Paul Desmond: From the Hot Afternoon

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

“There is not a musician alive I admire more.”     

— Gene Lees

Paul Desmond had such a close and enduring association with Dave Brubeck throughout most of his professional career, that many Jazz fans are not aware of his significant recording output under his own name away from the classic Brubeck quartet [1958-68].

This lack of awareness of his non-Brubeckian discography is a shame because his beautiful alto saxophone sound really comes alive in his many RCA Victor recordings with guitarist Jim Hall, the A&M and CTI orchestral recordings with arranger Don Sebesky and his quartet recordings with guitarist Ed Bickert on Verve and Telarc.

Desmond’s solo career also coincided with the growing interest in bossa nova melodies and rhythms, particularly in the 1960s, and I always thought Paul’s style of playing with its light and airy subtone and emphasis on rhythmic subtleties was a natural fit with this “new thing” from Brazil.

It seems I’m not alone in this opinion as Gene Lees voiced a similar view and expanded on it in the following insert notes to Paul Desmond: From the Hot Afternoon [A&M CD 0824] after which you’ll find a YouTube with all of the tracks from the album.

“Paul Desmond has two obvious things in common with modern Brazilian popular music: lyricism and the long, legato line. Whether the Brazilians absorbed any of their qualities from him is a question that musicology will probably leave forever unanswered, and I don't know either. I know only that, by their own statement, the Brazilian musicians of the late 1950's and early 1960's were influenced by what was then known as West Coast Jazz — a dubious term from either stylistic or geographical viewpoints. But I guess Paul would have to admit to being that rara avis, the honest-to-goodness West Coast Jazz Musician, the hornmanus californiensis. He came from San Francisco long before it was hip to be from there, and he was playing with a brilliant quicksilver lyricism long before bossa met nova. And there you are, aren't you?

I have been asked to say a few words on behalf of Paul Desmond. Paul has asked me not to. He asked me to discuss instead Edu Lobo and Milton Nascimento, who wrote all the tunes in this album (Not together: each works separately.) They are two of Brazil's most gifted younger composers— composers of the post bossa nova wave of talent. Brazil produces composers almost as readily as coffee' beans; maybe that's what they call a two-crop economy?

Edu Lobe's father, I am told, is a music critic. So am I. As a redeeming feature. I can always point out that I have also produced some pretty good songs, but Edu Lobo's father can always point out that he produced Edu Lobo. Edu Lobo is a guitarist and singer of great ability. Fascinated by music from the north of Brazil, he has created a kind of song that is all his own, a kind of song with a genuinely new flavor.

And so has Milton Nascimento. Milton, who is in his early 20's, is also a guitarist and singer and composer. (Of course, all Brazilians are guitarists and singers and composers, excepting perhaps those who are generals and coffee-bean growers, and even some of them are guitarists and singers and composers.) Milton comes from Rio de Janeiro. Self-taught for the most part, he makes songs that have a haunting, folkloric flavor.

You will hear, all through this album, the work of a remarkable young drummer named Airto Moreira. Airto has a magnificently airy style and a mastery of textures and subtly shifting accentuations. You'll also hear the guitar work of Dorio Ferreira, another unique musician. Dorio plays rhythm guitar of a curious, in-close-to-the-chest tightness that I have always found very exciting.

And you will hear the writing of Don Sebesky. Don Sebesky is an arranger whose music has grown enormously in the last years, and his work here is the most stimulating, I think, that he's done (at least in this musical idiom) to date.

There are voices on three tracks — To Say Goodbye, Circles, and Crystal Illusions. They belong to Edu Lobo and Wanda De Sah. In the making of To Say Goodbye, a fascinating accident occurred. The key of the song was set a step or so too low for Miss De Sah. By the time of the record date, it was too late to change it, and Miss De Sah was pushed so far below her normal register that she could barely produce a sound. Hearing a playback, Paul insisted on keeping this track in the album. A sense of tragedy infuses her sound here and Paul found it deeply moving, as you may loo.

And now a few words on behalf of Paul Desmond, whether he likes it or not.

I think Paul is one of the most original musicians in the whole history of jazz. I'm always fascinated by the way his mind works. As skillful with words as he is with notes, he expresses himself in odd and unexpected ways; he never thinks the obvious thought. And he has a way of adding little lags to the end of a thought that turn an ordinary remark into something fresh and often significant. When I ran into him on the street one day, not long before he left the Dave Brubeck quartet. I said. "Are you working much?" He said, "We're working as if it's going out of style—which of course it is." That last phrase, the extension of that sentence, was funny; it was also a dry, sardonic comment on the economic depression that was then affecting most jazzmen. Paul's mind turns interesting corners and he explores funny little musical side-streets, streets of great charm and humor and, at times, wistful

beauty.

I asked him about his tone, which is imitated all over the world. What's the secret of it?  "I honestly don't know." he said. "It has something to do with the fact that I play illegally." Then he went into a denigration of his own technique, which was ridiculous. His technique is unorthodox and he is a unique technician. He has played very little in the two years since he left the Brubeck group [1968], and yet his playing apparently has improved. This appears to puzzle him. (It certainly puzzles me.) He mentioned his intonation. "For some reason, it seems to have gotten better," he said. (It was always so good that I can't notice a difference. I'll have to take his word for it.)

But back to that question of his tone, and how he developed it

"I had the vague idea that I wanted to sound like a dry martini," he said.

And that is a real Paul Desmondism. Once you think about it, that is the sound he gets. Paul Desmond sounds like a dry martini. An imaginative, intelligent, astonishingly articulate, very dry martini.

There is not a musician alive I admire more.”     —Gene Lees