Paul Desmond—”Emily” (1975)
The song “Emily” was composed by New York musician/arranger Johnny Mandel in 1964 as the title song for the war film drama “The Americanization of Emily” which was set in pre D-Day London. Immediately, this melody by Mandel -- who is 93 now -- found it’s way in the jazz repertoire. In September 1975 it was played by alto saxophonist Paul Desmond at the 18th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival in California, one of the world’s longest consecutive running jazz festivals.
Paul Desmond-alto sax; John Lewis-piano; Mundell Lowe-guitar; Richard Davis-bass; and Roy Burns-drums.
Alto saxophonist/composer Paul Desmond (1924-1977) was born in San Francisco, California, as Paul Emil Breitenfeld, the son of an Irish mother and a Jewish father who was an arranger and organist playing for silent movies and vaudeville acts. Paul took the name Desmond from a telephone book. His original instrument was the clarinet on which, he once said, “I could play entire Artie Shaw choruses.” Desmond switched to the saxophone in 1943, a year before he went into the Army.
It was in a 1944 Army band that Paul met pianist Dave Brubeck. When they first worked together, it was Paul who hired Dave, not the other was round. “We played together half an hour,” Desmond recalled. “I thought he was nuts. I couldn’t understand his harmonic approach.” The result was that not long afterwards, Desmond fired Brubeck. After the war, however, they met again and played together as “The Paul Desmond Quartet.” This time the rapport was immediate, Desmond said, adding that “everything fell into place.”
Eventually, they continued their collaboration as “The Dave Brubeck Quartet.” Other members of the quartet changed from time to time, but Desmond and Brubeck were the constants, trading musical ideas and harmonic developments in full flight of improvisation. Their recording of Paul Desmond’s composition “Take Five” was the first jazz instrumental recording ever to sell a million copies. Desmond said he got the idea for the piece while standing in front of a slot machine in Reno, Nevada. “The rhythm of the machine suggested it to me,” he said, “and I really only wrote it to get back some of the money I’d lost in the machine. That has now been accomplished.”
As a member of Brubeck’s quartet, Desmond toured the United States, Europe and the Middle East from 1946 to 1967, when Brubeck disbanded the group. For the last 11 of those years, Paul Desmond won the Playboy poll and also was a frequent winner of the Down Beat and Metronome polls. He was honored by their readers for his soft and cool style of playing the saxophone. “I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini,” is how the humorous Paul Desmond described his own sound better than anyone else could.
