Cashbox : 04/20/1957

The musical personalities of Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington and Fats Waller as seen through the arrangements of Thomas Talbert are a delight. Mr. Talbert sees an off-beat Beiderbecke (In A Mist), a spright Waller (Clothes Line Ballet) and the big-band color of Ellington (Prelude To A Kiss). Some of the men in the ensembles include George Wallington (piano); Joe Wilder (trumpet); Oscar Pettiford (bass); and Jimmy Cleveland (trombone). Talbert has seen 3 distinct jazz approaches and has brilliantly arranged them.

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Audio Magazine
Charles A. Robertson : June 1957

A thirty-one-year-old composer and arranger from Minneapolis, Thomas Talbert puts the stamp of the modernist on the writings of three jazz greats. All are revered in their original form by jazz musicians and fans so he is treading on dangerous ground. That he succeeds so well is the result of a varied approach and wise choice of soloists.

Bix Beiderbecke is met on his own terms. Candlelights, In a Mist, and In the Dark are broadened and given depth by fresh instrumentation. The brunt of the interpretation is borne by the sure trumpet of Joe Wilder. I think Bix would like it.

Fats Waller is examined for his wit and humor. Much of it is extracted by pianist George Wallington, a modernist who might seem an odd choice until he is heard in Black and Blue, Keepin’ Out of Mischief, Clothes Line Ballet, and Bond Street, which is the first American recording of any part of the London Suite. I think Fats would be inspired to take the second chorus.

Duke Ellington is treated most freely, but he is around to speak for himself. Eleven men are used on Prelude to a Kiss, Do Nothin’ and Koko. Talbert, a protege of Budd Schulberg who has engaged him to write the music for his fall play Disenchanted, adds one original, Green Night & Orange Bright, a tribute to Bix and Fats.

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Hartford Courant (Hartford, CT)
Joe Miller : 06/09/1957

The Atlantic LP Bix Duke Fats (1250), an interpretation by arranger Thomas Talbert, is about the swingingest studio band recording to bless these ears in an age. Nothing on this disc is an extreme of hot or cold; still, one doesn’t feel the indifference often prevalent in a pick-up group. Included on Side 1 are Bix Beiderbecke’s famous In a Mist and Waller’s Black and Blue. A powerful addition to the flip side is the Duke’s Koko played lovingly by the tenor of Aaron Sachs. The sidemen here are on the whole the warm flexible-type musicians who make jazz worthwhile. To mention a few: Jimmy Cleveland, George Wallington (who does a pretty sweet job on Black and Blue), Osie Johnson, and Nick Travis.

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Jackson Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS)
Pinckney Keel : 04/14/1957

Bix Duke Fats, the name of a new Atlantic album, brings the music of Beiderbecke, Ellington and Waller under the capable baton of Thomas Talbert, assisted by a splendid group of jazzmen, namely, Jimmy Cleveland, George Wallington, Joe Wilder, Nick Travis, Eddie Bert, Oscar Pettiford, Osie Johnson, and Claude Williamson. The haunting In a Mist, Black and Blue, Prelude to a Kiss, Bond Street, Clothes Line Ballet, Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me, and the rare Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now are among the ten selections. Album notes give complete personnel data, by Talbert, who adds much to what’s inside by telling what he did to each tune, and why. An extremely well-done disc, one for which you’ll be willing to swap any number of albums in your collection. (Atlantic 1250).

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Kansas City Call (Kansas City, MO)
Albert Anderson : 05/03/1957

An easy-going entry in the LP jazz world, stained with the fluids of success because of its uniquely provocative rhythms and delightful jazz interpretations, is an Atlantic Records LP gem entitled Bix, Duke, Fats. Not to be confused with the progressive or modern school of jazz, this album pits the minds of three musicians, whose works need no introduction, to music purveyors. The track, interpreted by Thomas Talbert, does not present Bix, Duke and Fats in person, but rather simulates them through the use of artists whose talents closely resemble those of the noted trio.

Joe Wilder emulates Bix Beiderbecke on trumpet, George Wallington takes over at piano simulating Duke Ellington and Fats Waller. Tunes include In A Mist, Prelude to a Kiss, and other Ellington works.

The LP portrays vividly a musical intercourse of radiance and variation, first illustrating sound through ensembles and then with the big band beauty so akin to Ellington.

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Kansas City Star (Kansas City, MO)
R.K.S. : 04/14/1957

Thomas Talbert, a modernist composer and arranger, interprets the heritage of the music of Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington and Fats Waller in an Atlantic album, Bix Duke Fats. Mr. Talbert picked distinguished forebears, obviously. He also picked some good tunes, and the result is good jazz, albeit arranged jazz.

From Talbert’s arrangement of In a Mist, you get the melancholy feeling of Beiderbecke’s music. The joint jumps on Keepin’ Out of Mischief, Now and Black and Blue, Waller tunes, and the music gets a bit more sophisticated and serious in the Waller compositions of Clothes Line Ballet and Bond Street. The Ellington tunes are Do Nothin’, Koko and Prelude to a Kiss.

Talbert suggests that modern jazz composers might do well to think about this heritage in jazz and not so much about Bartok, Berg and Hindemith. These jazz sports—Bix, Duke and Fats—all worked the country’s saloons where jazz grew up; says Talbert, and therefore were right in the middle of the instruments that were forming jazz. This, he points out, was a different sort of business than that of a Broadway composer who had a lyricist to carry the day if the tunes turned false.

In a studied way, Talbert captures the feeling of the music of these three jazz greats. The musicians used here do a thoroughly satisfactory job.

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Oakland Tribune (Oakland, CA)
Russ Wilson : 04/21/1957

Tom Talbert, a thoughtful and discerning individual as well as a highly talented and sensitive jazz arranger, makes an important point in the liner notes for this, his latest LP. “The young American jazz composer,” he writes, “looks for influence and inspiration to Bartok, Berg, Hindemith and the long list of modern European symphonic composers… It might be instructive for the writer to look over our own heritage in jazz… There is a wealth of material for arrangers—and a thinly disguised melody over an undisguised chord progression is not composing.” In this vein, Talbert has reshaped compositions by Beiderbecke, Waller, and Ellington in a manner which differs from the originals in form but not in spirit. For Bix’s tunes, Talbert employs a trumpet, French horn, bassoon, flute, clarinet, guitar, bass, and drums to establish a most apropos blend. The other numbers (which include a Talbert original written as an homage to Bix and Fats) are done by larger groups with such jazz horns as Joe Wilder, Eddie Bert, Jimmy Cleveland, and Herb Geller; pianists George Wallington and Claude Williamson. Bassist Oscar Pettiford and drummer Osie Johnson are on all 10 tracks. This is a delightful album which offers something new with each replaying.

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Sarasota News (Sarasota, FL)
Phil Harris : 03/10/1957

In the field of modern music, the name of Thomas Talbert has moved steadily toward the forefront among composers and arrangers. At 32, the handsome young New Yorker finds himself with a long list of accomplishments to his credit, and success has enabled him to get away from it all for a while, to relax in Sarasota while he ponders an exceedingly busy future.

Talbert, after two weeks of fishing in Bimini, is now visiting his old friends, the Earl Mohns at Point o’ Rocks, Siesta Key, and also finding time for a few huddles with Budd Schulberg, the novelist and playwright, for whose forthcoming Broadway play The Disenchanted, Talbert will do the musical score.

Tom also is working on the scores for two motion pictures which are about to go into production, and has just completed a new record album entitled Bix Duke Fats, in which he has interpreted the best works of Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington and Fats Waller with his own special arrangements.

Tom also directed the musicians who recorded this new album for Atlantic, and it is to be released next week in high fidelity recording.

Another recent Talbert album, Wednesday’s Child, with Patty McGovern doing the vocals, was unanimously acclaimed by the national magazine critics.

The magazine Down Beat, reviewing Wednesday’s Child, had this to say:

“This is a vocal program that has been prepared with unusual intelligence and taste. Tommy Talbert, a gifted arranger for jazz groups and big bands and also a skilled classical composer, made the records himself and then sold them to Atlantic. His arrangements are lean and sensitive, witty but never banal. The choice of tunes is excellent, including the title tune written by Talbert and Bill Wolfe, and the probing, poignant Winter Song, also by Talbert and Wolfe.”

Talbert appeared in a Carnegie Hall concert in 1953 for the premiere of his Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra, Suite for Flute and Strings, The Wharf, and others, about which the New York Times wrote:

“Mr. Talbert is not a theoretical composer, fortunately, since he writes from the instrument out; his scoring is always clear and his colors warm and imaginative… the building blocks, the phrases and sonorities, were genuinely musical, definitely contemporary in aspect, and the most natural adjustment between jazz and ‘serious music’ that this reviewer has heard to date.”

The amazing fact about Tom Talbert is that he has had no formal musical education, but rather is self taught. As a lad in high school in Minneapolis, he had dreams of becoming an artist or a writer, with no thoughts of music until one day a big name band came to town.

Then 15 years old, Tommy went to listen to the band and immediately became enchanted by what he heard.

“That’s for me,” the youth decided, and set about teaching himself all he could. He soon had his own school orchestra assembled, and before he was 21 he was in Hollywood, leading bands, arranging for others, and rapidly becoming recognized as an accomplished pianist and musician. He has done arrangements for most of the leading name bands in the country. In his own compositions, he prefers to concentrate on classical writing. He said he abandoned Hollywood for New York in 1950 “because there was so little outlet for modern music on the coast.”

Tom’s life has been so filled with music, he has had little time for many of the things young men go for, such as baseball and racing, so to make up for lost time, Talbert yesterday saw his first dog races at the Sarasota Kennel Club and tomorrow will see his first major league baseball game when the Red Sox play the Yankees at Payne Park.

The chances are quite good that the sounds of horsehide against hickory and the raucous shouts of carefree fans and hawkers may inspire Talbert to do a symphony or rhapsody or something about the national pastime, say a Suite for Two Left-handed Pitchers. How about it, Tommy?

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Down Beat : 06/27/1957
Dom Cerulli : 5 stars

This is a stunning piece of work by all concerned. Talbert’s writing is fresh and moody, and the performances, particularly the solo work, are firstrate.

There is a smooth blend of the horns, spiced by some bright brass figures, in the arranged passages. As for the solos, it’s difficult to describe them without using hand motions or including a copy of the record in the magazine.

Wilder emerges as a trumpet man of stature and delicacy. His taste and flexibility are particularly evident on the Beiderbecke pieces, Mist, Candlelight, and Dark. Galbraith also is heard soulfully on the Bix tracks. Cleveland and Bert split the trombone solo spots, with Jimmy percussively exciting and Bert blowing warmly and with restraint.

The Talbert original, Green Night, is a moody, impressionistic work with actually none of the flavor of the three men to whom homage is paid by this album, but rather a logical extension of the mood created by the compositions.

This album is no tribute in style to Bix, Fats, and Duke. Rather, it is a collection of creations based on their works. The closest to a literal reading is Duke’s Koko, which smacks of period Ellington in the rich opening ensemble prodded by Pettiford’s throbbing bass.

One final word should be said about Wallington, whose presence is a vital thing, and whose solos and fills are a delight to hear.

Packaging is handsome, with the cover perhaps the most attractive jazz cover presented in many months. Talbert’s notes are literate and illuminating, a fine argument for having musicians or leaders write the words about their music.

This is a great record, conceived and executed with taste and artistry.

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Liner Notes by Thomas Talbert

Leon Beiderbecke, Edward Ellington and Thomas Waller were three card-holding musicians, getting their money every Friday, playing a cornet and a couple of pianos, and writing their compositions. They are known in the jazz world’s casual I-want-to-be-one-of-the-gang style, as Bix, Duke and Fats. Where the aficionados gather, no further identification is necessary.

Bix did most of his writing in the latter twenties. Fats swung right up to his death in 1943. Some of his last work, written for the show, Early To Bed, was his best. Duke Ellington is still very much on the scene and working constantly. The thirties and early forties were a highly creative period for him. It should be noted that the musical twenties ran well into the next decade. The emergence into popularity of the Jimmy Lunceford and Ellington bands marked the opening of a new concept… ensemble and solo jazz. And the thirties. They ran until December 7, 1941. The musical forties were the war years. And from 1946 til 1951 the music business was like a banker’s 1932. Musicians were learning what migratory workers had known for over a decade – that spasmodic employment did not lend itself to retiring young.

Fats led a small group of good men. They were mainly a foil for his contagious, exuberant and slyly humorous personality. Bix worked through the Midwest with many small combinations. He played in Gene Goldkette’s bands. Except for recording with small pickup groups, he played his last years with Paul Whiteman. It is said that Henry Busse received the larger share of the hot chair parts. Duke Ellington has been a leader from the beginning, composing and arranging for his own band in prolific quantity.

But they all worked the country’s saloons where jazz grew up. This is a world apart from the Broadway, West End or Hollywood composer who has only the current show on his mind. And with the lyricist to carry the day if the tune goes false. They were right in the midst of the instruments that were making the pulse that jazz is all about. And there’s the tie-in for an album such as this. Three styles, yes… but all stemming from the same background.

Bix is legendary. And his effect is, perhaps, mostly in being a legend. People know the self-destructive stories of his personal life but have never heard his pieces. Except, maybe, In A Mist or Davenport Blues which they probably don’t realize he wrote. The best of the cool school reminds one of his melodic and self-effacing cornet playing. As a writer, Bix was an experimentalist. He never truly got off the ground; experimentalists seldom do. (A Bartok, a Picasso, an O’Casey is not experimenting. He knows what he wants and how to get it.) Certainly influenced by MacDowell and the French composers, he was, nonetheless, trying to find something more. I can’t say the same for many composers — and he gets my vote for that.

Waller treated the dreary pop tunes of his day with high good humor and thereby changed a long, dull evening into a laugh and a drink all around. I was always attracted to his easy-going style and the rhythmic humor of such as Viper’s Drag and Keepin’ Out Of Mischief Now. A good-natured swing is how I think of Fats. Jazz needs humor; all arts do.

Duke’s effect is manifest in many corners of the business. His suites led the way to longer compositions, though he was still working with related tunes, tied together rather than with a larger form. He featured the soloists with entire arrangements devoted to them — in a way, a concert presentation. And of course, the concerts themselves. The Ellington and Lunceford bands were the big influences turning me into music. And, in jazz, into arranging. For here the arranger was very important and his work was treated to a sympathetic reading. The excitement engendered by the interplay of sections stuck, and kept me from writing the easy block chord. Duke, to me, meant color. The use of mutes and reeds, broken sections. (Everyone doesn’t have to play at once!) It was all a many-hued palette. And, woven through it all … the lovely melodies.

Beiderbecke’s In A Mist drifts a haunting theme of only two measures’ duration through a hazy, seemingly improvised, set of byways. The parallel ninths, a favorite Debussy device, lend themselves to an atonal wandering. In my arrangement, I tightened the over-all piece but broadened the second theme. Joe Wilder was the trumpet player of my choice for Bix’s tunes. With his highly developed harmonic sense and a taste which, like good manners, eludes you until you realize everything has been done just right, he creates a mood we all too seldom hear.

The title What Did I Do To Be So Black And Blue is a three-act play in itself. Melancholy, perhaps, but with a vampy feel that keeps it moving. George Wallington plays it just as that. And in Bond Street, from Fats’ London Suite, Wallington’s slow-smiling wit and facile handling of the breaks trace a laughing line in and out of Nick Travis striking lead. (Here and on Mischief.) The same quality is in Jimmy Cleveland’s solos on both.

Looking through stacks of Waller material, I came across Clothes Line Ballet. It was unknown to me. In the midst of this little semi-suite was a true 32 bar night club tune. It was ideal, for I used the instrumentation on the Fats date for the purpose of getting that very sound. I shook it up a bit from the Waller recipe but the ingredients are his.

Candlelights and In The Dark were later Bix… ’30 and ’31. It’s Wilder again, and Barry Galbraith with his gentle touch but firm hand confers an added warmth. In The Dark is in many ways Bix’s most modern, (as against moderne) composition and has always been my favorite.

There is little I can add to what everyone already knows of Duke Ellington and his music. I took three of my favorites and arranged them freely. Prelude To A Kiss dances less and says more as it progresses … which the title explains. Herb Geller plays the top line with all of the warmth such an emotion demands, and he and Eddie Bert — both with warmth, modern tone, conception and imagination — share the bulk of Do Nothin’. Running two of Duke’s many sides together seemed to be the one way of showing a bit of what lies between. Oscar Pettiford and Osie Johnson make musicians feel at home. And on Koko I wanted all of us to feel, rhythmically, as if it were home for Christmas. Geller again, the gifted Aaron Sachs, Bert and Wilder show that solos can be the epitome of ensemble playing.

Green Night & Orange Bright began as an homage to Bix and Fats but, as I worked, I knew I was writing more how their tunes made me feel: the blues for Bix and the bright lights for Fats.

The young American jazz composer looks for influence and inspiration to Bartok, Berg, Hindemith and the long list of modern European symphonic composers. It’s chic to love Bach. (Not bad, but Bach was a creator of the first order … not a processed copy.) It might be instructive for the writer to look over our own heritage in Jazz, and see how our composers solved their problems in their own day. There is a wealth of material for arrangers — and a thinly disguised melody over an undisguised chord progression is not composing.