see: Complete Pacific Jazz

Complete Pacific Jazz

see: Genius Of

 LINER NOTES

In 1953, she toured with the famous Lionel Hampton band that included Gigi Gryce, Clifford Brown and Quincy Jones. Thereafter, she stayed in Europe until 1957 when she had an extended engagement at Upstairs At The Downstairs in New York. In the autumn of '57, she was recruited by singers Dave Lambert and Jon Hendricks to join their multi-track recording experiment of recreating Basic band arrangements with their extraordinary human voices.

Before that bold experiment, which became an instant sensation, was issued, another more traditional jazz opportunity came to her. Pacific Jazz Records owner Dick Bock asked her to record an album with Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet. The absence of piano or at least guitar might have caused problems for most singers, but with Ross' unearthy range and precise pitch the challenge proved easy.

In December of 1957, Bock was in New York making several albums with Gerry Mulligan in a wide range of settings. One of these was a reunion with Chet Baker using Henry Grimes on bass and Dave Bailey on drums. For the second and third of these recording sessions, the Ross -Mulligan project was begun.

Of the ten songs made on these two days, only five made it to the original album, while a sixth was issued on a Mulligan anthology some ten years later. The remaining four titles were unissued until this Compact Disc issue. It should be noted that Duke Ellington's "It Don't Mean A Thing" was edited on the original album and the full performance is issued here for the first time.

Chet Baker is a singer himself (with his trumpet as well as his voice) and his contribution as the warm trumpet alter ego to Ms. Ross' voice is exceptional. Mulligan, who shares with Ms. Ross a wry, sardonic wit, shapes beautiful, custom-fitted arrangements around her interpretations of this well selected repertoire. His deep baritone sax contrasts her voice well and is especially effective on the several songs where Baker lays out.

At another December session during Mulligan's brief marathon reunion with Pacific Jazz Records, Gerry used his working quartet of Art Farmer (whose "Farmer's Market" Annie had vocalized in '52), bassist Bill Crow and Dave Bailey. On this date six tunes were done, but only five appeared on the original album. "My Old Flame" appears here for the first time.

This quartet, which would later go on to make one of Mulligan's finest albums What Is There To Say for CBS, does the job for Ross with equal panache. Farmer especially seems to enjoy the project and plays with uncharacteristic sensitivity and flexibility.

Throughout, Annie Ross' voice, though not a large full one, is rich and technically capable of almost anything. Yet this is an album of songs not vocalese. She applies her art to the material at hand and gives a subtle superior reading to each tune. She has the grace of Anita O'Day with the soul of, say, Sheila Jordan. She never lets her amazing chops trample her artistic and intellectual understanding of the lyrics. In keeping with her wry, sometimes macabre sense of humor, she picks some wonderful, ironic pieces such as "All Of You" and "Give Me The Simple Life" and delivers them with all the sardonic wit with which they were originally written.

The Lambert, Hendricks & Ross album that she had made a few months earlier would change her life and put her in the vocalese limelight for several years. But fortunately she was able to continue to maintain a profile as a song singer with two more Pacific Jazz albums including A Gasser! with co-leader Zoot Sims and pianist-arranger Russ Freeman.

After leaving Lambert, Hendricks and Ross due to illness on a 1962 European tour, Ms. Ross stayed in England and pursued a solo singing career on record and throughout festivals and clubs in Europe. She has continued to maintain a successful acting career, which has included one of the major roles in Superman III (the one with Richard Pryor).

As a song stylist and vocalese artist, she has built an extraordinary, if not massive body of work. This album with Mulligan, presented at last in its entirety, is among her most intimate.

- Michael Cuscuna

Anni Ross and Gerry Mulligan

We have launched a Jazz capsule, into musical space with the swingin' combination of ANNIE ROSS AND GERRY MULLIGAN.

Surrey, England born Annie-whose family were Scottish Music-Hall Troupers and niece of singer Ella Logan -has musically cornered such key Jazz marketsof the world as Paris, Cannes, London, New York and the newest Mecca of this contemporary art-Hollywood. She is unquestionably in love with London, in particular the section of the quiet churchyard of St. Annes, Soho. Always late for an appointment, this smoker of French Gitane cigarettes and collector of black Wedgewood, sings with a wonderous swing and potency. It has been said in the past that Gerry is engaged in a hungry hunt for what he chooses to call"stimulation." Contained in the grooves of this album is more than an indication that he has satiated this quest. The impact of his performance with La Ross is truly dynamic as evidenced by the hip treatment of Let There Be Love-I Feel Pretty and Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea. It took no Rhodes Scholar to decide to record these two-and the happy result is a miracle set to music-a must for your contemporary Jazz collection.

Complete Pacific Jazz

If Mulligan-Baker fans found this effort [with Brookmeyer] to be uncharacteristic, the collaboration with Annie Ross must have sounded like it was out of this planet. Anything but a cool chanteuse, this English-born vocalist had dabbled in acting, performed in cabaret settings and toured with various bands before making her mark in the area of vocalese, an extroverted style, something of a cross between patter song and scat. While Mulligan and Baker were garnering praise in LA during the early 1950s, Ross was causing a sensation with her undulating multi-syllabic mastery on recordings such as "Twisted" and "Farmer's Market." Her later work with Dave Lambert and Jon Hendricks built on this skill in a series of popular albums. The three singers would duplicate big band charts and mimic horn solos, all done with a zest and energy which captivated audiences.

With Mulligan and Baker, Ross found herself involved in a very different type of three person front line. And the recorded evidence suggests that she found the setting to her liking. She plays down the vocal theatrics that made her reputation in favor of a more subdued sensuousness. Although her voice was sweet and pure in the high register, it takes on a conversational directness in the lower range, as well as a bluesy quality which finds Ross sliding from note to note with the determined ease of Maury Wills gliding into second base. In an era of girl-next-door singers, she wasn't afraid to adopt a more fast-and-loose attitude, at times pushing the limits. On the first statement of "How About You," she coos "Frank Sinatra's looks give me a thrill." The last time through she substitutes "Billy Eckstine" (the "Sepia Sinatra," as he was sometimes called) for Ol'Blue Eyes, coyly tweaking the racial sensitivities of the Eisenhower era.

In contrast to Ross's tightly arranged work with Lambert and Hendricks, these performances are mostly spontaneous efforts. Certainly the horn parts sound like they were improvised on the spot. Yet the absence of formal charts gives the music an open, unfettered quality. A number of the pieces adopt the type of straight ahead grooves that Mulligan rarely used with the earlier quartet - ranging from the up tempo driving beat of "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" to the loping two step strut of "Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea." Mulligan takes on most of the soloist chores, and his playing is highly inventive. Memories of Lester Young - the quintessential jazz saxophonist for vocal settings - are evoked by the baritonist's touching work on "You Turned The Tables On Me" and "This Is Always." And on "It Don't Mean A Thing," he careens off the chords in a sweeping solo. Baker, for his part, holds on to the cool school approach, contributing especially incisive interludes on "How About You" and "My Old Flame."

Genius Of

Almost a year to the day, after another successful European tour with Bob Brookmeyer, several major TV appearances and anotheer Newport Jazz Festival , Gerry, with vocalist Annie Ross (assuming the role of the fourth member of the quartet) , produced the compelling performance that closes this album, Lane and Loesser's "The Lady's In Love With You." This was recorded on December 17th, 1957 at the Coastal Studios in New York City, with Henry Grimes on bass and Dave Bailey on drums.