LF: Bobby Scott Trio "Serenata" 1958 on Verve.

[sgcim]

Interested in any form it's available in, cassette tape, burned CD, vinyl. I don't think it ever made it to CD.

Forget above post- the world's leading authority on jazz guitar, Dave Gould, put it on YT!

[jazzbo]

PM'd you about a copy listed for sale.

[sgcim]

15 minutes ago, jazzbo said:

PM'd you about a copy listed for sale.

Thanks, but someone read my message on another form, and put up a copy on You Tube.

[JSngry]

Bobby Scott had one of the most interesting careers ever, or so it seems. Wonder if he left behind any memoirs or journals. 

[sgcim]

23 hours ago, JSngry said:

Bobby Scott had one of the most interesting careers ever, or so it seems. Wonder if he left behind any memoirs or journals. 

He seemed to be going through an Oscar Peterson phase back here. I listened to the rest of the record, and they play Fine and Dandy and Serenata off the metronome. I can understand Fine and Dandy, but Serenata? Who plays a tune like that fast, and without a drummer? He couldn't connect his lines like Oscar, and just winds up making Dick Garcia (the reason I wanted the album-I have every note he played as a sideman now) look good.

I did a bunch of gigs with Ronnie Woellner, who used to be a trumpet player with him (until he had an accident and lost his front teeth) and also arranged or him. RW became a pianist himself, who played great changes. I was so busy trying to steal his changes that I didn't ask him about Bobby Scott.  Scott wrote Taste of Honey and "He Ain't Heavy, he's MY Brother", and had a hit singing "For Sentimental Reasons", and then did a lot of sessions. I'll have to look him up on Wiki.

BTW, a friend told me that Clint Strong (as if he didn't have enough problems) suffered a stroke earlier this year. Did you hear anything about that?

[JSngry]

Did not.

Scott played with Lester Young on some JATP gigs (and was Pres' preferred bus companion, apparently) and also did those wonderful charts that Marvin Gaye obsessed over for years.

Talk about a broad range of life experiences via music.  

 

[sgcim]

19 hours ago, JSngry said:

Did not.

Scott played with Lester Young on some JATP gigs (and was Pres' preferred bus companion, apparently) and also did those wonderful charts that Marvin Gaye obsessed over for years.

Talk about a broad range of life experiences via music.  

 

i don't know where you find these things! I never heard MG interpret a standard like that. The Scott arrangement was pretty powerful, with hints of exotica in the winds that would bring a smile to the face of TTK.

The other one with the overdubbed voices sounded like it was overdubbed by a DJ who knows nothing about counterlines. They didn't release the first version MG did in '67, because they claimed MG kept the orchestra waiting because he was doing drugs in the bathroom of the studio and wouldn't come out. When he did come out, they claimed he was slurring all his words, so they decide not to release it.

Bobby Scott died when he was only 53, so I doubt he wrote ant memoirs, but there should be a bio written.

[JSngry]

No...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable_(Marvin_Gaye_album)

All those vocals were done by Marvin himself over the years. David Ritz's bio tells that Gaye would work on some of those tracks with a borderline obsession over the years in a quest for perfection, thus the totally different t performances that are available.

Gaye was a true genius when it came to creating multiple layers and levels using his own voice. Vulnerable is not his best album, but it is still an essential one imo. 

This one might be the ultimate, though:

 

 

[JSngry]

This last one is probably the "drug" version, but the tale about him keeping the orchestra waiting doesn't hold up because those tracks were almost certainly done before Marvin came in for vocal tracks.

Plus, what common wisdom has as being the original album completed takes are the ones that are the more conventionally sung ones. None of them are particularly adventurous.

Marvin certainly has plenty of legends around him, and that one about being holed up in the bathroom while the band waited well could have happened at some session (particularly further into the 70s) but legend is not fact.

Still, that particular takes has fascinated me just because for whatever reason, he is more or less defenseless against whatever was knocking him out (and it may not have been substances, it might have been real depression or some other mental thing). It's kinda like the Bird "Lover Man" date, nothing but reflexes. But such reflexes they are!

Marvin knew about mental issues...

 

 

[sgcim]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

This last one is probably the "drug" version, but the tale about him keeping the orchestra waiting doesn't hold up because those tracks were almost certainly done before Marvin came in for vocal tracks.

Plus, what common wisdom has as being the original album completed takes are the ones that are the more conventionally sung ones. None of them are particularly adventurous.

Marvin certainly has plenty of legends around him, and that one about being holed up in the bathroom while the band waited well could have happened at some session (particularly further into the 70s) but legend is not fact.

Still, that particular takes has fascinated me just because for whatever reason, he is more or less defenseless against whatever was knocking him out (and it may not have been substances, it might have been real depression or some other mental thing). It's kinda like the Bird "Lover Man" date, nothing but reflexes. But such reflexes they are!

Marvin knew about mental issues...

 

 

This whole thing is flipping me out. I never knew MG was into stuff like this. Reading his Wiki entry, he did want to give up on R&B in 1961, and concentrate on jazz and standards. He played the drums and later keyboards and idolized Sinatra. His father was a cross-dressing minister who beat him for years.

He transforms Shadow and Why Did I Choose You into his own songs based on Scott's evocative arrangements, and does some great layering of his voice on almost all of his different versions of the tunes. Amazing.

[jazzbo]

I've been amazed by Gaye for many decades. His was an amazing musical mind. 

[JSngry]

Yeah, Marvin was, as they say, complicated, but also very deep.

You can get every permutation of the Ziplockian scale possible by doing your math homework, but to get THIS...this is not for everybody to get to, because not everybody has it in them to get there, much less survive.

 

[sgcim]

18 hours ago, JSngry said:

Yeah, Marvin was, as they say, complicated, but also very deep.

You can get every permutation of the Ziplockian scale possible by doing your math homework, but to get THIS...this is not for everybody to get to, because not everybody has it in them to get there, much less survive.

 

I never knew much about any musicians' life before the internet, but reading about MG , the cover of that album says it all. How could such a talented musician wind up with

"his dying words, which were, "I got what I wanted ... I couldn't do it myself, so I made him do it."

 

[JSngry]

Divided Soul by David Ritz is a superb biography. Used paperback copies should available at friendly prices. 

This...

 

[sgcim]

No drum machine= real music!

[sgcim]

On 12/31/2023 at 5:02 PM, sgcim said:

He seemed to be going through an Oscar Peterson phase back here. I listened to the rest of the record, and they play Fine and Dandy and Serenata off the metronome. I can understand Fine and Dandy, but Serenata? Who plays a tune like that fast, and without a drummer? He couldn't connect his lines like Oscar, and just winds up making Dick Garcia (the reason I wanted the album-I have every note he played as a sideman now) look good.

I did a bunch of gigs with Ronnie Woellner, who used to be a trumpet player with him (until he had an accident and lost his front teeth) and also arranged or him. RW became a pianist himself, who played great changes. I was so busy trying to steal his changes that I didn't ask him about Bobby Scott.  Scott wrote Taste of Honey and "He Ain't Heavy, he's MY Brother", and had a hit singing "For Sentimental Reasons", and then did a lot of sessions. I'll have to look him up on Wiki.

BTW, a friend told me that Clint Strong (as if he didn't have enough problems) suffered a stroke earlier this year. Did you hear anything about that?

Just found a Sam Most "Four Original Jazz Classics Albums set online that contains one of Most's albums where he features Ronnie Woellner's arrangements on the entire album! A search on him now reveals that he played with Claude Thornhill's Band back in the 50's. One time I asked him what type of stuff he listens to, and he surprised me by saying that he likes some of the Heavy Metal stuff he's heard.

[sgcim]

Finally got the Sam Most "Four Classic Albums" from Ebay. It's from that Avid Jazz series of four albums by one artist on two CDs, and it only cost me twelve bucks and change. The album I was looking for, "Sam Most Sextette- "I'm Nuts About the Most-Sam Most That is!" with a picture of a squirrel munching on a nut on the original cover, didn't disappoint at all. As mentioned in my previous post, all of the arrangements were done by an ex-trumpet player who was a DB poll-winner until he got his teeth knocked out in an accident named Ronnie Woellner, who I did a few months of gigs with years ago. He astounded me with his changes on his new instrument, the keyboard, as he controlled the entire arr. of tunes because he played left hand bass, being that there was no bass player.

The unusual instrumentation of the Sextette was Most on flute and clarinet

Marty Flax on Bari Sax

Barry Galbraith on Guitar

Bob Dorough on piano

Oscar Pettiford on Bass

Bobby Donaldson or Osie Johnson on Drums

All the arrangements were swinging, imaginative, unaffected charts that made the album a delight to listen to, especially compared to the second album in the set, "Musically Yours" which was anything but, due to the fact that they had no arr's and featured the piercing sound of Most's clarinet on too many cuts. He's a great improviser on the clarinet, but the piercing sound he got out of the instrument made it clear why he stuck to flute as his main instrument. His brother, Abe Most, is much more pleasant to listen to on the instrument.

Woellner's arrangements used the unusual chorus of Bari sax, Guitar and Flute or clarinet for most of the lines, and the wonderful use of counterpoint, substitute harmony, swinging ensembles and silence, gave the music a clarity that I find lacking in most West Coast small ensemble jazz of that time, and lacked the boredom of East Coast writers like Manny Albam, Al Cohn, and the overdone exoticism of Gil Evans. The only writer I could compare him to of the 50s would be the underrated Rod Leavitt.

Woellner stays out of the way of the soloists, and there's wonderful playing by Most, Galbraith and Flax. Dorough plays his parts well, but is not the strongest soloist.

I'm looking forward to the other two albums featured, "Sam Most  Plays Monk, Bud, Bird and Miles" and especially "The Amazing Mr. Sam Most" featuring Jimmy Raney in the quartet.

[Teasing the Korean]

Bobby Scott was an interesting guy.  He composed and arranged an album titled The City, credited to Larry Elgart, on MGM.  It is a tone poem portraying the many moods of the concrete jungle.   It is very densely arranged throughout; it feels like the full ensemble - brass, reeds, and rhythm - is playing most of the time, with few changes in texture and density.  I like nearly all of the tracks on their own - they sound great in playlists sandwiched between other tracks - but I tend to feel fatigued when I listen to the whole album at one sitting.

https://www.amazon.com/The-Village/dp/B0B79WKCDX

This is one of the better tracks on the album, but there are things to like throughout.

 

Edited Saturday at 02:31 PM by Teasing the Korean

[sgcim]

5 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Bobby Scott was an interesting guy.  He composed and arranged an album titled The City, credited to Larry Elgart, on MGM.  It is a tone poem portraying the many moods of the concrete jungle.   It is very densely arranged throughout; it feels like the full ensemble - brass, reeds, and rhythm - is playing most of the time, with few changes in texture and density.  I like nearly all of the tracks on their own - they sound great in playlists sandwiched between other tracks - but I tend to feel fatigued when I listen to the whole album at one sitting.

https://www.amazon.com/The-Village/dp/B0B79WKCDX

This is one of the better tracks on the album, but there are things to like throughout.

 

Interesting stuff! I was under the impression that Les and Larry Elgart was a dance band. You're totally messing up my mind with this album TTK. I'm going to have to report to Wikipedia for re-education.

[Teasing the Korean]

5 minutes ago, sgcim said:

Interesting stuff! I was under the impression that Les and Larry Elgart was a dance band. You're totally messing up my mind with this album TTK. I'm going to have to report to Wikipedia for re-education.

Oh, Dear.  If The City is messing up your mind, wait until you hear Larry Elgart's Impressions of Outer Space, from 1953!  It fits nicely into my beloved Twilight Zone Jazz micro-genre!

 

Edited Saturday at 08:28 PM by Teasing the Korean

[sgcim]

16 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Oh, Dear.  If The City is messing up your mind, wait until you hear Larry Elgart's Impressions of Outer Space, from 1953!  

 

AGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!     I need Help!!!!!!!!!

Charles Albertine seemed to be the equivalent of Bob Graettinger to Stan Kenton! I liked that alto sax stuff towards the end.

[JSngry]

Charles Albertine as Bob Graettinger?

This Modern Teenager

[sgcim]

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

Charles Albertine as Bob Graettinger?

This Modern Teenager

Yeah, I cracked up when I read that on Wiki!  As far as the Sam Most four CD set was concerned, Most's playing is great on the other albums included in the set, the arrangements by Bob Dorough and Teddy Charles aren't as good as the ones by Woellmer.
Jimmy Raney has a good solo on one tune on the record he's on, and Davey Schildkraut has some nice solos on one of the other records.