Touff Assignment - Cy Touff

Cyril's Dream

Touff Assignment
The Cy Touff Quintet
Producer: Dave Usher
Cover Photo: Don Bronstein
Recording Engineer: Malcolm Chisholm
Recording Dates: August 28th, 29th, 1958
Mastering Engineer: Douglas Brand
Argo LP 641

From the back cover: Cy Touff has been at music a long time. He started on piano when he was six "and created a Frankenstein monster" which took years for his parents to become accustomed to. He switched to C-melody sax, then trumpet, the xylophone ("my mother was a fiend for auction sales!") and then settled into the role of trombone player in high school. During his tour of duty in the Army, Cy played in a band with Conte Condoli and Red Mitchell and then on his discharge studied for a while with Lennie Tristano. Prior to joining Herman, he was with such bands as Jimmie Dale, Red Saunders, Shorty Sherock and – here's left field for you! – the New York City Opera Company!

His years with Herman took him all over the U.S. and Europe and made the bass trumpet even more widely accepted in jazz. He played it in the trombone section, because the tone is close to that of a trombone, and he was featured soloist with the Herman group throughout his stay with the band. While with Herman, Touff recorded with a small group Woody led for a time, as well as with his own group. A musician with broad tastes, he is an avid Count Basie fan, digs Dixieland on occasion, and lists his favorite musicians as the late Lester Young, Count Basie, Johnny Mandel and Al Cohn and his favorite record as Basie's "Taxi War Dance."

Although this is not the first LP under Cy Touff's name, I would venture an educated guess that it's the first one over which he has had direction and it shows in the end product. "There never has been a serious musician who is as serious about his music as a serious jazz musician." Duke Ellington wrote in JAZZ, A Quarterly of American Music (Vol. 1, #2) and Cy Touff fits this description perfectly. He has humor, as do all jazz musicians, but he is a serious man given to the reading of Kafka and Sartee and to serious consideration of other arts.

And he was serious about this LP.

For the group, Cy picked the best of Chicago's young jazz men. Sandy Mosse, a veteran of European tours, Woody Herman's big band, the Chicago studios and numerous record sessions, (as well as of his own LP on Argo), plays with a swinging definitiveness that is by no means usual these days. Ed Higgins, the pianist, is another Chicago veteran who has worked extensively in that area with his own trio. Bob Cranshaw, who has played bass with Higgins for some time, joins him here with Marty Clausen, another Chicagoan on drums.

The result is a good swinging jazz. Indicative of the stature of Cy in the world of jazz, is the fact that two original charts to this session: Al Cohn's "Soulville" and "Cyril's Dream," Ernie Wilkins "Kissin' Cousins," and "Tough Touff". Although Cyril (and Sandy Mosse, too) comes through on a ballad with lyric intensity, my personal kicks come from the swinging charts, the Ernie Wilkins blues and "Cyril's Dream," yet it is a lovely interlude to play "How Long Has This Been Going On".

Two sides then to jazz and to the jazz musician: one for each of your extreme moods and many shadings in between. The exuberant one of "Tough Touff" and the reflective, introspective one of the ballads. In either, Cyril James Touff fits, which is the true mark of the the jazz musician. – Ralph J. Gleason - Editor of Jazz and syndicated columnist whose articles on jazz appear in newspapers throughout the country.

Soulsville
Cyril's Dream
How Long Has This Been Going On
Kissin' Cousins
Keeping Out Of Mischief Now
I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart
Lamp Is Low
Tough Touff