Serge Chaloff: The white Charlie Parker

The Serge Chaloff Sextet

Boston Blow-Up!

Three storming horns — surging baritone, booting alto, and a pummelling trumpet— plus three rhythm go to make up a new sextet from Boston. In a spirited concert of fresh music ten tunes scored with the Forward Look are played with a zip that looks back to the happy days of early jazz. Serge Chaloff of the hawk-like profile and booming big-horn gained fame as end man to the Four Brothers in the Woody Herman Herd that featured that fabulous foursome. Boots Mussulli, probably the most popular altoist that Kenton ever had, is a Kenton Presents star on his own. Having gained his first attention in a later Kenton band, Herb Pomeroy offers trumpetwork that is assured and properly earthy, and between them he and Boots chart nine of these ten selections. The rhythm team is composed of the pick of the Cape's current crop.

"Great conception and execution, good taste, clean tone and Bird-like style..." Leonard Feather, now of DownBeat, has said of Serge Chaloff. Thirty-one and Boston-born, 

Chaloff has long been recognized as one of the four or five chief soloists on his horn. How long is indicated by the fact that Feather's praise was written over six years ago. But for several years before that and up until recently Serge was a victim of personal troubles that gradually dropped him into obscurity. Now after nine years of what he himself calls "living hell" he has come out of the hospital a whole man again, determined to blow his way back to the top; this is his musical announcement of that intention. He is writing a book about his experience which he hopes will help others with similar difficulties, but in the meantime as far as the musical evidence of his recovery is concerned, this album stands as sound testimony.

Chaloff has shown rare strength in conquering his intense personal problems and now stands free to conquer new fields with his horn. This second battle should prove far 

easier. Loyal fans from the past offer a solid nucleus for a new following. In these fast-moving times, jazz listeners are sharply divided over styles and schools, but these new samples of the surging Chaloff baritone should show that Serge still suits most everybody.

*Will MacFarland (liner notes)*

Baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff lived a short, often ugly and painful life. A hard-line, nodding off, ankle-scratching junkie with bad personal hygiene problems, he died horribly at the age of 34. Yet he was a master of his cumbersome instrument and capable of creating music of extraordinary beauty.

Boston Blow-Up!, made in 1955 as part of bandleader Stan Kenton's "Kenton Presents" series, is one of Chaloff's finest recordings. In some ways it's better even than the iconic Blue Serge, made the following year, which presented him in front of a trio comprised of Sonny Clark (piano), Leroy Vinnegar (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums).

By contrast, Boston Blow-Up! places Chaloff somewhere nearer his big band roots — he'd worked, most famously, with Woody Herman in the late 1940s, and was a member of that band's Four Brothers saxophone quartet — in a three horns-led sextet which frequently sounds like a band twice its size.

Chaloff's key collaborators on the sessions are alto saxophonist Boots Mussulli and trumpeter Herb Pomeroy, both graduates of the Stan Kenton orchestra, who between them composed and arranged most of the tunes. Music lovers will be reassured to learn that precisely none of Kenton's ponderous, wannabe-Wagnerian aesthetic appears to have rubbed off on any of the players, and in particular the arrangers. The band, though based in Boston and recorded in New York, sounds like a West Coast lineup of the era, all light and airy arrangements over a loosely but energetically swinging rhythm section. Most of the tunes feature through-arranged horn charts, little big band style. The sound puts you in mind of Art Pepper's Los Angeles dates with ten or eleven-piece bands.

Much of the album is up-tempo, extroverted and infectious, but two of the most memorable tracks are ballads: "What's New" and "Body And Soul" both feature delightfully gentle and intimate bass register baritone work. "Body And Soul" includes what is possibly Chaloff's most emotionally touching recorded solo, alternating softly spoken passages with gruffer, rougher moments.

A predominantly happy, sunny album, and a very worthwhile reissue from a troubled master.

*Chris May*

One of the few key recordings issued by baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff before his untimely early death — a tremendous little record that really helped redefine the place of his instrument in jazz! The album is one of a number produced by Stan Kenton for Capitol at the time, but it's far from the cooler jazz outings of other "Kenton Presents" sessions — a real Boston Blow up that has Serge standing starkly out front on the baritone, hitting some tremendous notes that show a command and dexterity on his instrument that few other players could match! Also noteworthy is the presence of the great Boots Mussulli on alto sax — a sharp-edge player with a lot of Charlie Mariano touches, and an artist who's rarely heard in a setting so stripped-down as this. Other artists include Herb Pomeroy on trumpet, Ray Santisi on piano, and Jimmy Zitano on drums — and titles include the original numbers "Kip", "Unison", "Bob The Robin", and "Sergical" — plus versions of "What's New", "Yesterday's Gardenias", and Jaki Byard's "Diane's Melody". *Dusty Groove, Inc.*

1 - Bob The Robin

(Boots Mussulli)

2 - Yesterday's Gardenias

(Robertson, Cogane, Mysels)

3 - Sergical

(Boots Mussulli)

4 - What's New

(B. Haggart, J. Burke)

5 - Mar-Dros

(Boots Mussulli)

6 - Jr.

(Boots Mussulli)

7 - Body And Soul

(Heyman, Green, Sour, Eyton)

8 - Kip

(Boots Mussulli)

9 - Diane's Melody

(Jaki Byard)

10 - Unison

(Boots Mussulli)

11 - Boomareemaroja

(Boots Mussulli)

12 - Herbs (long take)

(Herb Pomeroy)

13 Herbs (short take)

(Herb Pomeroy)

Serge Chaloff (baritone sax), Boots Mussulli (alto sax), Herb Pomeroy (trumpet),

Ray Santisi (piano), Everett Evans (bass), Jimmy Zitano (drums).

Recorded at Capitol Studios, New York City,

April 4 (#5, #7, #8, #10) and  April 5 (#1 to #4, #6, #9, #11 to #13), 1955

Serge Chaloff • Boots Mussulli - George Wein Presents

 

This album proves conclusively the lack of relationship of ability to popularity. Each selection in these six was chosen and arranged solely by Serge. Only a master musician could write so excellently for the strange voicing of two such horns as the alto and baritone saxophones. 

As for his playing, I believe that not even at the height of his pollwinning days did Serge play as warmly or with such imagination as he does here. Especially to be noted is his solo on "You Brought A New Kind Of Love To Me". 

I mentioned that each tune was "arranged solely by Serge". I must correct myself. The ending of the original "Zdot" was written by a wonderful pianist and teacher, Margaret Chaloff, Serge’s mother. 

While Serge may be considered the guiding genius behind this session, other points are proved here. One is the emergence of Boots Mussulli as one of the more important alto men. What Boots lacks in originality of style, he more than makes up in the strength and creativeness of ideas in his playing as well as by his magnificent musicianship. To watch a jazz man of Boots' caliber sight-read Serge's difficult arrangements was an experience for me. 

Another fallacy is this foolish idea of schools of jazz. I am referring to the imaginary differences between the West Coast School as opposed to the New York or more generally, the East Coast School of jazz. Russ Freeman, for whose presence on Storyville Records we are deeply indebted to Dick Bock of Pacific Jazz Records, has a conception of swing so like that of Serge and Boots that the session came off as if the group had been working together for many months.

The remainder of the rhythm section is composed of Jimmy Woode on bass and Buzzy Drootin on drums. They swing in the same manner here with these giants of "modern" jazz. 

And so our last and perhaps most important point is proved. Jazz is a music of the individual. The artist has complete freedom, harmonically and stylewise. In only one way is he restricted. He must have that indefinable but easily recognizable thing called swing. *George Wein (Liner notes)*

Serge Chaloff stands with Leo Parker, Cecil Payne, Sahib Shihab and Numa Pee Wee Moore in the hallowed pantheon of bebop's best baritone saxophonists (tenor man Charlie Ventura, who doubled marvelously on the big horn from time to time, could also be included in this lineup). A famous exponent of Woody Herman's Herd, Chaloff set the stage for the early maturity of Gerry Mulligan and the emergence of Pepper Adams. Serge Chaloff and Boots Mussulli paired Chaloff with alto saxophonist Boots Mussulli in front of pianist Russ Freeman, bassist Jimmy Woode and drummer Buzzy Drootin. Recorded in Boston on June 9, 1954, this is a pleasant album of five creatively interpreted standards and one Chaloff original: "Zdot" was almost certainly named for Chaloff's section mate in the Woody Herman Orchestra, tenor saxophonist and Lester Young devotee Zoot Sims. *arwulf arwulf*

Side 1

01 - You Brought A New Kind Of Love To Me

(Fain, Kahal, Norman)

02 - Zdot

(Chaloff)

03 - Oh Baby

(Murphy)

Side 2

04 - Love Is Just Around The Corner

(Robin, Gensler)

05 - Easy Street

(Allen Rankin Jones)

06 - All I Do Is Dream Of You

(Brown, Freed)

Serge Chaloff (baritone sax), Boots Mussulli (alto sax), Russ Freeman (piano), Jimmy Woode (bass), Buzzy Drootin (drums).

Recorded in Boston, June 9, 1954.