Jack Sheldon - "Jack's Groove" - "On Green Dolphin Street"

LALO = BRILLIANCE By GENE LEES

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

Thanks to his work as a Jazz composer, movie score writer for many of Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry films and writer of a series of TV themes including the one for the Mission Impossible series, Lalo Schifrin has achieved an iconic stature.

And deservedly so.

He has been a creatively consistent force in popular music at the highest level for over 60 years.

But most people don’t remember that it all began when Dizzy Gillespie took a chance on him when he was playing piano with Xavier Cugart and was largely unknown in Jazz circles.

In the following story, Gene Lees explains how it all began for Lalo. It’s a wonderful story and it couldn’t happen to a nicer person.

"BECAUSE Dizzy Gillespie is infinitely unpredictable (he has given up his northbound trumpet for a straight model, just when the world was getting —' used to the unorthodox horn), the music business has learned not to be surprised by his surprises.

Thus, when word went around the business last year that Gillespie had hired Xavier Cugat's pianist, the standard response was, "Well, that's Birks for you."

But as usual, Gillespie knew more than people knew he knew. Certainly in this case he knew precisely what he was doing. The association of pianist and arranger Lalo Schifrin with the Gillespie quintet has proved one of the trumpeter's most fruitful of recent years. So close is the collaboration that Gillespie compares it to that of Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington.

Schifrin was not, of course, Cugat's pianist at any time. A young freelance arranger working in New York, he had contributed arrangements to Cugat's book. And at that, they weren't standard Cugat arrangements. Schifrin added a distinct jazz tinge to the Cugat library.

More to the point, Schifrin was, and always had been, a jazz musician. Though he was born in Argentina, he had worked consistently with jazz groups, in his native country and in France.

Gillespie also knew this about Schifrin: he had studied composition with the noted Latin American 12-tone composer Juan-Carlos Paz, had led a highly successful 16-piece jazz band in his native Buenos Aires, and had taken four first prizes at the Paris Conservatory (in composition, harmony, fugue, and counterpoint). Finally, Schifrin already was working on the now-famous Gillespiana Suite, the idea for which had come to the young Argentinian when he first met Gillespie a few years ago during Dizzy's State Department tour of South America with a big band.

Lalo was a man with a lot of background.

Boris Schifrin  29 years ago (Lalo was a childhood nickname that stuck), he is the son of a musician. His father, Luis, led the second violin section of the Theater Colon Orchestra, one of South America's best symphony organizations, for 30 years.

When he was 10, Lalo started studying piano with a Russian teacher, Andreas Karalis, who had been the head of the Kiev Conservatory until his political convictions made it prudent for him to leave. At 16, Lalo started studying harmony with Juan-Carlos Paz. In the meantime, he was studying sociology and law at the University of Buenos Aires.

"Then I decided it had to be music," he recalled. "So I applied for a scholarship to the Paris Conservatory."

By now he was a draftee in the Argentine army. By luck, he was released from service in time to accept the scholarship and left for the French capital. There he studied with a celebrated disciple of Maurice Ravel.

"In the meantime," Schifrin said, "I was playing with French jazz groups. I played with Bobby Jaspar, who at that time was playing mostly tenor; Jean-Louis Chauton, baritone; Jean-Louis Viale, drums; and Benoit Quersin, the bassist, who now owns the Blue Note night club in Brussels."

He also played at the third International Festival of Jazz in Paris' Salle Pleyel, as a representative of Argentina. That was in 1955. In 1956 he went home to Buenos Aires and formed a 16-piece band. It was his country's first band in what Lalo calls "the Basie-Gillespie tradition."

"I wrote all the arrangements and put together the best musicians in town," Schifrin said. "The band was a big hit, and that we had not expected. We did concerts, radio and TV broadcasts, and dances. We had another book for dances, which I also wrote.

"A few months later, Dizzy came down on that State Department tour. It was the first American band to visit Argentina.

"We played for the musicians in Dizzy's band. The next day Dizzy asked me if I would write something for him. That's when I got the idea to write a Gillespiana suite."

But the time for the suite was not yet.

IN 1957, SCHIFRIN started writing for motion pictures. One of the films for which he did an underscore was called El Jefe, meaning the chief or leader. The score was strictly jazz. For it, he won an Argentine academy award. A ballad from the score also became a pop hit.

The following year, Schifrin picked up his second Argentine academy award, this one for a non-jazz, 12-tone score utilizing the curious sextet instrumentation of violin, viola, cello, tympani, alto saxophone, and baritone saxophone.

Schifrin decided it was time to go to the United States.

Shortly after his arrival in New York City, he put together a trio comprising himself, bassist Eddy DeHaas, and drummer Rudy Collins. Collins is now in the Gillespie quintet with him; he replaced Chuck Lampkin, who has been drafted. The trio played Basin Street East and the Embers. Schifrin also began to do studio arranging.

"It was ironic," he said. "They gave me more Latin American things to write than anything. They evidently couldn't believe I was a jazz musician.

"This was the period when I was writing for Cugat. I did a lot of work for him. There are several albums of my charts. I changed the sound of the band somewhat. Cugat liked it. He told me that all his life he had wanted to do something like it, but the business end of it had pushed him to do other things.

"All this time I had been carrying the idea for the Gillespiana Suite in my head. One day I wrote a sketch of it and took it to Dizzy."

Gillespie not only liked the sketch but also liked Schifrin's playing enough to hire him to replace Junior Mance, who had left the trumpeter.

If Schifrin had changed the sound of the Cugat band somewhat, he also changed that of the Gillespie quintet. After the bluesy sound of Mance, Schifrin's Latin American effects resulted in a considerable change of texture and, to an extent, of rhythmic emphasis.

But there was no clash. "Don't forget," Schifrin points out, "that Dizzy is the composer of Manteca, Lorraine, A Night in Tunisia, and Con Alma. He worked with Chano Pozo years ago. Dizzy has always had a sympathy for Latin American music."

To the listener, it sounds these days as if the group has been heavily Latinized. Sometimes whole sets are made up of Latin tunes, in which Gillespie seems to find even more than his usual freedom. Schifrin claims otherwise: "We've really added only a few Latin things to the book, including the thing we call Safari, which is really African, and the Gillespiana Suite. All the other Latin tunes were in the book before I came."

Rehearsals on the quintet version of Gillespiana began shortly after Schifrin joined the group. "Then Dizzy commissioned me to write it for big band," he said. "That was the original idea anyway.

"We did it in concert with a big band in Carnegie Hall in March, 1961. In fact, I wrote all the arrangements for the concert, including a work called Tunisian Fantasy, which was based on A Night in Tunisia. Of all the works I've written for Dizzy, I was most happy with that one.

"It is a work in three movements. They're called A Night in Tunisia; The Casbah, which is a development on the bridge of the tune; and Tunisian Promenade, which is based on the interlude of the tune. It's really a duet for trumpet and bass with orchestra.

"The whole concert was recorded, but it hasn't been released yet."

SCHIFRIN continues to write at a furious pace. He has just completed a jazz piano sonata (the Modern Jazz Quartet publishes his music), which Bill Evans will probably record. Schifrin is scheduled himself to record, for Roulette, an extended work for small group, which is to be a choreographic poem, based probably on the Faust legend.

He says there is no nationalism in his use of Latin American rhythms. "I use them for color," he explained. "And they seem to work well with Dizzy.

"I have always had a great sympathy for Dizzy's music — his dramatic conception of both harmony and melody. And he always has been interested in different rhythmic effects. You know, when Dizzy uses Latin American rhythms — like when he's playing the cowbell while Leo Wright is soloing—they're absolutely authentic. He picks them up so easily it's amazing.

"You know, the man is a genius.

"It seems to me that there is enough room in jazz for all possible influences. I've just done a composition for the quintet called Mount Olive, which is based on Middle Eastern rhythms and scales.

"Jazz is music.

"It happens that it is facing certain problems at present. I think most creative musicians today are facing problems.

"Recently we've seen the introduction of Greek modes by young musicians; the use of polytonal harmony along with excursions into the atonal, a field which Lennie Tristano started exploring years ago; polyrhythmic things like Dave Brubeck is doing; different effects of timbre like Gil Evans uses. And there have been other explorations, using classical influences — for example, the music of John Lewis, Gunther Schuller, and J. J. Johnson. Don't overlook J. J. — he's something else as a composer. All of these explorations are having a revolutionary effect on the form of jazz, aiming toward escaping the constant use of simple theme and variations in the old way.

"Of course, there will always be guys who just want to blow. But the writers are becoming more important. They can give the player form and inspiration and support. The first to use that conception was Duke Ellington. For a long time he was alone."

GILLESPIE is of the view that his pianist is likely to be one of the writers contributing much to that development.

"Lalo has improved a lot as a pianist since he joined the group," said the trumpeter, who didn't bother to point out that every musician who has ever worked with him remembers that period of his life as one of great growth under Gillespie's almost off-handed teaching.

"People from other countries," Gillespie said, "they listen to records, get ideas. . . . But it's not the same as playing jazz all the time.

"A couple of things confused Lalo at first. But he's improved enormously, now that he's been here a while."

Lalo is well-schooled in Chopin, Beethoven, and other great classical writers for the keyboard. Yet his approach to jazz piano is quite unclassical, except for his fluency in playing long lines and runs. Sometimes he hammers at the keyboard in a stiff-wristed manner reminiscent of Dave Brubeck's.

He applies Latin American methods to jazz, in a highly personal way. Sometimes he can be heard repeating a left-handed chord in rhythmic unity with the running Latin chords (octaves with fifths, or sometimes fifths and sixths in between) while he is playing at surprising speed with his right. But the ideas are jazz ideas. As often as not, a solo will start with a single line and gradually develop into a powerful and exciting excursion into the Latin toward the end.

All this music comes from a somewhat unkempt, rather serious, and usually confused-looking young man who somehow reminds one of Bill Dana's television character, Jose Jiminez. Unsmiling when you meet him, Schifrin looks as if he'll, never in a million years, know what's happening.

The slightly discombooberated air is probably related to the fact that English is not his native language and he has to listen carefully to it. The subtlety of a joke will pass by when he has first met a person. Later, as his ears become attuned to the acquaintance's speech, his big, easy sense of humor manifests itself. He is a thoroughly cultivated young man of polished tastes, who may be found in intense conversation about Goethe or quoting the poetry of Paul Valery in French.

"Lalo is really something," Gillespie said. "And he hasn't really begun to show people his potential. He won't, until he gets a chance to use strings. He has ideas about strings that will scare you, using them percussively and that sort of thing.

"We're all going to hear a lot more from Lalo."

Source

Down Beat Magazine

April 12, 1962

i want to live (1958) FULL ALBUM OST johnny mandel

Joey De Francesco: A Tribute

Red Garland: Graceful and Bluesy

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

It seemed to be over so fast for William “Red” Garland.

One minute he’s making all those great Prestige and Columbia records as the pianist with the classic Miles Davis quintet that also featured tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer “Philly” Joe Jones, but after 1959, he seemed somehow to become relegated to total obscurity.

Bill Evans and then Wynton Kelly replaced him with Miles and, with the advent of the 1960’s, Jazz clubs began to close calling for great adjustments by those who continued to work in the music.

Red was not one of the Jazz musicians who successfully navigated the sea of changes that swept over the Jazz World, returning instead to Dallas and choosing to live in his father’s home in a state of virtual retirement.

The recordings that “Red” made with Miles and under his own name for Orrin Keepnews at Riverside Records during his brief period of ascendancy were my first introduction to what some referred to as an “East Coast Jazz rhythm section.”

Red along with Paul Chambers and “Philly” Joe Jones opened a whole new world for me of keeping time and playing behind horns in a style that was on top of the beat, hard driving and full of intensity.

The epitome of what Red, Paul and “Philly” Joe got going as a rhythm section was contained on their trio performance of Billy Boy on the Miles Davis Milestones LP. I practiced to it so often that I learned to play every accent, fill and solo that Philly Joe Jones plays on this track from memory.

Before he faded from the Jazz scene, Red also made a series of recordings for Prestige as a leader and as a sideman for John Coltrane that included, in addition to Chambers and Jones, bassists George Joyner, Sam Jones, Peck Morrison and Wendell Marshall, as well as, drummers Art Taylor, Specs Wright, Charlie Persip, Frank Gant and Larry Ridley.

But whether he was out front or just on the date, and irrespective of who joined him in the rhythm section, the “feel” and sound of Red’s approach to the piano remained essentially the same.

“Graceful yet unaffectedly bluesy, Red Garland's manner was flex­ible enough to accommodate the contrasting styles of both Miles Davis and John Coltrane in the Davis quintet of the mid-1950s. His many records as a leader, beginning at about the same period, display exactly the same qualities. His confessed influences of Tatum, Powell and Nat Cole seem less obvious than his debts to Erroll Garner and Ahmad Jamal, whose hit recording of Billy Boy from the early 1950’s seems to sum up everything that Garland would later go on to explore.

All of the listed trio sessions feature the same virtues: deftly fin­gered right-hand runs over bouncy rhythms, coupled with block-chord phrasing which colored melodies in such a way that Gar­land saw no need to depart from them. Medium-up-tempo treatments alternate with stately ballads, and Chambers and Tay­lor are unfailingly swinging, if often constrained, partners. The later sessions feature a slightly greater empathy, but we find it very hard to choose a favorite among these records.” [Richard Cook and Brian Morton, Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6^th Ed., p. 548].

In this excerpt from his interview with Len Lyons, “Red” described how it all began for him:

“When did you begin playing piano?

I didn't begin on piano. In fact, I never played the piano until I was in the army. You couldn't call me a child prodigy. I started on clarinet because my father wanted me to. It was his idea. He loved Benny Goodman, so he wanted me to play the clarinet. The truth is I've always wanted to play trumpet. At least I did then. At the dances we used to go to as kids, the brass section seemed to have the most fun. They'd sit there with the trumpets across their laps, clapping to the music.

I took up the piano when I ran across Lee Barnes, a pianist in the army band. He started teaching me how to play, and I soon grew to love it. He inspired me. Nobody had to tell me to practice because I was playing piano all day. Lee even wrote out exercises for me. When I left the army, I bought an exercise book by Theodore Presser, and that was a great help to me.

In 1945 I played my first gig on piano. It was with a tenor player, Bill Blocker, who had a quartet in Fort Worth, Texas. We played mostly in the dance halls. During those years I was listening to Count Basie. He was my first favorite. He didn't have a lot of technique, but I thought he was very tasty. I started to copy him for a while. Then I began to copy Nat "King" Cole, who was more of a pianist than most people know. He was tasty, too, and he didn't have a bad technique. Then [trumpeter Oran] Hot Lips Page came to town with his band. We used to call him just Lips. Anyway, his piano player got fired while the band was down in Texas. I think it might have been because of drunkenness. Then Buster Smith, the alto saxophonist, came to my house at four o'clock in the morning to tell me to hurry and get dressed because Lips wanted me to go with him. I told him, no, I wasn't ready. I wasn't good enough yet. But they talked me into it anyway, and we toured all the way across the country into New York City.

When I got to New York, I ran into the tenor player Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and I asked him where all the good piano players were. He told me Bud Powell was about the baddest cat in town. ‘Who's Bud Powell?’ I asked him. ‘Don't worry, you're going to find out,’ he told me. Well, one night I was working at Minton's with Max Roach, and I looked over toward the door, and in walked Bud. I could hardly play because of everything I had heard about him. I froze. Bud came over and started forcing me off the bench. ‘Let me play,’ he kept saying to me. ‘Let me play.’ Max was yelling to me, ‘No! Get him away. Keep him away from the piano.’ Max was afraid he was crazy or something and was going to ruin the gig. I got up anyway. I figured if Bud wanted to play that bad, I wasn't going to stand in his way. Well, he sat down at the piano and scared me to death-he played so much piano! I told Max, ‘I quit! Give him the job!"’See, Bud took my cool.

But a few days later I went over to Bud's house, and he showed me some things. In fact, I came back day after day to learn from him, and we became buddies. He was really friendly to me and the greatest influence on me of any pianist, except for Art Tatum. I still don't believe Art Tatum was real.

There was a club named Luckey's [Rendezvous], owned by Luckey Rob­erts, and it was just for piano players - no bass or drums allowed. There's where we'd separate the men from the boys, when you can't lean on the bass or drums. Art Tatum was a frequent visitor there, and I'd stand over his shoulder to watch what he was doing. One night he stood behind me as I was playing. ‘You're forcing,’ he told me. ‘You're forcing. Don't play the piano. Let the piano play itself.’ I was tight, so he gave me that piece of advice, and I've always remembered it. He gave me some arpeggios to work on, too, and I'm still working on them.

Then I was working in a small club in Boston with Coleman Hawkins when Miles [Davis] came in to hear me. He told me during the intermission that he wanted to get a group together with me on piano, Philly Joe, Curly Russell on bass, and Sonny Rollins on tenor. Two weeks later I heard Sonny couldn't get released from his rehabilitation program, so I left town for Phila­delphia. A while later I got a telegram from Miles asking me if I knew anyone in Philadelphia who could play tenor sax. I told him I knew a cat named John Coltrane, and Miles asked me, ‘Can he play?’ and I told him, ‘Sure he can.’ John and I met Miles in Baltimore. Meanwhile, Miles had found a kid out of Detroit, named Paul Chambers, and he played bass for us. Philly Joe was still on drums. We had never played together until the night of our first gig, so we got together about five in the afternoon and jammed. From the opening tune we clicked. We just clicked right away, and that was that. We stayed together from '55 to January 1959. I did a few trio gigs by myself and then went home, like I told you.” [The Great Jazz Pianists Speaking of Their Lives and Music, pp. 146-147].

Jimmy Heath Sextet The Thumper

Melchor, Gaspar y Baltazar

Eydie Gorme & Trio Los Panchos – “Alegre Navidad” (Columbia) 1966

Singers Unlimited Christmas Album

Sonny Berman by Gordon Jack

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Trumpet player Saul "Sonny" Berman's jazz life could be likened to that of a meteor, for it burned brightly and dazzled for a brief moment, before it was suddenly extinguished and vanished from sight. His actual recorded output was certainly minimal, yet he was an important musician in the rich lineage of Jazz trumpet playing and one who certainly merits being singled out for special feature.

Between 1940 and 1945 he'd played in the bands of Louis Prima. Sonny Dunham. Tommy Dorsey, Harry James and Benny Goodman, and in May of 1944 his first recorded solo was made with the band of Georgie Auld. ("Taps Miller" was the track's title)

With Woody Herman, he can be heard on many of that band's recordings from February 1945 until his untimely death on January 16, 1947.

Gordon Jack is a frequent contributor to the Jazz Journal and a very generous friend in allowing JazzProfiles to re-publish of his insightful and discerning writings on these pages.

Gordon is the author of Fifties Jazz Talk An Oral Retrospective and he also developed the Gerry Mulligan discography in Raymond Horricks’ book Gerry Mulligan’s Ark.

The following article was published in the November 11 2019 edition of Jazz Journal. 

For more information and subscriptions please visit www.jazzjournal.co.uk

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

“After President Roosevelt signed the Selective Training and Service Act in 1940, big band leaders began recruiting young replacements for sidemen drafted into the armed forces. Stan Getz joined Jack Teagarden in 1943 when he was just 16. Allen Eager toured with Bobby Sherwood at the same age and Conte Candoli became a member of Woody Herman’s First Herd while on a summer holiday from high school. Trumpeter Sonny Berman was even younger when he became a professional musician. His first recording session with Louis Prima and his Gleeby Rhythm Orchestra took place on the 2 January 1940 when he was three months short of his fifteenth birthday. He was probably the youngest sidemen with a name band during the swing era.

Saul Robert Berman was born on 21 April 1925 in New Haven, Connecticut - the hometown of Les Elgart and Buddy Morrow. In 1956 The Association of Jazz Record Collectors published a copy of his birth certificate No. 81687 as a correction to the inaccurate birth-date quoted in various reference books. He took up the instrument when Louis his older brother who was a talented trumpeter was killed in a diving accident, prompting Sonny to say at the time, “He was supposed to be one of the greatest. Everybody around New Haven, all the old-time musicians said so. He didn’t live so I had to play”. He played both trumpet and trombone with Prima’s show band at a long residency in New York City with Lilly Ann Carol handling the vocals. She stayed with the band until 1946 and can be heard with Berman in the trumpet section on novelty numbers like “Dance With A Dolly With A Hole In Her Stocking” and “Percy Have Mercy”.

He joined Tommy Dorsey in 1943 for five months of engagements in San Francisco followed by a series of radio broadcast in Hollywood sponsored by Raleigh and Kool cigarettes. The band at that time included Pete Candoli, Heine Beau, Al Klink, Ernie Caceres and Dick Haymes. Later that year he returned to New York and joined a Sonny Dunham band that included Earl Swope, Fred Otis, Marky Markowitz and Don Lamond who later became members of Woody Herman’s First Herd. The leader played the more popular ballrooms and clubs and in a Metronome band feature that year Berman named Ziggy Elman and Charlie Spivak as his favourite trumpeters. When Dunham wanted the musicians to sign long-term contracts Berman and several others left to join Boyd Raeburn who was forming a band for an engagement at New York’s Lincoln Hotel. George Handy, Johnny Mandel and Dizzy Gillespie were writing for Raeburn who recorded the first big band arrangement of “Night In Tunisia” in April 1944 with a trumpet section of Roy Eldridge, Berman, Markowitz and Louis Cles.

Soon after the “Tunisia” date Sonny decided to join Georgia Auld who had recently left the army. The tenor-man gave him his first recorded solo on “Taps Miller” (arranged by Budd Johnson) on 22 May 1944 and his Eldridge-inspired playing reflects a remarkably mature performance for a trumpeter who had only just turned nineteen. He worked briefly with Harry James during a twelve day engagement at Frank Dailey’s legendary Meadowbrook ballroom in New Jersey. Around that time James had a big hit with “I’m Beginning To See The Light” featuring vocalist Kitty Kallen. Sonny also had a temporary stay with Benny Goodman which was long enough for the great man to feature him on “Ev’ry Time”.

Woody Herman’s wildly exciting First Herd was his next port-of-call where he joined a powerhouse section that included Charles Frankhauser, Ray Wetzel, Pete Candoli (aka Superman) and Carl Warwick. As a soloist he more than held his own with the plethora of stars that Woody had assembled like Pete Candoli, Flip Phillips, Marjorie Hyams, Red Norvo and Bill Harris who was the leader’s favourite trombonist. Woody said, “(That) band used to reach heights on some nights that were unbelievable…we all played above our heads many times”.

In a 1984 interview with Loren Schoenberg, he said, “I had two great years in my musical career – 1945 and ’46 financially were fantastic…ever since it’s been all down-hill”. The band grossed $750,000 in 1946 (approximately $10,000,000 today) and that was the year it won the Down Beat, Metronome, Billboard and Esquire polls.

“Billy Bauer’s Tune” (aka “Pam”) recorded in January 1945 at the Vanderbilt Theatre in New York was one of Berman’s first solos with the band.  His ravishing tone and delicate vibrato especially in the lower register is a delight – Herman’s alto and Bill Harris’ trombone are pretty special too. In February the band recorded “Laura” which eventually sold a million copies thanks to the leader’s engaging vocal. There is also some Bill Harris at his most sensitive backed by Marjorie Hyams’ vibes. The following month Berman is heard cleverly quoting “What Is There To Say?” on another of Woody’s catchy vocals – “A Kiss Goodnight”.  In July the band was booked into the Café Rouge of the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York for a month-long engagement. While there the Armed Forces Radio Service recorded a lively “Katusha” with solos by Flip Phillips, Ralph Burns, Bill Harris and Sonny Berman.

A particularly notable Berman solo took place on “Your Father’s Mustache” a few months later. It has elements of bitonality which probably surprised Buddy Rich who was deputising for an ailing Dave Tough at the time. “Don’t Worry ‘Bout That Mule” is a humorous vocal feature for Woody with an extended Berman solo featuring some more arresting bitonality. Titles that became staples in the Herman book like “Caldonia”, “Apple Honey” and “Northwest Passage” were established around this time. “Happiness Is Just A Thing Called Joe” was released on the other side of the “Caldonia” 78 rpm disc and became closely associated with Frances Wayne thanks to her sensitive reading. It is performances like this that probably encouraged Esquire Magazine to vote the twenty year old vocalist as the winner in their New Star award. She married Neal Hefti at her hometown in Somerville, Massachusetts on 3 November 1945 with Woody and the whole band in attendance.

When in New York Woody Herman usually worked at venues like the Capitol and Paramount Theatres, the Pennsylvania Hotel and the Blue Note Café. These bookings would be supplemented by one night stands at nearby ballrooms. While staying in the city Berman roomed with his friend Neal Hefti at the Hotel Paris who years later told Ira Gitler, “He was a major. He really was going to be very good. Had good chops, easy to be with, easy to get along with. Fans liked him, people liked him. He was one of the tragedies of this world”.

The Herd was in Chicago in May 1946 and Columbia asked Woody to do a Woodchoppers small-group album with material by Shorty Rogers, Red Norvo, Chubby Jackson, Flip Phillips and Billy Bauer. They revisit “Fan It” which he had recorded in 1941 as a Dixieland feature for Cappy Lewis and Neal Read. It was now transformed into a hard swinging up-tempo chart for the principal soloists including Sonny who has two delicate choruses in a cup mute. There are a couple of relaxed strolls down memory lane though with the old Bing Crosby favourite “I Surrender Dear” and later that year the group recorded a delightful version of the 1919 vintage “Someday Sweetheart” in Los Angeles. In between the two Woodchopper dates Billy Bauer decided to leave and was replaced by Chuck Wayne. While visiting Oklahoma City he and Berman recorded a Wayne original titled “Sonny” on an unissued 10” acetate disc. It was later appropriated by Miles Davis who changed the title and recorded it as “Solar” in 1954 with Dave Schildkraut and Horace Silver. In September Berman performed probably his most well-known solo with the band on “The Sidewalks Of Cuba”. Opening with a blistering quote from “Flight Of The Bumblebee”, he launches into an exuberant statement full of the infectious joie de vivre that had become a trade-mark.

One of his last solos with the First Herd took place on 20 September 1946 on “Uncle Remus Said”, a vocal feature for the leader aided by the Blue Flames vocal group who later became the Blue Moods. The next day a contingent from the band together with Serge Chaloff who was with Jimmy Dorsey at the time recorded for Ross Russell’s Dial label. Sonny has a notable ballad feature on “Nocturne” by Ralph Burns which also benefits from a sensitive contribution from Chaloff. Towards the end of the year the band appeared in the film New Orleans along with Billie Holiday who played the part of a maid and sang “Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?”. In November that year the trumpeter decided to leave Herman and at his suggestion, Al Porcino took his place. Woody said at the time, “Sonny was one of the warmest soloists I ever had in the band”. On the Mosaic box set of Herman’s Complete Columbia Recordings there are several previously unissued alternate takes which include solos by Berman on ”Panacea”, “Your Father’s  Mustache”, “Fan It”, “Sidewalks Of Cuba”, and “Someday Sweetheart”. These additional examples of his work are an important addition to Sonny Berman’s sadly slim discography. 

His last recording date took place on 15 October 1946 in Los Angeles with George Handy where “The  Bloos” was recorded but Sonny did not solo. During the Christmas holidays he went home to New Haven and became engaged to his long-time girlfriend Sylvie Fisher. Meanwhile the First Herd played its last engagement at Castle Farm a popular dance pavillion near Cincinnati on 24 December. Coincidentally several other big band leaders also decided to call it a day around this time including Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Carter and Les Brown. As Barry Ulanov said in Metronome, “(With) post-war inflation, bands became too expensive for their leaders.”

After the holidays Sonny prepared for an upcoming tour with Bill Harris, Chubby Jackson, Ralph Burns and other members of the disbanded Herman Herd. On 16 January he visited John Carisi’s apartment at 65 East 76th. Street in Manhattan where a group of musicians including Serge Chaloff had gathered for an informal blowing session. He died later that evening in circumstances that have always been somewhat mysterious. According to Vladimir Simosko’s 1998 Chaloff biography both Serge and Sonny had a heroin fix that evening – “The unevenness of the drugs caused Berman to inadvertently overdose and he died officially of a heart attack.” Years later Richard Chaloff (Serge’s brother) said, “I remember (him) coming home right after that night. He was white as a sheet. His friend Sonny Berman had died literally in his arms from an overdose. Serge was really shaken.”  Barry Ulanov said, “Dead long before his time, this boy was well on his way in jazz to a place beside the handful of titans of his instrument until the ways of the world caught up with him”.

Sonny Berman was buried on 19 January 1947 in the Independent New Haven Lodge Cemetery, East Haven, Connecticut.

Selected Discography

As leader

Sonny Berman-Woodchoppers Holiday 1946 (Cool N’ Blue Records C & B-CD111).

Sonny Berman/Bill Harris Big 8 (Proper Intro CD 2071).

As sideman

Woody Herman And His Orchestra – The V-Disc Years Vols 1 & 2. 1944-46. (Hep CD 2/3435).

The Complete Columbia Recordings Of Woody Herman And His Orchestra & Woodchoppers (1945-1947). (Mosaic MD7-223).

I would like to acknowledge the help of John Bell who provided me with some difficult to find Sonny Berman recordings.

Enrico Pieranunzi: Part 3 – Solo Piano & The Italian Film Composers [From the Archives]

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

“Pieranunzi is not an extravagant virtuoso; his self-effacing manner recalls something of Hancock, but he uses all the ground-breaking modern discoveries in modality, rhythm and the broadening of pianistic devices to his own ends.”

- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.

“…a luminously lyrical pianist, with a constant flow of ideas.”

– Nat Hentoff

Spending time with the music of Enrico Pieranunzi while preparing this retrospective, one is amazed at its range. Perhaps diversity would be a more accurate term.  It is a though he is constantly challenging himself with new quests in search of some kind of Holy Grail of Improvisation.

Changing musical formats, performing with a wide-variety of different cohorts, composing original compositions, adapting music from other sources into Jazz; Pieranunzi’s music is always fresh and full of surprises.

In more recent years, two themes have become central to Enrico’s music: [1] he has added more solo piano to his repertoire and in a sense returned to his roots by [2] adapting the work of Italian film composers to a Jazz context.

In this concluding segment of our three-part feature on Pieranunzi, we will briefly highlight each of these focuses.

© -Laurent Poiget, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Laurent Poiget, writing in French on his www.citizenjazz.com blog, and very freely translated into English for our purposes, had this to say about the 2007 release of Pieranunzi’s  Parisian Portraits, solo piano CD [EGEA 137]:

“Enrico Pieranunzi has been called ‘The European answer to Bill Evans,’ and while there is some truth to this stereotype, as there is in all stereotypes, this effort to typecast only offers one aspect of the total ouevre of his musicianship.

Because of their unadorned and unaccompanied nature, the eight original compositions and four standards that make-up Parisian Portraits allow the listener entry into Pieranunzi’s complex musical world and a basis for judging whether he is but a replica.

As an example, one could use Bill Evans' treatment of Cole Porter’s What is This Thing Called Love from the 1959 Portrait in Jazz album and compare it to Pieranunzi’s version on this recording. 

In doing so, the listener will no doubt hear in the Evans treatment, a more traditional rendering with Porter’s theme expressed faithfully and in an immediate recognizable manner from the start.

With the Pieranunzi interpretation, over forty years later, it is as if a century of the music has been crossed. We are in the presence of the musical equivalent of a Cubist, a déconstruite; one must concentrate to perceive traces of the tune as the melody is never clearly exposed.

In the Pieranunzi adaptation, the Porter standard is little more than a vehicle upon which to base an improvisation; one that is filled with an increasingly rich and dark tension that concludes with a contrasting series of soft phrases.

I went on to listened to recordings of this tune by fifteen, different pianists made over the past forty years and none of them compared to Pieranunzi’s re-creation.

With What is This Thing Called Love and the “charms” of other music from Parisian Portraits in mind [like many Italian musicians, Pieranunzi is a great “seducer],” I wonder how he could ever be viewed as merely a clone of Bill Evans?

While listening to Pieranunzi’s music, one feels the quality of touching that allows for the exploration of nuances; the richness of the harmonies; the absence of chattering; the compactness of the musical statements.

This is a disc that you will return to your CD player on many, future occasions.”

With apologies for the somewhat flowery translation, in this review, Poigret makes the important point that with Pieranunzi, we are in the presence of a unique and mature musical mind.

His is ability is such that he is able to go anywhere he wants to in the music.

Another example of Pieranunzi’s, at times, astonishing musical acumen can be heard in what he does on Parisian Portraits with My Funny Valentine. What he manages to do here is create a melody that is almost as gorgeous as the original theme – which he never plays! You can hear this superb creation on the video at the end of this feature.

Taking music from one context while making it his own in another is also evident in Enrico’s Jazz adaptations of the music from Italian film scores.

Pieranunzi Johnson Baron Play Morricone  [CamJazz 7750-2]

“The expression ‘special project’ is now a very fashionable term, and not only in jazz. Well then, to carry out this project has truly represented something special for me.  During the 1970s and 1980s, I indeed had a very close encounter with Ennio Morricone’s music, playing as a studio man in dozens in films whose soundtracks were composed by him. To find myself now arranging that music, and structuring it so that it could work as an extemporization vehicle for the trio has been, as is easily understandable, a very special experience, a breathtaking full immersion. It has represented the opportunity of blending my musical world with that of a musician whose sonic world is full of suggestions and mastery, able to create and enormous range of emotions. The other reason that makes this CD very special to me is that I realized it with two great musicians like [bassist] Marc Johnson and [drummer] Joey Baron, extraordinary for sensitivity, feeling and fantasy. Those passionately fond of jazz already know something about our past in common (this is the fourth CD we record together). Marc, Joey and I have been sharing, over time, a long and important musical path. Well, once again, thanks to the music put together for this CD, the ‘miracle’ has happened again. What I like to call ‘the trio of my heart’ allow me to again experience … some of the most intense and profound moments that a musician could live.”  – Enrico Pieranunzi 2001

You can sample of the music from the Morricone CD on the video at the end of this feature.

“Surprised!  I was very surprised on first impact when I listened to the beautiful elaborations by my dear and esteemed friend Enrico Pieranunzi, of Marc Johnson, and of Joey Baron. Surprised, in admiration, euphoric about the positive performances where the original pieces, rediscovered and respected, have a new physiognomy, and the jazz interpretation of these three great soloists doesn’t destroy the pieces, but values them. I can only dearly thank Enrico for all that he has included in this CD, for his musical culture and for his greatness. I shall listen to this brilliant endeavor with much joy, again and again. – Ennio Morricone 2001

Although, strictly speaking, Doorways [CamJazz Cam 5001] is not an adaptation of film music to Jazz, Ira Gitler’s review of it does relate to his subsequent insert notes to Fellini Jazz [CamJazz 5002] and is included here for purposes of continuity.

“In the space of a couple of days last November, I received two e-mails, one from Santiago, Chile and the other from London. Both of them were in praise of Enrico Pieranunzi’s Fellini Jazz. In of itself it was not surprising that two knowledgeable jazz observers recognized the singular experience of this CD but to hear from both of them in such a small window of time was unusual. It was gratifying to know that Enrico and CamJazz were reaching foreign shores. The few reviews I saw here in the United States were laudatory but too many people outside of Italy (where, in Musica’s Jazz critics’ poll, he was voted Musician of the Year and Fellini Jazz was named #2 Record of the Year) are asleep on Pieranunzi.

Many young musicians are trying to put a personal stamp in their interpretations in the long and varied tradition of the jazz mainstream but so are some older masters and we should listen to them well. Pieranunzi is one who has absorbed the music of Charlie Parker, Lennie Tristano and Bill Evans (who himself listened beneficially to Tristano) and internalized it within his Italian heart and soul: an intellect that never forgets to feel.  Anyway from the piano he can talk about music insightfully but he doesn’t just ‘talk a good game,’ he plays one as well. By using varied contexts and instrumental combinations of different sizes Pieranunzi continues to stimulate his imagination and ours as well. Basically, Doorways  is a series of duets between Pieranunzi and drummer Paul Motian with tenor saxophonist Chris Potter making a trio on three numbers.

‘All the material included here,’ says Pieranunzi, ‘was conceived and composed especially for this session.  Nothing was a previously composed piece, re-arranged for the duo or the trio. Every tune was written, having in mind the combination of piano and drums, a sound I had already experienced with Paul (a live concert performed in 1992 and issued on CD by Soul Note as Flux and Change in ’95) or the combination with Paul and Chris, a young musician of whom I have the highest opinion because of his ability to combine the tradition with a very, open-minded improvisational approach.

I’d also like to remark here, as a pianist, that this kind of music is possible with a very few drummers in the world and Paul Motian is among these. He widened the conception of drumming. Showing how to make the instrument a perfectly melodic one, able to play “lines” that perfectly interact with the ones played by other instruments.’

Each “Double Excursion,” 1,2, and 3 is totally improvised and different from its mates in length and detail. Motian shares co-composer credit with Pieranunzi. Their telepathy is evident throughout the three versions and in #3 Paul sets the table.

Enrico named “No Waltz for Paul” to ‘ironically stress the original, unique way Paul plays a waltz. It’s so special that sometimes a waltz played by him doesn’t even sound like a waltz. The title is also a tribute to his artistry.’

“No Waltz for Paul” and the other material, more ‘charted’ by Enrico than “Double Excursion,” will, no doubt, yield new improvisatory shapes and sounds in any given future performances. The two versions of “Utre” give more than a hint of this. The title, as Pieranunzi explains it, ‘comes from combining the first two musical notes. These notes, are, in fact the two notes on which the main motif is based. Actually, in Italian these notes are named “do” and “re.” I preferred to use the old Latin name of the first note,”ut.” Hence, “Utre.”

…

Walk through these Doorways and discover for yourself one of the world’s true musicians and highly talented cohorts, stretching boundaries without neglecting form and (as Pieranunzi always does), giving us foord for the mind and balm for the soul, although not necessarily in the same composition. Enrico the Enricher!  

– Ira Gitler 2002

Fellini Jazz [CamJazz 5002]

“In the period following World War II there was a renaissance in the film industry of Italy. Roberto Rossellini’s Roma, citta - aperta (1945) and Paisa` (1946) – known respectively, in the United States as Open City and Paisan – heralded the arrival of Italian neo-realism and were artistic and commercial successes on both sides of the Atlantic.

Frederico Fellini, then in his mid-20’s, served as a screenwriter on the first of the two films and as an assistant director on the second. In the 1950’s he blossomed as his own as a director.  I remember well the impact I Vitelloni had on me (and my friends) when I first saw it. I had been attending foreign films in my pre-teen years and was not intimidated by reading the subtitles. (This was far better than the later alternative of dubbing. I unequivocally boycotted all dubbed foreign films.) Although I was looking at images and simultaneously reading titles I was also hearing the actors. Even if, for the most part, I didn’t understand the language, the very sound of it and the expressiveness of the actors voices added to the total experience. The, of course, there was the universal language – music.

As I continued to view Fellini’s films I came to know the memorable themes which complemented the cinematic necromancy of the director and learn the name of his chief musical collaborator, Nino Rota.

While in the midst of writing these notes I happen to come across a documentary about Fellini on the Sundance television channel. In it there is a section devoted to the relationship between Fellini and Rota: the ambiguous requests to Rota (“Give me a happy song but make it sad” and so forth); and Fellini calling Rota “a magician … the melodies are already out there in the air and he finds them. He’s like those people who find water with a stick.

In one scene Rota is seated at the piano. Fellini has told him that he needs music for a new film. Rota begins playing a melody, expansively, its bittersweet nostalgia sweeping up and down the keyboard. “That’s it,” he says to Rota, and there he has the theme song [to the film] Amarcord.

Enrico Pieranunzi considers this project “one of the most exciting and challenging in my musical life, both for the musicians involved and for the music I was asked to arrange.” First of all, Pieranunzi pointed chose Chris Potter, Kenny Wheeler, Charlie Hayden and Paul Motian. He and producer Ermano Basso agreed, as Enrico explains it, that “these musicians were the best actors for such a difficult musical, film. “I tried to conceive these arrangements by relating them to the specific peculiarities of the players … when I heard them in the studio it was a dream coming true.  “

Pieranunzi draws an analogy between how jazz musicians play and a director such as Fellini shaped his films. “There is in common the tendency to always look beyond, for what is under such things,” he says, “a constant, tireless effort to express the mysterious, hidden areas of ourselves that have their roots in the subconscious, human reality.”

You will notice that all the movies from which the music derives (save Amarcord and La Citta` Delle Donne/City  of Women, both of the 1970s), are from the 1950s. These are Pieranunzi’s favorites. “I think that these movies bear a perfect balance between realism and the introspection of the characters: realism and imagination.”

“These movies remind me a lot of my childhood. Atmosphere – moods that these movies show are still inside me. Incidentally,” he continues, “I was three years old when I Vitelloni was made and at that point I had already been well-nourished with a lot of Charlie Parker, Django and Lennie Tristano whose music my father used to play on his 78s.”

…

It would be a hollow experience for me to attempt to describe the feeling that … [Pieranunzi and his colleagues] bring to these recordings, whether playing themes or improvising on them. I must, however, stress how everyone immersed themselves in the music, sonically and ‘wig-wise.’

As I implied earlier, after experiencing Fellini’s films not only the images but the music remained in my head; now these themes and the brilliant interpretations resonate in a new way as I sit in the darkened theater/illuminated screen of my mind.”  – Ira Gitler 2004

Hopefully, this three-part feature will have served as a beginning or an entrée into the music world that is Enrico Pieranunzi.