Mel Rhyne: 1937-2013 - R.I.P. [From the Archives]

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

“Rhyne immediately sounds different from the prevailing Jimmy Smith school of organ players. Instead of swirling, bluesy chords, he favors sharp, almost staccato figures and lyrical single-note runs that often don’t go quite where expected. … He has a way of voicing a line that makes you think of the old compliment about ‘making the organ speak ….’”

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

“Mel Rhyne is certainly among the best Jazz organists. He has fluent ideas, good time, and a clean, light touch. In his hands, the controversial instrument never becomes overbearing or cloying.”

- Dan Morgenstern, Director, Institute for Jazz Studies, Rutgers University

"Melvin's very unique because he's got his own thing. He really doesn't play typical organ. The organ just happens to be his instrument but he doesn't use it in the common way. Like any jazz player, he plays his lines, which are really subtle and personal. It's not like he's pulling out all the stops and doing the organ thing. He's unique, like a Hank Jones of the organ, a really subtle player."

- Guitarist, Peter Bernstein

"Melvin's got great time. I noticed that the first time I played with him, that his time does not move. Not only that, his choice of bass notes is always right. In fact, just his choice of notes period, the way he constructs his lines. There's nobody around playing organ like that. He's playing just as good as he did or better than on those classic Wes Montgomery sides. It's a pleasure to play with him because his time is so steady, which is something that doesn't happen all the time and that can be very hard on the drummer. But let me tell you, it's a gas to play with Melvin Rhyne."

- Drummer, Kenny Washington

Mel Rhyne passed away on March 5, 2013. Always one of my favorites, I wanted to remember him on these pages with a re-posting of this piece from the blog archives [12.4.2010]. I am posting it again because the videos accompanying the both pieces were deleted due to copyright issues. Fast forward to 2021 and what a difference the 8 years make as they are now available again through YouTube.

And making music in the context of Hammond B-3 Organ Jazz trios is also “a gas” as I can attest from personal experience.

After playing drums professionally for about 12 years, I went into a different line of work, married and began raising a family.

I did keep a set of drums around and played the odd gig now and again, which is how I happened on to an organ-trio gig that began in the Spring in 1970.

It’s easy to remember the year as April and May of 1970 witnessed the titanic seven game professional basketball battle between the New York Knicks, who were co-led by center Willis Reed and guard Walt Frazier, and the Los Angeles Lakers, co-led by center Wilt Chamberlain and guard Jerry West.

The Knicks won the best-of-seven series in seven games, much to the disappointment of Lakers fans who, at the time, were looking for the team’s first NBA title since it had moved to Los Angeles from Minneapolis a decade earlier.

The venue for the gig was an upstairs room [some referred to it an “attic”] at Woody & Eddy’s, a well-established restaurant and bar that was located at the corner of San Gabriel Blvd. and Huntington Avenue in San Marino, CA [think “the Beverly Hills” of the San Gabriel Valley; northeast of Los Angeles]. 

For whatever reasons [probably increased patronage = selling more booze], the owners of Woody & Eddy’s had decided to turn the upstairs room into a Sunday afternoon Jazz club. The gig lasted from 4:00 – 7:00 PM, ending just-in-time [good name for a song] for the evening supper crowd.

The call for the job came from an old high school buddy who played what musicians sometime refers to as  “arranger’s piano.” The fact that he was [and still is] primarily an arranger may have something to do with this “choice” of styles.

“Arranger’s piano” usually consists of soloing with chords instead of playing hornlike phrases with the right hand and accompanying chords or intervals with the left.

When my pal called me for the gig, he mentioned the name of a tenor saxophonist/vocalist who would be joining us, the length of the gig and the “bread” involved [money].

When I asked him who would be playing bass he said somewhat evasively: “You’ll see.”

Upon showing up early at Woody & Eddy’s in order to set-up my drums, I suddenly understood “who” the bass player was going to be when there before me was a gleaming Hammond B-3 organ with its bass keyboard foot pedals.

From the first downbeat, we jelled as a trio and the huge sound coming from the Hammond helped to envelope everyone in an atmosphere of musical merriment [the early afternoon glasses of Chardonnay may have also had something to do with the salubrious effect brought on by the music].

Almost instinctively, and perhaps in no small measure due to the presence of the Hammond, our repertoire became -  The Blues.

Also somewhat curatively, my arranger- piano friend’s keyboard limitations were more than offset by the Hammond’s suitability to chords and chording.

Using the “stops” [devices that alter the sound texture] on the Hammond and locked hands [playing the same phrase in both hands at the same time], he pounded out explosive chords while the sax player sang “Goin to Kansas City” and I laid down heavy backbeats with rim shots on the snare drum.

My Slingerland Radio King snare drum really got a workout on this gig and I got extra “pop” out of it by using [very large] 1A drum sticks that had been recommended by Ron Jefferson [a drummer who had worked with organist Richard “Groove” Holmes; he was also pianist Les McCann’s regular drummer].

Luckily, too, I had remembered to bring along my 20” K-Zildjan ride cymbal and its harmonic overtones blended in perfectly with the sound of the Hammond, the tenor sax and the blues-drenched atmosphere of the music.

The most fun was watching my buddy dance his feet on the organ foot pedals which produced driving bass lines that soon had the upper floor walls of the club figuratively “breathing in and out” with their pulsations.

It was one of the best times I had ever had on a gig from every standpoint.

But it appeared that it was all going to end all-too-soon when the tenor player called in during the week to share the news that he and his wife had just celebrated the birth of their first child.

While we were delighted for he and his wife, the bad news was that he was no longer going to make the Sunday job at Woody & Eddy’s.

At this juncture, however, serendipity intervened with the result that a good gig was about to become a great one.

For obvious reasons, I had been listening to the three, superb organ-trio albums that the late guitarist Wes Montgomery made for Riverside Records before that label was besieged by financial woes and Wes made the jump to Verve Records and subsequent fame and fortune.

While listening to these sides, it dawned on me that since my earliest days in music, one of my closest friends was a guitarist who had recently gotten back into town after going on the road with Buddy Rich’s “new” big band.

To make a long story short, I telephoned him, he said that he’d love to make the gig and after we played our first song together, we knew something special was happening.

The Management at Woody & Eddy’s did as well and extended our time at the upstairs room through the Summer of 1970.  They even supplied and staffed the bar in the attic room so that the patrons didn’t have to [dangerously] go up and down the stairs to replenish their tankards [there was an elevator, but for some reason, no one ever took it as it negotitated the one flight slower than a hospital lift].

To top it all off, the guitarist taught us all of Wes’ original compositions from the Riverside albums.

I got to play on Fried Pies, Jingles and The Trick Bag, the latter becoming a solo vehicle for me until some of the early dinning patrons in the below restaurant complained to the owners about “the racket coming from upstairs.”

The organist on these, three classic organ-guitar trio LPs that Wes made for Riverside was Mel Rhyne.

Unlike my arranger-piano friend, Mel played the organ like a piano, foregoing the instrument’s theatrical effects in favor of a legato style of phrasing his solos. One thing they did have in common was a love for the instrument’s foot pedal keyboard, although Mel employs it in a more understated fashion.

After Mel made the Riverside LPs with Wes, he retired to the relative obscurity of the Jazz scene in his native Indianapolis and later moved to Milwaukee, WI where he had a prosperous career and where he was rediscovered in the 1990s by Gerry Teekens at Criss Cross Records.

All you need to know about the “disappearance” and reappearance of Mel is contained in the following insert notes by Lora Rosner from Mel Rhyne’s first Criss Cross CD which is appropriately named Melvin Rhyne: The Legend [Criss Cross Jazz 1059].

You can locate more about Mel’s Criss Cross Recordings by going here.

Here's Mel with he along with guitarist Peter Bernstein and drummer Kenny Washington performing Wes’ The Trick Bag as its soundtrack.

More of Mel with Peter and Kenny can be found at the conclusion of Lara’s notes in a video tribute to Jazz guitarist Peter Bernstein which uses as its audio track Billie’s Bounce from Melvin Rhyne’s Mel’s Spell Criss Cross CD [1118].

© -Lara Rosner/Criss Cross Records, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

"Legend" is derived from the Latin verb "legere", meaning "to collect, gather or read" and the word has come to mean "things to be read or collections of stories about notable figures"; legends are both such people and the lore that surrounds them. When a musician makes a historic contribution or is part of a historically significant group, an undying interest in the personality and the documents he has left behind, combined with a lack of current information will often engender tales of his recent activities and past achievements which are created to satisfy and feed the public's curiosity and hunger for such news. While Mel Rhyne is too modest to feel comfortable being called a legend (Teekens' title), the legend of his whereabouts and his slim recorded output from 30 years ago are now happily supplemented and brought up-to-date with fresh recordings by this brilliant, original voice on the organ and master of his instrument at the peak of his powers.

Mel Rhyne (born 10/12/36) is best known as the lyrical, inventive, understated organist and longtime associate of Wes Montgomery who complemented the guitarist so beautifully on four of his Riverside LPs, including his first and last for the label: Wes Montgomery Trio; Boss Guitar; Portrait for Wes; Guitar on the Go. Wes' Riverside recordings document the period of his first maturity and the core of his purest, most inspired, small group playing (10-9-63). Wes and Rhyne both played with great imagination and a certain disregard for convention; they also shared great respect for one another. Wes loved his "piano player's touch." Mel has a good left hand from learning boogie woogie from his father as a child, which made playing basslines easier when he began playing organ in the mid-50's in order to get more work as a sideman.

One of the first jobs he did on organ was with Roland Kirk, another highly original, maverick performer grounded in the roots of jazz and the blues. While he later became a fan of the John Coltrane Quartet with McCoy Tyner, a devotee of Red Garland and a student of great organists like Milt Buckner, Jimmy Smith, Wild Bill Davis and Jackie Davis, his earliest musical education was based on listening to Nat Cole, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner records.

People interested in jazz history know that Chicago had DuSable H.S., Detroit had Case and Sam Brown taught at Jefferson High in south Los Angeles. Russell Brown was the open-minded band director and free spirit at Crispus Attucks, the only high school in Indianapolis' black neighborhood, who encouraged the jazz activity and featured the talents of many famous Indianapolites: J.J. Johnson; Slide Hampton; Leroy Vinnegar; Larry Ridley; Buddy Montgomery; Mel Rhyne; Freddie Hubbard; Virgil Jones; Ray Appleton - to name a few. Many young musicians took night school classes at the city's numerous clubs and after-hours joints such as the Turf Bar, the Hub-Bub, the 19th Hole, the 440 Club and of course the Ebony Missile Room where Wes Montgomery often held forth, drawing young talent and music lovers to him like a magnet.

From 1959-64 Rhyne played and toured with the guitarist except when Wes had the chance to work with his brothers as part of the Mastersounds. The difficulty of transporting an organ contributed to the group's demise but the final deathblow came when Riverside went into receivership and Creed Taylor, Wes' new manager, led him off into a world of large orchestras and more commercial music where Rhyne would have felt superfluous and out-of-place.

In 1969 Rhyne moved to Madison, Wise, to work with guitarist John Shacklett and his brother Ron Rhyne on drums and also appeared on Buddy Montgomery's This Rather than That (Impulse). Early in his career, Mel had backed great acts like T-Bone Walker, B.B. King, the Four Tops, Aretha Franklin and Arthur Prysock, but after working with Wes he only wanted to play jazz. Buddy Montgomery persuaded him to move to Milwaukee in 1973, a town with enough jazz activity at the time to keep him working and stimulated. Last year Herb Ellis asked him to play the B-3 on Roll Call (Justice) and a few months ago Milwaukee native, trumpeter Brian Lynch who has known Mel since 1974, asked the organist to appear on his third CD for Criss Cross.

A few weeks before his record date Lynch heard guitarist Peter Bernstein at the Village Gate and was so taken with his playing that he asked him to be on the date as well. Bernstein predictably gains the respect of every great musician he works with; Jimmy Cobb first asked Peter to work with him in April '89 when he was all of 21 and the guitarist recently led his own quartet featuring Cobb for a standing-room-only week at the Village Gate. Lou Donaldson thought he was listening to a Grant Green record the first time he heard Peter play, subsequently featured him on his CD, Play the Right Thing (Fantasy). Peter's playing incorporates the best qualities of Wes Montgomery and Grant Green. He's an expressive soloist whose horn-inspired lines draw much of their power, beauty and effectiveness from his soulful time.

Criss Cross producer Gerry Teekens was so pleased with the results of Lynch's date that he asked Rhyne to do an impromptu trio recording the next day and Mel was quite happy to have Bernstein and young veteran Kenny Washington with him again in the studio. Although Organ-izing (Jazzland) was issued under Rhyne's name in order to capitalize on the organ fad of the time, the LP (1960) was a thrown-together session of four blues featuring horns, organ, piano and bass which limited his role as an organist; he had no idea he was the leader of the date. It seems hard to believe but The Legend is Melvin Rhyne's first recording as a leader; the world has waited long enough and so has Rhyne. His stunningly original ideas, impeccable taste and time, humor and unique sound make this CD special from its opening moments.

After so many years of imposed silence Rhyne bursts onto CD with a performance of Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis' Licks A-Plenty which conveys his youthful exuberance and enthusiasm and sheer delight in making music. While the title is an apt description of the head, a good name for the solos (especially Rhyne's) might be "Expect the Unexpected." The rhythmic shapes of his lines are irregular and unusual and have an arresting vocal quality. He plays with his audience setting up riffs which he deconstructs with subtle amendments, sly timing or the big sound of surprise when he pulls out a few more stops during a shout chorus. A drummer of Kenny Washington's caliber is needed to keep up with the organist's utterances. Bernstein can't help but respond to Rhyne and his solo reflects some of Mel's rhythmic originality. In his discreet comping Pete defers to Mel the way Mel deferred to Wes. The atmospheric Serenata is played much more slowly than usual and shows off Bernstein's beautiful sound and feeling for melody. He learned the tune in the studio without music. Mel told me that he thought Peter did a marvelous job; he was particularly happy with the trio's pleasing contrast of sound.

Dig the relaxed feeling and great solos on Savoy which is surely one of the highlights of the session. Mel digs in with a strong, dense sound and makes a blistering statement on The Trick Bag. Bernstein is an extension of Rhyne's lyricism and taste on a soulful Old Folks (gorgeous intro). Next Time You See Me was a 1958 hit for Frankie Lymon and many singers have done it since. Rhyne phrases the melody the way a vocalist would. True to his bebop roots and his own inner voice, Rhyne reinterprets Groovin' High at a brisk pace. Contributions from guests Brian Lynch and Don Braden brought the session to a close.

Melvin hopes to record again in the near future which will no doubt be eagerly anticipated. He is very happy with everyone's efforts and the music on The Legend. I'm sure all you listeners will agree with me -- it's been worth the wait!

Thanks are due to Ted Dunbar and Prof. David Baker for their invaluable insights on the Indianapolis scene. Enjoy!

Lora Rosner Jackson Heights, NY March 1992”

Peter Bernstein with Mel and Kenny on Billie’s Bounce.

Meet Jim Rotondi

Jim Rotondi is part of a coterie of outstanding young trumpeters on the Jazz scene today, both domestically and internationally, that includes Roy Hargrove, Nicholas Payton, Ryan Kisor, Alex Sipiagin, Joe Magnarelli, Scott Wendholt, Terence Blanchard,  Rudd Breuls, Bert Joris, Fabrizio Bosso, Flavio Boltro among others.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles and the crack filmmakers at CerraJazzLTD productions put together the following video that features photos of Jim as well as most of the album covers from his recordings on Gerry Teekens’ Criss Cross label and Marc Edelman’s Sharp Nine Records.

The audio track is from Jim’s Bop [Criss Cross 1156]. The tune is entitled King of the Hill which Jim co-wrote with tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander. Joining Jim and Eric on this cut are Harold Mabern on piano, John Webber on bass and drummer Joe Farnsworth.

Details about Jim Rotondi’s  background and his current musical affiliations are thoroughly outlined in these informative insert notes by Bret Primack.

© -Bret Primack, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Jim's Bop [Criss Cross CD 1156]

When I listen to this music, I'm reminded of the records that came out during the late 50s and 60s on the Blue Note label. That was a golden era in Jazz and on Blue Note, there was a stable of first rate musicians who recorded music in varying configurations that has more than stood the test of time. It was certainly music that reflected the age but thirty years later, it sounds as fresh and new as the day it was recorded.

That same freshness permeates every fiber of these grooves, as it does on most Criss Cross recordings. And like the Blue Note of the 60s, there's a stable of young, New York based musicians recording for Gerry Teekens' label who have set a standard of excellence that insures their music is guaranteed to survive the ages as well.

If this were the 60s, I suspect you'd find Jim Rotondi standing alongside Freddie Hubbard , Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd and the rest of the Blue Note brass section as a trumpeter with his own singular voice. Here in the 90s, his second release as a leader puts him in the forefront of the talented trumpeters on today's scene. And like that Blue Note stable, Jim works with a group of musicians in varying configurations. On this date, two of his principal collaborators enlivening the proceedings significantly are tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, and drummer Joe Farnsworth. The three of them have played and recorded together for a number of years now and have a collective group called One For All.

In addition to bassist John Webber, certainly no slouch in this company, a survivor of the 60s Blue Note sound is on board as well, Rakin' and Scrapin' and still a keyboard contender, Harold Mabern. A veteran of so many classic sessions, most notably for this writer, his work with Lee Morgan, Mabern's presence here is a touchstone to jazz history not lost on his young collaborators.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Rotondi has nice things to say about the men who made this music.

Eric Alexander: "This record is a good example of the way we work together. We got together two days before the date and wrote all the material. That's how we do records, on our own dates and with other musicians. Writing under the gun works well for Eric and 1. 1 first met Eric in 1990, when he was studying at William Paterson, along with Joe Farnsworth. Right away, we started playing together. Eric gave me my first date as a sideman too , on his record "Straight Up." So for the past eight years, we've played quite a bit, off and on."

"Eric is such a strong player that I find myself constantly being challenged and trying to be on a par with him in terms of the strength of his ideas. Another thing about Eric, and some may not hear it this way, is that he's very disciplined but spontaneous as well. It rubs off when we play together. Like on this record, at the session, we put together some background things on the spot."

"In addition to working together, we're also friends. We go out to Yankee Stadium for baseball. Joe too. In fact, Eric, Joe and I have been like frat brothers since I've known them. Our playing reflects that; we're very in tune, spiritually, very much on the same level."

Joe Farnsworth: "I went to college at North Texas State from '82 to '85 with Joe's brother, James, who was a baritone saxophone player and that's when I first met Joe. When I moved to New York, there were actually three brothers, Joe, James and John, who were are all musicians."

"The first thing I like about Joe's playing is that he has so much understanding of the different periods and drummers that I don't necessarily hear in young drummers. He understands the history of so much music that anything I play, he's going to know where it's coming from. A lot of musicians want to play with Joe because of that. Lately, he's worked with George Coleman, Cedar Walton and Benny Golson."

Harold Mabern: "I first met Harold when we played together on Eric's first date and we played briefly with George Coleman's Octet. In fact, that group made a recording that was never released. Here and there, over the last eight years, I've done a few more things with

him. He teaches out on William Paterson so I've been privileged to be exposed and associated with him for a while and it's an honor to have him on the record, which is also his first sideman date for Criss Cross."

"Harold knows how to make anything better. He'll always have suggestions on how to make an ordinary tune into much more of a vehicle for the band, a focal point.. He adds things in the arrangements and also just by what he plays, because he's a fantastic soloist and it's great to have him playing behind me. It brings everyone's level up. He makes everyone play better."

John Webber: "John's been on the scene for a long time now and is also a friend. He's from Chicago and works with Johnny Griffin but he's also played with people like Brad Mehldau and Etta Jones."

"John is a very solid bass player, there's absolutely nothing contrived or extraneous in his playing. And his personality is like that as well. His time is right, the notes are right, and the changes are always right, he's like a rock"

As for the tunes, King of the Hill is Jim's tribute to Freddie Hubbard, which he co-wrote with Eric. "Freddie had the ability to write tunes that were so much a part of his personality," Jim explains, having been studying Hubbard's playing for so long that he considers him a primary influence. "Freddie wasn't the first guy I studied, actually my first influences were Clifford Brown and Woody Shaw. When I got to college, I started getting more into transcribing solos and doing a transcription for his 'Birdlike " solo on 'Ready For Freddie " really opened me up to his playing. His playing on that recording seemed so perfect, so flawless which is really amazing because the trumpet is not as flawless as other instruments. It's hard to be that perfect on the horn. Every trumpet player should be aware of and study Freddie Hubbard."

Last Call is another co-composition Jim did with Eric. "I came up with a piano riff and told Eric I wanted a gospel thing and he came up with the line. It's not a gospel song in the true sense but we both play with Charles Earland so it's got that vibe, kind of an end of the night, hanging in a bar vibe."

El Patito, which is Spanish for the duck, was written by Eric, although '.we did work on it together but the melody is entirely his. I think it's reminiscent of a tune on Lee Morgan's Rump-roller album, 'Edda.' Harold plays so great on things like this, he just sets up a big, fat blanket of rhythm to play over."

Trombonist Steve Davis, another remarkably proficient young player in the Criss Cross stable, is a good friend of Jim's and he recommended the standard, We'll Be Together Again. Another standard, All or Nothing At All, gets an up-tempo treatment here, in "the old Blue Note style. Just the tune, not too much arrangement."

Reflecting on standards, Jim laments their loss, feeling "they really don't write melodies with great harmony anymore. There's lots of great writers now writing good tunes, but there's something about certain standard writers, the ones who wrote strong melodies with interesting chord changes."

Jim took Moon Rays from Horace Silver and his album Further Exploration . Silver's work has also been an influence. "When I first started playing with Joe and Eric, I would transcribe Horace's arrangements and we'd play them straight from the record. His original arrangement on this is a slow mambo but we decided to take it up-tempo. But with Horace's compositions, there are always a bunch of different ways they can be played."

Jim picked Stevie Wonder's modern standard You Are The Sunshine of My Life because he wanted a more contemporary pop tune as part of the program. Also, he explains that "Harold loves to do stuff like that. Even Eric Clapton tunes, Harold can make great vehicles out of. He came up with the arrangement and it's the perfect example of how Harold can make what would normally be a simple tune and give it a new life with great arrangement."

Joe Farnsworth wrote Jim's Bop, as dedication to both Jim, this trumpeter, and his late brother, who played baritone sax.

Reflecting on this session, Jim is pleased, feeling it's a very accurate of "how well we work together. We did this date in a little over five hours and everybody has to be really in sync for that to happen."

In addition to his own gigs, Jim is currently working with Charles Earland and Lionel Hampton, as well as gigs with George Coleman. And with Eric and Joe, is part of One For All. "To establish yourself and get work in clubs, it's about as difficult young people getting into the music now as it's ever been. But I've been at it a long time now, eleven years this month, and it's been a steady process."

Bret Primack June,1998 http://www.jazzvideoguy.tv/

Mel Torme’ + Marty Paich = Musical Magic

“The young Torme's voice was honey-smooth, light, limber, inef­fably romantic and boyish; and it's amazing how many of those qualities he kept, even into old age … Torme's rhythmic panache and tonal sweetness turn back the years.”

- Richard Cook & Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD.

“The one major singer who consistently sought to use the cool sound in his work …

was Mel Torme … [who was] inspired by the sound of the Miles Davis Nonet and the Gerry Mulligan Tentet, the two celebrated mini bands that had set off the cool reaction to bop’s heat. He and West Coast arranger Marty Paich put together a ten-piece unit patterned after both the Davis and Mulligan bands.

In a masterful series of sets like Mel Torme and The Marty Paich Dektette [Bethlehem] and Mel Torme Sings Shubert Alley [Verve], Torme and Paich brilliantly recast familiar show tunes into fresh, exciting new forms.”

- Will Friedwald in Bill Kirchner, ed., The Oxford Companion to Jazz 

“On the job, he [Marty Paich] became (in my estimation, of course) a U-Boat
Commander. On the job, the exact performance of his music was not just
desirable ... it was ordained. Quite often, Marty delivered a
passionate speech to whatever band was in front of him - having to do
with the importance of playing his music the only way possible - his
way. Which I'll add was unquestionably the right way. Usually as he
spoke, his voice would tighten and now and then a tremor could be
detected. It meant that much to him ... and I never encountered this
level of determination in anyone else I played for. Ever. And I
appreciated him all the more for it. Some of my colleagues, though,
didn't. Everybody considered him a gifted arranger, but some didn't
mind if they didn't get the call to work for him. I enjoyed every
minute of it ... even the speeches.”

-Trombonist, Milt Bernhart

__._,_.___© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

After revisiting the music of Marty Paich in the context of the arrangements he prepared for Stan Kenton’s Orchestra, his work with alto saxophonist Art Pepper on the latter’s Art Pepper + 11 album and the charts he wrote for his own big band – we’ve done video tributes to all three – the editorial staff at JazzProfiles suddenly remembered that it had made a grand omission.

What about Marty’s writing for vocalist Mel Torme!?

Mel and Marty began their collaboration in the mid-1950s on a series of recordings for Bethlehem Records – most notably, Mel Torme’: Lulu’s Back in Town – on which Marty used his trademark prowess for taking a relatively small band and making it sound like a much larger orchestra.

The Torme’-Paich association produced musical magic in the sense that Marty’s arrangements personified in the public mind all that was hip, slick and cool in Mel’s vocal stylings.

Paich’s writing had a strong compatibility with Torme’s singing style. He had an uncanny way of producing arrangements that gave flight to Torme’s vocal acrobatics while at the same time keeping them from getting out-of-hand.

The partnership continued in effect during the early 1960’s when Mel moved to Verve. Their best work together at this label was on the Mel Torme’ Swings Shubert Alley about which Richard Cook and Brian Morton had this to say:

“This is arguably Torme's greatest period on record, and it cap­tures the singer in full flight. His range had grown a shade tougher since his 1940s records, but the voice is also more flexible, his phrasing infinitely assured, and the essential lightness of timbre is used to suggest a unique kind of tenderness. Marty Paich's arrangements are beautifully polished and rich-toned, the French horns lending a distinctive color to ensembles which sound brassy without being metallic. There may be only a few spots for soloists but they're all made to count, in the West Coast manner of the day. It's loaded with note-perfect scores from Paich and a couple of pinnacles of sheer swing in 'Too Darn Hot' (a treatment Torme kept in his set to the end) and 'Just In Time', as well as a definitive 'A Sleepin' Bee'.”

You can hear the musical magic that the duo of Torme and Paich produce on the Whatever Lola Wants audio track to the following video tribute to Mel. Throughout, listen for how Mel brings the fictional Lola to life with his phrasing of the tune's lyrics. There's disdain and more than a touch of pity in his voice. It's like he's saying to the young man about to be ensnared in Lola's clutches - "You don't stand a chance."  The genius is in the details; Mel's not just singing the song, he's portraying it.

Be sure and also listen for:

[1] Marty’s use of a musical reference to Dizzy’s Manteca in the intro

[2] Art Pepper’s roaring alto solo at 1:12 minutes

[3] trombonist Frank Rosolino’s quote of Dizzy’s A Night in Tunisia at the beginning of his solo at 1:33

[4] the subtle key change when Mel comes back in at 1:53 minutes with Marty’s use of a riff based on Bernie’s Tune in the background

[5] the one-man, three-note fanfare that Mel employs at 3:07 minutes to end the tune; not many vocalist could pull this off.

The following insert notes by to Mel Torme’ Swings Shubert Alley by Lawrence D. Stewart insert notes reveal the amount of thought, knowledge and sensitivity that went into the development of this recording [paragraphing modified].

“Geometry insists that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts; but when the proposition is Mel Torme plus Marty Paich, the result is far more than a combination of singular talents. Torme and Paich have made over half a dozen records together, always experi­menting in the balancing of this jazz equation. But the formula they have uncovered for this set is the most astonishing yet.

Torme does not conceive of himself as a soloist with a background accom­paniment. Instead, he treats his voice as one more instrument in the band and achieves his effects by balance, counter-rhythm and even harmonic dissonances, which ring against these instrumental changes. "Most singers want to finish singing and then have the band come in for a bar and a half—and then they're on again," observes Paich. "But Mel's always saying 'Let the band play — let the band play.' It’s quite unselfish from his standpoint and it doesn't overload the album. It makes for good listening." It does even more than that: It gives a totally new conception to some rather traditional music.

Shubert Alley is the home of stand­ards, and on this album we hear a dozen from as many shows of the past two decades. Broadway show orches­trations have a certain sameness which is effective in the theatre — where attention is directed toward the action on stage — but sometimes makes rather routine listening at home. (In­deed, does anyone ever hear an Origi­nal Cast album and not have his thoughts drawn to the footlights rather than to the song?) The first problem in choosing the numbers for this set was to pick tunes which had a jazz potential. Paich remarked, "When we picked the tunes we chose those geared not only to serve Mel as vocalist but to serve instrumentally as well."

"Too Close for Comfort" (Mr. Won­derful, 1956; music and lyrics by Jerry Bock, Larry Holofcener and George Weiss): A fine introduction to the set, with its rhythmic treatment, its stac­cato emphasis on rhymes, and its building to a sustained climax with harmonic changes. "Once in Love with Amy" (Where's Charley?, 1948; with mu­sic and lyrics by Frank Loesser): Origi­nally Ray Bolger soft-shoed this sing-along ballad to ecstatic audi­ences. Besides recreating this song-and-dance situation, Torme works up some melodic improvisations for the lyric.

"A Sleepin' Bee" (House of Flowers, 1954; music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Truman Capote and Harold Arlen): This melody began as one of composer Arlen's famous "jots." He had thought of developing it for Judy Garland's A Star Is Born, but the tune was put aside and soon he himself was working on its lyric. "On the Street Where You Live" (My Fair Lady, 1956; music by Frederick Loewe, lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner): Torme and Paich take us for a fast trot down this famed thoroughfare. In the show—as on this recording — the song enthusiastically announced Freddy's love for Eliza Doolittle. So successfully did Freddy plead his case that Shaw himself in­sisted that it was to be Freddy, and not Professor Henry Higgins, who was to win the girl.

"All I Need Is the Girl" (Gypsy, 1959; music by Jule Styne, lyr­ics by Stephen Sondheim): For this tap-and-song specialty, Torme has con­cocted some up-dated lyrics, with ech­oes of Max Shulman and Ira Gershwin. "Just in Time" (Bells Are Ringing, 1956; music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green): Torme establishes this contemporary stand­ard to the accompaniment of bass and drums; then the band comes in, and soon Torme is spinning out improvisa­tions upon this insistently simple me­lodic line.

"Hello, Young Lovers" (The King and I,1951; music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II): Conceived as a bittersweet ballad, this song here gets sped up as Torme and Paich give it new emphasis and phras­ing. "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top" (Oklahoma!, 1943; music by Ri­chard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Ham­merstein II): The song itself may have been in the tradition of "The Donkey Serenade" with its jog-jog tempo and repetitive melody, but the show created its own genre: the American folk operetta. "Old Devil Moon" (Finian s Rainbow, 1947; music by Bur­ton Lane; lyrics by E. Y. Harburg): This song takes its title from a phrase in "Fun to be Fooled," a song which E. Y. Harburg had written with Ira Gershwin and Harold Arlen for 1934's Life Begins at 8:40. Paich now gives this quasi-Irish ballad a South American beat.

"What­ever Lola Wants" (Damn Yankees, 1955; music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross): As handmaiden to the Devil, Gwen Verdon undulated this song to acclaim on both the stage and screen. Torme has worked in his own allusion to Nabokov and worked over the song to advantage. "Too Darn Hot" (Kiss Me, Kate, 1948; music and lyrics by Cole Porter): Here we have a bril­liant arrangement, excitingly enunci­ated, with all the seldom-heard lyrics; and hear that repeated title and key changes which ever set it off.

"Lonely Town" (On the Town, 1944; music by Leonard Bernstein; lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green): A song which has never lost its memorable evocation of World War II New York, this number can also be a contempo­rary supper-club lament, as Torme and Paich prove in this final demonstration of their facility with jazz equation.

LAWRENCE D. STEWART”

Personnel: Mel Torme, vocals, with the Marty Paich Orchestra. Orchestra includes Al Porcino, Stu Williamson, trumpets; Frank Rosolino, trombone; Vince DeRosa, French horn; Red Callender, tuba; Art Pepper, alto sax; Bill Perkins, tenor sax; Bill Hood, bari­tone sax; Marty Paich, piano; Joe Mondragon, bass; Mel Lewis, drums.

Arranged and conducted by Marty Paich.

Recorded January 21, February 4 and 11, 1960 in Los Angeles.

Produced by Russ Garcia. Recording Engineer: Val Valentin

Dick Grove: Little Bird Suite

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

Although we couldn’t remember exactly when, an Internet friend informs us that we acquired our LP copy of composer-arranger Dick Grove’s Little Bird Suite [Pacific Jazz #74] in 1963.

Dick was very active in Southern California Jazz and musical circles dating back to the mid-1950s when, as its pianist, he was a member of the Westlake College of Music Quintet that won the “Easter-week, Intercollegiate Jazz Festival” sponsored by bassist Howard Rumsey and the famed Lighthouse Café in Hermosa Beach, CA.

Under the direction of John Graas, one of the few French-Horn players who specialized in Jazz and who was also a composer-arranger, the award winning quintet recorded an album for Decca – College Goes to Jazz: The Westlake College Quintet [DL 8393]. For your review, we have included a video tribute to the group and the music on this album at the end of this piece.

Dick would subsequently teach at Westlake, the archetype for Jazz conservatories. The college was founded in 1945 in a Beaux-Arts house located near 6^th and Alvarado, not too far from downtown Los Angeles. The college is no longer in existence.

He later formed his own Dick Grove School of Music in the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles. Dick’s school offered classes in harmony & theory, composition, orchestration and arranging, keyboards, songwriting, et al. For a full list of Dick’s credits go here.

We spent some time in one of Dick’s rehearsal bands. He was a marvelous educator, an extremely kind and gracious person and one of the few composer-arrangers who actually knew how to write a drum part that keyed the drummer into what was going on in the music instead of simply writing “8-bars of swing on the hi hat” and having a few downbeats noted here and there for “bass drum” or “cymbal crash.”

While re-discovering the Pacific Jazz LP and making the following video tribute to Dick, we were very surprised to learn that this wonderful music had not been digitalized and transferred to CD. The audio track is entitled Circlet and the soloists are Paul Horn on alto saxophone and Bill Robinson on baritone saxophone.

Leonard Feather wrote these informative liner notes for Dick Grove’s Little Bird Suite  Embedded into Leonard’s notes is a video that features another cut from the album. This one is entitled Doodad.

“It seems that there is always a stage in the career of every major artist at which the remark is made by surprised listeners: "Where has he been all these years?," or "Why hadn't I heard of him before?" With the obvious exception of child prodigies, most of the important contributors have to go through this phase; in the case of Dick Grove there can be no doubt that it will be the near-unanimous reaction to this album.

As was the case with Clare Fischer, Gil Evans and others now recognized as important arrangers, Dick Grove had to wait until he was in his thirties before he could make any impact on the jazz scene. Unlike the others, he is a latecomer in the actual craft of writing. "It's only in the last three years," he says, "that I really learned to write, to the point where I could say I wanted to."

Born December 18, 1927, in Lakeville, Indiana, he was not seriously interested in music until about 1942. "My mother and brother were both musicians; he was quite a bit older and played in movie houses, piano and organ. I didn't study until I got out of high school and went to Denver U. for a couple of years. I'm mainly self-taught, trial and error style. I picked up piano and-used to double on vibes."

In 1954 he moved out to California, concentrating for the most part on backing singers, writing and teaching. He played with Alvino Rey for a while (but then, who hasn't?), and lately has done some effective playing and writing (without any credit for the writing) on records with Mavis Rivers.

"Didn't you ever try to submit anything to any of the name bands?" I asked him.

"No, I got into sort of a trap, by getting things going in my own direction. If I were to submit something to Harry James, say, I would have to write the way the Harry James band plays. Or if I wrote for Basie in the Basie style, it wouldn't be me at all. I almost got to the point where I was going to have to do something like that, but I feel I have something of my own to say and it finally dawned on me that anything I do is worth more to me under my own name."

In this manner, the necessity for personal expression became the mother of orchestral invention and the Dick Grove Orches­tra came into existence.

The band has been together, with a few personnel variations, for three years, but chiefly as a rehearsal group. Lately there have been a few in person appearances at college concerts; the plan, now that the group has finally been committed to records, is to keep together, play more concerts and go on the road if and when the demand warrants it.

Of his influences, Dick says: "Naturally I admire Gil Evans, mainly for the mature conception he has; but rhythmically I write very differently." An important difference also is that Gil's best known ventures have been arrangements of standard material, whereas Dick essentially is a composer-arranger who concentrates on his own original themes.

Of the instrumentation, he comments: "I use the regular basic set-up of reeds, brass and rhythm, but I don't write by sections. There are so many ways to create variety through unusual voicings or instrumental combinations.

"All the trumpets double on flugelhorn, which gives a better blend with the woodwinds. I use the piano occasionally, but only as an orchestral thing, not in the rhythm section.

"All the originals in this album except Little Bird were origi­nally commissioned by Dave Robbins' Jazz Workshop. Dave is a trombonist and conductor; his orchestra is heard every other week from Vancouver in a government-subsidized Canadian radio series. I've been writing for him regularly for a couple of years. The versions in the album are slightly different.

"As for Little Bird —it started out as a thing called Blues Two Ways. Pete Jolly took the background theme of the minor part and made a separate 16-bar thing out of it, as a bossa nova. Tommy Wolf added lyrics and it became Little Bird. As it turned out, we were pretty lucky with it; we got seven recorded ver­sions, and my own makes it eight."

There is a suite-like relationship, Dick says, between the three tunes on the first side and the first two on the second side. In other words, the five compositions with bird references in the titles, though they stand by themselves as entities, are tied together in the sense that they make logical continuous listening.

Nighthawk, the moderately paced but firmly-swinging opener, gives immediate exposure to Grove's extraordinary flair for color and variety of timbres in orchestration. There is also a prompt introduction of the soloist who, on the strength of this album, seems certain to earn the belated publicity as an instru­mentalist that Grove will acquire as a writer. His name is Joe Burnett; coincidentally, he is Grove's age. Dallas-born, he has played with just about every name band from Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson to Woody Herman and (of course) Charlie Barnet; but he has never had any substantial solo exposure on records. His solo vehicle here is the flugelhorn and his work shows a lyrical beauty that establishes him as the orches­tra's most remarkable instrumental voice.

Bird of Paradaiso, the longest and most brilliantly variegated track, is practically a concerto for Burnett. His lonesome wistful sound, unaccompanied, serves as an introduction and main­tains a sense of tension until, a minute and a half in, a tempo is established by Pena and Jeffries. By using a cluster type of voicing, Grove achieves special moments of rich orchestral texture, these passages being skillfully interwoven with the flugelhorn’s statements.

Mosca Espanola is a vivid pastiche of sounds all the way from the opening F and B Flat triads, through the opening ensembles into the sharply delineated Bill Robinson baritone solo, the gracefully swinging Dick Hurwitz trumpet, and on to the closing passages throughout which bass and drums are ingeniously integrated. The instrumentation in a passage near the beginning, in which I thought I heard muted trombones, actually is played by four open horns, with flugelhorn on top, two tenor trombones and bass trombone.

This voicing, Dick points out, is used at other points, some­times with bass clarinet added, as is the case in Canto de Oriole. The latter is a moody, almost stately piece, performed with an obviously keen, sensitive ear for dynamic and phrasing requirements on the part of every man in the orchestra. Both here and on the preceding track, Little Bird, one is constantly aware of the importance of Jeffries' and Pena's roles, not only as resolute swingers but as part of the overall sound. (Pena's parts in Oriole and Paradaiso were all written out.) Little Bird is noteworthy also for the work of Paul Horn, one of the most accomplished flutists in contemporary jazz; and for the tenor by Bob Hardaway.

Doodad and Circlelet, as noted above, are in a slightly dif­ferent bag from the rest of the compositions, though they retain the ingredients essential to the very personal Grove palette. Paul Horn is the featured alto soloist on both; his sound on alto for several years has been one of the very few distinctive ones on this horn. Circlelet also provides another glimpse of Bill Robinson's full-blooded baritone. Doodad is perhaps closer to the standard big band concept, in structure and sounds; than any of the other works in this set.

Repeated hearings of the album will reveal much more than can be outlined in any verbal summation. There are so many intricate or unusual uses of various tonal colors —the flute dou­bling the lead an octave higher, the woodwinds above the brass, the added warmth obtained through the use of the flugelhorns — that the whole set of performances takes on more interest at each hearing, both technically and harmonically.

Not the least noteworthy aspect of Dick Grove's success is his ability to achieve these results without resorting to such devices as atonality or continuous meter-shifting. "There are so many things that can be done within the present frame­work," he says, "and my feeling is, if you can't hear it, you shouldn't write it."

Clearly there are so many things he can hear that the lis­tener's ear is engaged from the first moment and never allowed to wander as the album follows its polychromatic course.

If orchestral jazz is going to survive, the strength of its will to live must depend on the initiatives of men like Dick Grove. And because of men like him, I am confident that its survival is assured.

-LEONARD FEATHER”