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Streamed and loved: Mobland S2 (2026/Paramount+)

9/11 films. Last week, many readers asked me for my favorite documentaries and filmed dramatizations of the 9/11 terrorist attack and the aftermath. I don’t know which ones are available online or not; you’ll have to do a Google search.

Here they are:

• 9/11: One Day in America (2022/Hulu)

• 9/11: The Falling Man (2006)

• 9/11: The Miracle of Stairway B (2006)

• World Trade Center (2006), with Nicolas Cage

• 102 Minutes That Changed America (2008)

• Man in Red Bandana (2017)

• Inside the President’s War Room (2021)

• Man on Wire (2008). This isn’t a documentary on the 9/11 attacks but on Philippe Petit’s wire walk between the Twin Towers in 1974. It will give you lots of up-close views of the beloved towers.

Pat Senatore (1935-2026), a jazz bassist who toured with Stan Kenton in the early 1960s before finding fame recording and performing with Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and then returned to jazz, died on September 8 at age 91.

Born in Newark, N.J., Pat attended high school with saxophonist Wayne Shorter. In high school, Pat began playing baritone horn before switching to trombone and then to bass in his senior year. After he graduated, he studied at the Juilliard School of Music for a period before leaving because the conservatory lacked a jazz program.

To read my interview with Pat, go here.

Here’s Pat with his electric bass keeping time with his hand as he and the Tijuana Brass listen back to their recording of Lollipops and Roses in 1966. Dig Pat’s killer bass line throughout…

Fresh Sound recorded three jazz albums with Pat—two in Los Angeles and one in Rome. Go here.

Spain loves Shorty Rogers. Last week I heard from Fresh Sound’s Jordi Pujol, who shared with me a video of the Púlsar Big Band in Barcelona rehearsing arrangements by Shorty Rogers. For those festival and club bookers who might be interested, email the Púlsar Big Band’s drummer, Enrique, at enriqueherediadrummer@gmail.com

Gene Bertoncini. Last week, I heard from jazz vocalist, songwriter and painter Meredith d’Ambrosio about the late guitarist:

“Hi Marc. I loved this whole piece about Gene Bertoncini! Gene was my good friend. So sorry to say goodbye to one of the sweetest gentlemen in the world. When he played on my Silent Passion album, he was wonderful and a pleasure to work with. Every chord he played made great jazz sense. I was fortunate to have him with me on that album! Thanks so much for writing such beautiful words about him.”

Here’s I Got Lost in His Arms by Meredith in 1996 from her Silent Passion album with Meredith on piano and Gene on guitar…

And here they are on The Shining Sea…

The original, the cover and the hit. Here’s Midnight Plane to Houston in 1972 by composer Jim Weatherly; it failed to chart…

Here’s Cissy Houston’s Midnight Train to Georgia in early 1973, after a few word changes; it failed to chart…

And here are Gladys Knight and the Pips singing Midnight Train to Georgia, released in August 1973. It spent two weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100…

Snaps from last week: From top to bottom, Steinway Tower (2022), 200 Central Park South (1963), former AT&T Building (1984) and the Crown Building (1922)…

We began the work week with a post on arranger Gene Roland and we’re ending it that way, too. In May 1963, over two days, Roland recorded an album in New York for Brunswick with a slam-bang octet. It would be his sole jazz leadership release.

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Looking for an endearing album to kick off autumn in the Northern Hemisphere (or spring, for my readers in the Southern Hemisphere)? Ramiro Pinheiro and Rodrigo Balduino have just released Donateando: The Music of João Donato (Fresh Sound). The record is a Brazilian gem and a tribute to an artist who remains a marvel.

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Recording a great jazz interpretation of a Broadway musical score is tricky business. Most albums flop because they lack a certain level of sophistication and excitement. To be special, they need to take the score to another level through the arrangements and jazz interpretations. Playing the songs straight with just a little swing produces an anemic result. One of the finest examples of a jazz band getting a musical right is Herbie Mann Plays The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd.

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Gene Bertoncini, a finger-style jazz guitarist who recorded extensively in the 1960s with flugelhornist Clark Terry, flutist Herbie Mann and multiple big bands but didn’t start recording as a leader of small groups until the late 1970s, when he teamed with bassist Michael Moore, died on August 29. He was 89. [Photo above of Gene Bertoncini by Michael G. Stewart for Acoustic Guitar magazine]

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Four Brothers is one of the most thrilling big-band pieces in jazz. According to Tom Lord’s Jazz Discography, it has appeared on shellac and vinyl nearly 250 times, and that doesn’t include many unrecorded performances. The song’s name is apt, since it was originally written and arranged for four tenor saxophones, all playing the melody in harmony and soloing separately, with each “brother” taking a turn. [Photo above, from the left, of Stan Getz, Al Cohn, Sam Marowitz, Zoot Sims and Serge Chaloff courtesy of Louise Sims]

The piece was composed and arranged by Jimmy Giuffre, whom I posted about last week. Giuffre used the chord changes to Jeepers Creepers. The catchy jazz-pop song was written by Harry Warren (with Johnny Mercer’s lyrics) for the 1938 movie musical Going Places and introduced by Louis Armstrong in the film…

Four Brothers first became a hit when Woody Herman’s Second Herd recorded it for Columbia in December 1947, just before the 1948 start of the American Federation of Musicians’ second recording ban.

But how did the song evolve?

According to an interview that Giuffre gave to radio hosts David Garland and John Zorn in October 1988 on New York radio station WNYC-FM, the idea for an ensemble led by a close-harmony saxophone section originated with a rehearsal band piloted by composer-arranger Gene Roland. This band was formed to try out new arrangements and keep musicians in shape after the breakup of Woody Herman’s First Herd in 1946. The Roland band rehearsed in Manhattan at Vincent Nola’s studio space above Lindy's Restaurant on 49th St. and Broadway.

Here’s the Giuffre interview…

The essence of Four Brothers can be heard in Gene Roland’s Oh, Them Saxophones, along with three other tracks. According to Jim Czak (here), a recording engineer and producer at Nola Recording Studios atop the old Steinway Building on 57th St., these songs were likely captured by Vincent’s son, Tommy, who “had a radio board and would record the rehearsals.”

Billed as Gene Roland’s Boppers, the band featured Gene Roland (tp,v-tb,p); Danny Blue, Dan Baxter, Jerry Lloyd Hurwitz and Dale Pierce (tp); Al Cohn, Stan Getz and Zoot Sims (ts); Gerry Mulligan (bar); Gene DiNovi (p); Red Kelly (b) and Tiny Kahn (d).

The songs’ recording date has long been attributed as May 17, 1949, which I believe is incorrect. My guess is it was recorded in May 1947, before Herman’s Second Herd was formed. The “7” in 1947 on the tape box must have looked like a “9,” so decades later, when the tape surfaced, it was incorrectly copied over as 1949.

Here’s Oh Them Saxophones…

As Giuffre relates in his interview, when Getz, Sims and Cohn were hired by Herman for the new band, they told him about the sound that Giuffre had developed. Herman then asked Giuffre to write and arrange a song driven by saxes for his band.

This from Tyler King’s post on Giuffre in 2025…

“In Joseph Kastner’s 1973 book The Swing Era – Into the 50s, Jimmy Giuffre summarized his experience with Herman when that tune was composed. He made sure to first give credit to composer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist Gene Roland for his role in experimenting with various tenor saxophone combinations. Roland played piano and wrote for Woody Herman’s Second Herd, a group in 1946 that included the Four Brothers: Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Serge Chaloff, and Herbie Steward. Giuffre recalled:

“Gene was in New York in the late 1940s, and would hang out at a place called Nola Studios, where all the bands rehearsed and musicians met. For some reason, there were a lot of good tenor players around, there must have been a hundred of them. The usual sax section at the time was two altos, two tenors, and a bari. Gene decided to write a four tenor sax piece. He liked the sound very much and everybody did. When he came out to Los Angeles, we got together a band with four tenors.

“Woody said to me: “Why don’t you write a piece featuring the four-sax sound?” I did, and called it Four Mothers. Woody changed that to Four Brothers. It took months before the band could play it right. Though it’s a four-tenor sound, Herman didn’t use four tenors [in that band], so it was played by three tenors and a baritone. He later used the Four Brothers sound all through his Third Herd repertory.”

The original four brothers were Herbie Steward, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims (ts) and Serge Chaloff (bs). Sam Marowitz played first alto saxophone on the track as part of the broader orchestra, but he wasn’t part of the Four Brothers.

The Second Herd personnel on Four Brothers featured Shorty Rogers, Stan Fishelson, Bernie Glow, Marky Markowitz and Ernie Royal (tp); Earl Swope and Ollie Wilson (tb); Bob Swift (b-tb); Woody Herman and Sam Marowitz (as); Herbie Steward (as,ts); Stan Getz and Zoot Sims (ts); Serge Chaloff (bar); Fred Otis (p); Gene Sargent (g); Walter Yoder (b); Don Lamond (d) and Jimmy Giuffre (arr).

Here’s the Herman hit…

A month later, in January 1948, Harry Babasin and His Potential Philharmonics were recorded by the Air Forces Radio Service performing Four Brothers live, with Giuffre, at McCormack Hospital in Pasadena, Calif. The septet: Dale Pierce (tp); Herbie Harper (tb); Hal McKusick (as); Jimmy Giuffre (ts,arr); unknown (p); Harry Babasin (b); and Blinky Garner (d).

For years, this recording by Babasin never turned up when I typed his name into YouTube along with the song title. After doing some digging into Giuffre’s discography, I discovered that Four Brothers had been added in 1983 to Jimmy Giuffre Trios 1957-’58 (Raretone, a UK label). It’s probably the purest version of the song, with McKusick and Giuffre.

Here’s the track…

And finally, what might be the best version of all, here’s Four Rich Brothers by the Buddy Rich Band (with Giuffre and Hal) recorded in October 1948. The band: Dale Pierce, Charlie Walp and Tommy Allison (tp); Mario Daone, Rob Swope and Bob Ascher (tb); Hal McKusick (as); Jimmy Giuffre, Ben Lary and Warne Marsh (ts); Harvey Lavine (bar); Jerry Schwartz (p); Teddy Kotick (b) and Buddy Rich (d). My guess is that it was the barn-burner that Giuffre had long envisioned…

Bonus: Here’s Marian McPartland with Vinnie Burke (b) and Joe Morello (d) in 1953….

Here’s a rare single on Avalon recorded in 1955 by the Dave Lambert Singers with Jon Hendricks singing his lyrics to Giuffre’s Four Brothers. Part 1 is followed by Part 2 (a slow start on both; stick with it)…

Here are three of the original four brothers (with Al Cohn in for Stan Getz) reprising the song in 1957…

Here’s Art Pepper on his Plus Eleven album in 1959, with Al Porcino and Jack Sheldon (tp), Dick Nash (tb), Vince DeRosa (fhr), Art Pepper and Charlie Kennedy (as), Bob Enevoldsen and Richie Kamuca (ts), Med Flory (bar), Vince DeRosa (fhr), Russ Freeman (p), Joe Mondragon (b), Mel Lewis (d) and Marty Paich (cond)…

Here’s Anita O’Day in a Tokyo studio in 1963 scatting through Four Brothers…

And here’s Stan Getz, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims and Gerry Mulligan at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1966.

That morning, my brother called just before 9. I was preparing for a meeting in Midtown a few hours later with clients from Ernst & Young, the accounting firm, to go over the galleys for my book on the new tax law. “Where are you?,” my brother said. “Sitting in my kitchen, why?” “Turn around.” Looking straight through my living room out over Upper West Side buildings to southern Manhattan, I could see a charcoal cloud rising in the distance. “What’s that?,” I asked. “A plane just hit one of the Twin Towers.” [Photos above and below by Marc Myers]

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One of West Coast jazz’s forgotten heroes was composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Jimmy Giuffre. He played tenor and baritone saxophones and clarinet, and became famous after composing and arranging Four Brothers, a huge hit for Woody Herman’s Second Herd in 1948. We have alto saxophonist and clarinetist Hal McKusick to thank for Giuffre’s rise and recordings in the 1950s and beyond. As Hal told me in 2007 [photo above of Jimmy Giuffre]…

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Cassandra Wilson, a husky-voiced, meditative jazz singer and songwriter who took on music from many different genres, processing them through a soulful, studied approach, died on Sept. 1 at age 70. The cause of death was not disclosed. [Photo above of Cassandra Wilson courtesy of the National Endowment for the Arts and photo by Mark Seliger]

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The only jazz ensemble size that’s better than an octet is a tentet. The reason for this brash statement is that only a masterful arranger with a strong sense of swing would dare write for a group of this tight size, and only top-notch musicians would be recruited to play them. [Photo above of Phil Norman]

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The alto saxophone is probably the only instrument that can be placed on a sound scale ranging from sour to sweet. On this sliding scale, top jazz musicians who played the horn can be lodged at different points, depending on their tone. For example, Ornette Coleman and Cannonball Adderley land in the sour range while Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter would be deep in the sweet zone.

Jackie McLean’s attack has always rested largely in the mildly sour region, though it has shifted around at different points during his career. For example, on the 1951 recording of Dig with Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, McLean had a relatively smooth sound with a slight edge. Moving forward, he leaned into a lively sour tone on his albums in the late 1950s and ‘60s.

McLean’s Vertigo shows off this shard-like sound and his deft, bluesy technique. One of the six tracks on the LP was recorded in 1959 while the other five were captured in 1963. The music remained unreleased on vinyl until 1980 and didn’t turn up on CD until 2000. The late Michael Cuscuna, the re-issue producer at the time, discovered these tracks as he mined Blue Note’s archives. Why was the album held up? He offered an explanation:

“Like so many other sessions, it is impossible to ascertain why the date was not issued in its time. But it is clear that the answer probably lies in Vertigo and what it foreshadowed. If Jackie was in the studio two months later recording One Step Beyond, that certainly made this session obsolete on an immediate level, even if its value is timeless in the long range scheme of things.”

In other words, too much of a good thing. Marney, Dusty Foot, Vertigo, Cheers and Yams were recorded in February 1963 and featured Donald Byrd (tp), Jackie McLean (as), Herbie Hancock (p), Butch Warren (b) and Tony Williams (d).

Formidable was recorded in May 1959 and featured Byrd (tp), McLean (as), Walter Davis Jr. (p), Paul Chambers (b) and Pete La Roca (d).

Donald Byrd wrote Marney and Dusty Foot, and Formidable was by Davis Jr., followed by Vertigo and Cheers by McLean. The last song, Yams, was by Hancock.

Byrd and McLean loved recording together. They produced a marvelous textured contrast to Byrd’s warm, fluid trumpet and McLean’s anxious alto saxophone. They began recording together on Live! at the Cafe Bohemia: The George Wallington Quintet in 1955, followed by seven albums for Prestige between 1956 and ‘57.

What’s remarkable about Vertigo are the first five compositions, which are sophisticated and sound difficult to play perfectly. Yet McLean and Byrd pull them off with ease and grace. The final track on the LP, Yams, is a walking blues.

Vertigo has just been released on a gatefold LP by Blue Note as part of its Tone Poet series, cut directly from the album’s analog tapes, remastered by Kevin Gray and stamped on 180-gram vinyl. The sound is big and distinct, and McLean’s vinegary tone is rich.

You can buy Jackie McLean’s Vertigo by going here.

Jackie McLean died in 2006 at age 74 after a long illness.

Here’s Cheers…

“Little” Jimmy Scott was an R&B vocalist with a high contralto voice who specialized in deeply sensitive ballads. Kallmann syndrome, a rare genetic disorder, held his height at 4 feet 11 inches until he was 37, when he grew by 8 inches. The syndrome prevented him from reaching classic puberty, leaving him with a high voice and unusual timbre, which he put to good use. Now the Modern Harmonic label has re-issued 24-bit remastering of Doesn’t Love Mean More? for a digital download and vinyl release. It’s a tender, touching work that is a must-listen.

The album was recorded in 1990 and self-released by Scott on his J’s Way Records. He was backed by the Jazz Expressions: Kenichi Shimazu (p), Alvin Flythe Jr. (ts), Hilliard Greene (b) and Brian Kirk (d). Scott and the quartet are superb.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1925, Scott learned to sing at his mother’s side when she played piano and then sang at his family church’s choir. Then his mother was killed by a drunk driver when he was 13, leaving him orphaned.

Scott sang professionally locally until and was hired by Lionel Hampton in the late 1940s, landing an R&B hit in 1949 with Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool. As Scott’s visibility grew with bands and labels, he was cheated out of credit and royalties, and exploited by Herman Lubinsky, the founder of Savoy Records. Albums recorded were shelved and left unreleased for decades.

When his career bottomed in the 1960s, Scott returned to Cleveland and worked as a hospital orderly, shipping clerk, and elevator operator. Singing at the funeral of songwriter Doc Pomus in 1991 led immediately to singing Sycamore Trees in the final episode of TV’s Twin Peaks. Lou Reed had him sing backup on the song Power and Glory.

Scott has been praised by a long list of singers who admired his sensitivity and all-in singing style as well as his unusual phrasing. These artists include Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Nancy Wilson, Madonna, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder.

On Doesn’t Love Mean More?, Scott sings originals and obscure ballads with a top-notch jazz quartet. His tenderness and passion on songs are both startling and addictive. As Nancy Wilson told me during my interview with her in 2010:

JW: How did you learn to sing?

NW: I listened to the radio a great deal and heard a lot of male singers. My dad listened quite a bit to records by singers like "Little" Jimmy Scott, Billy Eckstine and Nat Cole.

JW: Which pop singer taught you the most about phrasing?

NW: “Little” Jimmy Scott. I used to love how he made one word sound like three, just bending the notes. I heard him when I was 10, when he was with Lionel Hampton’s band. Jimmy is from Cleveland, and my father owned Scott’s early records, like The Show Must Go On and Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool.

JW: You two share an artistic closeness, don’t you?

NW: Oh, yes. We are very much soulmates as far as the lyric and delivering them is concerned. In 1966, I recorded a song that I had never heard Jimmy sing. It was I Wish I Didn’t Love You So. When I finally heard his 1962 version some years later, I realized that our intros and first 15 bars were identical. We had approached the song the exact same way. We feel the same way about songs.

JW: And you both have that deep passion.

NW: Oh yes.

The beauty of Jimmy Scott was that he could squeeze every last tear out of a song and gave new meaning and intimacy to ballads through his solid understanding of jazz. If you let him in, he’ll change your life.

Jimmy Scott died in his sleep in 2014. He was 88.

To listen to and download “Little” Jimmy Scott’s Doesn’t Love Mean More?, go here. To buy the album on vinyl, go here.

To read my complete interview with Nancy Wilson, go here.

Here’s I’ll Love You Just the Same from the album Doesn’t Love Mean More?…

Here’s Scott with Lionel Hampton singing Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool in 1950…

Here’s Scott in 1955 singing When Did You Leave Heaven? backed by Budd Johnson (ts), Howard Biggs (p,arr), Mundell Lowe (g), Charles Mingus (b) and Rudy Nichols (d)…

From the same session, here’s Scott singing Everybody Needs Somebody…

Here’s Scott singing Address Unknown in 1958…

Here’s Scott singing Our Day Will Come from his 1970 album The Source…

Here he is live in Japan; watch what he does to the audience there…

Here’s Scott in Umbria, Italy, in 2001…

Here he is in 2013 with actor Joe Pesci while making the 2016 documentary I Go Back Home…

Here’s the documentary’s trailer. It is currently unavailable to stream, rent or buy on any major online platforms. The tracks were released as an album…

Because I interview Hollywood stars all week, I have to do a ton of research on each one. That means reading memoirs and past interviews and watching their movies and TV series. Someone asked me recently what I watch each night for fun before turning in? I’m almost ashamed to tell you, but I will. [Photo above of the Empire State Building and photos below by Marc Myers]

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Bobby Flay is an Emmy-winning celebrity chef, cookbook author and restaurateur. He stars in the Food Network’s Bobby’s Triple Threat and the new series Bobby Flay’s The Line. He spoke with Marc Myers. [Photo above of Bobby Flay in New York courtesy of the Food Network]

My earliest inspiration for preparing food in the kitchen was making deviled eggs with…

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Adam Scott is an actor known for TV’s Severance, Big Little Lies and Parks and Recreation. He stars in the films Hokum and The Whisper Man on Netflix. He spoke with Marc Myers. [Photo of Adam Scott in Austin, Texas, in March 2026 by Robby Klein/Getty Images]

The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in California was exciting when I was growing up—but not for the r…

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A number of the George Shearing Quintet’s Capitol albums recorded in the 1950s and early ‘60s were in the easy-listening groove. These LPs were given suitable titles, like Latin Velvet Satin With Even More Satin. Just kidding, of course, but you get the drift.

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In the early 1960s, there was no shortage of spectacular hard-bop trumpeters recording for Blue Note. So what set Blue Mitchell apart from, say, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Donald Byrd and Kenny Dorham? Unlike his peers, Mitchell’s tone had less heat and sizzle. Instead, he played in a clear, round, breezy style that was fluid and warm. A perfect example of his approach can be heard on The Thing to Do, a perfect album that has just been reissued as part of Blue Note’s Audiophile Vinyl series. The sound is sterling.

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If you’re reading this post, you belong to a special club. People who love jazz share more than camaraderie and a fondness for individual albums or musicians. Jazz fans absorb and process the music in ways most people don’t understand or find difficult to do.

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In June 1954, Thelonious Monk traveled to Paris for the first time. He was there to perform leading a trio at the Salle Pleyel concert hall on the 1st and 3rd as part of the Paris Jazz Festival. Then on the 4th, he recorded on piano without bass and drums for the first time. The solo recording sessions took place at Club d’Essai, at 37 rue de l’Université, on the city’s Left Bank. The club doubled as a studio. Now, Sam Records in Paris has re-issued the 10-inch 33-1/3 LP remastered from the original tapes. [Photo above of Thelonious Monk in Paris in 1954]

During the studio taping for radio broadcast, Monk played Manganese (We See), Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Portrait of an Ermite (Reflections), Off Minor, Eronel, Round Midnight, Evidence (Reflections), Well You Needn’t and Hackensack.

What we hear is a doe-like Monk in the glade, all by himself, taking each song in a measured tempo with a light touch on the keyboard. All of these are exceptional, gentle renditions featuring abstraction and tenderness. It’s an ideal entry point for Monk, since you hear him in the raw, fascinated by his own interpretations.

Sam Records is a non-profit independent jazz label founded in Paris in 2011 by Fred Thomas. Sam is devoted to reissuing jazz records recorded and produced in France during the 1950s and ‘60s. The Monk re-issue was cut by Kevin Gray and pressed by Optimal in Germany. It also features the original front and rear jacket covers.

The Monk album was released in 1954 on the Swing and Vogue labels as a partnership. Swing was founded in 1937 by Hugues Panassié and Charles Delaunay through the activities of the Hot Club de France. Vogue was founded in Paris in 1947 by Léon Cabat and Delaunay.

To buy the album, go here.

Also released by Sam is Des femmes disparaissent, the 10-inch soundtrack album for the French film of the same name by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Recorded in Paris in 1958, it was originally released on the French Fontana label and featured Art Blakey (d,ldr), Lee Morgan (tp), Benny Golson (ts), Bobby Timmons (p) and Jymie Merritt (b).

To buy the Blakey record, go here.

Let’s listen to the solo tracks by Monk in Paris in 1954 that are on the new vinyl release…

Here’s ‘Round About Midnight…

Here’s Reflections…

Here’s Smoke Gets in Your Eyes…

Here’s Well You Needn’t…

Here’s Portrait of an Ermite…

Here’s Maganese (We See)…

Here’s Eronel…

And here’s Off Minor…

And here are tracks that didn’t make it onto the 1954 LP…

Here’s Evidence (Reflections)…

And here’s Hackensack…

Ask 100 jazz fans who Calvin Massey was and most will draw a blank. Massey began as a jazz trumpeter and arranger, recording just one leadership album, Blues to Coltrane, for Candid, in 1961. Among his early compositions was Fiesta, recorded by Charlie Parker in 1951. Others were recorded in the 1950s, but the bulk came in the 1960s. His songs have been recorded by a wide range of artists, from John Coltrane and Lee Morgan to McCoy Tyner and Archie Shepp. [Photo above of Cal Massey]

Born in Philadelphia in 1928, Massey played trumpet and studied with trumpeter Freddie Webster, an early influence on Miles Davis. Massey played in bands led by Jay McShann and Jimmy Heath, and behind Billie Holiday. In the 1950s, he gigged mostly in Brooklyn and recorded on George Shearing’s Satin Brass in 1959, a Capitol LP arranged by George Shearing, Hal Rood and Jimmy Jones.

His compositions have been recorded by musicians on Prestige and Blue Note as well as by Philly Joe Jones, Horace Tapscott and Archie Shepp, among others. He toured with Shepp from 1969 until 1972, when he died of heart attack at age 44.

Massey’s songs were highly melodic and often modal, becoming ferocious vehicles for hard-bop musicians. When you hear one, the melody is often so catchy you likely wonder who wrote it. And when you find out, you probably have wondered what else he composed.

I put together 18 of Massey’s songs:

Here’s Charlie Parker playing Massey’s Fiesta, recorded in 1951 and released in 1957 on a Verve album of the same name…

Here’s John Coltrane playing Bakai from Coltrane, his first leadership album, for Prestige, in 1957…

Here’s Herbie Mann playing Trinidad from Just Wailin’ in 1958…

Here’s Nakatini Serenade by John Coltrane from The Believer on Prestige in 1958…

Here’s Lee Morgan playing These Are Soulful Days on his Lee-Way album for Blue Note in 1960…

Here’s Coltrane playing The Damned Don’t Cry, arranged by Romulus Franceschini for Coltrane’s Africa/Brass sessions in 1961 and released on Trane’s Modes in 1979…

Here’s Father and Son for Freddie Hubbard’s Here to Stay on Blue Note in 1962…

Here’s Lee Morgan playing A Pilgrim’s Funny Farm for his The Rajah (Blue Note) in 1966…

Here’s Lee Morgan playing A Baby’s Smile from his Caramba! album in 1968…

Here’s Lee Morgan playing Taru, What’s Wrong With You? from his album Taru in 1968…

Here’s Cedar Walton playing Quiet Dawn from his Soul Cycle album in 1970…

Here’s Cedar Walton playing Lady Charlotte from his Spectrum album in 1968…

Here’s Houston Person playing Funky London from his Blue Odyssey album in 1968…

Here’s Jackie McLean playing Toyland from his Demon’s Dance album in 1970

Here’s McLean on the same album playing Message From Trane…

Here’s McCoy Tyner playing I Thought I’d Let You Know from his Expansions album in 1970…

Here’s Archie Shepp playing The Cry of My People from his album of the same name in 1973…

Bonus: Here’s Cal Massey’s sole leadership album in 1961 (left unreleased until 1987)…