Popo – 1983
Shorty Rogers
Rogers heads an all-star group of 1950s L.A. jazz greats
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In the 1950s, a nucleus of cool-toned bop-based jazz artists, many from the Stan Kenton and Woody Herman bands, settled in Los Angeles and became very busy studio musicians.
They added a strong jazz feeling to movie and television soundtracks of the era while playing locally and appearing on hundreds of recordings.
Times and styles changed and, while the quantity of studio work gradually declined, many of the veterans were still quite active in the 1980s, spending more time playing concerts and clubs, sometimes in a largely unchanged style from three decades before.
In 1983 trumpeter Shorty Rogers, a major arranger and bandleader who had often hired the top players for jobs back in the 1950s, led his West Coast Giants (a band of alumni from the earlier era) at that year’s Aurex Jazz Festival.
The group, which consists of Rogers on flugelhorn, altoist Bud Shank, Jimmy Giuffre and Bob Cooper on tenors, Bill Perkins on baritone, pianist Pete Jolly, bassist Monty Budwig, and drummer Shelly Manne, performs Rogers’ blues “Popo.”
Each of the musicians has a chance to solo and the results are both cool and swinging.
-Scott Yanow
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