Cal Tjader & Bobby Scott - 2 Unrelated Questions

[DMP]

Listening to that last "Verve//Remixed" package brings up a couple of questions...

1) There's a version of Cal Tjader's "Los Banditos" (a nice one - if you like the original you might want to check this out) on there, which brings up the question of Tjader's Verve discography - Is there a "live" Tjader session on Verve that's sitting around somewhere? Are other numbers from that "Banditos" gig

anywhere?

2) Cutting through a Sarah Vaughan vocal is the unmistakable, exaggerated funky piano of Bobby Scott. He pops up on several 60's sessions (off hand I'm thinking of "Movin' Wes," several Quincy Jones Mercury albums). I know he wrote "Taste of Honey," but other than that I'm drawing a blank. I know there's a story there - can someone fill me in?

Thanks. I apologize for the rambling nature of this post - the kids have me on the ropes this morning.

[Jim R]

Re question #2, I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but I found a few things in the notes to Chet's "Baby Breeze" (the only other session I have Scott on besides "Movin' Wes"). Scott debuted as a pianist at age 11, worked with some name bands as a teen, had a hit as a writer and vocalist with "chain gang", worked as a journalist and a&r man in pop and jazz, taught music, and had a few fights as an amateur boxer.

[Christiern]

Scott also wrote "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother." He was a prolific composer whose work touched a lot of bases/ He also started an autobiography--I don't know if he went much beyond the MS that he sent me shortly before his death, but it is very interesting. Bobby Scott was also one of Quincy Jones's "victims," that is to say, he belonged to an esteemed group of composer/arrangers who were ripped off (intellectually) by Q.

I have several tapes of his original music, none of which was ever released--as far as I know.

[Chuck Nessa]

The Tjader track is from a Verve lp called Along Comes Cal. Only 2 tracks of the record are live.

-Along comes Cal- : Cal Tjader (vib) Al Zulaica (p) Stan Gilbert (b) Carl Burnett (d) Ray Barretto (cga)

"El Matador", San Francisco, Ca., January 1967

101982 Los bandidos Verve V8671, 519812-2, 531562-2

102482 Samba do suenho -

Verve does have another live date in the can:

-Saturday night/Sunday night at The Blackhawk- : Cal Tjader Quartet : Cal Tjader (vib) Lonnie Hewitt (p)

Freddy Schreiber (b) Johnny Rae (d)

"The Blackhawk", San Francisco, January 27-28, 1962

Summertime Verve V8459

222 time -

Noonie's groove -

This can't be love -

Stablemates -

Weep -

Fred's ahead -

Stompin' at the Savoy -

Soft touch (unissued)

Carnival (unissued)

Note : Entire session except unissued on Verve V6-8459.

Bobby Scott made about 20 lps as a pianist and/or singer between 1953 and 1990. Very interesting character.

[JSngry]

Scott gigged w/Lester Young and also wrote the arrangements for

"Interesting" does indeed seem to be an apt word to describe his life and career.

[mikeweil]

That Tjader live date from the Blackhawk is excellent, some of the best straightahead playing I have heard from Cal & Co. Used copies are easily found on ebay or Gemm.com - not a single track has made it to CD.

The Tjader track is from a Verve lp called Along Comes Cal. Only 2 tracks of the record are live.

-Along comes Cal- : Cal Tjader (vib) Al Zulaica (p) Stan Gilbert (b) Carl Burnett (d) Ray Barretto (cga)

"El Matador", San Francisco, Ca., January 1967

101982 Los bandidos Verve V8671, 519812-2, 531562-2

102482 Samba do suenho -

Only Los Bandidos is live - the other is obviously a studio track. Furthermore, Barretto is only on the studio tracks on that LP, Armando Peraza is probably the conga drummer on the live session, which features Cal's working band of the time. There is a discussion about this on the Cal Tjader Forum. That discographical entry is one of the many errors in the standard discographies concerning Cal's recordings. So far I could find not much information about unissued live material for Verve - but it is likely there is more in the vaults, considering the alternate takes etc. from the studio sessions - and they didn't record just one live track, that's for sure. That Verve didn't record Cal's working bands more often probably has two reasons: Verve's polished "produced" studio approach and the fact that Tjader and the Verve label were located on different coasts.

Edited December 3, 2005 by mikeweil

[Stereojack]

Bobby Scott made about 20 lps as a pianist and/or singer between 1953 and 1990. Very interesting character.

A very talented musician - songwriter, singer, producer. If you can find his albums "Robert William Scott" (Warner Bros, 1970) and "Slowly" (Musicmasters, 1991), you will be in for a treat. The former contains his original recording of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother", and the latter contains his very moving rendition of "Rainbow Connection", a track that always generated phone calls whenever I played it on the air.

[Chuck Nessa]

Also worth searching out is "My Heart In My Hands", Columbia CS 9563. This is some sort of ultimate "male torch song" record. One of my favorites on the record is "Eight Million Stories (in the Naked City)". Happy endings are few.

[DMP]

Thanks for all the information!! Think you all have answered my questions - and have made me even more curious about Bobby Scott! (And, whoever plays that conga solo on the Tjader "live" track - it's one of the most exciting on record - it sneaks up on you.)

[Larry Kart]

I recall a Bobby Scott all-instrumental (and perhaps all-originals) ABC-Paramount LP from maybe 1957 -- rhythm section (with Scott not as overtly funky on piano as he later would become) plus two horns: tenor saxophonist John Murtaugh and baritone saxophonist Matt Utall. As I recall, the former was a pretty interesting player, with an unusually choppy, "talky" style of accentuation, a la Jack Montrose perhaps.

[Larry Kart]

Not it wasn't Matt Utall on baritone (his last name is "Utal" anyway) on that Bobby Scott LP. It was a guy named Marty Flax. Utal, formerly with Les Brown and in the L.A. studios for a while, maybe a long while, crops up in the ensemble on the Cy Touff-Richie Kamuca "Keester Parade" (Pacific Jazz). Flax was an NYC-based studio regular, no doubt with prior big band experience. John Murtaugh played on the very popular at the time recordings that Les Elgart made in the early to mid-'50s for Columbia. "Sophisticated Swing" was the first one, I believe. The Elgart band was a studio creation (all NYC freelancers), but enough of a demand was created that a touring version of the band was formed; it probably included few if any of the players who made the recordings.

I knew a guy in high school in the late 1950s, a very good guitar player who shall be nameless, who went on the road with Elgart soon after graduation. At some point during his time with the band, they were driving through Iowa on the band bus when my high school acquaintance, who had a highly developed instinct for all things drug-related, pointed out that they were driving past a good-sized field of marijuana. The bus was stopped, harvesting was done, and when they reached the motel they were staying in that night, pillow cases were filled with green plant product, hauled down to the nearest laundromat and placed in driers for curing. Unfortunately, John Law intervened, and several band members (including my acquaintance) and I believe Elgart himself were busted.

"Bobby Scott with Two Horns" (ABC-Paramount) rec. 1956.

[Tony Pusey]

I really like the Bethlehem album Compositions of Bobby Scott.