In 1959, a furious race began between two sets of squeaky-voiced woodland creatures. You're surely familiar with Alvin and the Chipmunks, that trio of furry vocalists with sped-up voices who had a thing for pop music. Well, they also had company. There was a bebopping duo known as the Nutty Squirrels, created by Alexander "Sascha" Burland and Don Elliott on sped-up vocals. The result sounded like Lambert, Hendricks and Ross on helium, and there even was a hit—Uh-Oh (a YouTube clip appears below). Saxophonist Hal McKusick told me about them. He was in the studio band along with Cannonball Adderley on the record date.
Here's info from Wikipedia:
"After the Chipmunks' initial success in 1958, plans were almost immediately made to make them into an animated cartoon series. Unfortunately, there were some initial art direction snags (specifically with the character designs) and the show was delayed. This gap resulted in a race between the Chipmunks and an imitative group created by jazz musicians Don Elliott and Alexander "Sascha" Burland, which they called the Nutty Squirrels.
"Both musical groups featured the defining sped-up voices, but the Chipmunks favored popular music while the Squirrels favored jazz, particularly of the bebop variety. Ultimately, the Squirrels made it to television first, in the animated series The Nutty Squirrels Present (appearing in September 1960), but they were not as popular as the originals."
I hate to say it, but it's pretty cool stuff. Who was in the studio band? Don Elliott, Sascha Burland (vcl) acc by Hal McKusick, Cannonball Adderley (as) Bobby Jaspar (fl) Sam Most (fl,ts) Romeo Penque (fl,woodwinds) Sol Schlinger (bar) Al Casamenti, Mundell Lowe (g) Trigger Alpert and (b) James Campbell (d) with strings.
You'll find the Nutty Squirrels' Bird Watching at iTunes and here.
Wall Street Journal alert! Pick up today's Wall Street Journal for my article on architect Henry Cobb and Boston's John Hancock Building [pictured]. The tower's sheer simplicity and geometric humility make it my favorite office building in the world. The tower opened to the general public 35 years ago to the day. I love it so much I traveled with Henry to Boston just to admire it. What can I tell you? I'm crazy about beauty in all its forms. If you're a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal, go here.
Almost forgot—want a taste of the Squirrels?Here'sUh-Oh...
Earlier this month I posted a list of five favorite swinging action-jazz albums. This brassy genre was popular roughly between 1958 and 1963, with the proliferation of TV shows and movies featuring cops, robbers and private detectives. After posting the first list, I received a crime wave of emails calling for more. So, action-jazz albums:
Music From Peter Gunn (1958)—Henry Mancini
Private Life of a Private Eye (1959)—Enoch Light
Music for a Private Eye (1959)—Ralph Marterie
The Swingin' Eye (1960)—Si Zentner
Man from O.R.G.A.N. (1963)—Dick Hyman
JazzWax clip: Think Sy Zentner is just a pop lounge lizard? Not so fast. Dig for yourself...
Urbie Green is easily one of the smoothest and most lyrical trombonists of the '50s and '60s. He's also among the most prolific. From his days with Gene Krupa in the late 1940s until his last recording in 1997, Green was on an astonishing 603 known jazz recording sessions, according to Tom Lord's Jazz Discography. This doesn't include dates for movie soundtracks or television. By contrast, trombonist Jack Teagarden was on 507 dates and trombonist J.J. Johnson was on 355. Tommy Dorsey? He was on 1,153 dates. One of Green's finest early '60s sessions was The Persuasive Trombone of Urbie Green.
Recorded in February 1960, the album featured Nick Travis, John Bello, Don Ferrara and Doc Severinsen (tp), Urbie Green and Bobby Byrne (tb), Gil Cohen (b-tb), Hal McKusick (as), Rolf Kuhn (as,cl), Eddie Wasserman (fl,ts), Pepper Adams (bar), Dave McKenna (p), Barry Galbraith (g), Milt Hinton (b) and Don Lamond (d). On half the tracks, Gene Allen (bar) and Nat Pierce (p) replaced Pepper Adams and Dave McKenna.
This session was recorded for Command, a label started in 1959 by Enoch Light and George Schwager in Harrison, N.J. The line was marketed to early audiophiles—code at the time for guys who liked "bachelor pad" music. Command was big on the exaggerated separation of stereo tracks to create a highly dynamic range. Albums appeared in glossy, high-quality gatefold covers with explosive abstract designs. Interestingly, Command was one of the first companies to use 35MM film for master recordings instead of magnetic tape. The recording band on film held more informationand was superior for improved fidelity.
Persuasive Trombone was the 15th album issued by Command, and the first of many that Urbie recorded for the label in the 1960s. What makes this particular album special is the hip swinging arrangements, the band's knot-tight attack and Green's rich swinging horn. Unfortunately, the back of the original album was devoted to text rattling on about the album's technical data rather than who wrote the arrangements. According to Tom Fine, who pulled the original album, the charts were by Bobby Byrne and Lew Davies.
There are plenty of surprises. The first track—At Last—opens with an I Can't Get Started intro but then kicks into a mid-tempo swinger. There's fine piercing solos by trumpeter John Bello on Prisoner of Love, Dream and other tracks. The album ends, interestingly, with a simple and beautiful working by Green of I Can't Get Started.
Throughout his career, Green's appeal rested with his ability to sing beautifully through his trombone. He employed a velvety tone and a breathing technique that erased any evidence of taking a breath. Notes seemed to pour from a pitcher, and Green somehow managed to move effortlessly up and down along the surface of melodies like a cue ball on marble.
This album is sultry and seductive and yet still swings without bringing down the house.
JazzWax note: Tomorrow (Thursday) I will be the guest of John Greenspan—esteemed host of Good Morning Jazz on KSFR-FM. The show is broadcast from sunny Santa Fe, N.M. John will be spinning platters, and we'll be chatting about Sonny Rollins, Tony Bennett, Dave Brubeck, Kai Winding and J.J. Johnson. When: 10:30 a.m. (MDT)—or 12:30 p.m. New York time (EDT). You can listen from anywhere in the world on your computer by going here and clicking "listen live" in the upper right-hand corner. See you then!
JazzWax tracks: The Persuasive Trombone of Urbie Green (Command) can be found as a download at iTunes and here.
JazzWax clip: How good is Urbie Green on this 1960 hi-fidelity disc? Here he is on I Had the Craziest Dream. That's Hal McKusick's alto behind him throughout...
And here'sAt Last with the I Can't Get Started setup...
What I love most about Gary Burton's playing is his gentle aggression. You always sense that Gary is putting everything he has into his vibraphone and taking risks to produce exciting ideas. But there's a cat's-paw tenderness, too, that provokes thinking on the part of the listener, and the result always sounds as though Gary were strumming a guitar rather than hitting steel keys. The other consistent quality about Gary's playing is that he swings religiously. All of these qualities are front and center on Gary's new album, Common Ground (Mack Avenue) [Photo at top, courtesy of Gary Burton]
I spoke with Gary yesterday. More with him in a moment.
This is Gary's first album with his new quartet, which was formed last year. It features guitarist Julian Lage [pictured], bassist Scott Colley and drummer Antonio Sanchez. Most of the tracks are originals, contributed by bandmembers. There's just one ballad (My Funny Valentine), one by Keith Jarrett (Your Quiet Place) and two by non-quartet pianist Vadim Nesolovkyi (Last Snow and Late Night Sunrise).
The beauty of these pieces and the respective solos is that they never bog down in cliches or wind up sounding like adult contemporary exercises. There's a persistent jazz-fusion fury behind the works and a cosmic consciousness—sparing the listener the relentless noise so prevalent on many albums with a '70s retro feel today. Fusion originally wasn't supposed to be the electronic version of a mechanical bull ride. It was thoughtful and mentally stimulating. [Pictured, from left, Gary Burton, Julian Lage, Antonio Sanchez and Scott Colley]
This is what makes Gary special from the outset. He was one of the early architects of jazz-rock fusion in 1967, with the release of Duster. Back then, the music wasn't preoccupied with crashing musical sounds into one another like some sorty of manic bumper-cars derby. Nor was it about high-volume solo triathlons. Instead, there was a non-blues, theoretical exploration of uncharted territory using delicate precision tools rather than caps of dynamite.
Gary brings his chamber-jazz game here, using his signature four-mallet technique to get his instrument ringing like fork tines tapping lightly on crystal. Guitarist Lage is a perfect foil, bouncing off of Gary's ideas with an acoustic esthetic. Colley's bass also is in a gentle zone—not as a relentless time keeper but as a couch-sitting participant in the dialogue. And Sanchez's drums aren't tailgating but elegantly and lightly stroking to season the mix.
This is what's most extraordinary about the album—how the instruments are arranged and miked. They all are actually working together musically and sonically. It's like watching four colors flow through tubes into one.
Among the album's top tunes are Gary's own Was It So Long Ago and Lage's Etude and Banksy. This is jazz fusion the way it was meant to be: Intellectual, democratic, engaging, conversational and always mindful that someone's brain needs to consume it.
I spoke to Gary yesterday afternoon about the album:
"My inspiration for the band was a classical string quartet, where everyone plays a fairly equal role. I wish I could say it was something I did, but the sound we produced was really a matter of bringing the right musicians together and letting the collective chemistry work.
"What was important was for everyone to fit in neatly and blend with each other. That's what you're hearing. What I can contribute as the leader is to give good instructions to the players before we start songs. If I can properly describe what I'm looking for and what the song is about, everyone will know what to do.
"But you don't want to over-explain. These musicians have a good instinct for what's needed. With them, I can just relax and go with the flow. Each musician came to the album knowing that they didn't have to prove anything. You sensed immediately that this wasn't a group that was going to fall back on the usual stuff or try to re-invent the wheel.
"When you find yourself in a situation where you're clicking, a lot of the burden of what you should be doing is automatically answered. I've had this happen only three or four times in my career. One of those bands was with Stan Getz, Roy Haynes and Steve Swallow in the '60s. This new quartet has that same kind of chemistry."
JazzWax tracks: You'll find The New Gary Burton Quartet: Common Ground at iTunes and here.
JazzWax clip:Here's the New Gary Burton Quartet performing Afro Blue last year in Vienna. Dig how Gary works with four mallets, making them seem like only two at times and about 12 at others...
And here's Stan Getz, Gary Burton, Roy Haynes and Steve Swallow in the mid-'60s...
Back when I was a kid, I lived an hour north of New York City in the country. It wasn't my choice. My parents moved there from Manhattan in 1969 for the space and the public schools. As artists, they couldn't afford a private-school tuition in New York for me or my brother, and the public schools there were coming apart.
But living in what was then a rural area didn't deter me from hopping a train to New York at age 14 to shop for jazz records. My parents didn't mind. They figured it was the least they could do. Besides, they had hitchhiked all over Europe in the late '40s, and taking a train hardly seemed like an issue.
All of my allowance money went toward records, with occasional billfold help from my mom and dad. I loved charting my record-store path in Manhattan in advance of my trips and once there impressing store clerks with my knowledge of what and who were playing. I would spend hours just looking at the covers and listening to conversations between buyers and staff.
As a result of my fearless trips, my country friends began to ask me to buy LPs for them. The inventory at mall record stores was thin—veering toward Al Hirt, Mitch Miller and Jack Jones. Pleas, requests and cash began flowing toward me on Fridays for albums by Deep Purple, the Rolling Stones, Jean-Luc Ponty, Frank Zappa and the Grateful Dead.
The problem is I couldn't carry everything that everyone wanted. I was buying LPs for me, so the best I could manage was another five or so records. Most friends understood this and complied with my one-LP rule. But one creative Creedence Clearwater Revival fan sweetened the deal. If I brought back three on his list, he'd not only pay me for the albums but would provide me with a bonus.
The incentive wasn't cash, which was in tight supply all around. Instead, he began wiping out his parents' jazz collection. They didn't listen to them anymore anyway, he insisted. With this vinyl carrot dangling, I began lugging back his albums, and in exchange I wound up with great jazz albums from the '50s and early '60s—Basie, Oscar Peterson, Charlie Parker on Clef, Lester Young and so on.
Among the booty was The Sensual Sound of Sonny Stitt, which I fell in love with the moment I put it on. After a few listens, I put the Verve disc in a special paper sleeve and added a plastic cover to the glossy jacket, just like I had seen in the used- record stores. I also cleaned the disc meticulously after each play.
The album was recorded in 1961 and features Stitt on alto and tenor saxophones framed beautifully by strings arranged by Ralph Burns [pictured]. The song choices were impeccable. Tunes like Back to My Home Town, Time After Time and Once in a While were given the silky but smart shimmering Burns touch.
The problem in the 80s and beyond was that the album was never issued digitally—except in Japan, where a Verve CD existed for a small fortune, since it had gone out of print there, too. As a result, the album is virtually unkown to most people.
Sorry for taking so long to tell you the news: The Sensual Sound of Sonny Stitt is finally available at iTunes and here. Go sample the tracks. It's irresistible. Best of all, you don't have pick up extra LPs for friends just to hear it.
JazzWax clip: "Yeah, yeah, yeah," you say, "Stitt with strings, big deal." Oh really? Here'sOnce in a While from The Sensual Sound of Sonny Stitt. Dig the Burns intro and orchestration...
In the very late 1950s and early '60s, jazz, TV and the movies merged. During those years, movies and TV shows increasingly featured swinging big band jazz for themes and incidental music—particularly action films and detective shows. The hipper the leading man, the cooler the orchestration. Here are five of my favorite albums of this genre (please feel free to add others to the Comments section):
Complete TV Action Jazz (1959-60)—Mundell Lowe
Movie & TV Themes (1962)—Elmer Bernstein
Impact (1959)—Buddy Morrow
Jazz Themes for Cops & Robbers (1959)—Leith Stevens and Johnny Mandel
Route 66 and Other Themes (1965)—Nelson Riddle
JazzWax clips:Here's Mundell Lowe's arrangement of the theme to TV's 77 Sunset Strip...
Here's Nelson Riddle's arrangement of Billy May's Naked City theme (also known as Somewhere in the Night)...
And here's the M Squad theme by an orchestra under the direction of Buddy Morrow...
Tell most big band trumpeters from the '50s that you dig jazz, and they'll likely correct you by saying that they didn't play jazz. A majority of musicians who played in the trumpet sections of prominent bands viewed themselves as highly skilled readers who added a particular flavor to the whole ensemble, not improvisers. Except, that is, the fourth trumpet, who usually played the jazz solos. Al Porcino was a first chair trumpeter, and his job was to lead the pack by playing a song's melody, which typically appeared as the top note. [Photos of Al Porcino: Top, by Jan Scheffner; left by Ken Rhodes]
Few trumpeters from this era who are around today have had as much experience with big bands as Al Porcino. Since the early 1940s, Al has played in many leading bands, taking a solo every now and then.Throughout the decades, he has always separated bands and arrangers by how hard they could swing.
In Part 3 of my three-part interview with Al, the trumpeter talks about a range of musicians:
JazzWax: Did you ever want to play jazz trumpet? Al Porcino: I suppose I did originally. But I knew I couldn’t get into that. You have to start early, while you’re young. I was concentrating on being a lead player and didn’t have time to learn chord progressions for jazz playing. I wish I had, though. Instead, I was a screamer. I made my reputation as a high-note player, before Maynard Ferguson came to the States. [Photo of Al Porcino in 1947]
JW: You played with many great bands. Couldn't hold a job? AP: [Laughs] I never stayed with one band too long. If you got on one band and stayed too long, you could have trouble adjusting stylistically when you had to play with other bands. As a trumpeter, especially a first trumpeter, you really had to learn all of the styles of different bands.
JW: What’s the job of a first trumpet? AP: You play the melody, and your horn is heard on top of the band. You’re the high note. As a result, you can’t afford to make a mistake. If you’re in the section, a clam [mistake] won’t matter that much. It’s hidden by the other trumpets' notes. But the first trumpet is different. Everyone hears him. It’s a lot of pressure.
JW: Who were your favorite arrangers? AP: Al Cohn, Johnny Mandel, Bill Holman and Tiny Kahn [pictured]. When I played in Chubby Jackson’s band with Tiny, Tiny’s Blues was our big number. That outchorus was something else.
JW: And yet Kahn was a drummer. AP: Yes, it was unusual for a drummer to arrange, let alone in such a swinging style. In Chubby’s band, we couldn’t wait to get on the bandstand, largely because of Tiny’s arrangements. Tiny was a pleasure. He was a big guy. But when he played that cymbal, you knew you were swinging.
JW: Did you know Miles Davis? AP: Sure. We didn’t talk much though. I never got too close to him. I don’t think many people did. To be honest, he wasn’t my favorite jazz trumpet player.
JW: Who was? AP: Dizzy [Gillespie], Fats [Navarro, pictured] and Doug Mettome were my guys. They were all nice guys. Dizzy was the king. Sadly, Fats died young. He was very good. Kenny Dorham, too. So was Brownie [Clifford Brown]. What made Brownie special was his fluidity and flexibility.
JW: And Johnny Mandel? AP: One of the greats. His charts always swing, and they always make sense. He wrote some swinging stuff for Elliot Lawrence’s band in the early ‘50s.
JW: And your favorite swinging drummers? AP: Tiny, Mel Lewis and Art Mardigan.
JW: You recorded with Buddy’s Rich’s band from 1968 to 1973. AP: Buddy wasn’t a particularly nice guy. He came on real strong. He wanted everything his way and it had to be his way. The funny thing is he was right most of the time.
JW: Since the 1970s you've been leading your own band. AP: I had a few big bands in Los Angeles sin. I was lucky: I had some great arrangements to start with. More than 20 were given to me by Al Cohn, and through the years I bought quite a few more. So now my repertoire consists of what I call the 100 best big-band arrangements ever written. You have to remember, I've led bands wherever I've lived—starting in the ‘70s. That includes Miami, New York, Berlin and Munich. My band in Munich now has been playing together for more than 30 years.
JW: What would you have changed about your playing? AP: Not much. I never had great technique on the horn. But many different arrangers liked how I played their music and handled the trumpet section. I could swing.
JW: What is swing? AP: Great question! It’s playing on the beat and making the right inflections to give the music a jazzy feel. If you grew up in the big band era, you lived and breathed swing. It was in everything—the music, the clothes, the way people walked. [Photo of Al Porcino by Dan Miller]
JW: What does swing feel like from the musician’s standpoint? AP: You get chills in your back. Swing isn’t easy. It sounds easy. But when everyone in the band is exactly on, that’s when swing is easy to play. That’s when it swings. You have to stay loose. You have to feel the beat with the rhythm section. It was thrilling playing a swinging arrangement.
JW: Do you have any regrets? AP: No, not really. Everything came up good for me. I had a good lip and was the only trumpeter who could play a triple high C. Me and Maynard.
JW: Who did you like better, Wardell Gray or Lucky Thompson? You played with both. AP: Wardell's sound I liked. Lucky's I didn’t care for. He wasn’t a swinger.
JW: Roy Eldridge? AP: One of the greats. The way Roy [pictured] could play the trumpet and swing. He was one of the greats.
JW: Neal Hefti? AP: Good section player and better arranger.
JW: Nick Travis? AP: A good jazz player.
JW: Bernie Glow? AP: Didn’t impress me much. Straight studio player, strictly legit. Dependable but a technician.
JW: Conrad Gozzo? AP: Goz was considered the top man in Hollywood. He was a strong player and could put some serious air into the horn. A nice guy.
JW: Don Fagerquist [pictured]? AP: An excellent jazz player. And a very busy guy.
JW: Dick Collins? AP: He also played nice jazz.
JW: Charlie Barnet? AP: He was a swinger. He was rich, so having a band was like a hobby for him.
JW: Who won the Charlie Barnet vs. Woody Herman battle at the Rendezvous Ballroom in July 1949? AP: [Laughs] I was in Woody’s band. They called it a tie—and it was. The bands had two different styles.
JW: Terry Gibbs? AP: He led one of the great bands. He took over the band that Med Flory and I had started. Terry had heard the album Jazz Wave that we made and liked it so much he used the same guys to build his Dream Band.
JW: Jerry Wald? AP: He wasn’t very good. He was the poor man’s Artie Shaw. But at least he tried.
JazzWax tracks: Fine section playing by Al Porcino can be heard on Woody Herman's recordings for Capitol in 1954. Also, on Dick Collins' King Richard the Swing Hearted (1954), Tjader Plays Mambo (1954), Bill Holman's In a Jazz Orbit (1958), Johnny Mandel's I Want to Live (1958), Shorty Rogers' Chances Are It Swings (1958), Art Pepper Plus Eleven (1959) and most of Terry Gibbs big band recordings.
JazzWax reader Peter Sokolowski notes that Al has gorgeous solos on Yesterdays from Stan Kenton's Contemporary Concepts and on Woody Herman's Non-Alcoholic, which was recorded in December 1946 when Herman was still with the Columbia label. Al's screaming pre-Ferguson high notes appear toward the end of the latter track.
As Peter points out, "Al's Yesterdays solo is just the melody, not an improvised solo, but there's a glorious, full high G."
JazzWax clip:Here's Al leading his big band at the Los Angeles Jazz Institute in 2008...
If you own a big band album from the post-war years, chances are Al Porcino is playing first trumpet on the recording. Al often was featured in that chair for his swinging leadership skills, the clarity of his playing, his sight-reading abilities and his knack for hitting screaming high notes. A trumpet section's job is to punctuate a big band arrangement, and the first trumpet always needs to be rock solid and distinct.
Al spent much of the early and mid-1950s in bands led by Woody Herman and Stan Kenton. Throughout this period, musician friends on the West Coast repeatedly told him about abundant work in Los Angeles. So in 1957, he decided to relocate there. In 1968, he moved to New York. But as big band work dried up, Al moved to Germany in 1976 after meeting his current wife.
In Part 2 of my three-part interiew with Al, the trumpet legend talks about the 1950s and why he moved to Germany in the 1970s...
JazzWax: In August 1950, you played a concert at the Apollo Theater in New York that is remarkable for its personnel. Al Porcino: We were there for a week, playing four shows a day. The Apollo was always a kick. Audiences were very, very receptive and enthusiastic. They were getting the best of the best during that run. First you had a powerhouse band led by Stan Getz and then Charlie Parker with strings.
JW: Did you enjoy Parker playing with strings? AP: As great as Bird played, the strings made him sound even sweeter. Bird was one of the most listened to of all the jazz musicians. His musicianship was astonishing. No one could play jazz on the alto saxophone like Bird. What’s more, he was really a nice guy. There was no big ego with him.
JW: You were in Count Basie’s band in 1951? AP: Yes, Neal Hefti was writing for him. There was an opening and Neal suggested me. Basie was a beautiful guy. He was easy to work for and we used to hang out and go to the racetrack together. I've loved swing my whole life.
JW: Why? AP: From a musician’s standpoint it’s one of the biggest thrills you can have when a band is swinging. Swing doesn't come easily. It’s not so easy to get 16 musicians all swinging on the same beat and moving that way. Basie was great, the original swinger. He was so relaxed. He’d sit at the piano and just play a few notes, and you’d know what song he wanted.
JW: You started recording with Stan Kenton in 1947, then joined Woody Herman from 1948-50 before returning to Kenton. AP: Stan had good bands in ’47, ’50 and ’54. But he didn’t really want a swing band. That was frustrating for me. He wanted to turn the band into a big jazz-classical thing. But he was successful with it. “Progressive jazz” he called it. Kenton did a lot of weird stuff. He wasn’t content to just have a swing band. He wanted to do his own thing and got far-out arrangers like Bob Graettinger and Pete Rugolo. They were overrated.
JW: Was playing with Kenton fun? AP: Oh, sure. He had a big following. Kids waited at the stage door for my autograph. We were celebrities.
JW: What was Kenton like? AP: A nice guy. That was one of his traits. He knew that playing in that band on the road was hard on the guys. He always had sympathy for the players.
JW: Did you copy parts for Kenton? AP: Yes, I was an art student in high school, so copying came easy for me. Copying is a form of art. You have to make sure that lines of notes are straight. You can always tell a professional copyist by how straight the lines are. I did the copying for Bill Holman’s Stompin’ at the Savoy and his other charts for Contemporary Concepts when we were both on the band in 1955.
JW: What did you think while you were copying Stompin' at the Savoy? You could hear how good it was? AP: Of course! I couldn’t wait to play it.
JW: You also played often with trumpeter Shorty Rogers in different bands. AP: Yes, in Woody Herman, Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson’s bands. Shorty was a nice guy and a big talent—but more of a businessman. He had a big house and liked to make money. He gave me a lot of work. That was the benefit of playing in so many bands. Musicians kept moving on to bigger and bigger opportunities and always recommended me. We recommended each other.
JW: In 1957, you recorded on Rogers' Portrait of Shorty, with quite an amazing trumpet section. AP: Who was on the band?
JW: Shorty Rogers, you, Conrad Gozzo, Don Fagerquist, Conte Candoli and his brother Pete. AP: Wow, that's right. We called that "fruit salad"—one of each. Each of us had a different blowing style. The contractor on that date probably didn’t really know about session playing and just brought together a bunch of top trumpeters. But our styles couldn't have been more different. In a situation like that, you show up, look around and just hope everyone in the section plays well together.
JW: This was right around the time you relocated to Los Anegles. AP: Yeah, I was pretty much finished with the East Coast and I thought I’d try my luck out West. Everybody out there knew that I could play and said there was a lot of work.
JW: What did you think of Los Angeles? AP: It liked it yes and no. The upside was the weather and the coast for swimming and sailing and a nice, relaxed lifestyle. The downside was the studio scene. There were swinging bands there, but to earn a living you had to get into the record and movie studios.
JW: Was that hard for you? AP: I did a lot of record dates in bands, but I wasn’t a regular in the studio scene—meaning guys who would be called to play on different dates all day long. That was another clique.
JW: Who got that work? AP: Guys like Goz [Conrad Gozzo, pictured], Mickey Mangano, Don Fagerquist and Cappy Lewis. It was hard to break into the studio clique. Each arranger had his own favorites. The only times I got called to record as a studio player was when arrangers wanted me for the date. Arrangers like Bill Holman, Lalo Schifrin, Shorty Rogers and Johnny Mandel. They would tell the contractor to call me.
JW: Speaking of Bill Holman, you recorded on Anita O’Day’s Incomparable—and on Travelin’ Light, which was arranged by Johnny Mandel. AP: Anita was a character. We got high together—on grass and other stuff. I didn’t get into stuff until late in my career. I didn’t use in the beginning.
JW: I've always wondered, how could musicians use drugs and still pull off those kinds of recordings and performances? AP: Believe it or not, you can concentrate more on grass and hard stuff. You concentrate on the notes more.
JW: In 1961, you were on Ray Charles’ Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. AP: Ray Charles could really swing. He was beautiful. I used to get him high on grass.
JW: You were on two Frank Sinatra albums— Count Basie-Frank Sinatra in ’62 and It Might as Well Be Swing in ’64. AP: Imagine those two together. Those albums really swing. I traveled quite a bit with Frank. Everywhere we went we traveled first class.
JW: Why did you move to Germany in the late ‘70s? AP: I fell in love with Europe and Germany on my first trip over there with Woody Herman in 1954. I was going through a divorce at the time and I wanted to stay abroad but couldn’t. The band had a group ticket.
JW: What changed in the ‘70s? AP: In 1976 I was in the trumpet section of the Thad Jones & Mel Lewis band. I was disenchanted with the music scene in the States. I had had a wonderful engagement with Mel Torme at the St. Regis Hotel in New York. We recorded an album, and I thought that was the start of a long-lasting relationship. But that never happened. So I decided to stay in Germany at the end of the tour.
JW: What did you do? AP: I gigged in Zurich, Switzerland and then Stuttgart, Germany, where I met my current wife Erna in March 1977. We soon moved to Munich, where I’ve been ever since.
Tomorrow, in our rapid-fire finale, Al reflects on a wide range of musicians and events.
JazzWax tracks: Al Porcino recorded on a stunning series of dates in 1951 and 1952. Al's four tracks with Count Basie in April 1951—Little Pony, Howzit, Beaver Junction and Nails—can be found here. Al and Roy Eldridge can be heard together in Chico O'Farrill's band in August 1951 on Dance One, Bright One, Flamingo and Last Onehere.
In January 1952, Al is playing with Charlie Parker on Charlie Parker with Strings, the big band and strings session featuring Temptation, Lover, Autumn in New York and Stella by Starlight as well as the rest of the tracks here.
Sessions with Neal Hefti, Elliot Lawrence and Charlie Barnet followed. That takes us only to September 1952.
JazzWax clip:Here's Charlie Parker with a studio big band on I Can't Get Started in March 1952. This gives you a sense of Al Porcino's muscular, dramatic trumpet sound and why band leaders wanted him in their sections. His section-mates on this date were Jimmy Maxwell, Carl Poole and Bernie Privin, and the piano break is by Oscar Peterson. The song was recorded in one take...
Al Porcino is easily one of jazz's greatest living trumpet players. In addition to playing on 342 recording sessions since 1942, he is the last known surviving member of Charlie Parker's first strings date—Neal Hefti's recording of Repetition in December 1947. Al also has the distinction of having played first trumpet in nearly every major big band of the '40s, 50s, '60s and '70s—from Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman and Charlie Barnet to Count Basie, Stan Kenton, Gene Krupa, Chubby Jackson and Elliot Lawrence to Buddy Rich and the Thad Jones & Mel Lewis Orchestra.
Today, Al Porcino (pronounced Por-CHEE-no) lives with his wife in Munich, Germany, where he has resided since 1977.
In Part 1 of my three-part interview with Al, 86, the high-note specialist talks about growing up in New York and his early big band experiences:
JazzWax: Where did you grow up? Al Porcino: In Brooklyn and Weehawken, N.J. In Brooklyn, I lived with my mother and brother and sister, my grandparents and some of my nine uncles and aunts. When I was 10 years old, my parents, who had been separated for five years, got back together, and our immediate family of five moved to Weehawken. It was the best thing my parents could have done because it was the best place to live in the metro area. There were nice, conservative families there—largely Italian, German and Jewish. The high school had the best teachers in the state. I was lucky. [Photo of Al Porcino in 2006 in front of his family's former Brooklyn home, courtesy of Erna Tom]
JW: What did your father do for a living? AP: He worked in the big Post Office in Manhattan on 34th St., so he just took the ferry from Weehawken to 42nd St. He had been in the Navy but injured his eye. I went to the Post Office to see him once sorting mail. He’d stand in front of this board with compartments with different parts of the city. Holding a whole handful of letters, he knew when he saw the address of a letter what post office slot it had to be slipped into. He knew all that.
JW: Tough job? AP: Oh yes. He would take a test once a year, and we’d help him with that. He’d ask us to name a street, and he’d have to tell us what post office was near there.
JW: And your mom? AP: She was a manicurist, and a very successful one. She also was a great cook. We always had guests for dinner, and they were knocked out by her food.
JW: Brothers and sisters? AP: A brother and sister. Both older. I was the youngest in the family. My brother Anthony was the oldest. He went to a military academy school upstate. Then he went into the Navy. My sister’s name was Teresa. We called her Toddy.
JW: Where did you listen to music? AP: I always had the radio on. My grandparents and uncles were always listening to it. My favorite show was the Make Believe Ballroom on WNEW in New York with Martin Block [pictured]. He was on for two hours, devoting 15 minutes to each band—Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Woody Herman and so on.
JW: This convinced you to be a musician? AP: I originally wanted to be a drummer. I had some drumsticks that I had made. While a radio show was on the air, I would be drumming on a pad. But my father’s job didn’t pay enough to buy me drums. So I started on a $12 trumpet.
JW: Did you play trumpet in high school? AP: Yes. In the band. And the marching band. I dug the trumpet because there were some pretty famous horn players around then, like Ziggy Elman [pictured] and Harry James.
JW: Where did you study? AP: My very first teacher was Mr. Hartman, who helped me develop a good embouchure. Later, at the Wurlitzer Music School on 42nd St., just east of Times Square, Charles Colin taught me about diaphragm breathing. If you use the diaphragm, you can control how much air and pressure you put through the mouthpiece.
JW: Which band was your first professional job? AP: Right after high school, in 1943, I joined Louis Prima’s band. He was a good trumpet player. Leon Prima, his brother, was good, too. I was lucky. Right out of high school I got the job. It was mostly one-nighters, from coast to coast. Louis Prima [pictured] was a great showman. He knew how to put on a show. I was lucky. He took me under his wings and taught me a whole lot of things about bands and playing. He was a true mentor.
JW: Did you have a nickname? AP: No, I never did in the bands. The only nickname I had was in high school: Porky—short for Porcino.
JW: Did World War II effect you? AP: I received a draft notice, but I wasn’t inducted because I’m colorblind. Imagine that. I was lucky. But I played at a lot on Army bases for the troops. The big impact of the war on me was that I was called for an audition with Louis Prima when I wasn't yet 18 years old. That's because all the older guys were in the Army fighting. And that was the start of my career.
JW: You were with Georgie Auld in 1946? AP: Yes. Georgie was a swinger. He had great arrangers, including Tadd Dameron, Turk Van Lake, Budd Johnson, Hugo Winterhalter, Al Killian and Neal Hefti. Georgie had good time and could swing whenever he played. He was all right off stage if you didn’t mess him up. He could come on pretty strong if he wanted to. He was one of the best tenor men around.
JW: What about Charlie Ventura and Flip Phillips? AP: They weren’t great swinging tenor men. They made a name for themselves. Georgie was really a swinger. He made it sound effortless.
JW: Do you recall Neal Hefti’s Repetition session in December 1947? AP: A little. He wrote the piece and arranged it. The band was there in the studio. But Bird wasn’t there at first. I think we were waiting for him to show up. We rehearsed it. Then he came running in and we made a take. [Photo of Neal Hefti by William P. Gottlieb, circa 1946]
JW: What did you think? AP: It was very fresh and extemporaneous. Bird was Bird—gorgeous. It was midnight, at Carnegie Hall. Everyone was sight-reading.
JW: You also played in Gene Roland’s rehearsal band, also known as The Band That Never Was, in April 1950. AP: That band was a joke. It never came together. Gene was a good arranger. We rehearsed in a big rehearsal studio at Nola’s. Bird was in the band. A nice guy. We’d talk baseball at a bar nearby.
JazzWax tracks: To hear Al Porcino in Georgie Auld's band in the summer of 1945, you can download the last five tracks of Jump Georgie Jump (Hep) here.
JazzWax clip: Here's Georgie Auld's Daily Double, arranged by Budd Johnson, from January 1946, featuring a rare solo by Al Porcino. Dig the high notes...
On Labor Day, we wistfully celebrate the end of summer and hope to take advantage of sales. But originally, the holiday was created to give workers a day off. The first Labor Day dates back to 1894, following the deaths of unionized workers by the U.S. Military and U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike. To commemorate work and rest, here's a list of my favorite jazz tracks and albums bearing the word "work"...
Marc Myers writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and is author of "Anatomy of 55 More Songs," "Anatomy of a Song," "Rock Concert: An Oral History" and "Why Jazz Happened." Founded in 2007, JazzWax has won three Jazz Journalists Association awards.
