The RCA Victor Jazz Workshop #7

George Russell

The RCA Victor Jazz Workshop

In the latest and most exciting of RCA’s Workshop series, arranger George Russell has managed to prove several points concerning what is sometimes known as "far-out" jazz that may have bothered a number of listening laymen and musicians. First, the music in almost every piece swings just the way conventional jazz swings. Second, true improvisation abounds and there is the sense of organized looseness that one finds in the more tonal jazz combos. Third, the works are neither too long nor overpretentious structurally, as has so frequently been the case with experiments of this kind. Fourth, they have a challenging sense of form without stiffness or overorganization. Fifth, one never has to worry about intonation or any aspect of musicianship or performance; clearly the quality of the personnel and the quantity of rehearsal met the stern demands of Russell’s writing. Sixth, the writing is harmonically venturesome without resorting either to complete atonality or to the Schoenberg mathematics of the juggled twelve-tone row.

It is on this last level that Russell has succeeded completely in lifting his album to a unique status and stature. His writing is based on the "Lydian concept of tonal organization", a theory on which he has worked for years, which was heard in his sole track on the Teddy Charles Atlantic LP, and which unfortunately George completely fails to explain here in his well-intentioned but elliptical liner notes.

Obviously nothing as radical as this can be summed up in a sentence, but one of the basic factors is the building of keys by picking the notes in rising fifths; thus the notes in the key of C are C, G, D, A, E, B, and F Sharp. There is a great deal more to it than that, but we’re saving it for a feature story in which George will try to elucidate a little. Suffice it for now that there is a sense of tonality, of the feeling of a certain root in every passage. One of the pieces, "Ezz-Thetic", because it was written some years ago, is closer to normal tonal jazz than the other tracks. There is a Tristano-like air to the ensemble unisons in this number and to "Knights of the Steamtable".

The moods are many. "Round Johnny Rondo" swings the most. The ethereal "Ballad Of Hix Blewitt" has a simple long-note melody that gives the effect of a distant horizon seen opaquely through a veil. "Fellow Delegates" is the only track on which Russell himself plays, using a set of chromatically tuned drums of California redwood that achieve an odd and attractive garbage-can tone, recalling the Calypso steel drums. "Billy The Kid" packs a mad wallop, especially when Bill Evans spurts out a series of solo breaks as smoothly as a Texas gusher. "The Sad Sergeant" struck me as a little meaningless and pretentious, alone among the dozen tracks; perhaps a week from now it will be my favorite.

Farmer and McKusick acquit themselves superbly; as Hal said, "It was like learning another language", and they both speak it fluently. Galbraith’s comping is as exciting as his solo work. All three rhythm sections cook; Motian is particularly impressive on "Witch Hunt". As you’ll have gathered, I dig Mr. Russell as a jazz composer who has found a new path without going off the main jazz route. Such men must be guarded with care and watched with great expectations.

*Leonard Feather*

1 - Ye Hypocrite, Ye Beelzebub

2 - Jack's Blues

3 - Livingstone, I Presume

4 - Ezz-Thetic

5 - Night Sound

6 - Round Johnny Rondo

7 - Fellow Delegates

8 - Witch Hunt

9 - The Sad Sergeant

10 - Knights Of The Steamtable

11 - Ballad Of Hix Blewitt

12 - Concerto For Billy The Kid

13 - Ballad Of Hix Blewitt (alternate take)

14 - Concerto For Billy The Kid (alternate take)

(All compositions by George Russell)

George Russell (chromatic drums, arranger); Art Farmer (trumpet);  Hal McKusick (alto sax, flute); Bill Evans (piano); Barry Galbraith (guitar); Milt Hinton [#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6,#8, #12, #14], Teddy Kotick [#7, #9, #10, #11, #13] (basses); Joe Harris [#1, #2, #3, #4], Paul Motian [#5, #6, #8, #12, #14], Osie Johnson [#7, #9, #10, #11, #13] (drums).

Recorded in New York City ; March 31 (#1, #2, #3, #4), October 17 (#5, #6, #8, #12, #14), and December 21 (#7, #9, #10, #11, #13), 1956. 

The RCA Victor Jazz Workshop #6

The Arrangers

RCA Victor Jazz Workshop

The next release in RCA Victor’s Jazz Workshop series was led by John Carisi. The three recording sessions in April, May, and June of 1956 were assigned a release number, LPM-1371, but it remained in the vault until 1988 when Executive Producer Steve Backer tapped veteran jazz producer Ed Michel to put together a CD release of sessions from the Jazz Workshop series. Michel was given a free hand to select tracks for the compilation.

John Carisi started composing seriously during World War II, while stationed with Glenn Miller's Air Force Band on the Yale campus. "I'd run around and find out who wasn’t going into New York for the weekend and write for whoever was left— whether it was a cello and a French horn, or a piano and a tuba. Two people —we had a band", he remembers.

I asked Ed if he found any alternates from the Jazz Workshop series while producing the album: "No alternates surfaced.  I was motivated by a desire to get the Gil Evans stuff out, and fascinated by the Carisi stuff (the parallel versions under his name and Miles' Birth of the Cool).  Lewis' Jazz Workshop stuff was a wonderful idea.  I have no real data, but have to assume that RCA suits wanted bigger sales numbers.  I note that while I was working on BMG reissues, the head of the music division was formerly in charge of refrigerators for Gil Evans". 

This compilation focuses refreshingly on the arrangers. It has selections from Hal McKusick's and John Carisi's Jazz Workshop albums, offering overlooked scores by Evans, George Russell and Carisi. It is rounded out by the work of Rod Levitt, a trombonist and commercial arranger who occasionally worked with Evans in the '60's. His charts, excerpts from his mid 60's recordings for RCA, make full use of the experimental ideas that the Miles Davis's Birth of the Cool crowd had ushered in years before. *James Harrod*

A lot of unusual music appears on this Bluebird CD. Altoist Hal McKusick (with arrangmeents contributed by George Russell and Gil Evans) performs five numbers (including a version of "Blues for Pablo" that was cut a year before Miles Davis's recording) with a variety of musicians including trumpeter Art Farmer and trombonist Jimmy Cleveland. Arranger John Carisi (heard here on trumpet) interprets seven previously unreleased numbers with an octet and trombonist Rod Levitt performs five of his arrangements with his own advanced octet. Although these performances would have little influence on future developments in jazz (the free jazz movement of the 1960s overshadowed the trend toward using elements of modern classical music in charts), the music still sound quite fresh and unpredictable today. *Scott Yanow*

~Hal McKusick - The RCA Victor Jazz Workshop~

1 - Blues for Pablo

(Evans)

2 - Jamblange

(Evans)

3 - Miss Clara

(Russell)

4 - The Day John Brown Was Hanged

(Russell)

5 - Lydian Lullaby

(Russell)

Hal McKusick (alto sax [#1, #2, #3, #4]); Art Farmer (trumpet [#1, #3]); Jimmy Cleveland (trombone [#1, #3]); Gene Allen (baritone sax [#1, #3]); Bill Barber (tuba); Jimmy Raney [#1, #2]), Barry Galbraith (guitars); Milt Hinton (bass); Osie Johnson (dums); George Russell (tambourine [#1], drums ([#4]).

Recorded at Webster Hall, New York City, April 4 (#1, #2, #3), and March 3 (#4, #5), 1956.

~John Carisi - The RCA Victor Jazz Workshop~

6 - Honeysuckle Rose

(Razaf, Waller)

7 - Springsville

(Carisi)

8 - Israel

(Carisi)

9 - Lestorian Mode

(Carisi)

10 - Barry's Tune

(Carisi)

11 - How About You

(Freed, Lane)

12 - Hips

(Carisi)

John Carisi (trumpet, arranger); Eddie Wasserman (tenor sax); Ray Beckenstein (alto sax, clarinet); Urbie Green (trombone); Sol Schlinger, Danny Bank [#8] (baritone saxes); Barry Galbraith (guitar [#8]); Milt Hinton, Russ Saunders [#8] (basses), Osie Johnson, Herb Wasserman [# 8] (drums).

Recorded at Webster Hall, New York City,  April 21 (#8), May 5 (#6, #9, #10),  and June 11 (#7, #11, #12), 1956.

~The Rod Levitt Orchestra~

13 - Vera Cruz

(Levitt)

14 - Holler N°3

(Levitt)

15 - Morning In Montevideo

(Levitt)

16 - Greenup

(Levitt)

17 - Mr. Barrelhouse

(Levitt)

Rod Levitt (trumpet, arranger), Rolf Ericson (trympet, flugelhorn), Buzz Renn (flute, clarinet, alto sax), George Marge (piccolo, flute, alto flute, clarinet, tenor sax, oboe), Gene Allen (baritone sax, clarinet, bass clarinet), Sy Johnson (piano), John Beal (bass), Ronnie Bedford (drums, whistle).

Recorded at RCA Studio "C", New York City, December 10 (#13), December 11 (#14), 1964, and July 7 (#16), July 8 (#15, #17), 1965.

The RCA Victor Jazz Workshop #5

Hal McKusick

The Jazz Workshop

Hal McKusick is the discerning type of musician who is disturbed when he finds monotony in a jazz set,particulary so if he detects it in his own collections. So, in laying the framework for this Workshop album, he held to variety as a keynote. One way to achieve variety, he felt, would be to give representation to several composers. He chose the six composers whose works he plays on this disc because he believes that they represent inventive thinking in jazz. Furthermore, he was curious to find out what they would do with the eight (or nine) instruments he put at their disposal on six of these selections. This instrumentation (trumpet, trombone, alto sax, baritone sax, one or two guitars, tuba, string bass and drums) is close to the famous Miles Davis Nonet of 1949. Davis, however, added a French horn which changed the ensemble coloring considerably. The particular grouping of instruments that McKusick selected (for reasons of which he is not certain except that he could hear in his mind's ear how they would sound and he liked what he heard) was completely new to all the writers.

One more thing might be noted about this set: It's McKusick's album but there are no compositions by McKusick. Here's Hal's reasoning: "I find it more refreshing and interesting to play other people's stuff. I prefer to do my writing for others". *John S. Wilson (liner notes)*

This is the most important of Victor’s Jazz workshop series thus far and the one that most fits the "workshop" connotation. It also demonstrates the musical necessity for Fred Reynolds to continue the workshop, particularly if future sets can be planned with the thoughtfulness, thoroughness —and time—hat this received.

For this album, McKusick wisely chose six diversified writers who score from their experience within jazz. The writing credits are: Johnny Mandel (track 1); Russell (tracks 2, 5, 7); Jimmy Giuffre (tracks 4, 8, 11); Gil Evans (tracks 3, 10); Manny Albam (track 6), and Al Cohn (track 9). Russell, Giuffre, and Evans have particularly been among the key workers in providing jazzmen more challenging written contexts within which to blow and grow, and Mandel could be.

All the scores allow breathing space for soloists and ensembles while stimulating both the individual and the group via the tension-challenge of fresh, idiomatic structural material that makes the blowing more meaningful by making it part of a more significant, more interrelated, more durable whole.

I was most moved by Russell, Evans, and Giuffre, particularly by Russell’s extraordinarily evocative, functionally dramatic "John Brown" the longest work in the set. And the one apiece by the other writers were also effective.

The musicianship of all the players is excellent. For McKusick, this is the summit of his jazz achievement to this point as an altoist. Farmer, who can make almost any scene, proves how strong a choice he was for this date. Osie and Milt project the strength and flexibility required for their assignments, and Galbraith is magnificent throughout. The others also contribute importantly.

This program is a reason for pride on the part of everyone involved, including Jack Lewis who set it going but who gets not one mention in the notes. John Wilson’s liner is not up to his standard. The personnel is not completely listed nor clearly given (by omitting Barber, for one example, octets turn into septets). More seriously, Wilson failed to recognize the significance of this LP in the context of contemporary jazz concern for more original form and, as a corollary, does not provide enough actual writing details. Don’t miss this one. It’ll be a subject for study —and enjoyment— for a long time. *Nat Hentoff*

1 - Tommy Hawk

(Mandel)

2 - Lydian Lullaby

(Russell)

3 - Blues For Pablo

(Evans)

4 - Just Leave It Alone

(Giuffre)

5 - Miss Clara

(Russell)

6 - Alto Cumulus

(Albam)

7 - The Day John Brown Was Hanged

(Russell)

8 - On Score And Eight Horns Ago

(Giuffre)

9 - Ain't Nothin' But A Memory Now

(Cohn)

10 - Jambangle

(Evans)

11 - The Blues Train

(Giuffre)

#2, #7, #9:

Hal McKusick (alto sax), Barry Galbraith (guitar), Milt Hinton (bass), Osie Johnson (drums).

Recorded in New York City, March 3, 1956.

#3, #6, #10:

Art Farmer (trumpet), Jimmy Cleveland (trombone), Hal McKusick (alto sax), Gene Allen (baritone sax), Barry Galbraith (guitar), Jimmy Raney (rhythm guitar), Milt Hinton (bass), Osie Johnson (drums), George Russell (tambourine [#3]).

Recorded in New York City, April 3, 1956.

#1, #5, #8:

Art Farmer (trumpet), Jimmy Cleveland (trombone), Hal McKusick (alto sax), Sol Schlinger (baritone sax), Barry Galbraith (guitar), Milt Hinton (bass), Osie Johnson (drums).

Recorded in New York City, April 4, 1956.

#4, #11:

Art Farmer (trumpet), Hal McKusick (alto sax), Barry Galbraith (guitar), Teddy Kotick (bass), Osie Johnson (drums).

Recorded in New York City, December 31, 1956.