Gary Foster: Revelations [From the Archives]

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

In an earlier life, when the World was young, I wrote woodwind and reed player extraordinaire Gary Foster a “fan letter.”

It was occasioned by my attendance at a rehearsal of a community college big band. Gary was the orchestra’s musical director and my letter commented on the considerate and courteous way in which Gary put the band through its paces.

During the practice, he took the time to help individual players and/or sections of the band who were struggling with various parts of an arrangement, made numerous suggestions to improve the band’s attack and dynamics, and did so many other, little things to bring out the best in the band’s performance.

Most importantly, especially with young minds and personalities, Gary went about his business with a demeanor that was the epitome of civility.

Don’t get me wrong, Gary challenged the students. He didn’t put up with sloppy phrasing, bad intonation or inattention to detail [Did I mention that these were “young” musicians?].

But when he did make corrections and adjustments in their playing, he did so with explanation, direction and instruction and not with ridicule or mocking and abrasive criticism.

As a result, boy did that band roar.

Here’s this mild-mannered, Father Christmas looking guy holding this tiger by the tail.

Any of us who ever played in a big band should have been so lucky as to have Gary for a director and teacher.

In yet another, even earlier life, which I’m sure he’s forgotten about along with the fan letter, I played a few gigs with Gary.

I had returned from a year long visit to Asia courtesy of the US government and was working fairly regularly in a quartet led by alto saxophonist and flutist Fred Selden. The group also included pianist Milcho Leviev.

Around this time, Fred and Milcho were quite busy with the Don Ellis Orchestra and it was becoming increasingly common for them to send substitutes to gigs when they were out-of-town with Don’s band.

I was very impressed with Gary’s tone the first time I heard him play as it sounded much like the sub-tone used by Lee Konitz and Paul Desmond and less like the Bud Shank or Art Pepper tones I was used to while working with “West Coast” musicians.

Desmond kiddingly once described his tone as having “the sound of a dry martini.”

Not surprisingly, given Konitz’s and Desmond’s penchant for working with harmonically-oriented pianists such as Lennie Tristano and Dave Brubeck, respectively, Gary would become great chums with similarly oriented pianists Clare Fischer and Alan Broadbent over the course of his career.

Ever since I started the JazzProfiles blog, I’ve had it in mind to do a feature on Gary, but I just could not find a starting point.

In talking with a friend about Gary’s performance on a new Mark Masters CD – Everything You Did - a tribute to the music of Steely Dan [about which more in a future review] over coffee recently, he said: “Of course, you must be familiar with Gary’s recordings on the Revelation label?”

I said: “John William Hardy’s old label; the one that was based in Glendale, CA?”

To which my friend replied: “Yup, the very same.”

Gary, it seems, made five LP’s for Hardy’s label including one with Warne Marsh [Ne Plus Ultra Revelations #12], one on which he shares the leadership with Warne and Clare Fischer [Report of the 1^st Annual Symposium on Relaxed Improvisation Revelation 17], and three under his own name: [1] Subconsciously [Revelation #5]; [2] Grand Cru Classe’ [Revelation #19]; Kansas City Connections [Revelation #48].

When I sheepishly admitted that I hadn’t heard any of Gary’s recordings for Revelation, my buddy offered to “… bring them to you the next time we get together for coffee.”

And so he did.

And in so doing, he finally unlocked a way that I was comfortable with for doing a feature on Gary and that is to take selected excerpts from John William Hardy’s liner notes to Gary’s Revelation recordings and to present them as a chronicle of highlights from Gary’s early career.

Let’s begin at the beginning with Subconsciously [Revelation #5]. Here are some are some of the things James William Hardy had to say about Gary work on this recording.

“GARY FOSTER, the 32 year old multi-instrumentalist whose work is the subject of this long-play recording, is not overdue as a jazz leader-soloist on record. Born in 1936 in Leavenworth. Kansas, his musical training and jazz experience have led him through a complex maze of developmental stages, esthetic re­organizations, and maturational crises. These might, in the past 10 years, have been recorded on phonograph disc to some discographical and musicological profit for the listener, but I think, having known and heard the artist through this period, that the present recording would have been the first one really worth owning and continuing to hear over a long period of time. Because Foster in the past few years has finally begun to stabilize his musical philos­ophy after a period of self-doubt and eclectic experimentation with sounds and forms not true to his innerself.

As a result, he now emerges as in important jazz voice, and one of only two saxo­phonists, the other being Jerry Coker, who has developed a thor­oughly personal expression that stems from the joint influences of Les Konitz, Warne Marsh (the Tristano School) and Clare Fischer. Like Coker, Fischer, and the Tristanoites, Foster is a thoroughly grounded classicist, as a clarinetist, whose jazz ex­perience dates from hit earliest musical activities and are an immutable part of the man's entire personality and art. Like them, he believes in a freedom of improvisational form that is under­pinned with discipline and a strong relationship to compositional structure. And tike them, he practices the production of a musk that is full of warmth, love, and grace, but that is simultaneously alive with a pulsing swing and the poignancy of a truly basic jazz feeling. There is economy in his work, but it often fairly bursts with ebullience in its multi-noted passages that does not in any way finished quality, a full, whole, confident character that belies its spontaneity.

I first met Gary Foster at the University of Kansas, where he transferred after two years at Central College, Fayette, Missouri. At Kansas Foster was enrolled in the music department, majoring in clarinet and in music education. I did not meet him in this capacity, but as a jazz musician who, along with tenorist Nathan Davis (now a popular ex-patriot musician in Germany), Carmell Jones, and pianist Jay Fisher (now a Chicago-based musician), was making the music scene in and around Lawrence a lively one indeed. That was in 1957. Graduated from Kansas, he had a year of teaching while attending graduate school, in which, in his second year he studied saxophone and clarinet while pursuing music his­tory studies. In 1961, Foster and family moved to the Los Angeles area during the short-lived rise in interest that jazz was to have there following the popular West Coast school reign in the fifties. The early 60"s were not the best years for a young white saxo­phonist to establish himself in an active jazz life.

Many people had just discovered Rollins and Trane. and the long overdue rise from obscurity for the L. A. negro jazz artist was in full progress. As justified as that was, it ironically sent to or kept many a promising white musician in the underground, unless he hustled himself into a harder form of playing that took advantage of the new interest in overt soul music and the extroverted proclamation of the blues. There was a short time when, without satisfactory employment. Gary experimented with "hardening" his approach. But as he and others knew, Foster was in no way suited to that style. Fortunately, he secured a position teaching music with Berry & Grassmueck Music Co. in Pasadena (where he now administrates the studios, conducts with Warne Marsh and others a subdivisional unit for jazz-oriented students, and teaches privately). And even more fortunately, he met, in 1962, pianist-composer Clare Fischer.

Shortly thereafter, he became a student of Fischer, who re-es­tablished the flagging confidence of his pupil in the validity of his approach to jazz and at the same time helped to formulate a more sensitive and intricate approach to improvisation which no previous influence had been able to accomplish. Fischer was an enthusiastic student and scholar of the Tristano saxophonists aforementioned, as well as a well-spring of compositional and executional theory that Gary soaked up like a sponge. Besides the student-teacher relationship, Fischer also occasionally offered Foster opportunities to record and play in public that he had been almost denied for his first year on the coast

The present record is not Foster's first, although it is the first to feature his extended jazz playing. Gary has been a mainstay of the reed sections on several Fischer big band recordings. For the discographer (almost he alone) Foster's very first appearance on LP was as a member of the college all-stars led by trumpeter Don Jacoby in I960 (MGM LP E3881— see Gary in the red sweater?) on which recording he plays all tenor solos. Gradually, in the mid-1960's Foster has become a sought after player in the studios and on Jazz and dance gigs alike, and, as these notes go to press, he spends important playing time in the quintet of Jimmy Rowles and a group led by Fischer.”

Next up for Gary on Revelation was an appearance with tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh on his LP entitled Warne Marsh [Ne Plus Ultra Revelations #12] about which John William Hardy had this to say.

“In the late 1940's. a couple of years after I had been run­ning through the stylistic influence of the late Bud Powell, I happened to be listening to a jazz program on radio. I had turned on the program in the middle of a recording and was completely taken aback by a cascading line of such utter complexity played by two saxophones that my jaw dropped in astonishment. This was Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh, and what I heard represented to me a new level of development in jazz that I was soon to plunge into. It was a development that manifested a high degree of melodic construction and harmonic usage that seemed such a logical development of what had just proceeded it. Often the melodic involvement, with displaced accents, cross meters and the like, would be so complex that the idea of playing it in a strict sense of time would go out the window.

The average reaction of the Lick player at that point would be: ‘Well, — they play a lot of notes, but man, they don't swing!’ — Which might have been part of my reaction except for the fact that I loved the notes they were playing. (Nobody seems to get bugged with the opposite: ‘He sure swings, but he keeps playing the same licks or someone else's vocabulary.’)

About four years back. Warne Marsh moved back home to Los Angeles and shortly thereafter we started working to­gether in my band. Sometimes in the course of the evening our rhythm section would be roaring to the point that he would be forced to play over it. The Warne Marsh that came out then was something very different! In this album on Subconscious-lee I think you'll find him approaching this. You almost feel like accusing him of swinging. Heaven For­bid! If Warne is not listened to for the sheer sake of Warne, then relative judgment will get in your way and you'll miss the point.

Gary Foster joined all this as a second generation orienta­tion and as a result you will find his playing much more metrically oriented. Still, together the two have honed these lines, these fingerbusting lines, to the point that in many in­stances they are played at a faster tempo than the originals. I think the best examples of Gary's playing are contained in the free piece that follows Subconscious-Lee and on 317 E. 32nd (based on the chord changes of "Out of Nowhere").

Many might mutter, ‘His tone is Konitz oriented’ and con­sider that a criticism. I find that irrelevant considering how well he plays und that I've had to listen for over twenty years to dozens of alto saxophonists trying to sound like Charlie Parker. Few succeeded…..”

Gary’s third recording for Revelation was in essence a leaderless session entitled Warne Marsh, Clare Fischer and Gary Foster Report of the 1^st Annual Symposium on Relaxed Improvisation [Revelation 17]. In his notes, John William Hardy explains the title’s context this way:

“Here is a session—in the best sense of the word. What is occasionally known as ‘Live!’ is usually no liver-er than a studio. The program is preplanned and the formality of the hall (or studio) establishes a context to be conformed to. The situation on 9 May 1972, in Clare Fischer's living room in Van Nuys, was much different. The music was allowed to create its own context. There was no leader—only an agree­ment that all participants would arrive about 7:00 p.m. and enjoy themselves—eating, drinking, playing, talking and re­laxing. Pete Welding and I set up the little Stellavox Sp-7 recorder, distributed some microphones and set forth to moni­tor the musical proceedings as they occurred. We made only a general effort to turn on the tape when the music started and nobody worried whether we had or not or whether a selection would finish before the tape ran out. There were certainly no second takes—or takes at all in the accepted sense. Just players, playing. Sometimes selections were dis­cussed and sometimes somebody just started playing, the chords were spelled out obviously for those unfamiliar in the first chorus, and then the thing went forward.”

Mr. Hardy steps aside as the annotator for Gary’s fourth Revelations LP - Grand Cru Classe’ [Revelation #19]- in favor of Michael James who in 1973 was described on the liner notes as a “… distinguished British Jazz Critic and frequent contributor to The Jazz Monthly.

Of Gary’s music, Mr. James observed:

“… Foster, both in this collection and the one which preceded it, indicates certain cardinal features of his approach.  … Foster has evinced a strong commitment to ortho­dox if complex chordal structures, and, as J.W. Hardy notes, thinks chordally better than most wind instrumentalists.  … [One of] Foster's [preferred] methods of expres­sion is a type of melodic density that sets them in a class apart from hackneyed blues riffs or ostensible originals hasti­ly thrown together just for economic convenience. As an illustration of this quality can be found in Foster's own comments on Bill Evans's Tune for a Lyric. ‘Melodically and harmonically it appeals to me,’ he says, ‘in the way it seems to evolve in a “through” composed man­ner. The repeat scheme is not so purely geometric as it is in many jazz tunes and the end of the song keeps delaying its inevitability in a way I really find enticing.’

Foster, then, in his continuing affiliation to established methods of extemporization and in his enthusiasm for melodically intricate lines braced by harmonic structures of con­siderable substance, may be viewed as something of a musical conservative in an era which has seen numerous players dis­carding, sometimes, one feels, in too doctrinaire a manner, conventions that had governed jazz improvising, until 1960 or thereabouts, for upwards of three decades. Yet in so far as that description evokes a hidebound, unadventurous spirit rather than an artist who seeks to retain and build upon the distilled wisdom of earlier generations, it is hopelessly inac­curate in Foster's case.

Not only has this been made plain by his occasional involvement in group improvisations not guid­ed by the usual harmonic precepts, … , but, more to the point, it becomes transparently clear as soon as he embarks upon his first solo chorus in the opening item of the present set. His improvisation flows naturally out of the song, devel­oping impetus as it progresses, and building, without false artifice or even any marked increase in tonal emphasis, towards its logical conclusion.

In fact the solo's communica­tive power derives mainly from the controlled accumulation of melodic interest within a predetermined rhythmic and har­monic continuum, rather than from any sudden shifts in phrase patterns or tonal coloring. Such an amalgam of grace­fulness and steadily gathering music intensity proclaims Fos­ter's allegiance to what might loosely be termed the Lester Young aesthetic, a school of thought which embraces such diverse stylists as Zoot Sims and Lee Konitz, placing as it does greater emphasis on melodic resourcefulness and con­tinuity of line man upon the more visceral stratagems of abrupt changes in volume or tone.

Foster, I believe, owes something to all three of these players, but his work never­theless possesses a truly personal flavor, transmitting a sunlit lyricism which, whatever their other qualities, is not an at­tribute one would readily associate with any of the other musicians named. In drawing this distinction one is reminded of the very individual use which, in a rather different area, the pianist Barry Harris has made of Bud Powell's vocabulary. …

For his fifth album with Revelation, Gary took matters into his own hands [so to speak] and wrote these comments for the liner notes:

“Kansas City Connections [Revelation #48].

In 1951, as a junior high school student in Leavenworth, Kansas, 35 miles from Kansas City, I first heard improvised jazz music at the hands of Olin Parker, my school hand director and musical inspiration. Olin brought jazz records and magazines about jazz to the band room and organized a small school jazz hand that hooked me to the music forever. I soon learned that, geographically, Kansas City had its own important place in the history of jazz and that, long before my ears were opened to the music, Charlie Parker, Jay McShann, Lester Young and Count Basic had put Kansas City on the jazz map.

In the following years I lived and studied near Kansas City. In the middle and late 1950's, Bob Brookmeyer, Carmell Jones, Jimmy Lovelace, Charlie Kynard and Frank Smith were the names I mast associated with the continuing tradition of Kansas City jazz. In recent years I have been fortunate to teach at the University of Missouri — Kansas City and to play in the area many times, under various circumstances, most often with the musicians heard on this recording.

The playing of my colleagues here is proof that jazz in Kansas City is in good health today. Carmell Jones (back home again), Herman Bell, Arch Martin, Kim Park, Mike Ning and many others help to keep the music alive there.

This recording came about through the eagerness and encouragement of Jim Nirsch. Jim is a valued friend and Kansas City nerve ending for jazz musicians from all parts of the world. A Kansas City connection.

Roots, family, friends and music are all Kansas City connections. Not to mention Kansas City barbecue!

Gary Foster, 1985”

Although my view of him is informed largely from impressions, in general, I couldn’t agree more with his long-time friend, Dick Wright’s description of Gary when he writes:

“Over the years, I have seen and heard Gary grow from an outstanding young Stan Getz-influenced tenor saxophonist to, today, a consummate artist on alto, tenor and soprano saxes, as well as clarinet (his first instrument) and flute. He is truly a ‘musician's musician’ who is held in the highest regard by fellow musicians as well as jazz lovers and jazz students of all ages. Gary … is equally at home in the recording studios, the class room and on the concert stage. …”

Somewhat ironically, I didn’t select a track from any of Gary’s wonderful recordings on Revelation Records to feature on the accompanying video montage.

Perhaps when you listen to his spellbinding performance on I Concentrate on You from his Make Your Own Fun CD on Concord [CCD-4459] you’ll understand why.

In all the years that I have been listening to this music, I never heard it played more beautifully by anyone.

Gary Foster is a very special musician.

Gary Foster, The Peacocks and A Timeless Place

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

One of the most wonderful things about maintaining this blog is all the great musicians who “drop by” the editorial offices of JazzProfiles from time-to-time [metaphorically speaking, of course].

Such was the case recently when I re-posted an archived feature on vocalist Norma Winstone which elicited this response from flutist, reedman, composer-arranger and all-round great guy, Gary Foster.

“Dear Steve:

It was interesting to find Norma Winstone as your recent subject. Perhaps something not well known about her relates to Jimmy Rowles’ “The Peacocks.” In 1991, Jim and I recorded “The Peacocks,” for Concord using his choice of the alto flute as the solo voice. Previously the song had been recorded by Jim, Bill Evans and Stan Getz.

“The Peacocks” is an AABA song form. The bridge is quite unique in that it is highly chromatic. In the early 90’s Jim had an actor/singer friend who wanted to write a lyric to the song but couldn’t deal with the bridge and asked him to change it by making it melodically more simple. That, of course, wasn’t going to happen.

I was at Jim’s house one afternoon when the postman delivered a cassette recording of Norma Winstone singing her lyric to “The Peacocks.” Her quite original treatment of the bridge was perfect. Rowles reacted immediately and made arrangements to record the song with her. I don’t remember any of the details but I believe George Mraz and Joe La Barbara were on the recording.

As a vocal, Norma titled the song “A Timeless Place.” Rowles contacted his publisher and arranged to share royalties with Norma when and if the song was released commercially with her title and lyric.

In 1999, several years after Jim’s death,  Tierney Sutton asked me if I had any unusual songs that she might consider recording. I sent along a few obscure favorites including “ A Timeless Place.” We recorded it on her 2000 Telarc recording, “Unsung Heroes.” Tierney sings it perfectly – like a classical art song. I wish Jim could have heard her.

I would be pleased to send along copies of the original sheets to “The Peacocks” and “A Timeless Place” for you files….

Best Regards,

Gary”

After saying “Yes, please” to a copy of the sheet music to both The Peacocks and A Timeless Place, and being the clever guy that I am, I decided to surprise Gary by putting together a video montage of peacocks and place it at the conclusion of this piece using Gary’s alto flute performance of Jimmy Rowles’ composition The Peacocks from Gary’s Make Your Own Fun Concord CD CCD-4459]

[Incidentally, I am now the proud owner of 8 pages of sheet music that contain Norma Winstone’s clever lyrics set to Jimmy Rowles’ melodic refrains for "The Peacocks."]

After the video was made, I sent Gary a link to it on YouTube. Unfortunately, due to copyright restrictions, I had to take the video down. However, these restrictions are either not as severe or they are easily bypassed elsewhere, so while I cannot incorporate the video into this piece, I can reproduce it in the banner above it so you can listen to it after you read this post.

When I made the now deleted video and sent Gary the link, I also suggested to him that if he should like to recount how the experience of recording "The Peacocks" with Jimmy Rowles on piano, John Heard on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums came about that perhaps I could weave all of this together into a blog feature.

Here’s Gary response.

“Dear Steve,

Once again – thank you for the surprise You Tube of "The Peacocks" and your kind words about the performance.

You suggested an accounting of how "The Peacocks" happened to be on the Make Your Own Fun recording. I just reread the liner notes and that reminded me that probably twice as many songs were considered  as could be on the final record. Typical of anything musical that passed through Jim’s scrutiny, every detail – The key, exact melody, rhythm, the perfect chord change - had to meet his standards. That alone was a great music lesson in our preparation. After graduate school, my wife and I decided on life on the street before the PhD. Clare Fischer, Warne Marsh, Jimmy Rowles. Larry Bunker all provided my PhD.

One night at Jim’s house, in late 1990, we we chatting and I asked him how he happened to write "The Peacocks" for Arthur Gleghorn. They were drinking buddies he said, and in their bar hopping days they referred to themselves as “The Peacocks.” Arthur was a first desk studio flute player in the film and TV studios. I worked with him a few times when I first started doing dates. I asked Jim if Arthur ever played "The Peacocks" for him. He said “No.” I offered to play it for him sometime. He said “Now?” and I went to the car for my flute.

I have a convenient triple case that holds a piccolo, flute and alto flute. The case was open on the chair and after we played it on the flute. Jim saw the alto flute and asked “How would it be on the big one?” We played it with the alto flute and he commented that he liked it. As I was backing out of the driveway later, he came out of the house and to the car. I rolled the window down and Jim said “'The Peacocks' is the alto flute!”

___________________________________________________________

Regarding Rowles:  Before we moved here in 1961, I had a couple of Rowles LP’s and hoped to hear him live once we were in LA. I looked for mention in the paper of where he might be playing and, once I had a Union directory, I phoned him and asked where he was playing. After a silence, and true to his cynicism, he said “Is this a gag?” I went to The Carriage House/Chadney’s many times over the next few years to hear him. It is possible that you were there, of course. I was playing regularly with Larry Bunker in Clare Fischer groups and in 1968 Larry introduced me to Jim. It gives me pleasure to relive mentally the years after that with Rowles in my life. ….

Best Regards,

Gary”

And here are Gary’s insert notes to Make Your Own Fun Concord CD CCD-4459 which are followed by some observations about Gary by Carl Jefferson who produced the CD for his label, Concord Records.

“A new jazz recording which focuses on the improvised solo is a document, in its time, of the beliefs, influences and growth of the individual performers. As a basis for improvising on this recording, I chose a few standards, two originals and a few not-so-standards. Loosely organized, this material was used to try to find those elusive few moments that might be called "a good eight bars." Finding the right tempo and a feeling of spontaneity were common thoughts of all involved. Carl Jefferson produced this recording. He gently nudged things here and there but, with great care, allowed the music to evolve on its own.

THE MUSICIANS

John Heard brings to any jazz performance a keen sense of what is right. He produces a beautiful sound, his time is strength itself and he is purely intuitive in the way he puts it all together. John has played with everyone. For many years we played together with Toshiko Akiyoshi's band. His graphic art works and his sculpture are becoming as well known as his bass playing.

Every time I've seen Joe LaBarbera in recent years we always talk of playing sometime. This recording became the reason to make it happen. Every tune on this album has moments which show Joe's beautiful taste and unfailing musical sense. Warne-ing was written for Joe to play along on the displaced rhythm of the melody and features him playing an extended solo on brushes.

Jimmy Rowles is a jazz man; the real thing. In the 1970s Jimmy moved to New York City for a few years and finally received the recognition and documentation on recordings that he had long deserved. I see him as a direct line to the jazz that counts. Billie, Ben, Pres, Sarah and all who have worked with him have sung his praises. He has gained the respect of all in the old fashioned way. He earned it! Jimmy never just comps. He reacts to the music around him and he can never be anticipated. His solos are conversational and confidential. They are full of invention, wit and surprise. His presence here gives me great personal satisfaction.

THE MUSIC

Jazz lore has it that Minnie Pearl was asked to sit in and "just sing something" on a TV talk show. Rowles, the pianist on the show, quickly asked, "how about 'Lush Life' Minnie Pearl?" To her credit, Minnie didn't accept the challenge and I doubt if Easy Living or Some Other Spring found their way into her repertoire either. These old standards have rich notes of the harmony throughout their melodies and have become jazz favorites for that reason.

Alone Together, I'll Close My Eyes, I Concentrate On You and Nica's Dream also fall into the standard class. With these beautiful songs it is a matter of agreeing on the right harmonic road map, getting a beginning and an ending and then making a try for a spontaneous performance.

Jimmy's The Peacocks is now a part of the jazz repertoire. It was written for Arthur Gleghorn who was for many years the preeminent flutist in the Hollywood studios. Asked if Arthur had ever played the song, Jimmy answered, "eight bars or so." After trying it with the flute, Jimmy asked to hear it on the alto flute and that became his choice for the melody. I asked Jimmy to sing one and he chose the beautiful, but obscure, What A Life.

‘Teef is a blues I have played for many years. The title alludes to Yusef Lateef. It works well as a duo-line for alto and bass. John took hold of this and roared.

In his New Yorker profile of Warne Marsh, Whitney Balliett referred to Warne as a "True Improviser." I had the pleasure of making music with Warne for nearly twenty-five years. Warne set and achieved the highest standards. Warne-ing, written over a set of his favorite changes, is not meant to capture Warne's musical way. It is simply a tribute from a grateful friend.

Sweet Lips was written for another great musician and friend, Wilbur Schwartz. The beautiful, soaring clarinet sound of Glenn Miller's music was created by Wil. In great contrast to that lead sound, Wil could produce a soft, intimate and personal sound that we called "sweet lips." A unique and brilliant man who took life on his own terms, Wil often advised, "make your own fun." Not a bad idea for life...or for an album title!

Gary Foster, March, 1991”

“Naturally, Gary neglected to write about himself, so I'd like to take this opportunity to share some of my personal insight into one of today's foremost reed men.

We've all heard Gary Foster on numerous recordings, TV and movie soundtracks over the years, as he is one of the most in demand studio musicians in the business. I have had the pleasure of recording Gary many times with such distinguished artists as Cal Tjader and Poncho Sanchez, as well as with the Marty Paich Dek-tette on two records with Mel Torme. Gary has always proven to be the epitome of professionalism as well as a consummate jazz musician, greatly enriching every project with his musical presence. Whenever Gary is involved, those "elusive moments" he refers to are virtually guaranteed.

On top of all this, he is simply a fine individual. Part of the concept for this album, had a lot to do with Gary's affection for Jimmy Rowles.

In conclusion, I wish all the dates were this pleasant. This is a well thought out album with exceptional musical values.

-Carl E. Jefferson

President, Concord Jazz, Inc.

A Brief History of Improvising by Whitney Balliett

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

Reeds and woodwinds master player Gary Foster sent this to the editorial offices of JazzProfiles and we thought it too good not to share.

In its original form, it appeared as the first paragraph from Whitney Balliett’s profile of Warne Marsh in the October 14, 1985 edition of The New Yorker Magazine.

It has subsequently been published as part of Whitney’s chapter JAZZ: A TRUE IMPROVISER [Warne Marsh] in his book American Musicians II: Seventy-one Portraits in Jazz [Uni. of Mississippi Press].

The paragraphing has been modified to fit the journalistic format of the blog.

At the conclusion, you’ll find a video montage with Warne Marsh and Pete Christlieb improvising on the changes to Just Friends.

© -  Whitney Balliett, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“A short history of jazz improvisation, the heart and soul of the music, might go like this.

It began in the rural South in the nineteenth century as random gestures of black protest: a bones solo accompanying a buck-and-wing; the field hollers, which formed a secret, constantly evolving code; the endlessly invented and often satirical blues lyrics, and the guitar or banjo variations that decorated them. In short, it began as any kind of Afro-American music that did not go by the white man’s book.  

When Reconstruction faltered and racism closed down again, in the eighties and nineties, black improvisational music had taken a clearer shape. It was played mainly by rough small bands, which in time used cornet or trumpet, a reed instrument, trombone, piano (not always), guitar or banjo, bass or tuba, and drums. These groups, generally made up of day laborers, were offshoots of the New Orleans marching bands, and their improvisations – embellishments, really - were largely collective. It was an ensemble music that parted for occasional solos.

In his autobiography, Treat It Gentle, the great soprano saxophonist and clarinetist Sidney Bechet tried to describe what happened in the early improvisation: “It has to be put inside you and you have to be ready to have it put there. All that happens to you makes a feeling out of your life and you play that feeling. But there’s more than that. There’s the feeling inside the music too. And the final thing, it’s the way those two feelings come together.”

By 1924, two years before Jelly Roll Morton unwittingly memorialized the New Orleans music with the sixteen brilliant Hot Pepper sides he made in Chicago, Louis Armstrong and King Oliver, also recording in Chicago, and Armstrong and Sidney Bechet recording in New York, had demonstrated that they were the first jazz soloists – the first true melodic jazz improvisers.

During the next fifteen years or so, jazz became a music of soloists. And among the greatest were Armstrong and Bechet, Earl Hines, Bix Beiderbecke, Coleman Hawkins, Red Allen, Jack Teagarden, Benny Goodman, Django Reinhardt, Red Norvo, Lester young, Art Tatum and Roy Eldridge.

Their predecessors had worked mostly with the blues and with ragtime materials built on two or three strains. Armstrong and his followers began using as their stepping-off points the new theatre and movie songs of Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin and George Gershwin and Harold Arlen. They reinvented melody. They would take a Kern or Gershwin tune and improvise a parallel song that both freshened and shadowed the original.

By the early forties, they had amassed a body of recordings that were melodically and rhythmically unique and had a spontaneity that had not been heard in Western music since Bach.

But jazz has little patience, and by the mid-forties and new kind of improvisation had appeared, shepherded by Charlie Parker, Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie. These three had studied Art Tatum’s giant harmonic edifices, and, borrowing from him, they widened the harmonic base of jazz improvisation by improvising on the chords of a song instead of on the melody. They cast out melody and entered a wilderness of chords, altered chords, expanded chords. Or thought they were casting out melody – their improvisation were in fact highly melodic but in ways that were undanceable and largely unsingable. Called bebop, it was an engulfing, baroque music, through which no silence was allowed to show.

Late in 1959, Ornette Coleman, the Texas alto saxophonist, dropped from the skies, and a third kind of improvisation was born. Its adherents threw everything out – melody, chords, keys, choruses, and steady rhythms. They improvised on themselves, on their moods, on the air around them. They made any kind of noise on their instruments which entered their heads – barnyard sounds, jungle sounds, traffic sounds. This was called “free jazz,” and for a long time it has laid a disquieting hand on the music.”