Cy Touff - Touff Assignment
Released 1959
Recording and Session Information
Cy Touff, bass trumpet; Sandy Mosse, tenor saxophone; Eddie Higgins, piano; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Marty Clausen, drumsAugust 28/29, 1958
8988 Soulsville
8989 Cyril's Dream
8990 How Long Has This Been Going On
8991 Keeping Out Of Mischief Now
8992 Kissin' Cousins
8993 I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart
8994 Lamp Is Low
8995 Tough Touff
Track Listing
| Soulsville | Al Cohn | August 28/29, 1958 |
| Cyril's Dream | Al Cohn | August 28/29, 1958 |
| How Long Has This Been Going On | George Gershwin | August 28/29, 1958 |
| Kissin' Cousins | Ernie Wilkins | August 28/29, 1958 |
| Keeping Out Of Mischief Now | Fats Waller, Andy Razaf | August 28/29, 1958 |
| I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart | Duke Ellington | August 28/29, 1958 |
| Lamp Is Low | Ravel, Shefter, DeRose | August 28/29, 1958 |
| Tough Touff | Ernie Wilkins | August 28/29, 1958 |
Liner Notes
For several swinging years in the mid-fifties the Woody Herman trombone section contained a morose looking man, bald as the proverbial, who now and then rose to his feet, raised an overgrown trumpet to his lips and proceeded to blast forth with some very wailing jazz.The musician was Cyril James Touff of Chicago and the instrument he was playing was a bass trumpet.
There now several bass trumpet players in jazz but Cy Touff was the one who made it into a jazz instrumeat. The horn is so unusual looking that curious fans used to — and still do — walk up to him on the bandstand and ask 'What is it?" At one time, the Herman was considering having cards printed reading "It's NOT a Fish horn!"
Actually, the bass trumpet was originally used in Bavarian and Austrian military bands in the 1880's and was first utilized in classical music by Wagner. Since then, it has been used in works by Stravinsky, Strauss and Schoenberg but even in classical music it is little used, and bass trumpet parts in practice are frequently taken by a valve trombone.
Cy Touff has been at music a long time. He started on piano when he was six "and created a Frankenstein monster" which took years for his parents to become accustomed to. He switched to C-melody sax, then trumpet, then xylophone ("my mother was a fiend for auction sales!") and then settled into the role of trombone player in high school. During his tour of duty in the Army, Cy played in a band with Conte Condoli and Red Mitchell and then on his discharge studied for a while with Lennie Tristano. Prior to joining Herman, he was with such bands as Jimmie Dale, Red Saunders, Shorty Sherock and — here's left field for you! — the New York City Opera Company!
His years with Herman took him all over the U.S. and Europe and made the bass trumpet even more widely accepted in jazz. He played it in the trombone section because the tone is close to that of a trombone, and he was featured soloist with the Herman group throughout his stay with the band. While with Hemnan, Touff recorded with a small group Woody led for a time, as well as with his own group. A musician with broad tastes, he is an avid Count Basie fan, digs Dixieland occasion, and lists his favorite musicians as the late Lester Young, Count Basie, Johnny Mandel and Al Cohn and his favorite record as Basie's "Taxi War Dance.'
Although this is not the first LP under Cy Touff's name, I would venture an educated guess that it's the first one over which he has had direction and it shows in the end product. "There never has been serious musician who is as serious about his music as a serious jazz musician, Duke Ellington wrote in JAZZ, A Quarterly of American Music (Vol. 1, #2) and Cy Touff fits this description perfectly. He has humor, as do all jazz musicians, but he is a serious man given to the reading of Kafka and Sartre and to serious consideration of other arts.
And he was serious about this LP.
For the group, Cy picked the best of Chicago's young jazz men. Sandy Mosse, a veteran of European tours, Woody Herman's big band, the Chicago studios and numerous record sessions, (as well as of his own LP on Argo), plays with a swinging definitiveness that is by no means usual these days. Ed Higgins, the pianist, is another Chicago veteran who has worked extensively in that area with his own trio. Bob Cranshaw, who has played bass with Higgins for some time, joins him here with Marty Clausen, another Chicagoan on drums.
The result is good swinging jazz. Indicative of the stature of Cy in the world of jazz, is the fact that two of the top arrangers in the field each contributed two original charts to this session: Al Cohn's "Soulsville" and "Cyril's Dream," Ernie Wilkins' "Kissin' Cousins," and "Tough Touff". Although Cyril (and Sandy Mosse, too) comes through on a ballad with lyric intensity, my personal kicks come from the swinging charts, the Ernie Wilkins blues and "Cyril's Dream," yet it is a lovely interlude to play "How Long Has This Been Going On".
Two sides then to jazz and to the jazz musician: one for each of your extreme moods and many shadings in between. The exhuberant one of "Tough Touff" and the reflective, introspective one of the ballads. In either, Cyril James Touff fits, which is the true mark of the jazz musician.
RALPH J. GLEASON
Editor of JAZZ and syndicated columnist whose articles on jazz appear in newspapers throughout the country.
