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RIP Gene Puerling


Ted O'Reilly

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I've just heard, through Rob McConnell, that Gene Puerling died last Tuesday, just short of his 79th birthday. Puerling created and led the vocal groups The Hi-Lo's and The Singers Unlimited.. He was probably the best vocal arranger ever. I met Gene on several occasions, and he was among the truly nicest people around. I doubt that he had an enemy in the world, but he certainly had a ton of friends and admirers.

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Sorry to hear about his passing. I've long been impressed by his arranging skills, and will admit to owning and enjoying the Singers Unlimited box. I expect much of their output might be considered too muzak-like for many here, but I enjoy the quality and harmonic sophistication of the arrangements (and Bonnie Herman is one talented singer!).

RIP

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FFA, I'm with you, but proudly own their recordings -- I've never understood people who can't hear the incredible musicianship of The Singers Unlimited (never mind The Hi-Lo's).

I saw the creation of the album TSU did with Rob McConnell, as the four singers sang the guide tracks to the Boss Brass instrumental side. I would have been happy to release just those efforts, let alone the polished overdubs that created the choir. And Puerling was a master of that sort of studio production, probably equalling what George Martin did. Gene was underappreciated, believe me...

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Thanks for posting this, Ted. I saw The Hi-Lo's about ten years ago in Atlanta, and they were terrific!

I have only one Singers Unlimited album, I think called a capela, which was released on CD about twenty years ago. It's a great one, though not in any way jazz.

The Hi-Lo's' pre-Columbia recordings were released on a two-CD set about a year ago, and I have given some thought to picking it up. Maybe this will spur me to do it.

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The Hi-Los Spotlite recordings are probably the most audacious vocal writing in the history of Popular Music, in spite of plenty of moments of androgynous piffle and/or camp that knows no shame. It doesn't matter, that stuff is off the hook, all the way. Their very first recording (not on Spotlite, btw, but today sometimes bundled in with those recordings), "They Didn't Believe Me" is just so....radical. "Outside the box" hell, these guys were outside the box, off the shelf, through the door, into the car, and on the plane, all in less than three minutes. (curbing impulse to rag on the wimpy Four Freshmen right now...)

Singers Unlimited, I didn't dig back in the day, I might now, but maybe not. I don't dig Columbia Hi-Los as much as Spotlite Hi-Los. Maybe Puerling "got it all out" early on and realized that if he kept on doing it like that, he'd have to repeat himself, and eventually become a gimmick writer, so he decided on a more moderate approach that would surprise less but wear easier over the long haul. I don't know.

What I do know is that the guy was a master of his craft, a knowing practitioner of his art, and that ain't nobody before, after, and quite possibly ever come close to what he did early on.

RIP, and thanks. Big thanks.

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The kind of harmonies Puerling used with the Singers Unlimited were a radical departure from the usual ii-V-I jazz/standard harmonies of the previous generation (this is not a slight against the Hi-Los, who were always very adventurous). SI seemed to owe more of a debt to Brian Wilson - himself influenced by the Hi-Los and Freshman - but who wasn't as tied to the standard chord progressions heard throughout the "Great American Songbook." This may sound weird, but there is an appealing emotionless delivery about the Singers Unlimited. There stuff is very MPS and conjures northern European snowscapes, for me at least. Go for the stuff recorded up to about 1975. It's all in Stereo Jack's dollar bin.

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Big difference for me between early Hi-Los & later hi-Los and especially Singers Unlimited is that the early Hi-Los stuff was quite often hardcore in-your-face altered harmony, where as the later stuff was all about being "lush", although, particularly in the case of the Singers, in some very advanced/sophisticated ways.

Not to say that one way is "better" than the other, just to say that that's the difference for me, and although it might have taken more maturity to have done the later stuff, it definitely took a lot of youthful arrogance to do the earlier. I'm of the mind that the opportunity to effectively be youthfully arrogant is quite a limited one relative to the time one has to be mature, so whenever somebody carpe diems on it like Puerling did, hey, Love Points are earned.

Either way, though, I don't think there's any question that the guy was a master.

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Agree completely. Puerling seemed to be more about reharmonizing with the Singers Unlimited, and creating a lot of sustained, impressionistic sorts of chords and effects. Yes, I hear the "youthful arrogance" in the Hi-Los. My dad had some of the really early stuff from the Trend label (45s like "They Didn't Believe Me") but also some of the early Columbia LPs, mostly with (the great) Frank Comstock. My Dad (who was a WWII era guy and a professional group singer) also said that the Columbia stuff wasn't as good as the earlier stuff. I always liked the Columbia stuff just as well, and "The Hi Los and All That Jazz" has always been a favorite.

Luckily, I've inherited my Dad's records, though I wish he were around to appreciate them with me.

I should also add that I listen to SI and the HLs when I'm in completely different moods. SI would be good hangover music, but listening to the HLs with a hangover would be torture.

Edited by Teasing the Korean
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Amusing response to this YouTube TV performance of "Goody Goody" by The Hi-Los:

"this is a perfect example of a race record. white people were afraid of what would happen if their children were exposed to black music and as a result a perfectly good song was murdered."

Apparently "white people were afraid of..." is a reference to Frankie Lymon's popular recording of "Goody Goody."

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It's particularly moving for me to find that Ted O'Reilly created this entry. For those of you not acquainted with the CBC---or now maybe too young---Ted's radio shows always proved he is among the most brilliant of jazz DJs...you know, like in the whole history of the music. I mention this because the revival of The Hi-Lo's at Monterey in the late '70s was broadcast (and therefore a recording of it must exist somewhere). Rob McConnell brought his band down for it to accompany them, and also got a feature spot in the festival. At one point he introduced a piece Ted used for a theme song, and tried to describe for the audience what Ted's shows were like. He said they felt like stepping into some kind of time warp, as Ted usually thought nothing of segueing from Ornette Coleman to Jelly Roll Morton. I remember Rob and The Hi-Lo's stomped off with Seems Like Old Times for the concert. Sensational!

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It's particularly moving for me to find that Ted O'Reilly created this entry. For those of you not acquainted with the CBC---or now maybe too young---Ted's radio shows always proved he is among the most brilliant of jazz DJs...you know, like in the whole history of the music. I mention this because the revival of The Hi-Lo's at Monterey in the late '70s was broadcast (and therefore a recording of it must exist somewhere). Rob McConnell brought his band down for it to accompany them, and also got a feature spot in the festival. At one point he introduced a piece Ted used for a theme song, and tried to describe for the audience what Ted's shows were like. He said they felt like stepping into some kind of time warp, as Ted usually thought nothing of segueing from Ornette Coleman to Jelly Roll Morton. I remember Rob and The Hi-Lo's stomped off with Seems Like Old Times for the concert. Sensational!

Well, thank you very much, Jazzolog, but in keeping with my reputation for being accurate, if not downright pedantic, I was never heard on the CBC. Well, as an occasional guest, but not as a host. My jazz career was on CJRT-FM in Toronto (these days called JazzFM91, a claim I'll argue with).

I was at that Monterey concert too (Sept. 18, 1981). There was indeed a live broadcast of the concerts, and I have an off-the-air cassette of it, so I can't tell how well-recorded it actually was, given the broadcast quality, but it's a good souvenir.

The Hi-Lo's (Don Shelton, Clark Burroughs, Bob Morse and Gene Puerling) with Don Haas (sp?) on piano; Marc Johnson on bass and Connie Kay on drums.

Their set: Small Fry

My Sugar (Is So Refined)

Lady In Red

Lulu's Back In Town

Tenderly

Come Rain Or Come Shine

Secret Love

Lazy Afternoon

Rockin' Chair

Rob McConnell and The Boss Brass finally got on stage for "The Breakfast Show" at about 1:30 in the morning, and the band had been travelling and up for about 26 hours: "We came from Toronto today. On a bus!" said Rob.

Their set: Confirmation (Sam Noto, tpt; Moe Koffman, alto; Ed Bickert, gtr)

Portrait of Jenny (Guido Basso, flug)

My Bells (Jimmy Dale, pno)

Just Friends (Rob McConnell, vtbn; Eugene Amaro, tnr; Sam Noto, tpt)

Then, the Hi-Lo's came out and joined the band for two tracks they had recorded with The Boss Brass for MPS:

Georgia

Seems Like Old Times

Then, the encore/closer, the theme Rob wrote for me (recorded live at the El Mocambo in Toronto)

T.O. (Rob McConnell, vtbn; Ed Bickert, gtr)

All the way through, the great bass work of Don Thompson, and Terry Clarke on drums -- 16 years to the day when they also ignited Monterey with the John Handy Quintet on Spanish Lady and If Only We Knew.

More? www.tedoreilly.com

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Well it just goes to show how sloppy we Yanks are! I grew up in Jamestown, south of Buffalo, New York, and CJBC mostly (and CBL sometimes) was where I tuned in during my teen years. By 1952 I was getting into jazz and Dick MacDougal ruled my Saturday afternoons. His 2 hour show was divided into half hour segments, of dixieland, swing, bop and new releases. He taught me the basics, until I got to New York 10 years later and heard those jazz jocks---particularly Ed Beach on WRVR. But in the '50s I guess I thought everything up there was the CBC---and obviously I stayed that way, even though I was aware there were commercial and other kinds of public radio stations emerging.

Yeah, T.O. was the chart! Thanks for reminding me of the title. I hope you remember Rob's hilarious introduction. I think NPR broadcast it, but it must not have been live because the stuff wasn't in that order. I recorded some of it, including The Hi-Lo's version of Tenderly which they performed acapella.

I don't want to get too far off the thread, so let me say I'm astonished there still are no obits in the major papers---at least picked up by Google News---for Gene Puerling. Is it possible this music is STILL too far ahead of the general public? Here we have the man generally regarded as the greatest vocal group arranger of all time...and certainly a major innovator of jazz choral singing. Granted, there's not a huge audience for this but surely most American high schools now have a number of pieces in that style in their choral program repertoires. At least the bloggers and message boards are posting some memorial comments.

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