Mel Torme & The Boss Brass
More Natalie Cole
The picture is not the album cover these two tunes are from–I seem to have lost the cover. The title of the cd is “Unforgettable” and was recorded in 1991. It is one of my favorite albums in my collection. The tunes are: “Thou Swell”, and “Almost Like Being In Love”.
I had the chance to work with Natalie in Dallas one night a few years after this cd came out, and we did these tunes, along with most of the other tunes on the cd. It was one of my favorite nights as a musician and I remember it very well.
Natalie brought her conductor, a lead trumpet player named Dave Trigg, and her rhythm section. They were all great to work with, which is how it should be. The better the musicians, the more they respect everyone else around them. It was all about playing great music that night.
Her rhythm section played together all the time, and it showed. It was one of the best I have ever played with and I just kept smiling at them all night. There is nothing better than a good bass player. He helps to set the pitch, since you always tune up from the bottom in any group, and he can do more to set the time than the drummer. He and I exchanged looks a few times that night, and he knew I loved what he was doing. I told him after the gig how great they sounded. He knew they were good, and he knew I knew something about music, too, to appreciate how well they played together. If their playing didn’t get you excited, you must be deaf. They appreciated coming into a town where the horn players could read music will and get it right the first time. We only had a short rehearsal that afternoon.
Listen to the rhythm section on the second tune. I’m pretty sure it’s the same rhythm section I worked with that night. The feel and sense of time from those guys is beautiful. That’s what you want from your rhythm section. That’s the heart beat of the band and if it’s not right, the horns won’t be right. It sounds like it locks into place when it is right. It comes from everyone listening to each other and playing a lot together. The rhythm section can’t be fighting each other over where the time is, they have to agree on where it is before you add anyone else.
Natalie Cole knows all of this, or she wouldn’t have the right musicians and writers working for her. It was a night I will never forget, and it was what I had worked for all my life. Those few nights when everything is right is what keeps you going and motivated. Listen to these two tunes—this is how it’s done.
Natalie Cole “Here’s That Rainy Day”
This is my favorite vocal arrangement ever. Nan Schwartz did the arrangement and won the Grammy in 2009 for best vocal arrangement. Natalie Cole did a great job, also, in singing this classic tune.
The great trumpet solo was by Warren Luening, who was a great studio trumpet player in L.A. who died in 2012 at the age of 71. The cd was released in 2008, and I have been in love with it ever since. Natalie is really a great singer, but more than that, she surrounds herself with the best musicians and writers. Most singers can’t sing both jazz and rock/pop styles, but Natalie can do both. She is now 65 years old.
I have played this tune over and over since 2008, marveling at the work by all. It’s even better if you listen to it late at night in the dark, on really good speakers. I think it was this tune that forced me to buy my first McIntosh preamp at the age of 62! It was worth it, although it was a used 1988 model. Ha ha One thing leads to another.
The Boss Brass with Guido Basso
Guido Basso was a charter member of the Boss Brass and one of their two great trumpet soloists. He was a child prodigy on trumpet, from Montreal, and went to the Conservatoire de musique du Quebec where Maynard Ferguson had attended a few years earlier. Today he is 77 years old.
I love his solos, his ideas, and how they lay so right on this piece. That’s what makes the great soloists– they have the ability to play more than just notes. The solo makes sense and flows together throughout. Guido is a master at making improvisation sound easy and organized when for most of us it’s a train wreck.
Don’t you know he did a lot of listening to Clark Terry? His flugelhorn playing reminds me so much of Clark Terry at times. Clark died earlier this year and would have been about 16 years older than Guido. It’s all interconnected in music. We are all influenced by everyone else, and it has always been that way. Jazz is a product of everyone, and has evolved because of the great ones listening to everything around them. Jazz is a product of all of us. Rob McConnel may have written the composition, but Guido Basso guided the recording into a statement of his own within the written score, based upon Guido’s experiences of playing and hearing jazz. I have an idea that Rob wrote it with Guido in mind. This album as released in 1976, when Guido would have been 39.
I can’t imagine how much fun it must be to be able to improvise this fast and this well, and what an incredible mind you need to process all that information in such a short space. As a lead player, I’m always in awe of the jazz player’s mind. Guido is one of my favorites, and this piece shows you why. Also, how about that band behind him?
Phil Woods and the Boss Brass
Rehearsal bands are not commercial working bands. They came about by musicians who wanted to play better quality music than they might play on gigs. They usually meet once a week (if that much), and the musicians all play for free. It’s for the love of the music. They normally rehearse a night most musicians aren’t working, usually on Monday nights.
This band has been one of my favorite rehearsal bands, if not my favorite. Led by Rob McConnell, the band consisted of studio musicians from Toronto. Rob did the arrangements and played valve trombone. Before recording a record, they would get together every day for a week, just to get a better recording. They might play in a local club every night during that week.
I posted this recording with Phil Woods because this week Phil played his last note on saxophone. He retired due to age and health problems at age 83. Phil is most famous for playing the saxophone solo on Billy Joel’s, “Just The Way You Are”. He is a fantastic jazz musician, and I got to perform with him when I was in the One O’Clock Lab band in 1977 in South Carolina at the Spoleto Festival. It’s also one of my favorite compositions by Rob. I really love this piece of music.
Rob McConnell died in 2010 at the age of 75. The Boss Brass was formed in 1968, although it wasn’t until 1976 that the full instrumentation of 22 was complete. They made their last recording in 2002. Because it was never a road band, most people never got to hear this band play live.
This recording was made in 1985–30 years ago. It’s a shame this band is no longer here and that no one has formed a band to take it’s place. It had it’s moment in jazz history and it’s over. What a marvelous band made up of some of the top musicians in Canada. I miss this band and wish I could have put together a band like this in this area, but it was never meant to be. The jazz museum fell into place instead.
Sorry about the poor quality picture of the album cover. All my albums are up at the museum, and I had to download a stock picture from the Internet.
Rodney Booth
There’s a great trumpet player in the Dallas area named Rodney Booth. He played in the UNT One O’Clock Lab Band a year, or two after me, and had led a band around town for many years. We have worked together on many shows and recording sessions, and is a very good friend. Rodney also teaches at UNT where he teaches improvisation and conducts the Two O’Clock Lab Band.
He put out a great CD back in 1998 called “Look Over There”, and one around 2010 called “Ten & One”. He reminds me a little bit of Chet Baker in that he sings and plays trumpet. He also performs some of Chet’s tunes, too. If you like this example, I suggest you buy one or both cd’s. They are both great. This tune is from “Look Over There”. The personnel is: piano, Whitey Thomas, Fred Hamilton, bass, and Bobby Breaux, drums.