Mystery Lennie Niehaus LP

[Daniel A]

I recently found this LP featuring Lennie Niehaus octet arrangements. It is released by Highland Music Company as catalog no HM-1/HM-2. Since Highland Music released some of Lennie Niehaus scores, I assume this record was intended as a supplement to those. It is professionally recorded and pressed, but I can find no information about the players or year of recording (the back of the cover is plain white).

Is anybody familiar with this?

Edited February 24, 2018 by Daniel A

[Joe]

So this was meant to serve as library music?

Not familiar with this recording, but intrigued!

[Daniel A]

No, I would not think it was library music, but rather recordings of arrangements that were sold by Highland Music to facilitate the learning process for amateur orchestras.

 

I'm just spinning the album for the first time, and these are very professionally played cuts with 3-4 minutes playing time, and some 1/2 to 1 chorus solos to balance off the tracks. Everything fits together like a "real" LP album. I am not able to identify any single musician; everything is very elegant and professional, but also somewhat faceless.

Edited February 24, 2018 by Daniel A

[JSngry]

Probably not library music, but as an adjunct to publishing sales linked to his educational-market materials.

Niehaus was very well known for his "Jazz Conception: series. The sax program at NT knew about them and directed them to students, unofficially of course, because the program was all about classical, but nobody pretended that most of the players weren't at least 50% focused on jazz.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1&biw=1680&bih=895&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=wXORWqijL4L0zgLsmYdg&q=lennie+niehaus+jazz+conception&oq=lennie+niehaus+jazz+conception&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i24k1l2.61563.63749.0.66034.10.1.0.9.9.0.152.152.0j1.1.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.10.244....0.fYf6zwCy1is

This octet record material seems to be ca.1968 http://www.worldcat.org/title/mulliganesque/oclc/14437383

so was probably written for that market, the education market. Standards would still be high, and music not necessarily easy. And the publishers of the music could also sell the record so people who bought the scores could have a guide to performing them.

Here's another marketplace for the scores, and many other scores as well. http://www.fullermusic.co.uk/spweb/publications.php?categoryid=153

[Daniel A]

Thanks for your reply, Jim. It sounds more like a late 50s recording than 1968. A few of the compositions are by John Graas who died a few years before 1968, if that means anything. 

[JSngry]

Ok, publishing date for the one thing was 1968, but who knows when the music was actually composed? Maybe Niehaus did the arrangements for this project and used Grass;s tunes for the family to get a taste of the publishing royalties of whatever charts were sold?

Or maybe Niehaus did the recording back then on spec or whatever and nobody wanted to release it, so he waited a decade and figured out that there might be a new market for this type of thing in educational circles, published the charts and put the record along with it?

In the NT environment I was in at the time, "Lennie Niehaus" meant the guy who did all these "hip" educational things, nobody knew his as a player, or even, much, for his "public" work at all. They just knew him for this type of work.

[JamesAHarrod]

Here is the Lord listing:

 

Lennie Niehaus + Contemporary Jazz Octets : Lee Katzman (tp) Kent Larsen (tb) Bill Perkins (ts) Jack Nimitz (bar) unknown (p), (b), (d) 

unknown location, prob. Los Angeles, prob. 1960

	A bit of Brahms (from the 3rd symphony by Brahms)	Highland Music Company HM-1/HM-2
	Annie's dance (from Peer Gynt suite by Grieg)	-
	My pal Yachee
	(from the opera Pagliacci by Leoncavallo)	-
	Lazy day	-
	Here come the lions	-
	Mulliganesque	-
	Moe's art (from G minor symphony by Mozart)	-
	Romeo and Juliet
	(from the overture by Tschaikowsky)	-
	Ellingtonesque	-
	Will success spoil rock'n roll	-
	Cartagena	-
	Not exactly	-

Note:

The above information obtained from Lennie Niehaus by Coen Hofmann and Gerard Hoogeveen of "Names & Numbers".

[Daniel A]

Thanks, James!

[Gheorghe]

very strange titles, sounds like that kind of "Third Stream" that sold well then....

[Daniel A]

Yes, it's a bit strange in that these odd titles are in disconnect with the more straightforward nature of the compositions and arrangements.

The "classical" themes are jazzed up in a very west coast-ish manner. 

BTW, I had no idea that Niehaus scored all the movies that Clint Eastwood directed for a couple of decades.

[Big Beat Steve]

Sounds like an interesting record, particularly that west coast-ish jazzing up of classical themes.

BTW and FWIW, just going by the tune titles, I'd not really have assumed this was a Third Stream-influenced recording. These plays on words weren't new at all. Red Ingle & His Natural Seven (a comedy/novelty band from the 40s, based on the West Coast, BTW) had done "Moe Zart's Turkey Trot" (a spoof on "Rondo alla Turca") in 1947.

[Daniel A]

My favourite tune title is probably "Will Success Spoil Rock 'n Roll" (apparently a play of words of the title of a movie I had never heard of).

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, Daniel A said:

My favourite tune title is probably "Will Success Spoil Rock 'n Roll" (apparently a play of words of the title of a movie I had never heard of).

Ha, Jayne Mansfield!!

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85h,_en_s%C3%A5%27n_karl!