JazzWax

Backgrounder: Russ Garcia - 4 Horns and a Lush Life

There are great jazz albums and then there are tasty great jazz albums. This is the latter—Russ Garcia's Four Horns and a Lush Life (Bethlehem). Recorded in Hollywood in November 1955, the band featured four gorgeous trombonists: Frank Rosolino, Herb Harper, Maynard Ferguson and Tommy Pederson (tb) joined by Dick Houlgate (bs), Marty Paich (p), Red Mitchell (b), Stan Levey (d) and Russ Garcia (arr,conductor).

In 2008, I asked Russ about the album during a JazzWax interview:

JW: Four Horns and a Lush Life featured your original four-trombone concept. Who came up with the song title, I'll Never Forget What's Her Name?
RG: [laughs] Oh, that was trombonist Frank Rosolino. The tune actually was Fine and Dandy, but there wasn’t much left of that. I just took the chord structure and wrote an original. I said, "What do I call this?" Frank was a funny, funny guy. He shot out, how about "I’ll Never Forget What’s Her Name." It was too good to pass up.

JW: What is it about writing for the trombone that you love so much?
RG: The instrument can be strong and gutsy and swinging, or it can be soft and beautiful, like a French horn. And it’s in a tenor range, which is always very pleasant. I just kind of enjoy the instrument. I played a wee bit of trombone. After that Four Horns album, I wound up writing a number of trombone-oriented albums in the 50s for Frances Faye and Anita O'Day.

Also note the juicy piano solos taken by Marty Paich and how soft and brief his left was in the bass clef.

Here's Russ Garcia's Four Horns and a Lush Life without ad interruptions...

Other ad-free Backgrounders in my series:

• Zoot Sims Plays Bossa Nova, go here.
• Lee Morgan: Lee-Way, go here.
• Bossa Nova for Swinging Lovers, go here.
• Leon Spencer: Louisiana Slim, go here.
• Bossa Nova Modern Quartet: Bossa Nova Jazz Samba, go here.
• Bill Evans & Luiz Eça: Piano Four Hands, go here.
• Ray Brown Trio: Don't Get Sassy, go here.
• Os Tatuis: Os Tatuis, go here.
• Waltel Branco: Mancini Tambem É Samba, go here.
• Jack Wilson Plays Brazilian Mancini, go here.
• Conjunto Copacabana Bossa: Bossa, go here.
• Ella Fitzgerald: Ella Swings Lightly, go here.
• Charles Earland: Charles Earland, go here.
• Kenny Burrell: Crash! w/ Jack McDuff, go here.
• Jack McDuff: The Heatin' System, go here.
• Horace Silver: Horace-Scope, go here.
• Antonio Carlos Jobim: Wave, go here.
• Sonny Stitt: Sonny Stitt Plays, go here.
• Sonny Stitt with Bennie Green: My Main Man, go here.
• Johnny Hodges and Earl Hines: Stride Right, go here.
• Lionel Hampton: Bossa Nova Jazz, go here.
• Johnny Hodges & Ben Webster: Cellar Session, go here.
• Bill Evans: Solo Sessions Vol. 1, go here.
• Frank Wess: Trombones & Flute, go here.
• Presenting the Buddy DeFranco & Tommy Gumina Quartet, go here.
• Ernest Ranglin: Wranglin', go here.
• Dave Pell Octet: Plays Rodgers & Hart, go here.
• Milt Buckner: Block Chords Parade, go here.
• Roberto Menescal: A Nova Bossa, go here.
• Count Basie: Have a Nice Day, go here.
• Freddie Green: Mr. Rhythm, go here.
• Leny Andrade: Leny Andrade, go here.
• Johnny Alf: Ele é Johnny Alf, go here.
• Dodo Marmarosa: Dodo's Back, go here.
• Freddie Redd: The Music From the Connection, go here.
• Nicola Stilo & Toninho Horta: Duets, go here.
• Urbie Green: Persuasive Trombone, go here.
• Johnny Richards: Something Else, go here.
• Wayne Shorter: JuJu, go here.
• Hampton Hawes: All Night Session!, go here.
• Shorty Rogers Plays Richard Rodgers, go here.
• Chet Baker: Pretty/Groovy, go here.
• Sonny Sitt: The Sensual Sound of Sonny Stitt, go here.
• Gil Mellé: New Faces, New Sounds, go here.
• Herbie Mann and Charlie Rouse: Just Wailin', go here.
• Bobby Hackett: Memorable & Mellow, go here.
• Tina Brooks: Back to the Tracks, go here.
• Sonny Rollins Plays for Bird, go here.
• Red Garland: A Garland of Red, go here.
• Grant Green: Gooden's Corner, go here.
• Eumir Deodato Plays Marcos Valle, go here.
• Horace Parlan; Movin' & Groovin', go here

Who Was Joe Holiday?

The beauty of jazz is its vast territory. No matter how many years you listen to this music, you invariably come across artists who will be new to you. The delight of new discoveries is largely the result of foreign labels releasing jazz that has been overlooked, forgotten or newly unearthed. No label does this better than Fresh Sound in Barcelona, Spain. I find gems largely by combing through discographies. There, I come across names of musicians who haven't received much exposure or I wasn't aware of previously. Invariably, Fresh Sound has put out recordings by them.

One of these musicians was Joe Holiday, who was born Joseph Befumo in Sicily in 1925. His family emigrated to the U.S. the year he was born and settled in Newark, N.J. Holiday's father played the clarinet, which Holiday mastered as a child. He switched to the tenor saxophone in his teens and emulated Lester Young, who he'd found by listening to Count Basie on the radio. Holiday's first big break came after taking a day job at a haberdashery shop. After striking up a conversation with a wealthy man who came into the store, the man invited him to play at his house in front of a number of recording industry executives.

The party led Holiday to a recording offer from King Records. In June 1951, he recorded four sides for King's Federated subsidiary. At year's end, he recorded New Sounds From Newark for Prestige.

In 1953 and '54, Holiday recorded Joe Holiday and His Band for Prestige, with a crackerjack New York ensemble: Idrees Sulieman (tp), Eddie Bert (tb), Earl Warren (as), Joe Holiday (ts), Cecil Payne (bar), Johnny Acea (p), Franklin Skeete (b) and Max Roach (d).

These sessions are just half of a terrific CD collection of Holiday's band years issued by Fresh Sound some years back called Holiday for Jazz. Holiday clearly was well-regarded as a player and leader. You didn't pull in these kinds of sidemen unless you were pretty exceptional yourself.

And Holiday was. The second album on this Fresh Sound release is Holiday for Jazz (Decca). Recorded in 1955 and '57. The 1955 session featured Blue Mitchell (tp), Eddie Bert (tb), Joe Holiday (ts), Cecil Payne (bar), Duke Jordan (p), Wendell Marshall (b), Osie Johnson (d) and Ernie Wilkins (arr). The 1957 session included Art Farmer and Thad Jones (tp), Eddie Bert (tb), Joe Holiday (ts), Cecil Payne (bar), Duke Jordan (p), Addison Farmer (b) and Carmen Peppe (d).

The music throughout is bouncy, and the arrangements swing, while solos are smart and rich in tone. Holiday liked Newark and spent much of his career there at a time when many musicians at his level moved to Los Angeles. In New York in the 1950s, he accompanied Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington at Birdland. In 1954, he performed four shows a day for seven days with Billie Holiday at the Apollo Theater.

In the early 1950s, Holiday recorded Latin music and had hits with This Is Happiness and Serenata, both in 1952. His Serenata arrangement was picked up by his Newark friend Vaughan, who had a hit with it. But in my research, I found that Holiday viewed the musician's life as tough. He told the Palm Beach Post in 1997 that to add income, he had hand-painted silk ties and sold them. He also took up painting, mostly abstract expressionist pieces but there were sailboats, clowns and musicians. In the 1960s, he was an arts and culture consultant for Newark.

In a feature in Florida's The Stuart News in 1997, journalist Laura Kelly wrote "Holiday was known as The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit and played all the jazz clubs and even bigger venues—from Symphony Hall in Boston to a night at Carnegie Hall with about 30 jazz greats like Thelonious Monk, Stan Getz and Max Roach, all playing a benefit for Charlie Parker's family after he died." Much of the local work and paydays dried up as the music changed through the decades. [Photo above of Joe Holiday]

n 1988, Holiday relocated to Port St. Lucie, Fla., after years of living there during the winter months. At least in Port St. Lucie, there were aging fans who loved 1950s jazz and the artists Holiday knew well and played with at clubs and on records. [Photo above of Joe Holiday]

Joe Holiday died in 2016.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Joe Holiday's Holiday for Jazz (Fresh Sound) here. 

JazzWax tracks: Here's This Is Happiness in 1952, which Holiday seemed to have borrowed from Let's Call the Whole Thing Off...

Here's Serenata...

And from the Fresh Sound release, here's Cotton Candy in 1953...

Cotton Candy

Here's Love Is a Many Splendored Thing...

Love Is A Many Splendored Thing

And here's Tiny Mite (with Osie Johnson on drums)...

Tiny Mite

Astrud Gilberto (1940-2023)

Astrud Gilberto, who as the wife of Brazilian singer João Gilberto was urged to record The Girl From Ipanema and Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars in English in March 1963 because he didn't speak the language and whose hits sent the bossa nova into the pop stratosphere and made her an unlikely star, died on June 5. She was 83. [Photo above of Astrud Gilberto by Hank O'Neal]

 

Gilberto would go on to record numerous bossa nova and pop albums. Rather than return to Brazil with her husband in the mid-1960s, she reportedly had an affair with Getz, which led to her divorce and U.S. residency. As a single woman and an unintended sex symbol, she found herself thrust into the public light. Not a natural or trained singer or performer, Gilberto feared the exposure. I recall multiple attempts to gain an interview with her without success. Her most recent interview was conducted decades ago and her hermetic personal life was topped only by Bobby Gentry for her unwillingness to engage the media on her past artistic accomplishments. [Photo above of Astrud Gilberto]

Accounts vary as to whether her English vocal on the Verve album Getz/Gilberto was a spur of the moment decision by producer Creed Taylor in the recording studio or if she already expected to record the English vocal and had rehearsed days earlier at Stan Getz's house when she and her husband stayed with the tenor saxophonist and his wife. Either way, the vocal she delivered was groundbreaking. It was innocent, sexy and nonchalant—all of which was in sync with the times.

By 1963, the American female ideal had shifted from the bombshell of the 1950s to the doe-like waif embodied by Jean Seberg, Lee Remick, Shirley Knight, Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn among others. Gilberto was the first in the 1960s to project this innocent, sensual image and persona in pop music. Blossom Dearie, of course, had already pioneered the high-voiced, relaxed style in jazz-pop recordings and performances in the 1950s.

In many respects, Gilberto's life story was both a joyous and a sad one. Joyous for how her unassuming clarinet-like voice inspired generations of female singers such as Sade, Basia and Stacy Kent. Sad in that she hadn't planned to be a stage or recording artist, and that being forced to sing to earn a living, she endured ridicule for her untrained voice and harassment and abuse by men who held power over her.

Here's the only video you really need to watch of Astrud Gilberto, who was most at ease in the Netherlands with Pim Jacobs on piano, Rudd Brink on tenor saxophone, Wim Overgaauw on guitar and Don Un-Romeo on drums in October 1965 on NCRV-TV...

Here's one of my favorite Gilberto albums, with organist Walter Wanderley, from 1966...

Here's Look to the Rainbow in 1966, arranged by Gil Evans...

Here's her Windy album, from 1968, with arrangements by Don Sebesky, Eumir Deodato and Pat Williams...

And finally, here's Gilberto on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1970 singing a bossa nova medley...