Saturday, March 29, 2014

Ruud Breuls on Jazz Trumpet

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


Unless they are talking to another musician who plays the same instrument about it, you don’t often hear explanations about why a musician picks one “axe” [musician speak for instrument] over another.

I mean, you may run across some lame magazine advertisement which claims that Ricky Rocket plays Bang-Away drums because of their “Explosiveness!,” or Super-Swift Stephens only uses custom, Broom Brushes because “they sweep away all before them” or Bronco Billy of the rock group Bandana uses Buck Firth’s titanium drums sticks exclusively as “they never break,” but rarely do you hear coherent explanations such as the following one that Ruud Breuls provides for his choice of Eclipse trumpets.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought we’d use Ruud’s comments as an example of how and why a musician chooses what instrument to play and as a vehicle for saying a few words about one of our favorite Jazz trumpeters.

Ruud seems to be everywhere on the Dutch Jazz scene these days. I first heard him as a member of The Metropole Jazz Orchestra and Big Band, but he also performs with the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw, the Dutch Jazz Orchestra, the Cubop City Big Band, the Timeless Jazz Orchestra and The Beets Brothers Orchestra.

At the conclusion of Ruud’s testimonial on behalf of Eclipse trumpets, you’ll find a video with a sampling of his work in a performance by him of a Vince Mendoza arrangement of Richard Rodgers’ It Never Entered My Mind. Ruud is backed by The Metropole Orchestra with Vince Mendoza conducting.

© -Eclipse Trumpets, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“When I visited Leigh and John, I played about 20 eclipse trumpets. All of them felt nice so it was hard to find the most suitable for me. With great help from Noel Langley I picked out 2 trumpets, both with some different character. I finally decided that the MEDIUM RED was the best trumpet for me, because of the crossover situations from playing jazz-solo's to the orchestral section playing, which I do in the Metropole orchestra.

The MEDIUM RED really plays just like the description of it on the Eclipse website! You can manipulate any character you want, from edgy to warmth and depth in the sound, together with unbelievable power. I used to play my Bach for many years, but the eclipse just takes away the typical limits of the Bach, and challenges you to bring out your personal sound!! This trumpet has already given me unbelievable experiences in joy and surprise in what comes out in any situation!

The eclipse flugelhorn is the best flugelhorn I ever played on. I honesty never thought that I ever would leave my beloved Cuesnon, till Leigh came with the Eclipse. The sound has such a great stability in all registers, and the tuning is just fantastic, it stays so good above the middle G to the C, fantastic!! All my friends and colleagues say the same, they know my playing on the Cuesnon, but all of them like me to play the Eclipse, it's just better, with the same beautiful compactness of sound and personality!

I think a trumpet and flugelhorn that can make a player able to bring out a personal message, within any musical situation, is the most important thing they can have. Leigh and John make such instruments, all of them have it, all of them are technically great, and all of them have a superb finish!

Thank you Leigh and John for your great instruments!!
- Ruud Breuls

Ruud Breuls has been playing with the Metropole Orchestra for 10 years now, playing the solo jazz trumpet chair; he is also teaching jazz trumpet at the conservatory of Amsterdam. For over twenty years Ruud has been playing with the Stylus Horns, the best known horn section playing with all major Dutch artists. He is also a member of The Dutch Jazz Orchestra and The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw. Finally, Ruud plays in two jazz quintets.”

Friday, March 28, 2014

The Modern Jazz Quartet: A Reprise

The editorial staff of JazzProfiles thought it would be fun to reprise this piece on The Modern Jazz Quartet [Milt Jackson, vibes, John Lewis, piano, Percy Heath, bass, Connie Kay, drums] so that we might add to its conclusion a video with the group performing Milt's "Bluesology" with Orchester Kurt Edelhagen on November 9, 1956, in Baden-Baden, Germany from the recently released JazzHaus CD entitled The Modern Jazz Quartet in Germany 1956-1958: The Lost Tapes [101731].

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


The MJQ, as it is universally known, is an incredible delight to listen to. John Lewis (…) the scholarly, soft-spoken, diffident music director of the group, plays what sounds like a simple style of piano. Be not deceived.

His col­league Milt Jackson reigns as the most powerful voice on vibraharp in jazz, with a bluesy style and chromatic fluency that prompted someone to dub him the Steel Bender. John accompanies him in a spare, delicate counterpoint rather than the chordal style common to bebop. Some­times John will play, say, two or three select notes behind a passage. They are the per­fect two or three notes, expressions of the man's exquisite taste and unfaltering musicality.

Percy Heath (…) is a powerfully rhythmic bassist, again one of those players who produces exactly the right notes. Connie Kay's style on drums is unlike that of anyone else: you can rec­ognize it on a record immediately. It is a rather soft style, and he has a way of set­ting up an almost lacey sound with brushes on cymbal that, for all its delicacy, swings strongly. ….

They are a remarkable ensemble with an almost telepathic rapport. The MJQ was original from the moment of its foun­dation, and it still is.”
Gene Lees

The MJQ was originally the rhythm section in Dizzy Gillespie’s post-war band…. Often quietly understated and with a conservative image, the MJQ nevertheless created thoughtful and often innovative structures, a reminder that the rhythm section has always been the engine-room of innovation in Jazz.”
-Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.

“…, no group went farther in establishing a valid chamber-music style for jazz. This was more than a matter of tuxedos and concert halls. The MJQ's music cap­tured an intimacy and delicacy, and a sensitivity to dynamics, that was closer in spirit to the great classical string quartets than to anything in the world of bop or swing.

But unlike their classical world counterparts, the MJQ thrived on the tension— whether conscious or subliminal—between their two lead players. The young Niet­zsche made his reputation by untangling the Dionysian and Apollonian tendencies in art—analysts of the MJQ need to do the same. The Bacchic tendency, in this case, is epitomized by Jackson, a freewheeling improviser, at his best when caught up in the heat of the moment. Lewis the Apollonian, in contrast, served as Jackson's collabo­rator, adversary, and spur, all rolled into one. He constructed elaborate musical struc­tures for Jackson to navigate, embellish, and, at times, subvert.

Such tensions between opposites often underpin the greatest art, but rarely make for stable partnerships— and, in fact, Jackson's desire to perform in less structured musical environments led to the MJQ's breakup in 1974. But a few years later, the quartet came back together, for the first of many reunion concerts, tours, and recordings.”
Ted GioiaThe History of Jazz, [p. 284, paragraphing modified]


Arduous in its own way, I’m sure it must have also been a wonderful life.

Especially the frequent trips to France and Italy where the Modern Jazz Quartet was adored.

The architectural beauty of Paris and Rome, the gorgeously appointed concert halls and outdoor amphitheaters, some located in Roman ruins, the delicious cuisines and fine wines, the frequent appearances on radio and television programs; all this and more for over forty years for four, black Jazz musicians.

Not a bad way to make a living.

It seemed that pianist John Lewis, the group’s primary composer and nominal leader, was always looking for melodies that he could set to counterpoint.

Bassist Percy Heath did his best to keep the group swinging while assuming a Stoic stance about those prospects during some of Lewis more elaborate compositions.

Drummer Connie Kay was always finding new gizmos to hit or strike; his drum kit with its suspended triangles, finger cymbals and chime trees at times took on the look of a pawn shop window.

And vibraphonist Milt Jackson, whose long-suffering countenance earned him the nickname “Bags,” often seemed embarrassed by it all while trying to insert the best in bebop and blues licks wherever possible into the MJQ’s repertoire.

“The Modern Jazz Quartet were something of a phenomenon in a world where jazz groups tend to be ephemeral creatures, often living no more than a single night, and reaching the veteran status after a half-dozen years. Not only did the MJQ clock up over four decades in action, but they achieved most of that longevity with only a single change of personnel, and that took place in 1955. The pre-history of the band can be traced to the Dizzy Gillespie big band in 1946, when pianist John Lewis, vibes player Milt Jackson, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Kenny Clarke formed the rhythm section, and often played as a quartet within the band, to allow the horn players to rest their lips. They recorded in 1951-2 as the Milt Jackson Quartet, and when Brown went off to concentrate on working with his then wife, singer Ella Fitzgerald, he was replaced by Percy Heath, and the MJQ was born.

The familiar line-up was completed when Connie Kay replaced Kenny Clarke in 1955, and the rest, as they say, is a long, long history, punctuated only by a lay-off from 1974-81, brought about when Jackson announced his intention to leave the band, citing the limitations on his playing freedoms, the constant touring schedules, and financial considerations, and they decided to quit rather than replace him. In later years, drummer Mickey Roker occasionally took over the drum chair from an ailing Kay, who died in 1994. Albert Heath joined briefly as his replacement, but the group finally broke up for good the following year.

In terms of hard bop, the MJQ were certainly on the periphery of the genre, with other priorities to follow. The essence of their distinctive contribution to jazz lay in tracking a middle path between the competing directions implied by hard bop and cool jazz, fiery improvisation and lucidly textured arrangements. 

The members of the band all had impeccable bop credentials, but the particular direction which they chose to cultivate extended the possibilities of their music in a more carefully structured, compositional fashion. At the same time, they offered an alternative public image for jazz to that of the familiar hipster stereotype, adopting a sober, businesslike, dignified demeanor in which, to quote Ralph J. Gleason's memo­rable phrase, they 'made promptness and professional, responsible behavior almost into a fetish'.

If Milt Jackson was their most dynamic and bop-rooted solo­ist, the overall direction of the band was down to pianist John Lewis, the shaping force behind their musical strategy. Much of the distinctive quality of their music grew out of the implicit creative tension between Jackson's driving, rhythmically-complex improvisations on the vibraphone and Lewis's classical leanings and concern with structure, form and order, which were evident in firmly jazz-based compositions as well as those which drew more directly on European models, notably of the 18th century Baroque era, his favored period. 

Rather than simply resorting to standard bop chordal accompaniments underneath Jackson's forays, Lewis also developed a more contrapuntal style of playing, pointing up the improvisation by introducing a counter-melody, as well as writing complex independent polyphonic textures for the group as an alternative to the standard melody-over-chords model. The resulting music sounded cooler and more cerebral than the denser, heated outpourings of bop.

…, Lewis was also a primary motivator in the development of the experiments which Günter Schuller, his chief collaborator in that regard, called Third Stream music. The pianist's Three Little Feelings', recorded on 20 October, 1956, with Miles Davis as soloist, and available on The Birth of the Third Stream, remains a high point of the genre. That development expanded the pianist's interest in the cross-pollination of jazz idioms and improvisation with musical forms and structures based on European classical music, always a consistent feature of his music with the MJQ.

The Quartet's enduring worth, however, was firmly based on their qualities as a jazz ensemble. Their improvisational virtuosity, a group sound which was light and airy but also driving and always swinging, a finely-honed ensemble understanding, and the elegant textural and rhythmic complexity of their music all appealed to a wide spectrum of the potential jazz audience. Their success established the band as one of the most famous of all jazz groups, and a major draw in international festivals and concert halls. While many of their concerns were tangential to hard bop, it is easy to forget in the light of their 'chamber jazz’ experiments that all of the band's members - very definitely including John Lewis - were seasoned bop players, and the style was the foundation stone of their music. Although Lewis subsequently dictated much of the musical direction of the group, Jackson has always maintained that the concept was mutually agreed at the outset….” Kenny Mathieson, Cookin’: Hard Bop and Soul Jazz 1954-65 Edinburgh, Canongate, 2002, pp. 107-109]

“The standard evaluation of the MJQ has stressed the division in approach between Lewis and Jackson (…) and Jackson occasion­ally seemed to fuel that impression. In his later years, however, he reacted angrily to any suggestion of antipathy within the band, blaming the media for seeking scandal or - his own word -dissension where none existed.

He has acknowledged he did not see eye to eye with Lewis on certain matters, at the same time, he made the point that 'the MJQ has been together for forty years, and there's no way a group can be that successful for all that time if ‘we didn't get along'. Jackson also acknowledged that when all was said and done, they all did better as the MJQ than they did on their own.

If Jackson was the star soloist in the band, Lewis was undoubtedly its primary shaping force. … While Lewis was firmly rooted in jazz, he was equally well versed in classical music, an interest which went back to his childhood piano studies, and remained firmly on his agenda as a composer ….

Much of Lewis’s creative effort went into the MJQ, and he had very firm ideas on exactly what he wanted from the band. They included establishing a dignified stage presence, and setting standards of dress (usually performing in tuxedos) and conduct which ran contrary to the popular image of jazz musicians, and especially bop musicians. …. [Mathieson, Ibid, excerpts from 110-111]

Their first recording session for Prestige in 1952 set the musical pattern for the MJQ which would develop over the ensuing decade and that would sustain the group over its long lifetime.

Of the tunes recorded on this first Prestige date, the real marker of things to come was Lewis’ Vendome, the first of his many fugues.

“A fugue is a European classical form which employs complex contrapuntal imitation of a given theme or themes, technically referred to as 'subject(s)', with Bach as its great exemplar. As writers like Martin Williams and Francis Davis have pointed out, Lewis was also drawing consciously on a jazz heritage. Counterpoint was also fundamental to early jazz, and if Bach was a model, so too was the Basic band of the 1930s and 1940s, the inspiration behind what Lewis described as the MJQ's pursuit of 'an integration of ensemble playing which sounds like the spontaneous playing of ideas which were the personal expressions of each member of the band'.

Their distinctive combination of piano and vibraphone as their front line instruments was always central to the airy, refined group sound which Lewis cultivated, ….

Once launched, the MJQ quickly set about defining their particu­lar direction. Their next three sessions for Prestige were gathered on the LP released as Django, and confirmed their unique approach. The title track, a tribute to Django Reinhardt, who had died in 1953, is one of Lewis's most successful and widely admired combinations of carefully structured compositional elements with flowing improvisations.

The slow 20-bar opening introduces all of the thematic material, which is then utilized in inventive fashion in the improvisations, comprising two 32-bar choruses each from Jackson and Lewis, with a dividing 4-bar interlude which aids in emphasizing the symmetry of the piece. The intro­duction is reprised at the end, giving a very deliberately balanced structure which nonetheless sounds quite unforced and organic.

As with other of the MJQ's early works, later versions would extend and refine the music further than they achieved in this original recording, but it remained a perennial favorite in their repertoire. ….

Even at this early stage, the template had been definitively laid out, with Jackson singled out as the lead soloist, and Lewis's formal aspirations firmly established as the guiding influence in their musical direction.

The pianist's lightness of touch and his lucid, highly thematic improvisations were less spectacularly virtuoso than Jackson's, but fascinating in their own right, and at different times the rhythm section was employed both conventionally and also as individual voices within the independent polyphony which characteristically made up the musical texture.

At the same, time, Lewis also looked to develop a more controlled shape to the group's ensemble playing. As Martin Williams points out in The Jazz Tradition, 'Lewis's suggestion to the other members of the Quartet, that they attempt a more cohesive and singular emotional rise and fall in a given piece, may have begun as a piece of self-knowledge. But far from being a matter of audience pandering, it is the most legitimate sort of aesthetic refinement for Jazzmen to undertake - and, incidentally, one that Ellington has used for many years.'

If the 'classical' aspects of their music attracted most comment, both for and against, familiar standards and jazz tunes were an ever-present element at its centre. Jackson's apparently limitless ability to come up with fresh and inventive blues lines and lustrous (if occasionally over-sentimental) ballad interpretations remained equally central to the group's musical identity, and they always swung.

Improvisation also remained at the core of their music, and it is often difficult to tell where composition ends and improvisation begins. Lewis told Len Lyons in The Great Jazz Pianists: 'In all the years I've written music, there have never been any piano parts, not on anything where I've been the pianist. I invent the piano part each time. For me, improvising is the main attraction, not having to play the same thing every time.” ….

They were always impeccably prepared, rehearsing endlessly and performing new material thoroughly before recordings, with the result that, as Percy Heath told Gary Giddins, the material was 'not only rehearsed, it was refined before we got to the studio'. The MJQ raised the hackles of many jazz fans over the years, but they were a unique institution as well as a band who developed in their own singular and unshakeable fashion.

One of the things which irked those recalcitrant fans most was the idea that Milt Jackson was somehow being prevented from unleashing the full flow of his gutsy, blues-drenched playing in the context of Lewis's imposed classicism. That may have happened in some of the band's projects, but for much of the time, Milt had plenty of space and opportunity to stretch out, especially in a concert setting, and the MJQ's large roster of recordings has no shortage of prime vibraphone solos from the master.

Lewis's light, formal structures provided more sympathetic settings for Jackson than has often been allowed, and the sense of exuberant release when the vibraphonist was set loose from some passage of intricate group interplay to spin one of his dazzlingly inventive flights often gave the resulting solo even greater impact than if it had emerged from a driving bop setting. His vibrant solos provided a sharply contrasting coloration within the MJQ's palette, and he profited from Lewis's firm sense of direction and purpose, even where the settings ran contrary to his natural instincts. Jackson never really developed as an innovative leader in his own right, and generally blossomed when others were in charge and he was free just to play,….” [Mathieson, Ibid, excerpts from 113-115]

As Doug Ramsey stated in Jazz Matters:

“Creating a quartet setting that would encompass both Jackson, one of the most unrestrainedly earthy soloists in jazz, and Lewis's preoccupation with formalism presented a challenge brilliantly met. Although Lewis was to be accused of bridling Jackson, recorded evidence clearly shows that the vibraharpist functions most effec­tively in an organized context.

It is often assumed that Lewis im­posed tightly arranged structures on the quartet, but many of the "arrangements" are meldings of written material, variable patterns growing out of the members' collective experience, and spontane­ous creation.

The fact is that among listeners to the MJQ, only ex­perienced jazz musicians are likely to know what is written and what is improvised, and many of them have been fooled often enough to be amazed at what seems to be the group's extrasensory perception.” [p. 245]

Whatever distinctions one chooses to draw or preferences to express about the Modern Jazz Quartet, I’m just sorry that in the forty or so years of its existence, auditions were never held for the drum chair as I would have no doubt enjoyed the lovely European settings, all that great food and the many fine wines on offer.

But then, I suspect that each member of the group did, too.

The audio track for the following video tribute to the group was recorded at the 1987 Jazz Festival in BathEngland.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Ben Webster

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.



“As his playing indicates, even if you have never met the man, Ben Webster is a large, passionate jazz musician with great pride in his calling. Ben is capable of many forms of intensity, including explo­sive anger, but he is particularly prone to long bouts of extraordinary ten­derness. Ben is accordingly a superior player of ballads as this album demonstrates with especial consistency. Unlike many of the younger jazzmen who seem afraid or embarrassed to reveal their more vulnerable fantasies and memories, Webster personalizes ballads with as much virility and power as he does the stompers. Ben, moreover, has lived and traveled a good many years. He's paid a lot of dues, and is still paying. When he plays a ballad, therefore, he gives the listener the distilled experience of one of the last American frontiersmen, the itinerant jazzman.

Webster has a number of vibrant virtues as a musician and they all coalesce with most effect on ballads. There is his large, enormously warm tone. There is also his deeply flowing beat which is as pulsatingly relaxed (but not flaccid) in the slowest numbers as in the more rocking [numbers] …. A third character­istic is his thoroughly individual style-phrasing as well as sound.

There is yet a further reason for Ben Webster's mastery of ballads. Like the late Lester Young (who was also able to make even the most familiar standard suddenly new) Ben Webster has a great affection for and interest in the better singers. Several of his ideas for repertory have come from a vocalist's interpretation of a particular song. Like Young, Ben is also aware of lyrics and knows what the intent and particular mood of each song is before he begins to improvise on it….”
- Nat Hentoff

Has there ever been a more distinctive tenor saxophone sound than Ben Webster’s? One breathy buzz before a note sounds and you know immediately that it’s him.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles can’t imagine why Big Ben hasn’t featured on these pages sooner.

To rectify matters, here are some excerpts from Whitney Baillett’s essay about Ben as found in his collection of forty-six pieces on Jazz, The Sound of Surprise, [1959].

The paragraphing has been modified from the original to fit the blog format.

“The saxophone, an uneasy amalgam of the oboe, clari­net, and brass families invented a century ago by a Bel­gian named Adolphe Sax, has always seemed an unfinished instrument whose success depends wholly on the dex­terity of its users. In the most inept hands, the trumpet, say, is always recognizable, while a beginner on the saxo­phone often produces an unearthly, unidentifiable bray­ing. Even good saxophonists are apt to produce squeaks, soughs, honks, or flat, leathery tones.

Thus, the few masters of the instrument—jazz musicians like Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Harry Carney, Hilton Jefferson, and Ben Webster (classical saxophonists usually play with a self-conscious sherbetlike tone)—deserve double praise. Ben Webster, the forty-nine-year-old tenor saxo­phonist from Kansas City, has for almost twenty years played with a subtle poignancy matched only by such men as Hawkins and Johnny Hodges (from both of whom he learned a good deal), Lucky Thompson, Herschel Evans, and Don Byas.

A heavy, sedate man, with wide, boxlike shoulders, who holds his instrument stiffly in front of him, as if it were a figurehead, Webster played in various big bands before the four-year tour of duty with Duke Ellington that began in 1939. Since then, he has worked with small units and his style, which was developed dur­ing his stay with Ellington, has become increasingly puri­fied and refined. Like the work of many sensitive jazz musicians, it varies a good deal according to tempo. In a slow ballad number, Webster's tone is soft and enormous, and he is apt to start his phrases with whooshing smears that give one the impression of being suddenly picked up by a breaker and carried smoothly to shore.

Whereas Hawkins tends to reshape a ballad into endless, short, busy phrases, Webster employs long, serene figures that often (particularly in the blues, which he approaches much as he might a ballad) achieve a fluttering, keening quality— his wide vibrato frequently dissolves into echoing, ghost­like breaths—not unlike that of a cantor. His tone abruptly shrinks in middle tempos and, as if it were too bulky to carry at such a pace, becomes an oblique yet urgent and highly rhythmic whispering, like a steady breeze stirring leaves.

In fast tempos a curious thing frequently happens. He will play one clean, rolling chorus and then—whether from uneasiness, excitement, or an attempt to express the inexpressible—adopt a sharp, growling tone that, used sparingly, can be extremely effective, or, if sustained for several choruses, takes on a grumpy, monotonous sound. At his best, though, Webster creates, out of an equal mix­ture of embellishment and improvisation, loose poetic melodies that have a generous air rare in jazz, which is capable of downright meanness.”

The following tribute to Ben features him on When I Fall in Love with Mundell Lowe, guitar, Jimmy Jones, piano, Milt Hinton, bass and Dave Bailey, drums. It is from Ben’s 1958 Verve recording The Soul of Ben Webster about which Benny Green of The Observer wrote in his liner notes:

“In a way, the story of Ben Webster's career is the story of jazz music itself over the past twenty years. For reasons best known to them­selves, the jazz writers who today fall over them­selves to describe the richness of Webster's ap­proach, ignored Webster (among others) for years, concentrating all their energies on younger, more modern players. It is always a fine thing to welcome young blood and new approaches in any art form, but never at the expense of the great practitioners who have gone before.

Ben Webster's eclipse seemed so complete to one who was living three thousand miles away from the action, that in the early 1950s his name was beginning to convey nothing more than a faint feeling of nostalgia for the elegant structure of his "What Am I "Here For", "Chloe", and "Just a Settin' and a Rockin' " solos with the vintage Ellington of the early 1940s.

The very healthy tendencies of modern jazz over the last few years, the return of the earthiness which should never really be absent from the very finest jazz, the inevitable slackening of stylistic barriers which follows in the wake of any successful artistic revolutions, and the blessed ability of the musicians themselves to ignore the tidy theorisms of the analysts, has meant come­backs for Ben Webster's generation in no un­certain manner.”


Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Ark Ovrutski, Treme’ and New Orleans


© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


“… We want to hear propulsion, originality, coherence, imagination and excitement in jazz. We want sounds that beguile, provoke, amuse and sooth. We want those sounds to provide insights into those who make them, who we can then identify as a lot like us. That's why we like their music: it resonates with what we'd do, if we but could.”
- Howard Mandel, Jazz author and journalist

One of the [sadly] most memorable highlights in recent television viewing was Treme’, a drama set in New Orleans three months after Hurricane Katrina.

Airing on HBO beginning in 2010, Treme’ primarily follows musicians and residents as they try to put their lives back together in the aftermath of the storm.

Hurricane Katrina was the deadliest and most destructive Atlantic tropical cyclone of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States with winds that reached upwards of 180 mph. The storm caused over 1,800 casualties and was particularly devastating in the New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward which even today has “… grasses that grow taller than people and street after street which are scarred by empty decaying houses; the lives that once played out inside their walls hardly imaginable now.”

New Orleans has long been credited as the birthplace of Jazz and strange as it may seem, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles was reminded of the fact with the recent arrival of Ukrainian-born bassist Ark Ovrutski’s latest CD 44:30 on Zoho Records [ZIM 201402; the disc gets its title from the total playing time on the CD].

Why with a new CD led by a bassist who was born in Kiev, studied at the Russian Academy of Music, ran a Jazz club in Krakow, Poland and attended Berklee College of Music seminars in Italy before immigrating to New York in 2005 create reminiscences of New Orleans?

All one has to do to answer this question is listen to the opening track on 44:30 which appropriately enough is entitled – New Orleans – which Howard Mandel describes in his insert as “… an upbeat ode to the Crescent City universally honored as the cradle to Jazz.” He goes on to say: “Pianist David Berkman and drummer Ulysses Owens set the pace, the Ark enters to deepen the street parade pocket. Michael Thomas, playing soprano sax, and trombonist Michael Dease trade phrases up ‘til a chorus of joint improvisation, and converge on a hip bluesy line. Appropriately for a tune celebrating New Orleans’ rhythms, Owens’ drum solo is stellar.”

And there you have it in a nutshell: 44:30 proves that irrespective of where you are born and no matter what generation your age places you in, New Orleans cradles you into its musical traditions, primary among which is Jazz.

Ark Ovrutski, Michael Thomas, Michael Dease, David Berkman and Ulysses Owens are splendidly capable and talented musicians who have a lot to say and say it well. 44:30 is one of those joyous surprises that reaffirms why you fell in love with Jazz in the first place. Its exciting music and it will move you emotionally and rhythmically because it is based on the primary ingredient of Jazz – it swings.

Chris DiGirolamo of TwofortheShow Media sent along all of Howard Mandel’s insert notes as a media release and since I couldn’t improve on them I’d thought I’d share them with you.

Howard Mandel is the author of Future Jazz and Miles Ornette Cecil-Jazz Beyond Jazz, writes for many publications, reports for National Public Radio, blogs at ArtsJournal.com/JazzBeyondJazz and is president of the Jazz Journalists Association.

© -Howard Mandel, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Wherever in the world or in whatever disposition a jazz musician starts their professional journey, he or she must eventually come to grips with creating a personal approach based on technique, imagination and feeling. Ukrainian emigre composer and bassist Ark Ovrutski likes to say that since age 20 he has been an "international homeless traveler." With 44:33, his third album as a leader, Ark has arrived.

A program of bright melodies, tight ensemble collaboration, individualized solos and firm underlying swing, 44:33  -titled for its running time — is an expression of accomplishment and direction from a coterie of players, instigated by a well informed, thoroughly engaged leader. Multi-reedist Michael Thomas, trombonist Michael Dease, pianist David Berkman and drummer Ulysses Owens are all players from the top echelon of New York's abundance of talented jazzers. Ark is pivotal at the band's core, generating material as well as holding everything together.

Born in Kiev, Ark was playing violin at age 8 — but not out of love of classical music. Influenced by his father who admired Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, he remembers being "always excited by swing." Today Ark regards Charles Mingus as his hero, citing Mingus' goal of advancing the art of a composer-bassist towards a melding of classical and jazz traditions. "I'm working on the challenge of being a bassist - not just a prominent soloist," Ark explains. "I think the future requires bassists to have both classical-level technique and a jazz player's ability to lead and improvise."

Ark has pursued both paths of experience. He attended and graduated with a degree from the Russian Academy of Music, where he roomed with trumpeter Alex Sipiagan (frequently featured today in the Mingus Big Band) and met tenor sax star Igor Butman. Ark visited the U.S. in the early '90s, then got a job as house band mainstay and artistic director for a jazz club in Krakow, Poland, where he remained for three years. He "travelled like crazy" all through Europe, enjoying extended time in Spain and Italy, before returning to Moscow to freelance and produce his first recording (not available in the West).

In 2003 Ark attended Berklee College of Music's summer clinics in Italy. Told that to advance his career, he should be in America, he applied for and received a scholarship to New York City's Drummers Collective, in which he enrolled in 2005. He was soon gigging in Harlem clubs such as the Lenox Lounge, Minton's and St. Nicholas Pub with the circle of musicians including vocalist Gregory Porter. He was also mentored by drummer Duduka Da Fonseca, with whom he has recorded and toured, and who is prominent on Ark's 2011 self-released album Sounds of Brazil.

In 2006 Ark began work on his masters’ degree in music at Rutgers University in New Jersey, studying with bassist Mike Richmond, drummer Victor Lewis and pianist Stanley Cowell, among others. Veteran bassist Bob Cranshaw advised him to go for a doctorate, which he's done at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Taking the most ambitious compositions of Charles Mingus as his thesis project, Ark has just completed his degree requirements and at this writing is about to receive his Ph.D.

Such credentials are admirable, but jazz musicians are only as good as their music, and that's where Ark & company shines. 44:33 opens with New Orleans, an upbeat ode to the Crescent City universally honored as the cradle of jazz. Pianist Berkman and drummer Owens set the pace, then Ark enters to deepen the street parade pocket. Thomas, playing soprano, and trombonist Dease trade phrases up 'til a chorus of joint improvisation, and converge on a hip, bluesy line. Appropriately for a tune celebrating New Orleans' rhythms, Owens' solo is stellar.

Waltz follows, demonstrating variety and consistency with pretty airiness. Ark's intro seems to pulse with the funky insistence of a CTI-era bass part a la Freddie Hubbard's "Red Clay," however the quintet unfolds this composition in a different mode entirely. Dease, who's worked with Ark in such Manhattan venues as Dizzy's Club and NuBar since 2009, projects warmth through his muted sound; Thomas takes a silvery turn on alto sax. Ark's spotlight passage has a confident throb that connects tunefully to his intro - which he notes "sounds like it's in 5/4, but is actually in 3/4 (waltz time)." The track's ending is especially mellow.

Up is, of course, quick, with Ark's walk sprightly, not rushed. There's something of John Coltrane's "Impressions" in Up - maybe the sax/'bone harmonization that nods to that classic's blend of Coltrane's and Eric Dolphy's inimitable voices. Berkman sparkles, as he does throughout this album whether soloing or underscoring. Ark's break is dark and deft; he goes for an earthy, springy sound.

Baby's Vibe, which subtly references "Infant Eyes" by Wayne Shorter (another of Ark's musical models) has a tender vibe, unusual for a trombone-led number. Thomas's alto matches Dease's 'bone, their parts twining like vine.

Medium, launched by a drum roll and trilling horns, is also companionable. The band makes its easy swing seem easy to achieve, but don't take its mastery for granted. Thomas bespeaks post-bop on his soprano sax, which is also unusual; Ark, in his solo, dances on his strings. The group's cool modesty is becoming.

The exacting melody Milestones - the "Milestones" written by John Lewis for Miles Davis's 1947 debut with Charlie Parker, not the "Milestones" Davis himself wrote for his '58 recording with the musicians who cut Kind of Blue - is 44:33's sole track not written by Ark. Dease's arrangement is beautifully interpreted - I especially like the connection between the horns and Berkman's accompaniment. Ark's solo chorus is flavored by Mingus-like urgency, yet pleasure emanates from the music's totality more than any particulars, as he binds the disparate instruments into a cohesive whole.

The finale Path Train was inspired by the commute to Manhattan Ark made daily in 2005, when living in Jersey City. Benito Gonzalez plays Rhodes electric piano, getting the big, glistening tone that Joe Zawinul promoted when he introduced this gear on Cannonball Adderley's 1966 hit "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy." Ark's groove is just right; the quintet aces the concluding stop-time breaks as if the task were as natural as breathing, the better to frame Owens.

"As a composer, I'm still learning," says Ark. "Trying to get to the truth with music is hard. Michael Dease says I use a lot of 'slash chords' — meaning one triad on top of another in layers, for polytonal and polychordal purposes, the way composer Darius Milhaud explored. But I try not to forget about the blues scale and feel. I like Wayne Shorter's example: always modern, always jazz. Let's not forget we're playing jazz!"

That's an important point for listeners as well as musicians. We want to hear propulsion, originality, coherence, imagination and excitement in jazz. We want sounds that beguile, provoke, amuse and sooth. We want those sounds to provide insights into those who make them, who we can then identify as a lot like us. That's why we like their music: it resonates with what we'd do, if we but could.

Ark Ovrutski and his cohorts can, and do. So a "homeless international traveler" and his colleagues turn from being strangers into something more like neighbors, better than acquaintances — friends. Quite a feat that they pull off in 44:33. - Howard Mandel”

For more information about Ark, please visit his website at www.arkovrutski.com/


The following video features Ark and the quintet on New Orleans from 44:30 as set to images of the city and poster art from the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festivals.



Saturday, March 22, 2014

Poncho Sanchez "El Mejor" - The Best

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.



A strong musician and a centering force in his ensemble, Sanchez's larger career role has been to help maintain and protect the Latin jazz tradition. "I'm proud," he says. "I'm an American. That's our music, man. That's our history. Let's celebrate it. Let's let everybody know it's ours.


"To me, it couldn't be better. You put the sophistication of the harmonies, the melodies of traditional jazz and you get the rhythm, the flavor, the dances of Latin music. You put those two things together, and that's Latin jazz, man, some of the best music in the world."


After reading these concluding paragraphs to Josef Woodward’s recent interview with Latin Jazz percussionist Poncho Sanchez in the December 2013 edition of Downbeat, I flashed back to a couple of my earliest CD purchases among which were Poncho’s El Mejor [Concord CCD-4519] and Sonando [CCD-4201].


You can tell that these CD’s are at least 25 years old because of the weight of the plastic jewel case. Twenty five is also the number of CDs that Poncho has now issued on Concord which is certainly a tribute to continuing popularity of his music and to his staying power.


At the time they were issued, El Mejor and Sonando were a part of the “Picante” catalogue a division of then-owner Carl Jefferson’s Concord Records that was “dedicated to presenting the best in Latin music (Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, Salsa and Latin Jazz).”


The label went on to say :”THis internationally recognized label boasts an impressive roster of the finest Latin musicians. MONTY ALEXANDER, LAURINDO ALMEIDA, CARLOS BARBOSA-LIMA, CHARLIE BYRD, JORGE DALTO, TANIA MARIA, TITO PUENTE, PONCHO SANCHEZ, MONGO SANTAMARIA, CAL TJADER, and many others…”


The current owner, the Concord Music Group, uses a different designation for Latin Jazz as it includes it as part of its World and Latin category.


The esteemed Jazz writer Leonard Feather offered this overview of Poncho’s early career and his music dating back to 1982 when ‘the great conquero’ was just beginning to make his way into the Latin Jazz world with his own working band.



“Make no mistake: this [Sonando]  is not your typical salsa recording, any more than Poncho Sanchez is a conventional Latin musician.


His best known association began on New Year's Eve of 1975, when he joined Cal Tjader's combo. He credits Tjader with a founding role in the Latin/jazz fusion. Poncho remained with him until the vibraphonist's sudden death on May 5, 1982, when they were touring the Philippines.


During his years with Tjader, Poncho had recorded seven albums with him, as well as two under his own name (for Discovery). The present recording, his first under his Concord contract, also is the first since he became a full time leader after Tjader's death, and the first to present his current sidemen, with two additions.
Poncho was born Ildefonso Sanchez, Oct. 30, 1951, of Mexican parentage, in Laredo, Texas. Raised in Norwalk, Ca., near Los Angeles, he studied flute and guitar while in junior high school, later taking up congas and bongos. He claims to have picked up a feel for typical Latin music from his sisters (Latin, that is, in the Afro-Cuban and Puerto Rican sense, as opposed to the traditional Mexican rhythms).


Before, during and since the Tjader incumbency, Poncho has gigged with various groups, including several of his own. Along with his regular personnel, the line-up here includes the alto saxophonist and flutist Gary Foster, who played on both his previous recordings; and trombonist Mark Levine, who wrote several of the arrangements, or wrote additional horn parts to existing charts. Levine, who was a colleague of Poncho during Tjader's last three and a half years, has many Latin music credits, having written and played for Willie Bobo, Luis Gasca, Azteca; also Mongo Santamaria, with whom Poncho once worked. Levine's presence is appropriate on this Concord recording, since he was born in a town by that name (the wrong one, however; this was Concord, N.H.).


As his performance throughout this recording makes unmistakably clear, Poncho is a total perfectionist in the subtle nuances of his Latin rhythms. ‘Everything we do has to be measured and counted,’ he says, ‘like a puzzle in which all the pieces have to fit together.’”


Ten years later in 1992, Poncho recorded El Mejor with a band that included trombonist Andy Martin and David Torres as its pianist and musical director.

In the following video tribute to Poncho you can hear Andy and David performing on the latter’s beautiful Sueños.




Friday, March 21, 2014

Jazz on A Summer's Day

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.



Sadly, my DVD/VHS combo recently decided to end its days of service leaving me with some Jazz video tapes that need to be replaced by their digital equivalents.

Fortunately, only a few films are involved as I made the switch to DVD long ago.

And, fortunately, too, is the fact that the few VHS tapes that need to be replaced are also available on DVD.

One of these, Bert Stern's Jazz on A Summer’s Day, has long been my favorite and while searching for it on Amazon.com I came across this annotation that perfectly encapsulates my feelings and thoughts about the film.

The world of Jazz has changed dramatically from the summer of 1958 when Jazz on a Summer’s Day was filmed, but then the one constant in the universe has always been change.

At the conclusion of this piece, I’ve added a clip from Bert’s film that feature Jimmy Giuffre, Bob Brookmeyer and Jim Hall performing The Train and the River.

Irrespective of the constant change in life, I think you'll find this performance by Jimmy, Bob and Jim to be timeless.

Amazon.com

“Part concert documentary, part pop-cultural time capsule, Bert Stern's Jazz on a Summer's Day chronicles the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival with an approach as deceptively relaxed, even impulsive, as the music itself. Still photographer Stern sidesteps more formal documentary conventions such as narrative voiceovers to wander purposefully from festival stage to boarding-house jam sessions, taking in the parallel color and motion of the America's Cup preparations when he isn't capturing rich color footage of the performances and the celebratory mood of the concertgoers.

In the process, he documents American jazz at a notably golden moment in its development--diverse, adventurous, and still broadly popular, this was jazz not yet under the shadow of rock and youth culture, played by an integrated artistic community a few short years away from social and political turmoil that would boil divisively to the surface during the '60s. To say Stern was rolling film in a Jazz Camelot is overstatement, but only slightly so.

Stern's circular approach and wonderful eye achieve a breezy languor at the expense of more comprehensive coverage of the festival's bumper crop of strong jazz, blues, and gospel musicians. Perhaps inevitably, the camera lingers on Louis Armstrong, Anita O'Day, Mahalia Jackson, Dinah Washington, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, and George Shearing. Avid fans of later styles may be frustrated by the fleeting glimpses of other musicians such as Eric Dolphy and Art Farmer, or the honor roll of classic jazz stylists whose Newport sets weren't included in the film, but such omissions seem forgivable, if not necessary, to Stern's serendipitous design.” - Sam Sutherland

Product Description

This precursor to Woodstock is the granddaddy of all concert films, a chronicle of the 1958 Newport, Rhode Island Jazz Fest where music greats like Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Anita O'Day, Chuck Berry, Mahalia Jackson, George Shearing, and Dinah Washington gave electrifying performances. 84 min. Standard; Soundtrack: English Dolby Digital 5.1; "making of" featurette.


Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Billy Root Interview with Gordon Jack

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


It is always a privilege to have Gordon Jack as a guest writer on JazzProfiles.


Gordon is the author of Fifties Jazz Talk: An Oral Retrospective [Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2004].


Billy Root, a saxophonist who was born in Philadelphia in 1934, has been hailed as a “forceful modern stylist.”  Billy made his first appearance in the Jazz world in 1944 working with the legendary trumpet player, Hot Lips Page.



© -Gordon Jack, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
                                                     
“Billy Root might be a somewhat forgotten figure today but there was a time during the nineteen-fifties when he was very active on the scene, touring all over the USA with Dizzy Gillespie, Buddy Rich, Bennie Green, Stan Kenton and many others.

Things changed dramatically in the sixties for Billy and for jazz in general with the emergence of the Beatles, the Stones and any number of Motown groups, because for a whole new generation jazz was no longer a popular art form. Regular bookings became increasingly rare as clubs closed, prompting Billy to move to Las Vegas in 1968 where he worked in the big hotel orchestras accompanying acts like Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Juliet Prowse and Dean Martin.


In 2008 my wife and I were staying at the Bellagio hotel and he agreed to meet me there to discuss his career. The Bellagio was built in 1998 on the site of the famous Dunes hotel, venue for some of the Rat-Pack appearances in the sixties and seventies.


Just as an aside, Ocean’s Eleven with George Clooney, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts was filmed at the Bellagio and is generally considered to be a vastly superior movie to the original which featured Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Junior.


“I was born in Philadelphia on the 6th. March 1934. My father was a professional drummer and when I was very young, no more than five or six, he started taking me to the Earle theatre to see all the wonderful bands like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lucky Millinder and Jimmie Lunceford. I don’t really know why I liked them so much but there was something about black bands that the white bands just didn’t seem to have. It would be true to say that I learned everything I know from black players.


“I started playing the saxophone around 1944 and when I was sixteen I sat in for a week with Hot Lips Page. I then went on the road with the Hal McIntyre Orchestra which is where I got my education from sitting next to guys who were better than I was.” (Hal McIntyre played alto and clarinet with Glenn Miller from 1937 to 1941, appearing with the band in the film Sun Valley Serenade. His own band, formed in 1942 later included such well known jazz musicians as Eddie Safranski, Allen Eager, Barry Galbraith and
Carl Fontana. In 1952 the band accompanied the Mills Brothers on their recording of Glow Worm for the Decca label which became a huge hit).


“In 1952 along with John Coltrane and Buddy Savitt, I became one of the ‘House Tenors’ at the Blue Note in Philly. The owner Jackie Fields booked visiting stars like JJ Johnson, Roy Eldridge, Miles Davis or Kenny Dorham and instead of bringing them into the club with their own group from New York, he would use John, Buddy or me along with a local rhythm section – it was cheaper that way. The pay was about $150.00 a week but I didn’t care how much it was as long as I could play with those guys – of course a few years later whenever Buddy Rich and then Stan Kenton called, I certainly asked them how much they were paying!


We usually had Red Garland and Philly Joe Jones and that was the first time I think that Miles had heard either of them. I remember being a little apprehensive about working with him because he had a reputation of not liking white players and he could be pretty nasty, but he was very nice to me.


We had a two-hour rehearsal and that was it for the entire booking. On the date, Miles used two tenors – Coltrane and me – and John used to practice every intermission. I never saw anyone practice as much as he did. He was a real neat guy and I liked him a lot, unlike Sonny Stitt who could be a pain-in-the-ass. He was OK when he was sober but when he had a couple of drinks he became very strange. He was all over the horn playing a million notes, always trying to carve you on the stand and he could do it, but I remember one night when he had maybe one drink too many. He wasn’t drunk but he wasn’t quite ‘Sonny’. I was so Goddamned mad at him that I played better than I usually did and when we were leaving the club he said, ‘Just wait for tomorrow night!’


“About two weeks later I had a call for another gig so I sent in a friend of mine, Mel ‘Ziggy’ Vines to play with Sonny. Now Ziggy is almost unknown today but he was magnificent and he and Coltrane were the two best tenors in Philly at the time. (Around 1952 Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson, John Bonnie and Larry McKenna were all active in Philadelphia, prompting Billy to say in a 1990 Cadence interview, ‘We had more good saxophone players in Philadelphia than they had on the whole West Coast of California.’)


Sonny didn’t like it when I sent Ziggy in because he was so good. I got to the club for the last set when they were both on alto and although Sonny could really blow, Ziggy was chopping him up to the point where I almost felt sorry for him. Sonny told me afterwards, ‘Yeah baby, he’s about the baddest ofay alto player I’ve ever heard. He’s better than Phil Woods and all those guys.’


“A few years later when Ziggy went to California Coltrane said to me, ‘I hope he makes it this time because he really can play.’ Charlie Parker really loved him and if he saw him in the club he would always say, ‘There’s my friend Mel, come up and play the next set with me’, and Bird wouldn’t say that to just anyone. He only made one commercial recording with Herb Geller and Conte Candoli (Fresh Sound FSR CD 412) where he used a borrowed tenor and mouthpiece. (Vines was so obscure that Leonard Feather who did the sleeve note for the original LP thought he was a pseudonym for Georgie Auld.) He sounded good but he was not at his best. It wasn’t representative of what he could really do because he had just come out of a mental home where he had been committed by his parents. He came from an old-time, middle-class Jewish family who didn’t like the company he was keeping in the clubs. Talking about Charlie Parker his mother once said, ‘My Ziggy used to play with Charlie Barnet and now he is working down on Columbia Avenue with a shvartzeh!’


“The only other recording with Ziggy comes from a concert we did with Clifford Brown at Music City, Philadelphia (32DP-663 Japan). Someone taped us playing Night In Tunisia, Donna Lee and Walkin’ and when it was commercially released it was claimed to be Brownie’s last recording which was quite wrong. (Clifford Brown was killed on the 27th. June 1956 and it has often been assumed that the Music City booking took place two days earlier, on the 25th. Nick Catalano’s biography of Clifford Brown gives documentary evidence to prove that the correct date was May 31st. 1955.)  I often played
with Clifford and I loved him. I never met a nicer person, he was just superb in every way and after Dizzy he was my favourite. He came in one night when Bird was at the Blue Note and Charlie got him up on the bandstand. Brownie was hiding behind the big upright piano and Bird said, ‘Come out front with me man, I don’t want you back there.’  


“One of the guest stars I played with at the Blue Note was Bennie Green who was another peach of a fellow. This was around 1953 and he invited me to go to New York with a big band to do a spot at the Apollo Theatre where Ella Fitzgerald was the head-liner. We had Gene Ammons who was a ‘soul’ player with a great big tone and he might have looked big and mean but he was very good to me. Others I remember from that band were Earle Warren, Sahib Shihab, Charlie Rouse, Ernie Royal, Thad Jones, John Lewis, Paul Chambers and Osie Johnson and as usual I was the only white guy. I played in a lot of all-black bands and maybe being white made it a little easier for me. I was a skinny little red-headed kid playing their music which probably seemed impressive and anyway, I didn’t play like most of the white guys.



“We played the Royal theatre in Baltimore and the Howard Theatre in Washington DC and then Bennie went back to working with a quintet which is when I joined taking over from Charlie Rouse. He had just recorded Blow Your Horn (Decca DL 8176) with Frank Wess and Cecil Payne which was somewhere between rhythm & blues and jazz and very popular at the time. He had a beautiful tone on the trombone and when I first went with him we had a nice relationship, he was very straight and we played real well together.


God was very good to me in those days because he let me play with some of the very best musicians. I mean we had Paul Chambers and either Osie or Gus Johnson with Cliff Smalls on piano. (The latter’s association with Bennie Green dated back to the Earl Hines band of 1942. They were both in the trombone section, with Cliff moving to the piano whenever Hines fronted the band. He later went on to work with Earl Bostic, Ella Fitzgerald, Sy Oliver and Buddy Tate. A good example of his fine piano work can be heard on Laura form Bennie Blows His Horn (Prestige OJCCD-1728-2).


“Bennie’s only problem was drugs. When we were in Buffalo the police came and checked everybody’s hotel room and of course they found what they were looking for in Bennie’s room – his wife who was a lovely woman, was also a terrible addict. The next day the headline in the local paper said, ‘Musician caught with dope’ and that night hundreds of people came to the club to see these drug-addicted musicians – you know, ‘Here comes one now’. Bennie got more and more strung out, missing rehearsals and getting nasty which was not like him at all. I couldn’t stand seeing this nice man get so messed up so I left. He had a booking in Cincinnati which was when I told him I wouldn’t go because he was destroying himself. (Bennie Green’s distinctive sound and relaxed delivery is well documented on Mosaic Select B2-82418. This triple-CD set also features several of the excellent tenor players he used in the fifties – Charlie Rouse, Gene Ammons, Eddy Williams, Ike Quebec, Stanley Turrentine and Billy Root).


“Soon after I left Bennie, I took a two tenor group into Birdland with Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis opposite Sarah Vaughan and this would have been in 1955. Eddie was a lot older than me and he had a giant ego so he just took over but I didn’t mind because he was a terrific player and a nice guy. After that gig I joined Buddy Rich’s quartet for about five months. He ‘phoned and said, ‘Do you want to go on the road kid?’ He offered me $350.00 a week which was a lot for the time and he wanted me to find a pianist and a bass player that I liked. I didn’t really want to hire guys for him but he said he trusted me, so I got Sam Dockery who was later with the Messengers and Jimmy Mobley (no relation to Hank) on bass - fine players and first class human beings.


Buddy played great drum solos and he loved the band but he’s famous for being what he is – an ass-hole. On the third night he hollered at one of the guys and I just had to straighten him out. After the set he was sitting outside in his big white Cadillac convertible with the top down. I got within four inches of his face and told him if he ever did that again, I would pack my bags and go back home to Philadelphia. After that he never bothered any of us again but he was real hard on everyone else – club owners, men’s room attendants even the customers. I remember a young girl came to hear us with her date saying, ‘Oh Mr. Rich you played so wonderfully tonight.’ He said, ‘How do you know how I played? What do you know about the drums? I may have been rotten!’ Buddy was a great athlete, moving his hands and feet faster than anybody else in the world and watching him was amazing. He was certainly the greatest for what he did but I had played with Philly Joe and Art Blakey and guys like that, so I wasn’t enthralled with his playing or his time.


“The following year I joined Stan Kenton which was a band I swore I would never play with. Stan called after my friend Mel Lewis recommended me and asked if I played the baritone. I was twenty-two, arrogant and cocky so I said, ‘Sure I play the baritone’ although I’d never played one in my life. He needed me that night so I had to borrow an instrument and meet the band at the gig, 300 miles or so from Philadelphia up towards the coal-mining regions. It was one of those nameless, faceless ballrooms of which I saw thousands in those days. When I got there they had already started so I opened up the saxophone case and put the baritone together, but there was just one reed. Now any other time I would have had about ten boxes to try and all sorts of mouthpieces but I had to work with what I had. They gave me a band-jacket that must have belonged to Carson Smith, it was so big I looked like a circus-clown. Stan asked if I knew My Funny Valentine so I went out front and blew the solo and afterwards the guys were saying ‘Great job’ and things like that. Later I heard Stan talking to Johnny Richards – and what a great guy he was. He was such a well-schooled musician and when he said something, Stan listened. Johnny said,’ I like that kid. He gets the sound I want on baritone and I want you to hire him.’


“Two days later I was on the Cuban Fire album (Capitol CDP 7 96260 2) which I sight-read even though it was fairly hard music. Lucky Thompson was on that date and he played two of the best tenor solos (Fuego Cubano and Quien Sabe) that I think anyone ever played for Stan, and that includes Zoot who I love. I knew I could never play that good - they were just beautiful because he was one of the best tenor players I ever heard.


He’d joined Stan on a European tour when Jack Nimitz and Spencer Sinatra had to leave. (With the enforced absence of Nimitz and Sinatra the leader had used a number of replacements during the tour including Harry Klein, Tommy Whittle, Don Rendell and I believe Hans Koller. Kenton expert Michael Sparke told me that Lucky had been hired when the band reached Paris in April 1956, where the tenor-man had been working and recording extensively. The vacancy was on baritone which Thompson played on the final concert dates in Europe.)  Kenton probably paid him a nice taste but Lucky would never have stayed with that band.


“Julius Watkins was with us on french horn and he sounded like JJ Johnson on that thing. Stan though used other guys sometimes who came out of conservatories and they were good horn players but they weren’t good jazz players. One of them wrote himself a whole jazz chorus out and he kept asking Stan if he could play it. When he put his music stand up and started playing it was terrible, just awful but Julius was something else.


“After Cuban Fire Stan asked if I wanted to play tenor and I replied, ‘Only if Lucky’s leaving!’ - which he was. He told me to find a baritone and the previous day I had been in Jim & Andy’s in New York where I bumped into Pepper Adams. I knew him from a few years before in Detroit when I was with Bennie Green. This weird-looking guy came up and asked to sit-in and he was just great, man could he blow. I recommended him to Stan and that is how Pepper got the gig. He wasn’t the fastest sight-reader in town at that time which is how Stan would judge you - he just wanted to know how quickly you could play the book. After about two weeks he was going to let him go but Lennie Niehaus, another guy Stan listened to said, ‘You let him sit right where he is. He’s a great player and he’ll learn the book. You won’t get anyone like him and I want you to keep him.’ Later on when everyone kept telling Stan how great Pepper Adams was, he finally agreed. Stan wasn’t a very good musician and when he sat down at the piano it was a nightmare but he was a great bandleader, possibly one of the best. He was a very big guy and when he stretched those long arms out in front of the band they seemed to span the whole sax section. People thought the sound was coming out of Stan and not the band - we weren’t doing anything.  He had the sort of presence in front of an audience that made them think we just happened to be going along for the ride. He was a wonderful front-man though and he was a nice guy.   


“I stayed with Kenton for about a year and then went back home to Philly. I was playing in a big band at Music City there when Dizzy Gillespie was booked to play with us. I was on baritone because nobody else wanted to play it. There were so many damned-good tenor players with big egos walking around - ‘I must play first and I must play every jazz chorus.’ I didn’t really care what I played, just put me in the section. This was around the time Dizzy called asking me to join his band and I didn’t ask how much he was paying, I was so happy to play with him. I never fitted in with the Kenton band like I did with Dizzy because Dizzy had a JAZZ band. I really felt I belonged because I loved that band.


When I joined, Rod Levitt was already there and he was the only white guy. Al Grey who was very funny said, ‘When Rod saw Billy Root’s white ass he figured he had a friend. He sure found out fast enough that Billy was just as much a nigger as the rest of us niggers!’ Al was a really good trombone player as was dear, sweet Melba Liston who was a lovely lady and everybody loved her. The saxes were great with Ernie Henry who was always kind of quiet but played real well. My room-mate Benny Golson was another lovely guy and Billie Mitchell who could be pretty tough was a fine player too. I particularly liked Jimmy Powell who played lead alto. I can still hear him after all these years and I’ve played with all kinds of lead players believe me but he had something that was very special. Wynton Kelly’s playing was wonderful - I loved those guys because they all played so beautifully and they were all good people.


“Dizzy’s band-bus was a beaten up old heap and every time we reached a hill we had to get out and push it. This wasn’t like travelling first-class with Stan Kenton because it had no air-conditioning and no lights inside, so at night we were in darkness. Down South there were signs over water-fountains and restrooms saying, ‘Coloured’ and ‘White’. I remember taking a ‘Coloured’ sign down and putting it up in the back of the bus and the joke was that was where they made me ride - in the back of the bus. If we were somewhere like Georgia and we wanted to eat, I would go into the restaurant first. I’d ask the manageress if she could accommodate 15 people and if she could, I’d bring the rest of the band in – 13 black guys with me and Rod. I got into serious trouble once though when I wanted the men’s room and was directed to an outhouse in the woods. While I was there, three of the biggest men I’ve ever seen came in – 6’ 5” or so and about 20 stones each.  They didn’t have the hoods on but they were Klan. ‘We saw you with all those niggers boy, now we’re gonna kill your ass!’ It was pretty serious so I started singing old negro spirituals – I knew a lot of them because we used to live behind a black church. ‘Here comes the devil through the floor, stamp him down, stamp him down, Hallelujah Sweet Jesus’. They said, ‘This son-of-a-bitch is crazy’ and I said, ‘Crazy because I’ve heard the word of the Lord? Forgive them Father for they know not what they say.’ They let me out of there because they really thought I was mad and the band laughed for weeks after that.   


“Dizzy was a lot of fun and he always put on a show for the people. I used to make a little speech to the audience before we played Horace Silver’s Doodlin’, ‘Because this is such a difficult solo, Dizzy sent me to a teacher at the Paris Conservatory who worked with me for weeks to get this thing down. I would like everyone to stop talking because I can’t play it unless there is absolute quiet.’ Dizzy then pretended to chase me off the stage and
I threatened to call the National Association For The Advancement Of White People which always got a laugh. (A variation of that comic routine occurs on the band’s recording of Doodlin’ at the 1957 Newport Jazz festival with Pee Wee Moore on baritone – Verve 511393-2 CD.)



“I went back with Kenton for a while but he seemed to be losing control some of the time, because Al Porcino often called the shots. Stan would announce a chart and Al would say in his very distinctive voice, ‘We’re not going to play that one Stanley. We’re going to play…’ The band would put away what Stan had called and get out what Al wanted. It was almost the ‘Al Porcino Orchestra featuring Stan Kenton’ and he put up with it because Al was a great first trumpet and he wanted to keep him in the band.


“Stan had started using two baritones and on the 1959 Tropicana booking, Sture Swenson was the other one (Cap T-1460). I’d been playing all the low stuff and the solos so I gave my book to Sture to take some of the heat off me. He only lasted about three weeks or so because he wasn’t a very good player and Jack Nimitz took his place. (In an interview for JJI, Lennie Niehaus explained to me the mystery of the Kenton sax section voicing of one alto, two tenors and two baritones. The alto still played lead but the first tenor had a second alto part. The second tenor played what would have been the first tenor’s music. One baritone played the second tenor and the other baritone had a conventional baritone line. Inevitably this gave the saxes a somewhat bottom-heavy sound.)


“Curtis Counce was with us for a while and he was an OK bass player but he was a ladies man and it didn’t matter whose lady. Apparently Carl Fontana found out that he was becoming a little too friendly with Mrs. Fontana and one night in Chicago he said, ‘I’m going to kill him Billy!’ He was very calm but you could see he meant it and Carl was a bull of a man. I got hold of Stan and told him that he had better get rid of Curtis real quick because Carl was not going to beat him up, he was going to kill him. Stan told Curtis not to wait for his bass or any of his stuff but to get the hell out of town which he did - fast.


“It was around this time that Stan fired me. We had been having trouble with a young drummer he’d hired who was just not up to the job. He was so bad that we lost two good bass players in a row – Carson Smith and Scott LaFaro – who just couldn’t take it anymore. The guy was only interested in signing autographs, giving drum-sticks away and getting girls. He didn’t worry about playing the book properly, he was too busy trying to be a star and we were all going crazy with this kid. You have to understand that when you’re travelling on that bus, the band is everything because that’s all you’ve got.


With all the one-nighters there is little time for anything else and if something’s not going right with the band, you get unhappy real fast. Guys were talking about leaving and having meetings so Stan felt he had to fire someone, and that was me. Also, I had been hanging out with Lenny Bruce which he didn’t like at all. We had been friends for years but Stan was a very straight kind of guy and as far as he was concerned, Lenny was ‘trouble’. He very quickly changed his mind and wanted to hire me back but by that time I had called Philadelphia and booked some gigs there. I was ready to go back to Philly because it had always been a good town for me.


“When I got back to Philadelphia Red Rodney and I started working together a lot. We’d do a Bar Mitzvah on Saturday, a wedding on Sunday and open up at a real funky, black club for the rest of the week on Monday. Of course, with his reputation there would always be a couple of detectives sitting there waiting for him to show up asking, ‘What’s new Red?’ I also started working around town with society orchestras like Meyer Davis and Howard Lanin. I remember one of those bookings lasted for twelve hours with continuous music which I could handle because I knew a lot of tunes.  I even did a couple


of concerts with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra under their conductor, Seiji Ozawa. There’s a little baritone sax solo in American In Paris which is not hard but the pressure is playing it with that orchestra. When I walked into the first rehearsal with all those superb flutists and oboe players, I felt like asking each of them if they gave lessons. I didn’t want to warm the instrument up in front of all those guys because let’s face it, they probably thought the baritone was the ugliest of all saxophones anyway. So I went way down to the basement and after a few minutes I noticed a figure standing in the doorway. It was Murray Panitz the first flutist. I decided to level with him because I was a jazz player and I felt out of place with all these symphony people. He said, ‘Well first of all, after listening to you for five minutes it sounds fine. You’ll do a great job. Second of all, if any of those guys up there could play what you’ve been brought in to play, you wouldn’t be here. Third of all, screw ‘em!’  


“I was in ‘The Connection’ for a while at the Hedgerow Theatre in Philly. Nelson Boyd was with us and he used to get juiced out of his mind. He would drink a bottle on his way to the theatre and then start ad-libbing lines with the actors. The director once came up to me and said, ‘Your bass player is such a wonderful actor. He’s just like a junkie.’ I said, ‘Yes ma’am, that’s just what he’s like.’ He was on a job I once did with Paul Gonsalves and he got so drunk, he fell right off the bandstand. Paul incidentally is my all-time favourite tenor player.


‘In the early sixties I was with Harry James for a while. Harry was something else because he could drink two-fifths a day and still play. The first night I was there he was so drunk he could hardly stand but he played beautifully. It wasn’t ‘Dizzy’, but it was real good. He had some fine musicians in the band like Willie Smith who was a great lead alto and Buddy Rich but something was missing. Ernie Wilkins had done some of the writing and I’d be sitting there waiting for it to happen but it never did. Harry had a good white band – a dance band – and Dizzy’s was a jazz band. It’s as simple as that.


“Times change and people change but the new music in the sixties certainly wasn’t for me. I went to see Coltrane with Pharoah Sanders at a club and when I left 45 minutes later they were still playing the same thing. They sounded like two New Year’s Eve horns and I thought, is that my boy Coltrane? It was terrible but I don’t put it down if that’s what they want to do and they’re happy. In those days too, Miles was turning his back on the audience and people don’t like that. He didn’t show any respect to the paying customers unlike my man, Dizzy.



“I moved with my family to Las Vegas in 1968 because of the lack of work everywhere else - not just jazz but any kind of work. With the large showroom bands there you had to play clarinet and flute as well as all the saxes and I also played piccolo, alto flute and bass clarinet. Some nights when I went to work I looked like a pawn-shop with all of those horns but when you play them, you get paid extra. I did well here and made a lot of money. Jack Montrose was sometimes in a band with me as was his wife Zena who played violin. They were real nice people and Jack was a sweet man. I really liked him and he was my best friend out here in Vegas. He was a good player but not a great player. His arranging was his best thing because he knew a lot about music.


“Tony Bennett was lovely to work with, the music was well written and he was a sweetheart. He sang real good and we all loved him because he was just one of the guys, happy to play cards with us on the breaks. He was the musician’s favourite. Peggy Lee too was a real pro although she was often ill with lung problems. The music was good and she was cool and like Tony, one of the few performers the musicians really liked.


Dean Martin’s act was to appear drunk but it wasn’t an act. We were rehearsing once when someone brought him out a tray of eight cocktails and before we had finished he had drunk them all. He was another one who was always fine with the guys. I never worked with Sammy Davis though. He was a terrific entertainer and Al Grey who was with him for a while told me that whenever he came to the Dunes he would throw a party and invite all the chorus girls so he could have his pick while he was there. Al said that every time he managed to find himself a nice little waitress, Sammy would take her too.  


I only worked with Sinatra a few times so I really didn’t know him but I heard a story which gave me a pretty good idea of where he was coming from. His bass player was retiring after 20 years and he went over to Frank to tell him he had enjoyed playing with him and wanted to wish him all the best for the future. Frank apparently looked at him and said,’ I don’t talk to the help’ – isn’t that awful?


“Right now I’m doing nothing and I’m real good at doing nothing. My pensions come in every month from the union and social security so I’m comfortable. I don’t have to practice or play anymore and I don’t really miss it. My last engagement was a Kenton Retrospective in 2006 at the Holiday Inn, Monrovia which is in Los Angeles County. It was the 50th. anniversary of the Cuban Fire album so we performed the Johnny Richards music with numbers like Young Blood, 23 North – 82 West and of course, Artistry In
Rhythm. I had a baritone feature on Bill Russo’s arrangement of Lover Man and we had guys like Frank Capp, Kim Richmond, Pete Christlieb, Bill Trujillo, Carl Saunders and Mike Vax there, so it was a good concert.

“I don’t listen to very much of anything these days because all my music is in my head but I think of Dizzy a lot, and when he was alive we kept in touch by telephone three of or four times a year. He used to call me ‘Albino Red’. Red Rodney was the first one with that name and I was the second.””