Bud Shank: Against the Tide - Portrait of a Jazz Legend

Not long ago, several record labels began issuing DVDs to complement their new CD releases, a move that was welcomed by listeners and reviewers alike, as it enabled them not only to hear a particular musician and group but to see them adapt and intertwine to reach their musical goals together. Saxophonist/flautist Bud Shank's new CD, Against the Tide: Portrait of a Jazz Legend, is packaged that way, but in this case it is the nearly two-hour-long DVD, not the CD, that is of greater import, as it chronicles Shank's long and successful career as a jazz musician within the framework of a recording session in which Shank's quartet lays down some of the tunes to be heard on the CD.

Between musical interludes, Shank covers all the bases from his childhood in Ohio and North Carolina, his earliest gigs on tenor, his move to the West Coast, his big band days with Charlie Barnet, Stan Kenton and others, his association with the Lighthouse All-Stars and early involvement with guitarist Laurindo Almeida and pianist Clare Fischer in the bossa nova craze of the 1950s, to his years as a studio musician and author of film scores, his ten-year association with the L.A. Four, his quarter-century as director of the Centrum Jazz Workshop in Port Townsend, WA, and his present status as an elder statesman who travels the world as a soloist with various groups large and small including symphony orchestras.

While it's never made clear what "tide" Shank has been swimming against (the only "hardship" he cites is an eye problem uncovered when he was in kindergarten), it does make a catchy title, and one must concede that Shank hasn't always trod the customary path, having spent a number of his most productive years playing mostly flute instead of alto, a departure that paid the bills but left him less than satisfied as a jazz artist. "I love the flute," he says, "but I still don't think it's a jazz instrument."

Nevertheless, Shank was a frequent poll-winner on flute, on which he recorded commercially successful albums with Almeida, Fischer and others including his lifelong friend from the Kenton orchestra, Bob Cooper, who, besides being one of the country's leading tenor saxophonists, doubled on oboe. The oboe/flute combination is seen and heard on the DVD in a clip from Bobby Troup's "Stars of Jazz" program from 1962, on which Coop and Shank play "The Nearness of You."

Shank notes that he actually started on tenor saxophone (on his first pro gig, with Ike Carpenter's orchestra, he was billed as "The Coleman Hawkins of the South"), and lists among his enduring influences tenors Zoot Sims, Al Cohn and Stan Getz. Shank's move from tenor to alto was serendipitous, almost accidental. After he joined Barnet's band in the late 1940s (with trumpeter Doc Severinsen and pianist Claude Williamson) as a tenor saxophonist, Shank recalls, the lead alto player "decided he wanted to go back to California. . . . So I said, 'Mr. Barnet, can I play lead alto with the band?' And he said, 'Sure, kid.'" Shank went out and bought a horn, he says, "and I've been an alto player ever since."

In December 1949, when Stan Kenton formed his Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra, Shank was hired to play lead alto and forged lasting bonds with Cooper, trumpeter Shorty Rogers, drummer Shelly Manne, trombonist Frank Rosolino and other members of the band. Bud says he was the first to play lead alto without the wide vibrato to which Kenton was accustomed. "One day," he says, "Stan said to me, 'Bud, do you think you could play a bit more like [George] Weidler and those other guys [who'd preceded him]?' I said, 'Sure, Stan,' and went right back to playing the way I always had. He never mentioned it again."

In 1953, Shank joined bassist Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars in Hermosa Beach, having been recommended for the gig by Cooper and Rosolino, and it was there that he and Coop started playing flute / oboe duets during warm-ups before the concerts. At the urging of others, they soon began playing onstage, which led to a series of albums showcasing Bud's flute and Coop's oboe. It was at this time that Shank, who'd always played mostly by ear, decided it was time to learn more about music theory, chord changes, improvisation and the like, and turned to Shorty Rogers for help. "That made a great difference in my playing," he says, "and was one reason why I got so many studio calls later on."

Shank's first album with Almeida "was [bassist] Harry Babasin's idea," he says. The album was a precursor of the bossa nova explosion of the late '50s, led by Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd. After forming his own quartet in '56 with Williamson, bassist Don Prell and drummer Chuck Flores, and recording albums for Pacific Jazz, Shank got a phone call from producer Bruce Brown who wanted him to write the score for a low- budget surfing film, Slippery When Wet.

Even though he'd never scored a film before, Shank agreed, and this led to a second film, Barefoot Adventure, on which he used the services of Cooper and trumpeter Carmell Jones while playing baritone sax himself. In 1962 he was asked to write the score for War Hunt, which introduced a young actor named Robert Redford. "That took a lot of time to write," he says. "I was in the big leagues now." Afterward, he says, he started re-thinking his career. "What do I do?" he asked himself. "I'm not a writer. I do sax, I do flute." He put his pen and paper away and wrote nothing more until 1971.

Instead, he went into the studios as a versatile reedman, working with a number of entertainers including Frank Sinatra, Clint Eastwood and Paul Newman. In the '70s he began a ten-year association with the popular L.A. Four, which he insists lowered no musical standards to earn its popularity. Other members of the group were Almeida, bassist Ray Brown and a number of drummers starting with Flores and including Manne and Jeff Hamilton. The name of the group, he says, was chosen so that no one would stand out as its "leader." Almeida, however, "had an ego," says Shank, "and to his dying day I believe he thought 'L.A. Four' meant 'Laurindo Almeida Quartet.'"

Shank goes on to discuss his move to Port Townsend, his leadership of its long-running Jazz Workshop and eventual "parting of the ways," East Coast vs. West Coast Jazz (being called a "West Coast" musician "irritates the hell out of me," he says), and the way writers and others have bought into such as simplistic comparison. Education, not geography, he says, is what defines one's approach to Jazz, noting that such "West Coast" players as Rogers and Getz were from New York, and reed player Jimmy Giuffre from Texas. "I don't play like I did in 1950," he says. "If I did, I should have quit a long time ago. I can still play that way, but I don't want to."

"I knew at age twelve I wanted to be a musician," Shank says. "I didn't know what kind of a musician... I've had an eclectic career...[and] I've enjoyed everything I've done, especially with the quartets...If I were stuck on a desert island, as long as I had a good pianist, bassist and drummer, I'd be a happy fellow."

Shank's comments, and those of others including Rumsey and writer / educator Herb Wong, are interspersed with music by his current quartet (Mike Wofford, piano; Bob Magnusson, bass; Joe LaBarbera, drums) as they work out such tunes as "El Wacko," "The Starduster," "Big Mo" and "Wildflower's Lullaby," all of which can be heard on the CD along with others featuring pianist Bill Mays ("Warm Valley"), the Bill Holman Band ("The Gift"), the Duke Ellington Orchestra with Shank on flute ("The Big Heist") and a pair by the Lighthouse All-Stars ("Lover Man," "The Nearness of You"). Production values are splendid, which helps make this a most attractive package, one that no fan of Bud Shank should be without. Easily recommended.

Tracks (CD): Wildflower's Lullaby; El Wacko; The Starduster; Big Mo; Warm Valley; The Gift; The Big Heist; Lover Man; The Nearness of You.

Personnel: Tracks 1-4: Bud Shank: alto saxophone; Mike Wofford: piano; Bob Magnusson: bass; Joe LaBarbera: drums. Track 5: Bud Shank: alto saxophone; Bill Mays: piano. Track 6: The Bill Holman Band with special guest Bud Shank: alto saxophone. Bill Holman: leader, composer, arranger; Roger Ingram, Carl Saunders, Pete DeSiena, Ron Stout, Bob Summers: trumpet; Lanny Morgan, Bruce Babad: alto saxophone; Ray Herrmann, Pete Christlieb: tenor saxophone; Bob Efford: baritone saxophone; John Grab, Bob Enevoldsen, Andy Martin: trombone; Craig Gosnell: bass trombone; Christian Jacob: piano; Joel Hamilton: bass; Kevin Kanner: drums. Track 7: The Duke Ellington Orchestra with special guest Bud Shank: flute. Tracks 8,9: The Lighthouse All-Stars: Bud Shank: alto saxophone, flute; Bob Cooper: tenor saxophone, oboe; Sonny Clark: piano; Howard Rumsey: bass; Stan Levey: drums.

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