Listening to Prestige Part 148: Bob Brookmeyer

Bob Brookmeyer, during this time period, was somewhat bicoastal. He had replaced Chet Baker in Gerry Mulligan's famous pianoless quartet, and he was still making dates in New York. This is another four song, 10-inch recording date, perhaps because Prestige already had one such session (with Teddy Charles), and needed one more to fill out a full length LP.

This New York session is also a pianoless quartet, except when it isn't. On two of the tunes, Brookmeyer plays piano. Actually, Brookmeyer had started as a pianist, with the Tex Beneke and Ray McKinley bands, before switching to valve trombone full time. This was actually true of the Mulligan-Brookmeyer quartets, as well--they were pianoless except when they weren't, since both Mulligan and Brookmeyer played piano.

To my ears, there's no falling off in technique or imagination when Brookmeyer switches to piano. He's great on both instruments, and the four tunes together, with the piano and trombone alternating, make a cohesive unit.

The quartet makes a cohesive unit, too. I believe this is Mel Lewis's debut on record. His first

important professional gig had come in just the previous year, when he had joined Stan Kenton's orchestra. Teddy Kotick had also played on the Teddy Charles session.

I continue to be impressed with Jimmy Raney, who's been on several Prestige sessions before this. His solos are beautiful, and his duet exchanges with both Brookmeyers, the trombonist and the pianist, are dazzling. He does a very cool duet with Teddy Kotick, as well, on his own composition,  "Potrezebie," the title of which tells me that in addition to his other accomplishments, Raney was an early fan of Mad comics. Mad's resident genius, Harvey Kurtzman, had run across the word in a set of Polish instructions for a bottle of aspirin (and who among us hasn't read aspirin labels in Polish?) and decided he liked thesound of it as a nonsense word (it actually means "need"). Looking on Allmusic.com to see if anyone else had recorded "Potrezebie," I discovered that although it hasn't been picked up by any other Mad-loving jazzmen, there are a number of Polish songs that use it in the title. The Polish songs spell the word correctly: Potrzebie, with no "e" between the "r" and the "z." Actually, the root word is an inflected noun, and "potrzebie" is the dative case of the noun. The various Polish songs usually use "potrzebuje" or "potrzeba," which, as near as I can make out, are verb forms. "kilkanaScie przedsiEbiorstw potrzebuje nowych dochodOw"  translates as "Over a dozen of enterprises need new incomes," which seems somehow appropriate for a discussion of jazz. I like to think that Jimmy Raney was a real Mad fan, and knew the correct spelling, but was done in by the label maker for Prestige's pressing plant.

The original 10-inch release in 1955, and the later 12-inch release, were both titled The Dual Role of Bob Brookmeyer, referencing two different sessions with two different Hall Overton students, or more likely Brookmeyer as trombonist and pianist. The same album was also given a New Jazz release, as Bob Brookmeyer -- Revelation!

Listening to Prestige 102: Teddy Charles / Bob Brookmeyer

Teddy Charles is back from the West Coast, where he stayed away from the musicians of the emerging West Coast school, like Brubeck and Mulligan, because he "didn’t want to do the West Coast cool jazz thing that was so popular then. Frankly I didn’t care for the West Coast style of playing... Not enough urgency." And the first thing he does on his return to the East is to get together with Bob Brookmeyer, who was just about to decamp for the West Coast and some memorable collaborations with Mulligan.

Actually, I suspect that Charles and Mulligan would have been a great combination, partly because Mulligan could play with anyone, partly because Charles brought out something new and interesting in anyone he teamed up with--and actually, Brookmeyer brought some of that same experimental spirit with him when he joined forces with Mulligan.

Brookmeyer came out of the Claude Thornhill orchestra, which seems to have been an exceptional proving ground for important jazz arrangers. Mulligan and Gil Evans also started with Thornhill. But for most jazz chroniclers, Brookmeyer's careeer begins in earnest when he joined Mulligan on the West Coast. This session with Teddy Charles seems to be overlooked, which is too bad. He shares co-leader credit with the more established jazzman, and deserves it. The lead passes back and forth between the two, and a real conversation is created.

Nancy Overton, wife of Charles's mentor Hall Overton, appears as vocalist on "Nobody's Heart," playing the role of Haunted Hipster, in a vocal performance that owes more to Ken Nordine than Annie Ross or June Christy.  In an odd followup, Overton was soon to join the perky, sweet barbershop harmony stylings of the Chordettes, though not in time for "Mr. Sandman."

"Nobody's Heart" was released on a 78 along with "So Long Broadway" from the West Coast group with Wardell Gray. All four were released on a ten-inch under the dual leadership banner, and later on 12-inch under Brookmeyer's name twice: once on Prestige and once on New Jazz.