Roger Guérin - Paris Meetings

At the end of the 1940s, young French jazz musicians started flocking towards the two styles of modern jazz — bebop and cool. Paris was the capital of European jazz, and the talent of the local musicians playing in Parisian clubs was often comparable to that of their American colleagues. In that league, we found mostly French and some Belgian names, such as Bobby Jaspar, Martial Solal, Pierre Michelot, Maurice Vander, Jean-Louis Viale, Benoit Quersin, René Thomas, Barney Wilen, René Urtreger, and several others.

This album is dedicated to one of them in particular: trumpeter Roger Guérin (1926-2010). Despite having very few recordings under his name and spending most of his career as a sideman, Guérin was never underappreciated by jazz fans and critics: after all, he was chosen as the best French jazz trumpeter ten years in a row (1955-65) by the "Jazz-Hot" readers' and critics' poll. In these sessions we find him alongside great American jazzmen like James Moody, Jimmy Raney, Benny Golson and Bobby Timmons, but also in the company of his French comrades, giving his best in every performance.

He was involved in many of the projects that pushed the evolution of modern jazz in France. An arranger of the stature of Billy Byers, who worked in Paris for a while in 1956, described him like this: "There are some very good musicians in France: Roger Guérin is a great jazzman".

*Jordi Pujol* 

Roger Guérin

Le Formidable Roger Guérin

Paris Meetings

Best known for his stint with Quincy Jones' Big Band, Roger Guérin had a formidable career in Paris, being first call to sit in with the likes of Don Byas, Django Reinhardt and James Moody. This collection of sessions from the 50s has him co-leading a hard bop team with Benny Golson, leading his own quartet along with Christian Grros, Pierre Michelot and Martial Solal and fitting in as a sideman for guitarist Jimmy Raney or saxist James Moody.

The sessions with Moody have the Parker disciple  bouncing to "Deep Purple" and swooning on "More Than You Know", and with Raney at the helm the team gets more lithe and open sounding with Guerin and Raney doing winders with "Too Marvelous For Words" and luminescent on "What’s New". Golson's band sounds a lot like an Art Blakey session with Bobby Timmons at the piano, and the quintet does material from the drummer's songbook with muscular reads of "Blues March", "I Remember Clifford" and a hot "Moanin'". Guerin mixes the lyricism of Miles Davis with the gentleness of Chet Baker. You’re gonna like this cat! *George W. Harris*

1 - Deep Purple

(Peter De Rose)

2 - Bootsie

(James Moody)

3 - More Than You Know

(Youmans, Rose, Eliscu)

4 - Too Marvelous For Words

(Whiting, Mercer)

5 - Night And Day

(Cole Porter)

6 - Dinah

(Akst, Lewis, Young)

7 - What's New

(Haggart, Burke)

8 - Night In Tunisia

(Gillespie, Pappareli)

9 - Sweet Feeling

(Pierre Michelot)

10 - Ça Tourne

(Roger Guérin)

11 - Buggy And Soul

(Christian Chevallier)

12 - Vline

(Christian Chevallier)

13 - Chet

(Pierre Michelot)

14 - Mythe

(Pierre Michelot)

15 - Blues March

(Benny Golson)

16 - I Remember Clifford

(Benny Golson)

17 - Stablemates

(Benny Golson)

18 - Moanin'

(Bobby Timmons)

19 - Not Serious

(Roger Guérin)

#1 to #3:

originally issued as part of the album James Moody Quintet (Vogue LD 036)

Roger Guérin (trumpet), James Moody (alto sax), Raymond Fol (piano), Pierre Michelot (bass), Pierre Lemarchand (drums).

Recorded in Paris, July 27, 1951.

#4 to #7:

originally issued as part of the album Jimmy Raney Visits Paris (Dawn DLP-1120)

Roger Guérin (trumpet), Jimmy Raney (guitar), Maurice Vander (piano), Jean-Marie Ingrand (bass), Jean-Louis Viale (drums).

Recorded in Paris, February 10, 1954.

#8 to #10:

from the álbum Roger Guérin Quartet (Versailles 90 S 128)

Roger Guérin (trumpet), Martial Solal (piano), Pierre Michelot (bass), Christian Garros (drums), Dave Rivera (conga [#8, #10]).

Recorded in Paris, July 1956.

#11 to #14:

from the album Christian Chevallier Jazz Quartet (Columbia ESDF 1139)

Roger Guérin (trumpet), Christian Chevallier (piano), Pierre Michelot (bass), Christian Garros (drums).

Recorded in Paris, November 13, 1956.

#15 to #19:

from the album Roger Guérin-Benny Golson with Bobby Timmons (Columbia FP 1117)

#15 to #18:

Roger Guérin (trumpet), Benny Golson (tenor sax), Bobby Timmons (piano), Pierre Michelot (bass), Christian Garros (drums).

Recorded in Paris, December 12, 1958.

#19:

Roger Guérin (trumpet), Michel Hausser (vibes), Martial Solal (piano), Pierre Michelot (bass), Christian Garros (drums).

Recorded in Paris, December 18, 1958.

The Third Herdmen Blow In Paris

These recording sessions respond to the stir generated in Paris among French fans and record producers by the visits of Woody Herman orchestra during their European tour in 1954. Some of the best band's soloists were engaged to record for the French label Vogue.

The Herdsmen recorded two 10'' albums, with personnel changing from one session to the other. The sessions included trumpeter Dick Collins, bass-trumpeter Cy Touff, tenorists Bill Perkins, Dick Hafer, and Jerry Coker, bassist Red Kelly, drummer Chuck Flores, and pianist Ralph Burns — the featured performer for the band’s European tour. Joining them were leading local jazzmen, such as pianist Henri Renaud, guitarist Jimmy Gourley, bass player Jean-Marie Ingrand and drummer Jean-Louis Viale. The sessions were all improvised, without too much time for preparation, but the recordings captured the freshness of the soloists, who all had a balling time. *Jordi Pujol*.

The Herdsmen

Play Paris

Early in 1954, Woody Herman took his Third Herd to Europe. This was the first time Herman had ever played overseas and it was the first time most of Europe had heard the Third Herd. Up until recently, its only records were on Woody’s own small label, Mars, which was not distributed throughout the continent. 

Dick Collins, the young Berkeley trumpet player who was, and is, one of the stars of the Third Herd was an old friend to Paris. He had gone there after World War II to study on the GI Bill under Darius Milhaud, the French composer with whom Dave Brubeck and other modern jazz men have studied at Mills College in Oakland, California. While Collins was in Paris in 1948 and ’49, he met Charles Delaunay, the French critic, author and recording executive and made several sides for him. So it was only natural that on Collins’ return, Delaunay would renew the acquaintance and take the opportunity to make further records.

For the first date, Delaunay assembled Collins, Cy Touff, Bill Perkins, Dick Hafer and Red Kelly from the Herman band and two French musicians, Henri Renaud and Jean-Louis Viale. Perkins describes the date this way: "Delaunay picked us up at the hotel about an hour after we flew in from Germany and rushed us to a real relaxed little upstairs studio and we went to work with nothing more than a few penciled lead sheets — no harmony parts were written as I remember. Although the French musicians did not speak English and viceversa, I remember that it struck me at the time how well we understood each other when it came to the music part of it. They put Cy up on a box to get the bell of his horn even with the mike". 

The second session was made just before the men left for home some weeks later. Coker was commissioned to write an original ("Embarkation") and Perkins recalls Jerry working hard on it backstage at the Vienna concert. Coker, Touff, drummer Chuck Flores and pianist Ralph Burns, who was on the European tour as a featured performer with the band, flew back to Paris to make the date and were joined by Jimmy Gourley, one of the leading French guitarists, and bassist Jean-Marie Ingrand. Burns, who is among the best known modern jazz arrangers and writers and who has done most of the Herman book including "Summer Sequence", is featured on piano. Burns wrote "Wetback on the Left Bank" for Flores, whose nickname is "Wetback". *Liner notes*

Bassist Red Kelly remembers the Woody Herman Third Herd’s triumphal tour of Europe in 1954: "We weren’t used to that kind of adulation. We were treated like rock stars are today. They tried to get the buttons off of our coats and all that stuff". The fans were not alone in their enthusiasm. The French critic and impresario Charles Delaunay herded several of Herman’s sidemen into a recording studio for two small-group sessions that illuminated the talents of saxophonist Bill Perkins, bass trumpeter Cy Toouff, trumpeter Dick Collins, pianist Ralph Burns, and other solist from the band, along with promiment French musicians. These Paris sessions give us stimulating extracurricular music by some of the talented young musicians Herman assembled during one of his greatest periods. *concord.com*

Side 1

01 - The Gypsy

(Billy Reid)

02 - Wetback On The Left Bank

(Ralph Burns)

03 - Embarkation

(Jerry Coker)

04 - Thanks For You

(Tim Whitton)

Side 2

05 - So What Could Be New?

(Tiny Kahn)

06 - Just 40 Bars

(Henri Renaud)

07 - Palm Cafe

(Henri Renaud)

08 - Pot Luck

(Johnny Mandel)

 #5, #6, #7, #8:

Dick Collins (trumpet); Cy Touff (bass trumpet); Bill Perkins, Dick Hafer (tenor saxes); Henri Renaud (piano); Red Kelly (bass); Jean-Louis Viale (drums).

Recorded in Paris, April, 23, 1954.

#1, #2, #3, #4:

Cy Touff (bass trumpet), Jerry Coker (tenor sax), Ralph Burns (piano), Jimmy Gourley (guitar), Jean-Marie Ingrand (bass), Chuck Flores (drums).

Recorded in Paris, May 5, 1954.

#1, #4, #5, #8 from The Third Herdmen Blow In Paris, Vol. 1

#2, #3, #6, #7 from The Third Herdmen Blow In Paris, Vol. 2