Jump to content

What Got You Into West Coast Jazz?


Tom 1960

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 88
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

... I happened to see an advertisement for a couple Shorty Rogers arrangements in Down Beat, "Morpo" and "Pirouette." I bought them and then bought the recording, a 45RPM album titled Shorty Rogers and His Giants. Yep. still have the charts, still have the recording.

In an effort to learn more about Shorty's arranging techniques, I reversed-engineered the parts and made a concert-pitch score. So that started me on a track of arranging....

Cool story! I love Shorty's stuff from the period you describe. Curious, are there any specific techniques you could describe from either of those two scores that made a particular impression on you?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Thanks for the info. I've just checked and compared most of the sample pages. Pictures have been changed, it seems, and some minor revisions to the text (more thoroughly revised in the case of the Kenton sample page, though from this smal sample I cannot tell in what direction). At any rate, some serious revision would have been required anyway since at the time the book was first published the Fresh Sound LP reissue program was in full swing and made a LOT of hitherto unobtainable music available again, particularly to the interested listener. Today's availability would require updating the references to a lot of source material (records), though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a revived older thread but it got me to thinking about what my gateway to west coast jazz was. My gateway to west coast jazz was The Crusaders. I got on board with the group with their "Southern Comfort" album. I continued to follow them with each release afterwards but pretty much lost interest in their sound with the exit of Wayne Henderson and the recording "Free As The Wind" and everything that followed. Rather than give up on the group, I went backwards in their discography to their Jazz Crusader days.  I read about their start with Richard Bock and Pacific Jazz and I liked their sound so much, I began to look into what other artists recorded with Pacific Jazz. That lead to Chet Baker with Russ Freeman. That lead to Chet Baker with Gerry Mulligan and as I searched for more of that cool, west coast sound, I came across the usual cast of characters, Art Pepper, Shorty Rogers, Howard Rumsey, Gerald Wilson, Stan Getz, Shelly Manne, etc. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Apart from previously mentionet HS Band Director kismet, there was also the equally kismetic circumstance of the local Treasure City being chock-full of Liberty catalog deletions, which apart form some really insane Blu Note items also contained a buttload full of Pacific Jazz/World Pacific (Jazz) items, old and new alike, including choice Mulligan & Chico sides from the Jazz Milestones Series, still tresaured items for me today, not just for the music, but for the cover art, already a "modern nostalgia" thing going on for WCJ in the late 1960s.

S+T-20144.jpg

91HiZz2stmL._SX466_.jpg

!BsmmUJwEWk~$%28KGrHqYH-DYEvF8YbFEPBL4h4

and this one, colors brighter than this, looks nothing like mulligan, but those colors pretty much represent how in my mind "West Coast Jazz" sounded then, and to a large extent, still does.

!CC1no%28!CWk~$%28KGrHqIOKocE0h!WGQ-MBNM

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10-15 years ago:

The Dave Brubeck Quartet - First definitions (SF sessions from 1951 and 1952)

0044006644820_600.jpg

 

Gerry Mulligan Quartet with  Chet Baker - Soft Shoes (LA sessions from 1952 and 1953)

367762_IMAGE-PRODUIT.jpg

 

And among my very first purchases and still favorites:

Thelonious alone in San Francisco

The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...