"The Forgotten Ones:" Don Fagerquist - Gordon Jack [From the Archives]

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

Gordon Jack, author of Fifties Jazz Talk: An Oral Retrospective and a frequent contributor to JazzJournal “dropped by” the editorial offices of JazzProfiles recently with a generous offer to post his piece on trumpeter Don Fagerquist [1927-1974] to the blog.

Don was one of the musicians based on the Left Coast who always knocked me out.

He had one of the most beautiful sounds that I ever heard on trumpet; plus, he was one heckuva swinger, which always caught me by surprise. Here’s this lyrical, pretty tone, and the next thing you know the guy is poppin’ one terrific Jazz phrase after another.

The trumpet seemed to find him. His was one of the purest tones you will ever hear on the horn. In Don Fagerquist, the instrument had one of its clearest forms of expression.

Don never seemed to get outside of himself. He joined big bands and combos to work in that both complimented and complemented the way he approached playing the trumpet.

His tone was what musicians referred to as “legit” [short for legitimate = the sound of an instrument often associated with its form in Classical music].

No squeezing notes through the horn, no half-valve fingering and no tricks or shortcuts. Even his erect posture in playing the instrument was textbook.

If you had a child who wished to play trumpet, Don would have been the perfect teacher for all facets of playing the instrument.

He was clear, he was clean and he was cool.

His sound had a presence to it that just snapped your head around when you heard it; it made you pay attention to it.

No shuckin’ or jiving’, just the majesty of the trumpeter’s clarion call . When the Angel Gabriel picked trumpet as his axe [Jazz talk for instrument], he must have had Don’s tone in mind.

Here’s the full text of Gordon’s article which appeared in the July 2014 edition of JazzJournal. You can locate more information about JazzJournal by going here.

© -  Gordon Jack/JazzJournal; used with the author’s permission; copyright protected; all rights reserved.

                                           

“Don Fagerquist’s distinctive trumpet sound graced the bands of Gene Krupa, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman and Les Brown as soloist and section leader for a number of years from the mid-forties. Although a prolific recording artist (Tom Lord lists 364 sessions)  he is almost unknown today and for that reason it is worth highlighting a few comments about him from former colleagues: “I loved Don’s playing” (Gerry Mulligan); “Marvellous. He was ahead of his time” (Herb Geller); “He was a genius – a class act” (Dave Pell); “A tremendous jazz player” (Arno Marsh); “He really is a player - he’s the best” (Les Brown) and “He was a great improviser…everyone liked him” (Phil Urso).

Carl Saunders one of the most in-demand trumpeters in Los Angeles has cited him as a primary influence along with Kenny Dorham and Freddie Hubbard. (Bill Perkins once told me that “Carl idolised him”). In 1956 when Leonard Feather conducted a poll exclusively for musicians, both George Shearing and Urbie Green listed Don as one of their favourite trumpeters. Despite these testimonials his name has rarely been included on a list of the music’s finest soloists except once in 1955 when he secured fifth place in Metronome magazine’s annual poll. Robert Gordon probably said it best in his book (Jazz West Coast) “Don Fagerquist (was) a much underrated soloist. No doubt he was largely ignored because he laboured so often in the commercial vineyards of the Dave Pell Octet.”

Don who came from a musical family was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on the 6th. February 1927. He joined the Mal Hallett orchestra in 1943 which was based in Boston, working along the eastern side of the United States. The band included Buddy Wise, Sonny Rich, Dick Taylor and John Williams and in an enthusiastic Metronome review in 1944 George Simon said, “17 year old Don Fagerquist plays most of the lead…and then lets loose with some impressive jazz.” Like many of his generation his primary influences at this time were Harry James and Roy Eldridge.

In 1944 he began a long association with Gene Krupa that lasted off and on until 1950. He recruited Buddy Wise and Dick Taylor from Hallet’s band for Gene and they can all be heard soloing on one of Krupa’s biggest hits, Disc Jockey Jump by the nineteen year old Gerry Mulligan. It has a standard  AABA form with an A section resembling Four Brothers although as Gerry once ruefully pointed out it was recorded  nearly a year before Jimmy Giuffre’s classic. Don was the featured trumpet soloist and he can be heard on numerous other titles with the band like Leave Us Leap, Up An Atom, Lover and Opus One which are all good examples of his work at that time. The latter featured Anita O’Day and Don took leave of absence from the band in 1949 to work with her small group for about six months. Tiny Kahn was on drums but unfortunately they were never recorded.

That same year Artie Shaw was having tax problems so he decided to return to the music business with a new big band to help pay his debt to the IRS. Don was recruited along with some of the very best of the young modernists like Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Herbie Steward, Jimmy Raney and Dodo Marmarosa. The leader also commissioned writers like George Russell, Johnny Mandel and Tadd Dameron to contribute new material which was performed with his old hits like Frenesi, Begin the Beguine, I Cover the Waterfront and Stardust.  Don was heard not only with the big band but also with a fresh edition of the Gramercy Five which successfully revisited numbers like Summit Ridge Drive, Grabtown Grapple and Cross Your Heart.

He left the Shaw band in 1950 to re-join Gene Krupa for a while and then early in 1951 he took Don Ferrara’s place with Woody Herman who was beginning a month’s residency at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. In July that year Charlie Parker was recorded with the band at the Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City performing staples like Lemon Drop, Four Brothers, Caldonia, The Goof and I and More Moon. After the concert Don and Doug Mettome played with Parker at a local club. Fagerquist split the lead book with Conte Candoli and didn’t get too many solos but he can be heard on Celestial Blues, Moten Stomp and Singing in the Rain from a July 1952 recording session that was notable for a Woody Herman vocal on Early Autumn. A few months later after a Hollywood recording date he left Herman to join Les Brown who had a residency on the Bob Hope Show. He is prominently featured with the ‘Band of Renown’ on a double CD recorded at the Hollywood Palladium in 1953 on numbers like Rain, Happy Hooligan, Jersey Bounce and From This Moment On. This was when he and his family relocated to Los Angeles, eventually settling in Canoga Park in the San Fernando Valley.

His instrument of choice was a Calicchio trumpet which he played throughout his career and by the time he joined Les Brown his mature lyrical style was in full bloom. Rather like Clifford Brown (another well- schooled musician) he had a thorough knowledge of harmony and he was able to negotiate every chord change in a sequence with an effortless flow of melodic creativity - unlike Chet Baker for instance who could read music but was an ‘ear’ player when it came to improvisation.

Early in 1953 Dave Pell formed an octet with sidemen from Les  Brown’s band like Ray Sims, Ronny Lang and Fagerquist which proved to be very popular commercially leading some critics to accuse it of playing ‘Mortgage-paying jazz’. The public could not get enough of Pell’s octet and according to John Tynan writing in Downbeat it became, “The busiest small group in California”. The arrangements were by some of the finest Los Angeles-based writers like Shorty Rogers, Johnny Mandel, Andre Previn and Marty Paich and most of the charts had a guitar doubling the lead giving the group a bigger sound than might be expected from eight pieces.  Don’s lyrical trumpet on lead or soloing was an essential ingredient in the success of the group. He made eleven albums with Pell who in an interview with Marc Myers once said, “He had chops to do anything he thought of…he would steal the album again and again”.

The mid-fifties until December 1969 was a period of intense recording activity for him and after years of being on the road, the security of regular studio work must have seemed particularly attractive. In 1956 he joined the staff at Paramount Studios where he eventually performed on 85 film sound–tracks. He also became a first-call trumpet for recording sessions with artists as diverse as Shelly Manne, Red Norvo, Mel Torme, Buddy DeFranco, Art Pepper, Georgie Auld, Ray Charles, Nancy Wilson, Junior Mance and numerous others. He was on several of Ella Fitzgerald’s celebrated Song Book albums and he did Sinatra dates after Harry Edison stopped making them. He can also be heard on Barbra Streisand’s hit On A Clear Day. He performed on Hoagy Sings Carmichael soloing on Skylark, Winter Moon, Rockin’ Chair and Ballad in Blue prompting sleeve-note writer George Frazier to claim that Don was a new name to him, which was a surprising admission for a former DownBeat contributor.

One particularly memorable session was the 1954 Jazz Studio 2 album with Herb Geller, Milt Bernhart and Jimmy Giuffre. It includes classic versions of two of the most sophisticated ballads in the repertoire (Laura and Darn That Dream) on a recording that would merit five stars except for the presence of John Graas on French horn. He was a fine instrumentalist who had been a member of the Cleveland Symphony but the horn has more than eleven feet of tubing making it unsuitable for swiftly articulated bebop choruses. It also happens to be the most difficult of the brass family with an unforgiving mouthpiece – smaller than a trumpet’s. The only performer who seemed able to overcome the horn’s inherent problems was Julius Watkins.

A year later Don and Charlie Mariano recorded with singer Helen Carr who began her short career with Charles Mingus in 1949. It is a particularly intimate date with interesting material like Not Mine, I Don’t Want To Cry Anymore and Moments Like This - numbers you don’t hear every day. It also includes Cole Porter’s delightful Down In The Depths Of The 90thFloor which is available on YouTube.

That same year he recorded four titles under his own name with a Four Brothers saxophone section including Zoot Sims, Dave Pell, Bill Holman and Bob Gordon. Jordi Pujol has released it on his Jazz City series as Portrait of a Great Jazz Artist - a title that does not overstate Fagerquist’s immense talent. Also included on the CD are performances with Russell Garcia, Heinie Beau and Les Brown.

Even better was his only other date as a leader in 1957 where he was able to stretch out on a selection of superior standards arranged by Marty Paich. As always he decorates his melodic lines with chromatic runs embellished with delicate grace notes revealing a soloist of rare originality and taste. His warm sound has echoes of the great Bobby Hackett who of course was one of Miles’s favourites.

Throughout the sixties he continued to be very much in demand with artists like Louie Bellson, Billy May, Jo Stafford, Sammy Davis Jr., Henry Mancini, Elmer Bernstein, Sarah Vaughan and Neal Hefti. His last recording was in 1969 with Charlie Barnet’s big band playing a selection of current pop songs arranged by Billy May. There followed an unexplained gap in his activities until 1973 when along with Dave Pell, Jimmy Rowles, Ray Brown and Frank Capp he worked on a TV show hosted by Tom Kennedy for several months.

Don Fagerquist died in Los Angeles from a kidney complaint on January 24th. 1974

For more on this unsung giant go here to locate 26 of his solo transcriptions with Les Brown, Dave Pell, Marty Paich and Mel Torme.

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

As Leader

Portrait of a Great Jazz Artist (Jazz City Series FSR 2212)

Eight by Eight (V.S.O.P. Records 4CD)

As Sideman

Gene Krupa: Drummin’ Man (Columbia 501647 2)

Artie Shaw: The Complete Thesaurus Transcriptions 1949 (Hep CD 89/90)

Les Brown: Live at the Hollywood Palladium (Jasmine JASCD 407)

Helen Carr (Bethlehem CDSOL-6085)

Jazz Studio 1/2: Complete Sessions (Lonehill Jazz LHJ 10145)

Dave Pell Octet: Jazz for Dancing and Listening (Jazz City Series FSR 2242)

Bill Perkins - The Gordon Jack Interview [With Revisions and Additions]

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

"Nobody could have been luckier" than to play with Herman and Kenton, Perkins told the Los Angeles Times."Though they were both very different, they were both forward-looking and never told you how to play. Stan especially gave me a “feeling of worth" -- a sense that "being a jazz musician was something of great value."

- Bill Perkins to Leonard Feather

Gordon Jack is a frequent contributor to the Jazz Journal and a very generous friend in allowing JazzProfiles to re-publish of his insightful and discerning writings on these pages.

Gordon is the author of Fifties Jazz Talk An Oral Retrospective and he also developed the Gerry Mulligan discography in Raymond Horricks’ book Gerry Mulligan’s Ark.

The following article was first published in Jazz Journal August 2001. Based in the UK, Gordon uses English spelling.

For more information and subscriptions please visit www.jazzjournal.co.uk

© -Gordon Jack/JazzJournal, copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.

This interview with Bill Perkins took place at the 1999 "Stan Kenton Rendezvous" in Egham, England. He reminisced about Kenton and Woody Herman as well as colleagues like Dave Madden and Steve White, who are almost forgotten today. He was also quite happy to discuss the dramatic stylistic change that occurred in his playing during the early eighties.

“I was born on July 22,1924, in San Francisco, and my first big-time job was around 1951, when I worked with Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. He was a fiery Latin type who would punch first and ask questions later, so it was quite an experience, because I was pretty green. Lucille, of course, was a great comedienne, but Desi had a lot more to do with their success than he has been credited with. He was a brilliant man and the brains behind I Love Lucy. Later that year, thanks to Shorty Rogers, I joined Woody Herman. Shorty was often my benefactor, because he also recommended me to Stan Kenton, although I didn't know it at the time —I had to find out from someone else.

I took Phil Urso's place with Woody and showed up at the L.A. Palladium still wet behind the ears and scared to death. He put up with me for a long time, so he must have figured I would amount to something, and God bless him for that. Jack Dulong, who has since passed away, was the lead tenor, and he was a lovely player, although he didn't get much solo space with the band. He also played baritone and later on became a copyist in the studios for many years. Don Fagerquist. Doug Mettome, and Dick Collins were in the trumpet section, and they were just remarkable. Don was also an outstanding lead player, and Carl Saunders, who plays with me in Bill Holman's band, idolizes him.

Woody disbanded around Christmas 1953 and Dave Madden, for whom I had a great regard and respect, eventually took my place.1 He and his partner. Gail, were a couple at the time, and they were really avant-garde in every way. Dave and I had been to the Westlake School of Music together with Bob

Graettinger, and I was very impressed with the sound he got from his old Conn. I recommended him to Woody, which turned out to be a mistake, because he'd changed his approach and become pretty far out. Today his playing would be fascinating, but everyone was in that "Stan Getz" groove at the time, and I don't think Woody was too pleased with him.1

I was very lucky to be part of the Stan Kenton band, which I joined after I left Herman. Dave Schildkraut, who was a personal favorite, was on alto along with Charlie Mariano. One of our concert tours featured both Charlie Parker and Lee Konitz as guests, which was a great experience for me. still a pretty dumb kid. Anyway the player Bird liked the best was Davey. who was a complete original, and he played tenor well, too. although in a totally different way. We got along beautifully, but he was a worrier, always bugged with himself. I felt privileged to be playing Bob Graettinger's music with Stan, and I try to dispel the myth created by those who only know "City of Glass." He was not like a monkey with a brush tied to its tail, producing something that is subsequently sold as modern art. I really appreciate that piece now, although at the time I didn't know what to make of it. When we were at Westlake. he wrote every type of music and wrote it well, and whether you like "City of Glass" or not, he knew exactly what he was doing. I like it because I enjoy twentieth-century composers, and boy, was he a twentieth-century composer!

While I was with Kenton, Mel Lewis was my roommate, and he was one of my dearest friends. Times have changed, but he was one of the great big band drummers, and everyone got a little from Mel, just as he did from people like Tiny Kahn. He was the most unselfish drummer I've ever heard, though his personality was about as abrasive as sixty-grit sandpaper. He didn't bother me because I used to pull the pillow over my head and just go to sleep! Inside, though, he was very kind hearted and he played for you. He worked out much better in New York than in the L.A. studios, where you have to keep your mouth shut and do what you're told; individualists don't really make it in L.A. I wish I could have played in the band he had with Thad Jones, because the writing gave it a small band feel, which I like.

Towards the end of the fifties, Kenton decided to drop one of the altos and add a tuba and two French horns. Being the first tenor with a four-man sax section, I became in essence the second alto. That was great for my chops, especially with Charlie Mariano on lead, because he plays like there is no tomorrow, but it was tough competing with all that brass. The conventional sax section has been around for a long time with good reason, but Stan wanted a different sound. Not wanting to stand still, he was always looking for a new approach, but it made things very difficult for us. We kept telling him that we wanted another saxophone, so he got a second baritone, which we needed like a hole in the head, because it made the band even more bottom heavy. While I was with him I also worked in local L.A. clubs with Bob Gordon in George Redman's little group, and we also tried to get Bob on the Kenton band. He was the "Zoot Sims" of the baritone but was tragically killed in a car crash in 1955. He was a marvelously ebullient player and a really neat guy to be around, but he could get pretty down on himself if he thought he wasn't playing well.2

Another legendary guy from those days was Steve White, who played clarinet, all the saxes, and he sang as well. On tenor, which was his primary instrument, he sounded like Lester Young, and I mean the real Lester from the late thirties recordings, when Prez was awesome. That's the way Steve played, just a complete natural. He was a real character, and there have been a lot of stories about him, which are all true! I remember staying on Hymie Gunkler's powerboat after a New Year's Eve gig. when I had been working with Murray McEachern's band on Catalina Island. We were woken up around 3 a.m. by the sound of a baritone coming from Avalon Harbor, which turned out to be Steve playing alone on the pier. Unfortunately, he stumbled and the baritone went over the side into the ocean, but he managed to fish it out the next day. He lives in San Fernando Valley and still plays, as far as I know. Stu Williamson, who died in 1991, is someone else who is forgotten today, which is a tragedy because he was a remarkable soloist. He was a gentle man and a real sweetheart, as is his brother Claude, who I'm glad to say is playing again quite beautifully.

Al Cohn and Zoot Sims have always been heroes of mine, and along with Richie Kamuca. I recorded with Al in 1955.3  I tended more towards Al, I suppose, because his mournful sound appealed to my personality, whereas Zoot was always so happy in his playing. Everybody knows Al had a great sense of humor, but Zoot could be pretty funny, too. Stan Getz once said to him, "Al prefers your playing to mine," and Zoot replied. "Don't you?"

I recorded with John Lewis in 1956, and that was a marvelous experience, because he had heard me play and knew exactly what my pluses and minuses were.4 I have always been grateful to John for arranging that date with Dick Bock and for making it so easy for me, just like falling off a log. Afterwards, when I went out into the real world. I found that record dates were not usually like that; they don't set them up just for you. Later that same year, I did an album with Richie Kamuca and Art Pepper, and one of the titles was my arrangement of "All of Me."5 I remember saying on the sleevenote that for all the effort I put into that chart, I could have had an original. Unfortunately you can't copyright an orchestration, which is something a lot of people regret, and that's why Bill Holman writes so many originals now. Jimmy Rowles played on that date, and he was another hero of mine, because he was a towering giant of individuality. A single bar on a record is enough for me to recognize him, which isn't easy on a piano. His daughter Stacy is a beautiful flugelhorn player, and I would love to do an album with her. She doesn't work much because she is dedicated to jazz music, and she is a girl on top of that, which is two strikes against her right there!

What a fine player Art Pepper was, and what a writer. People who remember his playing today have probably forgotten what beautiful lines he wrote. We were not close, so I didn't see him that often, but many years later we used to rehearse at my house, along with David Angel. That's when I really appreciated him, because when you are older, you stop focussing on yourself quite so much, and whatever chair Art played, alto or tenor, he always gave his part such life. Everybody around him responded to that, and Bob Cooper, whose tenor I have today, was the same sort of guy. Players like that can sit in the section and just lift you up. Towards the end of Art's life he could hear all the new stuff going on around him, and I think he felt left out. If he had lived, he would have assimilated the avant-garde things, and with his genius for playing, the results would have been priceless. I like guys that can add change to what they already have.

In the mid fifties I often worked with Lennie Niehaus at Jazz City and the Tiffany, and Hampton Hawes sometimes played with us. At the time I was usually bugged with myself too much and worried about my own playing, but in recent years I've begun to appreciate just how good some of these people were, which is the only advantage from growing old I suppose. Hampton was marvelous, and I only wish I could play with him now. He had his problems, like a lot of others, but he was a very nice and gentle man. It's funny, but when I listen to the album I made with him and Bud Shank in 1956, I wonder where I got all that energy.6

In the early sixties I played quite a lot with Marty Paich in his Dek-tette, and I really loved him. He did a lot for my career, and just like Bill Holman, he never wrote a note in haste or turned out a schlock bar. He was an old bebop piano player, but he was so dedicated and intense, he became a martinet on the podium. That could be misunderstood, but he thought it was the best way to get discipline. I was on a few albums with Marty and Mel Torme, and almost until he died, Mel's singing was right on the money. He was one of the best in-tune singers ever, just a paragon of excellence, although he sometimes forgot lyrics towards the end. but then, I forget a lot of stuff too! He was also a good arranger and drummer, but for my personal taste I prefer baritone singers like Joe Williams, because I don't care for high-pitched voices so much. You can't take anything away from Mel, though, because he started it all. influencing groups like the Hi-Lo's with his own Mel-Tones. He was a very exacting guy, but you can accept a lot from someone who can sing like that, with his intonation.

While I was working with Marty Paich, I was also playing in Terry Gibbs' Dream Band with one of my all-time favorite musicians. Joe Maini, on lead

alto. Sadly, through his own fault, very few people are aware of him today, but those who played with him will never forget him. Along with Lanny Morgan he was the greatest, most dynamic jazz-oriented lead alto I ever played with. He was also a wonderful soloist who didn't get much exposure, but every now and then some young player will say, "I heard a solo by this guy Joe Maini which was terrific." He was a larger than life character who would do anything without fear, living life on the edge, just a great person to be around and someone who could light the room up.

During the sixties I worked mostly in the studios, and I was on some Frank Sinatra singles like "Strangers in the Night," which is best forgotten. Chuck Berghofer was on that, and he also did Nancy's hit, "These Boots Are Made for Walking." and we are never going to let him forget that! Sinatra of course was a pro, none of this twenty-take business. By the time he had done three, that was it and you'd better be right, too. It was always an experience with him. because he would have a big entourage with lots of attractive girls in the studio. I remember once seeing a beautiful lady standing by herself, looking very quiet and lonely. She smiled at me. and it was Marilyn Monroe.

In the early days of Supersax, they rehearsed in my garage, and we were casting around, looking for a second tenor. Med Flory may deny this (and he's bigger than me!) but I recall him saying, "Warne Marsh is available but he doesn't play so good." Anyway. Warne joined the group, and one night Med turned him loose on "Cherokee" and the rest is history, because after about six choruses it was obvious just how good Warne really was. Supersax was hard to play with, and there wasn't much solo room for the saxes, but I had to leave anyway, because of my studio commitments. I don't do studio dates anymore, as I have retired, except for playing jazz.

In the early eighties I started changing my approach because I felt I had to do something else. I'm not ashamed of my previous style and sound, but I wanted to move on, even if it was sideways, and jazz is all about being able to adapt, otherwise you become stagnant. Of course you can't change overnight, and at first it was painful and I didn't play well. I remember in 1983 when Zoot Sims and I were touring Switzerland with Woody's band. I was already striking out in a new direction, and sometimes really striking out. Zoot. though, was very nice and supportive to me. Hopefully things have smoothed out a little, because you have to be true to yourself; you can't be another person. In recent years I have started to play the baritone, and I've been very influenced by Pepper Adams, although I don't have his technique, because he was a monster. He was a true original, and even when he was with Kenton, he was such a radical player that he really turned me around. He's still the daddy of guys like Gary Smulyan and Nick Brignola, who are wonderful players, incidentally. Pepper grew up in Detroit with Tommy Flanagan, and this may surprise you, but their playing is very similar. I know it's hard to equate the baritone and piano, but their lines are very close, and it was [pianist] Frank Strazzeri who pointed it out to me.

I currently play with a marvelous young trumpeter. John Daversa, whose father, Jay, played with Stan Kenton. Everyone in the band is about half my age, and I keep handing in my resignation but he won't accept it. John's writing is fascinating because he uses a lot of mixed meters, which makes things interesting. I have to admit, though, that I'm tired of playing in big bands, although I make an exception for Bill Holman, who is an absolute genius. I play second alto with him and it is tough music, but he has given me a chance to learn the book and kindly given me solo space. Some of today's bands are so regimented, almost Kentonian, whereas I prefer bands that are loose, like Duke Ellington's was. Part of the problem is the college system, where Stan performed an invaluable service in his desire to educate, but there is now a tendency to discipline music too much. I'm tired of playing regimented music, and that was the only aspect of Stan's band that became burdensome. A lot of the stuff we did with him sounded better than it played. I'll tell you that. With Bill's band, not only do the charts sound great but they play great as well.

What must be respected, however, is that Stan Kenton always looked forward, often at great financial hazard to himself. They were totally different personalities, but Woody Herman was just the same, and that's what makes them heroes.”

Four years after this interview took place. Bill Perkins died on August 9th, 2003. A memorial was held for him at the Local 47 Musicians' Union on Vine Street in Los Angeles, where a packed crowd heard, among other attractions, Bill Holman's big band.

NOTES

1.  Dave Madden's career with Woody Herman seems to have lasted for about three months in 1954. He left after the band played the Hollywood Palladium in September and was replaced by Richie Kamuca. He went on to play with Jerry Gray. Si Zentner, and Harry James.

2.  Bob Gordon did a studio recording with the Kenton band in 1954 but, unfortunately, did not solo.

3.  Al Cohn, The Brothers. RCA Victor LPM 1162.

4.  John Lewis. Grand Encounter. Pacific Jazz CDP 7 456 592.

5.  Bill Perkins, Just Friends. LAE 12088 (subsequently issued in Japan on Toshiba TOCJ 5427).

6.  Bud Shank/Bill Perkins. Pacific Jazz CDP 7243 4 93159 2 1.

The Outrageous Frances Faye - Gordon Jack [From the Archives with revisions and additions]

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

Gordon Jack is a frequent contributor to the Jazz Journal and a very generous friend in allowing JazzProfiles to re-publish some of his insightful and discerning writings on these pages.

Gordon is the author of Fifties Jazz Talk An Oral Retrospective and he also developed the Gerry Mulligan discography in Raymond Horricks’ book Gerry Mulligan’s Ark.

The following article was published in the February 17 2020 edition of Jazz Journal. 

For more information and subscriptions please visit www.jazzjournal.co.uk

© -Gordon Jack/JazzJournal, copyright protected; all rights reserved; used with the author’s permission.

Frances Faye left school in Brooklyn at 15 and fell into show business when she agreed to be a last minute substitute for a piano player who did not show up to accompany a singer. Thrown together, the two formed Faye's first act and a theatrical agent signed them. In just two months, as part of that duo, Frances was making $200 a week in a Chicago nightclub. Just as quickly, Frances became a solo act, as she recounted in 1978 to John Wilson of The New York Times:

We were playing a big nightclub in Detroit, and the singer said to me, "What would you do if I left you here alone?" I started to cry. Just then the boss came in and said to the singer, "You're fired, but the kid stays." "What am I going to do?" I asked him. "Just play the piano and sing," he told me, "You've got no figure, you're not pretty, but everybody likes you." It just happened right away, like God said, "You're Frances Faye, and this is it."

“Leonard Feather once called Frances Faye, “A consummate night-club performer” and comedian Joe E. Lewis nominated her as the “Queen of the super-clubs”. A jazz-influenced rather than an out and out jazz singer, she regularly performed at the Famous Door, Basin Street East and the Hickory House with an act that both entertained and scandalised audiences during her 50 year career in show-business. She became something of an icon making it clear on stage with sly and witty innuendos that she was gay, often incorporating her current girl-friend’s name into her lyrics. She was in the grand tradition of singers like Mae West and Ethel Merman with an attractive, earthy charm and a throw-away, take it or leave it delivery reminiscent of Louis Prima. A legendary performer, she was definitely one of a kind.

Frances Cohen (she changed her name later) was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn on 4 November 1912. She was part of a large extended family that included her cousin Danny Kaminsky who became better known as Danny Kaye. She learnt to play the piano by ear and boasted that she taught him Minnie The Moocher which he later recorded. Her professional career began in 1927 when she earned $200.00 a week in a Chicago night-club as an accompanist. A little later a Detroit club-owner wanted her to sing as well as play –“You’ve no figure, you’re not pretty but everybody loves you”. That is when she became Frances Faye.

She paid her dues on the New York speakeasy scene as well as larger venues like the Cotton Club and Le Martinique. For most of 1931 she was resident at the Club Calais attracting a loyal following where she apparently, “Pounded the piano so hard it had to be tuned every week”. Love For Sale was already part of her act which the BBC at the time had banned because of its suggestive lyric. She later said, “Prohibition was so exciting. All the gangsters including Al Capone’s mob were my friends and those that lived are still my friends. Guys like Louis Buchalter and Jack “Legs” Diamond came in all the time then they disappeared one by one.” The following year she appeared with Bing Crosby at the Paramount Theatre and for most of the thirties she was a fixture on 52nd. Street. The clubs there were packed nightly with celebrities and newspaper columnists enjoying performances that were broadcast from coast to coast. She did three shows a night at 9 pm, midnight and 3.15 am and became so popular that Walter Winchell called her “The syncopating cyclone”. In 1936 she made one of her very few films – Double Or Nothing – with Martha Raye and her friend Bing Crosby.

In 1941 ”The atomic bombshell of Rhythm” toured South America. The following year she appeared in a musical short or “Soundie” singing I Ain’t Got Nobody and Well All Right a hit song she had co-written for the Andrews Sisters. In the early forties she had two very brief marriages and years later she said, “I think a husband has to be the boss. He can’t be the boss when he’s making less in a year than his wife is making in a week”. In 1943 she played in the Broadway production of Artists & Models with Jane Froman and Jackie Gleason. She had long out-of-town bookings in Baltimore, Chicago and Buffalo and around that time Irving Berlin said, “Frances is one of those rare mortals who has rhythm in her body and soul”. In 1946 she recorded her signature song Drunk With Love for the first time. She recorded it on three occasions over the years and it became a regular part of her stage act. Later on in the forties she retired, “I gave up the whole business for a while. I had enough invested not to worry about where the next dollar was coming from”.

In the early fifties she left the Manhattan club scene and relocated to California where her career was given a new lift when she started recording for Capitol Records. In a 1952 Downbeat article Leonard Feather said, “Frances found she didn’t need records to play the smart spots in Florida, Chicago and Los Angeles that have supported her for many years. But she has found that (Capitol) record fame has opened up a new market for her”. In that same issue an anonymous reviewer felt one of her early Capitol recordings of She Looks and I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate  would probably be banned by some radio censors. That said, they both seem pretty tame today. Just prior to her Capitol contract she performed a number of songs at an audition including The Man I Love but hinting at her sexual orientation she sang “The Man, The Man, THE MAN??? What am I saying that for?”  She also changed her image at this time discarding the ball-gowns and wigs that were her signature style in the forties. Trousers and a rather severe crew-cut were now the order of the day. “When you’re pretty it doesn’t matter how you wear your hair” she joked to her audiences who were shocked at her new and rather dramatic appearance. The witty Milt Bernhart in a reference to her often outrageous behaviour summed her up best, “You wouldn’t call her a raving beauty – just raving!” She herself aptly summed up her philosophy as a performer, “I love to make people happy. As long as they accept me for what I am, it makes me happy too”. 

Around 1955 she switched to Bethlehem and one of her first albums for the label was I’m Wild Again with Russ Garcia’s Four Trombone band which featured her good friend Frank Rosolino along with Maynard Ferguson, Herbie Harper and Tommy Pederson. A highlight is her tender ballad medley which included Little Girl Blue, Where Or When, Embraceable You, I Don’t Know Why and My Funny Valentine all performed with her customary crystal clear diction. The following year Bethlehem released the ambitious Complete Porgy and Bess on a three LP set featuring the Duke Ellington Orchestra, a thirteen piece string section and a huge cast of top studio players from New York and Los Angeles backing Frances Faye, Betty Roche, Mel Torme’ and Johnny Hartman. Frances and Mel sang Bess You Is My Woman Now and Porgy I Hates To Go but according to Torme’s autobiography the project was not entirely successful although it became a cult favourite. In 1956 she and Torme’ appeared on Steve Allen’s TV Show and that year she recorded Relaxin’ With Frances Faye which featured that dilettante of the tenor Allen Eager on Don’t Blame Me, Ain’t Misbehavin’ and My Baby Just Cares For Me. Such a pity that he dropped out of the jazz scene in the late fifties.

By now she could command about $4000 a week performing at the Crescendo and the Interlude In Los Angeles as well as some of the top rooms in Las Vegas usually with Jack Constanzo (Mr. Bongo) who started working with her at this time. Stars like Bob Hope, Donald O’Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich and Frank Sinatra all came to see her. Columnist Rex Reed accurately described her act as, “Pure dazzling show-business, part jazz, part comedy all energy and heart. Once she signals her musicians for the downbeat it’s every man for himself”. Hal Blaine one of the top session drummers of the time worked with her and Vido Musso in San Francisco for a while. He thought she was a very hip entertainer but after rehearsing at her palatial mansion in the Hollywood Hills he found that everything, especially the tempos, had changed by opening night. In the late fifties she appeared on a couple of Ed Sullivan TV shows.

In 1958 while working at the Hotel Rivera she had a fall and broke her hip and for the next few years she was unable to walk properly. This did not stop her performing which she did while sitting at the piano and her early sixties Caught In The Act CD finds her in typically uninhibited form on a recording that includes a generous selection of witty ad-libs. She was usually on her best behaviour for studio dates but on these performances taken from her act at The Crescendo and The Thunderbird in Las Vegas she really lets her hair down and throws the kitchen sink at an enthusiastic audience that clearly could not get enough of her. Introduced by the dulcet tones of Gene Norman (Crescendo’s owner) she opens with a super-charged Man I Love taken at a break-neck tempo with copious references to Teri Shepherd. (Teri was a glamorous lady who was her manager and partner for more than 30 years). She dedicates Just In Time to “Angelo, the head waiter who’s been trying to make me since I opened here”. The next number is announced as “A feature for my ex-husband on saxophone – what’s your name again?” Jay Goldbar on tenor immediately goes into a Birks Works routine leading nicely into Faye’s version of Fever. Frances And Her Friends is about the gay couplings of a number of individuals, all done as they say in the best possible taste. (Mark Murphy on his 2001 Lucky To Be Me CD quotes from this song during a tribute he calls Blues For Frances Faye). Before launching into a foot tapping I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate, she asks “Do you think my type will ever come back?”  The entire album is full of gems and a delightful reminder of how she could sell a song, working the room with a larger-than-life personality that might well have influenced Bette Midler. 

For the rest of the sixties and until she retired she maintained a punishing touring schedule regularly performing in Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Chicago. She broke Peggy Lee’s record run at Basin Street East prompting one reviewer to say, “Frances Faye hit the New York scene last night with the impact of a ten ton truck smashing through a concrete wall”. She occasionally worked with Dick Gregory, Don Rickles and Lenny Bruce and in 1961 she played London’s Talk of the Town. She had bookings in Australia which became an annual destination over the years. In 1969 she was at London’s Playboy Club then the following year she was at the Talk of the Town again. She was no longer recording but she added fresh material to her act from Lennon & McCartney and Burt Bacharach as well as selections from Hair. New songs like Shadow Of Your Smile, That’s Life, Watermelon Man and Going Out Of My Head were also given the Frances Faye treatment.

In 1976 she was at the London Palladium with Johnnie Ray, Billy Daniels and the Ink Spots. The following year she had an extended run at Studio One in Los Angeles which is where Louis Malle caught her act. He thought she was “An extraordinary comedian and singer” so he cast her as a madam in Pretty Baby opposite Susan Sarandon and Brooke Shields. She retired from performing in 1981 and after several years of poor health, the lady Leonard Feather once called “The hippest entertainer in the squarest circles” died in Los Angeles on 8 November 1991.””

The Fabulous Frances Faye Archive is located at the tyler alpern.com URL Unfortunately this is not a secure link so you have to cut & paste this URL into your browser and search from there. 

Selected Discography

I’m Wild Again (Fresh Sound Records FSR 2208CD).

George Gershwin The Complete Porgy and Bess (Definitive DRCD 11271).

Four Classic Albums (Avid Jazz AMSC 117).

Caught In The Act (GNP/Crescendo (GNPD 41).

Frenzy and Swinging All The Way (Fresh Sound Records FSR-CD778)