Mirage Avant-Garde and Third-Stream Jazz - Various

 

Avant-Garde and Third-Stream Jazz

Mirage 

Avant-Garde and Third-Stream Jazz

Program Consultant: Gunther Schuller

Rerecording Engineer: Frank Haber

Cover Art: Gabor Peterdi "Angry Skies"

Cover Design: Elaine Sherer Cox

New World Records NW 216 Mono

1977

Summer Sequence (Parts 1, 2, 3) - Ralph Burns -Woody Herman and His Orchestra

The Clothed Woman - Duke Ellington - Duke Ellington and His Orchestra

Yesterdays - Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach - Lennie Tristano Quartet

Mirage - Pete Rugolo - Stan Kenton and His Orchestra

Eclipse - Charles Mingus - Charles Mingus Octet, with Janet Thurlow

Edon Heath - Bill Russo - Stan Kenton and His Orchestra

Concerto For Billy The Kid - George Russell and His Smalltet

Transformation - Gunther Schuller - Brandeis Jazz Festival Ensemble

Piazza Navona - John Lewis - John Lewis and His Orchestra

Laura - David Raskin and Johnny Mercer - Jeanne Lee, vocal; Ran Blake, piano

Summer Sequence (Parts 1, 2, 3) - Ralph Burns

Recorded September 19, 1946, in Los Angeles

Originally issued on Columbia 38365, 38366 and 38367 (mx# HCO2044, 2055 and 2066)

Woody Herman and His Orchestra: Sonny Berman, Cappy Lewis, Conrad Gozzo, Pete Candoli, and Shorty Rogers, trumpets; Ralph Pfeffner, Bill Harris, Ed Keifer, and Lyman Ried, tombones; Woody Herman, clarinet; Sam Marowitz and John LaPorta, clarinets and alto saxophones; Sam Rubinowitch, baritone saxophone; Ralph Burns, piano; Chuck Wayne, guitar; Joe Mondragon, bass; Don Lamond, drums.

By the mid-1940s, with Ellington's superb experiments with form and structure, with a truly orchestral formulation of the traditional jazz instruments, with his development of jazz compositions rather than the more or less skillful arrangement of tunes, and with the harmonic/rhythmic innovations of the the early bop movement (see New World Records NW 271, Bebop), accomplished, the stage was set for further exploration of these new musical territories. It is a juncture in jazz history which we can readily see as parallel to those years between 1905 and 1909 when classical composers such as Debussy, Mahler, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Ives were putting the final touches to the dissolution of tonality and in turn devising new systems of tonally free music. In jazz, the crossing of that threshold can be heard on such performances as Ralph Burn's Summer Sequence and Ellington's remarkable foray into atonality, "Clothed Woman," as well as Tristano's atonal-contrapuntal studies of 1946, "I Surrender Dear" and "I Can't Get Started," The latter two titles are not represented on this LP, but a similar treatment of Jerome Kern's "Yesterdays" dating from 1949 is.

In 1977, thirty years after its creation, one must marvel at the compositional cohesion, craftsmanship, and emotional strength of Ralph Burn's four-movement Summer Sequence. (The fourth movement, "Early Autumn," not included here, was composed separately and revised a few years later into a solo vehicle for the tenor saxophonist Stan Getz; in this independent form it survived its three sister movements, perhaps because it contains virtually none of the foreign intrusions with which the other movements abound, thus tacitly acceding to broader popular tastes.)

The first nine measures of Summer Sequence present in capsuled form the diverse influences at work in this piece. A quiet and lonely duet for two clarinets, classical in conception (it could have been written by Milhaud, Hindemith, or Berg) is joined in the fourth measure by a rising pizzicato figure in bass and piano. A descending sequential phrase of two measures, with Harmonmuted trumpets subtly introducing the first sign of a true jazz trimmer, erupts unexpectedly into a two-measure piano cadence, this time strongly reminiscent of the piano music of De Falla or Albeniz. With an overlapping upward trumpet glissando we find ourselves squarely back in the key of C minor (where the clarinets originally started) except that a totally foreign pitch, a softly held D-flat, emerges quite unexpectedly from the chord; and one measure later, as if by some musical slight-of-hand, we find ourselves in the key of D-flat major and in a traditional 32-bar song form, initiated by the solo guitar.

These seemingly opposite elements miraculously fuse into a totality, splendidly serving its function as an introduction to the main body of the movement. None of its ideas come out of the jazz tradition, strictly speaking, and only become "jazzified" by virtue of the jazz sonorities of the players and their subtle jazz-rhythmic inflection.

It is this fine line between straight jazz (in later movements typical Ellington and Basie passages appear) and various classical intrusions which Burns treads so well, and in so doing he allows himself to swing easily to either side of the line without losing either the balance between these diverse elements or the  central thrust of the piece.  

The procedure is basically the same in all three movements, standard jazz forms surround by introductions, codas, and interludes which reach out beyond the confines of jazz, including some semi-improvised non tonal elaborations of the themes by the four-piece rhythm section of piano, guitar, bass, and drums. (These give a brief glimpse, incidentally, of what we find in a much-expanded format in the aforementioned Tristano quartet sides)

Perhaps Summer Sequence never had the pervasive influence it should have had, and which lesser and more artificial, often bombastic compositions like those of George Handy for the Boyd Raeburn band di have. Perhaps Ralph Burns was both too subtle and too far ahead of hi time. In any event, the work nd its superb performance by the Woody Herman orchestra of 1946 gave young musicians of the time a brief but clear glimpse of how the boundaries of jazz could be stretched without any loss of identity.

The Clothed Woman - Duke Ellington

Recorded December 30, 1947, in New York

Originally issued on Columbia 38236 (mx# CO38671)

Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Harold Baker, trumpet; Johnny Hodges, alto saxophone; Harry Carney, bariton saxophone; Duke Ellington, piano; Junior Raglin, bass; Sonny Greer, drums

It is by now a cliche to say that Ellington was almost always ten years ahead of his contemporaries. In no work is this truer than in his remarkable "Clothed Woman" of 1947, substantially a piano solo with a few minor interjections from a quintet of supporting instruments. Cast in a simple ABA form, the outer sections are startling explorations of practices not then common in jazz: a freely atonal harmonic language and a commensurately free rhythmic/meter structure in the manner of a declamatory recitative. Jazz without a steady 4/4 beat was then, and still is today to some extent, a rarity; and only Thelonius Monk among the major early avant-garde shared Ellington's interest in such rhythmic experiments. Harmonically and rhythmically at the A sections of "Clothed Woman" could have come from the hands of composers like Szymanowski or early Schoenberg, but the inflections and rhythmic attack, the sense of "suspended time in motion" could only have come from a great jazz performer.

The diversity of musical styles, so much a part of the early avant-garde scene, is present in "Clothed Woman" too. The B section, a light, flighty ragtime interlude whose musical antecedents lay at least thirty years in the past, provides a delightful contrast to the framing A sections.

Yesterdays - Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach

Recorded March 14, 1949 in New York

Originally issued on Capitol 1224 (mx# 3714)

Lennie Tristano Quartet: Lennie Tristano, piano; Billy Bauer, guitar; Arnol Fishkin, bass: Harold Granowsky, drums

Frequently overlooked by jazz historians and writers, the early-chamber-sized improvisations of Lennie Tristano of the mid-and late forties show us yet another of the different kinds of experimentation that were the result of the harmonic and formal breakthroughs unleashed by the bop movement. The twin banners under which this music presents itself were atonality and contrapuntal design. Although Tristano was able by 1949 (in such pieces as "Wow" and "Crosscurrent") to break away from a traditional 32-bar song format and its tonal base, in the earlier sides the improvisations were still anchored to a more traditional ground. Indeed, one of the fascinations of these performances lies in the way that the harmonic underpinning of Kern's "Yesterdays," for example, is stretched almost to the breaking point. But no matter how far Tristano and Billy Bauer may roam, they always return to home base, a process which gives a remarkable fluidity to the harmonic contours of the piece. The delicious harmonic/melodic collisions which occur throughout the performance, the result of its free contrapuntal-linear format, are not only among the enduring charms of these sides, but present an aspect of broadening the base of jazz improvisation explored by few other musicians of the period.

Mirage

Recorded February 2, 1950, in Los Angeles

Originally issued on Capitol 28002 (mx# 5476)

Stan Kenton and His Orchestra: Buddy Childers, Maynard Ferguson, Shorty Rogers, Chico Alvarez, and Don Paladino, trumpets; Milt Bernhart, Harry Betts, Bob Fitzpatrick, Bill Russo, and Bart Varsalona, trombones; John Graas and Lloyd Otto, French horns; Gene England, tuba; Art Pepper, clarinet and alto saxophone; Bud Shank, flute and alto saxophone; Bob Cooper, tenor saxophone and bassoon; Bob Kast, Jim Cathart, Lew Elias, Earl Cornwell, Anthony Doria, Jim Holmes, Alex Law, Herbert Offner, Dave Schackne, and Carl Ottobrino, violins; Stan Harris, Leonard Selic, and Sam Singer, violas; Gregory Bemko, Zachary Bock, and Jack White, cellos; Stan Kenton, piano; Laurindo Almeida, guitar; Don Bagley, bass; Shelly Manne, drums and timpani

One of the musicians who broadened the base of jazz improvisation was Pete Rugolo, Stan Kenton's chief arranger an composer-in-residence in the late forties and early fifties. However, Rugolo never aspired to the absolute purity of contrapuntal design which so singularly motivated Tristano, but rather treated linear devices as only one of a larger arsenal of compositional techniques. "Mirage" (1950) is a striking example of how an expanded jazz orchestra, including strings and classical winds, could integrate such diverse musical concerns into a cohesive totality. Essentially it is what we call a pedal-point piece in which the harmonic/melodic continuity is spun over a single pitch or ostinato bass, a device already throughly explored by composers like Mahler and Shostakovich, to whose influences "Mirage" owes a great deal. (The fact that the recurring four-note motive resembles the main theme of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde is, I think, pure coincidence.) But again, it is another example of how diverse stylistic and technical elements, some from separate worlds of music, could be welded together in a single work.

Eclipse - Charles Mingus

Recorded October 27, 1953 in New York

Originally issued on Debut EP 450 (mx# none)

Charles Mingus Octet, with Janet Thurlow: Janet Thurlow, vocal; Willei Dennis, trombone; Eddie Caine, alto saxophone and flute, Teo Macero, tenor saxophone; Danny Bank, baritone saxophone; Jackson Wiley, cello; John Lewis, piano; Charles Mingus, bass; Kenny Clarke, drums

Mingus's "Eclipse" performance espouses the same basic approach already exemplified in Summer Sequence – although I do not mean to imply that Mingus in any way emulates Burns – of saving the really advance explorations for the introductions, interludes, and postludes, reserving a somewhat milder (more tonal) treatment from the song itself. Essentially Mingus's approach is contractual or polyphonic, with the cello acting as a second voice to the solo vocal part, to a large extent letting vertical/harmonic relationships be the result of linear developments. It is one of many examples of what was then a growing concern to return to the earlier polyphonic concepts of New Orleans jazz, virtually forgotten in the swing era with the rise of the arranger and the excessive use of "block chord" homophonic writing. It also links up with various attempts to return jazz to a chamber music format, rather than an orchestral one, in which the individual instrumental voices function with a greater degree of linear/melodic independence.

Egdon Heath - Stan Kenton

Recorded March 3, 1954, in Los Angeles

Originally issued on Capitol EAP-525 (mx# 12449)

Stan Kenton and His Orchestra: Buddy Childers, Vic Minichiello, Sam Noto, Stu Williamson, and Don Smith, trumpets; Bob Fitzpatrick, Frank Rosolino, Milt Gold, Joe Clavadrone, and George Roberts, trombones; Lee Konitz, Dave Schildkraut, and Charlie Mariano, alto saxophones; Bill Perkins and Mike Cicchetti, tenor saxophones; Tony Ferina, bariton saxophone; Stan Kenton, piano; Bob Lesher, guitar; Don Bagley, bass; Stan Levey, drums

The term Third Stream simply suggests that intermingling of two musical mainstreams, jazz and classical music, into one larger flow – though in recent years the pianist and composer Ran Blake has expanded Third Stream to include a multiplicity of the ethnic musics, an idea quite logical and inevitable in the American melting pot. In Third Stream, as elsewhere, the specific ways in which two (or more) musical traditions are combined or fused can vary tremendously. Thus, the combining has sometimes been done linearly – that is to say, in successive sections of a piece; or vertically – when disparate elements may be fused simultaneously, perhaps in concurrent layers or strands. Finally, there can be Third Stream pieces that represent a combination of both approaches, but in all instances the concept suggests an in-depth fusion of musical elements or techniques rather than a superficial appliqué or mere grafting of one technique onto another.

With this degree of latitude in the overall concept of Third Stream, it is inevitable that different composers will choose to emphasize different elements in different pieces. Thus, William Russo's "Egdon Heath" (Russo was at the time one of Stan Kenton's chief arranger-composers) eschews the typically explicit jazz beat as stated by a rhythm section, substituting various pedal-point or ostinato devices, and challenges the ears of jazz-oriented listeners with a free-ranging harmonic language which relates only tangentially to conventional tonality. In four sections, the saxophones provide ostinato background figures for the opening trombone solo (played by Bob Fitzpatrick); a pedal-point of cymbal rolls serves the same function for the brass gestures of the fast second part, which shifts in turn to a more conventional improvised alto saxophone solo (by Dave Schildkraut) and ends with a recapitulation of the opening section.

Editor's note" According to the composer the title of this work bears no relation to Gustav Holst's orchestral piece Egdon Heath, although both are inspired by a passage in Thomas Hardy's The Return Of The Native: "A place perfectly accordant with man's nature – neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning, nor tame; but, like man, slighted and enduring, and withal singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony."

Concerto For Bill The Kid - George Russell

Recorded October 17, 1956, in New York

Originally issued on RCA Victor LPM 1372 (mx# G2JB7838)

George Russell and His Smalltet: Art Farmer, trumpet; Hal McKusick,  alto saxophone; Bill Evans, piano; Barry Galbraith, guitar; Milt Hino, bass; Paul Motian, drums

In "Concerto For Billy The Kid" – Billy being the young Bill Evans – the point of emphasis is the concerto form, adapted to Russells' "Lydian chromatic concept of tonal organization" and to the fact that the concerto soloist is essentially an improviser. The idea of fashioning a frame from a major jazz soloist had already been thoroughly explored by Duke Ellington in the late thirties in a series of four-minute "concertos" for members of his orchestra. In Russells's brilliant expansion of that basic idea we can see how composition and improvisation are welded into a seamless totality, where both complement  each other and operate in the same harmonic/melodic mold. (An even more successful realization of these particular musical ideas was created a year later [1957] in the last movement of George Russell's classic "All About Rosie.")

Transformation - Brandei Jazz Festival Ensemble

Recorded June 20, 1957, in New York

Originally released on Columbia WL 127 (mx# CO58205)

Brandeis Jazz Festival Ensemble: Jimmie Knepper, trombone; Jimmy Buffington, French horn; John LaPorta, clarinet; Robert DiDomnica, flute; Manuel Ziegler, bassoon; Hal McKusick, tenor saxophone; Teddy Charles, vibraphone; Margaret Ross, harp; Bill Evans, piano; Joe Benjamin, bass; Teddy Sommer, drums

In my own "Transformation" a variety of musical concepts converge: twelve-tone technique. Klangfarbenmelodie (tone-color-melody), jazz improvisation (again Bill Evans is the soloist), and metric breaking up of the jazz beat. In regard to the latter, rhythmic asymmetry has been a staple of classical composers' techniques since the early part of the twentieth century (particularly in the music of Stravinsky and Varese), but in jazz in the 1950s it was still an extremely rare commodity. As the title suggests, the work begins as a straight twelve-tone piece, with the melody parceled out among an interlocking chain of tone colors, and is gradually transformed into a jazz piece by the subtle introduction of jazz-rhythmic elements. Jazz and improvisation take over, only to succumb to the reverse process: they are gradually swallowed up by a growing riff which then breaks up into smaller fragments, juxtaposing in constant alternation classical and jazz rhythms. Thus, the intention in this piece was never to fuse jazz and classical elements into a totally new alloy, but rather to present them initially in succession – in peaceful coexistence – and later, in close, more competitive juxtaposition.

Piazza Navano - John Lewis

Recorded February 15, 1960 in New York

Originally issued on Atlantic LP(SD) 1334 (mx# 4254)

John Lewis and His Orchestra: Melvin Broiles, Bernie Glow, Al Tiger, and Joe Wilder, trumpets; Dick Hixon and David Baker, trombones; Gunner Schuller, Al Richmond, Ray Alonge, and John Barrows, French horns; Harvey Phillips, tuba; John Lewis, piano; George Duviver, bass; Connie Kay, drums

In John Lewis's "Piazza Navona" (preceded by a brief fanfare) the emphasis is more on brining the regal, stately gestures of later Renaissance music with all its massed brass-consort sonorities (as in the works of Giovanni Gabrieli) into relationship with Lewis's own brand of classical chamber improvisation (trumpeter Al Kiger is the other soloist). Another continuing interest of John Lewis's has been the relationship between the Italian media dell'arte, a semi-improvised street theater, and the improvisatory techniques of jazz.

Laura - Jean Lee, vocal and Ran Blake, piano

Recorded December 7, 1961, in New York

Originally issued on RCA Victor LPM(S) 2500 (mx# M2PB5535)

It is fitting that this album of Third Stream offerings should close with Ran Blake and Jeanne Lee' remarkable 1961 dissertation on David Raksin's "Laura"; for Blake is still, in 1977, the leading (and indefatigable) disciple of Third Stream doctrine. Having expanded it to include a broader ethnic and idiomatic base, he at the same time enjoys a national following with belies the frequent and recurring predictions of the demise of the Third Stream. The date of this cut – 1961 – is also significant because it coincides with the end of the first flowering of the Third Stream movement.

To fully  appreciate the wide range of musical influences that motivate Blake' music one must know some of his other works; a single piece cannot do him justice. On the other hand, Raksin's already highly chromatic "Laura" is the ideal vehicle for a Lee-Blake collaboration. Their extraordinary ears an their sensitivity allow them considerable latitude in searching out the deepest harmonic nooks and crannies of this standard tune; yet they always return to tonal home base – though in ways that can easily baffle the ordinary musician or listener. Here the many worlds or music – Schoenbergian atonality, Billie Holiday's sadly poignant laments, the American popular balla, extemporization and composition – all intertwine and blend into a music that epitomizes the basic concept and highest ideals of the Third Stream philosophy. – Gunther Schuller

Cha Cha Cha Vol. 4 - Marimba Chiapas

 

Triana Morena

Cha Cha Cha

Volume 4

Marimba Chiapas

Audio Fidelity AFSD 5900

1959

El Manicure 

Las Clases de Cha Cha Cha

El Tunel

Partricia

El Bodeguero

Triana Morena

Nunca 

Torero

Cosita Linda

Dancero

Lamento Barincana

Corazon de Melon

En El Mar

Oyeme Mama

I Want To Live - Johnny Mandel

 

I Want To Live

Johnny Mandel's Great Jazz Score

I Want To Live!

Featuring Shelly Manne, Jack Sheldon, Bill Holman & Frank Rosolino

United Artists UAS-5005

1958

From the back cover: The slight, brown-bearded young man on the podium wearily picked up his jacket, slung it across an arm and walked toward the exit, a singular expression of tired satisfaction etched on his face.

Behind, already in the can, was his freshly dubbed underscore to Walter Wanger's shocking drama of life and death of Barbara Graham, I Want To Live! In sum it represents the most exacting and brilliant music in the career of composer John Mandel.

"This was a very tough picture to write," he remarked a little later as he relaxed in a nearby restaurant. "There are scenes that required very careful handling. The preparations in the gas chamber, for example. And the execution itself... The nightmare sequence, in particular, was difficult to handle dramatically."

Then he smiled and confessed, "There were so many short cues and dissolves, I nearly lost my mind. To show you what I mean, there's one scene in which Perkins, the accomplice, collapses a house of cards on the table after Barbara tells him she's to be married. At that point I had to cover the developments of a year-and-a-half in 40 seconds of music!"

While a composer's technical adroitness is no small factor in motion picture work, the content of what he writes is an underscore must, in the final analysis, determine his true worth as a creative artist.

Because Johnny Mandel is a creative jazz musician, there is no room in his scheme of reference for the trite and imitative. What he has accomplished in his contribution to the film – the music contained between these covers – is to bring to motion picture background music a new dynamic dimension – American jazz.

This underscore and source music is not the pseudo-jazz of prior attempts by more established movie composers to lend added excitement and tension to dramatic action. In conception, feeling and execution Mandel's music is jazz – from the opening measures of the main title to the final closing climax.

In short, John Mandel, at 32, has made musical history. No composer writing for films before him has employed the jazz idiom to such telling effect in integrating music and dramatic action.

While those who have seen the film will undoubtedly derive most enjoyment from this album, the music can solidly stand on its own artistic merits as modern jazz to be listened to apart from the medium for which it was composed. In itself this is a rarity for movie soundtrack albums.

"Two tracks of special interest, I think," pointed out the composer in discussing the recording, "are numbers five and six – the scenes in which Barbara surrenders after much tailing and a stakeout by the police. There are five drummers in that position, and they're playing everything in the world!"

Warming to the subject, he continued, "A point worth noting is that throughout the picture, the drums represents the forces of law and order. Consequently, when there is primary actions on camera, such as the scene where Santo beats Barbara before giving himself up, the drums in the background keep reminding the audience that the cops are just outside, the building surrounded."

For the record, those hard-working drummers on the side of the law are Shelly Manne (standard drums), Larry Bunker (rhythm logs, cowbells and claves), Mel Lewis (scratcher and cowbells), Milt Holland (chromatic drums, cowbells, Chinese and Burmese gongs) and Latin specialist Mike Pacheco (bongos and conga drums). 

"A really knotty problem," according to Johnny,  "was musical treatment of the gas chamber preparations and the execution itself. You know, Bob Wise, the director, fought for music in those scenes. At first, I didn't want to write anything for them. Then, I saw Bob's point. So I wrote score to be played at a very low level, using the instruments in their freak registers. Reason for this is simply that at this point you have the audience. There's no need for thunder and lighting."

A measure of the composer's imagination in scoring the difficult sequences leading to the actual execution (shown with detailed and chilling realism) may be gathered from his choice of unorthodox instrumentation. From the point in the story where Barbara and her "accomplices" are convicted there appear in the underscore such offbeat horns as E flat clarinet, contrabass clarinet, contra bassoon, bass trumpet and bass flute.

Effectively supplementing the "blowing" combo jazz that is heard as source music throughout most of the film (available in a separate album on United Artists LP UAS-5006, Mandel employed solo voices constantly as part of the underscore to the almost total exclusion of large orchestral tuttis. Virtually, the cream of the current crop of jazzmen active on the west coast, the soloists are – Bill Holman, tenor and baritone saxes; Joe Maini, alto; Jack Sheldon, trumpet; Frank Rosolino, trombone; Russ Freeman, piano; Larry Bunker, vibes and drums; Harry Klee, flute and piccolo; Abe Most, E flat clarinet; Al Hendrickson, guitar; Red Mitchell, bass and Shelly Manne, drums.

Bongoist Mike Pacheco, in addition to his constant work on the soundtrack, is seen playing during the San Diego party scene.

In the welter of boisterousness at the unrestrained party, much fine jazz blowing by Maini and Sheldon is drowned. Through exciting to view, happily the party bedlam is absent on the record!

It will be noted that the music in this album does not consecutively follow the filmed action.

"I think the purpose is pretty obvious," explained Mandel. "At the end, the music is very depressing – hardly a note on which to conclude an album... (Matter of fact, when I was writing for the gas chamber and execution scenes, I'd be so depressed at the end of the day that I'd rush home and throw on the turntable the happiest music in my record collection.) In the album, however, I assembled the various tracks reasonably in sequence." 

Abruptly reverting to the execution scene, Mandel commented, "Harry Klee is beautiful here." He's playing piccolo, down in the instrument's lowest register. You'll notice that it doesn't even sound like a piccolo... almost like someone's dying gasp."

In just tribute the composer noted, "It was primarily through the imagination of the director, Robert Wise, that we had a jazz score at all. And so much credit, too, must go to Jack Lewis, who was music advisor on the picture.

"Oh! And where would a composer be without good editing and sound mixing? I know I'd've been lost without having on my side Byron Chudnow, the editor, and Vinton Vernon, who engineered all the recording. Y'know, it's pretty obvious that credit for the music end of this production by no means belongs to just one man.

"From now on," declared Mandel emphatically, "I want to be associated with a high-quality product – perhaps one, two pictures a year. After all, "he shrugged, music isn't sausages, is it? And how much money do I need to make, anyway?"

This ex-Count Basie arranger-trombonist, who says he is "...studying electronics intensively" to help him in the future recording of his music, is justifiably proud of his inspired score for I Want To Live! At the suggestion that the music is more than a good bet for an Academy Award in 1959, he shrugs fatalistically.

"This is the first time I've gotten credit for something important I've done," he smiles. "A composer is what I am – and, in a way, that's really enough." – John Tynan - Associate Editor (West Coast) - Down Beat Magazine

Main Title

Poker Game

San Diego Party

Henry Leaves

Stakeout

Barbara Surrenders

Trio Convicted

Peg's Visit

Gas Chamber Unveiling

Nightmare Sequence 

Preparations For Execution

Letter Writing Sequence

The Last Mile 

Death Scene

End Title

Authentic Calypso - Lord Christo

 

Food From Chicago

Authentic Calypso

With Lord Christo

Engineer: Bill Putnam

Recorded at Universal Recording Studio, Chicago

Mercury Records MG 20297

1958

From the back cover: Born in Port au Prince, Haiti, Lord Christo has journeyed all through the West Indies as one of the top, authentic delineators of Calypso mucis. His first visit to the United States was in January, 1957, and his work is pure and very steeped in the tradition of the Indies. 

On first hearing, you will find his lyrics difficult to understand, but after a second and third listen, you will find the verses becoming more intriguing. The Calypso singer, like the proverbial rolling stone, gathers a little from each environment in which he is placed.  Fortunately, Christo's vocabulary is regal British (note the three to five syllabled words evenly metered into his verses) and French patois heard so often on Cajun recordings from the Evangeline country, Louisiana. Note, too, in songs like Food From Chicago and Frozen Chicken how much Calypso singer, the modern counterpart to the wandering minstrel of King Arthur's day, knows about such current subjects as American music (Jacob From Panama). To further authenticate the recording, Christo himself assembled the orchestra. Note how the guitarist achieves a very authentic native sound by discarding the conventional guitar pick and strumming with his fingers, chord style.

Trip To Mars

Jacob From Panama

Boy Days

The Landlord

Food From Chicago

Frozen Chicken

Mama Look-A Boo Boo

Tantie Earnestine

Shakespearean Quotations

Hurricane Janet

Apple Tree

The Firehouse Five Story, Vol. 1 - The Firehouse 5 Plus 2

 

Fireman's Lament

The Firehouse Five Story

Volume 1

The Firehouse 5 Plus 2

Supervision: Lester Koenig

Recorded at Radio Recorder's Studio B in Hollywood, Calif.

Engineer: Lowell Frank

Cover Design: L. C. LeGoullon

Good Time Jazz Record Co. GTJ L-12010

1955

These selections were previously issued by GTJ on ten-inch long playing records L-1 & L-2. They have been remastered and reprocessed in 1955 using latest audio-engineering techniques for improved quality.

From the back cover: The FH5 Story, Part I

During 1949 a seven piece jazz band calling itself the Firehouse Five Plus Two burst upon a startled nation playing their own highly original version of jazz of the Twenties, which the smart money had pegged as deader than Prohibition. They became an overnight sensation, spearheaded The Great Dixieland Revival, and brought back the Charleston. At the year's end, when they hit the Mocambo, Hollywood's famed glamour club on the Sunset Strip, they had become the hottest thing in the band business. What is more remarkable, they did all this in their spare time, for they were not professional musicians.

Their story began several years before, at the Walt Disney studios in Hollywood, where a group of animators, writers, and technicians who loved jazz, used to gather in Ward Kimball's office at lunch time to listen to records, and play along with the phonograph. They had no intention of starting a jazz band, but one day the phonograph broke down; they decided to see what would happen if they sounded off without it; and they were in business.

At first they played for their own amusement at weekly get-togethers in living rooms. Then the word got around, and they were asked to play at friends' parties, and an occasional public dance sponsored by local jazz enthusiasts. The personnel of the band at that time included Disneyites Ward Kimball (trombone), Frank Thomas (piano), Clarke Mallery (clarinet), Jim MacDonald (drums), and Ed Penner (bass sax). One night at a party, Ward and Clarke met Johnny Lucas, a young Pasadena trumpet player, who impressed them so much that they invited him to their next session. Johnny became a fixture, and is heard on the first four recordings. Later, on a vacation rail-fan excursion on the old narrow gauge Denver-Rio Grande in Colorado, Ward met artist Harper Goff who "just happened to have his banjo with him." They struck up a few tunes (Ward had his harmonica), and the next informal session of the band found Harper firmly installed in the banjo chair.

At first, the band was known as "The Hugageedy 8" (a reference to their passion for antique cars), then as "The San Gabriel Valley Blue Blowers" (the Kimball's live in San Gabriel, a suburb of Los Angeles). Their third and final name came in round-about fashion: Ward and his wife, Betty, had long been ardent members of the Southern California Horseless Carriage Club, and rarely missed a caravan, for which they'd get out their linen dusters and goggles, and their 1913 Ford. Since the point of these outings was to have a good time, they decided to compound their pleasure by bringing the band along. But what to ride in? It had to be older than 1914 to qualify, and it had to hold seven musicians. After weeks of searching, a 1914 American La France fire-truck (see cover) was purchased from the city of Venice, California, for $225. It took six months to get it in shape, equipped with workable fire-fighting apparatus, and painted properly, Red fire shirts, white suspenders, authentic fire helmets were acquired, and so, early in 1949 the famous Firehouse Five Plus Two ("Available for dances, weddings, picnics, wakes.") emerged upon the scene.

Shortly after, they were the hit of a spectacular Horseless Carriage Caravan (sponsored by General Petroleum) to San Diego, with people dancing in the streets along the route; they played a benefit for the late Bud Scott, banjoist and guitarist for the Ory band; made their first two records for Good Times Jazz; the Beverly Carvern, a small night club specializing in jazz, hired them for a series of Monday night sessions.

The New Orleans influence on West Coast jazz, particularly the San Francisco division under the leadership of Lu Waters and Turk Murphy, has been strong for many years. It was inevitable the band would feel its impact. From the beginning they developed along New Orleans lines, with emphasis on an original and exuberant ensemble style. They'd heard the Oliver, Morton, Dodds and Armstrong records, and liked them. Even more important, they profited from association with such friendly New Orleans musicians as Kid Cry, Minor Hall, Ed Garland, Joe Darensbourg, Zutie Singleton and Albert Nicholas, who came to their sessions and played with them.

Up to this time, they thought their only appeal was to jazz fans. But they began to find ordinary people, who had never heard of the jazz cults, like the music when they heard it. From mid-summer on, they became increasingly popular, and wherever they played (an average of three times a week for dances, private parties, civic affairs, parades, and benefits throughout the West) they won new friends for jazz.

Many explanations have been offered for FH5's spectacular rise, ranging from "sociological" analyses to notions of jealous brethren in other less successful bands attributing their success to the fact they wear fireboats and ride in a firetruck. One analyst appears in print with the theory their popularity signifies a longing on the part of The Public to return to happier days of The Twenties, before the Great Depression, World War II, and A&H Bombs, and the Cold War. They have also been labeled "a reaction to bop." Perhaps the simplest explanation comes closest to the truth. They are in the unique and extremely fortunate position of playing only because they enjoy it. Their own enthusiasm or jazz, and enjoyment in playing, are contagious and have been responsible for making a great many people, for the first time, aware of the vitality and gaiety inherent in the traditional jazz style. Perhaps a good part of their success in this connection comes from the fact that they are not literal copyists of the past. They brought their own personalities, and a fresh, original approach to the jazz classics, taking them out of the museum and making them live again for a new generation.

Johnny Lucas and Jim MacDonald found it difficult to maintain the new and expanded FH5 schedule; Danny Alguire and Monte Mountjoy joined the band on cornet and drums. Both had been professional musicians who loved jazz but never had a chance to play it. When the FH5 offer came, they leaped at it, and remained with the band through the rise to fame which reached a peak at the year's end when they moved the Monday night sessions from the Beverly Cavern to the Mocambo. At the Mocambo, their revival of the Charleston and their uninhibited, happy music, put them in the national spotlight, and started them on an even more spectacular year in 1950. ( Part II of The FH5 Story is continued in GTJ L-12011) – Lester Young - October 31, 1955

Firehouse Stomp

Everybody Loves My Baby

Pagan Love Song

San

Fireman's Lament

Blues My Naughty Sweetie

Yes Sir! That's My Baby

Red Hot River Valley

Riverside Blues

Brass Bell

World Is Waiting For The Sunrise

Tiger Rag

For A Lazy Afternoon - Neil Wolfe

 

Lazy Afternoon

For A Lazy Afternoon

Neil Wolfe at the Piano

Produced by Herman Diaz, Jr.

Recorded at RCA Victor, Studio No. 3, New York City, February 25 and 26, 1957

Vik LX-1101

From the back cover: This album introduces a new recording artist – Neil Wolfe – one of the most gifted mood-piano entertainers to debut on the disc scene in many years.

For his premiere performance the twenty-eight-year-old pianist has chosen twelve of the most beautiful favorites ever to have come from Tin Pan Alley. Eleven are time tested tunes of yesterday and the twelfth, Cry Me A River, has rapidly developed into what the music trade considers a "standard."

Superbly assisted  by such top instrumentalists as Billy Mure on guitar, Terry Sander on drums and Sandy Block on bass, Neil has fashioned these twelve outstanding songs to relax the listener and create a nostalgic atmosphere. He has written arrangements for these songs that are faithful to the melody – and well they might be with such melodies as these. He has inspected these class tunes under a variety of musical lights and shows off their inner warmth that often passes unsuspected. His delicate touch is easy on the ears and refreshingly different from the run-of-the-mill arrangements one often hears.

His delightful settings of these songs are designed to afford pleasure to those who simply want to sit and listen, and to those who find the invitation to dance irresistible. This is music for a lazy afternoon or a romantic evening. Neil is a stylist we'll be hearing frequently in the coming years.

Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1928, Neil now mades his home in Detroit. He played in a number of local bands and performed as a soloist in local clubs. In 1951 he graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music. At the age of seventeen, he won a nation-wide talent contest but was unable to perform because of illness. But he had the good fortune to have been able to continue with his study of music.

This VIK recording is Neil's first "big break" and it appears to be the stepping stone to a bright and successful future. – Marty Ostrow, Editor The Cash Box Magazine)

Happiness Is A Thing Called Joe

The Thrill Is Gone

Come Rain Or Come Shine

Cry Me A River

Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo

Makin' Whoopee

My Funny Valentine

Over The Rainbow

Little Girl Blue

Here's To My Lady

The Man That Got Away

Color My World With Love - The Midas Touch

 

Viva!/Love

Color My World With Love

The Midas Touch

Produced, Arranged and Conducted by Al Ham

Production Supervision: Harry Meyerson

Engineers: Don Casale & Elvin Campbell

Decca Records DL 75240

1970

Take A Look Around from the Television Series "Men From Shiloh"

If You Let Me Make Love To You Then Why Can't I Touch You

Color My World

Viva!/Love

Darling Lili from The Black Edwards Paramount Production "Darling Lili"

Everything A Man Could Ever Need from The Paramount Picture "Norwood"

Make It With You

I Just Can't Help Belivin'

Close To You

More Today Than Yesterday

I Believed It All