Big Noise From Winnetka
The World's Greatest Jazzband
Of Yank Lawson And Bob Haggart
The Brightest, Freshest Sound In Music!
Project 3 - Total Sound Stereo PR/5033SD
1969
Personnel:
Trumpets - Yank Lawson - One of the original members of the Bob Cosby band; later with Tommy Dorsey; joint leader with Bob Haggart of the Lawson-Haggart Jazz Band
Billy Butterfield - Another Bob Crosby star, also with Artie Shaw (remember his solo on "Star Dust"?) and Benny Goodman
Trombones - Lou McGarity - Featured with Benny Goodman in the Forties; later with Raymond Scott and Eddie Condon.
Carl Fontana - Played with Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Lionel Hampton and Kai Winding's trombone group. One of the great contemporary trombone stylists.
Clarinet and Soprano Saxophone - Bob Wilber - A protege of Sidney Bechet; one of the Scarsdale High School Gang; later with Bobby Hackett, Eddie Condon and Benny Goodman.
Tenor Saxophone - Bud Freeman - One of the pioneer jazz stylist on tenor saxophone; a charter member of the Chicago school of jazz; featured with Ray Noble, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman; led his own Summa Cum Laude Jazz Band.
Piano - Ralph Sutton - Greatest contemporary exponent of the stride style of Fats Waller and James P. Johnson.
Banjo and Vocals - Clancy Hayes - A veteran vaudeville star who has been featured with Bunk Johnson, Lu Watters and Bob Scooby.
Bass - Bob Haggart - Key member of Bob Crosby's band, arranger and composer of "South Rampart Street Parade" and "What's New?", co-leader with Yank Lawson of the Lawson-Haggart Jazz Band.
Drums - Morey Feld - One of the great, driving, big band drummers' with Benny Goodman, Ben Pollack, Billy Butterfield, Bobby Hackett.
From the back cover: The World's Greatest Jazzband has been simmering in the pot for a long time. It takes seasoning to pro- duce as remarkable an ensemble as this ten-piece band. It doesn't happen overnight.
The musicians who make up this collection of brilliant talents have been polishing their skills for from two to four decades. Most of them gained their first fame in the Swing Era. All of them went on to become stars of the post-Swing period. Their individual paths have crossed innumerable times. But it was not until 1965 that the nucleus of the World's Greatest Jazzband first came together in Denver, Colorado-an unlikely place to look for a wellspring of jazz, although both Jimmie Lunceford and Andy Kirk once gave Denver a little jazz cachet (Lunceford and Kirk studied there with Paul Whiteman's father, Wilburforce J. Whiteman).
The catalytic force in Denver was a man named Richard Gibson, a one time magazine editor and investment banker, transferred from New York to Denver (although originally out of Alabama).
In 1963 Gibson staged a three-day jazz party in Aspen, Colorado, a private affair, by invitation only. It proved to be such a happy success that the party became an annual event, moving after a couple of years from Aspen to Vail. The musicians Gibson brought to these parties generally reflected his personal jazz tastes which cover a broad area of swinging mainstream music.
In 1965 Gibson decided to offer Coloradans at large a taste of what his party guests were hearing up in the mountains. That summer, he presented a concert in the Trocadero Ballroom of Elitch Gardens by a group made up of musicians who played every year at his jazz parties. He called them the Nine Greats of Jazz. The Nine Greats consisted of Yank Lawson on trumpet, Lou McGarity and Cutty Cutshall on trombones, Bud Freeman on tenor saxophone, Peanuts Hucko on clarinet, Ralph Sutton on piano, Bob Haggart on bass, Clancy Hayes on banjo and Morey Feld, drums.
The Nine Greats of Jazz were the beginning of the World's Greatest Jazzband. They returned to Denver the following summer when the original concert was expanded to two three-day weekends with additional jazz performers. These summer weekends of jazz are now an annual occasion in Denver.
In 1967 the Nine Greats became the Ten Greats with the addition of a second trumpet, Billy Butterfield. By the summer of 1968 Dick Gibson was convinced that the Ten Greats of Jazz constituted the greatest jazz band in the world. Denver certainly appreciated them but the world deserved them. So plans were made to move out into the great world that lay beyond Denver.
Leaving Denver meant leaving Pea- nuts Hucko, who has his own place there, the Navarre Restaurant, where he plays regularly. His pot was filled and, in a sense, expanded by the acquisition of Bob Wilber who plays both clarinet and soprano saxophone. The death of Cutty Cutshall in the summer of 1968 left a trombone chair empty but it was quickly filled by Carl Fontana who had made a solid impression with both listeners and musicians at the Vail party.
Then came the matter of a distinctive name. Yank Lawson and Bob Haggart were the leaders. But the "Lawson-Haggart Jazz Band" was an identification that had already been used on innumerable records by small groups led by Yank and Bob. The solution was both obvious and simple. If this was the world's greatest jazz band, why not simply call it The World's Greatest Jazzband? So it became "The World's Greatest Jazz- band of Yank Lawson and Bob Haggart."
The band made its first appearance outside Denver in November, 1968 at the Riverboat in New York (where the New York Times, after lifting an eye- brow at the audacity of the billing, admitted that the ten members of the band "made a very convincing claim to their title.") After a month and a half at the Riverboat, the band moved on to Washington to play for President Nixon's Inaugural. And then on out into the wide, wide world where this jazz band is as everyone who has heard it agrees-absolutely the greatest.
The musicians who make up this collection of brilliant talents have been polishing their skills for from two to four decades. Most of them gained their first fame in the Swing Era. All of them went on to become stars of the post-Swing period. Their individual paths have crossed innumerable times. But it was not until 1965 that the nucleus of the World's Greatest Jazzband first came together in Denver, Colorado-an unlikely place to look for a wellspring of jazz, although both Jimmie Lunceford and Andy Kirk once gave Denver a little jazz cachet (Lunceford and Kirk studied there with Paul Whiteman's father, Wilburforce J. Whiteman).
The catalytic force in Denver was a man named Richard Gibson, a one time magazine editor and investment banker, transferred from New York to Denver (although originally out of Alabama).
In 1963 Gibson staged a three-day jazz party in Aspen, Colorado, a private affair, by invitation only. It proved to be such a happy success that the party became an annual event, moving after a couple of years from Aspen to Vail. The musicians Gibson brought to these parties generally reflected his personal jazz tastes which cover a broad area of swinging mainstream music.
In 1965 Gibson decided to offer Coloradans at large a taste of what his party guests were hearing up in the mountains. That summer, he presented a concert in the Trocadero Ballroom of Elitch Gardens by a group made up of musicians who played every year at his jazz parties. He called them the Nine Greats of Jazz. The Nine Greats consisted of Yank Lawson on trumpet, Lou McGarity and Cutty Cutshall on trombones, Bud Freeman on tenor saxophone, Peanuts Hucko on clarinet, Ralph Sutton on piano, Bob Haggart on bass, Clancy Hayes on banjo and Morey Feld, drums.
The Nine Greats of Jazz were the beginning of the World's Greatest Jazzband. They returned to Denver the following summer when the original concert was expanded to two three-day weekends with additional jazz performers. These summer weekends of jazz are now an annual occasion in Denver.
In 1967 the Nine Greats became the Ten Greats with the addition of a second trumpet, Billy Butterfield. By the summer of 1968 Dick Gibson was convinced that the Ten Greats of Jazz constituted the greatest jazz band in the world. Denver certainly appreciated them but the world deserved them. So plans were made to move out into the great world that lay beyond Denver.
Leaving Denver meant leaving Pea- nuts Hucko, who has his own place there, the Navarre Restaurant, where he plays regularly. His pot was filled and, in a sense, expanded by the acquisition of Bob Wilber who plays both clarinet and soprano saxophone. The death of Cutty Cutshall in the summer of 1968 left a trombone chair empty but it was quickly filled by Carl Fontana who had made a solid impression with both listeners and musicians at the Vail party.
Then came the matter of a distinctive name. Yank Lawson and Bob Haggart were the leaders. But the "Lawson-Haggart Jazz Band" was an identification that had already been used on innumerable records by small groups led by Yank and Bob. The solution was both obvious and simple. If this was the world's greatest jazz band, why not simply call it The World's Greatest Jazzband? So it became "The World's Greatest Jazz- band of Yank Lawson and Bob Haggart."
The band made its first appearance outside Denver in November, 1968 at the Riverboat in New York (where the New York Times, after lifting an eye- brow at the audacity of the billing, admitted that the ten members of the band "made a very convincing claim to their title.") After a month and a half at the Riverboat, the band moved on to Washington to play for President Nixon's Inaugural. And then on out into the wide, wide world where this jazz band is as everyone who has heard it agrees-absolutely the greatest.
1. SUNNY. Bob Wilber, who once threatened to be a youthful imitation of Sidney Bechet, has, instead, turned into a late blooming individualist. It has taken him almost 20 years to shake off the pervasive influence of Bechet, who made Wilber his protege, and to find his own expression. Instead of the straight soprano saxophone that Bechet used, Wilbur now plays a small, curved soprano and he expresses himself in neat, smooth, cleanly executed tones rather than the broad, splashy vibrato that Bechet exhibited. This arrangement by bone background. Bob Haggart gives Wilber an opportunity to show both the lyricism and the emotional power that he generates with his soprano.
2. PANAMA. The World's Greatest Jazzband pays its respects to the traditional Dixieland approach to this well seasoned war horse in the opening chorus and verse. Bud Freeman's solo is colored by his gutty, digging attack while Bob Wilber's clarinet sails gracefully through another solo. Then it's back to the ensemble with a two-trumpet lead. The final riff is just as much a part of the Dixieland repertory as "Panama" itself but the way in which the World's Greatest Jazzband uses that riff has distinct overtones of the instrumental numbers on which the Casa Loma Orchestra rode to fame-"Buji," "Wild Goose Chase," "Black Jazz," "White Jazz" or maybe "Maniacs' Ball."
3. BABY, WON'T YOU PLEASE COME HOME. Yank Lawson and Billy Butterfield share this slow, slinky version of a tune that is normally played like a rocket taking off. Yank is out front on the first chorus, playing a soulful open trumpet, while Billy blows pretty fills behind them. Then Billy takes over, staying in the same pretty vein, decorated with little runs that are reflected in Ralph Sutton's piano fills. Midway through the chorus, Yank hands Billy his plunger mute (Billy had forgotten to bring one) and Billy finishes his solo with a dirtier tone than he started. Yank retrieves his mute to lead the way through the final chorus, climaxed by a surging but controlled shout-the past 30 years, has made him an unwilling whistling virtu- ing match between the two trumpets.
4. UP, UP AND AWAY. Layer on layer of sound builds up the introduction-tom-tom, cymbals, Bob Wilber's low register clarinet, the two trombones and finally Bud Freeman's tenor saxophone-leading to a lively, Dixie-flavored ensemble led by Yank Lawson's punching trumpet. Bob Haggart has written. an arrangement that keeps the full band in the spotlight with brief glimpses of Carl Fontana's trombone. Billy Butterfield takes over the trumpet lead briefly with Yank punching in back of him just before Morey Feld's drum break. But, for the most part, this is the "World's Greatest Jazzband" in full ensemble cry.
5. ODE TO BILLY JOE. An easy, ambling feeling of ominous- ness is quickly established here by Ralph Sutton's piano figure, backed by Bob Haggart's electric bass. Yank Lawson, with plunger mute on his trumpet, establishes the tone of the piece. Then Carl Fontana and Yank Lawson move in on trombone and trumpet, Fontana's big tone balanced by Lawson's high, poignant muted trumpet. Notice the way in which Billy's answers to Fontana are subsequently taken up by Morey Feld's drums-an unusual and imaginative switch.
6. HONKY TONK TRAIN. Meade Lux Lewis, the rolypoly boogie woogie pianist, rode to fame playing this rhythmically insist- ent piece after he and Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson had kicked off what became an international boogie woogie fad by performing at Carnegie Hall at a concert called "From Spir- ituals to Swing" in 1937. It still remains the most popular of those piano solos that were developed over a rolling, re- peated bass figure that inevitably suggested the sound of a train clicking over the tracks. Ralph Sutton, whose scope as a pianist covers stride piano (a la Fats Waller), ragtime and the blues gives the Train a rollicking ride, decorating it with some ragtime fills in passing.
6. HONKY TONK TRAIN. Meade Lux Lewis, the rolypoly boogie woogie pianist, rode to fame playing this rhythmically insist- ent piece after he and Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson had kicked off what became an international boogie woogie fad by performing at Carnegie Hall at a concert called "From Spir- ituals to Swing" in 1937. It still remains the most popular of those piano solos that were developed over a rolling, re- peated bass figure that inevitably suggested the sound of a train clicking over the tracks. Ralph Sutton, whose scope as a pianist covers stride piano (a la Fats Waller), ragtime and the blues gives the Train a rollicking ride, decorating it with some ragtime fills in passing.
SIDE TWO
oso. The breathy whistle he uses to introduce the tune was inspired by a waiter at the President Hotel in New York whose ability to whistle through his teeth while he spun a tray on top. of one finger used to fascinate Haggart.
oso. The breathy whistle he uses to introduce the tune was inspired by a waiter at the President Hotel in New York whose ability to whistle through his teeth while he spun a tray on top. of one finger used to fascinate Haggart.
2. LIMEHOUSE BLUES. The tinkle of Morey Feld's cymbal, lyricism and the emotional power that he generates with his Ralph Sutton's treble piano plinks and the softly interweaving trombones of Lou McGarity and Carl Fontana provide an appropriately exotic introduction to this familiar celebration of London's Chinese district. The exoticism gives way to a charging drive as Yank Lawson leads the ensemble into the opening chorus but then it turns into a series of exchanges between McGarity and Fontana. McGarity comes on first, playing high, choppy phrases that are answered by Fontana's darker, smooth tone. When Fontana takes over the lead, he manages to mingle a suggestion of "Chlo-e" in the Limehouse atmosphere while McGarity backs him up with his darting, plunging responses. When the full band takes over again, with Lawson shouting out a lead, the arrangement unravels and works its way back to the orientalisms with which it began.
3. BIG NOISE FROM WINNETKA. Bob Haggart created this unusual bass and drum duet with Ray Bauduc when they were both in Bob Crosby's band back in the late 1930s. The high point of the piece comes when the drummer (in this case, Morey Feld) drums with his sticks on the strings of Haggart's bass while Haggart nonchalantly fingers the notes. The tune got its title when the Crosby band was playing at the Black- hawk Restaurant in Chicago and a boisterous fan from Win- netka kept requesting the duet. The success of the piece, which Haggart has had to play wherever he has appeared for
4. THIS IS ALL I ASK. Gordon Jenkins lovely, evocative mel- ody is an ideal vehicle for Billy Butterfield's singing, pure- toned ballad style. The penetrating brilliance of his high notes, the mellow richness of his middle register and the graceful little bends with which he extends some notes are all part of the pattern that made inimitable classics of Billy's "What's New with Bob Crosby's band and his "Star Dust" with Artie Shaw. Bob Wilber's clarinet, which peeks out of the back- ground during the first chorus, picks up the melody for part of the second chorus, rambling in and out of the low register with a soft and gentle attack.
5. MRS. ROBINSON. Bob Haggart's arrangement of the tune Paul Simon wrote for "The Graduate" is a showcase for Bud Freeman's very personal style on tenor saxophone. Free- man's style, with its whirling, spinning figures, is stamped so irrevocably with his own musical personality that, once you've heard any of his solos, it's not difficult to pick him out even in. the midst of an ensemble. One of the most remarkable aspects of Freeman's playing is that, even though he found his musical identification in the late Twenties, he has continued to work with great creativity and imagination within this basic style for four decades, constantly refining and polishing his ideas and his performances until they glisten with the musical lustre that he gives off here.
6. BUGLE CALL RAG. Bob Haggart has turned this old flag- waver into a mixture of big band, small combo and solo styles. The opening sections are in the big band tradition with breaks by Bob Wilber (clarinet), Lou McGarity, Yank Lawson and Bud Freeman, leading into a riff made familiar by Benny Good- man's version of the tune. Then come the solos with small combo backing-Ralph Sutton tickling his piano, Bob Wilber on clarinet, Lou McGarity's trombone backed by two-trumpet shouts from Yank and Billy and finally Yank leading the way back to a full ensemble (and notice how Billy lures the ensemble in while Yank is still blowing away on his own).
5. MRS. ROBINSON. Bob Haggart's arrangement of the tune Paul Simon wrote for "The Graduate" is a showcase for Bud Freeman's very personal style on tenor saxophone. Free- man's style, with its whirling, spinning figures, is stamped so irrevocably with his own musical personality that, once you've heard any of his solos, it's not difficult to pick him out even in. the midst of an ensemble. One of the most remarkable aspects of Freeman's playing is that, even though he found his musical identification in the late Twenties, he has continued to work with great creativity and imagination within this basic style for four decades, constantly refining and polishing his ideas and his performances until they glisten with the musical lustre that he gives off here.
6. BUGLE CALL RAG. Bob Haggart has turned this old flag- waver into a mixture of big band, small combo and solo styles. The opening sections are in the big band tradition with breaks by Bob Wilber (clarinet), Lou McGarity, Yank Lawson and Bud Freeman, leading into a riff made familiar by Benny Good- man's version of the tune. Then come the solos with small combo backing-Ralph Sutton tickling his piano, Bob Wilber on clarinet, Lou McGarity's trombone backed by two-trumpet shouts from Yank and Billy and finally Yank leading the way back to a full ensemble (and notice how Billy lures the ensemble in while Yank is still blowing away on his own).
Sunny
Panama
Baby, Won't You Please Come Home
Up, Up & Away
Ode To Billy Joe
Honky Tonk Train
A Taste Of Honey
Limehouse Blues
Big Noise From Winnetka
This Is All I Ask
Mrs. Robinson
Bugle Call Rag
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