Backgrounder: John Carisi's 'Show Boat'

January 12, 2024

Backgrounder: John Carisi's 'Show Boat'

John Carisi was a self-taught and highly proficient East Coast trumpeter who played in Herbie Fields's Orchestra from 1938 to 1943. After enlisting or being inducted into the military during World War II, he was recruited for Glenn Miller's prestigious Army Air Force Band. After the war, Carisi was a member of multiple leading bands, arranged for others and studied with composer Stefan Wolpe. Carisi worked as a freelance arranger in the 1950s and went on to teach in the music department at Queens College and, later, at the Manhattan School of Music.

His best-known compositions today are the minor blues Israel, composed in the late 1940s, and Springsville. The former was first recorded by Miles Davis's "Birth of the Cool" nonet in April 1949 and again, most famously, by Bill Evans on Explorations,Trio '65 and Montreux II. Springsville, of course, opens the album Miles Ahead: Miles Davis + 19, which was recorded in 1957.

Carisi's sole album recorded under his name that gave us a glimpse of his inventive arranging skills and trumpet playing was The New Jazz Sound Of "Show Boat." Recorded for Columbia over three sessions in September 1959, the album featured Carisi arranging, conducting and playing trumpet. What's remarkable about the album is how orchestral it sounds with relatively few instruments featured. At first, too few.

The September 8th recording date was something of a washout. Only one track out of four was accepted by producer Teo Macero—Nobody Else But Me. The personnel featured Carisi (tp,arr,cond), Barry Galbraith, Jimmy Raney, Billy Bauer, Howard Collins and Allan Hanlon on guitars; Milt Hinton on bass; and Osie Johnson on drums.

Upon hearing the playback, Macero likely felt the album needed a couple of additional horns to give the album greater variety, either because Carisi wasn't a big enough name to drive jazz-album sales or because Carisi's trumpet wasn't flashy enough.

So on September 18, the same group assembled in the studio with the addition of alto saxophonist Phil Woods as the soloist. The tracks were Make Believe, Why Do I Love You? and I Have the Room Above Her. Woods sat out on two of the tracks—It Still Suits Me and Bill.

Then on September 24, the same core group returned but this time valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer replaced Woods on Ol' Man River, Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man and I Might Fall Back On You. Brookmeyer sat out on Life Upon the Wicked Stage.

The three tracks handed over to Carisi by Woods and Brookmeyer gave him three solo trumpet tracks he lost when Macero rejected the three from September 8.

The resulting album is a masterpiece of arranging and among only a handful of jazz interpretations of Broadway musicals that elevated the original scores to something way more interesting.

A special thanks to Bill Kirchner for reminding me of the album and Loren Schoenberg for posting the full album at YouTube. Both Bill and Loren are superb saxophonists.

Here's the complete New Jazz Sound Of "Show Boat" without ad interruptions...