Harold Betters Takes Off

 

Just For A Thrill

Harold Betters Takes Off
Photo: JohnWhited
Cover Design: Ken Moore
Gateway Records, Inc. GLP 7004
1963

From the back cover: This album opens with a driving number, You Can't Sit Down, that creates a lot of emotion and should make feel like clapping your hands, patting your feet or snapping your fingers. I think the song was properly named as it makes me feel, when I play it, that I, "Can't Sit Down.

Now And Forever is a change of pace – a well constructed tune with a flowing melody line – one that gives even the most inexperienced listener the feeling he knows what's coming next.

In Other Words is a favorite of mine. The melody and lyrics are so beautiful that I had to sing it as well as play it. For a second vocal I picked, Work Song. This turn depicts work on a chain gang.

Baby Cake creates a lot of drive and excitement – I wrote it for the "Twisters." Another tune for fast dancing is Last Night.

Just For A Thrill speaks for itself – its another of my favor- ites. I am partial to ballads. You can hear air projecting through the horn which is sometimes called an airy or "cool" sound. While I am on the subject of my favorite numbers I might point out, With The Wind And Rain In Your Hair. This tune gives me an opportunity to show the brilliant sound of the trombone in the higher register.

After Supper is very beautifully done by John Huges. He tries to create the feeling of listening to jazz as you would in the 40's. The setting is a club filled with smoke, the smell of booze and the customers that want to sit back and relax after a hard days work.

A favorite of small jazz groups is the Preacher. It has a simple melody line that moves along smoothly. Although my group is small we try to get the effect of a large band with David Rose's composition "Our Waltz. I play the first part only as a waltz and then go into six-eight time. I want to create the feeling, with this piece of music, of two armies approaching each other for battle. the fight and then the ruins.

I would like to sum up what I have written about the tunes on this album by saying: I felt every number I played. I believe every artist should – only that way can he give his best. I am very thankful to Gateway for giving me complete freedom in choosing my numbers and executing them the way I felt they should be played. Making this album was lots of kicks. – Harold J. Betters

"a jazz that is creative and yet can be understood by every- one"-those were my closing words in the notes of Harold Betters' first album, Harold Betters At The Encore. Judging from the wide acceptance of the album, a great many people must agree with me.

The success of an artist, in any field, is based on sincerity, creativity, and skill. Harold Betters has all these in abundance.

Harold is sincere about his work and what is more important about his emotions. With this quality he is able to reach out to his audience and make them apart of his music.

Harold Betters is creative! He makes his chosen form of expression interesting to the listener-thereby capturing and holding their interest. While being sincere and creative he has mastered the art of his instrument to its fullest. His skill with the trombone is hard to match.

With the qualities I have mentioned it is easy to see why Harold has enjoyed the success he has as a performer and musician. I can predict a very long and fruitful career for Harold Betters. – Robert W. Schachner (April 15, 1963) Gateway Recordings, Inc.

You Can't Sit Down
Now And Forever
In Other Words
Baby Cake
The Preacher
Our Waltz
Last Night
After Supper

The Work Song
With The Wind And The Rain In Your Hair
Just For A Thrill

Music From Peter Gunn - Arron Bell

 

Music From Peter Gunn

Music From The Television Show Peter Gunn
Composed by Henry Mancini
Arron Bell and His Orchestra
Featuring Arron Bell on bass
Produced by Eddie Heller
Lion L70112
1959

From the back cover: For a good two years up until the fall of 1958, you had to rely on six-shooters and stallions almost exclusively if you wanted action on your television set. Westerns dominated the networks and the ratings. Then, like a refreshing breeze, along came a great new detective series – an adult one, too: "PETER GUNN". Gunn (played by Craig Stevens) can handle a gun, but it's mainly his brain that's for hire to people in trouble. He's a new kind of private investigator – urbane, cultured, a bit cynical, with a touch of the "beat generation" about him. Sometimes, he seems almost to wander into a case out of curiosity or just plain boredom. But, there's nothing boring about his cases and the characters that come his way. Many of the latter are colorful denizens of a nightclub run by a lady known as Mother (Hope Emerson), where entertainment is served up by Gunn's singer-girl friend Edie (Lola Albright). Gunn's adventures are neatly varied in plot, usually spiced entertainingly with sharp humor even when the action is running high. Like we said, the series is "adult" in concept and execution—and its record-shattering climb in the popularity ratings shows that the formula is tasty to millions of video viewers.One of the outstanding features of "PETER GUNN" is its music-pulsating, compelling, spell-binding jazz that fuses with the action in brilliant fashion. When the first show in the series was telecast, NBC- TV was flooded with inquiries about the source of this music. Within a few weeks, the name of its composer, Henry Mancini, was a familiar one to TV fans. Mancini, in his work had come up with an exciting television "first": the first modern jazz back- grounds for the sound track of a filmed TV series. Top-drawer jazz, too-as attested to by the acceptance of even the most jaded of jazz experts.

Mancini, Cleveland-born and 34 years old, is no new-comer to background scoring. He has dozens of movies to his credit, including "The Glenn Miller Story", for which he received an Academy Award nomination. His educational background in music is very impressive, including study at Carnegie Tech Music School and the Juilliard School of Music, work with com- posers Ernst Krenek and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. After three years in the Infantry during the war, his career got into full swing. Soon, he found himself with something like a waiting list of clients set to tap his talents: record companies, the movies, radio shows. And, he became a specialist in penning the backings for night club acts, working with such stars as Betty Hutton, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Gloria DeHaven, Marilyn Maxwell, Bob Crosby, Kathryn Grayson, Jane Powell, Dinah Shore, Toni Arden, Kitty Kallen, Polly Bergen, Billy Eckstine and Edie Adams. "PETER GUNN" represents Mancini's first work for a TV series.

The present album offers ten dramatic themes from the music for "PETER GUNN", including the hit "Dreamsville". Here, the popular jazz specialist Aaron Bell And his orchestra use them as departure points for some of the most listenable music-making you'll hear in many a moon!

ABOUT AARON BELL The "most" on a bass, Aaron is known in the jazz field as a dedicated perfectionist. His playing and arranging have always been characterized by good taste and its quality of being able to reach everybody. A veteran of such top American combos as those of Teddy Wilson, Andy Kirk, and Lester Young, he recently appeared at The Embers and The Left Bank in New York City, drawing ratings by fans and musicians as one of the top bass men around today. He also appeared on Broadway in the stage version of "Compulsion". The musicians Aaron chose to appear with him in this album were chosen for their flexibility and inventiveness and are considered to be among America's top musicians.

Dreamsville
Peter Gunn
Fallout!
A Profound Gass
The Brothers Go To Mother's
Session At Pete's Pad
The Floater
Brief And Breezy
Sorta Blue
Soft Sounds

McCann / Wilson - Les McCann & Gerald Wilson

 

Kathleen's Theme 

McCann / Wilson
Les McCann & The Gerald Wilson Orchestra
Producer: Richard Bock
Cover Art: Thomas Knitch (courtesy The McKenzie Gallery)
Album Design & Photography: by Woody Woodward
Audio by Richard Bock
Pacific Jazz PJ-91

A Product of Liberty Records
1964

Piano - Les McCann
Bass - Victor Gaskin
Drums - Paul Humphrey

The Gerald Wilson Orchestra featuring
Guitar - Dennis Budimir
Tenor - Teddy Edwards

From the back cover: This collaboration between LES MCCANN and GERALD WILSON is a natural one and I think this album represents a highlight in Les' recording career. Les' playing here, as always, is positive and extroverted and is showcased wonderfully against the backdrop of Gerald's exciting band. 

It occurred to me one night, several months ago, while I was watching Gerald Wilson and his orchestra during one of their engagements at The Lighthouse, that if Gerald had chosen the media of motion pictures to express himself rather than music, he would surely have become a great director in the tradition of Kramer, Preminger, or Stevens.

It should be known that I made this seemingly disjointed evaluation of Gerald during my seventh Cutty Sark at The Lighthouse. Often when I make such statements in this frame of mind they don't make a great deal of sense to me the following morning but the comparison between Gerald Wilson and great motion picture directors still seems valid to me.

A director must do many things well. The director assembles the cast, brings his ideas to a script that has been selected, and uses his artistic judgments with the script and the actors to best achieve the results he wants. When the product is ready for the public it has been the director who is most responsible for its success or failure.

Similarly, Gerald does all things well. He is a craftsman in every way. He hand-picks the musicians carefully (a glimpse at the personnel listing on this record will assure you that Gerald hasn't settled for second best), he selects the material (most of which he composes and arranges), and then he bolsters the band and the audience with his own enthusiasm and exuberance. Gerald is a total musician. He touches all bases, and like a good director he is the man in charge.

Although Gerald.has paid his dues for many years, his reputation has become more widely known in the past few years. He played in the trumpet section of the great bands of Lunceford, Basie, Ellington, and Gillespie, arranged and composed, for all these bands, and led his own successful big band in the 40's, but even with his great success he left it all behind to continue studying music. His self-imposed exile was ended when he formed a big band that was recorded by Pacific Jazz and released in 1961. ("YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT" PJ-34). Many were able to hear this exciting, fresh band for the first time.

Gerald's success has spread almost entirely word of mouth. Because of the economics of traveling across the country with a big band, Gerald's dates

have been almost entirely restricted to California. Yet the news of Gerald's music spread rapidly after his first release and he soon became a best-selling artist in areas that had never seen him. Also Gerald has not had the television exposure that some of the older big bands have enjoyed, but a glance at the jazz polls shows him right at the top along with Basie, Elling- ton, and Herman (and with a sound that is the most modern of the big bands).

Watching Gerald's orchestra in performance is always a great pleasure for me because I'm watching a man who clearly enjoys what he's doing and loves his work. He seems to enjoy the musicians in his band as much as the audience and when one takes an excellent solo, Gerald sometimes leads the applause.

The one characteristic that Gerald has that makes him a rarity in jazz these days is his ability to communicate with an audience. It's this very characteristic that he has in common with the man he shared this record with.

The success of Les McCann began as almost an underground movement. Les enjoyed a small but devoted following in Southern California and when his debut album was released on Pacific Jazz ("THE TRUTH" PJ-2) the support was just as loyal but the cult grew in numbers. His first album was an imme- diate success and Les has built a record of success that is almost unequalled among jazz musicians today.

An aspect of Les McCann that has often been over- looked is his compositional abilities. Les is the composer of all but one of the selections in this album.

"Bailor The Wailer" is an especially exuberant composition and performance. Les dedicates this to Elgin Baylor of the Los Angeles Lakers (who might be described as a hard-bop basketball player). And there's the beautiful "Kathleen's Theme" (arranged and conducted by Jimmie Haskell). "Could Be" has a good Basie feeling to it.

The arrangements with the big band on this album are by Gerald Wilson based on ideas by Les McCann.

Les is another man who is well known for doing many things well. This album is a testimony to his writing ability and his playing. It also showcases his regular trio (Victor Gaskin on bass, Paul Humphrey on drums) one of the most successful groups in jazz and constantly in demand around the world.

Like the two personalities involved in this record, "MCCANN/WILSON" shouts with enthusiasm and exuberance. No hard sell is needed to convince you that you've made an excellent choice in picking up this album. The names LES MCCANN and GERALD WILSON speak for themselves. Listen. – LES CARTER-KBCA Radio, Los Angeles

Could Be
Stragler
Restin' In Jail
Bailor The Wailer
Maleah
Lot Of Living To Do
Kathleen's Theme
Gus Gus

Midnight Roses - Xavier Cugat

 

Manha De Carnival

Midnight Roses
The Quiet New Excitement Of Xavier Cugat
Arranged by Dick Jacobs
Produced by Harry Meyerson
Decca Records, A Division of MCA, Inc. DL 75046
1968

From the back cover: The name, Xavier Cugat, has been synonymous with the rhythms of Latin America for many years. From the very inception and acceptance of the conga, rhumba, samba, mambo, cha cha and meringue by American audiences, Xavier Cugat remained master of each craze that swept American popular music and kept Americans dancing through a seemingly endless cycle of appealing dance tempos from south of the border.

Recently, American popular music was successfully invaded by yet another musical import, the Bossa Nova. The lightness, the delicacy and the depth of feeling of the Bossa Nova has pervaded every form of musical expression with a subtle and naturally accented beat. It was predictable that the most popular Latin American band in the business would master this tempo, and MIDNIGHT ROSES is the delightful result. 

Properly subtitled "The Quiet New Excitement of Xavier Cugat," this latest album features a collection of great songs that lend themselves especially to the rhythms of the Bossa Nova; written by some equally great composers from both North and South America. Burt Bacharach and Hal David are represented with DO YOU KNOW THE WAY TO SAN JOSE and THIS GUY'S IN LOVE WITH YOU; Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers with I HAVE DREAMED; Michel LeGrand's beautiful WATCH WHAT HAPPENS from "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"; Antonio Carlos Jobim, considered by many to be the "Father" of the Bossa Nova, with TRISTE and WAVE; YOUNG AND WARM AND FREE from the motion picture "Elvira Madigan,' adapted from a Mozart concerto by Carl Sigman; Francis Lai's ALL AT ONCE from his beautiful score for "A Man and A Woman"; MISTY ROSES by the very talented Tim Hardin; ON A CLEAR DAY from the pen of Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane; and last but certainly not least, the unforgettable theme, MANHA DE CARNAVAL, by Luiz Bonfa, another of the pioneer innovators of the Bossa Nova from Latin America, featured in an unforgettable motion picture, "Black Orpheus."

If you haven't already been caught up in the swell of the Bossa Nova, we recommend you retire to your stereo with a copy of MIDNIGHT ROSES and let "The Quiet New Excitement of Xavier Cugat" cast its spell.

I Have Dreamed
Do You Know The Way To San Jose
Young And Wild And Free

   "Adapted from Mozart Concerto" (featured in "Elvira Madigan")
Watch What Happens
Triste
All At Once It's Love
Misty Roses
On A Clear Day (You Can See Forever)
This Guy's In Love With You
Wave
Manha De Carnival

Pop Concert In Manhattan - D'Artega

 

Pop Concert In Manhattan

Pop Concert In Manhattan
D'Artega and His Orchestra
Mercury Records MG 20060
1960

From the back cover: D'Artega (who chooses to drop his given names, Alfonso Armando Antonio Fernandez) has spent his musical life repeating a question to himself. Every time he hears a great classical work, he says silently, "That is beautiful. How can I bring that beauty to more people?"This unselfish challenge which he constantly places before himself accounts for D'Artega's emergence as one of the world's outstanding popularizers of classical music and composers of popular music of the fullness and flourish of the classics.

D'Artega was born in Spain and came to the United States as a youngster. For years he studied orchestration and composition under Boris Levenson, who had been a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakoff. Early in the days of radio, D'Artega was attracted to this new magic medium which could bring music into the homes of everyone. But he knew that the techniques of classical music, while glorious to the ears of an initiate, would be strange to millions of Americans who had never had the opportunity to develop a taste for classics. So he committed his art to the development of a style which would combine the best of the familiar, popular music, with the most attractive qualities of his first love, the classics.

That he succeeded in striking this extraordinary balance is evidenced by the outstanding parade of successes which unfolded in his career. D'Artega soon was in demand by the already giant networks to display his unusual combination of easy listening pleasure with artistic distinction. He conducted on the Jell-O Program, Your Hit Parade, Ripley's Be lieve-It-Or-Not Show, and the Cavalcade of Music. He became the director of "Pop" concerts for the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Frequently he came to Carnegie Hall to conduct its famous Pop Concert Orchestra as a guest, until recently, when he was appointed its permanent conductor.

Never forgetting that the ears of most Americans were tuned to popular song, D'Artega composed for that medium, too, bringing to it his faultless taste and outstanding training. His song, "In The Blue Of The Evening", held a spot on the Hit Parade for 21 weeks. His works for symphony orchestra include "American Panorama", "Dream Concerto", "Niag ara" and the "Fire And Ice Ballet" of which parts 1 to 3 are heard on this Mercury Long Playing recording.

D'Artega portrayed the role of Peter Ilyich Tchai kovsky in the motion picture, "Carnegie Hall".

Featured in this generous concert of D'Artega and His Orchestra are his own "In The Blue Of The Evening", "Tally-Ho", "When Love Is New", "Dream- er's Serenade", "Concerto Pathetique", featuring the piano artistry of Rosa Linda, "Wedding Of The Violins", "Remembrance", "Tulips In Springtime", "Dagger Dance" and the three parts of "Fire And Ice Ballet".

In The Blue Of Evening

Tally-Ho
When Love Is New
Dreamer's Serenade
Concerto Pathetique
Wedding Of The Violins
Remembrance
Tulips In Springtime
Dragger Dance
Fire And Ice Ballet – Pt. 1
Fire And Ice Ballet – Pt. 2
Fire And Ice Ballet – Pt. 3