Billy Butterfield LP recommendations -- feat. his Jazz chops as a leader or sideman...

[Jon King]

obscure and hard to find always welcome, thanks

Edited January 16, 2023 by Jon King

[JSngry]

I'm still looking for that date of his where Gil Evans wrote the charts. 

[medjuck]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

I'm still looking for that date of his where Gil Evans wrote the charts. 

I think you mean this one:    https://www.discogs.com/release/5435466-Billy-Butterfield-And-His-Orchestra-Theyre-Playing-Our-Song

There's only one Evans arrangement:  "Singin' the Blues" which is why I bought this.  I found it a bit disappointing and probably wouldn't have recognized it as an Evans chart.   However it also has a song by Evans: "Again and Again",  which I'd never head of and which is terrific.  The arrangement is credited to someone else,  but Ryan Trusedell of the Gil Evans Project  told me he's pretty sure Evans did it.   (IIRC he also said they had recorded it but not released it yet.)

Back when I was younger (70 or so) I was able to digitize those 2 cuts so I don't  need this Lp, but I no longer have the capabilities to digitize it.    If either of you is willing to make a copy for the other, I'm happy to donate it to the cause. 

 BTW The liner notes to the Lp are very strange. Supposedly a woman "Mary Morse, Rutgers University" writing to her husband who is away for a week. She bought the record and writes about how great Butterfield is, but "his trumpet could never be compared to the power mower you play". 

Edited January 16, 2023 by medjuck

[Big Beat Steve]

14 hours ago, Jon King said:

obscure and hard to find always welcome, thanks

As much as I am a fan of Swing (i.e Swing-style and Swing-era jazz) and interested in exploring the whole scope of artists, I never could quite figure out what to make of Billy Butterfield and where he fit into the overall picture of the era when Swing was the thing. To exaggerate a little - among white trumpeters, was he one who really had his heart in blowing "hot" (and may have been hampered by commercial considerations of the A&R men only) or was he apt to drift off into "Charlie Spivak territory" 😉 at any moment?

I haven't done a closer check of the recordings where he might pop up as a soloing sideman in the Swing era (Bob Crosby, above all - his stints with Shaw, Goodman and Brown seem to have been brief). But his mid-40s Capitol leader dates do not seem to have been graced with widespread reissues (of his original releases, the track listing of the 10" in the "Classics in Jazz" series looks the most promising).
And it IS amazing that Mosaic did not see fit to include even ONE single track of his Capitol leader recordings in their 12-CD "Classic Capitol Jazz Sessions" box set. 🤨 Did they consider him THAT "run of the mill", "neither flesh nor fowl", "commercial" or whatever, even if they had extracted his swingingest sides only? (Including at least a selection of his more swinging affairs would have been a service to collectors because a few of the others they included on that set have been around the reissue block in lots of different guises before)

So ... what I did pick up through the years as I came across his leader dates on vinyl are these (which feature non-commercial transciptions from his 40s Capitol period but do mix hot and sweet/sugary and seem to have a few overlaps, FWIW):

https://www.discogs.com/de/release/5594803-Billy-Butterfield-The-Uncollected-Billy-Butterfield-And-His-Orchestra-1946

https://www.discogs.com/de/master/1175995-Billy-Butterfield-And-His-Orchestra-1946-Instrumentals-Never-Before-On-Record

(Incidentally, when I first became more widely aware of him in a radio show here - in the early 80s - that did a special on him, I found out later that his leader recordings featured on that show were taken from the above Hindsight LP (that was then fairly new on the market) - as if they had none of his other leader dates in their archives)

And among the later dates that he participated in, the "Session At Riverside" album on Capitol is certainly worth (re-)exploring too:

https://www.discogs.com/de/master/659782-Various-Session-At-Riverside

 

 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[Jon King]

3 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

As much as I am a fan of Swing (i.e Swing-style and Swing-era jazz) and interested in exploring the whole scope of artists, I never could quite figure out what to make of Billy Butterfield and where he fit into the overall picture of the era when Swing was the thing. To exaggerate a little - among white trumpeters, was he one who really had his heart in blowing "hot" (and may have been hampered by commercial considerations of the A&R men only) or was he apt to drift off into "Charlie Spivak territory" 😉 at any moment?

I haven't done a closer check of the recordings where he might pop up as a soloing sideman in the Swing era (Bob Crosby, above all - his stints with Shaw, Goodman and Brown seem to have been brief). But his mid-40s Capitol leader dates do not seem to have been graced with widespread reissues (of his original releases, the track listing of the 10" in the "Classics in Jazz" series looks the most promising).
And it IS amazing that Mosaic did not see fit to include even ONE single track of his Capitol leader recordings in their 12-CD "Classic Capitol Jazz Sessions" box set. 🤨 Did they consider him THAT "run of the mill", "neither flesh nor fowl", "commercial" or whatever, even if they had extracted his swingingest sides only? (Including at least a selection of his more swinging affairs would have been a service to collectors because a few of the others they included on that set have been around the reissue block in lots of different guises before)

So ... what I did pick up through the years as I came across his leader dates on vinyl are these (which feature non-commercial transciptions from his 40s Capitol period but do mix hot and sweet/sugary and seem to have a few overlaps, FWIW):

https://www.discogs.com/de/release/5594803-Billy-Butterfield-The-Uncollected-Billy-Butterfield-And-His-Orchestra-1946

https://www.discogs.com/de/master/1175995-Billy-Butterfield-And-His-Orchestra-1946-Instrumentals-Never-Before-On-Record

(Incidentally, when I first became more widely aware of him in a radio show here - in the early 80s - that did a special on him, I found out later that his leader recordings featured on that show were taken from the above Hindsight LP (that was then fairly new on the market) - as if they had none of his other leader dates in their archives)

And among the later dates that he participated in, the "Session At Riverside" album on Capitol is certainly worth (re-)exploring too:

https://www.discogs.com/de/master/659782-Various-Session-At-Riverside

 

 

Wonderful info.  Thanks kindly!

This all was a result from my viewing a documentary detailing the personalities of musicians at a Dick Gibson jazz party held in Denver/Colo Springs.  Butterfield was featured muttering, joking and performing several brief choruses - not just "hot", but blisteringly so.  So, began my quest to find more.... 

There is almost a rabbit hole of "run of the mill" (as you say) commercial music listed for him, but I've sampled most for naught.  His phrasing on those solos from the movie was almost the greatest trumpet playing I had ever heard.   

I have found several recordings on Apple Music that are rewarding:  "Keep Smiling" and "College Jazz Sampler - Actual Jazz Concerts Recorded on the Campus."  And, it was worth doing.... JK

 

 

'

[Jim Duckworth]

There are a dozen tunes by The Billy Butterfield Jazz Band on this set...

 

[Jon King]

16 minutes ago, Jim Duckworth said:

There are a dozen tunes by The Billy Butterfield Jazz Band on this set...

 

Happy to know.  Will check out.  Thanks