HIGHLIGHTS IN THIS ISSUE: Jim Cullum talks about Bobby Hackett Woody Herman part of 1945 in review Obscure Kitty Kallen lyrics revealed FIRST-CLASS MAIL U.S. POSTAGE PAID Atlanta, GA Permit No. 2022 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER VOLUME 104______________________ BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER MAY-JUNE, 2006 JIM CULLUM TALKS professional musician. ABOUT BOBBY HACKETT His early career involved playing guitar and violin in hotel ballroom bands in Providence, Boston and Syra­ The Background cuse, but by 1933 he was play­ ing cornet with a trio at Jim Cullum, of RIVER- WALK Boston’s Crescent Club. By JAZZ public television fame 1936 he was specializing on was a friend of Bobby comet, and by the next year Hackett’s and as such was had moved to New York City. able to give us some valuable He was almost immediately insights into Hackett’s per­ in demand in the new York sonality and background. We Studios, but his bread-and- intersperse his comments with butter jobs were with society additional biographical in­ bands such as Lester Lanin formation about Hackett's and Meyer Davis. He worked varied career and remarkable briefly with Horace Heidt and achievements. led his own group at Nick’s and the Famous Door on 52nd The Story street. BBJ: Cornetist Bobby Even though Bobby Hackett Hackett was one of appeared often in studio ses­ those performers loved by sions arranged by jazz critic everyone, not only for his cor­ Leonard Feather and fre­ net virtuosity but for his gentle quently with Eddie Condon, demeanor. Over the years he played nearly every kind what was to become his most visible performance in of music including small group dixieland, Big Band those years was a salute to Bix Beiderbecke at Benny swing and romantic easy-listening music. It was Bobby Goodman’snowlegendary January 16th, 1938Camegie Hackett’s solo horn on the romantic string-filled al­ Hall concert. He also performed the comet solo on the bums by Jackie Gleason that brought him to the atten­ Andrews Sisters first record hit, BEI MIR BIST DU tion of the general public, but he was in demand long SHON, although not given label credit. What was it before that, nearly from the time he began his profes­ about the Hackett sound creating such a demand for his sional career. It all began in his native Providence, work in the New York Studios? Rhode Island. JC: His sound was j ust a very pretty, simple sound. In his early years Bobby Hackett displayed a proclivity One of the things that was so beautiful about it for music, playing guitar, banjo, ukulele and violin. was the perfect intonation and the vibrato....and the When he was twelve his brother-in-law gave him a degree of edge you get on the sound....that little iden­ comet. It was only two years later he quit school to be tifying characteristic. His tone is one of his greatest a full-time musician, playing guitar with a combo in a assets. I think he slowly developed that tone when he Providence Chinese restaurant. Thus, starting at age 14 first started out, before he got so into the Armstrong in 1929, Bobby Hackett began a life-time career as a influence, he was so into....he was seen as the new VOLUME 104 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER MAY-JUNE, 2006 Beiderbecke. arrangements....all the trumpet players got mad at me because they had to play it! BBJ: What kind of a man was Bobby Hackett per­ sonally? BBJ: Even though the Hackett comet is most-re­ called in the STRING OF PEARLS recording, JC: He was a very nice, soft-spoken man; he was he also has created memorable solos in such Miller very kind. He took life as it came, not what you recordings as RAINBOW RHAPSODY, could call a businessman at all. He was very gentle and DREAMSVILLE, OHIO, SERENADE IN BLUE and had a deep voice; sounded kinda’ like a gangster when RHAPSODY IN BLUE. you talked to him, but he was an easy goin’ guy. BBJ: Earlier, Louis Armstrong’s influence was men­ BBJ: In 1939 a booking agent talked Hackett into tioned. Explain that. forming his own Big Band with arrangements wrapped around Hackett’s horn. The idea was for the JC: He brought his own special magic to it. He Hackett Big Band to tour hotels and ballrooms on the didn’t just copy Armstrong, in fact he embel­ East Coast. There were positive reviews about the lished Armstrong. He played with more notes and more band, but somehow it never caught the imagination of fluidity than Armstrong, but the basic underlying con­ the public. Hackett disbanded after six months, thou­ cept had mostly come from Louis’ early playing. sands of dollars in debt. BBJ: How was Bobby Hackett able to play so many A legendary solo developed when Bobby Hackettjoined different kinds of music? the Glenn Miller orchestra in 1941. He played both comet and guitar for Glenn Miller and when Miller JC: His approach was all the same. He had a legato recorded Jerry Gray’s STRING OF PEARLS he asked approach. Everything was a good idea. Every­ Hackett to solo. That solo has become a permanent part thing came from the idea source, it was not technique of the arrangement. driven, and to me that’s where you separate the men from the boys. He had fabulous melodic ideas. He JC: He plays a twelve bar chorus of the blues. It’s executed them flawlessly, but what drove the whole become a standard item... .it goes with the tune. thing was the idea. It’s a beautiful and well-conceived solo. And it’s just an interesting and pretty solo that fits up and down the BBJ: A prime value of the Hackett tone and impro- chords of the thing, twelve bars. It’s only twelve bars visational abilities was his work with vocal­ long. ists. He was skilled at pointing up the lyrics by filling the spaces between phrases without interfering or over­ BBJ: In an interview with jazz announcer Willis powering the words. He worked with scores of singers Conover, Hackett himself gave details about but his most visible example of this kind of vocal that now classic STRING OF PEARLS solo. accompaniment is probably Frank Sinatra’s I’VE GOT A CRUSH ON YOU. BH: We were in California and Jerry Gray brought in an arrangement, and I was reading, ad- Even with Bobby Hackett in demand in the studios, libbing, from the guitar part. And I came to a place having had his own band, being spotlighted with where it said “comet solo” and there was no melody Goodman and featured with Miller, his greatest public line. I just went by the names of the chords and I saw acclaim came when Jackie Gleason decided to record the chord progression Jerry had in mind. I just lucked an album of romantic standards with Hackett’s trumpet up on a riff that seemed to fit so well that after we played and a background of lush strings. Gleason and Hackett it the first time Glenn Miller said, “Keep playing it that had known each other since 1942, when they met on the way, don’t change it.” It became a fairly well-known sound stage of the movie “Orchestra Wives.” Gleason solo through the years. It was printed in all the stock was portraying the bass player in the Miller band. 2 VOLUME 104 BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER MAY-JUNE, 2006 bad about anybody. Musician friends knew this, and one asked him what he thought of Adolf Hitler. His answer was something like, “Well, he was the best at what he did.” A final word from Jim Cullum indicates his devotion to his craft. JC: He was a very easy, gentle guy. I visited him at his house in Queens just after he made the great record of duets with B illy Butterfield. I remember the coffee table in his living room was entirely filled with comet mouthpieces standing on end. He had a retail business in New York City for a while called “Bobby Hackett’s Sound Stage” where he sold high- end stereo equipment. I went to visit him in his office; he had a really nice mahogany file cabinet. When he opened the drawer, I saw that the cabinet was filled with comets....there were no files in there! BBJ: Robert Lee Hackett died in 1976. Bad health caused in part by his lifelong problems with alcohol had its effect. He was 61. He was inducted into Hackett’s friend cornetist Jim Cullum the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997. JC: Gleason was, I guess, sort of a class B actor at Producer/writer Dave Riggs did research and this point. A young guy. He was so fascinated writing for a Bobby Hackett BBJ program from by Hackett. He was always into music and so he said which this combination interview-biography was to Hackett, “I’ve got an idea that I’d like to present you excerpted. with strings. Just comet with string background. I’m gonna’ work on it.” LETTERS TO THE EDITOR BB J: Nine years later Gleason borrowed eight thou­ Letters to BIG BAND JUMP or the BBJ NEWS­ sand dollars, rented a recording studio and LETTER may be sent to the address below, or recorded eight romantic standards in slow, ballad style. e-mailed to: [email protected]. When you When Capitol Records finally decided to put out the e-mail, please give your name and address.