More Natalie Cole
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.
A Rare Recording of a Leon Breeden Jazz Clinic at TMEA in 1975
Leon Breeden and The One O’Clock Lab Band presented a jazz clinic at TMEA in 1975. They made it into a record and I only heard of this album about a year ago. My friend, Roger Dismore, who was playing lead alto, remembers it well. This was the band with Lyle Mays on piano, and this band was the first college band in history to be nominated for a Grammy.
I heard a rough, unedited tape of Lab ’75 at Roger’s house in May of 1975, and that album (which was still months away from coming out) convinced me to go to North Texas and try out for the One O’Clock. There were going to be four out of five trumpet openings the next year, so I thought it was now or never for me to try it. I made second chair, 40 years ago this month, and was very glad I went. We went on to play the music from Lab ’75 most of the next year when I was there. The music on Lab ’75 was written entirely by one student, Lyle Mays. The band would get to vote on what music to put on their albums and that’s how good everyone thought he was. This is a great, historic college band on this record.