Victor Feldman All-Stars Plays Soviet Jazz Themes

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Drummer, vibraphonist and pianist Victor Feldman was such a superbly talented musician and accomplished reader that he made his primary living in the Hollywood studios during their heyday in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  He was also dependable, prompt and courteous, not to mentioned very well-liked by the coterie of contractors and first-call studio players that populated that scene.

Although he didn’t have to “go on the road,” occasionally some great opportunities to do so came up such as his stint with Cannonball Adderley’s sextet in 1961.

Another, much briefer road trip, turned up in the form of Benny Goodman’s tour of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics which commenced on May 28, 1962.

It took the first several weeks in April for the personnel of the group to be finalized; but when it was, the band was a dynamite cast of musicians. Joya Sherrill was the featured vocalist. Zoot Sims; Jerry Dodgion, Gene Allen, Phil Woods and Tommy Newsome were the saxophone section. Joe Newman, Jimmy Maxwell, Joe Wilder and John Frosk made up the trumpet section while the trombonists were Jimmy Knepper, Willie Dennis and Wayne Andre. The rhythm section consisted of Bill Crow on bass and Turk Van Lake on guitar, and featured Victor on vibes and Teddy Wilson on piano.

Upon his return from the Soviet Union, Victor signed an exclusive recording contract with Fred Astaire’s Ava records.

The first project that Victor completed for the label was to record three “Jazz Impressions of …” tracks with Bob Whitlock [b] and Colin Bailey [d] that augmented the release of the original soundtrack by Mark Lawrence to the highly acclaimed film – David and Lisa: An Unusual Love Story [Ava-AS-21].

But while at Ava records, Victor was at work preparing a real gem of a recording based on compositions that he and Leonard Feather had come across during his trip to Russia with the Goodman band.

Released in 1963, The Victor Feldman All-Stars Play Soviet Jazz Themes [Ava-AS-19] is comprised of two recording sessions involving three Soviet Jazz originals, both featuring the rhythm section of Bob Whitlock on bass and Frank Butler on drums. The first took place on October 26, 1962 with Victor on vibes, Nat Adderley on cornet, Harold Land on tenor saxophone and Joe Zawinul on piano and the second session was done on November 12, 1962 with Victor on piano and vibes, Herb Ellis on guitar, Carmel Jones on trumpet and Harold Land once again on tenor.

Here are Leonard Feather’s original liner notes that offer a perspective on both the Cold War politics of the time as well as on the Soviet Jazz musicians and their music which Victor represented on this recording.

“There has never been an album quite like this before in the annals of recorded jazz.

The very existence of Soviet jazz, of artists who could play or write it, was virtually unknown outside the USSR until 1959. That was the year when two intrepid Americans named Dwike Mitchell and Willie Ruff, in the guise of Yale choral group members, entered the Soviet Union and let it be bruited around that they were really jazz musicians. The resultant impromptu concerts led them to discover that a cadre of young musicians existed whose interest in the American jazz world, bolstered by Voice of America broadcasts, was as deep and intense as their feeling for the music.

Three years later, on a more official and far more broadly publicized basis, Benny Goodman's band, the first American jazz orchestra of modem times to play the Soviet Union (under U.S. State Department auspices) opened May 30, 1962, at the Central Army Sports Arena in Moscow. On this tour the brilliant and versatile Victor Feldman played vibraphone in the small combo numbers; and most valuably, during the six weeks of the tour, he gained a fairly broad picture of the musical life of the Russians, the Georgians and other citizens of this endless land.

I was lucky enough to be in Moscow for the opening. and later to spend a little time in Leningrad. At a press conference I heard much talk of arranging for local jazzmen to sit in with Goodman and show him some of their music. The plans failed to materialize however, for B.G. never sought out these Soviet youths whose music amazed those of us who did get together with them. And aside from token gestures such as the use of a couple of Soviet pop songs, there was no acknowledgement in the band's program that such a phenomenon as Soviet jazz existed.

The aims of Victor Feldman's LP are, first, to compensate for this omission; second, to provide a program of modem jazz by superior soloists with plenty of blowing room; third, to point up the similarities, rather than the differences, that can be found in a comparison of jazz composition as it is conceived in Moscow, Tbilisi or Leningrad vis-À-vis New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.

Soon after arriving in Moscow, we found out that homegrown jazz, supposedly taboo in the USSR, not only wasn't underground or outlawed as had long been believed, but was actually flourishing on a modest scale. It even had young. growing outlets at a Moscow jazz Club, where students earnestly discuss the latest news about John Coltrane or Ornette Coleman, and at a couple of Youth Cafés, where music by the new Soviet jazz wave is often heard live.

Writing in Down Beat about a visit to the Café Aelita. I observed: "It is the closest Moscow comes to a night club … serves only wine, closes at 11pm, and is decorated in a style that might be called Shoddy Modern, though radical by Moscow standards ... the shocker was the trumpet player, Andre Towmosian. who is 19 but looks 14, plays with the maturity of a long-schooled musician, though in jazz he is self-taught."

I learned that Towmosian was acclaimed in the fourth annual Jazz festival at Tartu, Estonia. (It was amazing enough to learn that there had been any Soviet jazz festival, let alone four.) He was also featured with his quartet at the Leningrad University Jazz Festival; and one of the souvenirs I brought home was a tape, given me in Leningrad, of Towmosian playing Ritual, the original heard in this album.

Also on tape were some of the compositions of Gennadi (Charlie) Golstain, the alto saxophonist and arranger whose apartment I visited in Leningrad. Though nicknamed for Charlie Parker, clearly he has at least two other idols, for side by

side on the wall of his living room I noticed adjacent photographs of two men: Nikolai Lenin and Julian (Cannonball) Adderley.

Golstain's tapes featured him with a combo similar to the Feldman group on these sides, but he works regularly with a large modern orchestra headed by Yusef Weinstain and writes most of the band's book. He is a soloist of considerable passion,as yet incompletely disciplined and subject to multiple influences, but his dedication is beyond cavil and his writing shows an intelligent absorption of the right influences.

“Several of the fellows in Benny's band jammed a couple of times with Gennadi at our hotel, the Astoria in Leningrad," Victor recalls, "and some of us, including Phil Woods, played with him at the University., He was eager for knowledge and information, like so many of the musicians we met."

Goldstain is the composer of three of the lines in this set - Blue Church Blues, Madrigal, and Gennadi - as well as the arranger. or virtual re-composer, of the folk song Polyushko Polye.  (For those curious about the first title, it should be pointed out that the church Gennadi had in mind was not Russian Orthodox, but probably Southern Baptist.)

Also represented here is a young arranging student named  Givi Gachechiladze, the composer of "Vic." He lives in Kiev," says Victor, but he's studying at Tbilisi; and when we arrived at the airport there, he and a group of his friends were at the airport to meet us - with flowers. The next day he gave me this tune, dedicated to me and named for me.'

The rapport that grew between the Soviet musicians and the Goodman sidemen showed in microcosm the kind of amity that could exist on all social levels if meetings were possible between men and women of the two countries who have common interests. All of us who tasted the hospitality of these devoted jazz musicians and students were touched by their sincerity, their lack of political animosity (many seemed totally apolitical), and their obvious desire to discuss things shared rather than differences.

The young musicians like Towmosian, Golstain, Constantin Nosvo and Gachechiladze, none beyond their 20s and many in their teens. have not yet gained substantial recognition in their own country.  It is ironic that this is the first album featuring Soviet jazz compositions that has ever been recorded, not merely in the U.S.A., but anywhere in the world. For decades American jazz was a prophet un-honored at home; Europeans were the first to give it profound critical attention. Now, in a strange reversal, Americans are the first to draw attention to a set of swinging, unpretentious Soviet jazz pieces that are still waiting to be recorded on home ground.

The group selected for these two sessions is in itself further reflection of the "United Notions" character of jazz. Here are the works of writers in the Soviet Union, performed in America by a group under the leadership of Victor Stanley Feldman, who came to this country in 1955, at the age of 21, from his native London (the native city also of this writer, who helped organize the sessions); and on the tracks that feature Feldman's vibes the piano is taken over by Joe Zawinul, a superb modern pianist who was born in Vienna and did not arrive here until 1959, Zawinul works regularly with the sextet of Cannonball, whose brother Nat is heard on three tracks (Ritual, Madrigal, Blue Church Blues.)

Harold Land and Herb Ellis, both from Texas, and Carmell Jones of Kansas are well known to the Soviet insiders, as are drummer Frank Butler from Kansas City and the Utah-born bassist Bob Whitlock

Certainly these sides, because of the historic precedent they set and because of the esteem in which Feldman and his colleagues are held in what used to be thought of as the borsch and balalaika belt, will be among the most desirable collectors' items when the first copies reach the Soviet Union. For listeners in this country it is to be hoped that they will help reinforce a concept not of the jazz-as-propaganda-weapon cliché, but the unifying image of this music gathering strength and growing stature as part of a single world.”

It is a great disappointment to those who are familiar with the music on this album that it has never been issued as a commercial CD to help it gain wider recognition as the music on it is simply superb by any standard of comparison.

However, thanks to a new “digital audio app,” I have been able to join the six tracks of the album into one file which you can enjoy by simply clicking on the arrow/red dot in the upper left hand corner of the image.

"The Forgotten Ones:" Don Fagerquist - Gordon Jack [From the Archives]

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Gordon Jack, author of Fifties Jazz Talk: An Oral Retrospective and a frequent contributor to JazzJournal “dropped by” the editorial offices of JazzProfiles recently with a generous offer to post his piece on trumpeter Don Fagerquist [1927-1974] to the blog.

Don was one of the musicians based on the Left Coast who always knocked me out.

He had one of the most beautiful sounds that I ever heard on trumpet; plus, he was one heckuva swinger, which always caught me by surprise. Here’s this lyrical, pretty tone, and the next thing you know the guy is poppin’ one terrific Jazz phrase after another.

The trumpet seemed to find him. His was one of the purest tones you will ever hear on the horn. In Don Fagerquist, the instrument found one of its clearest forms of expression.

Don never seemed to get outside of himself. He found big bands and combos to work in that both complimented and complemented the way he approached playing the trumpet.

His tone was what musicians referred to as “legit” [short for legitimate = the sound of an instrument often associated with its form in Classical music].

No squeezing notes through the horn, no half-valve fingering and no tricks or shortcuts. Even his erect posture in playing the instrument was textbook.

If you had a child who wished to play trumpet, Don would have been the perfect teacher for all facets of playing the instrument.

He was clear, he was clean and he was cool.

His sound had a presence to it that just snapped your head around when you heard it; it made you pay attention to it.

No shuckin’ or jiving’, just the majesty of the trumpeter’s clarion call . When the Angel Gabriel picked trumpet as his axe [Jazz talk for instrument], he must have had Don’s tone in mind.

Here’s the full text of Gordon’s article which appeared in the July 2014 edition of JazzJournal. You can locate more information about JazzJournal by going here.

© -  Gordon Jack/JazzJournal; used with the author’s permission; copyright protected; all rights reserved.

                                           

“Don Fagerquist’s distinctive trumpet sound graced the bands of Gene Krupa, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman and Les Brown as soloist and section leader for a number of years from the mid-forties. Although a prolific recording artist (Tom Lord lists 364 sessions)  he is almost unknown today and for that reason it is worth highlighting a few comments about him from former colleagues: “I loved Don’s playing” (Gerry Mulligan); “Marvellous. He was ahead of his time” (Herb Geller); “He was a genius – a class act” (Dave Pell); “A tremendous jazz player” (Arno Marsh); “He really is a player - he’s the best” (Les Brown) and “He was a great improviser…everyone liked him” (Phil Urso).

Carl Saunders one of the most in-demand trumpeters in Los Angeles has cited him as a primary influence along with Kenny Dorham and Freddie Hubbard. (Bill Perkins once told me that “Carl idolised him”). In 1956 when Leonard Feather conducted a poll exclusively for musicians, both George Shearing and Urbie Green listed Don as one of their favourite trumpeters. Despite these testimonials his name has rarely been included on a list of the music’s finest soloists except once in 1955 when he secured fifth place in Metronome magazine’s annual poll. Robert Gordon probably said it best in his book (Jazz West Coast) “Don Fagerquist (was) a much underrated soloist. No doubt he was largely ignored because he laboured so often in the commercial vineyards of the Dave Pell Octet.”

Don who came from a musical family was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on the 6th. February 1927. He joined the Mal Hallett orchestra in 1943 which was based in Boston, working along the eastern side of the United States. The band included Buddy Wise, Sonny Rich, Dick Taylor and John Williams and in an enthusiastic Metronome review in 1944 George Simon said, “17 year old Don Fagerquist plays most of the lead…and then lets loose with some impressive jazz.” Like many of his generation his primary influences at this time were Harry James and Roy Eldridge.

In 1944 he began a long association with Gene Krupa that lasted off and on until 1950. He recruited Buddy Wise and Dick Taylor from Hallet’s band for Gene and they can all be heard soloing on one of Krupa’s biggest hits, Disc Jockey Jump by the nineteen year old Gerry Mulligan. It has a standard  AABA form with an A section resembling Four Brothers although as Gerry once ruefully pointed out it was recorded  nearly a year before Jimmy Giuffre’s classic. Don was the featured trumpet soloist and he can be heard on numerous other titles with the band like Leave Us Leap, Up An Atom, Lover and Opus One which are all good examples of his work at that time. The latter featured Anita O’Day and Don took leave of absence from the band in 1949 to work with her small group for about six months. Tiny Kahn was on drums but unfortunately they were never recorded.

That same year Artie Shaw was having tax problems so he decided to return to the music business with a new big band to help pay his debt to the IRS. Don was recruited along with some of the very best of the young modernists like Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Herbie Steward, Jimmy Raney and Dodo Marmarosa. The leader also commissioned writers like George Russell, Johnny Mandel and Tadd Dameron to contribute new material which was performed with his old hits like Frenesi, Begin the Beguine, I Cover the Waterfront and Stardust.  Don was heard not only with the big band but also with a fresh edition of the Gramercy Five which successfully revisited numbers like Summit Ridge Drive, Grabtown Grapple and Cross Your Heart.

He left the Shaw band in 1950 to re-join Gene Krupa for a while and then early in 1951 he took Don Ferrara’s place with Woody Herman who was beginning a month’s residency at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. In July that year Charlie Parker was recorded with the band at the Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City performing staples like Lemon Drop, Four Brothers, Caldonia, The Goof and I and More Moon. After the concert Don and Doug Mettome played with Parker at a local club. Fagerquist split the lead book with Conte Candoli and didn’t get too many solos but he can be heard on Celestial Blues, Moten Stomp and Singing in the Rain from a July 1952 recording session that was notable for a Woody Herman vocal on Early Autumn. A few months later after a Hollywood recording date he left Herman to join Les Brown who had a residency on the Bob Hope Show. He is prominently featured with the ‘Band of Renown’ on a double CD recorded at the Hollywood Palladium in 1953 on numbers like Rain, Happy Hooligan, Jersey Bounce and From This Moment On. This was when he and his family relocated to Los Angeles, eventually settling in Canoga Park in the San Fernando Valley.

His instrument of choice was a Calicchio trumpet which he played throughout his career and by the time he joined Les Brown his mature lyrical style was in full bloom. Rather like Clifford Brown (another well- schooled musician) he had a thorough knowledge of harmony and he was able to negotiate every chord change in a sequence with an effortless flow of melodic creativity - unlike Chet Baker for instance who could read music but was an ‘ear’ player when it came to improvisation.

Early in 1953 Dave Pell formed an octet with sidemen from Les  Brown’s band like Ray Sims, Ronny Lang and Fagerquist which proved to be very popular commercially leading some critics to accuse it of playing ‘Mortgage-paying jazz’. The public could not get enough of Pell’s octet and according to John Tynan writing in Downbeat it became, “The busiest small group in California”. The arrangements were by some of the finest Los Angeles-based writers like Shorty Rogers, Johnny Mandel, Andre Previn and Marty Paich and most of the charts had a guitar doubling the lead giving the group a bigger sound than might be expected from eight pieces.  Don’s lyrical trumpet on lead or soloing was an essential ingredient in the success of the group. He made eleven albums with Pell who in an interview with Marc Myers once said, “He had chops to do anything he thought of…he would steal the album again and again”.

The mid-fifties until December 1969 was a period of intense recording activity for him and after years of being on the road, the security of regular studio work must have seemed particularly attractive. In 1956 he joined the staff at Paramount Studios where he eventually performed on 85 film sound–tracks. He also became a first-call trumpet for recording sessions with artists as diverse as Shelly Manne, Red Norvo, Mel Torme, Buddy DeFranco, Art Pepper, Georgie Auld, Ray Charles, Nancy Wilson, Junior Mance and numerous others. He was on several of Ella Fitzgerald’s celebrated Song Book albums and he did Sinatra dates after Harry Edison stopped making them. He can also be heard on Barbra Streisand’s hit On A Clear Day. He performed on Hoagy Sings Carmichael soloing on Skylark, Winter Moon, Rockin’ Chair and Ballad in Blue prompting sleeve-note writer George Frazier to claim that Don was a new name to him, which was a surprising admission for a former DownBeat contributor.

One particularly memorable session was the 1954 Jazz Studio 2 album with Herb Geller, Milt Bernhart and Jimmy Giuffre. It includes classic versions of two of the most sophisticated ballads in the repertoire (Laura and Darn That Dream) on a recording that would merit five stars except for the presence of John Graas on french horn. He was a fine instrumentalist who had been a member of the Cleveland Symphony but the horn has more than eleven feet of tubing making it unsuitable for swiftly articulated bebop choruses. It also happens to be the most difficult of the brass family with an unforgiving mouthpiece – smaller than a trumpet’s. The only performer who seemed able to overcome the horn’s inherent problems was Julius Watkins.

A year later Don and Charlie Mariano recorded with singer Helen Carr who began her short career with Charles Mingus in 1949. It is a particularly intimate date with interesting material like Not Mine, I Don’t Want To Cry Anymore and Moments Like This - numbers you don’t hear every day. It also includes Cole Porter’s delightful Down In The Depths Of The 90thFloor which is available on YouTube.

That same year he recorded four titles under his own name with a Four Brothers saxophone section including Zoot Sims, Dave Pell, Bill Holman and Bob Gordon. Jordi Pujol has released it on his Jazz City series as Portrait of a Great Jazz Artist - a title that does not overstate Fagerquist’s immense talent. Also included on the CD are performances with Russell Garcia, Heinie Beau and Les Brown.

Even better was his only other date as a leader in 1957 where he was able to stretch out on a selection of superior standards arranged by Marty Paich. As always he decorates his melodic lines with chromatic runs embellished with delicate grace notes revealing a soloist of rare originality and taste. His warm sound has echoes of the great Bobby Hackett who of course was one of Miles’s favourites.

Throughout the sixties he continued to be very much in demand with artists like Louie Bellson, Billy May, Jo Stafford, Sammy Davis Jr., Henry Mancini, Elmer Bernstein, Sarah Vaughan and Neal Hefti. His last recording was in 1969 with Charlie Barnet’s big band playing a selection of current pop songs arranged by Billy May. There followed an unexplained gap in his activities until 1973 when along with Dave Pell, Jimmy Rowles, Ray Brown and Frank Capp he worked on a TV show hosted by Tom Kennedy for several months.

Don Fagerquist died in Los Angeles from a kidney complaint on January 24th. 1974

For more on this unsung giant go here to locate 26 of his solo transcriptions with Les Brown, Dave Pell, Marty Paich and Mel Torme.

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

As Leader

Portrait of a Great Jazz Artist (Jazz City Series FSR 2212)

Eight by Eight (V.S.O.P. Records 4CD)

As Sideman

Gene Krupa: Drummin’ Man (Columbia 501647 2)

Artie Shaw: The Complete Thesaurus Transcriptions 1949 (Hep CD 89/90)

Les Brown: Live at the Hollywood Palladium (Jasmine JASCD 407)

Helen Carr (Bethlehem CDSOL-6085)

Jazz Studio 1/2: Complete Sessions (Lonehill Jazz LHJ 10145)

Dave Pell Octet: Jazz for Dancing and Listening (Jazz City Series FSR 2242)

I have selected The Girl Next Door track from the Fresh Sound anthology Don Fagerquist: Portrait of a Jazz Artist [FSR 2212] for the following video tribute to Don.

Russ Garcia did the arrangement which has Don stating the melody as a ballad [0:00 – 1:07 minutes], then doubling the time [1:08 – 2:30 minutes] to allow Don to show off his Jazz chops before restating the theme as a ballad [2:31 minutes]. You might want to especially listen for the very clever ending in which Don plays a remarkably hip cadenza [3:16 minutes].

Jazz has had many great trumpet stylists over its almost 100 year history, but I don’t think that anyone has even played the horn prettier than Don Fagerquist.

The Forgotten Ones - Buddy Collette: The Gordon Jack Essay [From the Archives]

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“If I were going to pick a guy to open the Hollywood studio doors as Jackie Robinson did for baseball, Buddy would have been the man”.

- Gerald Wilson, trumpet player, bandleader, educator

“A spiritual father to Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, James Newton and myself. Buddy was a sage and saint. The doors he opened for us are innumerable and monumental.”

- Charles Lloyd, tenor saxophonist, flutist, bandleader

UK-based author and essayist Gordon Jack “dropped by” the editorial offices of JazzProfiles recently to share the following piece on Buddy Collette which first appeared in the March 2015 issue of Jazz Journal. You can locate more information about the magazine via this link.

© -  Gordon Jack/JazzJournal; copyright protected, all rights reserved, used with the author’s permission.

“Buddy Collette should be remembered not only as a consummate multi-instrumentalist equally at home on flute, clarinet, alto or tenor but also for the major part he played in integrating the Los Angeles Federation of Musicians’ Locals in 1953. Until then two different locals operated in many US cities – one for black performers and one for white.

He was born in Los Angeles in 1921 and began learning the piano when he was ten but a couple of years later he switched to the saxophone.  His family lived in the Watts area and Britt Woodman and Charles Mingus were neighbours. It was Britt’s brother who taught Buddy the clarinet and by the mid-thirties he was a member of The Woodman Brothers Biggest Little Band In The World.

Buddy also had his own band around this time playing occasional Saturday night dances but he needed a bass player. A chance meeting with Mingus who was studying the cello solved the problem. Buddy encouraged him to take up the bass and introduced him to Red Callender who became Mingus’ first teacher, charging $2.00 a lesson. After considerable wood-shedding Charles joined Collette’s band for occasional engagements at the Odd Fellows Hall in Watts and over the years Buddy and Mingus remained very close.

Around 1937 he started working at the Follies Theatre backing acts like Tempest Storm, Lily St.Cyr and vaudeville comedian Joe Yule (Mickey Rooney’s father). A little later in 1940 he began studies with the celebrated Lloyd Reese who had acquired a reputation as one of the finest jazz educators on the west coast. While studying with Reese he joined the very popular Cee Pee Johnson band who were usually to be heard at Central Avenue venues like the Club Alabam. Buddy was on baritone and it was possibly when the band appeared at Hollywood’s Rhumboogie that Orson Welles heard them and decided to use them in Citizen Kane. They can be seen briefly during a party scene at the end of the film.

When the US entered WWII in 1941 he joined an all-black US Navy Reserve band serving with Clark Terry, Jerome Richardson and the Royal brothers - Ernie and Marshal.  After the war the Central Avenue scene continued to thrive with clubs like Lovejoy’s, the Last Word and the Turban Lounge featuring young stars like Dexter Gordon, Wardell  Gray, Sonny Criss, Buddy and his friend Bill Green.

Collette started to organise a little band with John Anderson, Britt Woodman, Spaulding Givens, Mingus, Oscar Bradley and Lucky Thompson who had stayed in town after his booking with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker at Billy Berg’s in 1946. They rehearsed at Mingus’ house and their first booking was at the Down Beat which was the hottest spot on Central Avenue. It was a collaborative group so they decided to call themselves The Stars Of Swing. That was to be on a sign outside the club but Lucky Thompson had other ideas. On opening night the club sign said, Lucky Thompson And The All Stars. Mingus apparently wanted to kill him and three days later after the original sign was reinstated Lucky left the group to be replaced by Teddy Edwards

With aid of the GI Bill Buddy began studying at the American Operatic Laboratory, the California Academy of Music and the L.A. Conservatory of Music. This was the time that he began concentrating on the flute studying with Henry Woempner who was the top flutist at MGM. He also had harmony lessons with Franklyn Marks and Wesley La Violette who numbered Shorty Rogers, Marty Paich and Jimmy Giuffre among his students.

For a time in the late forties when work was scarce he went on the road with Joe Liggins’ R&B band on baritone. Joe had just had a big hit with The Honeydripper and the band was working mostly down south where prejudice was severe and very difficult to take. Another southern trip involved Buddy performing with Eddie “Rochester” Anderson who was famous for his work with Jack Benny. Around this time he was playing alto in Benny Carter’s band at the Hollywood Palladium and he was also teaching music at Jordan High School in Watts. The fourteen year old Frank Morgan whose father had played guitar with the Ink Spots, together with Sonny Criss and Eric Dolphy were some of his students. Eric and Buddy were close friends until Dolphy’s untimely death in 1964.

With his superior sight-reading skills Collette was beginning to get regular calls for record dates in the late ‘40s on alto with people like Ivie Anderson, Johnny Otis, Gerald Wilson, Ernie Andrews and Charles Mingus. Then around 1950 he made history by becoming the first black musician to be hired for a national TV show. Jerry Fielding, who had replaced Billy May as musical director for Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life show hired him after hearing his flute performance in Bizet’s Carmen with the Community Symphony Orchestra.  

Duke Ellington wanted him – “So I can feature that flute of yours” - but Buddy was by now doing too well in L.A. He started playing tenor with Herb and Lorraine Geller at a club on Main Street that had the benefit of a weekly radio broadcast. Around this time Gerry Mulligan who had just opened at the Haig sometimes rehearsed his quartet with Chet Baker at an apartment Buddy was sharing with Jimmy Cheatham.  

In 1953 Buddy along with Benny Carter, Gerald Wilson and Red Callender convinced the authorities that there should only be one musician’s local in L.A. James C. Petrillo president of the American Federation of Musicians was against it but with the help of high-profile show-business personalities like Josephine Baker, Nat Cole and Frank Sinatra they were finally successful in their fight to integrate the two unions. As a result a lot of black musicians were later contracted to do the Carol Burnett, Danny Kaye and Flip Wilson shows. Years later Gerald Wilson said, “If I were going to pick a guy to open the Hollywood studio doors as Jackie Robinson did for baseball, Buddy would have been the man”.

Early in 1955 he was playing at Lake Tahoe with Lena Horne and Chico Hamilton was on drums. It was Chico’s ambition to leave the singer and organise a new group with a different sound. Fred Katz had been recruited on cello, Carson Smith was on bass together with the young Jim Hall on guitar who was working in a book-store at the time. Buddy Collette with his multi-instrumentalist skills was to be the final and very important ingredient in what became one of the most distinctive small groups of the era.

Chico had obtained a booking for the quintet at The Strollers a small club in Long Beach about 20 miles south of L.A. Buddy was working with Scatman Crothers at the Tailspin Club in Hollywood so for the first week of the engagement Bob Hardaway took his place. Once Collete was on the stand the group became extremely popular in part thanks to regular broadcasts from the club by disc-jockey Sleepy Stein on KFOX. Prices probably helped too because there was no cover charge unless one of the bigger acts like the Ink Spots were appearing when the door-price would be $1.00.

Collette contributed a number of his intriguing originals like A Nice Day, Blue Sands, Buddy Boo and Sleepy Slept Here - the latter was used by Stein as a theme on his nightly radio show. The quintet of course provided an ideal showcase for his solo abilities. On alto his highly structured lines recalled the elegance of Benny Carter and his tenor had much of the light swing of Lester Young. He was one of the very few performers who could make a convincing case for the flute as a solo jazz instrument and his clarinet playing was acknowledged by Down Beat critics when they voted him the New Star on the instrument in 1956. He stayed with the quintet for about eighteen months but life on the road was tough. He was making about $300.00 a week with Chico which was what he could earn for half an hour on the Groucho Marx show. The studio scene meant good money and short hours which gave him more time for continued study.

In 1957 he appeared on the Stars of Jazz TV show with Gerald Wilson and was booked again for the show in 1958 with Abbey Lincoln. Throughout the late fifties he made numerous albums with Benny Goodman, Buddy Rich, Quincy Jones, Peggy Lee and Herbie Mann. His 1956 recording of Cycle was notoriously dismissed by Miles Davis in a 1958 Down Beat Blindfold Test – “All those white tenor players sound alike to me…unless it’s Zoot Sims or Stan Getz”.

Nelson Riddle often used black performers like Plas Johnson, Harry Edison, Joe Comfort and Buddy for albums with Rosemary Clooney, Nat Cole and Sinatra. Buddy can be clearly seen on the LP cover of Sinatra’s 1960 Swingin’ Session!!! sitting next to Riddle. He has an eight bar solo on Should I and Frank apparently always asked for him whenever he was on the west coast. Apart from his considerable studio work he kept performing with his own quartet at local clubs the Haig, the Cellar and Shelly’s Manne Hole.

In 1962 he made one of his rare visits to NYC because Mingus needed help with music for his Town Hall concert which featured 30 musicians. The occasion turned out to be a disaster described by Clark Terry as, “The most bizarre and chaotic scene I have ever witnessed!”  The following year he was back in the city at the invitation of Norman Granz to conduct the band at Basin Street East accompanying Ella Fitzgerald.

In L.A. the jazz scene was changing like it was everywhere else in the ‘60s and ‘70s. He was still getting a lot of studio calls though from people like Jerry Fielding, Paul Weston, Harry Zimmerman and Billy May. He always had private students but in 1973 he started teaching at California State University, moving on to Loyola Marymount University and later California State Polytechnic Institute at Pomona. In 1994 he helped establish the Jazz America summer teaching programme aimed at young players. The 23 January 1990 was declared Buddy Collette Day in L.A. and in 1998 he was honoured by the mayor as a Los Angeles Living Cultural Treasure.

Buddy Collette died on 19 September 2010. In the March 2011 Jazztimes Charles Lloyd wrote a moving tribute calling him, “A spiritual father to Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, James Newton and myself. Buddy was a sage and saint. The doors he opened for us are innumerable and monumental.”

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

As leader

Cool, Calm & Collette (Fresh Sound Records FSR 2249)

An Original Westcoaster (Fresh Sound Records FSR 2250)

Buddy Collete & His West Coast Friends (Fresh Sound Records FSR 2248)

As Sideman

The Complete Pacific Jazz Recordings Of The Chico Hamilton Quintet (Mosaic MD6-175)

Conte Candoli All Stars, Little Big Band Jazz (Fresh Sound Records FSR 1629)

John Graas Nonet, Jazzmantics (Lone Hill Jazz LHJ 10149)

Red Callender, Swingin’ Suite (Fresh Sound Records FSR-CD 458)

Herb Geller - The Gordon Jack Interview [From the Archives]

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.


The following interview was first published in the September and October 1994 edition of  JazzJournal and you can also find it reprinted in Gordon Jack’s highly recommended Fifties Jazz Talk: An Oral Retrospective [Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, 2004, pp. 88-98].

You can located more information about Jazz Journal via this link.

© -Gordon Jack/JazzJournal; used with the author's permission; copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Herb Geller, who was born on November 2, 1928, is a regular visitor to the United Kingdom, and this interview took place in March 1994 prior to an evening's engagement at the Bull's Head in Barnes. Geller wittily reminisced about a career that has spanned more than forty years, and he had fresh and original observations on people as diverse as Clifford Brown, Art Pepper Ornette Coleman, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, and Stan Getz.

"The first well-known bandleader I worked for was Joe Venuti in 1946, when I was seventeen years old and on vacation from Dorsey High School in L.A. We did two weeks at a theater in San Diego, and of course I found him to be a marvelous musician and a real character. Eric Dolphy and I were fellow students at Dorsey High, and we were very good friends, but the best saxophone player at the school was Vi Redd, who played better than either of us. She sounded very soulful and could play Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges solos, note for note, with a nice sound.

I also played with a band run by trumpeter Jimmy Zito off and on for about a year. He was a fine player and a good friend of mine whose claim to fame was that he had been married to June Haver, a big movie star at the time. I remember when the band was playing at a dance hall in San Francisco and every night, after work, we would go to the Filmore district to jam in after-hours clubs. One night we were packing up to go home and a little boy, no more than twelve years old, asked me if I wanted to buy a saxophone and a clarinet. I looked at them and they were both better than mine, and although I was a little wary, I took a chance and paid him the $75 he was asking. The next day I met Bob Kesterton, who was a friend of Charlie Parker's and had played on the 1947 "Lover Man" session with Howard McGhee. I told him that I had bought a sax and clarinet early that morning and he said, "I'm working with a guy who lost his last night!" We both realized what had happened and he said, "If you like, I won't say anything," but I couldn't do that, so Bob gave me the guy's telephone number and it turned out to be Paul Desmond, who confirmed they were his instruments. He came to my hotel to collect them, and this was the first time we had ever met. I mentioned the $75 I had paid, which I would like to get back, and he promised to talk to his insurance company. When he phoned me he said, "They say I shouldn't pay you, but instead I should lodge a police complaint against you!" Luckily he didn't, but a few years later I saw him in New York when he was with Dave Brubeck and I didn't have too much money. He said, "I never did give you that $75," and he paid me, which was nice. I really needed it because I was working out my union card and had very little work.

[In this 1950 photo of the Fina band taken at the Waldorf Astoria in New York Herb Geller is second from the right and Paul Desmond is fourth from the right]

After meeting him about this stolen saxophone business, I returned to L.A., where Jack Fina was organizing a band to go to New York. I was hired after auditioning, and on the drive to the first engagement in Salt Lake City, I asked who else was joining the band, and someone said, "An alto player from San Francisco called Paul Desmond." I said, "Oh no. I've just had a big experience with him!" Anyway Paul and I were roommates on the tour and became very good friends, and over the years I often saw him. He was a wonderful player - very original, with excellent melodic phrases and a very good harmonic sense. He was also a fine piano player.

In the late forties, Joe Maini and Jimmy Knepper lived in an apartment in New York which became famous for all-night jam sessions. We were all friends from L.A., and Jimmy and I had grown up together, as we were both born there. Joe was born in Rhode Island but moved out with his family when he was about fourteen years old. About a year or two after the Jack Fina trip, I had returned to New York and they had an apartment on the corner of 136th Street and Broadway. It was like a twenty-four-hour jam session, where you could visit at any time and there was always music being played, together with all kinds of nefarious activities going on. The music was wild, and as I could play a little piano, at least 1 knew the right chords, I would very often end up as the pianist. Once, though, I remember playing "Out of Nowhere" on the saxophone when Charlie Parker walked in, and of course I froze. I turned to the guys and said, "I can't think of anything interesting to play!" Everybody used to go there - Dizzy, Joe Albany, Max Roach, Miles, Warne Marsh, Gerry Mulligan. In fact, if you went to Joe's, you would meet the entire "who's who" of jazz. They had two beds in the middle of the room, and sometimes you would be blowing, and Joe or Jimmy would say, "I've been up for about four days now. I'm going to bed." They would go to sleep and snore and everybody else would still be playing.

I was with Claude Thornhill for about nine months in 1950. I recorded with him in Chicago, and we also made a "Band Short" in L.A. for Universal. These were filters between movies and usually lasted about fifteen minutes. Med Flory was in the band, and a legendary character by the name of Red Kelly was on bass. What I really wanted to do at that time was to get my union card in New York, but during the six months it took to get it, I was not allowed to work. I did some playing illegally in clubs in Nyack, New York, with people like Tony Fruscella, Red Mitchell, Phil Urso, Bill Triglia, Bill Crow, and Ed Shaughnessy, and we once did a rehearsal which was taped. Years later it was issued on Xanadu Records under Tony's name, but I never did get paid for it.'

Anyway, six months to the day after applying, I got my union card and was offered three jobs. I took the one with Jerry Wald because he had a good library of At Cohn arrangements and At was to rehearse the band. Jerry played clarinet like Artie Shaw, though not nearly as well, and he wanted me to replace Gene Quill on lead alto, because they didn't get along and Gene didn't have a union card. The band was playing at the Arcadia Ballroom, where there was a strict Local 802 policy for tax reasons. Of course at first there was some resentment, because Gene was very popular with the guys and he was an excellent player, but quite soon I was accepted and everything was fine. Gene, though, was angry at me for taking his job. A couple of years later I had another unfortunate incident with him concerning a studio date with Nat Pierce. I was having dinner with Nat at his apartment, and he had to leave early for the recording. I had my alto with me, as I was going to a jam session, and about a half hour after he left, Nat telephoned to say Quill hadn't shown up and could I get down to the studio straight away. I took a cab, and as I arrived, another cab pulled up and Gene came running in. Nat was waiting and said, "Listen, Gene. Herb is going to do the date because whenever I use you, you're either late or you don't show up at all." Gene of course flipped out and said, "You can't do this" and told me that I was always taking his jobs. I felt bad and told Nat to use Gene, but he wouldn't change his mind, and naturally Gene was very bitter towards me and I can understand why. Many years later, after I moved to Germany, I heard that he was very ill. He had been badly beaten up, could never play again, and desperately needed money for his family. I sent him $100 and received a well-typed letter, signed in barely legible handwriting, "Thank you, Gene Quill." He was a wonderful player.

Another fine altoist from that period was Dave Schildkraut, who was quite superb and was one of the greatest. I don't know what happened, but he just seemed to stop playing and started working for his father, who had a grocery store and didn't like jazz musicians. It was a sad situation because there was no drug or alcohol problem; he was just a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn who played great alto and fantastic clarinet. He was very creative and original with his own sound, and he had made a recording with Miles. I never heard of him again, but he was one of the best saxophone players I knew, just sensational.'

Early in 1952 I married Lorraine Walsh, who was an excellent jazz pianist. She could play every tune in any key, tempo, or style, and she had a very rhythmic feel, so of course she was much in demand as an accompanist. I was with Jerry Wald at the time, but quite soon I had an offer to join Billy May, who was coming to the New York Paramount Theatre, which was very well paid. Willie Smith was the other alto, and to sit next to him was a great thrill for me. I was with Billy May for about five months, and when the band went back to L.A., I took Lorraine with me to meet my parents. We decided to stay, because suddenly L.A. was very promising. There was a lot of jazz going on and general recording activity, as this was the beginning of what the critics were calling West Coast Jazz.

When I first arrived there, I sometimes worked in striptease clubs, because I knew "Night Train" and "Harlem Nocturne," which I suppose qualified me! Lenny Bruce was the comic at several clubs, and we got to know each other real well. He loved jazz music and jazz musicians, so we would hang out together, and sometimes Joe Maini and I would split a job. If I had a jazz gig, he would cover for me at the strip club, and vice versa. It was a wild scene, and all three of us were very close. Later on I worked with Lenny at an infamous burlesque club called Duffy's Gaiety near Santa Monica Boulevard. He was the M.C., his wife Honey Harlow was stripping, and I was the bandleader, with Lorraine on piano. We also had different drummers at various times, like Philly Joe Jones and Lawrence Marable. Philly Joe became very tight with Lenny, who taught him his Dracula routine, which Philly Joe recorded as "Blues for Dracula." During the drum solo, he did a monologue imitating Lenny imitating Bela Lugosi. Jack Sheldon was there every night, because Lenny was really infamous then, not quite a star yet, but "in" to the real hip people. Bob Hope, Hedy Lamarr, Ernie Kovacs, and a lot of movie people came, and I remember Bing Crosby's son Gary used to date the girls. Someone should write the story of Duffy's Gaiety, because every night was an adventure .

I played a lot with Chet Baker, and we got along real well. We made an album together in 1953 with Bob Gordon and Jack Montrose, and despite what you hear, Chet could read music, although he was not a sight-reader. After playing the part through slowly a few times, he could play it perfectly. In fact, nobody could play it better. Early in 1953, when he and Gerry Mulligan were at the Haig, Gerry eloped with a waitress from the club and Chet asked for me, because he needed another horn in the quartet to keep working. We played for about three weeks, until Gerry got back from his honeymoon, by which time he was probably divorced already!

Bob Gordon was a wonderful baritone player who was just establishing himself when he was killed in an automobile accident. In 1988, when I was in New York for a recording session with Benny Carter, I met a young man who said, "You knew my stepfather, Bob Gordon." The youngster played alto, and he played very well. I saw Jack Montrose as recently as 1992 in Las Vegas, where he and his wife, who is a violinist, work in the shows. He is a dear friend and I like him very much personally, but jazz-wise, I don't know what happened. He is semi-retired now, but for a long time he was writing classical music. He studied the twelve-tone system and has written lots of twelve-tone music that will never be played, and he knows it will never be played. But he owns his own house, has a lovely wife, and they are O.K. in Vegas.

In the mid fifties, Lorraine and I would often play Tuesday nights at Zardi's. Tuesday was the off-night for the main visiting attraction who would play the rest of the week there. Of course the management left the star's name outside all week, and people would come up to me thinking I was Dave Brubeck. One time, I swear to God someone said, "You are Miles Davis, aren't you?" He was there for the other six nights, and they mistook a white saxophone player for Miles Davis. That's how much they knew about jazz.

In 1954, I recorded with Clifford Brown and Dinah Washington . We were all under contract to Mercury, who wanted to use several of their artists in a jam-session setting with a live audience, rather like "Jazz at the Philharmonic." The highlight for me was playing with Clifford, who was a marvelous, extraordinary human being and musician. He was one of the nicest people you could meet, and a complete "natural" who could play anything. Rather like Chet, he could pick up any instrument and fool around for a while, and then play it real well. I remember once when Max Roach, who had been playing at the Lighthouse with Lorraine, decided to have a party. A lot of jazz people were there, and everyone was smoking and drinking except Brownie, who didn't smoke or drink at all. He never swore and was just a lovely person: clean-cut, unassuming, and modest. Anyway, Max had been carrying a set of vibes with him everywhere he went, but he never touched them, just set them in a comer. Clifford started fooling around with them, and in about an hour or so he was playing with four mallets. Max was furious. He'd had them for years and couldn't even play a scale, but Clifford learned to play them while everyone was getting drunk. He was such a loss, because there is nobody today to match him. I mean Freddie Hubbard is wonderful, Wynton Marsalis can play, but I don't hear in anyone what I heard in Brownie. His sound was so beautiful and soulful, with such a sparkling way of playing.

One of the records Lorraine and I made together was with Ziggy Vines, who is probably almost forgotten today. He was even obscure at the time, and Leonard Feather, who did the sleeve-note for the album, thought he was actually a pseudonym for Georgie Auld, but he really did exist. He came from a very rich family in Philadelphia and had a natural, unbelievable talent. He was a legend in New York when I first met him, although he never seemed to have a horn, but he sure could play. One day in 1955, out of a clear blue sky he telephoned, saying, "It's me, Ziggy Vines. I'm in L.A., and I need some money. Have you got any work for me?" Lorraine and I were just about to do a quintet album with Conte Candoli, and I thought it would be a good idea to rewrite it for a sextet using Ziggy. Two days before the date, he phoned again and said, "I need a horn, a mouthpiece, some reeds, and a place to stay." I lent him my tenor, bought him some reeds and a mouthpiece, and arranged for him to move in with Lorraine and me. Anyway, he came to the date, and although he hadn't touched a saxophone for quite a time, he played just great because he was a natural, swinging musician. I don't know what happened to him after that, but there is a rumor that he was taped playing with Clifford Brown the night before Brownie was killed in Philadelphia.

In the late fifties Don Cherry stayed at my house for a while, when he and his wife were evicted from their apartment, but I never really cared for his music. He was playing in a "free" way even then, because he couldn't play normally. People said that he and Ornette Coleman could play changes, but I don't believe it, man. I heard Ornette's recording of "Embraceable You," and it's a laugh. I'm sorry, but that's not "Embraceable You." I mean, put him to the test - the Emperor has no clothes. They both played some nice, folksy, rather primitive, naive-sounding things that had a certain charm, but I couldn't take their approach seriously, even to this day. Ornette came to my house once because he wanted to have his music corrected. He showed me his tunes, and they were a catastrophe, because the bar lines were in the wrong place and there were no chord symbols. He took his saxophone out, and I notated what he played. I asked him what chord he was using, and he blew the arpeggio of a G chord thinking it was a B minor. He just didn't know anything about chords. Years later he was talking about George Russell's Lydian Concept, so I asked him if he had found out the difference between B minor and G yet! I liked Omette as a person, and he did a sweet thing after my wife died. He wrote a piece which I think he called "Lorraine," and I was very touched by that.' Some of his tunes have haunting melodies, but I don't really care for that type of playing. I can play "free," but it's just a lot of meandering about, and anyone can meander; you buy an instrument and make a record in two weeks!

Charlie Mariano and Art Pepper were very active in California during the fifties. Charlie and I were always friends, and I took his place with Shelly Manne's group when he wanted to go home to Boston. I have always liked the way he plays, and among my contemporaries, I would say that he is my favorite. He is very original and plays with a lot of soul in a completely different style to me, which is great. I don't bother him, and he doesn't bother me! Regarding Art Pepper, I have to say that there was never any love lost between us, or between Art and Joe Maini, or Art and anyone else for that matter, because nobody liked him personally. Musically it's a matter of taste, but I was never much of a fan, to tell you the truth. He played well, but I don't think there was any great content, and Joe was of the same opinion.

I'll tell you a funny story concerning the three of us. Both Art and Joe had been to jail, and there had been rumors that Art had named names. You get arrested and the police say, "Just give us some names and we'll let you off." The word for that is a "fink" and that's what people were calling Art. Anyway, there was an after-hours club in the fifties on Hollywood Boulevard where Bill Holman had the group, along with Lorraine, Mel Lewis, and a bass player whose name I have forgotten, and musicians would go there after their gigs to jam. Joe Maini and I would usually go together, and one night we met Art in the parking lot, getting ready to go in, and it's, "Hi, Art," "Hi, Herb, Hi. Joe," bla, bla, bla. Art's wife, Diane, who was a pretty out-front woman, said. "How can you be so friendly, when you know that you all hate each other?" Art said to Joe, "Yeah, you've been going around telling everyone that I'm a fink and that's not true." Joe said, "Listen, I was in the joint too, and I would never call anyone a fink, unless I really knew for sure. I didn't call you a fink: all I said was that you couldn't blow shit, man. I've been telling everyone that!" They were going to start fighting, and Joe whispered quietly to me. "Hold me back." I grabbed him real tight while he shouted out loudly, for Art's benefit, "Let me go, let me at him!" Diane did the same thing with Art. saying, "Don't do it, don't do it." Luckily they were being held by two strong people so nothing happened, but it was a wild incident.

I joined Benny Goodman's band thanks to Andre Previn, who was a good friend of mine. Benny, who idolized Andre, had asked him for a lead alto player and he recommended me. I did three tours with the band, but the first one in November 1958 was a big event in my life because, after I was rehearsing all day, my mother called to say that Lorraine had died. I left the band in New York for the funeral and to make arrangements for my one-year old daughter to be adopted by my sister. Later I telephoned Benny and asked if I could come back, and he said, "Great. We miss you." He was so nice, and I know you hear many bad stories about him, but he was just wonderful to me at a very trying time, really taking care of me. He paid very well, and whenever he was interviewed, he would mention me and praise me a lot. I also recorded with him when he wanted to re-record some of his original classics in stereo, which was a great thrill.

Of course I was emotionally distraught with the death of my wife and the adoption of my daughter because I couldn't provide a proper home for her, but I kept busy. One night I had a call from a lady who said that a friend of mine was in town and wanted to surprise me at the club where I was playing, and would I give her the address? I was working in a burlesque club on Santa Monica Boulevard called the Pink Pussycat. Later that night, I was playing "Night Train" or some boogie-woogie thing with my eyes closed, and I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Stan Getz, a very old and dear friend who I loved very much. Just like Benny Goodman, I've heard a lot of terrible stories of what he did to other people, but to me, he was just a great human being. During the intermission we talked, and he suggested that I go to Europe for a while. I had already given some thought to that, because L.A. had too many memories, and Stan said he would contact the owner of the Montmarte club in Copenhagen to get me some work while I decided what to do, and that's how I came to leave the U.S.A.

One of the first people I met in Europe was Brew Moore, who I was very fond of. I remember during the Berlin Jazz Festival they had a theme called -'The History of the Tenor Sax," and Brew represented the Lester Young school. All the guys got completely drunk after the concert, and the next morning he called me over to his hotel in a panic. Apparently he had been so drunk that he had left his horn, coat, and wallet in a taxicab and had thrown up all over his clothes. He had sent his suit out to be cleaned, and when I arrived, he was sitting in his underwear. He said, "Herb, I can't speak German and nobody here speaks any English. I've lost my horn; I don't have my passport, and I can't get out of Berlin without it. What am I going to do?" Luckily the story had a happy ending because he sobered up, recovered everything, and got out of Berlin alive! Do you know the sad story of how he died? He inherited a lot of money from his grandfather I think, gave a huge party to celebrate and, in the middle of everything, fell down some stairs and died of a broken neck. It could only happen to a jazz musician. He was a wonderful, natural player, like Zoot. It was strictly talent and intuition with both of them.

Getting back to Stan Getz, we first met in L.A. in 1946 or '47. He had left Benny Goodman in New York, and he was waiting to get his union card, so he didn't have too much work or money, and of course he had his first wife, Beverly, and a child to support. We were both playing tenor in a band led by Dick Pierce. Stan played lead and I was on second, although I never really was a tenor player, but I was so fascinated by the way he played, I asked him for a lesson to show me some of the things he was doing. I had never heard a style like that because at that time, when I played tenor, I had Ben Webster and Don Byas in mind, but Stan had a different approach. I spent several hours at his house, and he showed me many things to practice, and at the end of the lesson, he gave me a mouthpiece, saying, "That will help you get the sound you want." Now Stan didn't have any money, and I wanted to pay him for the lesson, because I had learned a lot, but he wouldn't take anything; he was just great.

There's very little in jazz today that I enjoy. When I get depressed or nee a mood change, I put on some old Billie Holiday and she does it every time for me, because immediately I'm touched. Of course I listen to Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Art Tatum, and Clifford Brown. I have exotic tastes; I also listen to Mildred Bailey and Stephen Sondheim musicals as you know, but I don't listen to my own records because it makes me nervous and I never like what I play. I like Don Byas, who is almost ignored no

but nobody plays that good. He had such a beautiful, musical sound, which tenor players don't have today. Everybody thinks that "baagh!" is the sound and that's not for me. [Here, Herb imitated a high-pitched whine, so popular with many post-Coltrane tenor players.] Two more of my favorites are Zoot Sims and George Coleman. One of the greatest jazz musicians of all time was Artie Shaw; his records still sound great. The two biggest disappointments it my life were that I never played with Artie Shaw or the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Once in Las Vegas, when I was with Louis Bellson and Pearl Bailey I played with Basie's band because Frank Wess was sick. That was exciting but nothing like playing with Shaw or Duke.

At this stage of the interview, I showed Herb a copy of Leonard Feather' 1956 Encyclopedia of Jazz, where one hundred and twenty leading player. were asked to name their favorite instrumentalists. He was one of those canvassed, and I asked him who his choices would be now.

As I made clear earlier, it would be Clifford Brown and Chet Baker on trumpet, along with Roy Eldridge, Dizzy, and Fats Navarro. On trombone, I like Teagarden, J.J., Jimmy Knepper, Bob Brookmeyer, and Slide Hampton. On alto, my favorites haven't really changed; they're still Parker, Sonny Stitt. Johnny Hodges, Benny Carter, Willie Smith, and Charlie Mariano. Tenors are Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Don Byas, George Coleman, and Stan Getz. On baritone, I like Gerry Mulligan very, very much. Pepper Adams was a wonderful player, as is Nick Brignola, but the most musical of all has to be Gerry, because he doesn't just play a lot of bebop hot licks. He is composing when he plays, and that's what I like.' On clarinet, it's Goodman, Artie Shaw, Ken Peplowski, and Eddie Daniels. And on flute, I think Hubert Laws is marvelous. Milt Jackson is terrific, but my all-time favorite on vibes is Victor Feldman. Pianists are Tatum, Bud Powell, Horace Silver, Bill Evans, and Joe Albany. And bass has to be Jimmy Blanton, Ray Brown, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, and Red Mitchell. Red was a one-man rhythm section. I could play all night in a duo with him, and it would be terrific. Drummers I like are Kenny Clarke, Philly Joe Jones, and Sid Catlett. And Mel Torme and Tony Bennett are my favorite male vocalists. I saw Tony Bennett recently and he is singing better than ever, and he has such taste. I'm not really a fan of Frank Sinatra, although in the old days he sang well, and "Only the Lonely" was nice. But for me, Bennett is far superior. Girl singers I like are Carmen McRae, Helen Merrill, Ella, and Peggy Lee, but Billie is my all-time champion. She is the only one who can make me cry or laugh within eight bars; she reaches that much of a spectrum of emotion. The best arrangers are people like Gil Evans, John Lewis, Billy May, George Russell, A] Cohn, Bob Brookmeyer, and Gerry Mulligan. Kenny Napper is also a fine writer.

Charlie Parker's music is very important to Herb, so I asked him what he thought of Med Flory and Supersax.

Med is an excellent musician, and we are old friends. He is a man of many talents, because he plays the saxophone, sings, arranges, acts, and he does everything well. All I can say is that I heard Charlie Parker's recording of "Parker's Mood" on the radio recently, and immediately after, they played the Supersax version. Bird's record moves me to tears, and Supersax left me cold. It's a tribute and a work of love, showing great dexterity and hard work transcribing, but I would much rather hear the genuine article. Also, I don't like the way they voice the saxes, with the baritone doubling the lead. As a result, :he inner voices are very dull, because they don't move well.

I liked Clint Eastwood's film Bird, and I have it on video. Lennie Niehaus and I have been friends for years, and I think the way he recreated the string parts on "April in Paris" was masterful. The whole film was a work of love, and my hat is off to Lennie. I still remember his first arrangement on "Seems Like Old Times" for a non-union Latin band that we worked for in the early fifties in L.A.

I have just retired after twenty-eight years playing for the North German Radio Orchestra, but I like to keep busy, because I'm a workaholic. I teach a lot and I'm a professor at two universities, and I have also been involved in two musicals. The first one concerns all these stories I have been telling you. About five years ago, a friend told me that I should write my memoirs, and I said that if I ever did, it would be in the form of a musical. Soon afterwards I heard that Joe Albany had died, and he was a very important figure in my life. He was the first avant-garde jazz pianist, if you like, playing across bar lines ignoring strict tempo, and playing wild chords. He was very emotional and sometimes played poorly, but when he was "on," it was just fantastic. The Herald Tribune, however, gave him about three lines. Soon afterwards Chet Baker and Al Cohn died, and I was very touched. I wrote songs with lyrics for all three, and I thought, "What am I going to do with these songs?" That was when I decided to turn my memoirs into a musical, and I put words to an older original of mine called "Playing Jazz," which has become the title of the show. I came up with a story, writing twenty songs in all, and recorded it for the N.D.R., but I am not too happy with the results, as it needs more work.

I was also asked to write the music for a show based on Josephine Baker, called Josephine for a Day, which opened in Frankfurt in February, and I have just heard that it is a hit. One of the reviews called it "A show that nobody should miss." I hope that with the success of Josephine I will be able to have my own show, Playing Jazz, staged.