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Showing posts with label Med Flory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Med Flory. Show all posts

Monday, February 16, 2026

Five-Star Collection... Art Pepper


Art Pepper
Art Pepper + Eleven
A Treasury Of Modern Jazz Classics

In a period when the qualifications for having one's own jazz album remains nebulous, it's been all the more astonishing that Art Pepper has been in charge of so few. Pepper has grown remarkably in imagination and emotional depth in the past few years as was hotly clear in Art Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section (Contemporary 3532, Stereo 7018). In this new, uniquely integrated set, Pepper receives a differently challenging framework from Marty Paich than he — or most other soloists — has yet received on records. And Art responds with consistent brilliance.
What Paich has done has been to provide more than just accompaniment for Art. He has integrated the resilient band backgrounds with Art's playing in a way that stimulates Pepper but doesn't obstruct the improvisatory flow of his ideas. Paich was able to accomplish this fusion because he knows Pepper's style well through several years of association, including dates on which Marty was pianist for Art. (...)
The programmatic concept of the album is also challenging to both Pepper and Paich. These are twelve established modern jazz standards — music directly out of the jazz experience, written by jazzmen. They're part of that growing body of thoroughly indigenous jazz material to which player-writers like Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory, Duke Ellington, and in more recent years, Horace Silver, Thelonious Monk, John Lewis and others have contributed.
Pepper and Paich collaborated on selecting these twelve songs. "We treated them with a great deal of respect", Paich emphasizes. "The tune itself is there all the time. Unlike, for example, doing jazz versions of Broadway shows, with these jazz standards you don't have to alter and extend the chords and make other changes for jazz purposes". (...)
In essence, Art Pepper + Eleven demonstrates, first of all, how mature a soloist Art Pepper has become. It also reemphasizes how much of their own material jazzmen have to work with, and helps considerably in making known Marty Paich's qualifications as a particularly knowledgeable and sensitive jazz arranger. *Nat Hentoff (from the liner notes)*

This is a highly satisfactory album for which Marty Paich, who conducts and did the arranging, deserves a full measure of credit.
The tunes read like a jazz hit parade of the '40s and '50s, and Paich has treated them with the reverence and seriousness they deserve while still retaining wit and a freshness of view. Pepper, in the context of this group, turns out one of his best performances on record. As an altoist, he immediately assumes his place again in the front rank with the added virtue of successfully escaping the tyranny of Charlie Parker’s spirit and still keeping that full-blown swing. He is surprisingly sensitive and moving on clarinet (Anthropology of all things!), and if he ever gets seriously down to work on that instrument as his major, there's room to believe he might be the one to bring it up to the point of development of the other solo horns.
On tenor he is a solidly swinging, tough-minded soloist, but it is on alto, still, that he shines. The whole album is in excellent taste, the solos by Freeman here and there are a gas, too, and Lewis provides a fine, swinging foundation. 
*Ralph J. Gleason (Down Beat, February 18, 1960 [5 stars])*

1 - Move
(Denzil Best)
2 - Groovin' High
(Dizzy Gillespie)
3 - Opus de Funk
(Horace Silver)
4 - 'Round Midnight
(Monk, Williams)
5 - Four Brothers
(Jimmy Giuffre)
6 - Shaw Nuff
(Gillespie, Parker)
7 - Bernie's Tune
(Leiber, Stoller, Miller)
8 - Walkin' Shoes
(Gerry Mulligan)
9 - Anthropology
(Gillespie, Parker)
10 - Airegin
(Sonny Rollins)
11 - Walkin' (original take)
(Richard Carpenter)
12 - Walkin' (alternate take 1)
(Richard Carpenter)
13 - Walkin' (alternate take 2)
 (Richard Carpenter)
14 - Donna Lee (original take)
(Charlie Parker)
15 - Donna Lee (alternate take)
(Charlie Parker)

Art Pepper (alto sax, tenor sax [#1, #5, #11], clarinet [#9, #12, #13]) with:
Pete Candoli [#3, #4, #8, #10], Jack Sheldon, Al Porcino [#1, #2, #5 to #7, #9, #11 to #15] (trumpets);
Herb Geller [#3, #4, #8, #10], Bud Shank [#2, #6, #9, #14, #15], Charlie Kennedy [#1, #5, #7, #11 to #13] (alto saxes);
Dick Nash (trombone); Bob Enevoldsen (tenor sax, valve trombone); Vincent DeRosa (French horn);
Bill Perkins [#2, #3, #4, #6, #8 to #10, #14, #15], Richie Kamuca [#1, #5, #7, #11 to #13] (tenor saxes);
Med Flory (baritone sax); Russ Freeman (piano); Joe Mondragon (bass); Mel Lewis (drums).
Recorded at Contemporary's Studio, Los Angeles, California, March 14 (#3, #4, #8, #10),
March 28 (#2, #6, #9, #14, #15) and May 12 (#1, #5, #7, #11, #12, #13), 1959.

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Jazz goes to... The Dave Pell Octet


Shortly after it was formed in 1953, the Dave Pell Octet won best new combo of the year in polls conducted by Americas Daily News and Mirror newspapers. Six of its eight members were included in Down Beat magazines 1953 poll of the top musicians in the country. Pell and his group flipped fans everywhere they appeared, specializing in Proms and School Dances, and becoming the first name jazz group ever to play for dancing at one of the top Sunset Strip clubs, The Crescendo, and also the Hollywood Palladium.Its jazz was described variously as tasty, sophisticated, subtle, warm, bright, clean, friendly, inventive, happy, and a complete show and concert rolled into one. One successful Octet approach was to have the crowd gather around the bandstand to watch it play a fast jive number featuring the bands excellent soloists.An essential contributing factor in the Octets success was that Pell hired the West Coasts finest arrangers to write the beguilingly melodic and always attractive, danceable band charts; people of the calibre of Marty Paich, Bill Holman, Shorty Rogers, Jack Montrose, Med Flory, John T. Williams. And it was this canny combination of quality and accessibility that really made the Octets name and gave the music its enduring flavour. In Dave's own words: Heres hoping you enjoy our combined dance-and-jazz Campus Hop! *Jordi Pujol*

Dave Pell was a saxophonist who worked in Les Brown's band on the American West Coast from 1947 to 1955. In 1953 he formed his octet, which included some musicians who had played for Les Brown, such as Don Fagerquist and Ray Sims. Dave Pell won considerable popularity by playing in colleges and for high school proms, concentrating on jazz which was suitable for dancing. The music was of high quality, thanks especially to the talented arrangers that Pell employed, including Bill Holman, Marty Paich, Shorty Rogers and Jack Montrose.
The Octet made two LPs called Jazz Goes Dancing, the first in 1956 sub-titled Prom to Prom and the second in 1957 subtitled Campus Hop. They consist of tight, disciplined arrangements which make the most of the eight musicians. Each track contains a good deal of ensemble writing, leaving limited room for jazz solos. What solos there are seldom last for more than 16 bars. Only four of the dozen tracks on the first LP last for longer than three minutes.
One danger of such short, clean arrangements is that they can seem soulless, but that tendency is kept at bay with interesting treatments of the tunes. For instance, "Let's Face the Music and Dance" is taken at an unusually slow tempo, and "Forty-second Street" is updated from its old-fashioned mood to sound like a cool modern arrangement.
Dave Pell himself had a clipped style on the tenor sax, without much vibrato - somewhat similar to the style of altoist Lee Konitz. The trumpeters on both LPs are excellent, with Jack Sheldon particularly notable on "We're in the Money" and "Would You Like to Take a Walk". Med Flory's solos on baritone sax are well worth hearing.
These albums is certainly well-suited to dancing but also to listening, as it is full of musical subtleties. *Tony Augarde (musicweb-international.com)*


Dave Pell Octet
Jazz Goes Dancing
Prom To Prom

The Dave Pell Octet, which made its first recordings in 1953, came out of the Les Brown big band and was the epitome of a swinging, cool-toned, West Coast-style jazz group. Pell's ensemble at the time consisted of the leader on tenor, trumpeter Don Fagerquist (an underrated great), trombonist Ray Sims, baritonist Marty Berman, pianist Arnold Ross, guitarist Tony Rizzi, bassist Bob Bates and drummer Irv Kluger. In order to increase his audience, Pell went out of his way to play for dancing audiences without altering his music much. This long-out-of-print LP is an excellent example of Dave Pell's music of the era, with a dozen songs (two originals and ten vintage standards) whose titles have something to do with college-age people or dancing. Examples include "Young and Healthy", "The Continental", "When I Take My Sugar to Tea" and "Walkin' My Baby Back Home". Worth exploring. *Scott Yanow*

In the space of practically no time at all, the Dave Pell Octet has come to hold an extremely high reputation in the jazz world and, most recently, in the collegiate and high school orbit of dancing. Its jazz has been described variously as tasty, sophisticated, subtle, warm, bright, clean, friendly, inventive and happy. Be that as it may, there is a feeling of rapport here that is missing in so many other groups, and Pell's Octet always keeps everything swinging, whether lightly or from the heels. The cohesion engendered by the Octet is a natural thing indeed, in that three of its members — tenor saxophonist Dave Pell, trumpeter Don Fagerquist and trombonist Ray Sims — for years were stellar members of the fine Les Brown band. The other little Pells — baritone saxophonist Marty Berman, guitarist Tony Rizzi, bassist Bob Bates, pianist Arnold Ross and drummer Irving Kluger — each has his particular claim to fame, especially Rizzi, who is now on Dinah Shore's TV show; Ross, who was at one time Lena Horne's 
accompanist; and Bates, who was a member of the original Dave Brubeck quartet.
As for Dave Pell himself, he has all the qualities necessary for success in the music business. He's both handsome and personable; he has a complete knowledge of his instrument and knows exactly the manner in which he wants his Octet to play and to perform; he's by way of being a nifty guy with a wonderful sense of humor. On top of all this, he also maintains in Hollywood a thriving photography and publicity business. Our Mr. Pell is one for the record!
*Radio Corporation of America (liner notes)*

1 - Look Who's Dancing
(Arthur Schwartz, Dorothy Fields)
2 - East Of The Sun
(Brooks Bowman)
3 - You
(Walter Donaldson, Harold Adamson)
4 - Young And Healthy
(Warren, Dubin)
5 - The Continental
(Herb Magidson, Con Conrad)
6 - Dance For Daddy
(Dave Pell)
7 - When I Take My Sugar To Tea
(Fain, Kahal, Pierre)
8 - If I Had You
(Shapiro, Campbell, Connelly)
9 - Cheek To Cheek
(Irving Berlin)
10 - Let's Face The Music And Dance
(Irving Berlin)
11 - Prom To Prom
(Dave Pell)
12 - Walkin' My Baby Back Home
(Turk, Ahlert)

Don Fagerquist (trumpet), Ray Sims (trombone), 
Dave Pell (tenor sax), Marty Berman (baritone sax),
Arnold Ross (piano), Tony Rizzi (guitar), Bob Bates (bass), Irving Kluger (drums).
Recorded at Radio Recorders, Hollywood, California, May 28 (#1, #4, #10, #12), 
May 31(#2, #5, #7, #8) and June 4 (#3, #6, #9, #11), 1956

✳✳✳


Dave Pell Octet
Jazz Goes Dancing
Campus Hop

Subtitled "Jazz Goes Dancing" (which was the name of an earlier album), this LP (which was last reissued by the Spanish Fresh Sound label) features the Dave Pell Octet playing a dozen songs written by Harry Warren. The danceable music swings and features fine short solos from the members of the octet, which at the time were trumpeter Jack Sheldon, valve trombonist Bob Enevoldsen, Pell on tenor, baritonist Med Flory, pianist Paul Moer, guitarist Tom Tedesco, bassist Buddy Clark and drummer Mel Lewis. The West Coast all-stars perform arrangements by Marty Paich, Bill Holman, Shorty Rogers, Flory and John Williams to such songs as "You're My Everything", "Forty-Second Street", "Lulu's Back In Town" and "I'll String Along With You".
*Scott Yanow*

Listening to the Dave Pell Octet is like hearing music played all over again for the first time. The joyful abandon of the arrangements and the carefree style of the musicians make this a delightful album.
I have heard my music played by the Memphis Five in the beginning of the jazz era and, continuing through the years, by all the great bands up to the present day. Truthfully, I thought that I had heard about everything and that the end had been reached, but Dave Pell proves there is no end. 
I could go on and on singing the praises of these wonderful musicians and orchestrators, but if you just lend an ear you'll see why I heartily recommend this album to the young and the young in heart. *Harry Warren (liner notes)*

1 - Java Junction
(Harry Warren)
2 - You're My Everything
(Warren, Young, Dixon)
3 - Forty-Second Street
(Harry Warren, Al Dubin) 
4 - By The River Saint Marie
(Harry Warren, Edgar Leslie) 
5 - I Know Why And So Do You
(Harry Warren, Mack Gordon)
6 - We're In The Money
(Harry Warren, Al Dubin)
7 - Cheerful Little Earful
(Warren, Gershwin, Rose)
8 - Would You Like To Take A Walk
(Warren, Rose, Dixon)
9 - Lulu's Back In Town
(Harry Warren, Al Dubin)
10 - I'll String Along With You
(Harry Warren, Al Dubin)
11 - Remember Me
(Harry Warren, Al Dubin)
12 - Summer Night
(Harry Warren, Al Dubin)

Jack Sheldon (trumpet), Bob Enevoldsen (valve trombone), 
Dave Pell (tenor sax), Med Flory (baritone sax),
Paul Moer (piano), Tommy Tedesco (guitar), Buddy Clark (bass), Mel Lewis (drums). .
Recorded at Radio Recorders, Hollywood, California, November 12 (#4, #5, #6, #7),
November 14 (#2, #3, #11, #12) and November 27 (#1, #8, #9, #10), 1957

Monday, June 2, 2025

Dave Pell: From Dixie to Cool

Dave Pell Octet
The Old South Wails

In a considerably cooler climate than is usually found below the Mason-Dixon Line, the Dave Pell Octet swings solidly through the South with their smooth, danceable stylings of Dixieland favorites. Bringing a new, modern sound to this fine collection of Dixie chestnuts is the inventive writing of no less than six different arrangers, who have up-dated such two-beat classics as "Ballin' The Jack" and "Sugar Foot Strut" to suit the "soft-swing" style that characterizes the music of Dave Pell. Many of the tunes begin in traditional Dixieland fashion, then make a subtle switch from hot to cool, as in "Jazz Me Blues" and Bill Holman's swinging, uptempo arrangement of "Oh, Didn't He Ramble" which opens with a slow and stately intro that's reminiscent of a solemn Bourbon Street processional. Still another highlight is the famous jazz spiritual "When The Saints Go Marching In", which is treated to a brilliant modern arrangement by Marty Paich, a Dave Pell colleague of long standing. Here Dave is featured on tenor sax, along with Jack Sheldon, trumpet; Harry Betts, trombone; Med Flory, baritone. Marty Paich and Johnny Williams share piano duties, heading a rhythm section that includes Lyle Ritz, bass; Tommy Tedesco, guitar; and Frankie Capp on drums.
*(From the liner notes)*

The final recording by the Dave Pell Octet until 1984 is a bit of a departure, for the 12 numbers are mostly Dixieland standards, including "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble", "Ballin' the Jack", "Jazz Me Blues", and even "The Saints". The arrangements (by Med Flory, Marty Paich, Bill Holman, Harry Betts, Bob Florence and John Williams), however, are more modern, very much in the 1950s West Coast jazz style championed by Pell. The Octet (which includes Pell on tenor, trumpeter Jack Sheldon, trombonist Harry Betts, baritonist Flory, Paich or Williams on piano, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, bassist Lyle Ritz and drummer Frankie Capp) plays the charts well, swinging lightly, and the key musicians take plenty of short solos. Although there are hints of Dixieland in spots, this is mostly a cool jazz session and serves as the swan song for the fine group. It is a pity that so few of Dave Pell's recordings (including this one) have yet to be reissued on CD. *Scott Yanow*

This is a great example of the Dave Pell group. The jazz improv here is of the "brief" variety and the arrangements do interesting things...each one has its own eccentricities, and they all change around constantly. The style would probably qualify as "cool jazz", since the octet format has a number of different sound colors and the approach is not strictly bebop, but rather modern jazz as it was done in LA around the late fifties and early sixties.
This album takes tunes that would have been known in colleges and especially in the South, and sticks them into the jazz octet world of Dave Pell. All the tunes give plenty of soloing time, assuming you are not insistent upon extended form soloing like that of Miles and Trane.
If you are already familiar with the Jazz at the Lighthouse or the Shelly Manne and his friends style of jazz, then you will seriously dig this album.
I especially enjoyed hearing trombonist Harry Betts. Harry is also a great, great arranger and he plays great bone. Since I am a trombone player, I like to hear him.
*Christopher Tune (Amazon customer)*

Side 1
1 - Shi-Me-Sha-Wabble
(Spencer Williams)
2 - When The Saints Go Marching In
(Traditional, Arr. by Marty Paich)
3 - Sugar Foot Strut
(Pierce, Schwab, Myers)
4 - Ballin' The Jack
(Chris Smith, Jim Burris)
5 - There'll Be Some Changes Made
(Higgins, Overstreet)
6 - Paper Doll
(Johnny S. Black)

Side 2
7 - Jazz Me Blues
(Tom Delaney)
8 - Oh, Didn't He Ramble
(Handy, Arr. by Bill Holman)
9 - Blues (My Naughty Sweety Gives To Me)
(Swanstone, McCarron, Morgan)
10 - Manhattan
(Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart)
11 - Ida! Sweet As Apple Cider
(Leonard, Munson, Arr. by Mary Paich)
12 - Tishomingo Blues
(Spencer Williams)

Dave Pell (tenor sax); Jack Sheldon (trumpet); Harry Betts (trombone);
Med Flory (baritone sax); John Williams, Marty Paich (piano);
Lyle Ritz (bass); Tommy Tedesco (guitar); Frank Capp (drums).
Recorded in Los Angeles, California, 1961

Thursday, April 20, 2023

Modern Jazz Gallery

Modern Jazz Gallery
A Notable Exhibition By West Coast Jazz Artists

Away back, when jazz was young and almost always gay, you could pretty well spot the home territory of a jazzman or a group by the way they played. Up until the Nineteen Thirties, the few centers where jazz musicians congregated each had their own individual hallmarks. The Kansas City bands played with a heavy, inexorable four-four beat. Chicago groups exuded a lusty, supercharged quality. A Harlem pianist walked in the ragtime shadow of James P. Johnson, the New Orleans clarinetists held to the mellow Creole tradition of Lorenzo Tio and the New Orleans bands scarcely budged from the polyphonic interweaving of cornet, clarinet and trombone.
But as jazz spread, it became faceless. The New Orleans musicians moved to Chicago, the resultant Chicago-New Orleans amalgam trudged on to New York and from New York they fanned out to any spot where there was work to be had. Styles became personal rather than territorial. A trombonist sounded like Jack Teagarden or a clarinetist was in the Benny Goodman vein —they weren’t considered to be playing Texas style, in the first case, or Chicago, in the latter. 
Jazz became pigeon-holed and subdivided by types rather than origins. There was traditional jazz, there was swing and there was bop (which, as an instance of the growing inconsequence of origins, was prodded into existence by musicians from South Carolina, Missouri, Pennsylvania and New York).
But then something went into reverse. A switch was thrown and suddenly, during the past decade, a territorial type of jazz appeared once more. Or, at least, it seemed to appear. It was called West Coast jazz and it was readily accepted as a regional phenomenon until some East Coasters, in a fit of petulance, charged that there was no such thing as West Coast jazz, that jazz was just jazz on any coast. Whereupon they set out to prove their point by trying to whoop up some interest in East Coast jazz.
To a degree, the petulant East Coasters were right. It was almost impossible to encompass all the jazz played on the West Coast within a workable definition since it ranged from the traditionalist revival, which burned particularly bright in San Francisco, to efforts in the more southerly areas of California to effect a liaison between modern jazz and modern serious music. As the East Coasters said, it was just jazz.
But still and all, West Coast jazz —particularly as played by small modern groups— did have an identifiable quality. Recognition of it was achieved not so much through a regional style as through the presence of a resident colony of jazz musicians, each with a relatively personal style, who kept turning up over and over again on the recordings made on the West Coast. It was the repeated sound of these individuals, rather than an underlying group sound, which gave West Coast jazz the semblance of a territorial style. It is true that younger musicians who have developed on the West Coast since the colony-in-residence was established have, quite naturally, tended to follow the lead of the musicians to whom they had the most ready access but this is not apt to blossom into the kind of pure, undeviating school that New Orleans, for instance, once produced. Today a jazz musician is able to hear all of the far flung facets of jazz (which didn’t even exist in the New Orleans heyday) and some of these are inevitably absorbed in whatever sort of finished product the young musician becomes.
So, although this album is an exhibition of modern jazz by West Coast artists, we will find that the music draws on that played in other sections of the country and that it is West Coast jazz primarily in the sense that it is played by musicians who have acquired the characteristics common to the culture of the southern part of California (and musicians who have been resident for some time on both coasts will tell you that this has a distinct effect on how they play and what they play).
The six groups which are heard here —three big bands and three combos— give representation to most of the leading members of the West Coast jazz colony as of summer and fall, 1956.
It will take slightly more than an hour and a quarter to examine this gallery of modern jazz by West Coast musicians. Once it has been heard through, see if you detect a uniformity of style that might be pinpointed as regional. Or do you hear a varied group of musicians expressing themselves in their own personal jazz terms? In other words, is there really West Coast jazz or are there simply West Coast jazzmen? This album provides a sound basis for reaching your own conclusions.
*John S. Wilson (liner notes)*

*LP 1*

Side 1
1 - Music City
(Russell Garcia)
2 - Ben Blew
(Ben Tucker)
3 - Joanies Jump
(Med Flory)
4 - Caribe
(John Towner)
5 - There Will Never Be Another You
(Mack Gordon, Harry Warren)
6 - Times Square
(Marty Paich)

Side 2
7 - Plain Jane Snavely
(Bob Brookmeyer)
8 - Spring Is Here
(Richard Rodgers, Laurenz Hart)
9 - Coldwater Canyon Blues
(Marty Paich)
10 - Time's Up
(Ronnie Ball)
11 - Fish Tail
(Russell Garcia)
12 - Angel
(Shorty Rogers, Sid Robbins)

*LP 2*

Side 3
1 - Four Blow Four's
(Marty Paich)
2 - Earful
(Ronnie Ball)
3 - Wonderful You
(Al Cohn)
4 - Anything Goes
(Cole Porter)
5 - Blooz
(Paul Moer)
6 - Smoggy Day
(Russell Garcia)

Side 4
7 - In From Somewhere
(Wes Hensel)
8 - Lonely Time
(Marty Paich)
9 - Aunt Orsavella
(John Towner)
10 - I Love You, That's All
(Med Flory)
11 - Black Jack
(Warne Marsh)
12 - Los Angeles River
(Russell Garcia)

Med Flory and His Orchestra
#3, #7 (LP 1);  #3, #10 (LP 2)
Med Flory (alto sax [#15], tenor sax [#3, #7 {LP 1}; #3 {LP 2}], vocals [#3 {LP 2}]); Joe Burnett, Ed Leddy, Jack Holman, Ray Triscari (trumpets); Bob Burgess, Dave Wells, (trombones);  Bill Perkins, Bill Masinghill, Arno Marsh (tenor saxes); Leo Anthony (baritone sax); John Banister (piano); Tom Kelly (bass); Mel Lewis (drums).
Recorded at Radio Recorders, Hollywood, California, March 12, 1956.

Billy Usselton Sextet
#5, #12 (LP 1); #5, #7 (LP 2)
Billy Usselton (tenor sax), Bob Burgess (trombone), Abe Aaron (bass clarinet), Paul Moer (piano), Buddy Clark (bass), Mel Lewis (drums).
Recorded at Radio Recorders, Hollywood, California, October 17, 1956. 

Marty Paich Orchestra
#6, #9 (LP 1); #1, #8 (LP 2)
Conte Candoli, Don Fagerquist, Ed Leddy (trumpets); Francis Fitzpatrick, Bobby Burgess (trombones); Herb Geller (alto sax); Richie Kamuca, Bill Perkins (tenor saxes); Marty Berman (baritone sax); Marty Paich (piano); Joe Mondragon (bass); Mel Lewis (drums).
Recorded at Radio Recorders, Hollywood, California, October 23, 1956.

Warne Marsh Quintet
#2, #10 (LP 1); #2, #11 (LP 2)
Warne Marsh, Ted Brown (tenor saxes), Ronnie Ball (piano), Ben Tucker (bass), Jeff Morton (drums).
Recorded at Radio Recorders, Hollywood, California, October 24, 1956.

Russell Garcia and His Orchestra
#1, #11 (LP 1); #6, #12 (LP 2)
Maynard Ferguson, Don Fagerquist, Buddy Childers, Ray Linn (trumpets); Milt Bernhart, Frank Rosolino, Lloyd Ulyate, Tommy Pederson (trombones); Art Pepper, Bud Shank (alto saxes); Ted Nash (tenor sax); Chuck Gentry (baritone sax); Gerald Wiggins (piano); Howard Roberts (guitar); Max Bennett (bass); Alvin Stoller (drums).
Recorded at Radio Recorders, Hollywood, California, November 2, 1956.

John Towner Quartet
#4, #8 (LP 1); #4, #9 (LP 2)
John Towner [a.k.a. John T. Williams] (piano); Howard Roberts (guitar), Curtis Counce (bass); Jerry Williams (drums).
Recorded at Radio Recorders, Hollywood, California, November 2, 1956.