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Home , Al Cohn, Chet Baker, Dave Bailey (musician), Dick Wetmore, Doug Raney, Flute In

Revenge of the Underground In 1956 , the most famous musician in the world at the time, introduced Jazz Composer his fans to the man who composed seven of the eight pieces on his new record. Baker wrote, “The Jack Chambers, University of Toronto originality and freshness of Zieff’s line and chordal structure is going to please a lot of people, I think— at least musicians and other serious listeners.” The composer he was referring to was Robert L. Zieff, though the credit line that appeared in parenthe- ses after the titles on the record identifi ed him less formally as “Bob Zieff.” We now know, with almost 50 years of hindsight, that Baker was both right and wrong. Baker was right in praising Zieff’s originality, and in his prediction that Zieff’s music would be admired by serious listeners, especially musicians. In fact, the very compositions that Baker was talk- ing about are so intricate in their harmonizations and so ingenious in their technical gimcrackery that they may represent, among literally hundreds of hours of recorded music by Chet Baker, his crowning achievement as a pure musician. (These recordings and all others are identifi ed at the end in Auspicious Recordings of the Compositions of Robert L. Zieff.) But Baker was wrong in suggesting that Zieff’s music would fi nd the larger audience that it deserved. Zieff’s audience may have swelled slightly when Baker’s recording came out, but be- cause of licensing complications the record became, ironically, one of the few Chet Baker records to go out of print in the . Immediately before and after the Baker recording, Zieff found brilliant musicians to record some of his composi- tions, but they came out on a small label, Bethle- hem, with limited distribution and no fanfare. And Baker’s subsequent recordings of Zieff’s composi- tions were either inconspicuous or infuriatingly withheld from release by their producers.

Composer by Vocation and Temperament

As a result, Zieff has spent most of his long career as the “Underground Jazz Composer,” the epithet he applied to himself in a 1987 letter to me. Zieff’s audience has been a cult, made up mainly of serious-minded musicians and scholarly listen- ers who take note of the composer credits in the fi ne print. In jazz, where improvising musicians are spontaneous composers, the bona fi des of a real composer, in the classical sense of someone stewing over voicing of diminished seventh chords on staff paper at a keyboard, are suspect. Although Zieff studied in his youth and sometimes

J. chambers / Sad Walk 130 played in his own ensembles, he is a com- audience — discriminating, egghead, discerning poser by vocation and temperament, nothing more — he deserves. It took almost 20 or less, an almost unheard-of specialty, especially years to ascend from a minor cult fi gure to the jazz in the era of small-band bop and , Zieff’s pinnacle. If it happens for Zieff, it will have taken formative years. more than twice that, but I’m sure he loves Monk Until fi ve or ten years ago, it might have enough to shrug it off. been risky to say that Zieff had any following at all, Robert L. Zieff was born in Lynn, Mas- even a cult one. For more than ten years from the sachusetts, about ten miles northeast of , in day in 1985 when I accidentally sat down beside 1927. His parents were Lithuanian refugees who Robert L. Zieff at a conference on passed down to their son a small feel for music in Oldham, Lancashire, I thought of Bob as my and a large dose of attitude. Zieff’s parents had own private link to his brilliant student Richard developed a dogged independent spirit by living Twardzik, who had died tragically young in 1955 through two revolts against Russian domination and whose story I was writing. It was only when I (1905, 1917) and one German occupation (1913-17). posted a piece about Twardzik on my website that Though their son was born after they emigrated, I became aware of the global spread of Twardzik’s at what must have seemed a safe distance from audience and, much more surprising to me, of foreign oppression, that dogged independence Zieff’s audience as well. The story of the website seemed to be part of young Robert’s DNA in- posting is too long to tell here, but it is detailed in heritance. Zieff’s father was orphaned in the 1905 the Afterward of my book Bouncin’ with Bartok: The revolt and grew up to become a circus acrobat, Incomplete Works of Richard Twardzik (Berkeley Hills and then a barber in Russian army camps. Zieff’s Books, 2004). Suffi ce it to say that I started getting mother was a circus fortune-teller and a hotel chef, e-mail on Twardzik from all over the world almost “between psychotic episodes,” he says. Psychosis daily, and fairly often on Zieff, who was inextrica- apparently ran in the family. One of his brothers bly linked to Twardzik as his mentor, role model was confi ned to the state mental asylum, and Zieff and friend. took his pupil and friend Twardzik to sit with him Who knew? In Holland, , Norway, a couple of times. England, Germany, Japan, Canada and at least A touch of madness was considered a boon twenty states of the United States there are music to creativity in the Beat Zeitgeist in which Zieff lovers with the temerity to google the names of grew up. Seymour Krim summed it up in “The Twardzik and Zieff from time to time in hopes that Insanity Bit” (1959), one of the Beat Generation some day someone might say something about testaments, when he proclaimed: “We live in what them on the internet. I thank my lucky stars that by for the imaginative person are truly hallucinated doing that they found me (including the surviving times, because there is more life on every side— members of Twardzik’s family). In the late 1990s, and the possibility of conceiving this surplus in a when Bob and I switched from infrequent air mail dizzying multitude of ways—than our inheritance to more frequent e-mail, Bob told me that a Dutch and equipment enables us to deal with.” These rock band recently released a CD with a track were the most frigid days of the Cold War, when called Who the Hell is Bob Zieff? “If you go to my burnt shadows in Hiroshima and mutant babies name on Google or some such search engines you made the news, and grey-fl annel vets in the newly- will see it,” he wrote. minted suburbs stockpiled backyard bomb-shelters with canned beans. Suburbanites stood on guard Who the hell is Bob Zieff? for Un-American Activities, defi ned as any hint of pinko-Commie-fellow traveling. Fluorinating the Only then did it dawn on me that Bob’s water system might fi ght tooth decay but a noisy music was not my private passion, far from it. minority argued that it was really a Bolshevik plot For years, I hoped my book on Twardzik, when I to make citizens into zombies. Alcohol and tobacco fi nally fi nished it, would move a few dozen fans consumption reached all-time highs, and in the arts to seek out the auspicious recordings of Zieff’s and entertainment communities hard drugs like compositions. Now I feel it is not too much to hope heroin were pedaled under Formica tabletops, sup- that the handful of his compositions that have been plied by a Mafi a pipeline that also targeted the so- auspiciously recorded (as in the discography at the called Black ghettoes. As a fringe art with African- end) will be compiled onto a recording that might American roots, jazz got a double dose. “The actual catch an international wave and bring Zieff the living through of much of what is called insanity is

J. chambers / Sad Walk 131 almost an emotional necessity for every truly feel- The post-War breed of jazzers was young ing, reacting, totally human person in America at and well-tutored and curious. The revolu- this time,” Krim declared. tion of the 1940s had hardened into formula, a solo- ists’ music featuring sixteenth-note runs with fl at- Growing Up Autonomous ted fi fths at breakneck tempos. Signs of unrest were audible in ’s nonet (“the birth of the There is no hint that Zieff’s singular vision cool”) and Lennie Tristano’s disciples in New York, was abetted by a touch of madness, but there can and ’s octet in San Francisco —pur- be no doubt that it was a direct result of a mule- veyors of ensemble music with spare solos, French like independence. If his Lithuanian legacy, replete horns and among the saxes and , with revolt and exile, was not enough, in young redolent of Ravel and Debussy as well as Lester Robert Zieff it was yoked to old-fashioned Yan- Young and . If Zieff was too far-out kee self-reliance. “Whoso would be a man, must for the core, he was recognized as a prized resource be a nonconformist,” Emerson declared (in “Self by the more adventurous. Richard Twardzik was -Reliance”). “Insist on yourself; never imitate,” he one of them. A piano prodigy, he became Zieff’s shouted. Whether he knows it or not, Bob Zieff is a student and then his friend and advocate. He latter-day transcendental Emersonian. was four years younger than Zieff but admired Zieff was 18 when the Second War ended, beyond his years in the Boston music community so that he barely missed active service. He enlisted for his unbridled inventiveness and imagination. for his obligatory military stint right out of high His precocious talent, anointed by school, and his timing proved propitious. Soon af- when he recruited him in his teens, refl ected well ter he returned to Lynn in mufti, American draftees on the reluctant performer Zieff. Another of Zieff’s were being shipped off to the Korean confl ict. Zieff advocates was Dick Wetmore, jazz chameleon with enrolled in the Faculty of Music at Boston Uni- professional skills on both trumpet and violin, and versity. He studied trumpet and composition, and equally at home playing Dixieland or bebop or cool graduated with a Bachelor of Music. Of his profes- jazz. One year younger than Zieff, Wetmore (b. sors, Zieff says, with typical diffi dence, “Not many 1928) organized two rehearsal bands in 1953 and were good.” Little wonder. Zieff’s credo, right from 1954 in hopes of winning recording contracts and the start, seems to have been to push the harmonic breaking out of Boston. One was a conventional edges of music and challenge conventional voicing quintet with trumpet, and rhythm trio, by clustering unfamiliar instruments. No one was and the other was an experimental quartet with teaching the lessons he wanted to learn. Wetmore on violin and Twardzik on piano, given Boston and environs, in the early , free rein, as well as bass and drums. Both bands was suddenly a hub of jazz activity, and Zieff used Zieff’s . Ironically the quintet found plenty of excitement outside the classroom. never got beyond the rehearsal room, but the quar- Berklee College of Music transmogrifi ed out of tet gave rise to two recordings. Those recordings Schillinger House, one of Boston’s small music might have been expected, in the normal course of schools, to become the very fi rst jazz conserva- events, to provide the foundation for Zieff’s career. tory, attracting hip young music students from The way it worked out, they stand as consumma- around the world. The New England Conserva- tions in the public works of the underground jazz tory ramped up its interest in improvisation and composer. advanced harmonies to keep up. Older Bostonians, Serge Chaloff and , were star soloists Getting Heard with the orchestras of and Stan Kenton, respectively, and both would come home Word spread that Zieff’s music for the ex- to stay in 1951. Two clubs regularly imported front- perimental quartet was “advanced,” and rehearsals line jazz talent, the Hi Hat and , the latter became public events in the Boston jazz communi- run by an ambitious young piano player named ty. Sometimes the rehearsals took place afternoons , who would literally invent the con- at the Stable, where Twardzik was working nightly cept of the jazz festival in nearby Newport, Rhode as intermission pianist. Other times they took place Island, in the middle of the decade. Another club, at 905 Boylston St., a rooming house around the the Stable, provided playing space for local talent. corner from Berklee that had been taken over by So did the Melody Lounge in Lynn, where Zieff jazz musicians. For two or three years, 905 Boylston hung out. was a legendary commune. One musician told me

J. chambers / Sad Walk 132 they had a saying: “When you get to the top fl oor LP. It quickly went out of print and was not reis- at 905,” he said, “you know you’re getting high.” sued for 45 years, when Japanese Toshiba brought There, under a potted tree growing upside-down it out in a kind of boutique virgin vinyl facsimile. from the ceiling and chickens pecking in the halls, Richard Twardzik, having missed the Wetmore and his sidemen worked through the chance to make the record, was full of regrets, but intricacies of the charts under Zieff’s watchful he found an ingenious way of making up for it. eye. His tunes “Rondette” and “Re-Search” move In fall 1955, he was invited to join Chet Baker’s briskly over the scales, and “Mid-Forte” and “Piece quartet for a tour of , and even though he Caprice” include rapid exercise-like sequences with was almost completely unknown outside Boston occasional octave leaps. The moods are brooding he had the temerity to tell Baker that if he joined he on “Sad Walk,” “Just Duo” and “Brash,” and win- expected the band to play something more chal- some with minor drags on “Rondette,” “Sad Walk” lenging than ballads and jazz standards. A few and “Pomp.” There is no sense in Zieff’s writing months earlier, Twardzik had tried to persuade for the ensemble that some instruments belong his previous bandleader, Serge Chaloff, to get hold in the foreground and others in the background. of some Zieff scores. Chaloff was interested, but Roles shift, and Zieff’s conception of the string bass the only pay-off for Zieff was an oblique compli- is especially fl exible, sometimes playing arco coun- ment. “Serge said I must be good because Dick terpoint with the horns and other times providing [Twardzik] didn’t seem to like anything,” Zieff told the basic walking rhythm. The ensemble writing is me, and then he laughed and said, “This surprised almost idealistically democratic. me because I found Dick much more open to things For all its technical complexity, the main than I was!” Twardzik found Baker more receptive. impression of the music is elegance. “Although He told Twardzik he would welcome some original some of the compositions do not fall into the music, and Twardzik turned immediately to Zieff familiar four, eight, twelve or sixteen-bar patterns, and got him to re-arrange the Wetmore charts for and none adhere to any commonly-used harmonic Baker. structure,” says the author of the liner note on the Zieff had moved to New York in 1955, Bethlehem recording that was eventually issued where he was living in the Alvin Hotel, a musi- under Wetmore’s name, “there is no noticeable cians’ hostel, and Twardzik got a chance to go over effect on the manner in which the quartet swings the revamped charts with him on his way to the together.” Each note seems to be placed exactly harbor where he would embark for Europe on the where it has to be, and the musicians obviously Ile de France. Thus it happened that Zieff’s compo- relish the parts Zieff has assigned to them in the sitions, at the very moment when they were fi nally four-part invention. being released by Bethlehem in the United States, By the time the musicians had mastered were being recorded anew by Twardzik with Baker the compositions to Zieff’s satisfaction, the group in . Baker’s quartet required two recording had changed. “The quartet we put together was sessions, but the wonder is that they took no longer a fabulous group,” Wetmore recalled with a sigh. given the gem-like perfection of the results. “It really was an excellent group, but those things Twardzik, of course, was well-versed in change as people move around.” The original the intricacies of Zieff’s compositions from having bassist, , accepted an offer to join the rehearsed all but one of them with Wetmore. (Zieff Duke Ellington orchestra, and Richard Twardzik wrote one new piece for Baker, “Mid-Forte,” and had to leave Boston to avoid heat from narcotics left out one of the pieces Wetmore recorded, “Shift- offi cers. Only the principals involved can possibly ful.”) His feeling for Zieff’s music was understand- know how much better the recording might have able from their close association, but Baker too been with the original band members, but the re- seemed to develop an instant rapport with Zieff, cording that resulted, substitutes and all, was (and and that was a bit surprising. Baker’s reputation is) wonderful enough. Musically, it deserved a bet- from the start was as a kind of primal lyricist, a ter fate, but the producers at Bethlehem were leery man who could spin melodies spontaneously and about its lack of commercial potential and held intuitively, with an instinct that communicated onto it for over a year before releasing it, almost feeling in a very direct way. He transfi xed a genera- apologetically, without publicity or promotion. To tion of young lovers playing romantic variations on be fair to the producers, it fi t no convenient niche. “My Funny Valentine,” “Let’s Get Lost,” and other There were only 35 minutes of music, eight tracks classic ballads of the American songbook. Amaz- of three to fi ve minutes each, just enough for a 10” ingly, he played Zieff’s complex charts with no less

J. chambers / Sad Walk 133 feeling, bringing warmth and charm to the har- Above Moderate” and “Medium Rock.” Once monic puzzles and intricate interplay. Twardzik again, Zieff appears to have been conciliatory, was a perfect foil for him, seeming to toy with the because he scored the tunes for standard jazz in- harmonies, playing trills and grace notes, aloof and strumentation rather than the brass and woodwind bemused. He played staccato to Baker’s legato, combination that he preferred. “Medium Rock” is a brains to his heart, thought to his feeling, and the notably cheerful melody, almost childlike in the A sum was greater than the disparate parts. Together, sections (as played by Baker; the bridge, played by they brought into being a small body of music that on , is strangely undis- carries fresh surprises with each careful listening. tinguished). The A sections are hummable, and The fi nest irony, when we compare Wetmore’s probably for that reason the tune was given pride recordings of Zieff’s compositions to Baker’s, is the of place as the last track on the record. “Slightly discovery that they are soul-mates. They are the Above Moderate” is, in fact, both below and above same in texture, feeling, mood and nuance. What I moderate. It opens as a modal dirge, with trumpet, did not realize until I put the chronology together saxophone and arco bass playing a thick chordal for Twardzik’s biography is that those similari- line for eight motionless bars, and then it breaks ties have nothing to do with imitation. Because of into a bright rhythm for the next eight bars, and re- the delay in the release of the Wetmore recording, peats the sequence (A A’ A A’). The contrast of the Twardzik never heard it. None of Baker’s musi- two moods is lost, however, because the players cians knew anything about Wetmore’s interpreta- improvise only on the uptempo (A’) sections. Zieff tions when they were reading the music in the surely intended the contrast to be sustained in the Paris studio. The musical integrity of the two re- solos as well as in the composed framework, and cordings, obviously, emanated from the composer. he may have had some mild regrets on hearing the So articulate were his charts, so individualistic and record and discovering that Baker and the others personal, that they came out the same at the hands had settled for an easier pattern. of two quartets an ocean apart, different in instru- Chet Baker and Crew, the record on which mentation, reputation, ambition and aspiration. these compositions appeared, was popular, but un- “That’s you, my friend, the common fortunately there was no mention of Zieff or any of bond,” I told Zieff years later. “That’s your soul.” the other composers (, and Bob Zieff is not one to take a compliment without Hal Leonard among them) in the notes. It came out a disclaimer. “I felt the soloing was worlds apart soon after Baker’s Paris recordings with Twardzik between the Wetmore and Baker dates,” he said, where Zieff did get a mention in the notes, but “Amazing how fi ne the interpretation is on the that record had made a relatively brief American Chet date.” And of course he was right. Baker’s appearance as Chet Baker in Europe, coupled on reading of Zieff is as good as jazz gets in many the second side with tracks by Baker with several ways. Wetmore’s is not that, but it is, at the very unknown European musicians. The actual record- least, beautifully crafted, and it stands as one of the ings were the legal property of a French label called most obscure great records in modern jazz. Barclay and were only leased by World Pacifi c, Baker’s American label. With such a short shelf life, Slightly Above Moderate it did little to raise Zieff’s profi le. Listeners to Chet Baker and Crew who noticed the composer credit, With this fl urry of activity in 1954-55, it “B. Zieff,” in the small print on two of the eight must have seemed that the 28-year-old composer tracks might momentarily have wondered who was on the verge of a breakthrough into the top he was, but there was no easy way of fi nding the ranks. Although he lost an advocate in Richard answer. Twardzik, who died tragically in his Paris hotel There could have been more. “There was a room 11 days after recording Zieff’s compositions, fi lm score in the works for me to write and for Chet he gained a more conspicuous one in Chet Baker. to be on the soundtrack,” Zieff says. Baker’s man- I suspect that Zieff would never have entrusted ager, Joe Napoli, approached Zieff about compos- his music to Baker if Twardzik had not been in ing the soundtrack for Compulsion, based on Meyer his band, but having proved his mettle Zieff had Levin’s best-selling novelization of a thrill-killing no qualms about giving him more. Baker’s fi rst by two college students with Übermensch delu- recording back in the United States in July 1956 sions. The fi lm adaptation was a great success in featured two new Zieff compositions, “Slightly 1959, with Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman as the murderers and Orson Welles as the attorney

J. chambers / Sad Walk 134 who saves them from hanging. It is easy to imagine use of the string bass as an ensemble voice, but Baker’s moody trumpet accompanying the action, sometimes in these recordings the bassist seems and Zieff’s providing subtle dramat- to drag the beat. When I questioned Zieff about ic contexts for it, but it was not to be. “Joe Napoli it, he told me that the bassist was supposed to be had no idea of my thinking of course,” Zieff says, , one of the great players of the day, “I don’t know that I would have done it if it had but Pettiford had a “big argument” with Ortega come through.” and was replaced. Zieff was “quite apprehensive” about his replacement, and “he messed up where Brass and Woodwinds he was in the pieces — as you may note if you focus on him a bit.” So he does, and so apparently Zieff may have already been worrying does the on “Four to Four,” with dense, about the artistic compromises he found himself swirling chords underneath and a complex inter- making for the sake of getting a hearing for his play of trumpet and saxophone on top. As the most music. Whether or not he was, Chet Baker and Crew ambitious , “Four to Four” is easy to marked an end-point for him— never again would admire, but the other two originals are more fully his music be recorded with conventional jazz in- realized examples of Zieff’s vision. “Cinderella’s strumentation. From here on, it would be brass and Curfew” is smart and witty, opening with 12 bleats woodwinds in uniquely Zieffi an confi gurations. from the ensemble (a surreal midnight curfew) and A few months after Baker recorded the two showcasing Ortega’s bright fl ute at the start and Zieff tunes in Hollywood, Anthony Ortega record- in the closing cadenza. “Patting” features a lyri- ed fi ve more in New York. Ortega was a versatile cal line that naturally gets a rise from Farmer and and technically gifted reed player who came to Ortega, and it also brings out the best in Wetmore prominence as a member of Lionel on violin. Hampton’s orchestra in 1953, an aggregation of ex- Zieff’s activities were attracting attention, citing musicians a generation younger than Hamp- but his music appears to have been somewhat ou- ton, including , , Quincy tré for the prevailing tastes. allot- Jones, , and Alan ted him a column inch in The New Yearbook of Jazz, Dawson. For his fi rst recording as a leader, for the forerunner of his jazz encyclopedias, but the entry, same Bethlehem label that Wetmore’s record was sparse as it was, gave space to a non sequitur— on (but featuring “Bethlehem’s new ‘Micro Cos- ZIEFF, Robert Lawrence, composer- mic Sound’,” according to the cover blurb) Ortega arranger; b. Lynn, Mass 6/4/27. Stud. cooked up the concept of presenting himself play- music at Boston U. Has written for Chet ing what he calls “straight-forward Jazz” on one Baker, and others, but favors side and “a form of chamber-music-styled Jazz” on the Viennese school of composers . . . . the other. The former had arrangements for a mid- In spite of the radical shift from swing to bebop in sized jazz band by , Woody Herman’s the 1940s, the jazz mainstream remained basically arranger. The fl ip side featured an “orchestra ar- diatonic in the 1950s, at least until the last years ranged and conducted by Robert Zieff,” made up of the decade, and its instrumentation drew on a of Ortega on , clarinet or fl ute with short list. In that setting, Bob Zieff’s music was violin (Dick Wetmore), trumpet (Art Farmer) and hard to peg. three low-pitched wind instruments (French horn, bass clarinet and bassoon), all relatively rare in With Friends Like Chet… jazz, and string bass. Zieff provided orchestral settings for two There was more to come. In December ballads, “I Can’t Get Started” and “Ghost of a 1957, Dick Bock, producer of Pacifi c Jazz, decided Chance,” and three original compositions, “Four to rent New York studio time for a recording that to Four,” “Cinderella’s Curfew” and “Patting.” would unite Gerry Mulligan with Chet Baker, the Essentially, he assigns melodies to the alto saxo- combination that had established his record label phone and trumpet, and he writes densely textured internationally in 1952. Bock then decided to turn chords for the ensemble as a kind of cushion for his trip into a two-week recording spree, and he the melody. In Ortega and Farmer, he is blessed asked both Mulligan and Baker to organize mu- with fl uid, light-toned lead voices who can supply sic and musicians that would amount to several swing even when the ensemble occasionally grows albums in various settings. Besides his record with static. One of Zieff’s special gifts as composer is his Baker (Reunion), Mulligan would make three

J. chambers / Sad Walk 135 others (Sing a Song of Mulligan with , The and joined in the mockery. Mulligan Song Book with four other saxophonists, After almost three hours of recording, and an album with the Vinnie Burke String Quartet “Bock and Mulligan went into a huddle— and the that included Dick Wetmore). Baker would make rest of the recording sessions were canceled,” Zieff two, one with minimal accompaniment, and says. They had about half an album (19 minutes). bass, playing standards, and the other, recorded on It would have been possible to release the music the same day, with what might be called maximal with less ambitious fare, using something akin to accompaniment, a small chamber orchestra orga- Ortega’s concept, but Bock chose simply to ignore nized, arranged and conducted by Bob Zieff. it. Baker said, “The album was never released... Zieff’s music for Baker, intentionally or because the record company decided that it just not, is more diffi cult than for Tony Ortega. It is also wasn’t commercial enough.” Finally in 1994, six more exquisitely played, with an ensemble blend years after Baker’s death, 37 years after the record- that seems fi nely calibrated, and lead voices (prin- ing session, the four tracks were tacked on at the cipally Baker’s trumpet, but also French horn, bass end of a 4-CD box called Chet Baker: The Pacifi c Jazz clarinet, or cello) that rise out of the blend in subtle, Years. (The album of ballads that Baker made that almost imperceptible shifts. Mood dominates, as same day was also held for 37 years, and half of in all Zieff’s music. “A Minor Benign” is propelled Mulligan’s album with the string quartet, recorded by a restless counterpoint that never quite becomes two days earlier, was released 38 years later in 1995 cheery. “X” is dominated by thick, funereal chords with the rest still to come.) Baker’s name until the mid-point, when Baker initiates a para- would have guaranteed reasonable sales at that doxical sequence of improvised solos over upbeat time, but Baker was too cool or too preoccupied to walking bass. “Twenties Late,” so structurally com- push for its release. plex that it surprises the listener at different points When Zieff played the studio dubs for on each listening, mixes moods and voices between , he said, “They should have put these sudden, seemingly unpredictable stops. “Ponder,” right out. It would have helped us all.” Zieff and musing and doleful for the most part, attains a Evans belonged to a coterie of writers and ar- contrasting romantic feel when Baker’s trumpet rangers, including , George Russell, J.J. ascends as the lead voice. Throughout, Baker dem- Johnson, , and a few others, who onstrates his feel for Zieff’s music. His bandmates, were looking to expand the harmonic resources of hand-picked by Zieff, negotiate the complexities of jazz, and Zieff’s music, as Evans said, would have the music deftly if not easily, but Baker does that added weight to the movement. But suppressing and still manages to light up the atmosphere with the music had the direst consequences for the two warmth and swing. principals. Effectively, it meant that Baker would The record company might have hoped be restricted to a musical diet of ballads and jazz that Zieff would provide lush settings for showcas- standards for the rest of his days. And, of course, it ing Baker’s trumpet, as his friend Gil Evans had played a key role in keeping Zieff underground. recently done for Miles Davis on Miles Ahead (May 1957, Columbia). Zieff obviously had no intention Randall’s Island of doing that. Baker is the principal voice, all right, but other voices get their say. (On “X,” Baker is Baker and Zieff were probably still hold- not heard at all for the fi rst minute and a half.) It is ing out hope for a timely release of the music when remarkable to think that these complex charts came Zieff made his most conspicuous performances as into being amidst what Zieff called “wild goings- an instrumentalist. In 1958, at Randall’s Island Jazz on.” Baker was worried about the music he was Festival, ’s annual festival before going to face. “Chet hadn’t played in a couple of the Newport Festival moved there, Baker’s regular days, as I recall,” Zieff says, “He was very late for piano player, , fell ill, and Baker the date. I think he was warming up somewhere prevailed on Zieff to sit in for him. The quartet else before coming to the date.” Gerry Mulligan played, among other things, Zieff’s “Slightly was in the booth, mocking the players and hoot- Above Moderate” and “Medium Rock” from Chet ing at the diffi culty of the charts. , a Baker and Crew. “This made quite a stir,” Zieff said, rising jazz star, showed up with his fl ute in hand at “Mingus and Mulligan came up at the end and Bock’s bidding. “I happily told him that there was were congratulating Chet—on the adventuresome- no fl ute,” Zieff says, but Mann too hung around ness among other things.” Around this time, Mulligan commissioned

J. chambers / Sad Walk 136 Zieff to write the book for a quintet he was hoping known, exposed him to pressures, constant and to form with , Dick Wetmore, bassist nagging, to make compromises and fall into line. and drummer . Zieff That was not Zieff’s way. He chose another route. wrote the music, but the band never worked. Zieff Soon after he arrived in LA, Gil Evans wrote asking also worked as personnel coordinator for Gil him to come back and form a band with him, but, Evans’s fi rst working band in New York, the 19- Zieff says, “I wasn’t for turning around after I got piece orchestra that would culminate its erratic myself away from New York so recently.” Over history by recording Out of the Cool (November- the years, he went where his teaching took him, December 1960, on Impulse!), one of the seminal and at one time or another he taught for the LA documents of post-bop jazz. Zieff was co-producer School District, UCLA, Shippensburg State Col- of the album, but unattributed, and beyond the lege, Temple, and several other institutions. He small circle of New York arrangers, unheralded. has received grants for composing and teaching In 1959, the year after Zieff played with from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Ford Baker at the Randall’s Island Festival, he was given Foundation, the National Endowment of the Hu- his own spot. He conducted a band made up of manities, the Arts Council, and other woodwinds, brass and string bass in several of his bodies. He has reviewed music books and lectured compositions. Band members included Phil Sunkel, on improvisation, jazz critics, radio and television, co-leader and trumpet, Tom Stewart, trumpet, jazz education, and other topics. And through it all, , , Harvey Phillips, he has composed music on his own terms. reeds, Dick Meldonian, alto and tenor , Gene Allen, bass clarinet, and Bill Takas, bass. Finding Bob Zieff Zieff’s activities now rated two column inches in the fi rst comprehensive edition of the Bob Zieff was hardly a recluse, but he (Feather 1960). The increased became hard to fi nd. After 1960, his entry in the length was mainly made up by the statement: Encyclopedia of Jazz was dropped in all supplements “First appearance as leader, playing all originals, at and revisions. When I accidentally sat down beside Randall’s Island Festival Aug. ‘59, using unusual him at the Duke Ellington Conference in England instrumentation with six woodwinds and brass.” It in 1985, he had just presented a lecture called An is impossible to know if the encyclopedist Leonard Ellington Quintych: Works Interrelated by Harmony Feather, himself a composer, cited the instruments and Architectonics, and the program identifi ed him out of admiration or befuddlement. With the ad- as Robert L. Zieff. dition of string bass as the one and only rhythm “Are you Bob Zieff?” I asked. He looked instrument, it is still, as it was then, a distinctly at me a while and then he said, “Of course,” as if Zieffi an deployment of resources. It is not hard to the question was stupid. But it had been almost 30 imagine, in the narrow jazz world of the time, the years since I had fi rst noticed the name in fi ne print pressures on Zieff to conform, and it is also not under fi ve titles on one side of a Chet Baker LP. I hard to imagine the composer’s resolve to compose had never seen his name in print since. music for the confi guration that actualized the In 1982, three years before I ran into Zieff, music he heard in his head. I asked Chet Baker about him between sets at a Toronto jazz club called Bourbon Street. One of Going Underground my questions was why Zieff was not better known when he was so obviously talented, and Baker, Not long after his debut at Randall’s behind hooded eyes, opined, “Some people don’t Island, Zieff moved to Los Angeles, where he much want to give real talent a break.” I am not worked on educational music programming for certain whether Zieff shares that sentiment but I the Pacifi ca network. His professional life became suspect he does. If so, that would make it the one focused on education and teaching. He had been thing Baker told me that night that was almost recognized as a gifted teacher from his earliest days true. in Boston, profoundly aware of structural secrets Chet Baker, notwithstanding his affec- and capable of communicating them. His New tion for Zieff’s music, was not much help to him York ambitions, for each momentary triumph, had over the years. At that same interview, Baker told been frustrated by recordings that went unheard, me that he met Zieff when Zieff was working at a work that went uncredited, and promises that went Los Angeles radio station. I later learned that they unfi lled. Staying the course, Zieff must have never met in , and their fi rst face-to-face

J. chambers / Sad Walk 137 meeting was in the New York recording studio at star pupil, Richard Twardzik, was dead at 24. the aborted chamber music session. Baker meant Zieff’s champion, Chet Baker, was dead at 58, with no harm by his misleading answer. By the time I a couple of decades of artistic skidding. As for in- asked him that question, he hardly knew where he tegrity, some of the toughest minds among Zieff’s was, let alone Zieff. But looking for Zieff in Califor- contemporaries wilted and ended up pandering to nia was, for me, a trip down the garden path. pop tastes, most notably Miles Davis but also Don- Baker carried Zieff’s compositions with ald Byrd, , and him whenever he could, but his life became peri- numerous others, even Gil Evans. Zieff escaped all patetic and zany, beset with drug convictions and that, and the price he paid, though he may not con- physical problems of various kinds. Keeping track sider it a price at all, was to live a quiet, scholarly of his book of arrangements was beyond him. I life, feeling the affection of his students and the asked Zieff what happened to his charts for the admiration of the part-timers —doctors, salesmen, chamber ensemble, and he said, with an audible and mostly (like him) teachers — he recruited to shrug, “Chet left the music in a taxi and could play his uncompromising music. never track them.” Because the charts had a way of To the larger world, he became inconspicu- slipping through Baker’s fi ngers, Zieff’s music got ous, not only dropping out of the spotlight but va- little play. There is a fi ne performance recording of cating the stage altogether. His glory years— and, “Brash” from Stuttgart immediately after the Paris again, there is no hint that Zieff thinks of them that recording, and several performances of “Sad Walk” way — came to his mind mainly when people like ranging from good to perfunctory (as indicated in me tracked him down, and then it was not always the list at the end). Zieff remembers Baker play- about him in the fi rst instance but about Richard ing “Ponder” in concerts, adapted apparently for Twardzik or about Chet Baker. The reason I might quartet, but so far no live performances of it have think of those as his glory years, and the reason I shown up, or of any others. “At one time there might think that his underground years exacted a were a number of my pieces that he did that were price, is because Bob Zieff had a singular vision, an never recorded,” Zieff says, “I would guess they apprehension of the way music can be, a unique were lost.” way of hearing harmonies, and he got to put those It was not always Baker’s fault. “Chet on display for about six years, from age 24 to 30, wrote me about recording some of the things of almost 50 years ago, and after that he nurtured the mine with strings in —in the 1970s I think,” vision/apprehension/harmonic sense out of the Zieff said, “But he was going to have an arranger public view, underground. over there do it. So I nixed it.” There can be no regrets. As I said, if he had Zieff shows no hard feelings and no re- done things differently he might have ended up morse. Baker didn’t cry about it. Why should Zieff? overdosed like Twardzik or defenestrated like Bak- er or — and this is surely Zieff’s worst nightmare The Best Revenge — fusioneering jazz and rock ‘n’ roll, or synthesiz- ing caterwauls for divas and divos. He did nothing Besides, going underground did not mean of the kind, and that, in the end, is the best revenge. that he was buried. Zieff has never stopped com- posing for long. Since leaving New York in his Swan on a Pond early thirties, his public life has been circumscribed and his audiences have been local. After several Who the hell is Bob Zieff? As he approach- moves, he settled in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home es his eighties, we can hazard an answer. He is an of Dickinson College. Since 1987, he has led the American composer and arranger, a Yankee origi- Bob Zieff Concert Jazz Band as opportunities arose. nal, who held out against the prevailing orthodox- The Zieff confi guration remains resolutely intact. ies and managed to get a little more than two hours Instrumentation is trumpet, , , so- of his music recorded under studio conditions by prano saxophone, alto saxophone, bass clarinet and top-rank professional musicians by the time he string bass. Best of all, his standards remain intact. was 30. After that, he protected his music from the He started the band because, he says, “I fi nally compromises and dilutions which he despised by found some good players in the area.” going underground and writing music for which In the grand scheme, Zieff survived with he himself has so far been the main audience. complete integrity. Neither survival nor integrity Whether above-ground or underground, his music were probabilities in Zieff’s jazz generation. Zieff’s is the same, a projection of a unique sensibility,

J. chambers / Sad Walk 138 characterized always by a tense interplay of har- and the Chet Baker Quartet. Stuttgart. 15 October monies that somehow resolve into fresh, surprising 1955. Chet Baker, trumpet; Richard Twardzik, piano; , bass; Peter Littman, drums. melody. Like a swan on a pond, his music is busy Brash (4:36) underneath and graceful on top. Other titles, not by Zieff, include Lars Gullin, baritone saxo- The world is fi nally ready, it seems, for Bob phone. Produced by Lars Westin. Lars Gullin, Vol. 2. Dragon Zieff. Bob Zieff has been ready for a long time, of DRCD 224 [Sweden 1992]. course, as long as the world would take him on his Chet Baker and Crew. Forum Theater, Los Angeles, CA. own terms. It is time to gather Zieff’s auspiciously 24, 25 or 31 July 1956. Chet Baker, trumpet; Phil Urso, tenor recorded works from their disparate sources and saxophone; Bobby Timmins, piano; Jimmy Bond, bass; Peter put them together where they belong. It is time to Littman, drums. Slightly Above Moderate (6:59) ransack Zieff’s private stockpile of compositions Medium Rock (5:30) and beg him to conduct them in concerts. It has Other titles not composed by Zieff. Chet Baker and Crew. Pacifi c taken a long time, but the music world, it seems, Jazz 81205 [1993]. Produced by . Pacifi c has fi nally caught up. Jazz 1224/ST 1004. Anthony Ortega. New York City, November 1956. References Art Farmer, trumpet; Jim Buffi ngton, French horn; Dick Hafer, bass clarinet; Bob Tricarico, bassoon; Dick Wetmore, violin; Chambers, Jack. 2004. Bouncin’ with Bartok: The Incomplete Abdul A. Malik, bass; Robert Zieff, composer (except as noted), Works of Richard Twardzik. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley arranger and conductor. Hills Books. Four to Four (3:12) Feather, Leonard. 1959. The New Yearbook of Jazz. London: I Can’t Get Started (2:53 V. Duke - I. Ger- Arthur Barker. shwin, arr. Zieff) Feather, Leonard. 1960. The New Edition of the Encyclopedia of Cinderella’s Curfew (5:55) Jazz. New York: Bonanza Books. Ghost of a Chance (3:30 Young - Washing- Krim, Seymour. 1959. “The Insanity Bit.” Exodus magazine. Re- ton - Crosby, arr. Zieff) printed in The Beats, ed. Seymour Krim. Greenwich, Patting (5:38) CO: Gold Medal Books, Fawcett Publications. 1960. Ortega, Jazz for Young Moderns. Bethlehem BCP-79. Reissue 60-77. Toshiba-EMI TOCJ-62073 (Japan 2000). Anthony Ortega, Earth Dance. Fresh Sound 325 (Spain 2001). Auspicious Recordings of the Compositions of Robert L. Zieff Chet Baker with Bob Zieff. New York City, 9 December 1957. Chet Baker, trumpet; Jimmy Buffi ngton, French Wetmore Plays Zieff. Coastal Studios, NYC. September or horn; Gene Allen, bass clarinet; Bob Tricarico, bassoon; Seymour October 1954. Dick Wetmore, violin; , piano; Bill Barab, cello; Ross Savakus (aka Saunders), bass; Bob Zieff, com- Nordstrom, bass; Jimmy Zitano, drums; Bob Zieff, composer, poser, arranger and conductor. arranger and conductor. Twenties Late (5:38) Piece Caprice (5:02) A Minor Benign (4:17) Just Duo (4:55) Ponder (4:34) Pomp (4:00) X (4:35) Sad Walk (5:19) First release on CD-4 of Chet Baker, The Pacifi c Jazz Years. 0777 Brash (3:53) (4-CD 1994). Re-Search (4:44) Shiftful (3:46) Chet Baker Sextet. , Italy, March 1977. Chet Baker, trum- Rondette (2:54) pet; Jacques Pelzer, soprano saxophone, fl ute; Gianni Basso, Dick Wetmore. Bethlehem BCP-1035 (10” LP, 1955); virgin vinyl tenor saxophone; Bruce Thomas, piano; Lucio Terzano, bass; facsimile Toshiba-EMI TOJJ-1035 (Japan 2000) Giancarlo Pillot, drums. Sad Walk (4:46) Chet Baker in Paris. Studio Pathé-Magellan, Paris. 11 October The Incredible Chet Baker Plays and Sings. Carosello CD 9022 (Italy, 1955. Chet Baker, trumpet; Richard Twardzik, piano; Jimmy n.d.) Bond, bass; Peter Littman, drums. Rondette (2:09) Chet Baker Trio. , , 4 October Mid-Forte (3:06) 1979. Chet Baker, trumpet; , guitar; Niels-Henning Sad Walk (4:13) Ørsted Pedersen, bass. Re-Search (4:57) Sad Walk (10:05) Just Duo (4:10) Chet Baker, Daybreak. SteepleChase SCCD 31142. Same personnel and place. 14 October 1955 Piece Caprice (5:08) Chet Baker Trio. Jazz Festival, Münster, West Germany, June Pomp (4:39) 1985. Baker, trumpet; Philipe Catherine, guitar; Jean Louis Brash (5:53) Rassinfosse, bass. Remaining title, “The Girl From Greenland,” composed by Sad Walk (9:58) Richard Twardzik, not Zieff. EmArcy 837 474-2 [France 1988]. Chet Baker, Strollin’. ENJA 5005 (Germany 1986) Originally Barclay Records [France]. First released in the United States on Chet Baker in Europe, World-Pacifi c 1218 [1956]. Chet Baker Quartet Featuring Dick Twardzik: Reissue of the

J. chambers / Sad Walk 139 1955 recordings of Bob Zieff’s Compositions. Universal Music S.A.S. CD Code 980 986 - 2, LC 00699 (France 2004). Chet Baker, trumpet; Dick Twardzik, piano; Jimmy Bond, bass; Peter Litt- man, drums Sad Walk (4:14) Just Do (4:12) Brash (5:56) Rondette (2:10) Piece Caprice (5:10) Mid-Forte (3:07) Re-Search (4:59) Pomp (4:41)

J. chambers / Sad Walk 140