Phil and Quill - [From the Archives]

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

“Those who demand the originality of geniuses who create entirely new art without any history are chasing an illusion: it doesn't exist. Every musician learns from other artists - as does every painter, actor, writer, sculptor, dancer, technician or engineer. The legend that art arises out of the void prevents any serious consideration of what is really being accomplished.

Ever since the 1950's Phil Woods has been counted among the undisputed masters in the tradition of Charlie Parker. That means he is well aware of what the father of bebop, this resourceful innovator, created in the 1940's and 50's. With similar intensity, he gathered information on the treasure chest of ideas which dozens of other saxophonists have brought forth. Independent of specific stylistic forms, he took his inspiration without copying. That is why Coleman Hawkins, a master of the voluminous, tuneful sound, is just as important to him as the agile, soulful musician Cannonball Adderley.

Every note Phil Woods plays sounds unmistakably like Phil Woods ….”

- Werner Stiefele, German freelance journalist specializing in Jazz

If the sequence of recent postings dovetailing into this one and continuing into the next, two features give you the impression that the editorial staff at JazzProfiles has been celebrating a sort of Phil Woods Week on the site, you’d be right.

I’ve never done a week’s worth of features on any artist before.

But then, as you know by now from reading the recent posts about him on JazzProfiles, Phil Woods held a special place in my Pantheon of Admired and Esteemed Great Jazz Musicians.

I can't remember the verbatim quotations, but back in the early 1950's when Phil Woods was first making the New York Jazz scene, Charlie "Bird" Parker was still alive and his style of playing the alto saxophone influenced a huge number of musicians who played that instrument - including, not surprisingly - Phil Woods. So one Jazz observer after another began hailing Phil as the "New Bird."

But with the exception of those who played the alto sax with a cool -sounding, sub-toned emphasis on melody - think Paul Desmond, Lee Konitz and Hal McKusick - it is a statement of the obvious to say that "Bird" influenced a generation of Bebop alto saxophonist.

I always thought that two of these players broke out of the Parker mode early and adopted their own way of phrasing modern Jazz on the alto saxophone: Gene Quill and Phil Woods.

And the more I listen to Phil the more I hear Quill. 

I’m certain that given their close friendship, Phil would have wanted Gene remembered that way.

“Phil is Phil Woods, Quill, Gene Quill; both are virile exponents of the art of the modern jazz saxophone style pioneered by Charlie Parker. Especially enlightened listeners also realize that Woods and Quill have found personal expressions within this style through modifications brought about by their own personalities and that each has his own story to tell no matter how similar an area their musical styles inhabit. Both have the cry of the true jazzman, literally and figuratively, that soul baring quality which communicates emotionally on a direct circuit to the listener.”

- Ira Gitler, Jazz critic and author

“They made a very fine team and there isn’t an ounce of spare fat in any of their solos. … Quill’s duskier tone and more extreme intensities are barely a beat behind Woods in terms of quality of thought.”

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

In his notes to the European edition of the CD release of Phil and Quill - The Phil Woods-Gene Quill Sextet [RCA/BMG ND 74405], Alain Tercinet reflects on the fact that even fifty years on, the pairing of the same instruments as lead voices in a Jazz quintet was memorable for its rarity.

He goes on to mention the two trombone groups led by J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding, the two tenor saxophone group led by Al Cohn and Zoot Sims and the two alto saxophone quintet of Phil Woods and Gene Quill were almost as shocking to the Jazz audiences of the times as they were innovative.

In the case of J.J. and Kai and Al and Zoot, these groups were planned happenings, but the quintet formed by Phil and Quill was a result of their chance meeting on a gig, the details of which are recounted below.

But thanks to the impression Phil and Gene’s work made on Jazz writer and producer Ira Gitler, he had the idea for a recording by these great altoist and brought it to the attention of Bob Weinstock, the owner of Prestige Records.

Bob arranged for the them to record at Rudy van Gelder’s studio on March 29, 1957 along with a rhythm section made up of George Syran on piano, Teddy Kotick on bass and Nick Stabulas on drums.

The result was the LP entitled Phil and Quill With Prestige: The Phil Woods/Gene Quill Quintet [Prestige 7115; OJCCD 215-2].

Here are Ira Gitler’s sleeve notes to that album:

“Most aware jazz fans, unlike the master of ceremonies who announced them with the introduction, "And here he comes now - Phil Anquill", know what the group heading Phil And Quill stands for. Phil is Phil Woods, Quill, Gene Quill; both are virile exponents of the art of the modern jazz saxophone style pioneered by Charlie Parker. Especially enlightened listeners also realize that Woods and Quill have found personal expressions within this style through modifications brought about by their own personalities and that each has his own story to tell no matter how similar an area their musical styles inhabit. Both have the cry of the true jazzman, literally and figuratively, that soul baring quality which communicates emotionally on a direct circuit to the listener.

Phil flows along making use of quotes from time to time; Gene is more jagged, his phrases surging, falling and gaining their power by pushing off from the preceding phrase in short bursts. Each knows how to build a solo to a point of intensity.

Phillip Wells Woods and Daniel Eugene Quill met in New York in 1954 and played in jam sessions together. During the next few years, in the main, they were occupied with playing for other leaders but early in 1957, they teamed up at the Pad in Greenwich Village. Phil had recently left Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra and Gene had just returned from Europe with Claude Thornhill when the two blew together in a group that pianist Johnny Williams was heading for a weekend engagement. Gene had just arrived that morning when he was informed that he was to play with John on that evening. On a borrowed alto (his had been stolen in Europe) and very little sleep, he was fulfilling his role with the attitude of a real trouper. When Phil dropped in later in the evening and sat in, Gene seemed to forget these problems completely and the two of them wailed wonderfully into the morning.

In the months following, the alto duo played several weekends at the Cork and Bib in Westbury, Long Island and also at the White Canon in Far Rockaway

(scene of the singular success of Phil Anquill) but these were the slim pickings of an otherwise empty schedule.

The rhythm section on these jobs was composed of the same trio which backed Phil Woods on his early Prestige quintet recordings and again appears here. Due to the transitory nature of the Phil-Quill combo, the three, as well as their co-leaders, have been heard in other groups recently.

Bassist Teddy Kotick has buoyed the Horace Silver quintet and the Zoot Sims-Al Cohn fivesome while drummer Nick Stabulas has also appeared with the latter group. George Syran has been in the process of completing his Bachelor of Music at the Manhattan School and, in connection with this, has given several recitals of classical composers.

The meat for improvisation in this set has been supplied by Phil himself and totals six originals. Let us hope that a-mong the new supporters this album gains for Phil And Quill, there are enough club owners to militate regrouping of the unit as a permanent thing.”

John S. Wilson prepared these insert notes to the CD Phil and Quill - The Phil Woods-Gene Quill Sextet [RCA/BMG ND 74405] on which the rhythm section is made up of Dave McKenna on piano, Buddy Jones on bass and Shadow Wilson on drums.

“In all of the awed recognition of the overwhelming influence that Charlie (Bird) Parker has had on the way jazz has developed during the past decade, it is only occasionally that one comes face to face with the problems that follow in the wake of so pervasive an influence. These problems are most noticeable in the area of Parker's own instrument, the alto saxophone.

If Parker pointed the way for jazz as a whole, he did much more for the alto sax. He set a pattern that has seemed so definitive that every alto man who has come after him, almost without exception, has taken to his pattern as though any deviation would be unthinkable heresy. This, of course, is the natural way for a jazz musician to start—there is always someone who is the inspiration and the guide.

But before Parker, no one—not even Louis Armstrong—had established an approach that was so universally accepted by the contemporary jazz generation.

As a consequence Parker, as a model, has been a trap—an inviting and exciting trap, to be sure—but nonetheless a trap for many young altoists who managed to acquire the surface qualities of Parker but, having done that, found they had no place to go but around and around the same repetitive and uncreative circle.

Neither Phil Woods nor Gene Quill were exceptions to the mode of the times when they started out on alto. Bird was the influence and they took to it with passion.

But, having used this convenient stepping stone to launch themselves in jazz, they both had the individuality and personal creativeness to realize that they had to avoid being suffocated by this influence. Building on the foundation they inherited, they have each moved in directions that are distinctly their own, and as time goes by the sound of their original inspiration has become steadily dimmer as their own musical personalities assert themselves.

Of the two. Woods has possibly developed the most completely individual attack at this point strong, assertive and gustily swinging. But Quill, who burst from the cocoon a Itit later than Woods, has recently been moving with startling and satisfying speed toward his own jazz fate.

The idea of teaming up has been stewing in the two altoists' minds for a couple of years, ever since they met at the apartment of pianist John Williams and started playing together in various groups. They found that they felt comfortable in each other's musical company and that more flexibility and variety were possible in the sound of two altos than in pairings of most other instruments.

Phil came to the alto after studying clarinet for four years at juilliard. He has had big band experience with Charlie Barnet and Neal Hefti and with the band Dizzy Gillespie took to the Middle East at the behest of the State Department in 1956. Friedrich Gulda chose Phil to play in his sextet when the Viennese Beethoven specialist made his jazz debut in the United States in the spring of 1956. Gene's soaring facility has been heard with various small groups and with Buddy De Franco's and Claude Thornhill's bands. The close musical and personal ties that bind Gene and Phil were made even tighter after they launched their own group (two altos and rhythm).

In the sextet heard in these performances, a "bottom" is provided for the two alto saxes by Sol Schlinger's baritone saxophone. The rhythm section is made up of the brilliant, swinging pianist, Dave McKenna; bassist Buddy Jones; and drummer Shadow Wilson, a widely experienced big-band veteran (Hampton, Hines, Basie, Herman).

The arrangements come from the pens of Woods; Neal Hefli and Nat Pierce, both quondam bandleaders; Bill Potts, who made his mark as a writer with Willis Conover's Washington band; and Gene Orloff, a violinist who is in great demand as concertmaster on jazz sessions when strings are used.”

Gene Quill Remembered - Gordon Jack [From The Archives]

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved

It’s funny how things turn out sometimes.

A few weeks ago, a Jazz buddy sent me a CD entitled Gene Quill “The Tiger” Portrait of a Great Alto Player [Fresh Sound FSR-CD 667]

At the time he sent it, he asked if I had done a feature on Gene for my blog.

The answer was “No,” not because I didn’t like Gene’s playing, which I have found to be consistently marvelous over the years, but because, frankly, I didn’t know very much about Gene.

I knew his playing from his recordings with fellow alto saxophonist Phil Woods on Prestige Records and from the many studio sessions that he played on. As our guest author, Gordon Jack points out, Gene was “a brilliant sight-reader and one of the finest lead alto and clarinet players of his generation and had become an established member of the exclusive New York studio scene by the mid-fifties.”

The quotation is excerpted from the following article on Gene which Gordon prepared for JazzJournal.

Thanks to Gordon, I now have some background information about Gene and his career to put along side his recorded music

Gordon is the author of Fifties Jazz Talk: An Oral Retrospective [Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004]  and he has graciously granted the editorial staff at JazzProfiles permission to reprint his work on these pages.

Order information regarding Jazz Journal is available at www.jazzjournal.co.uk/.

© -  Gordon Jack/Jazz Journal. Copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.

“Gene Quill was just 15 in 1943 when he joined the AFM Local 661 in his home town of Atlantic City. Precociously talented on alto he had already won a “Stars in the Making” contest three years earlier which led to an appearance with the Jimmy Dorsey orchestra. While in high-school he had his own band playing army bases and USO dances and on leaving school he joined Alex Bartha who had the house band at the famous Steel Pier in New Jersey.

He first met Phil Woods in 1948 at one of the regular sessions held at Teddy Charles’s loft on the corner of 55th Street and Broadway in New York where Brew Moore, Tony Fruscella, Don Joseph, Jimmy Raney and Frank Isola were in regular attendance.  Phil was studying at Juilliard at the time and he told me in a JJ interview (September 1998), “I sat in with Gene for a super-fast Donna Lee. He kicked it off and when we hit the head it sounded like a unison. Afterwards we went to the bar to hang out and Gene could really hang out!”

Another popular venue where 24 hour sessions frequently took place was at Joe Maini and Jimmy Knepper’s apartment on the southwest corner of 136th Street and Broadway. Gene was often to be found there and a list of those attending at various times reads like a who’s-who of the new music because Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Joe Albany, Miles Davis, Herb Geller, John Williams, Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan, Zoot Sims and Warne Marsh all played there at various times. Lenny Bruce frequently came to listen and socialise with the musicians. On one occasion in 1950 Don Lanphere taped Charlie Parker there accompanied by John Williams, Buddy Jones and Frank Isola and the results were eventually released as The Apartment Sessions (Philology W842-2CD). Many of the younger musicians though were finding it difficult at the time to become established. Joe Maini was occasionally reduced to busking in subways and a year after the Parker recording Mulligan sold all his horns and hitch-hiked with his girl friend to Los Angeles in search of work.

In March 1951 Gene joined the newly formed but short-lived Buddy DeFranco big band performing arrangements by Mulligan, Jimmy Giuffre and the leader. In an enthusiastic DownBeat review of the band’s performance at the Rustic Cabin in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Leonard Feather said, “Buddy really has something on the ball musically and could be built into an idol of American youth.” It didn’t happen despite extensive financial backing from a number of quarters including a very well connected call-girl named Charlotte. She invested around $50,000.00 in the band which was an enormous amount for the time. Eight months later and hugely out of pocket Buddy had to call it a day as a band leader.

The same year DeFranco disbanded, Gene worked briefly with Jerry Wald’s band at the Arcadia Ballroom which had a strict Local 802 policy for tax purposes. Gene didn’t have a union card at the time so Herb Geller took his place and in a JJ interview (September/October 1994) he told me, “There was some resentment because Gene was very popular with the guys and he was an excellent player but quite soon I was accepted and everything was fine.” A couple of years later he had another unfortunate experience with Quill who was late for a Nat Pierce recording session. Pierce telephoned Herb who immediately took a cab and arrived at the studio just as Gene came running in. Nat said, “Herb is going to do the date because whenever I use you Gene, you’re either late or you don’t turn up at all.” Quill was angry and upset and accused Herb of always taking his jobs although he obviously didn’t bear a grudge because in 1956 when Leonard Feather asked him who his favourite alto players were he named Charlie Parker, Phil Woods, Charlie Mariano and Herb Geller.

Soon after leaving Jerry Wald he successfully auditioned for Claude Thornhill who was organising a new orchestra at the Local 802 union hall in New York City. It was quite a band. Quill had the jazz alto chair and Med Flory led the sax section which included Brew Moore for a time. Bob Brookmeyer was on trombone and relief piano and Teddy Kotick and Winston Welch were also there with the delightful Chris Connor taking care of the vocals. Quill remained with Thornhill off and on until 1956 eventually taking over from Med Flory on lead alto which included a great deal of clarinet work.

Teddy Kotick left in 1953 to join Stan Getz and was replaced by Bill Crow who remembered Gene in his book - From Birdland to Broadway - “As a scrappy little Irishman always ready to challenge the world.” Along with Brew Moore and Brookmeyer he was a heavy drinker and although he had been a Golden Gloves boxer his diminutive status left him at a disadvantage in certain situations. According to Crow, “He wound up the loser in many after-hours brawls.” The Thornhill organization did not have a band bus. They travelled in a convoy of four cars between bookings and one of the vehicles – The Rat Patrol - carried rejects from the other three with Gene of course usually at the wheel.

According to Crow’s book, his brilliance on both alto and clarinet did not extend to the essential maintenance regimes all instruments require. One night in Texas part of his alto’s right side-key assembly broke off requiring pressure from his hand to keep it in place. On another occasion in El Paso his horn almost collapsed. Pausing in mid solo he refitted the keys and rods while instructing tenor-man Ray Norman to - “Hold your finger right there.” During the band’s residency at the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans he married his girl-friend Bobbie who had been travelling with him. Winston Welch and Bill Crow were two of the witnesses.

The Thornhill orchestra recorded 14 titles in April 1953 for the Trend label. Quill is heard on Jeru, Family Affair, Rose Of The Rio Grande and Five Brothers which are his first recorded solos (Hep CD 80) - he had soloed on Tiny’s Blues in 1951 with DeFranco but that title has never been released. A brilliant sight-reader and one of the finest lead alto and clarinet players of his generation, he had become an established member of the exclusive New York studio scene by the mid-fifties. It was a busy time and he was frequently called for recording dates with among others Quincy Jones, Ernie Wilkins, Joe Newman, Manny Albam, Michel Legrand, Tito Puente, Johnny Richards and Oscar Pettiford.

In 1955 he had a short-lived small group with Dick Sherman an outstanding but now almost forgotten trumpeter. They had been colleagues in the DeFranco and Thornhill bands and Jordi Pujol has released a fine example of their work on FSR-CD 667. It includes a memorable concert from the Pythian Temple, New York introduced by Al ‘Jazzbo’ Collins with excellent performance on Flying Down To Rio and Sherman’s own Sid Meets Haig. The latter has an AABA 32 bar form reminiscent of Monk’s Rhythm-A-Ning in the A sections. The trumpeter was a former Juilliard student who had disappeared as a recording artist by 1958 but luckily his Bobby Hackett by way of Fats Navarro approach can be heard at length with Al Cohn and Zoot Sims on From A To Z (RCA 74321).

It was at this time Quill became very friendly with John Williams who told me, “Gene was special. We shared a lot of jam sessions and booths full of friends and laughter in Charlie’s Tavern.” Frank Isola was one of their close, mutual friends. He had worked a few months with Quill in Atlantic City in 1951 and they can be heard together on one of Dick Garcia’s few albums as a leader – Message from Garcia (Dawn DCD 108).

Another close friend of Gene’s was of course Phil Woods. He was best man at Phil’s marriage to Charlie Parker’s widow and early in 1957 Woods sat in when Gene was working with John Williams at the Pad in Greenwich Village. Things worked out so well musically that they decided to form a group together which worked fairly regularly for the next year or so around the New York area. They were booked as Phil and Quill. This confused an M.C. at the White Canon club in Queens who enthusiastically introduced, “Phil Anquill - here he comes now” to a bemused audience. Well worth tracking down is their Fresh Sound release (FSR-CD-473) which includes some titles with Sol Schlinger one of the busiest baritone players in New York at the time.

Early in 1960 Gene joined Gerry Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band taking Eddie Wasserman’s place on lead alto and clarinet. Don Ferrara told me that Gene was a very popular member of the band because he was a stellar player with a good sense of humour.  Brookmeyer who was the straw-boss was also impressed, ”I thought that Gene had the fire and the madness sometimes of Charlie Parker. He was a little maniacal but controllable.” Unfortunately he did not get many solo features with the CJB at least on record but the ‘fire’ Brookmeyer mentions is readily apparent on 18 Carrots For Rabbit (FSR-CD  710) and All About Rosie – both on alto. He also made an outstanding clarinet contribution to Bridgehampton Strut which is available on Mosaic MD 4-221 together with Rosie. One night he had an accident at Birdland when he had his alto balanced on his knee with the mouthpiece close to his face. Somebody called him and in turning quickly, the reed cut his eyeball. Phil Woods was in the club and took Gene’s place with the CJB for the remainder of the engagement.

After Mulligan disbanded in December 1964, Gene free-lanced around New York at clubs like Kenny’s Pub and Embers West where he had his own quartet. He was one of several fine alto players who worked with Buddy Rich’s exciting new big band in the late sixties. Ernie Watts, Art Pepper and Richie Cole all followed him after he left in 1967. Jazz-work becoming scarce he did what a lot of musicians at that time were doing and moved to Las Vegas where he worked with Dan Terry, Ray Anthony and Billy Daniels.

In 1974 he moved back home to Atlantic City where he played in the Steel Pier Show Band. Sadly in what was believed to be a robbery he was mugged on Memorial Day weekend in 1977 which left him paralysed on his right side and blind in one eye. One of his former Thornhill colleagues told me that it was not so much a mugging as an assault. Phil Woods and Bill Potts went to visit him in hospital where he was lying in a semi-comatose state in an oxygen tent with tubes connected to every orifice. Phil gently asked if there was anything he could do and Gene whispered, “Yeah, take my place!”

He no longer had a horn so at a 1979 benefit Phil Woods presented him with a new alto. Revising his fingering to compensate for his lame right hand he played his favourite ballad It Might As Well Be Spring with Woods on the piano. Years later Phil told me, “There wasn’t a dry eye in the house…the sound and fire where still there”.

Daniel Eugene Quill died on the 8th December 1988 in Pomona, Atlantic City.

The following video tribute to Gene features him performing “Flying Down to Rio” with Dick Sherman on trumpet, Argonne Thorton, piano, Buddy Jones, bass and Sol Gubin, drums. The track is from Gene Quill “The Tiger” Portrait of a Great Alto Player [Fresh Sound FSR-CD 667]