Creed Taylor Produced

On this day, January 18th, 1967 – Wally Heider bought a truckload of equipment up from Los Angeles to San Francisco; Creed Taylor and Chico O’Farrill had flown out from New York and they were to arrange and record a live Cal Tjader set. What happened to the album and does the live set still exist anywhere?

A fascinating period of change – relentless touring for Cal Tjader, possibly the most commercial of Creed Taylors artists so far – Taylor was also leaving Verve. Here is a Tjader live set from 1969 at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach ^[1]Music is streamed from the Internet Archive’s FM Radio collection, created and maintained by Kim Paris of Freeform Portland radio –  All music posted on FMRA is from broadcast … Continue reading – south of Los Angeles. The playlist is 15-tracks and lasts some 85-minutes. ^[2]All the tracks are individually downloadable from the playlist, or you can download the complete set directly from the Internet Archive here as a zip file.

Press play and read on.

If musicians were sports teams, they’d have a home stadium. For Cal Tjader, his home location would have been the El Matador club in San Francisco. While Cal Tjader was born in St. Louis, Missouri, his parents moved to San Mateo to open a dance studio. In his teens, Cal and his friends would cross the bay to go see Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and Artie Shaw ^[3]Cal Tjader – Waxpoetics Latin Edition 2011 – Duncan Reid.

The Blackhawk Recordings

Prior to El Matador, Tjador spent much of his early years at the Blackhawk at 200 Hyde Street in San Francisco. There is confusion about the correct spelling of the club name, as well it turns out, one of the founders. ^[4]For the purpose of this article I am using Blackhawk rather than Black Hawk, it has been used interchangeably with only Down Beat consistently using Black Hawk. Joel Selvin’s 1996 book, “San … Continue reading

Cal Tjader would first perform with Dave Brubeck, as Brubeck’s drummer not long after the club opened in 1950. It didn’t take long for jazz to become a staple at the new venue. The Blackhawk would both court jazz musicians and controversy, becoming nationally known as the Jazz Club Of The West. It became a staple for Anita O’Day, Charles Mingus, Red Norvo Trio, Gerry Mulligan with Chet Baker, Miles Davis, and many others.

Tjader recorded five live albums at the Blackhawk Jazz At The Blackhawk for Fantasy records on January 20th, 1957 ^[5]https://www.discogs.com/master/390365-Cal-Tjader-Quartet-Jazz-At-The-Blackhawk; Cal Tjader’s Latin Concert ^[6]Cal Tjader – Cal Tjader’s Latin Concert – Vinyl (Red Transparent, LP, Album, Mono), 1958 [r20260069] | Discogs (1958) and Demasiado Caliente ^[7]https://www.discogs.com/master/429566-Cal-Tjader-Demasiado-Caliente (1960).

In January, 1962, Tjader would record Saturday Night / Sunday Night At The Blackhawk, San Francisco for Verve 1962 – which was a Creed Taylor recording in all but name.

Wally Heider engineered, along with studio edits by Val Valentin, Pete Turner provided the cover picture. Down Beat in its Feb 15th, 1962 issue reported “Verve records was scheduled to tape Cal Tjader’s combo during the last week of its stay at the Black Hawk, for a forthcoming non-Latin Jazz LP.”

The album appeared in late April in an otherwise Taylor styled gatefold sleeve. Taylor wasn’t present for the recording and didn’t pick the tracks or style with Cal Tjader, hence “in all but name”.

When the album was first mentioned in Down Beat, in the June 21st issue, it simply said “The repertoire includes modern jazz, Afro-Cuban jazz.” In a full review in the July 5th issue it received 3-stars. John S. Wilson comments encouraged the drummer on the recording, Freddy Schreiber, to write to the editor. The September 13th issue carried his letter which among other things said “Evidently he Ed: John S. Wilson] did not listen closely to my angular, probing lines, and I am sure that not once did he take note of my relentless throb­bing beat. “

North Beach – Hotbed

El Matador was about 1.7-miles away from the Blackhawk over in the North Beach district. It was one of many bars in that area, a stopping point for sailors, Army soldiers, tourists etc. They are alll gone now. If you look up the history of the bar, Tjader doesn’t get a mention; it’s the likes of Oscar Peterson, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Charlie Byrd, and George Shearing who packed it out ^[8]https://northsidesf.com/may10/ae_jazzglorydays.html. Tjader in various lineups was there every year, multiple times per year – often for weeks at a time

Like the jazz bar scene on the East Coast, especially New York, most of the jazz bars were closed by the late 1980s. The location is still there and was used as a music venue the last time I was in San Francisco. It’s Keys Jazz Bistro, 498 Broadway, San Francisco, 94133 ^[9]https://keysjazzbistro.com/.

According to the May 6th ’67 issue of Billboard magazine, in a San Francisco spotlight special – “At its best, North Beach is a pressure cooker where bizarre things happen!” It named the remaining jazz clubs as “The Workshop, Basin Street West and Matador”, saying “currently dominated by the topless dancing girl trend (sex, man), for whom inane rock ‘n’ roll bands blast forth seven nights a week.”

Along with many others from the scene at the time, Doug Payne notes in his interview with Tom Coster that Gabor Szabo was also a regular at El Matador ^[10]https://www.dougpayne.com/tcoster.htm, but it’s a non-musician regular that I’m interested in for this post.

Russ Wilson was among a small cadre of West Coast music journalists who would have an outsized impact on West Coast reporting, along with Ralph Gleason and a nascent John L. Wasserman ^[11]http://ctproduced.com/on-the-town-summer-jazz-a-real-rip-off/, both of the SF Chronicle, Leonard Feather at the LA Times; Phillip Elwood of the SF Examiner.

Wilson receives credit from Duncan Reid, who wrote the book on Tjader, stating, “credit must be given to Russ Wilson, formerly with the Oakland Tribune, for providing much of this information.” ^[12]Reid, S. Duncan. Cal Tjader: the life and recordings of the man who revolutionized Latin jazz; McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-3535-7 ^[13]Russ Wilson’s 1963 interview with Earl “Fatha Hines” is included the 2009, Down Beat “The Great Jazz Interviews: A 75 Anniversary Anthology – ISBN 978-1-4234-6384-9

Live At The Matador

In the New Year’s Day edition of The San Francisco Examiner on Page 129 in its Date Book column, it noted, “Cal Tjader brings his group Thursday (5th of January, 1967) to El Matador.” Only to be confused by a picture of Tjader on Page 145 of the same newspaper with the caption, “The Cal Tjader is currently at El Matador.”

Writing in the SF Chronicle, January 4th – John Wasserman clears it up by noting that Tjader and his group opened last Friday (December 30th, 1966) and would be at El Matador for three more weeks (January 22nd). Wasserman also quoted a waitress from Friday’s opening night noting, “This is the biggest crowd we’ve had in three weeks.”

On the 18th of January, 1967, on Page 28 of the Oakland Tribune, Russ Wilson wrote this:

L.A. Group Recording Tjader Jazz

“Creed Taylor, the top jazz producer for Verve Records, and composer-arranger Chico O’Farrill are in the Bay Area from New York to record vibist Cal Tjader’s combo. Taping the music is Wally Heider, one of the foremost contemporary recording engineers, who brought a truckload of his equipment here from Los Angeles for the session.”

“The music is being recorded while the combo performs at El Matador. On some numbers, Tjader’s group is augmented with organist Lonnie Hewitt of Oakland and Joao Donato, the Brazilian musician who, in this instance, is doubling percussion and organ.”

“The recording will be in progress tonight and probably tomorrow night, Taylor said.”

Cal Tjader In Pittsburg Concert

In a full page column entitled “All Guitars Aren’t Loud”, introducing Charlie Byrd who was appearing at the El Matador from January 23rd, 1967 for 3-weeks. Russ Wilson used the opportunity to write third of the column on arranger Chico O’Farrill (who I assume had been available to interview?).

Another example of the influence of American jazz in foreign countries is found in the case of composer-arranger Chico O’Farrill, who was here last week in connection with a Cal Tjader recording session.

O’Farrill first became interested in jazz in his native Cuba, where he was studying classical music in the 1930s and early ’40s. With a group of Havana friends, he formed an American-styled big jazz band — the first of its type in Cuba, he said. It had eight brass, five reeds, and four rhythm and played a typical swing era repertoire. O’Farrill played trumpet as well as wrote for the band.

In 1948, O’Farrill came to New York, determined to see if he could make it there in jazz. He got his first break when Benny Goodman brought an O’Farrill composition, “Undercurrent Blues,” which became something of a hit.”

“The youthful composer continued writing for Goodman, for Machado, Miguelito Valdes, Stan Kenton (“Cuban Episode”) and for Dizzy Gillespie (“Manteca Suite”) meantime studying at Juilliard and playing occasional gigs.”

For a time, he had his own big band, which played at Birdland and the Blue Note in Chicago, among other locales. When the band’s prospects dimmed, due largely to rising costs, O’Farrill went to Mexico City in the mid-50s. He formed a big band there, which he kept active for seven years.

O’Farrill returned to the U.S. early in 1965 and has been busy composing and arranging for singers, bands, and combos ever since. Just before coming to San Francisco, he spent several days in a New York studio with the Basie band recording an album of tunes based on movie themes. This is the fourth LP he has written for the Count.

His charts for Tjader’s session, which was recorded while the group performed at El Matador and will be released by Verve Records, required the quintet to be augmented by an electronic organ and an additional percussionist. Creed Taylor, Verve’s musical director, came out from New York to supervise the session.

For recording engineer Wally Heider, the assignment was not as arduous as the one that preceded it. He trucked his extensive equipment here from Los Angeles and operated from a parking lot next door to the club. In the previous job, Heider transported his gear to Atlanta, GA, by air freight to record a trio. It cost the clients $2,000 for transportation alone, Heider said.

On Feb. 15 and 16, he [Ed: Heider] is scheduled to tape the Buddy Rich big band at the Chez in Hollywood for its second Pacific Jazz album.”

The article continued for another half column with details of other performers in the California area, including Jimmy Smith at Basin Street West starting Feb. 7th. It also included “Cal Tjader’s quintet will play a concert Saturday night, Feb. 4th, for the Contra Costa Concert Guild in Pittsburg, Calif.”

Along Comes Cal

There is no doubt that the sessions were recorded; that Creed Taylor had flown out to supervise them, but what happened to the album?

There are a few released Cal Tjader live volumes; the aforementioned Gleason and Wilson wrote the liner notes that were included on a CD release from 2002. The CD compiled two earlier Fantasy records sets ^[14]https://www.discogs.com/master/1129053-Cal-Tjader-Our-Blues. One of which was the Tjader 1960 live concert “Concert On The Campus” – Fantasy 3299 ^[15]https://www.discogs.com/master/213433-Cal-Tjader-Quintet-Concert-On-The-Campus that Russ Wilson wrote the sleeve notes for.

The May 6th San Francisco Billboard Spotlight noted that “The small Jazz Workshop, oldest of the North Beach clubs, is struggling to meet rising costs: it’s touch and go. El Matador, once a hangout for owner-author Barnaby Conrad’s bullfighting colleagues, specializes in guitars (Byrd, Sete, Kessel, Szabo, Serrano) but has done well with Handy, Tjader, and others in the jazz bag: Tjader recorded there recently.”

Sometime around mid-May/early June of 1967, Verve released the Taylor-produced “Along Comes Cal” – Verve V-8671 ^[16]https://www.discogs.com/master/289738-Cal-Tjader-Along-Comes-Cal – which noted below the track listing that tracks were recorded on March 28 and 29, 1967, at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, with the exception of track B1: Los Bandidos, recorded live at El Matador, San Francisco, January 1967.

What happened to the other tracks? According to both Doug Payne ^[17]https://www.dougpayne.com/calcd.htm and a European 2008 reissue set “Soulful Vibes” – Verve Records – 060075312039 ^[18]https://www.discogs.com/release/9658911-Cal-Tjader-Soulful-Vibes – a second track “Samba do Sueño” which it notes “Produced by Creed Taylor / Recorded January 1967, El Matador, San Francisco / Original LP: “Along Comes Cal” (Verve V6-8671) ^[19]https://www.discogs.com/release/9658911-Cal-Tjader-Soulful-Vibes.

I don’t have the European CD from 2008, and have far from the complete Cal Tjader discography but have at least three copies of “Samba do Sueño“. I’ve listened to them all, they are not live performances. I checked the master tape listings and there appear to be two copies of the track, including 101982 which was from the Van Gelder studio dates in March.

A second tape, 102482 appears to exist, but is listed as “Los Bandidos” which appears on the “Along Comes Cal” album. If that’s accurate, what happened to the rest of the tracks and what is on Verve master tape 101982 which is also on file as “Los Bandidos” ^[20]https://www.jazzdisco.org/verve-records/discography-1967/#670100.

George Shearing, who Cal Tjader had been a drummer for in the 1950’s, said of “Round Midnight” from the album – “I think this is Cal Tjader, very authentic Latin. There’s very few vibe players who have this sense of time.” yes—Thelonious Monk’s `Round Midnight, everybody and his brother has done it, but nobody has really done it that way. I like it very much” ^[21]Down Beat, August 10th 1967 – “Blindfold Test” – Leonard Feather. – Reviewing the album for the Moline(Illinois) Dispatch – Howard Rosenberg noted “The Shearing influence is apparent in “Los Bandidos,” a driving, up-tempo number that showcases the wonderful Armando Pereza on congo drums and inventive piano work of Al Zulaica.” ^[22]The Dispatch, Fri, Jun 30, 1967 ·Page 19

For me, “Los Bandidos” is easily the best track on the album. The album was well received, Cash Box reviewed in their July 1st, 1967 issue saying “the album should become a fast favorite with jazz aficionados.”

The album has never been released on CD or on streaming platforms, why?

I really wanted to find out what happened to the rest of the tracks, Duncan Reid’s book ^[23]Reid, S. Duncan. Cal Tjader: the life and recordings of the man who revolutionized Latin jazz; McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-3535-7 says:

Creed Taylor, Chico O’Farrill, Tjader and the powers that be at Verve listened to the master tapes from January and decided to rerecord the bulk of the material at Van Gelder Studio on March 28 and 29.

Reid, S. Duncan. Cal Tjader: the life and recordings of the man who revolutionized Latin jazz; McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-3535-7

Another clue is “Along Comes Cal” album was released on the MGM label rather than Verve. In his time at Verve, Taylor produced a few albums that were released on MGM. Generally MGM records were at a slightly lower price and aimed at more popular markets via different distributors and sales, they were racked and stacked in pop racks in bigger stores rather than jazz racks.

Examples of Taylor produced MGM releases include Pat Thomas Grammy nominated Desafinado album; Kenyon Hopkins – Nightmare! album; Jimmy Smith’s – Bashin‘ (1962) and Incredible! (1967) albums; The Little Sisters album ^[24]http://ctproduced.com/on-this-day-the-little-sisters/; The Claus Ogerman arranged, Bill Evans 1963 album “Piano & Orchestra” which was slated by everyone in the jazz field including Bill Evans as “too commercial” – which was of course the objective, commercial albums produced by Taylor for the commercial market and released on MGM.

The only real clue comes from Rudy Radelic, writing for the PS Audio blog in 2021, he says “the pianist Al Zulaica did not get along well with Tjader at the time; feeling that his work was being overly scrutinized, he was nervous and did not perform well on the gig.” ^[25]https://www.psaudio.com/blogs/copper/cal-tjader-the-verve-era-1961-1968?_pos=1&_psq=%22Cal+Tjader%22&_ss=e&_v=1.0 – I’m skeptical of this, unless Heider messed up the recording. Creed Taylor had and would continue to use overdubs to replace parts that didn’t match his needs. Without the original recordings it is hard to know if Chick Corea could have just been used to overdub Zuaica parts.

My hypothesis based on the “Los Bandidos” alone – is the rest of the set was in a similar vein. It was the usual Tjader graduated set of tracks building into a full-on up-tempo Latin-Jazz set. That didn’t fit what Taylor had in mind for a pop-commercial release.

Despite the cost, Taylor scheduled two days of studio time, March 28-29th at Rudy Van Gelders and recorded the studio numbers that made up “Along Comes Cal“.

Rather than two full days, the studio time was likely two half-days. Per the American Federation (AFM) rules 3-hours with up to 15 minutes of finished music per 3‑hour session. If everything went OK, that would mean 4–6 songs per session ^[26]https://www.afm.org/recording-and-digital-media/basic-regular-session/ ^[27]https://afmsoco.org/conference/2025/presentations/HOW%20AFM%20RECORDING%20MUSICIANS%20GET%20PAID%20FOR%20THE%20WORK%20THEY%20DO.pdf (pdf. Some of these limitations still exist today. When one group was out of time, another would come in, hence multiple albums could be recorded on the same dates by different musicians.

All the tracks on “Along Comes Cal” are short, fitting into the AFM mold; only two tracks are longer than 3:30: the live track “Los Bandidos” and “Samba do Sueño.” Hence the conclusion that too was a live track. In fact, writing the sleeve notes, Gene Lees further complicates things by listing the musicians on those two tracks as “Personnel on Bandidos and Sueño is Armando Peraza, conga drum; Al Zulaica, piano; Stan Gilbert, bass; and Carl Burnett, drums.”

Of those that performed at El Matador, only Tjader and Pereza are on the logs and in discographies for the studio sessions. The studio musicians were Cal Tjader, vibes; Chick Corea, piano; Derek Smith, organ; Bobby Rodriguez, bass; Grady Tate, drums; Ray Barretto, Armando Peraza, Latin percussion; Chico O’Farrill, arranger, conductor. While the studio tracks are good, they lack the spontaneity and drive I might expect from a live session.

Got the album? What do you think? If only we knew what happened to Heider’s tapes!

El Matador’s Last Stand

Cal Tjader’s last ever El Matador performance was a booking from April 13-17, 1976; entrance was, I’m told, $2.50. Shows were at 9:30 pm, 11:00 pm, and 12:30 am.

One of the West Coast journalists I’ve covered here before, John L. Wasserman ^[28]http://ctproduced.com/on-the-town-summer-jazz-a-real-rip-off/ wrote about the performance in the April 16th issue of the San Francisco Chronicle. He said:

THE RECONSTITUTED Cal Tjader Quintet opened the same night at El Matador for a
stay through Saturday. With the exception of Lonnie Hewitt, who has played with Cal on and off for years, the group — completed by conga drummer “Pancho” Sanchez, bassist Rob Fisher, and drummer Pete Risco — is a new one.

And first-rate, with Cal’s legendary angular, probing lines and relentless, throbbing beat intact — if a bit too highly amplified. The second set’s material ranged from smokers like “Manteca” and “Leyte” to a gorgeous
“Body and Soul.”

SANCHEZ. THE NEW conga drummer (Michael Smithe is now in Chicago) is good — “A young Mongo Santamaria,” in Cal’s words — but his name has not provided Cal with the vast store of comedy material he originally anticipated. It was in the East Los Angeles barrio that Cal introduced “Pancho” Sanchez to the audience as “formerly with Don Quixote and the Windmills.”

The silence was deafening. “Gee,” Cal thought to himself, “I thought that was pretty clever.”

Back to those angular, probing lines . . .

In September 1967, Cal Tjader would be filming for chessy Columbia pictures summer movie, For Singles Only, released June 5th, 1968 ^[29]https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062987/?ref_=nm_knf_t_1. The film also features the Walter Wanderly Trio and two other numbers from Tjader and sidemen. Reid in his book on Tajder suggests “He was pressured into doing the movie, presumably by Verve executives.” I disagree. Given this was a Columbia picture, either the film’s producer, or the management of Tjader initiated discussions that led to the appearance in the film. Unlike the equally cheesy, 1964 film Get Yourself A College Girl – in which Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto and the Jimmy Smith Trio appeared – this film was a Columbia studios picture, ‘College Girl was a MGM film. MGM was the parent company of Verve ^[30]http://ctproduced.com/grammy-time-the-travels-of-the-girl-from-ipanema/.

I couldn’t find VHS, laserdisc, DVD, or streaming versions of the film. Enjoy this short clip from YouTube.

And In The End…

1967 must have been a tough year for Cal Tjader in many ways. Callan Tjader, Sr. died in August in San Francisco, he was 74; Mrs. Victoria Wallace Evans, Cal’s mother, died at home in Belmont, San Mateo in November, she was 64 ^[31]https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times/5166254/. Cal Tjader left his mallets behind in the mortal world and passed on May 5th, 1982, following a heart attack in Hawaii ^[32]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Tjader.

It’s was announced in November 1966 Taylor would be leaving Verve to become independent ^[33]Cash Box November 12th, 1966 – Pg7. “Along Comes Cal” was the last album Taylor produced with Tjader in any role. Cal Tjader went on to be produced by Esmond Edwards for two final Verve albums, Hip Vibrations (1967) and The Prophet (1968). The latter included Hubert Laws who was just off his sideman role for Mongo Santamaria. Weirdly, while the “All Music Guide to Jazz” includes a number of predictable CD compilations of Tjader’s music, it omits “Along Comes Cal“. Why?

The Black Hawk (also spelled Blackhawk)

By October 1962, the Blackhawk had announced it would “curtail out-of-town combos”, which were too expensive. Johnny Mathis was “discovered” at the Blackhawk by the co-owner Helen Noga. Noga would sign Mathis to a management contract and following Columbia signing him, Helen Noga and her husband John Noga decided to sell the share of the club to the Weis brothers, founders of Fantasy records. It was announced the Blackhawk would close on July 27st 1963, the same year that Alcatraz prison was would down. Who better to be the closing act, none other than Cal Tjader ^[34]The San Francisco Examiner, July 21st, 1963 – Pg 4.

Recording Engineer Wally Heider would open his San Francisco studio in 1969 at 245 Hyde Street, just up the street from where the Blackhawk had been. Here he would record Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater and many more. He rose to fame recording big bands for 20-years through 1950. Many of these he later released on his own record label. Heider retired briefly in the mid-1970’s only to return as CEO of Wally Heider Recording studios Los Angles. Heider passed away in 1989 at the age of 66 due to cancer ^[35]https://www.kqed.org/arts/12279498/hyde-street-rock-how-wally-heider-and-the-tenderloin-shaped-the-san-francisco-sound. Heider recorded the CTI All-Stars Summer Jazz Live At The Hollywood Bowl ^[36]http://ctproduced.com/the-untold-story-of-cti-summer-jazz-recording-1972/.

Russ Wilson, William Russell Wilson – a native of Council Bluffs, Iowa – retired in May 1977 and died Friday, December 8th, 1978, at the age of 72 after a battle with cancer ^[37]https://www.newspapers.com/article/oakland-tribune-winson-ex-trib-jazz-cri/188716286/ ^[38]https://www.newspapers.com/article/oakland-tribune-russ-wilson-writer-and/188698782/.

El Matador, founded in the early fifties, had been owned by author/bullfight connoisseur and enthusiast Barnaby Conrad. He sold it in 1963, the club was tiny originally based out 492 Broadway. It was bought by Walter Pastore who turned it into a jazz mecca, not unrelated to the closure of the Blackhawk. It stopped booking jazz groups and became a sports bar in 1977. In case you were wondering, yes, 492 Broadway and 498 Broadway are the same building/block.

Additional Resources

If you’ve not been into Tjader, his entire catalog is a great progression in music. A simple way to follow along is Rudy Radelic’s five part series for PS Audio are a great read and include youtube links for suggested tracks from each album.^[39]Not sure what is going on with the PS Audio website and search results, so I’ve included all the parts directly here.

Part-1 In a Latin Jazz Bag / Part-2 The Verve Era (1961 – 1968) / Part-3 Odds and Ends / Part-4 The Second Fantasy Records Era / Part-5 The Concord Recordings

Updates: 1/18/2025 11:58 – Fixed a number of typoes.