Herb Geller - Breaking through the sound barrier

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After Lorraines death in 1958, Herb toured through Brazil with the Benny Goodman Orchestra and decided not to return to the United States but instead stayed in São Paulo for six weeks playing Bossa Nova music at a local club until he departed on a ship to Europe. Arriving in Paris he played with Kenny Clarke, Kenny Drew, the French pianist Martial Solal, and Belgian guitarist Rene Thomas among others, and also toured with a French radio show, Musique Aux Champs-Elysées.1962 he was offered a job with the big band of the Radio Free Berlin (SFB) station in Berlin.[2] He accepted this engagement and performed there along with other “Americans In Europe” such as Benny Bailey, Joe Harris, Nat Peck as well as outstanding European Musicians like Ack and Jerry van Rooyen, Ake Persson and Francy Boland. In Berlin he met his second wife Christine Rabsch. Geller stayed there for three years and then accepted a contract to play lead alto and also arrange for the big band of the (NDR) in Hamburg. Here he was engaged for 28 years and made Hamburg his home. During this time the NDR bigband developed from a post war dance orchestra into a top modern jazz band. The endless list of participating musicians ranged from Don Byas, Joe Pass, Slide Hampton, Bill Evans, Red Mitchell, Art Farmer, Georgie Fame and Chet Baker to avant garde musicians and rock/fusion and included nearly all the big names of European Jazz. This tune was recorded in 1955 in L.A. with his wife Lorraine on piano, Curtis Counce on bass and Eldridge Freeman on drums.