Geller’s German Gig Lasts a Lifetime

What’s it like to be an American jazz man in Europe? No one knows the answer better than alto saxophonist Herb Geller, who has lived in Germany for nearly four decades.

This week, he is in town, making one of his annual trips stateside to remain in contact with the energies of the American jazz scene. He performs tonight at Steamers Cafe in Fullerton, and at other spots throughout the Southland over the next few days.

Geller was one of the prominent voices in the West Coast jazz movement of the ‘50s. Often working with his wife, pianist Lorraine Walsh Geller, and drummer Shelly Manne, he was a vital member of a generation of saxophonists that included Art Pepper, Bud Shank, Frank Morgan and Lennie Niehaus (to name only a few).

When his wife--a gifted performer who already had worked with everyone from Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie to Miles Davis and Stan Getz--died suddenly of a heart ailment in 1958, Geller worked for a while in big bands (Benny Goodman’s) and small groups (continuing with Manne) before moving to Europe. After spending a few months in Paris, he eventually wound up in Germany, where he has lived ever since.

His story is a fascinating description of a life in jazz that is almost inconceivable for most musicians in this country.

“When I first went there,” Geller says, “I thought I would just stay for a couple of years, actually. It was the sort of thing that a lot of jazz players were doing at the time, and now too. Spend a while in Europe and then come back to the States.”

But after working awhile for a Paris radio station and occasionally playing concerts across Europe, Geller wound up in West Berlin, where he ran into some musician friends.

“They told me they needed a lead alto in their big band,” he recalls, “and, as it turned out, I met my present wife, Christine, and we wound up spending three years in Berlin.”

At this point, still working for an independent booker (“who took most of the money for himself,” Geller says with a laugh), he still hadn’t had a taste of real European social largess.

“Then I got an offer to go to Hamburg,” he says, “which was financially a completely different deal, since I was working for the state instead of a contractor.” He was hired, initially on a year-to-year basis, by North German Radio, which--like many European radio stations--maintained a number of full-time musical ensembles, including a big band.

“It was great,” Geller says. “It gave me a chance to practice the flute, which I’d never really quite worked out before. And they told me I could arrange and compose as much as I wanted, which was something else I’d never really had that much chance to do when I was in America. Basically I was playing jazz, learning a new instrument, stretching out with my writing and getting paid for it.”

There were, in addition, substantial medical insurance benefits and a general feeling of security of a sort that few American jazz players--other than those at the extreme top level of the profession--ever have the opportunity to experience.

“I always say it’s like working for the post office, but playing music,” Geller adds with a chuckle.

But after five years, he was faced with a life-affecting decision.

“Basically, the deal was this,” he says. “They said you have to either leave or stay and get a lifetime pension. Well, that was around the time that we were deeply into the Vietnam War, and then Nixon came along. So I figured I had my choice between Willy Brandt or Nixon. Guess which one I chose.”

That decision kept Geller, his wife and their two children in Hamburg for the next 28 years, until he reached the retirement age of 65. But even then, his musical activities continued undiminished. In fact, freed of his everyday radio ensemble responsibilities, he has had wide-open time and opportunity to indulge his musical imagination.

“It’s hard to complain,” says Geller. “I get about 60% of my salary, with inflation raises every year. And we actually get paid 13 months’ salary annually, all of which pretty much let’s me do whatever I want.”

For some American jazz artists, Geller’s situation sounds like an impossible dream. For others, spending a lifetime working in a bureaucratic setting of any sort, however liberal, sounds like working inside a creative prison.

But Geller hasn’t felt at all restricted, actively recording with a variety of ensembles, working with his trios and quartets, composing and arranging. A few years ago, he wrote an autobiographical musical, “Playing Jazz,” and a theatrical project revolving around the life of the famous American expatriate singer/dancer Josephine Baker is in the works.

“The only downside,” he says, “is that, by having spent so much time in Europe, I’ve almost been forgotten as a jazz commodity in this country. But I’ll keep coming back every year, giving people a chance to hear what I’ve got, letting them know that I’m still around, that I’ve still got something to say.”

* Herb Geller performs with the Herb Geller/Hod O’Brien Quartet tonight at Steamers Cafe in Fullerton, (714) 871-8800; Monday at Spazio in Sherman Oaks, (818) 728-8400; and Tuesday at Spaghettini in Seal Beach, (562) 596-2199.

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Web Jazz: Barnes & Noble’s Web site is now offering what may well be the most detailed jazz information database on the Web. Using a proprietary program created by an Oakland-based company called Savage Beast (no explanation for the label), the database, which is titled Jazz Discovery, allows one to wander through long strings of connected areas based on style, artist, instrument, instrumentation, mood, etc.

The operative factors in Jazz Discovery are elements that Savage Beast describes as “musical genomes.” The company has employed dozens of musically trained listeners who identify selections based on a carefully defined list of attributes (in the most rudimentary form--instrumentation, style, tempo, etc., but with the addition of many more subtle distinctions). These musical genomes are then applied to every selection in the database, allowing the programmers to offer the viewer/listener (many of the selections can be heard via brief audio samples) links to pieces that--according to the genome process--are related to the original choice. In addition, it offers arenas dedicated to beginning and advanced listeners.

Does it work? For the most part, yes. But only if one overlooks the frequent odd linkages that the genomes provide. For example, clicking the “more like this” button on Glenn Miller’s “String of Pearls” leads to pairs of selections by Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington and Count Basie. OK, all big bands, but with some obvious distinctions. The final linked selection, however, is more mystifying: Chet Baker doing “Dinah.”

Similarly, clicking the “more like this” button on Ellington’s “Prelude to a Kiss” brings up selections by Johnny Hodges, Quincy Jones, Ben Webster, Glenn Miller and more Ellington. But what is David Sanborn’s “Come Rain or Come Shine” doing in this grouping? Is it because both Sanborn and Hodges play alto sax? Hmmm.

Another problem with Jazz Discovery is its heavy emphasis on major, established artists and large record labels. Savage Beast representatives insist that the database is in a continuing process of expansion, with the continuing addition of new performers and record companies. Which is good news.

Those caveats aside, it is still fun to rove through Jazz Discovery’s byzantine passages and intersections. More than that, the site has the potential--if properly structured--to serve as a powerful educational tool as well, a prospect enhanced by the presence of artist biographies that can, with a bit of effort, be found. But Savage Beast needs more experienced jazz listening ears to oversee the choices made by its musical genomes. Connecting Louis Armstrong’s “West End Blues” to Roy Hargrove’s “Parker’s Mood”--like many other choices--smacks too strongly of a computer’s choice rather than a listener’s evaluation.

* Jazz Discovery can be accessed by pressing the “Listen & Learn: Jazz Discovery” button at https://www.music.barnesandnoble.com.