The American Jazz Orchestra: A Gift from Gary, John and Roberta

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

“In 1985, when jazz critic Gary Giddins was told by producer Roberta Swann that she was thinking of putting together a modern classical ensemble, he suggested that she help create a jazz repertory orchestra instead. With John Lewis as the musical director, the American Jazz Orchestra had their debut concert in 1986, playing works associated with Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Fletcher Henderson, Count Basie, and Dizzy Gillespie. Two recordings resulted (tributes to Ellington and Lunceford), which often found the all-star players re-creating recorded solos. But when funding eventually ran out in the early '90s, the American Jazz Orchestra slipped away into history.”

~ Scott Yanow, Rovi

Gary Giddins is always doing nice things for Jazz.

His engrossing and entertaining book Visions of Jazz: The First Century was the subject of an earlier feature on these pages which you can locate by going here.

I also compiled an earlier profile on John Lewis, the conductor of the American Jazz Orchestra who, for many years, was also the musical director and pianist with the Modern Jazz Quartet. You can locate the previously posted essay on John via this link. [Unfortunately, two of the videos in the original piece on John had to be removed because of copyright "third-party matches."]

Lastly, Roberta Swann of the Cooper Union in New York City should be accorded major kudos and expressions of gratitude by Jazz fans for all she did to assist and support the American Jazz Orchestra during its all-too-brief existence.

Gary Giddins does nice things for JazzProfiles, too, like allowing me permission to reprint the following insert notes to the CD, The American Jazz Orchestra: Ellington Masterpieces [East-West 7 91423-2], which is currently available as an Mp3 download from Amazon [along with orchestra’s later recording of the music of Jimmy Lunceford].

© -  Gary Giddins, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“From its inception, The American Jazz Orchestra was devoted to the music of Duke Ellington. It could hardly be otherwise. No American composer has left a greater, more diverse body of work, or set higher standards for its continued performance. The challenge Ellington put to posterity is twofold. There is, first of all, the astonishing size of his catalogue, which includes popular and art songs, suites, tone poems, a ballet and an opera, stage and Him scores, and concertos and sym­phonic expansions, in addition to the thousands of short instrumental that are the cornerstone of his art. Second, there is the medium through which that catalogue is best known: Ellington's own recordings, surely the finest recorded documentation of a living composer's art since Edison patented the phono­graph. From 1924 until 1974, Ellington used the recording studio with prophetic and unrivaled mastery. His records became his scores.

During the half-century that Ellington managed to sustain his own orchestra-serving, in a sense, as his own patron—there was little need for other orchestras to perform his music, even though Ellington himself performed only a fraction of it in his grueling regimen of one-nighters. Indeed, it would have been a kind of plagiarism for another bandleader to appropriate Duke's music (though every bandleader was profoundly influenced by it). With Ellington's passing, however, and the passing of other great composers and arrangers of his genera­tion, a space opened in the life of American music. The works conceived for that uniquely American ensemble, the big band (woodwinds, brasses, and rhythm), cried out to be heard. The American Jazz Orchestra was conceived to help answer that need.

Some say that no orchestra can compete with Ellington's, that his records obviate the need for new interpretations. As in most musical matters, Ellington anticipated the nay savers. The variety of his numerous versions of the same pieces undermine the whole notion of a definitive performance. Interpretation is a relatively new idea in jazz, though it provided the sustenance for European classical music. Perhaps if Beethoven had recorded his sonatas and sympho­nies, subsequent generations would have been more circumspect in their inter­pretations of his scores. But it seems doubtful—after all, Rachmaninoff, Strauss, Stravinsky, Gershwin, and Copland are a few of the contemporary composers who did record their own works, with no diminution of interest from other conductors. Every year an increasing number of Ellington scores are prepared and published, proving that as brilliant as the Ellington Orchestra was, his music has a life beyond it. At the last of the sessions at which the American Jazz Orchestra recorded Ellington Masterpieces, the issue was re­solved for one skeptic. A TV producer who had expressed doubt about the value of recording Ellington stopped by to listen. After hearing a couple of takes, he half-rose from his seat and said, "My God, this proves the music's all there in the score!" Nesuhi Ertegun turned to him and said, "Of course, that's the whole point."

John Lewis grew up with the Ellington Orchestra (he was even present at the dance at which Ellington orchestrated Chloe), and has immersed himself in its music. Last year, he arranged several Ellington masterpieces for The Modern Jazz Quartet's For Ellington (East-West 90926). The inaugural concert by The American Jazz Orchestra, at the Great Hall of Cooper Union in 1986, included his performances of Cotton Tail, Concerto For Cootie, and Jack The Bear, plus Maurice Peress conducting "Harlem". At the AJO's Ellington program on March 3, 1988, at which Peress conducted the first performance of "Black, Brown & Beige" to incorporate Ellington's final emendations, John Lewis pre­pared nine of the shorter works, as well as Ellington's concert expansion of "Mood Indigo". Writing in The New York Times, John S. Wilson noted that The American Jazz Orchestra "has become a cohesive unit that expresses a strong personality even when it is working within the established outlines of Ellington's three-minute recorded arrangements." The idea for this album was born that evening. The following November, the AJO played these 15 selections for three nights at the Blue Note. When the AJO went into the studio a few days later, Lewis and the band were ready.

With the exception of Rockin' In Rhythm, introduced in 1930, all of the selections on Ellington Masterpieces come from those years which are often cited as the grandest in Ellington's career, 1940-1943. It's impossible to gauge precisely why a particular period finds an artist in a seeming state of grace. But in this instance some clues must be taken into account. The early 1940s were transitional for jazz: swing was on the wain and bebop was around the corner. Ellington had just signed a new recording contract which guaranteed him artis­tic freedom. For 15 years, he had been honing and perfecting his gifts, making of jazz (a word for which he had little use) a special world of sui generis melo­dies, voicings, and structural designs. Most of his musicians had been with him for a decade or more, and the new recruits were to inspire him to new heights. In Billy Strayhorn, his deputy composer, arranger, lyricist, and pianist, he found a collaborator who would eventually become his alter ego. In the revolu­tionary young bassist Jimmy Blanton, he found a virtuoso with supple time and a distinct soloist's voice. In Ben Webster, the magisterial tenor saxophonist who had played with the band briefly in 1935, he added one of the most original talents of the era. And in Ray Nance, the spry cornetist, violinist, and singer who replaced Cootie Williams in 1940, he found an irrepressible stylist who became a particular favorite with audiences. The stage was set, and during the next few years, culminating with the presentation of "Black, Brown & Beige", Ellington recorded a string of imperishable masterpieces.

In the wonderfully symmetrical Sepia Panorama, the reeds come roaring in for the initial theme (a blues), parting for the two-measure breaks played by John Goldsby, a young bassist with a particular feeling for Blanton's style. The second theme is an exchange between Eddie Bert and John Eckert, and the third finds Danny Bank emerging from the ensemble. At the center is Loren Schoenberg, a saxophonist known for his proclivities toward Lester Young, who in this context brings to life Ben Webster's more rugged approach. An issue confronting every jazz repertory performance is what to do with the original solos. Lewis opts, for the most part, to retain those solos when they have become as well-known as the written passages. Ellington himself had some relevant words about improvisation: "The word 'improvisation' has great limi­tations, because when musicians are given solo responsibility they already have a suggestion of a melody written for them, and so before they begin they al­ready know more or less what they are going to play. Anyone who plays any­thing worth hearing knows what he's going to play, no matter whether he prepares a day ahead or a beat ahead. It has to be with intent."

Billy Strayhorn's Johnny Come Lately features Jimmy Knepper, one of the great postwar trombone stylists; another great trombonist, Benny Powell, a 12-year veteran of The Count Basie Orchestra, is heard playing the muted passages. Note the rhythmic meshing of the rhythm section especially toward the end; Howard Collins is one of the last masters of the nearly-forgotten art of rhythm guitar. On All Too Soon, a celebrated vehicle for Johnny Hodges and Ben Webster, we hear one of the last major figures to join the Ellington band: Norris Turney was entrusted with the awesome responsibility of taking Hodges's place. Later, Ellington encouraged him to write for the band and to introduce a new voice to its palette, the flute. Knepper and Schoenberg are also heard, as is Dick Katz, who has an uncanny flair for those skittery arpeggios that were Ellington trademarks. Katz also comes to the fore on Ko-Ko, the ingenious blues that originated as an epi­sode in Ellington's unfinished opera, "Boola". The open trombone part is played by Knepper, the muted one by Bert.

Chloe is one of the cleverest examples of the way Ellington could adapt an inferior pop tune and make it sound like an exotic original. The solo­ists are Knepper, Bill Easley (a gifted tenor saxophonist who is emerging as one of the finest clarinetists of his generation), Bert, Goldsby, Eckert and Schoenberg. Eckert is one of the most admired of the younger trumpet players in New York; during a take of Chloe, Nesuhi Ertegun remarked, "To me, he's a revelation."

Ellington wrote a long series of portraits, from "Black Beauty" (Florence Mills) in 1928, to "Three Black Kings" (Martin Luther King) in 1974, and none is more charming or evocative than Bojangles, a homage to the sublime dancer, Bill Robinson. You can almost see him tapping down a stairway, Shirley Temple in tow, during the trio episode—which, incidentally, is played by trumpet (Eckert), trombone (Bert), and clarinet (Easley). John Lewis took over the piano chair; Schoenberg and Easley are also featured.

Cotton Tail, a striking variation on the standard "I Got Rhythm" chord sequence, boasts not only a classic Ben Webster tenor solo, but an equally famous Webster-composed chorus for the reeds. One night, between sets at the Blue Note, Schoenberg said with some astonishment, "You know, I feel just as creative playing Ben's solo on Cotton Tail as when I'm improvising." He sounds it. Bank and Katz are also heard, and don't miss the Banknote at the end. Nothing distinguished Ellington's sound more than his use of Harry Carney's baritone sax as a leading voice in the reed section. Bank is the AJO's bedrock.

Lewis considers Sidewalks Of New York one of Ellington's unsung masterworks, and is surprised that it wasn't heard more, especially in the town it celebrates. An inspired transformation of an old ditty, it is a swinging, surpris­ing arrangement that puts the spotlight on Easley, Katz, Knepper, Schoenberg, Turney, and Bank. That elephant cry of a trombone figure in the closing en­semble is by Benny Powell. Billy Strayhorn's Take The "A" Train, a perfect example of reeds and brasses set in precision responses, was almost immedi­ately promoted to become the band's theme. No jazz solo is better known (or more often performed) than the one Ray Nance played on it. When Nance left the band, Cootie Williams (who had returned) inherited his "improvisation", and played it verbatim night after night for 10 years. Eckert's perfor­mance is remarkable: he's playing Nance's conception, but the interpretation is entirely his own.

Jack The Bear, another Ellington benchmark, was the first piece conceived as a vehicle to introduce the unique talent of Blanton, and is no less admired for the ensemble melodies that replicate bass lines and the crescendos played by the brasses. In addition to Goldsby, the featured players are Katz, Easley, Virgil Jones, Bank, and Powell. Main Stem, yet another great Ellington blues, has all the rowdy charm of the Broadways it celebrates. The soloists are Turney, Eckert, Jones, Easley, Bert, Schoenberg, and Knepper.

One of the most widely-noted performances of the first AJO concert was Virgil Jones's reading of Concerto For Cootie. He has played it several times since, making it more and more an extension of his style and sound. Although the melody was later turned into the popular song "Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me", it originated in a setting that extended phrases beyond standard eight-bar constructions, and meshed trumpet and ensemble in true concerto form.

Knepper, Easley, and Jones are heard in episodes of Conga Brava, but the key role is played by Schoenberg, in a vivid retelling of the Webster solo. The piece was inspired by a dance craze (conga lines were once as ubiquitous as parties) that seems especially trite when considered beside this remarkable and rather complicated composition. Mel Lewis, perhaps the finest big band drummer in the world, and certainly a savior of band music in New York (his own orchestra recently celebrated its 23rd anniversary of Monday nights at the Village Vanguard), defines the pulse.

When John Lewis played the piano part on Rockin’ In Rhythm in concert, Jim Miller of Newsweek wrote, "Lewis remained faithful to the composer's idiom while improvising in his own style: earthy yet elegant, bluesy, debonair, as graceful as Astaire. Nearly 60 years old, Rockin' In Rhythm suddenly felt brand new." The other soloists are Powell and Easley; Bank plays the ensemble clarinet part and Bob Millikin, who shares with Marvin Stamm lead trumpet responsibilities, plays the high note climax.

-GARY GIDDINS”

Mike Zwerin, the late columnist about all-things-Jazz, in his Son of Miles series for culturekiosque.com, wrote an article entitled John Lewis: A Big Gig that offered this overview of the American Jazz Orchestra.

© -  Mike Zwerin, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Fletcher Henderson, Jimmy Lunceford, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Claude Thornhill and the others developed the sound and popularized it before it disappeared into the mists of the past described as the "big band era."

Like horse-drawn carts and the 78 RPM, big bands tend to be remembered as nostalgia. They are coming back, it is true, but just on Monday or Thursday nights or like that in tiny clubs where they outnumber the guests. That ain't exactly the idea.

In these days of instant communication, people want to know, "What have you done for me lately?" Like last night. It's getting so we're nostalgic for breakfast. Monday night won't do.

As part of this small but sparse renewal, the American Jazz Orchestra was organized by a Village Voice critic, Gary Giddins, and Roberta Swann of Cooper Union; with the composer-pianist John Lewis, creator of the Modern Jazz Quartet, as musical director.

"Though the United States is a nation rich in symphony orchestras, chamber groups and opera companies," Giddins stated, "it has never produced an enduring ensemble that could present the masterworks of its indigenous classical music." "Enduring" meaning six nights for a one week gig. We are satisfied with so little.

Lewis and Giddins both sounded weary some summers ago, discussing the matter. Maybe it was a two-month heat wave. Somebody forgot to turn the oven off that summer, and the sense of purpose and humor has been hard to nourish. "It's a lot of work, all unpaid. At least as far as I'm concerned," said Lewis. Giddins picked up the motif: "This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I'm not getting paid for it and I hate it."

My goodness! In context, however, both complained on the reverse side of the coin of love. "An incredibly rich and varied repertoire has been created," Giddins also said: "Big band jazz is uniquely American. We are trying to preserve it like a symphony orchestras tried to preserve 19th century European music. Of course there is one big difference - the big bands are already preserved on record. But in order to appreciate the real spirit of this music, it has to be heard live. This is jazz music, the sound of now. And if we want to preserve the tradition among the musicians, they must be given the opportunity to perform it for an audience." (Every day after breakfast at least.)

Lewis added: "There is no replacement for live performance. The effect on the emotions of the public is entirely different. No Matter how well it is re-mastered, recorded music remains, in a sense, dead. It doesn't move. The purpose of this orchestra is to preserve the golden age of large ensemble jazz and have younger generations of musicians and listeners make it their own."

Clearly improvisation is dead when it is preserved on record. A contradiction of terms. "Recorded jazz" is an oxymoron. Something that should be of the moment is frozen in time.

The American Jazz Orchestra presented concerts of the music of Lunceford, Woody Herman and Ellington. The concerts included some of the best instrumentalists in New York: the trombonists Jimmy Knepper and Eddie Bert, the trumpeters Jon Faddis and Marvin Stamm, the saxophonists Norris Turney and John Purcell and the drummer Mel Lewis.

Each concert was preceded by a week of paid rehearsals - one of the conditions under which Lewis agreed to be musical director. Each involved scraping together numerous donations from $5 to $5,000 and, although Cooper Union donated their "Great Hall" as the orchestra's home, it was never an easy scrape.

After the American Jazz Orchestra became an established name with good reviews, a press kit and a board of directors that includes Bill Cosby and the former New York governor, Hugh Carey, who is chairman, Giddins tried to raise an annual budget from corporate sources to turn the orchestra into an ongoing repertory group like subsidized symphony orchestras. He said "I'm going after a Lee Iaccoca who loves jazz.

"I spent my entire life avoiding these kind of people," he admitted. A quite reasonable duck: "Money people are so patronizing about jazz. If they support classical music, they get what they consider status for their money. Their wives have a chance to wear their expensive jewelry at Carnegie Hall. If they give money to rock, at least their kids can wear Aerosmith T-shirts. But jazz is a bastard art. They don't see it as improving either their social standing or their business, and the t-shirts suck. So the basic task is to upgrade people's perception of jazz."

Which recalls a Lenny Bruce routine. Informed that he had been booked into a bar called "Ann's 440," he objected because it was a well-known homosexual hangout. He wanted no part of it.

"No no," the owner replied: "We want you to change all that."

"Gee!" exclaimed Bruce: "That's a big gig."

A big gig indeed. John Lewis has been working to improve the image of jazz for 50 years, since he played the piano with the Miles Davis "Birth of the Cool" band in 1949. There are those who chuckle at the members of his Modern Jazz Quartet for their three-piece pinstripe suits and solemn stage demeanor. They have been called "pretentious." But perhaps better than any other group, the Modern Jazz Quartet has managed to maintain the spirit, drive and risk-taking that is essential to jazz in an atmosphere of grand standing and status.

"I want to bring big band jazz to the concert hall, where it belongs," Lewis said, while sipping Champagne between two grand pianos and a harpsichord in his spacious East End Avenue living room: "But not just any concert hall. The use of the hall is not the same as for other repertoire. The audience is different too. You have more young people, a greater generational mix. The size, the atmosphere, the acoustics must be suitable."

He considers Cooper Union's 900-seat Great Hall to be perfect: "We started by putting a microphone in front of every instrument in the 'normal' way. We thought we had to 'adjust' for the hall's acoustics. But it didn't work. We didn't know how to fix it. Then I remembered once hearing every note Duke Ellington's basist Jimmy Blanton played when he stood in front of the band without any amplification.

"Another thing - the most famous use of the Great Hall was when Abraham Lincoln opened his presidential campaign with a speech in it. He had no microphone. Anyway, we could no longer afford all of that sound equipment with the mixing table and the engineer. So we moved the bass out in front of the orchestra and forgot all the microphones. And everything cleared up. The musicians began to make their own balance instead of relying on technicians.

"Musicians today are becoming more flexible. We have no trouble finding people who are capable of adapting to the different styles of the tradition even though many of the younger generation have never been exposed to the original. And, too, some of the scores and parts have been lost, we have tried to transcribe inner voicings from recordings."

"The time is right for a reawakening to the excitement of our vernacular classics," Giddins concluded. "The American Jazz Orchestra can spearhead that revival and guarantee the survival of our musical heritage into the next century."

This was all some years ago. Anyone hear about the American Jazz Orchestra recently?”

Due to copyright restrictions from WMG, I was unable to use a track from the American Jazz Orchestra’s Ellington Masterpieces for the audio portion of the following video tribute to the AJO.  Instead, I’ve substituted the Ellington Orchestra’s 1943 rendition of Conga Brava.

My thanks to Gary Giddins, John Lewis, Roberta Swann and Cooper Union, Nesuhi Ertegun, the wonderful musicians who performed with the orchestra and all those associated with it for the gift of the American Jazz Orchestra.  Talk about a labor of love!

Don Fagerquist: A Skillful, Sparkling and Sophisticated Jazz Trumpeter

A friend recently contacted me about Don Fagerquist to ask for copyright permission to use the video that closes this piece in another context.

Have you ever heard a more beautiful sound on Jazz trumpet than Donnie's?

We wanted to remember him once again on these pages, and we thought that a re-posting of this earlier piece would serve that purpose, especially for those who are not familiar with Fagerquist's playing.

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

One of the musicians on the Left Coast who always knocked me out was trumpeter Don Fagerquist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few years ago, Jordi Pujol, owner and operator of Fresh Sound Records which is based in Spain,  put out a very nice compilation of the Don’s recordings entitled Don Fagerquist: Portrait of a Jazz Artist [FSR 2212].

He included this brief annotation of Don and his career on the CD’s tray plate:

“Don Fagerquist [1927-1974] might have been one of the most underrated Jazz trumpets in history despite countless recordings with Gene Krupa, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, Les Brown and Dave Pell.

Although he was a Hollywood studio musician since 1956, over the years Don maintained his contact with the Jazz scene, as the tracks on this CD will show.

He had a unique sound and a way of phrasing that immediately identified him, allowing us at once to appreciate his playing. This CD is more than a collection of mood music and Jazz tunes; it is a delightful warm and descriptive musical portrait of a great Jazz artist.”

We have selected The Girl Next Door track from the Fresh Sound anthology for the following video tribute to Don.

Russ Garcia did the arrangement which has Don stating the melody as a ballad [0:00 – 1:07 minutes], then doubling the time [1:08 – 2:30 minutes] to allow Don to show off his Jazz chops before restating the theme as a ballad [2:31 minutes]. You might want to especially listen for the very clever ending in which Don plays a remarkably hip cadenza [3:16 minutes].

Jazz has had many great trumpet stylists over its almost 100 year history, but I don’t think that anyone has even played the horn prettier than Don Fagerquist.

Manne on Gunn

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

“Manne’s men do the Peter Gunn music with a kind of tough-guy cartoon expression, but this was a great combo anyway and Candoli and Geller seldom knew how to be boring.”

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

Traditionally, Monday nights were a “dark night” for gigging musicians.

There were exceptions, of course.  One example that comes to mind is the Terry Gibbs Dream Band which was made up of studio musicians who played local gigs around Hollywood with Terry’s band on Monday nights.

Probably the most famous, let alone most enduring, Monday off-night gig was the one involving New York City studio musicians and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra at the Village Vanguard, a tradition which continues to this very day.

But for me and many other musicians, one benefit of being off on Mondays was that for a few years, we all got to catch Peter Gunn when it premiered from 9:00 to 9:30 on Monday nights, on NBC-TV.

It starred Craig Stevens as Peter Gunn and also starred Lola Albright as his girl, Edie Hart; Herschel Bernardi as Lt. Jacoby; Hope Emerson as Mother, at whose nightclub Edie sings. The program was created and directed by Blake Edwards who, in a stroke of genius, tapped Henry Mancini as its Musical Director. The Executive Producer was Gordon Oliver, the sponsor was Bristol-Myers and filming was done at Universal-International Studios in Hollywood [when it was still had a “back lot” and before it developed a theme park on it].

The bonanza of Jazz-on-Television the program launched is described in the following excerpt from Lester Koenig’s insert notes to Shelly Manne & His Men Play Peter Gunn [Contemporary S 75-60/OJCCD 946-2]:

Peter Gunn is an adult mystery with a different kind of hero: a private eye who is literate, suave, well-groomed, and—digs jazz. The weekly show hit the NBC-TV network September 22,1958, and zoomed to a success which is, in part, the result of its jazz score, composed and arranged by Henry Mancini, known as Hank to the leading jazz stars in the Los Angeles area who have played for his soundtracks. Since November 1958, Shelly Manne and Victor Feldman have been regular mem­bers of the band which records the show's score. When Shelly became enthused about the idea of recording an album of Mancini originals from Peter Gunn, he invited Feldman to appear with him as a guest star.

Aside from its own considerable merits, the fact that a jazz score has created so much attention is a reflection of the staying power of the new marriage of jazz and TV, a nuptial which seems to have eclipsed the short-lived, annulled wedding of jazz and poetry. Jazz has taken an increasing part in the everyday living of the nation, and a summation of jazz in 1958 reveals, as leading critic Leonard Feather points out in the February 1959 issue of Playboy: 

‘... Jazz — both modern and traditional—filled video screens... CBS' hour-long show, The Sound of Jazz... the first Timex all-star jazz show, emceed by Steve Allen, was seen on NBC... a unique effort to offer it on an educational level was undertaken when NBC launched a 13-week series, The Subject Is Jazz... Bobby Troup's Stars of Jazz was projected to the full ABC network,.. Disc jockey Art Ford kicked off his own weekly show on New York's Channel 13. In Chicago, WBBM-TV presented Jazz in the Round... CBS launched a-five-nights-a-week-series, Jazz is My Beat.’

Other examples come to mind. In September a Westinghouse spectacular featured Benny Goodman, Andre Previn, Shelly Manne, and Red Mitchell. Previn also made a guest appearance on the Steve Allen show. And jazz as part of the score for dramatic pictures and TV shows made a tremendous impact when Walter Wanger engaged Johnny Mandel to write a jazz score for I Want to Live (which featured Shelly Manne); when Revue Productions' Stan Wilson used a jazz group for the score of the weekly M Squad; and when Spartan Productions engaged Hank Mancini as Musical Director for Peter Gunn.”

Pete Rugolo’s Jazz scores for Thriller and Richard Diamond, Elmer Bernstein’s for Johnny Staccato and Lalo Schifrin’s for Mannix would also come into focus, but as Jazz fans everywhere know, this abundance of TV Jazz scores would wane and be pretty much gone by the close of the decade of the 1960’s.

Les Koenig, who owned Contemporary Records, took great care to create a studio atmosphere which took into consideration these factors:

“For jazz musicians to be free to express themselves, and to make personal statements, they need the kind of relaxed atmosphere not commonly found in recording studios. The average record date takes only three hours. But, like a barbecue fire which always seems to be glowing at its best after you've removed the steaks, jazz record dates usually begin to develop a 'feeling' just as the three-hour time limit is up.

At Contemporary we've tried to break this time barrier by scheduling sessions of at least six or nine hours. In the case of Peter Gunn we took four three-hour sessions and as a result an exceptionally close rapport was achieved; each musician felt free to contribute his ideas and suggestions came so thick and fast Shelly was often in the position of a moderator at a heated Town Hall session.

That The Men were able to approach each of Mancini's pieces with a fresh, spontaneous, and valid conception is a tribute to their outstanding talents, as well as to the vitality of Mancini's provocative new jazz themes.”

—LESTER KOENIG January 1959

These notes appeared on the original album liner.

Orrin Keepnews made these comments about Shelly Manne and His Men Play Peter Gunn [Contemporary S 75-60/OJCCD 946-2] when it was released as a CD:

“For the most part, television music was a vast jazz wasteland before the Peter Gunn series debuted in the fall of 1958. The show's score both made a name for composer Henry Mancini and changed the sound of televised drama. It was inevitable that Shelly Manne, Hollywood studio mainstay and a proven champion at jazz interpreta­tions of Broadway shows, would give Mancini's music a more expansive blowing treatment, and the resulting album reminds us that there was more to Peter Gunn than its dramatic theme and the classic ballad "Dreamsville." Fans of Manne's Men should note that the album was taped during the brief tenure of alto saxophonist Herb Geller, and that it makes winning use of the vibes and marimba of added starter Victor Feldman, whose piano would shortly be heard to superb advantage on the band's Blackhawk recordings (OJCs 656-660).”

We've selected A Profound Gass by Shelly and The Men and coupled it with a montage on "beatniks" as our video tribute to Peter Gunn TV series and its era.

Paul Desmond - The Complete RCA Victor Recordings featuring Jim Hall

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

Paul Desmond and Doug Ramsey were pals.

All of us should be so lucky to have a friend like, Doug.

In honor of his late, buddy’s accomplishments, Doug has written Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond, a work that has to rank as one of the best biographies of a Jazz artist ever written. Parkside published it in a lovely folio edition and should you wish to order a copy, you can do so by going here.

Doug has kindly given the editorial staff at JazzProfiles permission to offer his informative and insightful insert notes to the booklet that accompanies Paul Desmond - The Complete RCA Victor Recordings featuring Jim Hall.

You will find these reproduced below along with some of Desmond’s always mirthful writings, the cover art from the albums that make up the RCA set and a selection of Chuck Stewart’s exquisite photographs of Paul.

Perhaps when you’ve finished reading Doug and Paul’s writings, you might enjoy watching our video tribute to Paul which was developed with the help of the crackerjack graphics team at CerraJazz LTD.

The audio track is Paul’s performance of I’ve Got You Under My Skin from the Desmond Blue RCA recording. Jim Hall is featured on guitar and the arrangement is by Bob Prince. [Just click the “X” when the ads appear on the screen to close out of them.]

Happy New Year.

© -  Doug Ramsey, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

We were in an elevator in the Portland Hilton, waiting for the doors to close when the car jerked and dropped slightly, and a bell sounded.

"What was that?" a startled woman asked.

"E-flat," Paul Desmond and I said simultaneously.

I think that's when he decided we could become friends.

We had been acquaintances since a decade earlier when the Brubeck Quartet was playing a concert at the University of Washington in 1955, and I was writing about music for the UW Daily. During intermission, Desmond and I discussed cameras and books. We picked up the conversation later that night at a party for the band, and it continued until toward the end of May 1977. He told me then that the doctors had decided to discontinue radiology and chemotherapy, that the treatments had become worse than the disease, and the disease was pretty bad. His liver, however, was still perfect.

The liver thing had become a running gag. Desmond and good Scotch were, shall we say, not strangers. It amused him that after a physical examination in early 1976 turned up a spot on his lung, his liver was given a clean bill of health. He enjoyed the irony.

"Pristine," he said, "perfect." One of the great livers of our time. Awash in Dewars and full of health."

I think he was even amused by the circumstances of the discovery of his neme­sis. He had gone to the doctor about foot trouble, and they found the cancer. The swelling of the feet turned out to be temporary and unimportant.

His mother was Irish and literate, his father German and musical, so it was proba­bly inevitable that Paul Breitenfeld's verbal and musical selves would be witty, warm and ironic. Until near the end of his life, according to Gene Lees, Desmond thought his father was Jewish, but a relative said he wasn't. The name Desmond came from a phone book.

"Breitenfeld sounded too Irish," he told me.

Among those who knew him, his wordplay was as celebrated as his solos. He was quiet, quick and subtle, and some of his remarks have become widely published, like the one about his wanting to sound like a dry martini. One night at closing time at Bradley's, Jimmy Rowles was packing his fake books, and Bradley Cunningham remarked that if Peter Duchin could have access to all of those chords, his prayers would be answered.

"Unfortunately for Peter Duchin," Desmond said, "all of his prayers have already been answered.”

Hanging on our dining room wall was Barbara Jones' large oil painting of four cats stalking a mouse. Seeing it for the first time, Paul said, "Ah, the perfect album cover for when I record with the Modern Jazz Quartet."

"You'll notice that the mouse is mechanical," I pointed out.

"In that case," he said, "Cannonball will have to make the record."

Like all true lovers of language and humor, Desmond knew that the only good pun was a bad pun. He and Jim Hall conspired to conceive a sort of Jazz Goes to Ireland album with outrageous song titles like "Fitzhugh or No One," "The Tralee Song," "Mahoney a Bird in a Gilded Cage" and "Lovely Hoolihan."

Paul loved to visit our house in Bronxville, a half-hour north of Manhattan. The place was on a hill with huge rocks, a pond, pine trees and a stone verandah that looked down on the street and a wooded lot where children played. "The real estate deal of the century," he called it, never failing to marvel that such rural-seeming territory existed so close to "ground zero," his neighborhood at 55th Street and 6th Avenue.

After dinner, we sat on the verandah and talked, often for hours but never non-stop. There were long, comfortable silences.

In the years following the dissolution of the Brubeck Quartet, Desmond was semi-retired, playing only when he was presented the opportunity to work with musicians he admired or, in at least one case, to help someone. He was one of the first to play the Half Note when it moved from among the warehouses and garages of lower Manhattan to the expensive mid-town real estate that was to prove the club's undoing. Desmond main­tained he was accepting the gig only because it was around the corner from his apartment and he could pop out of bed and into the club. He never admitted that he wanted to help the Canterino family launch the new joint successfully; to do so would have been to admit that he had the drawing power of a star. (Never has there been a star less eager for the role.)

He appeared fairly often with the Two Generations of Brubeck troupe, hit the road with the old quartet in the 25th anniversary reunion tour in the winter of 1976, and traveled to Toronto now and then to work at Bourbon Street with Ed Bickert, Don Thompson, Jerry Fuller and, sometimes, Terry Clarke. In 1969, Paul was in the all-star band assembled by Willis Conover for Duke Ellington's 70th birthday part at the White House, the only domestic affairs high point of the Nixon administration. That night, as I have recounted else­where, Paul did an impression of Johnny Hodges that was so accurate that it caused Ellington to sit bolt upright in astonishment, an effect that gave Desmond great pleasure when I described it to him.

At the New Orleans Jazz Festival the same year, there was a memorable recreation of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Desmond as the other horn, Milt Hinton on bass and Alan Dawson the drummer. In New Orleans, Paul and I hung out virtually non-stop for four days, closing the French Quarter every morning shortly before sunrise. We avoided the strip joints and pseu­do-jazz clubs and concentrated on little bars known to tourists only if they stumbled in. And we listened to all the music we could absorb at that remarkable festival, still remembered by musicians and audiences alike as the finest jazz festival ever, and described by Desmond one night on a television program I was conducting as "the most civilized I have ever attended."

Taking in one incredible jam session in the ballroom of the Royal Orleans Hotel, we witnessed Roland Kirk surpassing himself in one of the most inspired soprano sax solos either of us had ever heard. In a fast blues, Kirk used Alphonse Picou's traditional chorus from High Society for the basis of a fantastic series of variations that went on for chorus after chorus. We were spellbound by the intensity and humor of it, and Paul announced that henceforth he would be an unreserved Roland Kirk fan, even unto gongs and whistles. In the same session, Jaki Byard rose from the piano bench, picked up someone's alto saxo­phone and began playing beautifully.

"I wish he'd mind his own business," Desmond said.

About his own playing, he was modest, even deprecatory. "The world's slowest alto player," he called himself, "the John P. Marquand of the alto sax," and he claimed to

have won a special award for quietness. He was reluctant to listen to his recordings, although once after dinner when we'd had enough Dewars he agreed to hear a Brubeck con­cert I had on a tape never issued commercially. I intrigued him into listening by insisting that his solo on Pennies from Heaven was among his best work. In my opinion, Paul's solos tend* ed to be too short, but on this piece he stretched out for ten choruses of some of his most architectonic playing, full of inventive figures, sly rhythmic twists and inge­nious quotes.

He nodded along with himself, laughed a couple of times (in the right places, obviously) and when it was over said, "I agree." That's the clos­est I ever heard

Desmond come to approval of his own playing.

During those final nine years, he was allegedly working on a book about his life and times in music. It was to called, How Many of You Are There in the Quartet, after a question asked by airline stewardesses around the world. There were periodic negotiations with agents and publish­ers, even an advance, but little of the book actually made it onto paper. The only chapter in print was in Punch, the British humor magazine. In an account of the Brubeck group's engagement at a county fair in New Jersey, Desmond melded a horse show, volunteer firemen's' demonstrations, Brubeck's only known appearance on electric organ, and a marathon Joe Morello drum solo into a montage worthy of S.J. Perelman. The book, he now and then claimed, was mainly an excuse that allowed him to hang out with the writers at Elaine's. That two-page cadenza, his liner notes, and a few letters remind us of Paul's literary ability. He was a creative writing major at San Francisco State College in the '40s, but he got side­tracked.

We talked by phone fairly often in the last years of his life, when I was living in San Antonio. When the calls came, they invariably began with his cheerful greeting, "Hi, it's me, Desmond." The last time, we found the conversation tapering off into an uncomfortable succession of commonplaces, a sort of shadow boxing that grew out of what he knew and I guessed. We should both get mildly bombed the following Friday night, he suggested, and he would call me from Elaine's.

His housekeeper found him dead on Monday.

© -  Paul Desmond/Radio Corporation of America, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Paul Desmond's original liner notes for TAKE TEN (RCA LSP 2569):

TAKETEN: further reflections on "Black Orpheus" and other timely topics...

This space is usually occupied, as most hardened collectors know, by the prose stylings of George Avakian. I'm taking his place this time partly because he's up to his jaded ears in Newport tapes and partly because this way we'll have room on the back for pictures. This brings us instantly to the first problem, which is that George frequently starts out by saying all manner of nice things about me which I can't say about myself without blushing, and it's ridiculous to walk around blushing when you are twenty-two years old. Nevertheless I should explain who I am and all, especially for those among you who may have picked up the album because of the cover under the impression that you were getting the score from a Vincent Price movie.

Briefly, then, I'm this saxophone player from the Dave Brubeck Quartet, with which I've been associated since shortly after the Crimean War. You can tell which one is me because when I'm not playing, which is surprisingly often, I'm leaning against the piano. I also have less of a smile than the other fellows. (This is because of the embouchure, or the shape of your mouth, while playing, and is very deceptive. You didn't really think Benny Goodman was all that happy, did you? Nobody's that happy.) I have won several prizes as the world's slowest alto player, as well as a special award in 1961 for quietness.

My compatriot in this venture is Jim Hall, about whom it's difficult to say anything complimentary enough. He's a beautiful musician-the favorite guitar-picker of many people who agree on little else in music, and he goes to his left very well. Some years ago he was the leading character, by proxy, in a movie starring Tony Curtis (SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS), a mark of distinction achieved only recently by such other notables as Hugh Hefner and Genghis Khan. He's a sort of combination Pablo Casals and W.C. Fields and hilari­ously easy to work with except he complains once in a while when I lean on the guitar.

Gene Cherico, who's becoming a thoroughly fantastic bass player, has only been playing bass for the last eight years. (Before that he was a drummer, but a tree fell on him. No kidding, that's the kind of life he leads.) On TAKE TEN he was replaced by my sturdy buoy and hard-driving friend Eugene Wright.

Connie Kay is, of course, the superb drummer from the Modern Jazz Quartet, and if a tree ever falls on him I may just shoot myself. He's like unique.

About the tunes: TAKE TEN is another excursion into 5/4 or 10/8, whichever you prefer. Since writing TAKE FIVE a few years back, a number of other possibilities in the 5 & 10 bag have come to mind from time to time. TAKE TEN is one of them. THEME FROM 'BLACK ORPHEUS' and SAMBA DE ORFEU, along with EMBARCADERO and EL PRINCE; are in a rhythm which by now I suppose should be called bossa antigua. (It's too bad the bossa nova became such a hula-hoop promotion. The original feeling was really a wild, subtle, delicate thing but it got lost there for a while in the avalanche. It's much too musical to be just a fad; it should be a permanent part of the scene. One more color for the long winter night, and all.)

ALONE TOGETHER, NANCY and THE ONE I LOVE are old standards I've always liked. They were arranged, more or less, while we were milling about drinking coffee and all. This approach, while making for a comfortable looseness, usually leads to general apprehension towards the end of the take and frequent disasters, but occasionally you get a fringe benefit. At the end of ALONE TOGETHER, Connie hit the big cymbal a good whang there and it sailed off the drum set and crashed on the floor. After the hysterical laughter subsided we were getting set to tear through it one more time but we listened to it anyway, out of curiosity, and it sound­ed kind of nice so we left it in. That's one of the few advantages this group has over the MJQ-if Connie's cymbal hits the floor on an MJQ record date, you by God know it, but with this group you can't really be sure.

George Avakian was benevolently present at all stages of getting this record togeth­er, and Bob Prince, doubtless overwhelmed at having a song named after him, appeared fre­quently with advice and counsel which was totally disregarded.

I would also like to thank my father who discouraged me from playing the violin at an early age.

PAUL DESMOND

© -  Paul Desmond/Radio Corporation of America, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Paul Desmond's original liner notes for BOSSA ANTIGUA (LSP 3320):

DELINEATIONS BY DESMOND

It's me, Paul Desmond, rapidly aging sax player with the Brubeck Quartet, sometimes called the John P. Marquand of the alto, and again playing hookey from the mother lode with the same group of sturdy compatriots that made TAKE TEN such a Joy to record. On bass is the Jovial presence of Eugene Wright, without whom the entire Brubeck operation would grind to a halt in a matter of hours. On drums, the master time-keeper of the Modem Jazz Quartet, Connie Kay -who, if he didn't exist, would be much too perfect ever to be imagined by any­one. And on guitar, the redoubtable (that means the first time you hear it you don't believe it, and when you hear it again later you still don't believe it) Jim Hall.

The term bossa antigua (it means, or at least it should, "old thing," as opposed to "new thing") began as a slightly rueful play on words, because by the time I got around to doing a few bossa nova tunes on TAKE TEN it was several years after the first flash from Brazil and couldn't property be called a new thing any more. This album carries the term a step further, in that the rhythm on several tracks is a sort of skeletal bossa nova with various old-timey flavors added. ALIANCA, for instance, has Jim Hall functioning as the only accredited Brazilian delegate, accompanied by routinely impeccable Connie Kay shtick and a nice com­fortable New York 2 from Eugene Wright. A SHIP WITHOUT A SAIL and THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES contain other variations, ranging from Early Calumet City Strip to a sub­liminal fraelich. (If any of you feel creative out there, you could get together some rainy night and figure out an Old Thing dance to go along.)

The tunes, except for SHIP and NIGHT, are mostly originals. O GATO was written by Jim Hall's friend Jane Herbert, and it's as charming as she is, which is saying a lot. The others are tunes I wrote. One is based on a minor adaptation of a melody indigenous to early American coffee houses, a few are extensions of themes that have been wandering through my head recently, and the one called CURASAO DOLOROSO is a sort of three-stage operation.

Originally I'd wanted to do HEARTACHES, because it seemed so incongruous and because the original record of it had something of the same Neolithic connection to bossa nova as early marching bands had to Gerry Mulligan. I wrote a different set of changes for it and we tried it, and it was so horrible that George Avakian emerged from the control room in the middle of the first take, waving his arms and shuddering. (This is a musical milestone of sorts, since George usually smiles serenely thru the most disastrous takes imaginable, hoping that something good will somehow happen and he'll be able to splice it in later. I think the only other time he walked out in the middle of a take, the studio was on fire.)

So, on a later date we used the chords and avoided the melody, which is what you're supposed to do in jazz anyhow, come to think of it, and it worked out nicely. (Since it's a different melody and a different set of chords, the writers of HEARTACHES won't be around looking for royalties - but if they ever feel like dropping by for a drink, I'm usually home between 4 and 6.)

As always, George Avakian masterminded the entire operation effortlessly, even with a tele­phone more or less permanently installed in one ear. (There was one point, I must admit, when the only way I could get his attention was to go out to the phone booth and call him.) I don't know how the phone calls worked out, but I love the album.

PAUL DESMOND

© -  Doug Ramsey, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

PAUL DESMOND WITH JIM HALL

Until his series of RCA Victor dates in the 1960s, Paul Desmond did little recording as a leader, most unusual for a star soloist. In 1954 he had two Fantasy sessions, one with trumpeter Dick Collins and tenor saxophonist Dave Van Kriedt, colleagues from the Brubeck Octet; the other with guitarist Barney Kessel and the Bill Bates singers. The entire output of those encounters fit on a 10-inch LP made of green vinyl (everything done by Max and Sol Weiss, Fantasy's founders, was colorful). In the notes for it, Paul wrote, "My name is Paul Desmond and here I am 30 years old and this my first album in which I am not breathing down somebody else's neck...." In 1956, Desmond put together a quartet for another Fantasy album (red vinyl) with Don Elliott on mellophone and trumpet and ele­phants rampant on the cover. Desmond and Gerry Mulligan shared leadership of a 1957 session for Verve. He and guitarist Jim Hall linked up for a quartet date for Warner Bros, in 1959.

CD1

DESMOND BLUE

For four years beginning in mid-1961, Desmond was in Webster Hall or RCA's famous Studio A 19 times for sessions that produced five albums with Hall. The first to be released was Desmond Blue (later re-released on CD as Late Lament, with the addition of the previously unissued Advise and Consent, Autumn Leaves and Imagination). The arrangements for strings and horns were by Bob Prince, who had established his reputation as the composer of a staple of the modern ballet repertoire, New York Export: Op. Jazz. "I'd always wanted to hear Desmond with strings," Prince told Will Thornbury. "It was a dream come true."

Prince's recollection of Paul's modus operandi at the strings dates reminds us of Desmond's dedication to spontaneity.

"He was a wonderful musician," Prince told Thornbury, "one of the few to trans­form the saxophone and shape it into a new sound. I've never known anyone with such a pure tone - one that I'd never heard before and won't again. When it came to playing with strings and woodwinds, he wanted the experience of going into the studio and having a new toy to play with. It really came down to that, because in many cases I was going to show him what I'd done and he'd say, 'No, no, that's all right—just go ahead and do it.' He didn't really want me to come over and show it to him on the piano or even look at it on the score, because he liked that, just like he liked going in with Jim and the rhythm sec­tion and being surprised by them. I was amazed by what he did. In all of the album there's one chord—one point—where I stuck in an augmented eleventh, and had I known he was not going to augment the eleventh, I'd have thought twice about putting in the upper func­tions. That's the only exception, and it only happened for about a quarter of a bar. I'm not telling where that is."

The empathy between Paul and Jim Hall is introduced in My Funny Valentine fol­lowing the neo-baroque introduction written by Prince. It is more fully disclosed in I've Got You Under My Skin when the strings lay out. Desmond plays a chorus with only Milt Hinton's bass and Robert Thomas's drums behind him, then Hall begins a pattern of gently prodding chords and moves the intensity up so that by the time the strings re-enter on a key change, the swing has reached its highest level of the piece.

CD2

TAKE TEN

Take Ten was Desmond's follow-up composition to Take Five, for the Brubeck Quartet a hit record and for Paul a dependable annuity that is still producing considerable income for his estate. The bassist for the title tune of Desmond's second RCA album is Eugene Wright, fel­low Brubeckian and shaman of 5/4 time who, in the early sixties when 5/4 was Sanskrit to most jazz musicians, would hold little counting seminars backstage: "1,2,3/1,2," he would instruct the locals, "that's the only way you can keep track of it until it becomes natural.”  In Take Ten, it is obviously natural to Gene. Desmond is misterioso, Near-Eastern and bluesy.  

Hall was one of the first American musicians to return from Brazil with news of bossa nova, that felicitous melding of samba and harmonies from the French impressionists and jazz. Desmond saw deeply into its beautiful possibilities. His El Prince is heard in two versions, with drummer Connie Kay in a complex samba pattern. The second take, which lan­guished in a tape box for two decades until it was issued on a Mosaic LP collection, is a tad slower and has forceful Desmond, a buoyant solo by Hall and intriguing bass lines by Gene Cherico.

At least one hearing of Alone Together can profitably be spent concentrating on Connie's snare accents and cymbal work, little kicks of encouragement. Paul, at a fairly good clip, marries relaxation and irresistible swing, especially in his second solo. Jim quotes Dizzy Gillespie's Anthropology and in the bridge of his second solo chorus has the kind of chord fiesta that makes grown men weep, if they are guitarists.

The structure of this song is a nor­mal AABA, but the first two A sections are 14 bars instead of the usual eight. The composi­tion hangs together so well, the eccentricity is not obvious.

The originally issued take of Embarcadero has nifty counterpoint in the first 16 bars following the guitar solo. One of several original Desmond bossa novas, the tune could be named after the Embarcadero in his native San Francisco or the one in Rio, or both. Antonio Carlos Jobim's gorgeous theme from the film Black Orpheus brings us to Kay laying down the basic bossa nova pattern, Hall and Cherico in rhythmic cahoots and Paul soaring. The tag is played as written, then the piece is taken out on a vamp ending.

Nancy sounds as if Paul, like Lester Young, thought of a ballad's lyrics as he played it. Hall's introduction is among his finest. Samba de Orfeu is one of the most famous pieces by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Desmond regretted the hype and hoopla surrounding the bossa nova phenomenon, but this marvelous music insinuated itself quickly into American jazz. As he hoped, it has become a permanent element.

The One I Love gets a fluid performance with no quotes and no clichés. In his solo, Hall alternates legato and punchy passages to great effect. Out of Nowhere has inter­esting Desmond modulations in the opening chorus. Hall's comping is exemplary, and Kay negotiates a classic bop ride cymbal pattern throughout. Following Jim's two-chorus solo, he and Desmond trade twos, then Paul and the rhythm section do a chorus of stop-time.

CD3

GLAD TO BE UNHAPPY

Desmond's singing quality predominates Glad to be Unhappy, one of the best Rodgers and Hart ballads and one of their most unusual, with its ABA form. Paul's solo is improvisation reduced to essence; there's not a superfluous note. He conjures up a minor felling in the final bars of his first solo. We get a vamp ending. With echo, yet.

Strolling is what Roy Eldridge was the first to call the practice of a horn soloist playing with only bass and drums. Desmond strolls nicely in the second chorus of Poor Butterfly. Hall's solo has fascinating chords and great intensity. Counterpoint raises its lovely head, and we have the closest thing to a Dixieland ending that you're likely to hear from this band.

Mel Torme's Stranger in Town offers a good example of why Desmond kept describing Eugene Wright with such adjectives as sturdy, dependable and buoyant. It is also, for alto saxophonists, a case study in tonal quality. In A Taste of Honey, Paul offers a small portion of the melody as written, then the piece becomes abstraction, employing that high, pure alto sound so many think of as Desmond. He loved waltz time and he loved minor keys, and this is the best of both worlds.

For Any Other Time, a Desmond original, Kay's drumming is smooth, the kind of rolling timekeeping a soloist loves to have behind him. Paul's hurdy gurdy lines reflect the joy expressed by Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo in the motion picture Lili. There is no way of knowing, but, given his admiration of elegant women (fortunately, for him, it also worked the other way), it may be that he was picturing Leslie Caron. It is well known that his Audrey from the mid-'50s was Hepburn. Speaking of women, which Desmond did with respect and some frequency, he made it a point to—ahem—know the beautiful models RCA hired to decorate most of his album covers. He once told me that using his picture on the Take Ten album not only probably frightened away record customers but left a gap in his social life.

Desmond is piping and plaintive in Angel Eyes; what an ear for subtle harmonic possibilities. Jim goes into one of his billowing chords routines, then Paul floats back in, melodic and, yes, lyrical. By the River Sainte Marie, written in 1931, may seem an unlikely jazz vehicle, but it works for Desmond, Hall and company in this amiable performance.

Jim Hall's All Across the City was first recorded in a classic session for Mainstream Records which featured him and fellow guitarist Jimmy Raney with tenor saxo­phonist Zoot Sims. The initial melody is reminiscent of Gershwin's Prelude in F. It might have been made to order for Desmond. Jim spreads composerly chords for Paul when the alto re-enters following the guitar solo, a splendid moment. Connie creates another with his cymbals suspension before the final statement.

All Through the Night must have been on Paul's mind because it was included in Brubeck's Cole Porter album, Anything Goes (for Columbia), which was recorded around the same time. Desmond sparkles and soars through Cole Porter's interesting harmonies. Jim indulges himself in one of those billows of chords that are the despair of lesser guitarists. There is a minor stumble at the beginning of Paul's final appearance on the track, but that was no reason for the performance to stay under wraps. (It was in hiding in the RCA vaults for more than 20 years.) On the tag ending, Jim comps to a fare-thee-well.

CD4

BOSSA ANTIGUA

The Bossa Antigua album is another celebration of Desmond's favorite import, not taking Dewars into account. The title tune and Samba Cepeda (Orlando, the great first bassman?) are the same melody. Cepeda is issued here for the first time on CD. Of the two takes of The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, the one originally issued is given a less overt bossa nova treatment than the alternate (track 9). The original issued take of O Gato, recorded on August 20,1964, is relaxed over Kay's sizzling bossa nova rhythm. The alternate take was the sole successful effort in a session on July 30,1964. Samba Cantina could be the "minor adaptation of a melody indigenous to early American coffee houses" slyly referred to by Desmond in his notes for the Bossa Antigua LP.  Curacao Dolorosa may commemorate a painful experience on an island in the Netherlands Antilles or a hangover from a liqueur. Its genealogy, as Paul explained it in his notes, involves, more or less, the song Heartaches.

The fetching melody of A Ship Without a Sail is lovingly played by Desmond. Hall, making the difficult sound easy, turns in one of his best solos. Kay successfully uses the unconventional device of accenting the second beat of each bar. Alianca is another of Paul's attractive originals. His The Girl from East 9th Street is highlighted by lovely descending thirds that begin in the ninth bar.

CD5

EASY LIVING

The Easy Living album begins with When Joanna Loves Me, a little-known love song that is seldom recorded. The tempo is medium, with Wright playing in two for the first chorus, then blossoming into a gently walking 4/4 for Desmond Hall's beautifully played, slight sad and regretful improvisations. Kay's drumming here is typical of his unique combination of light­ness and firmness.

Desmond lilts along through the melody of That Old Feeling, then shifts up for a cruise through three increasingly momentous choruses. Hall's invitation to dance is con­cealed in an oblique reference to Benny Goodman. Polka Dots and Moonbeams is given a faster tempo than is usually applied to this famous ballad, providing sprightly impetus to the solos but draining none of the interest from Jimmy Van Heusen's intriguing chord changes.

Another of Van Heusen's treasured harmonic patterns is contained in Here's That Rainy Day, in which Desmond makes allusions to Man With a Horn, Tadd Dameron's Hot House, I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues and Time After Time. Hall leaves the hiding of clues for tune detectives to his partner and settles into his work with a section of low-regis­ter reflections that blooms into one of the guitarist's celebrated gardens of chords.

There were problems with takes of two pieces recorded by Desmond, Hall, Wright and Kay on September 9, 1964. They were rejected and had to be redone later in the month. But on Easy Living, everything worked. Desmond follows Hall's quiet introduction with a piping reading of the seductive Ralph Rainger melody, then provides a classic exam­ple of his legato ballad style—seamless lyricism and the creation of pure melody.

Percy Heath's authority and mastery of the beat married to the assurance and easy ride of Kay's cymbals buoy Paul's delighted exposition of Lerner and Loewe's center­piece from My Fair Lady, I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face. At the risk of pointing out the obvious, please don't miss Desmond's modulations in the second chorus or Jim's logic in the development of ideas in his wonderfully linear solo. The same team, virtually the same tempo, and the same relaxation, passion and inventiveness in the art of improvisation are hallmarks (so to speak) of Bewitched. The song is one of the finest works of Rodgers and Hart, who could be considered the Lerner and Loewe of their time. Or is it the other way

In Blues for Fun, the fun begins with a chorus of walking bass by Gene Cherico, an unsung hero of the instrument. Among other things, on this piece Desmond proves that the world's slowest alto player had no problem with fast tempos, that he and the blues understood each other and, in his unaccompanied chorus, that he knew Lester Young inside out. Hall's solo and his riff behind Desmond's out-chorus are the work of a master architect of the blues.

Keeping company with All Through the Night in tape purgatory was Gene Wright's Rude Old Man, an invaluable addition to the accumulated evidence of the blues prowess of Desmond and Hall. The first chorus lays down Gene's urgent little riff. The second features Paul and Jim in contrapuntal call-and-response. The balance of the piece is devoted to expressing the profundities that the best players can elicit in a thoroughgoing exploration of the limitless possibilities of the good old basic, unadorned blues in B-flat. Toward the end of his solo, Jim gets, as they have been known to say in parts of Mississippi, "real country." He winds up the festivities and the album with an altered chord that is real city.

Paul, who always had a sense of occasion, died on Memorial Day, 1977. He was 52 years old. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Brubeck clan gathers each Memorial Day at the big Connecticut house Desmond called the Wilton Hilton. Dave and Iola are surrounded by their many musician sons, their daughter, other family members and friends. Always, much of the conversation will be about Paul, and there will be considerable laughter and head-shaking as puns, witticisms and plays on words are passed around. Eyes will moisten. Someone will say that Desmond manages to be a part of every day's thoughts. That some­one is likely to be Dave.

"I think about Paul all the time," Brubeck told me. "We were together for so many years that I find myself remembering how Paul would have reacted to music and seeing our friends through his eyes. And around here we're always saying, "Paul would have loved that," or "I wonder what Paul would have said about that." Mort Saul and I got together the other night after a concert. We swapped Desmond stories for an hour and could have gone on all night. Paul's always with us. He's a presence."

Once, when we were talking about something else, Brubeck stopped, looked into the distance for a moment and said, "Boy, I sure miss Paul Desmond."

I couldn't say it better.

Boy, I sure miss Paul Desmond.

-DOUG RAMSEY