Octobop - West Coast Christmas

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

Each year, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles tries to add an additional recording to its growing collection of hip, slick and cool music of the season.

This year we brought in a CD by Octobop, an eight piece group herded up by baritone saxophonist Geoff Roach, entitled West Coast Christmas.

You can locate more about the group and its music as well as order information by visiting its website.

Geoff sent along a preview copy from which we have selected a track and converted it into a Soundcloud file. You can locate it in the sidebar of the blog.

He also sent along these liner notes for the CD which explains how the recording and its music evolved.

Liner Notes from CD

 

“Despite 14 years and 4 CDs since Octobop first appeared, people have asked for yet another recording. Some people close to the band suggested we do a Christmas album. The only problem is that no one in the band really likes Christmas music. So we decided that if Octobop was to jump into this fray, then we needed to do Christmas music our way. All the arrangements were done by band members – Jack, Randy, Brian, and me. Constrained only by our ability to play the charts, we ended up with a pretty eclectic mix. 

The charts run from the humorous and fun to serious to just plain out there.

Line for Santa is a mashup of two tunes – listen and figure them out. Santa Baby sets the groove. Christmas Time is Here and The Christmas Song had to be included because of their jazz heritage. Jerry Mendelbaum is a twist provided by comedian Allan Sherman. Bernie's Bells combines a west coast jazz standard with a traditional Christmas tune. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear is recast as a jazz waltz. Carol of the Bells seems to come out of a Jazz Crusaders bag thanks to Randy. Jack found a beautiful Brazilian carol, Filho de Papai Noel, that once we heard it, had to be included. Angels We Have Heard On High gets a fun treatment from Brian. Saturnian Sleight Ride, in theory, isn't a Christmas carol, but sleighs are part of holiday tradition. Besides Saturnians only get to listen to Christmas music every 29.4 earth years, so we should give them something special.

Taking Christmas warhorses and recreating them in the Octobop way has been creative, fun, and rewarding. We hope you like it. May your holidays always be cool.

Dedication - A month after we recorded this, Roddy Magallanes, our drummer, passed away after a long battle with cancer. Both Roddy’s talent and personality gave a lift to the band that made this group the best Octobop ever. This work is dedicated to him and his family. We miss him.

Song	Composer	Arranger
Line for Santa	Gerry Mulligan / J. F. Coots and H. Gillespie	Geoff Roach
Santa Baby	Joan Javits, Philip Springer	Jack Conway
Christmas Time is Here	Vince Guaraldi	Jack Conway
Jerry Mendelbaum	Allan Sherman	Jack Conway
Filho de Papai Noel	Assis Valente	Jack Conway
Bernie's Bells	James Lord Pierpont	Geoff Roach
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear	Richard Storrs Willis	Jack Conway
The Christmas Song	Mel Torme, Robert Wells	Jack Conway
Angels We Have Heard On High	Traditional	Brian Brockhouse
Saturnian Sleigh Ride	Shorty Rogers	Geoff Roach
Carol of the Bells	Mykola Leontovych	Randy Smith

West Coast Christmas – The Inside Story

What You Didn't See in the CD Insert

After some resistance, we decided to do a Christmas CD. A few years had passed since the band's release of Very Early and it was time to do another release. We had a few not-so-successful attempts at trying to find a list of tunes for the CD as well as a time and place to record it. Nothing seemed to come together artistically that the group was satisfied with. A Christmas CD seemed like the right solution. It was focused from a song choice and we could have some fun with it.

The real inspiration for this recording came from two of the greatest Christmas albums ever made – The Ventures Christmas Album and the Dr. Demento Christmas Album. Please don't get us wrong, we all love the holidays. It's the same old songs sung by a country music singer or some aging rocker blaring through the sound systems at the Wal-Mart that are the problem. The Ventures (the surf guitar group in case you slept through the 60s) take

Christmas songs and not only give them a distinct Ventures sound, but they also mashed up some of the best rock and roll cliches of the day into the tunes. A certain amount of creativity needs to be present to use the intro to Wooly Bully as the same for Santa Claus is Coming to Town and to tag the start of Tequila onto Frosty the Snowman. The album may be too subtle for most listeners. Dr. Demento is just pure fun. With selections like Bob and Doug McKenzie giving us the 12 Days of Christmas to Stan Freberg doing Christmas Dragnet, you get the idea.

This recording had to have the Octobop stamp on it. We decided that we needed to write all the arrangements. The only restriction was that the charts needed to be playable and appealing to an audience. Jack, Brian, Randy, and I came up with the arrangements. While they can be different, they still show the various dimensions of the band.

Line for Santa starts off the CD. A jazz fan should recognize that this is a mix of Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Line for Lyons by Gerry Mulligan. I don't know if Gerry planned it that way, but it works well. The arrangement starts off with the melody of Santa Claus is Coming to Town on top of the Line for Lyons chord changes and rapidly evolves in to three-line counter melodies. (Thank you, Bill Holman.) The ending is pure Mulligan. Jack Bowers sent me a note when hearing the tune - “Somewhere, Gerry must be grinning from ear to ear (Jimmy Lyons too)!”. We hope so.

Jack did the arrangement for Santa Baby giving the chart a great groove. Randy's muted trumpet and Matt's tenor almost ooze gold digger. Rick's vibes set the stage. Maybe Madonna and Eartha Kitt will appreciate this version.

Who would have guessed that Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, and the gang would be a permanent part of Christmas? Vince Guaraldi gave us the classic Christmas Time is Here. Jack's arrangement and Jon's trombone give this version the simplicity and elegance it deserves.

There really isn't a Christmas tune called Jerry Mendelbaum. Pretty unlikely. Allan Sherman did a parody of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and we just borrowed the title and nothing else. It has sort of a funky, Blues March kind of drive.

Filho de Papai Noel comes from Brazil. We aren't really sure of the origins, but once Jack brought in this chart, we loved it. A nice bossa, highlighted by Jon's trombone solo, we may be able to use this year-round. The stories of trying to wrestle the flute part to the ground will be told another time.

Bernie's Bells is another Ventures-like take on Jingle Bells. Much of the arrangement is inspired Gerry Mulligan's hit Bernie's Tune. Jack came up with some interesting chord changes to replace the rather boring ones in Jingle Bells that proved to be challenging for us. The ending goes by pretty quickly but if you listen closely, you will hear the last two bars of Tadd Dameron's Good Bait. I have no clue what that has to do with Christmas, but I have always liked the lick.

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear features Matt doing a jazz waltz. I think people waltz at Christmas. Again, Jack's underlying arrangement uses harmony that you won't find in the carol books. After the solo section, you'll hear a fugue-like section that sets up the ending. I think there are fugues during the holidays as well.

The Christmas Song gets an understated one time through treatment by Jack. No improvised solos, just some great new harmony. Maybe Mel is smiling as well. I think Jon is channeling Dick Nash or Carl Fontana on the bridge.

Brian brought in the arrangement to Angels We Have Heard on High. It was quickly dubbed Angels Have Heard That We Are High. Brian's sense of humor shows through on this. Any tune whose most memorable lyric is “Gloria in Excelsis Deo!” needs to have a special beginning. The line that Matt plays on alto is courtesy of Harry Belafonte and the Banana Boat Song - “Day-O,...”. You now get it. The chart continues through a few variations and finally ends with a tribute to one of the essential ingredients in Christmas – chocolate. Nestle's Chocolate specifically.

I don't think Shorty Rogers wrote any Christmas tunes. But he did like Martians and Saturnians and other astral creatures. Sleighs are part of Christmas so why not Saturnian Sleigh Ride? A la the Ventures, the intro is a rip-off of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride. That phrase reappears a few times. I guess Saturians are a little sneaky.

The album ends with an all-out version of Carol of the Bells created by Randy. The beginning is pretty standard, but then a Jazz Messengers influence takes over. That gives way to a solo section with some interesting and fun changes and blowing over some creative backgrounds. Really creative writing by Randy.

This recording project was fun. Hopefully it will bring a smile to your holidays and make them more enjoyable. Maybe it will at least get you through the Wal-Mart.

Geoff Roach – October 2012.

If you got this far and are looking for the secret code, here it is - “ChristmasCool”

OCTOBOP

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

“In 1998, Octobop founder Geoff Roach stayed involved in jazz, like so many musicians who

held full-time jobs outside the music business, by playing in rehearsal big bands.

This enabled him to keep his chops up, but also served as a source of frustration since

this activity afforded him little opportunity to satisfy his creative juices due to being buried

in the reed section, with limited solo opportunities, playing charts that were beginning to feel tired. Inspired by his affection for the mid-sized bands led by the likes of Shorty Rogers, Marty Paich and Dave Pell, as well as by the pianoless groups led by Gerry Mulligan, Roach conceived the idea of forming a group that combined these dual influences.

This group would require the players to exercise the discipline necessary to play in an ensemble and also allow them ample occasions for soloing. The result was Octobop. In addition to the benefits to the players in his group. Roach was also determined to have an ensemble that would attract an audience by playing arrangements that were accessible to listeners. He understood that too many jazz groups failed because they did not recognize the importance of communicating with their audience.”

- Joe Lang, Past President, New Jersey Jazz Society

Baritone saxophonist Geoff Roach has been quietly going back in time for the past fifteen years or so with an octet whose instrumentation and resulting music is very reminiscent of the cool style of Jazz that largely flourished in Los Angeles in the decade of the 1950’s.

But while acknowledging this earlier influence, Geoff’s group Octobop is very much expanding the dialogue by adding some new dimensions to these older sounds.

Since 1998, Geoff and his Octobop colleagues have put their own stamp on a style of Jazz pioneered by Gil Evans, Miles Davis, Shorty Rogers, Gerry Mulligan and Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars, by crafting arrangements that bring forth a heightened softness and lushness in the sonority of Cool Jazz.

They have also taken the lighter, bouncier and subtler rhythmic shadings of this style of Jazz and broadened its compositional base with the inclusion of tunes that were written outside this approach to Jazz including Charles Mingus’ Goodbye Porkpie Hat, Bob Mintzer’s Mosaic and Wayne Shorter’s El Gaucho.

In addition to these “new faces”  and Octobop’s reworking and of the compositions of West Coast Jazz stalwarts such as Rogers, Mulligan and Paich, it is also nice to see the group reaching out to the music of Henry Maincini with superb new rendering of Hank’s Dreansville, Pink Panther, and Baby Elephant Walk.

To his credit, because it is not an easy thing to do this day in age, Geoff has taken Octobop outside the recording studio and made it into a working group thanks to appearances at clubs and festivals in the greater San Francisco and San Jose area.

He believes in what he does and loves what he does to the point that he and the members of Octobop devote the personal time and support necessary to further the continuance of a style of music that his very little general recognition in current times.

Uniqueness notwithstanding, this is complicated music that requires great skill to perform. You can’t just drop it for a couple of months and then one day get up on the stand and play it. To get eight musicians to play as one voice demands great dedication and constant practice.

As someone who literally grew up in Los Angeles and played this music with some of its notables, it is such a treat to hear Geoff and the members of Octobop continuing the rich tradition of West Coast Jazz while finding their own expressiveness in it.

www.Octobop.com is the website on which you’ll find more information about the octet’s CD’s, upcoming appearances and reviews about its music.

Here’s what Ken Poston of the Los Angeles Jazz Institute had to say about Octobop in the sleeve notes to its After Dark CD.

© -Geoff Roach/Octobop/Ken Poston, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“The West Coast Jazz sound rides again thanks to this third CD release by northern California based Octobop. The brainchild of saxophonist/arranger Geoff Roach, Octobop has successfully taken the essence of the mid-size West Coast ensembles of the 1950s and created a modern approach for the 21st century.

Octobop's musical influences begin with the legendary Miles Davis Nonet of 1949 and 1950. This East Coast Nonet was unique in both musical concept and instrumentation. From a composition standpoint, there is an equal emphasis on the written arrangements and the improvised solos. Appropriately, these recordings would come to be known as The Birth of the Cool. Surprisingly, when the first Davis Nonet records were released they didn't make much of an impact on the critics or the audience. They did, however, have a major impact on several young arrangers, many of whom ended up in Los Angeles during the 1950s.

By the end of 1951 Shorty Rogers had departed the Stan Kenton Orchestra and

settled in Southern California. He found regular work at The Lighthouse Cafe in Hermosa Beach,CA and joined saxophonist Jimmy Giuffre and bassist Howard Rumsey to form the nucleus of The Lighthouse All-Stars.

Shorty, once established in Los Angeles, was approached by impresario Gene Norman to organize a recording. In choosing the instrumentation for that session, Shorty decided to follow the Miles Davis Nonet format. The subsequent release, titled Modern Sounds, gave news that something new was brewing near the Pacific.

In the meantime, Gerry Mulligan had grown tired of the New York scene and began hitchhiking to Los Angeles. Gerry’s arrival, with the success of the house All-Stars and Shorty's Modern Sounds, led to the birth of West Coast Jazz.

In addition to Shorty and Gerry, a majority of young composers and arrangers migrated west to take part in the growing jazz scene. Opportunities provided via clubs and recordings enabled writers to try different combinations to create the new sounds. Gerry Mulligan continued exploring the mid-size format by creating a West Coast Tentette. Shorty Rogers did more recording with the 8-9 piece ensemble and both Shorty and Giuffre continued to come up with new ideas as members of the Lighthouse All-Stars.

Shorty, Gerry and Howard Rumsey opened the floodgates for a whole new generation of jazz artists on the West Coast. Dave Pell, Shelly Manne, Marty Paich, Jack Montrose and Lennie Niehaus all formed their own mid-size ensembles that helped establish the West Coast Jazz tradition.

Thanks to Geoff Roach and Octobop, that tradition is once again in full swing. …

The West Coast Jazz era left an amazing legacy and it’s very gratifying to hear Geoff Roach and Octobop not only continue that legacy but to add to it as well.”

- Ken Poston

Director, Los Angeles Jazz Institute

Long Beach, California

www.lajazzinstitute.com

This video features Octobop’s performance of Henry Mancini’s Dreamsville.