History of 'Early Autumn'

In 1946, the classically inclined arranger Ralph Burns brought a three-part neo-Impressionist suite to bandleader Woody Herman called Summer Sequence. As Gary Giddins notes in his superb book, Visions of Jazz (Oxford), Herman recorded the three parts in September '46, when saxophonist Flip Phillips was the band's chief saxophone soloist. But in the 78 e…