The song Ladies Who Lunch was composed by Stephen Sondheim for his 1970 Broadway musical Company. The cynical power ballad that poked fun at society women of the era was sung on stage by actress Elaine Stritch and was Company’s show-stopper. [Photo above of Stephen Sondheim in the studio during the recording of the Company cast album, courtesy of D.A. P…

Read more

Bobby Scott was a fascinating and exceptional jazz-pop composer, arranger, singer and pianist who slipped in and out of multiple music genres. Most people probably know him best as the co-writer of the pop hits A Taste of Honey (with Ric Marlow) and He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother (with Bob Russell). But for the most part, he’s all but forgotten. [Photo of Bobby Scott in the early 1960s]

Scott had a strong jazz recording career that started in 1953. Born in the Bronx in 1937, Scott was something of a prodigy, learning to play the piano, vibes, accordion, cello, clarinet and bass. He also could sing. He studied music at an early age and began his professional career at 11. At 16 he began touring with Louis Prima, and performed with Gene Krupa and Tony Scott in the 1950s.

Producer Creed Taylor discovered Scott early and recorded him extensively when he became head of A&R at Bethlehem in 1954. Creed recorded him again several times when he headed ABC-Paramount’s jazz department starting in late 1955. Scott went on to record for Verve in the late 1950s and then Atlantic starting in 1960 followed by Mercury, working with Quincy Jones at the label and after Jones left to work in Hollywood.

As a singer, Scott recorded several sophisticated pop albums for Columbia—My Heart in My Hands (1967), Star (1969), From Eden to Canaan (1976) and Forecast: Rain with Sunny Skies (1978). One of his finest late-career albums was For Sentimental Reasons (1989), a superb saloon-song record that was released only on CD. Bobby Scott died of lung cancer in 1990 at age 53.

Last week, I heard from a reader who goes by BGB and sent along a link to newly posted demo tracks by Bobby Scott in the early 1960s. I’ll let BGB pick up the story from here:

“Hi, Marc. When I found the demo disc about 15 years ago, I was able to pull up on the web a 1960’s New York Times article that briefly mentioned an upcoming opera entitled Amarantha, written by Bobby and his brother, Joe Kirland, who wrote the words. The demo songs here were almost certainly written for that opera, which probably never saw the light of day.

“Several days ago, I discovered that two other modern-day operas entitled Amarantha have been produced by other composers.”

“One of the Bobby Scott songs here is How Beautiful With Shoes, so his opera would clearly have been based on the same story. I have no idea why Scott had so much interest in producing an opera based on some old obscure short story. Judging from the songs, I guess it would have been a pop opera.

“I got in touch with Robert Scott, Bobby’s son, who informed me that Joe Kirland recently passed. So the three people who would know best about the Amarantha opera—Bobby, Joe, and Quincy—are no longer here to tell us about it. However, Robert is hoping his mother might remember something about it, and he’ll hopefully let me know if he obtains any more information.”

As BGB also wrote at Steve Hoffman’s online Music Forum, The Prison Yard was released on Scott’s 1960 Atlantic album, The Compleat Musician. The instrumental Amarantha’s Theme appears to have been recorded by Quincy Jones’ recording ensemble, of which Bobby Scott often was a part of and/or arranged for.”

They could be for an opera, but my guess is these demos were recorded by Scott in 1964 for a film treatment of the book, before Herb Alpert’s recording of A Taste of Honey won four Grammy Awards and while Scott was still working in New York with Quincy Jones, who had begun scoring for films. One can envision Natalie Wood or Audrey Hepburn as the woman who crosses paths with the asylum escapee.

Most of the songs are interesting, but there are a few clunkers. For those who appreciate Bobby Scott, they are wonderful additions to his discography, whether they were for a movie or an opera.

A special thanks to BGB for passing this link along…

Let’s check out a bunch of Bobby Scott favorites of mine that show off how hip and versatile he was:

Here’s Betty from The Compositions of Bobby Scott (1954)…

Here’s Scott on piano fronting a trio playing Tenderly from Great Scott (1954)…

Here’s The Creed, for Creed Taylor), with the Bobby Scott Octet from The Compositions of Bobby Scott…

Here’s Scott singing The Days of Wine and Roses from My Heart in My Hands (1967)…

Here’s Lonely Town from Plays the Music of Leonard Bernstein (1959)…

Here’s Bobby on piano with Chet Baker singing Bobby’s A Taste of Honey (1965)…

Here’s the entire Star (1969) album…

Here’s Don’t Let It Go to Your Head, which was released only after his passing…

And from my favorite Bobby Scott album, For Sentimental Reasons (1989), I Keep Going Back to Joe’s…

In 1973, bassist Chuck Israels formed the National Jazz Ensemble (NJE), also known as the Chuck Israels Orchestra. Two years later, Chuck arranged a rendition of Bill Evans’s Very Early and asked Evans to play as a guest on the track. Fortunately, Chiaroscuro Records’ founder and producer Hank O’Neal recorded the song as part of two albums with the NJE.

Read more

In honor of Black Friday—the kickoff shopping day for the December holidays—let’s have a look and listen to Steely Dan’s Black Friday. The song opens Katy Lied, their fourth studio album, released in 1975. Composed by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the song centers on a fictional, corrupt speculator who makes a fortune on the original “Black Friday”—Se…

Read more

It’s Friday, the gateway to Thanksgiving week, so how about an irresistible swinger to send us on our way? [Photo above of Hank Mobley by Francis Wolff © Blue Note Records]

Read more

Pianist Red Garland recorded the album Can’t See for Lookin’ in 1958, with Paul Chambers on bass and Art Taylor on drums. Prestige didn’t release the LP until 1963, probably because he wound up recording six albums for the label in ‘58—It’s a Blue World, Manteca, Can’t See for Lookin’, Rojo, The Red Garland Trio and All Kinds of Weather.

Read more

The late Alf Clausen is probably best known for scoring The Simpsons episodes from 1990 to 2017. He also orchestrated scores for more than 30 films and TV shows, including Moonlighting, The Naked Gun, ALF and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Last week Bill Kirchner sent along a nifty Clausen track, Samba de Elencia. The song is from a terrific album, Swing Can …

Read more

With the rise of jump blues in the early 1940s came a new sound on the tenor saxophone that was brash, bossy and energetic. [Photo above of Arnett Cobb]

Jump blues surfaced to meet the dance tastes of Southern blacks who had migrated North and West to escape racial hostility and find better-paying manufacturing jobs during World War II. The music coupled…

Read more

Come Rain or Come Shine was composed by Harold Arlen, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, for Broadway’s St. Louis Woman. The ill-fated show opened on March 30, 1946 and closed after only 113 performances. It was a mess. Audiences expected a comedy but instead wound up with a gloomy drama trying to be funny. [Photo above of Kenny Drew by Francis Wolff ©Mosaic…

Read more

Guitarist Jim Hall and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond collaborated on six albums for RCA between 1959 and 1965. My two favorite LPs are Glad to Be Unhappy and Bossa Antigua. Both were produced by George Avakian, recorded in 1964 and released a year later. [Photo above of Jim and Jane Hall and their dog, Django, in the 2000s]

The six albums they recorded …

Read more

Man, tenor saxophonist and arranger Phil Urso could swing! And he pops up all over the place in the tastiest places. He was paired with Art Pepper on Picture of Heath (formerly known as Playboys); with Allen Eager at Birdland; with Terry Gibbs in 1952; with Brew Moore in Kai Winding's Septet of 1953; with Zoot Sims in Neal Hefti's orchestra that same ye…

Read more

By now, vocalists and musicians are surely tired of hearing me urge them to find great little-known songs to record and perform instead of tired old songbook standards. You don't stand out by following the crowd. A perfect example of a great little-known song is You're Everywhere, by Robert Nemiroff and Burt D'Lugoff, who were often credited as Robert B…

Read more

Here's Gordon's composition I Want More, pure perfection...

Read more

Few pop singers in the 1950s could swing like Keely Smith. Anita O'Day was certainly one of them, but Smith was the finer vocalist and surely knew more songs and required fewer takes in the studio. In some respects, Smith was the female Frank Sinatra, able to move ahead of the beat, behind it and go a different way on song lines and pull them off.

So man…

Read more

In need of cash in the late 1940s, Gerry Mulligan sold bandleader Elliot Lawrence a trove of his arrangements. As Elliot told me in an interview before his death in 2021, "Early on, I had bought all of Gerry's arrangements. I paid him $50 per chart. If he wrote an original and arranged it, I’d pay him $150. Naturally, I signed up the publishing so they …

Read more

Guitarist Doug Raney was one of the greats. The son of guitarist Jimmy Raney, Doug spent much of his career in Copenhagen. Doug was a hard-wired addict. As his brother, Jon, told me soon after Doug's death in 2016, at age 59:

“Doug was struggling with prior drug addiction and was on the program for a long time. But it was really his addiction to alcohol,…

Read more

Paul Smith belonged to a small group of superb West Coast jazz studio pianists that included Lou Levy, Jimmy Rowles and Pete Jolly. In the late 1950s, Smith recorded four albums for Capitol that became known as the Liquid Sound sessions. One of them was Delicate Jazz, recorded in November 1957.

For this week's clip, I've chosen I've Got You Under My Skin.

Read more

Pianist Barry Harris composed the song Lolita in 1960. He first recorded it for his album Barry Harris at the Jazz Workshop, captured live at San Francisco's Jazz Workshop in May 1960. The song alternates between bop and Latin.

Guitarist Wes Montgomery picked up on this feel when he recorded the song in 1963 for his Portrait of Wes album, a trio LP relea…

Read more

In March 1952, producer Norman Granz had Charlie Parker record with a big band for his Clef label. He assembled a stunning collection of New York talent: Jimmy Maxwell, Carl Poole, Al Porcino and Bernie Privin (tp); Bill Harris, Lou McGarity and Bart Varsalona (tb); Charlie Parker, Harry Terrill and Murray Williams (as); Flip Phillips and Hank Ross (ts)…

Read more

Summer always reminds me of Los Angeles and the thick, humid heat. But it's not so much the heat as it is the mood. Because I'm a romantic, when I'm in L.A. in the summer, I always imagine it's 1955. A private detective with his tie loosened and light-colored suit jacket off is sitting in a black Buick Century staking out a tropical-themed, one-story ap…

Read more