Lullaby Of Broadway - Georgie Auld

Harlem Nocturne

Lullaby Of Broadway
Georgie Auld
Tenor Saxophone Solos
Coral CRL 57029
1956

From the back cover: The biggest, worldliest city of all has provided the title song, "Harlem Nocturne" and, of course, "Manhattan." The latter, in fact, has become most closely identified with this late modern mood approach of Georgie's, and it's a great personal favorite with the nation's disk jockeys.

But sometimes, hearing the way he sounds today, it's difficult for one to believe that this is the same tenor man the late Bunny Berigan sponsored back as far as 1937. In those days Bunny had a pretty fair big swing band, but he was no leader and somebody gave him a lot of terrible pop tunes to record. On most of these there were steel fibre tenor solos by the young Canadi n "find," Georgie Auld, in a sort of jagged, vintage Charlie Barnet style. Still, there was something here that made the jazz aficionados perk up their ears.

Gradually the sharp corners rounded off and he joined Artie Shaw during the peak years of '38 and '39.

Then came Shaw's dramatic exit (the first of several) and Georgie took over the band briefly while Artie looked for a new perspective in Acapulco. (It has been recalled by Artie that part of the provocation for his departure was the resentment expressed by the rest of the band when Georgie came to work for the then impressive sum of $125.)

In the middle of the '40, he joined Benny Goodman for a year, and it was here he blended into the mainstream of jazz and laid the foundation for a perpetually progressive style. This was Benny's "Basie Period" wherein the sturdy strain of Negro jazz out of Kansas City and thereabouts crowed with the Chicago New York strains to produce a freer, more sensuous and swinging music... especially in the smaller groups. Goodman's great Sextet included besides Auld, Cootie Williams on trumpet, the late Charlie Christian on guitar and sometimes Basie himself on piano.

Then, around this time, Ben Webster was making his singularly expressive style left as a member of Duke Ellington band ("Cottontail," "All Too Soon," etc.). Coleman Hawkins came back from Europe and recorded "Body And Soul," and Chu Berry did his "Ghost Of A Chance" with Cab Calloway. That same year too, Lester Young was doing all those tremendous romping things with Basie. The tenor era was on, and there was plenty to absorb. It's our guess that Georgie learned the most about jazz interpretation of ballads at the Webster school, which is timeless.

He went back with Shaw in '41 - '42, and after an army turn formed his own band which functions and recorded between '44 and ' 46. During that period he recorded for the now-defunct Guild and Musicraft companies, producing several sides that added impetus to the modern jazz movement as carried forward by Woody Herman and such. Among his sidemen on various dates were Dizzy Gillespie, Erroll Garner, Al Cohn, Serge Chaloff, etc. One memorable date was shared with Sarah Vaughan.

It was in 1951 that Georgie began recording for Coral and for it's jazz subsidiary label, Brunswick. In recent years, too, he has succumbed to the urge which hits many jazz men, to operate his own club. He had one in New York for a time, them moved to Hollywood, where he opened the Melody Room in '54.

Lullaby Of Broadway
Manhattan
A Room With A View
Early Autumn
On The Alamo
Harlem Nocturne
The High And The Mighty
Dark Green
The Man With The Horn
Crazy She Calls Me
Just You, Just Me
Cherry Time