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Will Rogers
Backgrounder: Shorty Rogers Courts the Count
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Whenever the jazz conversation turns to West Coast jazz, the talk usually centers on the laid-back style's major influences, including tenor saxophonist Lester Young, Woody Herman's Four Brothers band and Gerry Mulligan's quartet and arrangements. The biggest influence of all is rarely mentioned—Count Basie. Many of the leading West Coast arrangers of the day have cited Basie as a major inspiration, among them Bill Holman, Gerry Mulligan and Shorty Rogers. What they found particularly radical at the time was Basie's ...
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Shorty Rogers: Centennial
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Sunday, April 14, will mark the 100th anniversary of Shorty Rogers' birth. The trumpeter, flugelhornist, composer and arranger who was a founding father of West Coast jazz died in 1994 from melanoma at age 70. Today, in celebration of Rogers' contribution to jazz, I've assembled 10 of my favorite clips plus three bonus clips: Here's one of Rogers' first recorded arrangements, on Heads Up for Woody Herman's Woodchoppers combo performed in March 1946 at Carnegie Hall, featuring Sonny Berman (tp), ...
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Backgrounder: Shorty Rogers - Cool and Crazy
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
One of Shorty Rogers's finest albums was available originally in the new 10-inch LP format or as a pair of extended-play 45s. Cool and Crazy dates back 70 years to March and April of 1953 and features a slam-bang band at the dawn of West Coast jazz. Rogers' compositions and arrangements are glorious, with loads of contrapuntal lines, and his band delivers enormous instrumental punch. His orchestra included: Shorty Rogers, Conrad Gozzo, Maynard Ferguson, Tom Reeves and John Howell (tp); ...
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Backgrounder: Shorty Rogers Plays Richard Rodgers
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
With spring less than a week away, it's time for upbeat West Coast jazz. The last time I posted on Shorty Rogers was over the holidays when I highlighted The Swingin' Nutcracker. Before that, I featured Chances Are It Swings as a Backgrounder. This week, it's the finger-snapping Shorty Rogers Plays Richard Rodgers, as suggested by Todd Selbert. Recorded in the winter of 1957 between January and April, the album for RCA is a swinger loaded with top West Coast ...
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Guitarist Scott Emmerman Announces The Release Of 'Rogers Park'
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Scott Emmerman
Coming of age as a guitarist in the late '60s, one could not help but be influenced by the creativity and power of Jimi Hendrix but, when John McLaughlin released the first Mahavishnu album, a whole new bar was set for guitar technique as well as melodic and rhythmic sophistication. Similarly, for drummers, John Bonham, and Ginger Baker fans were turned on their ears by the playing of Billy Cobham and Tony Williams and this musical evolution was taking place ...
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Shorty Rogers: The Swingin' Nutcracker
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Once again, it's that time of year to announce my choice for induction into the JazzWax Vintage Holiday Album Hall of Fame. This year marks the Hall's 15th season and one of JazzWax's oldest traditions. This year, let's welcome Shorty Rogers's The Swingin' Nutcracker, a hip and happening original interpretation of Tchaikovsky's music. You'll find the album here. The Nutcracker Suite was first performed in 1892 as a two-act ballet choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. George Balanchine updated ...
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Interview: Marshall Rogers on Shorty
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Ninety-eight years ago today, Milton Rajonsky was born in Great Barrington, Mass. Milton would later become better known as Shorty Rogers, a trumpeter and flugelhornist and composer-arranger who was one of West Coast jazz's primary architects in the early 1950s. He also pioneered a brassy cool sound for TV shows and his music inspired Henry Mancini. Rogers died in 1994 at age 70. Among Rogers's milestone albums are Modern Sounds : Shorty Rogers And His Giants (1951), Cool & Crazy ...
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More Shorty Rogers, in 1953
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Yesterday, I received an enormous number of emails from readers who either love Shorty Rogers's Chances Are It Swings or were unfamiliar with the West Coast jazz masterpiece and were happy to be turned on to it. So today, I figured I'd provide clips of Shorty Rogers's transition into a leadership role for RCA in 1953. While Rogers had just three recording sessions as a leader that year, he played on and arranged for a sizable number of other musicians' ...
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Shorty Rogers: Chances Are It Swings
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Trumpeter and flugelhornist Shorty Rogers first recorded for RCA in 1952 as Boots Brown and His Blockbusters. The four sides for two RCA 45s were honking instrumentals with a strong backbeat. According to my 2013 interview with Dave Pell, who was on the '53 session, the Boots Brown dates were for movies. “But then RCA released them as singles," said Dave. “I don’t know why—maybe to make a double profit or to feed the pipeline for its new 45-rpm format. ...
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Shorty Rogers: Nutcracker
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
What do Shorty Rogers, Larry Clinton, Les Brown, Hal Mooney, Duke Ellington, Herbie Fields, the Nutty Squirrels and Gene Krupa have in common? All recorded a jazz interpretation of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. Of the bunch, Rogers's The Swingin' Nutcracker is probably the hippest and most fun to hear. It still jumps like caramel popcorn on a hot skillet. The album was recorded for RCA in three sessions—one with a sax quintet and two with a big band. Overture for Shorty, Nutty ...
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