Whom Paul Desmond was influenced by?

[mmilovan]

I tried to figure this out, did consultation with few books, etc, and... nothing. Was it Lee Konitz, Frank Trumbauer, Lester Young or someone else? Did he mention that, ever?

I like Desmond a lot, so it would be nice if someone knows facts about him.

Thanks.

[couw]

from a CBC interview (1976):

CBC: DID YOU EVER FEEL THAT YOU HAD A GREAT DEAL OF EUROPEAN INFLUENCE TO YOUR MUSIC? THERE MUST HAVE BEEN SO MUCH CONTROVERSY AT THE TIME WITH THE WEST COAST - EAST COAST, THAT WE'VE ALL READ ABOUT AND EVERYONE IS ALWAYS INFERRING CHARLIE PARKER AND JOHNNY HODGES, AND I'VE HEARD THAT YOU PLAY IN THE UPPER REGISTERS OF HODGES. WAS HODGES OF ANY INFLUENCE TO YOU AT ALL?

PD: Yes of course, but he never made a point of playing upper register notes. Willie Smith with Jimmie Lunceford was a big influence, Pete Brown who didn't especially play high notes. Actually the guys who played high notes were mainly... Woody "Corney" Katz, Dick Stabile, springs to mind he used to work with Martin & Lewis. You remember them, a great vaudeville team. No Willie Smith was my major influence at that point.

[brownie]

Paul Desmond listed Charlie Parker, Lee Konitz and Pete Brown as his favorites altosax players in Leonard Feather's 'Encyclopedia of Jazz'.

[Dr. Rat]

I've read about the vaudville influence before--I think he's serious to some extent.

--eric

[Dr. Rat]

Interview with Dave Brubeck by Paul Caulfield:

PC: WHAT MADE HIS SOUND SO DIFFERENT AT THE TIME?

DB: Well you know none of us are exactly without influence. I can hear early Konitz and hear Paul sometimes, but Pete Brown was Paul's big influence and I don't know Pete Brown's work that well ... to know what was there. But Paul always mentioned Pete Brown.

PC: THE CRITICS HAVE OFTEN TALKED ABOUT LESTER YOUNG AS AN OBVIOUS INFLUENCE ON DESMOND, DO YOU KNOW IF THAT WAS TRUE?

DB: It might have been, but I didn't hear him talk about Lester Young. I know he liked him, but eh if he mentioned anybody, it was always Pete Brown.

--eric

[Harold_Z]

He sure sounded a lot like Lester!

[Dr. Rat]

Peter Keepnews say:

A 1951 Down Beat review of the 1951session referred to Desmond's "now-Konitz, now-Parker-like playing." Jazz critics who had not heard Desmond play in person in the mid-1940s understandably concluded that his light tone quality, preference for the upper register of his horn, and avoidance of bebop melodic cliches were inspired by his fellow alto saxophonist Lee Konitz. This assumption has continued to this day. Desmond admired Konitz (and listed him as one of his favorites in The Encyclopedia of Jazz), but the two saxophonists evidently formed their styles independen!y of each other.

Although he was nearly three years younger than Desmond, Konitz was the first of the two to record commercially, His earliest ecordings were made in late 1947 with pianist Claude Thornhill's band, and his brief solos on Thornhill's versions of "Yardbird Suite" and "Anthropology" (made in September and December 1947, respectively) attracted some attention in 1948. Konitz's reputation and influence greatly increased through the highly regarded recordings he made with pianist Lennie Tristano and trumpeter Miles Davis, beginning in 1949. The fact that many of those later performances were on the well-distributed Columbia and Capitol labels, and the fact that Konitz was based in New York City from 1948, also helped him to gain exposure. On all of those recordings, he displayed an airy tone quality, minimal vibrato, a preference for the alto's upper register, and an abstract approach to melodic lines in a combination that was unusual in jazz at that time.

Desmond, by contrast, primarily worked in California in the 1940s, and no recordings of him were released to the public until Brubeck's first Fantasy sessions. However, some of the early Brubeck -Desmond collaborations of the 1940s were noncommercialiy recorded for personal use, and a version of "I Hear a Rhapsody", made in either 1946 or 1948, depending on one's discographical source, was later commercially released by Fantasy. On this performance, Desmond's typical stylistic traits are already well established: a light timbre, medium-speed vibrato, prominent use of the saxophone's upper range, and a lyrical approach to melody. What early Desmond and Konitz primarily had in common, then, were similar tone qualities and a preference for high-register playing. However, the two saxophonists had quite likely evolved these similar qualities concurrently on opposite coasts.

Given his independence from Konitz, how did Desmond arrive at his characteristic approach to the alto saxophone? He often cited alto saxophonist Pete Brown as an early influence. Brown's influence on Desmond was probably more in the realm of inspiration than in actual style, because Brown's raspy tone quality, clipped phrasing, and assertive approach are a far cry from Desmond's intimate timbre, smooth phrasing, and reserved tendencies. Speaking of his earliest influences in a 1976 interview for COG Radio, Desmond cited Brown and mentioned in passing two other alto saxophonists, Johnny Hodges and Dick Stabile. But he concluded, "Willie Smith was my major influence at this point." Like Desmond, Smith had a clear, singing tone and routinely played in the upper register of his horn, even beyond its nominally highest note (a practice that Desmond employed extensively in the 1950s).

But what about Desmond's lyricism? Neither Konitz nor Brown nor Smith was a highly lyrical melodist. Certainly tenor saxophonist Lester Young offered a clear example of melodic elegance to a generation of young payers, and Desmond was probably no exception in this regard. In a 1991 interview with Paul Caulfield (published on his Web site, Pure Desmond), Dave Brubeck said that although he never heard Desmond talk about Young, he believed the influence was there. So we can include Young as a likely melodic model, while acknowledging that lyricism was Desmond's unique gift and probably would have been so with or without prior influences.

Of course, Desmond's musical development did not end with his admiration and emulation of Swing Era artists. In late 1945 and early 1946, he had the opportunity to hear state-of-the-art New York modem jazz firsthand when he encountered Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie at Billy Berg's nightclub in Los Angeles. Desmond was understandably impressed by Parker's great technical facility, as he told Parker when he interviewed him on the radio in 1954: "Another thing that's been a major factor in your playing is this fantastic technique that nobody's quite equaled." In a 1953 Down Beat interview with Nat Hentoff, Parker showed that the admiration was mutual when he said, with reference to Brubeck, "I'm very impressed by his altoist, Paul Desmond."

Desmond also admired the narrative aspect of Parker's art, as he said in the radio interview.

[medjuck]

Who's Pete Brown?

[jazzbo]

Pete Brown was a wonderful player; here's the entry from AMG:

Pete Brown had an unusual and distinctive swing-based style that sometimes used staccato phrases that were speech-like. Starting originally on piano and also for a time doubling on trumpet, Pete Brown's main ax was the alto by the time he came to New York in 1927 with Bernie Robinson's band. Brown worked many short-time engagements with obscure bandleaders in New York but, starting in the mid-'30s, he often teamed up on excellent records with the underrated trumpeter Frankie Newton. They were both members of the early version of John Kirby's small group in 1937 before departing. Brown worked steadily throughout the late '30s and '40s, often on 52nd Street and sometimes as a bandleader. However, the rise of bop in the mid-'40s resulted in him being neglected and ill health led to him being only semi-active in the 1950s. Brown's recorded appearance at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival found him past his prime and being completely overshadowed by Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge. It is best to search out Pete Brown's many sideman appearances on records from the late '30s, particularly a Newton session from 1939 with James P. Johnson.

HOWEVER. . . the photo on this All Music Guide page is NOT of THIS Pete Brown. The pictured one looks a lot more like me with less hair than it does the Pete Brown Paul Desmond was speaking of!

Edited March 31, 2004 by jazzbo

[JSngry]

Joe Goldberg once wrote that Desmond used Prez' clarinet playing as a role model. Probably just speculation on his part, but an apt one if you think about it.

[jazzbo]

I could believe that about the Presian clarinet. . . but . . . who knows.

Here's another bio from musicweb.uk:

BROWN, Pete

(b James Ostend Brown, 9 Nov. '06, Baltimore MD; d 20 Sep. '63) Alto sax; also played tenor sax and trumpet. His father was from Barbados, and played trombone; Pete began on piano and violin, switched to reeds '24, went to NYC '27, gigged freelance, and became a founder member of John Kirby's Sextet '37, and played on that group's records as Buster Bailey and his Rhythm Busters (see Bailey's entry) but soon left to lead his own bands. He preferred leading and playing in small groups and never worked in a big band during the Big Band Era, and also rarely left New York, all of which kept him from wider fame. But like Tab Smith, another very different but instantly recognizable alto, he was unique: his clipped notes and rhythmic improvisations were laid back and intense at the same time; Charlie Parker and Paul Desmond were among those said to have named him as an early influence, while his reedy, almost harsh tone made an impact in another direction: he made a distinctive contribution to the 'jump band' genre which was emerging in the '40s (and thus on later R&B), recording as a leader for Decca '42, then Session, Savoy and Keynote '44--5: at the Keynote session, on two takes of 'That's My Weakness Now', he blew strange and pretty harmony behind Ken Kersey's piano and Joe Thomas's trumpet solos on one, but mostly riffed on the other: he was a Swing Era musician with bop creeping up on him, and between '37 and '44 his own solos seemed to become even more reedy and cryptic. Complete World Jam Session '44 on Progressive was a '44 radio transcription with Jonah Jones. He augmented club gigs with teaching, among his students Cecil Payne and Flip Phillips; he made an album for Bethlehem '54, appeared at Newport '57, recorded for Verve '59, but the musical world he had been comfortable in was gone: he probably enjoyed backing Big Joe Turner on Boss Of The Blues '56 on Atlantic, playing with Basie sidemen and Ellington's Lawrence Brown on trombone. In later life he was ill with diabetes.

[Dr. Rat]

What did Desmond's dad do?

Was he a musician or something -- I'm thinking there's something in Gioia about this, but I don't have my copy on hand.

--eric

[wesbed]

I've been listening to Desmond & Brubeck for about 20 years. Desmond was the first saxophone player to introduce me to 'real' jazz (real jazz = 1950s & 1960s jazz). Desmond has been a major influence in my jazz-listening life.

I just discovered Lee Konitz when I received the Tristano/Konitz Mosaic last week. Was Konitz considered one of the originators of the cool West Coast saxophone sound? I hear a lot of Konitz in Desmond (or vice versa?).

Edited March 31, 2004 by wesbed

[Dr. Rat]

Emil Aaron BREITENFELD (Desmond's father) was organist at the California Theater and chief arranger for Villa Moret

On September 15, 1924 a full page ad appeared in the San Francisco Examiner announcing the opening of Villa Moret, Inc. Music Publishers, headquartered above the Pantages theater in the Kress building, 935 Market Street, San Francisco.[1] The ad described the opening as something "extraordinary to the Western musical world," and, in fact, it was unique. New York City dominated the music publishing industry. San Francisco's Sherman, Clay & Co was the West Coast's only successful competitor, but Sherman Clay was primarily a music and instrument retailer. Villa Moret was the West Coast's first highly capitalized ($1,000,000) publishing house devoted exclusively to the publication of popular and semi-classical music.[2]

The ad also claimed that Villa Moret was the only firm "in the world composed of musical artistes [sic]." In support of this claim, photographs of stellar San Francisco talents, all part of the Villa Moret "galaxy," framed the text of the announcement.

Alfred Hertz, conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, was shown as the Director of the Advisory Board on Classical Music. Lillian Birmingham, President of the California Federation of Music Clubs and a prominent contralto and operatic vocal coach, chaired the Committee on Semi-classical Music. Mynard Jones, the Basso-Cantante professor at San Francisco's Arrillaga Musical College, was Editor of Choral Music. Marco Wolf, head of the famous Fanchon & Marco vaude-film production company, headed up the Advisory Board on Productions. George Lipshultz, violinist, musical director, and conductor of the popular orchestra at Loew's Warfield Theater, chaired the Committee on Orchestration. Gino Severi, another prominent Lowe theater orchestra director (famed for his Sunday morning concerts at the California Theater in San Francisco) was in charge of the Committee on Photo-play Music. Paul Ash, teen idol at the Granada (who, with his Synco-Symphonists, pioneered the personality band leader phenomena of the 1920s), chaired the Committee on Popular Music. Ben Black, leader of the orchestra at the California Theater was Villa Moret's vice-president and professional manager. He would be chiefly responsible for promoting the firm's music to the leading orchestras, recording artists, and vaudeville stars of the day.[3]

More here

Desmond's background with non-jazz stuff looks to be pretty considerable.

Kind of reminds me of things I've read about Armstrong's musical landscape: jazz and Stroyville, but also opera and pop and cantorial singing.

--eric

Edited March 31, 2004 by Dr. Rat

[Dr. Rat]

Now this is getting interesting:

There's a fellow names Emil Breitenfield who wrote "The Last Long Mile" and "Sierra Sketches" as well as arranging Irving Wilson's "Indian Lullabye."

He was in Company 17, 18th Provisional Training Regiment in Plattsburg, New York in 1917.

"The Last Long Mile," apparently was part of a Kern musical, "Toot Toot."

I think this may be Desmond's father, as that Emil was born in NYC (in 1888, making him 29 in 1917).

--eric

[Dr. Rat]

Edited March 31, 2004 by Dr. Rat

[danasgoodstuff]

I don't have my copy in front of me, but I believe that Pete Brown is also the sole sax on Champion Jack Dupree's most excellent Blues From the Gutter (Atlantic). I think that Konitz and Desmond are only superficially similar; on the other hand I hear Trumbauer in both of them but then I would wouldn't I....

[DrJ]

I would never have picked Lester Young as a major influence on Desmond, whether via his clarinet or tenor playing. Sure, there's a vague kind of connection there, just as there is between Lester and almost every single jazz reed player who followed him, but nothing more than that. They both played long flowing lines with a beautiful and at times almost fragile tone, which I guess may make for some understandable comparisons based on surface similarity, but beyond that their approach to playing, especially harmonically and in developing ideas during solos, couldn't be any more different as far as I can hear.

Likewise, I agree with danasgoodstuff that Konitz and Desmond are only VERY superficially similar, and highly doubt either was influenced much by the other. I think unless you're a musician, you have to become more familiar with each man's styles to begin to appreciate the differences but when you do you'll be surprised you ever considered them to be that close together (or at least that's the way it worked for ME!).

There's a lot of parallel development in jazz (or in aspects of various players' styles) that I think sometimes gets misattributed to influence of one player on another.

I tend to listen carefully to the players' account of who they were influenced by -even if you can't "hear" it initially in the obvious ways, once you live with their music for a while, you may start to pick up some of the ways they've worked the other person's stuff into their own concept. So Pete Brown, I'm intrigued, thanks for the bios Lon!

Edited April 1, 2004 by DrJ

[BruceH]

I read somewhere that Desmond tried not to listen to Parker too much, for fear of becoming a subconsious imitator. I can see his point.

[mmilovan]

Thank you all you people, this was enlightening really! Never know Pete Brown was inspiration for Desmond, nor do I know it was Willie Smith whom Desmond admired.

[BeBop]

Not to overstate things, but I believe another 'confessed' influence was Old Square Face.

Old square face, old double chin, what you lookin' at me for?

Ain't gonna lead me to sorrow and sin no more, no sir, no more.

Too many times you got under my skin.

I'm through with you old square face.

Ain't gonna get me again, no sir, no sir.

Old square face, what you keep hangin' around for?

What's that you say?

It's time to begin?

Well, just once more.

Might as well bring those pink elephants in.

Man, I'm feelin' low, old square face.

You know, you got me again, yes sir.

You really got me that time.

[Dr. Rat]

Here's Gioia's bit on Desmond's background:

a tender Mozartian twist[\i]

Paul Breitenfeld, later Desmond, was the antithesis of Brubeck in al- -

most everv wav. While Brubeck was a country boy raised on a ranch, Desmond was a city sophisticate, born on November 25, 1924, in San

Francisco, and reared in California and New York. While Brubeck was

obsessed with the trappings of musical modernism, Desmond had little

interest in studying with Milhaud and instead focused his efforts on polishing

a retrograde, almost antimodern saxophone style. While Brubeck

had a domineering nature and needed to be group leader: he later insisted

that the octet be called the Dave Brubeck Octet, ostensibly to make it -

easier for the band to get bookings, and he actually forced a - plebiscite of

the group members on this issues vote he won: Desmond, in contrast,

was all too happy to avoid leadership responsibilities, - content to make r / his

mark as a sideman. While Brubeck was the master of stage presence (trom

the start he had, Van Kriedt recalls, "tremendous powers of creating attention

while just being on stage"), Desmond was unostentatious to an extreme.

While Brubeck, especially after his more untamed early years, - me

lowed into a strong family man, Desmond remained ostensibly the happy

bachelor and proponent of the high life until the end. And while ~rubeck's

public demeanor was high seriousness, Desmond's was inevitably tongue

in-cheek, veering from subtle irony to thinly cloaked sarcasm. That two

such antipodal musicians could create powerful music together may be but

another roof of the compatibility of opposites. Perhaps the true mystery

was not that this musical partnership worked so well but that it lasted so

long-for a quarter-century-despite such a marked divergence in lifestyles

and temperaments.

Paul was secretive about his family background. Few early acquaintances

were invited into the Breitenfeld residence, just as later in life most

of his friends were unaware that this apparent lifelong bachelor had once

been married, albeit briefly. As with Brubeck, even Desmond's ethnicity

has been the subject of speculation. Gene Lees explains that "Paul thought

his father was Jewish until, near the end of his life, a relative told him he

wasn't."' Frederick Breitenfeld, Jr., Paul's cousin, is more ambiguous in

his account:

Much kidding has gone on over the generations and across the lines of cousins

throughout the family, about who is Jewish and who isn't. This was a

favorite topic of Paul's when he was working for laughs, and it appears that

even he might ultimately have taken the whole thing seriously. There was

no religious training of any consequence, or any specific denomination for

that matter, at [Paul's grandfather] Dr. Sigmund Breitenfeld's household, so

the question of "Jewishness" reduces to one of what other people thought

rather than what the family thought.

"Paul was devoted to his father," Frederick Breitenfeld continues. Paul's

father worked as a theater organist and arranger, and much of Desmond's

early musical inspiration probably came through him. Early in his musical

career Paul used his father's arrangements when backing shows and acts.

Although some of the other musicians moaned about the corny tunes, Paul

was markedly enthusiastic about the old songs. His later repeated use of

quotations from old popular songs in the context of his solos perhaps reflects

this apprenticeship with the elder Breitenfeld's music.

In stark contrast to his devotion toward his father, Paul was always

guarded and secretive about his mother, Shirley. Van Kriedt helps cast

some light on the matter: "Another time [Paul] brought up that his mother

was not mentally well--as a matter of fact, I would be practically the only

person he ever invited to his house to meet his family." The Breitenfeld

residence sat high on a hill and commanded a breathtaking view of San

Francisco. Inside, however, the home was uncommonly stark. Van Kriedt

continues:

I was struck by the fact that there were no rugs or curtains on the windows

just plain yellow hardwood floors, bare windows and no pictures on the walls.

I had the impression I was getting the royal treatment and that I was to be

shocked by meeting his mother. [Paul] had told me she was scared by disease,

dirt, death-ne never mentioned death around her, and she wore rubber

dishwashing gloves while cooking. Anyway-I assumed a very passive, luridly,

understanding personality and it turned out that she was a very likeable person.

We all chatted while we had lunch and I was relieved that it wasn't as

traumatic as Paul had led me to believe. . . . I wanted to go again to Paul's

house but I think that the whole area was a deep-seated torment to him and

he was highly protective of this.

There was clearly much more to Paul's strained relations with his

mother. Her illness was evidently severe enough that, at age five, Paul

was sent back east to live with relatives in New Rochelle, New York. He

did not return to San Francisco until 1936-almost seven years later. One

can see the stamp of this uneasy maternal relation on much of Desmond's

later life, not only in his committed bachelorhood and frequent womanizing,

but perhaps as much in the little satisfaction such pursuits seemed to

bring him. Brubeck could perhaps tell much more, as he hinted to Gene

Lees: "If you knew the story, you could forgive him anything."I6

"He was the loneliest man I ever knew," remarks Lees, who also

notes that Desmond was attracted most to his friends' wives. Desmond

somehow found solace by fixating on the women who were the most

unobtainable, even at the cost of wreaking havoc with his closest friends.

Nor perhaps is it going too far to see these same elements figuring in

Desmond's bittersweet music. Van Kriedt reflects: "Seeing his home and

playing a lot with Paul, [i felt that] his deeper song had to do with a 'babe

crawling into his mother's arms,' a kind of tender Mozartian twist for a

jazzman rather than the drugged-up stud proving his manliness."

After returning to San Francisco, Desmond began studying clarinet at

San Francisco Polytechnic, apparently at the instigation of his father, who

advised him to drop his French class to make time for music. In 1943,

Desmond switched to the alto. Soon he was drafted into the army, and he

\ spent three years in San Francisco as part of th 253rd AGF Band. Through

Van Kriedt, also a member of the ensemble, Paul was introduced to another

young army musician, pianist Dave Brubeck. Brubeck was about to

be shipped overseas, and Van Kriedt planned "to show him off to the band,

hoping to get him in. So I prepared a little concert in the rehearsal room."

Only a few people showed up to hear the audition-"about five," Van

Kriedt recalls-including Paul Desmond. "They all came to the Band Room,

and Dave played for all his life It was to no avail. Afterwards I asked Paul,

who commonly played with and highly regarded Larry Vannucci (local

pianist), what he thought of Dave. He wasn't terribly impressed and thought

that Vannucci was much better."

Edited April 15, 2004 by Dr. Rat

[medjuck]

So I dug up my Frankie Newton cd to hear some Pete Brown. I admit it: I would never have guessed he was an influence on Desmond. On the other hand I was just listening to some Miles Davis with Konitz from 1948. Konitz is (or was then) much more of a bopper than Desmond but their tones sure sound similar to me. What's the earliest Desmond anyone's heard?

[Pete C]

I agree that early on Konitz had a tone that was much closer to Desmond's than his later work. I think a good example is "Too Marvelous for Words" on Konitz Meets Mulligan.

[Larry Kart]

Can't recall where I read or heard it, but I believe that Desmond once spoke of early Zoot Sims as being very meaningful to him. I can hear a kinship in the rhythmic poise and fluidity, plus a certain toying with the beat quality that in Desmond tends to get emphasized much more than it does with Zoot, even to the point of bounciness at times. Now that I think of it, that same toying with the beat/bouncy strain is the hallmark of Pete Brown's style, though the overall jump mood of Brown's music is not that much like Desmond's. On the whole, though, if you discount Konitz as a model (which I would, despite some I think deceptive similarities), Desmond strikes me as a notably self-invented player, given his era and his exposed to lots of music, urban background.