Koffman, Moe - The Shepherd Swings Again

Tracks

Side 1

		Track Name	Length
	1	Flute Salad	03:38
	2	Marty's Morgue	03:33
	3	Doxy	03:44
	4	Alone Together	04:09

Side 2

		Track Name	Length
	1	Bermuda Schwartz	03:47
	2	What Can You Do	03:54
	3	Cloud Nine	03:27
	4	Sure It Is	03:37

Photos

Videos

No Video

Information/Write-up

When The Swinging Shepherd Blues started to move up the Hit Parade early this year, the most surprised man was Moe Koffman, the man who wrote it.

“I was just back from my ‘turn’ with the best trio, thirty weeks that beat the pants off a year spent in New York,” Moe said, “and I was trying to get back into the groove. Then the word came that my record, Cool and Hot Sax, that Jubilee had released the fall before, had started to move. The Shepherd was on the other side. Next thing I knew it was on a dozen top selling charts: Cash Box, Billboard, Variety, Musician, Canadian Music Trade, Liberty, Melody Fair, Sam the Record Man, and the best of all—Monty Hall’s (Jubilee’s Vice President for Canada).”

Almost immediately, Moe was whisked off on hurried junkets to play dates in Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Buffalo and more recently, in the West.

In between trains and planes, he was kept on the gun filling orders for radio and television arrangements of the tune that’s become a veritable epidemic in broadcasting work. Koffman and his versatile little band are the only known men to have sold their arrangement of the song to 145 bands—among them, major big names like Billy May, Count Basie, Hugo Winterhalter and Benny Goodman. Moe’s band has also been signed for regular broadcasts over Canadian Broadcasting Corporation channels and will be seen shortly on the nation’s top TV show, Hit Parade.

If fame has caught the Shepherd’s success on the best seller lists a bit by surprise, it’s because it was so easy coming that it slipped under the edge of everybody’s interest. It arrived on the scene this happy little, originally titled Blue Flute, that wound up as an afterthought single side, swinging gaily away as the closing number on the LP Cool and Hot Sax.

Since then, Koffman has been on cloud nine, for as Koffman originals go, it’s a rare example of the simple and easy-going blues that musicians—and critics—rave about.

Among Moe is also flutist Ron Rully and bassman. On trumpet: Jack Long. On trombone: Rob McConnell. Baritone sax: Eddie Karam.

Ron Rully, of Hungarian descent, was born in 1930 in Hamilton, Ontario. His early experience was with brass bands and he has worked with the biggest bands in the country. This last year he appeared with the CBC-TV Show “Hit Parade.”

Hugh Currie, the youngest of the group, was born in Toronto in 1937. A veteran already of three years’ experience with big dance bands and nightclubs, he’s known as one of the most dependable rhythm men in the business.

Ed Bickert, who was born in Manitoba in 1932, has been making Toronto his home base for the past seven years. He’s played with many of the top names in the country and his steady, fluent playing is considered among the best in jazz guitar today.

Of the LPs included here, Moe’s original Flute Salad opens the first side in a modern jazz idiom. It’s followed by another original Sure It Is, both move at an easy going, medium tempo.

The LP also includes another original How Can You Do, penned by Hugh Currie, the bassist-arranger for Ron Rully.

Down Home is another blues original, this one in classic understatement played in a quietly British orderliness. A Toy Comes to Town is one of the great little romantic ballads from Hugh Currie, a beautiful minor melody in a gentle 3/4 time. It was written and arranged by Hugh as a feature for Ed Bickert, the band’s featured soloist.

Also on the LP: Benny Golson’s Blues March (a 1950s overseas jazz-parade), the up-beat title tune Bermuda Schwartz from bassist Charlie Currie, and Flute Salad and Far-Five (a Latin feature).

Jim Hall might be faded. Moe appeared in Poll Winners album.

The result is a band with a distinct point of difference. Instead of Down Beat and Jazz Review, Moe has had his music played in juke boxes. Instead of smoky after-hours clubs, Moe has made his mark in record shops. The group has played theatres, hotel lounges, jazz clubs, television studios, and their music is being arranged and played all over the world.

As a result of a listener-voter survey, Moe’s voice and short wave record Cool and Hot Sax was selected as one of the most listened-to discs in North America. Moe has played for major dance festivals in Canada and the United States. His sidemen include the best from Canada’s hot jazz circles—Ed Bickert and Buddy Rich alumni—and their group is destined for bigger success.

That’s why we call it The Shepherd Swings Again.

Because the Shepherd’s Blues didn’t just stop—it walked back into the studio with some new friends, swung a few charts between the reed and the amp—and came back swinging like before.
-Rene McLean, Toronto Telegram

Moe Koffman: flute, alto saxophone
Ron Rully: drums
Hugh Currie: bass
Ed Bickert: guitar

Produced by Morty Palitz

Photography by Charles Varon

Liner notes by Helen McNamara

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