A FEW OTHER IMPORTANT WEST COAST JAZZ MUSICIANS

Many other musicians were involved in the prime years of cool jazz. Trumpeters looked towards the harmonically sophisticated Dizzy Gillespie and the mellow sounds of Miles Davis and Chet Baker for inspiration. Conte Candoli, who had played with the big bands of Woody Herman in 1944, 1945, and 1950 and Stan Kenton in 1948 and from 1952 to 1954, became one of the most popular Los Angeles-based trumpeters, playing with the Lighthouse All-Stars, the Terry Gibbs big band, the studios, and in a countless number of bop-oriented situations. Don Fagerquist had a soft tone but an underrated technique, being one of the stars of Dave Pell’s octet during 1953 to 1959. Jack Sheldon, a boyhood friend of Chet Baker, could play anything from bop to Dixieland. His playing matured in the 1950s, and he has been very active ever since as a trumpeter with his own sound, a vocalist, a bandleader, and a hilarious, if generally off-color, comedian. He is still a great entertainer today.

Frank Rosolino was a very popular trombonist in the 1950s, always in demand for West Coast jazz dates. After playing with the big bands of Gene Krupa in 1948 and 1949, Stan Kenton from 1952 to 1954, and others, he worked with the Lighthouse All-Stars, in the studios, and wherever an extroverted and witty modern jazz trombonist was needed.

The top West Coast pianists managed to carve out their own voices from the Bud Powell style, including Hampton Hawes, Lou Levy, Pete Jolly, Claude Williamson, Carl Perkins, and Russ Freeman, who played with Chet Baker and Shelly Manne. Another was Vince Guaraldi who became famous in the 1960s for his jazz scores of the Peanuts cartoon series. Even Andre Previn, a precocious sixteen year old who wrote film scores in 1945, played a bit like Bud Powell during the era. Previn recorded a series of jazz dates, including Shelly Manne’s hit record of My Fair Lady , before becoming more closely involved with the classical music world.

In the post-Jimmy Blanton era, bassists were still primarily responsible for keeping the rhythm steady, with their solo abilities being secondary. The bassists who were particularly active in the West Coast jazz scene never lacked for work: Red Callender, Monty Budwig, Leroy Vinnegar, Curtis Counce, and Red Mitchell, who was also a superior soloist, and others. They remained underrated parts of many ensembles. The role of the drummer in cool jazz was the same as in bop, except that the West Coast drummers tended to be quieter and smoother. Shelly Manne was the most famous Los Angeles-based drummer; the other key players included Stan Levey, Frank Butler, and Larance Marable.

The most famous singer to emerge during the cool jazz era was Mel Torme, one of the all-time great jazz vocalists. Torme first performed in public with the Coon-Sanders Orchestra in 1929 at the age of four. By the early 1940s he was working as a drummer in addition to singing and writing songs. When he was nineteen in 1945, he wrote “The Christmas Song,” his most famous original. By then Torme was leading a vocal group, the Mel-Tones, and performing with Artie Shaw. He soon became a solo singer, performing both pop music and swing. One of his prime periods from the jazz standpoint was during 1956 to 1960 when he recorded regularly with a West Coast, cool jazz-style group, Marty Paich’s Dek-tette. Torme survived a period of neglect to record a brilliant series of albums for the Concord label during 1983 to 1996 that found him excelling in jazz settings, including several albums with George Shearing. He was the only singer actually to improve while in his sixties. Only a stroke in 1996, which preceded his death by three years, stopped Torme. Whether scatting like Ella Fitzgerald or holding an endless long note on a ballad, Mel Torme, who was also a skilled arranger, composer, drummer and even pianist, ranked at the top of his field.