1. Try A Little Tenderness (Jimmy Campbell/Reg Connelly/Harry M. Woods)
  2. Trust in Me (from Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book) (Richard Sherman/Robert Sherman)
  3. In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning (David Mann/Bob Hilliard)
  4. Scarborough Fair (Paul Simon/Art Garfunkel)
  5. Bachianas Brasileiras #5 (Heitor Villa-Lobos)
  6. Cigarettes & Coffee (Jerry Butler/Eddie Thomas/Jay Walker)
  7. Pu Po (Paul Mann)
  8. Early Autumn (Ralph Burns/Woody Herman/Johnny Mercer)
  9. Day-o (Arranged by Paul Mann and Don Sebesky)
  10. Buckaroo (Bob Morris)

Herbie Mann and/or Hubert Laws: “The Fluteman”
Joel Kaye (02, 04, 05), George Marge (04, 07-10), Romeo Penque, Stan Webb (01-06): “Soul Flutes
              Ensemble” – flutes and piccolo
Herbie Hancock – piano/organ/harpsichord (07-10), finger piano (07)
Paul Griffin – organ (01-03, 05, 06)
Eric Gale – guitar (except 04), finger piano (07)
Bucky Pizzarelli – guitar (02, 04, 05)
Ron Carter – bass (except 04)
Grady Tate – drums (except 04)
Henry Watts – vibes and marimba (except 04)
Ray Barretto – percussion (07)

Produced by Creed Taylor

Arranged and conducted by Don Sebesky

Originally issued as A&M SP 3009

Recorded on February 21 (01-03, 05, 06) and 22 (08-10) and March 13 (07) and 18 (04), 1968, at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

01 published by Campbell Connelly, Inc./EMI Robbins Catalog, Inc. (ASCAP)
02 published by Wonderland Music Company, Inc. (BMI)
03 published by Better Half Music Company/Rytvoc, Inc. (ASCAP)
04 published by Paul Simon Music (BMI)
05 published by Associated Music Publishers, Inc. (BMI)
06 published by Gil Music Corporation/Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI)
07 published by Rupadia Music (BMI)
08 published by Cromwell Music, Inc./W. B. Music Corp. (ASCAP)
09 published by BMG Platinum Songs US/Rupadia Music (BMI)
10 published by Sony/ATV Tree Publishing (BMI)

(P) 1968

Perhaps the most mysterious and underestimated album in the entire A&M/CTI catalog, Trust in Me offers one of the label’s finest overall productions and a set that is among the best programmed in the whole series. The album is credited to the mysterious “Soul Flutes,” an innovative flute choir led by the enigmatic “The Fluteman.” Many have surmised that this mystery man is none other than Herbie Mann, hiding under a pseudonym for contractual purposes. After all, this was pretty common for jazz at the time: Jobim recorded as Tony Brazil, Eric Dolphy recorded as George Lane and, best of all, Cannonball Adderley recorded as Buckshot Le Fonque (a name Branford Marsalis repurposed for his funk group). But Mann was already recording for A&M/CTI under his own name. He was even scheduled to record another A&M/CTI album under his own name. So, what’s the point of hiding?1

As it turns out, there was some sort of falling out during the sessions between producer Creed Taylor and the headstrong Mann. It’s likely that Mann did not (or would not) contribute to all of the album’s tracks. In later years, Taylor claimed it was Hubert Laws – Mann’s Atlantic label-mate at the time – and not Mann, who was the actual Fluteman.2 Laws was probably brought in to finish up the recordings – or possibly replace Mann’s parts altogether – and rather than committing to any one person, the two leaders were combined to create the ever-inscrutable Fluteman. Regardless of the credit, the “Soul Flutes” conceit – likely patterned as the woodwind response to Cadet’s inspired Soulful Strings3 – is eminently appealing. It calls to mind the trombone choirs Kai Winding arranged on so many occasions. In fact, Kai Winding beautifully paired a trombone choir with a flute choir for his own Penny Lane and Time, one of Creed Taylor’s last Verve productions and one that shares many similarities, including key support players, to the album at hand.

Trust in Me presents a savvy, surprisingly coherent set of familiar fare from the fifties – Frank Sinatra (“In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning”) and Harry Belafonte (“Day-o (The Banana Boat Song)”) – and the sixties – from the recently deceased Otis Redding (“Try a Little Tenderness,” “Cigarettes & Coffee”) and The Jungle Book (“Trust in Me”) to Simon & Garfunkel (“Scarborough Fair”) and Buck Owens (“Buckaroo”). Then it mixes in a jazz classic (“Early Autumn”), classical jazz (“Bachianas Brasileiras #5”) and an exotic original from German composer Paul Mann (“Pu Po”), best known for writing Frank Sinatra’s “Put Your Dreams Away.” Fed by the flutes, it is a neat set and a sweet treat, offering such highlights as the sinewy, appropriately transfixing “Trust in Me,” “Pu Po” – with Herbie Hancock and Eric Gale tastefully adding their touch on kalimbas – and the perfectly realized “Buckaroo.”

Given the thorny provenance of the album’s origins, Trust in Me results in a remarkably satisfying listening experience, recalling the entrancing mood jazz of the many George Shearing Quintet records of the fifties and sixties. “Luckily for us, Jazz consistently challenges and explores,” enthused the reviewer at Record World. “The chance for instruments [such as flutes] to be used as a choir has given greater depth to jazz. Each arrangement selected seems personally suited for the flute.”4 The flutes alternate nicely between bass and alto leads and get occasional counterpoint from a differing combination of four other flautists. Key to the album’s success throughout is the rhythm team of Ron Carter and Grady Tate – both present on the earlier Kai Winding album – and some of Sebesky’s finest and most subtle arrangements (assisted by Paul Mann on “Day-o”). The pseudonymous “Fluteman” shares solo honors with the equally mysterious and likely pseudonymous Henry Watts on vibes (“Trust in Me,” “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning,” “Bachianas Brasileiras #5” and “Early Autumn”) and marimba (“Pu Po”).

Adding to the genuinely appealing sound design heard here are guitarists Bucky Pizzarelli (”Scarborough Fair” and “Bachianas Brasileiras #5”) and Eric Gale (“Buckaroo”) and pianist Herbie Hancock on “Early Autumn.”

DownBeat’s three-and-a-half-star review praises almost every facet of this “well done” record, until reaching its damning penultimate sentence: “They fully realized the producers’ intentions in producing an album of low-keyed, pleasant, eminently forgettable music, music that neither excites nor incenses the listener but which, rather, just lulls him.”5

In the end, not many chose to even be lulled by the album. The album came and went without much notice, becoming one of the few A&M/CTI titles that never got a proper reissue.6 Subsequently, it’s one of the hardest of the original albums to find. Adding to all the mystery, it’s difficult to say whatever happened to the Soul Flutes – or whose group it ever was. In late 1968, Herbie Mann announced the formation of a production company that would evolve into his Embryo label the following year. Among the artists Mann said he’d signed was the Soul Flutes, which at the time was “signed with A&M records.”7 But no further Soul Flutes albums were ever issued – on A&M or anywhere else. Subsequently, the jazz flute choir pretty much disappeared, killed no doubt by the advent of overdubbing and the machismo appeal of rock and roll.

About the cover: “Hot Lips” (1966 or 1968 – New York City). “There was a point in my life when I was sick of seeing those slick advertisements for women’s makeup,” said Pete Turner. “I wanted to achieve a savage look, so I hired a theatrical makeup man. I said, ‘I want the reddest red you can make.’”8 The unique photo has the sexy, almost electric appeal of so many of Turner’s African pictures. It suits this album’s sublime flute choir beautifully. It’s difficult to say when the photograph was taken. Some sources date it at 1966, at least a year before the album. Turner has said the picture was especially shot for Trust in Me. The photographer has also said it is part of his 1969 “Black Beauty” series for Look magazine – but if it was, it was never used.9

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Endnotes:

  1. In his book “The Evolution of Mann,” Cary Ginell notes that Herbie Mann’s Atlantic contract allowed him to do one album per (three-year) contract term. Under these terms, Mann waxed one album a piece for United Artists in 1962, Columbia in 1965 and A&M/CTI in 1967. Ginell indicates this is the reason that Mann hid under the pseudonym “The Fluteman” for Trust in Me. But it’s unlikely that Mann would have hid his presence here from Atlantic – he had never done that before or since. Much more likely is that Mann, who was also scheduled to record another A&M/CTI album in 1969, presumably under his own name, had a falling out with Taylor during Trust in Me. ↩︎
  2. As told to the author. ↩︎
  3. Ironically, while the Soulful Strings often featured songs with Lenny Druss’ flute leads and solos, the Soul Flutes is one of the few A&M/CTI entities to add no strings to any of their pieces. The popularity of the Soulful Strings led to such copycat studio groups as The Groovin’ Strings and Things (Cub, featuring many of the players who appeared on A&M/CTI recordings of the period, including Eric Gale and George Marge from the Soul Flutes record) and Soul Strings and a Funky Horn (Solid State) – both in 1968. However, contemporary precedents for flute music from the pop world include “I Got a Dream” (1965) by the Brill Building-era studio group the Soul Brothers (also covered by the Moody Blues as “I’ve Got a Dream”), Al Kooper’s “Flute Thing” (1966) by the Blues Project (later sampled by the Beastie Boys for “Flute Loop”) and Jethro Tull’s debut album This Was (1968), with such flute features as “Serenade to a Cuckoo” and “Dharma for One.” ↩︎
  4. Record World, May 18, 1968, p. 48. ↩︎
  5. Pete Welding, “Soul Flutes: Trust in Me,” DownBeat, August 8, 1968, p. 25. This review specifically identifies Herbie Mann, who is “here disguised, for contractual reasons, as ‘The Fluteman’.” ↩︎
  6. Trust in Me was not the only album in the series not reissued domestically on LP. Other titles include Have You Met Miss Jones?, Soul Machine, I’ll Be Anything for You, Betwixt & Between, Calling Out Loud and the albums by Tamba 4 and Walter Wanderley. Subsequent CD issues have thus far eluded the aforementioned Artie Butler, Soul Flutes, Richard Barbary, Tamiko Jones and J & K albums. ↩︎
  7. “Mann Forms New Firm; Debuts Show Package,” DownBeat, November 14, 1968, p. 13. ↩︎
  8. Turner, Pete, Photographs (New York: Harry N. Abrams), 1987, p. 122. ↩︎
  9. “Black Beauty” is Pete Turner’s photo essay of African American women included in the January 7, 1969, issue of Look magazine. The feature does not include “Lips” but does include images that were later used for such CTI/Kudu releases as Stanley Turrentine’s Sugar (1970) and Cherry (1972) and Hank Crawford’s I Hear a Symphony (1975). Another image that was probably intended for the feature but not used is Fats Theus’ Black Out (1970). ↩︎