GENE KRUPA

1. Bird House
2. Margie
3. Mulligan Stew
4. Begin The Beguine
5. Sugar
6. The Way Of All Flesh
7. Disc Jockey Jump
8. Birds Of A Feather
9. Sometimes I'm Happy
10. How High The Moon
11. If You Were The Only Girl
12. Yardbird Suite

October 20, 1958

November 20, 1958

 LINER NOTES

At the age of 17, Mulligan had already started arranging professionally - for Johnny Warrington's band at the Philadelphia radio station, WCAU; for Tommy Tucker on Gerry's first road trip; and then for Elliot Lawrence, who had taken over the WCAU orchestra.

"The Krupa band, however," Mulligan recalls, "was the most professional band I'd ever written for. They were so professional they sometimes scared the hell out of me. They had no trouble playing anything I wrote. Having that skilled a unit to write for was a new and a challenging experience."

Before he heard these versions of the arrangements he'd done for Krupa, Mulligan had feared that twelve years would make them sound much too dated for comfort, but he was hearteningly surprised to hear that they still stand up. "There were a lot of things," he said, "I thought I hadn't tried until I started writing for Claude Thornhill, but now I hear that I'd already been doing them with Gene's band."

In these arrangements can be heard Mulligan's characteristic concern for linear clarity and his overall functional approach to writing. In the years after, Mulligan - through his arranging for big bands and his own quartet - did a great deal to let more air into contemporary jazz scoring. He did not allow himself to be impressed with sound effects - however massed and screaming - for their own sake, but preferred instead to make a large band flow and swing lightly but firmly with plenty of space for the men, in sections as well as in solo, to breathe.

In some places here, you may be reminded of elements of the Jimmie Lunceford book, not only the rhythmic feel at times, but also the humor. Wit, sometimes sardonic, is another characteristic of Mulligan and it also was one of the invigorating assets of the Lunceford band. "Actually," Mulligan explains, "guys at that time asked me if I'd heard Lunceford, and I hadn't. But I had heard several of the white bands who had been influenced by Lunceford."

Bird House is thus called because it's based on several Charlie Parker ideas, but it's also not unconnected with Neal Hefti's The Good Earth for inspiration. Gerry had left Mulligan Stew untitled, and the title it finally received made him vow that would be the last time he wouldn't title a song of his himself. Gerry wrote The Way of All Flesh after reading the novel, but doesn't think there are any correspondences between Samuel Butler's plot and the score.

Disc Jockey Jump, which turned out to be a Krupa hit, was written by Mulligan in the early months of his association with the band, but it wasn't put into the books until Gerry had left. Mulligan's only retrospective comment on the number is, "It came before Four Brothers."

Mulligan feels he learned a great deal from his year with Krupa, not only about writing and playing, but about people. The band traveled throughout the country, and the experience broadened Gerry considerably. He was also fond of Gene personally, and appreciated the fact that Gene let him write as much as he did and used most of it. Krupa, in turn, liked Mulligan because he always stood up for what he believed, and knew what he wanted to do.

Adding this album to your Mulligan-Krupa collection should prove to be an instructive pleasure. It gives - in high fidelity - a cross-section of an important year in Mulligan's history; and it also indicates that Krupa had the prescience to keep the 19-year-old with the band, and - up to a point - give him his head.

"World Club Record" TP 351

Those who saw much of Gerry Mulligan during his 1963 visit to Britain found him looking robust, substantial and outrageously English as he loped affably about London smoking his pipe. And anyone who could, almost automatically contrasted this new Mulligan with the skeletally thin figure, with his sandy hair pruned down to little more than a ginger lawn, whose shortness of temper and air of almost perpetual irritability had made him such a prickly individual during his previous visit six years earlier. But if, in the matter of mere physical appearance and disposition, he has altered somewhat over the years, musically there is a consistency about him that runs right through his career; and this record, although made in 1958, takes us almost as far back as we can go in Mulligan's work in jazz. Nowadays a constant pollwinner on baritone sax, he made his first big impression as an arranger, and we have here twelve of the two dozen arrangements he did for Gene Krupa's band, of which he was a member, during 1946. He was then only nineteen.

Already he was thinking in terms of that articulate airiness that he later brought to exquisite perfection in the Quartet. At that early age he could have been excused had he succumbed to the temptation to wallow in the opulent sounds possible with a big band. But he didn't. That ambling boneyness, which is his by physique, had already got into his writing. You will notice that apart from Disc jockey jump, which was one of the Krupa band's big successes at the time, the tempos are nearly all relaxed, almost casual. And If you were the only girl in the world not only demonstrates his ability to sustain interest at a really slow tempo, but points also to his flair for working wonders with what appears at first sight to be unlikely material. The tune had been written right back in 1916 by Nat Ayer for a famous London musical show, "The Bing Boys are Here', and although a good strong one, it had always seemed to me to have rather an excess of that maudlin quality that goes down so well in pubs. But if there has to be a highspot on the record, for me it is this number.

Mulligan's own Bird house and Birds of a feather, and Yardbird suite by Parker himself, are Gerry's ample tribute to Charlie Parker. How high the moon, a number written by Morgan Lewis and Nancy Hamilton in 1940, had an uncanny fascination for the early modernists, who made it their own much as the jam sessioneers had once appropriated Honeysuckle rose and the revivalists were to latch onto The Saints. Margie by Con Conrad and J. Russell Robinson. is a standard dating from 1920. Mulligan stew is Gerry's tune but somebody else's title; he is said to have vowed thereafter never again to leave the choice of a name to another. Begin the beguine is Cole Porter's classic from the 1935 show 'Jubilee'. The way of all flesh was simply adopted as a title at about the time Mulligan was reading Samuel Butler's novel. Sometimes I'm happy V is one of the incredibly simple but highly effective numbers that came so readily to Vincent Youmans. It was in a 1927 musical called `Hit the Deck'.

When this record was played back, Mulligan was reported as being pleasantly surprised to hear how well this early work of his had stood the test of time. But he writes in a timeless way and, except when he's setting fashions for others to follow, has a sweeping disregard for such temporary things as musical fashions. What other modernist (if that term is not itself too restrictive) would dare to call himself a Dixieland musician, or admit that he'd been influenced by Red Nichols' Five Pennies? Come to that, how many jazzmen could have written with both originality and maturity while still in their teens and not only please a bandleader of an earlier musical generation altogether, but make him think it worth while rerecording those same arrangements a dozen years later still ?

Gene Krupa, who began his recording career a few months after Gerry Mulligan was born, was one of the first drummers whose technique was up to the demands of the swing era. Beginning as a Chicagoan, both geographically and musically, he went into big commercial dancebands in the early thirties, and by the time he joined Benny Goodman in 1935 he was not only a very able drummer but a first rate showman as well. He continued to propel the Goodman band in spectacular fashion until he left to form a band of his own in 1938. With a gap in the mid forties, when in the space of a few months he returned to Goodman and did a spell with Tommy Dorsey, he led a band continuously until 1951, when he first became part of Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic Empire.

One of the most striking things about jazz development in recent years has been the steady change in rhythm sections; by current standards Krupa is practically old-fashioned. But he's a great driver, a propulsive force whose powers of getting a big band off the ground are as full as ever. If he has changed at all it is in the matter of restraint. My memory seems to tell me that he had an over fondness for the bass drum in the swing days, a tendency to make a lot of noise out of sheer exuberance But here he plays with a light crispness and an almost unbelievable accuracy, steering an eager band through the spacious framework of a dozen arrangements provided by the almost unknown young arranger he'd had the farseeing good sense to employ all those years earlier.

PETER CLAYTON

1. How High The Moon - Drummin' Man
2. Disc Jockey Jump - Drummin' Man
3. Indiana What's This
4. Begin The Beguine - What's This
5. Love Is In My Heart - What's This
6. Birdhouse
7. Margie

May 27, 1946

January 22, 1947

3 & 4 = February 20, 1946

6 = February 26, 1946

February 20, 1946

October 1, 1946

 LINER NOTES

"I've succeeded in doing two things: I made the drummer a high-priced guy, and I was able to project enough so that people were drawn to jazz, and I tried to remain musically correct. All through my life, I listened and adapted if I thought it right and necessary. That's what happened in the late 1940s, when I had the modem band. I learned from the young cats, and they from me. I'd been digging Diz and Bird and a few of the guys, and we'd gotten Buddy Wise, Don Fagerquist and Dick Taylor into theband, andGerry Mulligan was doing some arrangements. "

-Gene Krupa

Eugene Bertram `Gene' Krupa was born on January 15th 1909 in Chicago, the youngest son of Polish American Catholic parents, who wanted him to become a priest, but young Krupa had other ideas and quit school to play drums in local bands. His first recordings were made with William `Red' McKenzie, who `played' comb and paper, and banjoist Eddie Condon in December 1927. "I think that was the first time anybody had used a bass drum on a recording date," said cornettist Jimmy McPartland. "The recording manager objected, fearing the vibration would throw the needle off the wax, but they finished up laying down some thick carpet and Gene beat the hell out of those drums!" During the next few years, Gene played with Red Nichols in the pit of two Gershwin Broadway musicals, Strike Up The Band and Girl Crazy, followed by stints with Russ Colombo, Mal Hallett and Buddy Rogers, before joining Benny Goodman in December 1934. Two years later, Goodman was crowned 'King Of Swing', and Gene had become 'America's Number One Drummer Boy'. The swing era had arrived with the Goodman band as its driving force, topping all the musical press popularity polls. Hence the shock to all swing fans when, in March 1938, Krupa suddenly left Goodman to organize a band of his own.

Initially, the new band achieved moderate success, but was unable to establish an individual style until the inspirational hiring of jazz singer, Anita O'Day, and ace trumpeter, Roy Eldridge in early 1941. This produced a string of hit records, including Let Me Off Uptown, After You've Gone, Skylark and Knock Me A Kiss, plus record-breaking engagements at Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook, the New York Paramount theatre and the Hollywood Palladium, while filming Ball Of Fire with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. Gene's future seemed secure, he had joined Goodman, Shaw, the Dorseys, Basie, Ellington, Miller and Crosby in the top echelon of swing bands, but disaster struck in early 1943, when he was arrested on a drugs charge, found guilty and sentenced to a $500 tine and 90 days in jail. On his release, he rejoined Benny Goodman, pending the hearing of his appeal, but in December 1943, joined Tommy Dorsey, whose band at that time included strings and harp, and recorded a V-Disc session in Carnegie Hall in April 1944, which can be heard on Hep CD40. In June 1944, Gene learned that his appeal had been successful and the guilty verdict quashed, enabling him to resume his bandleading career.

"While I was with Tommy Dorsey, I developed my 'Kostelanetz complex'," chuckled Gene. "We had a lovely legato arrangement of Sleepy Lagoon, which didn't need any drums, and Tommy had a trombone solo, so I used to go down front and conduct. l got a big kick out of that." The result was that `The Band That Swings With Strings' opened at New York's Capitol theatre with seven brass, five reeds, four rhythm, nine strings, six vocalists and a second drummer, Joe Dale, who took over whenever Gene was conducting. 'Although I was only with Gene for a short time," said Harry Klee, "I introduced him to my brother-in-law, Eddie Finckel, a fantastic musician, who became his chief arranger, doing much of the string writing and often rehearsing the band for Gene. It's just a pity that some of his finest charts like Tico Tico, Gypsy Mood and an original called Futurama weren't recorded commercially." Finckel was soon joined on the arranging staff by George Williams, who had written for Sonny Dunham and Glenn Miller before being drafted. When the band commenced the 1945 summer season at New York's Hotel Astor, the string section was conspicuous by its absence, but Anita O'Day graced the bandstand once again, sharing vocal duties with Buddy Stewart.'I dropped the strings because they only increased the band's overhead," said Gene. "They did nothing for the box office receipts and only the same number of people came. But it was great to have Anita back!"

She was responsible for such hit records as Opus No. 1, Boogie Blues and Tea For Two, with its quirky key changes, before suddenly leaving during an engagement at the Hollywood Palladium in January 1946. "Gene had to borrow former Woody Herman vocalist, Carolyn Grey, who was working with the intermission band," said Joe Koch, "She knew all our arrangements, which, fortunately, were in her key, and did such a good job at short notice that Gene offered her a contract. She and Joe Dale were married later. Don Fagerquist left around then and was replaced by little Red Rodney from the Elliot Lawrence band, who brought with him saxist-arranger, Gerry Mulligan. Our lead trombonist, Dick Taylor, who had been with Fagerquist in Mal Hallett's band, took over the jazz solos when Leon Cox left. Dick was a great ballad player in the Dorsey manner, but he really surprised us with his gutsy jazz solos!" According to Harry Terrill, "Gene's manager, John Gluskin, had been Mitchell Ayres' manager before the war and got Joe Dale, Jimmy Millazzo and me into the Krupa band, as we'd all been with Ayres. Gene's band was the happiest, scariest, most musical and most lucrative group I'd ever played with. He paid me $25,000 my first year with the band! George 'The Fox' Williams was the mainstay of the arranging staff, turning in several new charts each week. He was responsible for most of the vocal arrangements, while Gerry Mulligan brought in the modern stuff after Eddie Finckel left."

These tracks were recorded for Capitol Transcriptions at a time when Capitol's bosses were attempting to lure Gene away from Columbia, without success. The principal soloists were Red Rodney, with his Gillespie-inspired trumpet style, Charlie Ventura, whose expansive tenor sax patterns explored the full range of the horn, trombonist Dick Taylor, weaving both sweet and hot musical tapestry, pianist Teddy Napoleon, scion of a famous musical family, and alto saxist Charlie Kennedy, who, according to Irv Lang, `played 4th tenor until he had to take his Army physical. When he was rejected for military service, he came back to find Buddy Wise in his chair, so he switched to 3rd alto and startled everyone with his wonderful Bird-like solos." Up and Atom, Leave Us Leap, Lover and Calling Dr Gillespie were Eddie Finckel arrangements with plenty of solo space for Messrs Rodney, Ventura, Taylor and Napoleon. Leave Us Leap seems to be played slightly faster than the Columbia version, with the sax break in the final chorus being by Kennedy rather than Ventura. Calling Dr Gillespie was not recorded commercially until December 1947, during the scramble to get as many sides as possible 'in the can' before the start of the 1948 recording ban. Probably the most unusual Gerry Mulligan arrangement is Love's In My Heart, in which the trombone section lays out, and Rodney plays a rare - for him - muted opening chorus, with Kennedy at the bridge, leading into a Ventura-Napoleon-Krupa trio chorus before the finale. Buddy Stewart, assisted by Ventura's tenor, copes nobly with his solo outing on Dave Lambert's wordless What's This, arranged by Budd Johnson and previously recorded as a scat duet with the composer, and is in splendid voice on George Williams' ballad arrangements of My Old Flame,You Go to My Head and My Ideal, which includes as a bonus one of those gorgeous sax section soli so rarely heard nowadays. "George was very chord-conscious," Gene recalled. "He used to write those real wide voicings for the sections. It made the band sound very rich and big"

Stompin' at the Savoy and Wire Brush Stomp are pyro-technical displays by the Jazz Trio, the latter being an original rift developed for the 1938 band by guitarist Ray Biondi. Star Dust features a Rodney solo that demonstrates the influence of his first idol, Harry James, plus a pretty tenor solo by Ventura in a mood that he maintains and elaborates in his party-piece, I'll Never Be the Same. Carolyn Grey does a creditable job on Anita O'Day's specialities, Tea For Two, Bolero at the Savoy, another Biondi theme, and Otto Make That Riff Staccato, with its crazy Rodney obbligato. Lyonnaise Potatoes and Some Pork Chops was reputed to be chanted by Gene during a drum solo, though how he managed it while chewing gum at the same time is beyond me! As one would expect, drum breaks are sprinkled throughout the programme, but for the most part are brief, tasteful and appropriate, as Gene declared, "Drum solos must have substance and continuity. Before I begin one, I try to have a good idea of what I'm going to play. And drums, if they're to be musical, must produce sounds, not just noises."

Ian Crosbie M