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Jazz Articles about Shorty Rogers
Shorty Rogers And His Giants
by Steven Cerra
Shorty Rogers--trumpet, flugelhorn, arranger--was born on April 14, 1924 and died November 7, 1994. Born Milton Rajonsky, Shorty was the biggest name in West Coast jazz. He studied in New York before going into the army, and on his discharge worked first with Woody Herman's First and Second Herds, and from there in the Stan Kenton band of 1950-51. Besides his own trumpet playing, which was delivered in a bright, almost humorously optimistic yet contrarily low-key style, Rogers's ...
Continue ReadingShorty Rogers: Short Stops
by Richard J Salvucci
In the 1980s, trumpeter and Kenton alum Mike Vax put together a Supersax-type group called TRPTS. It released an album of harmonized trumpet classics, one of which was “Short Stop." There are lots of great tunes including “Night in Tunisia," “Trumpet Blues and Cantabile," and “Heckler's Hop." Oh yeah, one I never heard, Shorty Rogers' Short Stop. Really? How do you get to 35 years of age, listen to jazz almost daily, and not know about Shorty Rogers? I vaguely ...
Continue ReadingShorty Rogers: Four Classic Albums
by David Rickert
Shorty RogersFour Classic AlbumsAvid Group 2011 Trumpeter Shorty Rogers was one of the few jazz musicians to embrace the big band sound long after the commercial appeal for the genre was over, and despite the lack of commercial viability, he produced a series of terrific albums in the 1950s. Part of his success was due to the large pool of studio musicians on the West Coast who also happened to be ...
Continue ReadingShorty Rogers: Shorty Goes To Hollywood
by Nic Jones
This is volume three in an ongoing series devoted to the music of trumpeter Shorty Rogers, released by Giant Steps. The temptation to say that what's on this set is unlikely to win any new converts to his music is great, but while it might be apposite the case is a little more complicated than that. The quintet that Rogers led with reedman Jimmy Giuffre in the front line is arguably the best band he ever led, ...
Continue ReadingShorty Rogers: Bossa Nova/Jazz Waltz
by David Rickert
Like Stan Kenton, Shorty Rogers led a big band that featured some of the greatest names in West Coast jazz. No less than Shelley Manne, Jimmy Giuffre, and Bob Shank appeared on early classics like The Big Shorty Rogers Express and Portrait of Shorty. However, Rogers’ band always seemed like a lot more fun to be in than Kenton’s, since Rogers exhibited a goofy sense of experimentation and a knack for writing peppy horn charts that exhibited a great deal ...
Continue ReadingShorty Rogers and His Giants: Portrait of Shorty
by Jack Bowers
This Portrait of Shorty is an unfinished portrait, of course, but no less pleasing because of it. Rogers called his big band “The Giants,” which is entirely appropriate, as he himself was widely recognized as one of the giants of the so–called West Coast school of “cool Jazz” that was born in the early ’50s and flourished for the next decade and beyond. While Portrait, recorded in 1957, gives a pretty fair representation of Shorty’s skills as big–band composer / ...
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