In deciding on the instrumentation for the new band that makes its album debut here, Gerry Mulligan says: "I wanted the same clarity of sound and interplay of lines that I had in the smaller groups.
"We have a clarinet in the reed section, not primarily for a clarinet-lead effect but for a sound contributing to the ensemble in general. As for the soloists, I wanted to use just a few men for the bulk of the solo work, so that they would be heard enough for the audience to become familiar with their styles."
What he has built, says Gerry, is essentially a concert band - a jazz band for listening - and it was on this premise that the band's first tour was arranged by Norman Granz for the fall of 1960.
Further words are unnecessary. The album delivers its own exciting message: that this is the best new jazz orchestra of the year.
- LEONARD FEATHER (Author of The New Encyclopedia of Jazz: Horizon)
COMPLETE JOHNNY MERCER SONGBOOKS
too marvelous for words
The work of lyricist Johnny Mercer has long been loved by listeners and revered by other lyric writers. Though many of the songs for which Mercer wrote lyrics have achieved a parallel fame in instrumental versions, one might initially doubt the wisdom of compiling nonvocal versions of his songs and calling the result a Johnny Mercer album. After all, each of the previous all-instrumental collections in this series was devoted to the output of a composer of melodies, such as George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter or Irving Berlin (whether or not he also wrote all of his own words, as did Kern and Porter). Mercer, on the other hand, worked with such a large number of composers during a career of close to fifty years that the variety of their musical approaches might undermine any stylistic consistency in the lyrics.
The very number of Mercer's collaborators, though, offers a clue to why this compilation should succeed. After he established himself in the early Thirties by working with Bernie Hanighen and Gordon Jenkins, Mercer found himself in demand by other composers. Often he was asked by them or their publishers to add words to existing melodies - as was another insufficiently praised master lyricist, Mitchell Parish. If it takes a kind of craftsmanship to work hand-in-hand with a musician such as Harold Arlen, it requires an order of inspiration to take a strong, instrumentally conceived, rather than vocalist friendly melody ("Skylark", say) and create a lyric that sounds as if it were born to be sung to that tune.
By comparison with such craftsmanship or inspiration, something very like genius is needed to take a deliberately ambiguous, chromatic theme, such as that of "Laura" , and turn it into a well-defined song. We have the eyewitness account of fellow songwriter Alec Wilder (in his book American Popular Song.- The Great Innovators 1900- 1950, Oxford University Press) New York, 1972). "I was present when the publishers played it, before the lyric had been added. Unanimously it was concluded that so complex a melody would be highly impractical to publish. But the day they heard it sung with Mr Mercer's distinguished lyric, it was all different." Without Mercers input, "Laura" would not have become a million-seller; but equally it would not have come to the attention of Don Byas or Erroll Garner or anyone else who made successful. wordless use of it.
Some other Mercer songs have fine lyrics that were nevertheless outlived by their melodies, examples being the jam-session favorites "Jeepers Creepers", "I Remember You" and, perhaps, "Too Marvelous for Words". Yet leading jazz artists have often memorized the lyrics to songs they played, either as a spur to their interpretation or as a simple aide-memoire. (I have a slightly sacrilegious theory: The motive for knowing the words of a tune may often be as insurance against accidentally playing the bridge of the wrong song.) It's well known, for instance, that Lester Young was a great proponent of the lyric, telling critic Nat Hentoff: "Most of the time I spend ... listening to records is listening to singers and getting the lyrics to different songs."
But Young's approach was not restricted to his generation, for Charlie Parker's vast repertory of songs probably included instant recall of their lyrics, too, his favorite name for Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's "All the Things You Are" was Yatag, derived from the initial letters of each word in the memorable line "You are the after glow". His contemporary, tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon even cultivated the habit later in life of declaiming the words of certain ballads immediately before playing them. And that prominent disciple Parker and Gordon, tenor saxophonist Rollins, is most definitely of the same school. He said to me recently "Well, I grew up [going to] Hollywood movies, so I do remember the lyrics and think about them. It becomes all of a piece, actually"
Mercer was, of course, also a performer. He sang with the bands of Paul Whiteman and Benny Goodman, and he recorded prolifically in his own right. Wilder comments, "I believe that one of the reasons John Mercer's lyrics have an added zest, a crackle, and shine to them, is that he probably sings them as he writes them", noting that Mercer "has always been hip-deep in the jazz world". Perhaps this is why Mercer had an ear for quality and why he deplored (at least off the record) the growing influence of payola on sales of popular songs as early as the late Forties.
And perhaps this is why musicians such as those heard here had an ear for Mercer's songs, and why we cannot help but remember his lyrics as they play
Harold Arlen's setting of the phrase"You're clear Out of This World"creates all of the conditions necessary for some modal jazz, but the economical arrangement for gerry Mulligan's light-on-its-feet big band seems more inspired by mercer's witty rhymes such as "right time/night time/despite time". |
