Dwarsliggers & Buitenbeentjes

A record giant with cultural responsibility. In 1955, the record company RCA Victor (part of The Big Four along with Capitol, Decca, and Columbia at the time) decided to release a series of jazz albums under the title The Jazz Workshop. With this series, RCA Victor wanted to draw attention to jazz music with an adventurous character, jazz that was not produced through standard formulas. The arrangers invited for this series had carte blanche: they didn’t have to stick to standard lineups but could also use a string section or add unusual instrumentalists; they could write pieces with an experimental inclination or even with avant-garde tendencies.

Producer Jack Lewis invited seven contemporaries to work on his Jazz Workshop idea: Manny Albam and John Carisi were both born in 1922, George Russell in 1923, Hal McKusick in 1924, Al Cohn and Hal Schaefer in 1925, and the youngest of the bunch was Billy Byers (born on May 1, 1927, in Los Angeles). These arrangers had all witnessed the decline of the big Swing bands and the rise of Bebop. Almost all of them had played in those late Swing orchestras and those early Bebop bands, or they had written for them.

With some arrangers, you can still clearly see traces of the Swing era, especially in Al Cohn, Hal Schaefer, and Manny Albam, while John Carisi, George Russell, and Hal McKusick are already pushing the boundaries of Bebop. Billy Byers occupies a position between the more traditional Workshop arrangers and the more adventurous spirits.

The seven Victor Jazz Workshop leaders enjoyed hectic practice education. For example, Manny Albam played baritone saxophone in the big bands of Georgie Auld, Boyd Raeburn, and Charlie Barnet before fully devoting himself to arranging in 1950. Johnny Carisi was a trumpeter in the big bands of Glenn Miller (1943-1946) and Claude Thornhill before earning eternal fame with his contribution – Israel – to Birth of the Cool, and his three pieces on the Gil Evans album Into The Hot (Impulse). George Russell began his career as a drummer and percussionist, playing in Benny Carter’s band, where he had to make way for Max Roach (!), before fully devoting himself to composing and arranging. In 1947, the Gillespie big band recorded his Cubana-Be & Cubana-Bop. He also wrote works for the big bands of Claude Thornhill, Artie Shaw, and Buddy DeFranco. The English composer/critic Ian Carr regards George Russell’s Victor Jazz Workshop album as “one of the most dynamic jazz albums of all time.”

Before leading more than half a dozen very memorable albums between 1955 and 1958, Hal McKusick was active in the saxophone section of the big bands of Boyd Raeburn, Claude Thornhill, and Elliot Lawrence and was a sideman in the groups of Terry Gibbs and Don Elliott. Al Cohn learned valuable lessons in the saxophone section of the bands of Georgie Auld, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, and Artie Shaw before earning a living mainly as an arranger. Later on, he formed a tenor duo with the other great Lester Young disciple Zoot Sims.

The New Yorker Hal Schaefer (piano) went on tour with the band of trumpeter Lee Castle when he was just fifteen years old, and at the end of a nearly two-year period with Ina Ray Hutton’s band, he ended up on the West Coast. He also worked with the bands of Benny Carter, Harry James, and Boyd Raeburn, and spent some time as the accompanist for Peggy Lee and Billy Eckstine. He also made a living as a vocal coach for Jane Russell, Judy Garland, and Marilyn Monroe.

Billy Byers’ career shows many similarities to the careers of the other Victor Workshop leaders: he amazed those around him as a child prodigy on the piano, switched to the trombone, joined the orchestras of Georgie Auld, Buddy Rich, Benny Goodman, Charlie Ventura, and Teddy Powell. He provided his first arrangements to Georgie Auld before only composing and arranging from 1960 onwards. As a composer/arranger for films, news shows, talk shows, and for the bombastic opening music of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, he gradually became a solid mainstream arranger.

After the originator of the Workshop idea left, work on part 7 was halted. Six Jazz Workshop LPs were released between 1955 and 1956. In the middle of working on the seventh Workshop LP, the entire operation was cancelled. Although the forthcoming RCA Victor LP had already been assigned a catalog number – LPM 1371 – the tapes with the seven Carisi arrangements would not be released on a CD until 1988: The RCA Victor Jazz Workshop – The Arrangers (supplemented with five previously released Jazz Workshop pieces by Hal McKusick and five pieces taken from the LPs Insight and Solid Ground by The Rod Levitt Orchestra).

Down Beat was always quick to publish a review of the Workshop LPs, and the arrangers, except for Hal Schaefer, received a minimum of four stars as a grade:

Al Cohn: **** (reviewed by Nat Hentoff) Hal Schaefer: *** (Nat Hentoff) Manny Albam: ****1/2 (Nat Hentoff) Billy Byers: **** (Nat Hentoff) Hal McKusick: ***** (Nat Hentoff) George Russell: ***** (Leonard Feather)

It was not Down Beat’s fault that the Workshop series was discontinued after the sixth release. Presumably, sales results were disappointing, and moreover, the auctor intellectualis of the Workshop project, producer Jack Lewis, was given another function.

Billy Byers’ Jazz Workshop LP: RCA Victor LPM 1269 Byers used three different groups on his Workshop LP.

For the group with strings, Byers selected four songs from The Great American Songbook, all of which were written in the period between the two world wars, taking into account that for Americans, World War II only began in December 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. As soloists, you will hear Billy Byers (trombone), Jerry Sanfino (alto saxophone and flute), and Moe Wechsler (piano).

You will hear the following in order:

• Alone together (1932)
• I see a million people (1941)
• Sunday (1928)
• You’re mine you (1933)

For the lineup with four trombones, Billy Byers arranged four of his own compositions: lively, smoothly running pieces. The lineup consists of Bernie Glow (trumpet), Billy Byers, Urbie Green, Fred Ohms, and Chauncey Welsh (trombone), Al Cohn (clarinet, tenor and baritone saxophone), Moe Wechsler (piano and celesta), Milt Hinton (bass), and Osie Johnson (drums).

As mentioned, four pieces by Billy Byers:

• Billy Bones
• Chinese water torture
• The great rationalization
• Misty Osie

We hear the remaining four pieces of this album in a sextet lineup: Nick Travis (trumpet), Billy Byers (trombone), Phil Woods (clarinet and alto saxophone), Moe Wechsler (piano and celesta), Milt Hinton (bass), and Osie Johnson (drums):

• The tickler (composition by Bill Byers)
• Back in your own backyard
• The funky music box (also a composition by Byers)
• Thou swell

Finally, you will hear four pieces from Hal Schaefer’s Jazz Workshop album. The same approach is followed as with Billy Byers: three different groups each playing four pieces. And even more striking: Hal Schaefer uses the same trombone section as Billy Byers, although this trombone section is reinforced with a bass trombonist, Tommy Mitchell. Hal Schaefer is the pianist and arranger, and Milt Hinton and Osie Johnson complete the rhythm section.

These are the four pieces:

*This one’s for Jack Note: Hal Schaefer dedicated this piece to the producer Jack Lewis; and who plays the trombone solo here? Is it Billy Byers or is it Urbie Green? Leonard Feather claims in the original sleeve notes that it’s Urbie Green, but I hear all kinds of typical Billy Byers twists and turns in this solo. *A song of love (also a composition by Hal Schaefer) *Blue skies *I’m gonna sit down and write myself a letter

The next broadcast, on Saturday, February 11, 2023, will largely be devoted to the album Byers’ Guide, on which the inseparable duo Hinton & Johnson will once again be smoothly swinging. After that, we will delve into Billy Byers’ European wanderings, which will include encounters with Martial Solal, Kenny Clarke, and Wessel Ilcken.