Home » Jazz Musicians » Herb Geller

Herb Geller

Herb Geller, born on 2. November 1928 in Los Angeles is an American Jazz Musician, Composer and Arranger.

His musical abilities could have been inherited from his mother, Francis. She worked at the neighbourhood cinemas playing piano accompanying silent movies. At the age of 8 he was presented with an alto saxophone, purchased from a local music store owner and music teacher who was also a friend of the family and had a used instrument for sale.
Two years later he started clarinet. Herb attended Dorsey High School in the southwestern part of Los Angeles and joined the school band which among others included the musicians Eric Dolphy, Vi Redd and Bobby White. At the age of 14 he heard Benny Carter perform at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles and was so impressed that he decided to persue a career in music, specializing on the alto saxophone.
Two years later during a summer vacation he had his first professional engagement in the band of the great jazz violinist Joe Venuti. A short time later he discovered the music of Charlie Parker, who became an important idol along with Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges. In 1949 Herb went to New York City for the first time, where he performed in the bands of Jack Fina, (with Paul Desmond also in the sax section), Claude Thornhill, Jerry Wald and Lucky Millinder. During this time he met the pianist Lorraine Walsh in Los Angeles, who later in New York became his wife and also an important musical partner. After three years in New York Herb joined the Billy May orchestra in 1952 and following an engagement in Los Angeles the Gellers returned there to live. The development of the Long Playing Record created more work opportunities for jazz musicians using many different ensembles and the so-called West Coast Jazz style became popular. Among the groups Herb worked and recorded with were Shorty Rogers, Maynard Ferguson, Bill Holman, Shelly Manne, Marty Paich, Barney Kessel, Andre Previn, Quincy Jones, Wardel Grey, Jack Sheldon and Chet Baker. Lorraine worked as the house pianist at the Lighthouse Jazz Club, and played with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Jack Teagarden, Bill Holman and was the accompanist for the singer Kay Starr. Herb recorded three LPs as a leader for Emarcy plus some with Dinah Washington, Max Roach, Clifford Brown, Clark Terry, Maynard Ferguson and Kenny Drew.

Read more

Tags

9
Album Review

Shelly Manne & His Men: Jazz From The Pacific Northwest

Read "Jazz From The Pacific Northwest" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


Shelly Manne & His Men are presented in two iterations in never-before-released live recordings from the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival and from a 1966 date at The Penthouse in Seattle entitled Jazz From The Pacific Northwest. In this deluxe limited edition 180-gram 2LP set, co-produced for release by the estimable Zev Feldman and Cory Weeds, the band captivated the audience with intricate melodies and vibrant improvisations driven by Manne's virtuosic drumming. The band on LP1 from ...

6
Album Review

The Roberto Magris Trio: An Evening with Herb Geller: Live in Europe 2009

Read "An Evening with Herb Geller: Live in Europe 2009" reviewed by Jack Bowers


To followers of jazz in general and West Coast jazz in particular, the late alto saxophonist Herb Geller should need no introduction. Geller, a master of his horn, was a fixture on the West Coast scene and elsewhere in the States until he moved to Germany in 1962 and spent the last half-century of his life there, performing and recording with groups large and small and imparting his wisdom to a younger generation of musicians. On An ...

7
Profile

Herb Geller: A Musician's Musician

Read "Herb Geller: A Musician's Musician" reviewed by Joan Gannij


I first met Herb Geller in 2002 at a concert in Amsterdam at the original Bimhuis jazz club. The band was gathering their equipment from the stage and we started chatting about being raised in jny: Los Angeles. When I was a teenager, the tall and lanky genial gent was playing at the local clubs that my mother used to sneak me into. At 14, I was a much too young but sophisticated lady in my eye makeup and high ...

Read more articles

Recording

Herb Geller: 1962 Paris Sessions

Herb Geller: 1962 Paris Sessions

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

In early 1958, alto saxophonist Herb Geller was having a hard year, a period that would only grow darker with catastrophe that fall. Up until then, he had it all. Starting in 1949, Herb had a meteoric career as a band and bop ensemble player. His orchestral work in the late 1940s and very early 1950s included recordings under the leadership of Earle Spencer, Billy May, Jerry Wald, Stan Kenton, Shorty Rogers and Claude Thornhill. Then he met Lorraine Walsh ...

1

Video / DVD

Herb Geller: Gypsy, 1959

Herb Geller: Gypsy, 1959

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Of all the musicals that were hits on Broadway, songs from Gypsy were among the most covered by top jazz musicians. I'm sure West Side Story, My Fair Lady and South Pacific were up there, too, but they weren't quite as naturally jazzy as Gypsy. That's because Styne came up in the jazz age as a pianist and band leader. Artists who put a jazz spin on Gypsy's songs include Tony Scott, Annie Ross, Teddy Wilson, the Hi-Lo's, Eddie Heywood, ...

1

Obituary

Herb Geller, 1928-2013

Herb Geller, 1928-2013

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

We have word from Herb Geller’s family that the venerable alto saxophonist died on Thursday in a Hamburg, Germany, hospital. He succumbed to pneumonia. Geller had been under treatment for the past couple of years for a form of lymphoma. He turned 85 in November. As noted in this Rifftides post lastJune, Geller remained not merely active but energetic until fairly recently, performing in clubs and at festivals throughout Europe. He had lived in Hamburg since 1965. Until his mandatory ...

56

Video / DVD

Geller Plays Strayhorn

Geller Plays Strayhorn

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey


107

Interview

Herb Geller on Bill Evans

Herb Geller on Bill Evans

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Following my interview series last week with alto saxophonist Herb Geller, I was curious about Herb's interactions with bassist Scott Lafaro in the late 1950s and his flute playing with pianist Bill Evans in 1972.

It turns out Herb was the one who first introduced LaFaro to Evans, that Herb began playing flute only after relocating to Germany, and that there's a reason why Bill Evans looks so dazed in the YouTube clips.

Here's Herb on LaFaro and Evans:

“In ...

240

Interview

Interview: Herb Geller (Part 5)

Interview: Herb Geller (Part 5)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

For years, the events surrounding pianist Lorraine Geller's sudden death at age 30 in October 1958 have been shrouded in mystery. Depending on what you've read or who you've listened to, rumored causes have ranged from a weak heart to a drug overdose, with plenty of other reasons in between. For the sake of setting the record straight, Herb Geller relived those terrible days in the late 1950s when we spoke. Herb also talked about what happened after the death ...

98

Interview

Interview: Herb Geller (Part 4)

Interview: Herb Geller (Part 4)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Starting in the mid-1950s, Los Angeles became a boomtown for many trained jazz musicians. With the rise of the 12-inch LP and expansion of the movie studios, the demand for gifted musicians who could read music and record perfectly spiked. Many of the musicians who had relocated to the area were in the right place at the right time. If you were good, and many were, you could record at a movie studio in the early morning, hit a couple ...

118

Interview

Interview: Herb Geller (Part 3)

Interview: Herb Geller (Part 3)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

By the early 1950s, the number of big bands that traveled the country's roads to perform was dwindling. The reasons were a matter of economics and fizzling demand. Transporting, housing and feeding upward of 18 musicians required solid money, and with married couples going out less often to dance and preferring to stay home and play records, fewer band opportunities remained. In New York, with the rise of the suburbs, the once booming club business was shrinking as well, and ...

82

Interview

Interview: Herb Geller (Part 2)

Interview: Herb Geller (Part 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

From his earliest small-group recording session with trumpeter Tony Fruscella in February 1952, Herb Geller's sound on the alto saxophone was distinct and vibrant. There was enormous power, spidery speed, seamless ideas and a soaring tone that immediately commanded attention. Though he would be thought of as a West Coast musician in the years to follow, Herb's approach and vibrancy actually was forged in New York.

Herb's move East in 1949 changed him as an artist, giving him greater confidence ...

230

Interview

Interview: Herb Geller (Part 1)

Interview: Herb Geller (Part 1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Herb Geller is something of a mystery to many jazz fans. For one, the alto saxophonist who recorded steadily on the West Coast in the 1950s has lived in Germany since 1962, returning to the U.S. only sporadically to perform. For another, Herb rarely grants interviews, preferring to maintain his privacy while teaching and touring in Europe.

Herb--like his West Coast alto saxophone contemporaries Art Pepper, Bud Shank, Lennie Niehaus and Charlie Mariano--seemed to live in Hollywood's recording studios in ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

European Rebirth...

Fresh Sound Records
2022

buy

Birdland Stomp

Splasc(H) Records
1987

buy

Hot House

Splasc(H) Records
1985

buy

Videos

Similar

Charlie Parker
saxophone, alto
Johnny Hodges
saxophone, alto
Dexter Gordon
saxophone, tenor
Charlie Mariano
saxophone, alto
Benny Carter
saxophone, alto
Woody Herman
band / ensemble / orchestra
Sonny Criss
saxophone, alto
Bud Shank
saxophone
Al Cohn
saxophone, tenor

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.