Manny Albam - West Side Story

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“Albam's writing is characterized by the spaces he allows for solos, and by the fact that his arrangements invariably swing; he shuns over-ornamentation, and his lines are ready-made for the skilled performer.

He explains his approach this way: "I try to keep my writing simple enough so that there are no reading hangups; the parts can be read very quickly. And in addition to leaving spaces for soloists, I like to have it so that even the written figures can be interpreted in different ways by different players. The musicians in this album—like Al Cohn and Bob Brookmeyer—are especially satisfying to write for because their work suits this method so well. I can write breaks for them, and that helps me get away from the usual pattern of the first chorus, a couple of solos, and then the out chorus. And Osie Johnson's a wonderful help. Besides laying the time down, he leaves it loose. He never gets in the way of the arrangement, and if a player wants to go a little longer or a little shorter, Osie follows him. He's a beautiful musician"

These scores, in fact, illustrate how unpretentiously and functionally Manny's arrangements do swing—with the aid, of course, of several consistently imaginative jazzmen. …”

— Nat Hentoff, Insert Notes to Steve’s Songs [Dot  DLP 29008;FSR CD-545]

West Side Story premiered on Broadway in 1957 and a film adaptation appeared four years later after which followed a number of Jazz Impression of the Leonard Bernstein [Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal orchestrated] music and Steven Sondheim lyrics for the show to which Arthur Laurents provided the book [stryline] and Jerome Robbins the choreography.

Jazz versions of Individual songs from West Side Story abound in the broader Jazz discography.

However, one Jazz Impression of the show is often overlooked: Manny Albam and His Jazz Greats Play the Music of West Side Story [Fresh Sound Records FSR CD-545].

“In the late 40s Emmanuel (Manny) Albam put away his baritone saxophone because it was getting in the way of his pen. From then on, he established himself firmly as one of the most skilled, perhaps the busiest, of all the freelance arrangers on the New York scene. Although he worked with great success in the pop field, he was usually associated with jazz. His originals for Basie, Herman, Gibbs, Ferguson, and other big bands are as familiar as the many remarkable LPs listed under his own name. 

With West Side Story, Albam achieved one of his greatest works. Most of the material is emotionally charged and moody, but the precise execution of Al barn's inspired arrangements, along with superbly apt solos, injected considerably more jazz life into Bernstein's provocative score.” — Jordi Pujol

The original liner notes from the 12" LP album WEST SIDE STORY - Coral CRL 57207 were written by Manny and they afford a unique opportunity to understand how an arranger goes about creating a Jazz interpretation of music written for another idiom.

The music which Mr. Bernstein composed for the "West Side Story" depicts the tension, turbulence and torment of adolescence. When this adolescence occurs amid the concrete and exhaust fumes of New York tenements, we can, more likely than not, expect chaos, yet not without a particular humor.

When I sat and listened to the prologue to this opera-ballet at the Winter Garden, it was obvious from the first few bars that this was to be musical with an unhappy theme and probably an unhappy ending. This struck me as being different from any "musical" (other than opera) that I had up to this point seen or heard. The ballet music and "special" material never left doubt as to the effect that Mr. Bernstein wished to have his listeners feel. The prominent theme was unrest with an almost equal amount of musical whimsy. The jazz-like thematic structure showed the troubled adolescent, whereas the almost religious quality of the love ballads showed the innocence and sensitivity which is almost always found beneath the tough outer armor of the same person. The jazz is dissonant (not all jazz that one encounters is dissonant) to a degree of creating, in all who hear, a feeling of foreboding and disquietude. And, in beautiful dramatic contrast, the tenderness of the ballads (with just enough occasional dissonance so that the listener is always aware of the makeup of the characters) shows us that young love oversteps the bounds of juvenile unrest.

In creating a jazz version of the music from this score, I became aware of the thematic sense of it in the form of material that a jazz player could draw from in order to have his message read to the hearer. In some instances I found it necessary to regiment the songs into a form with which the soloists would feel free to apply their own ideas and yet retain the flavor of the original. As this idea developed it became obvious that I would have to orchestrate the ballads as simply as possible to provide the proper contrast which Bernstein originally felt. The songs "Maria" and "Somewhere" were orchestrated with absolute simplicity and "Tonight" with a bit of swing to it, because in its original quintet form, the characters "Riff" and "Bernardo" were there to interpolate their remarks into the piece.

The "Jet Song", the song of the "Jets", a juvenile gang (not the high-speed flying machines), is blues-like in structure. I thought of "I Feel Pretty", originally a happy waltz, as a happy swinging score with the soloists having their say in the matter. "Something's Coming" finds a bright-tempoed arrangement in order, as the song depicts future unrest among the cast. I used the tempo change as a device to further the instability of the meaning of the number. "Cool" is a slower grooved vehicle for the orchestra which allows the muted trumpet to have a cooling influence upon the hearer. In the final score, "Finale", which is a potpourri of some of the previous melodies and introduces us to "America", a rousing Latin-American tune, and "One Hand, One Heart" (which was scored for three trumpets and bass violin with a small hint of "Somewhere" by the trombone brought back as an afterthought), it was my intention to wrap up the various moods of the score into one number by restating some of the other songs.

I owe a great deal to the musicianship of every player in the final analysis of the sounds heard herein. The soloists and "part players" alike share with Leonard Bernstein, who provided the impetus with his highly imaginative and provocative score, the spotlight for the production of this album.”

— Manny Albam