Liberty Records • Jazz in Hollywood Series (XI)

Ted And Dick Nash

The Brothers Nash

✤Liberty (LJH 6011)✤

Ted Nash, birth name Theodore Malcolm Nash (October 31, 1922 – May 12, 2011) was a jazz musician who played saxophone, flute, and clarinet. He was a session musician in Hollywood studios. His brother is trombonist Dick Nash and his nephew is saxophonist Ted Nash, who is a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra led by Wynton Marsalis.

Nash was born in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts. His goal was to become a classical flutist until he began playing saxophone in his early teens. His professional career began when he went on the road with a succession of dance bands. In 1944, he became tenor saxophonist for the Les Brown big band.With Brown he played on the number one hits "Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time", both sung by Doris Day.

In the late 1940s, after getting married, Nash settled in the Los Angeles and became active as a session musician in the Hollywood movie and television studios. In 1956, he recorded with Paul Weston's orchestra the album Day by Day, with vocals by his former colleague and close friend, Doris Day.

He was the featured soloist on The Music from Peter Gunn soundtrack, performing the alto saxophone solo on the theme and on the second bridge of "Dreamsville". He was known for his mastery of the extreme altissimo register of the saxophone. He wrote Ted Nash's Studies in High Harmonics for Tenor and Alto Saxophone published in 1946.

Through the 1950s and 1960s, he worked as a sideman for June Christy, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Billy Eckstine, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Nancy Wilson. During the 1970s, he worked with Judy Collins and Quincy Jones. He retired in the 1980s.

Dick Nash, birth name Richard Taylor Nash (born January 26, 1928) is an American jazz trombonist most associated with the swing and big band genres.

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and began playing brass instruments at ten. He became more interested in this after his parents died, and he was sent to Kurn Hattin Homes for Children in Vermont. At Kurn Hattin Homes, the first instruments he studied were the trumpet and bugle. His first professional work came in 1947 with bands like that of Tex Beneke. He served in the California National Guard from 1950 to 1952 and played for a band.

After his discharge from the military, he went back to Boston, where he attended Berklee College of Music. He then joined Billy May's band. Later he became a first-call studio musician in Los Angeles, California. He was composer, conductor Henry Mancini's favorite trombonist, and was featured soloist on several Mancini soundtracks, beginning with "Mr. Lucky" and "Peter Gunn". Nash's trombone is featured on the "Theme From Hatari!" from the soundtrack for the John Wayne film (1962), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and Days of Wine and Roses. In 1959 he played bass trombone on Art Pepper + Eleven – Modern Jazz Classics.

His brother was the saxophonist Ted Nash and he has three children, Ted, also a saxophonist, Nikki, and Bill. *wikipedia.org*

This, [album] is in the nature of a new beginning for two brothers who have made names for themselves independently and are united at last in California with their music. 

Here, they have pooled their extreme musical talents and come up with an album of rare taste and quality. The music here is a pleasure to listen to. It combines clean, crisp sounds with good jazz. It is sometimes delicate, sometimes forceful. Often quiet — more often, exciting. And always conceived and executed with good taste.

The sound the group gets is amazing. Six men manage to sound like a group twice its size. They make it seem easy. Piano and guitar (Jimmy Rowles and Tony Rizzi) work first as a unit then as independent voices. Bass and drums (Harry Babasin and Roy Harte) are ever-present but never flambuoyant. Dick's trombone is joined by Ted, at one time or another, on alto, tenor, soprano, baritone, flute, alto flute, piccolo, clarinet, and bass clarinet to give a startling aural exhibition — and did I say only six in the total aggregation?

Much of the group's balance and continuity are due to the subtle arrangements of Frank Comstock, Chuck Kopley, Bob Harrington, and Jim Emerson.

The brothers Nash could hardly have picked a more swinging group of tunes for their Liberty Records' debut. *Don Nelson (liner notes)*

Side 1

1 - I Remember You

(Schertzinger, Mercer)

2 - We'll Be Together Again

(Carl Fisher, Frankie Laine)

3 - Juntos

(Frank Constock)

4 - Prelude To A Kiss

(Ellington)

5 - Theme From "The Bad And The Beautiful"

(Raskin)

6 - I Could Write A Book

(Rodgers, Hart)

Side 2

7 - Back In Your Own Backyard

(Jolson, Rose, Dreyer)

8 - For Heaven's Sake

(Meyer, Bretton, Edwards)

9 - Cuban Verandah

(Harrington)

10 - The Nearness Of You

(Washington, Carmichael)

11 - Night Soliloquy

(Kent Kennan)

12 - You Are Too Beautiful

(Rodgers, Hart)

Ted Nash (alto, tenor, soprano and baritone saxes, flute, alto flute, piccolo, clarinet, bass clarinet),

Dick Nash (trombone), Tony Rizzi (guitar), Jimmy Rowles (piano),

Harry Babasin (bass), Roy Harte (drums).

Recorded at Western Recorders, Hollywood, California, December 1, 1955 and April 6, 1956