The Boston Jazz Chronicles: Faces, Places and Nightlife 1937-1962

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

"This is the book that many of us have been waiting for. Thank you, Richard Vacca, for giving us so much information on the rich history of jazz in Boston. The maps and pictures are wonderful additions to our knowledge of not only Boston jazz, but also the history of the city. I know that this is a book that I will turn to again and again."

—Eric Jackson of WCBH radio, Boston

"A tremendous piece of work, well written and researched. It's some of the best writing on the subject of regional jazz that I've read. The depth of the information Vacca has amassed on the Boston scene is incredible...a wonderful and valuable book."

— Robert Freedman, composer and GRAMMY-winning arranger

"The Boston Jazz Chronicles brought back memories of my years in Boston, at Storyville in Kenmore Square and Copley Square. Every Boston jazz fan must read this book. You won't put it down until every page is read."

— George Wein, legendary club owner and founder of the Newport Jazz Festival

“Engaging, expertly researched, and a great read. Brimming with lively profiles of people and places. Even the most knowledgeable jazz fan will find much that is new, surprising, and insightful. An important book for jazz, and for Boston.”

— Mark Harvey, composer and director of the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra

"Boston was (and still is) a very special place for jazz, and this is a very special book, loaded with information, much of it new, all of it presented in a most engaging style, and seasoned with rare photos and replica. A veritable treasure-trove of jazz lore, and a great read!"

—Dan Morgenstern, author of Living with Jazz and Director Emeritus, Institute of Jazz Studies

As RICHARD VACCA, a Boston-based technical writer and editor, amateur historian, and regular presenter on the topic of Boston jazz and nightlife who spent seven years researching and assembling The Boston Jazz Chronicles explains:

“There's more to music in Boston than the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Jazz, for example, dates to the early 1900s, but it was in the 1940s and 1950s that it truly sparkled. The formative big-band and wartime years produced talents such as Ray Perry and Sabby Lewis. Postwar Boston became a destination for young veterans and big-band musicians seeking new direction. They joined with Boston's own formidable musicians to form a new, more modern scene, led by such luminaries as Jaki Byard, Joe Gordon, Nat Pierce, Charlie Mariano, Herb Pomeroy, and Sam Rivers.

The music was splendid, but there was more: Boston was home to influential jazz journalist Nat Hentoff; Berklee College of Music founder Lawrence Berk; and Storyville proprietor George Wein. And through it all was the music, at the Savoy Cafe, the Hi-Hat, the Stable, and other rooms both rowdy and refined.”

In his Preface, Richard describes how he came to write The Boston Jazz Chronicles: Faces, Places and Nightlife 1937-1962:

“The Boston Jazz Chronicles started because I like to walk, and because I like history, and especially because I like jazz.

Back in 2004, my plan was to create a walking tour that would guide tourists and townies alike through Boston’s jazz history, one of the better stories about this city that most don't know. Boston has a rich jazz history, and I wanted to uncover it and bring it to life. I had no intention of joining the tedious debate about what jazz is and who is entitled to play it, and not being a musician myself, I wasn't going to try to interpret the ambitions and motivations of those who played the music 60 years ago. I saw my role as that of reporter, not critic, and my intent was to leave it to others to intuit deeper meanings.

The first task was to find places to walk to, and I soon learned that most of the places of Boston jazz are gone, demolished to make way for apartments, office buildings, expressway ramps, and parking lots. Some burned down. The few sites that remain house enterprises far removed from jazz music— storefronts, sandwich shops, private residences. A few are still nightclubs, but there hasn't been a lick of jazz heard within them in years. This was not a promising start.

It seemed a better option was to collect stories, find pictures, and assemble a book—an armchair walking tour. That's the first book I wrote, but that's not the book you hold in your hands. This book, though still organized primarily around places, is ordered chronologically. It sets those places in context better than the armchair walking tour did.”

The following excerpt from his Introduction further sets the tone for his work:

“The story of jazz is a story of cities. In the popular telling of that story, the first city is New Orleans, credited as the birthplace of jazz. It emerged from that city's rich musical stew, a bubbling mix of ragtime, minstrelsy, European concert music, spirituals, back-country blues, and brass bands. It was the birthplace of Louis Armstrong, the music's first superstar and the eminence from whom so much inspiration flowed.

Then jazz moved up the Mississippi River to its second city, Chicago, where it learned its big-city ways in the cabarets and speakeasies of the 1920s. It swept across the wide-open southwest and didn't stop until it got to Kansas City, the Paris of the Plains, where its bluesy, driving swing became synonymous with thirties jazz—and the sound of Count Basie's band.

It was New York, though, that became the jazz capital of the world and the place that attracted talented musicians from all the other cities. From the early days of syncopation in the 1910s, to the Harlem Stride piano men, to the musically advanced orchestras of Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington in the 1920s, to the eruption of big band swing in the 1930s, New York was every bit the Big Apple. By the time the world went to war, there wasn't much room left for any other place in the popular story.

As fine as it was, though, New York had no monopoly on jazz. Perhaps New Orleans, Chicago, and Kansas City never reclaimed their prewar heights, but their musicians didn't stop making music. And what of other places? Jazz is a city sound, so what about Detroit, Philadelphia, St, Louis, or a dozen more? Musicians in those places weren't standing still, either. There were jazz scenes in all of them, smaller than New York's but vibrant nonetheless.

Let's add one more city to this list: Boston, Massachusetts. Boston not only had an active jazz scene, it had an important one, worthy of a prominent place on the jazz map. Of modest size before Pearl Harbor, the scene grew amidst the bustle of wartime activity in a busy port town. The late 1940s and 1950s were a time of tremendous energy and creativity both on stage and off. Boston was an incubator of musical talent, a training ground for jazz journalists, a magnet for music education, and a proving ground for new approaches in jazz presentation. Other cities made contributions as well, but Boston was unique in that it made major contributions to all of them. It wasn't only about playing notes. It was about building a scene.”

Copies of the book can be ordered directly from www.troystreet.com.

Of particular interest to me was the section of the book devoted to the formation and development of the Herb Pomeroy Big Band, a Jazz orchestra that I had always enjoyed listening to on record. Herb’s Life is A Many Splendored Gig was released on Roulette Records in 1957 LP R-52001 and reissued on CD by Fresh Sounds records in 1989 FSR-CD 84 and became a constant source of inspiration during my fledgling years as a big band drummer.

Here are some excerpts about Herb’s fine big band from Mr. Vacca’s book from the section entitled -

BIRTH OF A BIG BAND

“The energy and excitement at the Stable was not happening in a vacuum. Late 1955 was a lively time in Boston, and a glance at the newspapers from around Thanksgiving that year shows a jazz scene in high gear. Looking back on it, the level of activity is hard to believe, an embarrassment of jazz riches, the high-water mark of jazz in Boston not only in the fifties, but in all of our 25-year span. Across the street in the Copley Square Hotel, Storyville was on a piano kick that November, presenting Garner, Tatum, and Shearing, while in their cellar, Mahogany Hall featured Wild Bill Davison, Vic Dickenson and Jimmy McPartland. The Miles Davis Quintet, with its new tenor player, John Coltrane, had just closed at the 5 O'Clock two blocks away, Jay Migliori and Tommy Ball had the house band at the Downbeat on Park Square, where Mabel Simms played intermission piano. Downtown, the Sabby Lewis band, then including Alan Dawson and Lennie Johnson, was in the midst of a long engagement at Showtime on Warrenton Street, and Al Vegas trio was similarly employed at the 1-2-3 Lounge. Altoist Tom Kennedy was just starting his long run at the Brown Derby in the Fenway. On the Jazz Corner of Boston, Dean Earl had the group at Eddie's, saxophonist Dan Turner the group at Wally's, and Roy Hamilton was breaking the box office record at the Hi-Hat. Fingers Pearson was playing until dawn at the Pioneer Club.

Boston was jumping, and the Stable crew was about to make it jump even higher. Herb Pomeroy:

“I had a 12-piece band back in the early Fifties. Varty and I talked it over, about how we'd like to get a band like that started. We had seven musicians employed, and we were making enough money to do that. And Jaki, who was playing intermission piano, also played tenor. So if we could get Dick O'Donnell to give us a little more money, we could hire five more horn players to fill out the instrumentation we needed to play my band's book. We'd have a 12-piece band, and we'd work one night a week.

And in November of 1955, we did that. Well, the joint was mobbed, and the band sounded wonderful, and we did so well that Dick said, in March of 1956, let's go to two nights a week. So we had the big band in on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I still look back on this and shake my head. This band, which was doing very well, had started out as a trio in April 1954, and grew—first to a quartet, then a quintet, then a sextet, then adding an intermission pianist, then adding five more guys one night a week, then two nights a week.. .all in two years. We could not have planned it this way. It just happened.”

Pomeroy quickly expanded the band from 12 to 14, adding many who became longtime associates: saxophonists Byard, Dave Chapman, and Serge Chaloff (although health issues led to his early replacement by Deane Haskins); trombonists Joe Ciavardone and Bill Legan; and trumpeters Nick Capezuto, Lennie Johnson and Everett Longstreth. Another expansion, to 16 men, added trombonist Gene DiStasio and alto saxophonist Boots Mussulli. These horns joined the Stable Sextet of Gordon, Haroutunian, Neves, Pomeroy, Santisi, and Zitano. It was an impressive roster.

At this point, Herb Pomeroy becomes central to this story. Gloucester, Massachusetts-born Irving Herbert Pomeroy III was 11 in 1941 when his mother took him to a movie in which Louis Armstrong had a part, and that bit of celluloid inspired Pomeroy's career as a trumpet player. He was gigging at 14 with his own high school dance band and he discovered bebop in the mid-1940s. He began studies at Schillinger House in 1948, although his vague career plan was to be a dentist like his father, and he did spend a year at Harvard before quitting school to be a musician. He had worked at the jewel Room with Nick Jerret, and at Izzy Ort's, and at the Melody Lounge with Charlie Mariano and Jaki Byard. Pomeroy also had a musical day job, with the Jesse Smith Orchestra at the King Philip Ballroom in Wrentham:

That was not a jazz band, it was strictly a dance band. If there was any jazz, individual guys brought it. Ray and I were on that band. I was glad to have that job, we played every Friday and Saturday night, and in the summers on Wednesday night. I'd make about $21 a night, and I had a young family and that was good money. I stayed with Jesse until  went with Lionel Hampton in 1953.”  

Nineteen fifty-three was a watershed year for Pomeroy. He recorded two LPs with Mariano on Imperial Records, played a week with Charlie Parker at the Hi-Hat in June, and in December joined the Lionel Hampton Orchestra for about four months. He was involved with the Jazz Workshop in its early days, and after leaving Hampton, Pomeroy started playing at the Stable. He didn't stay long, however, going with Stan Kenton in fall 1954. By January he was back at the Jazz Workshop. That summer Pomeroy went on the road again, with Serge Chaloff 's Sextet. Tired of the road and with a family to support, he joined the faculty at Berklee in September 1955 (he stayed for 40 years), and started auditioning musicians for his big band. It made its public debut at a meeting of the Teenage Jazz Club in November 1955.

The Stable was swinging and invariably packed with enthusiastic listeners enjoying the sextet four nights per week and the big band on two more. The music expanded again when orthodontist-turned-trombonist Gene DiStasio stepped out of the big band to take over the Monday night chores. Business was good.

The 1956—1959 Herb Pomeroy Orchestra was a Boston phenomenon, as the earlier band of Sabby Lewis had been. Their home was at the Stable but there were numerous notable engagements away from it, including two weeks at Birdland in May 1957 and a week at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem in December 1958. There were the festival appearances — the North Shore Festival in 1957, the Boston Jazz Festival at Fenway Park in 1959, and the annual performances at the Boston Arts Festival. The 1962 Arts Festival crowd numbered about 20,000, the largest crowd Pomeroy ever played, with or without the big band.

The Pomeroy Orchestra appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, and John McLellan enthusiastically wrote that "Boston can well be proud of the Saturday afternoon appearance of the Herb Pomeroy band. It was a big-time debut which completely flipped critics and musicians as well as the audience.. .The band was easily the surprise hit of the Festival! Their driving finale, "The Lunceford Touch," left the critics and musicians agog at the sound of one of the greatest brass sections anywhere."

"The Lunceford Touch" had its origins in the Living History of Jazz, an ambitious history of the music arranged primarily by Jaki Byard and narrated by John McLellan of WHDH. The Living History incorporated field hollers, blues riffs, African polyrhythms, touches of Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker, and Byard's prediction of how the music might sound in the future, "Jazz Suite, Opus 3." It also included "The Lunceford Touch," an original composition contributed by bassist George Duvivier, Jimmie Lunceford's last arranger. Duvivier had challenged Pomeroy, saying the Living History's first Lunceford piece didn't do the band justice, and he would write an arrangement to remedy that. Herb Pomeroy:

Duvivier and Jimmy Crawford, Lunceford s longtime drummer, were in Boston working at the Colonial Theatre in a Lena Home show. Now, the way we worked it was to rehearse between 7 and 8 and hit at 8:20, and we rehearsed "Lunceford Touch" and we might have even played it in the first set. But George and Jimmy came down after their show was over and sat in and we played it again, and the guys said they'd never been through anything like it.

The Pomeroy Orchestra also recorded. There were the LPs, Life Is a Many Splendored Gig recorded for Roulette in June 1957 (5 stars in Down Beat), included the most requested tune in the Pomeroy book, Jaki Byard's "Aluminum Baby." Band in Boston, recorded on United Artists in late 1958 (41/2 stars in Down Beat), showcased the writing and arranging of Bob Freedman, Neil Bridge and Arif Mardin. They also recorded The Band and I, with Irene Kral, for United Artists in 1958.

While all this was going on, the Pomeroy band enjoyed two advantages. First, it rehearsed regularly and worked twice a week, every week, at the Stable, without the distraction of living out of a suitcase. Second, the band's personnel remained stable in a business where change was the norm. Besides Pomeroy himself, nine of the original 16 members were still together in January 1959. The band had the opportunity to develop its book and its sound. That it chose to stay in Boston was ultimately part of its undoing: the road to greater recognition and success ran through New York, not Boston. …”

Autumn Leaves

Beatrice

The Legendary Sauter-Finegan Orchestra - A Music Lover's Dream

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

“To the history of recorded sound, the orchestra led by Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan has made one of the most remarkable contributions. Not only have Eddie and Bill added considerably to the size and instrumentation of the traditional jazz orchestra; they have heightened color, produced new sounds, and evoked moods heretofore unconsidered in the usual pop music set-up.

The new music they have created is not strictly limited to records. Although the idea of the band was born in the minds of Eddie and Bill some years ago, and was carefully nurtured in the RCA Victor recording studios, the music they produce is not "gimmicked." nor is it sound-for sound's-sake. At this writing (Summer, 1953), the band is enjoying a highly successful run through the middle west where these same distinctive sounds are being eagerly applauded by an enthusiastic public.

Long known among the musical cognoscenti as top-drawer arrangers for Benny Goodman, Ray McKinley, Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey. among others, Eddie and Bill had definite ideas from the outset about their eventual goal. "The music of our new band." they said, 'can best be summed up in two words - “COLOR and MOOD." But they also stated that "we are not starting out with any preconceived notion of style," and what the band has already cut on records, and is now performing in public, is the result of a steady progression of ideas based on the way we wanted the band to sound, and on the things they were most eager to say.”

To obtain this color and mood, Sauter and Finegan immediately planned to augment the usual instrumentation of the jazz orchestra. They considered its scope too limited in the combination of brass, reeds and rhythm, and they proceeded to add, first, an enormously expanded percussion section including tympani, triangle, chimes, celeste and xylophone. As the need

arose, they also added such "ten-cent store" items as recorders, kazoos and toy trumpets - not to mention just about everything that could be beaten or struck - anything, in fact, that would contribute to the sound for which they were striving.”

- Liner Notes to The Sound of the SAUTER-FINEGAN ORCHESTRA [RCA LPM 1009 1954]

“Our band was born in April, 1952, and there arises an insatiable curiosity about our arrangements, the instruments we use, and the varied talents of the people with whom we work.

The object of this album, aside from musical entertainment, is largely to provide some answers to that curiosity.

Well, as for the arrangements, one of our first considerations was shape. To define shape is a difficult thing. It is a composite of thickness and thinness of texture and sound. Rhythmic punctuation, tension and relaxation, the placement of climaxes. and generally, the organization of all the obvious and abstract elements that add up to a piece of music. It seems involved, but is in reality quite simple.

Now, we didn't set out to create new sounds as such. We did want more elbow room, the freedom to move up or down in pitch as far as we wanted to go (within the range of human audibility of course) and in order to make clear the inner texture of the music - to provide a never-ending source of changing moods we had to have a variety of instrumental colours.

To attain this there had to be a woodwind section of multiple doubles ranging from the standard saxophones to piccolos, flutes, oboe, English horn, clarinets, fifes and recorders. We added a full percussion section as a means to pointing up accents. A brass section of three trumpets, three trombones and a tuba. The rhythm is the usual guitar, bass and drums, with the pianist doubling on glockenspiel and celeste. Last, but not least, is a harp.

Considering what we wanted to do, we had to have such musicians who would have a special sensitivity towards music as well as being technically proficient on their instruments.

Our records until now have emphasized the ensemble - the fusing of personalities to make an idea or a feeling come alive. A submersion of the individual to the group. We know our people, and we try to tailor the parts they play to fit their particular natures so that even in the ensemble their identities are apparent.

This album will be an attempt to really isolate some of the special facets of personality, of interpretive and creative ability, without which the whole could not be.”

- Liner notes to Inside Sauter Finegan [RCA LJM 1003 1954]

 “The legendary Sauter-Finegan Orchestra was a music lover's dream come true. Co-led by two of the most imaginative and capable arranging talents to emerge from the swing era, and brimful with instrumental giants, this outfit staked out a singular oasis of brilliance in the pop world of the early 1950s. Arranger Billy May has described their records as "unbelievably good," a compliment which in this case almost borders on stinting praise. The wit, sophistication, and sublime musicianship that exude from their best efforts represent nothing less than a lofty artistic summit in the recorded legacy of the big bands. Of course, the heyday of the band era was already a fast-receding memory when this group first appeared on the scene in 1952, but they nonetheless found a respectable measure of commercial success, in addition to rapturous critical acclaim, and their brief five year history as an active ensemble remains an endearing case study in just how wonderful and exciting popular music can be.

Eddie Sauter was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 2,1914, and gained his first notoriety as an arranger in the mid-1930s turning out charts for the Red Norvo band and its featured vocalist, Mildred Bailey. By decade's end he had joined Benny Goodman, and such driving Sauter originals as Benny Rides Again and Clarinet A La King helped to keep the Goodman band a national favorite well into the 1940s. "I still think those things he did for Benny are classics," confided Bill Finegan during a recent interview. "I was always a great fan of Eddie's writing." Finegan, who was born in Newark, New Jersey, on April 3, 1917, had gotten his own precocious start in the business fresh out of high school, when he submitted an arrangement of The Lonesome Road to Tommy Dorsey. The bandleader was favorably impressed, and shared news of his find with a relative unknown named Glenn Miller, who promptly called with a job offer. Beginning in late 1938, Finegan became arguably the most inspired arranger to work for the Miller band in its glory days, penning such classics as Little Brown Jug and on unforgettable treatment of Song Of The Volga Boatmen.

After World War II, Finegan took advantage of the Gl Bill to travel overseas and further his musical studies in Paris. He corresponded regularly with his friend Eddie Sauter, who one day sent along a letter written on the back of a rejection notice he'd received for one of his arrangements from a leader both men considered to be a mediocre musician. “This was an outrage," recalls Finegan. "Almost as a joke, I wrote back that things were getting so bad, maybe we should just start our own band and write for ourselves. We'd both had our fill of autocratic bandleaders. Eddie was enthusiastic about the idea, and things just grew from there." When Finegan returned stateside, he and Sauter had a meeting with Dave Kapp, an executive and A & R man at RCA. At this early stage, they hadn't yet decided upon the direction they wanted to take. 'Dave Kapp said, 'I just want to buy Sauter and Finegan," remembers Bill. "'I know your work, and I'm sure that whatever you do will be interesting.' We wanted to record strictly our own original material, but Dave felt that we were 'springing something new at the public' and could use the help of more familiar tunes to get started. We trusted his judgement, and ended up recording a mixture of our own things and titles that he suggested."

Dave Kapp and booking agent Willard Alexander, who was retained to represent this new aggregation, held an old-fashioned view of the band business that clashed with some of Sauter and Finegan's weightier aspirations. "We had visions of eventually doing concerts, but I wanted to keep the band in the studio until we'd at least had a few hits," explains Finegan. "I got talked out of it.' On the heels of their initial success, a charming recording entitled Doodletown Fifers that became both their theme song and a #12 hit in August of 1952, the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra made its public debut, to rave reviews, at the Meadowbrook ballroom in New Jersey that September. They brought onto the bandstand a device designed by Eddie Sauter's brother, an accomplished electrical engineer, that served them remarkably well. It was a sound system consisting of strategically placed microphones, which either leader could manipulate from a control panel, designed to enhance the contributions of such delicate elements as muted trumpets, bringing them up to the level of the rest of the band. A speaker was placed on either side of the stage to channel the results. "It was essentially an early stereo sound system for ihe band,'' recalls Finegan, and it enabled them to replicate in person the gorgeous textures and melodic subtleties of their studio performances.

"We were basically uncompromising about the music," explains Finegan, "with a few exceptions, such as the use of the rhythm section. Willard Alexander wanted a 'danceable band.' We wanted to play concerts, but he didn't feel there were enough of those venues to sustain the band, so when we hit the road we played ballrooms, even though they were dying out at that point. It was difficult, because we had demanding charts that needed very good players, so our payroll was greater than the average band's." 

Among the numerous first class musicians employed were Al Klink on saxophone, Ralph Burns on piano, trombonist Kai Winding, and guitarist Mundell Lowe. Both leaders were too busy writing for the band to make many instrumental contributions of their own, although Sauter was known to pitch in on the toy trumpet, and Finegan later joked that his most effective solo consisted of the chest thumping sounds he provided for the band's atmospheric rendition of Midnight Sleighride, an adaptation of Prokofiev that was a #29 hit in 1953. Serious but never pompous about their music, the arrangers playfully added the likes of kazoos, ratchets, and glockenspiels to their palette, occasionally employing such a wide variety of bell sounds that Finegon fell the results were sometimes reminiscent of "a Balinese orchestra."

When Dave Kapp began suggesting material that required vocal contributions, the band took on a contingent of fine singers, including a vocal group dubbed "The Doodlers." The lovely soprano of Sally Sweetland helped make the band's recording of the title song from the film The Moon Is Blue a #20 hit in 1953. Their most memorable vocal talent was the great Joe Mooney, a blind singer-organist often described as a "musician's musician," who was particularly wonderful on their 1952 recording of Nina Never Knew, a moody masterpiece which became a #13 hit. At its core, however, this ensemble was intended to be a showcase for instrumental prowess and creative arranging, both of which are present in abundance on Child's Play and Horseplay, two lengthy pieces written by Finegan and Sauter, respectively, as part of a four movement composition entitled The Extended Play Suite that was created at RCA's behest in an attempt to promote the fledgling EP record format. Humor was another Sauler-Finegan trademark, usually manifesting itself in the mischievous use of sound, but sometimes surfacing as riotous parody. Listen to the wicked unison band vocal which opens their 1956 performance of Sauler's arrangement of Got A Date With An Angel, and you'll never again be able to sit through the famous introduction of the original 1934 Hal Kemp recording without bursting into laughter. Bill Finegan particularly enjoyed tinkering with the classics, as well as public domain material. The 1953 rendition of Now That I'm In Love, for example, with its disarming if somewhat breathless vocal by Anita Boyer, is a clever reworking of Rossini's William Tell Overture. The band also revisited its initial success with Doodletown Fifers on such later selections as Yankee Doodletown and a revival of Uptown Racers entitled Doodletown Racers. The original Doodletown opus was an adaptation of a Civil War era melody that got its name when the bandleaders glimpsed a road sign pointing to "Doodletown" while driving in the countryside near Nyack, New York.

Regrettably, the harsh realities of economics, exacerbated by the advent of rock and roll, brought the glorious experiment that was the Sauter-Finegan  Orchestra to a halt in 1957. Eddie Sauter busied himself with film and television work until his death from a heart attack in 1981.

Bill Finegan turned to academic, and for a time taught jazz studies at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut. In 1986, he led a well-received Sauter-Finegan reunion concert at New York's Town Hall. "The guys in ihe band still keep in touch and occasionally get together," he explained recently, and it's very moving for me to see the affection they have for the band and for each other. Every night was like a party with that band, but they all shaped up on the bandstand. Our discipline came from the music itself.

We were all dedicated to turning in the best performance we possibly could.” This camaraderie and devotion to craft that shine through on every selection in this anthology placed the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra in a class by itself, and even after more than forty [53 as of this posting] years, their finest recordings continue to astonish and delight.”

Joseph Laredo - The Best of the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra [Collector’s Choice CCM-078-2]

Fortunately, many of the classic Sauter Finegan RCA LPs from the 1950s have been reissued as double Avid CDs - Sauter Finegan Four Classic Albums [AMSC 1212 and Second Set EMSC 1246]. There is also a single disc Collector’s Choice The Best of the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra [CCM 0-78-2].

Revisiting Onzy Matthews: L.A. and Dallas Blues [From The Archives]

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

“He was an incredibly imaginative arranger, especially when it came to varied and vivid blues compositions. Hopefully with the release of this material, his work will receive some degree of the recognition it deserves.”

- Michael Cuscuna

I got to know Onzy Matthews a bit during his time in Los Angeles earlier in his career. He was involved as an actor in some TV soundtrack gigs that I worked on.

Onzy had a rehearsal band which used one of the practice rooms at the Musician Union Hall at Local 47 in Hollywood, CA and one day he literally called over the fence to me as I was packing my drums in the car in the parking lot at the adjacent Desilu studios to “come by and play a few tunes with the band.”

I did just that which, when the regular drummer left to go on the road with Eartha Kit, earned me a spot on the band for about six months.

Onzy was a groovy pianist and a superb composer-arranger who wrote charts that had flair and that swung like mad.

Many years later, I also ran into him at a restaurant in Dallas, his hometown, which was located close to a hotel that I often stayed at for business purposes.

One night, while I was waiting for my clients, we reminisced a bit over a drink in the bar. On that occasion, I remember him ruefully remarking: “They didn’t know me then and they don’t know me now.”

I always found it rather amazing that a musician with so much talent could be relegated to so much obscurity.

Which is why I was thrilled and delighted when Michael Cuscuna and his team at  Mosaic Records issued Onzy Matthews: Mosaic Select (MS-029). Although the set is out-of-print as of this writing, I have placed three YouTubes tracks from it at the conclusion of this piece.

Here are Michael’s annotations to the set and some of the remarks of the Jazz fans who have purchased the set.

© -  Michael Cuscuna/Mosaic Records, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“The brilliant West Coast arranger Onzy Matthews was a master of the blues in many hues. He contributed to important recordings by Lou Rawls, Ray Charles and Esther Phillips, but his career never caught fire and, after working for the Duke Ellington orchestra as both a pianist (when Duke was ill) and an arranger, he spent much of his later years in Europe.

Onzy made two albums for Capitol, the first of which Blues With A Touch Of Elegance is considered by many to be a big band masterpiece. This set collects those albums plus 29 previously un-issued Capitol tracks by Matthews. They include an album of jazz sambas and four-tune session of tunes from Blues With A Touch Of Elegance with Richard Groove Holmes as the principal soloist.

These big band sessions include soloists Sonny Criss, Gabe Baltazar, Curtis Amy, Clifford Scott, Dupree Bolton, Bobby Bryant, Bud Brisbois, Lou Blackburn, Ray Crawford and Richard Groove Holmes. An added bonus is the legendary, previously un-issued two-tune session by Earl Anderza and Dupree Bolton for Pacific Jazz.

Onzy Matthews died in relative obscurity in 1997 in his native Texas. Beyond the few sessions he arranged for other artists, these Capitol sessions made between 1963 and '65 are his only recorded legacy.”

	TOP SHELF
I have the vinyl recording of "A Touch of Elegance" and after seeing this 3 CD set, I had to have it. A MUST have for the '60's Jazz and Blues Fan. After hearing 'Bud' playing 'Flamingo' without the hiss and scratch of vinyl, I was reminded of the passing of Him and Maynard all over again. Too bad Onzy wasn't able to record more.
	Mr. O
I've been enjoying this set. The musicians are excellent, and Onzy has a distinctive voice as an arranger/composer. I could do without some of the more commerical tracks but most of the set is a real treat for this long time big band fan.
	Nah
Nah, this set couldn't have been one CD. Maybe two - maybe. There's lots of good music in addition to the wonderful "A Touch of Elegance" session.
	Good Stuff
There's not much big band music out there period that is at the level of "Blues with a Touch of Elegance." I also listen to the first disc a lot, especially the latin influenced material. The third disc is uneven but throughout the whole select the players are a pleasure to listen to, even with some of the more commerical stuff on the last disc.
	Could have been one CD
"Blues with A Touch of Elegance", Onzy's masterpiece is on CD2 of this set. Unfortunately, the rest of the 3CD set is not up to the level of this session: CD1 and CD3 are mostly commercially oriented recordings. But for those who are looking for rare Big Band gems, CD2 is worth the price of the set. Amazing lead Tpt from Bud Brisbois (check out "Flamingo"). Rare recordings of the great guitarist Ray Crawford (from Gil Evans "Out of The Cool") The spare but rich arrangements give the musicians room to blow. When Duke was sick at the end of his life, Onzy replaced him in the Duke Ellington Orchestra. That fact alone should motivate many to check out this set.
	Continually
a pleasure to listen to. Sophisticated big band music.
	I'm ALWAYS amazed......
how MUCH great music is out there that I had NEVER heard of...I hadn't heard of Onzy before gettin' this set on Ebay....Excellent in everyway...tight arrangements...CD #1 is my personal favorite, it has a "cool, 60's, let's have a cocktail" feel to it...
	Big Band
Subtle section playing, great arranging for the horns and saxes. The bands are sharp, well rehearsed, and up for the gigs. This is wonderful big band music.
	Onzy
Onzy's a cool dude. Sophisticated arrangements, great soloists, terrific bands. If you like big band jazz, check this one out.
	A True Representation of Dallas Jazz!!!
As a native Dallassite and musician I remember all too well Onzy Matthews, he's a legend in Dallas!!! And now the world can hear this great artist's work for themselves!
	Buy It!
Cuscuna strikes again! Incredible liner notes written by Michael himself, a beautiful 24 bit mastering job by Ron McMaster (yep that McMaster) and these words: "For all his years as a musician, the only documentation of Matthews' music lies essentially in these Capitol sessions and the outstanding albums he arranged for Lou Rawls and Esther Phillips. He was an incredibly imaginative arranger, especially when it came to his varied and vivid blues compositions. Hopefully with the release of this material, his work will achieve some of the recognition it deserves. Michael Cuscuna 2007 I could comment on all 51 pieces on this CD set, 1/2 the Band is full of ex Kenton guys, including Jerry McKenzie # 1 on the first CD, but all I can say is BUY IT!
	Neat
This is a good one. If you have the Gerald Wilson Box Set this is a wonderful compliment to it. The quality of the arrangements and the consistently interesting bands are on par with Wilson, which means excellent West Coast musicians. Lots of great solos. I think Matthews is somewhat lower key and more reflective than Wilson, which I like. The audio clips are very representative of the overall feel and quality of the performances in this select. Even the more popular tracks are interesting because Matthews tended to let the soloist loose. Neat Select.