Early Morning Blues - The Rein de Graaff Trio

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

Since its inception 11 years ago, writing this blog has brought me into contact with many new Jazz friends and musicians, among whom are three exceptional players from Holland: pianist, Rein de Graaff, bassist Marius Beets and drummer Eric Ineke.

Most of our contact has been via the internet and through phone conversations, but thanks to their attendance at a Los Angeles-based Jazz event a few years ago, I was also fortunate enough to be able to share a breakfast with Rein and Eric at our home.

Rein, Marius and Eric are a hard driving straight-ahead rhythm section that forms a perfect complement to Jazz played in this style, one which is near and dear to my heart.

They usually record as a unit in support of horn players, so when I received the news that the trio was planning a rare excursion into a CD using just a piano, bass and drums format, I asked if I could prepare the insert notes. The response to this request is what follows.

“Imagine, if you will, being a young Jazz musician living in Holland, where your primary exposure to the post World War II Bebop Jazz scene in America is via recordings or the occasional concert or local club appearance by one of the Jazz musicians you’ve long admired. You dream that one day you’ll get to work with these American Jazz musicians who have become your idols.

Over the decade or so since you first fell in love with the music as a teenager, your skills as a player have evolved to the point where you can more than hold your own with other Jazz musicians with whom you perform in The Netherlands.

There’s enough work in the Jazz clubs in Den Haag or in Amsterdam or in Rotterdam, so you get to play Jazz on a regular basis, although more than likely, as is the case with many Jazz musicians who haven’t achieved international acclaim, you probably hold down a day gig to pay the rent and take care of your family.

Maybe if you are a pianist or a bassist or a drummer, you come together often enough to form a tight knit rhythm section and to work fairly regularly as a piano-bass-drums trio.

As you come into your own as a rhythm unit, you begin to notice that you are getting regular calls by promoters or nightclub owners to work with American Jazz musicians who are touring Europe.

With the passage of time, you also notice another trend as a result of a dynamic that the Jazz musician and writer Mike Zwerin described as a time when “Jazz went to Europe to live.”

Pushed out by the burgeoning Rock ‘n Roll and Folk Music phenomenons that swept the youth in the USA of the 1960s,  American Jazz musicians were becoming expatriates and settling in Europe where the music still had a fan base.

So now instead of the occasional gig with the likes of tenor saxophonist Don Byas who settled in France or trumpeter Benny Bailey who settled in Sweden or tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon who settled in Denmark, you become part of their touring band whenever they make it to Holland.

One day you're listening to them on records and the next you’re making a gig with them at Nick’s Cafe in Laren, The Netherlands!

Over the last century or so, this dream-like existence became a reality for pianist Rein de Graaff and his close associate, drummer Eric Ineke, as they along with a small number of excellent Dutch bassists, the most recent of whom is Marius Beets, have been the rhythm section of choice for a whole host of visiting American Jazz musicians.

All one need do is look at Rein’s discography in Wikipedia or Discogs dating back to 1969 to find their names which would include: J.R. Monterose, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, Teddy Edwards, Al Cohn, Dave Pike, Charles McPherson, David “Fathead” Newman, Marcel Ivery, Major Holley, Conte Candoli, Bob Cooper, Bud Shank, Nick Brignola, Ronnie Cuber, Herb Geller, Pete Christlieb, Sam Most, and Scott Hamilton, not to mention a slew of notable Dutch Jazz musicians.

Many of these recordings by these prominent American Jazzmen accompanied by Rein’s trio followed tours of Holland and the neighboring Low Countries.

Incidentally, Wim Wigt, the producer of this disc for his Timeless label was the manager of these gigs in the Netherlands and he was able to find bookings in Hilversum, Leiden, Veendam, Venlo, Zwolle, Den Haag, Heemskerk, Amsterdam, De Woude, Rotterdam, and Enschede. As Dexter Gordon would tell his friends :” … there were jazz lovers in all these places in a country the size of the state of Maryland.”

We spoke to Rein de Graaff by phone recently to get his take on how Early Morning Blues came about and to discuss the music he selected for the recording.

In terms of how the disc evolved, Rein explained that: “We are so busy working behind horn players that we only get a chance to perform as a trio a couple of times a year.”

So I decided to get together with Eric and Marius and make this trio album. When it was finished I suddenly realized that the last time I made a trio recording was in 1981 - almost forty years ago!”

Rein was referring to Chasin the Bird issued in 1981 as a Timeless LP [SJP 159] on which he is joined by bassist Koos Serierse and drummer Eric Ineke.

On Early Morning Blues, Eric continues as Rein’s drummer of choice, a role he has assumed for over four decades, with Marius Beets stepping in to handle the bass lines as well as to take responsibility for recording, editing and mastering the the album.

When I asked Rein if there was a theme around which the 13 tracks of the recording was based he replied: “No, no theme, but my music comes from Bebop and its legends such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell, so there is usually a close relationship with that style of Jazz for many of the tunes that I selected.

For example, Don’t Blame Me and Lover Man are two ballads that are closely associated with Charlie Parker while These Are The Things and Moonology are based on a standard set of chord progressions that all beboppers liked to play on.”

“I chose to play these tunes as duos with Marius because I was visiting his studio to checkout the piano the day before we recorded there as a trio. Marius had the tape running and we sounded so good on the two tunes that we decided to include them on the finished recording.

You know, the piano is different in every studio, so that’s how the solo piano version of Little Girl Blue came about; with me testing the instrument.”

When I asked him about Avalon, a Swing Era tune not often heard in modern Jazz setting,  Rein explained that “ I have never played it before. A few days earlier, I was listening to a performance of the tune on pianist Elmo Hope’s LP that features tenor saxophonists Hank Mobley and John Coltrane with Donald Byrd on trumpet and I guess the tune was still in my mind when I called it at a tempo we used to play it at with Johnny Griffin. For something we never played before, we were all pleased with the way it turned out.”

In commenting about Early Morning Blues, Rein said: “The challenge of this piece is not just to play a slow blues, but to play it with a Blues feeling. Too often these days, you hear one without the other. I wanted the trio to play The Blues and I liked each version so much that we kept them both.”

Regarding other tunes on the recording, Rein shared that “Godchild, Fly Me to the Moon and Dear Old Stockholm are tunes that I like to play at home but which I haven’t played in public before. So when I brought them to the trio, I thought of how they could be arranged. For example, Dear Old Stockholm brought to mind the classic Miles Davis Quintet arrangement, which drummer Art Taylor taught me, while the ending for Fly Me to the Moon gave us an opportunity to add a “turnaround” to extend the swing of the piece, a device I learned from Sonny Stitt. Godchild by pianist George Wallington is straight out of Bud Powell, who all bebop pianists come from, so in a way this becomes the trio’s homage to him. The relaxed tempo also provides a nice vehicle to highlight Marius’ solo skills”

Although, it’s not a Blues, the trio’s rendering of If I Had You takes on the slow blues inflection that’s reflected in the title tune while the closer Wahoo, Charlie Parker’s version of the Jazz standard, Perdido, shows off the trio’s ability to dig into a hard driving and very funky groove.”

Rein’s colleagues on this recording, drummer Eric Ineke and bassist Marius Beets, have each had distinguished careers in their own right.

Universally acclaimed as one of the great Jazz drummers of the modern era, Eric Ineke currently leads the Jazzxpress, a dynamic quintet with six CDs to its credit. Eric is in demand throughout the Europe as a performer and a teacher and he holds a faculty position at the Royal Conservatoire in Den Haag, The Netherlands.

Marius Beets performs with Eric in the Jazzxpress and with his brothers, Alexander [tenor sax] and Peter [piano] in a big band and small group that the brothers co-lead. In addition to his musical gifts as a bassist and composer, Marius maintains his own recording studio and is an accomplished recording engineer.

Not all of us get to live out our musical dreams, but Rein de Graaff followed his dreams into an existential reality that would be the envy of most Jazz musicians and he did so while maintaining the highest standards for performance in perpetuating the Bebop Jazz style.

After listening to the music on Early Morning Blues, I’m sure that you’ll agree with me that the trio is the perfect setting to demonstrate Rein’s skills as a master Jazz pianist in the Bebop tradition.

If as Louis Armstrong once said: “Jazz is who you are,” then this recording reveals the definitive Rein de Graaff.”

- Steven A. Cerra

Early Morning Blues [Timeless CDSJP 487]  is a brilliantly conceived and executed excursion into piano trio Jazz and you can add it to your collection.

Although the CD will not be available for purchase until March 15, 2019 at the Timeless Records website, I am posting this review now in conjunction with the latter part of Rein de Graaff’s Farewell Tour which you can checkout below. His regular trio of Marius Beets and Eric Ineke will be augmented with saxophonists Benjamin Herman, Maarten Hoogenhuis, Marco Kegel and Tineke Postma. Special guest: baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber.

Fri March 1: De Tor, Enschede

Sat March 2: Mahogany Hall, Edam

Sun March 3: Tivoli/Vredenburg, Utrecht 16:00 (feat. Ronnie Cuber)

Wed March 6: Brouwerij Martinus, Groningen

Fri March 8: De Harmonie, Leeuwarden

Sat March 10:Theater van Beresteyn, Veendam 15:00

Fri March 15:Bimhuis, Amsterdam (feat. Ronnie Cuber)

Hank Mancini: Jazz Musician

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

“Hank Mancini was the most successful and certainly the most visible composer in movie history. Most film composers do their work in comparative obscurity. Only the scholars of good movie music even know their names. But Mancini's was a household word.

Some people handle fame well and some don't. Hank handled it superbly: he ignored it. He considered himself supremely lucky. For example: "I've often wondered what would have happened to me if I hadn't needed a haircut that day," he said on another occasion. He had just stepped out of the barbershop at the Universal Pictures lot, when he ran into an acquaintance, Blake Edwards.

They were about the same age, Mancini then 36, Edwards 38. The studio system was coming to an end, and Hank had just lost his job as a staff composer, and he had a wife and three children. He still had a pass to the Universal lot, however, and with nothing better to do with his time, he decided to get a haircut. Edwards asked him about Ginny, Hank's wife, and after a few more minutes of chat, Blake asked, "Hey, would you be interested in doing a TV show for me?"

As Hank told me much later, he wasn't exactly being overwhelmed with offers at the time, and he said, "Yes. What's the name of it?"

Edwards said, "It's called Peter Gunn," and Hank said, "What is it, a western?" and Edwards said, "You'll see," and made an appointment with Hank.

It wasn't a western, of course. It was a private-eye story starring Craig Stevens, and it would be one of the most successful series in that genre: certainly it was the most stylish. And it would lead to a profound change in the nature of television and movie music. For it had a jazz score, the first in television history.”

Following service with the Army during WWII, Hank Mancini embarked on a decade-long apprenticeship as a freelance arranger and musician that included work on radio shows, providing the music for little man Billy Barty’s vaudeville act, developing music for choreographer Nick Castle and being a house arranger for Universal-International Pictures for most of the 1950’s.  

As Mancini explained: “I once referred to the music department at Universal as a salt mine, but it was a good salt mine, and younger composers in film today do not have access to that kind of on-the-job training. Being on staff there I was called upon to do everything. I mean everything. Whenever they needed a piece of source music, music that comes from a source in the picture, such as a band, a jukebox, or a radio, they would call me in. I would do an arrangement on something that was in the Universal library, or I would write a new piece for a jazz band or a Latin band or whatever. I guess in every business you have to learn the routine--in film scoring, the clichés--before you can begin to find your own way.”

Aided by his own big band background from his days growing up in West Aliquippa, PA and serving as an assistant to Max Adkins in Pittsburgh, PA, during this stint with Universal, Mancini was tapped to be the lead arranger for the two best-known swing biopics, "The Glenn Miller Story" in 1954 and "The Benny Goodman Story" in 1956.

Little did anyone realize at the time that these apprenticeship and time in the salt mine would ultimately make Mancini one of the most successful film composers of his time. He had a knack for writing catchy tunes which was one of the major keys to his success.  And what a success it was as from 1958 and through most of the 1960’s, Mancini so dominated the television and film music scene that everything else seemed to be either an attempt to clone his sound or a reaction against it.

Hank’s breakthrough came though Blake Edwards, a former editor at Universal who remembered Mancini's work on Orson Welles' 1958 film noir, "Touch of Evil," in which Mancini supplemented the canned source music used for the soundtrack with some Jazz inspired music and included Conrad Gozzo on lead trumpet and Shelly Manne on drums to insure that the music was phrased properly.

Edwards was extremely impressed with Mancini’s score for this film and asked him to write music for a Peter Gunn, a new television series he was now directing.  Since he was working on a small budget, Edwards asked Mancini to write for a jazz ensemble of 11 players

At a time when many television programs were using uninspired canned or “generic” orchestral backgrounds, Mancini opted to use modern Jazz with innovative Jazz themes accompanying Gunn’s every move. The harmonies fit the mood of the show, which was a key to its success, and they served to lend the character even more of an air of suave sophistication.

Mancini's music, “especially the pounding, menacing sounding theme,” proved almost as popular as the series, and RCA rushed out an album featuring the title song and other pieces. The label first offered Shorty Rogers the recording job, but he refused RCA’s request insisting they use the composer himself. Although television soundtracks had been released on albums before, Music from "Peter Gunn" was a phenomenon. It reached #1 on Billboard's chart, stayed there 10 weeks, and stayed on the list for the next two years. It was so successful, RCA put together a sequel and Mancini received an Emmy nomination for the theme and won two Grammy awards for the first album.

Mancini’s Peter Gunn theme with its hip, bluesy, brass texture and insistent piano-and-bass line became as associated with crime fiction as Monty Norman’s theme for the James Bond films was to become with spy films.

These two albums – The Music from Peter Gunn and More Music from Peter Gunn contain a wealth of small group and big band Jazz that is often overlooked either because of their commercial success at the time or because they were overshadowed by the many success of Mancini’s later career.

I thought it might be fun to remind readers of Jazz Profiles about this music during what I like to refer to as his Jazz musician years and to also make it available through this feature to listeners that may be new to it.

In talking with trumpeter Pete Candoli many years later, he shared the view that “In all the years of studio dates that I worked on in Hollywood, I’ve never enjoyed doing anything more.  The musicianship on these dates was first-rate and Hank’s scores were always beautifully written and fun to play on.”

Vibist Victor Feldman also recalled these dates with fondness and affection: “These were some of my earliest studio recording dates and it was a thrill to be around such an incredibly talented bunch of musicians.  Hank couldn’t have been nicer and the themes and ‘charts’ [arrangements] were so wonderfully crafted and just a blast to play.”

The first of these albums [the two have now been combined into one CD] highlights Mancini’s skill in employing an endless variety of orchestral voicing in making 11 musicians sound like a full big band. With the success of the initial album, RCA granted Hank a budget for a full orchestra and the sound he achieves on these tracks is even more rewarding.

Brassy trombones, either as soloists or in a trombone choir, chords played in the background by a “block chord” combination of vibes-piano-guitar as made famous by the George Shearing Quintet, descending figures being howled out through a bevy of French Horns, bass trombones blatting pedal tones [with or without mutes], “Shout Choruses” on tunes like “Fall Out,” “Timothy,” and “Blue Steel” that would rival anything ever written by any big band arranger past or present, flute choirs phrased in unison with piccolos “on top” and the rarely heard bass flute [where else?] on the bottom, marimbas, a solo feature that highlights the brushwork of drummer iconic studio drummer Shelly Manne, beautiful ballads in the form of Dreamland, Joanna, Blues for Mother and A Quiet Gass – it’s all here; beautifully and consummately played by a group of world class musicians that populated the Hollywood Studios during the day and its many Jazz clubs at night.

In the music from Peter Gunn, Hank Mancini has given us a feast for the ages:

Gene Lees sums up Hank’s accomplishment in writing for the TV series this way:

I first met Henry Mancini in Chicago in 1959, when he was on a promotion tour for the Peter Gunn album and I was the editor of Down Beat. … He seemed wary. Or perhaps he was merely baffled by his sudden fame. If he was suspicious, it was no doubt because he had been under assault from elements of the east coast jazz critical establishment because of Peter Gunn.

His detractors were so busy deploring what Mancini had done with jazz that they overlooked what he was doing for it. Until that time, film-scoring was almost entirely derived from European symphonic composition. Mancini changed that. More than any other man, he Americanized film-scoring, and in time even European film composers followed in his path.

Although others had used elements of jazz in film underscore before him, Mancini was the man who opened the way for the full use of this music in drama. Mancini proved that the vocabulary of jazz could be used to express tenderness, romanticism, fear, laughter, pensiveness. But his purpose was not to write jazz, any more than it was to write symphonies: it was to underscore drama.”

RIP, Ed Bickert The great and revered Canadian jazz guitarist died in Toronto on 2/28/2019 at the age of 86.

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

Peter Hum wrote this obituary of Ed Bickert in The Kingston [Ontario] Whig Standard, March 2, 2019.

I’m posting it as a remembrance of Ed on these pages and I’ve added a YouTube video of a full album by him at the conclusion of Peter’s memorial to give you some examples of the inimitable Bickert style.

Ed’s introspectively harmonic style is one that he brought together over a lifetime of experimenting, exploring and examining how different chords, notes and phrases can embellish and expand the music.

Quiet and contemplative Jazz is becoming more and more a rarity these days. Thank goodness Ed put so much of it on record for those of us who appreciate this approach to the music.

“Canadian jazz guitar icon Ed Bickert, renowned almost as much for his quiet, self-effacing personality as for his mellow, impeccable way with his Fender Telecaster, died on Thursday. He was 86.

Until his retirement in 2000, the Manitoba-born musician was Toronto’s top guitarist for almost five decades. His masterful playing, heard with Paul Desmond, Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass, Don Thompson and Moe Koffman, would have cast a wider spell among the world’s jazz fans if Bickert had had a greater appetite for touring and the limelight. “I was born to be a side man,” Bickert once said.

Bickert grew up in Vernon, B.C., in a musical family. His father and mother played the piano and fiddle at country dances.

In 1952, the guitarist moved to Toronto to pursue his career, working initially as a radio station engineer, and then edging his way onto the music scene through session work and playing the clubs.

“Bickert quietly established himself as the city’s top dog guitarist,” said a 2012 Toronto Star profile of Bickert, which marked his 80th birthday. “International stars Bickert accompanied — from alto sax Paul Desmond to vibraphonist Milt Jackson to Rosemary Clooney — inevitably had to talk him into touring and then for only a limited time.”

Between 1975 and 2000, Bickert recorded more than a dozen albums as a leader. One of Bickert’s most elegant sideman recordings is the classic 1975 album Paul Desmond Quartet Live, recorded at Bourbon Street in Toronto.

In the liner notes of that album, Desmond wrote that he would often turn around and look at Bickert while on-stage to ”count the strings on Ed’s guitar … how does he get to play chorus after chorus of chord sequences which could not possibly sound better on a keyboard?”

In 1996, he was invested as a member of the Order of Canada for his contributions to the performing arts.

Bickert played small club gigs and festival concerts in Ottawa through the years until his retirement. He told an Ottawa Citizen interview before an early 2000 appearance:  “Some jazz people can just go ahead and do their thing regardless of noise or distractions, but that’s hard for me. I have to have a fair amount of attention and quiet to really play well.’

Bickert was renowned for his harmonic mastery, and confessed to the Citizen interviewer than harmony fascinated him.

”I really enjoy the harmonic aspect of music — not just jazz, but country and classical,” Bickert said. ”The harmony really turns me on, so I try to find things on the guitar that are more interesting harmonically than some of the basic grips.”

Unlike many a jazz musician that plays until the end, Bickert surprised and saddened jazz fans when he quit playing in 2000. He told the Toronto Star in 2012, “In 2000, my wife (Madeline) passed away, and I had arthritis and other problems which I got through. There just comes a time you don’t want to do it anymore.”

There was a star-studded concert in November 2012 in Toronto to mark Bickert’s 80th birthday. Bickert’s guitar was on stage, but Bickert was not. “I would hardly know how to hold the guitar,” Bickert told the Star.

“Jazz is imperfect but Ed gets as close to perfection as it gets,” bassist/pianist Thompson, Bickert’s collaborator for decades, told the Star.

On Facebook Saturday morning, musicians from across Canada paid tribute to Bickert.

Vancouver bassist and guitarist Andre Lachance wrote: “RIP Ed Bickert. An enormous thank you for your artistry and influence and contributions to culture. There literally is a little bit (or a lot) of Ed in every jazz guitar player in this country. Rarely has someone had that kind of influence on the practice of an instrument … true mastery.”

Gatineau, Que. guitarist Roland Doucet wrote: “I had a wonderful opportunity in Halifax around 1980 to hear him five nights in a row, front row centre in a new jazz supper club that lasted only a few months.

“As poor as I was, I was in the front table every night. (Often wondered, when will that cigarette ash drop, and will he ever play a ‘grip’ — his word for chord — that I recognize.

“Amazing artist. Amazing fingers. Best to me when working with a band, but solo was obviously incredible. A master.”

In an interview, Montreal jazz guitarist and Juno Award winner Mike Rud recalled that Bickert was the first jazz guitarist that he ever saw perform, in Grand Prairie, Alta., with Dizzy Gillespie and Moe Koffman, in the early 1980s.

“Jazz guitarists around the world rightly revere Ed Bickert,” Rud said. “But for Canadian jazz guitarists, I think he was the very voice of impeccable musical judgement — when to play, when not to.

“That’s before you even get to his chord approach, which was brand new, science-fiction level technology to all of us. Listening to his chord work, guitarists are left feeling like they are watching someone fill out the New York Times crossword puzzle, all perfectly correctly, and with many deeply satisfying, unexpected twists. Then in the next chorus, he erases all that, and fills it out all again with different, every-bit-as-perfect answers, over and over. Enchanting and infuriating.

“So much so that it’s easy to miss his single-note soloing, the sublime unfailingly swinging storytelling that made him an exquisite bandmate for Paul Desmond.

“All being done on a solid-body Telecaster, from which he coaxed a sound that would be the envy of any hollow-body player.

“I got to meet him a couple of times only, and play just a couple of tunes with him. I still play stuff I saw him play that day practically every single night. He was pleasant and soft-spoken. He’ll be more than missed.”

Don Menza Sextet - Live at Carmelo's

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

“These live performances at Carmelo’s [were a great experience for me. It was a chance to play with some of my favorite players and, as time has proven, they have become jazz legends. Because of the time limitations of LPs, we had to choose from 2 nites of recording and only six tunes were picked for the original LP release. Here are some of the other tunes played on that historic live recording. Sam Noto was in town with the Rob McConnell Big Band. Sal Nistico flew in from N.Y.C. and the rest of us were here in L.A.

Thanks to the efforts of the late Herb Wong (my good friend) we had the opportunity to record the music of Frank Strazzeri and some of my charts. These charts were originally written for trumpet-tenor-trombone, but after the untimely death of Frank Rosolino everything was put on hold. On these recordings I played the trombone parts on baritone and some on alto.

It was curious that all the players on these recordings are from the East coast, and yet everyone considered us West coasters (always thought of as the cool school). As you will hear, these takes are anything but cool. My thanks to Jordi and Fresh Sound for re-releasing these recordings.”

- Don Menza, Los Angeles, October 2015

Thanks to Jordi Pujol, the six tracks that were originally issued as the vinyl LP Hip Pocket in 1982 on Palo Alto Jazz [PAJ 8010], were expanded to thirteen when they were released in 2015 on his Fresh Sound Records double CD Don Menza Sextet - Live at Carmelo's [FSRCD 883-2].

Recorded on the evenings of October 2nd and 3rd, 1981, the music on Don Menza Sextet - Live at Carmelo's is deserving of greater exposure given the high quality of the performances by Sam Noto, trumpet and flugelhorn, Don on alto and baritone, Sal Nistico, on tenor sax and a rhythm section made up of Frank Strazzeri, Andy Simpkins and Shelly Manne, on piano, bass and drums, respectively.

Started in 1979 by the Piscitello family, Carmelo’s was located on Van Nuys Blvd., in Sherman Oaks, CA. After Chuck Piscitello died in 1983, Ruth and Del Hoover took over the club and kept a Jazz policy in place for another three years.

Like many Jazz clubs, Carmelo’s offered an intimate environment for both Jazz musicians and fans, especially since the venue was centrally located in the San Fernando Valley [northeast of Los Angeles] where many L.A.-based musicians lived.

Leonard Feather, the esteemed Jazz author and critic, was a frequent visitor to Carmelo’s and wrote the insert notes to many of the LP’s that were recorded at the club including these liner notes to Hip Pocket [Palo Alto Jazz PAJ 8010].

“The catalogue of Don Menza’s accomplishments over the past 20 years would require the space available on a foldout, two-pocket album to enumerate all the bands and combos he has worked with, all the countries and cities he has played.  Don’s energetic personality, so well reflected in his music, has been Hollywood-based since the late 1960’s. But during the last two decades the vigorous, uncompromising sound of his saxophone, and the spirited, cooking character of his compositions and arrangements have taken him on the road with Maynard Ferguson, Stan Kenton, Buddy Rich, Louis Bellson and Woody Herman, to name just a few, to Germany (where he worked from 1964 to 1968 as a member of Max Greger's television house band in Munich), to Japan, and to the concert stages of the world.  Among other distinctions, he appeared in concert with the Buffalo Philharmonic playing two of his original compositions.

Since there is no way of drawing up a complete summation of Don’s achievements, it would be better at this point to concentrate on the particular session at hand, recorded live at Carmelo’s.

First, a word about the club.  New Yorkers and others who are not privileged to lead the good life in the Southland may be unaware that in the past three years this had become one of the most consistently successful jazz rooms in the world, with live jazz seven nights a week by large and small bands, local and imported talent.  Don has worked there countless times, as leader or sideman with a variety of cooking groups in the mainstream-modern idiom. On this occasion he headed a combo that owed much of its cohesion and excitement to a rapport among the members born of frequent associations over the years.

Four members in particular have much in common on the basis of their geographical backgrounds.  Don was born in Buffalo, NY, April 22, 1936. Sal Nistico (four years Don’s junior) is from the same neck of the woods, hailing from Syracuse, NY.  Like Don, he worked with Herman, thought at different times and for much longer stretches, and briefly with Buddy Rich. Sam Noto is a slightly senior member of what Don likes to refer to as “the Upstate Association”.  Born in Buffalo in 1930, he too was a Kenton, Herman, and Bellson sideman. (Nistico and Noto have another link in Count Basie, with whom they both worked around 1964-1965). Noto, after living in Toronto for several years, now has his own club in Buffalo.

The fourth member of this loosely affiliated group, Frank Strazzeri, is a greatly underrated composer and pianist, born exactly one week after Noto, in Rochester, NY.  “Strazz” has fewer big band credits, thought he has worked with Les Brown, Oliver Nelson, and Bellson, but most of his best known work has been achieved with the late Cal Tjader, and with innumerable small units in the Los Angeles area.

In a moment, a word about the music, but first and explanation for those who may find it surprising that Don Menza, so well established as a tenor saxophonist, is heard on these sides playing alto and baritone, leaving the tenor assignments to Nistico.

“The fact is,” he says, “alto was my first horn, and to this day I enjoy playing alto and baritone even more than I  like to play tenor. Besides, it adds a nice color to the album rather than the usual two-tenor line-up we could have used with Sal and me.  Don’t forget, also, that I played the baritone chair in Mike Barone’s big band, and at various times I played both the alto and the baritone parts with Supersax.”

Completing the group are two superb musicians who for many years have enriched the Southland horizon.  Andy Simpkins settled in Los Angeles in 1966 after a decade on the road with the Three Sounds. He then toured with George Shearing for eight years, and lately has been consistently busy in a variety of jobs, mainly with Sarah Vaughan’s trio.

Shelly Manne, born in New York, was world famous as a drummer (with Kenton, Herman et al) before founding his Manne Hole, one of Hollywood’s most fondly remembered jazz clubs (1960-1973).  As Don remarked when we discussed this album, “Shelly is something else! I can’t get over the tremendous support he gave everyone on this album.”

The proceedings get under way with Hip Pocket, a Strazzeri original played in unison, and typical of Strazz’s invariable personal and attractive lines.  The composer has his own outing, and Don’s muscular bari has a sound that is personal rather than the all-too-frequent attempts to duplicate Harry Carney or Gerry Mulligan.  Simpkins has one of the most creative solos of his recorded career.

A racehorse pace dominates the next  Strazzeri piece. The Third Eye with four way solo credits to Noto, Don (on bari again), Sal and Strazz, after which the horns have a stimulating series of eights exchanged with Shelly Manne.

Nobody who knows his bebop history will fail to recognize Quasimodo.  These Charlie Parker lines of 1947 are based on the changes of Embraceable You, fittingly Don switches to also here, with Sam and Frank further accentuating the bop groove.

The third Strazzeri work, Opals finds Noto switching from trumpet to flugelhorn for a legato, lyrical solo that is characteristic of him.  Don’s alto solo on this track displays a stunning fluency and the ability to create a melodically meaningful line. Strazzeri displays the two principal aspects of his style:  single note line passages alternating with contrasted sequences in chords.

Don has the spotlight (yielded for a while to Strazz) as his eloquent alto outlines Winter of My Discontent.  This is a 1955 melody by the late Alex Wilder, introduced by Mabel Mercer. “Strazz found this song for me,” Don recalls, “as he has many other ballads.  He has an uncle in Rochester who’s a pianist and who knows a vast repertoire of great tunes like this.”

Finally there is the leader’s own composition, Steppin’.  The pace is up but not too hasty, the groove essentially bop, and the most remarkable feature is a long, dazzling solo by Sal Nistico.  Don modestly stayed in the background here, playing only on the ensembles. Sam Noto, like Sal, displays the essential three C’s of great improvisation: control, chops and continuity.  The changes, as hipper ears may detect, are those of You Stepped Out of a Dream.

Altogether, the contents of this very hip pocket typify the high standards maintained throughout Don Menza’s peripatetic career.  They mirror, too, the very considerable power of that too seldom recognized cadre, the “Upstate Association.””

Leonard Feather

Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Seventies

NOTES FROM THE PRODUCER

“A quick review of these three horn players should prompt you to realize at least two things – it’s the first time they have been on record together as a front line and their rich histories in the jazz world testify to their guarantee of very satisfying swing and unblemished musical values.  Don Menza, Sam Noto and Sal Nistico – “the upstart upstate burners” – can ignite any session; back up this phalanx with tried and true talents of Frank Strazzeri, Andy Simpkins and Shelly Manne and it should work, shouldn’t it? In truth, it’s a rhetorical matter.

There are memories of the record’s music the listener does not have – the conceptual origin of the record date and the circumstances permitting of coaxing its process of insight and mutation.  Despite this blur of experience, you can still focus on it by tapping your foot and getting in touch with the inspired players and their music. The experience is never removed from immediate consciousness.

One of the delectable things about hatching ideas for record dates is bypassing a prior framework and relying more on intuition and imagination.  Last year I was helping put together the debut performance of Rob McConnell’s heralded Boss Brass at the Monterey Jazz Festival – a consequence of my visit to catch Rob’s Big Band in Toronto on the occasion of their “live” recording in December 1980.  One of the galaxy of star players was Sam Noto, whose trumpet work I had admired since his earlier days with Stan Kenton.

Don Menza and I mused about the possibility of Noto recording in L.A. once we learned the Boss Brass would be in Hollywood too.  (Incidentally, Menza has been a popular visiting player in Toronto for years.) To add even more Sicilian fire, Sal Nistico floated into our dream.  So he was flown in from his home in Queens, New York.

Fresh music came by was of Menza and Strazzeri’s resourcefulness and rehearsals were held at Menza’s “home-rehearsal hall” with an enthusiastic Andy Simpkins and Shelly Manne.  Every one is a strikingly versatile and individualistic player – precise, mature, charmingly lyrical and unflaggingly exciting.

In fact, it’s not possible to ignore the sense of presence and the in person deliberateness.  And you can get close to the musical play of light and shadows flickering in the musicians. The scent and heat soaked through clothing – players and audiences alike.  The qualities cultivated by the event stimulated strong emotional responses independent of any values one may attach to the scene. The band of six broke through the top of the thermometer.”

HERB WONG

(Dr. Wong is a jazz journalist and educator and broadcasts on KJAZ, San Francisco.)

Here’s a link to the Fresh Sound catalogue for order information.