JazzWax

Sunday Wax Bits

Waxing & musings. Amid the Michael Jackson media circus last week, Fayette Pinkney died at age 61. An original member of The Three Degrees, Pinkney's voice helped define the female satin-soul sound identified with Philadelphia in the early 1970s. As Philadelphia's answer to Detroit's Supremes, The Three Degrees' first big hit was TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia) in early 1974. It reached #1 on Billboard's Top Pop chart and became the theme of TV's Soul Train. TSOP was followed months later by the more important When Will I See You Again, which hit #2. [Pictured: The Three Degrees in the mid-1960s. From left, Fayette Pinkney, Sheila Ferguson and Valerie Holiday]

When Will I See You Again—along with the Hughes Corporation's Rock the Boat, Barry White's Can't Get Enough of Your Love and George McCrae's Rock Your Baby—were among the earliest in 1974 to employ a soft shuffling beat that would quickly become known as the hustle. The chunky, Latin-flavored tempo emphasized the two and three beats and was popularized in the clubs of Miami and studios of Philadelphia in 1974, emerging as "disco" the following year.

Here's a clip of The Three Degrees in 1974 singing When Will I See You Again. Fayette Pinkney is on the left...

Speaking of Michael Jackson... When I spoke with legendary arranger and composer Johnny Mandel on Friday, I asked him about his string chart for Michael Jackson's She's Out of My Life, from the late singer's Off the Wall album in 1979:

"Oh yeah, I remember that. Quincy [Jones] was great. He didn't do any of the writing then. He had the genius to bring in arrangers who could get the job done. I just took the track and listened for what I thought was missing. That's how I always arranged for strings and still do. I don't know how to write for strings so I just add what I feel is missing. I know this sounds strange, but I don't plan it out. I know what I want the strings to play in the spaces on a song, and then I just write it in."

Bill Evans. Among the many e-mails and comments that arrived in response to my post late last week on Bill Evans' early and late periods, I received the following from Laurie Verchomin, who lived with Evans in 1979 and 1980. Her book on Evans is due later this year:

"Bill often recorded himself in 1979 and 1980. He had this huge JVC cassette boombox that he carried with him everywhere. After a night at the club, he would come home and listen to his new trio, which he claimed was his most inspired to date.

"Bill also mentioned to me that listening to himself play was something he had never done before this trio. In fact, although he had a huge bookshelf full of his LPs, he never listened to any of them. What we did listen to a lot was Warren Bernhardt's Floating album [1978], a solo thing that inspired Bill to move into the idea of a solo career. In the car we listened often to Earth Wind and Fire's I Am album [1979]."

Cameron Crowe was taken to the woodshed by director Raymond De Felitta (Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris and the soon to be released City Island) at his blog, Movies Til Dawn. Raymond's beef with Crowe [pictured] is Crowe's unashamed distaste for jazz. Writes Raymond:

"Every one of his movies has some 'bad jazz' joke in it. I don't really care if you don't like jazz, but if you're a self-proclaimed music 'expert'—and have taken over the franchise on Billy Wilder as well—you ought to stop bragging about your loathing of America's greatest indigenous art form."

Album Discovery of the Week. If you dig romantic soul of the 1970s, you'll love Will Downing's latest CD—Classique. On the singer's 19th album, he revives the feel and passion of soul's golden decade with covers of three sophisticated soul standards—Baby, I'm For Real, written by Marvin Gaye in 1969 for The Originals; Barry White's 1973 hit, I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby; and David Ruffin's 1976 solo Statue of a Fool, which was itself a cover of a 1969 Jack Greene country hit.

On Downing's first record in 1988, Will Downing, the baritone sang an up-tempo dance rendition of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme. His All the Man You Need CD was nominated for a Grammy in 2000. Since 2006, Downing has been suffering from a muscle disorder called polymyositis that has left him unable to walk and confined to a wheel chair.

You'll find Will Downing's Classique as a download at iTunes and Amazon or as a CD here.

Oddball Album Cover of the Week.  Recorded in New York in August 1961 and January 1962, the album included pianist Duke Pearson, Thomas Howard (bass) and Lex Humphries (drums) plus Bob Cranshaw (bass) and Walter Perkins (drums). It was released originally as Bags' Groove on Black Lion. Then the Japanese label Jazz Line re-issued the album in the 1970s as Angel Eyes with this fascinating cover.

Bill Evans: Early v. Late

Like the Hatfields and McCoys, fans of pianist Bill Evans' early and late periods love to square off. Musket muzzles emerge through the pickets on both sides whenever a writer or critic voices disappointment with Evans' recordings after 1970. For reasons that escape me, many of those who enjoy Evans' late period seem to take this criticism of Evans personally or are somehow unable to discern between the different artistic phases in the pianist's career. As with any artist, Evans produced works of enormous grace and power as well as less interesting, inferior works. Art over a lifetime has different values, even when produced by a genius.

The latest volley of shots rang out when Jazz.com editor Ted Gioia posted at length about the reissue of Turn Out the Stars: The Final Vanguard Recordings, June 1980, referring to the Evans performances as "jittery and aloof." I added remarks two Sundays ago that were simpatico with Ted's position, suggesting that Evans' artistic temperament on these CDs was cranky and frustrated.

Apparently, them's fightin' words. Jazz musician, writer and friend Bill Kirchner scurried into his coveralls and came out of the Late Evans barn swinging his pitchfork in protest. Bill argued at Jazz.com that Evans' late period is misunderstood and that "it's time to lighten up a bit about Bill Evans." Bill Kirchner's arguments were well articulated, and his sentiments were echoed by several others in the comments zone at Jazz.com in support of Evans' late period.

So now I guess it's my turn.

Let me re-state my position: Bill Evans between 1961 and 1966 was at his poetic peak, offering up tender, perfectly constructed versions of original compositions, jazz standards and pop tunes. His smoldering intensity, fine sense of space, and hypnotic swing remain breathtaking on these recordings. If we're narrowing his recording high point, I'd have to say it's Explorations (1961) and How My Heart Sings (1962), which neatly sandwich the still-stunning Live at the Village Vanguard sessions recorded in June 1961. Other examples of Evans' genius between 1962 and 1966 include the Solo Sessions (1963), Trio '64, Trio '65, Paris 1965 and At Town Hall Vol. 1 (1966). It's hard to imagine anyone taking issue with this, but ya never know down here in Tug Fork.

Prior to 1961, the Evans fruit is a bit green. New Jazz Conceptions (1956), Everybody Digs Bill Evans (1958) and, to some extent, Portrait in Jazz (1959) are a tad stiff and tentative. Strong albums to be sure, but not nearly as ripe or as cohesive as Evans' heart-gripping recordings between 1961 and 1962. Evans' change had nothing to do with bassist Scott LaFaro or the position of the moon. Evans simply had fully matured as an artist by 1961 and was more comfortable with what he wanted to say and how he was going to say it. In effect, he had become Bill Evans.

The years after 1966 and up to 1973 are somewhat spotty. Evans' recordings range from the brilliance of Further Conversations with Myself (1967), Montreux II (1970) and Live in Paris (1972) to the rather mundane Intermodulation (1966), the hectic What's New (1969) and vastly overrated The Bill Evans Album (1971). (Yes, I know the album won two Grammy Awards in 1972; Godspell won one, too, that year.)

Between 1973 and 1980, Evans' playing grew increasingly dark, rushed and manically repetitive. Perhaps the first of these maddeningly joyless albums was The Tokyo Concert (1973), on which Evans chainsaws through every tune he takes on. Then there was the thoroughly unnecessary Symbiosis (1974) with Claus Ogerman; the unfocused Intuition (1974); the frantic But Beautiful with Stan Getz  (1974); the morose I Will Say Goodbye (1977); the unlistenable Crosscurrents (1977);  the puzzling Getting Sentimental (1978) with Philly Joe Jones crashing and bashing his cymbals throughout; the mawkish Affinity (1978) with Toots Thielemans; and the lumbering Turn Out the Stars (1980), where Evans finally sounds bored by his own playing. On this last box, he's artistically impatient, comfortable with repetition and moderately agitated, often captured pounding away with a cement-heavy left hand. This isn't to say that there aren't bright moments on this set. There are. But evaluated as a work, there's precious little of interest here.

Note to the Late-ites: I was there at the Vanguard, on Friday June 6, 1980, sitting right behind Evans during the first set. I don't recall feeling at the time that Evans sounded dull or harried. Having seen Evans several times in the 1970s, it was impossible to feel anything but shock and awe when you heard him perform. But upon listening to the recordings years later, a critical ear hears things that the eyes missed.

Of course, there were a few bright spots between 1973 and 1980: the relaxed Half Moon Bay (1973), the vivid Blue in Green (1974), the misty You Must Believe in Spring (1977), and the firm Paris Concert (1979), which Jan Stevens of the Bill Evans Web Pages convinced me to reconsider during our last Bill Evans early/late slug fest.

So let's be honest. There's really no comparison between Bill Evans of the early and mid-1960s and the late 1970s. As much as the Late-ites would love to argue that the late period offered up a different Bill Evans, a more mature Bill Evans and a more intense Bill Evans, what we have is a rather brooding Bill Evans in search of something he never found. Saying so really shouldn't be that big a deal, since the evidence is there for the listening. Evans between 1961 and 1966 is remarkable—and the fact that any jazz artist was remarkable for five years is astonishing.

As for the Turn Out the Stars box, I'm grateful it was brought to market originally and I'm glad it is available again. I think everything recorded by great jazz artists should always be available for anyone who wants to hear it. The blood-red box set is beautifully packaged and produced. But after a re-listen, much of the music remains tedious. Bill's message here is simply too thick and rushed. For jazz to ring my bell, there has to be power, pacing and excitement blended with passion and miracles. Evans knew this only too well in the early and mid-1960s, when he enjoyed listening to himself play. After 1973, playing piano became a job.

OK, I'm done. Just give me a chance to scamper back to the Early Evans barn before squeezing off rounds.

JazzWax tracks: I've often been asked for my favorite Bill Evans recordings. And I've often begged off, saying that to fully understand and know the artist, you have to explore all of his works and find the places that connect with your soul.

But given the context of this post, here are my 10 favorite Bill Evans albums that touch me most, in chronological order:

• Explorations (1961)
• Sunday at the Village Vanguard (1961)
• Waltz For Debby (1961)
• How My Heart Sings (1962)
  
• The Solo Sessions, Vols. 1 and 2 (1963)
• At Shelly's Manne-Hole (1963)
• Trio '64
• Trio '65
• Live in Paris 1965
• Bill Evans at Town Hall Vol. 1 (1966)

JazzWax note: Special thanks to the Bill Evans tribute site in the Netherlands for use of the photo at the top of this post.

Chembo Corniel: Wanting and Doing

While hanging out with Harry Sepulveda last week, I had to interrupt him mid-sentence. Pointing to the speakers high up on the walls of his Latin-jazz record store, I said, "Hold it, who's this playing?" "Ahhh, Papa, you dig?" Harry said. "It's Chembo Corniel. A monster." I wasn't aware of Chembo [pictured], who plays conga and percussion. But as the CD played on, I had to agree with Harry. Chembo Corniel (pronounced CORN-yell) is one seriously soulful conga player and percussionist. On his new album, Things I Wanted to Do, Chembo, 55, is backed by his tightly arranged working band, Grupo Chaworo: Ivan Renta on tenor and soprano sax, Elio Villafranca on piano and Fender Rhodes, Carol DeRosa on acoustic bass, and Vince Cherico on drums.

First a word about Harry Sepulveda [pictured]. For those unfamiliar with Harry, he's one of the most knowledgeable Latin-jazz experts in New York. Harry is owner of Record Mart [pictured below], a veritable institution in the Times Square subway station that's jammed to the ceiling with magnificent hard-to-find Latin-jazz LPs and CDs. And Harry can fill you in on whatever you want to know about any album you pull from the racks.

For those who may have moved out of New York some years ago, Harry's store used to be down a flight of stairs in the Times Square station, just above where the BMT trains pull in [pictured]. After the entire station was modernized a few years ago, Record Mart was back—but this time on the main level facing the Times Square Shuttle platforms. Harry's store is a joy trap, since strolling in virtually ensures walking out a little poorer but much richer musically.

Chembo's new album, his third with the current quintet, is so warm and eclectic that you can't help but love it. In addition to Chembo's fleshy, firm conga playing, there are a number of superstar performers here. Saxophonist Ivan Renta has a big, strong sound that wraps around you and squeezes. And Elio Villafranca on acoustic and electric piano brings enormous Latin flavor to each song. For good measure, there are 16 "invited guests" on the album's different tracks, including the spectacular David Oquendo on guitar, Ludovic Beier on accordion, Jimmy Bosch on trombone, and Dave Samuels on vibes.

This is wonderful work from top to bottom, and I can't   remember a newly released Latin-jazz album I've enjoyed this much. It's energetic but heavily romantic and furtively old-fashioned. Deliciously Latin, the album's groove is deeply jazz-rooted. What stands out is Chembo's taste as a leader. Each track is put together neatly. "I know, I know," Harry said excitedly, when I mentioned it. "That's because Chembo manages every single detail. He's a control freak!"

He's also a major player. Over the years, Chembo has performed with Bobby Sanabria and Ascension, Tito Puente, Hilton Ruiz, and Chucho Valdes. Intrigued, I gave Chembo a call:

"This album is filled with things I've always wanted to do, but until this CD, I didn't have the time. So I made the time. Each song has a different coloration because I used varied instrumentation on each track. One song has vibes, another accordion. No two are alike.

"I was born in the Chelsea section of Manhattan but grew up in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I learned to play as a young boy in the streets and parks. I played in my first professional band at age 14. The leader of the group had to pick me up and drop me off at home. When he first asked my mother if I could play with the band, she told him he had to have me home by 11 p.m. The guy was a little taken aback. He said, 'Lady, we start at midnight' [laughs].

"After some convincing, my mother gave in. I was a kid and had to wait outside between sets at social clubs. I took my first lesson with Tommy Lopez Sr., a percussionist with Eddie Palmieri. Tommy took me under his wing and showed me how to play for real. I also studied with 'Little' Ray Ramero—who had played with La Sensacional Guerria de Federico Pagani in the early 1940s, Miguelito Valdes, Tito Rodriguez [pictured] and everyone else you can think of. Soon I started studying at the Harbor Conservatory for the Performing Arts in East Harlem. Harbor offers low-income musicians lessons at inexpensive prices. When I took courses there, I paid  $5 a lesson. After that I studied at the La Escuela Nacional de Arte in Havana, Cuba, with Chucho Valdés. I went there in 1997, 1999 and 2003.

"I play the tumbadoras, the largest-size conga. It's technically a conga, but I don't really like the name 'conga.' A conga to me is too commercial, like a 'conga line.' I prefer to say I play the tumbadoras. There's an authenticity to that. I like it better."

Things I Wanted to Do opens with a Chembo original, Buena Gente, an up-tempo composition rich with Latin texture and strong saxophone work by Renta. 

Tenia Que Ser Asi is a spectacular ballad written by Bobby Collazo that's reminiscent of the jazz standard I Want to Talk About You. Renta on tenor sax is backed here by a cleverly arranged string section. The Sultan was written for Chembo by legendary Latin-jazz trumpeter and arranger Marty Sheller [pictured]. "Marty was so kind to do this for me," Chembo said. "He calls me The Sultan."

On Swing Street, the quintet is joined by Ludovic Beier on accordion, adding a European feel to Hector Martignon's Latin arrangement. Fantasma is a gorgeous ballad featuring Renta on soprano saxophone. Chembo's skins here are a knockout.

Actually, Chembo's first name is Wilson. How did he get the nickname Chembo? "When I was growing up in Red Hook, I played a lot of basketball," Chembo says. "Back then, Wilt Chamberlain was the hot player. I'm just 5' 4", so when I'd drive around the other players and get the ball in, everyone would shout, 'Chembo!'—which was short for Chamberlain."

And the meaning of "Chaworo," the name of Chembo's group? "Those are the bells that are attached to the Bata ceremonial drum that urge the saints to come down and dance with us," Chembo says.

I can't wait to pay Harry another visit.

JazzWax tracks: Chembo Corniel's Things I Wanted to Do can be sampled and purchased here on CD. Or check in with Harry at the Record Mart by sending him an e-mail: recordmartnyc@gmail.com.

Note: Chembo will be performing with his group, Grupo Chaworo, at New York's Creole Restaurant on July 10th and 11th to celebrate the launch of his CD. Creole Restaurant is at  2167 Third Ave., on the corner of 118th Street.

JazzWax Mindblowers (Vol. 6)

Long-time readers of this site know that at the end of each quarter I gather the best quotes from interviews I conducted over the last three months and place them in a single post. I call this feature "JazzWax Mindblowers," because the quotes I choose contain revelations or shed light on a period of music or recording session. I do this in case you missed the interviews and to ensure that all of the best quotes are in one place for your future reference. (To see the other posts in this series, simply go to the search engine in the upper right-hand corner of this page and type in "Mindblowers.")

Here are my favorite quotes from interviews that were posted over the past three months:

Pianist Billy Taylor on asking questions: "I always deeply regretted not having talked to Fats Waller [when I had the chance as a kid]. From that day forward I promised myself that if I ever got that close to someone I admired, I was going to bend his ear like he’s never had it bent before. Later, if I was in shouting distance of someone I wanted to know, I'd remember the Fats incident and would become a pest, asking dozens of questions. The art of asking questions and listening to the answers is highly underrated."

Billy Taylor on Coleman Hawkins: "Hawk was the first to put bop into shape. When Hawk played it, bebop was no longer just something the crazy younger guys were doing. He demonstrated it, and people began to realize there's more to the new music than they thought."

Billy Taylor on Don Byas: "Don was head and shoulders  above everyone else. Don was playing bebop and pre-bop. What I mean by pre-bop is he was playing things that led up to bebop. They were long phrases and new ways of using harmonies so that they sounded like the dominant melody. This stuff hadn't been done yet until Don starting playing them."

Billy Taylor on avoiding alcohol and drugs: "The night I bought my first drink, Jo Jones spotted me at the bar. I didn't see him, though. He told me this later. Anyway, the next night I had a drink or two and then began my set. While I was playing, I looked up and saw Jo sitting there glaring at me. He had Art Tatum on one side and Teddy Wilson on the other. I knew right away what his point was. I never took another drink after that night."

Billy Taylor on Art Tatum: "Art Tatum had an odd way of doing things. He’d improvise before completing the melody. For instance, he’d take a song like Body and Soul and play the first eight bars. Then he'd play the second eight using a harmony line rather than the rest of the song's melody. It's difficult to do, and he did it for fun. Many stride pianists did that. They did it to put each other on."

Billy Taylor on Miles Davis: "There were a lot of guys who could keep up with Bird better than Miles Davis, like Fat Girl [Fats Navarro] and Clifford Brown. Fats drove Miles up the wall. It was years before Miles got to a place where he could stop trying to be Dizzy and focus on his own thing—playing in the middle register. ... Miles came on like he had a sour personality, but it was really a cover up for an inferiority complex, I guess."

Billy Taylor on the origin of I Wish I Knew How It Felt to Be Free, his best-known composition: "I said [to my daughter], 'Kim, [spirituals are] part of your heritage. You can’t be singing a spiritual like that. You have to have more feeling.' I sat down at the piano and said, 'The spiritual is so much a part of our tradition that I can sit here and make one up on the spot. This is the feeling you need to have.' I made up a little ditty. Then I asked if she understood. She said, 'Yes, Daddy,' and went back to playing with her dolls. After she went back to her room, I got to thinking, 'Hey, this isn’t a bad little tune.' So I wrote it down." 

Clarinetist Buddy DeFranco on playing with Art Tatum: "I was so ill [with a cold] on that record date with Art Tatum that I had to sit down in a chair for practically the entire session."

Saxophonist Dave Pell on photographing the cover of the first Gerry Mulligan Quartet LP: "I told the guys to lay on the floor with their heads together. ... I told them I was going to shoot down on them from a ladder. They were saying stuff like, "Man, this is a hip album. Why are we doing this corny thing for?"... Then I climbed up on the ladder and shot down. Just before I squeezed the shutter, Mulligan was yelling, “Come on, Dave! For Christ's sake. We can’t spend all day here.” ... You see a great cover shot. I see four cranky guys who wanted to get out of there [laughs]."

Producer Creed Taylor on Warner Bros.' offer to handle distribution for CTI: "I told them that CTI was going to handle its own distribution. A Warner Bros. executive said that if CTI didn’t do a deal, the label was going to pick off CTI’s artists one by one and sign them to Warner Bros."

Creed Taylor on the growing importance of LP covers: "By the late 1960s and early 1970s, you held covers, you left them out, face up or standing against speakers. They were meant to be seen. They were a personal statement. My goal with [photographer] Pete Turner was to create a mood for the covers. I wanted the images to symbolize the feeling and energy of the music inside."

Creed Taylor on the CTI sound: "There was a kind of triplex consideration. CTI was going to deliver music that was confident and smart, like Stan Getz. It was going to be beautifully orchestrated, like Gil Evans' arrangements for Claude Thornhill's band. And finally I had a concept for a sound. Whether that sound was going to come through the arranger or the soloist would depend on the album. Eventually, Don Sebesky captured that sound, and he became CTI's dominant arranger."

Creed Taylor on his technique in the studio booth: "I stood with my left ear next to this huge speaker. And today I wish I hadn’t been doing that. Rudy [van Gelder] had it cranked up, and I loved the sound because the energy coming into booth from the studio was magic. It was the best way to hear if the music being played was happening—or if there was a problem. There was a lot to listen to and evaluate during those sessions. ... [Doing that I'm sure] knocked off some of my hearing. I’m probably 10,000 cycles in the left ear today."

Creed Taylor on how Hubert Laws came to record Let It Be on Crying Song before the Beatles tune was released: "CTI and George Martin shared the same U.S. attorney at the time. I had given the attorney a copy of Wes Montgomery’s A Day in the Life in 1967 and he took it back to Paul McCartney. The Beatles flipped out about it. They liked it so much that Paul in 1969 sent me a run through tape of what he had done on Let It Be."

Photographer Hank O'Neal on Berenice Abbott: "She taught me patience. As a photographer, you have to wait for what you want. She told me that for Changing New York, 1935-1938, she had planned the photographs for weeks just to be in the right position at the right time of day with the right light. Photography, she taught me, is about long periods of waiting and moments of action."

Ghosts of Harlem author Hank O'Neal on Harlem of the 1920s and 1930s: "Harlem was a place where [if you were a musician] you stayed, where you made a home. There was no need for these guys to go downtown. Everything was right there uptown. It was a place unto itself."

Jackie Cain on meeting Roy Kral, and the first song she sang with him on piano: "It was Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe. It was a song that Frances Wayne had sung with Woody Herman. I sang it as Roy played, and he was taken by the fact that I not only knew the song but that I sang it in the same key in which Frances recorded it. Actually, I didn’t know what key she or I sang it in [laughs]. I still don’t." 

Jackie Cain on starting to sing vocalese with Roy Kral: "We had heard Davey Lambert and Buddy Stewart's records with Gene Krupa’s band, and Charlie Ventura had come out of Krupa’s band. One night, after listening to What's This? I said, 'Hey Roy, why don’t we try to do something like that, only our own thing? You could write something.' So we gave it a shot."

Jackie Cain on the origin of Euphoria: "There were no words, just our voices singing like instruments, which is what vocalese is, really. Charlie [Ventura] had asked Roy [Kral] for an arrangement of 'S Wonderful, as an instrumental for the band. As Roy wrote it, he came up with this bop riff. We took the riff and turned it into Euphoria, which is based on 'S Wonderful's chord changes. We just lengthened the riff and put something in there that was distinctly ours."

Jackie Cain on Charlie Ventura's ability to hold a grudge: [After Roy and I were profiled in a newspaper instead of Charlie], he wouldn't talk to us. When we were singing at the Blue Note in Chicago, if I got too much audience attention on my solo number, Charlie wouldn’t let me do another during the next set.  This went on for the entire time Roy and I were with the band. I never understood his reaction. We were part of his band. We couldn't control what the newspaper was going to report. And whatever happened good for us was good for him, too. I think he was just terribly sensitive. And jealous, I guess."

Bob Brookmeyer on composing: "Composing is the hardest thing I don’t know how to do [laughs]. Frankly, I usually just want to get the damn thing done because there’s something else to write after that. It’s satisfying to finish a piece of music."

Bob Brookmeyer: "[For Ray Charles' Genius album], Ralph Burns, the credited arranger, wrote one chart for the album and got  so drunk for some reason he couldn’t finish the job. ... I arranged Just for a Thrill and You Won’t Let Me Go.... For Genius Hits the Road, Al Cohn arranged Georgia on My Mind and a bunch of others. I arranged Moonlight in Vermont, Basin Street Blues, Mississippi Mud, Chattanooga Choo Choo, Deep in the Heart of Texas, Alabamy Bound and New York’s My Home."

Bob Brookmeyer: "[The Ivory Hunters with Bill Evans] was supposed to be a quartet date, or at least I thought it was. I showed up at the studio with my horn. But when I walked into the studio, I saw two pianos pushing together, facing each other. [The producer] had heard Bill and me do a four-hand thing at an earlier United Artists record date and wanted to try it out for the record. ... So for Bill and me, it was just two friends who got dumped into a crazy idea. We looked at each other and said, 'Hey, why not?' ”

Bob Brookmeyer: "[When I rejoined Stan Getz in Los Angeles], Stan and I began playing after work with Gerry and Chet. Just the four of us. Both Gerry and Stanley said it was the best band they had ever played in. But nothing came of it. Stan and Gerry couldn’t decide who would be the leader."

Valve-trombonist Bob Brookmeyer on the slide trombone: "Who likes the slide trombone?"

Bob Brookmeyer on choosing the valve-trombone: The stories about me starting to play valve-trombone cold with Claude Thornhill’s band are wrong. ... The truth is I started playing the instrument when I was 13. I didn’t want to play slide trombone, so I found some old baritone horn in the band room and learned to play the valves. Then friends gave me an old Czechoslovakian valve-trombone. I learned to play the instrument by watching trumpet players."

Nat Hentoff on Jo Jones: "[Drummer] Jo Jones was a missionary about the music, like Art Blakey later. Jo figured it was his job to keep jazz writing and the music itself free of imperfections. He didn’t like people who were on junk, for example. He knew I was beginning to write seriously about jazz. So he sat me down one night at the Savoy in Boston and gave me a lecture. He said, 'You gotta be careful about what you do. Know what you're doing and get to really know the musicians, because that’s what the music is all about.' His comments were invaluable."

Nat Hentoff on interviewing Duke Ellington by phone:  "When Duke and I had met face-to-face [to talk] in the past, he had always been 'on.' He was an entertainer and a huge personality, so that was to be expected. But over the phone, there was a transformation. Without having to be 'on,' Duke was very serious and open."

Nat Hentoff on being fired from his job at Down Beat.
"Everything was going well. By 1957 we had offices in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. But we did not have any blacks on staff in any capacity. And much of what we were writing about originated with these folks. One day we needed a receptionist or someone who did more than that. A woman came in. She was very bright, and I hired her. She was black. The boss in Chicago, the owner, was furious."

Nat Hentoff on the musician whose words continue to echo most in his head: "I guess Charles Mingus. I learned so much from him—not only about the music. What I remember most from Mingus is him saying, 'The problem in our society isn’t race. There is a race problem, for sure, but the real problem is that most of us get so caught up in the rhythms of work—work we don't like to do—we lose who we are."

Nat Hentoff on how he wants his jazz writing to be remembered: "[Laughs] Probably something like this: 'You could hear the voices of the musicians in just about everything he wrote.' "

Grant Stewart: Plays Ellington

In early 1943, the Duke Ellington Orchestra began an  extended stay at the Hurricane Restaurant in New York on 49th St. and Broadway. During the orchestra's engagement that June, the band performed Tonight I Shall Sleep for the first time, a song Ellington had composed only weeks earlier. The ballad was written to spotlight tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, who delivered a full-bodied, patient solo almost nightly, bringing down the house. Grant Stewart can relate. The tenor saxophonist includes the piece on his new Ellington tribute album, and the song easily is one of the CD's most brilliant tracks. [Photo of Grant Stewart by Esther Cidoncha]

On Grant Stewart Plays the Music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Grant takes the song as seriously as Webster did, topping his own version recorded on Made in France in 2005 by slowing it down and digging in. Interestingly, Tonight I Shall Sleep was one of Webster's last showcase numbers with the Ellington orchestra. Friction between Ellington and Webster mounted during the early summer of 1943 over pay. The bickering reached a head on August 8, when Webster abruptly quit the band. Rather than have Webster's replacement solo on Tonight I Shall Sleep, Ellington had Al Hibbler handle the vocal. [Pictured: Duke dining with his wife Bea and a friend in April 1943 at the Hurricane Restaurant]

Grant's latest release—his fourth for the Sharp Nine label—is yet another confident outing for the Toronto native. There's something about Grant's playing that gets me every time. He has managed to distill 50 years of tenor history into his horn, complete with tasteful streaks of Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon. Yet despite his influences, Grant always winds up with a modern sound that's all his own. Grant can romp in the lower register effortlessly or pick up the pace with flawless runs and timing. Both are exhilarating.

On this album, we get to hear pianist Tardo Hammer in a  completely different mode. Known for his superb bebop attack, Tardo here employs lush chord changes behind Grant that are reminiscent in places of Red Garland. And his rich solos during the breaks are just as impressive as his delicate chord choices on accompaniment. [Photo of Tardo Hammer by Nina D'Allesandro]

There are only eight tracks on this CD, but each is a superb Ellington rendition. Two of the eight are Ellington/Strayhorn warhorses: Raincheck and Something to Live For. There also are two that Ellington wrote with Irving Mills: I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart and It Don't Mean a Thing.

But the album's best choices, in addition to Tonight I Shall Sleep, are the lesser-known works: Angelica, a perky tune first recorded on Duke Ellington and John Coltrane; The Star-Crossed Lovers, a steady ballad written by Ellington and Strayhorn for Ellington's 1957 recording, Such Sweet Thunder; and The Feeling of Jazz, a loping blues that appeared on a 1962 album of the same name and featured alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges. The song is credited to Ellington, George Simon and Bobby Troup.

Grant and Tardo are backed by Joe Farnsworth [pictured], a  high-intensity drummer who snaps with electricity on the up-tempo tunes and lays back elegantly on the tender tracks, and bassist Paul Gill, who recorded most recently with pianist David Hazeltine.

JazzWax tracks: Grant Stewart Plays the Music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn (Sharp Nine) is available as a download at iTunes and Amazon and as a CD here.

Ben Webster blowing with the Duke Ellington Orchestra on Tonight I Shall Sleep is a must. You'll find it as a download at iTunes on Duke Ellington: At the Hurricane. Or as an Amazon download and CD here.

Sunday Wax Bits

Waxing & musings. Strangely, Michael Jackson's passing last week didn't come as too much of a shocker. When I read the terrible news on my Blackberry, the alert seemed more like just another surreal stunt in the pop star's life rather than a tragic final event. Since Thriller in 1983, Jackson's long series of perilous life choices only fueled tabloid newspapers and TV shows, and he seemed to relish the high-stakes cat and mouse game he played with the media. Puzzlingly, Jackson never learned from his mistakes. He either lacked the ability to think consequentially or he didn't care—which was most likely the case.

Jackson also didn't need encouragement from the paparazzi. The pop star underwent serial cosmetic surgeries in an effort to look like Supreme Diana Ross, wore surgical masks, dressed in Sergeant Pepper outfits, held puzzling sleep-overs with children whose parents waited in the wings with attorneys, and blew his wad on an adolescent fantasy lifestyle that even his royalties couldn't support. Jackson wore his self-loathing on his satin sleeve.

But whatever you thought of Jackson's lifestyle choices, the guy could swing a pop tune. Just listen to his Number Ones compilation. Jackson knew when to come in and out of a lyric, and how to hang behind the beat or rush ahead of it. He knew how to hold the listener. He also knew what a great pop arrangement needed to sound like and how to kick it up. The passion was always there with Jackson, and his breathless delivery touched fans worldwide. Take Rock With You. Or Break of Dawn. Or Bad, with Jimmy Smith's organ solo. Or one of my favorites, the little-known Show You the Way to Go.

I remember hitchhiking in the wilds of Wales in late 1979. In the middle of nowhere. In the late afternoon. In the rain. Seeking temporary shelter in a pub, I took a seat near the fireplace and ordered a pint. Across the room, a farmer fed coins into a small jukebox and then punched in his choice. What came up was Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough. Which was strange given how far I was from anything resembling a cosmopolitan community. Proving early on that Jackson's energy and enthusiasm were universal.

But as the years wore on, Jackson ran through much of the good will he had built up. Toward the end, the star had  become a punchline, a sad, frail hermit managed by yes-men whose only mission was to prop him up in the money-making saddle. The too-dormant singer surely must have been dreading his upcoming concert tour. But given the reported state of his finances, he likely had little choice.

Based on the wall-to-wall TV coverage over the weekend,  Jackson is now being remembered as an accidental pop megastar, a tragic waif blessed by too much talent and cursed by way too little adult supervision. Jackson's dangerous addiction to recklessness, play dates with minors, and his Disney-Goth persona all seem to be melting away, replaced in our minds by the kid in the fedora and flood pants moonwalking to Billie Jean.

Which made me wonder why, as a culture, we love and forgive our dead superstars (and jazz legends) more than those who are still living among us. That may be the strangest thing of all.

Basie and Coltrane. During my interview series with Bob  Brookmeyer last week, Bob talked briefly about a 1959 concert in which he played with John Coltrane, Count Basie, Pepper Adams and Art Taylor. Photographer Hank O'Neal sent along this e-mail about that concert:

"In the spring of 1959 I saw a concert at New York's Town Hall that featured Bob Brookmeyer, along with the Thelonious Monk Quartet minus Monk. Basie was the sub. It's the one Bob described in your interview.

"I seem to recall that Monk was to be the pianist (maybe some kind of reunion with Coltrane?). Art Taylor was Monk's drummer of choice in those years. Monk bailed for whatever reason, and Basie was on piano. I can still see Coltrane standing at the head of the piano, swinging like mad with Basie comping.

"The three guys facing them were Pepper Adams, Bob Brookmeyer and Zoot Sims. There can't be too many instances of Basie and Coltrane together. Wish I'd saved my ticket stub or a program. I have always looked for anything that could document the concert because a lot of people don't believe it ever happened. Now you have provided an eyewitness. Hooray for JazzWax."

CD Discoveries of the Week. I usually don't care much for Thelonious Monk tributes, but Bobby Broom Plays for Monk is an exception. Rather than try to mimic Monk's falling upstairs playing technique, Broom applies his smooth guitar to the barbed compositions without compromising Monk's genius. The results are fresh and surprisingly warm. You'll find the CD here.

Trumpeter Donald Malloy has just  released his first CD, Spirituality. All of the album's compositions were written by Malloy, and each has a strong African feel. He's joined by Tia Fuller on alto saxophone, soprano saxophone and flute. Malloy's playing here is introspective and fiery, retaining the music's soul and purpose. You'll find the CD here.

Sharel Cassity's Just for You shows off this alto saxophonist's chops and ear for history. I don't know many saxophonists in their right mind who would take on Lennie Tristano's Wow, but Cassity does, and it's a winner. Cassity takes the tune at mid-tempo and is joined by Michael Dease on trombone, Tom Barber on trumpet and Pete Rearson-Anderson on tenor saxophone. Her Cherokee also is ambitious. You'll find the CD here.

Oddball Album Cover of the Week: Looks like a great album based on the personnel. But like many albums from the 1950s, the deliberate way in which the producers used half-clad women to sell LPs never ceases to amaze.

Interview: Bob Brookmeyer (Part 5)

Over the past 25 years, Bob Brookmeyer has worked tirelessly to develop as a composer, teacher and conductor. While his recent recorded works can be classified as modern classical, they retain a rich jazz orchestral feel and flow. What's particularly fascinating about Bob's recent works is their massive scope and honesty. The more expansive Bob's canvas, the more you actually learn about his moods, feelings and personality.

Bob's most recent recording, Music for String Quartet and Orchestra, is a fine example. The recording with the Metropole Orchestra and Gustav Klimt String Quartet is at once a classical and jazz work. But unlike many jazz-classical attempts that stumble into movie soundtrack territory, Bob steers clear of the cinematic trap, using the compositions to express his emotions, without growing cute or coy. Bob's jazz instincts and flair for dramatic expression are unmistakable, as each of the four pieces on this album shift restlessly between a reflective simmer and hallelujah exultation.

In Part 5 of my interview series with Bob, the legendary valve-trombonist and composer talks about his learning curve as a classical composer, his development as a teacher and his passion and excitement for conducting:

JazzWax: Your compositions always manage to combine drama with fun.
Bob Brookmeyer: I wouldn’t put composing and fun in the same sentence necessarily [laughs]. Sometimes drama happens, but it’s not planned.

JW: How did you become interested in 20th century classical music?
BB: Around 1979 or 1980 I was buying classical scores and going to concerts and buying LPs of [Luciano] Berio, [Karlheinz] Stockhausen and others. I also was beginning to tire of the same type of writing and started to integrate classical motifs into my work for Mel Lewis and the Jazz Orchestra [after Thad had left]. But they weren’t quite suitable. I finally told Mel [pictured], “I think I’ve written myself out of the band. I think I have to go work for classical people.” So I left the band and went to Europe, to the radio stations in Cologne [Germany] and Stockholm [Sweden], and worked with their orchestras and producers. I even began writing electronic things and a double concerto.

JW: Were you comfortable writing in that idiom?
BB: Yes. But I remember calling J.J. [Johnson] around this time and telling him I wanted to shift to classical composing. He said, “You can’t quit playing jazz. You’re a monster player.” But I had no choice. It was a calling of sorts.

JW: In 1993, you recorded Airport Song, on your Paris Suite album. It’s so beautiful.
BB: Thank you. I wrote that while at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris waiting for a plane. I had music paper and my flight didn’t leave for an hour.

JW: I also love Monster Rally from Get Well Soon in 2002.
BB: I like that too. That’s one of our happiest pieces. I worked hard on that one. I usually don’t go back and edit because I’m often late in terms of deadlines. I also don’t tend to work on two and three pieces at once.

JW: Do you still practice very day?
BB: No.

JW: Do you write every day?
BB: I should. I teach that way. Talk is cheap, though [laughs]. I’m very slow and a terrible procrastinator.

JW: Do you love teaching?
BB: I’m a great teacher. I’m one of the best ones I know.

JW: What makes you so good?
BB: I think I explain things in a way that allows people to pick things up. After I bought my first house, I needed money. So I started teaching at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Then in 1988 I was asked by Burt Korall to direct the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop with Manny Albam [pictured]. I stayed there for three years, and that experience really kicked up my love for teaching. So when I moved to Holland in 1991, I started a school there. I also had a workshop in Cologne [Germany] and in Copenhagen. 

JW: Do you ever listen to your earlier recordings?
BB: No, not the earlier ones. I like the Jim Hall duo sessions. If Jan and I move to Berlin next year, I’d like to get a new quartet together. But I'm constantly moving forward in my thinking.

JW: Do you like to live with what you write for a bit or complete compositions as soon as possible?
BB: I usually work on one piece, and prefer to get it done. As I tell my wife, “I want to get this sucker out of the house.” Many composers and arrangers feel that way. If you have the piece around too long, you start obsessing about a section and worry about it for days. Then when you sit down to work, problems pop up like, “What should I write after this part?” and all that. For me, it’s not such a joyous procedure.

JW: No joy in composing?
BB: Sometimes there are joyous moments when I discover something I didn’t know, like with the recent Metropole recording and the string quartet. There are a couple of places there where I don’t know what happened. The whole second movement, for instance. I still love to listen to it, but I’m amazed. I don’t know who wrote it [laughs].

JW: Is composing that difficult?
BB: Yeah. It’s the hardest thing I don’t know how to do [laughs]. Frankly, I usually just want to get the damn thing done because there’s something else to write after that. It’s satisfying to finish a piece of music. I was having dinner with Donald Barthelme [pictured], the writer, years ago. A young guy was asking him if writing was hard. Donald said it was. Then the guy said, “But you’ve been at this for some time. It must get easier as you get older, no?” Don said, “No, it gets harder.”

JW: Why do you think that's the case?
BB: I think it’s a combination of striving for something new, perfectionism, and the fact that coming up with new ideas is hard. When you’re younger, you probably haven’t gotten your voice together yet. When you’re younger, you’re just trying to get known. Then you plateau as you become known. When you get older, you’re more likely to be writing more than playing, and you have to prove that you’re not too old, that you still have it. If you think too much about those things, the writing phase can make you nervous later in life.

JW: Which composition sounds most like your life?
BB: Probably On the Way to the Sky, which will be out on a CD soon. It was the first piece I finished after marrying Jan.

JW: Is it Jan’s favorite, too?
BB: Actually, my wife likes Ceremony, from Dreams, with the Stockholm Jazz Orchestra. For Ceremony, I sat down to write a love letter to Jan, but it came out as a Catholic liturgy. She loves it nonetheless.

JW: Who was most helpful to you when you began arranging and composing?
BB: Probably Manny Albam. He was responsible for me getting my early writing jobs and playing dates. He was a model of what a best friend should be. Playing jobs had slowed for me then. So he had a party one night in the 1950s and invited a bunch of record producers. I had been recording with Manny a lot. He had overdubbed me playing lead, second and third trombone chairs.

JW: What did he do with the recording?
BB: He sat the producers down, poured them drinks and asked them to pick out the valve-trombone on the recording. None of them could do it. When they found out it was me, I wound up with a lot more work once they realized that the valve-trombone can blend right in. Manny was a very loyal friend. A wonderful man.

JW: As a composer, did you also want to conduct?
BB: I was always fascinated by what made a superb conductor great. I saw Igor Stravinsky [pictured] conduct twice. Once in the mid-1940s, Woody Herman’s band came through Kansas City and performed Ebony Concerto. Stravinsky was the guest conductor. I remember when I saw that band, Ralph Burns was sitting on the side with a wooden board over his lap furiously writing arrangements. I saw Stravinsky conduct again years later in New York.

JW: Did you study conducting?
BB: I wanted to for years but had been scared to death. Then in the late 1970s, I decided to give it a try. So I began auditioning conductors and found Joel Thome, an acclaimed conductor. He had wonderful economical motions.

JW: Why conducting?
BB: I was a lousy conductor and had to conduct orchestras and bands playing my work in Europe.

JW: Is conducting hard? It looks easy.
BB: [Laughs] You couldn’t be more wrong. The subtlety, energy and enthusiasm required is what it’s all about. I was a conductor destroyer until I started studying the nuances and technique.

JW: Is a conductor really that important?
BB: A conductor is everything. You know as soon as a conductor walks in front of a band or orchestra whether or not that person is going to be good. I always wanted to be a good conductor. At the time I didn’t want to study composition. I just needed a conductor who could just give me the feel and technique. Joel recommended Earle Brown. So I called Earle, and he became my mentor.

JW: What did Brown teach you?
BB: As far as the mechanics went, he’d have good advice. He also gave me a first-hand account of classical music's development in the 1950s and 1960s, when [American composers] John Cage and David Tudor shook up the European scene. Working with Earle gave me confidence. Earle was incredibly supportive, as was Joel Thome.

JW: What did Brown and Thome teach you?
BB: To trust my hands.

JW: How so?
BB: Earle [pictured] would stand in front of me, and if I didn’t cue him properly with my hands, he wouldn’t make a sound. If I did it right, he’d say, “Beep.” We didn’t do anything with recorded music, just me conducting my pieces in front of him. That's the best way to learn and get your hands to move correctly. It took me three or four years before I got comfortable. 

JW: What was your goal?
BB: My ambition wasn’t to conduct a symphony orchestra. That’s like playing slide trombone. There are too many great symphony conductors. I simply wanted to conduct my compositions and arrangements in front of orchestras and get the most out of the musicians and my work. When I conduct now, I’ll always ask my students, “Is that clear?” That’s all I have to say.

JW: What are the right hand and left hand doing differently?
BB: Your right hand is making the tempo and beats clear. The left hand is for shading, cuing and extra emphasis in places.

JW: Is conducting fun?
BB: Oh yeah. It’s great. That’s the way I want to go. Having a heart attack while conducting: 1, 2, 3, out. [laughs].

JW: What are the musicians looking for when you conduct?
BB: How well you know the music and express yourself and explain yourself. And how well you teach the orchestra what you want to play. That all determines how well they will play in concert or during a recording. How you handle yourself with the musicians counts, too. You don’t throw fits. You don’t yell at the band.

JW: Do you watch other conductors?
BB: Oh, sure. I have a large collection of conductor DVDs. I study how they do it.

JW: Do you ever conduct to music that’s on the stereo?
BB: [Laughs] Right now I’m moving my right hand just talking to you about conducting. It’s a natural part of me now. I’ll be 80 in December. I’m a survivor I guess. A producer in Copenhagen said recently, "What will you do when all your friends are dead?” I said, “Make young friends” [laughs].

JW: So will you be moving to Berlin next year for sure?
BB: Could be. Jan is booking a trip. Then we’ll come back and talk about it. If everything works out, she gave me two years over there. Then if it works out, we’ll stay. If it doesn’t, we’ll come back.

JW: When you think of Bob Brookmeyer, what do you think?
BB: Well, I think I’m an interesting trombone player, as far as language, soul and time goes. I swing well, I think, because it’s in me to do so. As for the writing—I've written some terrible stuff and I’ve written some good stuff. Writing is so hard. Johnny Mandel said recently in an interview that I was incredible. That surprised me. I work hard on my sound. I like my sound.

JW: How do you know that?
BB: I listen to myself.

JW: And that's how you developed your sound?
BB: When I’m teaching, the main thing I want to do is get the student to listen. If you listen and you don't sound good, you have to work harder to play better.

JW: Can a student do anything about a sound?
BB: I think so. Back in the 1990s I was riding back from Europe on a plane. There was a journalist there from Paris who had interviewed Harry "Sweets" Edison [pictured]. Sweets had told him, “When I was coming up, we didn’t worry too much about the notes and all that stuff. We were just trying to get our sound.”

JW: Did you push yourself to take risks when you were playing and developing your sound?
BB: Yes. I still like to get myself in trouble and then see how I'm going to get out of it.

JW: If you could go back and re-do parts of your life, would you?
BB: No. I couldn’t be me now if I wasn’t who I was then.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Bob's Music for String Quartet and Orchestra at Amazon as a download here or as a CD here. Bob's Get Well Soon with Monster Rally is available as a download at iTunes or at Amazon here.

Interview: Bob Brookmeyer (Part 4)

The rise of the studios in the late 1950s and early 1960s created enormous opportunities for jazz musicians. With the proliferation of visual media such as movies and television along with TV advertising, more instrumentalists were needed who could sight-read music perfectly the first time. But while live and recorded studio work provided jazz musicians with a steady paycheck, most had to strike Faustian bargains. Individualism and creativity had to be tabled, replaced by dull, rote performing. For artists like Bob Brookmeyer, the wooden work was hard to bear.

To make matters more complicated, Bob was slowly being consumed by alcohol. Whether Bob's dependence was hard-wired into his system at birth or the result of performance strain and the emotional pain of his youth, his condition and attitude in the 1960s was deteriorating. You'd never know that Bob faced such personal demons from his jazz recordings and performances of this period. But they were there, and growing more destructive by the year.

In Part 4 of my interview series with Bob, the legendary valve-trombonist talks about his battle with alcoholism, working in the East and West coast studios, writing for and playing with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, overcoming his dependency, touring with Stan Getz in Europe, and meeting his current wife Janet:

JazzWax: When did you start playing in the TV and movie studios?
Bob Brookmeyer: In 1958, when I was working with Jimmy Giuffre and Jim Hall. Trombonist Chauncey Welsch hired me to play lead trombone for about a month with the Andy Williams Show in New York when Chauncey went on vacation. 

JW: You were doing a lot of TV in the 1960s, weren’t you?
BB: Yes. I also was in the Merv Griffin Show band, which was the worst thing I ever did in my life.

JW: Why?
BB: It was terrible. The band was good but had nothing to do. We had a bad bandleader. Once again I used my cleverness and hatred to cause trouble. My name was well known among most musicians at this point. But I disliked the lack of adventurous creative thinking on the band. So I did things to cause trouble. For instance, I’d make believe I couldn’t read the charts. I’d put on my glasses and look studiously at the part, telling them, “I’ll get it, I’ll get it.” I made quite a reputation for being an asshole. That’s the way I survived.

JW: Why were you doing this?
BB: At that point in my life, I was drinking heavily. I wasn’t me—the me I am now.

JW: What do you mean?
BB: I divide my life into two parts—the drinking part and the sober part. Actually, sober is a terrible word to use since I’m loonier now than I ever was [laughs].

JW: Do you remember the first half—or is it just a blur?
BB: No, I have a great memory. I clearly remember being a drunk [laughs]. I had an amazing capacity for alcohol, and I was great at appearing sober. I used to drink a couple of fifths of scotch a day along with wine and drinks with dinner. After a while I couldn’t depend on alcohol. It wouldn’t work. So I needed other things.

JW: You left New York in the late 1960s.
BB: In 1968 I had a chance to move to California to stay with a lovely woman who took care of me. I took on studio work out there.

JW: Did you continue drinking?
BB: Absolutely. I was an alcoholic. I had been drinking hard since the 1950s. I was eating and sleeping enough to keep drinking, which kept away the emotional pain. In California, I became busy in the studios as a valve-trombone player. I worked with Lloyd Ulyate, Dick Nash [pictured], Charlie Loper and other heavy-hitting studio trombonists.

JW: Why didn’t you try to stop drinking?
BB: I had friends who drank as much as I did and just decided to quit. But it was hard for me. The woman who was taking care of me finally got me to go into a hospital for treatment. I stayed there for about three weeks in the mid-1970s. When I came out, I foolishly didn’t do any of the things that they recommended to ensure I’d remain well. I didn’t go to group therapy. I didn’t volunteer to help others. I thought it was all unnecessary.

JW: What happened?
BB: Three months later, on a Sunday afternoon in 1976, I went down to the corner and got some vodka. I went home and drank for days. A week later the woman I was with had to call the hospital to have them come get me. I was angry at first and wouldn’t go. Finally, I went. The day before I was to be released, something magical happened. I finally realized that I was the one who drank, that it was my choice to stop. So when I got out, I went to therapy, I volunteered, and guess what—I stopped drinking and haven’t had a drink since.

JW: How did you play so well during this period while drunk?
BB: Well, it’s not drunk the way you think of a drunk on TV. I had alcohol in me, but I had a great tolerance for it. So the effects were less visible. And taking Dexedrine soaks up the nuttiness of alcohol. I also used to smoke dope and consume scotch and pills.

JW: But how did doing all of that not affect your music?
BB: I don’t know. In New York I'd have a briefcase that I’d take with me. I’d go down to the Half Note and get a bottle of scotch. I’d have hashish or dope and pills in the case as well. I'd go up to my office. I’d arrive there around 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. and stay there maybe a day consuming all of it. I was accustomed to doing that and then playing perfectly. 

JW: Did you ever face a problem?
BB: Occasionally. Normally I got through everything OK. I’m still amazed at how I survived in California given the pace and how the studios were structured. Everybody knew who I was, but I didn’t know anybody. In California, the contractor was the king. He could banish you to Las Vegas if he wanted to, and you’d never be seen again. In New York, the contractor wouldn’t dare come into the studio. Musicians ran everything. So I was working at all of these studios in Hollywood. They just assumed I was funny and had a bad mouth. Contractors kept hiring me, and for the life of me I don’t know why. I wasn’t writing. I was just playing. I was a valve-trombone player.

JW: Did you play on a lot of movie soundtracks?
BB: Quite a few. I was on Lovers and Other Strangers [1970] and was featured on there playing the main theme. I also was on Paper Lion [1968] that [pianist] Roger Kellaway wrote. 

JW: When were you finally clean?
BB: In 1977. That was my first totally sober year. I was going to be a counselor at an alcoholism clinic. I went to school to learn to be a volunteer and was all set to give up music. I played with Bill Holman a little, but I wasn’t happy with my playing.

JW: What changed?
BB: Roger [Kellaway] called and gave me a Movie of the Week date to record with Sarah Vaughan singing the vocal track. Well, I couldn’t turn that down. So I went to a guy who played trumpet in the L.A. Philharmonic and took two or three lessons. I practiced my head off for two or three weeks and got through the session OK. Stan Getz was around then in California.

JW: What did he say to you?
BB: He wanted me to play with his band and go to Europe. This was around the spring of 1978. I was nervous about that. I was a scared human being. But Stanley kept on, so I agreed to go. And it turned out to be the best thing for me. We were in Europe traveling for five or six weeks, and I was able to stay sober, play well and save some money.

JW: How did it feel to have some savings?
BB: Great. I came back with $4,000 or $5,000. I was dear friends with John Snyder, who produced many of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra albums. I had been with the band for two years before I left. When I returned from Europe, John sent me a check for $1,000. I said to Mel [Lewis], “What’s this for?” Mel said, “You probably can use it.” He was right. I opened a checking account. It was one of the most renewing days of my life. I was 47 years old and finally had some stability. Up until then I had been living by my wits.

JW: What was your plan?
BB: My idea was to move back to New York from California and rent a room in Nyack, N.Y., just north of New York City, and write things for Thad Jones’ band. I had small ambitions then. I just wanted to get by.

JW: Was the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra different 10 years later?
BB: Yes, somewhat. That earlier band was a lot like Duke Ellington’s. I was doing quite a bit of writing before I left. My arrangement for Willow Weep for Me originally was written for Gerry Mulligan’s Concert Band. But Gerry didn’t like it. Then he came down to the Vanguard and heard Thad’s band play it. He said, “Wow, that’s a nice arrangement.” I told him it was the same one he rejected [laughs]. Writing and arranging for Thad’s band had forced me into a new kind of language. In that band, you were tacitly invited to be more than you could be, to try new things. And I did.

JW: Specifically, what did you do differently in the mid-1960s?
BB: I used more chord clusters. For example, on Willow Weep for Me, I changed the form. The arrangement didn’t have a last eight bars. I had used the first eight bars of the next section in their place. That kind of thing. I was fooling with form. I also used a G minor chord with C sharp below it. I had never dared do that before, either. The harmonic things I added also were things I had never done before. I was getting more courage to try new things.

JW: When you returned to the band in the late 1970s, you had overcome your alcohol addiction.
BB: Yes—but I wasn’t writing much. Before I rejoined, Jim Hall and I played nothing but duo for a year. I had a bedroom fixed up as a studio. Jim would come over and run his hand over the score paper and there would be an inch of dust on it [laughs]. I finally got Skylark out in1980. It was the first arrangement I had written in about 10 years. Then I continued arranging for the band and conducting.

JW: How did that go?
BB: The band wasn’t keen on having me. They wanted Thad. I didn’t know how to conduct nor did I have presence in front of the band. They wondered who is this guy. They made it rough for me. When I went on tour with the band to Europe for the first time, it was successful. When I came back, I had more confidence.

JW: What changed in your writing?
BB: I didn't have to lean on the band for whatever support they could supply. Dick Oatts, John Mosca, Mel and Jim McNeely were great to me. Some of the others guys, not so much. When I became musical director, I had to fire some people. I was a founding father. I had been with the band when it started, and no one had fired anybody. I fired a trumpet player and got Tom Harrell [pictured]. I fired a trombone player and got Ed Neumeister. I fired  the tenor player and got Joe Lovano. It was shocking to them.

JW: How did you meet Janet, your current wife?
BB: We met in 1985, in Kansas City.

JW: Was it love at first sight?
BB: Close. I was dating a daughter of a great trumpet player. She told me about her sister-in-law, Jan, and how terrific she was. So one day the three of us had lunch. From the moment I saw Jan, I felt that I was with the wrong woman. Jan and I had a great conversation that day, and after I left Kansas City, I kept in touch with her. When I returned a short time later, we had dinner. One thing led to another, and here we are.

JW: Is she your life partner?
BB: Oh, absolutely. Jan loves what I do and has a great ear for music. She’s the one I try out compositions on [laughs].

JW: Were you both apprehensive about the relationship?
BB: Not too much. When I met Jan, she had a big job with an oil company that was planning to move from Kansas City to Houston. Big money was involved. But we decided that a long distance relationship was out of the question, since it wasn't likely to have worked.

JW: What did you do?
BB: Jan agreed to move to New York. Two of her sons from a previous marriage thought I was OK, but the other two weren’t sure. Now, of course, we all love each other [laughs].

JW: She was taking a big risk.
BB: I told her that if it didn’t work out, I’d give her everything I had—the house and everything because she had given up everything to come here. We lived in Goshen, N.Y., and it was nice and quiet. Manhattan had gotten way too noisy to think by then.

JW: It seems your life turned around when you met Janet.
BB: That’s true. When Jan moved East, my house finally became a home. I fell in love for the first time. We had both been to “school” with divorces and bad times. I had been married three times before Jan. We’ve only had love and happiness since being together. I guess the lesson here is, “Don’t get married until you turn 58 [years old]” [laughs].

Tomorrow, Bob talks about learning the art of conducting, his albums Paris Suite (1993) and Get Well Soon (2002), the composition that sounds most like the story of his life, his most recent album Music for String Quartet and Orchestra (2006) with the Metropole Orchestra, and his likely to move to Germany next year.

JazzWax clip: Here's Bob's moving arrangement of St. Louis Blues for the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra in the mid-1960s. That's Bob playing and soloing on valve-trombone...

Interview: Bob Brookmeyer (Part 3)

By the late 1950s, Bob Brookmeyer was one of  the most dynamic forces in jazz. His reputation for playing the valve-trombone with enormous force and passion was established, and his writing was equally smart and engaging. But Bob also was emerging as one of the most sought-after orchestral arrangers in the business. Known for his inventive touch, Bob's charts took risks and consistently featured structured drama, linear tension and potent swing.

Bob's arranging skills had become so polished and advanced by this point that he was being called upon regularly to ghost many orchestral recording sessions. Bob had always had a singular, robust harmonic fingerprint—but he also was deft at emulating the unique sounds of top-brand arrangers like Ralph Burns and Bill Finegan.

In Part 3 of my interview series with Bob, the legendary valve-trombonist and arranger talks about his uncredited work on two signature Ray Charles albums, how The Ivory Hunters with pianist Bill Evans came to be, what made The Gerry Mulligan Concert Band so special, ghost-arranging for Bill Finegan, and a critique of Mulligan's piano playing:

JazzWax: When did you first meet Ray Charles?
Bob Brookmeyer: When Jimmy Giuffre, Jim Hall and I were doing the trio in early 1958. Nesuhi Ertegun [pictured] invited us up to the studio to hear Ray record Yes Indeed. I said, “Man, this is really good.” Giuffre was so excited that he went in and played tambourine with them on the record [laughs]. Giuffre could get carried away.

JW: You played valve-trombone on The Genius of Ray Charles in 1959.
BB: Actually, I did a little more on there. Ralph Burns, the credited arranger, wrote one chart for the album and got so drunk for some reason he couldn’t finish the job. It was a string date. So copyist Emile Charlap’s office called Manny Albam, Al Cohn and me to finish the album. We were all there working through the night to get the charts done and copied in time for the date, which was the next day. That was the first time I had arranged for strings.

JW: Which tracks did you arrange?
BB: I arranged Just for a Thrill and You Won’t Let Me Go. They turned out well. Later, Ray even had someone write my arrangement of Just for a Thrill for his big band, complete with my introduction. On Just for a Thrill, I had a choice—to score from the sheet music or Ray’s version  with his chords. So I called Ralph Burns before starting that night, and he said to use the sheet music for the chords. But when I told Ray, he said no, that he wanted it arranged with his chords. Ray sat me down and took me through the chords he wanted to use. No one was supposed to know. Ralph typically worked off the sheet music for his arranging sound, but Ray’s chords—the voicings that produced his feel—were essential to his sound. When you’re hired to ghost for someone, you want to write in their style. No one is supposed to hear that the arranger was anyone but the person who’s credited. That was great fun working with Ray, who unfortunately was having trouble with heroin then. But the session came off well.

JW: Ray’s next album was Genius Hits the Road, in 1960. Ralph Burns is also credited with that one. Did you play a role?
BB: Yes. Ralph wrote Am I Blue and then called Al Cohn and me to finish the album. Ralph liked Ray's music so much that he’d listen to it and think too much and freeze up. I think the music was too powerful for him, too emotional. Ray was coming from the center of the earth with those songs. I think they hit Ralph hard, which made arranging them harder and slower. He also probably had too much arranging work on his plate. So Al and I took a tape recorder in to capture Ray’s chords.

JW: So which ones did Al Cohn arrange and which ones were yours?
BB: Al arranged Georgia on My Mind and a bunch of others.

JW: Wait a second. Al Cohn arranged Georgia, one of Ray's most signature hits, not Ralph Burns?
BB: Yes.

JW: Which tracks were yours?
BB: I arranged Moonlight in Vermont, Basin Street Blues, Mississippi Mud, Chattanooga Choo Choo, Deep in the Heart of Texas, Alabamy Bound and New York’s My Home. We had a couple of weeks to finish the arrangements this time.

JW: But you arranged virtually the entire album.
BB: I guess I did [laughs].

JW: How was Ray to work with?
BB: He was there rain or shine in the recording booth with a few other guys, friends of his. He was breaking himself up. It was very nice. I was worried whether everything would sound OK.

JW: How did The Ivory Hunters come about in March 1959?
BB: It was Jack Lewis’ idea. Jack was an eccentric producer at United Artists who had interesting ideas. It was supposed to be a quartet date, or at least I thought it was. I showed up at the studio with my horn. But when I walked into the studio, I saw two pianos pushing together, facing each other. Jack had heard Bill and me do a four-hand thing at an earlier United Artists record date and wanted to try it out for the record. 

JW: What went through your mind when you saw the pianos?
BB: I knew Bill well. We had spent a lot of time together socially, so we were close. Bill had invited my wife then and I for Thanksgiving one year and played for us. So for Bill and me, it was just two friends who got dumped into a crazy idea. We looked at each other when Jack told us what he had in mind, and we said, “Hey, why not?”

JW: How did it work?
BB: We sat down and played I Got Rhythm, and it sounded pretty good so we kept going. There was no advanced planning, no playlist. We just walked in that day, and [drummer] Connie Kay and [bassist] Percy Heath were waiting for us.

JW: What did Bill think?
BB: Toward the end of his life, Bill told me it was one of the greatest things he had done. At the session, I just tried to hang on. We both had a good time doing it, and I did my best to make up for my lack of technique compared to Bill’s [laughs]. I played behind him most of the way, and he played a bit behind me.

JW: Did you exchange words during the session?
BB: Not really. You’re absorbed in the process as professional musicians. You wouldn't say, “Gosh, that was a wonderful phrase there, Bill. Yes, you, too, Bobby” [laughs]. I didn’t really feel too much anxiety. I had been playing piano for some time, and I wasn’t afraid to play. Though at the time of the recording, I hadn’t played in a little while.

JW: When people listen to this recording now, what do you want them to think?
BB: I hope they can hear how much fun we had. We wouldn’t have done it otherwise.

JW: The Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band that lasted from 1960 to 1963, what was the mission?
BB: We used the quartet as the basis and built up from there. We wanted to produce masses of sound and intensity through performance and writing rather than just power. It was supposed to be a light extension of our quartet of the mid-1950s.

JW: You arranged most of the book.
BB: I was the house arranger and straw boss. Writing for that band was fairly easy as I recall. What I enjoyed at the time was that I could have a band without standing in front of it. I hired all the musicians, and the musicians were looking at me and playing for me because I was the person doing the hiring and firing.

JW: Was it difficult to fire musicians?
BB: A lot of people had trouble firing musicians but I didn’t. I didn’t like to do it, but it had to be done. If you’re going to be a leader, you have to deal with that stuff to maintain the quality of the end result. A band's sound is important to me. The Concert Band was just great. It was one of the loves of my life. I didn't have to write new compositions, just arrange.

JW: Was writing and arranging hard back then?
BB: Yes, of course. It still is. If you’re the kind of person who takes creative risks and likes to push yourself into new things, it’s tough stuff. The only person I knew who didn’t think about writing and arranging was Bill Finegan [pictured]. We talked every day, and he was writing almost until the day he died [in June 2008] without worrying about a thing. He had so much music in him. Yet he told me that he never thought he was good enough. Bill Finegan? Can you imagine?

JW: Was Bill’s writing style an inspiration for you?
BB: Oh my goodness, yes. In fact, I ghost-arranged for Bill around this time [1961] for the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra. I arranged That Old Black Magic and You Can Depend on Me [both appear on Sauter-Finegan Orchestra Revisited]. Bill and I never talked about music—not until I came back from Europe many years later. Then we discussed music in almost painterly terms.

JW: If you didn’t discuss music, how did you learn so much from him?
BB: By osmosis. I don’t know how else to describe it. His musicality was so strong and his personality was so ordered and giving that both soaked through my body just by being around him.

JW: In late 1961 you wrote and arranged Gloomy Sunday and Other Bright Moments. How do you feel about this album?
BB: I consider it my pride and joy. I took  many creative risks here, most based on the heels of working with Bill [Finegan]. I used woodwinds, double reeds and other instrument configurations I hadn't used before. My attitude toward the orchestration was really a big step forward in my development. Working with Bill gave that to me. Bill was magic stuff.

JW: When ghosting for Finegan, did you ever fear you’d lose your own identity and sound?
BB: Oh, if I had lost Bob Brookmeyer to Bill Finegan I would have said goodbye to Bob Brookmeyer [laughs]. Bill was an absolute hero to me, and for good reason.

JW: Did you enjoy recording Gerry Mulligan’s Night Lights in 1963?
BB: Not really. That Chopin prelude he kept playing over and over again got on my nerves. I finally just left. As I was heading out, Gerry said, “Where are you going?” I said, “I’ve had enough Chopin for tonight.”

JW: Was it the Chopin or Mulligan’s piano playing?
BB: [Laughs] Both. When Gerry sat down at the piano, my toes would curl in a bad way. He had a touch like a rocket-propelled grenade. He wasn’t a piano player. His hands weren’t made for it. He was an arranger’s piano player, someone who used the piano to write, not play. I studied piano for three years and had a sense of how it’s supposed to go.

JW: Did Mulligan like to play piano in public?
BB: One time we were working opposite Art Tatum in New Jersey. We were there for a weekend. I had never been around Art Tatum before, so I’m sitting in the back, and the crowd is watching and listening intently. When Tatum finished the first set. I said to myself, “Gerry will never play piano with Art Tatum here.” Well, as soon as Tatum got up, Gerry went over to the piano and sat down. That took some nerve.

JW: Did you play, too?
BB: Yes, but not because I wanted to. On the next set, Gerry said, “Go on, go play the piano.” So I went over and sat down. I was amazed. The piano worked so beautifully right after Tatum had played it. He was such a strong player that he had warmed up the keys and action. The piano played beautifully. Just the power of Tatum’s artistry and humanity and whatever else he laid on it was beautiful. I sounded great. Heck, even Gerry sounded good on that instrument.

Tomorrow, Bob talks openly about his terrible struggle with alcoholism, his move to the West Coast in the late 1960s, playing in the Hollywood studios, overcoming his alcohol addiction, and the joy he experienced meeting his wife Janet.

JazzWax tracks: Bob's album with Bill Evans, The Ivory Hunters (United Artists) is a highly unusual recording for both artists. Once you get beyond the fact that this isn't a traditional Bill Evans album and realize that both pianists are winging it, the results become more fascinating. It's available here.

The Mosaic Records box The Complete Verve Gerry Mulligan Concert Band sadly is out of print. But you can find it for about $150 at Amazon. Or for a taste, you'll find individual CDs of the band's recordings at iTunes and Amazon.

Gloomy Sunday and Other Bright Moments, Bob's orchestral breakthrough leadership album, has been teamed with Gary McFarland's How to Succeed in Business, the Jazz Version, on one CD here.

The Ray Charles albums that feature Bob's arrangements can be found at iTunes and at Amazon. The songs also can be found on many Ray Charles compilations.

Interview: Bob Brookmeyer (Part 2)

Bob Brookmeyer's early childhood was bleak—until he  discovered music and jazz. Then he threw himself into learning the clarinet and trombone, quickly becoming a whiz sight-reader. By age 14, Bob was already a professional arranger and musician, rushing off after high school to play on local recording sessions. Not a fan of the slide trombone, Bob began playing valve-trombone, mastering the instrument and the enormous energy needed to make it swing. After two years at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music, he also had mastered the piano. By 1952, Bob was a valve-trombonist waiting for a big break. It came when Stan Getz formed a new quintet.

The Stan Getz Quintet of late 1952 was in many ways the East Coast answer to the newly minted Gerry Mulligan Quartet, which had became a hit in Los Angeles. Both groups offered a drier, cooler sound, and both relied heavily on linear harmonies rather than pure bop configurations. When you hear Bob in the Getz quintet, his firm, yearning sound is already established. As I noted to Bob during our series of conversations, his approach sounds like someone reaching for something and grabbing it flawlessly. It's that suspense, tension and determination that most engages the ear.

In Part 2 of my interview with Bob, the legendary valve-trombonist talks about why Getz and he were fired from the Tiffany Lounge in Los Angeles, why he quit the Gerry Mulligan Quartet in Paris, why Jimmy Giuffre and Jim Hall squabbled, and why Bill Harris was his favorite trombonist:

JazzWax: Soon after you left Claude Thornhill, you joined the newly formed Stan Getz Quintet.
Bob Brookmeyer: Stanley was glad to have me. Drummer Frank Isola called me at the last minute and told me what Stan wanted to do. Soon after I started in the quintet, in mid-1953, we were at Zardi's in Los Angeles. Stanley said something to me on the bandstand that sounded like the word “ape.” I gruffly called him off the bandstand, and we went in the back. I was angry. I asked him what he had called me. He said, “I called you bubbala.” I was hot and asked him what that word meant. He said, “Calm down, calm down. It’s OK. It’s a Jewish word. It’s friendly.”

JW: What was Getz’s reaction?
BB: Stanley was sort of surprised and amused that his kid trombone player wanted to beat him up. He asked the piano player, “Does Brookmeyer’s parents have money? To behave like that, I can’t imagine he needs this job.”

JW: How did you and Getz get along after that?
BB: Stanley liked me a lot. He thought I was intelligent, musical, funny. So we never had a problem again. When Stanley and I were playing in Los Angeles in 1953, we used to go across the park from the Tiffany Lounge to hear Gerry [Mulligan] and Chet [Baker] at the Haig. That was one of the greatest bands I had ever heard. The records give you only a small hint of what was going on there. When you heard that band live, in person, it was a whole different perspective. The sound was so fresh.

JW: Must have been some trip to get to the Haig and back to the Tiffany Lounge.
BB: Actually, we were over there listening to Gerry and Chet so much that the manager of the Tiffany Lounge finally said, “If you like it so much over there, why don’t you stay there.” And he fired us. So in early ’53 I went back to Kansas City and began reading Emerson and Thoreau [pictured]. I was going to give up music. I took a job at hotels to save enough money to move to a rural part of the Ozark Mountains and live alone by a lake and develop as a person.

JW: But you didn’t.
BB: Stanley, [drummer] Frank Isola and [pianist] John Williams wouldn’t stop calling me to play. So I finally went back out to Los Angeles and joined them. Stan and I also began playing after work with Gerry and Chet. Just the four of us. Both Gerry and Stanley said it was the best band they had ever played in. But nothing came of it.

JW: Why?
BB: Because they couldn’t decide who would be the leader. Then I decided to join Gerry’s quartet as the solo horn and arranger after Chet left. Stanley got pretty depressed over that.

JW: Did you go with Mulligan?
BB: No. Gerry wound up getting busted for drugs in September of ’53 and was held until December. So I went  back to New York. Right after the first of the year [in 1954], Gerry called me up and told me to bring a rhythm section out to L.A. to start rehearsing. So I brought [drummer] Frank Isola and [bassist] Bill Anthony. But Bill didn’t work out, so we got Red Mitchell halfway through the tour.

JW: You went to Paris with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet.
BB: That’s right. But Gerry liked to fight. So did his wife at the time. I couldn’t stand that. It was wasted energy. So I quit the group in Paris right after the Salle Pleyel concerts in June and returned to New York. Gerry also was still having drug problems, which added extra stress.

JW: That concert at the Salle Pleyel is a classic recording.
BB: It wasn’t supposed to be recorded. The French concert producer swore it wasn’t being taped. But a year and a half later we got the tapes.

JW: What did Gerry say when he returned from Europe?
BB: He came by my apartment in New York. Gerry asked me if I really wanted to quit. I said yes. All the drama and temper was too much for me. His wife told me he was really upset during the whole trip after I quit. As a piano player, I knew I could always make a living, whether it’s a club gig or a Greek wedding. And I played a few of those in Astoria, Queens [laughs]. I told myself, “It may not be the New York Philharmonic but I’ll eat."

JW: What was your next move?
BB: I relocated to California in late 1954. There was more work out there.

JW: What did other West Coast trombone players think of you as a valve-trombonist? What did Maynard Ferguson, a valve-trombonist, think of you?
BB: I don’t know. We never talked. I wrote an arrangement for him but he never said, “You sound good.” I think the valve-trombonists who were closest to my style were Bob Enevoldsen and Rob McConnell.

JW: Did slide players feel you were cheating?
BB: Slide trombonists make notes with a straight air column. If you’re a valve-trombonist, you have to go to Madagascar to get a tone out of it. So it’s actually much harder. My only predecessors were Juan Tizol [pictured] with Duke Ellington and Brad Gowans with Paul Whiteman and other bands in the 1930s and 1940s. I was the third one.

JW: You played with Zoot Sims in 1956. What made Zoot swing?
BB: God only knows. We were both playing in Gerry Mulligan’s sextet for about a month. We were getting really good. Zoot would be stoned at 5 am. His head would be on the floor with just room for the saxophone, just playing away. I don’t know where the feel came from but it was tremendous.

JW: What’s your favorite Zoot story?
BB: Zoot was playing on tenor in a San Francisco jazz festival in the mid-1950s. Zoot [pictured] had been hanging out with his buddies and was pretty tied. When he was blowing, he suddenly fell backward and continued playing from the floor, without ever missing a note. The next day he was mortified. So Zoot showed up sober for the next concert loaded with orange juice and coffee. When he played, they booed because he didn’t fall over and play on the floor. The audience thought that what they heard happened the night before was part of the act [laughs].

JW: In 1958 you were part of the Jimmy Giuffre 3 with Jim Hall.
BB: Wow, those two personalities didn’t get along at all. I always had to play the intermediary. I called myself the Ralph Bunche of jazz [laughs]. I’d be having a martini and Jim would come up and complain about Jimmy. Then Jimmy would come up to me and complain about Jim. Jim’s big complaint was having to play too much rhythm guitar behind us rather than solos. I was always so busy de-fanging the situation I didn’t have time to evaluate who was right or wrong.

JW: Who was your biggest trombone inspiration?
BB: Bill Harris. I loved his large sound, his over-emotional thing, and his humor and facility with the instrument. Bill was so opposite of me. Brash and aggressive. He thrilled me.

JW: Come on! Are you saying you were timid?
BB: I couldn’t do what Bill did.

JW: But you were so musically confident at such an early age. What was so impossible about Bill’s playing?
BB: He played slide trombone with enormous punctuation. I loved him, and Earl Swope. Both had enormous technique and a special sound. The first job I had at Birdland was playing piano on Monday nights behind Bill Harris. That was a thrill. Later, when I was with Mulligan in Las Vegas for a quartet concert in 1963, we went on at 1 am. Bill was working with Charlie Teagarden somewhere in town, so when I'd finished, I went over and hung with Bill for an hour. When he went onto the stand to play, the first sounds he made sent a shiver up my back. Nothing had changed. He still had that hold on me, from 1945. He hadn't lost any of his power.

JW: When you were developing your sound, did you have Bill Harris in mind?
BB: Maybe. Early on, I’d go up to Chicago from Kansas City to play. I was at the Blue Note jamming one night. Woody Herman was in there. As I was walking out, I passed Woody, who said, “Hey Butch, you like Bill?” I said, “Yes.” Funny, Woody could hear Bill Harris in my playing on the stand.

Tomorrow: Bob talks about ghost-arranging parts of Ray Charles Genius and Genius Hits the Road for Ralph Burns, putting together Gerry Mulligan's Concert Band, why he walked out during Mulligan's Night Lights session, and the joy of playing a piano that Art Tatum had just finished performing on.

JazzWax tracks: Bob Brookmeyer's recordings with the Stan Getz Quartet can be found on a number of different CDs. One is Bob Brookmeyer: The Complete 1953-54 Quintet Recordings with Stan Getz here. Bob's work with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet is on The Gerry Mulligan Quartet: The Complete Studio Recordings here. One of the group's finest live dates was at George Wein's Storyville in Boston, which is on The Gerry Mulligan Quartet at Storyville, here. One of Bob's finest early leadership quartet recordings is on The Modernity of Bob Brookmeyer here.

A must-own collection of Bob's 1950s leadership sessions is Mosaic Select: Bob Brookmeyer here. Included in the box set is one of my favorite albums by Bob from this period called The Street Swingers. On this set, you'll hear just how frighteningly brilliant Bob was in the 1950s as a writer, arranger and valve-trombonist.