Backgrounder: Dave Pell Octet 'Plays Rodgers & Hart'

I received so much email yesterday about the octet format that I figured I'd end the week with a Backgrounder by the Dave Pell Octet. The octet's arrangements in the 1950s were designed to give the eight musicians a West Coast big band sound—a miniaturized Les Brown Orchestra if you will. Prior to Dave Pell, there was the Dave Brubeck Octet in San Francisco in 1950. And that's it if you type “octet" into Tom Lord's Jazz Discography. There were others prior, I'm sure. They just didn't use the word octet in their band's name, and they didn't have this tight, contrapuntal West Coast sound that came to define the octet.

The Dave Pell Octet Plays Rodgers & Hart was recorded in Hollywood in June 1954 for Los Angeles's Trend Records. The eight musicians were Don Fagerquist (tp), Ray Sims (tb), Dave Pell (ts), Ronny` Lang (bar,fl,bass-cl), Donn Trenner (p, cel), Tony Rizzi (g), Rollie Bundock (b) and Bill Richmond (d)—with arrangements by Marty Paich, Wes Hensel and Shorty Rogers. Ronny Lang is this octet's surviving member.

Here are the album's songs, with the arrangers in parenthesis: Why Do You Suppose? (mp), Have You Met Miss Jones? (mp), You Are Too Beautiful (wh), Mountain Greenery (mp), A Ship Without a Sail (sr), The Blue Room (sr), I've Got Five Dollars (sr), Sing for Your Supper (sr), It Never Entered My Mind (mp), The Lady Is a Tramp (mp), Spring Is Here (wh) and Ten Cents a Dance (sr). [Photo above of the Dave Pell Octet recording this album in 1954]

Here's the complete Dave Pell Octet Plays Rodgers & Hart without ad interruptions (dig the beauty of Don Fagerquist's lyrical trumpet and Tony Rizzi's guitar)...