“Blowin’ Up a Storm”
Composed by Woody Herman; head arrangement.
Recorded by Woody Herman and His Orchestra for Columbia on November 26, 1945 in New York.(*)
(*)This recording session likely took place in Liederkranz Hall – 111-119 East 58th Street.
Woody Herman, clarinet, directing: Irving Lewis, first trumpet; Walter “Pete” Candoli, Saul “Sonny” Berman, Milton “Shorty” Rogers and Neal Hefti, trumpets; Willard Palmer “Bill” Harris, first trombone; Ed Kiefer and Ralph Pfeffner, trombones; Sam Marowitz, first alto saxophone; John La Porta, alto saxophone; Joseph “Flip” Phillips (Joseph E. Filippelli) and Mickey Folus, tenor saxophones; Sam Rubinowich, baritone saxophone; Anthony “Tony” Aless (Alessandrini), piano; Billy Bauer, electric guitar; Greig “Chubby” Jackson, bass; Don Lamond, drums.
The story:
Woody Herman (1913-1987) was one of a handful of bandleaders whose career as a sideman and leader of various big bands covered more that fifty years. That in itself was a remarkable achievement considering the myriad challenges that bandleaders constantly faced. In the last years of his life, when various maladies and injuries started to slow him down considerably, Woody devoted more time to reflecting on his life as a performer. Unlike some other bandleaders who avoided discussing their careers for various reasons, he did discuss his career, and his recollections were both clear and remarkably objective. 
I have always been impressed by Woody’s ability to accurately recall events from decades earlier, and recount them in a straightforward way. He had no hidden agendas or axes to grind. He also had a good memory for the context/surrounding events.(1)
Shortly after Woody died, Columbia Records, then in the beginning of the transition from the long-playing record format to compact discs, issued some of the recordings made by the Herman bands of 1945-1946, and a bit later, for one last time on LP. On one of them, Woody Herman and The Thundering Herds 1945 -1947, the excellent liner notes by George Kanzler, began with this rather surprising assertion: “Woody Herman’s career as a big band leader spanned over half a century, but he once said – ‘except for the 1945-1946 band, it was all downhill.'”(2) (Woody was referring to the financial aspects of bandleading .) At the time I read that statement, now some 37 years ago, I did not understand what was involved in organizing, staffing, directing, traveling with and keeping afloat a big band. Consequently, I was shocked by it. In the decades since, I have learned a great deal about what it took to form, operate, direct musically and keep financially solvent a big band. I now have a more realistic understanding of what Woody meant when he made that remark. To say that leading a big band was always a high-risk business operation would be an understatement.
But the musical rewards a leader derived from working with a creative group of musicians usually outweighed the business and logistical hassles. Trumpeter Shorty Rogers was only 21 years old when he joined Woody Herman’s band in September of 1945. He later recalled what it was like in his early days with the Herman band. “I was in the Army in 1945, and I had a few months to go. But I was told that I was going to get discharged early. …Red Norvo, whom I had worked with previously, was a very close friend of mine. I think it was even before he and my sister got married. He knew Woody… and Woody wanted Red to join his band. (Which Norvo eventually did.) As I was ready to get out of the Army, I saw Red when I was on furlough, and also Chubby Jackson, who was a good friend of mine. Red and Chubby talked to Woody (about me joining the band), and (trumpeter) Conte Candoli was getting drafted. (So I joined the band.) Ten days later, I got married.”
“It was an unbelievable thrill for me to get out of the Army into what at that time was the band. But I was scared to death. And that’s when Pete Candoli adopted me. I sat next to him in the trumpet section in the chair Conte had sat in. He treated me like Conte was still there. He took me in like a brother and watched over me, made me feel comfortable, spoke to me, and taught me things that helped me get through that whole experience.” (3)
The time Shorty Rogers joined the Herman band was something of a turning point for that ensemble. Drummer Dave Tough, who was then beset by health problems, left the band in September of 1945. He was replaced by Don Lamond. Tony Aless had only recently replaced Ralph Burns as band pianist, as Burns was by then overwhelmed with his work as an arranger for the Herman band. Although Woody and his group had in the late summer and early autumn of 1944 spent 13 weeks featured on a sponsored (by Old Gold cigaretts) radio show, and experienced a substantial boost in popularity as a result, their management team was trying to get them an even higher profile radio show. Finally, in September of 1945, the announcement was made that they would be featured on a network radio program sponsored by Wildroot hair tonic. Their first broadcast would be on Friday October 12, 1945 over the ABC (formerly NBC Blue) radio network.
Pull-marketing for Woody Herman and “The Herd” in 1946 – a print ad for Wildroot cream oil. Note that Woody, Chubby Jackson and Frances Wayne got caricatured, in addition to Cream Oil Charlie. Curiously, Chubby, not Woody, is a character in the comic strip.(4)
Woody Herman, who by 1945 had been leading a band for nine years, and had been playing in bands as a sideman for several more, well understood the feast and famine nature of the band business. After experiencing many years of famine, and a few of marginal success, Woody was now going to embark on a period of feast, if he and his bandsmen could survive the brutal work schedule they were about to begin. Their radio show would ensure that most if not all of the weekly basic overhead expenses of operating the band would be offset. But the large boost in public awareness of the Herman band that they got from their weekly radio show was also a very large benefit in that it created new and greater demand for the band across the nation. The management challenge Woody’s handlers confronted was how to satisfy that demand in the most profitable way possible. In the fall of 1945 and well into 1946, they decided to secure as many week-long engagements in big theaters as possible to do this. And during each of those week-long stands, the Herman band would broadcast their Wildroot radio show from the stage of the theater in which they were playing. This was something that theater audiences loved, and their excitement is evident on the many recordings of those broadcasts that were made.
Financially, week-long theater engagements were a gold mine for theater operators, booking agencies, bandleaders and performers. It was not uncommon for bands to play four, five or six one-hour shows daily in theaters then. If the band had a strong following and was receiving ongoing promotion by a weekly radio show, those theaters would usually be full. If the bandleader was receiving a weekly guarantee (say $5,000, which was about average for a top band in the mid-1940s), plus a percentage of the money made on ticket sales, a bandleader could reasonably expect to gross between $7,500 and $10,000 a week. And he would not have the very large expense of transporting his band from one-night stand to one-night stand. And if a band had a weekly radio show to pay all weekly expenses, what the bandleader got from theater work was pre-tax profit. The flip-side of this golden coin was that the musicians were virtual prisoners in the theater for that week, as first shows often started before noon and continued throughout the day until 10:00 p.m., or later. Also, the shows they played consisted of largely the same tunes in the same order, plus they usually had to play the music for their supporting acts, be they dancers, comedians, acrobats of whatever, multiple times each day. It could physically exhaust the strongest performers, with the repetition and monotony wearing their emotions to a nub.
Most of the Herman band onstage at the RKO Theater in Boston, November 1-7, 1945. L-R: front: Flip Phillips, John La Porta, Sam Marowitz, Mickey Folus, Skippy De Sair; middle: Chubby Jackson, Don Lamond, Ralph Pfeffner, Bill Harris, Ed Kiefer; back: Sonny Berman, Neal Hefti, Irv Lewis, Pete Candoli, and Shorty Rogers.
The Herman band broadcast their first Wildroot radio show from a theater in Cleveland on October 12, 1945. The next week they broadcast from the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee. They were back in Manhattan for the next show, and then on to the RKO Theater in Boston, from which the Wildroot show of Friday November 2 emanated. The following Friday, they broadcast from the Adams Theater in Newark, New Jersey. By the time they returned to New York City for a span of several weeks beginning in mid-November, they had been playing in theaters for at least five weeks.
A picture of the Herman band enjoying themselves at the Schlitz brewery tasting room in Milwaukee, October 1945. Front – L-R: Ed Kiefer, Woody, Frances Wayne; second row: John La Porta, Shorty Rogers, Irv Lewis, Tony Aless, Bill Harris, Billy Bauer, Flip Phillips; third row: Ralph Pfeffner, Pete Candoli, Don Lamond, equipment manager Nat Wexler, Chubby Jackson; back: Skippy De Sair, Neal Hefti, Sam Marowitz, dancer Steve Condos, Mickey Folus. Note that the grim-looking Irv Lewis is tickling Ms. Wayne’s midriff.
Of course, in addition to playing in theaters and on their weekly radio show, the Herman band was contracted to make records for Columbia, and the company was clamoring for more product. Woody led his bandsmen into Columbia’s Manhattan studio on November 16, 1945 to create another three masters of the Neal Hefti original called “Wild Root” which they had previously recorded on September 8. Then on November 26, they were again in the recording studio, this time to make a recording of “Blowin’ Up a Storm.”
The music:
“Blowing,” in the lexicon of jazz-talk, means to take a solo, and on Woody Herman’s recording of “Blowin’ Up a Storm,” there are plenty of solos. This performance starts with some very swinging piano, played by Tony Aless, surely not a household name, but nevertheless a fine musician and capable jazz soloist. His two choruses on this blues, well-supported by his rhythm section colleagues Billy Bauer on guitar, Chubby Jackson on bass and Don Lamond on drums, set the tempo and mood for what is to follow. (Above right: Neal Hefti (left) and pianist Tony Aless in a dressing room at the RKO Theater in Boston, November 1-7, 1945. Could they be discussing chord changes?)
Up next is Woody playing his own two choruses on clarinet, backed by the well-meshed rhythm section. Woody’s playing can aptly be described as joyful. Flip Phillips follows on tenor saxophone, cushioned by the continuing strong rhythm section, and some increasingly eccentric utterances from the open trumpets and trombones on his first chorus, then the open trumpets on his second chorus. Trombonist Bill Harris enters via a number of slurs, then gets securely into his own very propulsive rhythm to finish his first chorus and then to swing through chorus two.
The band, which has been tacit, now engages, with the open brass on top of the sonic mix, with the saxophone quintet underneath. These ensemble passages were organized by Neal Hefti and Pete Candoli, with Neal writing out what had to be written out.(5) The brief interplay between Billy Bauer’s electric guitar and Chubby Jackson’s bass (very mid-1940s sounding) leads into the shouting finale, with Pete Candoli handling the screaming trumpet solo over the erupting ensemble.
Woody Herman surrounded by his featured soloists in 1946. Front L-R: Red Norvo, Woody and Flip Phillips; back, Bill Harris and Pete Candoli. Note that Harris and Candoli have “soul patches” under their lower lips, and that the jackets have no lapels.
As a special treat, I am presenting one of the alternate takes of “Blowin’ Up a Storm” the Herman band recorded. As you will hear, the band was totally prepared to perform the music with accuracy and verve on both takes. Although the solos are somewhat different, the major differences are that Columbia’s recording engineers, who were trying to get an optimum balance of recorded sound, succeeded a bit better on the issued take.
The recordings presented with this post were digitally remastered by Mike Zirpolo.
Notes and links:
(1) An excellent collection of Woody’s and many of his sidemen’s recollections is to be found in this book: Woody Herman …Chronicles of the Herds (1995), by William D. Clancy with Audree Coke Kenton. Hereafter: Clancy.
(2) Woody Herman and The Thundering Herds 1945 -1947, (1988) Columbia CJ 44108.
(3) Clancy, 78-79.
(4) Chubby Jackson, an exuberant person and performer, was the P.T. Barnum of the Herman band.
(5) Clancy, 86.
Wonderful, Mike–as usual. Thanks so much.I was born in 1942, so I started connecting with the Herman bands of the mid-1950s, then caught up with the great earlier bands on recordings. Heard the mid-50s bands and later versions for the next decades, often live.