Cashbox : 07/20/1957

The highlight of the first Victor effort for composer-artist (tenor sax) Montrose is the Concertino da Camera (subtitled “Blues and Vanilla”), a playful blues and swing opus expertly read by the writer; Red Norvo (vibes); Shelly Manne (drums); Joe Maini (alto sax); and Walter Clark (bass). The flip side, with several personnel switches, swings brightly to 5 pieces, including 3 by Montrose. Delectable swing sessions.

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El Paso Times (El Paso, TX)
Baltazar Alvarez : 08/25/1957

Jack Montrose, who is considered one of the top jazz writers, leads this group in playing one of his most recent compositions and five other selections.

One side of this long playing record contains the Montrose composition Concertino da Camera which could be classified as a jazz ballet suite. This composition consists of two sections with the whole thing being totally contrapuntal in texture.

Montrose on tenor saxophone; Joe Maini, alto sax; Red Norvo, vibes; Walter Clark, bass, and Shelly Manne, swing and emit wonderful and interesting sounds in this Montrose composition.

Others who join Montrose and Norvo in the other five selections are: James Hall, guitar; Max Bennett, bass, and Bill Dolney, drums.

All of these musicians are outstanding in this recording session, but Red Norvo’s work on vibes in this reviewer’s opinion makes him the standout artist of the whole group.

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Fort Lauderdale News (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Don L. McIver : 07/28/1957

One of the quietest, yet most pleasing, jazz offerings we’ve had the pleasure of hearing comes in a new RCA Victor album of the Jack Montrose Quintet Blues and Vanilla [LPM-1451].

Montrose, who has been featured on tenor sax in recent Shorty Rogers groups, formerly was with the Jerry Gray and Art Pepper bands. Besides being an excellent soloist, Montrose also is a composer of note, his best known composition being Etude de Concert which was written for the Shelly Manne brass choir.

The entire first side of the album is devoted to Jack’s Concertino Da Camera [Blues and Vanilla] and showcases Montrose, tenor sax; Joe Maini, alto; Red Norvo, vibes; Walter Clark, bass and Shelly Manne, drums.

The composition is a series of three blues themes followed by three that are on the sweeter side. The beauty of both the “Blues” and the “Vanilla” is in the counterpoint used. Each instrument has its own set of themes working around the basic theme. All make for good listening and all swing.

There’s nothing brassy about this. It just swings along to terrific rhythm and the first thing the listener knows he’s hearing a complete new set of themes with each instrument playing its very vital part to the whole.

Then at the end there’s a complete new restatement of all the themes, finally coming to a quiet halt. The side’s finished but it makes you want to hear more, much more of Montrose’s writings.

The second side [the album was supervised by Shorty Rogers] has Bockhanal, Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, Bernie’s Tune, For the Fairest and A Dandy Line. On this side Montrose and Norvo are backed by James Hall, guitar; Max Bennett, bass, and Bill Dolney, drums.

Montrose himself best describes my reaction to the album: “It was a ball to write! It was a ball to play! It absolutely has to be a ball to listen to.” And, it was!

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Hammond Times (Hammond, IN)
Paul H. Little : 07/28/1957

In jazz, we cite Blues and Vanilla (with a marvelously whimsical full-color album cover) which marks the disc debut of tenor sax artist Jack Montrose as a bright jazz composer (Victor LPM-1451). With Joe Maini on alto sax, Red Norvo on vibes, Walter Clark on bass, and Shelly Manne’s wonderfully imaginative drums, we hear the title work-a neat admixture of several blues themes and free-swinging “extracts.”

There’s also Jack’s pungent Bockhanal, the pert For the Fairest and jaunty A Dandy Line. In this latter group, James Hall on guitar, Max Bennett on bass, and Bill Dolney on drums replace the others mentioned. Here’s some really brilliant original jazz, beautifully played and recorded.

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Jazz Journal (UK)
Brian Burns : April 1958

I can only feel that this music is a complete take-on because I have never heard such a ‘load of moody’. Montrose’s writing is ‘rooty’ and his playing is a sort of jolly ‘How’s your Father?’ old time style.

The Concerto de Camera (posh title eh?) gets practically nowhere for development, and it goes on and on to screaming point, to cover one whole side of a twelve-inch LP. Norvo tinkles away but doesn’t sound the least bit happy with the material he has to play. The blues doesn’t sound anything like blues except they use the 12 bar structure, and I don’t know where the vanilla comes in, but it sounds like a mixture of that phrase that goes “Charleston” and “Momsie’s Little Baby Likes Shortnin’ Bread”.

The tunes on the other side are a little more interesting as they are short and there is a good alto player named Joe Maini as well as Jim Hall who displays a percussive style on electric guitar. Shelly Manne, as always, plays with a full swing.

This must be the worst material to come from the West Coast for many a day.

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Metronome
Jack Maher : September 1957

Jack Montrose’s Blues and Vanilla, named because the composition falls into two obvious sections, contains all the makings of musical satire. There are particularly pointed remarks by Messers Maini on alto and Jack on tenor that seem to playfully poke fun at different periods and styles of not only jazz, but of the music business in general. It’s a rather slight piece of writing, with themes developing a bit too long but this could possibly be the fault of the improvising soloists.

The other side spotlights a fine rhythm section of Max Bennett, Bill Dolney and Jim Hall supporting Jack and Red Norvo in some cute and clever rearrangements of two standards and three originals. The wailer here, and in both sides for that matter is Red; on the second side, he does much more than on the restrictive side one.

Pleasant listening here by Jack Montrose, although little, outside of Red, occurs that would make this an outstanding album.

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Down Beat : 09/05/1957
Don Gold : 3.5 stars

This LP is a two-part invention consisting of Montrose’s extended work, Concertino da Camera (subtitled Blues and Vanilla), and a series of five quintet tracks. I found the latter more provocative than the former, although the longer work certainly is the more ambitious project.

There is a sense of symmetry in the use of thematic material, within an essentially valid contrapuntal structure, in Blues and Vanilla. Unfortunately, there is more repetition of thematic material than actual development. The content itself is not as imaginatively conceived as material Montrose has presented in the past.

The quintet sides proved much more palatable for me, particularly the cleverly conceived Don’t Get Around and the sparkling arrangement of Bernie’s Tune.

Throughout the LP there is a high level of individual performance, particularly on the part of the remarkable Norvo. I admire Montrose’s use of instrumentation as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. His writing efforts should be encouraged, because, it seems to me, he has vast potential as a jazz composer-arranger. His efforts here are only a partial success, but the indications present point to achievements to come.

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Liner Notes by Jack Montrose

This is Jack Montrose’s first album for RCA Victor. It will not be his last, nor his next to last, nor his fifth or tenth to last. Besides being a soloist of considerable ability, Montrose can certainly be considered one of our brightest young jazz writers. Jack, who has both a sense of humor and a lack of self-consciousness, takes his composing most seriously, and is dreaming of the day when he may yet write jazz ballets and operas.

Briefly, Montrose was born in Detroit, played in his high school band at Chattanooga, and was graduated from the Los Angeles State College in 1953. He has played with both Jerry Gray and Art Pepper, and wrote, among other things, Etude de Concert for Shelly Manne’s brass choir.

How Jack Montrose’s music sounds to you is, of course, the most important thing about this album. It is also important to know who played it.

On Concertino da Camera this is the personnel:

Tenor Sax…..Jack Montrose
Alto Sax…..Joe Maini
Vibes…..Red Norvo
Bass…..Walter Clark
Drums…..Shelly Manne
(Courtesy Contemporary Records)
Supervision…..Shorty Rogers

For the other pieces, the personnel is as follows:

Tenor Sax…..Jack Montrose
Vibes…..Red Norvo
Guitar…..James Hall
Bass…..Max Bennett
Drums…..Bill Dolney
Supervision…..Shorty Rogers

When asked for some comments about his music, Jack Montrose sent along the following:

“I have discovered, generally, that the practice of analyzing the form and structure of my compositions serves only to detract from my primary purpose, which is to have the listener devote all of his attention purely to listening and enjoying the music without any deliberate concern for form, structure, etc. Analysis, I feel, is a task for students of music composition, and such distractions must not be instigated upon the lay listener. Nevertheless it has occurred to me that because of its length and scope and some other unusual aspects to be found therein, Concertino da Camera might perhaps be made more readily accessible with the aid of a few words of explanation.

“Its sub-title, Blues and Vanilla, is derived from the fact that the composition is separated into two large, easily recognizable sections, the first of course being the blues’ section and ‘vanilla’ comprising section two. These two sections are constructed identically, though each, of course, is confined to its own melodic material. Section I, or The Blues, consists of three separate and distinct blues themes, each of which undergoes an individual metamorphosis and development until the three finally emerge together and are performed contrapuntally to one another, each in its entirety. Section II, or Vanilla, consists of three separate and distinct themes of the type which I like to consider as being ‘vanilla.’ As in section I, each theme undergoes its respective development until at length all three appear concurrently and contrapuntally, as occurred in section I. The coda consists of a re-statement of the blues themes from section I, thus forming an over-all large compound three-part song form. The composition is almost totally contrapuntal in texture, and great caution was exercised to ascertain that each voice of the counterpoint was a complete and naturally swinging entity in its own right.

“One of the prime objectives here was to create lines for each voice of such a completely natural and plausible jazz feeling that each player, upon gaining familiarity with his part, was able immediately to convey the impression that he may have been improvising it. The entire composition is interspersed with short, frequent solos from all of the players.

“I have not attempted to prove anything to anyone, nor am I crusading for any course, nor am I competing with or trying to out-do any other composer, nor am I even experimenting musically (I do not consider myself as being iconoclastic). I composed Concertino da Camera solely because it afforded me intense pleasure and satisfaction to do so. There exists no program or plot or story to inspire it. Its length happened not at all deliberately, but purely by accident, as I merely allowed it to develop mostly of its own accord. I consider it to be my most important and satisfactory recorded work to date. It’s dedicated to Nesuhi Ertegun who was largely responsible for exposing me to the particular early jazz influences which inspired the work.

“It was a ball to write!

“It was a ball to play!

“It absolutely has got to be a ball to listen to!”