Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 53

AUGUST 18, 1995 PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS PAGE 53 7 Known better for his work midst the extravagant w4il sendotts given famous jocks and junkies last weekend came distressing news from a 1 friend who informed me of the passing of a West Coast musician of premier reputation. The bearer of these tidings was particularly disturbed that no one to whom he'd passed the word even recognized the man's name, and it seems he 1. WW 73 "2" fe JTXI fy it i- 4. had come to me as a kind of desperate last resort for of the merit of the tip. He needn't have wasted a DAILY NEWS FILE PHOTO The deaths of Mickey Mantle (left) and Jerry Garcia overshadowed the passing of another virtuoso jazz arranger Marty Paich moment's anxiety: I surely did recognize the man's name he was, in fact, among the most gifted jazz arrangers of his time and certainly one of my personal favorites.

The report of his death proved correct and all too regrettably true when confirmed. The departed was Martin Louis Paich, known to all and sundry as just plain Marty. Paich, who was 70 and a casualty of cancer, had a wonderful talent for stating his ideas as succinctly as possible, and exposing them in a framework as spare as it was buoyant and gloriously swinging. His work was beautifully organized, neat but not fussy, characterized by an inner momentum and an immediately identifiable style. He was a genuine journeyman, ready to tackle any challenge from a full-bodied band to a solo setting, though at his happiest writing for medium-sized formats of unconventional instrumentation.

John S. Wilson pinned down the Paich signature in his 1959 "The Collector's Jazz: Modern" Paich 's charts were "imaginative and off-the-beaten-track without being in any way esoteric." Wilson also noted his firm but gentle touch with singers. Of his work with Anita O'Day: "Paich gives her the strong beat she needs, a beat that drives her along and allows her little time for the simpering and agonized twists that have made some of her recordings choked and stumbling affairs." Paich arranged and conducted for Ray Charles, Sammy Davis Jr. and Lena Horne, and wrote for Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Peggy Lee, Dorothy Dandridge, Dinah Shore and Andy Williams, the last two for their NBC television shows. Some of his best work was the material he tailored to the hip stylings of Mel Torme, including the settings for Torme's "California Suite." The cream of West Coast jazzmen were drawn into his ken: Shelly Manne, Art Pepper, Bill Perkins, Conte Candoli and much of the whole familiar cadre of talented if essentially lightweight product of that place and era.

He arranged for Stan Kenton, Buddy Rich, Terry Gibbs, Shorty Rogers and Dan Terry. His efforts on behalf of the Dave Pell Octet were exceptional: His chart for Pell's "Mountain Greenery," for example, is a ravishing example of fitting classical devices to a modern show ill tune perfectly disguised as the expedients of a contemporary age and bathed in a very special feeling of joy. (In between his wartime leadership of an Army Air Force band and a return to full-time career duty with the Bobby Sherwood and Jerry Gray bands in 1951, Paich, who grew up in Oakland and snared arranging chores for a local ballroom with Pete Rugolo, had immersed himself in the old masters at the Los Angeles Conservatory to earn a graduate degree in composition.) His career blossomed in the '50s (among his pianoarranging assignments was Walt Disney's "Lady and the By the '60s, he'd "risen to eminence as one of the most skillful writers in the Hollywood studios" so noted Leonard Feather in his jazz encyclopedia for that decade. Marty Paich 's activities in recent years have eluded me, but the evidence is strong that he was still in harness musically. There are two fairly recent compact discs by Mel Torme and the Marty Paich Dectet, circa.

1988-89, on Concord. Then there are reissues of a 1957 session on Candid titled "Picasso," a CD reissue of a 1959 Warner Bros. LP, "I Get a Boot Out of You," a VSOP reissue of "Jazz for Relaxation," and a couple of Japanese imports featuring a Marty Paich big band. All except the imports are currently available at Third Street Jazz Rock. So for those who have come late to Marty Paich, the sounds are still alive, if not the author.

Truly sorry about that. Eric Lincoln, a sometime producer of jazz sessions showcasing area-based artists, has a good one going Saturday, 8 p.m., at St. Mar-on's Hall, 1013 Ellsworth St. He's got Evelyn Simms, Jimmy Oliver, Butch Ballard, Jerome Hunter and Sam Dockery, plus sit-ins. The tariff's $10 per.

Info: 215-465-3669. MABRY given today's political climate. But he doesn't think blacks should be afraid when it's gone. "We have to remember that for years we survived without affirmative action, we survived with institutionalized, legalized discrimination," he said. Based on his own experiences, Mabry believes that hope for African-Americans lies not in affirmative action or other government programs, but in personal interaction with other races.

"I think that the fact that a black person can live on the Seine, work for Newsweek, cover the suffering of people who are the victims of white tribal differences in Yugoslavia I think that's progress." Continued from Preceding Page ly, it's worse. "Look at the crime rates, the poverty rates, the death rates how can anyone think that black Americans have an upper hand?" He acknowledges that affirmative action sometimes hurts qualified white candidates, but says the number of instances pales in comparison to those blacks hurt by "good old-fashioned discrimination." Mabry thinks affirmative action should be based on income, not race, to eliminate the poisonous racial aspect of the programs. But he also believes affirmative action will not last much longer, Oi995 WAfthfcR INC. A TiMfc WARNfc.