Sunday, October 11, 2015
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Phil and Quill - [From the Archives]
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Those who demand the originality of geniuses who create entirely new art without any history are chasing an illusion: it doesn't exist. Every musician learns from other artists - as does every painter, actor, writer, sculptor, dancer, technician or engineer. The legend that art arises out of the void prevents any serious consideration of what is really being accomplished.
Ever since the 1950's Phil Woods has been counted among the undisputed masters in the tradition of Charlie Parker. That means he is well aware of what the father of bebop, this resourceful innovator, created in the 1940's and 50's. With similar intensity, he gathered information on the treasure chest of ideas which dozens of other saxophonists have brought forth. Independent of specific stylistic forms, he took his inspiration without copying. That is why Coleman Hawkins, a master of the voluminous, tuneful sound, is just as important to him as the agile, soulful musician Cannonball Adderley.
Every note Phil Woods plays sounds unmistakably like Phil Woods ….”
- Werner Stiefele, German freelance journalist specializing in Jazz
If the sequence of recent postings dovetailing into this one and continuing into the next, two features give you the impression that the editorial staff at JazzProfiles has been celebrating a sort of Phil Woods Week on the site, you’d be right.
I’ve never done a week’s worth of features on any artist before.
But then, as you know by now from reading the recent posts about him on JazzProfiles, Phil Woods held a special place in my Pantheon of Admired and Esteemed Great Jazz Musicians.
I can't remember the verbatim quotations, but back in the early 1950's when Phil Woods was first making the New York Jazz scene, Charlie "Bird" Parker was still alive and his style of playing the alto saxophone influenced a huge number of musicians who played that instrument - including, not surprisingly - Phil Woods. So one Jazz observer after another began hailing Phil as the "New Bird."
But with the exception of those who played the alto sax with a cool -sounding, sub-toned emphasis on melody - think Paul Desmond, Lee Konitz and Hal McKusick - it is a statement of the obvious to say that "Bird" influenced a generation of Bebop alto saxophonist.
I always thought that two of these players broke out of the Parker mode early and adopted their own way of phrasing modern Jazz on the alto saxophone: Gene Quill and Phil Woods.
And the more I listen to Phil the more I hear Quill.
I’m certain that given their close friendship, Phil would have wanted Gene remembered that way.
I’m certain that given their close friendship, Phil would have wanted Gene remembered that way.
“Phil is Phil Woods, Quill, Gene Quill; both are virile exponents of the art of the modern jazz saxophone style pioneered by Charlie Parker. Especially enlightened listeners also realize that Woods and Quill have found personal expressions within this style through modifications brought about by their own personalities and that each has his own story to tell no matter how similar an area their musical styles inhabit. Both have the cry of the true jazzman, literally and figuratively, that soul baring quality which communicates emotionally on a direct circuit to the listener.”
- Ira Gitler, Jazz critic and author
“They made a very fine team and there isn’t an ounce of spare fat in any of their solos. … Quill’s duskier tone and more extreme intensities are barely a beat behind Woods in terms of quality of thought.”
- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.
In his notes to the European edition of the CD release of Phil and Quill - The Phil Woods-Gene Quill Sextet [RCA/BMG ND 74405], Alain Tercinet reflects on the fact that even fifty years on, the pairing of the same instruments as lead voices in a Jazz quintet was memorable for its rarity.
He goes on to mention the two trombone groups led by J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding, the two tenor saxophone group led by Al Cohn and Zoot Sims and the two alto saxophone quintet of Phil Woods and Gene Quill were almost as shocking to the Jazz audiences of the times as they were innovative.
In the case of J.J. and Kai and Al and Zoot, these groups were planned happenings, but the quintet formed by Phil and Quill was a result of their chance meeting on a gig, the details of which are recounted below.
But thanks to the impression Phil and Gene’s work made on Jazz writer and producer Ira Gitler, he had the idea for a recording by these great altoist and brought it to the attention of Bob Weinstock, the owner of Prestige Records.
Bob arranged for the them to record at Rudy van Gelder’s studio on March 29, 1957 along with a rhythm section made up of George Syran on piano, Teddy Kotick on bass and Nick Stabulas on drums.
The result was the LP entitled Phil and Quill With Prestige: The Phil Woods/Gene Quill Quintet [Prestige 7115; OJCCD 215-2].
Here are Ira Gitler’s sleeve notes to that album:
“Most aware jazz fans, unlike the master of ceremonies who announced them with the introduction, "And here he comes now - Phil Anquill", know what the group heading Phil And Quill stands for. Phil is Phil Woods, Quill, Gene Quill; both are virile exponents of the art of the modern jazz saxophone style pioneered by Charlie Parker. Especially enlightened listeners also realize that Woods and Quill have found personal expressions within this style through modifications brought about by their own personalities and that each has his own story to tell no matter how similar an area their musical styles inhabit. Both have the cry of the true jazzman, literally and figuratively, that soul baring quality which communicates emotionally on a direct circuit to the listener.
Phil flows along making use of quotes from time to time; Gene is more jagged, his phrases surging, falling and gaining their power by pushing off from the preceding phrase in short bursts. Each knows how to build a solo to a point of intensity.
Phillip Wells Woods and Daniel Eugene Quill met in New York in 1954 and played in jam sessions together. During the next few years, in the main, they were occupied with playing for other leaders but early in 1957, they teamed up at the Pad in Greenwich Village. Phil had recently left Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra and Gene had just returned from Europe with Claude Thornhill when the two blew together in a group that pianist Johnny Williams was heading for a weekend engagement. Gene had just arrived that morning when he was informed that he was to play with John on that evening. On a borrowed alto (his had been stolen in Europe) and very little sleep, he was fulfilling his role with the attitude of a real trouper. When Phil dropped in later in the evening and sat in, Gene seemed to forget these problems completely and the two of them wailed wonderfully into the morning.
In the months following, the alto duo played several weekends at the Cork and Bib in Westbury, Long Island and also at the White Canon in Far Rockaway
(scene of the singular success of Phil Anquill) but these were the slim pickings of an otherwise empty schedule.
The rhythm section on these jobs was composed of the same trio which backed Phil Woods on his early Prestige quintet recordings and again appears here. Due to the transitory nature of the Phil-Quill combo, the three, as well as their co-leaders, have been heard in other groups recently.
Bassist Teddy Kotick has buoyed the Horace Silver quintet and the Zoot Sims-Al Cohn fivesome while drummer Nick Stabulas has also appeared with the latter group. George Syran has been in the process of completing his Bachelor of Music at the Manhattan School and, in connection with this, has given several recitals of classical composers.
The meat for improvisation in this set has been supplied by Phil himself and totals six originals. Let us hope that a-mong the new supporters this album gains for Phil And Quill, there are enough club owners to militate regrouping of the unit as a permanent thing.”
John S. Wilson prepared these insert notes to the CD Phil and Quill - The Phil Woods-Gene Quill Sextet [RCA/BMG ND 74405] on which the rhythm section is made up of Dave McKenna on piano, Buddy Jones on bass and Shadow Wilson on drums.
“In all of the awed recognition of the overwhelming influence that Charlie (Bird) Parker has had on the way jazz has developed during the past decade, it is only occasionally that one comes face to face with the problems that follow in the wake of so pervasive an influence. These problems are most noticeable in the area of Parker's own instrument, the alto saxophone.
If Parker pointed the way for jazz as a whole, he did much more for the alto sax. He set a pattern that has seemed so definitive that every alto man who has come after him, almost without exception, has taken to his pattern as though any deviation would be unthinkable heresy. This, of course, is the natural way for a jazz musician to start—there is always someone who is the inspiration and the guide.
But before Parker, no one—not even Louis Armstrong—had established an approach that was so universally accepted by the contemporary jazz generation.
As a consequence Parker, as a model, has been a trap—an inviting and exciting trap, to be sure—but nonetheless a trap for many young altoists who managed to acquire the surface qualities of Parker but, having done that, found they had no place to go but around and around the same repetitive and uncreative circle.
Neither Phil Woods nor Gene Quill were exceptions to the mode of the times when they started out on alto. Bird was the influence and they took to it with passion.
But, having used this convenient stepping stone to launch themselves in jazz, they both had the individuality and personal creativeness to realize that they had to avoid being suffocated by this influence. Building on the foundation they inherited, they have each moved in directions that are distinctly their own, and as time goes by the sound of their original inspiration has become steadily dimmer as their own musical personalities assert themselves.
Of the two. Woods has possibly developed the most completely individual attack at this point strong, assertive and gustily swinging. But Quill, who burst from the cocoon a Itit later than Woods, has recently been moving with startling and satisfying speed toward his own jazz fate.
The idea of teaming up has been stewing in the two altoists' minds for a couple of years, ever since they met at the apartment of pianist John Williams and started playing together in various groups. They found that they felt comfortable in each other's musical company and that more flexibility and variety were possible in the sound of two altos than in pairings of most other instruments.
Phil came to the alto after studying clarinet for four years at juilliard. He has had big band experience with Charlie Barnet and Neal Hefti and with the band Dizzy Gillespie took to the Middle East at the behest of the State Department in 1956. Friedrich Gulda chose Phil to play in his sextet when the Viennese Beethoven specialist made his jazz debut in the United States in the spring of 1956. Gene's soaring facility has been heard with various small groups and with Buddy De Franco's and Claude Thornhill's bands. The close musical and personal ties that bind Gene and Phil were made even tighter after they launched their own group (two altos and rhythm).
In the sextet heard in these performances, a "bottom" is provided for the two alto saxes by Sol Schlinger's baritone saxophone. The rhythm section is made up of the brilliant, swinging pianist, Dave McKenna; bassist Buddy Jones; and drummer Shadow Wilson, a widely experienced big-band veteran (Hampton, Hines, Basie, Herman).
The arrangements come from the pens of Woods; Neal Hefli and Nat Pierce, both quondam bandleaders; Bill Potts, who made his mark as a writer with Willis Conover's Washington band; and Gene Orloff, a violinist who is in great demand as concertmaster on jazz sessions when strings are used.”
Monday, October 5, 2015
Friday, October 2, 2015
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Phil Woods - Searing Intensity
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Phil played as if there were no tomorrow.”
- Chuck Israels, Jazz bassist
For me, the phrase “searing intensity” used in a Jazz context immediately brings to mind alto saxophonist Phil Woods [who played one heckuva of a clarinet, too].
Phil solos burst forth with so many exciting ideas that it was a miracle that he could get them all in.
I am usually so worn out following one of his solos that I often look for a seat to sit down on when they're over, although I'm often already sitting down. And sometimes, while seated, his passionate improvisations made me want to rise to my feet and cheer as a release from the sense of overall exuberance they created in me.
I can think of no other player who consistently left me shaking my head in wonderment after listening to what came out of his horn.
Phil once said of the late baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams that “He was a Bebopper right down to his socks.” “Socks” is an appropriate metaphor for Phil’s playing because it usually “knocked my socks off” with the potency of its pulse and the brilliance of its ideas.
With Phil there was no “Lead, follow or get out of the way.” He just led and everyone else followed, joyous at the opportunity to do so.
It takes courage to always be out there showing the way; leading the way by going first and inspiring others to stand-up, plant their feet and blow. Like Louis Armstrong once said: “Jazz is who you are.” The music is all about honesty and Phil played it with an integrity that either inspired you to reveal your inner soul or convince you that maybe becoming a dry-cleaner was not so bad after all.
Jazz musicians are not often considered heroes or role models. Many of their lifestyle choices - let alone their lifestyle, itself - are deemed to be improper by the general public.
Phil Woods was a Jazz musician and he was a very brave one. On both accounts - because he was a Jazz musician and because he was brave - he was one of my enduring heroes.
With Phil’s passing on September 29, 2015, there are going to be a lot of words written about him, but none will have more sincerity and be filled with more admiration than those that follow by bassist, composer-arranger and educator, Chuck Israels.
Reading it will help you understand what made Phil Woods - “My hero, Phil Woods.”
© - Chuck Israels/Mosaic Records, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
Postscript - Encounters with Phil
“Upon graduating from college in 1959, I took the then obligatory trip to Europe to "find myself." I don't know exactly why I thought I might be there rather than where I was at the time, hanging around Boston and western Massachusetts, but that was the habit of the era, to graduate and go look for yourself in a place that you weren't. It had its advantages. Besides, I had $1,000 saved and that seemed a fortune.
After an uneventful Atlantic crossing on a Holland America Line ship, I was met in Paris by my Italian-American college roommate, who immediately took me to a party at the home of a movie director who was filming Bud Powell and Kenny Clarke playing at the party. I was asked to play with them and a few days later, I had a job with Bud, playing in a Left Bank cave for $10 a night. You could live on that.
Quincy Jones had a band that was preparing to tour Europe that summer. The band was rehearsing in the mezzanine of the Olympia Theatre and I somehow wrangled an invitation to attend a rehearsal. It was a great band with some of Quincy's friends from Seattle, like Buddy Catlett and Patti Bown. Les Spann was the guitarist and played some flute solos. Sahib Shihab was in the saxophone section and Joe Harris played drums. I listened to a number of pieces in which there were solos played by various members of the band. It would be unfair to say that those solos were perfunctory, but later, when Phil Woods stood up from the lead alto chair to play his solo feature, the atmosphere changed. Phil played as if there were no tomorrow.
The contrast was striking and I have always remembered the impression it left. If you practice rehearsing, then when the time comes to perform, you are ready to rehearse. Phil practiced performing.
Years later, sometime around 1980,I was involved in a recording under [trombonist] Hal Crook's leadership. Bill Dobbins and Bill Goodwin played piano and drums and it was one of Goodwin's early efforts at record production. He was already great at that job and had arranged that Phil should be a guest soloist on some of Hal's tunes. Bill Dobbins had the flu and a fever of 103 or so, but that didn't seem to phase him. We recorded a couple of pieces and everything seemed to be going at the high level of intensity one expects at an east coast recording session where someone's limited budget is on the line. No one was wasting any time and the work was proceeding at what we thought was as fast and efficient a pace as we could muster. Then Phil walked in, took out his alto, glanced at Hal's music for the first time, and played better, faster and more intensely than the rest of us who had been warmed up and working for an hour or so.
This intensity and focus is an essential aspect of Phil's artistic personality, but it is also important to recognize the intelligence that accompanies this mania. Phil is aware enough of his own experience and of the world he inhabits to make informed and considered decisions about his artistic life. It is these decisions as well as his great skill and intensity that have shaped his commitment to the pursuit of his musical potential. It is a compliment to his determination that that potential is so often realized.
There will surely be more to come.”
[Thank goodness Chuck was right; another 26 years as of this writing.]
Chuck Israels
Bellingham, Washington
November 1994
Phil’s performance of Charlie Parker’s Barbados forms the sound track on this retrospective of the art of Thomas Andersen with Hilton Ruiz, piano, Charlie Haden, bass and Marvin “Smitty” Smith, drums.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Phil Woods - November 2, 1931 - September 29, 2015: Rest in Peace
Philip Wells [Phil] Woods
Born: Springfield , Massachusetts November 2, 1931
© -Reprinted with the permission of Gene Lees ; copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“Phil Woods sometimes refers to himself as Dubois. He is more than half French by ancestry. His father changed the name from Dubois. The rest of Phil is Irish.
When I played one of Phil's records for a friend whose main experience of music was country and western, she said, "Oh yes—he cares." And so he does. Phil's wife Jill (whose brother, Bill Goodwin, is the drummer in Phil's group) once said to me, "Phil's angry about all the right things."
And so he is. He gets angry about indifferent musicianship, politicians, racism, injustice in all its forms, and any failure to render to jazz and its past masters the respect he thinks they deserve. Phil manages to combine in his brilliant alto playing an improbable combination of ferocity and lyricism. Phil once said pointedly that his influences were "Benny Carter, Johnny Hodges, and Charlie Parker, in that order." He has assimilated all his influences to become utterly distinctive, one of those people you can identify in two or three bars, sometimes in one assertive phrase.
Phil graduated from Juilliard as a clarinet major. He still plays the instrument occasionally, and always beautifully. But he has specialized since early days in alto saxophone, on which he achieves a huge tone. He has played with absolutely everybody of consequence in jazz, in every imaginable context, and has recorded with Benny Carter and Dizzy Gillespie, two of his major heroes. He is an intriguing composer and, as a soloist, inexhaustibly inventive.
One of Phil's early idols was Artie Shaw, on whose work he modeled his own clarinet playing. It was my pleasure to introduce Phil to Artie, who began his professional career on saxophone, at a party after one of Phil's concerts. Also at that party was the fine tenor saxophone player Eddie Miller. When Phil had gone off in the crowd of his admirers, Shaw said to me, "I've heard them all. All. Phil Woods is the best saxophone player I ever heard." And Eddie Miller warmly agrees.
Phil is completely uncompromising. He dislikes amplification, and will not allow microphones on the bandstand. Though he was a successful studio musician in New York
I don't wish to make Phil sound forbidding. He isn't. Indeed, he's terribly funny and a delight to be with. But Jill got it right; I know no one on this earth with more integrity than Philip Wells Woods.”
Sunday, September 27, 2015
The Forgotten Ones - Buddy Collette: The Gordon Jack Essay
© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
“If I were going to pick a guy to open the Hollywood studio doors as Jackie Robinson did for baseball, Buddy would have been the man”.
- Gerald Wilson, trumpet player, bandleader, educator
“A spiritual father to Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, James Newton and myself. Buddy was a sage and saint. The doors he opened for us are innumerable and monumental.”
- Charles Lloyd, tenor saxophonist, flutist, bandleader
UK-based author and essayist Gordon Jack “dropped by” the editorial offices of JazzProfiles recently to share the following piece on Buddy Collette which first appeared in the March 2015 issue of Jazz Journal. You can locate more information about the magazine via this link.
And at the conclusion of this piece, you can checkout Buddy’s style of playing on a video that features him on a track from Conte Candoli’s Little Band Big Jazz on which the rhythm section is comprised of Vince Guaraldi, piano, Leroy Vinnegar, bass and Stan Levey, drums.
© - Gordon Jack/JazzJournal; copyright protected, all rights reserved, used with the author’s permission.
“Buddy Collette should be remembered not only as a consummate multi-instrumentalist equally at home on flute, clarinet, alto or tenor but also for the major part he played in integrating the Los Angeles Federation of Musicians’ Locals in 1953. Until then two different locals operated in many US cities – one for black performers and one for white.
He was born in Los Angeles in 1921 and began learning the piano when he was ten but a couple of years later he switched to the saxophone. His family lived in the Watts area and Britt Woodman and Charles Mingus were neighbours. It was Britt’s brother who taught Buddy the clarinet and by the mid-thirties he was a member of The Woodman Brothers Biggest Little Band In The World.
Buddy also had his own band around this time playing occasional Saturday night dances but he needed a bass player. A chance meeting with Mingus who was studying the cello solved the problem. Buddy encouraged him to take up the bass and introduced him to Red Callender who became Mingus’ first teacher, charging $2.00 a lesson. After considerable wood-shedding Charles joined Collette’s band for occasional engagements at the Odd Fellows Hall in Watts and over the years Buddy and Mingus remained very close.
Around 1937 he started working at the Follies Theatre backing acts like Tempest Storm, Lily St.Cyr and vaudeville comedian Joe Yule (Mickey Rooney’s father). A little later in 1940 he began studies with the celebrated Lloyd Reese who had acquired a reputation as one of the finest jazz educators on the west coast. While studying with Reese he joined the very popular Cee Pee Johnson band who were usually to be heard at Central Avenue venues like the Club Alabam. Buddy was on baritone and it was possibly when the band appeared at Hollywood’s Rhumboogie that Orson Welles heard them and decided to use them in Citizen Kane. They can be seen briefly during a party scene at the end of the film.
When the US entered WWII in 1941 he joined an all-black US Navy Reserve band serving with Clark Terry, Jerome Richardson and the Royal brothers - Ernie and Marshal. After the war the Central Avenue scene continued to thrive with clubs like Lovejoy’s, the Last Word and the Turban Lounge featuring young stars like Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Sonny Criss, Buddy and his friend Bill Green.
Collette started to organise a little band with John Anderson, Britt Woodman, Spaulding Givens, Mingus, Oscar Bradley and Lucky Thompson who had stayed in town after his booking with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker at Billy Berg’s in 1946. They rehearsed at Mingus’ house and their first booking was at the Down Beat which was the hottest spot on Central Avenue. It was a collaborative group so they decided to call themselves The Stars Of Swing. That was to be on a sign outside the club but Lucky Thompson had other ideas. On opening night the club sign said, Lucky Thompson And The All Stars. Mingus apparently wanted to kill him and three days later after the original sign was reinstated Lucky left the group to be replaced by Teddy Edwards
With aid of the GI Bill Buddy began studying at the American Operatic Laboratory, the California Academy of Music and the L.A. Conservatory of Music. This was the time that he began concentrating on the flute studying with Henry Woempner who was the top flutist at MGM. He also had harmony lessons with Franklyn Marks and Wesley La Violette who numbered Shorty Rogers, Marty Paich and Jimmy Giuffre among his students.
For a time in the late forties when work was scarce he went on the road with Joe Liggins’ R&B band on baritone. Joe had just had a big hit with The Honeydripper and the band was working mostly down south where prejudice was severe and very difficult to take. Another southern trip involved Buddy performing with Eddie “Rochester” Anderson who was famous for his work with Jack Benny. Around this time he was playing alto in Benny Carter’s band at the Hollywood Palladium and he was also teaching music at Jordan High School in Watts. The fourteen year old Frank Morgan whose father had played guitar with the Ink Spots, together with Sonny Criss and Eric Dolphy were some of his students. Eric and Buddy were close friends until Dolphy’s untimely death in 1964.
With his superior sight-reading skills Collette was beginning to get regular calls for record dates in the late ‘40s on alto with people like Ivie Anderson, Johnny Otis, Gerald Wilson, Ernie Andrews and Charles Mingus. Then around 1950 he made history by becoming the first black musician to be hired for a national TV show. Jerry Fielding, who had replaced Billy May as musical director for Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life show hired him after hearing his flute performance in Bizet’s Carmen with the Community Symphony Orchestra.
Duke Ellington wanted him – “So I can feature that flute of yours” - but Buddy was by now doing too well in L.A. He started playing tenor with Herb and Lorraine Geller at a club on Main Street that had the benefit of a weekly radio broadcast. Around this time Gerry Mulligan who had just opened at the Haig sometimes rehearsed his quartet with Chet Baker at an apartment Buddy was sharing with Jimmy Cheatham.
In 1953 Buddy along with Benny Carter, Gerald Wilson and Red Callender convinced the authorities that there should only be one musician’s local in L.A. James C. Petrillo president of the American Federation of Musicians was against it but with the help of high-profile show-business personalities like Josephine Baker, Nat Cole and Frank Sinatra they were finally successful in their fight to integrate the two unions. As a result a lot of black musicians were later contracted to do the Carol Burnett, Danny Kaye and Flip Wilson shows. Years later Gerald Wilson said, “If I were going to pick a guy to open the Hollywood studio doors as Jackie Robinson did for baseball, Buddy would have been the man”.
Early in 1955 he was playing at Lake Tahoe with Lena Horne and Chico Hamilton was on drums. It was Chico’s ambition to leave the singer and organise a new group with a different sound. Fred Katz had been recruited on cello, Carson Smith was on bass together with the young Jim Hall on guitar who was working in a book-store at the time. Buddy Collette with his multi-instrumentalist skills was to be the final and very important ingredient in what became one of the most distinctive small groups of the era.
Chico had obtained a booking for the quintet at The Strollers a small club in Long Beach about 20 miles south of L.A. Buddy was working with Scatman Crothers at the Tailspin Club in Hollywood so for the first week of the engagement Bob Hardaway took his place. Once Collete was on the stand the group became extremely popular in part thanks to regular broadcasts from the club by disc-jockey Sleepy Stein on KFOX. Prices probably helped too because there was no cover charge unless one of the bigger acts like the Ink Spots were appearing when the door-price would be $1.00.
Collette contributed a number of his intriguing originals like A Nice Day, Blue Sands, Buddy Boo and Sleepy Slept Here - the latter was used by Stein as a theme on his nightly radio show. The quintet of course provided an ideal showcase for his solo abilities. On alto his highly structured lines recalled the elegance of Benny Carter and his tenor had much of the light swing of Lester Young. He was one of the very few performers who could make a convincing case for the flute as a solo jazz instrument and his clarinet playing was acknowledged by Down Beat critics when they voted him the New Star on the instrument in 1956. He stayed with the quintet for about eighteen months but life on the road was tough. He was making about $300.00 a week with Chico which was what he could earn for half an hour on the Groucho Marx show. The studio scene meant good money and short hours which gave him more time for continued study.
In 1957 he appeared on the Stars of Jazz TV show with Gerald Wilson and was booked again for the show in 1958 with Abbey Lincoln. Throughout the late fifties he made numerous albums with Benny Goodman, Buddy Rich, Quincy Jones, Peggy Lee and Herbie Mann. His 1956 recording of Cycle was notoriously dismissed by Miles Davis in a 1958 Down Beat Blindfold Test – “All those white tenor players sound alike to me…unless it’s Zoot Sims or Stan Getz”.
Nelson Riddle often used black performers like Plas Johnson, Harry Edison, Joe Comfort and Buddy for albums with Rosemary Clooney, Nat Cole and Sinatra. Buddy can be clearly seen on the LP cover of Sinatra’s 1960 Swingin’ Session!!! sitting next to Riddle. He has an eight bar solo on Should I and Frank apparently always asked for him whenever he was on the west coast. Apart from his considerable studio work he kept performing with his own quartet at local clubs the Haig, the Cellar and Shelly’s Manne Hole.
In 1962 he made one of his rare visits to NYC because Mingus needed help with music for his Town Hall concert which featured 30 musicians. The occasion turned out to be a disaster described by Clark Terry as, “The most bizarre and chaotic scene I have ever witnessed!” The following year he was back in the city at the invitation of Norman Granz to conduct the band at Basin Street East accompanying Ella Fitzgerald.
In L.A. the jazz scene was changing like it was everywhere else in the ‘60s and ‘70s. He was still getting a lot of studio calls though from people like Jerry Fielding, Paul Weston, Harry Zimmerman and Billy May. He always had private students but in 1973 he started teaching at California State University, moving on to Loyola Marymount University and later California State Polytechnic Institute at Pomona. In 1994 he helped establish the Jazz America summer teaching programme aimed at young players. The 23 January 1990 was declared Buddy Collette Day in L.A. and in 1998 he was honoured by the mayor as a Los Angeles Living Cultural Treasure.
Buddy Collette died on 19 September 2010. In the March 2011 Jazztimes Charles Lloyd wrote a moving tribute calling him, “A spiritual father to Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, James Newton and myself. Buddy was a sage and saint. The doors he opened for us are innumerable and monumental.”
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY
As leader
Cool, Calm & Collette (Fresh Sound Records FSR 2249)
An Original Westcoaster (Fresh Sound Records FSR 2250)
Buddy Collete & His West Coast Friends (Fresh Sound Records FSR 2248)
As Sideman
The Complete Pacific Jazz Recordings Of The Chico Hamilton Quintet (Mosaic MD6-175)
Conte Candoli All Stars, Little Big Band Jazz (Fresh Sound Records FSR 1629)
John Graas Nonet, Jazzmantics (Lone Hill Jazz LHJ 10149)
Red Callender, Swingin’ Suite (Fresh Sound Records FSR-CD 458)
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