Shorty Rogers

[Larry Kart]

But also I recommend the Gene Norman presents Modern Sounds - Shorty Rogers & Gerry Mulligan. With His Giants, Rogers gets the A-Side recorded in 1951 and it will dispel any prejudices about the west coast.

Recomendation seconded, plus the album called, I think, Courts the Count.

IIRC, "Shorty Courts the Count" is fun in a kind of vulgar, guilty pleasures way, in that the '30s Basie pieces are arranged so that Shorty's trumpet section, which I believe included Maynard Ferguson, sounded like a crew of neo-Kenton bulldozers, with Maynard at times screaming an octave above the rest.

[Late]

[BillF]

[Peter Friedman]

Shorty Rogers wrote some good tunes and was a fine arranger. He also used many damn fine sidemen. I enjoy his recordings, other than some of his later

sessions that veered too far to the commercial side for my taste.

His trumpet playing, in my opinion, was often the weakest part of his recording sessions.

[DIS]

I have a broad array of Shorty Rogers print music from solo transcriptions to lead sheets to duets to combo to big band arrangements. If there's anything you're looking for, you're welcome to inquire if I have it.

[Joe]

I've always liked this one too.

Another vote for this one; the most interesting of his big band dates (at least as far as I have heard).

[Head Man]

There's not many of his RCA recordings that aren't worth hearing. A pretty consistent musician IMO.

[BillF]

I've always liked this one too.

Another vote for this one; the most interesting of his big band dates (at least as far as I have heard).

Fine album, but not to be compared with Cool 'n Crazy or the Herman and Kenton orchs playing Rogers charts IMHO.

[Larry Kart]

Though not without its charm, the cuteness/coyness of Shorty's own trumpet playing (and his flugelhorn playing) can wear out its welcome for me fairly soon, but I wonder if anyone has any thoughts about what its stylistic sources might be. Sure, it's possible that Shorty came up with own thing entirely on his own hook, but I think that's unlikely. In terms of basic "coolness" of timbre and accentuation, I hear links to "Birth of the Cool" Miles, but I think that Shorty's primary model was Harry Edison, even though the crucial "sting" of vintage Sweets was not part of Shorty's repertoire.

[Simon8]

Thanks to the recommandations on this thread, I discovered and quite like "Wherever the Five Winds Blow" and "Clickin' with Clax".

[Big Beat Steve]

This "semi-bashing" of Shorty's "Courts The Count" prompted me to give this LP anaother listen. I really cannot find that much Kentonesque pomp and grandstanding there and in the context of the big band evolution of the 50s this LP actually sounds fairly "mainstream"-ish to me (mainstream by 50s big band jazz standards, of course). Even the high-note excursions in "It's Sand, Man", for example, resemble fairly typical trumpet section licks of many big bands of those times. Without wanting to go into who was first where, it sounds like fairly common (i.e. "mainstream") big band vocabulary to me.

Not willing to academically dissect the individual big bands' styles (just listening and enjoying!), but just compare with the general tendency towards dominating brass sections, and after all even the 50s Basie band successively gained more and more volume and brass gymnastics compared to their earlier periods.

No, to me this "Courts The Count" really sounds like like a fairly appropriate modernized 50s rendering of the old Basie warhorses without being all that disrespectful to the character of the source material. But of course YMMV (as some are wont to say around here ).

[BillF]

Though not without its charm, the cuteness/coyness of Shorty's own trumpet playing (and his flugelhorn playing) can wear out its welcome for me fairly soon, but I wonder if anyone has any thoughts about what its stylistic sources might be. Sure, it's possible that Shorty came up with own thing entirely on his own hook, but I think that's unlikely. In terms of basic "coolness" of timbre and accentuation, I hear links to "Birth of the Cool" Miles, but I think that Shorty's primary model was Harry Edison, even though the crucial "sting" of vintage Sweets was not part of Shorty's repertoire.

Yes, Shorty's on record as having Sweets as an idol in his youth, and he certainly engaged him often enough for his sessions. I think there's some Dizzy in there, too, despite the cool timbre you note. Shorty played far too many notes to be significantly a Miles follower, though "Birth of the Cool" was a huge influence on his arranging, of course.

[Larry Kart]

This "semi-bashing" of Shorty's "Courts The Count" prompted me to give this LP anaother listen. I really cannot find that much Kentonesque pomp and grandstanding there and in the context of the big band evolution of the 50s this LP actually sounds fairly "mainstream"-ish to me (mainstream by 50s big band jazz standards, of course). Even the high-note excursions in "It's Sand, Man", for example, resemble fairly typical trumpet section licks of many big bands of those times. Without wanting to go into who was first where, it sounds like fairly common (i.e. "mainstream") big band vocabulary to me.

Not willing to academically dissect the individual big bands' styles (just listening and enjoying!), but just compare with the general tendency towards dominating brass sections, and after all even the 50s Basie band successively gained more and more volume and brass gymnastics compared to their earlier periods.

No, to me this "Courts The Count" really sounds like like a fairly appropriate modernized 50s rendering of the old Basie warhorses without being all that disrespectful to the character of the source material. But of course YMMV (as some are wont to say around here ).

What I meant was that the '30s Basie band had a particular mellow, gliding, laid-back, in-the-groove feel, and while I agree that the band on "Shorty Courts the Count" was not that much more blustery or high-note-inclined than many big bands of the mid-1950s -- I still cherish the first time I heard the mid-'50s Basie band in person and was almost blown out of my seat by their first number "Stereophonic" -- it was not IMO akin to the old Basie groove (and by "old" I certainly don't mean outmoded; one could argue that the feel of the vintage Basie rhythm section was hipper and/or more "advanced" than that of all but a few circa 1955 rhythm sections). In any case, the difference between "Shorty Courts the Count" and vintage Basie struck me at the time in part because a good deal of mid-'50s small group recordings from both coasts, including a number from Rogers, got into that late-'30s Basie groove quite effectively. A nice example that comes to mind is the Cy Touff-Richie Kamuca Pacific Jazz date; the band sounds like it's on ball-bearings.

[Big Beat Steve]

Will have to pull out both "Stereophonic" and the Touff-Kamuca PJ date to follow this up, I guess ...

Of couse the 30s/early 40s Basie band had a groove in a class by itself, but what I meant to say is that 15 to 20 years later a reworking is bound to end up somewhere else and it is there that I find those recordings quite appropriate and in fact an interesting contrast and addition to the originals. But of course I can state this only with the benefit of hindsight. Maybe the impact at the time would have been felt differently.

But Basie sound copycats would not have met with critics' approval either.

And I don't suppose you meant to say a rendering of the old Basis tunes as done in the mid-50s should not have gone beyond what one of the Nat Pierce-led bands would have done at that time? (Not that I would call him a "copycat")

Edited February 17, 2014 by Big Beat Steve

[Larry Kart]

"And I don't suppose you meant to say a rendering of the old Basis tunes as done in the mid-50s should not have gone beyond what one of the Nat Pierce-led bands would have done at that time?"

But what does "gone beyond" mean? Merely going to a different place musically, as would be true of "Shorty Courts the Count," versus(as you say) trying to reproduce that vintage Basie feel, a la those big bands and small groups with Nat Pierce in the rhythm section? Or going to a place that was beholden to vintage Basie but that also was a somewhat novel, artistically meaningful extension of that linear "near invisible" swing feel? One group that didn't exactly go beyond that vintage Basie but certainly came up with a subtle variation on it IMO was the Lee Konitz-Warne Marsh group, with Billy Bauer, Oscar Pettiford and Kenny Clarke that recorded "Topsy" for Atlantic. The time-feeling on that track is so beautiful, like the ticking of a cosmic clock. BTW, I once found out IIRC that Klook played two dates on that day -- the one with Lee and Warne and another with Carmen McRae. Clarke and Pettiford -- what a team.

BTW, I've never found Pierce's Basie-isms that convincing, except on the first of those two Prestige albums with Shad Collins and Quinichette -- that I think mostly because of the inestimable presence of Walter Page (his final recording, I think). For comping and solo work that's somewhat in the Basie vein but more effective, I'll take Sir Charles Thompson.

Also, the recording of "Stereophonic" is a blast in both senses IIRC, but hearing that sucker from a tenth row seat in the Chicago Opera House was something else. People tend to have forgotten (at least I think they have) what the visceral impact of an on-stage big band could be like, especially in the era before amplification became the norm.

[Larry Kart]

Stereophonic:

Another track of the same vintage and feel as Lee and Warne's "Topsy" (but cheating a bit because it includes Basie, Walter Page, Freddie Greene, and Jo Jones themselves) is "Shoe Shine Boy" from the Vanguard album "The Jo Jones Special." Unfortunately, it's not on YouTube.

[Larry Kart]

Sir Charles in excelsis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puLDAOYDRf0

[JSngry]

Also, the recording of "Stereophonic" is a blast in both senses IIRC, but hearing that sucker from a tenth row seat in the Chicago Opera House was something else. People tend to have forgotten (at least I think they have) what the visceral impact of an on-stage big band could be like, especially in the era before amplification became the norm.

You're preaching to the choir on this one! First live jazz I ever heard was Basie, December 1970, in a theater, Shreveport, La. Solo mikes only (plus that feed of Freddie Green that the bass player got), and, yeah, visceral does not begin to describe it. The air moved was more than some, I'll put it that way. Then the years borught about the taile end of Kenton, Hrrman, Rich, Jones-Lewis (minus Jones, alas), all in the flesh,m and all using sol,o mikes only.

Today's lab/rehearsal/etc bands do a good (sometimes/enough) job of getting blend and such, but projection, not so much. It's a whole 'nother world out there now, and ideals are different. Not necessarily for the better, or for the worse, but definitely different. People form their concepts of tone and blend (and even/especially, projection

)with miking in mind so much more these days than they used to.

On a grumpy day, I'll judge, but today, I'll just note the difference, and advise that anybody who has the opportunity to see an honest to god for real big band these days should do it before they blink.