Herb Geller: 1962 Paris Sessions

In early 1958, alto saxophonist Herb Geller was having a hard year, a period that would only grow darker with catastrophe that fall. Up until then, he had it all. Starting in 1949, Herb had a meteoric career as a band and bop ensemble player. His orchestral work in the late 1940s and very early 1950s included recordings under the leadership of Earle Spencer, Billy May, Jerry Wald, Stan Kenton, Shorty Rogers and Claude Thornhill. Then he met Lorraine Walsh in 1951 and the couple married and moved to Los Angeles. By 1953, Lorraine Walsh had become Lorraine Geller, and the pair began recording together. Over the next four years the Gellers had an amazing jazz run on the West Coast, together and separately.

In 1957, Lorraine eased up and gave birth in early 1958 to their first child, Lisa. According to Herb, who talked about Lorraine's death for the first time when I interviewed him by phone in Germany in 2010, Lorraine had come down with asthma, and Lisa's birth was difficult. Skin didn't form on one of Lisa's legs at first and the Gellers' health insurance wouldn't cover the cost. They were saddled with a massive hospital bill they couldn't pay immediately. To make this financial strain even more daunting, Lorraine's doctor insisted she take a year off to recuperate.

But the couple needed cash to pay their bills. So Lorraine went to work with singer Kay Starr against her doctor's wishes. In October, while Herb was on tour with Benny Goodman, Lorraine collapsed at home in L.A. and died at age 28. She was found later under her overturned baby's crib in the couple's home in the Hollywood Hills. The cause, Herb told me, “was pulmonary edema, which is what happens when the lungs fill with fluid, leading to a shortness of breath. Add a terrible asthma attack on top of that and you have a disaster."

Herb tried to work through the nightmare that had upended his life and managed to power through. But by early 1962, he told me, he wanted to get away from the joyless workload treadmill and escape the demons that lingered in Los Angeles after Lorraine's death. The guilt was enormous. So in February of 1962, he moved to Europe. In March he was at the San Remo Jazz Festival in Italy and in Paris he recorded for French radio from May through July.

These 1962 recordings have now been released for the first time by Fresh Sound on an album entitled European Rebirth: Herb Geller, 1962 Paris Sessions. Herb was 38 at the time and sounded fresh and rejuvenated. Europe agreed with him, the audience appreciation as well as the soulful lifestyle offered rest, beauty and kindness helped revive him and ease his depression.

On the new album's 17 tracks, Herb is backed by a wide range of French jazz musicians. Most of all, we hear Herb playing fluidly and strong in his West Coast bebop vernacular. There are standards, originals and bop pieces, but most of all, we have Herb in his prime, at a period when all seemed lost and then possibilities and opportunities began to emerge abroad. It was the dawn of his second career.

So what happened to Lisa? From my interview with Herb:

JW: One last question that's been tugging at me: What happened to Lisa?

HG: My sister and her husband offered to take care of Lisa while I was gone and then decided to adopt her. Lisa thought I was her uncle until her 16th birthday.

JW: What does Lisa do now?

HG: Lisa and her husband are lawyers. They are updating the state law books where they live.

JW: Do you stay in touch with her?

HG: Lisa, her husband and their daughter will be coming to Hamburg for a week in June. The last time I saw her was four years ago. However we talk on the phone and write emails all the time. I'm looking forward to seeing them.

Herb Geller died in 2013. To read my five-part interview with Herb, go here for Part 1.