Music For Hi-Fi Bugs by Pete Rugolo Orchestra EmArcy (MG 36082) Publication date 1956

 

music for hi-fi bugs

CONDUCTED AND ARRANGED BY

PETK RUGOLO

SIDE ONE SIDE TWO

FOR HI-FI BUGS LATER TEAM

Pete Rugolo (Peters Music—ASCAP) 4:05 Pete Rugolo & Lloyd Lunham (Peters Music—ASCAP) 2:52

ONCE IN A WHILE OSCAR AND PETE’S BLUES

B. Green & M. Edwards (Miller Music Corp.—ASCAP) 3:40, Oscar Peterson & Pete Rugolo (Peters Music—ASCAP) 8:12

FAWNCY MEETING YOU DREAM OF YOU

Neal Hefti (Supreme Music Corp.—ASCAP) 4:40 Sy Oliver (Dorsey Bros.—ASCAP) 5:04

THESE FOOLISH THINGS SNOWFALL

Holt-Marvell-Link & Stackey (Bourne, Inc.—ASCAP) 4:44 ‘Claude Thornhill (Mutual Music Society, Inc.—ASCAP) 3:10

PERSONNEL

Pete Rugolo

David Klein

Ronald Langinger

Harry Klee

Gene Cipriano

Dave Pell

Chas. T. Gentry

Don Palladino

Maynard Ferguson

Walter P. Candoli

Ray S. Linn

Milton Bernhart

Frank Rosolino

Herbert Harper

George Roberts

John Cave

Vincent de Rosa

Clarence Karella

Shelley Manne

Lawrence Bunker

Jos. Mondragon

Howard Roberts

Russell Freeman

Marion Childers

A hi-fi bug is a male animal, usually male and frequently American, that believes

the music sounds sweeter because he owns a tweeter, and feels a little bit aloofer if

he also has a woofer.

The genus hi-fi anthropos, along with several lesser breeds without the law, is known

to exist comfortably on a diet of music like Pete Rugolo’s. It is fitting, therefore, that

Pete's first album for release on the EmArcy label is dedicated to this interesting species,

to whom fine sounds splendidly reproduced are the staff of life.

In case there may be a few bugs for whom the hi-fi title was an attraction while the

Rugolo name remained unfamiliar, let us recapitulate briefly a few facts that are, to

most jazz fans, part of Chapter One in any course on modern jazz. Born in San Piero,

Sicily in 1915, Pete came to the U.S. at the age of five, when his family settled in

Santa Rosa, Cal. The product of a family that included two sisters and one father in

music, Pete earned his MA at Mills College, where his teacher was Darius Milhaud. From

the late 1930s he was pianist in various dance bands around San Francisco and Oakland;

later, around 1940-41, he was a sideman with Jimmie Grier and Johnny Richards.

It was during his Army service, which lasted from Noy. 1942 until late 1945, that

Pete submitted a sample arrangement to Stan Kenton. After holding on to it for several

months without looking at it, Stan belatedly observed signs of latent talent in the

manuscript, made a transcription of the arrangement, and put Pete on staff as soon

as his civilian life was resumed. From then until 1949, when he left Kenton and became

a free-lance writer (he has been living in Los Angeles since 1950) Pete Rugolo was a

guiding force in the shaping of the Kenton band style during its peak era of popularity.

During his recent years as a Hollywood independent, Pete has assumed a variety

of responsibilities — everything from vocal backgrounds to jazz sessions to movie sound-

track work has come his way, the film assignments including Everything | Have is Yours,

Easy to Love, Latin Lovers, Glory Alley and The Strip. With this variegated background,

Pete was ideally equipped to live up to the instructions, or rather, the lack of them,

when Bob Shad told him that on his first EmArcy album he could do anything he liked,

with complete freedom as to choice of material, personnel and size of orchestra, and

style of the interpretations. ‘

Accordingly, the first side starts out with the title number, tailor-made by Pete for

the occasion, designed to show all the highs, lows, and middles of the frequency range

as well as to exhibit the finesse of the orchestra in both ensemble and solo capacities.

Note the use of tympani by Larry Bunker in the introduction, the alto sax work by

Ronny Lang, the muted trumpet by Pete Candoli, the piano work of Russ Freeman.

Once in A While stars in a grandioso style, horns playing the melody in octave unison

without rhythm accompaniment for the first eight measures; later on some use is made of

the fugue effect. The first trumpet passage is by Bob Palladino, the later muted solo

by Pete Candoli.

Fawncy Meeting You, a simple swinging opus original written by Neal Hefti for the

Count Basie orchestra, is one of the most unpretentiously booting sides of the session,

with Pete Candoli’s first chorus preceding the initial exposition of the theme. Dave Pell’s

tenor sax work, Russ Freeman's incisive piano and Shelley Manne’s drum breaks are

highlights.

These Foolish Things fixes the spotlight on Howard Roberts, the brilliant twenty-six-

year-old guitarist from Phoenix, Arizona, who, since settling in Los Angeles in 1950, has

been increasingly in demand for radio and TV work as well as for jazz record dates.

Roberts’ solo is part of a gradual buildup in the first chorus: the first eight bars are

unaccompanied, the rhythm creeps in during the next eight, part of the band enters

during the release and a rousing ensemble crashes in for the final eight. Dave Pell’s

tenor sax has some moody moments before another ensemble passage leads into a

conclusion similar to the introduction. This is certainly one of the most original treatments

to date of the twenty-year-old British-born stondard.

Later, Team is titled in the Rugolo vernacular, “team” being his way of addressing

the fellows in the band and “later” the abbreviation for “see you later.” It is a bright-

tempoed original with some fine Freeman piano work and a trombone passage that is

divided: up batweeniFrank-Rosclivos who has the fint half sand Heruledionen|

Oscar and Pete's Blues demonstrates the use of an unusual process in the never-ending

search for new material. Pete took an old Oscar Peterson record and adapted some of

the Canadian pianist’s blues improvisations, orchestrating one chorus for the reeds,

another for the trumpet section, a few bars for the trombones, etc. During more than

eight minutes of groovy, down-to-earth blues, there is also ample room for new im-

provisations by Larry Bunker on vibes, Rosolino on trombone and Don Fagerquist on

trumpet. The piccolo and flute passages throughout the album, by the way, are the work

of Harry Klee. The tuba toward the end of the blues is played by Clarence Karella.

Dream of You is an old Sy Oliver composition which Sy popularized with the late

Jimmie Lunceford’s orchestra (the original Lunceford recording was made in 1934).

Much of Pete's new arrangement is in the Lunceford tradition, though the modern

touches are added to give it an extra cachet, notably the introduction and coda in which

the melody is played in two keys, a tone apart, on piccolo and guitar. Solos are by

fate CARA GH oatinpabann any bunker on vibet

Snowfall, Claude Thornhill’s old theme number, is given a new Latin treatment, with

a bass trombone figure toward the beginning, some fine work by the reed section, and

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An interesting aspect of the session for hi-fi bugs is the system of recording. Only

one microphone was used — a counterrevolutionary procedure in these days of multiple

fillies, icpactids dad’ tecarding einmickes

‘Whether or not you are interested in the high fidelity aspects of this record, you can

be sure of one thing! Pete Rugolo’s music, and the performance given by his battery

of twenty-one talented west coast sidemen, would have been melodically, harmonically

and rhythmically no less valid had the scene of the session been an overstuffed tele-

phone booth. Fortunately it wasn’t, and even more fortunately, the sounds that emanated

from the horns on those three energetic days from July 9 through July 11, 1956 have

been preserved in the technical manner to which they are fully entitled —a manner

that will be exciting to jazz fans and hi-fi bugs alike.

the MERCURY SOlowe MAGA YING 3315 r.p.m. recording was made possible through the use_of

the MERCURY SOUND MARGIN CONTROL process—a technique whereby it has become possible

for Mercury to produce for the record-buying public a disc of truly superior quality, especially

with respect to brilliance, clarity, dynamic range and reliable stylus tracking. This record can

be played on any 33'% r.p.m. turntable.

/ « A PRODUCT OF MERCURY RECORD CORPORATION, CHICAGO. ILLINOIS