I received so much email yesterday about the octet format, I figured I'd end the week with a Backgrounder by the Dave Pell Octet. The octet's arrangements in the 1950s were designed to give the eight musicians a West Coast big band sound—a miniaturized Les Brown Orchestra, if you will. Prior to Dave Pell, there was the Dave Brubeck Octet in San Francisco in 1950. And that's it if you type "octet" into Tom Lord's Jazz Discography. There were others prior, I'm sure. They just didn't use the word octet in their band's name, nor did they use Dave's tight, contrapuntal West Coast sound, which came to define the octet going forward in Los Angeles.
The Dave Pell Octet Plays Rodgers & Hart was recorded in Hollywood in June 1954 for Los Angeles's Trend Records. The eight musicians were Don Fagerquist (tp), Ray Sims (tb), Dave Pell (ts), Ronnie Lang (bar,fl,bass-cl), Donn Trenner (p, cel), Tony Rizzi (g), Rollie Bundock (b) and Bill Richmond (d)—with arrangements by Marty Paich, Wes Hensel and Shorty Rogers. Ronnie Lang is this octet's surviving member. [Photo above of Dave Pell]
Here are the album's songs, with the arrangers in parenthesis: Why Do You Suppose? (Paich), Have You Met Miss Jones? (Paich), You Are Too Beautiful (Hensel), Mountain Greenery (Paich), A Ship Without a Sail (Rogers), The Blue Room (Rogers), I've Got Five Dollars (Rogers), Sing for Your Supper (Rogers), It Never Entered My Mind (Paich), The Lady Is a Tramp (Paich), Spring Is Here (Hensel) and Ten Cents a Dance (Rogers). [Photo above of the Dave Pell Octet recording this album in 1954]
You'll find this album and many others by Dave Pell at the Fresh Sound site here.
To read my complete five-part interview with Dave, go here.
Here's the complete Dave Pell Octet Plays Rodgers & Hart without ad interruptions (dig the beauty of Don Fagerquist's lyrical trumpet and Tony Rizzi's guitar)...
Other ad-free Backgrounders in my series:
- Zoot Sims Plays Bossa Nova, go here.
- Lee Morgan: Lee-Way, go here.
- Bossa Nova for Swinging Lovers, go here.
- Leon Spencer: Louisiana Slim, go here.
- Bossa Nova Modern Quartet: Bossa Nova Jazz Samba, go here.
- Bill Evans & Luiz Eça: Piano Four Hands, go here.
- Ray Brown Trio: Don't Get Sassy, go here.
- Os Tatuis: Os Tatuis, go here.
- Waltel Branco: Mancini Tambem É Samba, go here.
- Jack Wilson Plays Brazilian Mancini, go here.
- Conjunto Copacabana Bossa: Bossa, go here.
- Ella Fitzgerald: Ella Swings Lightly, go here.
- Charles Earland: Charles Earland, go here.
- Kenny Burrell: Crash! w/ Jack McDuff, go here.
- Jack McDuff: The Heatin' System, go here.
- Horace Silver: Horace-Scope, go here.
- Antonio Carlos Jobim: Wave, go here.
- Sonny Stitt: Sonny Stitt Plays, go here.
- Sonny Stitt with Bennie Green: My Main Man, go here.
- Johnny Hodges and Earl Hines: Stride Right, go here.
- Lionel Hampton: Bossa Nova Jazz, go here.
- Johnny Hodges & Ben Webster: Cellar Session, go here.
- Bill Evans: Solo Sessions Vol. 1, go here.
- Frank Wess: Trombones & Flute, go here.
- Presenting the Buddy DeFranco and Tommy Gumina Quartet, go here.
- Ernest Ranglin: Wranglin', go here.
