Song of the Florence nightingales

A man who leads the way leads his band. 

STIRRING UP a little support for his new CD at the Jazz Bakery, Bob Florence brought along the cream of the cats and they made the fur fly.

Florence was Julie Andrews' musical director in the straight world, and you see his credit as the source of the music on the better television shows. But his first love is jazz, and he has been faithful to it since the 1960s, when he used to record his imaginative writing for big band on World Pacific with guys like Bob Cooper, Pete Christleib, Herbie Harper, Bud Shank and Bill Perkins doing the playing.

Florence likes to let his players be the stars that they always turn out to be, and on this night in October, 1999, the guys getting to shine included Carl Saunders, a trumpeter who is not only cream but whipped cream. His vehicle, from the new album "Serendipity 1," was a Florence composition called "Now Playing." 

Cavorting atop the nut brown brasses like some sort of dive-bombing butterfly, Saunders was a dazzling acrobat on flugelhorn, and then, as the orchestra flexed its supple muscles, he switched to trumpet, on which he was sharper than a laser. It all added up to a typical Florence time period of great satisfaction.

AS AN INSTRUMENTALIST, Florence, an able and resourceful pianist, is no shrinking violet, and he gave himself space for a lean and moving solo on his own arrangement of "Emily," a staple of the band's voluminous book of charts by the leader and a few others.

The program highlighted a couple of pieces in honor of Duke Ellington, who's having his centennial year.

One was the Florence slant on "Happy Go Lucky Local," which came out like "Night Train," on which it is based (or vice versa, some say). Of course, Florence threw in a little rustic polyphony, as he so often does.

Here we had two of the world's greatest trumpet players, former Woody Herman star Ron Stout and studio mainstay George Graham (right), exchanging their elevated musings. Two more of the greatest trumpets on the planet, Wayne Bergeron (center), who you hear at the Bowl with John Mauceri's classical consort, and Steve Huffstetter (left), first call with a dozen local big bands, also got to blow at other points during the night. The ensemble passages, anchored by dual baritone saxophones being played by Bob Efford and Bob Carr, were clean, clear and powerful.

 

"A JOYFUL NOISE," another Ellington tribute that served as the finale, entered posterity at a gallop. It alluded to a few Ellington classics like "Main Stem" from time to time, but the big moment was when the six-man sax section played a passage written for six clarinets. It was as if Glenn Miller had suddenly joined the Famous Orchestra -- not as cool a move as one might wish for in an Ellington tribute.

But it was hard to cavil after hearing the great trombone solo by Bob McChesney, which was almost as fast as the supersonic product that had been coming out of the horns of Saunders and Huffstetter.

 

The Bob Florence Limited Edition in relatively full cry.
 
 

Tony Gieske has been reviewing jazz and occasionally playing it on his cornet since the 1950s, when he wrote the jazz column for the Washington Post. Now he works for the Hollywood Reporter, where his reviews and photographs, such as these, appear regularly.The photographs are available as prints or as scans by sending an e-mail to grnskl@earthlink.net. More jazz stuff can be seen by clicking on the links beneath.