Bob Zieff was born June 4th, 1927, in Lynn, Massachussetts, about 9 miles north of Boston University, where he studied harmony, composition and musicology. In 1953, at the request of modern violinist Dick Wetmore, he composed an eight-section suite, full of open spaces for improvisation. The stimulating compositions Zieff wrote were built of fresh, intriguing lines, interesting harmonic routes, and a sense for the whole rather than a succession of parts. The work was happily recorded by Wetmore’s quartet, but his challenging charts were not released until two years later on a 10-inch album.

Zieff’s imaginative writing and individual musical mind attracted his friend pianist Dick Twardzik, who asked Bob to give him private lessons in composition. When in 1955 Dick went with Chet Baker’ s quartet to Europe, he took with him several of Zieff tunes. Most of them were recorded by the trumpeter in Paris, and back in the U.S. Chet introduced a couple Zieff’s tunes to the repertoire of his new crew. About them, Nat Hentoff said in 1956: “Zieff is a writer from whom more should be heard.”

-Jordi Pujol