Tom Talbert

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Thomas "Tom" Talbert (born August 4, 1924 in Crystal Bay Township , Minnesota , † July 2, 2005 in Los Angeles ) was an American jazz pianist , band leader , composer and arranger .

Live and act

Talbert was largely self-taught and had only rudimentary piano lessons from his grandmother. Influenced by the music of the swing bands of Chick Webb , Artie Shaw , Benny Goodman and Jimmie Lunceford , he began to write his own compositions at an early age. First he was arranger of a military band in Fort Ord (California); under his direction, the band played at war bond events across California. After his discharge from the US Army, he began arranging for the band leader Johnny Richards . This finally convinced Talbert to start his own band.

In the second half of the 1940s Talbert worked in Los Angeles with Boyd Raeburn and with his own bands in which musicians such as Lucky Thompson , Dodo Marmarosa , Hal McKusick , Al Killian , Art Pepper and Claude Williamson played. A first session took place in the summer of 1946 in the Radio Recorders Studio for the small Paramount label, run by Richards' brother Jack Cascales. In 1947 he went on tour with Anita O'Day . His recordings also included a cover version of the Harold Arlen standard Over the Rainbow . In the early 1950s he lived in New York City , where he worked as arranger for Claude Thornhill , Marian McPartland , Kai Winding , Don Elliott , Johnny Smith and Oscar Pettiford . His compositions, influenced by both classical and jazz, included Titoro , which he wrote for Billy Taylor , and Wednesday's Child ( Atlantic Records , 1956), an album of songs he composed for singer Patty McGovern .

The next album Bix Duke Fats , recorded in 1956 with Pettiford, Herb Geller , Joe Wilder , Eddie Bert , Barry Galbraith and Aaron Sachs , consisted of original compositions and Talbert's arrangements of the titles Bix Beiderbeckes ( Candlelights ), Duke Ellingtons ( Prelude to a Kiss ) and Fats Waller ( clothesline Ballet ), stylistically close later resulting in the two-year production new bottle old wine of Gil Evans . Following the example of his album Miles Ahead (1957), he placed the trumpet Joe Wilders above the orchestra. Talbert was unable to realize other projects, such as a musical and two film soundtracks.

In 1960, Talbert left New York frustrated by his lack of success and moved to his parents' Minnesota to work in his father's business, which ran barges on the Mississippi. He also had a band in Minneapolis , tried his hand at ranching in Wisconsin for a while before moving back to California in 1975. Further recordings were made in 1977, the Louisiana Suite ; he also wrote music for television shows and the Serpico TV series . At the beginning of the 1980s he managed to get by as a cocktail pianist for a while before returning to work as an arranger and composer as well as a music teacher; with his wife Betty he put together a sextet and recorded a number of albums such as Duke's Domain , with arrangements of compositions by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn . His arrangements in the album The Warm Cafe (1994) were based on Gerry Mulligan and Henry Mancini . In the 1990s he set up a foundation to support young composers and arrangers, including band leader Maria Schneider in 1996 .

Appreciation

Tom Talbert has been compared to Stan Getz and Gil Evans for his innovative compositions and arrangements ; Judging by his talent and the quality of his work, he could be as famous as Evans, Bill Holman , Thad Jones and Bob Brookmeyer , judged Doug Ramsey . He is considered an early representative of West Coast Jazz . A contemporary critic wrote of Talbert in 1957:

“ A jazz classicist, schooled in the past, with a yen for the future, Tom Talbert is a romantic who shuns the cliché. He is a technician who trusts the heart. Even when he's being clever his notes are warm and tender. "

Marc Myers comments on the tragedy of his career that Tom Talbert "unfortunately was in the wrong place at the wrong time" because he moved from the West Coast to New York just as California was becoming the cradle of new linear music. While he was able to take advantage of a number of opportunities in New York, he was confronted with the emergence of arrangers whose music turned into formulaic pop music.

Discographic notes

  • Tom Talbert Jazz Orchestra 1946-1949 (Paramount / Sea Breeze, 1995), with Frank Beach, Babe Russin , Dodo Marmarosa, Lucky Thompson, Art Pepper, Jack Montrose , Claude Williamson
  • Patty McGovern / Thomas Talbert - Wednesday's Child (Atlantic, 1956)
  • Tom Talbert: Bix, Duke, Fats (Atlantic 1956), with Nick Travis , Joe Wilder, Eddie Bert, Jimmy Cleveland , Aaron Sachs, George Wallington, Oscar Pettiford, Osie Johnson .
  • Duke's Domain (Sea Breeze, 1993)
  • The Warm Cafe (1994)
  • This Is Living! (1997), with Joe Wilder, Dick Oatts , Howard Alden , Loren Schoenberg , Glenn Drewes , Scott Whitfield , Eddie Bert, Aaron Sachs
  • To a Lady (Essential, 2001)

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Portrait at NPR
  2. ^ Jazzdisco.org: Atlantic Records / Discography 1956
  3. ↑ a b Marc Myers: Tom Talbert - Bix, Duke, Fats (2009)
  4. ↑ See the record review by Owen Cordle (December 1994) in JazzTimes
  5. ↑ a b Portrait page on Tom Talbert by Doug Ramsey
  6. ↑ Portrait at Solid! ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.parabrisas.com
  7. ↑ The CD edition also contains the Pettiford LP Basically Duke
personal data
SURNAME Talbert, Tom
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Talbert, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz pianist, band leader, composer and arranger
DATE OF BIRTH 4th August 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Crystal Bay Township , Minnesota
DATE OF DEATH July 2, 2005
Place of death los Angeles