Edward Joseph Bertolatus was born in Yonkers, New York, and first attempted the tenor saxophone, later stating that the Count Basie tenorist Lester Young's style had informed his approach to the trombone. His father, a telephone engineer, bought him a trombone when he was 13. "You couldn't keep me away from the instrument. I practised six to eight hours a day," he said.
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When he was 16, he would sneak into New York to listen to the Basie band, waiting at the stage door to intercept the trombonist Benny Morton and ask for lessons. Another great trombonist, the rumbustious JC Higginbotham, also coached him. Unfortunately, this sometimes required Bert to follow his mentor into fist fights and bar wrangles.
Bert's first paid engagement, with the tenor saxophonist Sam Donahue's big band in 1940, soon ended as the trombonist's reading was poor. More diligent study followed and eventually Bert was spotted by the vibraphonist Red Norvo – then running a popular combo featuring his wife, the singer Mildred Bailey. Norvo's new big band (with Bert on board) debuted a day before the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor: "I finally get a steady job and they start a war," he recalled.
Nonetheless, they toured with the comedian Jimmy Durante before Norvo reverted to a small group, with Bert retained and his boyhood friend the trumpeter Shorty Rogers alongside. Bert made his first recordings with this group while they enjoyed a long residency at the Famous Door club in New York.
By 1943, Bert was receiving offers from many bandleaders and chose to go with Charlie Barnet, mainly because another of his trombone heros, Trummy Young, was in the band. He described how Young needed to make a quick getaway after one concert as the police were after him for failing to pay alimony, with Young smuggled out of the hall crammed into the case of a double bass. Drafted from Woody Herman's band in 1944, he saw out the war in Bill Finegan's US army band, this qualifying him to study later for his bachelor's and master's degrees at the Manhattan School of Music.
Bert joined Kenton in 1947, rooming with the intensely ambitious alto saxophonist Art Pepper and tackling Bob Graettinger's challenging arrangements, saying: "You just had to follow the music as best you could." He was also on hand to rehearse with Miles Davis's Birth of the Cool band and with Charlie Parker in a special 27-piece orchestra organised by the arranger Gene Roland. "It was known as the Band That Never Was," Bert told the interviewer Gordon Jack, "because it never worked, just rehearsed."
Newly established in New York, he went on to play with Goodman's bebop band, to work with Buddy Rich supporting Frank Sinatra, and to perform with Mingus in his Jazz Workshop group. Thereafter Bert was endlessly busy, in and out of touring big bands and combos, later settling down for a long sequence of pit-band jobs with the Elliot Lawrence Orchestra. He was also a member of Monk's 10-piece, which performed memorably at Town Hall in New York in 1959 and rehearsed with the composer Edgard Varèse, then experimenting with new methods of composition. His long-term affiliation with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra led to a 1969 European tour, with appearances in Britain.
Peter Vacher
Source : https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/oct/08/eddie-bert
Eddie Bert
Modern Moods
(J-1032)
Tracks
1 Walk with Me (Bert) 5:19
2 Cardboard Coffee (Bert) 5:29
3 Nosmo King (Gold) 4:34
4 Lom, Norahs and Enaj (Bert) 4:20
5 Moon and Sand (Wilder) 3:06
6 Jerome's Blues (Richardson) 9:32
7 All My Life (Stept) 5:07
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Personnel
Eddie Bert - tb
Jerome Richardson - fl & ts
Vinnie Dean - as
Hank Jones - p
Barry Galbraith - g
Oscar Pettiford - b
Osie Johnson - dr
Recorded in New York City ; November, 1955