Shorty Rogers, Leith Stevens, & THE WILD ONE

[ghost of miles]

I'm putting together a Night Lights program based on JAZZ THEMES FROM THE WILD ONE and am looking for more information about why Leith Stevens was picked to do the score for THE WILD ONE over Shorty Rogers. Rogers recorded four of Stevens' compositions for RCA in July 1953; in August a smaller group that included Rogers & many of the same players (Shank, Giuffre, Cooper, and other West Coast leading lights) recorded the same compositions and eight others by Stevens under the moniker, "Leith Stevens' All Stars." Rogers was involved with the film evidently at the insistence of Marlon Brando, who had been quite taken with Rogers' MODERN SOUNDS Capitol record. Supposedly he wanted Rogers to write the score, but the studio insisted on Stevens. Can anybody point me to a more elaborative source, either online or in a good oldfashioned Guttenberg kinda device?

The Bear Family CD, btw, which compiles both the Stevens-led recording and the Shorty Rogers date for RCA, is excellent (but the liners are't very helpful--simply a reprise of the movie's plot). I'm going to feature it along with dialogue from the movie and a couple of tracks from the MODERN SOUNDS record.

Edited November 20, 2004 by ghost of miles

[Michael Fitzgerald]

My initial thought is that Shorty had no film experience and Stevens did, so the studio would want someone who knew the technical requirements for scoring films. That's all supposition, subject to refutation/confirmation through real live facts.

Mike

[brownie]

Ghost, the remarkable book 'Shelly Manne, Sounds of the Different Drummer' by Jack Brand and Bill Krost (1997, Percussion Express publication) has half a page about the movie soundtrack but does not really provide details about the hows and whys of its creation. The book mentions that 'it was suggested by perhaps Brando himself that he (Stevens) use Shorty Rogers to arrange the music and play for a movie called 'Hot Blood''.

Can fax or mail to you.

Informatively my copy of the Fresh Sounds LP reissue of the Decca album 'Jazz Themes From 'The Wild One'' mentions that the original edition of this album had Shorty Rogers and Shelly Manne listed as Roger Short and Manny Shell

[Bill Nelson]

The same thing happened in 1955 for 'Man With the Golden Arm'. Once again, Decca/Coral reduced Shorty Rogers to "jazz arrangements by..." credit while handing the job of composer/conductor to Elmer Bernstein.

Not dissing Elmer here -- his writing is legendary and opened up the whole field of 'Crime Jazz' scoring and arranging -- but on 'Man' it was Shorty who got a single paycheck for his charts and no taste of future royalties.

In the 50's, the studio system had tight control of the few composers granted the opportunity to score films. Elmer Bernstein, along with Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel, Alex North, et al, were lucky to get their breaks. When the studio mogul empires began crumbling around 1958-59, Shorty would get his 'chance to score' along with fellow arrangers Neal Hefti, Billy May, Shelly Manne, Nelson Riddle and others.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Again, there's more to scoring a film than just being a good composer. You need to know the technical aspects. Like being able to match three feet of film to two seconds of music.

Read, for example, the account of J. J. Johnson's entry into the Hollywood world in "The Musical World of J. J. Johnson" by Josh Berrett & Louis Bourgois. J. J. apprenticed with Earle Hagen, a veteran film scorer who taught classes in the subject. Hagen himself had been a jazz player with Tommy Dorsey, et al. before apprenticing with Alfred Newman. Is there any evidence that it was the studio system crumbling or was it perhaps a case that the jazz guys mentioned finally had gained enough knowledge and experience to be able to do the job properly? Another issue (maybe not for the guys named here) would be the stereotyping of jazz musicians, particularly black jazz musicians. Benny Carter was very important in this. Carter also got his Hollywood start through Alfred Newman at 20th Century Fox.

Mike

[ghost of miles]

Found this comment from Shorty Rogers in Roy Carr's THE HIP: HIPSTERS, JAZZ & THE BEAT GENERATION:

For a long time, the Lighthouse was the focal point for jazz in LA, the West Coast equivalent of Birdland, except that a lot of movie people were always dropping by.  Composer Leith Stevens was a regular and through him I got to work on The Wild One.

Brando had control over the soundtrack and he asked Stevens for suggestions.  Stevens gave him some current LPs including my Modern Sounds ten-inch for Capitol.  "I want that guy," Brando told Stevens after he'd heard the album.  So Stevens composed the themes and I arranged them in exactly the same way I would have done for Stan Kenton's orchestra or my own Giants.

I had the same composer/arranger partnership with Elmer Bernstein on The Man With the Golden Arm.    I also got to play a scene with Sinatra.  Trouble was, I kept blowing my lines.  Otto Preminger, who was directing, was demonic.  "Get rid of that kid!" meaning me, he shouted so everyone can hear.  "I want a real actor!"  Sinatra wouldn't hear of it.  "Shorty stays," Sinatra told Preminger.  And I spent the entire lunchbreak with Sinatra rehearsing the scene, so that when reshooting started, we did it in one take.  It was the end of my acting career.

Rogers' comments about The Wild One make it sound as if Stevens was responsible for Shorty's involvement in the first place, and as if the composition duties had already been assigned to Stevens.