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108 THE INSTRUMENTS, THE SOUNDS, THE PERFORMERS
1955 in an automobile accident; today there are several multi-faceted West Coasters who include the baritone, along with other saxophones, among their spheres of activity. They include Jimmy Giuffre, Virgil Gonsalves and Bud Shank.
New East Coast adherents of the baritone include Gil Melle, a reflective and creative artist dedicated to the use of the instrument as a medium for his own attractive compositions; Sonny Stitt, of alto and tenor renown; Charlie Ventura, who in the opinion of many observers has worked more tastefully with the baritone than with his more customary tenor; Charlie Fowlkes, a fine section man and occasional soloist with the Basie band; Danny Bank, heard on hundreds of jazz records, though rarely in a solo capacity; Marty Flax, whose musicianship and humor both proved effective on his international tours with the Gillespie band in 1956; and Sahib Shihab, one of the most self-possessed of the bop-influenced baritones.
The mantle of Serge Chaloff was assumed several years ago by Lars Gullin, a gently forceful musician who, in a series of records made with fellow-Swedes, gave lightness and fluidity to the potentially cumbersome baritone sound. Though he has recorded with a personnel patterned along the lines of the Mulligan Quartet, Gullin, like so many of the Swedish moderns, is basically a bopper and one of the most successful in the baritone field. England, too, has provided a superior baritone man in Harry Klein, known to date in the U.S.A. only through an occasional record release.
Finally, there is the patriarch of the saxophone clan, the B Flat bass sax. Though it can plumb unusual depths (its range is an octave below that of the tenor sax) it is more resilient and capable of fluent improvisation than other instruments in this register (notably the tuba). The late Adrian Rollini, sole custodian of the bass sax and a much-revered man for the role he played in the late '20s and early '30s, abandoned the instrument almost completely in favor of the vibraphone about 1935; since then the only soloist making permanent use of its opulent sounds has been Joe Rushton, featured for the past decade with Red Nichols. The bass sax is occasionally used by Charlie Ventura and is employed as a section instrument by Boyd Raebura. |
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