Paul Desmond

[jumpnblues]

After all these years listening to and playing jazz I've just discovered Paul Desmond. How I missed Paul I don't know? And he was the author of one of the most popular jazz songs in musical history ("Take Five").

I like his minimalist, laid back approach, phrasing, and tone. There doesn't seem to be much written about Paul on this forum. Great player. He also picks great guitar players to record with (Ed Bickert and Jim Hall). I'm currently listening to Paul's "Easy Living" album. Somewhere on this forum someone recently commented about Paul. That's what prompted me to check Paul out. Thank you, whoever you are, for turning me onto Paul Desmond. I very much appreciate it.

[ccroft]

Well, this is a guitar forum so mostly he gets mentioned in connection to Hall & Bickert. There's this thread in case you didn't see it where he gets listed several times.

There was a thread years ago that I couldn't find just now. In it I recounted opening for him mid 70's when they did the Brubeck 25th Anniversary Reunion. Talk about laid back and un-assuming! He was beautiful. He played the whole gig nestled into the crook of Dave's grand piano, barely moving. When the audience applauded his solos, he'd take a step back, bow his head a bit and peer out over the top of his Buddy Hollies, glancing around as if to say "Who... me?" It was a concert hall and I was able to take it in from just off stage.

I learned a lot that day.

[jumpnblues]

Thank you for the heads up on that thread.

[Jimmy blue note]

There's a mosaic records box set of Jim Hall/Paul Desmond recordings. ALL the ones they did. And liner notes that are a veritable thesis on the music and life of Desmond. If you're really interested in his music (and well worth knowing) this would be a great way to learn.
The box set of Paul and Ed Bikert too. That will give you what you need to learn and grow from this oft overlooked branch of jazz history.

[pamosmusic]

I love Paul Desmond. I didn’t realize until college that there’s a contingent of jazz dorks who consider him “corny” but man … so good. Pick a line at a random from a solo you pick at random and it will probably be a perfect example of jazz vocabulary that you could study for a month.

Of course Jim Hall and Ed Bickert don’t hurt either.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Paul Desmond was the player who really made me fall in love with jazz. The first jazz album I ever bought was Brubeck at Newport 1958 - I was 12 when it was released. Back then, record stores had listening booths where you could hear records before buying them, and I used to take the bus uptown on Saturdays to Russ Miller Records almost every week to check out new arrivals. I’d been play guitar for about 4 years by then

I’d heard the classic Brubeck albums (like Jazz at the College of the Pacific) and was fascinated with Desmond’s style. But his soloing on Perdido absolutely knocked me out. I wanted to play the guitar like that, and I’m still trying. I got the same feeling the first time I heard Wes, Joe, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, and a few others. But Desmond was the first, and I still get the same thrill listening to Perdido.

Over the next year, I learned his parts on that album as well as an average 13 year old could. I knew every tune on that album, and still love playing them. But something happened to really cement my lifetime relationship with it. My college had a Charity Week concert every April. When I was a senior, it was a New York studio jazz band and they brought Joe Benjamin (the bass on Newport ‘58). The band leader’s daughter was a friend and classmate, and her father asked me to play the concert with them. That was one of the best times and memories of my life!

Along with Desmond’s elegant approach, Brubeck’s comping is also a master class for guitarists. Enjoy!

[darkwaters]

50 years ago (Gasp!) I bought my first Jazz album, Paul Desmond’s Skylark; for no particular reason, just on a whim. I thought the CTI cover looked neat!

I was in second year college and everyone there was listening to Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, etc. so I tried to avoid being heard listening to something so straight and corny. I failed and waited for the razzing to start, but instead, guys started asking me if they could borrow it !?! I eventually realized that the word had gone round the residence that it was the perfect seduction album!

[pamosmusic]

First jazz album I bought was Brubeck Jazz at Oberlin. Paul absolutely smokes How High the Moon on that record.

[lammie200]

There's a mosaic records box set of Jim Hall/Paul Desmond recordings. ALL the ones they did. And liner notes that are a veritable thesis on the music and life of Desmond. If you're really interested in his music (and well worth knowing) this would be a great way to learn.
The box set of Paul and Ed Bikert too. That will give you what you need to learn and grow from this oft overlooked branch of jazz history.

I have the Hall box set. It's great. Still looking for the Bickert box set.

[mr. beaumont]

Beautiful thing about Desmond is that his playing is this wonderful marriage of purely improvised melodic lines AND licks. So many young players think it has to be one or the other...

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Beautiful thing about Desmond is that his playing is this wonderful marriage of purely improvised melodic lines AND licks. So many young players think it has to be one or the other...

He also had an extensive knowledge of music and would throw quotes from all kinds of music into his improvisations. He once told an interviewer that he wanted to make the saxophone sound like a dry martini.

[digger]

One of my favourite musicians. I'm sure he's been mentioned here a lot. The Mosaic box set with Bickert is outstanding.

[RJVB]

How I missed Paul I don't know? And he was the author of one of the most popular jazz songs in musical history ("Take Five").

I think most people know that as Dave Brubeck's Take Five? I certainly did, until very recently. IIUC he just "commissioned it".
It's certainly an arch-earworm. First time I heard it was by I think a sax quartet at my old music school over 40 years ago, and I can still almost hear it and feel the "I wanna play that" reaction it created. Still haven't played it, I must add.

[rpjazzguitar]

I had, and wore out, a vinyl copy of Glad to Be Unhappy. Desmond and Hall. Still my favorite all time recording. I got the CD much later.

For quite some time I avoided transcribing Bossa Antigua (different album) because the melody went on for so long. At some point I found a chart and realized that the melody was 32 bars. But, his improvisation was so beautifully melodic I didn't realize he was soloing.

I got his autograph at the 1964 World's Fair. It was a double bill of the Brubeck Quartet and the Ellington big band. My mother threw it out, along with Yogi Berra's and Duke Ellington's. Didn't get to meet Duke (his staff brought the paper to him) but Yogi and Paul Desmond were pretty nice to an autograph seeking 14 year old kid.

[mr. beaumont]

He also had an extensive knowledge of music and would throw quotes from all kinds of music into his improvisations. He once told an interviewer that he wanted to make the saxophone sound like a dry martini.

For years after I first read that I aspired for my guitar to sound like Paul Desmond after 3 dry martinis.

Of course, Paul much preferred Dewars.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I got his autograph at the 1964 World's Fair. It was a double bill of the Brubeck Quartet and the Ellington big band. My mother threw it out, along with Yogi Berra's and Duke Ellington's.

Hmm - makes you want to run away from home! I had a complete Topps bubble gum card collection of the 1950 Phillies collected through my Little League years. For what I thought were obvious reasons, I left them home when I went to college. My mother tossed them when cleaning out my room.

But in a move more closely related to jazz guitar, my band when I was in high school worked for a hometown radio station. We were the live band at their record hops, opening for the stars of the day and backing the very few brave enough to sing their hits live. We got paid well, but the big perk was that we also got to pick whatever 45s we wanted from the bin the DJ / hosts brought with them. Most were the pop tunes of the day. But there were also a lot of promos that the station never played, and those were seriously great stuff (mostly jazz and blues). So we went home every week with a handful of great records. I amassed a big box full that had everything from Phil Upchurch's You Can't Sit Down to Ella's A Tisket A Tasket to Roy Eldridge and Anita O'Day's Let Me Off Uptown.

Fast forward to my first year of marriage. I came home from grad school one day, sat down to relax with a little music and a scotch, and my 45s are GONE!!! The box had been replaced by housewares. When I finally calmed down enough to communicate, I learned that my wife had thrown them out because "we needed the room - and you haven't listened to them since we met". I spent the next decade finding and replacing as many as I could.

We each learned a lesson from that experience. My records are still present, accounted for, and pristine 50 years later. All of my vinyl from my first album to recent buys (except for the lost 45s I couldn't readily replace) is pristine and ready for action. When I'm in the mood for an album, I pull it out and savor the experience. It goes on my '69 Thorens TD125 with SME 3009 (which I bought in '69) and I enjoy the whole experience, from liner notes to sipping whisky.

[RJVB]

"we needed the room - and you haven't listened to them since we met"

If ever there was (yet another) good reason not to marry in community of property ...!

[AndyV]

i have both the Bickert and Hall sets. Love Desmond's playing. It's so pure and melodic and, for a jazz musician of his era, very diatonic in concept. Very little bebop chromaticism ever shows up - just witty, beautiful melodic lines.

[Oscar67]

Love Paul Desmond! Every single note matters. Why play 40 notes when you can play 4 that are just right? Then there’s his phrasing, timing, dynamics… I could say the same of Ed Bickert so the pairing of those two giants is like hallowed ground to me. Definitely part of my gateway into jazz and definitely here to stay.

[Doug B]

There's a mosaic records box set of Jim Hall/Paul Desmond recordings. ALL the ones they did. And liner notes that are a veritable thesis on the music and life of Desmond. If you're really interested in his music (and well worth knowing) this would be a great way to learn.
The box set of Paul and Ed Bikert too. That will give you what you need to learn and grow from this oft overlooked branch of jazz history.

Jimmy, after reading your above post, I went to wikipedia and they mentioned that JH and PD were on recordings at Mosaic Records. I went to Mosaic and there was no listing. Is that boxed set out of print?
I have the boxed set with Paul and Ed Bickert, but not the JH set.

Thanks

Doug

[wintermoon]

Jimmy, after reading your above post, I went to wikipedia and they mentioned that JH and PD were on recordings at Mosaic Records. I went to Mosaic and there was no listing. Is that boxed set out of print?
I have the boxed set with Paul and Ed Bickert, but not the JH set.

Thanks

Doug

Long out of print but they pop up on ebay occasionally

[lammie200]

For years after I first read that I aspired for my guitar to sound like Paul Desmond after 3 dry martinis.

Of course, Paul much preferred Dewars.

I think with some horse to chase. Or the other way around?

[Doug B]

Long out of print but they pop up on ebay occasionally

Thanks, I'll look for it.

Doug

[L50EF15]

My Dad’s Dave Brubeck Quartet records were my first deliberate dive into jazz, Spring 1983, during my senior year of high school. The one that sank the hook was “Countdown: Time In Outer Space”.

Dad had a bunch of Brubeck and Desmond records, and other West Coast Jazz (Stan Kenton was another favorite of his that I got hooked on); he was stationed out near Seattle in the Army in the late 1950s. But one album he didn’t have was on of the late “Jazz Impressions” series: “Jazz Impressions of Japan”. I spotted it in the campus record store at the University of Maryland a couple of years later and bought it for him.

We listened to it and were blown away, again, by the whole band and especially by Desmond. There’s a track that is the best thing I’ve ever heard from an alto saxophone, and (for me) apex Paul Desmond: “The City Is Crying”:

After 40 years of playing, I still try to get that kind of phrasing. The never ending quest…

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

There’s a track that is the best thing I’ve ever heard from an alto saxophone

It’s wonderful for sure. And Desmond is one of my favorite musicians. But I don’t believe in the concept of “the best” anything. There are clusters of people and things that stand out as consistently magnificent. As guitarists, we can learn much from the styles of saxophonists. I love and have learned a lot from Desmond, Parker, Art Pepper, Cannonball, Sonny Stitt, Jackie McClean and many others.

If I had to pick my favorite sax solo of all time, it would be this Ira Schulman intro to a Charlie Parker tune called KC Blues from the Don Ellis album “Autumn”. It’s an interesting contrast to Desmond’s smoothness. But I hear many similarities in their musical thoughts and their expressions of them -