Gretsch Drum Night At Birdland

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

Anyone who has been a casual visitor to these pages know that I have a bias toward Jazz drumming, what I think of as the heartbeat of Jazz.

Among the current crop of Jazz drummers, Kenny Washington has long been among my favorites principally because he plays a style of drumming that I also favor - the Philly Joe Jones approach to drumming.

Kenny is a student of the music so much so that he refers to himself as The Jazz Maniac.

Whatever he chooses to call himself, Kenny knows what he talking about, particularly when it comes to Jazz drumming as his following notes to the Roulette LP Gretsch Drum Night At Birdland will attest.

Since he wrote these insert notes to the EMI/Blue Note CD reissue of this LP in 1991, many of the musicians referenced in them have passed away. Oh, and Gretsch is once again making Jazz drum kits.

Kenny’s respect and enthusiasm for the drummers featured on this album are infectious, but considering the iconic status that each of them have assumed in Jazz lore, he’s certainly in good company.

“Imagine being able in see four master drummers at the lop of their games all an one great stage! This all took place April 25. I960, it was billed "Gretsch Night" at the "Jazz: Corner of the World", Birdland. The CD that you are now holding is the only time these percussion personalities ever recorded together. Of course the idea of percussionists playing together is not new: It goes back to the motherland Africa where people played drums for entertainment as well as different kinds of communication. In more modern times, it's interesting to note that throughout the history of Jazz there are not that many recordings of drummers playing together on record. The first recordings that made the public take notice were the 1946 Jazz at the Philharmonic drum battles between Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. There were a few studio recordings that came out in the 50s which included such greats as Mel Lewis, Osie Johnson. Charlie Persip, Louis Hayes. Don Lamond and a few others. Although these recordings are good, they didn't do justice to these masters. In fact, they were a bit over arranged, and the record company seemed to boast more about hi-fi sound rather than music. The man really responsible for seeing the possibilities for recording drum ensembles was An Blakey, fusing Latin jazz percussionists with jazz multi-percussionists. These were ideas that were no doubt inspired by Dizzy Gillespie's fascination with Afro-Cuban sounds in the 40s. Art recorded with legendary conga drummer Chano Pozo on a James Moody record date for Blue Note in I948. He also recorded a drum duet with Sabu Martine: on a Horace Silver record date. Blakey recorded no less than six albums with different drum ensembles. It is indeed Art who is the ringleader of the "Gretsch Drum Night" session here.

Without gelling too deep into drum equipment, Gretsch was a drum company who endorsed these percussionists. Owned by Fred Gretsch, this company was the drum set for Jazz drummers. There were other companies to be sure, but none of them had that sound like Gretsch. A lot of top drummers of the day used them. When I was a child of seven. I would read publications such as Downbeat and I would see pictures of Gretsch endorsee's like: Max Roach. Tony Williams. Philly Joe. Elvin and Art. I remember my father getting mad at me because before lie could read the magazine I'd cut out the pictures of my idols and hang them on my wall! Gretsch still exists nowadays but. they have next to no interest in Jazz drummers. They have very few Jazz endorsees if any. Even more of a pity is that they don't make their drums like they used to (it was so good while it lasted).

Putting four drummers on stage together can he a horrific experience. There's always the tendency for drummers to want to outplay each other. Also, it can do a number on your eardrums. On this CD. you'll hear friendly competition done in a musical way.

Art Blakey [1919-1990] was horn in Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania. He was basically self-taught on the drums, but took a few informal lessons from his idol Chick Webb (if if you listen to early Blakey big band recordings you can hear how he imitated Webb right down to the tuning of the snare drum). He played with one of the pioneers of big band jazz, Fletcher Henderson for about a year. Art then joined the legendary Billy Eckstine band from 1944 until the band’s demise in 1947. Blakey became associated with the bebop movement, recording and performing with such greats as Charlie Parker. Fats Navarro and Dexter Gordon. Blakey organised the Seventeen Messengers, which were scaled down to a octet for a Blue Note record date in 1947. In 1955. Blakey and pianist Horace Silver formed a cooperative as the Jazz Messengers. Front that point until his death, Blakey had many classic Messenger groups and helped to groom musicians for the future of Jazz. I should also point out that An took the Bebop innovations of drummers like Kenny Clarke and Max Roach to another level. With his raw gutsy solos and his hard-driving swing. Blakey changed the role of modern Jazz drummers.

Joseph Rudolph Jones (1923-I985) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He started playing drums and piano at an early age. He got serious about the drums in his late teens, About thai time. Joe became one of the first black streetcar conductors in Philadelphia. He commuted to New York to study with swing drummer Cozy Cole. In 1947, he came to New York permanently working as the house drummer at Cafe Society. He gained experience working with Dizzy Gillespie, Tadd Dameron and many others. Around this time he got the name Philly Joe so as not to be confused with veteran Count Basie drummer Jo Jones. A year later, he made his first recordings with the Joe Morris band playing rhythm and blues. Later on he worked with guitarist Tiny Grimes and his Rocking Highlanders, wearing a kilt no less. His best known association was with the classic Miles Davis Quintet from 1955 to 1958. After leaving Davis, he became the most sought after session man, recording for Prestige, Riverside, Blue Note and a host of other labels from the late 50s into the 60s. He lived in Europe from 1969 to 1972. When he returned to Philadelphia, he formed his group Le Grand Prix. In 1981, he formed Dameronia a group put together for the sole purpose of playing the music of pianist-composer, Tadd Dameron. Philly Joe took the best from masters like Max Roach. Sid Catlett, Jo Jones. Kenny Clarke, Art Blakey and made it his own. His playing had everything; technical virtuosity, slickness, humour and most of all he could swing you into bad health.

Charlie Persip (1929) was born in Morristown, New Jersey. He's a master of both big and small band playing. He's best known for his work with Dizzy Gillespie (1953-58), Persip along with a few others helped to dispel the myth among white contractors and producers at that time that black drummers couldn't read music. Charlie has always been a fantastic musician who didn't put up with a lot of nonsense. Punctuality is usually the rule with Persip, but he once overslept for an early morning recording session. When he finally got to the session, the rest of the musicians were rehearsing. The minute he finished setting up.  they put the music in front of him and rolled lite tape. He sight-read the music as if he hail been playing it for a year. The producer couldn't believe what he had just witnessed and later wrote Charlie a letter Mating stating that he had never seen that kind of musicianship in his life, Incidentally, that session was a Bill Potts' The Jazz Soul of Porgy and Bess. Persip was much in demand for studio work recording with everyone from Jackie and Roy to Eric Dolphy. These days Charlie is the principal drum instructor for JazzMobile. has his own big band which he calls Persipitation and has even written a very good hook titled "How Not To Play The Drums".

Elvin Ray Jones (1927-) was born in Pontiac. Michigan, the youngest of the illustrious Jones brothers. Elvin began his professional career as the house drummer in saxophonist Billy Mitchell's band at the famed Bluebird Club in Detroit. This engagement gave him a chance to play with all the great jazzmen who came through town. Elvin’s style of drumming met with some resistance from musicians and critics alike. The innovations of Kenny Clarke and Max Roach in the 40s seemed like the logical step from what drummers before them like Jo Jones and Sid Cutlet! were doing. When Elvin came on the scene, he was outrageously different from anything that came before him. His time feel and use of complex polyrhythms were something that had never been done before. I might also point out that he completely revolutionized 3/4 time playing. Elvin would plav over the bar lines putting accents on the (and) of two rather than playing on the downbeat of one. This made his time much smoother and sort of made it float along. Philly Joe wax actually one of Elvin's earliest fans. He knew right from the beginning thai Elvin had something special. He used to send Elvin in on jobs and recordings he couldn't make. The two of them even recorded an album together for Atlantic. The world caught on. and he toured and also recorded with J J Johnson, Barry Harris, Donald Byrd. Harry Edison among others. Elvin joined the Joint Coltrane Quartet in 1960. He was a perfect match for Trane's journey into modality and his open form style of this period. After leaving Coltrane in 1966. he spent a brief time with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Since that time Elvin lias been leading his own groups.

The other musicians on this dale contribute short but strong solos. Tlte frontline consists of an interesting instrumentation of aim trombone.

Sylvester Kyner better known as Sonny Red, hailed from Detroit. At the time of this live session, he had already recorded one album for Blue Note as a leader. Seven months after this recording he was signed to Riverside Records where he made four dales as a leader. He is best known for his recordings as a sideman on Blue Note with his junior high school buddy Donald Byrd. Red was a player who could cover all the bases. He could play gut bucket blues, but had  a strong harmonic conception, played lyrical ballads and was a 'from scratch' improviser. You never knew where he would go next. Red died in 1981.

Charies Greenlea toured and recorded with Dizzy Gillespie's Bebop Band of the 40s. He went on to record with Archie Shepp and played off and on with Philly Joe Jones in the 60s. I first met him in the seventies when he was playing with the C.B.A. (Collective Black Artists) big hand.

Ron Carter was twenty-three at the lime of this recording made and was commuting back and forth from New York in Eastman School of Music in Rochester, where he was in the process of getting his Masters Degree. It's interesting to hear him playing with these drummers. There are very few recordings of Ron playing with Blakey or Philly Joe. It's too had because listening to this CD, you'll hear that they play well together. Persip was instrumental in getting Ron on a lot of studio dates when he first came to the Big Apple. He was also part of Persip's group The Jazz Statesmen. Then as now. Ron is still taking care of serious bass business.

Tommy Flanagan, also a product of Detroit, can fit into any situation. A year before this date, he had recorded the now classic John Coltrane "Giant Steps" session. During this period, he was working and recording with Coleman Hawkins. Art Farmer. Clark Terry and many others. I had the opportunity to work with Tommy's trio for two years. He is truly a joy to play with,

I've sketched out some notes to help the listener to identify the drummers. On Wee Dot and Now's The Time there are only two drummers - Philly Joe Jones and Art Blakey. The way to tell them apart is Philly Joe's drums are tuned higher than Blakey's (incidentally Joe is using Persip's drums and cymbals).

Wee Dot is a JJ Johnson composition that Blakey recorded for Blue Note six years earlier live at the same club. It is he who starts with a 8 bar intro and plays through the melody. Philly Joe steps right in accompanying Red for seven choruses. Dig how Joe uses his left hand behind him. Art plays behind Creenlea's short trombone solo and Flanagan's piano choruses . Philly Joe plays the four bar exchanges with the horn as well as the extended drum solo. Art is keeping time on the ride cymbal. The roles then reverse, Joe plays time and Art solos. Check out how Art goes from a whisper to a roar on his solo.

Charlie Parker's Now's The Time starts with a four-bar intro from Philly Joe. You can hear at the ninth bar of the melody how they both punctuate the melody together. Check out how Art plays one of his dynamic press rolls to begin Greenlea's solo. At the third chorus of the solo. Philly Joe steps in with a typical conga beat that he plays between his two toms for almost two choruses. Philly Joe lakes charge during Red's solo. I'm sorry, but there's no one that could swing harder than Philly Joe at that tempo. There's a tape splice right after the fourth chorus of Red's solo that switches us back to Blakey's accompaniment. During Flanagan's solo, you can hear Philly Joe trying in step in musically as if he's saying "May I cut in on this dance?" There's another sudden splice, and there's Philly Joe again showing us how slick he was. Philly Joe plays a full chorus drum solo with backing from Blakey’s ride cymbal. Art's solo reminds us of the Chick Webb influence. Art sure had a big drum sound.

Another drum set is brought out on the stage of Birdland and we hear Art, Elvin and Charlie for the next tune El Sino. Art and Elvin play the theme together. Sonny Red has the first solo backed by Art. Persip accompanies Creenlea's solo. Talking to Persip, he told me that he and Elvin were roommates at the time. He felt that listening and talking to Elvin was a big inspiration for him. It helped to free up his whole rhythmic conception. It's Elvin that plays brushes behind Tommy and Ron's solos. Few people know that Elvin is a master of brushes. The four-bar exchanges start off with Art, Charlie and Elvin in that order. There's a drum interlude right after the last exchange which is a Blakey rhythm phrase played by the three before each of the drum solos. Elvin has the first solo. Persip is next, playing everything sharp and clean. He always had chops io spare. His bass drum work sounds as if he's using two bass drums, although he's only using one. They repeat the interlude once more, and the hums lake it out.

Tune Up is actually the next number but because of time considerations on the conventional LP Roulette decided tn start from the 8-bar drum exchanges. Reissue producer Michael Cuscuna and I were disappointed that there were no extra session reels. We had hoped thai we would be able fix the edlts and restore the music to its original form. What you hear is all that appeared on the original LP. The 8-bar exchanges start with Philly Joe, Charlie and Elvin in that order. The first extended solo is by Philly Joe. Persip takes over with a 6/8 time feeling. Later he shows off his independence by actually playing four different rhythms with each limb. Elvin is the next soloist playing a quasi-free solo. Next the percussionists pull out their brushes starring with Philly Joe. As he's playing you can hear Art egging him on. Philly Joe was a master showman, and you can hear that he had the audience in the palm of his hands. It's too bad there's no film of this performance. Charlie and Elvin both tell their stories with the brushes before the ensemble comes in with the melody of Tune Up.

The session reels say that the last piece is titled A Night In Tunisia. Again because of time considerations they cut all the horn solos. The three percussionists start with intricate Afro-Cuban rhythms. The first soloist is Persip. After the ensemble playing Persip is heard again. Elvin takes another extended solo. The Afro-Cuban rhythms come back before they switch to a 6/8 time feel and then the big finale.

Like saxophones or trumpets, drummers can also play together and he just as musical. The proof is here to hear.”

Bill Charlap - "Elevating the Great American Songbook" by Terry Teachout

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

The following appeared in the December 18, 2017 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

From the standpoint of swinging Jazz pianists who also bring lyrical, sensitive and reflective overtones to their Jazz interpretations, today’s Jazz scene is blessed with a host of talented players among them: Fred Hirsch, Brad Mehldau, Aaron Goldberg, Tom Ranier, David Hazeltine, Mike LeDonne, Dado Moroni, Enrico Pieranunzi, Peter Beets, Larry Goldings, Tamir Hendelman, Larry Fuller, Joey Calderazzo, Michel Camilo, Benny Green, Eliane Elias, Christian Jacob, and many more.

To my ears, Bill Charlap has been a consistently brilliant performer who places great emphasis on finding new and different ways to express his pianism in the Great American Songbook such that these familiar melodies take on an entirely new melodicism.

Over the past three decades, I’ve always looked forward to Bill’s latest CD to hear what he’s been up to as he refashions many of my favorite songs and also introduces me to many new ones from the canon that was American popular music throughout most of the 20th century.

Here’s the distinguished Jazz author and critic Terry Teachout’s view on what makes Bill’s approach to Jazz interpretations of the Great American Songbook so unique.

“Jazz pianist Bill Charlap takes on standards and the obscure, playing with a warmly singing tone.”

-By Terry Teachout

“Will jazz ever become popular again? I claimed in this space eight years ago that “the audience for America’s great art form is withering away.” I still fear for jazz, though I also believe (as I did then) that it remains creatively vital. The problem, I argued, was that its transformation from a dance-based popular music into “a form of high art…comparable in seriousness to classical music” inevitably alienated many once-loyal listeners, who turned instead to less complex, more immediately engaging styles of pop music. The result was deftly spoofed in a “Simpsons” episode that poked fun at KJAZZ, a fictional radio station whose slogan was “152 Americans Can’t Be Wrong.”

That’s why it’s such good news that younger jazz musicians like Robert Glasper, Ethan Iverson and Kamasi Washington are integrating today’s pop-music styles into their playing, just as Miles Davis, Gary Burton and Pat Metheny assimilated rock in the ’60s and ’70s. But postmodern fusion isn’t the only way to expand the jazz audience. Jazz instrumentalists can also follow the hugely successful example of singers like Diana Krall by embracing the American songwriters of the pre-rock era, whose appeal remains undiminished to this day. That’s what Bill Charlap does — and nobody does it better.

Born in 1966, Mr. Charlap played piano for Gerry Mulligan and Phil Woods before starting his own trio in 1997. Today he’s a major name in his own right, touring constantly (he’ll be performing in Boston; Sarasota, Fla.; Tokyo; and Tucson, Ariz., in January) and cutting an album a year. “Uptown, Downtown” (Impulse ), his latest release, came out in September to universal acclaim. His admirers include Tony Bennett, who tries to poke his head into New York’s Village Vanguard and sing a song or two whenever Mr. Charlap is in residence there, and Maria Schneider, jazz’s top composer-bandleader, who once described him to me as “one of the few mainstream pianists out there who really moves me — he plays standards with such love and honesty.”

That’s Mr. Charlap’s trademark. He quarries the Great American Songbook for gems, some familiar (“The One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else,” “There’s a Small Hotel”) and others obscure. “Uptown, Downtown,” for instance, is named after a Stephen Sondheim tune that was cut from the score of “Follies” before it opened on Broadway in 1971. He comes by his taste for standards honestly: Moose Charlap, his father, wrote the score for Jerome Robbins’s “Peter Pan.” At the same time, his jazz pedigree is impeccable, and he has an identically sharp ear for overlooked jazz originals like Jim Hall’s “Bon Ami” and Mr. Mulligan’s “Curtains.”

No matter what Mr. Charlap plays, he does so with a warmly singing tone that puts you in mind of the noted vocalists whom he likes to accompany whenever his crowded schedule permits (one of whom, Sandy Stewart, is his mother). It’s no surprise to learn that he knows the lyrics to every song in his vast repertoire. His pellucid balladry, especially at the super-slow tempos that he relishes, is nothing short of exquisite—but whenever he dives head first into an up-tempo flag-waver, he leaves you in no doubt of his ability to swing hard. And while he doesn’t flaunt his technique, Mr. Charlap uses every inch of the keyboard with miraculous facility, popping lower-than-low bass notes with his left hand in much the same way that a drummer might kick a big band into high gear with his bass drum.

Ask Mr. Charlap what piano trios of the past he admires most and he’ll likely mention the ones led by Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal and Oscar Peterson. All three have left their mark on his bright, airy style, but it is the group that Mr. Jamal led from 1957 to 1962 that his own trio evokes most strongly (though never derivatively). Mr. Jamal specialized in an immediately accessible brand of supper-club jazz, mixing tried-and-true standards with jazz originals to crowd-delighting effect. Yet his uncluttered pianism was so arrestingly fresh that Miles Davis, the foremost jazz innovator of his generation, instructed his own keyboard men to “play like Ahmad.”

“The best you can do as an artist, what you ought to do, is be yourself, here and now,” Mr. Charlap once told me. “If that self is avant-garde, so be it. But maybe who you are is something else.” Well, he’s definitely something else: a user-friendly jazz master whose smart, imaginative playing gives equal pleasure to musicians and nonmusicians. After following his career closely for the past decade and a half, I now rank him as my favorite living jazz pianist—one whose well-deserved success fills me with hope for the future of the great American art form.”

—Mr. Teachout, the Journal’s drama critic, writes “Sightings,” a column about the arts, every other week. Write to him at tteachout@wsj.com.

Lennie Tristano - "C Minor Complex"

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

As J. Bradford Robinson explains in the following excerpt from The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz [Barry Kernfeld, ed.]:

“Tristano's music stands apart from the main tradition of modern jazz, representing an alternative to bop which poses severe demands of ensemble precision, intellectual rigor, and instrumental virtuosity.

Rather than the irregular cross-accents of bop, Tristano preferred an even rhythmic background against which to concentrate on line and focus his complex changes of time signature.

Typically, his solos consisted of extraordinarily long, angular strings of almost even eighth-notes provided with subtle rhythmic deviations and abrasive polytonal effects. He was particularly adept in his use of different levels of double time and was a master of the block-chord style of George Shearing, Dave Brubeck, and others, carefully gauging the accumulation of dissonance.

His experiments in multitrack recording and overdubbing, beginning in 1951 with Juju (not issued until 1971), inspired similar performances by Bill Evans (Conversations with Myself) and others in the 1960s. With his groups he also explored free collective improvisation, most notably in Intuition and Digression (1949).

Although he was accused at the time of being willfully experimental, "free" performances of this sort were in fact part of Tristano's teaching practice (many were taped privately by Bauer) and pointed the way to similar experiments by Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman in the late 1950s.

Tristano excelled as a teacher, demanding and receiving firm loyalty from his pupils, many of whom sacrificed more lucrative careers to continue their work with him. His method stressed advanced ear training and a close analysis of the work of several seminal jazz improvisers, including Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Roy Eldridge, Charlie Parker, and Bud Powell.

Because of his knowledge of several instruments and broad minded approach Tristano attracted players of different instruments and schools, among them such established musicians as Bud Freeman, Art Pepper, and Mary Lou Williams. Perhaps more than in his own scant recordings, Tristano's influence is felt most strongly in the work of his best pupils - many of whom also became outstanding teachers — and in his example of high -mindedness and perfectionism, characteristics which presupposed for jazz the highest standards of music as art.” [pp. 1218-1219]

My first introduction to Lennie’s Music came from his 1962 Atlantic LP - The New Tristano [1357] and I more or less worked backward from there to familiarize myself with the earlier years of his career including his recordings with alto saxophonist Lee Konitz and tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh.

The most engaging track on The New Tristano is Lennie’s C Minor Complex. It was issued on as part of an anthology on Atlantic Jazz Keyboards [R271596] and Dick Katz, himself an accomplished Jazz pianist, had this to say about Lennie, his music and C Minor Complex.

“Tristano is probably the most gifted, original and influential pianist to never achieve a really large audience. Only Herbie Nichols, whose recorded output was so small, rivals him for undeserved obscurity. True, Tristano had a moment of fame when his 1949 recordings with Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh turned many musicians on their collective ear. Reclusve by nature and a recalcitrant personality, he avoided the spotlight more than any other comparable talent.

Lennie expanded the harmonic and melodic vocabulary of Jazz in many unique ways. The ability to improvise and sustain the perfect line (melody) was an overriding goal. Polychordal harmony an unusual metric groupings (such as 5 or 7 against 4) were common. Perhaps his greatest disciple was Lee Konitz, who, it must be said, has gone his own way for many years now.

Among the other pianists who were influenced by Tristano are Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett. Tristano’s own most obvious influence would see to be Bud Powell, but even though both could achieve a Bach-like torrential quality, they were basically different.

All of Tristano’s aforementioned technical aspects are brilliantly displayed on C minor Complex a tour de force based on the chords to Pennies from Heaven in minor.

This amazing improvisation features a relentless, unyielding single-note bass line from start to finish, contrasted with an increasingly intense and complex single-line right hand.

This builds to a climax via some incredible chordal passages (the bass line never quits) and some amazing toying with the meter. This piece dissolves into more single lines and ends on a satisfying, tranquil note.”

You can listen to C Minor Complex on the following video tribute to Lennie.

Introducing Jimmy Greene

© -Steven Cerra. Copyright protected; all rights reserved.

My introduction to the tenor sax work of Jimmy Greene might not have occurred at all except for the fact that a friend who shares my high opinion of the quality of both the musicianship and the recordings that Gerry Teekins produces for his Criss Cross Jazz label sent me Introducing Jimmy Greene: The Jimmy Greene Sextet which Gerry recorded in New York in 1997 [Criss 1181 CD].

Another factor contributing to his gift of this particular CD is that he and I are great fans of the trombonist Steve Davis and Steve appears on some of the tracks of Jimmy Greene’s initial offering on Criss Cross along with John Swana on trumpet and flugelhorn, and a rhythm section made up of Aaron Goldberg on piano, Darren Hall on bass and Eric McPherson on drums.

Thanks to his thoughtfulness, Jimmy Greene’s music came into my life and I have followed his work closely ever since. You can checkout his artist page for all of the Criss Cross recordings he appears on by going here.

At the time of these recordings, tenor saxophonist Jimmy Greene was only 22 and fresh out of the University of Hartford's Hartt School of Music, where he was a protege of master saxophonist and jazz educator Jackie McLean. The previous year he was named first runner-up in the prestigious Thelonious Monk Jazz Saxophone Competition.

Since then, the Connecticut native has performed and/or recorded with Horace Silver, Claudio Roditi, Lewis Nash, Avishai Cohen, Omar Avital, Darren Barrett, Kenny Barron, Tom Harrell, the New Jazz Composers Octet, and the big bands of Harry Connick, Jr., as well continuing to appear with his own group.

On the CD, Jimmy performs in quartet, quintet [with John Swana] and sextet settings. The full sextet plays on Jimmy's ingenious arrangement of Cole Porter's 1942 hit, I Love You, about which Jimmy comments: “It's ironic, in a way, because if you listen to the lyric, it's kind of syrupy. And the arrangement is the opposite mood, kind of a dark, brooding, questioning vibe."

John Swana handles the melody on trumpet over rich tenor saxophone and trombone harmonies. Jimmy's three-horn voicings have a surprisingly full sound, making judicious use of overtones to fill out the sonority.

Ted Gioia has this to say about the Cole Porter tune in his The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire:

“.... performers as diverse as Frank Sinatra, John Coltrane, and Johnny Mathis ... [have offered] up interpretations over the years.

The words do not rank among Porter's best, with their string of deliberate cliches — familiar prattle about birds, daffodils, the dawn — and none of the clever turns of phrase that were his trademark. Porter reportedly wrote the piece in response to a wager with his friend Monty Woolley, who doubted that the songwriter could build an effective song out of the oft-used title phrase. The resulting lyrics retain a quasi-satirical undertone, and the song could be performed ironically — although this is not how it has been typically treated in jazz circles. Rather, jazz players have embraced I Love You for the dramatic interval leaps in the melody and its sweet modulation in the bridge, ingredients that hold enough charm to keep this song in the jazz repertoire more than 60 years after it was written.

This song often gets the "Latin treatment" — a hit-or-miss procedure that can be the jazz equivalent of cut-rate plastic surgery. Sometimes the piece ends up enhanced, but perhaps just as often the result is unintended disfigurement. I suspect that jazz players so often opt for a propulsive rhythm on this chart because Porter inserted so many long-held notes into the melody, starting in bar one and continuing throughout the song. The melody will not swing the song on its own, and actually creates a sense of stasis. Latinizing the proceedings serves as compensation.” [p.173]

The following audio-only file features Jimmy Greene’s arrangement of I Love You and his arrangement of it brings back fond memories of the sextet version of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers that featured Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on tenor sax and Curtis Fuller on trombone.

Class Reunion - The Bobby Shew Quintet

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

BOBBY SHEW was born in Albuquerque. NM in 1941. Bobby Shew started playing trumpet when he was a kid, and after leaving the service in 1964. he turned professional. He played with Tommy Dorsey, and with Woody Herman's Herd, and he got his first experience as a lead player on the road with Della Reese. He spent 7 years in Las Vegas, where he played with the Buddy Rich band as well as alf the top show bands, going out on the road as lead trumpeter with Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Tom Jones and many others.

In the tall of 1972 Bobby had had enough of Las Vegas, and so he packed his trumpet and flugelhorn and left. He was determined to crack big-time L.A., and eventually managed to make the wedding between the business of music and the art of music. As a studio musician. Shew was on call constantly.

From 1975 on, he recorded and played with groups led by jazz greats like Frank Strazzeri, Horace Silver, Don Menza, Bud Shank, and Carmen McRae, and with the big bands of Louis Bellson, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Juggernaut, Buddy Rich, Gerald Wilson, Woody Herman, and Maynard Ferguson band.

After enjoying success as a sideman, in 1978 Shew started a prolific career as leader with all kinds of albums, from small groups to large orchestra, while also leading his own highly successful combo for many years.                                                     

Recognition has come to him in the form of acclaims and accolades, but maybe Dizzy Gillespie's praise sums it up best: "The only guy who could play flugelhorn in the high register and make it sound good is Bobby Shew."

I’ve always considered Jordi Pujol, the owner and proprietor of Fresh Sound Records, a latter-day Norman Granz sans the personal management dimension [Norman managed such notables as Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson and was the impresario for the Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts both at home and abroad].

And like Norman, who made possible a treasure trove of recorded Jazz on various labels for which Jazz fans everywhere will forever be in his debt, Jordi has brought to the digital world an immense catalogue of Jazz that was initially released on small, independent labels, many of whom became extinct after a few, short years in the business.

As a case in point, Jordi recently sent along three CDs which he has released on his Fresh Sound label featuring the music of Bobby Shew, Sal Nistico and Martial Solal all of which he has rescued from obscurity and given new life in a digital format.

The first of these recent digital reissues is Class Reunion - The Bobby Shew Quintet [Fresh Sound Records FSR CD 946] which came out in 1980 on Sutra Records [LP SUS 1002].

In addition to Bobby on trumpet and flugelhorn, the band consists of Gordon Brisker on tenor sax and flute, Bill Mays on piano and Fender Rhodes, Bob Magnusson on bass and Steve Schaeffer on drums.

As one of my Jazz buddies recently remarked to me via email:

“Bobby has long been a favorite of mine and sorely under-appreciated by the general public - as a straight-shooting teacher, clinician, musician and generally very funny guy.”

Bobby is one of the few Jazz trumpeters who can meet the exacting requirements of playing in the lead trumpet chair as well as taking on the Jazz or solo trumpet assignments.

About BOBBY SHEW -

Born in the picturesque musical wasteland of Albuquerque, New Mexico, on March 4, 1941 Bobby Shew started guitar at age eight but switched to trumpet at age ten. There was no history of music in his family. His stepfather, however, kept a borrowed trumpet in the closet, which he brought out when Bobby was around 8 or 9 years old. "He played Red River Valley for me," Bobby fondly recalls, "which was all he could remember. I thought, 'Gee, that's beautiful. That's really a hip toy."'

Because the trumpet was left in a closet, he couldn't play it, "But when they used to leave me with a baby sitter, I could hardly wait for them to get out the door so I could sneak in the closet and get that trumpet out." When he was eight, he tried country and western guitar picking. The strings were "four miles above the board, of course, which bloodied up my fingers and destroyed my left hand and my initiative — plus the fact I couldn't stand to hear another song about a guy falling in love with his horse." In the fifth grade, Shew talked his stepfather into letting him use the closet trumpet to try out for the school band. Bobby bought a trumpet book, sat down with his stepfather for two hours, and learned how to read music and blow and finger the horn.

"That night I could play everything in the book. I always had a natural cosmic vibration with music. It just lit my body up. Behind music, my whole being came to life." With that one lesson behind him, he won second chair in the 36-piece horn section the very next day. "I was so unexposed to music that I had not had anyone tell me how difficult it was to do. It was just music. It was so simple, before anyone could get their hands on me and convince me how hard it was going to be to play trumpet, I already had it going."

When he was 12, he was asked to play in a dance band, "but I said no, because I didn't know how to dance. I didn't realize that a dance band wasn't a bunch of guys who played and danced." After he was properly informed, he began playing local casuals, weddings, and dances, becoming exposed to improvisation — which opened a new world for him. The love affair with jazz started there and became the driving force in Bobby's life.

"During a rehearsal break one time, I jumped in and started playing on a blues jam, making the music up in my head. The whole place stopped and listened. Boom! Everything came out. It was a completely natural thing. I've never had to study, and I still haven't studied privately to this day. It was a revelation for me when, many years later, I realized what I had accomplished." Jazz influences were hard to come by in Albuquerque, because "there just was not a great deal of black music available. The record stores in that town were places that sold pianos, accordions, trumpets, trombones, violins, and maybe back in the corner they had a few records. I mean, they didn't exactly say, 'We gotta make sure we get all the Blue Note stuff in!'"

So he spent summers after high school in New York City listening to the great jazz masters, and attended the first two years of Stan Kenton's Summer Jazz Clinics in Bloomington, IN. In 1959 and 1960, he got a chance to study under jazz greats Don Jacoby, Conte Candoli, Johnny Richards, Sam Donahue, John LaPorta, Shelly Manne, etc.

Life went on, and after that Bobby attended UNM for two years, studying Architecture and Commercial Art. He was drafted into the Army, and assigned as jazz soloist to NORAD BAND in Colorado Springs, where he recorded and toured extensively, playing with people like Phil Wilson and Paul Fontaine. "I'd never heard guys play like that except on records. Being in that band was probably the turning point forme. I went in there pretty naive yet confident at my level, but that band showed me guys who could really play."

Leaving the service in 1964, Bobby Shew turned, professional. He joined Tommy Dorsey, and in spring 1965 he replaced Larry Ford in Woody Herman's Herd, travelling in July to France, to appear at the Festival de Jazz d'Antibes. About his time with Herman, Bobby, wrinkling his brow recalled: "That was traumatic for me. I thought Woody's band was the greatest band ever, but when I got there, I ended up on the wrong chair. It was the third chair. Bill Chase was playing lead, and Jerry Lamy was splitting it with him. Dusko Gojkovic and Don Rader were doing the jazz. I was stuck with nothing to do for a year, and it drove me crazy. I wasn't mature enough to know how to deal with it."

So he left on the road with Della Reese and began getting experience as a lead player. He settled in Las Vegas for 7 years. He played with the newly-formed Buddy Rich band for a year and a half, originally joining Buddy as a jazz player, then shifting to lead. "It was easy for me to play with Buddy, because he plays drums like a lead trumpet player, and when I play trumpet in a big band I approach it like a set of drums, really whipping and bashing, working tight with the drummer. Buddy and I worked together great. It was like having two drummers in the band."

After leaving Buddy, Shew played Las Vegas top show bands, sometimes going out on the road as lead trumpeter with Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Steve Allen, Paul Anka, Connie Stevens, Tom Jones, Terry Gibbs, Robert Goulet and Vikki Carr. He then took a year off, because, "My chops were cut to shreds. I got to the place where I couldn't stand Vegas any more. They can sit in those house bands making $325 a week and just die. There's no incentive to do anything."

In the fall of 1972, Bobby packed his trumpet and flugelhorn and, with his wife, left Las Vegas on a shoestring. He had had it with Vegas stagnation. He was willing to scuffle if he had to, but he was determined to crack big-time L. A.

"I had been in and around Vegas for nine years, and my frustration level had risen til my eyes were turning red. I just couldn't take it anymore. I just came home to my wife in 1972 and said, 'Let's pack up and get out.' We left town in four days and came here to L.A.

"When you go to Vegas, you see, the music is just hard, high, pounding, hammer as hard as you can for hours. It's just like breaking rocks. There's never any light taps. It becomes a thing of brute force. Never a delicate, musical, sensitive, colored thing. As far as jazz playing goes, there's about five guys there holding on to a thin thread for dear life. They have to do it in the garage. I didn't even get to play eight bars of sensible music for six or seven years. "When I came down here, my chops were hard and stiff, so I had to once again learn how to play with some delicacy and sensitivity to be able to walk in a studio and play a movie or a Dixieland feel.

"That's where the versatility of studio work comes in, and you need that versatility to play in this town. You might walk in an nine o'clock in the morning and have to play Stravinsky, then a rock date for Motown with those merciless high F's and G's and endless vamps, then go play with Bud Shank's quintet later that night. You have to be able to do the whole thing. And since I never had classical lessons, I was ill-prepared to play some of the tricky classical-like things that showed up, especially double and triple tonguing which I never learned."

Shew managed to make the wedding between the business of music and the art of music. When he was a child, he loved the aesthetics of music. But as he learned the professional ropes, he learned to play to make a living. "If you're lucky," he said, "the two can dovetail together." As a studio musician, Shew was on call constantly.

As an artist, he played regularly with Louie Bellson's big band. "And I played with Art Pepper's quintet for half a year; I play with Bud Shank occasionally; at one point I put a seven-piece band together of my own; and I just recently did an album with piano player, Frank Strazzeri: a giant, a monster, an incredibly underrated player, a complete genius." Bobby also enjoyed the thrill of playing both lead and jazz with Toshiko's big band, "because the chops and the studio versatility all come together from an artist's point of view, not a business point of view."

As a teacher, Shew has taught numerous clinics over the years. He was also Chairman of the International Association for Jazz Education for sixteen years,associate Professor of Trumpet at USC for eleven, worked at California State Northridge for eighteen, and at the California Institute of the Arts for three. "I love it. Part of being an artist is just doing things creatively, and I don't think anything can be more creative or more challenging than sitting down with 5 or 500 kids who say, 'How do I play jazz?' or 'How do I play high notes?’ The kids are so alive and enthusiastic that they're an inspiration to me. I learn a lot about playing by teaching.”

"I just love music. I've had a love affair with music for my whole life. Music is my wife, my mistress, my food and my drink. My wife Lisa understands me and music, too. She wakes up in the middle of the night, and I'm lying there sleeping, but I've got my hand on her arm and I'm fingering scales and solos. Ninety-nine percent of the dreams I have are working, practicing, figuring out lines. It's a total way of life for me.

"Music is my religion, a spiritual thing. Even though you're doing studio calls, you're still thinking creatively. You're still trying to take what may be a dumb thing and make it something beautiful, still trying to put some icing on a fallen cake, you know? The constancy of the creative and spiritual feelings which come out of it are definitely religious in kind and quality."

Recognition has come for him in different forms and shapes through the years. Dizzy Gillespie himself said that the only guy who can play flugelhorn in the high register and make it sound good was Bobby Shew. "Dizzy seemed to dig my playing a lot."

From 1975, he recorded as sideman and played with such groups lead by Frank Strazzeri, Horace Silver, Don Menza, Bud Shank, Carmen McRae, among others, and with the big bands of Louis Bellson, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Juggernaut, Buddy Rich, Gerald Wilson, Woody Herman, and Maynard Ferguson band. And from 1978, Bobby started an active and prolific career as leader, with all kinds of albums, from small groups to large orchestra, and leading his own highly successful combo for many years.

Among his studio work he played in such shows as Mary Tyler Moore, Bob

Newhart, Mork and Mindy, Love Boat, Hawaii 5-0, Streets of San Francisco, plus countless movies scores and pop recordings with everyone, from Neil Diamond to George Harrison to Sarah Vaughan to Willie Nelson. He then retired from studio work to concentrate on doing strictly jazz music and teaching at numerous Universities, Colleges, in addition to a great many Music Conservatories throughout Europe, Canada, South Africa, Asia, South America, Australia and New Zealand.

He was elected into the New Mexico Music Hall of Fame, and has received three Grammy nominations. In 1982, he earned the Jazz Album of the Year award from RIANZ (New Zealand), and in 2014 he was chosen for the Lifetime Achievement Award for Performance and Education from the International Trumpet Guild, as well as the Lifetime Achievement Award for Jazz Education by the JEN group. More recently, he received an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Elmhurst College in Illinois.”

Notes compiled by Jordi Pujol

Bobby Shew on CLASS REUNION

“There's a bit of a brief story behind this Class Reunion recording. I had been playing with several different groups in the LA area, i.e., Horace Silver quintet, Art Pepper and Bud Shank's quintets, Frank Strazzeri’s quintet and Frank Rosolino's group but suddenly they weren't very active and I felt that empty need to play. I was doing a film session that also included pianist Bill Mays with whom I had played many times especially in Shank's band. I mentioned my emptiness to him and he said, "Why don't you put together your own group?" My reply was, "Who would play with ME?" He said, "I WOULD!" That simple statement was the incentive to form the group. We had been rehearsing a bit and played a couple of gigs and one day I got a call from trumpeter-engineer Jim Mooney who said he had bought a new board for his Sage and Sound Studios and would we mind rehearsing in his studio so he could check out the new equipment. And we DID. AND... he recorded our rehearsed tunes.

After we started listening, we realized they sounded good enough to release. After mixing, I mentioned it to producer Dave Pell who then contacted another producer in New York named Jack Kreisberg who was looking for product for SUTRA Records. End of story. It was a strange but fruitful beginning of the group that stayed together for many years and recorded many albums that we were all pleased with to include our first Grammy nomination.

I was very surprised but very pleased that Jordi Pujol had interest in re-issuing this recording. It was around 40 years ago and we have all grown but it still sounds good! I hope you enjoy it. And thank you, Bill Mays!

Of the tunes recorded on Class Reunion, three were written by our great tenor sax player, Gordon Brisker. They are the title tune Class Reunion, She's Gone Again, and Run Away. We included the great standard A Child Is Born written by Roland Hanna & Thad Jones. The final 2 tunes were my compositions. The first is Kachina. A Kachina is a Native American spiritual doll that is kept in the homes for various spiritual reasons. My home is cluttered with them! And Navarro Flats is an obvious tribute to the great trumpeter Fats Navarro, from whom I gained great inspiration in my early years and still do.”                                       

—Bobby Shew (September 2017)

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