The Second Herd and Other Bands 1947-1987
In 1947, Herman organized the Second Herd. This band was also known as "The Four Brothers Band". This derives from the song recorded December 27, 1947 for Columbia records, "Four Brothers", written by Jimmy Giuffre. "The 'Four Brothers' chart is based on the chord changes of 'Jeepers Creepers', and features the three-tenor, one-baritone saxophone section." The order of the saxophone solos is Zoot Sims, Serge Chaloff, Herbie Steward, and Stan Getz. Some of the notable musicians of this band were also Al Cohn, Gene Ammons, Lou Levy, Oscar Pettiford, Terry Gibbs, and Shelly Manne. Among this band's hits were "Early Autumn," and "The Goof and I". The band was popular enough that they went to Hollywood in the mid-nineteen forties. Herman and his band appear in the movie New Orleans in 1947 with Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong. From the late 1940s to the end of his life, record labels Herman recorded for include RCA, Capitol, MGM and Verve.
Herman's other bands include the Third Herd (1950–1956) and various editions of the New Thundering Herd (1959–1987). In the 1950s, the Third Herd went on a successful European tour. He was known for hiring the best young musicians and using their arrangements. In the early and mid 1960s, Woody gained a wider recognition by fronting one of the most exciting Herds to date that featured future stellar names like drummer Jake Hanna, tenor saxophonist Sal Nistico, trombonists Phil Wilson and Henry Southall and trumpeters like Bill Chase, Paul Fontaine and Dusko Goykovitch. By 1968, the Herman library came to be heavily influenced by rock and roll. He was also known to feature brass and woodwind instruments not traditionally associated with jazz, such as the bassoon, oboe or French horn.
In 1974, Woody Herman's "Young Thundering Herd" appeared without their leader for Frank Sinatra's television special The Main Event and subsequent album, The Main Event – Live. Both were recorded mainly on October 13, 1974 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. On November 20, 1976, a reconstituted Woody Herman band played at Carnegie Hall in New York City, celebrating Herman's fortieth anniversary as a bandleader. By the 1980s, Herman had returned to straight-ahead jazz, dropping some of the newer rock and fusion approaches. Woody Herman signed a recording contract with Concord Records around 1980, now called the Concord Music Group. In 1981, John S. Wilson warmly reviewed one of Herman's first Concord recordings "Woody Herman Presents a Concord Jam, Vol. I". Wilson's review says that the recording presents a band that is less frenetic than his bands from the forties to the seventies. Instead it takes the listener back to the relaxed style of Herman's first band of the thirties that recorded for Decca.
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Famous quotes containing the words herd and/or bands:
“Pity him, this dupe of dream,
Leader of the herd again
Only in his daft old brain,
Once again the bull supreme
And bull enough to bear the part
Only in his tameless heart.”
—Ralph Hodgson (c. 1871–1962)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)