Henry "Red" Allen

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

I met Henry “Red” Allen before I ever heard him play a note on trumpet. The venue was the luncheon buffet at The Viking Hotel in Newport, Rhode Island. The date was July 4, 1957. The occasion was the birthday celebration being held that night for Louis Armstrong at the Newport Jazz Festival.

Many of the musicians performing that evening were at the buffet including “Pops” himself. I never heard so much “Hey Daddy,” “Hey Gate” and “Hey Pops” before or since. These were all terms of endearment that Louis Armstrong used for his best buddies; they were also substitute greetings that Pops and friends used to greet people whose names they’d forgotten or never knew in the first place.

It was all so heartwarmingly informal: the feelings of respect and genuine affection that all of these fabulous musicians felt toward one another just hung in the air of that fan-cooled hotel banquet room and the joyousness would continue well into the hot and humid night on the bandstand that was temporarily erected in Freebody Park.

I didn’t know who “Red” Allen was but as I was to observe about many “big guys” over the years, I was impressed by his gentleness and kindness. He seemed to go out-of-his-way to ask me questions about my nascent interest in the music. The usual questions about “favorites” came up and when he asked me who my favorite drummer was I mentioned Krupa, Papa Jo Jones [whom I’d met earlier that day on the hotel’s veranda] and Davy Tough.

“Where did you hear those guys,” he asked. “On Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Woody Herman records,” I replied. And when he asked about my favorite trumpet player and I answered “Harry James,” he just threw back his head, howled with delight and said to no one in particular: “This young man really knows his trumpet players.” Little did I know at the time that Harry James idolized both Pops and Red.

Later that evening, after hearing his performance at the festival, I added another trumpet player to my list of favorites - Henry “Red” Allen. I’ve been collecting his records ever since that first meeting.

Man could that guy bring it!

Henry “Red” Allen was born in 1907 New Orleans, LA. His flamboyant and exploratory trumpet style was among the leading alternatives to Louis Armstrong's in the early and mid-1930s. His continuity of line, rhythmic flexibility, and harmonic conception were ahead of their time. In fact, Red's restless ear led contemporaries to accuse him of playing wrong notes, many of which would in later years be considered appropriate. His influence on other trumpeters was limited by the fact that he played in the shadow of Armstrong for much of his career although Roy Eldridge who influenced Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis is said to have been an admirer of Red’s. In addition to his interpretive skills as a trumpeter, Allen also possessed an "engaging baritone voice" and was a competent jazz singer.

After studying various instruments, including violin and E-flat alto horn (a miniature tuba), Red took trumpet lessons from his father, Henry senior, leader of the renowned Brass Band of Algiers (a neighborhood in New Orleans). He also listened to several New Orleans trumpeters, including Bunk Johnson and King Oliver, rehearse in his living room. At ten years old, Red was marching in his father's band. He played his first steady job with saxophonist John Handy at age seventeen (1925). In 1927 King Oliver invited Red to New York to join his new band, which soon failed, so Red returned to New Orleans to work on riverboat bands with Fate Marable.

In 1929 Allen was again invited to New York as Victor Records' answer to Louis Armstrong, who was recording for Columbia. Red was hired by Luis Russell, the pianist who had taken over the King Oliver band, and recordings both for Russell and under his own name established Allen's reputation. "Biffly Blues" reveals that although Allen was obviously influenced strongly by Armstrong, he possessed a clearer, more polished sound and slower vibrato, as well as a personal sense of time. In contrast to his sensitive instrumental and vocal reinterpretation of the ballad "Roamin'," Allen displays the confident bravura of a Swing Era lead trumpeter on "Shakin' the African."

Fletcher Henderson enticed Allen to join his band in the summer of 1933, and Allen's agile, flowing solos with Henderson would influence trumpeter Harry James's work on the Henderson charts later commissioned by Benny Goodman. After he left Henderson's group in 1934, Allen's popularity peaked. From 1934 to 1937, while he was employed in the Mills Blue Rhythm Band, he also free-lanced extensively, recording over eighty sides in three years for the Vocalion label.

In 1936 Red performed in the Eddie Condon—Joe Marsala group, one of the first racially integrated bands on Fifty-second Street. In 1937 Allen joined the Luis Russell Orchestra, which was an organization built around the popularity of its featured soloist, Louis Armstrong. Allen had to serve as Armstrong's warm-up act, a somewhat demeaning role considering Allen's originality and technical mastery of the trumpet. Allen endured this role— while also freelancing around Fifty-second Street — until 1940, when the Russell Orchestra was fired by Armstrong's manager.

In 1940 Allen formed his own sextet and opened at Cafe Society. As a leader Allen proved to be good-natured, professional, and a good showman without compromising his music. The sextet featured a fellow Russell and Armstrong alumnus, trombonist J. C. Higginbotham. From the mid-1940s to the early 1950s, Allen was forced to travel extensively as the appeal of bebop reduced his popularity in New York. Occasionally, he juxtaposed traditional New Orleans — influenced phrases and bebop-flavored figures ('The Crawl").

Following the breakup of his sextet, Allen became the house bandleader at the Metropole in New York (1954), which remained his musical headquarters until 1965. On a 1957 recording of "I Cover the Waterfront" with Coleman Hawkins, Allen displays a more deliberate, mature approach than is evident in his 1930s work, employing fewer notes and adroitly exploring his trumpet's extreme lower register. In 1965 modernist Don Ellis praised Allen's unflagging inventiveness and mastery of various moods and tonal effects: "[He] is the most creative and avant-garde player in New York . . . a true improviser." After a tour of Great Britain, Allen died of cancer in 1967.

Whitney Balliett, one of the preeminent writers on the subject of Jazz was a great fan of Henry “Red” Allen and visited him often at the Metropole Cafe’ while writing about him frequently for The New York Magazine.

You can read one of the shorter pieces that Whitney did on Red below and locate a lengthier profile on Allen in Whitney’s American Musicians: 56 Portraits in Jazz [Oxford].

Cheers for Red Allen

Dinosaurs in the Morning: 41 Pieces on Jazz [Lippincott]

“THE PRE-EMINENCE of Louis Armstrong from 1925 to 1935 had one unfortunate effect: it tended to blot out the originality and skill of several contemporary trumpeters who, though they listened to Armstrong, had  pretty  much  gone their own  way by  1930. These included, among others, Bobby Stark, Joe Smith, Jabbo Smith  (no relation), Bill Coleman, and Henry (Red) Allen. Stark and Joe Smith are dead. Jabbo Smith, a scarifying musician, lives in Milwaukee and performs rarely. Coleman, in Europe, still displays much of his grace. But Allen, the most steadfast of the three, and a distinct influence on Roy Eldridge, who taught Dizzy Gillespie, who taught Miles Davis, and so forth, is playing (usually in New York) with more subtlety and warmth than at any other time in his career. This is abundantly evident in two fairly recent and rather odd releases, Red Allen Meets Kid Ory  and We've Got Rhythm: Kid Ory and Red Allen (Verve), in which Allen, lumped with second- and third-class musicians, plays with a beauty and a lets-get-this-on-the-road obstinacy that transform both records into superior material.

A tall, comfortably oval-shaped man of fifty-four, with a deceptively sad basset-hound face, Allen, born in Algiers, Louisiana, has had a spirited career, despite the shadows he has been forced to work in. He played briefly with King Oliver in 1927, and two years later he joined Luis Russell, another Oliver alumnus. Russell's band was possibly the neatest, hottest, and most imaginative group of its time. It was also, thanks to Russell's arrangements and rhythmic innovations and to Allen's already exploratory solos, a considerably advanced one.

In 1933, Allen joined Fletcher Henderson, with whom he continued his avant-garde ways, and after a period with the Blue Rhythm Band he came face to face in 1937 with Goliath himself when he had become a practically silent member of Louis Armstrong's you-go-your-way, ril-go-mine big band, a group kept afloat by Sid Catlett, J. C. Higginbotham, Charlie Holmes, and the leader. Since 1940, Allen has led a succession of often excellent small groups, which have included Higginbotham, Edmond Hall, Don Stovall (alto saxophone), and Alvin Burroughs.

Allen's recording activity has been prolific; he was particularly active during the thirties, when he set down fifty or sixty numbers with small groups, some of which were unabashed attempts to make money ("The Miller's Daughter Marianne," "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down," "When My Dream Boat Comes Home") and some of which were, and are, first-rate jazz records ("Why Don't You Practice What You Preach," "There's a House in Harlem for Sale," "Rug Cutter's Swing," "Body and Soul," and "Rosetta"). Lamentably, only two or three of these, along with two classic sides made in 1939 with Lionel Hampton, are now available.

Allen's style had just about set by the time he joined Russell. There were traces in it of Oliver and Armstrong, but more apparent were its careless tone, its agility, and a startling tendency to use unprecedentedly long legato phrases and strange notes and chords that jazz musicians hadn't, for the most part, had the technique or courage to use before. Allen's playing also revealed an emotion and a partiality to the blues that often seemed to convert everything he touched into the blues. But his adventurousness and technique weren't always in balance; he hit bad notes, he blared, and he was ostentatious. Once in a while he would start a solo commandingly and then, his mind presumably going blank, would suddenly falter, ending his statement in a totally different mood and tenor, as if he were attempting to glue parts of two unmatchable solos together.

By the mid-forties, Allen's work had, in fact, turned increasingly hard and showy — he fluttered his valves, used meaningless runs, and affected a stony tone — and this peculiar shrillness continued into the fifties. Then, six or so years ago, Allen made a pickup recording with Tony Parenti, the clarinetist, for Jazztone, and, not long after, one for Victor with Higginbotham, Coleman Hawkins, and Cozy Cole, and a remarkable new Allen broke into view. Perhaps sheer middle-aged physical wear—a reluctance to blow so hard, a reluctance to try and prove so much — was the reason. Or perhaps he had been listening to younger and milder trumpeters like Miles Davis and Art Farmer. For his tone has become softer and fuller, he shies away from the upper register (he spends a good deal of time inflating sumptuous balloons in the lowest register), his customarily long figures are even longer, his sensuous, mid-thirties affection for the blues has again become dominant, and he often employs harmonies that would please Thelonious Monk.

In short, he gives the impression not of hammering at his materials from the outside but, in the manner of Lester Young and Pee Wee Russell, of transforming them insistently if imperceptibly from the inside, like a mole working just under the grass. The results, particularly in slower tempos (the old shrillness sometimes recurs at faster speeds), can be unbelievably stirring. An Allen solo in a slow blues may go like this: He will start with a broad, quiet, shushing note, pause, repeat the note, and, using almost no vibrato, fasten two more notes onto it, one slightly higher and one slightly lower, pause again (Allen's frequent use of silences is another new aspect of his work, as is his more expert use of dynamics), repeat and enlarge the second phrase a little way down the scale, and, without a rest, get off a legato phrase, with big intervals, that may shatter into a rapid run and then be reformed into a dissonant blue note, which he will delightfully hold several beats longer than one expects; he then finishes this with a full vibrato and tumbles into a quick, low, almost under-the-breath flourish of half a dozen notes. Such a solo bears constant re-examination; it is restless, oblique, surprising, lyrical, and demanding. It seizes the listener's emotions, recharges them, and sends them fortified on their way.

The pairing of Allen with the venerable Kid Ory is curious, to say the least. Allen is a modernish swing musician, and Ory is one of the last representatives of genuine New Orleans style. His solos are gruff paraphrases of the melody, while Allen's are intricate temples of sound. Moreover, Allen's leisurely, independent melodic lines are far too spacious to fit within the limitations of the New Orleans ensemble. But perhaps all this is to the good. Ory's sandpaper tone and elementary patterns tend to set off Allen's housetop-to-housetop swoops, and since Allen can't, or won't, adapt himself to the ensemble, he simply solos throughout most of the recordings, which gives us twice as much of him. By and large, the first of the Verve records is the better. Of the seven numbers, all standards, three—

"Blues for Jimmy," "Ain't Misbehavin’ and "Tishomingo Blues"—present Allen at his peak. In fact, his single-chorus solo in the slow "Blues for Jimmy" is faultless. This is nearly true of his work on the Waller tune, which is full of blue notes and wind-borne figures. (Puzzlingly, neither of the two vocals is by Allen, who, in addition to his other merits, is one of the handful of true jazz singers. His voice is in between Armstrong’s and Jelly Roll Morton's, and because of its almost feline, back-of-the-beat phrasing it has long foretold his playing of today.) The second session contains seven more standards, which are notable for Allen's playing in "Some of These Days," in which he tries a few teetering but generally successful auld-lang-syne upper-register handstands; for, in "Christopher Columbus," his muted chorus, which is followed by an open-horn one that begins in his lowest, or trombone, register; and for his three remarkably sustained choruses in the medium-tempo "Lazy River." The rest of the band stands around and watches, so to speak, and only the drummer, Alton Redd, gets in the way.”

The following video feature Red with Fletcher Henderson Orchestra in a 1934 version of Fletcher’s original composition Wrappin’ It Up.

Dudley Moore on Why Erroll Garner Is "Easy to Love"

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

“Passion . . . that's what he had . . . passion. And that's what all great artists have. A sprinkling of the demonic, a yearning for the tender, and a straight line to joy.”

The above and following enthusiastic remarks by the actor (and sometime pianist) Dudley Moore appeared as liner notes for Easy to Love [Emarcy 832 994-2], a 1988 collection of previously unreleased cuts - all recorded in the early sixties — by Erroll Garner.

Moore, a long-time Garner devotee who died in 2002, was renowned as an actor in film, theater, and television. Dudley was also an accomplished musician and composer, at home in both the classical and jazz genres. London-born, Moore began his piano studies at the age of six, and went on to advanced classical studies on piano, organ and violin, and composition and arranging, at Oxford's Magdalen College, where he earned degrees in 1957 and 1958. He later performed with Johnny Dankworth's orchestra, and with his own trio. In the closing years of his life, he appeared as a guest soloist with major symphony orchestras, during breaks in his film schedule.

“Listening to this selection of Garner's recordings was a chilling experience - chilling in the sense that one knows one is listening to an exception — one is listening to a phenomenon. No matter what the rational opinions are, one comes to the conclusion that here is a uniqueness that is almost unbearably strong. They say that certain types of genius are the result of untiring practice and application — terms which of course double to mean enthusiasm or passion — but what exactly Garner had to do to acquire this unique tonal vocabulary is hard to understand completely. Suffice it to say that his persona is streaked in bold and subtle flashes across his music. You didn't have to know the man to feel, what is certainly for one very brief moment in history, a unique singing voice. To achieve this at all on a piano is no mean feat, but it is not the technical aspect of his playing that astonishes, although that is one thing to knock one off one's feet. It is the fact that the technical aspect evaporates in this spectacular contact that is made through a music that is entirely Garner's own.

Mind you, there are parts of Garner that I don't appreciate at all or find particularly remarkable. I don't think his wayward introductions are necessarily an extraordinary feature of his work. Or, that the sentimentality he sometimes allows himself in unabashed ballads is particularly interesting. However, when he plays a ballad with that combination of deep feeling and caressing rhythm, I sag with the burden of gratitude. I may be getting purple with my prose at this point, but what can one do in the face of this gift that is extended to us all. Not everyone knows, realizes, or understands the importance of Erroll Garner. He understood it, I'm sure, but also would probably have been too reticent to admit it. Criticism was sometimes blind to it, although his public acceptance was always gigantic. He once said, "Some people know what life's about and some people don't." The spontaneity and relaxed growth in his music pleads a knowledge of life and I guess if you don't get it, you don't get it.

This does not imply membership in some darkly exclusive club, but merely the futility of describing a feeling. I love music that lives and breathes and encourages life. I hate music that conjures up an apparition of death. That doesn't mean to say that I don't love music that is inspired by requiems or death itself. However, the outcome of even such potentially morbid music has to be joy. The optimism of life, of being alive, of feeling alive, of communication, of love . . . that's what Garner is and what he does for me and will always do for me. That's why I love to try and play like him. His music has got into my veins and I wish that everyone could be as drugged as I am with this particular non-chemical. Long live Garner. I bless that day in 1957 when I heard him for the first time. I shall always treasure the experience and I am able to relive it, listening to this music today. I never met the man to say hello and thank you. I didn't have the nerve to do that, even though I did spend a couple of times in a club close to his arm and at several of his concerts in London. One day he came into a club where I was playing and I was so nervous, - I so wanted to share my love for him and how he had affected me — that my panic allowed me to spill a bottle of Coca-Cola on the middle of the keyboard to the point where all the keys stuck together and I could only play on either side of this sticky log.

Garner brought to the piano an element which I don't think anyone else had previously provided - the element ol sensuality. It was engendered by a true rubato in the sense that Chopin understood - that is, a left hand which is ostensibly regular and a right hand that moves freely against it, "the result of momentary impulse," as the great pianist Josef Hofmann said. (He also maintained, rightfully I think, that . . . "Perfect expression is possibly only under perfect freedom.")

This rubato is a rarity in any music and finds its true fruition in Garner's playing, a smooth, undulating arm that floats and caresses sweetly above a gently pulsing bass. Garner must be one of the very few who can soothe our souls with this most elusive of arts. There's no doubt in my mind that his unique and enlivening rhythmic approach is an irrefutable addition to musical language, nourished as it is by the poignant, passionate, or pagan palette (!) if you'll once again excuse my purple prose ol his harmony.

It is interesting to note that often after a passage or phrase of considerable rubato where the melody notes hit just behind the basic beat, Garner will, in the last couple of bars (generally of an eight-bar phrase), get right on to the beat again not to steady himself like a tightrope walker using the bar, but just because it feels good in the style. I've never known Garner to not to put out a hand to steady himself, as it were. There's never a moment when one says, "Whoops!"

It is extraordinary that this man, who did not read or write music, could have produced such richness of rhythm and harmony, even a latent counterpoint - for his two hands enjoyed the sweetest, cooperative marriage. Jazz can, in one way, resemble painting by numbers. The chordal system that emerged from its roots, which was then enriched by the advent of impressionist harmony, has been organized into a figured bass concept like that of former times (the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). The result is a system that is relatively easy to learn wherein chordal inversions are left to the individual taste of the pianist, who has the advantage of being able to play more than one note at once. All I can say is, thank God Garner chose the piano as his means of expression, since he would not have been perhaps quite as remarkable on a one-line instrument. We would not have had the glory of the interplay between his two hands or the piquant structure of his chords and textures.

Although Garner seemed to hit a few clankers now and then in terms of melody, these are never really wrong notes so much as moments of intense creativity that have spiralled off. Rhythmically he never fails us and that is probably the most remarkable thing. He really doesn't, not even when he seems to be even remotely strapped by the sheer physical stuff that one encounters on a piano from time to time. Relaxation was of total importance to him. Lesser artists like to mystify us with claims of difficulty. When Garner decides to combine his many colors we are most nobly fed — an infectious notion of rhythm and sensual swing with a flirtatious and coquettish melodic gift, an ability to take us with him into areas of sweet contentment where our heads all bob gently and thankfully like mesmerized turkeys.

It is more than great octave work that he indulged in. It succeeds without apparent effort and he even seems to be trying new things as he plays without being at all perturbed at the prospect of keeping things in rhythm.

Everything is always within the style even when the actual notes may not perhaps be exactly what he wanted. But, then again, everything sounds right because it swings and because his spirit leaps out to us.

His endings almost seem nonchalant, as if to say "I've done this one  - let's get to the next." This spontaneity is paralleled in his almost exclusive love of the first take; his enthusiasm ran hot and he knew he would not be able to give the same spirit out again, whatever notes had hit the floor. This did not mean of course that he was unwilling to play the same tune more than once in quick succession, he could do so, but often chose to do so in different styles and tempos, refreshing the tune each time with new invention.

Garner often seems to bend notes, sliding, as he does, with his right hand from black to white keys. Thus he favors the kevs based on flats, where such opportunities abound, notably the keys of D flat,, E flat,, G flat, A flat,, and B flat, as appear in these selections. The result is melody which has the liquidity of a singer's portamento [sliding from one note to another]. He gives us much succulent ornamentation and gentle repetition of little motifs to gladden the heart. Sometimes, as in "Somebody Loves Me," he slows the tempo down as he digs in with more voluptuous rhythm as the choruses continue. He often jokes with us, as in the staccato-octave opening chorus of "Taking a Chance on Love" with its typical midkeyboard sax-section-like accompanying "woofs." He often plays his own Garner riff, as in "Lover Come Back" or "Easy to Love"; there are quotations from other melodies and often, dotted eighth-notes in the bass which bestride the beat merrily like a child, plonking about in seven-league boots, tugging gaily-fluttering kites gently and playfully in his right hand. And sometimes, he will delay the emergence of the melody as in the reckless beginning of the third chorus of "Somebody Stole My Gal" and then make us grin with his wonderful octave work in the last chorus. These are all expressions of a humor that pervades his work almost constantly -  a humor that is often so much more telling than graver utterances of other jazz performers. Humor is intrinsic to Garner's nature and is a companion to his feeling tor life, to the joy and sensuality of his playing. Humor resides in the flesh of his music in both perky and witty guise.

To my mind, Erroll Garner is probably the most important pianist that I have ever heard and that includes classical pianists. The problems in his music are different from those facing a classical pianist; the answers are complex. He may sort of know what he's going to play to a greater or lesser degree from a vocabulary that expands gently and continuously. But we are always delighted with the freshness and the originality of approach, a desire to communicate. He cultivated his garden wonderfully, completely, roundly. For those people who don't hear or feel his soul, I am sorry. I don't know how one could explain the feeling to anyone. However, I think he speaks to the heart of all of us, even to those who only feel what he says, subconsciously.

In the long run, who cares it his right hand was always lagging at just the perfect point behind the left. In the long run, who cares if his right hand runs were always structurally impeccable; they actually were an infallible feature of his relaxation, plunging us into happiness and wild enthusiasms. The feeling that that particular technique exuded was one of being alive.

In the long run, who cares that his sense of texture was extraordinarily original; it was, more importantly, rich. Who cares that his hands were big and could cover this or that interval with ease; they delighted us with unparalleled, unchangeable octave work. Ultimately all these "things" gave us more pleasure. The technique cannot be separated from the music, but the music is infinitely more important. Passion . . . that's what he had . . . passion. And that's what all great artists have. A sprinkling of the demonic, a yearning for the tender, and a straight line to joy.”

Louie Bellson Interview by Monk Rowe - 4/12/1996 - Sarasota, FL

Shorty Rogers - Chances Are ... It Swings

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

At the time of its issuance in 1959, I took the personnel on Shorty Rogers’ RCA album Chances Are It Swings [RD-27149 MONO; LSP-1978 Stereo] for granted.

I mean doesn’t every studio big band recording have the likes of Shorty, Don Fagerquist, Conte Candoli, Pete Candoli, Al Porcino, Ollie Mitchell and Ray Triscari in its trumpet section?

Can you imagine, seven, 7, SEVEN! first call trumpet players - with four of them bona fide lead trumpet players - made that album and that doesn’t include Conrad Gozzo, lead trumpet player par excellence.

The rest of the band reads like a Who’s Who of Los Angeles based studio-Jazz musicians including: Bob Enevoldsen on valve trombone, Harry Betts and Dick Nash, trombone, Kenny Shroyer, bass trombone; Paul Horn and Bud Shank, clarinet flute, alto sax, Richie Kamuca and Bill Holman, tenor sax and Chuck Gentry on baritone sax; Howard Roberts and Barney Kessel, guitar; Gene Estes on vibes [replaced by Red Norvo on 4 tracks]; Pete Jolly, piano; Joe Mondragon, bass [replaced by Monty Budwig on 4 tracks]; Mel Lewis, drums.

Wow - quel band!

And then there’s Shorty’s absolutely magnificent big band charts with their pleasing to the ear and very original voicings [in some places, the melodies are carried on flugelhorn, clarinet and vibes in unison].

The arrangements are full of surprises - bombastic trumpet “chords” used as short phrases to punctuate and pop the music, perfectly placed drums fill, kicks and licks and lopping sax soli - all in the cause of emphasizing continuous swing in the music.

Dating back to his work with Woody Herman in the mid-1940’s through to his association with Stan Kenton in the early 1950s, Shorty had accumulated a wealth of experience writing for a big bands.

But after leaving Kenton and joining Howard Rumsey’s All-Stars at the Lighthouse Cafe in Hermosa Beach, CA and concurringly forming his own quintet - The Giants - Shorty primarily concentrated on writing for small groups. Chances Are It Swings marked Shorty’s return to big band arranging, this time fronting his own band.

Obviously, with the lineup listed above, everyone in town wanted to be in it.

And why not? Shorty’s music was fun to play.

The music on Chances Are It Swings is drawn from a single composer - Robert Allen. Allen wrote a number of popular songs following  performed by Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Billie Holiday, Jimmy Durante, Kate Smith, the Shirelles, the Four Lads and many other singers in the 1950's and 60's, and some became pop standards.

John Tynan describes more of the Rogers and Allen connection in the following liner notes to Chances Are It Swings after which you’ll find a video featuring Shorty’s band performing Chances Are.

“That fickle lass, Jazz, is a volatile wench of multicolored moods. She can be broadly bluesy or subtly cool, rubbing elbows with disparate sources from the guitar-strumming Mississippi cotton picker to the urbane Cole Porter. Though her demands may be finicky at times "La Jazz" imposes one basic prerequisite on those who would court her: the music on which she swings must be high caliber. This alliance of arranger-trumpeter Shorty Rogers and songwriter Robert Allen proves a happy combination of brilliant arranging and hit songs. Allen's songs pear melodic witness that real talent, no matter how long its incubation period, must express itself.

"I've been writing songs for only about six years" Allen explains, "Before 1952, I played jazz piano in New York night clubs. Nothing very far out. Certainly nothing to cheer about." After a half dozen years on the club circuit, the constant urge to write became a nagging ache. "I found myself thinking about writing all the time," says Allen. "It was bugging me. And I found myself losing the incentive to play. All I could think about was writing songs... it became an obsession." Allen's obsession turned out to be magnificent. In the past three years alone some 80 per cent of his tunes have been hits. There are no less than seven "smashes" in this album.

Of Rogers' work in adapting his songs to big jazz band interpretation, Allen waxes lyrical. "This album is today," he exults. "It's revolutionary in concept when you consider the popular music picture today. Unlike so much jazz being currently produced, this set is not living in yesterdays music... I'm firmly convinced that Shorty has established twelve standards with his treatment of my tunes." Positive that"... it's impossible lor things ready to swing unless you understand the material," the composer declares that Rogers has succeeded in revealing facets of his songs never before revealed. "You know," Allen muses, "when songs become popular hits, most people don't think of their chordal structure in jazz terms. They're played on the neighborhood jukeboxes, people whistle and hum them—but there's where their musical interest ends." Yet, in Allen's opinion, the heyday of big bands was marked by successful, valid jazz treatments of then current popular songs. He cites Jimmie Lunceford's "Ain't She Sweet," Count Basie’s "Cheek to Cheek" end Duke Ellington's "Caravan" and points out that some of the best jazz of the Thirties was blown on a pop song by Fats Waller — "Honeysuckle Rose."

The composer contends a similar approach should apply to good contemporary popular songs. "When the public hears an album of familiar pop songs with good jazz treatment," Allen conjectures, "maybe they'll like it well enough to buy it. And m passing they just might learn a thing or two about good music This worked in the old days; no reason why it shouldn't again." As Shorty Rogers' imaginative arrangements demonstrate, jazz can be written into and improvised on most music of real merit. As vehicles for the driving solos of both Shorty and some of the best jazz horn men in Hollywood (necessarily uncredited), the album turns out to be mighty creditable jazz indeed.

Shorty's tightly controlled modern trumpet style, born of Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, had its genesis in the early days of the bebop era even before Shorty became one of the star soloists in Woody Herman's First Herd. Today he is no more a "typical bebopper" than is writer Allen. Domesticated in Southern California since 1947, the 34-year-old trumpeter is one of the busiest arrangers on the Coast. From the cluttered workroom behind his Van Nuys home, Shorty turns out arrangements for a wide variety of RCA Victor recordings— from commercial pop vocal singles to his own big band jazz albums such as CHANCES ARE IT SWINGS.

Needless to say, chances that this album swings are better than even. In fact, grins Shorty, the element of chance that it would not never once entered his mind.

—John Tynan”

The Mastersounds - Playlist

Jim McNeely - Barefoot Dances and Other Visions - The HR/ Frankfurt Radio Big Band

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

Here’s another feature about new music that has recently made an appearance at the editorial offices of JazzProfiles and which we think merits your consideration.

Since moving to New York in 1975 after earning his degree in Music from the University of Illinois, pianist, composer-arranger Jim McNeely has had an enviable and esteemed career including a six year combined stint with the Thad Jones - Mel Lewis Orchestra [now the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra] and its successor the Mel Lewis Orchestra, gigging as a pianist in small groups led by Stan Getz and Phil Woods for much of the 1980s before rejoining the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra [VJO] in 1996 as pianist and composer-in-residence.

Upon re-establishing his big band connection with the VJO, Jim’s large orchestra credentials continued to grow as he became the chief conductor for the DR Big Band in Copenhagen from 1998-2003 and subsequently joined the HR Big Band - Frankfurt Radio Big Band as its chief conductor in 2011. He has also appeared as a guest conductor with Holland’s Metropole Orchestra on many occasions and the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra.

Along the way, Jim has received nine Grammy nominations and he was awarded the prestigious trophy in 2008 for his contributions to the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra’s Monday Night at the Village Vanguard.

Given his deep-roots in big band Jazz, I’m sure you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he has a new big band Jazz album out on Planet Arts: Jim McNeely - Barefoot Dances and Other Visions - The Frankfurt Radio Big Band.

Jim wrote the following sleeve notes for the recording in which he explains the motivation behind each tune and how each piece developed relative to his understanding of the “personality” of the HR-Frankfurt Radio Big Band and the musicians that comprise it.

It’s not often that we get such a lucid explanation of how and why big band orchestrations come into existence.

BAREFOOT DANCES AND OTHER VISIONS

“The artist Paul Klee wrote "Art does not reproduce the visible; rather it makes visible." From our earliest days as children, we all have visions and fantasies. Imaginary friends; winning "the big game"; confronting monsters; visits from mysterious people we don't recognize. We create images and sounds in our minds' eyes that typically don't exist in the "outside" world. It is the calling of an artist to midwife these fantasies into reality. In Klee's case he used paint, pencil, canvas and cardboard. In my case I've used rhythm, pitch, and the musical spirit of the Frankfurt Radio Big Band. These are seven imaginary scenes. A couple of them imagine the return of great musicians no longer with us. A few begin with chamber-size visions before the whole band develops. They all represent inner visions made audible.

Bob's Here imagines the return of composer/trombonist Bob Brookmeyer — one of my mentors — who died in 2011. Christian Jaksjo soars on valve trombone; then Martin Scales' guitar solo leads into a whirling dervish of a finish.

Peter Reiter's piano solo leads into Black Snow. Martin Auer's flugelhorn conjures up the vision of new-fallen snow, normally a tranquil scene, but rendered improbably dark by internal conflicts within the observer.

Barefoot Dances is inspired in part by Henri Matisse's The Dance, and in part by years of dreaming. Gunther Bollman starts the dance on trombone. Heinz-Dieter Sauerborn finishes the celebration on soprano saxophone. A

Glimmer of Hope is optimism struggling to survive in an ocean of darkness. It starts with a theme (to return later) elaborated on by Rainer Heute on baritone sax and Manfred Honetschlager on bass trombone. The main body of the piece follows, with Peter Feil's trombone solo providing the glimmer.

Among many other things, the great arranger/reed man Don Redman was known for writing fantastic clarinet trios. After a prelude that bathes fliigelhornist Axel Schlosser in cascades of sound, Redman Rides Again imagines Redman's return. It features a "real" clarinet trio, and a "virtual trio" formed by Oliver Leicht and his harmonized clarinet.

I've dreamt about Falling Upwards, but so far can't actually do it. It starts with a tenor solo by Tony Lakatos. Then the first theme from Glimmer of Hope returns, this time a little more optimistically. Steffen Weber raises spirits on tenor sax. Then the band returns with more cascades swirling around Jean-Paul Hochstadter's drum fills.

The final piece starts with bassist Thomas Heidepriem offering a reflective solo cushioned by the ensemble. Then begins The Cosmic Hodge-Podge, a vision of a cosmic soup where galaxies are replaced by blocks of sound. Supernovas become solo explosions by Tony Lakatos on tenor, Axel Schlosser on trumpet, and Jean-Paul Hochstadter on drums. A single black hole emerges at the end, emitting just a smidgen of light (another glimmer of hope?). It may flourish and grow; then again, it may be simply the last gasp.

It takes a few years of writing for a band before you really get to know them. I started working steadily with the Frankfurt Radio Big Band in 2008. After three or four projects I began to see the musicians' faces on the score. I could hear their sounds; imagine their improvising. I could hear how they laugh. I was making thousands of arranging decisions based on the characteristics of each player.

By the time I wrote the pieces on this CD I knew the "ins and outs" of this band so very well. I tailored my musical visions to fit each player in the ensemble, and placed each soloist in a framework both familiar and challenging. This is truly a collaboration between the members of the band and myself. Thank you, all, for giving such an elegant voice to these visions.”                                   

JIM McNEELY

You can learn more about Jim and his music by visiting his website at www.JimMcNeely.com. The HR Big Band site is www.hrbigband.de

Planet Arts and order information about the CD can be reached at www.planetarts.org. And if you need any media relations services associated with the recording these can be accessed through Jim Eigo www.jazzpromoservices.com

Bill Holman Interview by Monk Rowe - 2/13/1999 - Los Angeles, CA