Soon after I started this blog in 2007, I interviewed saxophonist Hal McKusick at length. Hal appeared on dozens of my favorite albums and his heart-touching tone was unmistakable. In the years that followed our initial conversation, we spoke every few weeks by phone. Hal was always generous with answers to my questions and hugely encouraging. He also provided me with a great education, steering me to incredible recordings and insights into the players. Even in 2007, Hal immediately understood the value of a jazz blog dedicated to those who made the music but may have been overlooked or forgotten. He loved that I was preserving musicians' words and stories for future generations.
Hal died in 2012, and there isn't a week that goes by that I don't think about him and listen to his recordings. I have nearly all of them, so imagine my surprise when I received an email from saxophonist John Ludlow, who hipped me to an obscure 45 that Hal recorded for the Glory label in late 1958.
On the A-side of the 45 is an instrumental cover of Ambrose (Part 5), a novelty pop song by Linda Laurie released in 1959. It was written by Linda Gertz, Wes McWain, Lou Sprung—Linda Gertz being Linda Leslie, the song's singer. Hal's side was called Ambrose (Just Keep Walking)—the parenthetical phrase taken from the song's lyrics.
Interestingly, Laurie's Ambrose and Hal's were both recorded for the Glory label (Laurie's single was #45-290 while Hal's was #45-292). Clearly, Hal was brought in to create an R&B version of the song. His Ambrose opens with a gravelly voice saying, "Just keep walkin'." The rest is a catchy melody with a walking bass line and a sauntering feel that lasts just 2:31.
On the B-side is You're Everywhere, by Robert Nemiroff (above) and Burt D'Lugoff who are credited on the label as Robert Barron and Burt Long, their pseudonyms.You're Everywhere is an addictive ballad, providing Hal with a seamless melody on which to improvise. Sadly, the single runs just 2:34. Hal put together a trio behind his alto sax, and some discographies list Milt Hinton as the bassist. That's it for the personnel.
But the piano's chord voicings on the intro and solo make me think it's Bill Evans in his Miles Davis accompanist phase. Listen to the intro, which is pure Jazz at the Plaza, an album Evans recorded with Davis in September of that year. Hal was close with Evans in 1958 and recorded with the pianist around this time on George Russell's New York, N.Y. The drummer is less obvious.
Glory Records was founded in 1955 by Phil Rose, a former executive of Derby Records and Coral Records. Since Hal recorded quite a bit for Decca and Coral, I'm assuming Rose was a friend who asked him to do the date. Soon after the single was released in 1959, the label folded. As for Robert Barron and Burt Long, they had written other songs for Glory prior to You're Everywhere—notably Cindy, Oh Cindy, by Martin, Vince & The Tarriers in 1956, and Linda Laurie's Oh, What a Lover!
I'm hard-pressed to think of another song that more perfectly evokes Hal's grace and tenderness than You're Everywhere. I just wish I could pick up the phone and talk to him about it for a half hour. I miss Hal.
Here's the Hal McKusick Quartet on You're Everywhere...
If organists were vehicles, Brother Jack McDuff's sound would be one of those oversized off-road trucks with huge tires. His attack on the Hammond was massive and rock solid, laying down a double-thick bass line and meaty chords. McDuff came on the scene in the late 1950s, when establishments along the Midwest club circuit hired jazz-soul organists to replace more expensive ensembles. The organ, with its big-band feel, was a natural to pair with a saxophone, which is how McDuff first gained visibility.
McDuff began his music career on bass but switched to organ at the suggestion of saxophonist Willis Jackson, in whose group he played. In 1960, McDuff went out on his own, recording steadily for Prestige Records. In the wake of Jimmy Smith's organ success in the late '50s, Prestige began adding jazz-soul artists to capitalize on gospel-R&B's popularity and to market singles in jukeboxes and on radio stations popular with black urban audiences.
In January 1962, McDuff recorded a superb bluesy album for Prestige with tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons called Brother Jack Meets the Boss. The title was a bit misleading, however, since saxophonist Harold Vick was on the session as well. McDuff, Ammons and Vick were backed by Eddie Diehl on guitar and Joe Dukes on drums.
The opener, Watch Out, is an uptempo blues featuring Ammons and Vick (above) together. Vick plays solo on Horace Silver's Strollin', and Ammons re-joins the group for the balance on Mellow Gravy, Louis Prima's Christopher Columbus, McDuff's Buzzin' Around and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson's Mr. Clean, a barnstormer.
After McDuff hired guitarist George Benson in 1963, they began recording together steadily through 1966. McDuff died in January 2001 of an apparent heart attack. [Photo above of Gene Ammons]
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Brother Jack Meets the Boss on CD here.
JazzWax clip:Here's Jack McDuff and the group playing Mr. Clean, with Ammons taking the first saxophone solo and Vick the second...
Flip Manne, Shelly Manne's wife, was born in 1921 in Vermont, rode horses and took dance lessons from an early age. In 1939, she moved to New York and eventually took a job dancing at the Roxy Theatre. She soon auditioned at Radio City Music Hall and won a position in the fabled Rockettes, who back then danced in four shows daily. She met her husband in the early 1940s. Today, at 94, Flip is president of the Los Angeles Jazz Society.
Flip recently reached out to me by email following my post on her husband. Fortunately, I had a chance to catch up with her...
JazzWax: How did you meet your husband? Flip Manne: World War II was in full swing, and the husband of one of my mates at the Music Hall was going into the service. He played in the pit at the Music Hall and was one of the people who introduced Shelly to jazz. His wife threw her husband a going-away party and Shelly, who was already in the Coast Guard, came with a date. After we were introduced, he took her home and came back to the party. We started dating after that. He was funny and always at the center of things.
JW: How did you get that cool nick-name? FM: When I was very young, I had several aunts named Florence, which is my birth name. They were all called Flo. For some reason I hated the name. My mother started calling me Flip Flop because I was always leaping around, long before I began taking dance classes. Eventually I dropped Flop.
JW: How did Shelly learn to play the drums? FM: Shelly's father was in an administrative position at Radio City Music Hall. He had been a percussionist. As a result, Shelly grew up in the Music Hall. At one point was even an elevator operator back stage. Billy Gladstone, the legendary drummer in the pit band, was a close family friend. One day when Shelly was in the orchestra room, he expressed an interest in the drum set. Billy showed him how to hold the sticks. he put a Count Basie record on and told Shelly to play. Then he left the room. That was how Shelly started. Then he sat in with various groups. [Photo of Flip Manne above]
JW: Did he know how to read music? FM: Not at first. He taught himself to read. Up until then he had thought he might go into sports. He was a New York City cross-country champion in high school and at some point represented an athletic club in a table tennis tournament. [Photo of Flip Manne, center, in an all dark rehearsal outfit]
JW: When did you and Shelly move to California? FM: We moved out to Los Angeles in 1951, bought a plot of land in Northridge, in the San Fernando Valley, which was all we could afford. We built a one-bedroom house. The area was lovely then—all walnut and citrus trees. We had horses, dogs, cats and a big garden. [Photo above of Shelly Manne in 1953]
JW: Whose band did he like best—Stan Kenton's or Woody Herman's? FM: Stan's and Woody's bands were, of course, totally different. I never heard Shelly compare them. He liked both very much.
JW: Shelly was on drums in the Neal Hefti recording with Charlie Parker of Repetition in Carnegie Hall at the tail end of 1947. Were you there? FM: I was. I remember that Charlie Parker was late, the band was playing, he walked in, picked up his horn and started playing without warming or anything.
JW: Which arrangers did Shelly dig most? FM: Shelly was very fond of Neil Hefti. He admired him a lot. Also, Johnny Mandel. He loved Van Alexander and was on one of his early bands.
JW: What did Shelly think about the West Coast-East Coast jazz rivalry? FM: Shelly wasn't happy with that . He was born in Manhattan, played everywhere, and thought that it was an artificial division.
JW: Why did Shelly start Shelly's Manne-Hole in 1960, at 1608 N. Cahuenga Blvd. until 1972, before relocating it to the Wilshire are and closing it the following year? FM: He started the club to have a place for everyone to play, including his groups. While he had [co-owner] Rudy Onderwyser there every night, Shelly enjoyed it. I was never thrilled with the idea.
JW: Why not? FM: It took him away from home. He did make time to go to week-long horse shows several times a year with me—we both showed—and sometimes I was able to go to Europe or Japan with him.
JW: What do you miss most about Shelly? FM: I'm going to skip that one. It's too painful.
JazzWax note: If you're in Los Angeles, grab lunch at Kitchen 24, which is the proud occupany of the old Shelly Manne-Hole. Go here.
JazzWax clips:Here's Shelly Manne on Jazz Scene USA in 1962 with a superb quintet...
Here's Shelly Manne and Art Pepper on Henry Mancini's arrangement of Charleston Alley from Combo! (1961), with John Williams on harpsichord...
Last Friday, I drove down to Princeton University to hear jazz pianist Dick Hyman perform and review the concert for today's Wall Street Journal (go here). Dick, at 88, remains astonishing. If you're unfamiliar with him, Dick is a one-man Smithsonian when it comes to playing jazz keyboard styles. Jazz, today, is hardly easy music, but it was a much tougher physical challenge years ago, when ragtime and stride were in vogue. Dick is a master of those and every piano style since. My WSJ review today says it all about the concert, so I figure it's probably best to spend the rest of today's post showing you clips:
Here's Dick at the piano in February 1952 with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, the only film of the two bebop giants playing together. They were on Dick's show for the Dumont Network, with Sandy Block (b) and Charlie Smith (d)...
Here's Dick playing the Finger Breaker by Jelly Roll Morton...
Here's Billy Taylor and Dick Hyman playing Hot House...
Here's Dick giving a video lesson on the shift from ragtime to stride.
Here's Dick being interviewed in Venice, Fla., a couple of years ago...
Van Alexander, a big band arranger and bandleader whose arrangements date back to 1936 and was best known for A-Tisket, a Tasket, a song he co-wrote with Ella Fitzgerald and arranged for Fitzgerald and Chick Webb in 1938, died on July 19 in Los Angeles. He was 100.
When I interviewed Van in 2012, he was already in his late 90s but his memory was as sharp as a tack. I reached Van through arranger Johnny Mandel, and Van was forthcoming on his role in the Chick Webb band and spoke openly about how he and Fitzgerald came to pen the song that made them both famous. [Pictured above, Van Alexander, right, with Dean Martin]
In tribute to Van, a wonderful, rock-solid guy, here's my entire two-part interview with him, combined...
JazzWax: Where did you grow up? Van Alexander: I was born in New York, on 129th St. and Convent Ave., at the St. Agnes Apartments. These were six-story buildings that took up an entire block [they still stand today]. I was born in 1915, at home. I don’t remember too much about my early childhood except that I had loving parents and a loving brother, David Van Vliet, whom we lost a few months ago at age 100. David designed the present-day flag of the United Nations when he went to work there as a graphic designer after World War II.
JW: Van Vliet? VA: [Laughs] I was born Alexander Van Vliet Feldman and was known until 1939 as Al Feldman. Van Vliet was my mother’s name and Feldman was my father’s name. I was named for my grandfather on my mother’s side—Alexander Van Vliet. My mother’s side was Dutch.
JW: How did you become Van Alexander? VA: In 1939, after Chick [Webb] died, Eli Oberstein [pictured], the head of RCA Victor Records and my mentor, wanted me to lead a band. He asked me to change my name so it would be more dramatic. Mr. Oberstein asked me my middle name. I told him. He said I should use it as my first name and Alexander as my last. So I did.
JW: What did your parents do? VA: My father was a pharmacist. He owned a Rexall drug store on 131st St. and Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan, just down Convent Ave. from what was then Knickerbocker Hospital. Apartments stand there now. My father did well. Soon after I was born my parents bought land in the West Bronx and built a home.
JW: Sounds pretty nice. VA: Almost. What started out sounding idyllic became very difficult for my father. The subway trip to his drug store was too hectic. So he sold the house and moved us to an apartment on 150th St. and Broadway. The building was across the East River from Yankee Stadium. Years later, in 1939, I was at the Stadium the day an ailing Lou Gehrig gave his “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech before retiring. I was sitting in the bleachers with Butch Stone, a reed player who joined Les Brown’s band in 1941.
JW: Were you always interested in music? VA: Yes. My mother was a classical pianist, and when I turned 6 years old, she gave me piano lessons. I wasn’t keen on playing scales and arpeggios and practicing. But eventually, I saw the value in it. When I attended George Washington High School, on Audubon Avenue and 192nd St., I played in the marching band. But since I couldn’t walk around with a piano, I played drums and cymbals. Soon I was promoted to drum major. I also met my future wife, Beth, at George Washington. I met her at The Point, an ice-cream parlor just down from the high school where all the kids hung out. We were married for 72 years. She recently passed.
JW: How did you become interested in jazz? VA: I used to listen to records in the early ‘30s and remotes of bands playing live. I was always fascinated by the mechanics of the music, how it was made. In high school I started to experiment by writing arrangements for six or seven pieces. My band was known as Al Feldman and His Orchestra. I also took music classes at Columbia University and studied music orchestration and theory with Otto Cesana, who later became a mood music orchestrator. It was mostly classical instruction, and I studied with him for a year and a half. But I was more interested in swing. All of us were as teenagers. We loved to dance. We were early jitterbugs, dancing the shag and the lindy.
JW: Where did you go to dance? VA: The Savoy Ballroom in Harlem on 141st St. and Lenox Ave. That’s where all the great bands played in the 1930s. I was fascinated by the arrangements that the great black bands of that era were playing. I always wanted to look at the sheet music they were playing. After going to the Savoy as much as we did, I struck up a nodding acquaintance with bandleader and drummer Chick Webb. He was there more than anyone else. He’d always say to me, “Oh, you’re here again?”
JW: How did you eventually speak with him at length? VA: One night in February 1936, I got up the nerve and said to him, “I have a couple of arrangements that might fit your orchestra.” He said, “Sure, bring them next Friday.”
JW: You had arrangements for the band? VA: No, of course not. I was bluffing [laughs]. But because I had committed myself, I had to write them. I went home with fear and trepidation. Over the next four or five days I knocked out two charts: Keeping Out of Mischief Now and a Dixieland classic That’s a-Plenty.
JW: What happened? VA: Friday came, and I went up to the Savoy at 8:30 p.m. with my arrangements. But it turned out that the band’s rehearsals were held when the band finished the job. At 1 a.m., the musicians took a muscatel wine break. At about 2 a.m., the band finally got down to its rehearsal.
JW: How did your arrangements sound? VA: I had to wait longer. Before me came two other arrangers—Edgar Sampson, who had arranged Stompin’ at the Savoy and Don’t Be That Way [both in 1934]. And guitarist Charlie Dixon, who also had arranged a few songs. By the time the band got around to my charts, it was 4:30 a.m. By then, my mother had called the police.
JW: Why? VA: She had no idea what had happened to me.
JW: What did Webb think of your arrangements? VA: Chick liked what I did with the songs. He paid me $10 for each one, and I went home on Cloud 90. I had sold my first arrangement, and I was 19 years old.
JW: Did Webb hire you? VA: Pretty much. I began writing steadily for Chick, and Moe Gale, his manager and co-owner of the Savoy, put me on a salary of $75 a week for three arrangements, including copying all the parts. From then on, I wrote steadily for Chick. Ella Fitzgerald had joined the band in 1935, and one of the first songs I arranged for her was Cryin’ My Heart Out for You in 1936.
JazzWax: How did A-Tisket A-Tasket come about?Van Alexander: In February 1938, Chick and the band went into the Flamingo Room, which was on the second floor of Lavaggi’s Restaurant, in North Reading, Mass., 20 minutes outside of Boston. The band was broadcasting on the radio up there three or four days a week. Each week, I’d go up to Boston by train with three new arrangements. This went on for about six weeks.
JW: So you were pretty busy. VA: Very. One day Ella Fitzgerald said to me, “Gee, I have a great idea for a song. What if you did something with the nursery rhyme A-Tisket A-Tasket? I took in what Ella had said and went back to New York. But Chick kept giving me assignments and advances to get more work done. I was up to my neck finishing songs that he wanted to place with publishers so they could get them on the air.
JW: Did Fitzgerald ask you about the song again? VA: It was definitely top of mind. The following week when I came up to Boston, Ella cornered me: “Al, did you think about the song?” I told her that I hadn’t had the time yet but that I would turn to it soon. When I came back to Boston the following week, she asked me again. When I told her that I hadn’t done it yet, Ella said, “Listen, Al, if you’re not interested, tell me and I’ll ask [arranger] Edgar Sampson to do it.”
JW: What did you say? VA: I told her, “Hold the phone, Ella. Give me one more week.” I went home to New York and burned the midnight oil. You have to understand, A-Tisket A-Tasket had been in the public domain since the late 1800s, so anyone could pick it up. There also wasn’t much of a song to begin with.
JW: What did you do with it? VA: I put the children’s tune into a 32-bar song, adding a release and bridge. I also wrote novelty lyrics, including the exchanges between Ella and the band. You know, the stuff where they ask, “Was it red? Was it blue?” and Ella’s responding, “No, no, no, no.”
JW: What did Fitzgerald think? VA: We rehearsed the song when I came up, and Ella loved it. And she gave it her own flavor. Originally, I had written lyrics in the middle part that were pretty straight—that she was “walkin’ on down the avenue.” Ella changed it to “truckin’ down the avenue”—to make the song more hip. She also changed something else, and we shared credit on the lyrics. A few weeks later, Chick Webb’s band and Ella recorded it—on May 2, 1938, my 23d birthday.
JW: Did you sense that it was going to be big? VA: No way. No one knew what we had at the time. It was just another novelty song, and picking a hit is next to impossible. It just happens. We recorded it for Decca at World Transcription’s studio. Dave Kapp was in charge. The song came out in early summer, and by the end of the summer the song was No. 1 on the Lucky Strike Hit Parade. It remained at No. 1 for nine weeks.
JW: Did Webb love it? VA: Oh did he ever. The song jump-started my career and Ella’s and Chick’s. Up until that point, Chick and Ella were certainly well-known, but not on a national level and not as crossover artists.
JW: Was the song radical at the time? VA: It was in terms of its jump and naturalness. You have to remember that when Chick recorded A-Tisket A-Tasket, it was long before stereo and echo chambers. Today the recording may sound dated, but back then it wasn’t. It was alive and fresh. And that band had a certain spark and energy, and both came through on that song. Sadly, Chick didn’t live much longer. He died in June 1939 when he was just 34 years old.
JW: What were your impressions of Ella back then? VA: She was a sweet, shy little girl, and she was that way all her life to the end. Strangely, she never fully really realized how great she was. But she was a thoughtful person. She also had terrible jitters about performing and recording, and she was always perspiring. But once she got out there in front of a mike, she was fine. Until that happened, she was a mess.
JW: How do you think she stacks up in relation to other vocalists of the period? VA: Writers always compared her to Billie [Holiday] and Sarah [Vaughan], who I thought were vocal stylists. As great as they were, I don’t think they had the warmth, diction, intonation or projection that Ella did.
JW: Did you know Fitzgerald when she relocated to California? VA: Oh sure. In the ‘50s I had a chance to write arrangements for her nightclub act. But Norman Granz, her manager at the time, didn’t dig me too much and didn’t ask me to do one of her songbook albums. I could have gone to Ella, but I was so busy at the time with film and television work. I guess you know that Granz wasn’t the sweetest man in the world.
JW: What was Webb like? VA: Chick was a pussycat. Not a strict bandleader. Some of those guys were monsters to their musicians. Chick wasn’t. He was sort of mild-mannered. The guys in the band were very protective of him because of his stature and ill health. He was a superb drummer. One of the great innovators. [Photo above, Chick Webb and Ella Fitzgerald]
JW: Especially at the Savoy? VA: Absolutely. I remember a Battle of the Bands at the Savoy in 1937 between Chick and Benny Goodman. People started to line up at 4 in the afternoon. By the time the ballroom opened at 8, the line was around the block. The Savoy was up on the second floor, and when the place was filled with 3,000 people jumping up and down, as it was that night, you could feel the floor bending.
JW: How did the battle turn out? VA: That night was so exciting. Benny opened up with King Porter Stomp and played for 15 minutes. Then Chick opened with his arrangement of King Porter Stomp. Of course, Chick had the reinforcement of Ella. When Ella sang, the place belonged to her and Chick.
JW: Who won? VA: At the end, the consensus was that Chick had won. Even Gene Krupa said so. No one could have beaten Chick that night. Buddy Rich also said Chick had won. [Photo of Ella Fitzgerald by Carl Van Vechten, 1940]
JW: How much longer did you write for the band? VA: Until he died the following year. During that time, most of the songs I arranged for Chick were pop tunes for Ella and many of them novelty numbers. I wasn’t doing too many band instrumentals at that point.
JW: Did you take a lot of heat for the novelty tunes? VA: That’s what Chick wanted. He was as smart as a fox. He knew Ella was going to sell records for him. Chick and Ella loved each other, and Ella loved what Chick did for her. Chick’s wife took Ella in hand and taught her how to dress and put on makeup.
JW: What did you do after Webb? VA: Eli Oberstein, the head of RCA Victor Records, approached me. He wanted to start a stable of bandleaders who arranged. So he signed me, Larry Clinton and Les Brown. My contract was for $100 a week. It was a great opportunity for me to start and lead my own band, which I did from 1939 to 1944.
JW: How did you like it? VA: Being a bandleader was exciting. It got me into show business and I got to meet a lot of people and accompany a lot of singers. I never really competed with the top bands of the day. I played piano, and I was never very prolific at it. I played an arranger's piano—chords and things. I didn’t play clarinet or trombone, the big instruments then. So it was hard to compete. Consequently I never made it super big.
JW: But you had a great run. VA: Absolutely. We played all the great theaters. Rising on the stage out of the pit at the Paramount Theater was a thrill. I wanted to use Alexander’s Ragtime Band as my theme, but when I did, I received a telegram from Irving Berlin telling me to cease and desist. He said he didn’t want anyone else to be associated with that song [laughs].
JW: How did your band end? VA: During World War II, the draft pulled a lot of guys out. I was classified 1-A, but three days before I was to report, the enlistment was rescinded. At the time I was the father of two little girls so I got a defense job instead and worked the band at night.
JW: How were the work opportunities? VA: In New York they were great. But toward the end of the war, the Capitol Theater in New York scrapped its stageband policy and began showing just movies. Then the theater reactivated its band policy, and the first act it booked was singer Bob Crosby [pictured], Bing’s brother. My manager was Joe Glaser, Louis Armstrong’s manager. He cooked up a deal so it would be Bob Crosby with the Van Alexander Orchestra. We went into the Capitol and had five wonderful weeks.
JW: How was Crosby? VA: Great. Bob and I hit it off. He said to me, “Ever think of moving to California?” I told him, “Many times.” He said, “When I get back to California I want to put a band together. If you want to come out and be my contractor and arranger, let’s see if we can work something out.” I spoke to my wife Beth. We both saw the handwriting on the wall in New York. The band scene was deteriorating and so was the work. So we moved out there in 1945.
JW: What did you do? VA: Worked with Bob Crosby and then with Les Brown for many years into the ‘50s. I also began arranging for television, which was in its infancy. I got in early and worked on Kukla, Fran and Ollie, which was on the air for about 10 years. I also had a few friends out there who knew me from New York, so I was pretty well plugged in.
JW: You also worked with Mickey Rooney. VA: Yes, I wrote and arranged original music for his first TV series. That was my first taste of scoring for television. I was fast in those days. Mickey and I hit it off, and I did five or six pictures with him.
JW: Who else do you remember from your film days? VA: I did two films with Joan Crawford, B-pictures—Straight-Jacket (1964) and I Saw What You Did (1965). I have a picture taken with Joan, kissing her at the end of the picture at a party [pictured]. My wife Beth later jokingly said, “Did you have to kiss her on the mouth.”
JW: Was she a good kisser? VA: I guess she was.
JW: So what’s the secret of your longevity? VA: I never touched a cigarette or a drink in my life. I also never touched a woman until I was 11 years old [laughs]—my future wife. My late wife Beth was the love of my life. We had two daughters and now have four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. I guess the key to a long life is to work hard, keep cool and laugh as often as possible.
JazzWax clips:Here's Van Alexander's 1938 arrangement of Chick Webb's A-Tisket, a-Tasket with Ella Fitzgerald on vocal...
Here's Van's 1939 arrangement of If I Didn't Care, with Phyllis Kenny on vocal. Dig the intro and how Van works the sections, especially in the middle...
Howard Rumsey, a West Coast jazz bassist who began his recording career in Stan Kenton's orchestra in 1941 and managed the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, Calif., a club that became ground zero for the West Coast jazz sound starting in the early 1950s, died July 15 in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 97.
When I interviewed Howard in 2009, it quickly became apparent that the Lighthouse and Howard's Lighthouse All-Stars had paved the way for the airy jazz sound that relied on the counterpoint of reeds and horns and reflected Los Angeles' beaches, highways and expanding suburbs in tone in the early '50s. In the days before cell phones, email and texting, the Lighthouse was where newly arrived musicians networked and kept their chops hot while waiting out their residency requirement for a union card, which allowed them to work.
To make my three-part interview with Howard Rumsey convenient for you, I've united all three parts below:
JazzWax: Were you born in California? Howard Rumsey: Yes, in the Imperial Valley, which is way down south near the Salton Sea. The town is called Brawley. It was a great place to grow up. I was set up in music from an early age by my mother, who played the mandolin. She had no intention of making me a professional musician. She just thought music would be good for me.
JW: Was she right? HR: And how. I had eight years of piano in grammar school and high school. While I was in high school, an Englishman named Horace Williams, a conservatory musician, was sent to the Imperial Valley to cure his asthma. When he arrived, he came to the high school and offered lessons on all the instruments. So I went to him and started taking drum lessons.
JW: Did you listen to records in the 1930s? HR: A couple of musicians from San Diego came down to Brawley and brought records with them. I became friendly with them and got to hear their records. We also had a phonograph.
JW: Did you listen to jazz in that remote location? HR: With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, more beer gardens sprang up in the Imperial Valley, and musicians from bigger cities began to take jobs and hide out there to avoid paying alimony to their ex-wives. I also got to hear Louis Armstrong with his big band in San Diego and Teddy Wilson in Las Vegas. [Pictured: Louis Armstrong, right, in Culver City, CA, in the 1930s]
JW: Did the Depression affect your family financially? HR: Lucky for us my father was well known in Brawley. He had a charitable program that was affiliated with The Elks Club to feed people who didn’t have anything to eat. Every morning he’d make gallons of soup, put it out in restaurants, and anyone who was hungry arriving on railroad cars could come over and have soup and then go about their business. I wasn’t really conscious of the Depression because my folks never discussed it in my presence or in front of my brother, who was four years older than me.
JW: How did you come to play the bass? HR: One day I was at a root beer stand a block from my house. Those soda stands were popular out West back then, especially in the summer when it was red hot. When I heard the sound of a big bass coming out of the jukebox there, I fell in love with the instrument instantly. At high school, I noticed there was a bass in the auditorium. It was on a stand. No one had ever played it. It was just here. I told myself I should learn to play it. I already had piano and drums as a foundation, so it wasn’t too difficult picking up the bass, too.
JW: Your first band experience was with Vido Musso's orchestra in the late 1930s. HR: I got that job through alto saxophonist Jack Ordean, who was a close friend. When Vido [pictured] hired him, Jack made Vido hire me. Vido's band played at Redondo Beach just south of Los Angeles. The place seated 235 people. Stan Kenton played piano in Vido's band. One day the band played at the black Elks Club in L.A. We were playing transcribed Jimmie Lunceford charts. On one of the songs, For Dancers Only, the groove was so good that when the song ended I kept playing the four-bar phrase over and over. Stan’s mouth fell open, and the band was quiet. Nobody said anything. Just me vamping, possessed, in this big hall. After about 12 bars, Stan started playing again, and Vido brought the band back in. That was a blast. That’s what set me up to play with Stan.
JW: You were Kenton’s first bassist in 1941? HR: Yes, I’m the sole surviving member of the original band. For what it was at that time, Stan’s band was very good. It was formed around the sax section. Stan originally had five saxes and only two trombones and three trumpets. Basically, the band was built on a sax section accompanied by five brass and a three-man rhythm section—guitar, bass and drums—because Stan rarely played piano then.
JW: From the pictures I've seen, the bass you were playing looks pretty odd. HR: [Laughs] Yes, it wasn’t an acoustic bass. It was an electric stand up bass with a very narrow body. It used tubes with the amplifier and speaker in a cabinet. The Rickenbacker guitar people made two prototypes. They gave one to me and another to Moses Allen, the bass player in Jimmie Lunceford's band. They gave it to us for free and asked us to play it for a year.
JW: What did Stan think? HR: Stan didn’t mind. He didn’t like the sound of the instrument, but he put up with it. He had a sharp new band, and I was playing a sharp modern-looking bass.
JW: How did Artistry in Rhythm, Kenton’s theme, come about? HR: Stan wrote it originally as an arrangement to rehearse the reeds. It wasn’t meant to be a featured arrangement, but eventually he worked it into the book. It came to him through a classical piece. He turned it from a classical thing into a 72-bar tune. It had a middle part that changed keys and double-timed. What made Artistry in Rhythm so popular was the voicing of the sax section. With Jack Ordean on first alto, he made the section sound like a new model aircraft.
JW: Did you tour with the band? HR: Eventually we did some one-nighters locally. We did club dates in Glendale [CA]. And we played the ballrooms in all the beach towns along the coast. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday there would be four or five bands at each place. We also played all the theaters in the Los Angeles area in 1941.
JW: Did the band leave California? HR: We tried. We were booked on a national tour and left from Sunset and Vine on a double-decker bus. But it broke down in Colorado and was replaced by a regular bus, and we had to return. Boy were we brought down. We played some dates on the way back.
JW: That band was pretty exciting, wasn't it? HR: That band completely broke the mold of the past. Soon after we returned, Stan came to the realization that it was time to voice the saxophones and brass differently. The new sound was a beautiful change for the dancers and listeners. Our music was easy to dance to in places like the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa Beach because it was well known by the people who came and followed the band.
JW: How did it play on the East Coast? HR: Terrible. When we went out on tour again in 1942 and arrived in New York, the band was hotter than hell and grooving like mad. Marvin George, our drummer, was working the bass-drum pedal so hard that that he went right through the head. He never had time to change it, so we opened at the Roseland Ballroom without a head on the bass drum [laughs].
JW: Did dancers get what the Kenton band was doing? HR: No, they didn’t go for it. They’d dance by us and look up and ask what we were doing. Dolly Dawn and Her Dawn Patrol was the intermission band. She had played there for years and played the music people wanted to dance to.
JW: What happened? HR: Roseland didn’t pick up our option. Stan was frustrated, and so were the people who owned the ballroom. They also cut his engagement down to a month. Stan was angry and started telling guys in the band not to play extra notes, just the ones in the charts. He aimed most of that warning at trumpeter Earl Collier, who played the jazz solos, and me. He fingered us, and it broke my heart. He just wanted me to play time.
JW: Did you? HR: And some. When we moved on to the Summit Ballroom in Baltimore, I foolishly got loaded and wasn’t playing the parts as written. I had a solo to play on Concerto for Doghouse. I had to play my solo maybe two times each night. I wanted to mix it up. I was young. Looking back, I’d say I was taking advantage of Stan by getting a swell head and playing what I wanted to. Then two strings snapped off my bass, and I didn’t have extra strings. It was a mess. Stan grew enraged and took my music stand off the stage right in the middle of a performance and fired me. It kind of broke my heart.
JW: You sound pretty forgiving. HR: I am. Hey, I’m 91 years old. You can’t go through life and live to be 91 if you’re going to be a person who holds grudges.
JW: What do you remember about that Kenton band? The sound? HR: Oh sure. I loved the sound. Everyone else in the band was 100% sold on it, too. The sound was responsible for giving Stan his early success. He kept revising Artistry in Rhythm and had a completely new overture each time. It was remarkable for that alone. I got chills every time I played that son of a gun.
JW: What did you do after you were fired? HR: I headed home to California. What made it doubly painful was that my wife and my mother were with me. My mother had been in the East for vacation. It was so embarrassing. I was so depressed. The whole way back on the train there was no talking about the music. We just talked about the scenery. My wife and mother could tell how bad off I was.
JW: When you arrived back to Los Angeles, you eventually joined Freddie Slack. Margaret Whiting was in the band then. HR: Margaret was great. Freddy, though, was an alcoholic. He had a band boy that brought along a valise for him with two fifths of gin inside. As a result of his drinking, Freddie wasn’t a very nice guy.
JW: In the spring of 1944, you joined Charlie Barnet and recorded on one of Barnet’s biggest hits, Skyliner. HR: Yes, I think my bass sounded better on that tune than it ever has. Charlie was a great guy to work for. He came from a wealthy family and thought differently than Stan. Charlie wasn’t the least bit upset about small things. You didn’t have to have everything perfect. The world was already perfect for him.
JW: When did you settle in Hermosa Beach? HR: In 1948. My wife and I loved it there. I had worked there 10 years earlier at a dime-a-dance place called the Hut Ballroom.
JW: Was the Lighthouse in existence back in the late '30s? HR: Yes. The place had been there since the early 1930s. It was originally a restaurant named after the owner that served Italian food and drinks. At night, they got mostly diners who were heading home from the Hut Ballroom near by.
JW: When did it become a club for music? HR: In the early 1940s, just after the war started. A new owner who lived in San Pedro changed the name to The Lighthouse. He wanted to cater to merchant seamen and longshoremen from the nearby port. He turned it into a coffee shop sort of place that was open 24 hours a day. There wasn’t really any good food in Hermosa Beach. The Lighthouse at first attracted mostly factory workers from nearby El Segundo, where they were building the P-51 Mustang fighter and B-25 Mitchell Bomber [pictured].
JW: When was the Lighthouse sold? HR: In 1948. A guy named John Levine bought it. With the war over, the place became seasonal again. Hermosa Beach had been a summertime place, growing in population by about 50% in the warmer months. During the war, the population had been pretty steady. After the war, year-round business declined again, and the people who came to the Lighthouse were mostly longshoremen. But Levine didn’t know what to do with them.
JW: Didn't he want the business? HR: He did, but they were rough and tough guys, and they could be rowdy. There was a pool hall across the alley. Levine found that he could rid them from the club by playing pool and losing so they’d wind up staying there.
JW: What was Levine’s ultimate plan? HR: He didn't know at first. He had bought the Lighthouse sight unseen. Levine and another guy owned 14 bars in L.A. during the war and never went to any of them [laughs]. They had a company that went around and picked up the money and put it in the bank. They were very successful.
JW: Why Hermosa Beach? HR: Levine wanted to live there so he could go to nearby Gardena every night to play cards. He was an addicted gambler. Levine’s brother-in-law was Art Kahn, a famous musician from Chicago. He had worked with his own band in a Chicago hotel for 10 years. Levine brought him out to Hermosa Beach with the hope that he might be able to go into the studios.
JW: How did Art make out? HR: Well, it turned out he wasn’t a good enough musician. So he became a vocal coach for promising female actresses, training them to mouth songs in movies that vocalists would then dub off-camera. He also was smart enough to assemble a band made up of musicians from the L.A. Police Department. So he had a concert band of cops [laughs], which kept them out of his way at The Lighthouse.
JW: What was Levine's first move? HR: At the time, on Pier Avenue, there was another place called the High Seas. They employed black players. They were mostly older guys who had dropped off the road after playing with big bands. Levine hired some of them, but the club didn’t do much business. So Levine had to let them go.
JW: You just walked in one day and asked to run the place, didn’t you? HR: Yes. Levine was behind the bar. He had already had all this trouble trying to make a go featuring jazz. When I met him, I asked if he wanted to feature jazz on Sunday afternoons.
JW: Why Sundays? HR: I had the idea from something I had seen with Stan [Kenton] back in the early 1940s. There were several clubs on Central Avenue and around town where black musicians played. In these clubs, I had seen people just sitting and listening to a small jazz group rather than dancing. This was a new concept out here in the early 1940s. Everything was about dancing here then. The image of people listening to the music stuck in my head. I thought the concept might work at the Lighthouse.
JW: What did Levine say about your idea? HR: He was up for anything. He just shrugged and said, “Sure why not.” But he warned me that the place was dead Sunday afternoons. He figured he didn’t really have anything to lose. So I became the Lighthouse’s music contractor. I was responsible for putting together groups. Levine paid me a salary and an occasional bonus if we were doing great business.
JW: How much did that bonus rise to? HR: Some weeks it might be five bills. That's how busy we were. You have to understand that Levine was only interested in gambling. I had complete control of the music. The room wasn’t very big, so only small groups would fit. And the guys I would get were the best.
JW: But you did much more than book musicians. HR: [Laughs] That's true. When I first walked into the Lighthouse in 1948, the only people who were coming in were the people who worked the docks or made their living in the aircraft industry. They were kind of swingers. They loved to drink and have a good time. They also were a bit older. I made friends with them by playing old standards, which made them feel the music was meant for them. This kept my core audience coming back.
JW: What did you do next? HR: In January 1949 I started my Sunday afternoon jam sessions. The musicians who played there were playing a new sound. All those lines and harmonies. Within a couple of years, the record companies started calling it West Coast jazz. They wanted to record the groups that I assembled at the Lighthouse. So I put together a formal group and called us the Lighthouse All Stars. None of my bass parts were written out. I comped, and it made me better over time, though I’m not sure everyone would think that [laughs]. Sometimes I thought I wasn’t playing as well as I should have.
JW: You didn’t tour? HR: I didn’t want to. I had been out on the road before and hated it. Once Lester Koenig [founder of Contemporary Records] started recording us in 1952, the bigger record companies started picking off the All Stars, like Shorty Rogers and Shelly Manne. The All Stars made 12 albums from 1951 to 1957, with different guys in the group at different times, of course. The All Stars became a brand.
JW: Who did you attract to the club initially? HR: Shorty Rogers, Milt Bernhart, Art Pepper, Bob Cooper, Hampton Hawes, Jimmy Giuffre, Frank Patchen, Shelly Manne and others.
JW: How were you able to attract so many great musicians? HR: Most were working off their card.
JW: Explain for readers who might not understand what that meant. HR: Back in the 1940s and 1950s, there was so much work in the L.A. recording and movie studios that the local musicians' union had a rule: You had to live out here full time for six months before you could get your union card. Without a union card, you couldn't work. Also, the weather out here was great, and many musicians wanted to move here. The place was jammed.
JW: Why was the six-month rule set up? HR: It prevented musicians from coming out and taking away studio jobs from guys who were already here. Many of the new guys needed work, so they'd play casual gigs at the Lighthouse. These informal gigs paid them a few bucks and kept their chops in shape while waiting for the six months to elapse. [Pictured at the Lighthouse, from left, Frank Rosolino, Richie Kamuca and Bob Cooper]
JW: Where did these musicians come from? HR: Some migrated out West, but most left the big bands that settled here in the winter, like Woody [Herman], Les Brown, Stan Kenton, Charlie Barnet and others. The musicians could work casual with me at the Lighthouse, and the union would allow it. But they couldn’t work in the L.A. studios for six months. That’s why Shorty [Rogers] worked the Lighthouse at first. The Lighthouse was a true jazz gig. [Pictured: Shorty Rogers and Howard at the Lighthouse]
JW: So those Sunday concerts caught on fast didn't they? HR: Yes. There was no shortage of great musicians, and audiences were growing larger and getting younger. And the sound of the jazz was changing. The Sunday concerts became so popular that I had them running from 2 pm to 2 am, with different guys coming and going. It was wild. Levine couldn't believe it.
JW: How would you describe West Coast jazz? HR: It had a different sound. It wasn’t cool, like most people think. It was between cool and bop. As Shelly Manne said, the only difference was we were at the Lighthouse and other guys were in Chicago and New York [laughs].
JW: But how would you describe it? HR: It’s the music of happy—in a hurry.
JW: Was Lighthouse owner John Levine happy? HR: He was beside himself. Because he was making money. Starting in World War II, there was a 15% state tax in California on entertainment that featured singing or was for dancing. Customers saw the extra hit in their bills, and clubs passed it along to the state. But instrumental music was not taxed. That tax remained in force until the 1980s.
JW: What affect did this have on the club scene? HR: Well, instrumentalists became more in demand by clubs that wanted to hold down costs. A couple of horns and a trio weren't as expensive for audiences.
JW: Yet the pressure was on these instrumental groups to be dynamic. HR: That's right. Small groups had to be more and more entertaining to bring audiences in. That’s why there was no singing at the Lighthouse or with the All Stars—and could never be in the club, legally. Occasionally a girl singer would come in and do a couple of tunes, and we got away with that.
JW: What was Southern California like when you first started as manager of the Lighthouse in 1948? HR: With the war over, the ports were booming, communities were spreading out, everyone was driving cars, factories were opening. There was a lot going on.
JW: How did you come up with the "All Stars" name? HR: It just fit on a sign that Levine put up across the top of the club [laughs].
JW: Who was the primary audience for the music at the Lighthouse? HR: College kids. The way I spread the word was to hold concerts at all the Southern California colleges. We wound up connecting with younger audiences and older guys who were in college on the G.I. Bill.
JW: What did you do? HR: I took the All Stars out to these places so locals could see them. Also, a lot of young people from the Hermosa Beach area came. Back in the 1930s, locals had danced at the ballrooms. When they had children, those kids in the 1950s came to the Lighthouse. You have to understand, back then everyone grew up listening to jazz—parents and teens. It was all very natural. But initially the local police were leery of the whole thing.
JW: Why? HR: With all the cars parking in the lot, they weren’t quite sure what was going on and why the Lighthouse was so popular all the time. So to calm everyone down and put everyone at ease, I’d put the Lighthouse musicians in local parades. Once the community and police got to see them and know them, everyone settled down.
JW: Did the college audience change the type of music that was played at the Lighthouse in the early 1950s? HR: When the college kids came in, they wanted a new sound, and we responded to their excitement. I was out at El Camino College several times with the All Stars playing one-hour concerts. I played eight to nine schools every semester. I built up a clientele that way. I loved to play and groove. We even played high schools.
JW: Did you know Gerry Mulligan when he came to town in 1952? HR: All I knew that he was a guy who was intent. He knew what he wanted to play and knew how to play it. Then he found Chet Baker. And they formed a group. They played at The Haig [the Los Angeles club] for a while. Then he went away to New York. When he came back to L.A., Judy Holliday was with him. She had a motion picture to do, so Gerry was right there with her.
JW: Who was most responsible for West Coast jazz? HR: It was a combination of Gerry Mulligan and Shorty Rogers. They changed the whole scene. They get the big medals. Mulligan was a friend of Gil Evans. Gil was originally from Newport Beach and had a band at the Rendezvous Ballroom. Then he started writing arrangements for Claude Thornhill. Mulligan had a whole new cool sound, and when he came out to L.A., he brought cool with him. He and Chet capitalized on that and sold it. Shorty was a monster arranger, constantly inventing. And tireless. And everywhere back then.
JW: What was at the heart of the West Coast sound? HR: The gimmick was not to put too much emphasis on the after-beat. Mulligan had such a great sound. So did Shorty. They had to keep the action going. So they kept talking to each other harmonically with lines.
JW: You and the All Stars recorded 12 albums. Which one stands out for you and why? HR: My favorite is In the Solo Spotlight. We recorded three on there with Lennie Niehaus that led to a 16-piece band that we put together to play the homecoming at UCLA. That was something I had always wanted to do. [Igor] Stravinsky had played there 10 years earlier.
JW: In 1971, you started Concerts by the Sea, a club in Redondo Beach. HR: Yes, after John Levine died in 1970, I stayed at the Lighthouse for a year. But by then, John’s son wanted to turn the Lighthouse into a blues club, and I wanted to try something new. An opportunity came up down in Redondo Beach. Stan Kenton’s brother-in-law was the city manager, and the town had just put in a new horseshoe-shaped pier. My club was on one end, and a restaurant was on the other.
JW: After 15 years, you closed down. Why? HR: I no longer understood the music. Musicians showed up with tons of equipment and wires—so much that in the end we had to put in heavy lumber just to get the stuff in. And then getting it out was even harder. The music was changing, and I was worn out.
JW: Looking back, was your jazz life fun? You look so happy in pictures. HR: Oh yeah. The best fun of all times. I had a great time. It’s hard to believe how good it was.
JW: So, what’s the secret of running a successful jazz club? HR: Have the musicians start on time [laughs]. If a guy drives 20 miles to be there and wants to hear music at 9 o'clock, you owe it to him to start on time. If you do that, the guy will be back. With friends.
JazzWax clips: Here are a few favorite Howard Rumsey clips:
Here's Howard Rumsey and the Lighthouse All-Stars with Out of Somewhere in July 1952 featuring Shorty Rogers (tp), Milt Bernhart (tb), Jimmy Giuffre and Bob Cooper (ts), Frank Patchen (p), Howard Rumsey (b) and Shelly Manne (d)...
Here's Teddy Edwards' Sunset Eyes, with Shorty Rogers (tp), Milt Bernhart (tb), Bob Cooper and Jimmy Giuffre (ts), Russ Freeman (p), Howard Rumsey (b) and Shelly Manne (d)...
Here's Howard with Stan Kenton in 1941 on Adios...
Here's Howard with Charlie Barnet in 1944 on Skyliner...
Here's Howard with Miles Davis and the Lighthouse All-Stars playing Shorty Rogers' Infinite Promenade in 1953, with Miles Davis and Rolf Ericson (tp), Bud Shank (as,bar), Bob Cooper (ts), Lorraine Geller (p), Howard Rumsey (b) and Max Roach (d)...
Here's Howard on Hermosa Summer in 1954, with Bob Cooper (oboe,eng-hrn), Bud Shank (fl,alto-fl), Claude Williamson (p), Howard Rumsey (b) and Max Roach (d)...
And here'sLong Ago and Far Away in 1954, featuring Stu Williamson (tp,v-tb), Bob Enevoldsen (v-tb,ts), Bud Shank (as,bar), Bob Cooper (ts), Bob Gordon (bar), Claude Williamson (p), Howard Rumsey (b) and Stan Levey (d)...
I had a lovely phone chat with pianist Ronnell Bright last week. As is the case whenever we talk, the conversation turned to Sarah Vaughan. Ronnell accompanied the singer in the late 1950s and early '60s before working with Nancy Wilson. As readers of this blog know, Ronnell is my favorite accompanist. I love his chord voicings and how he lushly supported singers without getting in their way. In the case of Vaughan, their choreography is remarkable. Ronnell is there in a big way, but he never steals the show. And no one provided singers with song intros and outros like Ronnell (dig what he does on the following clip's September in the Rain). Ronnell and Vaughan were perfect together, and he looks back on those years fondly.
Here's Ronnell with Vaughan singing September in the Rain in 1958 (dig the intro and chord voicings!)...
Here's Ronnell with Nancy Wilson (dig the outro)...
A special thanks to reader Neal Horwitz for reminding me of this YouTube clip.
In 1952, Shelly Manne was a bona fide jazz star. The drummer had won the Metronome and Down Beat jazz polls for several years running. But after 10 years in big bands, he was tired of the road. So Shelly and his wife, Flip, moved from New York to the San Fernando Valley in California, where they bought a horse ranch and Manne helped break in the West Coast jazz sound.
Manne spent a chunk of the year playing with Howard Rumsey's All-Stars at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach. Manne was waiting for his union card to come through, which required him to have six months of residency in Los Angeles. The lure of the city for musicians in the late 1940s and early '50s was so great that Local 47 protected the jobs of resident musicians by requiring newly arrived players to wait six months before qualifying to work. To allow new musicians to support their families, the Lighthouse didn't require a union card. [Photo above of Shelly Manne, right, and Short Rogers at Manne's San Fernando Valley home]
In 1953, with union card in hand, Manne signed with Contemporary Records and formed a septet. Manne recorded four 78s or eight sides, that were released on a 10-inch album called Shelly Manne and His Men (above). For arrangements, he reached out to the best and brightest orchestrators on the West Coast at the time—Bill Russo, Shorty Rogers, Jimmy Giuffre and Marty Paich. In 1955, the singles were brought together on a 12-inch LP called West Coast SoundVol. 1. Four more songs were added with new arrangements—two by Bill Holman, one by Paich and another by Bob Enevoldsen.
The first session in April 1953 produced Mallets and La Mucura (arranged by Rogers) and You and the Night and the Music and Gazelle (by Russo). The personnel included Bob Enevoldsen (v-tb), Art Pepper (as), Bob Cooper (ts), Jimmy Giuffre (bar), Marty Paich (p), Curtis Counce (b) and Shelly Manne (d). [Photo above of Bill Russo in the early 1950s]
The second session was in July 1953 and included You're My Thrill (by Paich), Fugue (by Giuffre), Afrodesia (by Rogers) and Sweets (by Russo). The personnel was Bob Enevoldsen (v-tb), Bud Shank (as), Bob Cooper (ts), Jimmy Giuffre (bar), Marty Paich (p), Joe Mondragon (b) and Shelly Manne (d). [Photo above of Bob Enevoldsen]
The September 1955 session featured Bob Enevoldsen (v-tb,arr), Joe Maini (as), Bill Holman (ts), Jimmy Giuffre (bar), Russ Freeman (p), Ralph Pena (b) and Shelly Manne (d). They recorded Grasshopper and Spring Is Here (by Holman), Summer Night (by Paich) and You're Getting to Be a Habit With Me (by Enevoldsen).
Manne's 1953 tracks are among the earliest studio recordings of pure West Coast jazz arranged for a small group. Rumsey's All-Stars, also a septet, recorded four sides for Contemporary in July 1952, and Shorty Rogers and His Giants, another septet, recorded for RCA in 1951. [Photo above of the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach]
What makes West Coast Sound special is the focus on Manne's drums, which he plays with a delicate firmness. What's more, the variation of the arrangements and their knotty complexity combined with the breeziness of the counterpoint make for wonderful listening. Especially notable are Russo's cool-jazz charts for Gazelle and Sweets, which have a swinging Lennie Tristano feel.
Shelly Manne recorded on 860 known jazz sessions starting in 1941. He died in 1984.
On Monday I'll feature my recent chat with Flip Manne, Shelly Manne's wife.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find the CD of Shelly Manne's West Coast Sound Vol. 1here. You'll find the download here.
JazzWax clip: Here are four gorgeous tracks from West Coast Sound...
In early 1952, money was tight for Stan Kenton. The musical experiments of his massive 39-piece Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra in 1950 had taken a toll on his wallet. What's more, the music didn't go over well with audiences, who found the classically influenced arrangements largely a bore. Kenton reconfigured his band in early 1952 and commissioned arrangements by Shorty Rogers, Gerry Mulligan, Bill Holman and others. But he needed to get the word out.
The NBC radio network pitched in. According to Michael Sparke in Stan Kenton: This Is an Orchestra, Bob Wogan, an NBC executive, proposed a regular 30-minute radio broadcast from cities where Kenton was touring. Kenton picked the songs, and the gimmick was that the orchestra wouldn't know in advance which songs Kenton would call.
The series became known as Concerts in Miniature and aired for roughly 18 months—from April 1952 to November 1953. Through these broadcasts, Kenton received much needed visibility while today we get to hear what this fabulous band sounded like in the raw on the road. Here, thanks to reader John Cooper, are three of Kenton's Concerts in Miniature broadcasts:
Here's Stan Kenton in Charlotte, N.C., on July 22, 1952...
Here's the band in November 1952 at New Jersey's Rustic Cabin (and includes the playing of the recording of Prologue:This Is an Orchestra! as well as a live Invention for Guitar and Trumpet)...
And here's the band on Feb. 10, 1953 in San Diego...
Like what you just heard?You're ready for the mother lode, assembled by Terry Vosbein, with a heads up from reader Fred Augerman. Just click the links to play. Go here.
Oliver Nelson occupies an interesting space among jazz composers and arrangers in the 1960s. While not as well known as Quincy Jones, Lalo Schifrin or Claus Ogerman, Nelson is a favorite among those familiar with his music. Unlike many of his peers, Nelson specialized in explosive, blues-centric jazz compositions and charts that could wail and moan with the muscular drama of a film noir score. What's more, Nelson played tenor saxophone on many of his own sessions, giving the orchestra a firm spine and distinct mournful flavor.
Nelson had three careers during his upward trajectory. Though he began recording on R&B sessions for Louis Jordon in 1951, his first jazz leadership recording came in 1959 with Meet Oliver Nelson for Prestige's New Jazz label. A string of recordings for the label followed until 1960, when producer Creed Taylor hired him to record an orchestral album. The album—The Blues and hte Abstract Truth—was recorded in February 1961 and would become one of the six LPs Creed released at once when he launched his new Impulse label at ABC-Paramount.
The Blues and the Abstract Truth wasa tour de force of arranging and playing that kicked off the second phase of his career. After the album came out to sterling reviews, Nelson began recording at a ferocious pace in the early 1960s as a leader and a sideman. When Creed became head of Verve following the label's sale to MGM, he brought Nelson on to arrange a series of albums, including several by organist Jimmy Smith.
Among Nelson's many side projects during this period was Fantabulous for Argo Records. In December 1964, Nelson was in Chicago with 10 musicians to perform at a concert produced by Chicago radio host Daddy-O Daylie. While there, Nelson recorded for Argo, adding two local musicians to his lineup—Art Hoyle and Kenny Soderblom. The personnel on Fantabulous featured Art Hoyle and Snooky Young (tp); Ray Wiegand (tb); Tony Studd (b-tb); Phil Woods (cl,as); Bob Ashton (cl,ts); Kenny Soderblom (ts,fl); Oliver Nelson (ts,arr,cond); Jerome Richardson (bar,fl,alto-fl); Patti Bown (p); Ben Tucker (b) and Grady Tate (d).
What makes this album special are the heavyweight bluesy solos by pianist Patti Bown, alto saxophonist Phil Woods, flutist Jerome Richardson and Nelson's tenor sax. Nelson's writing is strong, complex and varied throughout but always swinging. It's cinematic but not Hollywood. More action TV than big screen. In this regard, the album is like a distant cousin of The Blues and the Abstract Truth, with Billy Taylor's A Bientot serving as the album's Stolen Moments. [Photo above of Phil Woods]
Nelson had plenty of gas in his tank but not much in the brakes department. He worked relentlessly, especially after moving out to Hollywood in 1967 (the third phase of his career), when he wrote for TV and the movies. Sadly, Nelson died of a heart attack in 1975 at age 43.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Oliver Nelson's Fantabuloushere. If you want the full feel of Nelson's glorious orchestral music in the 1960s, you'll find Oliver Nelson: The Argo, Verve and Impulse Big Band Studio Sessions (six CDs) here. You better hurry, though. The Mosaic set is going fast.
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.
