Nick Brignola

Nick Brignola spent 45 years performing alongside many of the era’s leading mainstream jazz improvisers. Although the baritone saxophone remained his primary instrument, he also played alto and soprano saxophones plus flute and clarinet on numerous occasions. Never a household name in the United States, he nonetheless earned deep admiration from domestic jazz audiences and especially from the worldwide jazz community during his final decade; he issued more than twenty albums under his own name and maintained a steady schedule of sideman and featured-solo appearances right up until his death in 2002. Born in Troy, New York, on July 17, 1936, he began on clarinet at age eleven and soon explored alto and tenor saxophones as well as flute. According to legend, the baritone arrived in his hands after he brought his alto to a repair shop and received the only saxophone the establishment had available for loan. His earliest and most significant influence on the larger horn was Duke Ellington’s longtime baritone anchor Harry Carney, a Bostonian who gave the young musician personal guidance and encouragement after Brignola had already absorbed the sounds of big bands and bebop.

The earliest documented appearance of Brignola on record occurs on the Reese Markewich Quintet’s New Designs in Jazz, taped in 1957. That ensemble developed from Markewich’s Mark V, a collegiate unit Brignola joined while studying at Ithaca College; the group performed at Greenwich Village’s Café Bohemia. Largely self-taught, he received a Benny Goodman scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1958. That same year he recorded with trumpeter Herb Pomeroy in Boston and began a lifelong friendship with drummer Dick Berk during a sit-in with vibraphonist Cal Tjader at San Francisco’s Blackhawk. In 1964 Brignola appeared with Woody Herman & His Swingin’ Herd in a performance preserved on Canadian television and later issued on DVD in 2005. His debut album as a leader, This Is It!, was recorded in 1967 and released on his Priam label; it has since become a collector’s item. He collaborated extensively with ex-Mingus trumpeter Ted Curson; together they toured Europe in 1967 and performed at the Newport and Monterey Jazz Festivals. In 1969 Brignola directed an electric jazz-fusion group that opened for Blood, Sweat & Tears and Cat Stevens. Additional gigs placed him onstage with pianist Thelonious Monk, guitarist Wes Montgomery, drummers Elvin Jones and Buddy Rich, clarinetist Barney Bigard, saxophonist Dewey Redman, and trumpeters Miles Davis, Clark Terry, Doc Cheatham, and Chet Baker.

Brignola’s first substantial studio credit arrived in 1976 when he appeared with Curson’s seven-piece group on the Inner City album Jubilant Power. Equally noteworthy was Baritone Madness, cut in December 1977 alongside his idol Pepper Adams plus Curson, pianist Derek Smith, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Roy Haynes. Throughout 1978 he worked with guitarist Sal Salvador and tenor saxophonist Sal Nistico; the next year he organized Burn Brigade, a three-baritone session with Ronnie Cuber and Cecil Payne, and also recorded with trombonist Bill Watrous. The early 1980s found him performing with the Doug Sertl Big Band and trumpeter Bobby Shew. In August 1987 he joined longtime friend Dick Berk’s Jazz Adoption Agency for a tribute to songwriters Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Subsequent projects included the first of several partnerships with alto saxophonist Phil Woods, an appearance with the Big Band Charlie Mingus at Paris’s Theatre Boulogne-Billancourt, and two striking quartet albums featuring pianist Kenny Barron together with bassists Dave Holland and George Mraz and drummers Jack DeJohnette and Billy Hart.

Only during the 1990s did Brignola receive recognition matching his talents and achievements. Two dynamic quartet recordings were made live at New York’s Sweet Basil, several projects featured trumpeters Claudio Roditi and Randy Brecker, and tribute albums honored Gerry Mulligan and Lee Morgan. In 1993 he revived the electric textures of his earlier fusion band by forming Endangered Species (unrelated to the Chicago rap group of the same name). After a guest spot with Frank Mantooth’s big band, a March 1994 European trip allowed him to record live in Munich with Chris Barber’s Jazz & Blues Band, a Continental lineup largely composed of Dutch musicians, and to be featured with Ronnie Cuber in a Rein de Graaff-led ensemble on the album Baritone Explosion!

Additional sessions paired Brignola with singing guitarist Michael Jerling, cabaret-style vocalist Spider Saloff, vibraphonist Dave Pike, and guitarist Randy Johnston. He appeared on guitarist Tony Purrone’s salute to saxophonist Jimmy Heath and on another Gerry Mulligan tribute, this one by the Three Baritone Saxophone Band that included Brignola, Cuber, and Gary Smulyan. His final projects encompassed writing liner notes for Latina by Proxy, an album by Seattle soprano and baritone saxophonist Wenda Zonnefeld, and recording with the Toronto trio D.E.W. East (Alex Dean, Barry Elmes, and Steve Wallace). On what became his last release, Tour de Force, he was supported by guitarist Chuck D’Aloia, bassist Eddie Gomez, drummer Bill Stewart, and a percussionist credited only as Café. Brignola taught music theory and jazz history at colleges near his home in Eagle Mills, close to his birthplace in Troy, New York. He succumbed to cancer on February 8, 2002, in Albany. The College of Saint Rose, where he helped establish a jazz curriculum, now awards a scholarship in his name.