Frank Wess, Count Basie and Me…
It's important for anybody who wants to play jazz. I mean all that other stuff, you can forget it. If you can't tap your foot or dance to it, you may as well be driving a cab. That's what it's all about. When I do clinics, I have the individual instruments play by themselves and I want them to make me dance - make me want to dance, you know. I don't want them to depend on the rhythm section or somebody else for that swing.
Frank Wess
North, East, South and Wess (1956) signed by Frank, Kenny Burrell, Frank Foster, Benny Powell
When I heard Lester Young, that was that. Basie came through town for a dance at the Lincoln Colonnades; I couldn’t even sleep that first night. They were waving those hats, doo-wah, doo-wah. Prez and Herschel Evans were in the band, and Eddie Durham was playing guitar. The band was hot! Prez was staying at a three-story rooming house, and a friend of ours brought us there. Prez came out in his pajamas, with his horn in his arm and a little powder-box full of joints. He offered everybody a joint! We asked him how he made all those funny sounds, and he showed us.
Frank Wess on his idol Lester “Prez” Young
Chairman Of The Board (1959) signed by Frank, Harry Sweets Edison, Frank Foster, Al Grey, Benny Powell
I didn't meet Basie until I joined him in '53. He had been calling me for a couple of years and I told him I was busy doing something else and I wasn't going to quit school to go back on the road, because I had had enough of the road. So he just kept calling. And at about the end of my school year, he called again and said he thought he could get me more exposure than I had. That struck a chord in me. I said, ‘Maybe that's what I need.’ I told him I had to have a salary. He said, "What do you want?" I told him and he said, "Okay, you got it."
Frank Wess
The Greatest! Count Basie Plays, Joe Williams Sings Standards (1955) signed by Frank, Harry Sweets Edison, Frank Foster, Al Grey, Joe Williams
The band was hot. We were in one of the best bands Basie ever had. And that’s the band that made him rich, you know. The band was tight. I had forgotten actually, how good the band was until I was listening to those Mosaic recordings. And then it came back to me, how good that band was. It was like one person playing. Everybody was — it was a good band. Well Basie, he knew how to do that. You know he didn’t fault nobody. He just let it stay there until the cats got it together, and then when they got it together he knew what to do with it. But you know the fellows in the band did all of that. He didn’t know too many people, really, I mean musicians. When he’d want somebody he’d say “hey Magic, I need a trumpet player — I need a trombone player — I need a bass” I need this — I need that. And I’d tell him who to call. I got Eddie Jones in the band, Bill Hughes, Sonny Cohn, Eric Dixon, Thad Jones, I can’t think, oh Al Aarons. Yeah I got a whole lot of people in the band.
Frank Wess
From The Pen Of Benny Carter (1961) signed by Frank, Harry Sweets Edison, Frank Foster, Al Grey, Benny Powell
But he let us do what we wanted to do. He never rehearsed the band - Joe Newman, Frank Foster, Thad Jones, myself, and we were the ones who decided which arrangements we took. If somebody brought in an arrangement and we didn't like it, we would just say, "Pass it in." And Basie didn't say nothing, he just sat in the back listening. He let us do it, you know. And he wasn't someone who fired people every two minutes either, so all the cats stayed there long enough to know each other and get to be a band. You know, you can't have a good band in six months.
Frank Wess on his tenure with the Count Basie Orchestra
Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings (1955) signed by Frank, Harry Sweets Edison, Frank Foster, Al Grey, Joe Williams
I played for a while in the Two Franks band, with Frank Wess and Frank Foster, and that was wonderful. To hear the two of them play together, the fire they generated between them, was just marvelous. And then Frank would play one of those pretty ballads of his, with that sound, on alto-he would play ballads in that band on alto-and it was unreal. I loved to hear him play ballads. He could play a ballad that would make you cry.
Pianist Kenny Barron on Two Franks
Two For The Blues (1984) signed by Frank, Frank Foster, Kenny Barron, Rufus Reid
I hadn’t been with Basie long, and we were in Atlanta. Next door to the hotel was an upstairs club, and I was drinking, feeling good and acting crazy. Basie saw me, and when I went back in, one of the valets said, ‘Chief wants to see you.’ I knock on the door and come in; he’s sitting on the side of one bed and I sit across from him. He started talking about the transportation was eating him up, and all the humiliation he had to go through. He went through a whole lot of shit with me. I didn’t say nothin’. I didn’t nod my head one way or the other. I just looked at him. And he started through his story the second time, and I still didn’t say nothin’. He’s crying the blues; he was in debt. Then he started through his story the third time. I said, ‘You know what I think? I just want to know why you ever hired Jimmy Rushing, the way you can cry the blues.’ He was trying to talk me out of my salary. That’s the last time he ever did that. You had to understand Basie. We used to go to the track together; he loved to gamble and couldn’t gamble—not one lick. So everything was beautiful as long as you didn’t ask him for the money. Then you got stories for days. When we went to England the first time, he wouldn’t carry the music. He said, ‘I’m not gonna pay all of that overweight. You all don’t look at it no-way; you’re always looking out in the audience at some chick!’ So we went to England, and we did two weeks with no music. Blew them people’s minds! They invited us back to do a command performance the same year.”
Frank Wess
Basie Picks The Winners (1965) signed by Frank, Harry Sweets Edison, Frank Foster, Al Grey, Benny Powell
Best known for his eleven year stint in Count Basie's formidable orchestra, Frank Wess had a remarkable seventy-year career, as influential as it was lengthy. An arranger and composer, a skilled tenor and alto saxophonist, Frank was also the winner of six straight DownBeat Critics' Poll awards as best jazz flautist from 1959-1964. He was instrumental in helping the flute become an essential improvisatory instrument in jazz, especially within big bands. Indeed, Frank was a quintuple threat, and his talents were showcased on more than twenty albums as a leader, and hundreds more sessions as a side man, including thirty records with Count Basie, including seminal recordings with Basie and revered guests Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Joe Williams. Though Frank Wess was not as acclaimed as others, he was certainly an important and beloved jazz artist.
The Award Winner (1964) signed by Frank Wess
Jazz For Playboys (1957) signed by Frank, Kenny Burrell
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Frank's family moved to Sapulpa, Oklahoma (fifteen miles south west of Tulsa) where he studied classical music, "I was taught classical music. I belonged to the All State High School Orchestra. We used to go around the state at different times, playing." After a while, Frank found the music tiresome and uninteresting. Fortunately, that changed when his family moved to Washington, DC, "And then in '35, we moved to Washington. I had stopped (playing) for a year because I got tired of the music... But when I moved to Washington, it was a different scene. I was in high school and during lunch time, they used to have sessions down in the orchestra room. (Pianist) Billy Taylor was going to school there too and a lot of different fellas. We'd be jamming there at noon time and I said, 'This is what I want to do.' So I got my horn, had it fixed up and started playing again." Even then, his fulsome talents were apparent. His classmate Billy Taylor was considering switching from piano to saxophone until he heard Frank play. As Billy later confirmed, "He's the reason I don't play tenor saxophone. Even in his teens, he was really a remarkable player."
Steamin’ (1963) signed by Frank, Kenny Burrell
Upon graduation from Dunbar High School, Frank joined the Army, "My ROTC bandleader was recruiting eligible young professionals to go into the Army. They had a deal where you got a rating your first day and you didn't have to do any basic training. All you had to do was play music. We played all kinds of music - Viennese waltzes, marches - everything. I had a seventeen piece swing band. We were sent to Africa in 1942. When we got down there, the first gig we played was for the Americans, the Germans and the English. Can you believe that? They were all dancing together." As captivating as the music surely was, I’m sure it didn't hurt that the sensuous and beguiling singer Josephine Baker was entertaining the troops as vigorously as the band.
On My Way & Shoutin’ Again (1963) signed by Frank, Frank Foster, Harry Sweets Edison, Al Grey, Benny Powell
In 1944, Frank returned to Washington, DC and joined Billy Eckstine's band and toured with him for two years. Frank remembered, "I had known Billy Eckstine before the war, so when I went to the theater to see him. He said, 'Look, my tenor player is going into the Army, come on with me.' So I quit my job and went with him. That was a good band, Fats Navarro, Art Blakey, Gene Ammons..." Frank was rather understated about the significance of Eckstine's big band. Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon and Charlie Parker were among its glittering alumni, and in Gillespie's autobiography, To Bop Or Not To Bop, Dizzy decreed, "There was no band that sounded like Billy Eckstine's. Our attack was strong and we were playing bebop, the modern style. No other band like this existed in the world."
Eason’ It (1962) signed by Frank, Frank Foster, Harry Sweets Edison, Al Grey, Benny Powell
The road life was wearying though, so Frank enrolled in the Modern School of Music (an affiliate of Howard University) in Washington, DC in 1949 and pursued his study of the flute with Wayman Carver, an early mentor and a fervent believer in the merits of the flute in jazz improvisation. Carver had played flute and participated on early jazz recordings with Benny Carter and Chick Webb with their bands in the 1930s.
Hollywood Basie’s Way (1967) signed by Frank, Frank Foster, Harry Sweets Edison, Al Grey, Benny Powell
His studies complete, Frank graduated in 1953 and joined Count Basie and completely changed the construct of the flute in Basie's orchestra. Initially hired as a tenor saxophonist, Basie was unaware of his prodigious talents on the flute. During a rehearsal, Basie was startled to hear Frank's proficiency soloing on "Perdido" which they eventually recorded and released in 1954 and became a big hit. Frank’s talents were also showcased on “Cute,” another hit for Basie penned by arranger extraordinaire Neal Hefti, as well as the intro to Frank Sinatra’s swinging “Fly Me To The Moon.” Frank Wess became an integral part of the orchestra with his sax and flute and helped paved the way for other jazz flautists Herbie Mann, Yusuf Lateef, Paul Winter and so many others.
Basie’s Beatles Bag (1965) signed by Frank, Frank Foster, Harry Sweets Edison, Al Grey, Benny Powell
After leaving Basie in 1964, Frank settled in New York City and worked in television show bands - Dick Cavett and David Frost - and he even had a ten year run as a band member on what was then a fledging show, Saturday Night Live. He also worked in Broadway’s orchestra pits, performing every day and matinees on weekends, for hit shows Golden Boy with Sammy Davis Jr., Irene with Debbie Reynolds, and Sugar Babies with Mickey Rooney. All the while, Frank kept his chops sharp playing clubs and theaters with smaller combos.
More Hits Of The 50s And 60s (1963) signed by Frank, Frank Foster, Al Grey, Harry Sweets Edison, Benny Powell
I was lucky to see Frank Wess many times at Birdland, the Blue Note and the Village Vanguard, all esteemed jazz clubs in New York City. The most unusual venue was a restaurant on the West Side in a neighborhood affectionately called “Hell's Kitchen.“ Though gentrification had begun, the full onslaught of the Disney-fication of Times Square wasn't yet complete in the 1990s, and there were still some dicey parts in keeping with the environs‘ colorful moniker and reputation. One night while walking home to my fourth floor walk up on 45th Street, I passed by a restaurant that had "Frank Vignola and Frank Wess Appearing Tonight" scrawled on a chalkboard. I stopped dead in my tracks. The restaurant was as forgettable as its name and menu, but Frank Wess?! This I had to check out.
2 Franks Please (1956-1957 recordings, 1980 reissue) signed by Frank Wess and Frank Foster
I walked in off the street, the bar was to the right, mostly empty stools, save for a couple of hardy souls trying to blot out the last vestiges of a dissolute Sunday night. They didn't appear to be jazz aficionados. The stage, well there wasn't really a stage, the band had set up against the wall opposite the bar where some tables had been removed. There was no cover charge, no speakers, no amplifiers, and none were needed in such a small room, adding to the allure and intimacy. There were maybe fifteen or twenty patrons in varying and alternating degrees of attentiveness and distress. Meanwhile, both Franks were performing as though they were at Carnegie Hall. Frank Vignola deftly tossed off fleet runs on his guitar while Frank Wess blew gorgeous tenor saxophone fills just like his idol and one time mentor Lester Young. They played jazz standards, "My Funny Valentine," "The Very Thought Of You," Basie classics, "Jumpin' At The Woodside" and "Lil Darlin',” and original compositions. It was a compelling night of music and, best of all, they were engaged in a month long residency of Sunday nightperformances.
I Hear Ya Talkin’ (1959 recordings, 1984 release) signed by Frank, Curtis Fuller, Hank Jones
I came back the next three Sundays and saw some extraordinary music and, this time, I had lots of vinyl at the ready. Frank was impeccably dressed in his Sunday finest and he was happy to sign the records, especially the Basie albums with his closest friend Frank Foster, with whom he had toured as The Two Franks, and all the other great musicians. Frank didn’t say much, but he smiled warmly as he signed the records, he seemed to always let his horns do the talking. I was struck by how devoted he was to his craft. No matter the size of the venue, or the quality of the audience, Frank came to play. And he performed almost to the end in 2013 when he passed away at ninety-one years old.
Opus De Jazz (1955) signed by Frank, Hank Jones
Bags & Flutes (1957) signed by Frank, Kenny Burrell, Tommy Flanagan, Milt Jackson, Hank Jones
I was reminded of his selflessness and dedication when he visited pianist Hank Jones as Hank lay dying in 2011. Frank brought along his horn and played “The Very Thought Of You.” As Frank explained at a concert later that week before launching into a gorgeous, hushed version, “I’m going to play a song that was a favorite of Hank’s. We used to play it a lot together. In fact, I went to the hospice and played it for him on the day he died.” “The Very Thought Of You,” a fitting send off to a fellow superlative musician from an exceptional, self effacing musician and man. With Frank and Hank, it was always about the love and the music.
Flute Of The Loom back cover signed by Frank
Flute Of The Loom (1973)
Elvin! (1961) signed by Frank Wess, Frank Foster, Elvin Jones, Hank Jones
Time Capsule (1977) signed by Frank, George Coleman, Frank Foster, Elvin Jones, Kenny Barron
Choice Frank Wess Cuts (per BKs request)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhK8TV27sBo
”Cute” live with Count Basie’s Orchestra, Milan 1960
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEcqHA7dbwM&list=RDZEcqHA7dbwM&start_radio=1
”Fly Me To The Moon” Sinatra sings, Basie Swings, Wess flutes!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtsncSYCvAg
Steamin’ “ Jazz For Playboys 1957
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWRZVUAhroA
”Count One” After Hours 1957
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11HXDGQpHHg
”The Very Thought Of You” with Hank Jones 2006
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB4zQ6VxWlo
”Autumn Serenade” with Hank Jones 2003
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3U-H2D4_N8
”Opus De Blues” with Hank and Thad Jones 1959
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKZQU7-ivxM&list=RDEM99sjTJtAmfKFadQpygwXXQ&start_radio=1
”The Summer Knows” with Kenny Barron 2011
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrL-o3ui-8U
”I Hear Ya Talkin’ “ with Hank and Thad Jones 1959
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpW0NcdXBtE
”Lush Life” live with Billy Taylor 2006
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-dFLsEHDMc
”Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay” Flute Of The Loom 1973Recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama Frank Plays Otis!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FvGyUhhHz0
”Rainy Afternoon” with Tommy Flanagan 1980
Live At Buddy’s Place (1976) signed by Frank, Clark Terry
Brown’s Bag (1976) signed by Frank, Ernie Andrews, Ray Brown, Benny Green, Milt Jackson, Karriem Riggins