Jahresbericht 1954 55

Eddie Shu & Bob Hardaway - Jazz Practitioners (1954-55) {Bethlehem Toshiba-EMI TOCJ-62084 rel 2001}
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© 1954-55, 2001 Bethlehem / Toshiba-EMI | TOCJ-62084
Jazz / Cool / Bop / Trumpet / Saxophone

Not that this artist isn't pretty cool; far from it. Credited either as Bob Hardaway or Robert Hardaway, he spent much of the 20th century at the top of the studio musician scene in Los Angeles, playing a bewildering array of woodwind instruments — even bass clarinet, English horn, and alto flute — on a tall stack of records that stylistically give the impression of having been snatched at random out of a burning used record store, the Partridge Family, Dinah Washington, Bonnie Raitt, and his efforts with the Eddie Shu/Bob Hardaway Jazz Practitioners among them.

From December 1954 to December 1955, jazz producer Jack Lewis recorded a series of outstanding albums at RCA Victor’s famous Webster Hall Studios in New York City with Al Cohn and Joe Newman, each leading several small swinging bands, and as sidemen on Freddie Green’s only album as a leader.

Mel Henke - Shock Treatment (1954-55) {2CD Set, Contemporary–Fresh Sound FSR-CD 529 rel 2008}
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© 1954-55, 2008 Contemporary / Fresh Sound Records | FSR-CD 529
Jazz / Mainstream Jazz / Piano

About the things I play: Id say my treatment of tunes should be classed as repertoire rather than a particular jazz style. This is probably due to the fact that years ago when I first started to play jazz, I would imitate various jazz greats such as Earl Hines, Tatum, and Cleo Brown. (She was the first musician Id ever heard who played eight-beat piano.) With imitation we can come close but we never really achieve what we try to achieve by imitation, at least I didnt. So I started to develop each tune as an individual composition rather than trying to play every tune in the same style. I had the best luck with this kind of approach, and now I have a repertoire built up over twenty years Incidentally, I usually write the piano parts out note for note even though when I play I never work from the music. This is a kick I got on years ago. I think we get the sound we do because a lot of our stuff is worked out carefully. It isnt what youd call free improvisation.

Iconic guitarist Jimmy Raney and legendary pianist Sonny Clark’s paths crossed only during a European tour promoted by Leonard Feather in 1954, which included concerts in several countries and also allowed Feather time to organize a few studio dates here and there.
Jimmy Raney (guitar) and Sonny Clark (piano) are featured with Costa Theselius (tenor sax), Red Mitchell/Simon Brehm (bass) and Bobby White/Elaine Leighton (drums).

During the 1950s in Paris the traditional jazz cellars could call on American as well as French musicians and Classic Jazz at St Germain des Pres is a lively record of the music heard there. Clarinettist Albert Nicholas had grown up with Bechet in New Orleans and offered a more elegant, less forceful individualism within that city's reed-playing tradition. His eight tracks from 1954 comprise four in the New Orleans sextet format, two delightful ones with a trio and two welcome borrowings from the world of Ellingtonia. Trombonist Archey was a less sophisticated musician but had his own recognisable style and his six tracks with a band including Michel Attenoux (on Bechet-like soprano) and pianist Georges Arvanitas (at the beginning of his career) are full of enthusiastic vigour…

In 2000, reissue giant Collectables took Percy Faith's 1954 Kismet release on Columbia and combined it with the standard-laden Music From Hollywood on one convenient disc.
Percy Faith was one of the most popular easy listening recording artists of the 1950s and '60s. Not only did he have a number of hit albums and singles under his own name, but Faith was responsible for arranging hits by Tony Bennett, Doris Day, Johnny Mathis, and Burl Ives, among others, as the musical director for Columbia Records in the '50s.

Tony Fruscella & Brew Moore - The 1954 Unissued Atlantic Session (1954) {Atlantic–Fresh Sound FSR-CD 660 rel 2011}
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© 1954-55, 2001 Atlantic / Verve / Fresh Sound Records | FSR-CD 66
Jazz / Cool / West Coast Jazz / Trumpet / Saxophone

Never before released in any format! These recordings are among the rarest treasures in jazz, unseen and unheard since Atlantic produced them in 1954, and their release can be considered an event for all the jazz community. This was a relaxed and easy session, essentially valuable for the musicians involved, trumpeter Tony Fruscella (1927-1969), and tenor Brew Moore (1924-1973), most particularly for the former, who died at 42.

Afro (1954). Pairing Dizzy Gillespie with Cuban arranger/composer Chico O'Farrill produced a stunning session which originally made up the first half of a Norgran LP. O'Farrill conducts an expanded orchestra which combines a jazz band with a Latin rhythm section; among the participants in the four-part "Manteca Suite" are trumpeters Quincy Jones and Ernie Royal, trombonist J.J. Johnson, tenor saxophonists Hank Mobley and Lucky Thompson, and conga player Mongo Santamaria. "Manteca," written during the previous decade, serves as an exciting opening movement, while the next two segments build upon this famous theme, though they are jointly credited to O'Farrill as well. "Rhumba-Finale" is straight-ahead jazz with some delicious solo work by Gillespie…