More about "Checkmate": from screen to studio

Shelly Manne and His Men

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Checkmate

Checkmate is one of the most successful TV shows of the current season.  The three heroes of Checkmate — Sebastian Cabot, Doug McClure, and Anthony George — aim to stop crime before it happens, accompanied by the exposed thrills, chills, and danger — and by Johnny Williams's excellent score which strikes precisely the right balance between mayhem and music.

Shelly Manne, a friend and associate of Williams, held the percussion chair in the studio orchestra which recorded the Checkmate score. He realized that most of Williams's themes would lend themselves admirably to a jazz treatment by his own group. "What attracted me to the music", says Shelly, "was the mood the pieces create — you might call it a 'modal' mood. This is particularly true of The Isolated Pawn, The King Swings, En Passant. By modal I mean there aren't a lot of changes and because of it you can create more exciting rhythmic interest. With only a few changes as in Milestones or Coltrane's My Favorite Things, the rhythm can create tension and mounting excitement through use of ostinato effects. Oddly enough, the 'monotony' is what helps create the intensity!"

Shelly also likes Williams's melodic lines. "They are good jazz lines. He didn't conceive of Checkmate as a jazz score, but because Johnny is also a jazz musician, he knows how to write lines which lay just right for jazz blowing".

In the months before this recording, Manne & His Men played the Checkmate music for receptive audiences at the Manne-Hole, Shelly's jazz club in Hollywood. In this way the seven themes took their places on an equal footing with the standards, jazz originals, and jazz classics which comprise the group's extended repertoire.

The characteristic element which distinguishes these performances from Williams's own first-rate big band version of the score album is the extended improvisation by the soloists. The quality of improvisation is an elusive thing. It is primarily a personal and emotional expression. To play well, a musician has to believe in what he is doing. In the case of Checkmate, Manne and his colleagues had become thoroughly enthusiastic about the Williams music, and looked forward to the recording session with much more than ordinary anticipation. *Lester Koenig (from the liner notes)*

One would hardly think that music for television would form a solid basis for improvisation, being largely incidental music meant to set scenes rather than draw in the ear. However, Johnny Williams (the same John Williams who later created memorable music for Star Wars and the Harry Potter movies) was a composer who was able to transcend the usual boundaries of the small screen to create some memorable little themes that worked quite well apart from the show.

Shelley Manne, who had previously delved into musicals for fresh ideas (his My Fair Lady is a minor classic), was able to see the possibilities in Williams' noirish themes from Checkmate, a long forgotten TV show. It certainly helps that Manne's 1961 working quintet was filled with fire-breathers like Richie Kamuca and Conte Candoli, but clearly the music simply gave the musicians the opportunity to dig into some fresh material to generate ideas. The music bears the influence of recent modal experiments ("The King Swings" bears more than a passing resemblance to "Impressions") and Freeman, a stalwart West Coast pianist, demonstrates a knack for working within the loose framework. Other selections are based on sinister bass and prickly drumming that instantly recall numerous spy themes; the horns, in true form, dart around like criminals in the shadows. Clearly with the talent involved, this project was likely to provide some intense blowing; had this been done by anyone else, it might not have been so interesting.

*David Rickert (allaboutjazz.com)*

Side 1

1 - Checkmate

2 - The Isolated Pawn

3 - Cyanide Touch

Side 2

4 - The King Swings

5 - En Passant

6 - Fireside Eyes

7 - The Black Night

(All compositions by Johnny Williams)

Conte Candoli (trumpet), Richie Kamuca (tenor sax),

Russ Freeman (piano), Chuck Berghofer (bass), Shelly Manne (drums).

Recorded at Contemporary's Studio, Los Angeles, California, October 17 and 24, 1961