The countless
record dates played by veteran jazz and swing musicians produced a lengthy list
of humorous, informative and poignant stories. Musicians who were used to
playing within the swing parameters were called upon to make adjustments. Some
of them made the adjustment, others not so much. Two west coast keyboardists,
Ray Sherman and Paul Smith, both encountered what were called the repetitive
“rock & roll triplets.”
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| Ray Sherman |
RS: Funny, that was the days of, I don’t know if
they even called it rock & roll or rhythm & blues, with the triplets in
the right hand. I started getting a lot of calls like that, where that’s what
they wanted.
MR: Can you recall some of the records you
played on?
RS: Well I think the only hit I was on “Primrose
Lane.” And I think I faked an introduction on that, and they always say
whatever I did was good.
MR: It became a little hook.
RS: Yeah. Because I did a record date after
that, it was funny, a friend of mine, Jack Marshall, the guitar player, it was
one of his dates. And he came over to me and he said, “do you think you could
play something like the guy played on the ‘Primrose Lane’ intro?”
And from Paul
Smith:
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| Paul Smith |
PS: I did one date where the piano was facing
the conductor and this whole thing was eighth triplets. And just as a gag I
took off my loafer and put it on my hand so I’m playing with a shoe. And he
can’t see. And I’m going ching-ching-ching with a shoe on my hand. I played the
entire date that way and he said great, that’s the sound he wants. And I’m playing
with a shoe. So I had a faint idea what was coming up. I mean he never knew and
I certainly never told him, but I could have sent one of my kids in with a shoe
and play duh-duh-duh and that’s it. So I could see what music was coming to at
that time.
MR: I have to ask the obvious question: what key
was that piece in if you were playing with your shoe on?
PS: It doesn’t make any difference. It’s just
the sound, ching-ching-ching. I didn’t make any chord changes. The shoe covered
part — it was mostly on the black keys, but the lower part was on the white. So
you have white and black both. But all he could hear was ching-ching-ching, and
that’s the sound he wanted.
MR: That six-eight feel, was it because it was a
good dance feel? Is that why that became a thing?
PS: I don’t really know. I mean I went up to him
after the date and told him not to call me on those kind of dates anymore. I
said don’t call me on those triplet dates. You’ve got a musical date I’ll be
happy to do it. I mean it cost me a lot of money but I’d rather come home happy
than irritated.
As Bob
Rosengarden stated in our last blog, studio musicians were so busy running from
one session to another that they rarely had the luxury of reflecting on what
they had just recorded, whether it had hit potential or whether it would never
be heard again. West coast saxophonists Ernie Watts and Plas Johnson spoke of
these dates:
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| Ernie Watts |
MR: When you were doing a particular date did
you ever have a sense of this tune is going to last; that it’s going to be
something that years from now people are still listening to?
EW: No. When you’re working you’re just working.
It’s just your work, it’s just what you do. I would get up in the morning and
I’d go and I’d do a record date. And it could be the Jacksons or it could be
Sarah Vaughan or it could be Barbra Streisand. I did pop records, I did jazz
records, I’d go and I’d do a record date in the morning and then in the
afternoon was “The Tonight Show.” So the record dates usually run three hours
so I’d do a date from 10 until 1, take a break, go over to do “The Tonight
Show,” “The Tonight Show” would be off at 6:30 and I’d do another record date
at 7. So I’d usually do two record dates and “The Tonight Show” just about
every day, or I’d do three record dates or a big movie date and I’d send a sub
to “The Tonight Show.” Because sometimes you know movie dates are all day long.
I did that every day for 20 years. So when you’re doing that, all you’re doing
really, all you’re thinking about is keeping your health together and going to
work. You have absolutely no idea of the greatness of what’s going on, or how
something is going to last or whatever. What’s happening now is all of these
R&B records that I played on with The Temptations and Barry White and all of
these people, they’re being used for commercials, and I’m getting these big
checks. I’m getting these checks for Billy Preston things.
And from Plas
Johnson, who gave life to “The Pink Panther”:
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| Plas Johnson |
PJ: Henry [Mancini] had the talent of matching
the player with the tune you know. He would call just the right saxophone
player for what he was writing on. Just the right harmonica player. He knew
players quite well and he knew music. He had a knack for putting stuff together
that matched, and I guess that’s how I came to work on his “Pink Panther.”
MR: It’s a classic. Certainly had a sound to it.
Did you have any idea at the time that it was going to become one of
those tunes that everybody can whistle?
PJ: No. Of course not. But we did have an idea
at the time that it was a great piece of music because it was like 8:00 on a
cold winter morning and I forget how many, it was a full orchestra with strings
and everything, and after the tune was recorded, after the performance of the
tune the orchestra applauded.
Guitarist
Bucky Pizzarelli has played on thousands of recordings, some of which can
kindly be called “novelty records” and others “musical gems.” He shared an
amusing anecdote that took years to develop:
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| Bucky Pizzarelli |
MR: You never quite know what’s going to catch the
public’s ear.
BP: No. You never know. But in those days a hit
record was a glorious thing to have, for an artist to find some — Patti Page
had a thing called “Doggie in the Window.”
MR: “How Much is that Doggie in the Window.”
BP: Yeah, we made it in the last five minutes of
a three hour session. So how do you know? I think Doc Severinsen was playing
trumpet on it.
MR: I mean I can just picture you going home and
saying hey, guess what we did today.
BP: Yeah, and “Itzy Bitzy Bikini.”
MR: “Itzy Bitzy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot
Bikini.” Oh my God. That was Brian Hyland, wasn’t it?
BP: Yeah that’s right. And another thing, I
made, here’s a funny story. I made Ray Charles’ “Georgia on my Mind.” It was
with Ralph Burns, but it was one of those busy weeks where he was farming
everything out. And we still don’t know who wrote it, Bobby Brookmeyer or Al
Cohn wrote the arrangement. So we do the arrangement. Smash hit. Big, big hit.
Thirty years later I’m doing the Dick Cavett Show. And Ray Charles is going to
sing this tune. And the conductor comes up to me and I’m with Bobby
Rosengarden’s band. And the guy said to me “don’t play the guitar on this,
because it was a certain kind of guitar playing on the record.” So he was afraid
I didn’t know. So I laid out. Do you believe that?
MR: I can’t believe that.
BP: I didn’t tell him.
For the busy
studio musicians whose day-to-day work could include every possible scenario,
the stories they brought home were rarely about what a wonderful day they had.
More often, they were bizarre and unexpected anecdotes. Bass trombonist Alan
Raph shared a story of a misunderstanding with a volatile vocalist:
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| Alan Raph |
MR: Can you remember one of the worst or most
ridiculous recording dates that you’ve ever done?
AR: Yeah. Well ridiculous, not worst.
MR: Okay.
AR: I was with Warren Covington on a schlock
rock & roll date at a horrible studio back in the 60’s. And there was a
black singer, a lady, and the studio was kind of dirty, funky is a better word.
And she was singing a song called “The Ghoul in School.” As bad as it can get.
It was just rotten, absolutely rotten, wretched. Now she sang this. We played
it. Now it’s break time. You have to know Warren Covington. Warren was a
wonderful trombone player, had his own band and he was like Mr. Indiana, with
the sweater, always looked nice, always had his face washed and hands and nails
manicured and the whole thing, he was just as collegiate as he could be. And
about 12 years older than me I guess. We were the only two trombones. We’re
sitting there. And now the singer comes off, and we actually did it with her on
a little stage up front so it was a completely live date. She comes off during
the break and walks past Warren, and Warren is spraying his slide. And she walks
past Warren and she stops, she says, “don’t you spit at me mother.” Well Warren
got so embarrassed. I mean he was dumbfounded. I was dumbfounded. And she stood
there. She’s like, “you’ve got no right to spit at me.” And we are looking like
my God, you know. So Warren immediately starts going into his school teacher
routine. “Oh no, please, I would never, you see we trombone players” and he
starts going with this whole thing — “we trombone players use the slide you
know.” Well he looks to me for help. And I couldn’t talk I was on the floor. I
couldn’t breathe I was laughing so hard. It was just like, you got it. Oh God
that was funny. It was just hilarious. Well she wouldn’t let up. She gave him
about five minutes of what a rotten person he was and how dare he do this and
she’s not using the King’s English, she’s like really lacing into him from
Funksville. And Warren was beside himself. He just didn’t know how to stop it.
As it went on it just got funnier and funnier. I mean I had trouble breathing.
Anyhow, that’s, talk about ridiculous, that was one of the ridiculous ones.
At a Musicians
Union rate of $42.50 for a three hour session, the first call studio musicians
were making a significant salary playing three to four sessions every day. Some
of the top players in the pop field commanded a better fee and had the juice to
actually opt for a piece of the recording. Saxophonist Phil Woods talked about
his work with Billy Joel and his monetary decision:
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| Phil Woods |
MR: Can you recall when you did the thing on
“Just the Way You Are,” how many takes did you get on that?
PW: Oh one or two tops. Oh yeah it was just me
and Phil Ramone in the booth. And he had the changes written on the back of a
matchbook cover or something. But it was like a pop tune — a pop tune in the
sense of a Broadway, Tin Pan Alley kind of song. It wasn’t really a rock &
roll song. It’s really a pretty nice tune. So it was not a problem. Yeah I did
Phoebe Snow’s overdub and Billy Joel in the same day — the same half hour.
MR: Was he producing both of those?
PW: Yeah. And I got $700 for both things. $350
apiece.
MR: I’m glad to hear that. And a Grammy.
PW: You know in those days, I mean from Mike
Brecker on, from that period, when they would use soloists, it was kind of SOP,
you’d ask for a quarter of a point. If a tune from the album was taken out and
made a single, you’d get a quarter of a cent on every single that they made
taken from the album, if you’re the soloist on it. My manager didn’t know
anything about this stuff and I sure didn’t know anything about it. But you
know we could have got it, all we had to do was ask. You know how much a
billion quarter of a pennies are? That’s a lot of money. That record sold over
a billion, biggest selling record of all time. But I mean I would have had the
money but I wouldn’t have had such a good story.
We’ll do one
more blog entry to do justice to our studio tales. Watch this space.
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