Theodore Samuel Reig (November 23, 1918 – September 29, 1984) was a self-described "jazz hustler" who worked as a
record producer
A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure. Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...
,
A&R man
Artists and repertoire (colloquially abbreviated to A&R) is the division of a record label or music publishing company that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists (singers, instrumentalist ...
, promoter, and artist manager from the 1940s through the 1970s. As a record producer, he captured the work of dozens of legendary jazz innovators. He also influenced
rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...
, rock and roll, and Latin music.
In 1945 Reig produced the first recordings led by legendary Jazz saxophonist
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...
. "Had he done nothing else," said Reig biographer Edward Berger, "this accomplishment alone would have ensured his place in history. But he continued to document the development of the new music through his work with a whole range of seminal artists."
Early life and personality
Jazz historian David Ritz profiled Reig as "a three-hundred-pound-plus, six-foot Jewish promoter born in
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...
…, raised among the thieves and geniuses of the jazz world, ndan impassioned fan who mastered the art of networking at an early age."Ritz, David, ''Faith in Time: The Life of
Jimmy Scott
James Victor Scott (July 17, 1925 – June 12, 2014), known professionally as Little Jimmy Scott or Jimmy Scott, was an American jazz vocalist known for his high natural contralto voice and his sensitivity on ballads and love songs.
After ...
'', Da Capo Press, 2002
Reig was born to a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family on 110th Street, in Harlem, and attended
New Utrecht High School
New Utrecht High School is a public high school located in Bensonhurst, a neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. The school is operated by the New York City Department of Education under District 20, and serves students of grades 9 to 12. It is one of ...
, in Brooklyn. After leaving school without a diploma, he began hanging out at New York ballrooms, jazz clubs, and music hot spots, ingratiating himself with musicians, managers, and impresarios. In his early 20s he served nine months in a Kentucky jail for narcotics possession.Berger, Edward, ''Reminiscing in Tempo: the Life and Times of a Jazz Hustler,'' Scarecrow Press/Institute of Jazz Studies, 1990
Jazz historian Patrick Burke wrote that Reig "initially earned his club-going money with schemes such as selling worn-out records that had been doctored with shoe polish to look brand new."
"Eventually, he was given small jobs, like placing signs announcing a gig," wrote jazz historian Richard Carlin. "Promoter Cy Shribman took him under his wing hiring him to work as a 'band boy' for Mal Hallett’s band .... Band boys were responsible for managing the band’s equipment and scores, and arranging the stands and chairs on stage before the band played. Reig’s other 'duties' included keeping an eye on the band’s stash of marijuana."Carlin, Richard, "Teddy Reig: Jazz Hustler" April 23, 2016
: eig:Down by the docks in Boston you could get all that crap that you wanted. The band always had a gang of shit ''
rugs
Rug or RUG may refer to:
* Rug, or carpet, a textile floor covering
* Rug, slang for a toupée
* Ghent University (''Rijksunversiteit Gent'', or RUG)
* Really Useful Group, or RUG, a company set up by Andrew Lloyd Webber
* Rugby railway station, N ...
' in the bus. We had a trunkful. I was in charge of the bag, and became everybody’s buddy—blacks and whites.
Jazz critic Leonard Weinreich wrote that "Reig lumbered around Harlem’s demimonde like a small mountain permanently enveloped in its own
ganja
Ganja (, ; ) is one of the oldest and most commonly used synonyms for marijuana. Its usage in English dates to before 1689.
Etymology
''Ganja'' is borrowed from Hindi/Urdu ( hi, गांजा, links=no, ur, , links=no, IPA: aːɲd ...
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Herman Lubinsky. In 1945, Reig, who was familiar with all the groundbreaking beboppers on the New York scene, made a deal with Lubinsky to produce jazz recordings for the label. Over the next four years, Reig recorded countless artists whose names became legendary in jazz history.
Reig produced the first recordings by
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musi ...
Don Byas
Carlos Wesley "Don" Byas (October 21, 1912 – August 24, 1972) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, associated with swing and bebop. He played with Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Blakey, and Dizzy Gillespie, among others, and also led ...
,
Erroll Garner
Erroll Louis Garner (June 15, 1921 – January 2, 1977) was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His instrumental ballad " Misty", his best-known composition, has become a jazz standard. It was first r ...
,
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon (February 27, 1923 – April 25, 1990) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and actor. He was among the most influential early bebop musicians, which included other greats such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gi ...
,
J.J. Johnson
J.J. Johnson (January 22, 1924 – February 4, 2001), born James Louis Johnson and also known as Jay Jay Johnson, was an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.
Johnson was one of the earliest trombonists to embrace bebop.
Biography ...
,
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist.
Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most ...
,
Johnny Smith
Johnny Henry Smith II (June 25, 1922 – June 11, 2013) was an American cool jazz and mainstream jazz guitarist. He wrote "Walk, Don't Run" in 1954. In 1984, Smith was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.
Early life
During the Great D ...
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award n ...
Lee Morgan
Edward Lee Morgan (July 10, 1938 – February 19, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.
One of the key hard bop musicians of the 1960s, Morgan came to prominence in his late teens, recording on John Coltrane's '' Blue Train'' (1 ...
, Maynard Ferguson, and countless others.
"There is no question that much of this wonderful jazz would have gone unpreserved had not Reig interrupted his small-time
52nd Street
52nd Street is a -long one-way street traveling west to east across Midtown Manhattan, New York City. A short section of it was known as the city's center of jazz performance from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Jazz center
Following the repeal of ...
hustles to become an artful bridge between musicians and the money men needed to seed a recording session," wrote jazz columnist Nels Nelson.Nelson, Nels, "A Pro Who Threw His Weight Around," ''Philadelphia Daily News'', September 14, 1990
Recording Charlie Parker
In November 1945, Reig produced Charlie Parker's first major recording session as a leader. Parker had been performing in New York for several years prior, and he'd done a handful of sessions as a sideman, but due to a recording ban that lasted from 1942–44, his bebop stylings had largely gone unrecorded and were unknown outside the jazz club circuit.
Dave Gelly, at ''
Jazz Journal
''Jazz Journal'' is a British jazz magazine established in 1946 by Sinclair Traill (1904–1981). It was first published in London under the title ''Pick Up'', which Traill founded as a locus for serious jazz criticism in Britain.Roberta Freund Sc ...
'', wrote that "Savoy’s producer, Teddy Reig, had his work cut out assembling the musicians, paying them cash-in-hand, dealing with the union and turning out four masters per session. The material consisted entirely of originals, so there would be no publishers to pay."
About Parker, Reig later reminisced: "Bird's playing says it all. Listen to anybody: Ben ebsterHawkoleman HawkinsLester oung and you'll hear the personality of the artist come through. Bird always had a story to tell—and it was a beautiful story. Sometimes I take some of Bird's up-tempo things and play them at slower speeds. You can hear the beautiful melody line clearly. It's not just a gang of notes like some of the guys who think they're playing like Bird spew out."
Career highlights
He produced primarily for Savoy, Roost (a.k.a. Royal Roost, which he co-founded in 1950), Roulette, and
Verve
Verve may refer to:
Music
* The Verve, an English rock band
* ''The Verve E.P.'', a 1992 EP by The Verve
* ''Verve'' (R. Stevie Moore album)
* Verve Records, an American jazz record label
Businesses
* Verve Coffee Roasters, an American coffee ho ...
. His work at Savoy helped that fledgling label grow quickly into a major jazz and R&B imprint. He also produced releases on
Continental
Continental may refer to:
Places
* Continent, the major landmasses of Earth
* Continental, Arizona, a small community in Pima County, Arizona, US
* Continental, Ohio, a small town in Putnam County, US
Arts and entertainment
* ''Continental'' ( ...
,
Reprise
In music, a reprise ( , ; from the verb 'to resume') is the repetition or reiteration of the opening material later in a composition as occurs in the recapitulation of sonata form, though—originally in the 18th century—was simply any repe ...
Duke
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are rank ...
,
United Artists
United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stud ...
,
Command
Command may refer to:
Computing
* Command (computing), a statement in a computer language
* COMMAND.COM, the default operating system shell and command-line interpreter for DOS
* Command key, a modifier key on Apple Macintosh computer keyboards
* ...
,
ABC-Paramount
ABC Records was an American record label founded in New York City in 1955. It originated as the main popular music label operated by the Am-Par Record Corporation. Am-Par also created the Impulse! jazz label in 1960. It acquired many labels bef ...
, Brunswick, Dot, and Tico.
While handling A&R for Roulette Records, Reig guided the
Count Basie
William James "Count" Basie (; August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and the ...
orchestra through its most prolific and popular period. He directed and recorded Teddy Reig's All Stars, featuring trombonist Kai Winding and drummer
Shelly Manne
Sheldon "Shelly" Manne (June 11, 1920 – September 26, 1984) was an American jazz drummer. Most frequently associated with West Coast jazz, he was known for his versatility and also played in a number of other styles, including Dixieland, sw ...
, for Savoy Records.
When the jazz records market began to wane in the 1960s, Reig transitioned over to the Latin music market, recording its best practitioners and scouting emerging musicians arriving in the United States from Latin America. He produced recordings by
Willie Bobo
William Correa (February 28, 1934 – September 15, 1983), better known by his stage name Willie Bobo,Biography ''AllMusic'' was an American Latin jazz percussionist of Puerto Rican descent. Bobo rejected the stereotypical expectations of Lat ...
,
Tito Puente
Ernest Anthony Puente Jr. (April 20, 1923 – June 1, 2000), commonly known as Tito Puente, was an American musician, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer of Puerto Rican descent. He is best known for dance-oriented mambo and Latin jazz ...
Machito
Machito (born Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo, December 3, 1909 – April 15, 1984) was a Latin jazz musician who helped refine Afro-Cuban jazz and create both Cubop and salsa music. Ginell, Richard S. ''Biography''. Allmusic, 2011/ref> He w ...
,
Eddie Palmieri
Eddie Palmieri (born December 15, 1936) is an American Grammy Award-winning pianist, bandleader, musician, and composer of Puerto Rican ancestry. He is the founder of the bands La Perfecta, La Perfecta II, and Harlem River Drive.
Early life
Pal ...
, and Ruth Fernandez.
He is credited with discovering and furthering the career of saxophonist
Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams
Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams (July 13, 1915 – September 14, 2002) was an American jazz and blues saxophonist, bandleader, and songwriter. His record "The Huckle-Buck", recorded in December 1948, was one of the most successful R&B records of ...
, all of whose Savoy sides Reig produced. Reig convinced Williams to switch his playing from alto to
baritone sax
The baritone saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass. It is the lowest-pitched saxophone in common use - the bass, contra ...
, and insisted that Williams learn to aggressively "honk" with his instrument, a technique which led to the artist's commercial breakthrough and became one of his trademarks.Keepnews, Peter, "Paul Williams, 87, Rock Pioneer With 1948's 'The Hucklebuck' (obituary) ''The New York Times'', October 1, 2002 In 1955 Reig was instrumental in helping sign an obscure
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
-based R&B singer named
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the " Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into th ...
to his first agency booking contract.
Reig's management roster included Count Basie, Erroll Garner, guitarist
Johnny Smith
Johnny Henry Smith II (June 25, 1922 – June 11, 2013) was an American cool jazz and mainstream jazz guitarist. He wrote "Walk, Don't Run" in 1954. In 1984, Smith was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.
Early life
During the Great D ...
, Paul Williams,
The Solitaires
The Solitaires are an American doo-wop group, best known for their 1957 hit single " Walking Along". Although they never had a national chart hit, they were one of the most popular vocal groups in New York in the late 1950s.
History
The Solitai ...
Institute of Jazz Studies The Institute of Jazz Studies (IJS) is the largest and most comprehensive library and archives of jazz and jazz-related materials in the world. It is located on the fourth floor of the John Cotton Dana Library at Rutgers University–Newark in Newa ...
. The book was based on reminiscences recorded by Berger in the final years of Reig's life, and included additional reminiscences by musicians and record industry executives who knew and worked with Reig.
"Teddy's big secret of getting the best out of musicians was that he never paid any attention to what was going on in the studio," said
Johnny Smith
Johnny Henry Smith II (June 25, 1922 – June 11, 2013) was an American cool jazz and mainstream jazz guitarist. He wrote "Walk, Don't Run" in 1954. In 1984, Smith was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.
Early life
During the Great D ...
. "I always appreciated the fact that Teddy never came back to tell us what we should be doing. He would let the artists have complete freedom. Teddy knew enough to keep his nose out of the music."
Producer Jerry Wexler said, "Teddy had wonderful taste and cosmic
chutzpah
Chutzpah () is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. It derives from the Hebrew word ' (), meaning "insolence", "cheek" or "audacity". Thus the original Yiddish word has a strongly negative connotation but the form which entered English ...
green card
A green card, known officially as a permanent resident card, is an identity document which shows that a person has permanent residency in the United States. ("The term 'lawfully admitted for permanent residence' means the status of having been ...
into the black nation. He married a black woman and … lived black. Before any of us, he also understood how to make a buck off music—and brilliant music at that. Teddy was the guy who produced
Bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...
's landmark recordings for Savoy. Teddy produced the first-ever sessions for Miles
avis
Avis is Latin for bird and may refer to:
Aviation
*Auster Avis, a 1940s four-seat light aircraft developed from the Auster Autocrat (abandoned project)
*Avro Avis, a two-seat biplane
*Scottish Aeroplane Syndicate Avis, an early aircraft built by ...
and
tan
Tan or TAN may refer to:
Businesses and organisations
* Black and Tans, a nickname for British special constables during the Irish War of Independence. By extension "Tans" can now also colloquially refer to English or British people in general, es ...
Getz. ountBasie adored Teddy, and Teddy was responsible for Basie's best stuff. … Teddy was a freelancer and a wheeler-dealer who suffered no fools and took no prisoners. He could be rude and crude. He smoked enough reefer to launch a rocket. Some considered him a liar and schemer and self-serving schmuck. I liked him. I liked the music he made. I liked the fact that he delivered. Were it not for guys like him, the world of recorded jazz would be considerably poorer."
"Once he was in the studio, Teddy knew how to get what he wanted out of these guys," said producer and friend Bob Porter. "You can hire the greatest musicians in the world, and once the tape starts rolling nothing happens. It's not a good feeling! As far as I'm concerned, eigmade onByas's best records, not to mention Dexter
ordon Ordon may refer to:
* Juliusz Konstanty Ordon, a Polish rebel
* Ordo (palace)
An orda (also ordu, ordo, or ordon) or horde was a historical sociopolitical and military structure found on the Eurasian Steppe, usually associated with the Turkic ...
Bird, and a few others. But he was a real master with Basie. The Count Basie band that Teddy produced on Roulette never sounded better anywhere, before or after. Teddy really knew what that band was supposed to sound like and he always got it."
Temperament
Though Reig was supportive of musicians, he was legendarily hot-tempered, argumentative and belligerent with those in (and out of) the business. Because of his height, girth, and propensity for yelling loudly, he could be extremely intimidating and often prevailed in getting what he wanted. "The only time I saw Teddy scared was when we were mixing the Basie Beatles album out in California at the
TTG Studios
TTG Studios was a recording studio in Los Angeles, California, co-founded in 1965 by recording engineers Tom Hidley and Amnon "Ami" Hadani.
History
The studio was located at 1441 North McCadden Place in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles, n ...
," recalled MGM-Verve producer Peter Spargo. "All of a sudden, Frank Zappa walked in. Teddy took one look at him and ran out of the room saying, 'What is that?' Zappa just wanted to hear asie'sband, but he looked so weird that Teddy didn't know what to make of him!"
Some questioned Reig's integrity and taste. When Sarah Vaughan signed with Roulette in 1960, Reig became her producer. Jazz historian
Gary Giddins
Gary Giddins is an American jazz critic and author. He wrote for ''The Village Voice'' from 1973; his "Weather Bird" column ended in 2003. In 1986 Gary Giddins and John Lewis created the American Jazz Orchestra which presented concerts using a ...
considers many of her Roulette recordings to be the worst of Vaughan's career.Giddins, Gary, ''Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century'', Oxford University Press, 2006 "Reig … loved jazz as played by Basie and dollars any way they came," wrote Giddins. "That, at least, is the received wisdom about Vaughan's three years at the label, which she did nothing to dispel. At Basie's funeral service, she sat next to Billy Eckstine and giggled with mild embarrassment as ckstineloudly encouraged Reig to rifle the coffin for any loot he might have overlooked."