The baritone saxophone is a rare instrument in jazz. Only Gerry Mulligan, among jazz superstars, favored the instrument. There is a simple reason for this, as Steve Allen once pointed out: it is incapable of making a pretty noise. But for that reason it can perfectly exemplify the genius of jazz: making music out of musical ideas.
Serge Chaloff was born in Boston, the son of two noted piano teachers. He died of cancer of the spine about two months after I was born. Like a lot of jazzmen of that era, heroin put a heavy tax on his output. But what he did manage to accomplish before he was laid low was just enough to fill out a tragedy.
I recently acquired his most celebrated recording, Blue Serge. Sonny Clark on piano, Leroy Vinnegar on bass, and the ubiquitous Philly Joe Jones on drums. Chaloff squeezes all of the human soul out of his baritone, leaving one to wonder if great music could come out of a fog horn if the right man was pushing the button. It is superb jazz, and very hard to find. But we live in an age when such treasures are no longer so deeply buried.
Recent Comments