Loren Schoenberg and His Jazz Orchestra: So Many Memories

Jazz polymath Loren Schoenberg reverses the hands of time on So Many Memories, unveiling sixteen never-before- recorded charts written by the renowned melodist Eddie Sauter in the late 1930s for the Red Norvo-Mildred Bailey Orchestra. To paint his canvas, Schoenberg enlisted students and recent graduates of New York's Juilliard School of Music to be his orchestra, with guest artist Warren Wolf sitting in on xylophone for Norvo, the jazz world's acknowledged master of that instrument before he moved later in his career to the vibraphone.

Much is made of the premise that Sauter's arrangement were well ahead of their time, that their melodic and harmonic construction anticipated by a decade or more the ways in which jazz charts would be written. That may be true, but even so, these arrangements, pleasing as they are, nevertheless represent musical criteria that held sway more than seventy years ago, and to be frank, Father Time has not treated them kindly. In other words, this isn't Woody Herman (whose orchestra was already "Blowin Up a Storm" in the mid-'40s), Count Basie or even the ultra-progressive Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, which was formed in the early '50s.

In spite of Schoenberg's and the orchestra's best efforts, these themes sound dated, no more than distantly related to more modern approaches to big-band arranging techniques soon to arise including those championed by Sauter himself. As Schoenberg has chosen to renew the scores note-for-note, there can be no doubt that they mirror Sauter's design and purpose. And while they may have been ahead of their time, they sound from this distance more archaic than inventive, more akin to customary swing than more modern blueprints.

It probably doesn't help that eleven of the sixteen numbers encompass vocals by Katie Korum. That's not meant to imply that she doesn't sing them well; her voice is clear and pleasant, and she interprets each song plainly and as written (even though she does fumble the lyrics to the Gershwin brothers' "Nice Work If You Can Get It"). However, the fact that there are so many vocals means that Sauter was writing the lion's share of numbers for Bailey, the singing star of the Norvo-Bailey Orchestra, and that has to alter an arranger's approach to the music.

The instrumentals, in order, are Duke Ellington's seldom-heard "Azure," Vincent Youmans' "I Know That You Know," Willard Robison's "Old Folks," Herb Magidson and Allie Wrubel's "Roses in December" and the upbeat finale, Turner Layton and Henry Creamer's "After You've Gone." It is here that one might expect to sample Sauter's more modern touch, but apart from Wolf's exemplary solos they sound as basically outmoded as the vocals. Other soloists play it by the book, tailoring their remarks to suit the occasion and leaning for the most part on the sort of swing-oriented licks that predated the Big Band and Bop eras of the '50s and onward.

Evaluating such an ambitious enterprise isn't easy. On the one hand, Schoenberg clearly had a specific goal in mind and believed in the spirit and substance of Sauter's arrangements. On the other, the album promises far more than it can deliver, as Sauter's charts, lauded as innovative for their day, seem much less so when assessed from a more modern perspective. And therein, as Shakespeare observed, lies the rub. While Sauter's charts may have been ahead of their time, they sound to ears steeped in contemporary jazz like relics from a bygone era, which indeed they are. So Many Memories is a pleasant slice of nostalgia for those who savor such an experience, but no more than that.

Comments