Today - Herbie Mann

 

Arrastao

Today

Herbie Mann

Arranged & Conducted by Oliver Nelson

Supervision: Nesuchi Ertegun

Cover Design: Haig Adishian

Recording Engineer: Tom Dowd

Atlantic 1454

1966

Personnel:

Herbie Mann - Flute or Alto Flute

Jimmy Owens - Trumpet

Jack Hitchcock & Joseph Orange - Tombones

Dave Pike - Vibed

Earl May - Bass

Bruno Carr - Drums

Carlos "Potato" Valdes - Percussion

From the back cover:

Herbie Mann, in addition to being an outstanding jazz musician, is an outspoken man about music. The following interview with Herbie Mann on such varied subjects as pop music, musical tastes, free expression, the Bossa Nova, closed and open minds, and John Lennon and Paul McCartney was made after he had time to reflect on his new album, Today. (Questions are by interviewer Bob Rolontz)>

Q: What is the meaning of the word Today as the title of this album? Do you mean today's music of today's style?

Mann: I mean Herbie Mann today. This is the music I listen to, and this music is exactly my taste at the moment.

Q: Your taste in popular music, jazz music or...

Mann: In music. I don't separate pop, classical, or jazz music. I play everything from a Satie piece to an African tribal chant. For me jazz is improvisation – in any meter, to any form. It's the end result that makes it jazz, whether the source is Israeli of the Beatles or Duke Ellington. It's the player, not the instrument. When I first started everyone said the flute was not a jazz instrument either. If a jazz performer plays it, then it's a jazz instrument; if a classical performer plays it, then it's a classical instrument.

Q: Then you feel that nothing is as important to a jazz musician as improvisation?

Mann: Yes, And every jazz musician chooses, if he has a choice, the material he wants to improvise on. There are no limitations as far as I am concerned. I listen to everything.

Q: Do you think improvisation is possible with all music?

Yes. The easy way is to swing all the music in the American jazz style of swinging. The right way is to improvise in the original context of the music. Otherwise there is no validity to it.

Q: You mean what the Swing Singers do is valid but what the swing bands used to do when they "swung the classics" was invalid?

Mann: Yes. That's why when I play an African tune I try to assimilate the whole feeling and mood of the piece just as if I was one of the original performers. That's probably why the Brazilians say I play Bossa Nova better than any other American musician. When I play Middle Eastern music the same thing happens. I don't really know why, but maybe it's because I try to understand the music I play instead of closing my mind and saying I'm only going to play Charlie Parker.

Q: Your career seems to be marked by a succession of different styles of music which you adopted even though they were ahead of the musical tastes of the time. Why this constant need for change?

Mann: I have to be interested in what I am doing at the time. I do not pre-condition my tastes. I always leave myself completely open to listen to something new. And I have enough confidence in my self to try something new. For example, when I came back from Brazil in 1961, I changed the band that had recorded for the Village Gate LP (Atlantic 1380) and formed a band to play Bossa Nova. I started working with this new band in January of 1962. My fans at the time said they didn't like the subtle changes in my music. The critics asked me why I decided to play Bossa Nova and what I thought would happen to Bossa Nova in the United States.

Q. What did you tell them?

Mann: Naturally I said it would become the next big thing in music. When it did, suddenly I became a prophet.

Q: What are you trying to say on Today?

Mann: I feel I can improvise on current pop music, as well as early Duke Ellington, and make them both equally valid today. Take the Beatles, for instance: John Lennon and Paul McCartney happen to be two of the most interesting writers on the current scene. The fact that they sell millions of albums to supposedly unsophisticated youngsters doesn't take away from the value of their music. Although The Lennon-McCartney lyrics are important now, it's their music of a standard as Jerome Kern's Yesterdays. The same goes for Burt Bacharach and Hal David. By the same token, there is no reason to peg Duke Ellington's music as being ancient.

Q: The Lennon-McCartney songs must have been played millions of times. What have you done to make them listenable all over again?

Mann: Between Oliver Nelson and me, we've uncovered another dimension in these pop hits. We have given them a new character. Sometimes I think– given a wild imagination – that what we have done is the original, and what pop singers have done with these songs is the variation.

From Billboard - March 5, 1966: In a program highlighting the Mann style of "Today," the flute virtuoso presents eight jazz renderings of current pop hits and bossa nova tunes in an exciting package for dealers and programmers. "Yesterday" and "If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody" stand out with the title tune.

Today - Herbie Mann & Oliver Nelson

The Creole Love Call - Duke Ellington

Don't Say I Didn't Tell You So - Hal David & Burt Bacharach

Arrastao - Edu Lobo & Norman Gimbel

The Mooch - Duke Ellington

If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody - Rudy Clark

Yesterday - John Lennon & Paul McCartney

The Night Before - John Lennon & Paul McCartney