The Best Of Doc Severinsen

 

Malagueña

The Best Of Doc Severinsen

Command ABC Records RS 952 SD

1970

From the inside (gatefold) cover: "...Doc is great in every sense of the word. I often wonder how anyone can have such absolute control over his instrument. One of my joys each night is being able to listen to the "Tonight" show band, and notice the mutual respect between Doc and the rest of the musicians. The album speaks for itself. Doc Severinsen is great. – " Johnny Carson

Since Doc has become the musical director and instrumental star of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, millions upon millions of television viewers have had an opportunity to become aware of Doc's unique talents. With the exposure of his amazing artistry to the vast audience, Doc Severinsen has really come into his own.

"I could have been a dentist like my father," Doc Severinsen said recently.

"I'd have made six times as much money and be home every night. But – " and he shrugged at the inevitable – "that's not for me."

The thing that Doc Severinsen lives by is his trumpet – a golden, glittering horn through which he can express the exaltation of a genius fired with inspiration or the dark, brooding reflections of a sensitive man deep in thought. He is one of the true modern American virtuosos of his instrument, a musician who has experienced and mastered every aspect of the music that is played today. He is not simply a classically trained trumpeter who can rip through complex, demanding passages with grace and precision. Nor is he just a jazz improvisor who can create fluent flights of extemporaneous fancy. His trumpet covers the whole field.

One of the constant challenges of being an instrumental virtuoso such as Doc Severinsen is finding fresh and logical ways in which this magnificent talent can be used. Exhibitions of sheer facility become repetitious and, eventually, pointless. For a creative musician such as Doc there has to be a great deal more, otherwise the development of his remarkable skills on the trumpet would hardly have been worth all the effort that went into it.

Severinsen is a perfectionist who respects his horn. He knows the full, glowing purity of tone that can be blown from a trumpet and he is satisfied with nothing less in his own playing. He places tone first among the qualities that are important in trumpet playing. After tone, he lists technical facility.

"And once you've got tone and technical facility," he adds, "you've got to have the desire to do something with them."

He deliberately tries to avoid what he calls "ordinary sounds."

"The sound of an instrument depends on the individual who plays it," he declared. "I try to use my trumpet to reflect my feelings."

There has never been a recording to compare with this one! Doc is acknowledged to be the finest big band trumpeter playing today-

He has grown both before our very eyes and in the shadows as well. The "Shadows" period – includes his fermentation in the bands of Tommy Dorsey and Charlie Barnet. But with faith and desire to scale the heights, it marks a pretty sure-fire combination. If you believe in something... really believe... the very strength of your belief can influence that thing to happen. And if you have the desire – if the burning fire of necessity is steaming in your creative veins – well. something is bound to happen.

That's what we have in this L.P. Doc Severinsen at his best. We hear the glitter and glow of his superb way with ballads. We hear his feeling for dynamics as he works with the subtle inflection of the vocalists. We hear him moody, full of glistening brilliance and punching out an insistent contemporary beat.

This album wraps it all up! The searing excitement of Doc Severinsen's trumpet... (plus the warm power of his flugelhorn)... Songs that pulse with the rhythm and lyric power of today....

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SIDE I

1. IF I HAD A HAMMER - Doc Severinsen, on this piece roars through it with such gusto and drive that it seems as though there must be several Docs present. As he dashes along, he throws in key changes, sudden spurts of notes that casually land on fantastic high ones and, when he might be taking a breather, he plays obbligato to Tony Mottola's guitar. Altogether, it's a dazzling run-through that leads, appropriately, to a bravura ending.

2. GOIN' OUT OF MY HEAD - Although Bert Bacharach did not write this song (it's a Teddy Randazzo tune), it has the kind of structure exemplified by Bacharach's Walk on By- a dramatic rock quality that starts easily, builds up to an emotional pitch and then eases on down. Doc Severinsen starts from scratch-unaccompanied – and then, with the voices, builds and builds until the singers explode in a high shout, a pattern that is repeated with Doc taking the full explosion. Along with all the power in Severinsen's playing on this piece, he ends with a gentle, warm, rich tone that is marked by his exquisite sense of shading.

3. TRUMPETS AND CRUMPETS - For a change of pace and a change of tempo, the entire trumpet section-Clark Terry, Dick Perry, Bob McCoy and Jimmy Maxwell-is joined by Doc Severinsen in a magnificently challenging display of rapid-fire ensemble double-tonguing. It is, as one of the musicians noted, "a very trumpetistic piece." Doc is the top trumpet as the five horns go winging through the lip-busting paces that Marion Evans has contrived for them. As a balance, there is a dancing flute and piccolo interlude and some very light-footed flute fluttering by the whole woodwind section. The drive and power of the band explodes all through this remarkable display of group virtuosity.

4. FEVER - With Eddie Shaughnessy setting a feverish rhythmic background with a scratcher, Doc Severinsen growls through a plunger mute on the opening bars. He shares the first chorus with the four trombonists who produce a gloriously stentorian brass sound, balanced by some high fills by Doc. Then, in a flurry of sound, Doc takes off, spitting out notes over trombone riffs as he raises everything to an appropriate fever pitch. The sleepily relaxing aftermath is interrupted when Dick Hyman shouts, "Hey!" and the trombones ease Doc toward a muted ending and the final placid and comforting sound of Phil Kraus' chimes.

5. GRANADA - Electricity flares from Doc's ringing high notes in this mixture of trumpet show- piece and strongly propulsive swing. At first, it is a showpiece for Doc's fantastic ability to play with tremendously fullbodied force even in a range that would challenge most trumpeters simply to get there. Note particularly the subtle beauty of his unaccompanied passage. Then, as the rhythm picks up, he shows his strong swinging side, driven by the powerful backing of Bob Haggart and Don Lamond. And finally, there is Doc, the organization man, slipping in exuberant fills as the saxes and then the brass swing out on their own.

6. MONDAY, MONDAY - Dick Hyman's arrangement of this great hit holds close to the original texture of the vocal version by The Mamas and The Papas. Vinnie Bell plays 12-string acoustical guitar behind Doc Severinsen all through this piece. Doc, on fluegelhorn, flows through it easily with flutes supporting him as Arnie Lawrence switches from saxophone to wood blocks to fill in the Latin background. In the second chorus the brass ensemble rises up, big and burly, to change the atmosphere in preparation for Doc's return, building toward a full top that then relaxes into a fading figure.

SIDE II

1. IN A LITTLE SPANISH TOWN - The fervor and excitement and imagination that all come together in Doc Severinsen's amazing trumpet playing leap right into the foreground in this fantastic arrangement by Dick Hyman. Opening with a clarion call in Doc's most dazzling bull ring style and with some rousing stomps by a trio made up of two tympani and a parade bass drum, Doc dives into a unison exposition of the melody with Bob Alexander's trombone while Phil Kraus adds marimba fills. Suddenly, without warning, the mid-section turns into La Paloma with Doc moving gradually upward, taking the trombones with him, until he bursts out like an exploding sun. When he has worked his way back down again, the three stompers switch him back to In a Little Spanish Town once more with Alexander's trombone again sharing the melody with Doc over a coaxing shuffle rhythm.

2. LOVE - A fascinating mixture of elements is stirred together in this arrangement – a Bert Kaempfert tune, a Nat Cole riff and a Doc Severinsen solo that brings out the Louis Armstrong qualities in his playing. And as if all that were not enough, Dick Hyman discovered that the middle eight bars of the tune have exactly the same chord structure as I Love You Truly so he has the vocal group singing that old favorite as a countermelody to Doc's exploration of Love. Overall, the piece is an unusually fine display of Severinsen's keen sense of dynamics as he develops his playing from a simple, casual opening to the bursting qualities of the all-out ending. 

3. IT AIN'T NECESSARILY SO - The fiery exchanges that are possible when a spectacular virtuoso is able to answer his own challenges flash and burst all through this great George Gershwin tune. With the guitars and rhythm section pulsing and surging behind him, Doc Severinsen makes a spectacular entrance on the left, answers himself from the right and then engages in breathtaking trumpet-to-trumpet combat. The use of exactly the same rough tonal texture by both trumpets in some of the exchanges is an example of a coloration that is only made possible by the use of the same trumpeter on both channels. Doc's sense of the dramatic (and of humor) are apparent when he erupts with a high scream, on the left, and answers it on the right with a wild growl. And for a dashing display of technique, note the flutter tongue figure near the end. 

4. SOUL AND INSPIRATION - The Righteous Brothers made this song a hit and, says Dick Hyman, when you transfer it to big band terms, their way is still the only way to do it. So he has retained the development that they used – the verse soft, the chorus big and strong. In the course of this development, Hyman's piano contributes a broad, deep introductory section. Romeo Penque's baritone saxophone keeps kicking the tune along while Doc's trumpet ranges from mellow and singing tones to sounds that are voluminous, soaring, shining and positively glowing. This is a tremendously dramatic piece which gives both Doc and the whole band a chance – several chances to let out all the stops and give the performance a full head of steam.

5. MALAGUENA - The Ernesto Lecuona classic just had to be included, according to Doc, because it offers such an enticing showcase for a trumpeter. Doc fills it with his vast, gleaming trumpet sound, his tremendous sense of passion and the sudden, dazzling eruptions that are so dramatic because he executes them so perfectly.

6. IT MUST BE HIM - Derek Smith's piano and Julie Ruggiero's Fender-bass set up a percussive figure around which this superb arrangement by Marion Evans is constructed. In the introduction, Smith's piano is augmented by muted trumpets and Ed Shaughnessy's xylophone. The tune has two strains. The first strain is sung out by Doc Severinsen's trumpet in his richest, most burnished tone. The second is carried by flutes, on the left, and trumpets on the right, covering three full octaves with a fantastically full-bodied spread of sound. The two strains come together, one superimposed on the other, when Doc joins the other trumpets to play the initial strain while the reeds carry the second strain. And is that an echo of Hoffman's "Barcarolle" that haunts the background?

If I Had A Hammer

Goin' Out Of My Head

Trumpets And Crumpets

Fever

Granada

Monday, Monday

In A Little Spanish Town

Love

It Ain't Necessarily So

(You're My) Soul And Inspiration

Malagueña

It Must Be Him