Steve Cerra’s Jazz Profiles remembers Tom Talbert, the under-recognized composer and bandleader who died nearly eight years ago in his early eighties. Steve incorporates a passage in which Talbert wrote about his postwar debut.
Worked with several bands and met arranger-bandleader Johnny
Richards in Boston. Moved to Los Angeles the winter of 1946 and was soon living at the Harvey Hotel…a musician’s hangout fondly referred to as the Hot Harvey.
Before long Richards appeared and, in his generous manner, started looking for things I could do. He soon encouraged me to start a band and that seemed a logical move for an out-of-work twenty-one year old arranger. We started with a group of guys who wanted to play and as we rehearsed some were changed and others just left for a real job.
Some of those guys who wanted to play were Dodo Marmarosa, Art Pepper, Lucky Thompson and Warne Marsh. Not bad for a young bandleader just out of the Army.
Cerra dresses up the piece with his customary resourceful graphics and an imaginative recording from later in Talbert’s career. Click here to see and hear it.
For a Rifftides post on Talbert’s career shortly after he passed on, go here.
The Vancouver Sun’s Marke Andrews caught up with Wayne Shorter, whom the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has commissioned to compose a new piece. “When you write for us, make it hard,” Shorter said they told him. “Show us no mercy.” Go here to read Andrews’ article.
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.
Thanks for the new material about Tom Talbert. I just honored him with a new Wikipedia article:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Talbert