The Terry Gibbs Dream Band

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

Whether it’s the arrangements, the ensemble playing, the solos or the rhythm section, one would be hard-pressed to find a better big band in the history of Jazz than the Terry Gibbs Big Band.

I first heard the band in performance on a Monday night in 1960 when it was appearing at The Summit on Sunset Boulevard.

Prior to this occasion, I had very little knowledge of Terry Gibbs. I knew him to be a vibraphone player who had been with Woody Herman’s band and who fronted a quartet with Frankie Capp on drums that played the Hollywood clubs. By the time I discovered the band at The Summit, I gather that Terry’s band had been playing together for over a year, usually on Tuesday nights, at another Hollywood locale - the Seville on Santa Monica Boulevard. 

The Summit was formerly The Sundown Club which changed names toward the end of 1960 when Bob Gefaell bought the premises from Jimmy Maddin.

The club charged a modest fee to get in and a two-drink minimum that was very loosely monitored.

For that, I got to hear almost four hours of a most incredible big band book of arrangements courtesy of Bill Holman, Bobby Brookmeyer, Shorty Rogers, Al Cohn, Lennie Niehaus, Marty Paich and Med Flory.

On any given evening, the band's trumpet section would be composed of four monster players selected from the following list: Al Porcino, Ray Triscari, Stu Williamson, Conte Candoli, Johnny Audino, Frank Huggins, Lee Katzman?

The trombone section was usually comprised of Frank Rosolino, Vern Friley and Bob Edmonson with Bill Smiley and Joe Cadena as subs.

The saxes were anchored by Charlie Kennedy [lead alto] and Joe Maini [solo alto], Bill Holman, Med Flory, Bill Perkins or Richie Kamuca on tenor and Jack Nimitz on baritone saxophone.

The rhythm section was made up of Pete Jolly, Lou Levy or Pat Moran on piano, Buddy Clark or Max Bennett on bass and the always cookin’ Mel Lewis on drums who was quoted as saying to Ted Gioia in his West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California, 1945-60: [p. 164]: “I don’t think there was ever a better band than this one, including my own.”

Of Lewis, Gioia had this to say: “Lewis possessed the rare skill of being able to propel a big band without overplaying – a talent of vital importance during his [earlier] tenure with the Kenton band, whose heavy textures had been know to overpower more than one drummer.” [p. 166].

The mood at the club was very relaxed; it appeared that the musicians were glad to be out from under the rigors of playing in the movie and TV studios or dealing with the tedious nature of making the music for commercial and jingles. 

The fact that the musicians were enjoying themselves was certainly evident as they hooted and hollered to urge on the soloists [Terry’s in particular drew all sorts of ‘comments’ from both Joe Maini and Frank Rosolino] along the lines of “Hammer, baby, hammer!]." You can hear this revelry and camaraderie in the background of the band’s in-performance recordings.

According to Gioia: “The Gibbs band is like a turbocharged roadster…the band’s pizzazz also stems from Gibbs penchant for dramatic flourishes and high-energy music. … Gibbs, ..., also apparently had a flair for bringing the best out of his musicians.” [p. 165]

Although most of the music recorded by the band remained unreleased in Terry’s possession until the late 1980’s when he finalized a deal with Fantasy for their production and distribution, there were some LPs issued on Verve and Mercury during the band’s existence. 

The Mercury albums were originally produced by the late, Jack Tracy who also worked with Terry as co-producer on the reissue of Terry Gibbs and his Exciting Big Band/Explosion [Mercury 20704] when it was converted to digital as Terry Gibbs Dream Band: The Big Cat – Volume 5 [Contemporary CCD 7657-2].

With Jack’s permission here are the insert notes that he wrote for the CD reissue of this recording. After reading these notes, one can easily understand why Jack served as the editor of Down Beat magazine for many years. Any writer would be well-served by and proud to have such an editor. It’s an honor to share his writing with you on the Jazzprofiles website.

“One day some 30 years ago I sat there listening to this excited voice in my ear on the telephone. No surprise; Terry Gibbs sounds excited even if he's only asking you what time it is.

Dick.'" he yelled. (For some reason he always felt that my surname entitles him to call me Dick.) "Dick, you've got to come out to California and record the band ... we're breaking it up every night at the Summit. Let's get Wally Heider and do a live date."

Perhaps I should fill you in. At the time I was Jazz director for Mercury Records, based in Chicago, and Gibbs was one of the top artists on the roster. He was a poll‑winner, worked regularly, enjoyed a strong following, and had a compellingly infectious personality. Matter of fact. he still does. He talks approximately as fast as he plays the vibes, and if hypers ever need a poster child, they should pick him. Wally Heider (God rest him) was, hands down, the best sound engineer who ever did a remote. No one since has been able to record a big band on location like Wally. It was in his blood.

To get me out there didn't take a lot of convincing on Gubenko's part. (I call him Gubenko. His surname entities me.) I'd heard the band before and I knew how good it was. Listening to it was much like riding a roller-coaster ‑ there was excitement, yelling, speed, giddiness. breath‑sucking, stomach‑tightening elation and just plain awe. Perhaps as good an ensemble band as ever was; certainly none have been perceptibly better. They came roaring out of the chute on every set, clean and high‑flying and with great pride in performance. Swing, dynamics, shading, crispness, and confidence were all there all the time and the phrase "joyous abandon" comes readily to mind when describing their playing. They could set a house on fire.

So I said yes, let's do it.

Besides, who in his right mind would pass up an expense‑covered trip to a Hollywood that was still lush and green, graffiti‑less and smog‑free and full of long‑legged, healthy blonde ladies with golden tans?

So for three nights we recorded every set, and the fitting climax to this tale would of course be that the record was a smash hit and the Dream Band would become one of the biggies of the Sixties.

Wrong.

Because by the end of the 1950s big bands were desperately trying to stay alive. (Big jazz bands, anyway. You take Lawrence Welk ... Please.) Travel costs were up, jazz was on a down cycle, airplay was next to impossible to get, forget about TV, the Beatles came over from ­England and screwed up everything.

The days of the big bands were over, save for an occasional dinosaur like Basie, Ellington, Herman, or Kenton found hanging on for dear life, and the world of music had changed. Ever the second coming of Christ wouldn't have drawn a crowd if he had returned leading a band.

So although we didn't know it then, this was to be the last recorded gasp of the Terry Gibbs big band. For nearly 30 years, anyway, until a perceptive record company recognized that great is great no matter the date and has re‑released every album recorded by the Dream Band.

This one is the finale, and if you'll accept admittedly prejudiced opinion, it is even better than the preceding four. These are flawless performances of some beautifully written charts. I have listened to them many a time, first when they were initially released and more recently when preparing this essay, and I can't hear a single thing that should be changed, corrected, or improved upon. The band never played better.

Most of the credit for that should go to the leader. Yes, I know that a chain is never stronger than its weakest link, but Gubenko knows how to select personnel so that there are no sore thumbs or red asses among them, knows how to draw the best effort from every player, knows when to be boss and when to be one of the guys, knows how to pick tempos and pace a set according to the mood of an audience, can play hell out of his instrument and not just stand up front waving his arms, and sets everyone an example by giving 125 percent at all times. In short, he is one helluva bandleader, and had he been born ten years earlier would have been one of the biggest names of the swing era, when bands were bands and you'd better believe it.

I was always struck by the closeness of this band. One well remembers the Ellington orchestra, for example, where on any given day half the guys might not be talking to the other half, or even to each other. Or Basie's outfits, where there were generally a couple of fiefdoms to be reckoned with. In other instances it might be the case of a star‑struck leader communi­cating with the troops only through an underling.

But this conglomeration of personalities somehow managed to act like a high school cheer team. There was the irrepressible alto saxist, Joe Maini, another of the God‑rest‑hims, leading the sax section, contributing those startling, angular solos, and cutting up something awful. The brass section was, to be truthful. plain raucous, with Al Porcino, Conte Candoli, and Frank Rosolino the chief truants. (When you hear the guys in Doc Severinsen's band on the Carson show yelling "Yo‑o," you know where it all started, don't you? On the Gibbs band.) And if there were any jealousies about anyone getting fewer solos than the next guy, or not being properly recognized, they were well hidden. This was a team that hit the bandstand ready to blow you out of the room.

And if you have never experienced the electrifying shock of hearing a great jazz band up close in a nightclub, you are to be pitied. Concert halls are fine, jazz festivals are OK, but unless you've had your head in the lion's mouth at a Blue Note or Birdland or Summit and actually smelled his breath, you don't know what it was really like to physically feel the energy being generated and to be absorbed into it.

You may have heard me say this before. but on some nights a band would come at you in waves, and you couldn't do much but sit there helplessly. You knew you were being had, and you knew you were being stripped of all propriety and decency, but you just didn't care. There was a joy unmatched, and somehow you had shared something deep and unspoken with those men on the bandstand that you'd never forget. It was thrilling, and if it has never happened to you I am ­truly sorry.

Gubenko's guys could do it to you. The rhythm section was tight, with Pat Moran on piano (in case you don't remember Pat, a Ms. goes in front of her name) and Buddy Clark (no, not the singer) on bass, with the marvelous Mel Lewis playing drums. Mel (damn, but it hurts to keep saying God rest him) looked sort of funny and all hunched up back there, peering nearsightedly over the ride cymbal, but he was so good. Every nuance of every chart, every little hole that needed filling, every breath that lead trumpeter Porcino took, every shading and inflection, there was Mel, right on top of ft.

Gibbs used to call him "Mel the Tailor" because “I had this old Jewish tailor in Brooklyn who had bunions and he walked funny. Mel walked just like him, so I called him The Tailor and it stuck." In later years Mel was to tell people that he got his nickname because he played “tailor‑made drums," but many of us knew better.

As I was saying, Porcino played lead trumpet and he was about as good as they get, right in the same ballpark with Conrad Gozzo, Snooky Young. Johnny Audino, that bunch. Al talks ver‑r­‑y slow‑w‑wly, and it has been said that a person could spend the better part of an afternoon listening to Porcino and Shorty Rogers say hello.

Most of the trumpet solos came from Candoli and Stu Williamson. Conte blew with great verve, fire. and dash‑he came up listening to Dizzy. Stu’s solos were pretty, more ruminative. He was never in a hurry.

Rosolino (from now on I'm just abbreviating ‑God rest him" to G.R.H., OK?) simply leaped out of the trombone section on his solos. Blindingly facile. and full of musical humor, he would draw “who was that?" looks from the uninitiated after one of his rapid‑fire, take‑no‑prisoners sorties during which he took no prisoners.

Both tenor saxes in the section, Bill Perkins and Richie Kamuca, were also featured as soloists. Kamuca (G. R. H) always used to say he didn't like to play in big bands; he liked the looseness of small groups. But he was proud to play in this one, and often made that known to Gubenko. I loved Kamuca's playing: his solos were such a deep reflection of his quiet, thoughtful, and sensitive personality.

This band was a delightful crew, one that worked chiefly for the fun and fulfilling ness of it, certainly not the money. "We got paid scale at, the Summit," remembers Gubenko, "which at that time was $15 a night. I got double. $30, but gave half to the band manager. My bar bill was usually about $20, because I'd pick up a tab or two, so it cost me at least five bucks a night to work there. But I never had more fun or musical satisfaction in all my life."

Neither did a lot of other people. And, please do me a favor. Put this disc on your machine. kick up the volume, to hell with the neighbors and stick your head in the lion's mouth.

You'll smell his breath."

‑ Jack Tracy
Santa Barbara, CA
February 1991

Jack Tracy was the editor of Down Beat in the 1950s and has been a jazz record producer and freelance writer ever since. He no longer drinks or smokes.” 

The Terry Gibbs Dream Band - Fantastic and Full of Fun

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

Although The Terry Gibbs Big Band existed for only 3 years [1959 - 1962], performed in relative obscurity because it never toured and didn’t have most of its recorded output released until a quarter of a century after it folded, those who experienced it in person during its brief existence have come to refer to it by another name – The Terry Gibbs Dream Band.

And yet, during its existence, everyone, including the musicians who played in it, seemed to take the whole thing for granted. Nonchalance was the byword.

Let me try to explain this better so that you don’t get the idea that there was nothing special about a bunch of world class musicians getting together once a week to blow on arrangements by the likes of Bill Holman, Marty Paich, Shorty Rogers, Al Cohn, Manny Albam, Med Flory, among many others.

But that’s exactly what happened and nobody thought that anything extraordinary was going on while it did!

Mondays and Tuesdays back-in-the-day were “dark nights” which meant that most of the major restaurants, clubs, and theaters were closed. On average, people didn’t go out on these nights to cabaret. They had had their fun on the just-passed weekend and Mondays and Tuesdays were essentially backed-to-work days.

The musicians in Terry’s band basically performed for the love of working together. Because they played on “off nights,” they generally performed in front of small audiences. It’s difficult to pay 15 musicians of this caliber much of a wage when the revenue is being generated by a small cover [admission] charge and a one or two drink minimum. If the club owner met the Class B scale requirements [modest would be an understatement here], the Musicians’ Union stewards left things alone, grabbed a drink on the house [if they even showed up] and went home early to watch some television with their families.

The guys in the band worked with one another in the studios most days where they made a more considerable daily wage recording for movies, television and for radio [primarily “jingles” for advertisements]. Since there is so much money involved in the production of these entertainments, studio musicians work under a lot of pressure; they have to “get it right the first time.” Studio time is expensive and studio musicians are expected to show up on time and to be quick, accurate and free of errors in executing the music they are called on to play, whatever the context.

Enter Terry Gibbs - one of the loosest guys on the planet - offering a chance to play a bunch of swinging charts [arrangements] with a coterie of the world’s finest studio musicians playing big band Jazz for three [maybe even four, if they were in the mood] sets a night!

So there is Conte Candoli sitting up on a riser above drummer Mel Lewis dropping a handkerchief over Mel’s eyes as he tries to read the music, alto saxophonist Joe Maini shouting “Hammer, hammer” as Terry Gibbs bangs out his solo on vibes, and trombonist Frank Rosolino screaming “Work, work….” each time Stu Williamson [trumpet], Bill Perkins [tenor sax] or Pat Moran [piano] took their solos.

You had to be there to believe it. I’ve never see so many guys having so much fun playing in a big band. They laughed, smiled, played wonderful solos and pretty much swung their collective backsides off. And when Terry called the next tune, they rifled through the band book to find the arrangement all the while “hootin’” and “hollerin’” like a bunch of kids. These guys were so good that most of them had memorized the band’s exacting charts [arrangements] and didn’t need to look at the music.

Talk about taking the lid off a pressure-cooker.

Thankfully, you can hear the fantastic musicianship and the fun-filled atmosphere on a half dozen CD’s of the band in-performance that have been released since the band’s initial LP’s on Mercury, Emarcy and Verve first came out in the early 1960s.

Among these, my favorite is Terry Gibbs Dream Band, Volume Four: Main Stem [Contemporary CD 7656-2, originally released on LP as Terry Gibbs/Exciting Mercury MG-20704].

Here are Jay Roebuck’s informative insert notes to the CD:

“THE BAND

After listening to this album, two conclusions leap to mind: All big-band albums should be recorded live. And all big-band albums should be this live.

That's asking a lot, though, because Terry Gibb's band ranks with the most exciting aggregations in big-band history. It had everything: drive, spirit, great arrangements, outstanding soloists, and Mel Lewis, one of the great big-band drummers.

It also had a dynamic leader in vibraphonist Terry Gibbs, who was the band's No. 1 cheerleader.

The band's early days in 1959 have been documented on three previous "Dream Band" albums on Contemporary. As good as they were, this collection, recorded at the Summit in Hollywood in 1961, is even more exciting because the personnel had stabilized, and the band had been together for two years. Also, this time the band knew it was recording and had special arrangements for the occasion. The material for the other albums had been taped by Wally Heider for Gibbs's private use.

"This was one of the few bands that really knew the difference between an eighth and a quarter note," Gibbs says." Just listen to 'Limerick Waltz.' They even knew what beat to make a swell start and end."

By 1961, all the section leaders (saxophonist Joe Maini, trombonist Bob Edmondson, and trumpeters Al Porcino and Ray Triscari sharing lead) were in place, and "these guys called the shots on when to breathe, and they breathed together."

If there's a standout on this album, it's really the ensemble playing which even overshadows the excellent solos. The reed section of Maini and Charlie Kennedy on altos, Richie Kamuca and Bill Perkins on tenors, and Jack Nimitz on baritone is especially impressive.

"I really believe this band should go down as one of the great ensemble bands," Gibbs says. "I think it rates with Basie's band of the Fifties, Woody's Second Herd, Benny Goodman's band with Gene Krupa and Artie Shaw's with Buddy [Rich]."

The reference to Goodman is significant because Gibbs adopted Benny's strategy of having the arrangers weave his vibes in and out of numbers as Goodman's did for his clarinet. "I didn't want to just play a vibes solo and then step back and let the band play," Gibbs explains.

If a direct comparison is to be made of Gibb's exciting band, the inevitable one is to Woody Herman's Second Herd, the celebrated Four Brothers band. And, perhaps, it's not mere coincidence that most of the Gibbs musicians (including the leader) once played for Herman.

"I think you have to give Chubby Jackson a lot of credit for the spirit of the band," Gibbs says. "He always had enthusiasm, and I probably picked up some of that from him." Gibbs wasn't the only cheerleader, though. Not in a band where Frank Rosolino, Joe Maini, and Conte Candoli were constantly shouting encouragement.

That spirit is captured on this album which long has been unavailable. It was

recorded at the Summit (formerly the Sundown) with the masterful Wally Heider again at the controls. The music sounds like it was recorded yesterday instead of 29 years ago.

A year later, in 1962, Gibbs's band won the New Star Award in the annual Down Beat magazine critics' poll, an amazing achievement since the band had never toured.

Now, thanks to the herculean efforts of Gibbs and label owner Ralph Kaffel in obtaining the rights to release this material, we again can enjoy this magnificent band at its peak of performance.

THE MUSIC

Bill Holman's chart of "Day In, Day Out" gets the album off to a roaring start with a performance that sounds more like an encore than opener. But, then, this band always did play the first set like the third. The entrance by the Al Porcino-led trumpets after Terry's break will raise the hair on the back of your neck. There's also a trumpet solo by Conte Candoli and some booting tenor by Bill Perkins.

Shorty Rogers arranged "Summit Blues," which he co-wrote with Terry. Bassist Buddy Clark shares the honors with Gibbs. Holman's funky "Limerick Waltz" features some great drum work by Mel Lewis and solos by trombonist Frank Rosolino, Gibbs, and a preaching Joe Maini, who was one of Terry's favorite alto players. "I always loved Joe's playing," Terry says, "because he always had that edge."

Al Cohn's lovely arrangement of "You Don't Know What Love Is" showcases Gibbs, who works in a brief reference to "Angel Eyes." Manny Albam's "Sweet Georgia Brown" chart is a tour de force for the band.

Gibbs and Maini are the soloists on Al Cohn's "Nose Cone." Cohn apparently was fascinated with Terry's proboscis since he previously had written "Julie's Bugle" for Gibbs (a.k.a. Julius Gubenko). Holman arranged "Too Close for Comfort," a superior pop song of the day, to feature Terry, Richie Kamuca, and bassist Buddy Clark.

Albam's shouting chart on Duke Ellington's "Main Stem" gives pianist Pat Moran her only solo opportunity. (Moran, incidentally, was the third woman pianist who had worked with Gibbs. The others were Terry Pollard and Alice McLeod, who later married John Coltrane.) After Terry's solo, the brass provides a launching pad for Kamuca's tenor. "Richie always hated big bands, but he loved to play with this one," Gibbs says. The band takes this one home with Conte Candoli up top.

Holman dresses up the old warhorse "Ja-Da" for a medium-tempo romp for Terry and Conte. "T and S" stands for Terry and Shorty, who collaborated on the tune. Rogers wrote the building arrangement which features Terry and some great ensemble playing with Ray Triscari on lead trumpet. Mel Lewis provides a textbook lesson in big-band drumming.

The album ends the way it began—on a high.”

Two of my favorite tracks on the disc are Bill Holman’s arrangement of Day In, Day Out and Manny Albam’s chart on Sweet Georgia Brown and you can listen to them on the following videos.

Frank Rosolino - " Please Don't Bug Me" - Jazz Scene USA

Terry Gibbs' Big Band - "Vamp 'Till Ready" by John Tynan

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

“The Gibbs bands combined the high-energy swing of Lionel Hampton with the sophistication of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis outfits (Mel Lewis straddled the drum stool during Gibbs's most productive period).”

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

As a working musician based in Los Angeles, CA during the heyday of the East Coast Jazz versus West Coast Jazz marketing nonsense which was aided and abetted by Jazz critics and record companies on both coasts, I can honestly say that I never felt deprived living 3,000 miles away from The Jazz Capital of the World [aka New York; aka Birdland].

In terms of the number of Jazz clubs, Hollywood was not the equal of New York, but it had its share. And, although, you had to access them by freeways without the benefit of subways, car rides to the Beach Cities [Santa Monica, Long Beach and Hermosa Beach] and to the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys brought forth contact with a plethora of neighborhood bars and bistros that featured Jazz played by both nationally recognized groups and homegrown talent.

Musicians such as guitarist Joe Pass, tenor sax and flutist Charles Lloyd, pianist Keith Jarrett, bassists Charles Mingus and Herbie Lewis and drummer Billy Higgins first came to prominence on the Left Coast [aka Los Angeles].

Los Angeles also had its “exclusives,” groups that didn’t tour and could only be heard at local venues. In many cases, this was because the musicians that made up these small combos and big bands were also heavily engaged in movie and television work or in providing the music for TV commercials and radio jingles and they couldn’t afford to be away from such lucrative employment for long periods of time.

Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars, which over the years featured many notable Jazz musicians including Shorty Rogers, Jimmy Giuffre, Bud Shank, Frank Rosolino, Stan Levey [and for a time, Max Roach], and Victor Feldman, could only be heard at the Hermosa Beach club from which it drew its name.

And the big bands led by vibraphonist Terry Gibbs, Gerald Wilson and trumpeter Don Ellis were for the most part populated by studio musicians who simply couldn’t afford to go on the road.

I felt particularly blessed to be able to take in large amounts of what came to be known as the Terry Gibbs Dream Band. All three of the Hollywood venues that the band played at were a short drive from my home so I was in constant “residence” at this “big band university” for almost two years.

The following piece by John Tynan was written in December, 1962 which sadly was around the time that drummer Mel Lewis left for New York to join Gerry Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band. Bassist Buddy Clarke and trumpeter Conte Candoli would join him.

Sadly, too, the clubs on Sunset Blvd. referenced in the article began to close in 1963 and were all but gone by May, 1964 when lead alto saxophonist Joe Maini accidentally shot himself.

Terry moved on to other things and especially following Joe’s death, the band was but a memory.

Following John’s article you’ll find a video of the band playing Al Cohn’s composition The Big Cat with solos by Terry on vibes, Joe Maini on alto sax and Conte Candoli on trumpet.

“CAN RECORDINGS alone make a successful band? Almost any self-styled sage in the music business will assure you that this is virtually impossible because a band, in order to be a going concern, i.e., a consistently paying business, must work on the road, must hit the one-nighter grind most of the year in order to get the public exposure that can build a national reputation.

The sages may be right, and certainly the success on records of such leaders as Hank Mancini has nothing to do with a permanent Mancini orchestra of the one-nighter variety. But in a more limited way the Terry Gibbs big band is a recording success, too, and so far as the vibist is concerned, his albums keep the spirit of the band alive.

Spirit is the key word here. It has to do with the roaring jazz produced by Gibbs and 16 others when they assemble on a bandstand for an occasional club engagement or concert.

It is certain that jazz spirit, captured in the Gibbs albums, thundered out of the grooves so dynamically it compelled the voters in Down Beat's 10th annual International Jazz Critics Poll to elect the band to first place in the new-star category this year. What is remarkable is that the majority of the critics who voted for Gibbs' band did so without ever hearing the band in person. All they had to go on were three LP albums — Launching a New Band, Swing Is Here, and The Exciting Terry Gibbs Big Band. The few critics who did hear the band in person dug it on its own stomping ground, Hollywood, or perhaps at the 1961 Monterey Jazz Festival.

Pickings are lean in Hollywood for a big band. Thus has it been, of course, since the early 1950s. As has been pointed out on many occasions in the past, a big band cannot expect to remain on the West Coast and make it. This is particularly true of a big jazz band. So the miracle of the Gibbs band's endurance is only partially touched by economic considerations; the real secret is wrapped up in the words spirit and loyalty — the general jazz spirit of the musicians and their loyalty to the idea of this big band.

In the beginning there was a seemingly prosaic domestic decision: Terry Gibbs and his wife, Donna, decided to settle down in California. He bought a suburban home with swimming pool in the San Fernando Valley and from time to time sallied forth with his quartet for engagements in the East.

It had been Gibbs' practice, under his recording contract, to record one big-band album a year. These sessions were made with studio musicians, and the arrangements generally were the first-class work of such as Al Cohn and Manny Albam. It was a nice musical arrangement for Gibbs; he could record and work night-club and concert jobs with his quartet, commanding top money, and then, for kicks, he could cut loose and indulge his real love for big-band jazz.

If the quartet led to the big studio band on record, it led also to the formation of the presently existing aggregation. Gibbs recently recalled the origin.

"A movie columnist friend of mine, named Eve Starr," he said, with his staccato, machine gun delivery, "called me one day in 1959. She told me about this club in Hollywood. Place called the Seville. She said the place was dying and the owner wanted to change the policy. He really didn't know whether he wanted jazz; he wanted anything that would bring customers into the joint. Eve suggested I go talk to him. His name was Harry Schiller."

Gibbs talked to Schiller and signed a contract to work the Seville with the quartet. At this time he was preparing his annual big-band album. He already had a dozen arrangements and planned to cut the LP in Hollywood with a top-notch personnel.

There was the problem of rehearsal. Musicians union rules prohibit unpaid rehearsals for recordings but permit a band to rehearse for a night-club job.

"I made Schiller a proposition," Gibbs said. "I asked him if he'd let me take the big band into the club Tuesday night only for the same amount of money as the quartet was getting. Schiller said it was okay with him if the quartet did business. If the quartet brought in some customers, he said, he didn't care if I brought in a band of apes on Tuesday. So we were set."

The rehearsals began, and it was immediately evident that, in the Hollywood musicians, Gibbs had a group unlike any of his previous studio big bands.

The weekend prior to the band's Tuesday one-nighter, Gibbs did a guest appearance on the Sunday night Steve Allen Show. Allen gave him a hefty plug.

During the next two days an unprecedented telephone campaign added word-of-mouth publicity to the debut. The forthcoming event—for it had indeed become an event— was literally the musical talk of the town.

The band's opening was a sensation. In the jammed Seville, scattered through the audience, was a remarkable celebrity turnout. Among those who attended were Fred MacMurray and June Haver, Johnny Mercer, Stuart Whitman, Ella Fitzgerald, Steve Allen, Dinah Shore, and Louis Prima. The turnout of musicians was unparalleled.

By the end of the evening it was a foregone conclusion that the band would play the following Tuesday too. In a week, those who had not heard the word in time for the debut were ready to come and dig. The second Tuesday was as successful as the first. And so, for nine consecutive Tuesdays the new Terry Gibbs big band made West Coast jazz history.

The fact that the band began that first set with the knowledge that there were only 11 more numbers in the book didn't matter to Gibbs and his men.

"We just kept an arrangement going for 10 or 20 minutes," Gibbs grinned. "With long solos and different backgrounds made up by the guys in the sections, it was no problem."

By the second week, Gibbs recalled, other arrangers, such as Bill Holman and Med Flory, had contributed arrangements to help expand what probably was the smallest big-band book in jazz history.

In retrospect, Gibbs noted the band could perhaps have continued indefinitely at the Seville on Tuesdays had he not received an offer to take it into the now-defunct Cloister on the Sunset Strip for three weeks. He accepted the offer and the owners' proviso that the band must not play any other Los Angeles location on the night off.

The Cloister engagement was a mistake. For one thing, the room was too small. For another, the customers, who largely came to hear singer Andy Williams and laugh with comedian Frank Gorshin, who shared the bill with the Gibbs band, were not prepared for the shock of hearing the band at full throttle. From Gibbs' point of view, the engagement was less than successful.

By now, Gibbs was obsessed with a desire to keep his band working and exposed to a growing following. Morale in the band was possibly unprecedented.

'The guys made a rule," Gibbs said. "Nobody takes off for another job. If a guy did, he was out of the band. And this they did for $15 a night!"

It wasn't long before Gibbs found a new home for the band. This was a club also on Sunset Blvd., called the Sundown, where the band began working Mondays and Tuesdays every week. Soon after, Sunday nights were added.

With time out for a fortnight at the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas, Nev., the Gibbs band remained based at the Sundown for 18 months. Las Vegas was as far east as it ever traveled. For that engagement, Gibbs said, the band was paid $5,000 a week; by the time all the expenses had been settled, he wound up with $111 at the close of the job. "But," Gibbs added, "it was worth it. We had Jimmy Witherspoon with us at the Dunes, making it even more of a ball."

While Gibbs concentrated on building the band, his bank account took a heavy beating.

"I had to give up so much work with the quartet," he explained, ''that I figured it was costing me $1,000 a month to keep the band going. In all, I had to give up about $20,000 in work with the quartet. During the previous years, when tax time came around, I always had to come up with additional money for Internal Revenue. The one year I had the band working steady, I got back a check for $1,100 from the government.

"But I've been in this business 31 years, and I've never been so happy losing money in my life."

ALTHOUGH THE BAND presently is without a home or any reasonable facsimile of steady work, Gibbs refuses to abandon his idee fixe. He has almost 100 arrangements in his library at present, and the albums will shout on. The latest, Explosion, on Mercury, will be released shortly.

Meanwhile, the "guys in the band"—Gibbs refuses to use the term "sidemen"—are standing by in Hollywood, most of them busy with studio work, while the vibist tours with the quartet in the East.

"I must work with my little group," he insisted. "I love working with the quartet. Eventually, I want to have a quartet within the big band but not made up of some of the guys in the band. A separate group.

''And I'm looking for a singer. Probably a girl singer. And I don't know yet what I'd like her to sound like—but I'll know when I hear her.

"I'm going to see what I can do with the big band in the East. Then, if I see something promising, I'm going to call Mel Lewis and the rest of the guys. Of course, it depends on the money I have to work with, so it's very hard to predict what'll happen."

Gibbs' "guys in the band" constitute a unique group in that they are, to a man, musicians skilled in the most exacting studio work, and most derive their livelihoods therefrom, yet they retain a genuine jazz freshness both as individuals and as a unit.

"It's a fun band," Gibbs said. "For example, during our first few tunes of the evening, when the place isn't crowded, the guys applaud one another when they play solos. It's like a ball club. When a player hits a home run, he gets a pat on the back. It's that way in the band."

Mel Lewis, the time-keeping cornerstone of the Gibbs band, made the following flat statement: "This is the greatest swing band I ever played in."

"It saved my life, musically," the drummer continued, "and the same goes for the rest of the guys."

"Who was hiring big bands to work in L.A. clubs," Lewis asked rhetorically, "before we went into the Seville? Since then, several big bands have worked clubs in L.A., but we were the only band that did any business in a club. We started the big-band era in Los Angeles."

Gibbs outlined the most important ingredients in a musically successful big jazz band.

"A drummer!" he explained. "A good drummer to hold the band together. All the great bands had great drummers —Basie had Jo Jones; Tommy Dorsey had Buddy Rich; Woody had Dave Tough.

"And then a good lead trumpet player. These are the guys who sort of run the band. They lay the time down for the band.

"We have a very great brass section. Four of the trumpets play lead—Ray Triscari, Al Porcino, Frank Huggins, and Stu Williamson. And Conte Candoli, along with Dizzy Gillespie, is the best big-band jazz trumpet player.

"Three of the trombones play lead. Frank Rosolino, Vern Friley, and Bob Edmondson keep everything going."

Of the lead alto man, Joe Maini, Gibbs cannot sing enough praises: "Point to Joe — for anything — and he can do it beautifully. Jazz or lead, doesn't matter."

Rounding out the sax section are tenor men Bill Perkins and Richie Kamuca; Charlie Kennedy, second and jazz alto saxophone, and Jack Nimitz, baritone saxophone.

In the rhythm section are pianist Pat Moran, for several years leader of her own quartet; bassist Buddy Clark, who with drummer Lewis toured with the Gerry Mulligan big band during the last two years; and Lewis, who, according to Gibbs, "holds any band together."

Whenever it's necessary to substitute because of illness or other Acts of God, Lou Levy generally gets the call for the piano chair; Frank Capp or Larry Bunker on drums (and the Bunker-Gibbs vibes duets on occasion have been memorable); Johnny Audino, Jack Sheldon, or Ray Linn in the trumpet section; and Bill Holman, Teddy Edwards, or Bud Shank in the saxophones.

Why, in Gibbs' opinion, did the jazz critics vote for a band that is (a) non-full-time and (b) whose appeal outside Los Angeles-Hollywood lies wholly within the grooves of long-play records?

"On the strength of those records, I would think," he said. Then he added, "If they liked the band on the albums, they would like it 20 times better if they heard it in person."

Source

Down Beat

November 8,  1962

The following Playlist features four selections by this once-in-a-lifetime band.

CuberQuest - Ronnie Cuber "Meets The Beets Brothers"

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

Ronnie Cuber was born in New York in 1941. Ronald Edward Cuber made his debut in the late 1950’s in trombonist and music educator’s Marshall Brown's Newport Youth Band at the Newport Jazz Festival. Locating the above photograph of the band in a 1959 edition of Down Beat prompted me to revisit Ronnie’s career and his music.

In the following decades Ronnie worked with Jazz and Latin Jazz masters like Slide Hampton, Maynard Ferguson, George Benson, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Barry Harris, Lonnie Liston Smith, Eddie Palmier! and Lee Konitz. Over the years, Ronnie Cuber earned a reputation as one of the best baritone saxophonists in Jazz  and is often mentioned along with Gerry Mulligan, Nick Brignola and Pepper Adams as being among the best players on that instrument.

Cuber not only received recognition for his achievements on baritone sax, but also as an excellent flute and clarinet player.

In 1976 he joined the legendary Frank Zappa, along with Jazz funk luminaries Michael and Randy Brecker. He appeared on dozens of pop recordings as a sideman, meeting the needs of artists like Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton. Paul Simon, Bette Middler, Chaka Khan and many more. During the eighties he was a member or the Saturday Night Live Band.

Nowadays, Ronnie Cuber continues to be one of the busiest baritone saxophonists on the contemporary Jazz scene working with the prestigious Mingus Big Band and Horace Silver, as well as touring worldwide with artists like Steve Gadd and Joey DeFrancesco.

In an interview Ronnie gave for the insert notes to his 2009 Maxanter CD Infra-Rae: Ronnie Cuber Meets the Beets Brothers [75967] he was asked:

“You have always played different styles of music like jazz, pop and latin. Do you recommend young players to do the same.”

To which Ronnie replied: "Yes, I recommend it. There's all kinds of stuff happening. It seems to melt down into the jazz scene. Like in the 1970s with what Joe Zawinul and Weather Report did. It became the norm.  When l am writing music, I also use different style elements. I play all kinds of different music.”

And when Ronnie was asked: “What is your opinion of contemporary Jazz,” he answered:

"Smooth Jazz has developed to a point where it is definitely more listenable than it was some years ago. The musicianship is much higher in groups like Fourplay with Bob James and Everette Harp. But while it is very good, it still doesn't compare to the people I was raised on: Hank Mobley, Art Farmer, Horace Silver, Rav Charles, Art Blakey. Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie."

Recorded in The Netherlands in 2009, Infra-Rae: Ronnie Cuber Meets the Beets Brothers shows the then 68-years-of-age Cuber more than holding his own with the likes of the much younger Beets [pronounced “Bates”] Brothers: Alexander on tenor sax, Peter on piano and Marius on bass. The drummer on the date is Eric Ineke and here’s a portion of what Eric has to say about Ronnie in his autobiography Eric Ineke The Ultimate Sideman [Pincio Uitgeverij, 2014, The Netherlands]:

“RONNIE CUBER

The first time I played with Ronnie was in 1977 and I was totally blown away by the sound, swing, phrasing and energy produced by this man. He is like Hank Mobley on baritone, a small wonder if you realise that he started out on tenor. The phrasing, just a little behind the beat so typically Mobley and, also like Hank, a very emotional player. His timing is awesome and he plays with such an authority. … He burns right from the start and he is so strong that he gets you where he wants you to be, Hardcore Be-bop. The drummer has to play on top but relaxed. You have to follow him; he is not following you, although he wants interaction. If he wants to burn, you’d better be there, otherwise he is losing you.”

The following audio-only digital music file features Ronnie and the Beets Brothers’ blistering interpretation of Hank Mobley’s Infra-Rae.