Last Night When We Were Young
Flute Flight
Sam Most
Produced and Directed by Don Schlitten
Notes: Kent Hazen
Cover and Liner Photos: Don Schlitten
Recording: Arne Frager
Recorded December 28, 1976
Xanadu141
Manufactured and Distributed by Cream Records, Inc.
Sam Most: Flute and Clarinet
Lou Levy: Piano
Monty Budwig: Bass
Donald Bailey: Drums
From the back cover: "I didn't even have many lessons, it's just something that I took to. In fact when I started to play I started to use that humming technique a lot because I couldn't play out in my apartment. Maybe it was late at night and I wanted to play, so instead of playing out in full tones I might just kind of hum and sing along." That's how Sam Most describes his earliest bouts with the flute. In any field of endeavor some breakthrough occur as a result of countless hours of arduous research, relentless study and conscious experimentation. Then again, of course, there are cases like Archimedes overflowing his bathtub – or Sam Most attempting to practice in near silence. A breakthrough is a breakthrough, however, and today it is commonly known that solid objects displace water and that the human voice can be combined with the tone of a flute. The advantage which has accrued to Sam for having made the latter breakthrough early in life and in such a relatively painless fashion is that he has had more time than any other flute player to work with that technique and develop it to perfection.
Needless to say there is more to playing the flute than vocalizing into it. For Sam this device has never been an end in itself, but merely a highly useful addition to his formidable arsenal of flute technique. Any conscientious artist knows that too much of a good thing can be counterproductive, and Sam is very conscientious.
Back in the early 50's when Sam began expanding his sphere of musical interest to include the flute, there was a singular dearth of models to emulate: "I don't think I chose it as an 'I must play the flute' type of thing. To tell you the truth, I don't remember hearing anyone play jazz on it at all. I started out playing the clarinet because my brother (Abe Most, the prominent LA studio woodwind player) as an inspiration growing up. That was towards the last of the swing era. Then when I was about sixteen or so I started hearing the Charlie Parker things and was caught up in that. I think I first heard Ben Webster on 52nd Street, and he inspired me in person. I flipped out when I heard him at the Three Duces. I listened to Coleman Hawkins records like Body and Soul, and I used to dig Lee Konitz and Stan Getz. Then I started to go more for players like Rollins and Coltrane. As far as I remember, flute jazz was more or less my own affinity for it and the influence of what I'd been hearing from saxophone players. I think it was just more or less my own type of transformation of saxophone things, plus, of course, the flutistic things. And I just felt naturally putting those two things together.
Despite having passed through the reed sections of big bands led by Tommy Dorsey, Shep Fields, Boyd Raeburn and Don Redman, the larger ensemble was not where Sam's head and heart were. "I always felt that most of my background was in the small group. The big band sideman thing was something that I passed through, but that wasn't my predominant influence. The big band era was either dead or in the process of dying, so I just got in on the tail end and got some of that experience. (Sam was born on December 6, 1930.) I was always attracted to the smaller groups and of course I liked Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw because I was impressed with the clarinet, but when bebop came in I was young enough to feel that that was the direction to go in. It seemed like a natural thing, just like people today going into rock."
Sam currently resides in California, but during the '50s his base of operations was New York City. The decade and the location were both good to Sam. He began leading his own down beat Critics Poll. "It seemed like wherever I played the flute it was a tremendous commercial success. The audiences liked the novelty of it and also the fact that I had an affinity for it. I was doing a bit more in that period because I had some albums out, and I was able to get work and a few studio bones here and there."
Towards the end of the decade, however, the row of the working jazzman was becoming tougher to hoe, so Sam accepted an offer to join the Buddy Rich band for a State Department sponsored world tour. Upon returning to the States in 1961, Sam decided to investigate the climate in the Los Angeles area, where brother Abe had found a comfortable niche for himself. "I didn't think I'd stay here. I was kind of a slowish period in New York, so I stayed out here with my brother awhile, and before you know it I've been here seventeen years!"
During those seventeen years Sam has managed to pay his own freight, but things haven't been as rosy as some publicity blurbs make out. "It's really a misconception to think that I really became successful in the studio, Vegas or Tahoe scene. I went to Vegas from here with Red Norvo, because I never really got into the studio too strong. That's how I got introduced to Vegas and Tahoe, and I spent some years back and forth. It always seemed like there wasn't much happening in L.A. at the time. Out of the whole city there were maybe four clubs, and they had imported groups or just a given night or two for some of the local people. There wasn't an opportunity to work steady in town unless you got into the studios. I don't think I ever intended to be a studio musician. It was like a supplement, you know, if I could make some money that way. I even entertain thoughts of going back to New York. It's kind of hard economically trying to play the music you dig and make some money at it. Art is one thing, but business is something else."
Recently, however, the light at the end of the tunnel for Sam Most, improvising artist, had been growing brighter. "Don Schlitten) was interested enough to give me a chance to come out of isolation, so that kind of started it." Flute Flight is Sam's second release on Xanadu (Mostly Flute, Xanadu 133, was the first), and Sam is now the proud recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant for performance as well. After hearing this album listeners will readily understand why Sam was selected. He has not stood still over the years. "A lot of things I did in the '50s – oh, they're okay, but I don't want to listen to them. They're something in the past, and I hope I'm growing. I keep trying to grow. I think you can still tell it's me, but my style and feelings change as I get older. You get either more mature or wiser or whatever just from continuing to listen and grow personally and trying to perfect your art."
The Humming Blues
It Might As Well Be Spring
Flying Down To Rio
Sagittarian Samba
Last Night When We Were Young
It Happened In Monterey
Am I Blue
