Don Menza Sextet - Live at Carmelo's

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

“These live performances at Carmelo’s [were a great experience for me. It was a chance to play with some of my favorite players and, as time has proven, they have become jazz legends. Because of the time limitations of LPs, we had to choose from 2 nites of recording and only six tunes were picked for the original LP release. Here are some of the other tunes played on that historic live recording. Sam Noto was in town with the Rob McConnell Big Band. Sal Nistico flew in from N.Y.C. and the rest of us were here in L.A.

Thanks to the efforts of the late Herb Wong (my good friend) we had the opportunity to record the music of Frank Strazzeri and some of my charts. These charts were originally written for trumpet-tenor-trombone, but after the untimely death of Frank Rosolino everything was put on hold. On these recordings I played the trombone parts on baritone and some on alto.

It was curious that all the players on these recordings are from the East coast, and yet everyone considered us West coasters (always thought of as the cool school). As you will hear, these takes are anything but cool. My thanks to Jordi and Fresh Sound for re-releasing these recordings.”

- Don Menza, Los Angeles, October 2015

Thanks to Jordi Pujol, the six tracks that were originally issued as the vinyl LP Hip Pocket in 1982 on Palo Alto Jazz [PAJ 8010], were expanded to thirteen when they were released in 2015 on his Fresh Sound Records double CD Don Menza Sextet - Live at Carmelo's [FSRCD 883-2].

Recorded on the evenings of October 2nd and 3rd, 1981, the music on Don Menza Sextet - Live at Carmelo's is deserving of greater exposure given the high quality of the performances by Sam Noto, trumpet and flugelhorn, Don on alto and baritone, Sal Nistico, on tenor sax and a rhythm section made up of Frank Strazzeri, Andy Simpkins and Shelly Manne, on piano, bass and drums, respectively.

Started in 1979 by the Piscitello family, Carmelo’s was located on Van Nuys Blvd., in Sherman Oaks, CA. After Chuck Piscitello died in 1983, Ruth and Del Hoover took over the club and kept a Jazz policy in place for another three years.

Like many Jazz clubs, Carmelo’s offered an intimate environment for both Jazz musicians and fans, especially since the venue was centrally located in the San Fernando Valley [northeast of Los Angeles] where many L.A.-based musicians lived.

Leonard Feather, the esteemed Jazz author and critic, was a frequent visitor to Carmelo’s and wrote the insert notes to many of the LP’s that were recorded at the club including these liner notes to Hip Pocket [Palo Alto Jazz PAJ 8010].

“The catalogue of Don Menza’s accomplishments over the past 20 years would require the space available on a foldout, two-pocket album to enumerate all the bands and combos he has worked with, all the countries and cities he has played.  Don’s energetic personality, so well reflected in his music, has been Hollywood-based since the late 1960’s. But during the last two decades the vigorous, uncompromising sound of his saxophone, and the spirited, cooking character of his compositions and arrangements have taken him on the road with Maynard Ferguson, Stan Kenton, Buddy Rich, Louis Bellson and Woody Herman, to name just a few, to Germany (where he worked from 1964 to 1968 as a member of Max Greger's television house band in Munich), to Japan, and to the concert stages of the world.  Among other distinctions, he appeared in concert with the Buffalo Philharmonic playing two of his original compositions.

Since there is no way of drawing up a complete summation of Don’s achievements, it would be better at this point to concentrate on the particular session at hand, recorded live at Carmelo’s.

First, a word about the club.  New Yorkers and others who are not privileged to lead the good life in the Southland may be unaware that in the past three years this had become one of the most consistently successful jazz rooms in the world, with live jazz seven nights a week by large and small bands, local and imported talent.  Don has worked there countless times, as leader or sideman with a variety of cooking groups in the mainstream-modern idiom. On this occasion he headed a combo that owed much of its cohesion and excitement to a rapport among the members born of frequent associations over the years.

Four members in particular have much in common on the basis of their geographical backgrounds.  Don was born in Buffalo, NY, April 22, 1936. Sal Nistico (four years Don’s junior) is from the same neck of the woods, hailing from Syracuse, NY.  Like Don, he worked with Herman, thought at different times and for much longer stretches, and briefly with Buddy Rich. Sam Noto is a slightly senior member of what Don likes to refer to as “the Upstate Association”.  Born in Buffalo in 1930, he too was a Kenton, Herman, and Bellson sideman. (Nistico and Noto have another link in Count Basie, with whom they both worked around 1964-1965). Noto, after living in Toronto for several years, now has his own club in Buffalo.

The fourth member of this loosely affiliated group, Frank Strazzeri, is a greatly underrated composer and pianist, born exactly one week after Noto, in Rochester, NY.  “Strazz” has fewer big band credits, thought he has worked with Les Brown, Oliver Nelson, and Bellson, but most of his best known work has been achieved with the late Cal Tjader, and with innumerable small units in the Los Angeles area.

In a moment, a word about the music, but first and explanation for those who may find it surprising that Don Menza, so well established as a tenor saxophonist, is heard on these sides playing alto and baritone, leaving the tenor assignments to Nistico.

“The fact is,” he says, “alto was my first horn, and to this day I enjoy playing alto and baritone even more than I  like to play tenor. Besides, it adds a nice color to the album rather than the usual two-tenor line-up we could have used with Sal and me.  Don’t forget, also, that I played the baritone chair in Mike Barone’s big band, and at various times I played both the alto and the baritone parts with Supersax.”

Completing the group are two superb musicians who for many years have enriched the Southland horizon.  Andy Simpkins settled in Los Angeles in 1966 after a decade on the road with the Three Sounds. He then toured with George Shearing for eight years, and lately has been consistently busy in a variety of jobs, mainly with Sarah Vaughan’s trio.

Shelly Manne, born in New York, was world famous as a drummer (with Kenton, Herman et al) before founding his Manne Hole, one of Hollywood’s most fondly remembered jazz clubs (1960-1973).  As Don remarked when we discussed this album, “Shelly is something else! I can’t get over the tremendous support he gave everyone on this album.”

The proceedings get under way with Hip Pocket, a Strazzeri original played in unison, and typical of Strazz’s invariable personal and attractive lines.  The composer has his own outing, and Don’s muscular bari has a sound that is personal rather than the all-too-frequent attempts to duplicate Harry Carney or Gerry Mulligan.  Simpkins has one of the most creative solos of his recorded career.

A racehorse pace dominates the next  Strazzeri piece. The Third Eye with four way solo credits to Noto, Don (on bari again), Sal and Strazz, after which the horns have a stimulating series of eights exchanged with Shelly Manne.

Nobody who knows his bebop history will fail to recognize Quasimodo.  These Charlie Parker lines of 1947 are based on the changes of Embraceable You, fittingly Don switches to also here, with Sam and Frank further accentuating the bop groove.

The third Strazzeri work, Opals finds Noto switching from trumpet to flugelhorn for a legato, lyrical solo that is characteristic of him.  Don’s alto solo on this track displays a stunning fluency and the ability to create a melodically meaningful line. Strazzeri displays the two principal aspects of his style:  single note line passages alternating with contrasted sequences in chords.

Don has the spotlight (yielded for a while to Strazz) as his eloquent alto outlines Winter of My Discontent.  This is a 1955 melody by the late Alex Wilder, introduced by Mabel Mercer. “Strazz found this song for me,” Don recalls, “as he has many other ballads.  He has an uncle in Rochester who’s a pianist and who knows a vast repertoire of great tunes like this.”

Finally there is the leader’s own composition, Steppin’.  The pace is up but not too hasty, the groove essentially bop, and the most remarkable feature is a long, dazzling solo by Sal Nistico.  Don modestly stayed in the background here, playing only on the ensembles. Sam Noto, like Sal, displays the essential three C’s of great improvisation: control, chops and continuity.  The changes, as hipper ears may detect, are those of You Stepped Out of a Dream.

Altogether, the contents of this very hip pocket typify the high standards maintained throughout Don Menza’s peripatetic career.  They mirror, too, the very considerable power of that too seldom recognized cadre, the “Upstate Association.””

Leonard Feather

Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Seventies

NOTES FROM THE PRODUCER

“A quick review of these three horn players should prompt you to realize at least two things – it’s the first time they have been on record together as a front line and their rich histories in the jazz world testify to their guarantee of very satisfying swing and unblemished musical values.  Don Menza, Sam Noto and Sal Nistico – “the upstart upstate burners” – can ignite any session; back up this phalanx with tried and true talents of Frank Strazzeri, Andy Simpkins and Shelly Manne and it should work, shouldn’t it? In truth, it’s a rhetorical matter.

There are memories of the record’s music the listener does not have – the conceptual origin of the record date and the circumstances permitting of coaxing its process of insight and mutation.  Despite this blur of experience, you can still focus on it by tapping your foot and getting in touch with the inspired players and their music. The experience is never removed from immediate consciousness.

One of the delectable things about hatching ideas for record dates is bypassing a prior framework and relying more on intuition and imagination.  Last year I was helping put together the debut performance of Rob McConnell’s heralded Boss Brass at the Monterey Jazz Festival – a consequence of my visit to catch Rob’s Big Band in Toronto on the occasion of their “live” recording in December 1980.  One of the galaxy of star players was Sam Noto, whose trumpet work I had admired since his earlier days with Stan Kenton.

Don Menza and I mused about the possibility of Noto recording in L.A. once we learned the Boss Brass would be in Hollywood too.  (Incidentally, Menza has been a popular visiting player in Toronto for years.) To add even more Sicilian fire, Sal Nistico floated into our dream.  So he was flown in from his home in Queens, New York.

Fresh music came by was of Menza and Strazzeri’s resourcefulness and rehearsals were held at Menza’s “home-rehearsal hall” with an enthusiastic Andy Simpkins and Shelly Manne.  Every one is a strikingly versatile and individualistic player – precise, mature, charmingly lyrical and unflaggingly exciting.

In fact, it’s not possible to ignore the sense of presence and the in person deliberateness.  And you can get close to the musical play of light and shadows flickering in the musicians. The scent and heat soaked through clothing – players and audiences alike.  The qualities cultivated by the event stimulated strong emotional responses independent of any values one may attach to the scene. The band of six broke through the top of the thermometer.”

HERB WONG

(Dr. Wong is a jazz journalist and educator and broadcasts on KJAZ, San Francisco.)

Here’s a link to the Fresh Sound catalogue for order information.