A Smooth One - Larry Sonn

 

Smooth One

A Smooth One

Larry Sonn and His Orchestra

Coral Records CRL 57123

1958

From the back cover: If it's dance time, it's Sonn time.

Whether the scene is a softly-lit ballroom, a gaily-decorated college gym, or a phonograph turntable, when the band is Larry Sonn's it's dance time.

It the two years that the band has been organized, it has taken huge strides in keeping couples on the dance floor.

The opening bars of this band's career came way back in August, 1955, when it made its debut on an NBC Monitor broadcast. Since then it has appeared on Coral LPs three times (The Sound Of Sonn CRL 57057; It's Sonn Again CRL 57104; and The Key Men With Larry Sonn, CRL 57112), on a single record releases scores of times, and in the nation's top ballroom hundreds of memorable evenings.

The hallmark of the Sonn band is its style, set by chief arranger Manny Albam, and augmented by Larry. The band's book features uncluttered, swinging arrangements which are played in a bright and brassy manner. This is a band that can stand up and roar. It's also a band which can sit back and play dance music for all tastes ranging from the most staid two-stepper to the up-to-the-minute free-styler.

It opens with a bright and bouncy I Gotta Run, then follows with a ballad-tempo Darn That Dream. Sing Something Simple is brisk, and romantic dancers get a break with the easy tempo or You're Driving Me Crazy.

The mood continues through Nice Work If You Can Get It, and side one closes with a brassy My Baby Just Cares For Me.

There's an easy swing to the opening tunes on side two: You're Right, I'm Wrong and My Heart Stood Still. Too Late is taken as a ballad, and a vocal has been inserted into the riffing A Smooth One. This, you may recall, is a Benny Goodman sextet piece based on some riffs created by the late guitarist Charlie Christian.

Real Eyeable is peppier, and Tom Thumb, the old Earl Warren original which was long a fixture of Vaughn Monroe's book when he had a band in the early 40s, is given an updating for the closer.

The man in front of the band is one of the reasons for its present position as a working, steadily-growing band.

Larry hails from Long Island, not far from New York City. He started in music at the age of eight, as a piano student. Before long, he switched to trumpet and became so adept on that instrument that he was awarded a scholarship to Juilliard.

One of his first musical jobs was in a band led by his friend, now also a top-flight bandleader, Dick Jacobs. Those early Long Island days were highlighted for Larry by another friendship, that of a studious looking young lad who is a radio and TV personality – Al Jazzbo Collins.

While building what seemed to be a substantial classical career, Larry was cocking an appreciative ear to what was coming from the horns of Bunny Berigan and Harry James. After graduation, he held a trumpet chair in the Southern Symphony, but soon returned North to become a sideman in the Vincent Lopez band.

In 1946, Larry went to Mexico to stay for six months. He built a band that was such a national hit, he wasn't able to return for nine years.

What started as a temporary job as bandleader in a new club in Mexico City became a full-time job welding some of Mexico's top-flight musicians into a band that raised eyebrows wherever its records were heard. The band grew out of the club, and soon belonged to all of Mexico. Larry recalls that it played in the big cities, the little cities and even the tiny hamlets where despite a musical time lag of several centuries, the band communicated and lighted Indian faces with smiles.

During those nine years of work with his Mexican band, Larry was laying the base for his present crew. The mistakes he made in Mexico were left south of the border. The things he learned about music and about people, he brought back home with him.

Most important was the nebulous thing called style.

"It was the simplest thing in the world do build a style in Mexico," Larry recalls. "This is the reason: the existing bands there fell into three categories – bands playing only stocks, bands with three tenors and a hotel style, and bands which imitated Glenn Miller."

Although the band picture in the States is radically different, Larry's principle holds true. To make a band a success, it must have a distinctive style. Styles in this country range from those noted in Mexico to some pretty original and fresh combinations. There are bands and there are bands. some are as cold and tight as a metronome, and about as interesting. Others are rich and melodious. Still others have parlayed a winning sound combination into years of money-making tours and recordings.

Sonn's band started with a style. Set by Albam and Larry. It has changed subtly since Oct. 7, 1955, when it cut its first four sides for Coral. Larry constantly studies the reactions of dancers to new numbers in the books. It's not unusual to find him strolling around the dance floor between sets, meeting his fans and asking them how they like the new voicings on that last jump tune, or the reed blend on the last ballad medley.

"With this band," he says, "We are always looking for fresh sounds, and we are gettin them: things we feel are bright and modern, and still danceable."

There's a fine team spirit in the band, too. Larry's the first to admit that it makes the job as leader that much easier. When the musicians face the same book night after night, it had better be a musically stimulating set of arrangements, or the only place the band can go is into oblivion.

Larry's book is thick with arrangements easy on the ear and coaxing to the feet. There's also enough meat in them to enable the band to play concert dates as well as dances.

That's pretty much the story of the Sonn band. So grab a partner or a chair.

This album is A Smooth One – either way.

From Billboard - January 6, 1958: Smooth dance instrumentals by Sonn should click with the dance buyer. The band has a fresh, listenable sound. Vocals are handled by the Smooth Ones. Attractively styled selections include "Nice Work If You Can Get It," "My Heart Stood Still" and "Darn That Dream."

I Gotta Run

Darn That Dream

Ding Something Smile

Your Driving Me Crazy (What Did I Do?)

Nice Work If You Can Get It

My Baby Just Cares For Me

You're Right, I'm Wrong

My Heart Stood Still

Too Late

A Smooth One (Vocals by The Smooth Ones)

Real Eyeable

Tom Thumb