Shorty Rogers As Interviewed By Steve Voce

Steven A. Cerra / Steve Voce / Jazz Journal
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
““I was really very lucky, because I left school at 17 knowing that I had a job waiting for me. I had been working with a kids' band at a high school dance. We did them often, made about three dollars a night. This night we were told that we were having a special guest and sure enough Will Bradley arrived. He asked if some of the guys could play with him, and we had a jam session. I was chosen on trumpet, and Will must have liked what he heard, because later he told me that he was reorganising the band and asked for my phone number. 

At that time I listened a lot to Bobby Hackett and Roy Eldridge. Dizzy Gillespie was just beginning to emerge with some revolutionary things. Anyway, the Will Bradley-Ray McKinley partnership had just broken up when I joined the band, and Shelly Manne came in to replace Ray. That was the first time I met him. Shelly used to sing some of Ray's vocal numbers, too. I didn't start writing until after I joined the army in 1943. I'd been to the High School Of Music And Arts in New York, and it was compulsory to take a music theory class, but I didn't like it, I thought it was a waste of time. I didn't get along with the teachers and I wouldn't do any homework.

Later, in the army band, we had a lot of time on our hands and I got the urge to write a few things to see what they sounded like. That's when it began, but of course before the army when the Bradley band broke up, I went with Red Norvo's small group, which included Aaron Sachs on reeds and Eddie Bert on trombone. I always admired and got on well with Red, and later on he married my sister.

“That band was unique and I think Red developed a special soft, intimate band sound. He played unamplified xylophone and because of this the horns played muted a lot of the time.' [The band can be heard on 'New York Town Hall Concert Vol I & 2 Commodore ‎– 6.26168 AG] [For more information on the concert please visit http://www.jazzhistoryonline.com/Town_Hall_1945.html]

Red recommended me to Woody later on when I came out of the army, and he had a lot to do with me getting on to what was then considered to be the band, so it was like when I left high school, I had a job waiting for me. 

“Red had joined Woody when the band had reorganised in New York and Chubby Jackson, Flip Phillips and Bill Harris had come in. There was a fantastic spirit, just a joy of playing, and everyone was influenced by Bird and Dizzy and was trying to bring their way of playing on the band. It was just so much fun to be playing with those guys and such a precious gift and honour that I'm lost for words. Neil Hefti and Ralph Burns and the other arrangers were just marvellous, and for me it was like going to school, a graduate course, a real luxury. 

“It was funny because I came onto the band out of the army and replaced Conte Candoli, who'd just been drafted and sent to the same camp I'd just left! It kind of scared me to join that band, to be honest with you, but Pete Candoli who was sitting next to me just took me in like another brother and really watched over me. It's an association that's still going on to this day. We're still very close and we go to the same church and share things together.

“I was 21 when I joined the band. The first writing I did was the things for the Woodchoppers [the small group within the Woody Herman big band]. We were in Chicago and we were told about an album to be done by the Woodchoppers. Red suggested I submit a few things, and some of them were rearrangements of things I'd done for Red's band. That's when I wrote Igor. It was for Stravinsky, of course. I loved him and one of the greatest things that happened to me was that later I got to meet him and he came to some concerts I played. When the Herd recorded Ebony Concerto he rehearsed us in New York City and I remembered when we came to California he was here and rehearsed the band again to get us ready for the recording. It was a great experience.'


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