The Big Recording Rolls Near

As I write this we are just 3 days away from the long-anticipated recording of the Original Recipe Big Band. Come Friday morning we’ll convene at 10 in the morning at Promiseland Studios on the other side of the Meuller development, formerly the Meuller Airport, where I used to fly in to visit Jan when I lived in Los Angeles (actually Costa Mesa). That was some 15 years ago, when I was just getting back into playing. Sister Noreen had set me up with ExpoTech, running their in-house printing operation. ExpoTech got eated by GES, and I went over to them. It was an easy job for me, and I managed to convonce the bosses to let me come in at 6 in the morning and quit at 2:30. Jimmy was in Japan, where Carol was serving her country. Cindy was at her house behind El Modena High School in Orange, working for the Post Office and getting interested in union matters.

Now all three (where are you Marcia?) are in Texas, and all of us will, I think, be at Promiseland for the session. Jimmy of course will be participating, and I guess Noreen will participate too as caterer, or crew services or whatever the nearby film industry calls it. Cindy will be in a comfortable chair out of the drafts from Promiseland’s mammoth air conditioner.

This will be a couple culminations for us all. For me it’s laying my dream on the line, of using a smaller big band for an all-purpose band, one that can do the swing, the funk and the Motown and the rock that all the kids seem to like so much. For too long we were held back by our demo, which is great but has no vocals. In 1980, when we recorded . . . OH SHIT, was it really 29 years ago? . . . you could just be a band, with a demo of instrumentals, without vocals. I’ll have several good vocals ready for Friday, and that should put an end to that as an objection.

For my sisters and my brother, it’s about my dad’s charts, which we’re playing three of. I’m fine with that too, although it was like turning a ship around in a narrow channel to change the emphasis of the session’s intent for me. Now I see that these goals are not at all contradictory. So I have three of my dad’s charts which I have prepared, or actually two, and one of his songs which I wrote a chart for myself.

I Remember Basie is an instrumental chart that’s been following me around all my life. Wherever I go there seem to be big bands which pull it out when they here I’ll be at a rehearsal. Not that that’s a bad thing, understand. It’s one of those charts that plays itself. A blues that starts with a Basie piano lick, followed by an easy blues line harmonized when it reappears a second time, then opens to a trumpet solo. The sax soli follows, and it’s one f those solis that is just so well written that you can’t shake it from your head, especially if, like me, you’ve played it a couple hundred times. A tenor chorus follows, and I added (we’ll try it and see how it goes) a 12 bar drum chorus because Jimmy plays in 12 bar phrases. The other soloists are Angelo Lembisis on piano, briefly, Pete Clagett on trumpet, and Tony Campise on tenor. It’s nice to have guys who bring as much to the table as these soloists. I know that I won’t have to tell Jimmy, Angelo, Pete or Tony–especially Tony–what to play because they know what to play better than anybody, yours truly included. I did this adaptation of my dad’s big band chart, which I think he wrote back when we were still living in Massachusetts, before he went to work for Westlake College in California. It was one of the four charts he used to start Dick Fenno Publications in our garage at 1261 S. Hickory St., in Santa Ana.


My dad’s other chart is based on another of the Dick Fenno Publications original four, No Spring This Year. It’s a ballad that opens with a brief trombone solo. Then the theme is stated by me on alto saxophone. I’ve had a long history of playing this one too. The trumpets play low register bridge, then a quick and loud key change. The theme is restated in the new key by the first trumpet, then the original key returns and with it the alto and the melody. Trombone duties will fall to Ulrican Williams, a very soulful Houston native, and Kevin Flatt will be playing lead trumpet, who’s from Richardson, up by Dallas. Trombone duties will fall to Ulrican Williams, a very soulful Houston native. Kevin Flatt will be playing lead trumpet, who’s from Richardson, up by Dallas. Both these musicians play in the ORB, the smaller, more generalized party band. I adapted this chart from my dad’s original score. It too seems to have been written in Massachusetts, probably for one of the territory bands my dad wrote for there.

The third of my dad’s charts is really my chart–an arrangement of my dad’s song–Pollyanna. It’s the only one that will have a vocal, by Jimmy. I had to write the chart from my dad’s lead sheet. The song is not without its sentimental aspects, because, as discussed elsewhere in this blog (look under the keyword Pollyanna). The song has a nice verse, and a long-form chorus. Tenor solo by Campise ought to be very special. Tony is a real emotional player, and he’s a guy who knows how to play off a back story.



We’ll be recording four short snippets of material which will prove our versatility.

They are Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’, based on the Ray Charles/Count Basie record–a soulful waltz.

Still Diggin’ on James Brown, a funk tune, I’m thinking Jimmy and Ulrican on vocals.

You’ll Never Find, one of those prehistoric disco records, with Jimmy on vocals.

Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You, a pop tune that I’d like Jimmy to split with Marilyn or Jennifer.

Then the real fun starts:

Marilyn Rucker will do two vocals:

Pick Yourself Up, based on an Ella Fitzgerald/Nelson Riddle collaboration, with brief solos for Campise and Clagett, and I’ve Heard That Song Before, based on the Harry James/Helen Forrest record.

Jimmy will be relieved at the drums by Butch Miles, the legendary long-term drummer with the Count Basie band, for All Right, OK, You Win, based on the record by Joe Williams and Count Basie.

So the charts are all set, and I’ll drag the book along, so we can solve any problems as they arise with other material. I just finished chart #226, so there’s plenty of emergency material to choose from.

Ask me how it went on Saturday.

Thanks to Mike Hersch, fellow California ex-pat, for all his help getting this thing off the ground.

Also to Angelo Lembisis on piano, Kris Afflerbaugh on bass, Ulrich Ellison on guitar, Tony Bray on tenor, Paul Baker on bari, and Michael Severino who's tuning the piano. I couldn't have done this without Jan.