Eddie Sauter (1914-81) was one of the most innovative arrangers to come up during the Swing era. In addition to his work for Artie Shaw and Tommy Dorsey, in the early 1940s he wrote some of the most radical arrangements that Benny Goodman ever recorded. His work for the Ray McKinley Orchestra later in the decade were also futuristic, he teamed up with Bill Finegan to co-lead the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra for much of the 1950s, and his arrangements for tenor-saxophonist Stan Getz in 1961 resulted in the classic Focus album. But before all of that, Sauter played mellophone and contributed arrangements to xylophonist Red Norvo’s octet in 1936 and Norvo’s big band of 1936-39 which featured singer Mildred Bailey.
Long a champion of Eddie Sauter, Loren Schoenberg (a notable educator, historian, producer, and bandleader) knew that Red Norvo had donated the arrangements of his orchestra to the library at Yale. He dug through the files and selected all of the Sauter charts that Norvo had not had the opportunity to record. Schoenberg next put together a big band comprised of 15 young players from Juilliard’s jazz program. Together with veteran Warren Wolf (normally a vibraphonist) on xylophone and singer Kate Kortum, they recorded 16 songs for So Many Memories.
While Wolf is a major vibist, he hints at Norvo (who did not switch to the vibes until 1943) on xylophone throughout many of these performances. Kate Kortum has a light voice that, while not a direct copy of Mildred Bailey’s distinctive tone, is featured in a similar straightforward style; she is on around half of these numbers.
But most impressive are the young instrumentalists for they sound very much like members of a big band from circa 1936-39. Under Schoenberg’s direction, they really have the idiom mastered not only in their ensemble work but in the many melodic solos. Other than the recording quality, these performances could easily pass for previously unknown studio dates from the mid-to-late 1930s.
Eddie Sauter’s arrangements from this early period are not as adventurous as his writing for Goodman but they always swing and are quietly inventive. Among the songs uplifted by his writing and the playing of the band are “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” an uptempo “I Know That You Know” that features many of the horn players,” “Music, Maestro, Please,” “I Can Dream, Can’t I,” “You Couldn’t Be Cuter,” “Roses In December,” and a surprisingly freewheeling version of “Exactly Like You.”
Suffice it to say that Loren Schoenberg’s unearthing and recording of these unheard Eddie Sauter arrangements is a success on all levels.
Loren Schoenberg and his Jazz Orchestra
featuring Kate Kortum & Warren Wolf
So Many Memories
Turtle Bay TBR 25003
www.turtlebayrecords.com
Since 1975 Scott Yanow has been a regular reviewer of albums in many jazz styles. He has written for many jazz and arts magazines, including JazzTimes, Jazziz, Down Beat, Cadence, CODA, and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, and was the jazz editor for Record Review. He has written an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He has authored 11 books on jazz, over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings.
Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the All Music Guide to Jazz. He continues to write for Downbeat, Jazziz, the Los Angeles Jazz Scene, the Jazz Rag, the New York City Jazz Record and other publications.
