Interview with Pat Senatore

Mr Bill

Gentlemanly Curmudgeon
Staff member
Moderator


Interesting interview with PatSenatore. Hear him tell how he made the transition from Newwark NJ/New York NY jazz scene to West Coast Jazz and more. It's long, but very interesting.

--Mr Bill
 
I get that message whenever I click on ANY video posted here on A&M Corner. I just go directly to you tube and either type in the URL (you can see it by parking your cursor over the link) or enter the name in the search bar. This one is #7 in a series of videos on West Coast Jazz. Others in the series include Terry Gibbs, Jeff Hamilton, John Clayton and others

Keep in mind this is nearly two hours long, so I watched it in four chunks over a couple days.

The portions on Herb are brief and not the main focus here. The focus is on Pat Senatore's career, West Coast jazz, and a few listening sessions of cuts featuring Senatore or with or with other prominent bassists for his commentary.

Two things I found interesting was Senatore confirming that Tonni Kalash was not on the recordings, that Herb did both trumpet parts, that Kalash was there to support two trumpets in rehearsal. This was to ensure the sound Herb expected from two trumpets was indeed what he wanted rather then to waste time recording something twice only to discover it didn't work and then have to re-record two more times. Kind of sad for Tonni, if you ask me.

Senatore also borrows a line Rudy, our fearless leader here, has used to describe Mariah Carey, Madonna and others: "Herb could've farted into a microphone and sold a million records."

--Mr Bill
 
At a Vibrato benefit show featuring Sergio Mendes, Gracinha Leporace, and Alan Arkin (who was amazing), I introduced myself to Pat before the show. He said Herb was smart about not giving individual members of the band too much exposure on TJB record jackets (although he paid them very well. I once read $100k a year — remember, this was in the '60s — plus if they got a song on the record, the copyrights became a big income source.) He said Herb would alternate putting photos of band members on the jackets.

One other quick bit about that show. My wife and I flew in from Atlanta to see it. Herb's daughter was there, a wonderful lady. We somehow got amazing seats and were among the first to arrive. Sitting on the stage directly in front of us, there to make conversation with the audience, was Jeff Goldblum. Since we were the only ones in the front seats for about a half-hour, we had a blast just hanging out with him and trading banter.
 
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