Zoot Sims - Swinging From The First Note

 

John Haley "Zoot" Sims

Let's talk about one of my all-time favorite jazz musicians, Zoot Sims. First of all, "Zoot" is perhaps the coolest nickname in the history of jazz. Which is saying something, because jazz is littered with great nicknames, including Bags, Prez, Bird, Bean, Satchmo, Cannonball, Brownie, Diz, Cleanhead, Fathead, Jaws, Lucky, Papa Joe, and Sweets, just to name a few. But in my view, Zoot is in a class by itself. 

The man who became Zoot was born John Haley Sims in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, CA in 1925. He started playing clarinet in the school band at age 10, but switched to the tenor saxophone three years later. Not surprisingly, his early influences were the great saxophone stylists of the late 1930s, including Lester Young, Ben Webster, and Don Byas. 

Within a few years, Sims dropped out of high school and began playing professionally with big bands, starting with groups led by Kenny Baker and Bobby Sherwood. He joined Benny Goodman's band for the first time in 1943 at the age of 18 (and continued to perform with Goodman on and off until the late 1970s). 

In 1944, Sims replaced one of his idols - Ben Webster - in Sid Catlett's Quartet. In May of that same year, at the age of 19, he made his recording debut on Commodore Records in a sextet led by pianist Joe Bushkin.

Four Brothers: Herbie Stewart, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Serge Chaloff

After a two-year hitch in the Army Air Force (1944-46), Sims picked up where he had left off, playing with bands led by Artie Shaw, Stan Kenton, and Buddy Rich. He rose to fame as a member of the saxophone section in Woody Herman's second great Big Band ensemble, known as the "Second Herd," which lasted from 1947-49.

The band had a hit single in 1948 with a song by Jimmy Giuffre called "Four Brothers," written specifically to spotlight the talents of the sax section. 

While the musicians who made up the band's saxophone section changed a few times during the two years the Second Herd was together, the members who played on the hit song and became the original Four Brothers were Zoot Sims, Serge Chaloff, Herbie Stewart, and Stan Getz. (You can listen to the song here. The order of the solos is Sims, Chaloff, Stewart, Getz - followed by Woody Herman on the clarinet.) Other members of the sax section during the Second Herd were Al Cohn, Gene Ammons, and Jimmy Giuffre.

From 1954–56, Sims toured with his friend Gerry Mulligan's sextet, and later, in the early 1960s, with Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band. 

After leaving Mulligan's band, and up until the end of his life, Sims was primarily a freelancer, though he worked frequently in the 1960s and early 1970s with a group co–led with Al Cohn. In the 1970s and 1980s, he also played and recorded regularly with a handful of other musical partners including Bucky Pizzarelli, Joe Venuti, and Jimmy Rowles. In 1975, he began recording for Norman Granz's Pablo Records label, where he eventually released more than 20 albums, mostly as a featured solo artist, but also as a backing musician for artists including Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, and Clark Terry. Among the albums Sims recorded for Pablo are six releases featuring pianist Jimmy Rowles in a quartet setting that music critic Scott Yanow has said may be Sims's finest work.

Zoot and Al Cohn

But let's back up a bit. What exactly is a Zoot? Sims acquired the nickname at the start of his career while playing with Kenny Baker's band in California in the early 1940s. According to broadcast journalist and jazz writer Doug Ramsey, "When Sims joined Baker's band as a fifteen-year-old tenor saxophonist, each of the music stands was embellished with a nonsense word [like Scoot, Voot, or Zoot]. The one Sims sat behind said 'Zoot,' and that became his nickname." 

Ramsey, who was good friends with Sims, goes on to write that "Sims was the most dependable and consistent of tenor saxophonists. Never dull, never predictable, he symbolized the spirit of jazz . . . He required no start-up time. Zoot Sims was that rarity, a musician capable of swinging from the first note, and his swing was irresistible." Most of all, Ramsey adds, "Sims just loved to play." 

In his 1989 book Jazz Matters, Ramsey recounts a story about Sims at a late-night jam session following a concert in Seattle in 1955. By 3:00 a.m., all the other headliners had gone to bed, but Sims and the rhythm section kept on playing. Eventually, the rhythm section packed it in as well. Ramsey writes that Sims, who was sitting on a stool, "Closed his eyes, rested his head against the wall, and kept on swinging hard all by himself." 

In addition to his musical genius, Sims was, by all accounts, an extremely likeable fellow, and fun to be around. There are any number of humorous stories about him, including several recorded by bass player Bill Crow in his terrific book Jazz Anecdotes. Crow says that when he wasn't working, Sims was known to be a very sloppy dresser, usually wearing an old baseball jacket and rumpled corduroy pants. Crow says that one afternoon Sims walked into a bar where he was a regular wearing a dark suit and a tie. The bartender was shocked and asked Zoot why he was all dressed up. Zoot smiled and said, "I don't know, I just woke up this way." 

Sims was also known to be a prodigious drinker. Crow says that one night a man in the audience was amazed to see Sims down shot after shot while playing, never missing a note. During a break, the man asked Sims how he could possibly play so well after drinking so much, and Sims told him, "Well, I practice when I'm loaded."

Joe Venuti and Zoot Sims

Even though Sims died relatively young at the age of 59 (in 1985 of cancer), during the course of his career he is credited with playing on some 400 albums, with more than a hundred releases as a leader.

However, Sims was never a star of the magnitude of a Stan Getz or John Coltrane, so his albums are not heavily sought after. And since he cut so many LPs, they tend to turn up fairly frequently in the used bins at bargain prices. 

I currently have 87 albums where Sims is either the leader or a sideman, including 18 of his Pablo releases. It's almost impossible to pick out any favorites, because Sims never made a bad album. There literally isn't a dud among them. As Ramsey wrote, Sims was "swinging from the first note," every time he played. 

However, if you twist my arm, I would say that you can't go wrong with any of the Pablo releases, or the albums with Al Cohn, or the three albums that Sims recorded with violinist Joe Venuti. Zoot and Venuti were two of the swinging-est cats ever, and together they shared a special musical chemistry. But most of all, they just seemed to have a blast playing; their music is effortless and joyful. Bottom line: If you come across any of Zoot's albums, just buy them.

Enjoy the music.