So Pretty - Herb Steward

 

So Pretty

Herb Steward Plays

So Pretty

With The Dick Hazard Strings

Produced by Jackie Mills and Tommy Wolf

Audio Engineer: "Bones" Howe

Front Cover Design: Peter Whorf

Back Cover Design: Amino with Photo by Jackie Mills

Recorded March 1962 in Hollywood, California at United Recording Studios

AVA Records As-9

Distributed by MGM Records 

1962

From the back cover: "So Pretty" is a delightful album for those quiet moments when you need a few tender memories to fill your heart with warmth and love. Each melody is like the familiar greeting of an old friend, expressed in glowing arrangements for string orchestra by Dick Hazard, and introduces a soloist who has no equal as an interpreter of romantic ballads... Herb Steward.

Herb Steward was born to be a musician. Not the spectacular kind who commands headlines because of escapades outside the realm of music, but the inspired player whose reward is the respect and esteem of his professional colleagues. It many take a little longer to achieve national prominence this way, but when the recognition finally arrives it is always sweeter and more lasting.

Herb was born in Los Angeles in 1926 and was already a serious student of the clarinet at the age of nine. Soon he added the tenor saxophone to his repertory and, while still in grammar school, worked with various dance orchestras in Southern California. Then at the age of fifteen he joined the Musician's Union, and his career followed the story of American popular music through two decades of the traveling dance bands.

A list of his associates during this time reads like a Who's Who of the music business, for Herb Steward has played lead alto, clarinet and jazz tenor (sometimes all three) with the orchestras of Artie Shaw, Alvino Rey, Charlie Barnet, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Freddy Slack, Bob Chester, Elliot Lawrence, Claude Thornhill and Woody Herman, where he played lead tenor and was featured soloist in what is probably the most famous jazz saxophone section of all times... "The Four Brothers"... Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Jimmy Giuffre and Herb.

Since 1961 he has enjoyed the life of a busy Hollywood studio musician. As a soloist, he is an exclusive AVA artist. This, his initial AVA release, may be your first encounter with the lyrical beauty of the Steward sound, but I am certain it won't be your last.  – Tommy Wolf

From Billboard - November 3, 1962: Steward has quite a reputation as a vet jazzman and he displays much of his ballad feeling on this set. Herbie plays clarinet, tenor sax, alto and baritone sax on this LP. He is backed by a lush bank of strings, conducted by Dick Hazard, and the whole album comes off in lovely fashion. The material is made up of ballads like "Remember," "Indiana Summer" and "Among My Souvenirs." Perfect for easy listening stations.

Indian Summer

Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans

Remember

With All My Love

Memphis In June

I'm Coming Virginia

When Day Is Done

Lovely Melody

Among My Souvenirs

So Pretty