Serge Chaloff

Biography

Serge Chaloff was the leading baritone saxophonist from the bop period, his fiery, active improvisations restoring the device to prominence some weeks before the introduction of Gerry Mulligan. Chaloff was created in Boston on November 24, 1923. His dad was a pianist using the Boston Symphony Orchestra while his mom, Margaret, trained music in the Boston Conservatory of Music, as time passes educating an illustrious group of pianists including Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock, and Richard Twardzik. Chaloff himself analyzed piano and clarinet before teaching himself the baritone sax in emulation of Jack port Washington and Harry Carney. Charlie Parker was also a monumental impact. Chaloff produced his professional debut to get Boyd Raeburn, accompanied by a stint behind Georgie Ault. He 1st earned common renown after becoming a member of Jimmy Dorsey in 1945, generating the variation of bebop’s 1st baritone soloist. Chaloff however remains most widely known for his stint with Woody Herman’s Second Herd, which he became a member of in past due 1946. Together with tenors Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, and Herbie Stewart he vaulted to jazz immortality the next season via the Jimmy Giuffre structure “Four Brothers,” a landmark documenting extending each one of the saxophonists a single turn. In middle-1947 Chaloff also led his initial recording program, leading trombonist Crimson Rodney, tenor saxophonist Earl Swope, pianist George Wallington, bassist Curley Russell, and drummer Tiny Kahn on many sides trim for the Savoy label. Nevertheless, by this time around Chaloff was deep within the throes of heroin obsession, and for a long time after departing the Herman music group in 1949 he was regarded persona non grata throughout a lot of the jazz community, getting an abysmal popularity for skipped gigs and erratic shows. Chaloff resolved in NEW YORK, assembling an organization offering the visionary pianist Bud Powell and trombonist Earl Swope that, unfortunately, never documented. By early 1952 he came back to Boston, which spring trim an unissued program with pianist Twardzik, trombonist Sonny Truitt, bassist Jack port Lawlor, and drummer Jimmy Weiner. Championed by regional disk jockey Bob Martin, Chaloff steadily eased back to the larger awareness, showing up on television’s The Steve Allen Present and leading the home band on the Beantown membership Jazzorama. In 1954, he agreed upon to George Wein’s Boston-based Storyville to slice the Fable of Mabel, documented with regional luminaries including alto saxophonist Charlie Mariano and trumpeter Supplement Pomeroy, along with a season afterwards the label also released his cooperation with altoist Boot styles Mussulli. After completing focus on Boston Blow-Up!, a loose but impassioned Stan Kenton-produced time for Capitol, Chaloff relocated to LA, where in 1956 he set up pianist Sonny Clark, bassist Leroy Vinnegar, and drummer Philly Joe Jones to record his masterpiece Blue Serge, a gripping, evocative established that rates among the best possible jazz recordings of it is period. But by enough time of its discharge Chaloff was restricted to a wheelchair, partly paralyzed because the consequence of a vertebral tumor. The cancers pass on, and he passed away July 16, 1957, at age just 33.

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