Serge Chaloff

Chaloff made his last live appearances at The Stable Club on Huntington Avenue in Boston the following May. Interviewed in 1993, Charlie 'the Whale' Johnson recalled Chaloff's final performances: 'I remember pushing Chaloff's wheelchair into The Stable for his last appearances there. He was in bad shape but could still really play, standing leaning on a pillar. However, he didn't have much stamina. He couldn't really finish the gig. I also had to go get pot and booze for him. He was still using these steadily, even in the hospital at the end.'

Chaloff's final recording, on 11 February 1957, was for The Four Brothers... Together Again! a reunion album of Woody Herman's Four Brothers for Vik, a subsidiary of RCA Victor. The Four Brothers lineup was Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Herbie Steward and Chaloff, accompanied by Elliot Lawrence (piano), Buddy Jones (bass) and Don Lamond (drums). On the later recordings, Charlie O'Kane was brought in to play baritone on the section parts, so Chaloff could preserve his strength for the solos. Here his playing was as strong as ever, especially on "Aged in Wood", written as a solo vehicle for Chaloff by Al Cohn.

On 15 July 1957, the dying Chaloff was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital. According to Richard Chaloff, he took his horn and pet monkey with him: 'He still had the kinkajou monkey Mother got him to keep him company. And he had his horn. I was told they wheeled him into a vacant operating theatre so he could practise, and that was his last gig, his last public performance, solo baritone sax alone in an operating theatre. Nurses, doctors and even patients were standing outside and listening. He fought it to the end. Mother would visit him and urge him on, saying, 'You can beat it' and things. But that last day, they brought a priest to visit him, and the priest saw Serge in bed looking so wasted, and the priest thought he was supposed to perform the last rites. Serge woke up in the middle of it and really panicked, sliding away from him and yelling 'No! No! Get out!' But after that he seemed to give up. I think that's when he realized it was all over.'

The highlights of the album are Chaloff's powerful ballad features, "What's New?", and "Body and Soul". In the 1956 Metronome Yearbook, Bill Coss described the latter as 'an almost frightening example of Serge's form, moaning through a seemingly autobiographical portrayal of (his) Body and Soul', an enormously emotional jazz listening experience.'

In 1956, Chaloff worked his way across the country, usually working in an alto/baritone format. In Chicago, he played alongside Lou Donaldson. In Los Angeles, he played with Sonny Stitt, in a band which also included Leroy Vinnegar, the leading West Coast bassist.

Chaloff's Los Angeles appearance led to his recording a second Capitol LP there in March 1956. The drummer was Philly Joe Jones, who was in Los Angeles with the Miles Davis Quintet. Sonny Clark played piano, and Leroy Vinnegar was on bass. Chaloff described the making of the record, called Blue Serge, on the jacket blurb: 'My last record, Boston Blow-up! was one of those carefully planned things....But this time I was feeling a little more easy-going, and I decided to make a record just to blow. I picked out what I felt was the best rhythm section around and told them just to show up...no rehearsals...no tunes set...and trust to luck and musicianship....I'd never worked with these guys before except for jamming briefy with Joe Jones eight years ago, but I knew from hearing them what they could do....We were shooting for an impromptu feeling and we got it. It has more freedom and spark than anything I've recorded before. And I don't think there's a better recommendation than that when it comes to honest jazz.'

Chaloff continued to work on the West Coast, performing at the Starlite Club in Hollywood in May 1956. That month, while playing golf, he was struck down by severe back and abdominal pains, which paralysed his legs. Chaloff flew back to Boston, where an exploratory operation revealed that he was suffering from cancer of the spine. His brother Richard described his final illness: 'We took him down there [Massachusetts General Hospital] and they found he had lesions on his spine.....they operated and took most of the lesions away, and then he went on a series of X-ray treatments. Oh they were terrible. He must have had twenty or twenty-five in a row. And in those days they really gave you heavy doses of it. Then occasionally he got spots on the lungs'

Despite his illness, and the gruelling treatment, Chaloff continued to play live. In New York, on 18 June 1956, a wheelchair-using Chaloff took part in a recording of Charlie Parker's "Billie's Bounce", for the Metronome All Stars album. He played alongside Zoot Sims, Art Blakey, Charles Mingus and Billy Taylor.

In 1955, Bob Martin persuaded Capitol Records to record a Chaloff LP as part of their 'Stan Kenton Presents Jazz' series. Chaloff's come-back album, Boston Blow-Up! was recorded in New York City in April 1955. He was accompanied by Boots Mussulli (alto), Herb Pomeroy (tp), Ray Santisi (p), Everett Evans (b) and Jimmy Zitano (d). Pomeroy, Santisi and Zitano were already a tight unit, regularly playing at Boston's Stable Club, where they had recorded a live album Jazz in a Stable, on Transition the previous March.

Boston Blow-Up!'s favourable reception brought more work for Chaloff, culminating in a performance at the Boston Arts Festival in June 1955. The show was reviewed in the Boston Herald: 'The ingenuity of Chaloff as a soloist is enormous, and his use of dissonance always conveys a sense of purpose and of form. In 'Body and Soul', he exhibited his capabilities vigorously, taking a deliberate tempo and treating the music with a lyric, delicate, tonal standpoint....the harmonies of the group are tense and the melodies resourceful and they play with a kind of controlled abandon.'

In June and September 1954, Chaloff made two recording sessions for George Wein's Boston Storyville label, released as two 10" LPs. The first Serge and Boots was presented as a joint album with Boots Mussulli, with accompaniment by Russ Freeman (piano), Jimmy Woode (bass) and Buzzy Drootin (drums). Yet George Wein wrote on the sleevenote: 'An alternate title for this album could be 'Serge Returns'....Each selection in these six was chosen and arranged solely by Serge.' There were five standards and a Chaloff original, 'Zdot', with an ending 'written by a wonderful pianist and teacher, Margaret Chaloff, Serge's mother.'.

Just a month after his second Storyville recording, Chaloff went through a personal crisis. In October 1954, with no money and unable to find heroin, he voluntarily entered the drug rehabilitation program at Bridgewater State Hospital. After being hospitalized for three and a half months. he was released in February 1955, finally drug free.

Chaloff's come-back began in late 1953, when the Boston DJ Bob 'The Robin' Martin offered to become his manager. Helped by Martin, Chaloff formed a new group which played at Boston's Jazzorama and Storyville nightclubs. His usual musical partners were Boots Mussulli or Charlie Mariano (alto), Herb Pomeroy (trumpet),and Dick Twardzik (piano). 'He didn't work a lot,' said Bob Martin, 'because the word was out. You had to talk somebody to give him a chance to play. When you got him a gig in a club or a hotel, he would usually mess it up. But when he did show...and got playing...it was,'Stand back, Baby!

On the second Storyville album, The Fable of Mabel, Chaloff played in a nine-piece band featuring Charlie Mariano, who composed three of the five originals, and Herb Pomeroy, who provided 'Salute to Tiny', dedicated to the drummer and arranger Tiny Kahn. The ambitious title piece was composed by Dick Twardzik, who described it on the sleevenote: 'The Fable of Mabel was introduced to jazz circles in 1951-52 by the Serge Chaloff Quartet. Audiences found this satirical jazz legend a welcome respite from standard night club fare. In this legend, Mabel is depicted as a woman who loves men, music and her silver saxophone that played counterpoint (her own invention which proved impractical). The work is divided into three movements: first, New Orleans; second Classical; and third, Not Too Sad An Ending. The soulful baritone solo by Serge Chaloff traces Mabel's humble beginnings working railroad cars in New Orleans to her emergence as a practising crusader for the cause of Jazz. During her Paris days on the Jazz Houseboat, her struggle for self-expression is symbolized by an unusual saxophone duet Charlie Mariano and Varty Haritrounian. Mabel always said she wanted to go out blowing. She did.' The sixth track, Al Killian's 'Lets Jump', was chosen by Chaloff, who said: 'Now that we've proven how advanced we are let's show the people that we can still swing.'

The trumpeter Rolf Ericson, who joined Herman's band in 1950, described the impact of drugs on the band's performances: 'In the band Woody had started on the coast...late in 1947, which I heard many times, several of the guys were on narcotics and four were alcoholics. When the band started a night's work they sounded wonderful, but after the intermission, during which they used the needle or lushed, the good music was over. It was horrible to see them sitting on the stage like living dead, peering into little paper envelopes when they weren't playing.'

For part of 1950, Chaloff played in the All Star Octet of Count Basie who, like Herman, had broken up his big band. The band comprised Basie, Chaloff, Wardell Gray, Buddy DeFranco, Clark Terry, Freddie Green, Jimmy Lewis and Gus Johnson. The group recorded a handful of sides for Victor and Columbia and was also captured on airchecks.

In 1950, Chaloff returned to Boston, where he played in small groups in clubs like the High Hat, Petty Lounge and Red Fox Cafe. A 1950 performance at the Celebrity Club in Providence Rhode Island, was broadcast by WRIV, and has been released on CD as Boston 1950. Playing in small groups gave Chaloff the space to develop a new style of playing. In 1951, he talked about 'getting away from the fireworks that don't mean anything' that had been a part of his style up to that point and 'adding more colour and flexibility to his work.' His friend Al Cohn observed 'It wasn't until he left the big bands that he really started to develop as a soloist.'

In 1949, Leonard Feather included Chaloff in his book Inside Be-Bop: 'Great conception and execution, good taste, clean tone and Bird-like style have made him the No.1 bop exponent of the baritone.'

In late 1949, when many big bands were folding for economic reasons, Herman broke up the Second Herd. Fronting a new small band in Chicago in 1950, Herman told Down Beat: 'You can't imagine how good it feels to look at my present group and find them all awake. To play a set and not have someone conk out in the middle of a chorus.'

Chaloff was now a star, winning the Down Beat and Metronome polls every year from 1949-1953. Yet his drug use and heavy drinking made it difficult for him to keep steady work, and he gave up playing completely in 1952-3.

Serge Chaloff became a household name in 1947, when he joined Woody Herman's Second Herd. This was known as the 'Four Brothers Band', after the reed section, comprising Chaloff, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Herbie Steward, and a little later Al Cohn. He was featured on many Herman recordings, including "Four Brothers", Keen and Peachy", and had solo features in Al Cohn's "The Goof and I". and "Man, Don't Be Ridiculous." On the latter, he demonstrated 'an astonishing technical facility that was quite without precedent on the instrument.'

By 1947, Chaloff, following the example of his hero, Charlie Parker, was a heroin addict. According to Gene Lees, Chaloff was the Woody Herman band's 'chief druggist as well as its number one junkie. Serge would hang a blanket in front of the back seats of the bus and behind it would dispense the stuff to colleagues.' Whitney Balliett wrote that Chaloff had 'a satanic reputation as a drug addict whose proselytizing ways with drugs reportedly damaged more people than just himself.' Many musicians blamed him for the drug-related death of the 21-year-old trumpeter Sonny Berman on January 16, 1947.

Chaloff then joined the big bands of Georgie Auld and then Jimmy Dorsey, who featured him on a celebrated 1946 recording of "Perdido".

Alongside his work in big bands, in 1946-7, Chaloff performed and recorded with several small bebop groups. These included Sonny Berman's' Big Eight, Bill Harris's Big Eight, the Ralph Burns Quintet, Red Rodney's Be-Boppers, and his own Serge Chaloff Sextette, which released two 78 records on the Savoy label. Three of the four tunes recorded were written and arranged by Chaloff while the fourth, 'Gabardine and Serge', was by Tiny Kahn. 'All four tunes are daredevil cute and blisteringly fast,' wrote Marc Myers. 'They showcase tight unison lines and standout solos by four of the six musicians, who are in superb form....(On 'Pumpernickel') Chaloff shows off his inexhaustible and leonine approach to the baritone sax.'

The Kenton connection came about through Mussulli, who had played in his orchestra in 1944-7 and 1952-4. Richard Vacca wrote that 'Chaloff still had his bad boy reputation, and the presence of the steady and reliable Mussulli, who had recorded his own 'Kenton Presents' LP in 1954, was a great relief to Capitol.' For the recording, he composed and arranged five new tunes, including 'Bob the Robin', dedicated to Chaloff's manager. Pomeroy arranged the standards.

In 1939, aged just sixteen, Chaloff joined the Tommy Reynolds band, playing tenor sax. This was followed by jobs in the bands of Dick Rogers, Shep Fields and Ina Ray Hutton. In July 1944, he joined Boyd Raeburn's short-lived big band, where he played alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Al Cohn, who became a lifelong friend. With Boyd Raeburn, in January 1945, he made his first recordings, including 'Interlude' (Dizzy Gillespie's 'A Night in Tunisia'), where his baritone can be heard in the opening section of the song.

Serge Chaloff (November 24, 1923 – July 16, 1957) was an American jazz baritone saxophonist. The first and greatest bebop baritonist, Chaloff has been described as 'the most expressive and openly emotive baritone saxophonist jazz has ever witnessed' with a tone varying 'between a light but almost inaudible whisper to a great sonorous shout with the widest but most incredibly moving of vibratos.'