Lionel Hampton's All-Star Group

Open House

Lionel Hampton's All-Star Groups
Photo: Burt Goldblatt
C-C. Clubs, Inc.
Jazztone J1246
1956

Musicians listed on the back cover: Chu Berry, Benny Carter, Charlie Christian, Cozy Cole, Nat "King" Cole, Coleman Hawkins, Mill Hinton (and others)

From the back cover: Open House (Hampton, vibes; Marshall Royal, clarinet; Ray Perry, amplified violin; Sir Charles Thompson, piano; Irving Ashby, guitar; Vernon Alley, bass; Lee Young, drums – December, 1940) is a happy, bouncy opus played by a group of Hollywood swingsters. Ashby's guitar answers Perry and Royal (the latter is currently Count Basie's lead saxist) to start things off; Hamp, Perry, Royal and Camp again solo. Ashby swings through the first of the last chorus, with Alley's hugh-toned bass filling in the open holes, and then all return to the original riff.

Dinah (Murphy-Marshall)
Dough-Ra-Me (Southern - Hampton - Cole)
When Lights Are Low (Kahn-Koehler-Fiorito)
Open House (Hampton - Royal)
Shoe Shiners Drag (Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton)
The Heebie Jeebies Are Rockin' The Town (Boyd Atkins)
House Of Morgan (Lionel Hampton)
My Buddy (Kahn - Donaldson)
Altitude (Duke Ellington)
Big Wig In The Wigwam (Case - Bradley)
Jivin' With Jarvis (Lionel Hampton)
High Society (Steele - Melrose)

Mainstream Of Jazz - Gerry Mulligan

Mainstream Of Jazz
Gerry Mulligan And His Sextet
EmArcy Mercury MG 36101
1957

Available from online vendors so I will not be posting a sample. Presented here to share the cover art and jack notes excerpt.

From the back cover: Gerry Mulligan's attitude toward music is in line with these developments. Though an uncompromising modernist, he has always remained firmly rooted in the harmonic and rhythmic origins of jazz and its improvisational elements. As an arranger for big bands, he has often displayed characteristics that seem to stem from the best of the swing era writers. It is significant that his vote in the "Musicians' Musicians" poll in The Encyclopedia Yearbook of Jazz named Duke Ellington, Ralph Burns, Gil Evans, Bobby Sherwood, Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan as his favorite arrangers. Similarly in improvisation his tastes and knowledge reflect an awareness of the entire history of jazz rather than simply the recent developments. Red Nichols ranked side by side with Dizzy Gillespie among his selected trumpet men, just as the late Irving Fazola shared Gerry's clarinet vote with Benny Goodman.

The present sextet represents, in Gerry's view, the outgrowth of a lengthy and time-consuming effort to get the right feel with a group of this kind on records.

We tired for a year and a half," he recalls, "to get what I was really looking for with the sextet. That kind of feeling between the men only comes after a while."

The format and general approach of the sextet is similar to that of the previous long play, MG36056. Members of the group are as follows: Mulligan, baritone sax (also piano on Root Blues); Zoot Sims, tenor sax; Jon Eardley, trumpet on Mainstream and Ain't It The Truth; Don Ferrara, trumpet on other titles; Bobby Brookmeyer, trombone; Bill Crow, bass; Dave Bailey, drums.

Elevation
Mainstream
Ain't It The Truth
Igloo
Blue At The Roots
Lollypop

That's Life - Living Brass

Sunshine Superman

That's Life
Living Brass
Arranged and Conducted by Ray Martin
Produced by Ethel Gabriel
Recorded in RCA Victor's Studio A, New York City
Recording Engineer: Bob Simpson
RCA Camden CAL-2143
1967

That's Life
Cry
Riders In The Sky
Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)
Besame Mucho
Sunshine Superman
You Belong To My Heart (Solarmente Una Vez)
My Little Tramp
Tangerine
Mariachi Blues

This Lonesome Road - Carl Glass

Hide Me

This Lonesome Road
Carl Glass And His Mountain Boys
Diplomate Records DS-2610

Life Boat
I'll Be A Friend
This Lonesome Road
I Heard My Mother Weeping
Hide Me
Old Country Baptizing
Old Gospel Ship
Shout And Shine
Set Your House In OrderThe Circle Was Broken
My Lord's Gonna Lead Me Out
Don't You Love Your Daddy Too

Redskin Romp - Charlie Barnet

Along The Santa Fe Trail

Redskin Romp
Charlie Barnet And His Orchestra
Arrangements by Billy May

Cover: Jim Flora
RCA Victor LPM 1091
1955

From Billboard - June 4, 1955: Here's a tastefully conceived and executed album of Barnet instrumentals featuring 12 arrangements by Billy May of tunes with American Indian title themes, ranging from the familiar "Cherokee" and a swingy "Iroquois" to an exciting "Comanche War Dance." Thruout the LP, May's distinctive style (particularly noteworthy on a unique version of "Indian Love Call") furnishes a perfect showcase for Barnet's driving beat and musicianship.

Comanche War Dance
Iroquois
Cherokee
Seminole
Pale Moon
Redskin Mambo
By The Waters Of Minnetonka
Indian Love Call
From The Land Of The Sky Blue Waters
Indian Summer
Along The Santa Fe Trail
Wahoo's Lament

Give The Lady What She Wants - Lena Horne

Speak Low

Give The Lady What She Wants

Lena Horne

With Lennie Hayton And His Orchestra

Arrangements: Ralph Burns and Lennie Hayton

Production: Fred Reynolds

Photo: Wendy Hilty

RCA Victor LPM-1879

1958

Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend

People Will Say We're In Love

Just In Time

Honey In The Honeycomb

You'd Better Know It

Get Out Of Town

Bewitched

At Long Last Love

Speak Low

Love

Let's Put Out The Lights And Go To Sleep

It's All Bop To Me - Charlie Ventura

It's All Bop To Me
Charlie Ventura And His Orchestra
RCA Victor LPM-1135
1955

Available from online vendors so I will not be posting a sample. Presented here to share the cover art and jacket notes.

From the back cover: Some years ago, during the late forties to be exact, there was a mass exodus of jazz musicians to the land of Oo-Bla-Dee. It was led, of course, by such redoubtable guides as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, but following in their footsteps there came a host of others who, led on by the particular hypnotism and sorcery of those two, soon found that slightly crazy area very much to their liking and permanently settled down. The sound that have since issued from beyond those frontiers have been extensively modified, but they still depend for their validity upon what the masters taught. And among the groups which gleefully explored this then partially unknown terrain was that of Charlie Ventura – a happy group, as we can hear in this instance, whose wonderfully inventive lines were some of the more sparkling to issue from the capital city of that land which was called Bop.

At the time Charlie introduced his band – it was May 29, 1946 – he was no newcomer to the jazz world, had played for a considerable period with Gene Krupa, left to join Teddy Powell, and then eventually rejoined the Kruppa aggregation. It was with the latter that the seed of Charlie's own band style was sown – the unique blending of instruments and voices heard in the selections included in this album. While he was with the Kruppa band, he was given, on a rapidly rising scale, an ever-in-creasing amount of the jazz solo work. And it so happened that on one of the numbers, it which he accompanied vocalist Buddy Stewart, he felt that he was hogging too much of Stewart's show. So Charlie and the singer got together and figured out a few passages in which Stewart would sing and Charlie play a coda in unison. It was this idea which Charlie later incorporated into his own outfit, and as may be witnessed here, the band leaned heavily upon it.

The small band, with which Charlie began to record for RCA Victor in 1949, was an extremely well-matched unit – its combination of seven instruments and one or two vocalists made it, as they say in military circles, tightly mobile. In addition to Charlie's tenor and its ever-changing mood and attack, there were the saxes of brother Ben and Boots Mussulli; the trumpets of Normie Faye or Conte Candoli; the trombone of Bennie Green; bassist Kenny O'Brien; drummer Ed Shaughnessy; and the piano-vocal combination of Roy Kral and Jackie Cain, a team very definitely more renowned today than at the time these recordings were made. In fact, over and above the instrumental prowess of the other members of the band, it was to these two that the aggregation owed much of its distinctive flavor – Roy did most of the band's arranging, and Jackie, in her very flexible and personal pharsing, lent exactly the right flavor to the formula Ventura was attempting to put across. Her style might be very favorably compared with that of Sarah Vaughan, and the quality of her voice was, and is, on a uniquely high level.

One big band side is included in this album – a decidedly weird and favorable working-over of Caravan. This is certainly an interesting performance – among others in that group were trumpeter Johnny Mandel, guitarist Barry Galbraith, trombonists Bart Varsalona and Bennie Green, and sexists Al Cohn and Manny Albas – but it is undoubtedly true that, merely because of the band's size, it is not nearly so effective, in this particular medium, as the work of the latter is the engaging High on an Open Mike; the medium-tempo For Boppers Only, and the bumptious Feather's Den. There are, too, those pre-eminently "pop" tunes such as Barney Google and Yankee Clipper (vocal on the latter by Betty Bennett) which, simply because of their novel treatment, readily become more strictly jazz material.

It is everywhere evident that, as Ventura states, although his first enthusiasm was the tenor of Chu Berry, it was later to become the alto of Charlie Parker. Ventura's horn is consistently interesting, varied and expressive and, while his solo work has always exhibited enormous resources, it was in this exciting, swinging and slightly capricious bop band that he made one of the more lasting impressions on the modern jazz scene. – Bill Zeitung

From Billboard - December 10, 1955: The former Krupa sideman leads a seven-man group thru a couple of very happy and relatively unrestrained sides. A lot of blowing goes on with Ventura's tenor spotlighted with trumpet, trombone and with the voice of Jackie Cain. The latter style (voice harmonically matched with an instrument), was first developed with vocalist Buddy Stewart in the Krupa organization and the technique again worked favorably here with Miss Cain. Tho the material shown here is now slightly dated it's all very pretty stuff and show plenty of imagination and skill.

Feather's Den
Lullaby Of The Leaves
Barney Google
What Ya Say We Go
For Boppers Only
Caravan
Ha
Deed I Do
High On An Open Mike
Yankee Clipper
Too Marvelous For Words
Lullaby Of Rhythm

Jazz Wave - Med Flory

Jazz Wave
Med Flory And His Orchestra
Produced by Albert Marx
Cover Design: Tom Hannan
Jubilee JLP-1066
1958

Available from online vendors so I will not be posting a sample. Presented here to share the cover art and jacket notes.

From the back cover: One of the most active and ambitious of the younger group of bandleaders, 'Med' Flory was born Meredith Irwin Flory in Logansport, Indiana in August 1926. Like any midwestern youngster interested in music, he grew up with the sound of swing in his ears, listening and dancing to the big jump bands of BG, Artie Shaw, the Dorseys, Charlie Barnett and Glenn Miller. By the time the craze for the big bands had died in the late 40s he was out of the Air Corps and studying for his B.A. in Philosophy at Indiana University. The class of 1950 gave a promising sideman on clarinet to Claude Thornhill. A stint with the genial Irishman Art Mooney followed. Then, in the summer of 1953, 'Med' played lead tenor with Woody Herman. The following year, he had his own band, which gigged around New York and recorded an album for Mercury's jazz label, Emarcy. Since then he has settled on the shores of the Pacific and been a busy member of that buzzing beehive of musical activity out of which, in recent years, has come "west coast jazz."

From Billboard - April 15, 1958: Some fine, big-band jazz is marred by cramped, muddy sound here. Otherwise, fanciers of Med Flory, who blows a strong, swinging tenor, and Al Procino, whose trumpet soars over a hard-driving brass section, will enjoy it. Selections are a mixture of standards and original arrangements which owe their parenthood to bop.

Jazz Wave
Davy Jones
An Occasional Man
I Cover The Waterfront
Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
Someone's Rocking My Dreamboat
Ocean Motion
Rapture
On A Slow Boat To China
Jonah And The Whale
Sea Chase

The Hawk Blows At Midnight - Erskine Hawkins

Tippin' In

The Hawk Blows At Midnight

Erskine Hawkins Quintet
Decca Records DL 74081
1961

From the back cover: Hawkin's background in jazz is a long and distinguished one. Born in 1914 in Birmingham, Ala., he studies trumpet and began leading a college band while attending Alabama State Teacher's College. Leaving his home state in 1934, he brought the band to New York and opened August 11 at a vaudeville theater known as the Harlem Opera Hours, on 125th Street.

During the next decade the band built a firm following, using Manhattan as its principal base of operations. In 1935 Erskine embarked on what turned out to be a nine-month engagement at the Ubangi, one of the last of the old-time Harlem cabarets featuring a big show with singers, dancers, comedians and the band. But the most celebrated association of the orchestra in the late 1930s was the Savoy Ballroom, where Erskine worked so often and for such long stretches that his was virtually a house band.

An infectiously swinging band of music was dispensed by Erskine's men at the Lenox Avenue dance mecca (and it is important to remember that the Savoy was first and foremost a ballroom rather than a jazz center). Before long some of the bandleaders from downstairs, digging the sounds at the "Track," as the Savoy was nicknamed, borrowed and expanded some of the ideas that had originated there.

Originally known as Erskine Hawkins and his 'Bama State Collegians, the band began its recording career in New York in July of 1936 and continued to record regularly until the early '50s. Despite all the problems confronting leaders who had tried to survive the chaotic post-swing years, Erskine maintained the big band format until 1955. After disbanding he headed various groups; he still fronts a larger orchestra from time to time.

The group heard on these sides is an expansion of the quartet formed by Erskine in April, 1960. Sharing the front line with hime here is Bobby Smith, the alto saxophonist and composer-arranger who was an important figure in the old band from 1941 on. Leroy Kirkland, the guitarist and arranger also as a member of the band during most of same period. The group is completed by pianist Ernest Hayes, drummer Step Shepard (formerly with Bill Dogged) and the well known bassist Lloyd Trotman, who has worked with Duke Ellington and many other name bands and combos. – Leonard Feather

From Billboard - February 6, 1961: Erstwhile 1940's band leader Hawkins turns to the combo format here with good, pop-styled jazz results. He is joined on the date by alto man Bobby Smith and a rhythm group. Songs are a melange of standards like "Love Is Here To Stay," and older tunes identified with Hawkins, like "Tuxedo Junction" and "Tippin In." Danceable, listenable jazz that can have appeal in the kind of pop circles that dig the Jonah Jones approach, as well more pure jazz fans.

Tuxedo Junction
Love Is Here To Stay
Someone's Rocking My Dreamboat
Midnight Still
Blue Embers
Things Ain't What They Used To Be
Cherry
The Birth Of The Blues
Tippin' In
If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight)
Deep Purple
Hawkin' Around

Best Plucking In Town - A Quartet Of Great Guitar Stylists

Best Plucking In Town
A Quartet Of Great Guitar Stylists
Barney Kessel, Grant Green, Oscar Moore, Mundell Lowe
Design & Concept: Howard Goldstein/George Alpert
Photography: Don Victor
CP Parker Records PLP 826
Manufactured by Apex Record Corporation - Hollywood, California

Available from online vendors so I will not be posting a sample. Presented here to share the cover art and jacket notes.

Uneven sounding budget jazz compilation.

From the back cover: Here we have some variation with small groups and some large aggregations playing well conceived charts. It is this pot pour, to some extent, that make this recording a listeners delight, for it is not true that variety is still the spice of life?

Roulette - Oscar Moore, guitar; Joe Comfort, bass; Carl Perkins, piano
On The Sunny Side Of The Street - Grant Green, guitar; Specs Williams, organ; Joe Carroll, vocal
Up Tempo - Oscar Moore, guitar; Joe Comfort, bass; Carl Perkins, piano; Pacheco, bongos
Blues For A Stripper - Mundell Lowe, guitar with Orchestra conducted by Mundell Lowe
Body & Soul - Barney Kessell, guitar; Red Mitchell, bass; Larry Bunker, vibes; Pete Candoli, trumpet; Harold Land, tenor sax; Mel Lewis, drums; Jimmy Rowles, piano
Cheetas' For Two - Barney Kessell, guitar; Red Mitchell, bass; Larry Bunker, vibes; Pete Candoli, trumpet; Harold Land, tenor sax; Mel Lewis, drums; Jimmy Rowles, piano
Theme From Samson & Delilah - Oscar Moore, guitar; Joe Comfort, bass; Carl Perkins, piano; Pacheco, bongos
Yes, He's Gone - Mundell Lowe, guitar; Geo. Duvivier, bass; Alice Darr, vocal
Have You Got A Penny, Benny? - Grant Green, guitar; Joe Carroll, vocal
Walkin' Home - Oscar Moore, guitar; Joe Comfort, bass; Carl Perkins, piano; Pacheco, bongos