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.
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 Arlano
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 fabled 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  . The
June 29, 1968, edition of Billboard magazine
jazz album reviews awarded the album a 4 star rating.
John
Bustin's liner notes for Jazz to the Third Power:
At a time when jazz is spinning off in so many
directions, when musicians
are either frantically reaching toward new horizons in jazz or laboriously
digging up relics of the past, it's really refreshing to run across
somebody like The Lee Arlano Trio.
Built around the standard piano-bass-drum instrumentation,
this versatile threesome has a wholesome, healthy, and best of all,
perhaps — entertaining approach to jazz. To the Arlano group, obviously,
music is neither mystical, sacred, nor somber. It's supposed to be
appealing, and, ideally, enjoyable.
The delightful Arlano style is deftly demonstrated
on this new collection
of songs which also serves
to point up the trio's
wide-ranging abilities
and the individual talents
of its members.
Leader Lee Arlano is the drummer,
a steady timekeeper
with some neat rhythmic tricks. Sam Poni, a Pueblo,
Colorado, lad, is the
pianist with a swinging
straight-ahead style somewhat
suggesting a cross between
Oscar Peterson and Ramsey
Lewis. The bassist is
Andy Arlano, Lee's brother
and an uncommonly solid
cornerstone for the trio
as a whole. |
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During the course of ten nicely assorted
tunes each of the trio
has opportunity to showcase
his skills — Andy, for
instance, on a bright-tempoed "I Remember April," where
he employs some double-stop
techniques in a novel
bass solo — Lee
with his brushes and sticks
on Thelonious Monk's "Straight, No
Chaser" — Pianist Poni on the Duke's shiny
"Satin Doll."
Highlights abound, though, and everyone who has heard
the Arlano Trio during
its successful engagements at the Club Seville of Austin's Sheraton
Crest Inn (where, incidentally, this album was recorded) or in Las
Vegas or Denver or Anaheim, or anywhere it appears, will have their
own favorites. A couple of major moments, however, are "In Crowd,"
the Ramsey Lewis romp
which, in this treatment, seems to get more going for it than even
the original, and "Big Noise From Winnetka,"
an old Bob Crosby Bobcat
thriller, which proves
to be a nostalgic virtuoso piece for the brothers Arlano.
But Arlano's music is not to be analyzed nor explained.
It's be be played and listened to. Its enjoyment, after all, is its
own message. |
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In
1969, Sonobeat released The Lee Arlano Trio's second single, School
Daze (P-J 117), a rare Arlano original with music by
pianist Sam Poni and lyrics by Sonosong composer Herman
M. Nelson. Meditation, which had been the
"B" side of There Will Never Be Another You,
returned as the "B" side of School Daze.
Although The Lee Arlano Trio backed early test recordings
of Sonobeat artist Fran
Nelson and Don Dean, School
Daze was the only vocal released by the group and credits "Cindy" as
the singer. Although her last name isn't mentioned on
the single's label and isn't listed in the Sonobeat archives,
we're pretty sure "Cindy" was Cindy Reynolds, who
also sang on the Bill
Wilson song
demo album recorded in the same general time frame as the
Arlano sessions. From 1976 to 2009, Sonobeat had
no copy of the School Daze single in its archives;
however, as a holiday present in December 2009, Herman Nelson
graciously gifted the archives with a copy from his personal
collection, a rare and prized treasure indeed.
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Bill
Josey 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. |
