Lee Arlano Trio in 1967

Cool pop jazz

Sonobeat held its first Lee Arlano Trio session at The Club Seville on July 12, 1967, during hours the club was closed to the public. The session yielded two tracks suitable for a 45 RPM stereo single, which is what producer Bill Josey Sr. had hoped for. Sessions resumed on July 19th, again at The Club Seville, with instrumental backing tracks recorded for potential Don Dean and Fran Nelson pop vocal singles. Once those sessions wrapped, the trio returned on July 26th and 27th to record a baker’s dozen slickly performed tracks from which ten were selected for a Sonobeat album release in 1968. Importantly, since the recordings were all of non-amplified acoustic instruments, it was easier for inexperienced recording engineers Rim Kelley“Rim Kelley” was the pseudonym used by Sonobeat co-founder Bill Josey Jr. as a radio deejay in Austin, Texas, during the 1960s and as a Sonobeat producer from 1967 to 1970. and KAZZ-FM chief engineer Bill Curtis, who had designed and built Sonobeat’s portable 6-input stereo mixer, to create a real-time mix of each tune with just one pass to a quarter-inch 2-track Ampex 354 tape deck. All that was required were two mikes covering the piano, three on the drums, and one on the upright double bass. Although the mixer and tape deck were situated only a few feet from the stage where the trio performed, because the instruments weren’t amplified, Kelley and Curtis were able to clearly hear and balance the mix through their headphones. In addition, acoustic instruments didn’t overload the Curtis-built mixer, creating relatively clean recordings. Since the session tapes also were the master tapes, the lacquer masters for the record pressing plates were made with first generation recordings to produce the best stereo separation and fidelity.

The Club Seville was a private supper club occupying the second floor of the Crest Motor Inn overlooking Town Lake in downtown Austin. Its Embassy Room hosted the music acts that club manager Don Dean booked. A small raised stage and a wood planked dance floor occupied the center of the Embassy Room, which was set up cabaret style. Three sides of the Embassy Room were lined with floor to ceiling windows that reflected not just light but sound. To dampen what might otherwise have been too “lively” a room for dinner guests, the windows were thickly draped – the drapes were partially closed when acts took the stage – and the floor coverings were equally thick, luxurious, and sound dampening. In fact, the drapes and carpet almost completely deadened the room on Sonobeat’s Arlano recordings, so when the trio’s first single and album were mastered and pressed by Houston Records, producer Bill Josey Sr. asked that they “add a slight, almost unnoticeable amount of reverb – but only if that reverb is chamber or steel sheet – no springs, please!”

The Trio’s first Sonobeat single

“A” side of Lee Arlano Trio’s first Sonobeat single

“B” side of Lee Arlano Trio’s first Sonobeat single

There Will Never Be Another You
National review

Editor's note: The Cash Box review incorrectly states that There Will Never Be Another You is a cover of the Seekers’ 1965 folk-rock hit; the Seekers’ hit is actually I’ll Never Find Another You and is a completely different song.

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Similar to its better known competitor Billboard, Cash Box was a weekly music trade publication aimed at radio station program directors, deejays, record labels, record wholesalers and retailers, and coin-operated juke box operators. Cash Box ceased publishing in 1996.

Enough good stuff for an album

Sonobeat’s first album release, Lee Arlano Trio’s Jazz to the Third Power, followed in 1968 and featured ten of the 1967 recordings. Jazz to the Third Power was one of only three albums Sonobeat commercially released and marketed on its own label (The David Flack Quorum’s Mindbender and Helmer Dahl’s Toe-Tapping Tunes: Organ Solos are the others). Bill Sr. engaged celebrated Austin artist Jim Franklin (a co-founder and artist-in-residence of fabled Vulcan Gas Company in downtown Austin) to create the cover art from a band publicity photo; notably, it was Jim’s first album cover, which he created as a detailed pencil sketch. Austin commercial photographer Jack Storey provided the jacket liner photo, and Austin American-Statesman amusements editor John Bustin wrote the liner notes. The June 29, 1968, edition of music trade journal Billboard awarded the album a 4-star rating in its jazz album reviews for the week.

Final master side I

Final master side II

Lee Arlano Trio’s album cover

All in a daze work

As its last release of 1969, Sonobeat issued the Arlano Trio’s second single, School Daze, the only Arlano original recorded by Sonobeat, with music composed by the trio’s pianist Sam Poni and lyrics by prolific Sonosong composer Herman Nelson. Meditation, the “B” side of the first Arlano single, made a repeat appearance as the “B” side of School Daze. Although the Lee Arlano Trio backed early recordings intended for Sonobeat artists Don Dean and Fran Nelson, which ended up unused, School Daze is the only vocal by the group released by Sonobeat and credits “Cindy” as the singer. Her last name isn’t mentioned on the single’s label, but she was Cindy Reynolds, who also sang on Bill Wilson’s song demo album recorded by Sonobeat in the same general time frame as Cindy’s voval overdub on School Daze. From 1976 to 2009, the Sonobeat archives contained no copy of the School Daze 45 RPM single; however, as a holiday present in December 2009, Herman Nelson graciously gifted the Archives a copy from his personal collection, a rare and prized treasure.

School Daze master tape

School Daze, the second Lee Arlano Trio single

Flip side of the Lee Arlano Trio’s second Sonobeat single

By the time Sonobeat released Jazz to the Third Power in 1968, Lee’s brother Andy had been replaced on bass by Jack Dujo, from Pueblo, Colorado. Pianist Sam Poni and Jack had worked as a duo before joining up with Lee, but Jack didn’t perform on any of Sonobeat’s Lee Arlano Trio recordings. In fact, the Lee Arlano Trio changed personnel many times in a relatively short period of time; when Bill Sr. first met the trio, the pianist was Les James. The trio recorded another album, in 1969, this time for Denver label Premiere, with Les Arellano stepping in on piano, causing us some confusion when we came across this in newspaper ads. Adding to the confusion, “Arlano” is one of two names used interchangeably by the trio; in fact, the first four tracks Sonobeat recorded with the trio were under the name “The Lee Arellano Trio”. The family name indeed is “Arellano”, not “Arlano”. Newspaper ads variously referred to the trio by both last names. Even “Sam Poni” is a stage name for Sam Pannunzio, who today remains an active performer based in Pueblo, Colorado. By 1976, Lee had joined big band The Denver Affair. Lee died on October 1, 1982, at age 48.

Bill Josey Sr. hosted many live broadcasts of the Lee Arlano Trio over KAZZ-FM, all originating from The Club Seville, both before and after the combo’s first Sonobeat single was recorded. After KAZZ-FM shut down in January 1968, Sonobeat continued its relationship with the group that ultimately generated the most number of tracks – 13 – that Sonobeat commercially released by any artist.

Digital reissues

In March 2014, Sonobeat Historical Archives reissued restored and remastered digital versions, made from 88.2KHz/24 bit transfers from the original analog session master tapes, of There Will Never Be Another You and Meditation, and in October 2015, the Arlano album Jazz to the Third Power with two previously unreleased bonus tracks. All are available on Apple Music, Amazon Music, and dozens of other digital download and streaming platforms worldwide.