Simon Spillett

I've always been a sucker for jazz soloist with strings albums. Among my favourites in this much maligned sub-genre, Waiting Game by Zoot Sims, never seems to get a mention alongside the better known efforts by Getz, Clifford Brown and Cannonball Adderley, an oversight which, to my prejudiced ears (I've still to find a record by Zoot that I don't like) is a crying shame.

The album is, I think, one of Zoot's best, aided immeasurably by the arrangements of Gary McFarland. Recorded in 1966 for Impulse Records, the orange and black-spine imprint more associated with the searching sounds of John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp, the recording is actually one part of a tale of three albums, which, since I've started, I may as well finish.

In the autumn of 1966 Gary McFarland was in London writing and conducting the score for the MGM film The Eye Of The Devil, a gothic horror romp with a big budget cast of David Niven, Deborah Kerr, Donald Pleasance, David Hemmings and the tragically beautiful Sharon Tate. The film flopped terribly upon release in 1967 and the scheduled soundtrack LP, intended to be issued on Verve, the label to which McFarland was signed, was advertised and then unceremoniously pulled.

McFarland was one of the best arrangers of his generation and his score for The Eye Of The Devil is both independently engrossing and at one with the on-screen action. Thankfully the resulting soundtrack has latterly been issued in full by the enterprising Film Score Silver Age Classics label (FSM Vol. 11 No. 1) and may still be available on Amazon or eBay. It's well worth a listen.

The list of musicians McFarland had enlisted to work on his score included the cream of the London session world at the time: Tubby Hayes, guitarist George Kish, harpist David Snell, bassist Lennie Bush and, as conductor, no less a figure than Jack Parnell.

Verve Records was keen to capitolise on the studio time afforded in London and, whilst there, using much the same personnel, McFarland recorded the album Soft Samba Strings (Verve V/V6-8682), a follow up to his hugely successful Soft Samba album.

Although on one level Soft Samba Strings is impacted kitsch (the soft pedalled, one handed piano lead is about as artless as Astrud Gilberto's singing - and equally as sexy), on another it is purely beautiful music. The range of themes, largely take from 1940s popular song adaptations of classical compositions by Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Debussy, are uniformly charming and The Lamp Is Low (Ravel's Pavanne), on which there's a covert Tubby Hayes flute solo, ranks as one of the prettiest pieces of music I've ever heard.

Again, the Japanese thought it prudent to issue Soft Samba Strings as a limited edition cardboard sleeved CD in the early noughties, so go get bidding on eBay if you want one.

The final part of this album triptych brings me back to where I came in, Zoot Sims Waiting Game (Impulse A 9131), taped across two November days at CTS Studios, Wembley.

At the time of the recording Sims was visiting London as part of one of the Jazz At The Philharmonic tours, wherein he worked with both Teddy Wilson and T-Bone Walker, but whilst these live sessions (some have appeared on CD) noisily support the tenorists ever consistent reputation as Mr. Swing, Waiting Game remains a quiet classic.

Cursed with being somewhat in the shadow of Stan Getz, Zoot's ballad playing has never received the credit its due, and, whilst he possessed none of the profundity of a Getz or Ben Webster, Zoot nevertheless combined lyricism with a no-frills delivery to winning effect. Over the ten tracks of Waiting Game, with its programme of bossas and ballads, there is ample time to digest his methods, and the resulting album contains two performances which I consider to be definitive: Over The Rainbow, transformed by an incredible arrangement and McFarland's own heart-breakingly beautiful Does The Sun Really Shine On The Moon?

Japanese Universal-Victor issued the album on CD in 1998 and, like those discussed above, it may still be available out there on the net.