Nascent Lennie Niehaus

For different reasons, the author Max Harrison and the alto saxophonist, composer and arranger, Lennie Niehaus have been people I have admired over the years, so what better way to celebrate them on Jazzprofiles than to feature a Marx Harrison article on Lennie Niehaus that was originally published in the March, 1958 edition of Jazz Monthly.

Somewhat ironically, as Ted Gioia points out in his seminal West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960 [p. 163]:

“Despite the striking virtues of his playing, Niehaus never achieved more than passing notice from the critics. One notable exception, however, was Max Harrison,…, whose insightful essay on Niehaus captures the essential virtues of the altoist’s work ….”

Lennie’s plaintive wail on many of the Stan Kenton’s mid-1950s albums such as Back to Balboa, Cuban Fire and The Stage Door Swings, to my ears the quintessential sound of West Coast Jazz, and Max’s acerbic wit and unconventional views each had a powerful impact on my appreciation of Jazz at a very early [impressionable?] age.

If I may be so bold, Max and I do disagree on one aspect of Lennie’s career as I happen to very much enjoy Stan Kenton and Lennie‘s playing during his stints with the Kenton Orchestra. However, not to belabor the point, Max and I do agree on the four wonderful recordings that Lennie made for Contemporary records in the 1950s that are the subject of his essay.

I have taken the liberty of augmenting Max’s essay with the addition of Volume 4: The Quintets & Strings [Contemporary C-3510; OJCCD 1858-2] which was not referenced in Max’s essay, as well as, with the inclusion of excerpts from the original Contemporary LP liner notes by John S. Wilson, Arnold Shaw, Lester Koenig, and Barry Ulanov, respectively. Lennie was also very gracious in granting me time to answer a few interview questions about these albums at recent events sponsored by the Los Angeles Jazz Institute at which he appeared.

[Incidentally, the Los Angeles Jazz Institute is currently offering as it’s latest members only CD: Stan Kenton’s Artistry in Comedy – “rare recordings captured by his friend Jimmy Valentine at dances and concerts from November 7, 1948 through September 29, 1962.” You can find out the details by calling [562] 985-7065].

Lastly, I hope that Max will forgive me for taking some liberties with the paragraphing of his original essay. And lest you get confused, Max’s writings are in blue while everyone else is in the other color.

“It was unfortunate Niehaus first became widely known as a result of the tours he undertook in the mid-1950s with Stan Kenton’s band, for the records he was then producing under his own name made it obvious that he had nothing in common with that master of the unintentionally comic bombast.

The second thing to be learnt from them was that Niehaus had little to learn about playing the alto saxophone. His ease and fluency conveyed a feeling of relaxation and security that is always rare, and his attack and swing were almost equally striking.

But the most notable feature of the twenty-six performances considered here is the consistency of his inventive power in improvisation. He never seems to be at a loss for a good melodic idea, and even though his phrasing is concise and pre-eminently logical, an element of the unexpected is never absent.

Lester Koenig noted: “He is a remarkable alto soloist, with a sense of flowing melodic line, lovely cool tone, and a strong feeling for rhythm. He is a thoughtful and serious musician, who composes in his own style, with definite ideas of where he is going and what he wants to achieve.”

In some ways, Niehaus first LP – Lennie Niehaus Vol. 1 ‘The Quintets’ [Contemporary C-3518; OJCCD- 1933-2] – with a quintet instrumentation remains the most informative of his abilities as a soloist.

The scored passages are generally brief, and, apart from a few meandering contributions from Jack Montrose and Bob Gordon on tenor and baritone saxophones respectively, the leader fills all the available solo space with notable effect.

His consistency makes it hard to single out an performance as exceptional, though the quick-fire Whose Blues? Is a reminder that real spontaneity is less a matter of technical command than of a steady flow of ideas. Almost impressive in this respect are Prime Rib, with its double-time phrases, and the breaks of You Stepped Out of a Dream.

Niehaus wrote the arrangements for all the recordings dealt with here, and these show a nicely understated skill, nearly always being shorn of unnecessary gesture. As his was a musical family, he began his studies early and thus had a better chance of acquiring sound theoretical knowledge than many jazzmen. This places an agreeable variety of writing techniques at his disposal, but he is aware of the dangers of over-elaboration in the modest circumstances of small combo jazz.

The Original Jazz Classic CD tray plate notes offer this overview of the recording.

“Lennie Niehaus’s first album is his most intimate. The music is rich in the colorful, complex writing that he would pursue on larger canvasses as his career progressed, while the compact sound of the quintet focuses attention on Niehaus, the fluent, Parker-inspired yet quite personal alto saxophonist. What emerges are well-balanced performances from two distinct ensembles.

Eight tracks recorded in 1954 … feature an inspired three-saxophone front line with Jack Montrose and Bob Gordon, plus the great Monty Budwig/Shelly Manne rhythm section. Four additional titles by a 1956 unit with Manne, Stu Williamson, Hampton Hawes, and red Mitchell were added for a 12-inch release, and represent Niehaus, a paragon of West Coast Jazz, in his most East Coast mood.”

On the sleeve of his second LP [Zounds! The Lennie Niehaus Octet! – Contemporary C-3540; OJCCD- 1892-2] he [Lennie] writes: “With the more intellectual and academic approach there is a tendency for … work to become contrived and esoteric. It must be remembered that most modern jazz compositions written during the past few years are no more ‘modern’ than things Bartok, Berg, Schoenberg and others wrote twenty of thirty years ago.”

Such a viewpoint is healthy, first because it is historically and technically realistic, and second because it is a corrective to the attitude of many jazzmen who in the past have imagined themselves to be daring iconoclasts while purveying what actually was simple and conservative music.

On the octet performances on his second LP Niehaus still occupies most of the solo space and is fully able to justify this. His arrangements are similar in general style to many others being written on the West Coast at that time, and what individual character they possess is due more to certain technical details than to an overall new approach. Such features most often arise from his concern with unity, and he is fond of deriving introductions, bridge passages and codas from the theme, or part of it, whenever possible. Instances are Night Life, Have You Met Miss Jones? and Circling the Blues; also typical of Niehaus is the way the introduction to The Night We Called It A Day recurs in sequential form to effect a modulation.

The first batch of octet scores have a pleasingly full texture, with the themes announced mainly in block chords. By the jazz standards of his time, Niehaus had a quite extensive, though in no way personal, harmonic vocabulary, so these parallel chords often are interesting, and are effectively distributed over the ensemble.

The result, however, could easily have been a rather too consistent harmonic richness, so he occasionally scores a passage for the horns without the rhythm section, as in How About You?, or has the drums only supply interjections, as on Figure Eight. He has many similar procedures to ensure variety, such as the bridge to Night Life, first played in block chords then scored contrapuntally on its return.

Another example is the first section of the code on The Way You Look Tonight, where each horn plays a separate line based on a different part of the theme; the result is of considerable harmonic and contrapuntal interest, and one regrets this passage only being four bars long. Even drum solos are made to further the development of the piece, as in The Way You Look Tonight, where, the piano and bass silent, the percussionist for a while alternates bars with the front line. There is a similar episode on Seaside.

Such devices, though, are very far from exhausting the scope of an ensemble … [featuring Lennie - alto sax, Jack Montrose - tenor sax and Bill Perkins - baritone sax, Stu Williamson - trumpet, Bob Enevoldsen - value trombone, Lou Levy – piano, Monty Budwig – bass and Shelly Manne – drums], and Niehaus appears to have been conscious of the almost unrelieved homophony of the above scores.

Since Max doesn’t discuss the four compositions featuring Octet No. 2, made up of Lennie – alto sax, Bill Perkins moving to tenor sax, Pepper Adams – baritone sax, Vince De Rosa – French Horn, Frank Rosolino – trombone, James McAlister – tuba, Red Mitchell – bass, and Mel Lewis – drums, that also appear on Zounds!, I thought perhaps the following comments from the original LP liner notes by Arnold Shaw might prove descriptive in this regard:

“ The fact is that the four new arrangements are less linear. The various horns do not have completely free, independent lines, and the drive is toward a coordinated swinging beat. ‘I still don’t go for blowing arrangements,’ Lennie said recently. ‘I like to write backgrounds and interludes, and my goal is a swinging line’ Whether the octet is taking an ensemble chorus or Lennie weaving, at break-neck speed around the ensemble, the Niehaus combo jumps and rocks and swings.”

In his third LP [Lennie Niehaus The Octet #2, Vol. 3 Contemporary C-3503; OJCCD 1767-2] there is a certain amount of section differentiation though not enough.

Alto saxophone and trombone contrast tellingly with the full band on Cooling It, as do alto and tenor in Bunko, yet such antiphony is infrequent, and counterpoint mainly conspicuous by its absence.

I thought, since Max gives rather short shrift to this album in his essay, the following comments about the recording’s personnel and Lennie’s playing from John S. Wilson’s liner notes to the album might prove germane.

“The present bath of octet selections is played by a slightly different group than the preceding set. Newcomers to this octet, but familiar figures on the West Coast jazz scene, are Jimmy Giuffre on baritone saxophone, Bill Holman on tenor and Pete Jolly on piano. Along with the holdovers – Stu Williamson on trumpet, Bob Enevoldsen on valve trombone, Monty Budwig on bass, Shelly Manne on drums and, of course, Niehaus himself – they make up a select group of top-ranking Coast jazzmen.

Niehaus’ playing has an ease, an unharried continuity which can only be accomplished by a musician who is beyond being consciously concerned with technique, whose feeling in performance is instinctively a swinging one and who can, consequently, devote himself completely to the creative requirements of his performance. There can be no doubt that these creative requirements are exceedingly demanding. ….

[Niehaus’] tone is almost unique among modern alto saxophonists. It is rich, rounded and warmly full-blooded and yet light enough not to clog up the quickly moving line of his style. It gives a vitality to his playing which is missing in some of the more wraith-like attacks adopted by current alto men.

A rich tone and a riding sense of swing would be of little use to Niehaus, of course, if his ideas were routine. Fortunately, his concepts are fresh and provocative not only in his individual solo performances but in his writing, too.”

As previously noted, not included in Max’s article was any reference to Lennie Niehaus, Vol. 4: The Quintets & Strings [Contemporary C 3510; OJCCD 1858-2] that tracks with strings and Lennie on alto, strings augmented by Lennie on alto, Bill Perkins on tenor and Bob Gordon on baritone and four cuts with a quintet fronted by Lennie on alto and Stu Williamson on trumpet with a rhythm section of Hawes, Budwig and Manne.
In his liner notes, Barry Ulanov offered the following reflections on Lennie’s playing:

“The alto is to the present jazz era what the tenor saxophone was to the one just before it; a great many musicians play it, and some of them inordinately well. As a result, the instrument currently enjoys much favor with the jazz public …. But if it has reached high jazz rank, it has also suffered: there is a terrible sameness about the work of all too many of these stars, a monotony based on the brilliant examples of a Parker, a Konitz or the like ….

All of which explains why I enjoy the playing of Lennie Niehaus as much as I do ….
One can say that it is his sound, a quite modern one, that makes him so welcome betwixt and alongside his colleagues; but others offer a not dissimilar sound. Perhaps, then, it is his beat; but that too, though not as familiar among present-day altoists, can be heard and felt on his horn. If not the sound and the beat, then the length of his lines. This, maybe, but not all by itself, for the long line is very much with us these days on alto, and good to have, but not any guarantee of identity.

No, not one of these things, but all of them in copious abundance, and held together, as he holds everything else in the proceedings in balance and bearing, by a widely resourceful musicianship. Thus diversity, thus originality; thus ripeness and no monotony and, for what it is worth, my very high esteem for Lennie Niehaus."

On his fifth record [Lennie Niehaus Vol. 5: The Sextet, Contemporary C-3524; OJCCD 1944-2] for sextet, however, Niehaus included well-paced duets between alto and tenor saxophones and trumpet and baritone saxophone in Thou Swell, and Three of a Kind has an adroit fugal introduction and coda.


There are effective dialogues between soloist and ensemble here, also, particularly on Belle of the Ball and As Long As I Live, some imaginative scored background to solos ….

The Original Jazz Classic CD tray plate notes offer this overview of the recording.

“In the mid-1950’s, Lennie Niehaus avoided cliché, incorporated audacious harmonic ideas, and distilled the essentials of big band writing into arrangements for small groups. His recordings are still notable in the 21st century for their freshness and daring.

In this fifth of his series of albums for the Contemporary label, Niehaus sets himself the chamber music challenge of achieving proportion among four horns, bass and drums, without piano to cushion the sound, delineate the harmonies, and unify the ensemble.

The result was a collection of pieces performed with gem-like clarity by players who executed his writing perfectly and brought to their solos the creativity that made them star improvisers.

Niehaus’ alto saxophone was matched by Bill Perkins, Jimmy Giuffre, Stu Williamson, Shelly Manne, and the brilliant, underappreciated bassist Buddy Clark.”

In solo Niehaus is as good as before, although the only other improvisations of real merit on these recordings are by pianist Lou Levy in the first octet disc and by Stu Williamson on both trumpet and valve trombone in the sextet LP. Indeed, the assurance and conviction of the latter’s work on the former instrument in Thou Swell, I Wished on the Moon, Knee Deep and As Long As I Live mark it as being among his best on record. Bill Perkins, on tenor saxophone, is also heard to pleasing, if rather nonchalant, effect in Three of a Kind and As Long As I Live. The gulf (in terms of invention) between the leader and several of his other bandsmen, however, is rather clearly shown by the chase passages of Whose Blues? and Rick’s Tricks, and even more by the long series of twelve- and – twenty-four bar solos in Circling the Blues.

The point is confirmed in a different way by Niehaus’ success with slow ballads, particularly The Night We Called It a Day and Our Love is Here To Stay on the octet records. Best, however, is the quintet Day by Day, which begins and ends with some exceptionally subtle harmonic writing that creates a feeling of remoteness which is quite contrary to the original melody’s banality and exactly appropriate to Niehaus’ very sensitive improvisation.

This can stand beside Jimmy Giuffre’s beautiful Lotus Bud recorded with Shorty Rogers or Art Pepper’s Jazz Chorale recorded with John Graas. The same side of Niehaus’ musical personality is also reflected in two compositions, Night Life and Debbie, slow lyrical pieces of some melodic distinction. Also attractive are Take It from Me, which has a forty bar chorus instead of the usual thirty-two, and Elbow Room, a blues with a bridge.

Writing and playing like this did show perfectly explicit promise for Niehaus’ further growth. Despite a few excellent later recordings [I Swing for You, Mercury MG 36118; Lone Hill Jazz CD 10241], such as his striking version of Perkins’s Little Girl Blues and Benny Golson’s Four Eleven West, that promise was not really fulfilled, eventually he stopped making LPs, and, finally, dropped out of sight. Presumably Niehaus must be regarded as another casualty of the hostile circumstances in which jazz has always found itself.


As we know, the “hostile environment” for Jazz that Max refers to was to become even more hostile as the years rolled along, and Lennie was to survive it by taking his orchestrating skills into the Hollywood studies and to become a prolific writer for films. But we’ll save that part of Lennie’s story for another time.

While preparing this feature on Lennie Niehaus, the editors of Jazzprofiles couldn’t help but agree with Ted Gioia’s following assessment of Lennie Niehaus:

“His powerful technical command of the saxophone, his intuitive linear approach to improvisation, and his sweet tone made Niehaus a likely candidate as the next alto star on the coast.” West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960 [p. 163]:

And while a Niehaus star did ascend, it would take on a different form.

Whatever Happened to Larry Bunker?

By Mal Sands, LA Jazz Scene, May 1994 [copyright; all rights reserved]
“That is the question that many people, including myself, have been asking for several years now in jazz clubs and at concerts and festivals, especially those that celebrate the ‘West Coast sound’ of the 1950s.

Bunk, as he is fondly called by friends and colleagues, was right there at the evolution of the California Cool movement.

He was a mainstay of the L.A. jazz nightclub scene during the 50s, 60s and 70s and worked with such legends as Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, Art Pepper, Bud Shank, Shorty Rogers, Bill Evans and Peggy Lee. By the time the 1980’s rolled around, Bunker had all but disappeared from public performance in the clubs. Only on the rarest occasions and for the best of friends would Bunker extend his services as a sideman.

I asked saxophonist Gary Foster about Bunker’s whereabouts and he told me that Bunker was alive and well and busy working in the studios where he has been for over forty years now. It was through Foster that I got to meet this legendary percussionist who I had wondered about for so many years. The first thing that impresses one about Bunker is his very casual attitude and laid-back demeanor. He is such an easy-going, down-to-earth, regular kind of guy, that after a few minutes, I was so comfortable with him, I felt that I already knew him.

Our first meeting took place in a recording studio in Burbank, … [but] it was several months before I had the opportunity to interview him.

I drove out to his beautiful, Spanish-styled home in the [Hollywood] hills above Los Feliz and spent the better part of three hours chatting and asking him questions, and listening to his stories, recollections and opinions about himself, his career and all of the legendary musicians and assorted characters that he knew and worked with.

I began the interview by asking Bunker to give me a brief biography. He was born in Long Beach, CA on November 4, 1928. He took up drums in grammar school at the age of seven and began fooling around with the piano at the age of ten. … He became self-taught on both [drums and piano], as well as, tenor saxophone, which he played briefly in junior high school.

After high school, Bunker enlisted in the army for a one and a half year stint in 1946. During that period he played drums and piano with several different outfits. Upon his discharge in 1948, he settled in Monterey, CA. It was shortly thereafter that he first learned how to play the vibraphone.”

LA Jazz Scene [LAJ]: You played both drums and piano as a youngster. At what age did you start playing the vibes?

Larry Bunker [LB]: It was 1950. I was 21 or 22 and I was playing drums with a trio that included the Hammond organ and the guitar. The organist, who was the leader, asked me if I’d ever played the vibraphone and I said, “No, I’ve never played one in my life.” He said, “Well, the fact that you know harmony and are an improvising player and know the keyboard and drums, it’s a natural for you. I’ve got an old set of vibes in my garage. Why don’t you take it home and work out a couple of tunes and we’ll see what happens.” Now I was aware of Lionel Hampton and just beginning to get into Milt Jackson. So I took the thing home, figured out how to put it together and spent three days just doing exercises and playing scales.

LB: So I went on the job and did the first set on drums and then the guys asked: “What have you worked out?” I said that I had worked out a solo on a song and when he asked my what I wanted to play I said just play anything. So we played a couple of standard ballads and then some up-tempo things and got screaming applause from the audience. We came off the bandstand and there were people in the audience, musicians I had worked with who came up to me and said: “Geez, Larry, I didn’t know you played the vibes. How long have you been doing that?” I said: “Three days.”

LAJ: Wow! That’s amazing! Now in the 1950s when you were playing drums and vibes in Monterey, the Dave Brubeck Trio featuring Cal Tjader on drums and vibes was doing more or less the same thing up in San Francisco, correct?

LB: Sure, exactly! And I used to hear the radio broadcasts of that group in San Francisco and I was aware of Cal and what he was doing on vibes. Not long after that, I left Monterey to tour with a very bad four-piece band that got me back to Los Angeles. I moved back in with my Mom in the house that I had lived in since I was nine years old and set up shop there. We had a piano, drums and a set of vibes right there in the living room and that’s where I set up shop.

LB: In 1951, I got the job of drumming at the Lighthouse with Howard Rumsey, Hampton Hawes, Teddy Edwards and Sonny Criss, among others. That was three or four nights a week. On Mondays I had an invitation to jam sessions on the East side of LA, mostly to play vibes, so that’s how the whole thing got started for me here in town in 1951.

LAJ: Were you becoming better known as a drummer or as a vibist?

LB: It seemed like it was happening both ways, but I worked mostly as a drummer with occasional gigs on vibes. On rare occasions I played both like when I was with Georgie Auld when I worked with him both in town and on a tour back East. The idea was that he and I would tour and we would pick up a piano player and a bassist wherever we were. I took drums and vibes with me and he featured me on both. We traveled cross-country by car and worked at the old Blue Note in Chicago and also hit Philadelphia, Minneapolis and several other places.

LAJ: By car, huh? That must have been quite an experience. Now was this around the same time as the ‘West Coast Jazz’ movement was beginning?

LB: Yes, exactly. In 1951-52, things were really starting to happen in LA. As guys were leaving the road bands and setting up in Southern California. Within a year or two, Shelly Manne, Art Pepper, Shorty Rogers, Bud Shank, Bob Cooper, Don Bagley and Frank Rosolino had all left Stan Kenton. That’s when this whole West Coast thing started. I replaced Chico Hamilton in piano-less Gerry Mulligan’s Quartet with Chet Baker.

Dick Bock formed Pacific Jazz Records and I started to record with these guys. We were in the studio two or three times a week making different albums. It was also at that time that I recorded my first motion picture soundtrack. I received a called from an old Russian viola player, named , Franz Waxman, who was scoring the movie Stalag 17, starring William Holden and he needed a jazz vibist and a drummer. I said that I did both so he hired me to play in the Paramount studio 75-piece orchestra.

LB: I was absolutely awestruck. As an 8-year old kid, I had lived to blocks away from the place and ride past it on my way to school without any idea that I would ever see the inside of a place like that. I was very intimidated, but I got through it and that’s how I started working in the studios.

LAJ: And it was also during this period that you began working the club circuit with Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Art Pepper and later on with Shorty Rogers and Bud Shank, right?

LB: Right. I worked with Chet and Gerry at The Haig.

LAJ: What did you think of those individuals?

LB: Chet Baker was unbelievable. I have never been as impressed with anyone more than I have been with him, with the exception of Bill Evans, who I worked with later. Baker could come up with something every night, every set that would just bring you out of your seat. He was a stunning, creative musician, but a horse’s ass as a human being and became legendary for that. … just an all-around bad-ass, but a brilliant musician. Gerry Mulligan was okay. He was kind of stand-offish, but appreciative of my work and that was all right.

LAJ: How about other players during these early West Coast Jazz years? [interjection]

LB: I worked with Stan Getz at Zardi’s and that wasn’t too pleasant. This was just after his bust for holding up a drugstore, for which he did some time in the county slam. I worked with Art Pepper at the Surf Club in downtown L.A. with Hampton Hawes and Joe Mondragon. I really enjoyed Art’s playing, but didn’t enjoy being around him because he was so heavily into junk at that point. He would show up an hour late for work and it was always the same story. “My battery went dead,” or “I had a flat tire.” On the bandstand he was either trying to play, keep from nodding off or looking to score. I had no contact with him socially and had no reason to. Shorty Rogers, Bud Shank, Bob Cooper and Bill Perkins were all good cats and professional musicians.
As far as other drummers were concerned, there was a period in the 50s that Shelly Manne was the drummer of choice. He, Mel Lewis and Stan Levey kind of had the jazz scene sewed-up. I kind of got what was left over.

LAJ: Every year, just before the Playboy Jazz Festival, Mark Cantor hosts an evening of rare jazz film clips from his private collection. At last year’s program he showed a clip from a television show that was broadcast in the late 1950s with the Art Pepper Quartet featuring you on the piano. Cantor said that you were a last-minute replacement for Pepper’s regular pianist, Carl Perkins, who apparently was too high on dope that night to make the gig. Do you recall that?

LB: I don’t, but several other people mentioned seeing that same clip, so I guess it must have happened. When I first started playing with Bud Shank in 1960 or ’61 here in town, he hired me as a vibraphone player and a pianist. His regular drummer was Chuck Flores and his bassist for a short while was Scott LaFaro, who later left for New York to work with Bill Evans. His place was taken by Gary Peacock. Scott, unfortunately was killed in a car crash at a very young age.

LAJ: You also worked with Bill Evans. What was that experience like?

LB: Phenomenal! Bill Evans was my hero, and my association with him is probably the highlight of my career. I worked with him for about a year and a half between 1963 and ’65 and the projects that I did with him are the things that I am most proud of. We recorded three of four albums together. Trio 65 is the one I am most fond of.

LAJ: That was an excellent album. Your work with Bill Evans was exclusively on drums, correct?

LB: Yes. I never played vibes with Bill. My best vibes work in my opinion was with Dave Grusin in the early 1980s.

LAJ: You also became involved with Latin music when it became hot in the mid-fifties. How did that come about?

LB: I had no interest in Latin music whatsoever, until I started listening to the radio and heard all the great Latin jazz bands that were playing in New York.

LAJ: Are we talking about Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez and Machito?



LB: Exactly, and that triggered my interest. The more I listened to it, the more I liked it and tried to play it. I auditioned for Bobby Short in ’54 or ’55, and he told me that he did a couple of Caribbean-type numbers in his act and that I was required to play the congas. Well, I had never played the congas in my life and told him so, but I wanted the job so I went out a bought a set of congas. These were the old ones that looked like skins nailed to a pickle barrel. Tune-able instruments were still a thing of the future. As a result, I started working with Latin bands here in town, primarily with Eddie Cano, who was a crossover musician. His style was very Latin-oriented, yet he was really like a jazz piano player. I played and recorded with him on vibes, but occasionally played Latin hand percussion and became known for that.

LB: During that period I received a great many calls to do hand percussion in the studios because most of the guys in town, the true Latin drummers, had no concept of reading music. They were authentic players but they couldn’t start or stop when they were supposed to and if you were doing a motion picture that required sight-reading and playing with a jazz feeling, they really didn’t do that.

LAJ: I didn’t realize that you played hand percussion instruments. Are there any recordings of you playing these?

LB: Yes, there was an album I did in 1972 with Pat Williams called Threshold which we recorded at the Phil Ramone studio in New York. The rhythm section included Mike Melvoin, Jim Hughart, John Guerin and Larry Carlton. People like Tom Scott, Buddy Childers, Billy Byers and Marvin Stamm were also involved. I was the utility percussion man and played congas, bongos, vibes, marimba, chimes and tympani. That album won a Grammy.

LAJ: Do you miss the L.A. jazz scene of the 1950s? What were some of your favorite clubs and hangouts of that era?

LB: Jazz City is one I miss. They used a lot of local musicians and occasionally would bring in some headliners. It was there that I first saw Miles Davis in person. He had John Coltrane, red garland, Paul Chambers and “Philly” Joe Jones with him. It was there that I got to see and meet Cannonball Adderley for the first time. I also worked there with a variety of people including Barney Kessel and Conte Candoli. I also worked there with Shorty Rogers opposite Lenny Bruce.

LAJ: Lenny Bruce; what was he like?



LB: Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. We also worked across the street at a place called Peacock Lane. We would do a set and then Lenny would do a set and offend everybody and then we would have to come back on and try to calm everybody back down. In the 1960s I worked and hung-out at Shelly’s Manne Hole all the time. In the 1970s it was Donte’s.

LAJ: Do you have any desire to work clubs again?

LB: At this point, I really don’t think so. It was fun while I was doing it in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, but by the ‘80s it got to be less and less gratifying. It was no longer emotionally satisfying so I decided to hang it up. I think I have said everything I’m going to say in that way.

LAJ: Do you have any idea how many recordings you have made, either jazz, television and motion picture soundtracks, commercial jingles or whatever, all together? Even a ballpark figure?

LB: No idea. It’s not something I ever considered important.

LAJ: Of the many recordings that you have made, are there any with you as a leader?

LB: Only one. It was an album that I produced and did at the old Shelly’s Manne Hole with vibraphonist Gary Burton. We had met and became great friends and I became a great admirer of his. He was working with George Shearing at the time and would stay at my house when George was in town. We decided that we should record together. This was in late 1963 when Gary was barely out of his teens. I contacted engineer Bones Howe and we rented Wally Heider’s portable recording equipment and went into the Manne Hole to record. We had to postpone the date a couple of weekends due to the [J.F.] Kennedy assassination. We did it with Mike Wofford on piano and Bob West on bass and I spent the next couple of years trying to sell the thing. There were no takers. I finally gave the masters to a producer named Jackie Mills and he got it marketed. It wasn’t out very long and sold maybe about 20 copies. I never realized a dime from the thing.

LAJ: That’s too bad. Where is the record now?

LB: In limbo. Several years after we recorded it, Gary called me from New York and told me it had surfaced in Europe entitled “The Gary Burton Quartet.”

LAJ. But it was actually “The Larry Bunker Quartet, right?”

LB: Yeah, but you got to remember that when he called in 1967 or ’68, Gary Burton was hot. Nobody over there knew who the hell “Larry Bunker” was. The masters were eventually lost but surfaced some twenty years later in Japan. I got a call from a guy who wanted to issue it over there on the Vault records label. I said “fine.” In the meantime, a set of alternate master takes surfaced in Spain and was issued on the Fresh Sound label.

LAJ: So there are two different versions of the album?

LB: Yes, and maybe even three.

LAJ: Who is your favorite vibes player?

LB: Milt Jackson, hands down. There’s nobody like him. He has influenced so may vibe players and you can hear it in their playing. Gary is phenomenal and he really has kind of revolutionized the vibraphone insofar as what’s possible to play on it. He, too, has had a profound influence, especially on the younger players that have come up. But the guy who still touches my heart is Milt.
LAJ: And on drums?

LB: Elvin Jones, Tony Williams and Dave Weckl.


LAJ: Throughout your long and distinguished career you have worked with many of the jazz legends and greats. Is there anyone living or dead that you didn’t get to work with, but wish you could have?

LB: Oh sure. John Coltrane, Miles Davis. I would have loved to gig with those cats. I got to play with Dizzy at the Monterey Jazz festival back in the ‘60s and I did actually get to play once with Charlie Parker when I played a couple of tunes on piano at a dance job with him in L.A. at a place called the “Five-Four Ballroom. Some guys I knew where playing with them so I went down to catch the gig. There was a tune they wanted to play and the piano player didn’t know it. Larance Marable saw me and called me up to the stand and said: “You know that tune, don’t you?” I said: “Sure.” So I sat in and comped for Bird.

LAJ: What do you do for recreation or relaxation during your leisure time?

LB: Mainly I just stay at home and listen to classical music on my cable radio hook-up. I am able to get symphony broadcasts from all over the country.

LAJ: Classical music?

LB: Yes, I have become totally caught up in classical music, particularly when it comes to playing tympani. I have been playing tympani seriously now for ten or twelve years and really enjoy it. As a matter of fact, if I knew then what I know now, I might have gotten some serious training and become a timpanist with a major symphony orchestra. Unfortunately it is too late now. You don’t decide at the age of sixty-five that you’re going to change careers and look for an almost non-existent job as a concert timpanist.

LAJ: So what’s next for Larry Bunker?

LB: To just keep doing what I’m doing. Working in the studios and making a living."