It’s a pleasure to run into old friends in places where you don’t expect them. Yesterday, I encountered Zoot Sims in a dog food commercial. He was in good company; a cute pooch and a beautiful woman.
The music was “Blinuet,” one of several pieces George Handy wrote for the 1956 ABC Parmount album Zoot Sims Plays Alto, Tenor and Baritone. If you would like to hear all of “Blinuet” and the rest of that sterling collection, you’ll find it on a CD reissue called That Old Feeling. The disc also includes the Argo quartet session called Zoot. They were recorded a month apart with the same rhythm section; pianist John Williams, bassist Knobby Totah and drummer Gus Johnson. Here is some of what I wrote in the notes for that 1995 reissue:
One of the great writing talents of the 1940s, Handy did sensational work for the Boyd Raeburn band. His arrangements of pieces like “Dalvatore Sally,” Tonsillectomy” and “There’s No You” were some of the most important writing of the bebop era. But from
the mid-forties to the mid-fifties little was heard from or known about Handy except for the extended work called “The Bloos,” recorded in 1946 but not released until 1949 as part of Norman Granz’s ambitious album, The Jazz Scene. There was a renewed flurry of interest in Handy after he made two albums under his own name for Label “X” in 1955 and teamed up with Sims for the alto-tenor-baritone session in November, 1956, and another ABC Paramount date, Zoot Sims Plays Four Altos, in January, 1957. Since then, Handy has been inactive in jazz. His work with Zoot is particularly valuable as one of the few bodies of evidence of his great talent.
2008 update: Handy re-emerged in the mid-1960s to compose for the New York Saxophone Quartet. He wrote a few record reviews for Down Beat in the late sixties. He died in 1997 at the age of seventy-seven. Handy’s biography at the Institute for Studies in American Music web site describes him as an “enigmatic iconoclast.” The label is justified.
I hope that Handy’s and Zoot’s estates are collecting royalties from the dog food people.
The nonagenarian pianist presented de Barros with every biographer’s hope, unrestricted access to his subject’s personal papers and nearly unrestricted access to her private thoughts. He made the most of it, turning exhaustive research and hundreds of hours of interviews into a true story with the sweep of a novel. From the early discovery of McPartland’s musical gift through her wartime service, her ecstatic and stormy marriage to Jimmy McPartland, her growth as a pianist, her deep affair with Joe Morello, and the radio show that made her a national figure, she has had a fascinating life. It makes a splendid read.
Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band had three fewer musicians than most big jazz outfits. Its size permitted precision, flexibility and subtlety, yet the band had the power of sprung steel. In this concert from a half century ago, the CJB is as fresh as yesterday. Arrangements by Mulligan, Bob Brookmeyer, Al Cohn and Johnny Mandel set standards to which big band writers still aspire. Bassist Buddy Clark and drummer Mel Lewis inspired Mulligan, Brookmeyer, Conte Candoli, Gene Quill and Zoot Sims to some of the best soloing of their careers. This beautifully produced issue of the complete concert is a basic repertoire item.
Your comments about George Handy were priceless, since I finally got signposted to the correct Zoot Sims albums. I have known that there where some, but I couldn’t get confirmation about which ones.Needless to say I’m a great Handy fan as well as a Raeburn one. That early third stream music (if that is what it is) is becoming quite a favourite. If I could get an idea of what was recorded by the New York Saxophone quartet, composed by Handy, my cup will surely runneth over.