Documentary by Graham Carter
Studio: Jazzed Media JM 9003
Video: Anamorphic/enhanced for 16:9 widescreen, color
Audio: PCM stereo + separate CD of rare Shank recordings
Length: 115 minutes; CD: 60 minutes
Rating: *****
Jazzed Media’s owner, Graham Carter, has provided the jazz world and the American music scene with a major documentary release combined with a companion Jazz CD that shares the musical journey that multi-instrumentalist Bud Shank has undertaken for over 60 years. Like most all long lived musical geniuses, Shank’s journey has provided explorations of multiple musical idioms, both jazz, classical, and international with forays into be-bop, West Coast centered, Brazilian, and film scores just to name a few.
Shank has played alto, tenor, and baritone sax as well as the full gamut of flutes. He has composed film scores, played as a principal flute player for Frank Sinatra, and spent much of the 70s and 80s as part of the LA 4, composed of guitarist Laurindo Almeida, bassist Ray Brown, Shank, and during different periods, drummers, Chuck Flores, Shelly Manne, and Jeff Hamilton.
His career began in earnest in the late 40s playing tenor with the Charlie Barnet’s band in LA. When Charlie’s alto player left, Bud took over alto duties and stayed with Barnet for a few years before playing in jam sessions with Stan Kenton’s sidemen before Kenton reformed in late 1949 with his Innovations in Modern Music band, whose 35+ piece orchestra featured strings as well as full brass and reed sections with the cream of the crop of West Coast based stars including Shank, Shorty Rogers, and Art Pepper. An orchestra that size could only last so long and they scaled back in 1951 to a smaller band that featured the “no vibrato sax section” per Shank.
Other stops along the way for Bud included membership in the Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All Star group, an extended period recording for Pacific Jazz Records (memorialized in Shank’s Mosaic box set, now long out of print). During this period Bud shared leader duties with the great tenor and oboe player, Bob Cooper.
Much of the 1960s was spent in the studios both writing and playing for television, film, and backing vocalists. The entrée to this work was made possible by Shorty Rogers. Into the 70s Bud explored Brazilian rhythms with the LA 4.
Bud became restless playing the flute and missed his saxophone days so he soon cut out most of his flute playing and returned to first tenor and now mostly alto sax. He has not slowed down a lick and has made brilliant CDs both in duo setting with Bill Mays and also in sessions with Phil Woods and explored big band arranging and composing-all on the Jazzed Media label. Graham Carter has provided Bud with a new stage to continue his musical explorations with Shank still going strong well into his 80s.
What makes this DVD/CD release so special is the DVD section with Bud both playing with his quartet of Mike Wofford, Bob Magnusson, and Joe La Barbera, and also reminiscing between song snippets regarding his career, his influences (strong mention is made of Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, and Al Cohn- interestingly enough all tenor saxists), and opinions regarding improvisation, his tenure with the Centrum Jazz Festival in Port Townsend, and witty observations on his life as a jazz icon. He has strong opinions regarding being classified solely as a West Coast cool school musician, strongly stating that his playing and tone are no longer 1950s West Coast based and never were. Being pigeon holed as a specific stylist is the last impression one would get after viewing the DVD.
A huge bonus that Carter provides on the companion CD are the nine tracks – as the first four feature May 2007 studio numbers with Bud’s present quartet; as well as a duo with Bill Mays; and a big band track from Bill Holman’s big band live concert in May 2005 at the LA Jazz Institute’s Neophonic Impressions weekend. Shank is featured here on the big band track, “The Gift.”
The CD is closed with three rarities – two Lighthouse All Stars songs, April 1956-issued, Lover Man and The Nearness of You – and finally a rarity par excellence: The Big Heist, from 1963, with Bud on flute with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
Against the Tide is a major release documenting an artist whose musical career has crossed many jazz idioms and shows a still vital jazz icon who has followed his own path, taking both opportunities coming his way and still venturing into new territories when his muse came calling. This is a MUST purchase for any jazz fan, or for that matter anyone with an appreciation for a musical artist who has remained independent, free willed, and vibrant over the last sixty years.
-Jeff Krow
