One of jazz's many paradoxes is that West Coast jazz was created largely by East Coast jazz musicians, and East Coast jazz was heavily influenced by West Coast musicians.
Shorty Rogers, Gerry Mulligan, Shelly Manne, Terry Gibbs, Don Fagerquist and Dave Pell, to name just a handful, were artists who grew up on the East Coast. Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Don Cherry, Eric Dolphy, Chico Hamilton, Bobby Hutcherson, Dave Brubeck, Zoot Sims and others who are thought of primarily as East Coast jazz artists grew up in California.
Here's another paradox: The relaxed, contrapuntal harmony we identify with West Coast jazz groups of the 1950s first emerged in New York on a Futurama recording session supervised by Leonard Feather.
Of the four songs recorded on March 10, 1949 by Serge Chaloff and the Herdsmen, two of them had a proto-West Coast approach—The Most! and Bobscotch. Both were arranged by Shorty Rogers, who would become one of West Coast jazz's chief architects. [Photo above of Shorty Rogers in L.A. in the early 1950s]
The Most!, written by Al Cohn, stands out. The septet led by Chaloff featured Red Rodney (tp), Earl Swope (tb), Al Cohn (ts), Serge Chaloff (bar), Terry Gibbs (vib), Barbara Carroll (p), Oscar Pettiford (b) and Denzil Best (d). Most were current or former members of Woody Herman's First (1944-1946) and Second Herd (1947-1949) bands. Hence, the group's "Herdsmen" moniker. [Photo above of Serge Chaloff in New York in 1950 by William P. Gottlieb]
Here's Rogers's smoothly arranged bopper, The Most!, which would set the tone of his West Coast jazz harmony approach...
Other Perfection tracks in this ongoing series...
- Paul Desmond and Jim Hall: Any Other Time, go here.
- John Coltrane: You Say You Care, go here.
- Quincy Jones: Funk Junction, go here.
- Art Farmer's Work of Art, go here.
- Miles Davis: A Gal in Calico, go here.
- Gene Krupa: Mulligan Stew, go here.
- Dave Brubeck: The Duke, go here.
- Horace Silver: The Back Beat, go here.
- Horace Parlan: Up & Down, go here.
- Dexter Gordon: Society Red, go here.
- Barney Kessel: You Go to My Head, go here.
- Count Basie: Corner Pocket, go here.
- Herbie Mann: Manteca, go here.
- Donald Byrd: Bronze Dance, go here.
- George Shearing: I'll Be Around, go here.
- Ammons & Stitt: You Talk That Talk, go here.
- Count Basie: Blues in My Heart, go here.
- Moonlight in Vermont, go here.
- Johnny Griffin / Matthew Gee, Here, go here.
- Jimmy Smith / Stanely Turrentine: When I'I Grow Too Old to Dream, go here.
- Chet Baker: Estate, go here.
- Jazz Studio 1: Tenderly, go here.
- Herb Pomeroy: Down Home Outing, go here.
- Frank Sinatra: There's a Small Hotel, go here.
- Bill Harris Herd: Blackstrap, go here.
- Gerry Mulligan: Westwood Walk, go here.
- Red Garland and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis: We'll Be Together Again, go here.
- Bill Evans: Reflections in D, go here.
- Ted McNabb & Co.: Mountain Greenery, go here.
- Maynard Ferguson: Fox Hunt, go here.
