Bud Shank and Me…
I don't even know what the hell West Coast Jazz is. It was something different from what they were doing in New York, so the critics called it West Coast Jazz. That Miles Davis Birth Of The Cool album, out of New York, probably started West Coast Jazz. It was also very organized, predetermined, written. It was a little bit more intellectual, shall I say, than had happened before. Jimmy Giuffre, Buddy Childers, Shorty (Rogers), Shelly Manne, Marty Paich, (Bob) Coop(er), almost everybody involved; we all came from somewhere else, New York, Texas, Chicago, Ohio. The fact that we were in L.A. around the orange trees had nothing to do with it. I really think that everybody played the way they would have played no matter where they were. New York writers, they're the ones who invented West Coast Jazz.
Bud Shank
Witch Doctor (1953 recordings, 1985 release) signed by Bud, Max Roach
You have to eat. You have to survive. When I became a full-time studio musician, I had been unemployed for a long time since jazz music left us in 1962-63, or whenever. At that time, I don’t think any of us realized what was going on, but some American jazz musicians ended up here in Europe, some gave up playing altogether, some went off into never-never land by whatever chemical they could find, and there were some others who went into another business. That’s what I did. I went into another business using the tools I had, which was playing the flute and the saxophone. Consider that a copout? No, I don’t.
Bud Shank in a feisty 1987 interview with a European critic
The Swings To TV (1958) signed by Roger Kellaway
This record sold a whole bunch, like about 10,000 copies, which for that time was a lot of records. (Pacific Jazz record label owner) Dick Bock had to get the accountants, and they figured out, all of a sudden, that he owed me money. And he had never owed anybody money before. He didn't have any money to pay royalties, so he went down to Hollywood Electronics and bought me a very, very, very good sound system. I've still got the speakers, AR3s. My nephew has the Dynakit tube amp. This was my first hit, my first royalties. A big deal. I never got any royalties after it, either, for anything.
Bud Shank on his 1960 film soundtrack, Barefoot Adventure
Bud Shank With Maynard Ferguson (1954 recordings, 1963 release) signed by Bud
When Sinatra recorded, he knew exactly what he wanted—but that didn’t stop him from telling the guys in the band. But he always did it in a nice way. I remember on my first or second tour with him in Japan, I was supposed to play an improvised solo on clarinet. But I decided to play it on the tenor sax instead. The first time I did that, he turned around after the song with his “What the hell was that?” look. But he liked what he heard and wanted it in each time. I believe on that Jobim date, Sinatra was right in the studio with us, not in a booth. He liked to be right in with the band.
Bud Shank on recording and touring with Frank Sinatra
I Hear Music (1966) signed by Bud
Jobim told me that he and the other musicians had listened to my records with Laurindo Almeida in the early 1950s along with other West Coast albums I was on. He said those records helped them figure out what direction to go in. He said the records gave them something to work on. At the time they didn’t know they were heading toward Bossa Nova. The word hadn’t been invented yet. In fact, nobody even knows what it means today. It’s just a term someone made up and they don’t even know who it was. So they listened to our albums and then they added their playing, rhythm and new songs they were writing.
Bud Shank on his influence on Antonio Carlos Jobim and Bossa Nova
California Dreamin’ (1966) signed by Roger Kellaway
Chet Baker was a strange case. I always got along well with him. There are other people who didn't. The only problem I had with Chet is I would go for a couple of years and not see him and every time I would see him, the first thing he would say is 'loan me twenty dollars.' Which I never saw again. He had a lot of notoriety and a lot of fame at an early age, more than he could handle, and that is why I think he took the road to avail all that and he did it so violently and so much that he was in jail in Italy, and he was about to be the next James Dean. They were about to make a movie star out of him. That's how far he got up in the popularity kind of thing and he blew it all because he couldn't face it. All he wanted to be was just a player.
Bus Shank on his friend and mercurial genius Chet Baker
Bud Shank and The Sax Section (1966) signed by Bud
Born in Dayton, Ohio, Clifford Everett "Bud" Shank Jr. was a noted jazz composer and performer for over sixty years. The day before he died at his home in Tucson in April 2009, Bud recorded In Good Company in a San Diego studio with Jake Fryer on alto, and his regular quartet of Mike Wofford on piano, Bob Magnusson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums. His wife revealed, "He knew it was his last shot. The doctors told him if he went, he would die. And he went." In spite of his failing health, the posthumous recording features Bud blowing alto saxophone with a fervency which belies his impending demise. All nine tracks were recorded as first takes, and the last piece Bud ever recorded was "Speak Low", a gorgeous mid-tempo ballad from the pen of Kurt Weill. A fitting denouement to an important if relatively unknown artist.
When his family moved from Ohio to North Carolina in 1946, Bud began attending the University of North Carolina as a music major, staying for two years, before departing to California where he joined the big band of Charlie Barnett and then Stan Kenton in 1950. As his chops developed, he honed his craft, but Bud was not particularly pleased with his Kenton experiences, "That band was too clumsy to swing, because of the instrumentation and voicings. On the other hand, the sounds that came out of it were really big noises, really impressive. That's what that band was all about, making these really big noises." Yes, a thirty-nine piece band will have that effect when bolstered by the contributions from later day stars Art Pepper, Maynard Ferguson, Shorty Rogers, Shelly Manne and vocalist June Christy. Unfortunately, the Stan Kenton "Innovations In Modern Music" tour would prove to be a commercial, if not an artistic, failure. Soon, Kenton reverted back to his nineteen-piece orchestra, and Bud moved on as well.
Bud Shank Plays Music From Today’s Movies (1967) signed by Bud
Bud's education continued at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, the site of many jazz performances by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Chet Baker and recordings by Art Pepper, Ramsey Lewis, Elvin Jones and Charles Earland. The house band, The Lighthouse All-Stars, featured Bud on flute and alto saxophone, Bob Cooper on tenor saxophone and oboe, Howard Rumsey on bass, Conte Condoli on trumpet, Max Roach or Stan Levey on drums, and a revolving cast of characters and special guests. The jam sessions were legendary and The Lighthouse became the West Coast's answer to Birdland or the Village Vanguard in New York City: fans and performers flocked to hear the latest grooves and jams. Recently, The Lighthouse was showcased in the 2017 Oscar winning movie La La Land: Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone never looked so smashing and West Coast club cool!
Adept at most woodwinds, including flute, clarinet, tenor and alto saxophone, Bud Shank had wide and open ears. He helped introduce Brazilian-infected jazz in 1953 recordings with guitarist Laurindo Almeida, whom he had met in the Kenton orchestra, nearly a decade before Stan Getz exploded Bossa Nova with Charlie Byrd on their 1962 Jazz Samba album, and Stan's ubiquitous 1964 world wide hit "Girl From Ipanema." For his part, Bud was modest about his influence. Asked years later if Stan Getz had listened to his 1950s albums with Almeida, Bud replied, "I doubt it. I'm sure he didn't. Stan was Stan. He didn't listen to much of anyone else. What he did was perfect with Charlie Byrd. Charlie was the one who brought the music and songs back when he was down there on a State Department tour, and Stan adapted it." Ever wide ranging in his music tastes, Bud also played flute with Kimio Eto, a Japanese Koto master on Koto & Flute in 1960, and he performed on Improvisations, one of the initial recordings of Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar in 1961. Indeed, long before iTunes existed or had a World Music category, there was Bud Shank.
Windmills Of Your Mind (1969) signed by Bud
Then came a fallow period for jazz in general, and Bud became a studio musician for hire for the next fifteen years. He scored the surf movies Slippery When Wet and Barefoot Adventure, performed on the soundtracks for The Thomas Crown Affair, The Summer Of '42, The Sandpiper, and worked with artists as diverse as Sammy Davis Jr., Julie London, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, The Association, and The Mamas & The Papas. Yes, Bud's flute solos are heard in both "California Dreamin' " and "Windy", two enduring, quintessential 1960s pop hits! It was not all fun and games in the studio, as Bud explained, "It was heart attack-ville for a lot of people. Pressure. You sit by the phone and you never say no, because the first time you do, they’ll never call again. A very cut-throat business. It was a straight job. Spend all night in a recording studio for some stupid pop star, then get up at seven o’clock in the morning to play on a movie thing all day the next day. That’s the kind of industrial life it was...They wanted flute players or oboe and clarinet players. Almost all the work I did had to do with the fact that I could function as a classical flutist. The movies were a flute world."
Fortunately, Bud was able to break from the bondage of studios when he formed the L.A. Four in 1974 with fellow compadres, Ray Brown on bass, Laurindo Almeida on guitar, and Shelly Manne on drums. Eventually, Jeff Hamilton replaced Shelly on drums, and they would record ten albums during the seven prolific years they were together. All the while, Bud was conflicted over serving two masters: flute and alto saxophone. And he was ready for a decisive break. "I always felt flute was a strange jazz instrument anyway. It lacks guts compared to the sax, trumpet and trombone. There’s a reason everybody uses those basic instruments in jazz. You start bringing in toys, that’s exactly what they sound like, even though I was pretty good at it. But so what? Since I threw my flutes away in 1985, I’ve had a chance to really study composition, not formally but by listening and looking. My keyboard playing is still atrocious, but it’s about ten thousand percent better than it was before, and that’s helped a lot."
A Spoonful Of Jazz (1967) signed by Bud, John Sebastian
Regrettably, I only saw Bud Shank once, at Blues Alley in Washington, DC in 1996. For over twenty years, Bud had settled in Port Townsend, Washington and rarely ventured back east to tour. He had become the Music Director of the Centrum Jazz Workshop, and Diana Krall (Mrs. Elvis Costello!) is the most famous alumna of Bud's summer programs during his stewardship. Diana credits Bud with introducing her to Ray Brown (with whom she would later record and tour), Monty Alexander, John Clayton and many other jazz luminaries which ignited her career. Bud was performing at Blues Alley in support of his recently released Bud Shank Plays The Music Of Bill Evans, along with Mike Wofford on piano, Bob Magnusson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums - the very same band mates who would perform on Bud's last gig thirteen years later in San Diego.
As exected, the program was devoted to mostly Bill Evans compositions - "Waltz For Debby", the Miles Davis co-written "Blue In Green" from Miles' epochal Kind Of Blue, "Funkallero" and "My Bells." But there was nothing demonstrably cool about Bud's alto saxophone, it was hard, rough-hewn and searing, definitely not the "dry martini" approach favored by Paul Desmond and other cool jazz practitioners. After the show, Bud was happy to sign the vinyl. He smiled warmly when he saw the Lighthouse album with Chet Baker and Max Roach, "We had some great times playing there, that was a special club. I miss Chet." He laughed when he saw one of his first studio recordings with Maynard Ferguson in 1953, "Yes, I was young once!", he chortled. I thanked him again for his kindness and especially his music.
That Old Feeling (1988) signed by George Cables
Near the end of his life, Bud neatly observed, "The art form we know as jazz music, like many other things, is changing rapidly. We are losing jazz clubs and jazz radio stations, jazz record labels and true jazz festivals. Are there any real ones left to speak of? I am old enough to have survived a lot of dry spells and periods of change, but nothing like this. Many doomsayers are predicting the end of our art form as we know it. I am not among them. I have my answer, but changes as large as we're seeing now can frequently be very good—shaking out the dust, the dark clouds and the bullshitters. We can only hope."
Words, wisdom and hope from a fabulous musician, mentor and teacher.
Michelle (1966) signed by George Cables
Choice Bud Shank Cuts (per BKs request)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBcjN9BX8O
”Speak Low" In Good Company 2009 The last song Bud ever recorded!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhZULM69DIw
“California Dreamin'" The Mamas & The Papas Flute solo by Bud!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81nkBpn9PyM
“California Dreamin'" with Chet Baker 1966
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPYT9Vyu62A
“Windy" The Association Flute solo by Bud!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAwtbC-5PHo
“Hello Goodbye" Bud and Chet Baker swing The Beatles! 1968
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTCp5_RbhEs
"Sounds Of Silence" Bud and Chet swing Simon & Garfunkel! 1966
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrLrceFz7hA
"Over The Rainbow" Fascinating Rhythms 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XOmQoeMYvI
"Night And Day" Joao Donato and Bud bossa nova Cole Porter!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwzO7eL58mg
“Autumn Leaves" with Joe Pass, Clare Fischer 1962
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFSXnI83n-4
"I Will Wait For You" Bud Swings Michel Legrand!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1mbmvH9Mwk
"Watch What Happens" L.A. 4 swing Michel Legrand!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UuxFQQROME
"Nature Boy" Live with Bill Mays on piano 2004
California Concert (1985) signed by George Cables
This Bud’s For You (1989) signed by Al Foster