Bob Belden, who died on May 20 (click here for the New York Times obituary), worked in a wide variety of settings as a saxophonist, arranger, producer, and a&r executive over the course of a 35 year-long career. His orchestral work, Black Dahlia, earned him a Grammy, and as a producer he oversaw the reissue of many of Miles Davis’s Columbia recordings. Belden also produced the Grammy-nominated Miles From India, which paired Davis alums with Indian musicians, and Miles Espanol: New Sketches of Spain.
Among his lesser-known works are three collaborations that he undertook with Gary Smulyan for Criss Cross Jazz between 1993 and ’99: Gary Smulyan With Strings; Blue Suite: Gary Smulyan and Brass; and Saxophone Mosaic.
When we spoke yesterday, Gary recalled Belden as an amazingly gifted musician who “worked fast and could write arrangements while watching Gilligan’s Island reruns.” They’d first worked together in 1979 as members of the Woody Herman Orchestra, and Gary noted that “he was really familiar with my sound and knew just how to showcase it within his arrangements.”
Saxophone Mosaic includes originals by Smulyan, John Carisi, Quincy Jones, Gigi Gryce, Thad Jones, George Coleman, and Horace Silver played by a nonet of Gary’s associates from the Mel Lewis Orchestra, including his section mates Billy Drewes, Dick Oatts, Ralph Lalama, Rich Perry, and Scott Robinson. Most of the charts jump with hard bop brilliance, but “The Wind” has the neo-noir feel of Santa Monica at night. It was composed by pianist Russ Freeman and recorded on Chet Baker With Strings back in the day. Belden’s subtly dynamic arrangement for woodwinds employs tonal colors and textures that reflect the influence of Gil Evans and the legacy of Gil’s work with Claude Thornhill and Miles Davis.
Blue Suite is an eight-movement composition by Belden inspired by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, whom he credited with bringing the blues “from the Delta to Park Avenue.” Belden made a pointed reference to what he apparently felt was the increasing hegemony of Wynton Marsalis as jazz arbiter and authority. “The rediscovery of the Ellington canon happened in the late ’80s, and I wanted to prove to myself that you don’t have to go to Lincoln Center or come from New Orleans to understand what that means.” For the album’s liner note essay, Gary told Ted Panken, “[Belden’s] intuitive intelligence is incredible. He knows exactly how to wrote for me. He knows exactly the kind of changes I like to play on, what kind of backgrounds to write, how the sound of the baritone is going to fit inside the ensemble. He writes fast. His behavior in the studio is fantastic…His writing is very clear, so it’s easy to play it down once and record it.” A quotidian example of the Belden-Smulyan efficiency can be gleaned from noting that all three of their Criss Cross dates were recorded in one-day sessions.
Smulyan With Strings includes “Lush Life,” “The Bad and the Beautiful,” “It Happens Quietly,” (heard below) and eight more selected by Smulyan and orchestrated by Belden. At the time of its release, Stanley Crouch heard in Gary’s tone “a bright, metallic, and sorrowful color at one end of the spectrum and a dark, seductively vocal” tone at the other. He hailed him as a player who “knows the baritone just about as well as anybody has ever known it.” Crouch underscored Gary’s appreciation of Belden’s brilliance in noting that his arrangements offer “something far more involved than a soft texture to the environment,” and the “shrewd ways in which he uses the strings to accentuate the register of Smulyan’s horn.”
Smulyan is the perennial Number One Critics Poll (Down Beat, Jazz Times, Jazz Journalists Association) winner among baritone saxophonists. He’ll be back for his ninth appearance with the Northampton Jazz Workshop on June 9.