1. Chelsea Bridge x2
2. The Cat Walk x4
3. Sunday
4. Who's Got Rhythm
5. Tell Me When x2
6. Go Home x4
7. In a Mellotone x2
8. What is This Thing Called Love
9. For Bessie
10. Fajista x4 v
11. Blues in B Flat x3

Mel Lewis, Gerry Mulligan, Jimmy Rowles,
Leroy Vinnegar, Ben Webster

1 - 7 November 3, 1959
8 - 12  December 2, 1959

 LINER NOTES

In a more serious vein I show Billie Holiday singing 'Fine and Mellow" in The Sound of Jazz (CBS television, 1957). My students tend to respond immediately to Holiday and to the ghostlike tenor saxophonist Lester Young - how could they not? They share my exhilaration at trumpeter Roy Eldridge's stratospheric rips, and each semester a handful of them become fascinated by tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster (I'm sure that some of my students think of the late Fifties as the end of the era when musicians never removed their hats).

But what greatly surprised me at first was who most piqued the students' curiosity - it's Gerry Mulligan. This is only in part (I think) because his horn looks so bulky and tubular to those of them who have never seen a baritone saxophone before. My male students, especially, seem to identify with Mulligan on a level they're unable to articulate. Perception of race, it's undoubtable, has something to do with it, but I sense that an even greater factor is Mulligan's youth. Just thirty then - one to two decades younger than anyone else in the group, except for pianist Mal Waldron, Holiday's regular accompanist of the period, who rates neither a solo nor a closeup - Mulligan had a bristly haircut and a cocky way of moving to the beat that makes my students intuitively accept him as a contemporary. In The Sound of Jazz, he looks a little bit like a saxophonist in a Nineties ska band who has traveled back in time to challenge his idols at their own game.

Talking about musicians in terms of their physical appearances is superficial. Yet I think my students are on to something, because Mulligan's boyish e1an certainly played a role in winning him fame in 1953, when his pianoless quartet with trumpeter Chet Baker suddenly became the rage - supposedly prototypical of West Coast "cool", the group's music even looked new.

So Mulligan was briefly typecast as a heretical modernist. As critics and producers Nat Hentoff and Whitney Balliett must have realized, however, in teaming him with all those Swing Era stalwarts on The Sound of Jazz, Mulligan was no radical. He was a traditionalist whose rhythm was rooted in swing, and whose real value to modern jazz was in ridding it of some of the harmonic clutter of bebop. Not for one moment to underrate his various small groups and big bands - and not to ignore his considerable gifts as a composer and arranger - some of Mulligan's finest playing on record occurred during those periods when he was between bands and free to hook up in the studio with the older musicians he venerated.

Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster is a good example. Not an edgy cutting contest like so many intergenerational all -star pairoffs of the time (contrast it to Sonny Meets Hawk! [RCA Victor LSP 271"21", for example), Mulligan-Webster features relaxed head arrangements played by a working band. The two leads handily overcome their perceived stylistic differences. (As if to underscore Mulligan's traditional groundings, in between the two sessions that comprise this LP, alto saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman shocked New York with a pianoless quartet of a different stripe.)

This was one of Mulligan's favorite albums. "The date grew out of sessions we would have, little things I would have at my place," he told jazz historian and archivist Phil Schaap in 1990.

Ben and I were friends, we went back together a little bit. We were both out in LA and did musical sessions - for our-selves - frequently on Sundays.... This grew into a desire to do something together in public and we did. The difference between the little sessions and when we got the record date was of course a determined purpose. You see, Norman Granz really enjoyed this type of thing: two-star or same-horn battles[. A]nd I occasionally fit into this type of packaging. I, of course, did the one with [alto saxophonist Paul] Desmond. it was successful, and we went on. Besides Ben, I did one with [alto saxophonist] Johnny Hodges, and I love Hodges. But the difference is, I hadn't played much or in a long time with Johnny, while Ben and I had same- thing together. Our meeting, our studio meeting, stood on its own musical merit and also fit into what Norman wanted to do. But Ben and I were a focused, near-functioning little band. That's why it worked, and of course it's all related to our mutual esteem and musical rapport.

What was Mulligan doing in Los Angeles? According to Leroy Vinnegar, the only surviving member of the Mulligan-Webster Quintet, the baritone saxophonist had accompanied his girlfriend, actress and comedienne Judy Holliday, to Hollywood, where she was filming Bells Are Ringing (a movie in which Mulligan played a bit part as Holliday's nerdy blind date). His band used the couple's rented house for its informal sessions. Vinnegar was invariably the first to arrive; Holliday taught the bassist badminton while Mulligan slept late. The band gigged a few times at the Renaissance, a club on Sunset Boulevard owned by a friend of Mulligan's and also the location for the group's one other recording - behind the blues shouter Jimmy Witherspoon, for HiFijazz, in the waning days of 1959.

Mulligan told Schaap that the band had been scheduled to perform on The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, but that the variety series had been unexpectedly canceled. Not so, according to Vinnegar. The bassist recalls donning a tux for the TV appearance, and he vividly remembers Webster and singer Frank Sinatra - two-of-a-kind balladeers forming a mutual admiration society backstage. (According to Webster's discographers Peter Langhorn and Thorbjorn Bjorgren, Shore did record the quintet at this time.

In any event, having turned fifty in 1959, Vinnegar was hardly an old man. But he was old enough to have been both venerated and neglected - kicked upstairs, as it were - when bop imposed its hegemony on jazz a decade earlier. Webster recorded prolifically for Verve in the mid-to-late Fifties, his greatest period as an improvisor. The years had thickened his tone around the middle and softened its edge, giving it more body and broadening the shuddering columns of air that seemed to billow out of his long rippling lines. Webster's ballads had long been counted among the wonders wonders of jazz, but as he settled into middle age they grew still more sumptuous, more pleading and persuasive in their knowing intimacy. His warmth and self-assurance gradually extended to medium- and up-tempos, on which he strutted and swaggered and danced, with a big man's burly grace.

Mulligan's roosterish baritone is an effective foil to Webster's crooning tenor, and the younger man also makes sizable contributions as a composer and team player. His three originals are ideally contoured to Webster, with Tell Me When showing off the tenor saxophonist's luminous balladry, The Cat Walk his sly bluesiness, and Who's Got Rhythm? the momentum Webster could generate even on such a shopworn set of chord charges. Behind Webster's solos, Mulligan frequently blows soft, contrapuntal figures recalling those that made his quartets with Baker or trombonist Bob Brookmeyer sound so provocative. Although this Webster-Mulligan version of "Chelsea Bridge' lacks the orchestral resonance (not to mention the brisk, crepuscular air) of Webster's 1941 recording of it with Duke Ellington's orchestra, Webster nearly surpasses the original with his second improvised chorus, one of the most coolly sensual in all of jazz.

The Jimmie Rowles-Leroy Vinnegar-Mel Lewis rhythm section is superb, though I might argue that Rowles's satirical stride intro to Sunday is a touch too broad in light of the no-nonsense swing that follows it. But Rowles (the pianist in Mulligan's 1953 quartet before it became pianoless) more than redeems himself with his spiky choruses on this tune and elsewhere, including on Go Home, an amiable, perambulatng blues paced by Lewis's authoritative bass drum. And if you want to know why Vnnegar was the favorite bassist of practically everyone on the West Coast in the late Fifties (and one of the favorites of East Coast musicians as well, including tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, who offered Vinnegar a job in his quartet in 1960), just listen to his steady walk on the various takes of Webster's "Blues in B-Flat".

"Blues" is one of five tracks not issued until 1990. when Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster made its frst appearance on CD. Along with these and the six performances that initially made up the LP, this Verve Master Edition includes a number of previously unissued alternative takes. This "new" material yields no revelations, unless we count the satisfaction of hearing these performances gradually take shape (notice how the solo sequence changes on Blues in B-Flat) and the pure joy of hearing Webster, in his role as the elder member of the band, counting off tempos and singing to Mulligan and the rhythm section to indicate how his melodies should be phrased, giving us further evidence of his innate musicality.

The real advantage of the added material a that it generously allows us to spend more time in the company of two inimitable saxophonists who so obviously enjoyed each other's.

FRANCIS DAVIS June 1997

William Claxton's memories of the recording session for Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster revolve around a fifth of bourbon that Mulligan provided for his co-leader, which the tenor saxophonist hardly touched.

"Gerry knew that Ben liked booze around when he recorded and [he] very much wanted to please him to make him comfortable," remembers the great photographer. "But Ben got so caught up in the spirit of what was happening that the bottle just sat there. He had maybe one shot; ordinarily he would have drunk the whole bottle.

"Gerry told me. 'I'm finally recording with one of my childhood heroes.' He was thrilled. He was pretty much in awe of Ben and very much trying to please him with his solos and arranging ideas. Gerry was one of the smartest people I know and he could be delightful to he around. But he also had a boundless ego, and he could be insufferable at times. So to see him acting so boyish and bowing down to Ben was kind of nice. It made me like Gerry even more.

"The tunes were pretty much improvised, by the way which was unusual for Gerry because he loved doing arrangements. He and Ben were demonstrative [with] each other. killing each other with their solos and ideas about how the heads should go. Both considered themselves to be great piano players, and I remember them lecturing Jimmie Rowles [on] how to play piano. Jimmie, being such a sweet guy, let them go on and on without paying very much atention to what they were saying.

"I only used two rolls film, which was very unusual for me and must mean that I got caught up in the music and the joking around myself. Every shot turned out wonderful. probably because those two guys - Ben and Gerry were so enthralled with each other. Every frame of seventy two-odd pictures was perfect. because what was going on between them was perfect. That kind of rapport is very subtle and if you've been to many recording sessions you know its rare.'

Interview by F.D.

ORIGINAL LP LINER NOTES:

"In listening to Gerry Mulligan," Dave Brubeck once said, "you feel as if you're listening to the past, present, and future of jazz, all in one tune, and yet it's done with such taste and respect that you're not ever aware of a change in idiom" Composer George Russell has called Gerry "Mr. Main stream," and Mulligan himself has always made it clear that his tastes in jazz are far from limited to the modernists. "A musician," he has pointed out in Downbeat, "has to know not only why he's blowing but the history of the language he's using."

For some years Mulligan has expressed deep interest in recording with older players, and his meeting with Ben Webster is one of a series of such encounters planned by Norman Granz that also includes Mulligan sessions with "mainstream" modernist Stan Getz. I remember a previous occasion in December, 1957 on which Gerry and Ben were in the same group - the CBS TV hour of "The Sound of Jazz " Gerry was the only younger player in a reed section that consisted of Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Earl Warren, part of a big hand assembled for that program and led by Count Basie. Gerry was selected for that company because by musical temperament and adaptability, he fitted in naturally.

The rhythm section for this date is uncommonlv right for the Webster-Mulligan meeting. Rowles, Lewis and Vinnegar all base their playing on a knowledge of "the history of the language" they're using, and all three have secure, relaxed time. Furthermore, all three get solid, rounded sounds from their instruments. Bowles, a particular favorite of Webster, is one of the more unheralded full-bodied swingers in jazz. His playing is ingratiatingly personal, and is marked by remarkably unerring taste in choice of notes and avoidance of superfluity. Vinnegar has one of the biggest tones of any jazz bassist and is a strongly dependable foundation. Lewis is as in context with a big band as he is with a small combo.

One of Ben Webster's more definitive solos while with Duke Ellington was in Billy Strayhorn's Chelsea Bridge. He begins this version in much the same tenderly retrospective mood with Mulligan providing a wave-like background. I doubt if any contemporary tenor saxophonist of any jazz "style" can match the largeness of Ben's tone and feeling on ballads. Mulligan's baritone solo sustains the original mood as Gerry makes that usually rough-voiced horn sing with a mellowness of tone and a flowing phrasing that are impressively moving. His conception as a whole is as clear and fully formed as that of the better of the older "mainstreamers " Ben ends the Bridge with another beautifully constructed and swellingly sensitive set of variations on past passion passionately remembered.

The Cat Walk is Gerry's tune and is in the ambling, Basie-band-of-the-30's tempo he often delights in. Note the marvelously resilient, smoothly pulsating rhythm section teamwork. Ben's solo swings with that naturalness of phrasing and totally unconstricted beat that for all the profusion of jazz record albums are still rather rare. Jimmy keeps the floating, effortless feeling going without a break as does the equally unselfconscious Vinnegar. Gerry proves this is the right company for him - and the other way around by keeping the temperature at the same well toasted but not charring level. And in the ensemble passages, Gerry and Ben make a bigger reed section than exists in a good many large bands.

Jimmy Rowles moves into Sunday as if Willie "The Lion" had just come around the corner with a new cigar. Gerry's solo conveys the casual pleasure of someone who really does enjoy Sunday and doesn't find it appalling to have free time. Jimmy has a springy, infectiously swinging say; and then Ben takes over with yet another of the substantial number of classic solos he's been recording, particularly within the last three years during which period I'm convinced he's reached the apex of his career musically if not financially. For the rest of the tune, in the exchange between Gerry, Mel and Ben and the final ensemble, questions of age and style become thoroughly superseded by the unity of mood and beat among these five.

Who's Got Rhythm? is Gerry's tune and a rhetorical question. Listen to Jimmy especially behind Ben's solo. This is unobtrusive but consistently helpful comping that never gets in the way but makes Ben's way easier. Jimmy then moves blithely into a solo which is one of his best on the date. Gerry manages to remain emotionally urgent without the intensity thickening his sound or distorting the clarity of his line. Tell Me When is also by Gerry, and his yearning, lingering ballad line has some of the feel of an Ellington tune. Both hornmen are supremely gentle without, however, mistaking sentiment for sentimentality. Ben's solo is in his most masterly ballad vein. I hope Gerry gets further opportunity to do some writing for Ben since he indicates how well he understands Ben's way of feeling in what he's given him here.

The final Go Home is a collaboration between Ben and Gerry. There's an Ellington flavor to Jimmy's opening and the theme itself has a ducal tinge. Gerry's solo is one of his most wholly realized on record and reminds me of Rex Stewart's tribute to Mulligan: "He has soul, and he plays and talks like a man who enjoys life and people. If a man doesn't feel him, he must be dead" As a long-time Rowles admirer, I'm pleased at the space he has in this album, all of which he makes the most of, as in this altogether lovely summation of a few decades of jazz tradition. The Webster solo that follows is perfect, more than which I cannot say except to recall Ben very early one morning or rather, very late one night at Newport restraining an impulse to get into a fight and pointing to his horn, "I'm at the age where it's all got to go in there now - everything I feel"

It seems to me that even the most rash liner note writer has to pause before predicting the longevity of the session he's assigned to introduce, but it requires neither courage nor obtuseness to underline the obvious likelihood that this one will be listened to as long as any one cares about jazz. I only hope these five will meet again on record. When everyone fits this well, the only problem is to have enough tape on hand.

NAT HENTOFF

I DON'T think I am doing the memory of Ben Webster a disservice by stating that he was not in Duke Ellington's class as a composer. Having said that, I now reveal that there are five extra tunes - not takes, tunes: different selections - left over from the original Verve Lp "GERRY MULLIGAN MEETS BEN WEBSTER" and they are now being added to their initially issued session mates for this new CD repackaging of the old-time classic. Furthermore, of the five tunes, three are Bell Webster original compositions (the other two are standards). I do not point this out as a disservice to an expanded reissue and I certainly am not suggesting that they were at first discarded because Ben is not to be regarded as a tunesmith. In fact, I am pointing it out - and right at the top at that - because the new material, particularly Ben Webster's Compositions, are a major strength for this entire package and the highlight of the bonus tracks.

Let me explain. First some questions: do you listen to several singers or one singer several times offering up a tune of corny lyrics, sing-song melody, and tame/lame harmony? Will you hear out a well known opera and its arias though you know the plot, the words - perhaps in several languages - the notes, and again the singer? Why? What's the point? The answer is phrasing. The singer couches corny lyrics with an approach that gives the song unwarranted importance. Ben Webster knew the importance of phrasing and not just as an improviser. Ensembles, Ben's ensembles had to phrase and swing so much the more if it was his tune.

I have heard Ben Webster's instructions to Gerry Mulligan and the others from the session reels I've uncovered in the vaults. It's not Ben's notes, it's how he gets the players to phrase them. Ben Webster makes them swing more in their phrasing and that adds warranted importance to his original material. That's why I'm singing Ben Webster's praises, I dig his phrases.

Now, Gerry Mulligan is much closer to Duke Ellington in the pantheon of Jazz Composers. The original Verve album parallels the construction of the bonus tracks in this respect; 3 Mulligan originals and two standards; plus, of course, the Webster/Mulligan collaboration "Go Home." It was Gerry Mulligan who told me that "Go Home" is more "Frog" than "Jeru," that it's more Webster's tune. Furthermore, Mr. Mulligan indicated that "Who's Got Rhythm" truly deserves a ledger credit for Ben Webster as Gerry's co-composer.

Gerry Mulligan made these comments in an interview I conducted with him on February 19, 1990. I credit that interview and Mr. Mulligan's encouragement at the time to expediting the American issue of these classic performances and I thank him.

More from the interview with Gerry Mulligan: "The date grew out of sessions we would have, little things I would have at my place. Ben and I were friends, we went back together a little bit. We were both out in LA and did musical sessions - for ourselves frequently on Sundays. I even went to his place many times and met his mother. They were very nice to me. I enjoyed those visits and, of course, I enjoyed the blowing with Ben as we did - for ourselves - at these little jams I would set up for us. We'd even try out some of our new tunes at these little pick-up sessions. This grew into a desire to do something together in public, which we did. The rhythm section players on the Verve recording with Norman were the same we had on our thing and also for many of the little or even some big gigs we did. There was even a scheduled appearance for the Dinah Shore Show. She was big at the time, as were variety TV shows, and we were to be featured myself and Ben Webster. Maybe it would've made us rich and famous. But the show, Dinah Shore's whole series was cancelled. It's amazing, America decided all of a sudden it didn't want variety TV hours. Now they go for talk shows, talk shows on TV.

"The difference between the little sessions and when we got the record date was of course a determined purpose. You see, Norman Granz really enjoyed this type of thing: two stars or same horn battles and I occasionally fit in to this type of packaging. I, of course, did the one with Desmond. It was successful and we went on. Besides Ben, I did one with Johnny Hodges and I love Hodges. But the difference is I hadn't played much or in a long while with Johnny, while Ben and I had something together. Our meeting, our studio meeting stood on its own musical merit and also fit in to what Norman wanted to do. But Ben and I were a focused, near functioning little band. That's why it worked and of course it's all related to our mutual esteem and musical rapport. I dug the date with Johnny and, of course, the original one with Desmond. I didn't nearly enjoy the one with Stan [Getz] as much. That was more forced and more exclusively the idea of Norman Granz. He wanted that date, he wanted it a lot more than I did. It would be fair for you to say that I place the one with Webster as the best of the lot and that I further stress it was because it happened to appear as another star vs. star album, but musically represented something entirely more meaningful to me, Ben, and our rhythm section."

PHIL SCHAAP 1989

JAZZ 'ROUND MIDNIGHT

Jazz is a story made up from a success of mysteries, not the least intriguing of which is that of Duke Ellington's meeting with Billy Strayhorn. How, indeed, could Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington, born in Washington on April 29, 1899, the overlord of jazz composers and the most prolific producer of rhythms and melodies of all kinds, how could he have felt the need to have a second composer with his orchestra? Even phrasing the question in terms of "need" obviates the answer. With these people, there is no musical "need", only sensations, intuitions. That which cause Duke to collaborate with his younger partner was undoubtedly one of the best of its kind. That Duke Ellington was a charismatic figure is a truism that it is almost embarrassing to repeat. It is certainly an indispensable quality for anyone wishing to hold a big band together for any length of time. But where the Duke is concerned, the word is quite insufficient. His own, unique manner of having charisma was to obtain the most exclusive faithfulness from others, without ever squashing the personalities of the "faithful". The ultimate example of this was Harry Carney, evidently, who joined the orchestra in 1927, at the age of 17, and remained with it until the death of its leader. he even took politeness to its limits by departing himself some six months later. So, Harry Carney, the shadow of Duke? Ask any baritone saxophonist to name the three most important players of the instrument, and Carney is bound to be among them, if not at the top of the list.

Billy Strayhorn was sixteen years younger than Ellington (he was born on November 29, 1915), he first offered his services to Duke as a lyricist, in 1938, and then played with Mercer Ellington, the son. Finally, in 1939, he began working with Duke, as a composer, an arranger, and occasionally as a second pianist, right up until his death in 1967, from cancer, at the age of 51. A look at his discography reveals a great many names beside Duke's: Johnny Hodges, Rex Stewart, Cootie Williams, Barney Bigard, Harry Carney, Oscar Pettiford, Louie Bellson, Ben Webster, Mercer Ellington ... all Ellingtonians, only Ellingtonians. First he identified with the maestro's music, then he penetrated it, finally to become a part of it. An interesting case of assimilation: did Duke double himself with Billy Strayhorn, or did he let himself be progressively invaded by a musical "alien" with no intention of destroying this host?

To avoid such questions, there remains the music they have left for us. Listening to these melodies without first looking at the signature, you would never be able to decide which were the strongest: they all are. Another mystery to add to the list...

Laurent Cugny

"FINEST HOUR

There is something about the tenor saxophone that makes it in most people's minds the definitive jazz instrument. It could be the register, which is in the same range as the male voice. There is also its ability to mimic the inflections of speech. It could also be the breathy tone that many saxophonists have cultivated, making it sound like someone whispering in your ear. No one explored the intimate potential of the saxophone like Ben Webster.

By the end of his career in the early 1 970s, when his physical condition had deteriorated, Webster could still play the most tender ballads, sometimes putting no more than a little burst of air through the saxophone. And unlike many players who define the parameters of their expressivity and remain there, Webster reveled in running the widest gamut of emotions. He remains a potent influence.

Ben Webster's evolution from a rough and ready Kansas City stride pianist into one of the most sensitive and eloquent jazz saxophonists can be traced through the selections in this compilation. Never before have the vaults of as many recording companies been unified under one roof as they are now in the Verve Music Group, which makes this sort of musical biography all the more complete.

Like many children born in the early years of the twentieth century, Benjamin Francis Webster's first instrument was the violin. This led to the piano (which remained his first love - hear his solo piano version of "Roses of Picardy") and, by his late teens, the saxophone. Young Ben gradually integrated the violin's finesse and the piano's harmonic possibilities into his budding saxophone style. After playing in some of Kansas City's hotter bands, he came to New York in 1934 and joined Fletcher Henderson's band. The man he replaced there (after a short and unhappy stint by Lester Young, in whose family band Webster had played in 1928) was Coleman Hawkins, who virtually invented the jazz tenor saxophone, and whose style he had once assiduously copied. In later years, Webster became friendly with his early role model, and "La Rosita", from a 1957 session they co-led, is a vivid portrait of both Hawkins and Webster in their maturity.

From the mid-1930s on, Webster was a New Yorker, appearing as a soloist on a variety of studio sessions. "The Ghost of Dinah" catches him with some of the top players and innovators of the era, including two who featured him in their own big bands: saxophonist-trumpeter Benny Carter and pianist Teddy Wilson. Then, in January 1940, after subbing occasionally, Webster became a full-time member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and its first tenor saxophone soloist.

So much emphasis is naturally placed on his solo abilities that Webster's absolute mastery of ensemble playing is rarely mentioned. There was also his compositional sense, which helped him relate both his written and improvised parts to the piece at hand. Listen to how he fits in on "Blues for Mr. Broadway" - by the 1960s, Webster's playing had a profundity borne of decades of honing his skills that brings to mind the late Olivier or the late Picasso. The slightest gesture could summon depths of association and emotion.

Upon leaving Ellington's band in late 1943, Webster became a leader. One of his greatest collaborations was with the drummer Big Sid Catlett, in a quartet with a sense of form that grew directly out of their big-band experience. Hear how they give shape and substance to a relatively informal performance of the 1920s standard "Linger Awhile" by varying the level of intensity and using space as a compositional tool.

With the exception of a brief return to the Ellington fold in the late 1940s, Webster remained a leader and occasional all-star sideman for the rest of his career. Producer Norman Granz recorded him prolifically during the 1950s: There were reunions with Billie Holiday and Teddy Wilson, some of the most successful jazz-with-strings dates (arranged by Ralph Burns), and inspired studio sessions with Oscar Peterson and Gerry Mulligan.

The 1960s turned out to be a tough time for musicians of Webster's generation. Rock & roll made jazz a rare commodity; even within the jazz world, Swing Era veterans were among the least in demand. Webster's playing had continued to blossom, and his recordings from the early 1960s are among his best. But like many of his peers, he chose not to linger in an unwelcome musical environment. He had always had a strong following in Europe, and spent the last several years of his life there. Although the grass didn't turn out to be quite as green as it originally looked, Webster made many warm friendships and was well respected by the European jazz community.

Loren Schoenberg

"ULTIMATE

Ben Webster, though not a jazz innovator, is without question on of the music's immortals. He did not originate a style or spearhead a period of radical change; but his magnetic tenor saxophone playing moved listeners as deeply as the work of any other artist on his or any other instrument. Intensity and honesty were the hallmarks of Webster's music from his early days in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. During the Twenties and thirties, he gained fams as a major Coleman Hawkins disiple and one of jazz's premier hot soloists through his work with the big bands of Bennie Moten, Cab Calloway, Fletcher Handerson, adn others; and while his uptempo brilliance continued to be displayed after he jaoing Duke Ellington in 1940 on classics like "Cotton Tail" (reprised in this collection), the Ducal environment and nightly exposure to alto saxophonists johnny Hodges brought out a ballad mastery in Webster that continued to blossom in the Fifties, when he made a series of stunning albums for Verve.

The first thing that strikes me about Ben Webster is that, while he was an exponent of the Coleman Hawkins school, he developed an ability to deal with the full vocal range of his instrument. This comes from the influence of saxophonist Johnny Hodges, which occurred after the initial Hawkins influence. When you think of Ben's nicknames, like "The Brute" or "The Clark Gable of the Tenor", what it really comes down to is a romantic representation of the Hawkins style.

From a lyrical standpoint, being with Hodges in Duke Ellington's band gave Ben a different technical challenge to deal with. It's a more human approach, in terms of sliding from note to note like the human voice does. Hawkins didn't deal with those glissandos like Ben did. It's extremely difficult to play glissando on the saxophone because of the breaks in the instrument. You relaly have to become a virtuoso. Ben had a different attack than Hawkins, and what really made him stand out were the bend, the glissando, and the grand elements in his ballad playing.

Ben also uses a lot more of the altissimo register of the horn, which shows him moving toward a more modern conception. Tenor saxophonists Don Byas and Chu Berry tried to gain more access upstairs to a lesser extent, and Illinois Jacquet, of course, went even further. At that time, Hawkins never went higher than G above high F. I heard Berry go to high A on his recording of "Ghost of a Chance", and that seemed to be the taboo note for everybody. It's parallel to the way people thought of high C or D as the limit on the trumpet before Louis Armstrong came on the set and hit high gs. People didn't believe it, they wanted to have his horn inspected.

Ben was fluid up there - he could do a lot of different things in the pper register. A lot of people today use the high register to get the Traneish (John Coltrane) sound, with a bit of grit or growling inside a high note that leaves a lot of margin for error. The note may be a shade off; but the growl makes it close enough to give you the idea. i don't subscribe to that approach. When I'm in that zone, I try to it those notes like I would hit middle C, straight ahead. I got that from Ben Webster, who didn't just growl on those high notes.

The growls and things Ben did employ had to do with hiw mouthpiece. i understand he used an Otto Link (mouthpiece) - I don't know the number - and hard reeds from day one. That hissing you hear on the ballads, especially when he's in the lower register, added a breath element that gave a more human quality to his music. A lot of people could identify with that breath, it was a really attractive quality. On the flip side, the growl is an extension fo the voice. For me, and for a lot of other people, is we could actually sing the way we play our instruments we wouldn't need our instruments. Techniques like the growl are the happy medium for someone like me, who can sing only a smidgen.

Ben played the violin even before he played the piano, and I can definitely hear the violin in his tenor palying, in the clarity of his middle and upper registers. Sometimes you can hear him use a vibrato that would be applied by the fingerboard on the violin. That technique was always there; you hear it in Ban's solo on Hawkins's 1944 recording of "Uptown Lullaby" on Apollo. It became even more refined as he got older, like on "Over the rainbow" from his 1964 album See You at the Fair. The nature of Ben's rhythmic approach in comparison to Hawkins's is illustrated well on the track "Young Ben". There, and elsewhere on Ben Webster and Associates where Ben takes the final solo, Jo Jones really sets him up with a clear field from what comes before. You hear the difference between Hawkins's arpeggiated approach and Ben's more linear approach. Once Ben gets started, he sems to be floating above the beat. It's almost like a river changing currents. That's deinitely modern. Both Ben abd Hawkins had certain rythmic things established when they heard the younger players, then each of them let their harmonic license go to a certain degree to show that they were keeping up. That's the best approach, to keep doing what put you on the map while also keeping up with the modern innovations.

Ben's solo on "Cotton Tail" here is quite close to the Ellington recording. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my family recently about Jacquet playing "Flying Home" with other saxophonists at an anniversary celebration of the recording. Someone else played his famous solo before he could, which got him mad. But this goes back to Louis Armstrong"s "West End Blues", a performance that everybody knows from the first few notes. You really can't do anything else. I've seen my own personal example of that, playing my tune "J.C. on the Set". I start it in dialogue with my drummer Tani Tabbal, where nobody knows where we're going, and when he finally hit the theme everybody goes wild.

The string arrangements here were a great opportunity for Ben. I love the arrangements, with the double reeds and all of the orchestral instruments. It brings Ben full circle, when you think of his other influences. Th side of him that comes out with the strings is like an opera singer. You have the bravura of "The Brute", and at the same time the lyrical content that flows, like violin glisses.

I also thought that the tracks with vocalist were quite interesting, particularly the one with the Ravens: A doo-wop group creates an interesting backdrop. I was tempted to include one of the Johnny Otis tracks from 1951 with Pete Lewis's electric guitar. You don't expect someone who sat in Ellington's sax section to be effective in those contexts - it took me by surprise - but Ben fits hand-in-glove. It was essential that these situations be represented, especially the piano tracks. I got a film in Europe called Big Ben where Ben's playing pool, hanging out with Byas, and lating down tracks in a studio where he plays stride piano and then overdubs drum parts with brushes on a shoe box. Seeing him after hours showed me another facet of the whole individual.

It was important that I represent settings different that the big band in this collection, because people tend to know about Ben's work in that context. But different settings emphasize different aspects of his playing, and all of these aspects need to be brought to light.

James Carter

"JAZZ MASTER 43

As I held Ben Webster's tenor saxophone at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, a stretch of the imagination was required to link that instrument to the tone Whitney Balliet called "a wonder of music ... perhaps the broadest ever achieved on the instrument". The horn, a 1938 Paris-made Selmer "balanced action" model, had been relacquered to renew its shiny finish - a process that reduces the value of the horn and is thought to muffle its tone. Cracks inside along the seams were patched with epoxy. This horn would not be the first choice of any buyer who did not know its previous owner; the mouthpiece would likely end up in a shoebox in the back of a music store.

The unique and immediately indentifiable sound that Webster produced, then, id not come from any special handmade instrument, it came from him

I can think of no other musician who successfully developed such a powerful, dual personality with his tone. He could bellow and roar with a sound that become the trademark of his Duke Ellington recordings. With sheer power he could easily outblow any modern rock tenor saxophonist by using a growling technique, created by singing (or yelling) while blowing into the horn. Yet at other times, and later in his career increasingly, he played with a sensual breathiness that required a perfect balance of air pressure and mouthpiece control. This allowed pulsating air to escape from the mouthpiece into the horn after the reed vibrations were only an ech. Both Webster's roaring bravado and his classic, delicate sound occurred during ballads and flagwavers alike, at times interacting with staggering effectiveness.

Ben Webster (1909-1973) was at first a pianist on the bustling jazz scene of his native Kansas City.He learned his first notes on the tenor saxophone at age twenty from Budd Johnson and Billy Young (Lester's father). Webster was deeply influenced by Coleman Hawkins, whom he eventually replaced in Fletcher Henderson's band when Lester Young's sound was found to be too different from Hawkins's and unsuitable for the job. After tours with the bands of Benny Carter, Willie Bryant, and Cab Calloway and subbing briefly in 1935 with Ellington, Webster joined Ellington and stayed in the band from 1939 to '43, establishing his reputation as the bandleader's first major tenor saxophone soloist. After briefly rejoining Ellington in 1948-49, he spent the Fifties on tour with Jazz at the Philharmonic and in New York and Los Angeles recording studios.

This CD highlights Webster's post-Ellington period. The earliest performers are two 1951 Mercury cuts recorded a day apart, each showing his tone with two personalities. Webster's playing on Old Folks increases in intensity, his sound climbing to an upper register that, for an instant, could be Johnny Hodges on alto. And in his treatment of Star Dust, perhaps the most mesmerizing track of this collection, his tenor floats over the accompaniement, out of tempo, using perfectly placed arpeggios to build to a brilliant, final, unaccompanied cadenza.

In 1954, Webster's showcase before a string orchestra on Come Rain or Come Shine features a dramtically understated opening and another wonderful final cadenza that dives into a huge final note only to merg as a whisper.

The other string selection, Do Nothing till You Hear From Me, is one of three Ellington/Strayhorn compositions included. During the melody og In A Mellow Tone (a Webster favorite - his composition "Sid You Call Her?" is based on "Mellow Tone", which Ellington, in turn, based on the harmony of "Rose Room"), Wbester replies to Ella Fitzgerald's phrases while managing never to imitate her, his solo displaying as much vocal quality as the singer's scat chorus. gerry Mulligan's haunting tremolos underneath Webster's melody statement create the mood on Chelsea Bridge as the two men display a surprisingly similar tonal approach.

Two cuts are included from the session that produced the Consummate Artistry of Ben Webster LP: a powerful solo over a bluesy Oscar Peterson background on Pennies from Heaven and a classic That's All, starting low and full of air and moving up an octave to again recall Hodges. A 1954 Teddy Wilson session features You're Mine, You!, with an impassioned Webster interpretation that makes such melodic sense it should become part of the published tune, and the Webster-composed Love's Away, which reflects another side of the Ellington/Strayhorn influence in the beautiful altered harmony of the opening phrase. Webster's Bye, Bye Blackbird solo from his 1959 date with the Oscar Peterson Trio clings to an understated approach, with an accompaniment that swings so hard it would send any other tenor player into a bluesy frenzy. His palying on You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To opposite Coleman Hawkins mirrors Hawkins's powerful approach.

Two of the three blues tunes here also show Webster with players who had a great influence on his life and music. The aptly titled Meet the Frog (one of the tenor saxophonist's nicknames) opens the disc with a Hodges-led group of Ellington alumni, and Webster's own blues composition, De Dar, teams him again with Hawkins and with early mentor Johnson.