Giant Steps: Woody Herman in 1973

By 1973, bandleader and occasional vocalist Woody Herman could look back on several decades of memorable recordings and consistently outstanding bands, the numerous editions of his Herds that he'd led over the years. It had been an amazing career, though full of vicissitudes and financial ups and downs, all the way back to those earliest days of the Swing Era, when his orchestra was dubbed "The Band That Plays the Blues" because of its appealing blues-tinged sound. Herman's recorded output was also full of ground-breaking recordings, such as those featuring the saxophone section known as the Four Brothers, which included, among others, legendary names  like Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Serge Chaloff, and Herbie Steward. Herman had been celebrated for his willingness to listen to new ideas, try out different arrangements, and showcase the budding talents of the younger musicians within his bands, thereby becoming instrumental in bridging generation gaps in jazz. To a certain extent, his open-mindedness had allowed him to make music that remained current and exciting throughout the decades, way past the demise of the Big Band Era. It had been an amazing career, I say, and Herman was regarded as a living legend of jazz, but that wasn't enough for him. So that year he went into the studio with his big band and recorded one of his most successful, forward-looking albums for Fantasy—Giant Steps.

The record is absolutely fantastic, a creative whole that is even more engaging than the sum of its parts, an LP that sounds modern because it is modern and that features Herman surrounded by a group of excellent musicians including guitarist Joe Beck, bassist Wayne Darling, percussionist Ray Barretto, trombonist Jim Pugh, trumpeter Bill Stapleton, and saxophonist Frank Tiberi, among others. The song choice is rather eclectic, from the opening track, Chick Corea's "La Fiesta," a high-powered, Latin-flavored tune that sounds incredibly exciting in the hands of this band, to "The Meaning of the Blues," a lovely slow-paced number written by Bobby Troup that is only tangentially related to the blues form. In between there are highlights such as the funky "Freedom Jazz Dance," driven by the horns and the electric bass, "The First Thing I Do," with Beck adding some wah-wah effects to his electric guitar, and of course, the version of John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" that lends its title to the album. Herman's reading of this Trane classic is so good that one can't help but wish someone had kept the producer from fading the song out. Gems like these somehow deserve to last longer than a mere 4 minutes. Thad Jones's "A Child Is Born" sets an atmospheric mellow mood that is the perfect counterpoint to the explosive "Giant Steps," which precedes it. Herman even has time to step into contemporary pop territory on Leon Russell's "A Song for You," and the album is brought to a close with a swinging rendition of Alan Broadbent's "Be-Bop and Roses." Giant Steps is one of the many highlights of Herman's career, an LP that has definitely stood the test of time, and listening to it today, it's not hard to see why it was awarded a Grammy back in 1974.

Richie Kamuca Quartet & Octet, 1957

Although those who still remember him today tend to identify him with the West Coast sound, tenor saxophonist Richie Kamuca was actually born in Philadelphia in 1930. Initially influenced by the stylings of the great Lester Young, Kamuca was able to develop a cool-toned sound that was all his own and highly recognizable. He began his professional career in the Roy Eldridge orchestra, and Eldridge would always remain one of his favorite musicians, with whom he'd stay in touch through the years. In the 1950s he worked with Stan Kenton and Woody Herman, and with the latter he made recordings as part of the famous Four Brothers, though he never achieved the recognition of fellow saxophonists Stan Getz and Zoot Sims. After settling in the West Coast, he cut a few fine albums that are still quite obscure today, perhaps because they were made for small labels like Mode and Hi-Fi. He was even paired with another notable tenorman, Bill Perkins, for a 1956 session that yielded the Pacific Jazz album Tenors Head-On, but in part his relative obscurity could be attributed to the fact that he appeared as a sideman on countless sessions led by the likes of Chet Baker, Marty Paich, and Mel Lewis, among others, but made very few records as a leader.

Most of Kamuca's most valuable work as a leader, though, was recorded in 1957, when he cut two albums that have been reissued by Fresh Sound Records on a 2010 CD entitled Tenor Ahead: Richie Kamuca Quartet and Octet. This includes Jazz Erotica (originally released with a rather kitschy cover featuring a picture of a nude model) and The Richie Kamuca Quartet, both recorded in Los Angeles. The former includes a few tracks ("Blue Jazz," "Stella by Starlight," "Linger Awhile," "It's You or No One") that find Kamuca in a quartet setting alongside Vince Guaraldi on piano, Monty Budwig on bass, and Stan Levey on drums. On some of the tracks ("Angel Eyes," "I Hadn't Anyone Till You," "The Things We Did Last Summer," for instance), this quartet becomes an octet with the addition of Bill Holman on baritone sax, Frank Rosolino on trombone, and Conte Candoli and Ed Leddy on trumpets, with Holman himself handling the arrangements and achieving a fuller sound. On the latter album, we find Kamuca in a quartet setting all the way, featuring Levey on drums again, but this time Carl Perkins is on piano and Leroy Vinnegar is on bass. Though there's only one Kamuca original ("Rain Drain"), this album is the most musically satisfying of the two and boasts a lovely uptempo version of "Just Friends" and wistful readings of the ballad standards "What's New" and "My One and Only Love." Throughout the 1960s and '70s, Kamuca did a great deal of studio work and became a member of the band on the Merv Griffin TV show, a job that he kept until his death from cancer in 1977. He also worked with drummer Shelly Manne and appears on the famous series of albums that the Manne band recorded live at the Blackhawk in San Francisco. Kamuca still had time to collaborate again with Roy Eldridge, and right before the end of his life, he made three fantastic albums for Concord that have yet to be reissued on CD. As already pointed out, Kamuca is one of many talented jazz musicians for whom recognition has been elusive partly because of their primary role as sidemen. But in his case, there's no doubt that the quality of his meager work as a leader is still begging for rediscovery, and hopefully this Fresh Sound reissue will help.

A Swinging Christmas with the Big Bands

At the end of every year, right after Thanksgiving, Christmas music begins to fill our home in Martin, TN, and the jazzier the rhythm, the more enjoyable it is! While the idea of holiday music as a very profitable business must be traced back to Bing Crosby's early 1930s recordings of "Silent Night" and "Adeste Fideles" for Decca, it didn't take too long for everyone else to follow in Bing's footsteps, and by the time the Swing Era erupted, all major bands were including Christmas tunes in their repertoires—and finding out that many of them kept being popular and selling year after year. Fortunately, there are several compilations of big band holiday music currently available, but my personal favorite of its kind is Christmas on the Bandstand (Columbia/Legacy) because it features 12 timeless performances cut between 1939 and 1962 by name bands like those led by Harry James, Benny Goodman, Les Brown, Woody Herman, and Duke Ellington, among others, all with great sound and some well-written liner notes by Will Friedwald, whose contributions are always a plus.

Les Brown and a young Doris Day

Some of the tracks included are the expected holiday evergreens, such as "White Christmas" (by Harry James, with a fine vocal by Marion Morgan), "Jingle Bells" (a 1962 recording by the Ellington band arranged by his son Mercer Ellington, one of the absolute highlights of the collection), and "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (in a Sammy Kaye version that is the perfect synthesis of sweetness and corn). Kay Kyser shows both sides of the sound of his very popular outfit here: first, the band has fun with the catchy "Hello, Mr. Kringle," complete with a contribution from the inimitable Ish Kabibble; then, Harry Babbitt shows off his crooning wares on the beautiful "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" Woody Herman gives us an excitingly swinging "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" and Harry James takes us on a Latin American trip on the rare "Brazilian Sleigh Bells." It soon becomes clear that not all the songs actually refer to Christmas, but the compilation also features its share of winter songs, such as Benny Goodman's "Winter Weather" (Art Lund and Peggy Lee provide the vocals), Eddy Duchin's "When Winter Comes," and Les Brown's lovely "Sleigh Ride in July" (with Gordon Drake handling the vocal chorus). Brown's Band of Renown also offers "When You Trim Your Christmas Tree," a lesser-known gem featuring vocalist Jack Haskell, and puts the spotlight on Doris Day on a magnificent reading of Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song." This is undoubtedly the place to start for anyone who would like to infuse some solid swing into the holiday season.

Bing Crosby and Some Jazz Friends

Back in 2010 I began The Vintage Bandstand with a post about Bing Crosby, so it's only fitting that I'd start this new blog talking about Crosby as well, particularly because in my early teens, Der Bingle was one of my main gateways into jazz. Crosby, who is mostly known to the general public for his Christmas recordings these days (which is a sad state of affairs, in my opinion), was a jazz singer of the first order. When Crosby changed the face of popular singing forever in the early 1930s, he did so not only by mastering the use of the microphone, but also by inflecting pop music with the tones, the sensibility, and the rhythm of jazz. And throughout his career, he always enjoyed singing and recording in a jazz setting and with jazz musicians. The 1991 Decca compilation, Bing Crosby and Some Jazz Friends, is a great way to get introduced to the jazziest side of Crosby's output via a series of fantastic duets recorded in the 1930s and '40s.

Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby

As Crosby shares the studio with fine artists such as Jack Teagarden ("The Birth of the Blues"), Connie Boswell ("Basin Street Blues"), Woody Herman ("I Ain't Got Nobody"), Eddie Condon (two takes of "After You've Gone"), and Lionel Hampton ("On the Sunny Side of the Street"), we are reminded of how thoroughly the singer understood the jazz idiom and how relaxed and extremely hip his phrasing always was. Crosby's two sides with Louis Jordan, "Your Socks Don't Match" and "My Baby Said Yes," are two obvious highlights of this album, which also includes duets with his brother Bob Crosby ("When My Dreamboat Comes Home"), Lee Wiley ("I Still Suits Me") and Louis Armstrong on the semi-impromptu "Gone Fishin'." One of the most charming tracks features Crosby having a ball with Satchmo and Jimmy Dorsey on a very appealing reading of "Pennies from Heaven." Overall, this is a CD that all vocal jazz fans should own lest they forget that there was a jazzier side to Bing Crosby than can be heard on "White Christmas."