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Hal McKusick
Perfection: Hal McKusick: You're Everywhere (1958)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
By now, vocalists and musicians are surely tired of hearing me urge them to find great little-known songs to record and perform instead of tired old songbook standards. You don't stand out by following the crowd. A perfect example of a great little-known song is You're Everywhere, by Robert Nemiroff and Burt D'Lugoff, who were often credited as Robert Barron and Burt Long, their pseudonyms. (Burt was the brother of Art D'Lugoff, who owned New York's Village Gate and Top ...
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Backgrounder: Art Farmer and Hal McKusick, 1956-58
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Two of the prettiest and most sophisticated players in the 1950s were trumpeter Art Farmer and alto saxophonist Hal McKusick. They recorded often throughout the decade in big bands and ensembles but they only recorded 19 tracks in the quintet format—two albums in all. In the years before Hal died, in 2012, we spoke often by phone and saw each other in Sag Harbor, N.Y., where he lived. Hal intuitively understood the importance of what I was doing with JazzWax—documenting ...
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Jazz on TV: Don Elliott and Hal McKusick
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Yesterday, Jim Eigo sent along a terrific video that Evan Spring posted on the Jazz Research List. The video had been up at YouTube since 2014 and features an episode from a WCBS-TV series in New York called American Musical Theatre. The hour-long show aired from 1959 to 1965—a period considered by many to be the golden age of arts coverage on TV by the CBS network and individual CBS stations. Each week, AMT pulled back the curtain on a ...
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Five Solos by Hal McKusick
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Yesterday, I was thinking about the late Hal McKusick. So I thought I'd share five clips with you of Hal playing solos: Here's Hal on also saxophone playing Don't Worry About Me... Here's Hal on You're Everywhere... Here's Hal playing I'm Glad There Is You on clarinet... Here's Hal on alto saxophone playing Irresistible You... Here's Hal playing alto saxophone on Give 'Em Hal... Bonus: Here's Hal in the early 1960s on TV's I've Got a Secret. He's on our ...
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Six Videos of Hal McKusick
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Before he died in 2012 at 87, Hal McKusick was one of JazzWax's biggest fans and a dear friend. We spoke almost weekly about historical jazz events and recordings sessions Hal was on. Many of our conversations were captured in my JazzWax posts. Hal was an educator and always available, and he was loaded with stories and insights. Naturally, his passing was devastating. His encouragement was fantastic and his cool and phrasing were entertaining in and of itself. Hal was ...
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Hal McKusick: You're Everywhere
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Soon after I started this blog in 2007, I interviewed saxophonist Hal McKusick at length. Hal appeared on dozens of my favorite albums and his heart-touching tone was unmistakable. In the years that followed our initial conversation, we spoke every few weeks by phone. Hal was always generous with answers to my questions and hugely encouraging. He also provided me with a great education, steering me to incredible recordings and insights into the players. Even in 2007, Hal immediately understood ...
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Hal McKusick: 1924-2012
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Hal McKusick, an East Coast jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger whose seductively smooth sound, tireless work ethic and flawless technique were admired by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Art Farmer, Johnny Mandel and every other musician he worked with since the early 1940s, died on April 10 of complications from a fractured hip. He was 87. If all that you owned were the albums Hal recorded, you would have a sizable chunk of post-war jazz history. Though other jazz ...
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Hal McKusick in 1956
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Saxophonist Hal McKusick is on some of the finest New York recording sessions of the '50s. His reputation for reading music perfectly the first time, no matter how complex, spread quickly among fellow musicians and those in charge of assembling them for recordings. Hal could always be counted on to swing, lead a big-band reed section and deliver smooth solos. It also helped that Hal was a supremely confident player, a virtuoso on virtually every reed and woodwind instrument, and ...
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Hal McKusick: Cross Section-Saxes
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Hal McKusick was and remains a jazz musician's musician. Even in his earliest days in Boyd Raeburn's band in the mid-1940s, Hal's distinct sound on the alto saxophone was admired by bandmates Lucky Thompson, Oscar Pettiford and Dizzy Gillespie as well as contemporaries like Charlie Parker, Claude Thornhill and Quincy Jones. Hal's ability to navigate the most complex arrangements effortlessly while delivering a cool, urgent sound made him one of the most sought-after session musicians of the 1950s and beyond.
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Hal McKusick on George Handy
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Few big band arrangers were as nervy or as eccentric as George Handy. This was as true of Handy's music as it was of his personality. In the 1940s and 1950s, Handy's big-band writing fearlessly blended classical motifs and modal concepts with swing and 52nd Street bebop. More than 50 years later, the results remain as fresh and as exciting as when they were first penned and recorded. But Handy [pictured] had a wild streak, which saxophonist and bandmate Hal ...
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