Bud Shank's Against the Tide DVD/CD combo package showcases the Bud Shank Quartet filmed in San Diego, CA performing Bud's tunes, and includes extensive interview segments with Bud as he discusses his over 60-year career in jazz. Included are rare Shank performances from television and film, including the Stars of Jazz TV show from 1957, and Bud's appearance from the Frankly Jazz TV broadcast in 1962.
MUSICIANS:
Bud Shank, alto sax
Mike Wofford, piano
Bob Magnusson, bass
Joe LaBarbera, drums
NOTE: This DVD is Region 1- NTSC (North America) and not playable on other DVD players unless they are a multi-region player.
Artist(s)/Title:
Bud Shank DVD/CD combo documentary: Against the Tide
The name Bud Shank is synonymous with West Coast jazz. He is credited as being the one of the first musicians to introduce the flute to jazz; he also was one of the key figures to introduce Central and South American sounds to the idiom, along with Laurindo Almeida in the early 1950s, which led to the formation of Bossa Nova a few years later.
Background:
Bud Shank has been at the forefront of the jazz world since the 1950s, having started his career in the bands of Charlie Barnet and Stan Kenton. He joined Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All Stars in the 1950s and quickly became an integral member of the West Coast jazz scene.
Bud composed and performed the music for the ground-breaking Bruce Brown surfing movies Slippery When Wet and Barefoot Adventure, and composed the music for Robert Redford's first movie, War Hunt, in 1962.
Numerous jazz recordings during the 1950s and 1960s led Bud to a large amount of studio work in Los Angeles during the 1960s and 1970s. During this period he performed primarily on both alto sax and flute.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Shank joined with Ray Brown, Jeff Hamilton, and Laurindo Almeida to form the world-renowned LA 4, who recorded and toured extensively through out the world.
Bud performed a specially composed concert for jazz alto sax with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1980s, and formed the Bud Shank Workshop in Port Townsend, Washington, which provided jazz education for students over a 25 year period.
Today Bud Shank lives in Tucson, Arizona and continues to perform around the world.
DVD/CD combo package includes:
DVD Documentary film about Bud Shank featuring his quartet photographed at Studio West in San Diego, CA and extensive interviews with Bud and over a hundred photos from the Bud Shank collection.
CD featuring music from the DVD and rare Bud Shank performances including the premiere of "The Gift,"� written by Bill Holman and performed by Bud and The Bill Holman Band.
Produced and Directed by Graham Carter
DVD Total Viewing Time: 115 minutes
CD Total Playing Time: 60:02
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REVIEW
Bud Shank - Against the Tide - Portrait of a Jazz Legend
A fascinating 60 year musical journey with Bud Shank
Published on March 10, 2008
AUDIOPHILE AUDITION
www.audaud.com
Bud Shank - Against the Tide (Portrait of a Jazz Legend)
Documentary by Graham Carter
Studio: Jazzed Media JM 9003
Video: Anamorphic/enhanced for 16:9 widescreen, color
Audio: PCM stereo + separate CD of rare Shank recordings
Length: 115 minutes; CD: 60 minutes
Rating: *****
Jazzed Media's owner, Graham Carter, has provided the jazz world and the American music scene with a major documentary release combined with a companion Jazz CD that shares the musical journey that multi-instrumentalist Bud Shank has undertaken for over 60 years. Like most all long lived musical geniuses, Shank's journey has provided explorations of multiple musical idioms, both jazz, classical, and international with forays into be-bop, West Coast centered, Brazilian, and film scores just to name a few.
Shank has played alto, tenor, and baritone sax as well as the full gamut of flutes. He has composed film scores, played as a principal flute player for Frank Sinatra, and spent much of the 70s and 80s as part of the LA 4, composed of guitarist Laurindo Almeida, bassist Ray Brown, Shank, and during different periods, drummers, Chuck Flores, Shelly Manne, and Jeff Hamilton.
His career began in earnest in the late 40s playing tenor with the Charlie Barnet's band in LA. When Charlie's alto player left, Bud took over alto duties and stayed with Barnet for a few years before playing in jam sessions with Stan Kenton's sidemen before Kenton reformed in late 1949 with his Innovations in Modern Music band, whose 35+ piece orchestra featured strings as well as full brass and reed sections with the cream of the crop of West Coast based stars including Shank, Shorty Rogers, and Art Pepper. An orchestra that size could only last so long and they scaled back in 1951 to a smaller band that featured the vibrato sax section per Shank.
Other stops along the way for Bud included membership in the Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All Star group, an extended period recording for Pacific Jazz Records (memorialized in Shank's Mosaic box set, now long out of print). During this period Bud shared leader duties with the great tenor and oboe player, Bob Cooper.
Much of the 1960s was spent in the studios both writing and playing for television, film, and backing vocalists. The entree to this work was made possible by Shorty Rogers. Into the 70s Bud explored Brazilian rhythms with the LA 4.
Bud became restless playing the flute and missed his saxophone days so he soon cut out most of his flute playing and returned to first tenor and now mostly alto sax. He has not slowed down a lick and has made brilliant CDs both in duo setting with Bill Mays and also in sessions with Phil Woods and explored big band arranging and composing-all on the Jazzed Media label. Graham Carter has provided Bud with a new stage to continue his musical explorations with Shank still going strong well into his 80s.
What makes this DVD/CD release so special is the DVD section with Bud both playing with his quartet of Mike Wofford, Bob Magnusson, and Joe La Barbera, and also reminiscing between song snippets regarding his career, his influences (strong mention is made of Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, and Al Cohn- interestingly enough all tenor saxists), and opinions regarding improvisation, his tenure with the Centrum Jazz Festival in Port Townsend, and witty observations on his life as a jazz icon. He has strong opinions regarding being classified solely as a West Coast cool school musician, strongly stating that his playing and tone are no longer 1950s West Coast based and never were. Being pigeon holed as a specific stylist is the last impression one would get after viewing the DVD.
A huge bonus that Carter provides on the companion CD are the nine tracks - as the first four feature May 2007 studio numbers with Bud's present quartet; as well as a duo with Bill Mays; and a big band track from Bill Holman's big band live concert in May 2005 at the LA Jazz Institute's Neophonic Impressions weekend. Shank is featured here on the big band track, "The Gift."
The CD is closed with three rarities - two Lighthouse All Stars songs, April 1956-issued, Lover Man and The Nearness of You - and finally a rarity par excellence: The Big Heist, from 1963, with Bud on flute with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
Against the Tide is a major release documenting an artist whose musical career has crossed many jazz idioms and shows a still vital jazz icon who has followed his own path, taking both opportunities coming his way and still venturing into new territories when his muse came calling. This is a MUST purchase for any jazz fan, or for that matter anyone with an appreciation for a musical artist who has remained independent, free willed, and vibrant over the last sixty years.
