Buddy Rich Big Band

[marcello]

That was nice, Jim. That was Mike Boone on bass, who lives and works in Philly, and Lee Musiker on piano, who has been with Tony Bennett on and off for many years.

I'm not sure if I've told it here but Buddy and Sammy did a extended date at Radio City when Barry Kiener was in the band. I saw a show from backstage that, at the end, made me see realize that Sammy really had a soulful heart.

[John Tapscott]

I've had a love-hate relationship with Buddy Rich for decades. I really admire his work as a youngster with the Bunny Berigan, Artie Shaw, and Tommy Dorsey bands, but really couldn't warm up to his 1960's & 70's bandleading years, even though I saw the band twice (in 1966 and 1970). It all seemed to about Buddy's aggressive, over-the-top showboating. and of course there are the infamous candid tapes of Buddy chewing out the band, which cannot endear one to Buddy's personality. :-)

Recently I've been picking up the jazz video boxed sets from Jazz Icons, and in one of the sets there is a 1978 concert by Buddy and his band at the Northsea Jazz Festival. I had put off viewing this one until it was the last one in the set, and last night we finally sat down with it. I have to say that I was totally blown away! The drive, the precision, the sheer virtuosity was tremendously exciting, and on his own terms, there just isn't any musician on the planet who could generate excitement like this. Say what you will about Buddy's brand of music, watching this video was a treat.

Agree completely about that DVD.

Imagine how good it would have been if it had been well-recorded. Camera work is great; sound quality not so much. The brass section was not mic'd properly.

[Stereojack]

I've had a love-hate relationship with Buddy Rich for decades. I really admire his work as a youngster with the Bunny Berigan, Artie Shaw, and Tommy Dorsey bands, but really couldn't warm up to his 1960's & 70's bandleading years, even though I saw the band twice (in 1966 and 1970). It all seemed to about Buddy's aggressive, over-the-top showboating. and of course there are the infamous candid tapes of Buddy chewing out the band, which cannot endear one to Buddy's personality. :-)

Recently I've been picking up the jazz video boxed sets from Jazz Icons, and in one of the sets there is a 1978 concert by Buddy and his band at the Northsea Jazz Festival. I had put off viewing this one until it was the last one in the set, and last night we finally sat down with it. I have to say that I was totally blown away! The drive, the precision, the sheer virtuosity was tremendously exciting, and on his own terms, there just isn't any musician on the planet who could generate excitement like this. Say what you will about Buddy's brand of music, watching this video was a treat.

Agree completely about that DVD.

Imagine how good it would have been if it had been well-recorded. Camera work is great; sound quality not so much. The brass section was not mic'd properly.

Interesting - I run my TV through my stereo system. I thought the sound was quite acceptable. Not stereo, mind you, but crisp and clear. I guess we all hear things differently.

[fasstrack]

Lee Musiker-who BTW made those tapes (and supposedly was once fired by Bennett when he heard). He sure did the comedy world some good, though. 'Get a goddamn shave. I'm running a BAND, not the fucking goddamn HOUSE OF DAVID BASEBALL TEAM' I don't happen to think Rich was an asshole, just old-school. I'm sure he was in the service. There's more than one way to lead a band and get results. Ellington and Herman were pretty lax about certain things like drugs/drink-and had great bands. According to Dave Panici (sp?) running out of reefer was one trigger for the bus tirades. Compare Buddy's tapes to Paul Anka. BR never said 'I'm the most important person on that stage'. The story about the band quitting when he bought a Cadillac rather than pay them...let's don't even go there. I heard the early 70s band at Buddy's place-but I was too young for it to impress. It was the 1st big band I'd seen, and the BR on the bass drum and stands seemed cool, ditto his reply of 'I don't care any more' to a guy whispering to him.

[fasstrack]

I also agree about his small group playing. The date w/Pres and Nat Cole is priceless. The one w/Zoot and Bucky (Milt Hinton was on bass BTW, and I'm pretty sure Lionel Hampton was a guest. On the cassette version I had some of it is just a duo w/Zoot and Bucky) is either called Somerset or just Zoot Sims/Bucky Pizzarelli. Does anyone-for extra credit-remember the name of the head of the nunnery that takes in Michael Palin's knight (I suppose I could stay a BIT longer...) in Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

[ghost of miles]

Some late-1970s BR big-band music (including Barry Kiener on piano) on this 2015 release, from tapes made by Alan Gauvin when he was in the band:

Birdland

Edited September 15, 2017 by ghost of miles

[Teasing the Korean]

How did Buddy Rich manage financially to keep a 16-piece (or larger?) big band together throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s?  It seems like they were constantly on the road.  I realize that Buddy Rich had name recognition, and I know there was that delusional "The big bands are coming back" chatter throughout the period, but still, it seems like it must have been a tall order to make a working big band sustainable. 

[AllenLowe]

I think it was his inspirational after-hours speeches that held the band together.

[JSngry]

He got backing from Harry James to get started. I assume he had all kinds of connections in and out of the jazz business to keep it going. The guy was already a legend before going out on his own. Plus, the band took gigs backing singers of note. If you back Sammy or Sinatra, that gig's gonna pay pretty good.

There's a lot of ways to make money. There's a lot of ways to get money. Keeping it is the hard part.

[sidewinder]

The band must have been coining it in. Every time I saw them in London at Ronnie Scotts it was a sell-out with even the standing areas crammed. They did several shows a night too, to different paying houses.

[Peter Friedman]

Not sure how I missed this thread until now?

Though Buddy Rich was a great drummer, there were many other drummers I prefer to hear with jazz groups of various size. Saw his big band a couple of times and didn't find it to my taste.

As Marcello knows, I knew Barry Kiener very well. Heard him play countless times while I was living in Rochester,New York. He asked me to write the liner notes for an album he did . Barry had a lengthy duo gig at a bar on top of a local upscale hotel. I used to go there to hear him regularly. I encouraged my good friend John Norris to hire Barry for a gig at the club in Toronto where John was doing the booking.

My wife and I had Barry and his girlfriend (Diana?) for dinner at our house. Barry was a record collector and enjoyed looking through my collection.

The first time I heard Barry was a strange one. Jimmy Rowles was playing a gig at the Round Towner Hotel in Rochester. We went to hear Jimmy, but his consumption of alcohol caused him to literally almost pass out on the piano stool, and was unable to continue. Barry was in the audience and volunteered to step in to play. He played beautifully and I was an immediate fan.

I too thankfully have a number of tapes of Barry's playing.

Barry was a truly marvelous jazz piano player and his death at such a young age was a blow to jazz and to me personally.

 

[JSngry]

 

[JSngry]

 

 

[Brad]

Who takes the first solo on the first cut. Liked what I heard. 

There were some great hosts back then: Johnny, Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas, although I thought he was the weakest.  I used to really like Merv. His sidekick was Arthur Treacher. Talk about an unlikely duo. 

Edited September 29, 2018 by Brad

[JSngry]

The tenor solos were Jay Corre. Altos were by Ernie Watts and Jimmy Mosher. The trumpet, by Chuck Findley. Jim Trimble was the trombonist, I think.

[Mark Stryker]

The vintage graphics during the drum solos on those Mike Douglas show clips are really period pieces.

[Mark Stryker]

All brushes.

Trio with Kenny Barron and Chris White. 1974. 

Edited September 29, 2018 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

George Carlin, holy f-in shit!

[Mark Stryker]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

George Carlin, holy f-in shit!

OMG -- never saw one of the the full shows before! This is going to take some time to fully digest. BTW, a trumpet enters early during the drum breaks on "Bugle Call Rag" -- the mistake is at 42:58. I would not have wanted to be that cat after the show.

Coda: Ernie Watts plays his ass off on "Wack Wack." (And that's some weird-ass choreography with the band.)

 

Edited September 29, 2018 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

Suddenly the liner notes for The New One have a new resonance. Summer replacement show or not, this was a prime-time weekly network TV show, and the Buddy Rich band was there every week, just like David Rose, Sammy Speer, god knows who else, those guys that got introduced every week. Only this was not a staff band, this was a real, working big band, getting features, participating in production numbers, everything. Pacific Jazz/Richard Bock was no doubt thrilled. What kind of a primetime network/cable show would have any kind of a jazz band as house band? Yes, the big bands DID come back!

Yeah, i had never seen a full one either. I guess, this was summer of 1967, we only had one tv in the house, and I don't recall the folks watching this at all. They watched Jackie Gleason, but I guess this summer show was not for them. Or maybe it wasn't even carried here.

Choreography was everywhere back then. All the variety shows had it. I finally saw the full Swing Into Spring show and marveled at how something this..uh...non-macho got sponsored by Texaco.

If you believe the comments, the poster of this show has more than this one, so, hope springs eternal...

 

One more thing - from what I can tell, the band played their book on this show, straight-up. That's a pretty big deal as far as that thing goes.

[Mark Stryker]

Apparently, Buddy Greco played with the band at least once on the show. He had skills. (Date on the video is wrong. This is summer ‘67.)

 

[JSngry]

If you listen to your Inner Liner Note Geek Whisperer, you will remember that Rotten Kid was Greco's tune, and possibly/presumably his chart. I've always loved it, it's one of those full-frontal things.

Tht version, with the longer drum solo detracts. I think, from the sheer orgasmic lead in to that Dizzy thing that the studio version has.

Even when Buddy Rich made me cringe, this one still got me. There's a time for taste, and there's a time for this (in whatever form). Anybody who says there's not is a liar.

[JSngry]

Here's probably why Buddy kept a young band - the old guys played better, but not with quite the same energy. Seems to me that at the end of the day, that energy was waht made Buddy Rich tick, just raw energy.

[Mark Stryker]

Why didn’t Rich and Greco make a record together in this period? Might have seemed a logical idea, yes?

[Quasimado]

15 hours ago, JSngry said:

Here's probably why Buddy kept a young band - the old guys played better, but not with quite the same energy. Seems to me that at the end of the day, that energy was waht made Buddy Rich tick, just raw energy.

Conte is young - or old?