JazzWax

Doc: More Quincy Jones

Following my post this week on The Many Lives of Q,, a Quincy Jones documentary broadcast by the BBC, Eric Grinbaum sent along another one on the arranger-composer and trumpeter. Here's Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy (1990), directed by Ellen Weissbrod:

An Evening With Chet Baker, 1980

On February 29, 1980, Chet Baker performed at the Dreher Club in Paris. He was backed by Maurizio Gianmarco (ts), Dennis Luxion (p), Ricardo Del Fra (b) and Donny Donable (d). Fortunately, director Leon Terjanian was there with three cameramen to capture a set. The Dreher was located at Place du Châtelet, on the corner of Rue Saint-Denis, a few blocks from Île de la Cité and Notre-Dame cathedral. By the mid-1980s, the establishment ceased to be a jazz club.

Here's An Evening With Chet Baker...

David Brubeck Trio: 1949-'50

In 1950, New York had the George Shearing Quintet, a group that Shearing harmonized by combining the voicing of the Glenn Miller Orchestra and the block-chords piano style of Milt Buckner. In San Francisco, the Dave Brubeck Trio was equally delicious to the ear. The trio consisted of Dave Brubeck (piano), Ron Crotty (bass) and Cal Tjader (drums, bongo, conga and vibes). Thanks to Tjader's versatility on percussion instruments, particularly the vibes, the trio had a Shearing feel.

While Dave was studying at Mills College in 1946, he formed his first group, an octet. Known at Mills as Les Eight, the name was changed to the Jazz Workshop Ensemble and then the Dave Brubeck Octet. It included fellow Mills students Cal Tjader and Paul Desmond. But the octet found itself in a bind. The group couldn't find work outside of Mills College. The music was too far out. Then the group's entire book of arrangements were lost in a flood when saxophonist Dave Van Kriedt took the book to Australia in the late 1940s. The expense of splitting gig payments eight ways forced Dave to start a smaller group. Dave picks up the story in his liner notes to Dave Brubeck: Early Fantasies—a Book of the Month Club box set in 1980 consisting of three vinyl albums:   

When I decided to form a group that would be more economically feasible [than the octet], my logical choice for drummer was Cal Tjader. Ron Crotty, who attended San Francisco State College with Cal, joined us on bass. I had the idea that once a trio was established I would go back to the octet by adding as many horns as the budget would allow. And, in fact, I occasionally did that for some engagements in San Francisco. The trio’s first club job [in 1948] was at the Burma Lounge near Lake Merritt in Oakland. Over the next six months, we became the favorite jazz hangout for university students, one of whom was Carl Jefferson, who would go on to found Concord Jazz Records [in 1972].

Jimmy Lyons played our recordings on his late-night show, and on the strength of the initial response to those airings, he persuaded the KNBC program director, Paul Speegle, to give us a 15 minute once-a-week show. “Lyons Busy” as the program was called, could be heard the length of the West Coast and far beyond Hawaii into the Pacific. Many young people in the military who heard our broadcasts would subsequently come to see us when they passed through San Francisco.

Having to come up with new material for each show quickly expanded our repertoire. In the club we could improvise as many choruses as we wanted, and Cal, who was just learning the vibes, developed rapidly as a soloist. But for radio and recordings, we were pretty much limited to the standard three minutes, which demanded from us some intricate arrangements and less reliance on the long improvisations that would later characterize the quartet. “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Undecided," two such tight arrangements with improvised choruses, were listed among the best records of 1950 in the Metronome yearbook, "Jazz ’51."

A number of the Trio’s early 78s were put on one [10-inch] LP in February l952, and the late Ralph J. Gleason, jazz critic and columnist for the San Francisco Examiner at the time, summarized in the album notes the Trio’s ascendancy:

“In the short space of two years, Dave Brubeck has risen from the obscurity of an unknown jazz pianist to a point where he is accepted in this country and abroad as one of the leaders of the modem school of musicians."

Dave's 24 trio recordings ran from September 1949 to October 1950. All feature Dave's cooly resolving intros, advanced improvisation and the group's taut swing. Dave would form his quartet, with Paul Desmond (as), Dave Brubeck (p), Fred Dutton (b,basson-1) and Herb Barman (d), in 1951.

To read my JazzWax interview with Dave Brubeck start with Part 1 here. Links to additional parts can be found at the top of each post above the red date.

To read my WSJ at-home interview with Dave in 2010, go here.

Dave Brubeck died in 2012, Ron Crotty died in 2015 and Cal Tjader died in 1982.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Dave Brubeck's complete trio recordings here.

You'll also find the album at Spotify.

JazzWax clips: Here's Lullaby in Rhythm...

Here's I'll Remember April...

And here's 'S Wonderful...