Capp Pierce Juggernaut - Big Band Power and Precision

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

For some musicians, big bands are a way of life.

For others, they are a way to waste time, tantamount to “sitting in a section, counting measures and listening to a few guys take solos.”

But for those musicians who have been bitten by the big band bug, sometimes, when they can’t find a big band to play in, they create their own.

In many cases, such groups are little more than local rehearsal bands that meet on a regular basis. In other cases they evolve into institutions such as the Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Big Band which played Monday nights at the NYC Village Vanguard for years and has evolved into its current form - the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.

The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra under the direction of trumpeter Wynton Marsalis is the exception to the rule with its $50 million endowment  and an international performance schedule that keeps its musicians on the payroll year around.

Most of the other regional bands based in big cities throughout the world are labors of love with the musicians accepting union scale wages just for the privilege of being able to play in them. They in effect subsidize the existence of the big band because they want to experience the pleasure of making music in this format.

These days young musicians who want the opportunity of experiencing big band Jazz are fortunate to find them on many college and university campuses that offer a Jazz studies program.

Dedicated big band devotees like Bob Curnow at www.sierramusicstore.com, Rob and Doug DuBoff at www.ejazzlines.com and Michelle and Michael Pratt and Cheryl Scott at www.bigbandcharts.net perform the amazing service of providing published big band arrangements at reasonable fees so that the difficult task of finding interesting and exciting charts to play is easily remedied through online shopping.

Of course, many of these bands are formed as “arranger’s bands” which allow musicians who are adept at writing big band arrangements to have a platform for them to be heard. Notes on paper are one thing; how they sound coming through a horn in combination with other horns is quite another.

Repertoire big bands are sometimes formed by musicians who are enamored with a particular style of music as played by some of the legendary bands of yesteryear. These include Glenn Miller, or Woody Herman and Stan Kenton or more often as not Count Basie.

Basie is a particular favorite because his big band music is blues based, usually arranged in a fairly straight forward manner [ie. - not that complicated] and generally swings like crazy.

The sonorities of Duke Ellington’s music, the complexities of Kenton’s or the beautiful tight sections of Glenn Miller’s lovely refrains are all well and good, but there’s nothing quite like the Basie Boogie Train coming down the tracks for out-an-out toe-tapping joy while sitting in a big band playing Basie-oriented charts.

[Is my bias showing here?].

One such band that fits the Basie model “to a T” is the Capp Pierce Juggernaut.

Formed in 1975 with drummer Frankie Capp and pianist Nat Pierce as co-leaders  and using Pierce’s Basie-style charts, the band was a great success; they began to perform more and eventually were heard by writer Leonard Feather, who headlined his newspaper article: ‘A Juggernaut On Basie Street’.

Naming their band as the Capp and Pierce Juggernaut, they made records for the Concord label, the first of which sold well, and continued to work whenever and wherever they could, concentrating on Basie-style material played with enormous zest and enthusiasm, but also displaying great versatility when the occasion demanded. The precision and accuracy of the musicians playing these charts is the envy of all who hear them and I’m guessing that The Count himself would like to return from the Pearly Gates to front such a powerful band made up of these monsters players.

Unfortunately, the initial, collective personnel made it a band far too expensive ever to tour. Among the personnel have been Bill Berry, Bobby Shew, Marshal Royal, Blue Mitchell, Herb Ellis, Chuck Berghofer and Richie Kamuca, while the singers who have worked and sometimes recorded with the band have been Ernie Andrews, Joe Williams, Ernestine Anderson and Nancy Wilson.

In later years the band would include tenor sax battles between Rickey Woodward and Pete Christlieb, trombones “chases” with the like of Andy Martin, Thurman Green and Alan Kaplan and trumpet duels between Conte Candoli and Bob Summers. Hearing these in person at Jazz festivals in the greater Los Angeles area literally took your breath away.

Still led by Capp, the Juggernaut proved sufficiently well founded to survive Pierce’s death in 1992 and continues to appear on occasion to this day.

From 1977 to 1997, the band made nine [9] recordings for Carl Jefferson’s Concord label. Here are some excerpts from a few of them to better describe the special qualities of the band and why big band formats are so endearing to my Jazz musicians

Let’s begin with Leonard Feather’s notes to The Frank Capp/Nat Pierce Juggernaut Featuring Ernestine Anderson - Live at The Alley Cat [CJ-336, 1987]:

From the Los Angeles Times, February 24. 1976: "King Arthur's in Canoga Park might of well have changed its name to Basie Street on a couple of recent nights when Frankie Capp and Nat Pierce took over the bandstand with their 16 man juggernaut."

Note that juggernaut is spelled with a small j; however. reading the headline on my review. ("A Juggernaut on Basle Street"). Capp and Pierce decided that this might be a good name for the orchestra, which they had inherited bo accident when Ned Hefti decided on short notice that he didn't want to lead a band [circa 1975].

It was at King Arthur's (a long gone San Fernando Valley dub) that the band made its first LP that year, 1977, on Concord CJ-40. A live date at the Century Plaza (CJ-72) the following year, and a studio session In 1981 (C -183) further enhanced the reputation of this exceptionally powerful team of Los Angeles based musicians.

Ernestine Anderson, o Concord Jazz pride and joy for more than a decade, is the third vocalist to guest star (two previous albums featured Ernie Andrews and CJ-72 hod Joe Williams).

The Alley Cat Bistro in Culver City, an important cynosure In the fast-growing Los Angeles Jazz dub scene, provided the ideal ambience for the band's two night gig. and for the taping that took place on the second evening.

Originally tied to a strong identification with the Count Basie repertoire, the band has moved significantly toward Its own identity. "You'll notice," Frank Capp points out, "that except for Queer Street, nothing in this album was taken from the Basle library. Also, over the years we've kept the personnel pretty consistent, which helps us to establish our personal image."

Seven men heard here (Berry. Brown, the two Coopers. Green, Roy Pohlman and Berghofer) were on the original album; Szabo was on the second LP and Snooky Young on the '81 date Marshal Royal, though replaced here on lead alto by Dave 6dwards, still plays with the band from time to time. …

Everything seemed to go right at this session: the recording quality, as well as the band's performance, the level of the solos, and the interaction between Ernestine and the ensemble. All that seems to be called for now is a joint concert tour reuniting this brilliant band and Its irresistible guest vocalist. New York, Nice, Copenhagen, Tokyo -what are you waiting for?”

Herb Wong contributed the following notes to The Capp/Pierce Juggernaut Featuring Joe Williams: Live at The Century Plaza Hotel.

Fasten your seat belts! This inspired band will bolt you straight out of your seat and send you flying on a joyous swing ride!

Thank God  there are still bands playing in the tradition of timeless classic big hand swing without the shackles of formulated inflexibility The validity of ihe Capp/Pierce Juggernaut is faultlessly clear Predicated on the essence of swing, it is anything but a band that dwells on nostalgia ad nauseum or on rubber-stamped replications. As Frankie Capp said, "Basie's band, our band, the old Woody band … the secret is happy music, no anger or hostility or any cross overstuff."

Frankie Capp and Nat Pierce created this splendid hand by virtue of a quirk, 3 years ago at the now dissolved King Arthur's in Canoga Park As Neal Hefti could not fulfill an assignment at the jazz bistro. Frank and Nat contemplated on the numerous charts they had collected since the I950's in NYC. They decided to launch their own band as co leaders. Thus, in brief, the C/P Juggernaut was born in 1975 loaded with sharp professionals and dyed-in the-wool jazz musicians. The tag 'juggernaut' was derived from a reference by Leonard Feather in a review of the band.

The sum of Frank and Nat's combined credentials would cram a booklet printed in small type. Frank is one of the most prominent and hotly pursued and. therefore, extremely busy percussionists in ihe Hollywood studios. He first came on the jazz scene with Stan Kenton's band as Shelly Manne's' replacement, leaving Boston University before graduation. His impressive credits have been piling up for welt over 25 years. He is easily one of the idiom’s premium drummers although his immersion in studio work has not reflected the long earned recognition he amply deserves. The music of C/P Juggernaut should, however, promptly refill the cups of praise. Frankie is just one helluva drummer!

Nat Pierce’s status in Jazz has been secured cumulatively  for decades with his Basie-ish piano and his substantial compositions and arrangements for his own bands and for many other bands, notably Basie's and Woody Herman's. His playing career has inked a lengthy roll call of many of Ihe greatest jazz musicians in history- instrumentalists and vocalists. The logic of his multiple roles in the Capp/Pierce Juggernaut is transparent. It is needless to elaborate. Nat is a helluva complete musician!

Favorable circumstances prefaced the making of this 'in person' band performance Firstly, the debut Capp/Pierce LP last year (Concord. CJ-40) has lit torches of enthusiasm wherever it has been accessible. It’s common reception stretches from top ratings in Japanese jazz journals to cresting the jazz charts for many months in England. Next, the new music penned or resurrected from obscurity by Nat fired up the hand for another record. Lastly, a gig at the Westside Room of the Century Plaza Hotel was the right time and place to capture the sounds au natural. The room holds about 400 people and il was packed during both sets on the evening of this recording session. It was one of the hottest over 100 degree days in recent history in the Los Angeles area. And so was the hot C/P hand, adding its own brand of heat to the equation. The word was out and hordes of musicians and others in the music industry attended. High anticipation was matched by the marvelous music of the band and Joe Williams. The record at hand is a healthy portion of the night's most mellow and throbbing moments. The luxuriously appointed 'joint' was really jumpin'!”

Comedian and television celebrity Steve Allen penned these thoughts for the premier Capp/Pierce Juggernaut LP which appeared on Concord [CJ-40] in 1977.

“I think the swing-lover who will most enjoy this album is Bill Basie himself, so faithfully does the Capp-Pierce Juggernaut Orchestra reproduce not only the general Basie sound, but more importantly the right swinging feel, not too loose and not too tight.

Having so many talented sidemen who themselves are products of the swing-band era participating in this session at “King Arthur’s,”  the popular jazz club in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, gives much vitality to this record.”

And Stanley Dance penned these thoughts in his liner notes to The Capp/Pierce Orchestra Featuring Ernie Andrews - Juggernaut Strikes Again!

The music played by the Capp Pierce Orchestra is neither a sentimental attempt to revive the glories of the past nor a matter of providing imitations for the nostalgic There has been plenty of that during the past three decades, not to mention a great many vainglorious ventures in search of the strange and gimmicked.  But Frankie Capp and Nat Pierce are concerned with the spirit that animated the big band tradition, and it is this they seek to perpetuate in performance.

"We pay homage to three godfathers." Frankie Capp once said. "Count Basie. Woody Herman and Charlie Barnet Each of them has heard, helped and encouraged us "

The inspiration of Duke Ellington is never far away either." Nat Pierre added thoughtfully

This, their third album, is the first they have made together in a recording studio, among the advantages of which is the fact that alternative takes are possible. An exciting live performance sometimes occurs in a charged atmosphere, but to experienced musicians such as these the studio atmosphere is by no means inhibiting.  It may even be warmer and more comfortable, with fewer dlstractions. As it happened, in several cases the takes used in this album were the first recorded, thus confirming Ellington's theory that the original take is usually the best in terms of freshness, vitality and invention Repeated takes may bring improved ensembles, but if the feeling of spontaneity deteriorates, then by jazz standards the gain is decidedly questionable

Besides their overall guidance, the co leaders of this band make important rhythmic contributions on their instruments Nat Pierce ably fulfills a role played in the past by some of the great pianist-bandleaders in jazz history, such as Count Basie. Duke Ellington. Farl Mines. Fletcher Henderson. Jay McShann and Claude Hopkins Variously gifted as soloists, they all knew how to submerge self in the interest of the band, just as Pierce invariably does But no band can get far without a good drummer;and Basie. for one. has often expressed the opinion that the drummer is the boss.  Frankie Capp, like the pianist, puts the band first, and the studio recording does more justice to his capability and taste than the live recording of the two preceding albums. ...

Arrangements are sometimes subjected to profound technical analysis, but unless they are suited to the players they do not bring forth the surging vitality that is the essence of big band jazz Everyone is swinging together here with a gathering impetus that is infectious to listeners and musicians alike.”

A couple years after Nat Pierce’s death in 1992, Frank Capp took the Juggernaut into the recording studio to record a series of Neal Hefti arrangement for the Basie Band. Nearly 20 years after Frank and Nat took over a band that Neal decided not to lead, Frank and Neal returned with In A Hefti Bag [Concord CCD-4655].

Mark Ralston wrote these introductory notes for the recording:

A decade after the end of the Swing Era, the partnership of composer/arranger Neal Hefti and Count Basie and his Orchestra set the tone for what big hand jazz would sound like for years to come, and virtually ensured the ongoing popularity of big bands during a period of tumultuous shifts in musical business and public taste.

Through the singular creativity of Hefti, the Basie band prospered and the big band movement adopted a fresh, contemporary personality that allowed it to weather the storm of rock and roll and an ever expanding array of traditional and modern jazz styles. Indeed, it’s unnerving to imagine where the big band tradition might be today if it had not been for the fortuitous pairing of Hefti and Basie four decades ago.

And that’s precisely why drummer and big band leader Frank Capp, long an admirer of Hefti’s writing and arranging, decided it was time to point his juggernaut in the direction ol a full-blown Heft program.  In A Hefti Bag ,the band s fifth Concord Jazz album (the first since former co- leader and pianist Nat Pierce passed away three years ago) is a lovingly crafted reminder of the timeless qualities that make the Hefti library so rewarding for both listeners and musicians.

"People often ask me why I play these old arrangements" Capp observes, "and my answer is why does the New York Philharmonic still play Beethoven and Tchaikovsky? Because it's great music and it demands to be replayed." he states with more than a little conviction. "Just because Heft’s music was recorded by Basie’s  band doesn't mean that had to be the end of it. These songs are classic arrangements. They’re like perennials. They desene lo be heard again."

And as Scott Yanow points out in his AllMusic Review of In A Hefti Bag, there are many new faces to help keep the band vibrant and full of energy.

The Frank Capp Juggernaut's interpretations of 16 Neal Hefti compositions (which were originally written and arranged for the 1950s-era Count Basie Orchestra) bring new life to the highly appealing music without directly copying the earlier recordings. Capp and his 16-piece orchestra are in typically swinging form on obvious classics such as "Cute," "Whirlybird," and "Li'l Darlin'"; several songs whose ensembles are more familiar than their titles (such as "Flight of the Foo Birds," "Scoot," and "Bag-A-Bones"); and some high-quality obscurities. Many soloists are featured, including the late altoist Marshall Royal (who takes his last recorded solo on "It's Awf'lly Nice to Be with You"); tenors Rickey Woodard and Pete Christlieb; altoist Lanny Morgan; trumpeters Conte Candoli, Bob Summers, and Snooky Young; and trombonists Thurman Green, Alan Kaplan, and Andy Martin. Special mention should be made of the work of Gerry Wiggins, who is former co-leader Nat Pierce's permanent replacement and fits right into the Count Basie chair with enthusiasm and obvious skill. As for Frank Capp, he gets his share of drum breaks (including on "Cute" and "Whirlybird") while thoroughly enjoying himself driving the ensembles. Fans of swinging big bands cannot do much better than picking up this highly recommended release.

Lester Koenig: Good Time Jazz and Contemporary Records [From the Archives]

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

I will always be infinitely grateful to Lester Koenig for the many wonderful Jazz recordings that he brought into my life over the years.

On the one occasion that I met him, he was attired in much the same way as in the this photo [Brooks Brothers suits and ties – I asked him]:

Les looked and acted more like the graduate of an Ivy League University and a corporate executive, both of which he had been, than the owner of a small, independent recording label, which he was when I first met him.

Lester attended a concert at our high school that featured a performance by Shelly Manne and His Men, a Jazz combo with a long history of recording for Les’ Contemporary Records.

Our high school group played a few tunes prior to the appearance of the “Big Guys,” and our Band Director introduced each of us to Lester and Shelly backstage after the concert.

Lester said some courteous things about our music and complimented all of us on our playing.  Each of us were young, enthusiastic musicians and we started rattling off our favorite titles from the modern Jazz recordings that he had produced at Contemporary Records.

When it came around to me, however, I was stymied and tongue-tied for what seemed like ages [remember how easily we became embarrassed when The World was Young?].

I had always had a tough time with “favorites,” I had too many of them and could never chose from them whilst protesting such ratings with something like: “Why can’t we have more than one?”

I eventually settled on Shelly Manne and His Men at The Blackhawk which Lester had recorded over a two week period while Shelly’s quintet was in-performance at this once-famous San Francisco Jazz club and released on a series of four LPs [later the set was reissued as five CDs on Original Jazz Classics, OJCCD 656-660].

But then, for some reason, I blurted out that I was also a fan of the many Firehouse Five + Two [see below for details] LPs and other traditional Jazz recordings that he had produced for his Good Time Jazz [GTJ] label.

Les seemed pleased by my interest in “Dixieland Jazz;” surprised that someone of “the younger generation” even knew about such music let alone his GTJ recordings of it.

In order to ward off any further embarrassment, I explained that it was really my Dad who liked Dixieland and that I just happen to catch it when he played these recordings at home [the implication being that I was just being respectful of my father’s taste in music].

About a week later, the Band Director asked me to stick around following one of the many music classes in which I was enrolled.

He handed me a big package with Good Time Jazz stamped on the mailing label.

“I think this is for you,” he said.

The package included about a dozen albums by the likes of Kid Ory’s Creole Jazz Band, Bob Scobey’s Frisco Band, Lu Watters’ Yerba Buena Jazz Band and, of course, The Firehouse Five + Two.

The card inside was addressed to me and said: “For Your Dad. I hope HE enjoys the music. Best wishes, Les.”

And, yes, the “HE” on Lester’s card was capitalized to emphasize it as a tongue-in-cheek reference to me.

I never knew the details about how Les got started in the business so it was fun searching them out and getting to know him better courtesy of the reminiscences of Ralph Kaffel, Floyd Levin, and John Koenig, Lester’s son, which you will find below.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles would also like to thank an “Internet friend” in Germany who made a number of the resources used in this feature possible.

Although it was a mighty struggle, we were able to identify another of our favorite Contemporary LP’s and use a track from it in the video tribute to Les and Contemporary that closes this piece.

The album is Checkmate and features Shelly Manne’s Quintet performing Jazz adaptations of music from this 1960s TV series by composer-arranger John Williams, who would later go on to fame and fortune for his soundtracks to the Stars Wars and Indiana Jones movies.

© -Ralph Kaffel, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Once upon a time, independent record companies were mirror images of the tastes, preferences and personalities or their owners.

Most were one-man shows. Owners did everything from recording sessions and writing liner notes to overseeing distribution and collection. Labels such as Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside, Pacific Jazz, Atlantic, and Contemporary/Good Time Jazz had uncommonly individual identities, sonically and graphically as well as managerially. You could distinguish a Blue Note cover across the room, and recognize a Blue Note session by a few opening bars.

Men like Alfred Lion, Francis Wolff, Bob Weinstock, Orrin Keepnews, Dick Bock, the Ertegun’s, and Lester Koenig virtually invented the jazz record business.

Koenig's Contemporary and Good Time Jazz releases were as distinctive as Blue Note's. They were carefully and beautifully packaged, precisely and impeccably annotated, with covers and liners having a style all their own.

Like Floyd Levin, I have a personal involve­ment with the music in this boxed set. I start­ed in the "business" in 1956 with Jack Lewerke's California Record Distributors in Los Angeles. Les Koenig owned the distribu­torship, so he was my first boss. Les's story has been told to a degree in John Koenig's profile of his father in the booklet for Lu Watters' Yerba Buena jazz Band: The Complete Good Time Jazz Recordings, and by Floyd Levin in his notes for the set at hand (The Good Time Jazz Story).

I would just add that of all the many people in this industry it has been my privilege to know and meet, I have the most respect and admiration for Lester Koenig. He was truly a man of unshakable principle, and passage of time has only served to amplify this aspect of his character.” [Producer’s Note, The Good Time Jazz Story, booklet p. 16].

 © -Floyd Levin, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“When the producer, Ralph Kaffel, asked me to write the historical background of the Good Time Jazz Record Company, he was not aware of my personal "involvement" in the genesis of the influential record label. I happily accepted the assignment since it provided an opportuni­ty to reveal the true origin of the heroic little firm that helped reestablish worldwide interest in a vital segment of jazz history.

My personal role in this drama began in late December 1948. My wife Lucille and I were invited to a New Year's Eve jazz party in a large rehearsal room above Roy Hart's Drum City, a percussion store on Santa Monica Boulevard near Vine Street in Hollywood. That memorable evening at Drum City creat­ed the stimulus that soon resulted in a new record company that would eventually docu­ment a broad spectrum of American music.

We invited our friend Bob Kirstein to join us in the New Year's celebration. Kirstein had an elaborate collection of early jazz records, and was keenly aware of the music's colorful history. He conducted a weekly radio program, "Doctor Jazz," on a tiny Hollywood FM station—long before many listeners had FM radios.

The musicians were setting up their instru­ments when we arrived at Drum City. To our astonishment, they were attired in bright red shirts, black pants, white suspenders—and firemen's helmets! The trombonist, Ward Kimball, also wore a tin badge that identified him as the "Fire Chief." The unusual garb con­trasted vividly with the accepted 1948 band dress code—tuxedos or dark suits. We learned that this was the initial outing of a group that would quickly become internationally famous as the Firehouse Five Plus Two!

A capacity crowd enjoyed a succession of high energy stomps, authentic blues, and spir­ited re-creations of early jazz classics we had only heard on rare recordings by King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong. When we sipped champagne at midnight, and the band played "Auld Lang Syne," the venera­ble Scottish melody was invigoratingly embellished with a clanging fire alarm bell and a shrieking siren! The Firehouse Five Plus Two and the year 1949 were launched simul­taneously, emphatically, and unforgettably!

The New Year's party was their first appearance with the colorful firefighter accouterments; but, from the tight, well-rehearsed arrangements, it was obvious that the little band had been playing together for some time. In an interview with Bob Greene, pub­lished in the Record Changer magazine (September 1949), leader Ward Kimball, then a cartoonist at Walt Disney studios, recalled the noontime studio jam sessions where it all began back in 1945:

"It happened that we had a New Orleans band working here without our knowing about it! Frank Thomas, our pianist, is an ani­mation director; Ed Penner, our bass sax man, is a writer; Jim McDonald, the drummer, is in charge of sound effects; and Clarke Mallery, the clarinetist, is also an animator." Johnny Lucas, a Pasadena writer, also played at the sessions and wrote arrangements for the band. He blew some fiery trumpet at the New Year's event, and, later, on the band's initial recordings.

The noon jam sessions continued at the Disney Studio and expanded to Kimball's house every Friday evening. "We were hired for a dance and the band didn't have a name, so we dreamed up the 'San Gabriel Valley Blue Blowers,' named after San Gabriel, the little town near Pasadena, where I live."

For their formal debut at Drum City, Kimball drew inspiration from his additional interest in antique fire engines and trains. (He had an 1875 railroad station, a full-size Baldwin railroad locomotive, with tender and car attached, sitting on 650 feet of track—and a fully restored bright red 1914 American LaFrance fire engine—in his backyard!)

After the New Year's party, Bob Kirstein was very enthusiastic about the band. He told me that his close friend, Lester Koenig, who shared his interest in jazz, might be interested in recording them.

Koenig, who wrote a jazz column for the school paper when he attended Dartmouth University with Kirstein, had been a successful assistant producer at Paramount Pictures. During the 1947 Congressional Hearings to Investigate Un-American Activities, several prominent Hollywood film personages, including Koenig, were defamed and given no opportunity to defend themselves. They were carelessly implicated, and shamefully "blacklisted." As a result, he was looking for a suitable investment opportunity and con­sidered reverting to his earlier role as a record producer.

As Kirstein predicted, Les Koenig was very interested. We learned during the New Year's party that a member of the Valley Country Club engaged the Firehouse Five to play for a forthcoming dance. Koenig attended the event with Kirstein and was instantly enam­ored of the band.

Recalling the episode in his liner notes on the first Good Time Jazz LP, Koenig wrote: ‘While the firemen were packing their leather helmets, fire-bells and sirens, I was introduced to Ward Kimball. ‘Will you record for me, I ask politely.” ‘What company are you with,’ asked Kimball. ‘None,’ I told him. ‘But if you record for me, I’ll have one!’

A few weeks later (on May 13, 1949), at Radio Engineers’ famous Studio B, in Hollywood, with engineer Lowell Frank at the controls, the first Firehouse Five session began with their them, Firehouse Stomp – the auspicious start of a great recording career.

… Koenig promptly rented a small vacant store near Paramount Studios, and placed a sign in the window – Good Time Jazz Record Company. Kirstein was employed as ‘administrative assistant’ and helped Koenig pack and ship the new 10-inch ninyl 78-rpm records. Retail price: 79 cents!

…

To properly assess the heroism of Les Koenig's venture, a brief review of the jazz scene in 1949 is necessary. Very little tradi­tional jazz was accessible; the word "tradition­al" had not yet been conceived (by Turk Murphy) as a descriptive adjective for the music. Live performances were sporadic, and very few records were available. Despite our fervent pleas, the four major record firms (there were only four!), flushed with the suc­cess of their big band recordings, steadfastly refused to reissue the many cherished gems gathering dust in their vaults. There had never been a jazz festival. There were no organ­ized jazz societies. LPs and TVs were still visions in the future. CDs were beyond the fantasies of the most optimistic visionaries.

Against this dismal backdrop, the small record firm dared to challenge an industry that had turned its back on the "old-fash­ioned" music. Remember, this occurred dur­ing the postwar wasteland when jazz, which had lost favor during the swing era, was also reeling from the "blows" of the emerging bebop fad. Dave Dexter, Jr., in his carefully researched The Jazz Story from the '90s to the '60s (Prentice Hall, 1964), discussed the Firehouse Five Plus Two: ‘Their records and albums, on Lester Koenig's Good Time Jazz label, reportedly outsold ['Dizzy'] Gillespie's at the height of the bop craze!’” [The Good Time Jazz Story, pp. 6-8, 10]

© -John Koenig, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“My father, Lester Koenig, once told me that among the most powerful experiences of his youth was attending a Count Basie recording session. According to him, it was the signal event that kindled his interest in one day owning a jazz record label.

My father was born in New York City toward the end of the First World War and he developed a passion for jazz as a teenager, listening to the 78s of Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong and others. Like many New York jazz devotees, he frequented Doc Doctorow's record store at 43rd Street and Sixth Avenue, which was a well-known haunt for collectors of the day.

I recall that when John Hammond would come to visit us years later in the Seventies, he and my father often reminisced about the old days at Doc Doctorow's. In any event, my father was quite young when they met, and John, seven years older, was something of an idol to him. …

John, who was a wonderful and empathetic person, took a liking to his young admirer and invited him to attend some recording sessions he was producing.

I recall my father telling me that John Hammond had invited him to the Basie session that had first inspired in him the desire to own a jazz label, and that at that session, Basie had recorded One O’clock Jump. …

During those days in the late Thirties, John was recording artists such as Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, Billie Holiday, Jimmy Noone, Meade Lux Lewis, and others, so I presume that my father was present at some of these sessions and as a result was even more steadfastly committed to becoming a jazz record producer.

At college, my father found an outlet for his two abiding passions, movies and jazz; he wrote on both subjects for the Dartmouth College paper. Among his activities on the paper was to write record and film reviews and to interview those musicians whom he happened across. His work on the Dartmouth paper was also auspicious in advancing his career in the field of his other great passion, movies. …

One of his college mates at Dartmouth was Budd Schulberg, whose father, B.P. Schulberg, was then the head of Paramount Pictures. The elder Schulberg admired my fathers renews; they met in the course of things, and eventually, after an abortive interlude at Yale Law School (where he was said to have taken his class notes in limerick form), and a brief stint assisting Martin Block at WNEW on the program "Make Believe Ballroom" and organizing jazz concerts, he received a telegram from Schulberg in 1939, beckoning him to Holly­wood and a job as a writer at Paramount. … He worked there in that capacity until shortly after the United States entered World War II.

My father told me that while he was working at Paramount, he would often drive up the coast the odd weekend to hear Lu Walters, Turk Murphy, and others at the Dawn Club where the San Francisco revival was then in full swing. His earliest recordings, which were of the Waiters band and are included in this package, dated from that period.

During the war, my father joined the Army Air Corps film unit and began an association with film director William Wyler that was to last nine years. Throughout that period, he was second in command on virtually all of Wyler's films from the original 'Memphis Belle', for which he wrote the narration, to 'Roman Holiday', during the production of which our family lived in Rome for nearly a year.

Not long after the war ended, while still working with Wyler, he became prosperous enough to try his hand at his other passion. He did so by acquiring for release on his own new label, Good Time Jazz, several masters recorded principally by David Stuart and Nesuhi Ertegun during their respective periods of ownership of the Jazz Man Record Shop. …

In the late Forties and early Fifties, my father continued to produce more sessions on Good Time Jazz of the music of revival figures such as Bob Scobey, Turk Murphy, Paul Lingle, Wally Rose, Don Ewell, and others as well as the Firehouse Five Plus Two, who at the time were quite popular with the motion picture crowd from their weekly appearances at the Beverley Cavern in Hollywood. …

He was, during the same period, recording modem jazz (Shelly Manne, the Lighthouse All-Stars, Hampton Hawes) and contemporary classical music - hence the name of his other new label, Contemporary.”

Besides his numerous recordings of Shelly Manne in various contexts, I sometimes wonder what artists like alto saxophonists Lennie Niehaus and Art Pepper, pianists like Hampton Hawes and Phineas Newborn, Jr. and groups like the Curtis Counce Quintet and the Teddy Edwards Quartet would have done without Lester’s patronage and support.

And then there are the recordings by guitarist Barney Kessel, the Broadway show albums with pianist Andre Previn and Shelly, the many recordings by vibraphonist and pianist, Victor Feldman, et al.

The list of musicians that Lester recorded is as comprehensive as it is commendable.

I doubt that Jazz on the West Coast, either in its contemporary forms or in its traditional or revivalist forms, would have been the same without Lester’s efforts on their behalf during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

To slightly paraphrase drummer Buddy Rich’s comment about Gene Krupa:

“Things wouldn’t be the way they [were] if he hadn’t been around.”

The New York Trio on Venus

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

The title of this piece should read - “The New York Trio on Venus Records” - but I thought it was more fun this way .

By way of background, while ruminating on the subject of a recent theme on these pages to do with favorite Jazz recordings, I came across S’Wonderful, a 1998 recording by the Bill Charlap Trio with Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington on drums that Tetsuo Hara produced for his Tokyo-based, Venus Record label.

Since then, Bill, Peter and Kenny have continued working as the Bill Charlap Trio for the past twenty years or so recording as a unit primarily for Blue Note and more recently for Impulse! Records.

But as I dug a little deeper into the Bill Charlap stack, I was suddenly reminded of a major change that had taken place concerning “The New York Trio on Venus Records” for while the label remained the same, the personnel of The New York Trio had changed.

The “new” New York Trio now consisted of pianist Bill Charlap, bassist Jay Leonhart and drummer Bill Stewart.

Beginning in 2001 and concluding in 2007,  this New York Trio issued a new recording on Venus annually.  Here’s a complete listing:

2001 - Blues in the Night

2002 - The Things We Did Last Summer

2003 - Love You Madly

2004 - Stairway to the Stars

2005 - Begin the Beguine

2006 - Thou Swell

2007 - Always

As can be discerned from the CD titles, a consistent theme among them is that each is made up of songs selected from what has come to be known as The Great American Songbook.

Indeed, four of them  - Love You Madly,  Begin the Beguine, Thou Swell and Always are devoted to the work of a single composer: Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart and Irving Berlin, respectively.

Tetsuo Hara and his partner Shuji Kitamura have a penchant for piano-bass-drums trio recordings having produced multiple recordings by artists who shine in this setting among them the late Eddie Higgins, David Hazeltine and Steve Kuhn.

Listening to the pace of the music on these CDs, it seems to me that Tetsuo and Shuji essentially “turn the tape on” and allow the artist to record what they want in a variety of tempos and styles with the only “directive” being to clearly state the melody somewhere along the way, preferably at the outset.

The cover art for many of the Venus CDs provides Mr. Hara with a platform to indulge another of his passions - the depiction of exquisite female models, some of whom are posed quite exotically [erotically?]. Although to be fair, this is not always the case as he also uses some plain vanilla cover art primarily made-up of old time photographs.

Having parents with a broad musical background and who were also involved with the Broadway stage and variety show television may have been an influence on Bill Charlap and his long association throughout his recording career with the Great American Songbook.

If, as the late bassist, composer and bandleader, Charles Mingus asserted -“You have to improvise on something” - why not on some of the best melodies ever written?

The universal timelessness of these songs allows the listener to easily follow these familiar tunes as Bill, Jay and Bill Stewart - who is quite the melodicist notwithstanding the limitations of the drum kit - improvise new melodies over each theme.

By and large, the pace of each track is relaxed with up and medium tempos played in a “frisky” manner and ballads played in a reflective and deliberate way that give the original meaning back to the word “slow” in a Jazz context.

Each tune is thoughtfully arranged with an eye toward creating a sense of adventure for musician and listener alike: how about Blue Skies in 5/4 time?

Many of these songs have a close relationship with composers who lived in New York; some were performed as part of musicals that appeared on the city’s Broadway stages; and all three musicians are based in New York - hence the New York Trio seems particularly appropriate.

The musicianship is unsurpassed, the audio quality is first-rate and the bevy of songs collected on these 7 CDs is a bonanza of piano-bass-drums Jazz that would fast become one of the highlights of any Jazz fan’s collection.

These recordings are also remarkable because you can listen at any point and be instantly fascinated.

Charlap is a master storyteller with commanding interpretive skills.

Masterful, too, is Jay Leonhart’s uncanny ability to select just the right bass notes to determine the harmonic identity of sonorities. In other words, in his quiet way, Jay is influencing Bill’s choice of chord progressions, cadences and modalities.

Bill Stewart has drum chops to spare, but you’d never know it as “spare” is the operative word here in terms of the way he employs his awesome technique in the service of the music: never pushing or pulling but always adding a pulse and a rhythmic pattern to keep the music fresh and alive.

3 musicians + 7 CDs + 67 tracks = piano, bass and drums Jazz heaven.

If Venus is the Roman goddess of beauty and love, my guess is that you will find much to love in the beautiful music of the New York Trio on Venus Records.

The following video features the New York Trio on Duke Ellington's C-Jam Blues.

Ella at 100 by Will Friedwald

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

The following appeared in the April 24, 2017 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

“In 1958, Frank Sinatra recorded Billy Strayhorn’s classic torch song “Lush Life”—or, rather, he attempted to. He got about halfway through it when he, in 21st-century speak, “pivoted” and decided, he declared loudly, to “put that one aside for about a year!” Upon hearing the incomplete take, one can only concur with the Chairman’s decision: This is far from a lost Sinatra masterpiece. Rather, it’s a lost Sinatra mistake.

Conversely, Ella Fitzgerald made three important recordings of “Lush Life” in three very different contexts: in 1957 with pianist Oscar Peterson, in 1973 with guitarist Joe Pass, and on a 1968 TV special with Duke Ellington —Strayhorn’s mentor and key collaborator—accompanying her on piano. Or was he? Careful analysis of the videotape by professional pianists reveals that even though it’s Duke on camera, the soundtrack accompaniment is probably actually being played by her regular accompanist at the time, Jimmy Jones.

Clearly, neither Sinatra nor Ellington was comfortable with “Lush Life”—even though Sinatra had sung many songs that were just as musically difficult (and intimately personal), and Ellington was closer to Strayhorn than anyone; he, of all people, should have been willing and able to play it.

And yet Ella Fitzgerald, whose centennial is being celebrated on the 25th of this month, boldly went where both Sinatra and Ellington feared to tread. Most performers are limited to various kinds of songs, and for the great ones that range is often very vast. We hear about a “Sinatra kind of song,” or a “ Judy Garland kind of song.” But you’ve never heard anyone speak of an “Ella Fitzgerald kind of song,” because there’s no such thing. She could and did sing everything.

In 1967-68, Fitzgerald made two of the most misguided albums of her career, “Brighten the Corner” and “Misty Blue,” which can be viewed as ill-advised attempts by the first lady of song to capture the markets of, respectfully, Mahalia Jackson and Ray Charles. The first has her doing traditional spirituals like “The Old Rugged Cross”; the second consists of country-and-western songs with lyrics like “this gun don’t care who it shoots.” Clearly, neither one is a Fitzgerald classic, but both are great in their own way—I don’t listen to them as often as I do “Ella in Berlin” or “Lullabies of Birdland,” but when I do play them I find that, to quote another C&W classic, I can’t stop loving them.

When Fitzgerald died in 1996, I was given the task of calling up her friends and musical associates for statements, and when I talked to one of her ex-husbands, bass virtuoso Ray Brown, to my surprise he quoted Bing Crosby’s famous line, “Man, woman, or child, Ella is the most!” I didn’t realize how appropriate that reference was at the time: In the 1930s, Crosby served as pop culture’s ultimate musical everyman, who sang it all—from “Pennies From Heaven” to “Rock of Ages” to “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” and everything in between. His successor, the singer who picked up that torch in the postwar era and carried it to the furthest extremes, was Fitzgerald. Producer-manager Norman Granz knew what he was doing when he selected her as the one singer to do the major series of songbook albums by every major American songwriter, and then to do whole albums of scat singing, blues, bossa novas, show tunes—casting a wider net than even such remarkable contemporaries as Sinatra and Charles, and singing it all magnificently.

Her performances of “Lush Life” are notable for other reasons: Fitzgerald is widely celebrated for her swinging and improvisation, but not enough attention is paid to her formidable abilities as a ballad singer. As Fitzgerald’s contemporary, Jo Stafford, pointed out to me, the first lady was concerned most of all with the melody, but she also was a major interpreter of lyrics. Some performances are more emotional than others, but she was especially forthcoming on her live concert albums and tapes of the 1960s. As numbers like “A House Is Not a Home” (from a 1969 performance in Montreux, Switzerland) prove, Fitzgerald could break your heart with a song any time she wanted to. It’s no surprise that when Matt Dennis wrote his saloon-song masterpiece “Angel Eyes,” the first person he brought it to was Fitzgerald.

What’s especially remarkable is that Fitzgerald first captured our attention with nursery rhymes, beginning with her breakthrough “A-Tisket, A-Tasket.” From there she gradually expanded her purview to the point where she played a crucial role, no less than Sinatra, in helping to define the Great American Songbook, and made herself the gold standard of American popular music. Long before her centennial, it was clear that the contribution of Ella Fitzgerald to the world’s cultural legacy is so vast as to be incalculable.”

—Mr. Friedwald writes about music and popular culture for the Journal.