few years earlier.

JW: What did Bill Evans think of your concept for the working septet?
HM: He loved it. Bill was interested in getting inside the music, to put his own touch on it while at the same time contributing to the whole. He always sought perfection. When you played a date with Bill or brought him in on a recording session, he would want to know exactly what was going to happen and what you needed from him. Then he would fit himself in appropriately. On Cross Section—Saxes, Bill looked over the charts carefully to see what they were all about. Then he determined his role. It was a fascinating process and outcome.

JW: This was Evans’ last recording before he joined Miles Davis and recorded with him a month later. In some ways, it was Bill's unintended audition for that band.
HM: How so?

JW: According to Peter Pettinger’s biography of Evans, Miles Davis asked George Russell for a pianist and Russell recommended Evans after working with him on Brandeis and Cross-Section—Saxes.
HM: Interesting. At this point Bill was so focused and deep into the music, what came out was always meaningful and fascinating. As a musician, there’s so much there with Bill in terms of the complexity, simplicity and even humor.

JW: Did any rehearsing go into the three different Cross-Section—Saxes sessions?
HM: We ran down the charts once and then recorded them.

JW: Just like that?
HM: [Laughs] You have to remember that everyone there was at the top of his game. I chose the musicians because they were the best in the business from a technical standpoint and they also had individual personalities that came through on their playing.

JW: You didn’t share your vision for pieces in advance with the arrangers?
HM: Telling arrangers at this level what to write would have been dumb. You have to frame what you want and then leave them alone. If you can do that, the result is almost always going to be exciting. And it was. [Pictured: George Russell]

JW: Did you tell the arrangers the keys you wanted for each song?
HM: I wanted everything to be in their original keys. This was out of respect for the songs and the composers.

JW: Was it always going to be a date with three different instrument configurations?
HM: Yes. I wanted a sense of adventure, to hear what these great arrangers would come up with for different size groups. These weren’t favors, though. The arrangers were paid for the charts by the record company.

JW: Were the arrangements as tricky as they sounded?
HM: They took a lot. You had to have your reading head together. You had to be able to execute the charts with technical ability and blend together as a group and yet sound relaxed.

JW: There are some incredibly difficult passages.
HM: The double-time things were complicated but you had to play them with a relaxed attitude. You had to look over those parts before playing them. If there was a technical issue going on in a piece, we ran them down.

JW: On It Never Entered My Mind, did Giuffre [pictured] throw in a bass clarinet part to up the ante?
HM: No. I played bass clarinet at the time and wanted a chart that included that sound. 

JW: On Yesterdays, there are these odd tiny cymbals that play off the beat. Whose idea was that?
HM: Jimmy Giuffre called me while he was writing and said, “I have this idea. You know those little finger cymbals? I want to write those in." I said, “Great, do it.” So we looked around and found a pair. If I recall correctly, Jimmy played them himself in the studio on the recording.

JW: How would you describe Giuffre’s arranging style?
HM: With Jimmy, every note is carefully selected. Then he leaves spaces for you to blow. He created a special mood and approach for the quintet pieces. The group there featured me, Art Farmer, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers and Connie Kay.

JW: Clifford Brown’s La Rue was arranged by George Handy.
HM: I wrote out that lead sheet and gave it to George. I just said, “Here, feature the saxes.” For that date, I  remember calling Charlie Persip but he wasn’t available. I gave it some thought and realized that Connie Kay [pictured] had something special, a nice, wispy sound that was very musical and compositional. So I got him, and he was great.

JW: George Handy's Last Day of Fall also appeared on Zoot Sims Plays 4 Altos in 1957, which Handy arranged for Zoot.
HM: Zoot Plays 4 Altos had a big influence on me. I knew that by using Last Day of Fall on our date, George wouldn’t have to work too hard to produce what I needed, since he had already written it for Zoot. He’d just have to revoice it for two altos, a tenor and baritone. The only thing I told him was, “Add that beautiful opening phrase that Zoot improvised," and George did.

JW: Was Handy a challenge to work with?
HM: Not at all. George [pictured] and I had a close working relationship that dated back about 15 years at that point. But with George, I’d always set a deadline ahead of time so I'd know the chart would come in with the parts copied and ready to go.

JW: You gave Now’s the Time to Ernie Wilkins.
HM: I transcribed Charlie Parker’s solo and asked Ernie for a chart. It wasn't the easiest task transcribing Bird's solo, as you can imagine. But the process was a great lesson for me in Bird's composition and ingenuity brilliance. Ernie's arrangement was terrific. Today, we think of Ernie and those big charts he wrote for Count Basie. Here, Ernie took Parker’s blues and made it so delicate and light. Ernie could do it all. 

JW: You also gave Wilkins Benny Golson's Whisper Not.
HM: I loved what Benny was writing then. He had such a melodic touch and his graceful style was in everything he wrote. Ernie  [pictured] put his own gorgeous sound on top of Benny’s melody. It's really something. 

JW: Discographies show there have been 15 jazz recordings of George Russell’s Stratusphunk. Yours was the first.
HM: I asked Jimmy, George Handy and George Russell for one original each. This was a period when the country was obsessed with outer space, and George loved the word “funk.” George [pictured] wrote the song and the arrangement for my sextet—me, Art Farmer, Barry Galbraith, Bill Evans, Milt Hinton and Charlie Persip. We loved playing George’s things for that date. They were simpler pieces than much of his more far-out Lydian works.

JW: Which song on the album is your favorite?
HM: George Russell’s [pictured] End of a Love Affair. I love the mood of it. The arrangement has this certain restlessness, too. It was a very East Coast sound, meaning you hear the energy and sophistication of the city—the close interaction of people, the hurrying, the ambition. That's how the musicians felt. Each of us was striving to break new ground. It was an exciting, experimental time for jazz, and that was reflected in the music.

JW: That East Coast, cosmopolitan sound is captured neatly on all of the album's pieces.
HM: True. You also can hear that the arrangers put their all into the things they wrote. Each one is a complete entity that expresses who that arranger was as an artist. On a session like this one, I was putting together a lot of puzzle pieces.

JW: Did you go into the album with an East Coast sound in mind?
HM: I’m not sure we were aware at the time of what we were doing. There may have been an undercurrent of awareness. I was just trying to create a balanced statement. In retrospect, I realize that the sound was a reflection of our lives in New York—the intensity, the art, the optimism all squeezed together.

JW: Were all of the arrangers at the recording sessions of their individual works?
HM: Yes. Arrangers should always be at their sessions in case the copyist has made a mistake or a change is needed. Each of the guys loved what they heard—the sound and the interpretation. They thought the musicians had paid enormous tribute to them.

JW: How would you sum up Cross Section—Saxes?
HM: It's a record with great musicians who had individual sounds. They all could read music brilliantly, listen carefully to each other, blend together and at the same time express their individuality. The arrangements gave us that opportunity. It’s a gem of an album in that regard.

JazzWax tracks: Cross Section—Saxes is out of print and sells for ghastly sums. Much of the album is on Hal McKusick: Now's the Time, a compilation here (see lower-priced versions from independent sellers). Or search Google for downloads of Cross Section—Saxes.

Here's the album's personnel:

On the quintet: Art Farmer (tp), Hal McKusick (b-cl,as), Bill Evans (p), Paul Chambers (b) and Connie Kay (d).

On the sextet: Art Farmer (tp) Hal McKusick (cl,as), Bill Evans (p), Barry Galbraith (g), Milt Hinton (b) and Charlie Persip (d).

On the septet: Hal McKusick, Frank Socolow (as), Dick Hafer (ts), Jay Cameron (bar), Bill Evans (p), Paul Chambers (b) and Connie Kay (d).

JazzWax clip: Here's Hal McKusick a few years ago playing Home Town Blues with Don Friedman on piano, Jay Anderson on bass and Dennis Mackrel...