Hefti Hefti Hefti

Neal Hefti passed away Saturday. Before he achieved his most lasting fame as a TV and film composer, he was prominent as an arranger with Count Basie's big band and he wrote a number of great jazz standards.

Growing up, I heard various versions of this one all the time:



Novi Quartet: "Li'l Darling" (Saba, 1968)

My mom used to listen to KJAZ religiously and in particular to a weekly segment (Sundays, 10:00 a.m.?) where they'd play a different version of "Li'l Darling". I doubt they ever played this one, but there are dozens of others. (BTW, it's killing me that I can't think of a good version of Hefti's "Girl Talk"-- I know I have a cool one lying around somewhere.)

Of course, Hefti is best-remembered these days as the writer of the themes to the "Odd Couple" and this, here bastardized by unidentified members of Sun Ra's Arkestra and the Blues Project:



The Sensational Guitars of Dan & Dale: "Batman Theme" (Tifton, 1966)

This one has always reminded me of the Batman theme:



Mitch Mitchell & Gene "The King": "Definition of Things" (Go-Ko, 196?)

The Mitch Mitchell who made this is not the Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer, but instead an Ohio guy featured on this fine compilation and this l'il mix. Gene King also collaborated on Mitchell's "Never Walk Out on You" and, to hear the record tell it, was a real cool cat.

Finally, this one reminds me of the scatting on the Mitch Mitchell record, and has been stuck in my head on and off for months:


Segun Bucknor & His Revolution: "La La La" (Polydor, 197?/Strut, 2001)

The compilation it's drawn from, Nigeria 70, was released well ahead of the current glut of Afrobeat compilations but remains one of the best. The recent sequel is pretty great, too, and is still in print.

Too many R.I.P. posts lately. I think I may have to change the name of the blog to "I hear dead people". Or maybe "but I digress", to account for all the "reminds me of this" side-trips.