“September in the Rain”
Composed by Harry Warren (music), and Al Dubin (lyric); arranged in 1938 by Eddie Sauter for the Red Norvo band and their vocalist, Mildred Bailey, but never recorded.
Recorded by Loren Schoenberg and His Jazz Orchestra at the Juilliard School in New York for Turtle Bay Records on July 28, 2024.
Loren Schoenberg, piano, directing: Joe Boga, first trumpet; Summer Camargo, Anthony Hervey, trumpets; Nick Mesler, first trombone; Andre Perlman, trombone; Adam Stein, first alto saxophone and clarinet; Langston Hughes, II, alto saxophone; Daniel Cohen, tenor saxophone and clarinet; and Julian Lee, tenor saxophone and clarinet; James Zito, guitar; John Murray, bass; Matt Lee, drums. Soloists: Kate Kortum, vocal; Warren Wolf, xylophone and Summer Camargo, muted trumpet.
The story:
I am always thrilled when someone, for whatever reasons, comes up with an idea that will result in the music of the swing era being presented in a manner that is authentic. In order to do this, musicians, no matter how talented they may be, have to go through a process of getting into the music so that they can truly understand it. This is not easy. To play the music of the swing era the way it was originally intended to be played requires careful listening to the original recordings, and thoughtful analysis as to why the music sounds they way it does. Then careful rehearsal is required to achieve authenticity, that is, capturing the spirit of the original performance. This is a process of reimagining the music that goes far beyond mere imitation. A knowledgeable, sensitive conductor is essential. Many well-intentioned musicians have tried to do this, and regrettably, more have failed to produce music that has the sound and feel of the original product than have succeeded. I am happy to report that where others have failed, Loren Schoenberg, the animating spirit behind this project, has succeeded.
One of the greatest practitioners of swing, indeed one of the creators of the idiom, was William James Basie. His aphoristic use of the piano and his inspired leadership of his bands over many decades have caused musicians and audiences to marvel since the mid-1930s. In addition to being a preeminent exponent of swing, Count Basie was also an insightful commentator on many subjects, music being paramount among them. When Basie was queried by a journalist in the late 1940s about bop, which he understood and liked, he thought for a moment, and then said: “…(I)f a guy is going to play good bop, he has to have sort of a bop soul.”(1) This is a profound statement, one which I have observed many musicians do not understand. Basie, of course, never had a bop soul. He didn’t need one. He was uniquely and irrevocably who he was, one of the creators of swing, and American music is much richer for it. (Above right: Count Basie – master of swing and a wise man.)
I think it fair to say that Loren Schoenberg has sort of a swing soul. As a young musician in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, he sought-out and played with master swing musicians, by then elder statesmen, who had established their reputations during the swing era. Among them were Teddy Wilson, Benny Carter, Eddie Durham, Buck Clayton, and Benny Goodman. He revers and is deeply conversant with the musical magic of tenor saxophone giant Lester Young, one of the greatest of all exponents of swing. That early experience, and decades of playing since (tenor saxophone and piano), have taught him a lot about how and why music is made to swing. As a musician, Loren has the bona fides to create authentic music in the swing idiom.
In addition, he is one of the foremost historians of the swing era. Among his many jobs over the last forty years in addition to being a performing musician, are these activities: Juilliard faculty member, former Executive Director and current Senior Scholar of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. If anyone understands the context surrounding the music of the swing era, it is Loren Schoenberg. (Above: Loren Schoenberg.)
What then was the genesis of this project, which involved locating and recording arrangements that were written by the brilliant arranger/composer Eddie Sauter for Red Norvo’s band of the late 1930s, and their vocalist Mildred Bailey, but never recorded?
Mr. Schoenberg is a long-time admirer of Eddie Sauter. Early-on, he explored the work Sauter did for for Benny Goodman in the period 1939-1942. That led him to some of Sauter’s work for other swing era bands, including his delightful composition/arrangement “The Maid With the Flaccid Air,” which was first recorded by Artie Shaw in 1945 (2), and which appeared on a Schoenberg group of recordings in 1988 called Solid Ground. (2A) Decades passed, and Loren Schoenberg’s exploration of Sauter’s music continued. His regard for Sauter’s creativity and skill increased. This process of discovery, understanding and appreciation led, inevitably, to the beginning of Sauter’s career as an arranger, the time he spent writing charts for xylophone virtuoso Red Norvo’s band in the years 1936 through 1938. Schoenberg was aware that Norvo at the end of his life, like Benny Goodman, deposited his library of arrangements, including many by Eddie Sauter, at Yale University.
Eddie Sauter writing an arrangement – late 1930s.
In early 2024, Schoenberg met Turtle Bay Records owner Scott Asen, who asked if he (Loren) had any projects in mind. Loren suggested a big band recording of esoteric material involving the music of Eddie Sauter, and Asen approved the idea. He then headed for the Yale library In New Haven, Connecticut that houses the Norvo-Sauter arrangements. “He spent several days poring through pages and pages of musical manuscripts. During this time, he captured over 16,000 jpeg images of (various Sauter arrangements for the Norvo band.)”(3) Then began the process of winnowing the arrangements to a number that would be good examples of the work Sauter did for the Norvo band and their featured vocalist Mildred Bailey (who in the late 1930s was married to Red Norvo), and would fit within a program of recordings for an 80-minute compact disk.
Mr. Schoenberg then made a decision that was inspired: Instead of recruiting a band of veteran professional musicians to record this music, he would instead assemble a band of young but very talented musicians, along with a few seasoned pros. This, after all, was exactly what the leaders of bands did during the swing era. Most of the greatest music of the swing era was performed and recorded by musicians who were in their twenties or early thirties. Their skill and enthusiasm for the music is what got them into the bands they worked with. After that, it was the sensitivity and artistic vision of the leaders of those bands, and their skill as musical directors, that caused the music to be played the way it was by those young musicians.
I will quote from the excellent article written by David Adler for Jazz Times (12-08-2025), to share insights about this project provided by Loren Schoenberg as answers to Mr. Adler’s questions.
Q: “Tell us about recruiting the band and about your connections to these young players. Do you think of it as a 2.0 of your original big band?“
A: “Well, I say they were my students at Juilliard or whatever, but the truth is that everybody on this record is a master professional. They happen to be at a young stage in their careers, but I don’t want to in any way represent them as student musicians. They could take a place on a bandstand with any professional. They happen to have been students at the time we recorded. That’s a very important distinction. I was 22 years old when I started my band in 1980, so I had a combination of my peers and the older professionals who back then were the age that I am now. It was a very natural thing. And we do have three ringers in this band, Julian Lee, Joe Boga and Anthony Hervey, who are (slightly) older and not students, although they had been.”
“On occasion I have had the great joy of conducting the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, and we had just done a week at Dizzy’s (a performance venue within the Jazz at Lincoln Center complex), with these players doing the music of Duke Ellington. I realized that the ensemble playing, which was most important to me, and the solo playing that I was hearing, met every single prerequisite I have for how a great band sounds.”
“The idea for the [Sauter] record came up last-minute and I started contemplating who I was going to call. I didn’t think I could get these busy older professionals together in a matter of a couple of weeks to come up and rehearse and record. So this made sense, it was the end of the school year, a lot of these musicians were still in New York.”
“Because they’re so young they can take a certain kind of direction I wouldn’t necessarily bring to bear on a group of hardened older players. This is one reason why Wynton Marsalis, I believe, wanted to make the transition in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra from a band of great and mostly older professionals to a handcrafted band of younger players that he could really mold.” (4)
The music – part one – Loren Schoenberg’s comments:
Q: “When you studied these lost Eddie Sauter charts, what was surprising or unexpected?”
Two moments in this vocal deserve special mention: The first is after the bridge, when Ms. Kortum begins to sing the last eight bars of the main melody. She chose to sing “…Though spring is here to me – it is still September… To my ears, this is an inspired use of rhythm, and much more effective than the contracted “it’s still September” that many other singers have chosen to use. 
The full band burst after the vocal is another demonstration of Sauter’s imagination and sleight-of-hand as he takes the music through ambiguous tonality which finally resolves into the key for the improvised xylophone solo, which is handled with expertise and inspiration by Warren Wolf. (If Red Norvo were around to hear this, I’m fairly sure that he would be smiling.) The accompaniment Mr. Wolf gets from the ensemble includes the arco (bowed) bass to thicken the sonic mix and balance the soft, higher register sounds of the wooden bars of his instrument, and the murmuring saxophones. (Above right: Warren Wolf.)Notes and links:
(1) The World of Count Basie by Stanley Dance (1980), 5.
(2) A link to the story and music of the Artie Shaw/Eddie Sauter recording of “The Maid With the Flaccid Air” is here: https://swingandbeyond.com/2024/06/29/the-maid-with-the-flaccid-air-1945-artie-shaw-eddie-sauter/
(2A) Loren Schoenberg also included Sauter arrangements on two earlier albums, That’s the Way It Goes (1984) and Time Waits for No One (1987). Both of those titles are of Sauter arranged tracks on those recordings.
(3) Liner notes for the CD So Many Memories, Turtle Bay TBR25003CD, by Will Friedwald (2025), 4, hereafter Friedwald.
(4) Loren Schoenberg’s Take on the Arrangements of Eddie Sauter, Jazz Times December 8, 2025.
(5) The Red Norvo big band of the late 1930s generally consisted of twelve musicians, plus Norvo on xylophone. The brass section of this band was three trumpets and one trombone. Most other brass sections then had three trumpets and two or three trombones.
(6) The song “September in the Rain” was actually composed for the 1935 Warner Brothers film Stars Over Broadway, but was not used in that film. Friedwald 7.
Here are links to other great performances by Red Norvo’s late 1930s band, playing arrangements by Eddie Sauter:
That is absolutely wonderful, and jaw-droppingly beautiful.
As someone who has always been “sent” by the Norvo-Bailey-Sauter combination, to hear this is almost miraculous, and ticks all the boxes. Loren Schoenberg’s ensemble absolutely nails the deliciously enigmatic chart from bar 1, and Kate Kortum’s vocal captures the gentle, keening quality of Mildred’s ballad style, without being in any way an “impersonation”.
Mr. Wolf’s solo is also right on the money, encapsulating Red’s style perfectly, and even the recording itself manages to capture the “room sound” of those mid- late 30s Norvo sides. Yes, Red would be smiling!
I’m now going looking for the CD. Many thanks for this, Mike.