“Western Suite” – Jimmy Giuffre (1960)

Posted on March 4, 2024 by Richard Barry
jimmygiuffre

Jimmy Giuffre’s album Western Suite was recorded on December 3, 1958 in NYC and Connecticut, produced by Nesuhi Ertegun, and released on the Atlantic label (LP1330) in 1960. Giuffre plays clarinet, tenor saxophone, and baritone saxophone with Jim Hall on guitar and Bob Brookmeyer on piano, and valve trombone. It’s in the cool jazz style.

Thom Jurek of Allmusic wrote this about the release:

Giuffre, ever the storyteller, advanced the improvisation angle and wrote his score so that each player had to stand on his own as part of the group; there were no comfort zones. Without a rhythm section, notions of interval, extensions, interludes, and so on were out the window. He himself played some of his most retrained yet adventurous solos in the confines of this trio and within the form of this suite. It swung like West Coast jazz, but felt as ambitious as Copland’s Billy the Kid”.

The structure of the album has the first half, the title track “Western Suite,” featuring a “country music/folk-inspired suite,” by Giuffre  and the second half a version of the standard “Topsy” (Edgar Battle, Eddie Durham) and Monk’s “Blue Monk.”

This one is really worth a close listen and must have been a bear to improvise on without a rhythm section.

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“All of Me” – Billie Holiday (1941)

Posted on March 4, 2024 by Richard Barry

Gerald Marks (1900-1997) and Seymour Simons (1896-1946) wrote the lyrics and music for “All of Me” in 1931. It has been recorded somewhere around 2000 times and is the song for which Marks and Simons are best known, and the only song by the pair to make it into the jazz standard repertoire. Not surprisingly, it won the “Towering Song” award given by the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2000.

In Ted Gioia’s The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire, he tags Billie Holiday’s early 40s version with tenor saxman Lester Young as the “definitive cut for effectively blending the sense of the lyrics with the apparently incongruous feel of the music.”

Holiday describes a more complicated romance, one just as likely to end in heartbreak as in happily-ever-after. This type of equivocal mood is often hard to capture at the bouncy mid-tempo at which this song is usually played, but Holiday offers a textbook example of how it’s done.

Paul Whiteman, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, and Willie Nelson among many others have taken a turn. Featured cut goes, of course, to “Lady Day.”

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“The Theme from Mannix” – The WDR Big Band (2013)

Posted on March 4, 2024 by Richard Barry
mannix

Mannix was a television detective series that had a substantial run, from 1967 to 1975. It aired on CBS at a time when you only had a few choices each night. I recall watching it faithfully.

The plot revolved around Joe Mannix (starring Mike Connors), a private investigator who took on different cases from week to week. If you are not familiar with the show, you can certainly grasp the basic premise: tough guy, clever fellow, heart of gold, you know.

I was poking around the Internet today looking for examples of jazz tunes or jazz influenced tunes used as theme music for television. There are a bunch, as you might imagine. This one caught my attention because I remember it so well. When I listened to it, it was oh-so-familiar.

schifinr
Lalo Schifrin

The music is by Lalo Schifrin, Argentine pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. He is no doubt better known for writing the Theme From Mission: Impossible. And for the fact that he has received four Grammy Awards and six Oscar nominations, with a number of well known movie scores to his credit.

He has also been featured on albums with Cannonball Adderley, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, and many others. So he’s a jazz guy.

About the theme, though I didn’t know it when I started digging, Schifrin decided, in some time ago to redo some of his earlier work, including the theme from Mannix, which was written in 1967. For that, he went to Cologne, Germany and worked with the WDR Big Band. The results are below. 

As you listen, note that you will hear things you did not hear on the original TV series, which is fair. Themes are generally about a minute long and songs are longer. So there.

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“Green Dolphin Street” – Miles Davis (1958)

Posted on March 4, 2024 by Richard Barry
Green Mvie

“On Green Dolphin Street” was the main theme of the 1947 MGM film Green Dolphin Street. The movie was based on a book by British novelist Elizabeth Goudge called Green Dolphin Country (1944), published in the United States as Green Dolphin Street.

It starred Lana Turner, Van Heflin, Donna Reed, Richard Hart, and Frank Morgan. This is the IMDb summary, which sounds awful.

Sophie loved Edmund, but he left town when her parents forced her to marry wealthy Octavius. Years later, Edmund returns with his son, William. Sophie’s daughter, Marguerite, and William fall in love. Marguerite’s sister, Marianne, also loves William. Timothy, a lowly carpenter, secretly loves Marianne. He kills a man in a fight, and Edmund helps him flee to New Zealand. William deserts inadvertently from the navy, and also flees in disgrace to New Zealand, where he and Timothy start a profitable business. One night, drunk, William writes Octavius, demanding his daughter’s hand; but, being drunk, he errs.

And though, according to Jazz Standards website, the movie is generally panned today, it was the top box office draw of 1947 and won Academy Awards for visual and sound effects. Post-war escapism, etc., etc. (I guess).

Green

Bronislau Kaper, a significant talent, wrote the music though “Green Dolphin Street” did not become a hit immediately. It would take ten years until Miles Davis and friends pushed it along to the point that it would become a jazz standard.

So, no, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans did not play the music for the film. They did, however, record a version in 1958 that is considered by many to be definitive, on the album ’58 Session: Featuring Stella By Starlight. Featured are Julian “Cannonball” Adderly (alto sax),  Paul Chambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums). Quite the group.

First the Davis version. Then the trailer for the movie. If you listen closely you can almost hear the theme in the background.

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“Boom Boom” – John Lee Hooker (1962)

Posted on March 3, 2024 by Richard Barry
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“Boom Boom” was written by blues singer/guitarist John Lee Hooker, and released in 1962. It had success on U.S. R&B and pop charts when it was released. It is strongly identified with Hooker and widely covered by other artists. The Animals had a hit with it in 1965.

“Boom Boom” was released as a single on the Vee Jay label. “Drug Store Woman” was the B-side. If you know nothing about the blues, you’ve still probably heard this one. No comment on the lyrics, which contain this gem.

Ah boom, boom, boom, boom
I’m gonna shoot you down
Right off ‘a your feet
Until you’re home with me

Great riff though.

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“It Never Entered My Mind” – Sarah Vaughan (1958)

Posted on March 3, 2024 by Richard Barry

“It Never Entered My Mind” is a 1940 show tune from a production called Higher and Higher – a Rodgers and Hart musical.  It ran on Broadway for 108 performances, which rates it as a moderately successful show. In the production, Shirley Ross introduces the song and later recorded a version with the Larry Carleton Orchestra.

For those who keep track of such things, a movie was later made of the stage play staring Michele Morgan, Frank Sinatra and Mel Torme, but it featured a new score by Jimmy McHugh and Harold Adamson. Why someone would take a Rodgers and Hart score and toss it aside is a story probably known to someone, but not me.

The folks at JazzStandards.com (who rate this tune as number 181 of jazz standards of all time) note that generations of instrumentalists have covered the song (e.g., Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson), but it is the “memorable and poignant lyrics'” and the vocalists who have sung them that “keep the tune at the top of the jazz standards list,” with recordings by Sarah Vaugan, Julie London, Holly Cole, Ann Hampton Callaway, Jay Clayton, Dennis Rowland, Susannah McCorkle, Jane Monheit, and Tierney Sutton among others.

Lorenz Hart’s lyric is a heartfelt expression of loneliness. The woman who sings the verse is suffering the consequences of not having heeded the advice of her former lover. She confesses now to loneliness and a loss of interest in her appearance. This is a woman who once was desired and loved but who was a coquette who took love for granted. She tells in the refrain how she dismissed her lover’s predictions as to where her conduct would lead.

JazzStandards.com

It is hard to imagine a better voice singing this beautiful jazz classic than the one belonging to Sarah Vaughan. Bonus track is the Ross original, which is sweet in its own way but more playful and quicker-paced, and lacking the emotional depth of the later vocal treatments.

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“Walkin’ With Mr. Lee” – Lee Allen (1958)

Posted on March 2, 2024 by Richard Barry
Mr. lee

Pete Thomas’s terrific website Taming the Saxophone has a page dedicated to the masters of Rhythm and Blues saxophone, with bios and clips.

He writes:

These biographies, photos and sound clips include all the influential rhythm and blues saxophone players of the 40s and 50s. Some of these are jazz players who contributed significantly to the development of blues saxophone, others are hardcore bar walking “screamers and honkers.”

It’s a great resource. Well worth checking out. One of the players mentioned is Lee Allen (1926-1994)

Lee’s playing epitomizes New Orleans Rock & Roll, he was a member of the famous Cosimo’s studio “house band” . . . and so played the seminal solos on the early hits by Little Richard, plus countless other stars of the time: Fats Domino, Etta James etc.

The AllMusic bio, written by Bruce Eder, notes that Lee Allen did have a fair bit of success as a session musician and sideman but never really got much recognition under his own name, with one exception. 

The AllMusic entry continues:

In 1958, Allen recorded a bouncy, rocking instrumental that he’d devised while on the road with Domino, using the title “Walkin’ With Mr. Lee” — it was picked up by Dick Clark, who used it many times on American Bandstand, and ended up riding the middle level of the national charts for three months that year, peaking at number 54 but selling well enough over that time to work its way into a lot of households…which made his reputation.

Great tune. Great sound. Given that the song was a minor hit due to its association with American Bandstand, here is a clip of the show featuring the song.

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“It Ain’t Like That” – Una Mae Carlisle (1941)

Posted on March 2, 2024 by Richard Barry
una

Una Mae Carlisle (1915 – 1956) was an American jazz singer, pianist, and songwriter, born in Xenia, Ohio. She was “discovered” by Fats Waller while still in her teens. Waller strongly influenced her boogie-woogie/stride piano style. Humour was also a part of her act.

According to one reference:

[Waller] invited her to play on his radio show at station WLW in Cincinnati during Christmas week when Una Mae turned seventeen. She was still in High School at the time, and her mother had approved her Christmas vacation in Cincinnati because she was to stay with her elder sister. When her vacation was over, she refused to return home, becoming a professional musician working with Waller at WLW.

She was successful as both a performer and a songwriter. As a songwriter, her catalog includes “I See a Million People” and “Walkin’ by the River,” which were covered by many artists including  Cab Calloway and Peggy Lee.

She also had her own radio and television programs late in the 1940s, though retired in 1952 due to illness. She died in New York City in 1956.

Her discography languished between her death and the mid-’80s when the first Carlisle reissue came out on the Harlequin label. Subsequently there have been reissues by RCA, which owns the Bluebird catalog, and the French Melodie Jazz label.

AllMusic

Full discography and session information can be found here. This is a Carlisle original called “It Ain’t Like That.”

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“Serenity” – Joe Henderson (1964)

Posted on March 2, 2024 by Richard Barry
In and out

Once the British Invasion took hold, times were tough for all sorts of competing genre, not the least of which was jazz. So, what was happening in jazz after the Beatles made their debut on the Ed Sullivan show and all things mop-top and yeah-yeah-yeah became the rage?

For one, tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson was putting out music. In ‘n Out was his third album on the Blue Note label. It was released on April 10, 1964, with Henderson joined by Kenny Dorham (trumpet), McCoy Tyner (piano),  Richard Davis (bass), and Elvin Jones (drums).

About the album, Scott Yannow at AllMusic writes: “Henderson always had the ability to make a routine bop piece sound complex and the most complicated free improvisation seem logical.”

The authoritative and weighty Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD says this:

Henderson’s … [tunes] are standout pieces, [like] the quizzical title track, the haunting theme of “Punjab,” [and] the charming “Serenity.” Dorham seems to be thinking through his solos rather than punching them out, while in general the temperature seems rather lower than on Henderson’s other Blue Notes; it’s fascinating music.

Very nice indeed.

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“I Won’t Last a Day Without You” – The Carpenters (1972)

Posted on March 2, 2024 by Richard Barry

Karen Carpenter was born on this day in 1950 (March 2nd). I have always loved her voice. I don’t care what “they” say, though sometimes “they” can actually use their ears and not their self-serving sense of hipness when making musical judgements. On point, in 2010, Rolling Stone Magazine did a feature on “The Greatest Voices of All Time” decided by 179 “experts.” Karen Carpenter came in at number 94 with the following rationale.

Karen Carpenter’s white-bread image and sad fate — she died of anorexia in 1983 — have overshadowed her chocolate-and-cream alto voice. But other performers know the score: Elton John called her “one of the greatest voices of our lifetime,” and Madonna has said she is “completely influenced by her harmonic sensibility.” Impossibly lush and almost shockingly intimate, Carpenter’s performances were a new kind of torch singing, built on understatement and tiny details of inflection that made even the sappiest songs sound like she was staring directly into your eyes. Still, she’s a guilty pleasure for many. “Karen Carpenter had a great sound,” John Fogerty once told Rolling Stone, “but if you’ve got three guys out on the ballfield and one of them started humming [a Carpenters song], the other two guys would pants him.”

Rolling Stone

And there it is; can’t help but call her voice a “guilty pleasure” because some of the other kids on the playground might tease you.

Could have chosen any number of songs but “I Won’t Last a Day Without You” stands out for me. It was written by Paul Williams (lyrics) and Roger Nichols (music). The pair had already written “We’ve Only Just Begun” and “Rainy Days and Mondays” for the Carpenters. “I Won’t Last a Day Without You” was first released in the U.K. in 1973, paired with “Goodbye to Love” as a double-A side. In 1974, it was released in the U.S. where it became a hit, rising up to No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Karen Carpenter’s voice on this tune is just exquisite.

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