FLAMINGO Liner Notes

My Favorite Saxophonist

Liner notes by nature are an exercise in advocacy. No matter how coldly dispassionate their tone - no matter how assiduously their writer might try to eschew the persona of cheerleader, to posture instead as the serious and objective critic - the time and energy devoted to their creation carry the inescapable implication: the musicians who made this album are worth reading about, their music worth hearing. This inherent advocacy, I’m afraid, will be doubly pronounced in the present case, David Stuart Halliday being my only son. But if you think the following unabashedly biased comments make me sound like a cheerleader, you ought to hear his mother talk about him.

When I questioned David’s decision to have his dad write these notes, he told me that I was the logical choice because I was more familiar with his musical development than anyone outside himself. On the whole, I suppose that's true, so I'll begin there.

A popular notion maintains that human beings begin their musical development in the womb. If that’s true, David's began quietly, in early 1973, with the pastoral sounds of the countryside – wind through oaks, bullfrogs in irrigation ditches, horses and cattle in their corrals - augmented by the widely eclectic but predominantly classical mix of music that came through the speakers of the stereo in the house my wife, Jill, and I rented on a ranch outside Davis, California from 1972 to 1975.

I'd been listening to “modern” jazz since my high school days back in Salt Lake City, in the late fifties, when I'd tune in faithfully to Wes Bowen's invaluable evening radio show on KSL. So a considerable portion of the music that David heard while still in the womb consisted of Bill Evans, Erroll Garner, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, Junior Mance, Stan Getz, and the Modern Jazz Quartet, along with some sixties and early seventies rock (favorites included The Band, Bob Dylan, and Leon Russell), and a diverse miscellany of artists ranging from Ravi Shankar to Frank Sinatra to Lightnin’ Hopkins to Flatt and Scruggs.

But the bucolic atmosphere of the place - where we could step out our backdoor, walk a few paces, sit under an olive tree, breathe the fresh country air, look out across miles of open fields, and watch the sun set behind distant purple hills - lent itself to the enjoyment of the music of Palestrina, Schütz, Vivaldi, Teleman, Bach, Handel, Hayden, Mozart,  Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler, and that is what we played most of the time that we were there. We also attended performances by the Sacramento and San Francisco Symphonies, but the high point of our listening came in Jill's eighth month of pregnancy when, from the third row of the Flint Center for the Performing Arts, we witnessed an awesome performance of Beethoven’s Fifth by the Chicago Symphony, under the baton of Georg Solti. David must have liked it, as he responded by being born on the late maestro's birthday, October 21 - also the birthday of the great tenor saxophonist, Don Byas, and of Dizzy Gillespie, with whom David was destined to share the stage and swap solos at the Monterey Jazz Festival, nineteen years later.

About the time David turned four, I took him to a Sunday morning drum workshop, presented by Max Roach, at Keystone Korner, San Francisco's late, great, North Beach jazz club. Max explained that a drummer didn't need a truckload of equipment to make good music and, to prove his point, picked up a drumstick and proceeded to play an entire piece, using only that stick and his hi-hat. David was mesmerized. When the piece ended and the applause began, he turned to me and said, "I want a hi-hat."

Eventually we got him his hi-hat, along with a snare, a tom, a kick-drum and a ride cymbal, and formed a family band with Jill at the piano and me walking simple lines on electric bass. About the time he turned six, he began taking piano lessons - which he hated. I could understand why, after suffering through one of his recitals. His teacher seemed to think that making music consisted simply in playing a series of notes in the proper sequence, apparently unaware of the fact that "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." All her students played the proper sequences of notes, but their time - their time was like an endangered species rapidly being driven to extinction by her preoccupation with playing the proper sequence of pitches. I told David that he could quit his piano lessons with that teacher if he'd take lessons from me - an offer he readily accepted. These lessons pretty much dispensed with sheet music, consisting instead of simple twelve-bar blues exercises, with me standing over him beating out steady four-to-the-bar time on my guitar and singing the lyrics of Jimmy Reed,  Willie Dixon, and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson. Whatever this approach lacked – and, admittedly, it lacked plenty - it solidified his natural sense of time and allowed him to internalize the twelve-bar form so common in the history of jazz.

Besides good time, David has always had "big ears." By the time he was seven, he'd heard numerous recordings by tenor saxophonists - Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Don Byas, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, etc. - and I'd often tell him the name of the saxophonist who happened to be playing on the stereo. One day, I brought home a new reissue of Coleman Hawkins recordings from the mid-thirties. I put the record on and was listening to Hawk soloing on "The Day You Came Along," when David sauntered out of his room, pointed to the speakers, and announced with perfect confidence, "Coleman Hawkins."

After our first trip to see Max Roach, I often took David to hear live jazz at San Francisco venues like Keystone Korner or the Great American Music Hall. Before entering junior high, he’d enjoyed the atmosphere of intimate jazz clubs, listening to live performances by Paquito D'Rivera, Tete Montoliu, Toshiko Akyoshi, Stan Getz, Elvin Jones, Tito Puente, Dexter Gordon, Phil Woods, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Dave McKenna, Scott Hamilton, Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan, Shelly Mann, and Jimmy Rowles.

By the fourth grade, David had begun playing clarinet, switching to alto sax a couple of years later. At age fourteen, through the connections of two fine San Francisco musicians, bassist Bill Langlois and pianist Melanie Jones, David was introduced to the late Joe Henderson, who agreed to take him as a student after hearing a tape David had recorded of "Jeep's Blues." For the next year and a half, until David was old enough to drive, I'd drive him, every week or two, to Joe's huge San Francisco home, overlooking the South Bay. Joe told me that the charge for his instruction would be forty dollars an hour, but he never charged more than forty dollars a lesson, some of which lasted three hours. I once tried to pay him for the extra hours but he rebuffed my efforts, explaining that his teaching was its own reward, "like planting trees." Besides, he said that David was a particularly enjoyable student because he soaked up Joe's instruction "like a little sponge."  

David played his first paying gig on his fifteenth birthday, in San Jose, with transplanted New Yorkers, avante garde trumpeter and Cecil Taylor/Sun Ra alumnus Eddie Gale, and singer, flautist, and bebop raconteur Mr. B., and Philly organ colossus Chet Smith. During the next four years, David took up the tenor saxophone and gigged regularly in the Bay Area and Sacramento, graduating from Vaca High School (Vacaville California), where his saxophone section mates included fellow tenorist Teodross Avery (who has several jazzalbums to his credit) and Phil O'Connor (who has since performed on clarinetin Carnegie Hall and is now active in the L.A. studio scene), and attending Solano Community College, where he studied with composer/keyboardist Delbert Bump. During these years, David frequented Bay Area jazz venues such as Kimball's, Kimball's East, and Yoshi's, where he persuaded headliners like Wynton Marsalis, Kenny Kirkland, and Freddie Hubbard to allow him to sit in with their bands.  

In fall of 1994, David headed to New Orleans for a semester at Loyola University, where he studied saxophone with Tony Dagradi and gigged regularly with the New Orleans funk band, Galactic, propelled by Stanton Moore's explosive drumming.   

Back in California in 1995, David resumed his studies at Solano College and gigged throughout northern California, until January of 1997, when he joined blues diva and Bay Area Music Award (Bammy) winner E.C. Scott's band, Smoke, for U.S. tours covering 44 states and a week of performances in Athens, Greece. He can be heard on E.C. Scott's CD Hard Act To Follow (Blind Pig Records), which received four-star ratings in both the S.F. Chronicle and Down Beat magazine, and climbed to #4 on the Living Blues magazine radio chart.  

By 1998, Salt Lake City pianist and jazz promoter, Larry Jackstien had informed David of the opportunities available in BYU's fine jazz program, directed by multi-instrumentalist Ray Smith, whose main instrument is the alto saxophone and who directs BYU's award-winning big band, Synthesis. The following January, David left for Provo, Utah with a full scholarship. Since arriving there, in addition to taking classes and securing the first tenor chair in Synthesis, he's assumed a teaching assistantship, coaching jazz combos and directing the Lab Band, BYU's third-string big band, which he's renamed with the more inspiring title, the Duke Ellington Memorial Orchestra. He also co-leads the Westside Quintet, has acquired about thirty private saxophone students, and gigs an average of four or five times a week. Summer of 2000 he toured Europe with Synthesis, performing in five countries, including engagements at the World Expo in Hannover, Germany, the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy, and the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. This past summer he again toured with Synthesis, playing engagements on the Queen Elizabeth II, and in England. Among his Utah employers have been some of the state's finest musicians, including Sam Cardon, Mike Dowdle, Brett Raymond, Kelly Eisenhour, Jay Lawrence, Vince Frates, Steve Keen, Craig Larson, Dan Waldis, Ben Carson, Lars Yorgason, and Joe Muscolino. David has also become progressively more active in Utah's burgeoning studio scene, providing original music for radio and TV spots and supplying saxophone lines for projects at Non-Stop Productions.  

Over the years David has won numerous musical awards and distinctions. Between 1988 and 1992 he garnered an Outstanding Musicianship Award at theStanford University Summer Jazz Workshop, a First Place Combo Award at the Pacific Coast Collegiate Jazz Festival, and an Outstanding Soloist award from the California Association of Jazz Educators, as well as playing in the California State Honor Band, and securing the first alto saxophone chair withthe Monterey Jazz Festival High School All-Stars (which provided him the opportunity to solo with Dizzy Gillespie on Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight"). In 1996 he was named Outstanding College Instrumentalist at theReno International Jazz Festival and, for three years running (1999-2001) has been named Outstanding Tenor Saxophone Soloist at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Moscow, Idaho, where he's also led the Outstanding College Combo for the past two years.  

Inspiration for this, David's first album, came from a number of sources. The idea of using two guitarists in the rhythm section was prompted by David's admiration of Marc Johnson's Bass Desires albums for ECM, which feature guitarists John Scofield and Bill Frissell. In Kenji Aihara and Joshua Payne, with both of whom David has gigged often since arriving in Utah, he had heard the potential for the same sort of stylistic complementarity, but hadn't thought of recording an album with the two guitarists, until he heard then-eighteen-year old Seattle bassist, Michael Emswiler.  

I'd gigged quite a bit with both Josh and Kenji and I loved the way both of them played. I fantasized about making an album with one or the other. And sometimes I'd think, 'I'd like to hear what those two would sound like playing together.' I mean, their styles are so different but they're both capable of adapting to any musical situation without sacrificing their uniqueness. But I didn't actually think of bringing them together in the studio until I heard Mike - the way he uses the bass's low notes to establish a deep groove, and that big sound . . . unamplified, he can fill a room with sound where other bassists would need to turn up their amps to be heard. And then there was the maturity of his conception . . . I could hardly believe he was still in high school. The first time we played together, I decided to schedule a recording session with him. When pondering who else to have on the date, I kept asking myself who'd sound good with Mike's bass and I tried to think of bands that built their sound around a distinctive bass style. When Marc Johnson's group, Bass Desires, popped into my mind, I thought of Kenji and Josh, and that was it . . . I knew exactly what I wanted to do. But Mike's playing was the catalyst.  

To complete the rhythm section, David called his old Vacaville "homey" Alan U'Ren, with whom he'd been gigging in California for the past ten years orso. Then he secured the services of Nathan Botts, a featured soloist with Synthesis and co-leader (with David) of the Westside Quintet. David also invited his teacher and mentor, Ray Smith, to fall by the studio, if convenient, and sit in on a couple of tunes.  

Much could be written in praise of all these musicians, but I'll content myself with a paragraph on each.  

Guitarist Kenji Aihara was born in Hokkaido, Japan, September 3, 1971. He studied piano from the time he was in pre-school and took up the electric guitar when in junior high, initially to play rock but soon discovered and was drawn to the fusion of Chick Corea and Pat Metheny, whom he continues to cite as his major influences, and, like those two gifted players, Kenji is perfectly comfortable - and capable of creating considerable excitement - in a straight-ahead format. After high school, at the urging of people around him, Kenji decided to give up music - "there's no money in music, they said - and they were right" - to pursue a more "practical" profession, moving to theU.S. to study psychology. But that field didn't satisfy his need for creative self-expression and he switched his major to art (he'd been a formally-trained, prize-winning calligrapher in Japan). Still, fortunately for all of us, he couldn't break his music habit, began studying guitar and jazz theory with Mark Maxson, joined the Weber State Jazz Ensemble (directed by Don Keipp), and eventually changed his major again. He's presently pursuing a degree in classical guitar at Weber State College, while studying jazz privately with Lars Yorgason and Dan Waldis. Kenji has won awards at the Northwest, Reno, Lionel Hampton, and Fullerton College jazz festivals, and has performed with such internationally known jazz musicians as Marvin Stamm and Roy Hargrove.  

Guitarist Joshua Payne was born on April 30, 1978, in American Fork, Utah. Upon hearing the Gene Harris Quartet for the first time, at age thirteen, he "fell instantly in love with jazz" and began learning to play it, earning a spot in Utah's All-State Jazz Ensemble four years in a row. While still in high school, he joined Brigham Young University's award-winning big band, Synthesis, and toured Europe with it, playing and recording at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. In contrast to what might be called Kenji's orchestral conception of the guitar, Joshua's approach tends toward angular, minimalist phrases, informed by a puckish sense of humor and a surprisingly mature conception of space, his idiosyncratic lines achieving some striking effects over the organ-like richness of Kenji's chords. Joshua has composed and arranged extensively for a ten-piece band, which he hopes to have "up and running soon in New York City," where he now resides. In the meantime, he says, look for him playing banjo in the NYC subway.  

Bassist Michael Emswiler was born April 23, 1982 in Renton, Washington. Jazz, he says, has been the focus of his life for the past five years, during which he's studied with Ali Jackson (former drummer for Wynton Marsalis), Doug Miller (bass instructor at University of Washington and one of Seattle's top performing bassists), and Paul Harshman of Music Works Northwest. Michael is the recipient of numerous regional and national awards, including the Clifford/Brown/Stan Getz Fellowship and first place for two consecutive years in the Lional Hampton Jazz Festival's bass solo competition. He cites as his major musical influences John Coltrane, Christian McBride, and Dave Holland, expressing particular admiration for "their dedication, and the unique way they have pushed the boundaries of jazz." Since making thisalbum, Michael has been called to serve as a missionary in Brazil for theChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  

Alan U'ren, a second-generation jazz drummer (his father, Nick, also gigs on drums in the San Francisco-Sacramento area) was born on October 21 (same dayof the year as David) in 1969 and began playing drums at age ten. By age eighteen, he was playing professionally, and before turning twenty became the house drummer at the Silverado Country Club in Northern California's "WineCountry" - a gig he still holds, the security of which (rare in theexperience of jazz musicians) allowed him to attend Sonoma State University, where he studied with Denny Zeitlin's long-time musical collaborator, George Marsh, and graduated last year with a B.A. in jazz studies. A versatile and sensitive drummer, equally adept at playing exciting solos or providing tasteful, unobtrusive accompaniment to the subtlest of jazz vocalists, Alan enjoys the highest respect of his fellow musicians and has worked with some of the area's finest, including bassist Mel Graves and guitarist Randy Vincent. In 1997 Alan played the Monterey Jazz festival as a member of guitarist Henry Robinett's band, and will return to that prestigious annual event this year, in the band of pianist Art Hirahara. Asked to name his major musical influences, Alan replies, "everybody," but names Jeff "Tain"Watts, Joey Baron, Jack DeJohnette, Bill Stewart, and Paul Motian as favorites. Alan's musical rapport with David is the product of compatible musical sensibilities and over a decade of playing a variety of gigs together. When David discovered, to his delight, that the week in which he'd booked the studio for this album coincided with Alan's wife Julie's spring vacation, there was no question who the drummer on the session would be.  

Trumpeter Nathan Botts, born September 13, 1978, in Pleasant Hill, California, began gigging around his native San Francisco Bay Area at the age of fifteen, eventually finding employment at North Beach's premier jazz club, playing in the Jazz at Pearl's Monday Night Big Band. At seventeen, after receiving exposure as a member of the National Grammy in the Schools All-StarJazz Ensemble in Los Angeles, he moved to New York to accept a generous scholarship from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Lew Soloff and Byron Stripling, and took advantage of his East Coast location to play in the New Haven Symphony Orchestra Pops. He left New York after a year, in 1998, to serve as an LDS missionary in Panama until 2000, when, upon his return to the U.S., he enrolled in BYU's jazz program. He has appeared as a guest soloist with the New Oakland Jazz Orchestra and TRPTS (both underthe direction of Mike Vax), and has appeared with the Oakland East-Bay Symphony. As a jazz soloist, he's played alongside such artists as Jon Faddis and Randy Brecker. As a band leader, he's headed up the Jazz Collective and the Nathan Botts Quartet, recording his debut CD with the latter in 1997 for the Three-Point-One label. Nathan's awards include the Dave Brubeck Award for Jazz Composition (1996), the Jon Faddis Award forMusical Excellence (1998), the Lional Hampton Jazz Festival Award for Outstanding College Trumpet Soloist (2001), and second place in the International Trumpet Guild Competition (2001). Nathan is currently a finalist in the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Competition.  

Doctor Ray Smith is an all-around wonderful human being - a role-model, mentor, and musician of astonishing versatility. An instrumentalist at home in both classical and jazz contexts, and adept at all five woodwind instruments (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone) as well as electronic wind instruments and various ethnic recorders, penny whistles, and flutes - he has over 130 CD credits and can be heard on numerous TV themesand jingles and film scores, including The Sandlot, Mi Familia, The SwanPrincess, Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Ricky Lake Show, commercials for Buick and Chevy, and themes for Canadian and German television. He also performs periodically with the Utah Symphony and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and is a regular with the Utah Saxophone Quartet and Q'd Up, a jazz quintet. An educator as well as instrumentalist, Ray currently teaches at BYU in the capacity of Director of Jazz Studies and Professor of Saxophone. BYU's top big band, Synthesis, which Ray leads, has received national and international recognition, winning numerous competitions and performing at the Montreaux (Switzerland), North Sea(Holland), Antibes (French Riviera), Riga (Latvia), Pori (Finland), Kongsberg(Norway), and Umbria (Italy) jazz festivals, and touring Japan, China, and Siberia. Ray is the recipient of the Woody Herman Award for Musical Excellence and Professionalism, and of the Voice of Jazz Award for the State of Utah. His newest CD, Q'd Up is currently receiving national airplay.  

About the music on this CD . . . Cole Porter's "I Love Paris," the first of two trio tracks on the album, begins with a bass figure that Michael appropriated from the Philly rap group, The Roots, and alternates between that funky line and a straight-ahead swing. This arrangement, according to David, happened "pretty much spontaneously. Mike started playing that line without any particular song in mind, then Alan, who's adept at playing funk, jumped in, and I just started playing the first song that popped into my head, which was 'I Love Paris.'" When asked if the arrangement owed something to Jacky Terrasson's 1994 recording of the tune, which alternates similarly between a rock beat and a ballad feel, David said that it probably had - unconsciously - as he'd heard Jacky's version before recording the song himself, but that he hadn't been thinking of it at the time.  

"Once I Loved" is one of David's favorite tunes by the great Brazilian composer, Antonio Carlos Jobim. Growing up, David often heard McCoy Tyner'senergetic 1975 version (with Ron Carter and Elvin Jones), which frequently found its way onto our turntable. But the more lyrical approach taken here, inspired by Shirley Horn, has its own appeal, highlighted by Ray's impeccableflute solo, Kenji's sensitive comping, and the contrapuntal dialogue between Ray and David that closes the performance.  

I was pleased to hear David play the verse to Johnny Green's "I Cover the Waterfront," (a practice too rarely included in jazz performances), particularly effective over the shimmering "wash" or "pad" of Kenji's guitar, which also complements the debut of the album's other guitarist, Joshua, whose gorgeously sparse solo demonstrates his mastery of space andillustrates the adage that "less" can be "more." The interplay between the two guitarists on this track alone is confirmation of the wisdom of David's decision to have them both on the session.  

David also elects to play the verse on George Gershwin's "The Man I Love," the second of the album's two trio tracks, taken at a relaxed medium-swing (perhaps David's favorite tempo) and featuring a deft bass solo by Michael, over Alan's tasty brush work.  

"Harrisville," on which Nathan makes his impressive debut on this album, allows both horns and both guitars ample uptempo solo space. (Note Kenji'slightning response to the phrase traditionally associated with "Brazil" thatDavid quotes in his solo.) The composition is David's, inspired by tenor saxophonist Eddie Harris's "Freedom Jazz Dance" and by the memory of that great architect of soulful musical structures, pianist Gene Harris, who, after a 1995 concert (produced by WEJA Enterprises' Willie and Jackie Atkinson) in the Vacaville Performing Arts Theatre, honored our family with his presence in our home for a late dinner. I remember how, that evening, asGene was enjoying the swordfish I'd grilled on the hibachi, David slipped the Blue Hour album (featuring Stanley Turrentine with Gene's trio The Three Sounds) onto the turntable. "Nineteen sixty," Gene announced delightedly, after hearing the first couple of bars, and he and David proceeded to have apleasant conversation about the session.  

Ted Grouya's beautiful melody "Flamingo," which provides this album's titletrack, was introduced in 1941 by Herb Jeffries, singing Edmund Anderson'scolorfully evocative lyric - "Flamingo, like a flame in the sky . . . withyour tropical hue . . . flying over the island . . . where the sun meets thesea" - with the Duke Ellington orchestra. I was born the following year, and have loved the song since as far back as I can remember. When David told me of his plans to make this album and asked if I had any requests, "Flamingo" was my immediate response. Besides the Jeffries/Ellington recording (which I probably heard on the radio from the time I was born - perhaps before) I have in my (mostly vinyl collection) a stunning piano version by Erroll Garner, his right hand floating inimitably over the beat, a plaintive rendition by Archie Shepp on alto, featuring an exquisite piano solo by the late, great Jaki Byard, a sparse, poignant vocal treatment by Carmen McRae, and, of course, the 1951 R&B hit by Earl Bostic. David had heard all these recordings and, though he hadn't played the song very often before making this album, I can hear a blending of their influence in his rendition, which takes the tune at a ballad tempo but maintains a solid-four feel (Alan's idea) with an occasional suggestion of New Orleans triplets, thus evoking some of the song's swing-era and R&B history. Unlike many jazz ballad performances, this one, featuring Kenji's laid-back guitar (he'd never played the tune before the performance you hear on this CD!), lends itself to taking your sweetie in your arms and slow-dancing. Try it. You'll like it.  

"Dreamin'" augers very well indeed for its young composer, BYU pianist Joseph Fifield. The tune, with its smoothly alternating rhythms, and its treatmenthere are reminiscent of some of the music that George Adams and Kenny Wheeler recorded for ECM back in 1979. Both horns make solid statements and Joshua comps impishly behind Kenji's felicitous solo.  

Jimmy Smith's "Root Down," which provided the title track for his 1972 album and has since been sampled and used as the foundation for the Beastie Boys version, hearkens back to David's nights in New Orleans, performing funk with Galactic. Everyone shines here, with Michael and Alan laying down a rock-solid, soul-drenched beat, David honking, growling and squealing, and the two guitarists engaged in some friendly give-and-take, with Joshua's solo flowing almost imperceptibly into Kenji's, as they trade comping roles and later swap phrases, Kenji's materializing in elegant flurries and Joshua's in wryly twanging ripostes.  

I promised at the outset of these notes to be unabashedly laudatory inwriting about my son's work on this album, and so my words here may be dismissed as the mere product of a loving father's bias, but that inescapable stereotype notwithstanding, I can honestly say that, to my ear, this album tops most debut albums by young jazz musicians in several respects: thequality of material selected for performance, the graceful flow of the segues from one tune to the next, the creativity in the arrangements, thespontaneous emotion informing the album's improvisations, the degree of confidence reflected in the musicians' willingness to relax and take whatever risks their muse demands of them (with no over-dubbing!), and the musical rapport evident between them, in which youthful egos and formidable chops have been subordinated to the collective goal of creating beautiful music. And to David: I couldn't approve more highly of what you've accomplished here. I'm proud of you, my man. Keep up the good work.

David R. Halliday

Senior Staff Writer