Dave Brubeck's Time Out : Why It's So Great

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Dave Brubeck’s secret is that his music is beautiful — unerringly, dreamily, laughingly beautiful. Paul Desmond’s playing, Joe Morello’s, Eugene Wright’s: all beautiful. He wrote new standards. Jazz or no jazz, he wrote songs, and each solo within the song was also a song. Dave Brubeck made music like no one else. That is his secret, and that is his legacy.

Written by Kile Smith and originally published in 2015, this piece was re-posted to the Philadelphia FM radio station [90.1] WRTI Jazz Blog in April 2019 as part of its Jazz Appreciation Month under the banner - 1959 The Year That Changed Jazz.

The year 1959 saw the release of Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, The Shape of Things to Come by Ornette Coleman, Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus and Time Out by Dave Brubeck all of which collectively introduced new elements into Jazz that moved it away from improvising on 32-bar melodies, 12-bar Blues, chord based harmonic progressions and standard 4/4 time signatures which had been the basic features of the music throughout the Swing and BeBop eras.

Written from the vantage point of the 60th anniversary of the Columbia LP Time Out it’s interesting to read this “take” by a writer of the current generation concerning what makes Dave Brubeck’s music on this album “so great.”

Frankly, aspects of this assessment of the significance of Dave and the classic quartet’s landmark recording had never occurred to me before. Perhaps they will be new to you, as well.

“In Jailhouse Rock, Elvis plays an ex-con rube hoping to make it in the music business. He’s dragged to a swanky party, where he’s wedged between society snobs who try to look intellectual and hip by discussing modern music. They toss around lingo like “dissonance” and “atonality,” and the names of some musicians, including that of Dave Brubeck. Elvis’s increasing discomfort wells up when the hostess asks his opinion. Rather than revealing his ignorance, he barks crudely at her and stalks out.

Hollywood knows a good stereotype when it sees one, hick or slick, and “Brubeck” meant cerebral, cool, West Coast. The Dave Brubeck Quartet was already one of the hottest ensembles in jazz in the ’50s, playing hundreds of concerts, and releasing multiple LPs, every year. Brubeck’s face had been on the cover of Time magazine in 1954, Jailhouse Rock came out in 1957, and it would still be two years before the Quartet had its incandescent burst into the stratosphere — and into jazz history — with the release of Time Out.

Led by the hit single “Take Five,” written by alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, Time Out was the first jazz album to sell a million copies. It broke many conventions in achieving that. For one thing, it was a jazz album with nothing but original pieces. No comforting “standards” were on it to reassure buyers wary of new music.

For another, the cover art was a contemporary, abstract painting. People like to look at faces, especially of celebrities, but there were no photos of the popular musicians greeting the public, just egg shapes and abutting slaps of color.

But the biggest risk, of course, was the music. “Take Five” added one little beat to the normal 4/4 pulse and made it 5/4, an unheard-of time signature for jazz. It’s found in avant-garde music or in folk traditions tucked away in Hungary, India... or in Turkey, where Dave discovered it. On tour, he heard local musicians playing odd rhythms and decided right there that he’d make a jazz album employing unusual time signatures. “Blue Rondo à la Turk” in a crazily sliced 9/8 was born there, and so was Brubeck’s lasting popularity.

These are beats you can’t dance to and can’t sing to, or so we’d think. The album was a gauntlet slammed into the ground of jazz. With Time Out, it’s as if Dave Brubeck were announcing, “Ladies and gentlemen, there is only one rule in jazz. It’s got to swing. And we can swing in 4, 3, 5, 7, 9, or anything. Here we go.” And off they went. “Take Five” was not only the Quartet’s biggest hit, it is still the biggest jazz single in history.

Desmond’s tune, and his sound, epitomize the ice-smooth and pungent spice of his talent. He likened his own playing to a dry martini, and there’s never been a better description. His supple, mid-air twists still amaze, but he’s a giant because of the non-headlining gifts he prized above all others. In a letter to his father he listed them: “beauty, simplicity, originality, discrimination, and sincerity.”

He was Charlie Parker’s favorite alto player. Desmond admired Parker and other bop musicians, but knew he could never be one. He joked, “I have won several prizes as the world’s slowest alto player, as well as a special award in 1961 for quietness.”

Joe Morello is the kind of drummer whose talent knocks you down in stages. He’s not the freight train that Art Blakey was, nor a Buddy Rich Formula One race car. Philly Joe Jones played like he was falling down a flight of stairs and then strolled away smiling, but Joe Morello was Picasso, painting himself into cubist corners and turning the trap set into a mirage. Or like M.C. Escher, with finely detailed, perfectly executed stick-work leading you down a stairwell and out onto a roof.

But he could shout, too. His solo on the “Take Five” single sneaks in, stutter-stepping, but before long he’s slamming doors, or the same door, over and over, until he’s satisfied that it’ll say shut. Then he skips away on the ride cymbal.

With time-bending sax and shape-shifting drums, the bass player had better be strong, and Eugene Wright is that rock. His playing has been described as “Kansas City,” which, to my ears, in the context of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, means solid and fluid at the same time. It’s steady but always singing and tuneful. Wright is more than just the reliable springboard for the others, but a master technician of blues and feel. The little laugh at the end of “Unsquare Dance,” a blues Rubik's Cube from the Time Further Out album, is Wright’s relief that their layered syncopations over 7/4 actually worked!

“Take Five” may be the most thankless of songs for a bassist, since he’s little more than a metronome on this chart, recycling the same notes over and over. But listen closely. He’s not just keeping the beat, he’s handing it on. Even in “Take Five” you’ll hear Eugene Wright’s unbearable lightness of time.

Dave Brubeck may be the most unlikely of jazz pianists. He almost was tossed from college in his senior year, he related, because they discovered that he hadn’t learned to read music. A few players, early in jazz history, didn’t read notes, working music out by ear. But Brubeck’s sense of harmony is so intricate that we're surprised by the story. They were surprised then, because in four years of college nobody had caught it.

His style of playing also sets him apart, and some wished that he'd cut loose during solos like other pianists. But he wasn’t like other pianists, and his music isn’t like other music. His block chords and rolling ruminations lend themselves to the sometimes-punishing chromaticism of the tunes. (Take a look at the sheet music to “The Duke” sometime to feel your head lean to one side.)

He was always trying something new, looking for sonic breakthroughs that would illuminate the bones and sinews of a piece. That was his swing, and his jazz, and it works.

The secret of Brubeck’s music, though, and of his success, has nothing to do with style. His impact on jazz isn’t because he's cool or West Coast. It’s not that Brubeck didn’t play standards (he did). It’s not even rhythm or time signatures or the supposed braininess Hollywood made him the poster boy for. If you want intellect, after all, bop’s your game.

No, Dave Brubeck’s secret is that his music is beautiful — unerringly, dreamily, laughingly beautiful. Paul Desmond’s playing, Joe Morello’s, Eugene Wright’s: all beautiful. He wrote new standards. Jazz or no jazz, he wrote songs, and each solo within the song was also a song. Dave Brubeck made music like no one else. That is his secret, and that is his legacy.”

Curtis Amy - Testifyin’ Texas Tenor

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

That Texas tenor sound is a phenomenon in itself. David “Fathead” Newman, Don Wilkerson, Booker Ervin, James Clay, King Curtis,Budd Johnson, Arnett Cobb, Buddy Tate, and Wilton Felder were some of its major exponents to emerge in the fifties. As different as their styles were, they shared a rich, hard, vibrato-less sound and a clear, deliberate articulation.

The sound is strong, sure and prideful, but with an underlying vulnerability. It's pas­sionate. … Cannonball Adderley described it as ‘a moan inside the tone.’ …”

- Michael Cuscuna, 1997

One could certainly add the name of Curtis Amy to the above list of Texas Tenor saxophonists.

Soul and Funk were the big, new discoveries of a number of Jazz record companies in the early 1960s. With their heavy backbeats and simple melodic refrains, the soulful and funky Jazz styles appealed to a wider audience, particularly those who liked their Jazz laced with a heavy dose of rhythm and blues.

The origins or “roots” [an “in” word for those times] of soulful and funky Jazz supposedly were to be found in their connection to the religious music that was sung and played in southern Baptist and Pentecostal churches. Music, as well as, prayer was one means of penitence, or, in the parlance of the times, testifyin or signifyin’ one’s spiritual allegiance.

Bluesy albums set to a boogaloo beat were another by-product of this era of Jazz commercialism and words like “funky” and “groovy” and “soulful” were plastered all over LP covers.

It was a fun music to play, especially if you were a drummer. Nothing complicated. Music played at slow-to-moderate tempos, with melodies mainly derived from 12-bar blues and lots of rim shots or two-beat shuffles tapped out on the snare and bass drums.

The vocal epitome of this style of music was “brother” Ray Charles whose tambourine-totting background singers were always there to show the audience where to clap their hands or stomp their feet on the second and fourth beats of every bar of the music.

But, hey, even Jazz musicians have to eat and pay the rent and the popularity of Soul and Funk provided lots of gigs until the dramatic rise of Rock ‘n Roll took things in a different direction in the 1960s.

Tenor saxophonist Curtis Amy came to prominence during this era and the titles of some of his recordings – The Blues Message, Meetin’ Here, Way Down, Groovin’ Blue, - are reflective of it.

Texas tenorman Curtis Amy had a long and distinguished career as a jazz artist, studio musician and  record executive. During his years with Pacific Jazz, he recorded six superb albums that revealed an artist who constantly challenged himself as an improviser and as a composer.

With the exception of Katanga which was issued as a limited edition CD in 1998 by Blue Note as part of its West Coast Classics series [CDP 94580], none of Amy’s output for Pacific Jazz was reissued digitally until Michael Cuscuna and his team at Mosaic Records collected all six of the Amy Pacific Jazz LP’s and put them out as a 3-CD Mosaic Select boxed-set in 2003.

Here is the text from mosaicrecords.com announcing this set.

The Bluesy Drive of a Great Texas Tenor.

“There’s nothing quite like the mournful cry or the bluesy drive of a great Texas tenor saxophonist. Curtis Amy was of the same generation as Booker Ervin, David Fathead Newman, James Clay and Wilton Felder, but his time in the jazz spotlight was brief. Amy had a beautiful sound and a style that was both muscular and lyrical. Although he had a long and successful career in his transplanted home of Los Angeles, much of it was spent doing high profile studio work and working with his wife, the extraordinary Merry Clayton.

During his years with Pacific Jazz (1960-63), he recorded six superb albums that revealed an artist who constantly challenged himself as an improviser and as a composer. After The Blues Message and Meetin’ Here, two soulful collaborations with organist Paul Bryant, he moved into more textured hard bop surroundings, fronting sextets with varied instrumentation. He and Frank Butler co-led Groovin’ Blue, which features Carmell Jones and Bobby Hutcherson. Way Down includes Roy Ayers, Marcus Belgrave, Victor Feldman and valve trombonist Roy Brewster among others.

Tippin’ On Through was recorded live at the Lighthouse with Ayers and Brewster among others. Amy’s final album for the label Katanga is regarded as his masterpiece; it featured the legendary trumpeter Dupree Bolton as well as Ray Crawford and Jack Wilson. From the furious be-bop of the title tune to the lament "Lonely Woman" to the hypnotic, extended performance of "Native Land", Amy's work as an improviser and composer is at its zenith. Trumpeter Dupree Bolton, who made an impressive debut on Harold Land's "The Fox" three years earlier, is absolutely dazzling with a brash attack, formidable chops and very original ideas.

Although he made two more albums (in 1966 and 1994) and recorded with Gerald Wilson and Onzy Matthews, the six albums that he made for Pacific Jazz – all contained in this Mosaic Select set represent his greatest legacy. Amazingly, five of them make their appearance on CD for the first time.”

Thomas Conrad offered the following review of the Mosaic Select: Curtis Amy set in the May 2004 edition of JazzTimes.

© -Thomas Conrad, JazzTimes, May 2004, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“For all those who have regarded Mosaic boxed sets as the gold standard among jazz reissue programs, the recently introduced Mosaic Select series requires some spirit of compromise. The seventh release in the series, for example, provides only six short paragraphs of current retrospective on the career of tenor saxophonist Curtis Amy. In a "real" Mosaic collection, we would have gotten a full-size catalog, an extravagance of session photos and a new in-depth essay by a leading Amy authority with voluminous discographical data. In this three-CD set, we get only the undistinguished original liner notes.

But if the Select series is budget-challenged, it is also free to go where big Mosaic boxed sets cannot-for example, to artists whose recorded output is sparse, and/or whose appeal is limited to (in Mosaic founder/producer Michael Cuscuna's words) "a relatively small but discerning audience."

Case in point, Curtis Amy. He came out of Houston, Texas-a fact that is announced with his entrance on the very first track of disc one, "Searchin'." After Paul Bryant's plaintive prologue on Hammond B3, Amy emerges with a huge, long, braying wail, a sound that only emanates from one (Lone Star) state.

Unlike the other great Texas tenors who came up in the '40s and '50s (Illinois Jacquet, Arnett Cobb, Booker Ervin, David "Fathead" Newman, et. al.), Amy went west. He settled in Los Angeles in 1955, became active on the L.A. scene and recorded six LPs for Richard Bock's Pacific label between 1960 and 1963. All six are here, and only one of them, Katanga!, has ever been previously reissued on CD. Between 1963 and 1994, Amy recorded only once under his own name. During these years he played in L.A. big bands, toured with Ray Charles, and worked as a studio musician, record company executive, and actor. He died at the age of 72 in 2002.

Amy was more than just a special player. He was a commanding figure with a big, blustering sound and chops to burn, a teller of definitive tales of the soul. The first two albums represented, The Blues Message and Meetin' Here, with the little known Bryant, are examples of the tenor/organ combo genre as powerful as anything that ever came out of New York. Amy could testify with anyone, and he was also an exceptional ballad interpreter ("Come Rain or Come Shine," "Angel Eyes").

The progress of these six albums moves from deep blues grooves to more textured and sophisticated-but still soulful-approaches. Along the way, a door is opened to a subset of West Coast jazz much earthier than the famous "cool school," while still reflecting a sunnier environment than that of East Coast hard bop. Amy surrounds himself with some of the best players of that time and place, like Carmell Jones and Dupree Bolton and Frank Strazzeri and Frank Butler. But his own clarion, assertive voice always dominates.

The collection culminates in what Michael Cuscuna calls "Amy's masterpiece," Katanga!. It is indeed an album where everything magically works, from inspiration through execution. Pianist Jack Wilson and guitarist Ray Crawford use their allotted space beautifully, and Amy, in a stunning purity of tone, introduces his new instrument, soprano saxophone. But Katanga! will always be remembered as the last documented appearance on record of trumpeter Dupree Bolton, one of the most mysterious and tragic figures in the history of jazz. Bolton could spit fire and turn the flames into music on a level approaching Clifford Brown. But after Katanga! he disappeared into prisons, institutions and a life on the streets.”

Franco Ambrosetti - LONG WAVES

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

As regular visitors to this page are aware, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles only does occasional reviews of new recordings.

The primary reason for this is that we are focused on other things to do with a historical perspective on Jazz and its makers.

But every so often, thanks to the good graces of our friends in media relations, we do come across a new recording that we think merits your attention, so we take the time to prepare a posting about it.

Such is the case with Long Waves, Franco Ambrosetti’s new CD on the Unit label [UTR 4907].

Franco has a very engaging style; thoughtful and reflective. He plays from the heart; he feels the notes. His tone on trumpet is reminiscent of the cooler sound on the instrument. He “comes from” Bix, Miles, Chet and Art Farmer. No pyrotechnics here, just expressive, beautiful trumpet and flugelhorn playing. 

There’s a quality in the music on Long Waves that can only be described as one of contentment. It permeates each of the seven tracks that make up this recording and stems in large measure from the fact that Franco has surrounded himself with Pro’s pros with John Scofield on guitar, Uri Caine on piano, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Jack DeJohnette.

How can you not make music that sounds happy, joyous and free with these guys in your band? 

Two standards - Old Folks and On Green Dolphin Street - are included with four originals by Franco and one by Swiss pianist George Gruntz, and these give the listener a chance to become acquainted with the musicians on familiar turf before branching out into their improvisations on the new tunes.

All but one of the tracks averages between 7-8 minutes which allows Franco and his band of all-stars to stretch out and demonstrate their considerable skills and talents at “making Jazz.”

Beautifully recorded with an in-the-room sound presence, the CD also comes with insert notes by Grammy-winning Jazz author and critic, Bob Blumenthal.

Unfortunately, today’s Jazz world is beset with recordings of self-produced mediocrity that blur the marketplace with advertisement which makes it difficult to find gems like Franco Ambrosetti’s Long Waves. But if you are looking for an exceptional and enjoyable Jazz listening experience, you need look no farther than this new CD from Franco, John, Uri, Scott and Jack.

There’s a wealth of background information about Franco and his career, as well as, more background information about the music and the musicians on Long Waves in the following press release from Antje Hubner at Hubtone PR.

Zürich, Switzerland, September 5, 2019 - One of the most revered figures on the European jazz scene, Swiss trumpeter Franco Ambrosetti has maintained a strong affinity for the music since debuting as a leader in 1965 with A Jazz Portrait of Franco Ambrosetti. Now approaching his 78th birthday in December, Ambrosetti is still swinging after all these years, which is very much in evidence by his latest recording, Long Waves. An all-star session recorded in January, 2019 in New York City, Ambrosetti's 28th as a leader overall and second for the Swiss-based Unit Records features celebrated guitarist John Scofield, pianist Uri Caine, bassist Scott Colley and legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette. Together they interact on an intimate level, displaying remarkable chemistry on seven tracks. "It was like a constant dialogue," said Ambrosetti of the empathetic session. "After one rehearsal, I felt like I had played with this group every night for the last five years."

From their relaxed, conversational interpretation of the poignant ballad "Old Folks" to their swinging treatment of "On Green Dolphin Street" to new Ambrosetti originals like his buoyantly swinging "Silli's Waltz" and the burning "Silli's Long Wave" (both named for his wife of 22 years) and his tango-flavored "Milonga," Long Waves stands as a crowning achievement in the long and storied career of the esteemed trumpeter-flugelhornist-composer.

Jazz has been a part of Ambrosetti's DNA since he was a child. Born in Lugano on December 10, 1941, he inherited a love of swinging music from his father Flavio Ambrosetti, an accomplished jazz saxophonist who founded the first jazz club in his hometown, organized the first jazz festival in Lugano and also played opposite Charlie Parker at the 1949 Paris Jazz Festival.

Though he studied classical piano from the age of nine, Ambrosetti eventually picked up trumpet at age 17. And while he may have patterned himself after Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan in his early years, the single biggest influence on his now signature singing quality on the trumpet and flugelhorn was Miles Davis. "Miles sometimes was playing just three notes but with so much intensity, and especially when he was playing a ballad," he noted. "So from listening to Miles I learned about stretching a note when you play a melody. Instead of playing the notes shorter or staccato, you stretch the notes out like you're really singing. And I think I can express my feelings more if I really cry that note."

In 1966, at age 24, Ambrosetti won a prestigious international jazz competition in Vienna directed by pianist Friedrich Gulda. With a jury consisting of Cannonball Adderley, Art Farmer, Jay Jay Johnson, Joe Zawinul, Ron Carter and Mel Lewis, Franco ended up outranking fellow trumpeters Randy Brecker, Claudio Roditi and Tomas Stanko for the first prize. The following year, he played his first concert in the United States, performing in his father's quintet, the Flavio Ambrosetti All-Stars, at the 1967 Monterey Jazz Festival. Through the '70s, he led his own groups and also toured with the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band. During the '80s and '90s, he performed concerts and made TV appearances throughout Europe while recording most of his projects in New York City with such esteemed sidemen as pianists Hal Galper, Tommy Flanagan, Geri Allen and Kenny Kirkland, saxophonists Phil Woods, Michael Brecker, Steve Coleman and Greg Osby, bassists Dave Holland, Buster Williams and Michael Formanek, drummers Billy Hart and Billy Drummond. His 1993 album, Live at the Blue Note, featured tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake, pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Ira Coleman and drummer Victor Lewis.

            

Ambrosetti's 2001 album, Grazie Italia, was a collection of beloved Italian folk and popular tunes, from "Volare" to "Roma Nun Fa Stupida" to Bruno Martino's "Estate." As he said of that beloved project, "Italy is my culture but I'm Swiss, so I was thanking Italy for giving me this kind of gift." In 2008, he appeared at Quincy Jones' 75th birthday celebration at the Montreux Jazz Festival, performing a sublime rendition of "My Ship" (recreating the Gil Evans arrangement from 1957's Miles Ahead) and a soulful muted trumpet reading of "Summertime" (recreating the Evans-Davis collaboration from 1959's Porgy And Bess). His 2015 Enja release, After the Rain, was a heartfelt tribute to John Coltrane that featured alto saxophonist Greg Osby, pianist Dado Maroni, bassist Buster Williams, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and his son Gianluca on soprano sax. In 2017, Ambrosetti marked the milestone of his 75th birthday by inviting an all-star cast of friends and colleagues to record Cheers. Pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Williams, drummers DeJohnette and Carrington, pianists Caine, Maroni and Antonio Faraòi, saxophonist Osby, guitarist Scofield and fellow trumpeter and longtime friend Randy Brecker were among the participants in that gala New York session. 

Ambrosetti's debut on Unit Records was 2018's lavish orchestral project, The Nearness of You, with strings conducted by Massimo Nunzi and brass and woodwinds conducted by Tonino Battista. That album, which included gorgeous renditions of Kurt Weill's "My Ship," Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Luiza" and Hoagy Carmichael's title track, also featured Franco's son Gianluca on soprano sax. That same year, the trumpeter received the Swiss Jazz Award presented at the Jazz Ascona Festival in Switzerland. In his autobiography, Two Roads, Both Taken, Ambrosetti addressed the issue of juggling careers as jazz trumpeter and industrialist. "Music won me over right away," he wrote, "whereas, the business activity took a few decades to seduce me."

While Ambrosetti decided to pursue his family's multi-million-dollar business for decades, he never put his trumpet on the shelf. "I would practice every day through the years and I still practice every day," he said. "Trumpet is an instrument that you have to practice every day, at least half an hour, or you lose your chops. So I do manage to play every day of my life." He pours a lifetime of experience into every note on Long Waves, pushed to some dramatic heights by his stellar crew of seasoned veterans in Scofield, Caine, Colley and DeJohnette.

TRACKS

Milonga [07:13]

Try Again [07:10]

Silli's Long Wave [08:44]

One For The Kids [07:16]

Old Folks [08:36]

Silli's Waltz [05:24]

On Green Dolphin Street [09:05]

Producer: Jeff Levenson

Executive Producer: Harald Haerter

Executive Producer: Silli Ambrosetti

Recorded at Sear Sound Studios, NY, January 30-31, 2019

Mastered by Greg Calbi, Sterling Sound

THE LABEL - For over three decades Unit Records has been documenting the best of jazz, modern classical and electronic music. Founded by guitarist Harald Haerter, it is an all-purpose music platform, covering the needs of the recording, performing and presenting communities throughout Europe. www.unitrecords.com

Gary McFarland: New Writer in Town by Martin Williams

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

The following essay appeared in the March 1, 1962 edition of Down Beat and was written by the distinguished Jazz critic and author Martin Williams.

It is hard to imagine that the career of Gary McFarland would be over less than 10 years later when he died from ingesting a poison that was accidentally or intentionally put into his drink at the 55 Bar in New York City.

For all intents and purposes, Gary became one of the “Sad Young Men” that Anita O’Day sang about in the Verve LP that Gary arranged for her around the time that Martin Williams was writing his article for Down Beat.

I was reminded of the point-in-time relevance of Martin’s piece after viewing Kristian St. Clair’s award-winning biopic, This Is Gary McFarland: The Jazz Legend Who Should Have Been A Pop Star.

"The name of  vibraharpist-composer-arranger Gary McFarland has been showing  up  on several jazz LPs recently.

He contributed pieces called Weep and Chuggin’ to the Gerry Mulligan band's A Concert in Jazz. He wrote several lines for Johnny Hodges' Blue Hodge, including the title piece. He did all the arranging (and much of the selecting of tunes as well) for Anita O'Day's forthcoming recital, All the Sad Young Men. His work also will be represented on forthcoming records by Ray Brown and Bob Brookmeyer. And the Modern Jazz Quartet performs his lovely Why Are You Blue?, usually with a compliment to McFarland's talent in John Lewis' announcement.

Who is Gary McFarland, and how did he rise rather quietly to his current position of acceptance as an arranger and writer for jazz groups?

He is a young man, born in Los Angeles in 1933, who developed a liking of jazz as a youngster in the not-too-propitious town of Grants Pass, Ore., where his family moved when he was 15.

"It was during my year and a half at the University of Oregon that I began to listen to jazz records with some discrimination, or I hope with some discrimination," he said. "I had heard jazz before, of course, and liked it. I loved boogie woogie. I liked Lester Young, and I liked Miles Davis. I used to pester a record shop owner in Oregon for jazz records, and I was probably the only one who did, so he didn't keep many in stock. But I did manage to get some of the Miles Davis nontet things, Move, Budo, and others. The texture of those pieces fascinated me, although at the time I had no idea how it was done.

"I also listened then to some Woody Herman things, Lemon Drop particularly, and Early Autumn. I was aware of Gerry Mulligan's writing then, when his first quartet things appeared, they made quite an impression. Everything seemed so orderly, although they were nothing like so formal as his scores for the Miles Davis group. I was hearing other things that were not quite so cool, too. I remember particularly the Dig album by Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins. I got to know that at Oregon.

"Looking back, I think that anything that had a real bluesy quality really got to me then and still does."

In 1954, McFarland went into the Army and at Fort Sill in Oklahoma started to play. A musician friend there, he said, tried to get him over what he calls his "terrible laziness."

McFarland picked vibes, not because, he said, he liked the instrument, and not because of anybody who played them, but just because it seemed easy to play.

After the Army, McFarland spent a great deal of time almost wandering up and down the West Coast.

He went to visit a brother in San Jose in 1957, and he soon was giving education another try at the San Jose City College.

"I was playing no vibes — didn't even own a set — and I was not really involved in music then," he said, "but I met a man there named Santiago Gonzales who had a local quartet, and we became friendly.

"All the while I had kept hearing my own tunes in my head, even when I had lost all intention of working in music. One day, as Gonzales and I were talking, I started to play a melody on the piano. I have no idea how I harmonized it, but I was playing the line. He liked it immediately and encouraged me. He told me that anybody who could do that should work seriously as a musician.

"He also told me how lazy I was. I played him a piece I called High Priest — for Monk — and he really dug it. That very evening, he had his quartet do it and had me play it with them. It felt wonderful! All of a sudden I had something I was really interested in. I had never even tried to learn to read music till then, and I certainly couldn't write it, but then I started to learn.

"I was married in the spring of 1958, and I am sure that helped stabilize me, too."

Soon McFarland had moved with Santiago and the group to San Francisco. He was still writing melodies for them and learning. At this point, he found out in Down Beat about scholarships to the Berklee School of Music in Boston.

"The group and I taped six things that I had written." he said. "Then I phoned Ralph Gleason, and he took the time in his very busy life to listen to them. He encouraged me greatly. I also needed some letters from musicians to apply to Berklee, and Cal Tjader and Buddy Montgomery helped me there. And I had also approached John Lewis and he said why not also try for the School of Jazz at Lenox, Mass.—with a stern warning about how much hard work was ahead."

In August, 1959, McFarland attended the School of Jazz as composer and vibraphonist.

"I did my first writing for horns at the School of Jazz, and I learned a lot," he said. "Chiefly, I learned how very confused and amateurish I had been before."

McFarland was back at Lenox in 1960, but, meanwhile, put in a semester at the Berklee School, and while there he had a chance to work with the Herb Pomeroy Band at the Stable.

"Then I really learned," McFarland recalled. "I was very lucky to be working with Herb. He never gave orders, but he always encouraged me. He always tried out everything I brought in and rehearsed it carefully. Altogether I did about 15 arrangements. Some of them he didn't use, and I began to realize that in those particularly, I wasn't really writing for the men in that band. As soon as this began to dawn on me, he would say, 'Just write, but write for the men/ It was an essential lesson."

McFarland said he thinks that this is what Duke Ellington has always done and why he is so great.

"When I first heard him in person at the Music Barn at Lenox, I was completely taken," he said. "Those men can go up on the stand looking so down, but the moment they begin to play, it's magnificent. Have you heard Suite Thursday”? Especially that last section!

"Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington are really my favorite writers—and Gil Evans. And Mulligan especially taught me to build things, to structure for climaxes. But I think Miles Davis is still my biggest influence."

McFarland was recently asked by Verve a&r man Creed Taylor to do the writing for a jazz LP of the score of the well-received musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Transforming an unfamiliar score into jazz material is not an easy job. Although musical comedy has supplied the jazz repertory with plenty of material, what is effective on stage is not always effective as jazz.

"Most of the pieces in How to Succeed are made fairly simple to fit the plot and characters of the show," he said. "As I began to work on them, I realized that that simplicity was a big help in rephrasing them. Then, when we started lining up the band, well! Al Cohn, Clark Terry, Bob Brookmeyer, Phil Woods, Oliver Nelson, Hank Jones, Kenny Burrell — you can depend on them to make music out of almost anything. I reminded myself to write for them. I made each piece to feature one or two of them. I would ask myself, 'How would Clark or Bob or Al phrase this line?' write it that way, and then give them solos. They made it very easy."

Brookmeyer's comment: "Al Cohn and I have given Gary McFarland fair warning — if he gets any better we are going to shoot him.""