Even in my day NYC was special like no other place on the planet.  I am a new kid just having moved to Manhattan playing in a club on 52nd street in 1979.  A record producer walks in and says “I like your playing would you like to do a session for me” and i say sure. He tells me when and where.  I walk in the studio and it is Phil Wilson , Al Klink ,  John Bunch , George Mraz and Mousey Alexander who’s album it was.  No rehearsal mostly one takes and we hit it sink or swim. That’s the NY experience and as the song says “if you can make it there you can make it anywhere”.  Glenn

Cottontail :

I was 12 years old and we appeared several times on the Chubby Jackson TV show below.  This quintet was also part of a big band and we won a contest to appear at the Atlantic City Jazz Festival.  I remember that “hang” like yesterday with Diana Washington , The Oscar Peterson Trio , Gerry Mulligan and Art Blakey who had Wayne Shorter in his band. Also below is a track from an album we recorded with the quintet at the time.  Glenn

Greeesleeves :

who is that under age kid without a black suit playing the jazz chair ?

I was part of a jazz band when i was a kid check out the photo above just sent to me i guess i was destined to be a bandleader !  We had a ball and did a Christmas Album organized by pianist Stu Hemmingway a student of Bill Evans at the time..  Also we won a competition for the Stamford High School Jazz band led by Russ Martino who was the director and played the Atlantic City Jazz festival with Gerry Mulligan , Dinah Washington and many other jazz stars.  I didn’t live in Stamford and wasn’t in high school as you can see and I was “imported” from Portchester NY into that band !  I remember vividly being in the wings at the festival waiting to go on mesmerized watching the great Dinah Washington a real diva sing her big hit of the day “What a difference a day makes” like it was last night.   I recently hooked up with a good friend who was the saxophone player during that period Rod Blumenau second from the front in the picture and trombonist Dave Barnebl in front the “main reindeer pulling the sled. and he was very strong and i didn’t have to use the “rod” in my right hand too much at all.  Rod Blumenau is not only a wonderful saxophone player but also a pianist with several CDs out himself.  I will be posting more tracks from the albums i did during that period but here is one from the Christmas album. As a piece of trivia we recorded this at Nola Penthouse in NY one of the finest studios and 22 years later i did my Christmas Album in the same studio. Glenn

Greensleeves :

Very exciting at NAMM this weekend with RS Berkeley as they released the Glenn Zottola Trumpet Mouthpiece Model.  Also a real tribute to my dad who was a master brass mouthpiece maker. In 1979 I went to my dad to make some modifications to meet all my demands. I wanted a mouthpiece that would give me the fire in the upper register but also a fat warm sound across the horn. This became a one of a kind mouthpiece and was never released in his standard line up. I played this mouthpiece my whole career on over 40 jazz albums and touring the world , Carnegie Hall and on network Television and it has served me well in every possible setting.  RS Berkeley is a cutting edge instrument company producing incredible Saxophones with Vintage quality that no longer exists.  They also have started a Legend mouthpiece line for both Saxophone and Trumpet making available copies of the actual mouthpieces of the greatest jazz legends in history. My hats off to Les Silver the president of RS Berkeley for all he has done for all artists and music and continues to do so.  Thank you Les from all of us.  Glenn

I was rummaging through old LPs out of print and found this album I did for Butch Miles for Famous Door Records.  It was a great album with Basie alumni, the great Freddie Green on guitar, Frank Wess , Milt Hinton etc.   I remember dragging a tenor sax to the session along with my trumpet.  Harry Lim, the producer said in the liner notes, “Glenn Zottola is experimenting with tenor and this is his first recorded solo on the tenor”, which it was.  Harry was very gracious allowing me to do these kind of things off the cuff at a session no less.  You will hear 2 tenors trading back and forth, Frank Wess and George Anders and then I play the last solo 2 choruses on tenor from the trumpet section after the short ensemble break , what a sight seeing a trumpet player standing up in the trumpet section taking a tenor solo !!  Count Basie was probably the most beloved bandleader in history.  I will never forget the first and only time I met him.  I was playing the warm up act for his big band with my quintet.  I came off stage after my set and as I was walking past his dressing room I hear this voice “young man, young man come in here”.   I walk in and there he is smiling and for another generation it’s like seeing Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson.  He says “You’ve been listening to Pops”  and I say yes for sure.  He says “You sound great don’t change anything keep doing exactly what you are doing”.  I couldn’t believe Count Basie took the time out to compliment me like that and I was in heaven.

I Can’t Believe You Are In Love With Me :

This is the Classic Jazz Trio “live” at the Rotherham Arts Center in England that i would like to release someday.  The Jazz Titans CD recently released on the Classic Jazz Label is the studio recording of the band when it was first formed also wonderful.  We did a grueling 35 concert tour after that recording in 30 days and the intensity just kept building as only a live performance can do.  Mark Shane was playing at Teddy Wilson’s level in his prime and I was capturing Benny Goodman’s intensity that I vividly remember from working with him.  This Idea all started for me after working in Benny’s sextet for 2 years and he still had that intensity.  I vividly remember one thing i will never forget as Benny would play “The world Is Waiting For The Sunrise”  at  breakneck speed and at one point he would wave the whole band out except just him and guitar and I was amazed as the Intensity did not drop at all which was a real tribute to his time and swing.  I wanted this trio to capture the intensity of his historic trio with Teddy Wilson and Krupa and I feel we certainly achieved that as one can hear from this track and what a great audience this was which certainly helps.

Glenn

After You’ve Gone :

I will be putting the audio broadcast “air checks” as we call it from the Suzanne Somers show on the website as I find and edit them. By “air checks” i mean music coming in and out of commercial breaks in the TV studio at Universal Studios.   Suzanne gave me carte blanche musically and I ran with the ball.  We were getting standing ovations in the studio at Universal Studios as people never heard music like this on network Television.  I played everything from swing to Brazilian, Ballads, R&B and “Be Bop” like this cut on “I Got Rhythm” just like i would do on a jazz gig.  Everything had to be timed perfectly to the second and I learned the knack of creating  and playing while wearing an ear piece with the director talking in my ear and counting down to come out of commercial breaks which is what was happening during this cut.  It’s like “compartmenting” your mind and multi – tasking one part for bandleading at a very intense precise level because of Television and the other for pure creativity all at the same time !  I got to like it once I got it down and it became a challenge and fun !  And by the way since any downtime or mistakes cost $50,000 per hour there was extra “incentive” to get it right the first time !!!
Glenn

I got Rhythm :

Stardust :

Sidewinder type groove :

Lady Be Good :

7 Steps To Heaven :

I thought About You :

This was early morning and we had some down time. Suzanne and the director asked me to “warm up” the audience . If i remember she was sitting on the stage and got into what i was doing as you can hear !!  Great times !!

I loved doing this Christmas Album with all my friends and some real legends here that are no longer with us. Everyone was extremely busy on the road etc. with various bands so i scheduled the session in NYC on a day everyone was in town. We did the entire album in 7 hours straight unheard of !  Funny story there was a set up guy in the studio and after we were done he came up to me in shock. He said “i have never seen anything like this before and last week we had a rock band in here and they spent 1 full week trying to get a balance on the drums and you jusy did an entire album in 7 hours”. That’s what happens when you have total pros!

Read more and listen

Happy Holidays and enjoy!  Glenn

Some Trivia :

The verse to “White Christmas” written by Irving Berlin is seldom heard and If you listen to the lyrics you will hear the story on how he was in LA when he wrote it missing the holidays in NY and boy can i relate to that!!

Also when I was 14 years old I recorded a Jazz Christmas Album at Nola Penthouse one of the top studios in NY with a jazz quintet led by a dear friend Stuart Hemmingway who was a school mate and pianest from CT and was a student of Jazz Legend Bill Evans and now here i was in the same studio 25 years later doing a Jazz Christmas album.   Lifes cycles are amazing!

As you can see i have had the privilege to work with some great singers and stars from Sinatra to Tony Bennett , Mel Torme , Ella Fitzgerald , Peggy Lee , Joe Williams and many more. There is one singer extremely underrated who was a “musicians singer” meaning she was truly part of the band Maxine Sullivan who had a big hit in the 40s on a Celtic folk song she did swing style called “Lock Lomond”. She guested on my Christmas Album and i did several albums for her. We also traveled on the road together and did many live gigs. Maxine played trumpet also and i have a video of that i have to get transferred to DVD. She was an inspiration to a lot of people including Peggy Lee and she knew how to deliver a song in the most simple direct way and she could swing. This is the second album i did for her which was all Jule Styne music and Maxine was in her 70s at the time. There was one song on this album we did together “Killing Time” and the story goes that the lyricist was dying of cancer when she wrote these lyrics. I wanted to share this poignant moment and song with you and i decided to use the Harmon Mute for the solo on this song as i thought it was appropriate to the mood and the message. Glenn

Killing Time :

In my career I have had several what you might call “foils” to create with. These are artists where i had a tremendous rapport right from the start and it was just easy to make music together. In the Jazz world Benny Goodman was one of those artists who I spent 2 years with side by side on stage. Bob Wilber the great soprano player was another and we were together several years and recording many albums.  Suzanne Somers was a very special artist and we had a rapport or “simpatico” that was very special from the first moment as is very obvious from this clip. This song one of my favorite standards “But Beautiful” is the one that started that musical relationship with Suzanne that lasted for 9 years and definitely was a high point to an illustrious career for me. This clip is from our live show on a video titled Suzanne Somers Live featuring Glenn Zottola.

New Add for RS Berkeley Saxophone. Great instruments I used on all the recent albums.  Well done Les Silver and RS Berkeley.  Glenn Zottola