Lee Arlano (standing), Sam Poni (left), Andy Arlano
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The
Denver-based Lee Arlano Trio worked the Western U.S. jazz club circuit in
the '60s, with regular stops at Anaheim, Las Vegas,
and... Austin. And, when they were in
Austin, the Trio called
the Club Seville at the Sheraton Crest Inn (now the Radisson Hotel) home.
It was KAZZ-FM's live remote broadcasts from the Club Seville in 1966
that introduced Sonobeat owners Bill Josey
Sr. and Rim Kelley (Bill Jr.) to the group. Bill
Sr., an avid jazz fan, loved the group's
versatility,
technical craftsmanship, and imaginative interpretations
of such old jazz classics as Big Noise from
Winnetka and such new hits as Ramsey Lewis' jazz-rock crossover The In Crowd. Bill Sr., who played
big band-style coronet, knew that recording
the
Lee Arlano
Trio
for a Sonobeat release was inevitable.
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The Lee Arlano Trio's first Sonobeat single
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The first Arlano sessions at the Club Seville in early summer 1967 --
intended to produce two tracks for Sonobeat's first 45 rpm
release -- yielded half a dozen slickly performed tracks.
Importantly, since the tunes were all instrumentals, no vocal
overdubs were necessary, making it relatively easy for inexperienced
recording engineers Rim Kelley and Bill Curtis to create
a final mix of each song with just one pass to the 2-track
Ampex 354 recorder. A jazz trio was far less challenging
to record than a rock group because the instruments were
all unamplified and, therefore, less likely to overload the
circuits in Sonobeat's home-built mixing console. All that
was required were two mikes on the piano, three on the drums,
and one on the stand-up acoustic bass. The mixer and recorder
were situated only feet from the stage where Lee (drums),
Andy (acoustic bass), and Sam (piano) performed, but because
the instruments were all acoustic, Kelley and Curtis could
clearly hear the mix through their headphones. Since the
session tapes also were the master tapes, the lacquer masters
were made with
first generation recordings.
The
Lee Arlano Trio's first single, originally scheduled as Sonobeat's
first release, was held back so that the Sweetarts' more
commercial rock single, recorded in July '67, could launch Sonobeat
Records. There
Will Never Be Another You backed
with Meditation (Sonobeat stereo single PJ-s 501) was
followed in 1968 by Sonobeat's first album release, the Trio's
diverse Jazz
to the Third Power (PJ-S 1001), the first of only two
albums commercially released and marketed by Sonobeat on its
own label (The
David Flack Quorum's Mindbender was
the other). Notably, the cover sketch was the first album jacket
by celebrated Austin artist Jim Franklin (then artist-in-residence
at the Vulcan
Gas Company in
downtown Austin). The liner photo was taken by Jack Storey,
and the liner notes were written by Austin
American-Statesman amusements
editor John Bustin.
In
1969, Sonobeat released The Lee Arlano Trio's second single, School
Daze (PJ-s 117) for which Sonosong composer Herman
M. Nelson wrote the lyrics, backed, once again, with Meditation.
Bill
Sr. broadcast the Lee Arlano Trio
from the Club Seville many
times before
and
after their first Sonobeat single was released.
After KAZZ-FM shut down in January 1968, Sonobeat
continued its
relationship with the talented group -- a
relationship that generated the most number of
tracks commercially released
by
any artist on the label.
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