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Visit Mike Vaccaro’s Journeyman CD page: watch the interview, read my review

Visit Mike Vaccaro’s Almost Alone CD page: watch the interview

Emmy Award-winning composer John Scott’s delicious morsels

British film and television composer John Scott and Hollywood studio woodwind artist Mike Vaccaro have known each other for several decades, traversing in tandem the tangled, often fickle, sometimes treacherous, always gratifying but no-nonsense world of scoring and recording for the television and film-making industry. Vaccaro has done well by learning how to play virtually every woodwind instrument and then a few to perfection. Subbing at the level of virtuosity required of Hollywood studio musicians has been the mana of Vaccaro’s career, not only in Hollywood and Vegas but during his youth, playing in the bands of some of the biggest names in American jazz.

Ditto John Scott, whose youthful career as a clarinetist/saxophonist and harpist in Britain’s big bands mirrors Vaccaro’s. Eventually, as Scott began arranging, then composing music for film and television in America as well as the UK, the two met on a sound stage in Hollywood and the artistic bond has been strong ever since.

Like most Los Angeles and London-based studio musicians, Scott and Vaccaro have extensive experience performing classical music as well as jazz and a half dozen other genres. Scott as composer/conductor, has his own portfolio of works including at last count a symphony, four string quartets and a ballet, not to mention his catalogue of over 100 film and television scores. Vaccaro has subbed with various professional orchestras in the Los Angeles area over the years and enjoys a passion for chamber music. Vaccaro’s CD label ADC Recordings catalogues not only his formidable talents as a professional studio musician, but the company he keeps; his friends and colleagues in the business.

Vaccaro’s latest CD release, The Chamber Music of John Scott: and other delicious morsels is mostly an homage to Scott - the composer’s Clarinet Quintet and Sax Quartet: A Week in October. Also on the CD, three works by Vaccaro’s colleague, saxophonist Damon Zick, his Hector, Desmond and Titus for Sax Quartet, Three for Four for Sax Quartet and Nada Pero Máquinas (Nothing But Machines) for Sax Quartet.

To flesh out the disc, the Allemande from Bach’s Sonata in A minor for Solo Flute, Vacarro illustrating ably, his skills on that instrument as well as his solo credentials, Theo Charlier’s 36 Etudes For Trumpet, Du Style, performed on clarinet. Vaccaro also plays bass clarinet in one movement of the Clarinet Quintet and alto sax on all the sax quartet pieces; making it all seem easy. The Left Coast String Quartet - violinists Norman Hughes and Mari Haig, Julie Metz viola and Greg Adamson cello - are Vaccaro’s colleagues for Scott’s Clarinet Quintet, which opens the CD.

Melody has been John Scott’s alpha and omega throughout his career and the Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet does not stray from gospel. The narrative between soloist and strings in the first movement is charming and clear, the second movement’s slightly gimpy waltz tune characterful and fun, Vaccaro’s nice tone and easy approach on clarinet belying the tricky bits with class. Scott’s use of bass clarinet in the third movement Andante/Adagietto works well, the composer exploring color capabilities in all the instrument’s registers. The last movement of this accessible as well as challenging work presents a sassy, jazzy, tongue-in-cheek musical smile, a bit of a showcase for Vaccaro’s expertise in all matters of inflection, mood, color and style.

A little pause to cleanse the palate (the Bach solo flute Allemande) before Scott’s A Week in October for Sax Quartet. Four days in October represented by four distinct movements, as the work canters through its narrative with some beautiful and extraordinarily romantic writing, played with nice balance and tone by the Mason, Matsuura, Vaccaro and Zick Saxophone Quartet. Another solo interlude for Vaccaro follows to show off his lovely clarinet tone - Du Style from Theo Charlier’s 36 Etudes For Trumpet - before the remaining three works on the CD by saxophonist and composer Damon Zick who also performs baritone sax on the disc.

Describing three of Edward Gorey’s comic characters Hector, Desmond and Titus for Sax Quartet dabbles playfully with a funky jazz style and contagious rhythmic vitality, while Zick’s Three for Four for Sax Quartet , originally composed for the NOVUS Trombone Quartet at Rice University but in the composer’s words “found its true home” in the musky colors of the saxophone quartet is meditative and a bit melancholic, working a six-note figure through various iterations. Nada Pero Máquinas for Sax Quartet brings the CD to a nice close with playful jazz riffs for soprano sax and plenty of fun for the sax quartet as a whole.

Daniel Kepl | Performing Arts Review