• Line For Lyons

October 28, 1954

 LINER NOTES

Ernest Hemingway, 1960

Extract from "A moveable feast"

What's a "chamber orchestra" ? According to one dictionary, it's "A restricted group of instrumentalists (from two to eight), with neither leader nor privileged soloist." The definition admirably suits the formation on Jazz de Chambre, except that the group did have a leader-albeit not a very directive one, apparently- in the shape of Buddy Banks. Buddy was an excellent bassist (his solo on Yesterdays is reminiscent of Oscar Pettiford), a sought-after accompanist (he recorded in Paris with Gerry Wiggins, Mary Lou Williams and Guy Lafitte), and a competent arranger (his Transcendentology, written for Bernard Zacharias' group, is far from uninteresting), but after returning to the States, on November 12th 1954, he seems to have sunk without trace. Alvin "Buddy" Banks was born in Canada, and arrived in Europe with the American military ; in Germany he swapped his saxophone for the double-bass, which he'd been studying seriously (including lessons at the Paris Conservatoire). His background was edifying, but Bill Coleman relates in his autobiography that he'd had a few problems with the Swiss authorities after hiring Buddy in 1952 : Buddy was apparently liable to an eviction order that had been issued in Zurich (where he'd recorded in 1949 with James Moody and Art Simmons). Nobody's perfect.

Roy Haynes had been picked up, almost in mid-air, during the tour in which he was accompanying Sarah Vaughan (there was a concert at the Salle Pleyel with Illinois Jacquet and Coleman Hawkins on the same bill). It was such a good idea that Henri Renaud had thought of it two days earlier, and put him alongside Barney Wilen and Jimmy Gourley; Roy now found himself sitting next to them again, along with Buddy Banks. Thanks to the G.I. Bill (a scholarship for American ex-soldiers), James Pasco Gourley, who'd arrived in Paris in 1951, had enrolled at the "Ecole Normale de Musique" ; the subtleties of the French language escaped him completely, so he learned as he went along. His classrooms were the Tabou club, and other exotic places in St. Germain-des-Pres where he played the guitar with great talent, assiduously working on the approach initiated by Jimmy Raney. His choruses on Almost like being in love or I love you, and his contributions to Line for Lyons (a Gerry Mulligan composition certainly covered for the first time here) show us that in the microcosm of Parisian modern jazz, Gourley was around every time something good was happening. Last but not least, there's Bob Dorough. Bob was in town with the great Sugar Ray Robinson (who'd put his gloves into storage and was now enjoying a career as a dancer), and was also his music-director ; Bob had escaped from the Mars Club, where Sugar Ray was preparing his Paris show, and he was slaking his thirst for singing and playing piano. Later, when the boxer decided to get back in the ring, Bob stayed at the Mars Club, until 1955. A highly skilled and experienced bopper, his choruses on Bag's groove and A night in Tunisia leave no doubt in anyone's mind : settled on the Right Bank, Bob Dorough didn't mix with Left Bank musicians. Either you're an individualist or you aren't. That was also the case with another epigone & exile from American bohemia, Blossom Dearie, who also took a long time crossing the river. Three years after she arrived in Paris, in 1955, she was introduced by Sadi, a member of her vocal group, The Blue Stars, to Bobby Jaspar. They married, separated, and left four pieces they recorded together. They're as marginal as the music produced by her alter ego, Bob Dorough, and his accomplices.

Alain Tercinet