Ruby Braff & George Barnes Salutes Rodgers And Hart

 

Lover

Ruby Braff/George Barnes Quartet 

Salutes Rodgers And Hart

Produced by Concord Jazz, Inc. - Carl E. Jefferson, President

Recorded for Concord Jazz at A&R Recording, Inc., New York

Recording Engineer: Richard Blakin

Mastering: Al Brown

Design: Richard Cross

Concord Jazz Classic CJ-7

Concord Jazz, Inc.

1975

From the back cover: The relationship between Ruby Braff and George Barnes since they formed their quartet in the spring of 1973 has become, in Barne's view, "very metaphysical".

"We're very likely to do the same thing at the same instant," George declares. "Ruby and I have a rapport that only comes from having the same musical thoughts."

"Sometimes we even play the very same riffs.' Ruby added.

It is this remarkable rapport that has enabled Ruby and George to develop an ensemble style for their quartet that is very tight, very precise and, at the same time, has the looseness and freedom to allow them to improvise at will.

"We trust each other," Ruby explained. "So we can make changes in what we do. When we decide to work up a tune, we just draft. Then we just play on it. We've been playing some tunes for a year and a half and we're still sculpting them. Certain ensemble phrases we'll leave alone. But everything else grows."

None of their arrangements are written down although, at first, they taped everything they played.

"We're so together now," said George, "that we don't need that."

The secret of their togetherness, if there is a secret, is their belief in rehearsal. They spend more time rehearsing, they insist, then doing anything else. They rehearsed for eight solid weeks to prepare 40 minutes of music for the quartet's first public appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival in Carnegie Hall in New York in June 1973. For a 40 minute program of Gershwin music at the Concord Festival in the summer of 1974, they began rehearsing in New York, rehearsed  through eight days of a jazz festival in Nice, France, returned to New York for more rehearsals and then flew to Concord, and rehearsed some more (the results of that performance are on Concord Jazz CJ-5)

The rehearsals for this album really began before George and Ruby knew when they were going to do it. They played a series of concerts with Tony Bennett for which they worked up accompaniments for 23 Rodgers and Hart songs. One concert was filmed at Alice Tully Hall and 20 of the Rodgers and Hart songs were recorded by Bennett as a double LP. It was a situation that both excited and depressed George and Ruby.

"Tony was having all the fun," George complained. "We felt frustrated at not being able to do any instrumentals." 

"George and I are singers," Ruby pointed out. "We want to sing the tunes on our instruments."

So, from their sense of frustration, came this album. The only problem was in boiling down the rich Rodgers and Hart repertory to ten songs.

"It was like being in a candy store." George admitted. "I'll take that and that and that and that. We wanted to include some songs that we didn't do with Tony. That's how we settled on "Blue Roon" and 'Thou Swell,' which I love.

Even the songs they did with Bennett have taken on a different feeling in this album. The Braff-Barnes "The Lady Is A Tramp" is taken at a brighter tempo than Tony used because, as Ruby observed, "he needed room for the words. "Ruby's use of very tightly squeezed notes and staccato bursts on "Lover" is, George said admiringly, a very unique thing for him. Ruby insists that he didn't know what he was doing. But he did know what he was doing when he played the introduction to "Isn't Romantic?"

"I lifted it from the Tony Bennett arrangement," he admitted. "But what we did with Tony was our own so we just wanted it back."

Once the program for the album had been settled – Ruby plans his concerts and George programs their records – they played the songs for two weeks in Boston and another week in Washington and then went tiny the studio.

"In the studio," said George, "it's just like a concert. It's a performance. It's extremely easy to record us. All you have to do is leave us alone."

"This one just rolled off and it felt so nice we did the whole album in three hours. I don't think you can do an album in three separate sessions because each session has a different feel."

"There were only a few false starts. Everything was done in one take except 'The Lady Is A Tramp'. We did three takes on it and then chose the first one, anyhow. That first take ended in a way we had never done it before and once we decided to put that take on the record, we had to learn the ending for our live performances.

Aside from providing the inspiration for this album, another result of their work with Tony Bennett was the loss of their bass player, John Giuffrida. Bennett took Giuffrida off to Las Vegas with him. In his place, George and Ruby got a brilliant young bassist, Michael Moore, who had come to prominence working with Marian McPartland and Stan Getz. The fact that Mike's father is a guitarist may influence George's estimate of him.

"Mike is one of the greatest," George insists. "He has tremendous technique and has the long, slim fingers a bass player needs. On top of that, he knows all the tunes we play."

Wayne Wright, the left-handed rhythm guitarist who has been with the quartet since it was formed in 1973, is still the other half of the accompaniment to George and Ruby.

"We lean on them for that nice comfortable feather bed, "declared Ruby. "They do for us what Walter Page, Jo Jones and Count Basie did for Lester Young."

Both George and Ruby say they can do things with this accompaniment that they could never do with anything else. When the full quartet gets into new tunes that Ruby and George have worked on without Wayne and Mike, the two accompanists are guided by signals that are so secret, according to George tha they are never discovered by their audiences.

"We have everything worked out that way." said George. "We believe we're entertainers. We're in show business. There is no obvious count-off or downbeat when we start. It gets in the way of the arrangement."

Rodgers and Hart were in show business, too. And that may be why the rapport that George and Ruby have for each other also apples to these classic Rodgers and Hart songs. – John S. Wilson, Jazz Critic

Mountain Greenery

Isn't It Romantic

Blue Room

Small Hotel

Thou Swell

I Wish I Were In Love Again

Lover 

You Took Advantage Of Me

Spring Is Here

The Lady Is A Tramp

Debut! The Philadelphia Orchestra Pops - Henry Mancini

 

The River

Debut!

Henry Mancini

Conducting the First Recording of The Philadelphia Orchestra Pops

Composed and Arranged by Henry Mancini

Produced by John Pfeiffer 

Recording Engineer: Edwin Begley

Recorded in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia

RCA Victor Red Seal STEREO LSC-3106

1969

The River

Black Snow

The Sons Of Italy

Dream Of A Lifetime

Stings On Fire!

Cameo For Violin

Drummer's Delight

The Ballerina's Dream

Speedy Gonzales

World's Greatest Semi-Classical Favorites

 

Polonaise

Ferrante And Teicher

World's Greatest Semi-Classical Favorites

Album Design by ARW Productions, Inc.

ABC-Paramount ABCS 553

1966

Malaguena

Hungarian Dance No. 5

Ave Maria

Polonaise

Sabre Dance (from the Gayne Ballet)

Habanera

Ritual Fire Dance

Reverie

Liebestraum No. 3

Spring Fever - Chuck Wayne

 

Love For Sale

Spring Fever

Chuck Wayne

Arranged and Conducted by Chuck Wayne

Produced and Directed by Bob Rolontz

Recorded July 22, 23 and 24, 1957, in RCA Victor Studio "A," New York City

Vik LX-1098

1958

Personnel:

What A Difference A Day Made, Embraceable You, Body And Soul, Along With Me, How About You

Guitar - Chuck Wayne

Tenor Sax - Caesar Di Mauro

Trumpet - Don Joseph

Drums - Jimmy Campbell

Bass - Clyde Lombardi

Vibes and Piano - Eddie Costa

Love For Sale, Lover Man

Guitar - Chuck Wayne

Tenor Sax - Caesar Di Mauro

Drums - Sonny Igoe

Alto Sax - Gene Quill

Trumpet - Don Joseph

Bass - Clyde Lombardi

Lullaby In Rhythm, Carmel, Rockabye Bay, Snuggled On Your Shoulder

Guitar - Chuck Wayne

Tenor Sax - Caesar Di Mauro, Eddie Wasserman, Sol Schlinger, Sam Marowitz

Trombone - Summer Clement Truitt

Trumpet - Thomas Parker Allison, Donald Frederick Joseph, Alvin Goldbert

Bass - Clyde Lombardi

Drums - Sonny Igoe

From the back cover: An A&R man is presumed to have no preferences concerning his artists. He is supposed to exercise a sort of judicial dispassion, helping his artists give forth their best efforts, but refusing to let himself be borne away by their style or technique or even the feeling invested in their work. But with Chuck Wayne these A&R ground rules have go be tossed out the window. For Chuck is more than another superior jazz musician, more than just another exciting guitarist. This isn't only because Chuck's technique and facility is at least equal to that of the top jazz guitar men performing today, or that his style is a style. But because it the depth and feeling – what in jazz parlance is called "soul" – that Chuck brings to his work there is a quality, which, fragile and indefinable as it may be, is possessed by all musicians who earn a lasting place in the jazz world. Flashes of that quality can be heard on many of Chuck's solos in this album. This is Chuck Wayne's first solo album – with Vik or any other company. For it Chuck selected and arranged all of the selections, conducted all of the dates, and played the majority of solos. In this respect he many have overreached himself. For it is hard enough to preform well on a solo jazz album, without talking on all of the other chores. (Chuck even wrote the only original tune in the set, a swinging' thing called Carmel). But in spite of all his extra work, Chuck gives an exciting picture of himself on this set, of his approach to jazz, to tunes, to his guitar.

Chuch Wayne's background encompasses stints with the late Clarence Profit, Nat Jaffee, Joe Marsala and the Third Woody Herman Herd. He has been a member of the Phil Moore Four, The Barbara Carroll Trio and the George Shearing Quintet. From 1954 to 1956 he toured the country as accompanist to Tony Bennett. Chuck was the guitarist who sat in front of the club ork on a bar stool and played those wonderful backgrounds for the versatile Tony. In 1956 he became involved with the short-run Tennessee Williams' play "Orpheus Descending" for which he composed the background music and was the solo musical performer. At present he is leading his own combo in jazz clubs and boîtes in the East.

All facets of Chuck's work are on display here: his swinging approach to modern jazz on Lullaby In Rhythm, How About You, What A Difference A Day Made, Along With Me and his own Carmel; his driving beat on Love For Sale and Snuggled On Your Shoulder; and his warm, intimate style on Lover Man, Embraceable You and Rockabye Bay. Perhaps his most haunting and fully satisfying performance is his solo, with just bass and drums backing, on Body And Soul.

Chuck has allowed much room for solos by the musicians who backed him on these recordings. Don Joseph's trumpet solos on Embraceable You and Lover Man are outstanding, Eddie Costa does some fine piano work on Along With Me and What A Difference A Day Made, and Caesar Di Mauro on tenor and Gene Quill on alto sax get chances on many of the selections.  – Bob Rolontz (Bob Rolontz handles jazz recordings for Vik Records).

Lullaby In Rhythm

Embraceable You

Love For Sale

Along With Me

Carmel

Body And Soul

Snuggled On Your Shoulder

How About You

What A Difference A Day Made

Rockabye Bay

How Now, Dow Jones - Living Voices

 

Walk Away

How Now, Dow Jones

Living Voices Sing Music From The Broadway Musical

Arranged and Conducted by Bob Armstrong

Produced by Ethel Gabriel

Recording Engineer: Bob Simpson

Recorded in Webster Hall, New York City

RCA Camden CAS-2189

1968

ABC

Live A Little

The Pleasure's About To Be Mine

Walk Away

Gawk, Tousle And Shucks

Step To The Rear

Shakespeare Lied

Where You Are

Rich Is Better

Medley: Live A Little, Walk Away, Step To The Rear

Jimmy Raney Featuring Bob Brookmeyer

 

Jim's Tune

Jimmy Raney

Featuring Bob Brookmeyer

Produced by Creed Taylor

Engineers: Frank Abby & Earl Brown

ABC-Paramount ABC-129

1956

Personnel: 

Jimmy Raney - Guitar

Bob Brookmeyer - Valve Trombone

Teddy Kotick - Bass

Osie Johnson - Drums

Dick Katz - Piano (on Isn't It Romantic, How Long Has This Been Going On?, Get Off The Roof and Jim's Tune)

Hank Jones - Piano (on No Male For ME, 

From the back cover: 

Raney, James Elbert 

Guitar, Arranger

Born Louisville, KY 8/20/27

Father a prominent newspaperman. Studied w. A.J. Giancolla and Hayden Causey; the latter recommended Raney to replace him in Jerry Wald band in NYC 1944. After two months w. Wald he went to Chicago, working there w. Max Miller, Lou Levy and many local combos. Toured w. Woody Herman Jan-Sept. '48. Worked in trio w. Al Haig for awhile, then Buddy De Franco sextet, and off and on w. Artie Shaw in 1949 and '50. Following 2 months w. Terry Gibbs, he joined the Stan Getz quintet and was responsible w. Getz for the unique combo sound achieved by the group during their two years together.

Starting in March '53 Raney spent a year with the Red Norvo trio, toured Europe with him in Jan-Feb. '54. He then joined Les Elgart for 3 months, later worked with the Jimmy Lyon trio at the Blue Angel in NYC. Raney,  superlative musician, is to the guitar what Lee Konitz is to the alto sax. He has written a number of striking compositions, among them Signal, Motion, Lee, Five, Minor. Favs: Tal Farlow, Ch. Christian. He won the DB critic's poll 1954 – Leonard Feather, The Encyclopedia Of Jazz Horizon Press

Also from the back cover: In the tense atmosphere of the recording studio, I have found only a few musicians with whom I feel at ease. I believe that almost any jazz musician will tell you the same thing. What you need is not only technical proficiency – even brilliance – but a man whose ideas stimulate you, and who is in turn stimulated by your ideas. This is the kind of relationship, to my mind, the produces good jazz. I believe Bob Brookmeyer meets all specifications. We are at ease playing together; we get fresh ideas from each other.

Hank Jones plays piano on No Make For Me, The Flag Is Up, No One But Me and Too Late Now. Dick Katz is on the remaining four. Teddy Kotick is on Bass and Osie Johnson is on Drums on all the sides. I felt that the rhythm section worked extremely well together and with Bob and me.

On the technical side, the importance of the studio and engineers cannot be over-emphasized. Some mechanical set-ups may be fine for some groups, but the equipment and the attitude and taste of the engineer make another group sound mediocre. Engineers Frank Abby and Earl Brown did a first rate job for us. – Jimmy Raney

Isn't It Romantic

How Long Has This Been Going On?

No Male For Me

The Flag Is Up

Get Off That Roof

Jim's Tune

No One But Me

Too Late Now

Moonglow - Benny Carter

Laura

Moonglow

Love Songs by Benny Carter and His Orchestra

Cover Photo by Phil March

Verve Records MG V-2025

1957

From the back cover: The fact that Benny Carter has been so closely associated with motion pictures for the last decade or more doesn't make him any more qualified to interpret love songs than he always has been. Still, it's interesting to observe that the movies are a good spawning ground for love songs. In this album two of the songs – significantly the ones bearing girl's names – also served well as the titles for above-average movies. There's "Laura," which hit the screen in 1945 and concerned a phantom type of Everyman's dream girl, and there's "Ruby," a 1952 vintage film with the girl in question more on the difficult side but nonetheless desirable. And both, "Laura" and "Ruby", are love songs to beat all love songs, both moody, intensely romantic and–to nearly everyone who has ever had a brush with romance on enduring terms – immensely evocative. "Laura," especially, is the hand-holding song, the one that stirs the couples on the dance floor to the dreamy, cheek-to-cheek routine. (As important as the lyrics may be to "Laura," the lyricist himself, Johnny Mercer, once threw all the credit to Dave Raksin, the composer, with this self-effacing statement: "Laura' would have made it, musically, if its title had been 'Sam.'")

In any event, these are a few songs as they were meant to be played – with tenderness and affections for the lyric content of the song as well as the music. To discuss some of the other songs individually, "Moonglow," the title tune, was the combined effort of Will Hudson, Eddie DeLange and Irving Mills in 1934 and although it was never utilized for a movie or a Broadway show it has grown with the years into one of our more valued standards. (If there are words in our language that lend themselves to mental pictures "Moonglow" must be one of the pleasantest of the lot). The Gershwin's, George and Ira, wrote "Love Is Here To Stay" for the motion picture, "Ziegfeld Follies." Walter Gross composed "Tenderly" in 1945 and since then few songs have been played quite so often.

Benny Carter, who is a native New Yorker, has earned an enviable reputation not only as a leader and arranger but as a versatile instrumentalist. He is heard here on alto saxophone, his major instrument, although on occasion he also plays the tenor, clarinet and trumpet.

The artists: Benny Carter, alto saxophone; Don Abney, piano; Louis Bellson, drums and George Duvivier, bass, are heard on all the tunes with the exception of "Laura" on which are heard Bill Harris, trombone, Oscar Peterson, piano, Herb Ellis, guitar; Ray Brown, bass and Buddy Rich, drums.

Moonglow

My One And Only Love

Love Is Here To Stay

Tenderly

Unforgettable

Laura

Ruby

Moon Song

Sabah

 

Bayya'a el tiffah

Sabah

Philips APY 833 706

Orient Record Co. - Brooklyn, N.Y.

Ash-Shark Records SLPO 145

Jary ya jary

Al Kal'ah

Ataba w-maanna

Ydoum izzak

Bayya'a el tiffah

Lizz el-kourseh

Ya msafir

Al Yadi el yadi

Some Enchanted Evening - Mantovani

 

Some Enchanted Evening

Some Enchanted Evening

Mantovani and His Orchestra

London Records LL 766

1958

Some Enchanted Evening

Tell Me That You Love Me Tonight

When The Lilacs Bloom Again

Love's Dream After The Ball

Symphony

So Madly In Love

The Agnes Waltz

Belle Of The Ball

Speakeasy

Gypsy Love Waltz

The Whistling Boy

Faith

Die Schönbrunner Waltz

Czardas

Shifting Winds - Bob Cooper

 

'Round Midnight

Shifting Winds

Bob Cooper

Capitol Records T6513

1956

Sessions:

Bob Cooper - Tenor sax, Oboe, English Horn - 1, 2, 3

Jimmy Gluffre - Tenor Sax, Clarinet, Bariton Sax - 1, 2, 3

Bud Shank - Alto Sax, Flute, Tenor Sax - 1, 2, 3

Bob Enevoldsen - Trombone, Tenor Sax, Bass Clarinet - 1, 2, 3

Claude Williamson - Piano - 1, 2, 3

John Graas - French Horn - 2, 3

Stu Williamson - Trumpet, Trombone - 1

Max Bennet - Bass - 1

Joe Mondragon - Bass - 2

Ralph Pena - Bass - 3

Stan Levy - Drums - 1

Shelly Manne - 2, 3

Session 1: April 26, 1956, Hollywood, Califorina - Strike Up The Band, It Don't Mean A Thing, Hot Boy, Sunset

Session 2: June 13, 1955, Hollywood, California - Deep In A Dream, It's De-Lovely, Drawing Lines

Session 3: June 14, 1955, Hollywood, California - All Or Nothing At All, 'Round Midnight, Tongue Twister

From the back cover: A lank, shy fellow in his late twenties, Cooper is an inconspicuous suburban dweller, with a wife, singer June Christy – and an infant daughter. Not long after the recording sessions, Cooper discussed the music in an informal chat. Here, culled from that discussion, are some of his remarks on the tunes, the selections being dealt with in playing order.

It's De-Lovely - "I was looking through some lead sheets and I saw where I could change the old harmonies to dress up the melody by adding some key changes where there weren't any before – not an unusual thing to do these days. The boys snapped right on it, thanks largely to Shelly's tremendous work, and the feel is good. Notice how Gluffre always ties in with what has proceeded; he insists on making sense."

Strike Up The Band - "I've been playing this as a feature at the Lighthouse for a long time and people have asked me if its recorded: I thought it could be a good showcase. It's as it was evolved at the club: breakneck tempo, all tenor, and Dixie ending; only the introduction is new. This kind of tempo is very popular and kind of fun but, actually, anything new or worthwhile is pretty unlikely to happen at that speed; I like to work with something a little more reasonable."

'Round Midnight - "This tune was written by Thelonius Monk, and there is a well-known record on it by Dizzy. I wanted to play English horn on something, and this seemed to fit. I think we captured the mood of the tune. In fact, it could be the best mood of the entire date."

Hot Boy - "When early Britishers took the French 'hautbois,' meaning 'high-wood' and pronounced 'oh-bwa,' they change the spelling to 'hautboy' and mangled the pronunciation to 'ho-boy.' Now we carry this mangling still further. If the arrangement and tune seem satirical, perhaps it's because 'hot-oboe' is necessarily sort of a tongue-in-cheek idea. Ad lib oboe has its place in jazz, but an up-tempo oboe chorus is funny or amusing, not really swinging."

Deep In Dream - "In this arrangement, some of the harmonies are arrived at through contrapuntal lines – particularly where the quarter-notes triplets are heard in the melody – rather than the standard harmonies of the tune. I enjoyed my tenor solo on this one and had some good luck with it. It's probably my best ballad tenor to date."

Hallelujah - "In order to add color, at the beginning and again at the ending, the major third of the minor third in the melody line are changed to perfect fourths. Everyone seems to feel pretty good on this one; notice Giufre's little announcement at the beginning of his chorus."

Tongue Twister - " This is based on an ordinary blues with a sixteen-bar release added. The boys got into a nice happy mood and turned the into a fairly hard-swinging thing. On the last release, the French horn carries the melody while the alto and the tenor ad lib together in free counterpoint over the line."

All Or Nothing At All - "If the bass had been playing 2/4, you might be able to slip this in at any society dance – except for the solos. June made some transcriptions in New York several years ago and we have the tapes. One of those was an up-tempo jazz version of this tune and that's what gave me the idea of doing it. The tune's structure is good, and it's different – and the lyric is good. "

Sunset - "I like the sound of a flute and tenor together and I wrote this with that in mind. The valve trombone is Stu Williamson this time and he plays a good, loose solo. As for the title of this tune, someone suggested it, but now I'm not sure; I tried for a little Casbah feeling, and maybe got it, but it could just as well be the sun rise as sun set, I'm afraid."

Drawing Lines - "I started this out to be a passacaglia, a musical form with pretty strict rules; but pretty soon I found myself breaking all of the rules with ideas of my own, and now it's just a sort of distant jazz cousin of a passacaglia, at most. Enevoldsen plays a good valve chorus; there are some little chime effects from the piano, and some hot oboe. The title indicates that each horn's line delineates a different shape."

It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing - "I tried to score with a certain amount of blowing freedom; we take it at a slower tempo than it usually gets. The order of the three tenor solos is myself, then Shank, then Enevolden. This is a perfect closing tune; jazz changes its rules, but the rule expressed in this title is one that never changes. I think this reading has its swinging moments."

– 

"I went to the Lighthouse early in 1952 and at this time I have no plans to leave. Sticking there allows me a normal family life and freedom to study. And the generally high level of musicianship at the club offers a great proving-ground for writing and blowing; I couldn't afford men of that caliber if I were to go out on my own. Most of the people on this record have worked, or still work, at the Lighthouse; many of them are perfect examples of the modern, versatile musician. A small group's sound can get boring – no matter how skillful the writing – without this versatilely. Because we got a variety of moods and sounds, and because everybody blew, I'm pleased with this record, happy to have it carry my name." – Notes compiled by Will MacFarland

From Billboard - July 14, 1956: One of the most impressive entries in the Capitol "Kenton Presents" series to date. Cooper, long a mainstay staffer at the Lighthouse, the jazz nitery in Southern California, assembled some of the heavyweight wailers of the area for the three sessions from which the material here is drawn. His arrangements exploit the multiple talents of his crew, the nucleus of which was Jimmy Giuffre, Bub Shank, Bob Enevoldsen and Claude Williamson. Cooper himself blows tenor, oboe and English horn on the date; Shank, alto, tenor and flute; Enevoldsen, trombone, tenor and bass clarinet and so on. The versatility of these men makes for rich instrumentations and some highly colorful effects. The variety of moods and sounds makes for an extremely exciting West Coast jazz LP - and is a must for every modern collector.