He was born on September 5, 1931 in Monterey, where he grew up and attended elementary and high school. He later enrolled at the San Francisco State University. After graduating in 1952, he began touring with the bands of Alvino Rey, Jack Fina and Tex Beneke. Between seasons, Virgil introduced an artfully arranged sextet at concerts and club dates, contributing to the development of a nascent modern jazz scene in San Francisco, notably represented by the Dave Brubeck Trio.

Brubeck’s trio was the hottest musical thing in town, since they began playing at Ciro’s and at the Black Hawk in 1950. Disc jockey ace Jimmy Lyons, the local high priest of modern jazz, in his “Lyons Busy” KNBC radio show, said of Brubeck’s trio that “they’re the finest exponents of modern music today...”

The newspaper coverage of jazz was more extensive in the Bay Area than in any other metropolitan area in the U.S. The San Francisco Chronicle inaugurated its full coverage of jazz and popular music in 1950 with The Rhythm Section by Ralph Gleason in its Sunday magazine.

Beginning in 1954, the night life in San Francisco came out of the lethargic state in which it had been for awhile, and jazz—Dixieland in particular—had a strong resurgence. In fact, jazz in the city was big at the time, and the street scene boasted record-breaking clubs like the Black Hawk, Downbeat, Hangover, Fack’s, Tin Angel, and Macumba. For those who “digged” modern jazz, they had the opportunity to listen throughout the year to the bands and combos of such important touring artists as Woody Herman, Flip Phillips, Shorty Rogers, Louis Armstrong, Art Pepper, Max Roach, Earl Hines, George Shearing, and other nationally renowned bandleaders. Also local groups with different sounds and rhythms were beginning to make a name for themselves in the Bay area, such as Bob Scobey and Turk Murphy and their Dixieland bands; Cal Tjader’s Afro-Cubans and, of course, Dave Brubeck’s trio, whose modern
jazz concerts grossed more in Northern California than anywhere else.

In June 1954 some 400 students crowded the Tamalpais High School auditorium to dance to the beat of the Tam Dance Band. The featured attraction of the date was the appearance of the Virgil Gonsalves Sextet whose increasingly frequent and successful modern jazz performances were beginning to attract the attention of concert promoters and owners of the best clubs.

The work that the Virgil Gonsalves sextet had been developing particularly impressed Monterey local disc jockey Johnny Adams. In his eagerness to spread the word, Adams sent Gonsalves with tapes to a few jazz record labels, including the local Fantasy, as well as others in Los Angeles, such as Pacific Jazz and Nocturne Records.

After several weeks and a couple of meetings in L.A., Gonsalves finally struck a deal with Harry Babasin, producer and bassist for the newly formed and up-and-coming Nocturne label —but on one condition: for the recording session, instead of employing Gonsalves’s usual San Francisco bandmates, Babasin would recruit a group of better known Los Angeles based jazz musicians in order to include the album in their “Jazz in Hollywood Series.”

Babasin arranged a recording session at Western Recorders for September 29, 1954. With engineer John Neal on board and producer Babasin on bass, the sextet was rounded out by leader Gonsalves on baritone, the former Gene Krupa tenor saxophonist Buddy Wise, valve trombonist Bob Enevoldsen, pianist Lou Levy, and drummer Larry Bunker. The result was an excellent 10-inch album released in February 1955. In his Down Beat review, Nat Hentoff said: “Date is very close to five stars. Gonsalves blows with a strong beat and in clean, unhackneyed solo patterns. (Listen to his pulsative sureness and sensitive power in Yesterdays, his featured vehicle here). Elsewhere, the blowing is fine and the ensemble interplay is particularly well conceived.”

Virgil’s sextet first appeared at the Black Hawk in March 1955, already a nationally known jazz club, which from 1954 was sometimes referred to as the Jazz Corner of the West and was located at 200 Hyde St. The sextet began a series of challenging showcases, sharing the stage with the Terry Gibbs Quartet in a daily sensational “Battle of the Bands” that lasted two weeks. Gonsalves’ performances drew more fans every day, and when Gibbs left in April, the sextet remained employed as the house band. In June it was competing in a new battle, this time with Buddy DeFranco’s quartet. Soon after, new discovery jazz vocalist Chris Connor, on her first West Coast tour, was booked to perform at the Black Hawk. She drew a huge crowd singing with strong support from Virgil’s Sextet from July 26 until August 8. Something of note happened during a Sunday afternoon jam session at the club. Virgil invited his State College friend, the 19-year-old singer Johnny Mathis, to sit in. Helen Noga, the tireless and energetic co-owner of the club, was so impressed with Mathis that she decided to become his manager. In 1960, after Mathis got his first hit single “Wonderful, Wonderful,” Virgil said, maybe unfairly: “Mathis has prostituted his great talent in jazz to make it commercially. He could have been a great jazz singer, but he’s making big money as a pops singer, and you can’t arguewith that. That’s the way they judge success.”

The Black Hawk continued to bring in artists from the East Coast as a policy. Thus, after the success of Chris Connor, a new voice arrived on August 23. Carmen McRae who was accompanied by the Virgil Gonsalves sextet for a week, enjoyed a great reception by an enthusiastic audience. The club was packed.

Gonsalves’ stay at the Black Hawk lasted for six months, the longest period of time an artist appeared at the club in its history.

Charles “Chinky” Naditz, was a local businessman, known in the music scene for being the one who started the craze for small jazz clubs in the Bay Area with Say When at 952 Bush St back in 1947. In September 1955, Naditz opened a new club called Jumptown, dedicated to rock ‘n’ roll, but only a few weeks later he changed his mind and decided to adopt a modern jazz policy. On November 1st, Jumptown kicked off with a one-week booking of a jazz star as featured soloist with the Virgil Gonsalves Sextet. From November 1, 1955, Dizzy Gillespie, who was already playing his —for some— still controversial bent trumpet that had become his visual hallmark since 1953, was the first such soloist to visit Jumptown. Dizzy and Virgil had a huge crowd kicking with joy and excitement during their performances.

The next names drawn to Jumptown for week long engagements in November came from Los Angeles. The first was Dave Pell, followed by Bud Shank and Jimmy Giuffre, who had recently been voted Down Beat’s “newclarinet star of ‘55,” and also Maynard Ferguson and Dexter Gordon. They all played with the Gonsalves Sextet, which in a few months had become the talk of the town and somehow represented a San Francisco style, a hybrid response to the jazz that had been brewing in Los Angeles and had already been labeled the West Coast style. Gonsalves himself was a huge fan of Gerry Mulligan, Shorty Rogers, and the fresh sound emanating from Southern California.

Also in November, Gonsalves traveled to Los Angeles to record —again with sound engineer John Neal— a 12” for Liberty Records, but this time he did it with his original sextet, which by now had remained stable since high school. Its members —and Virgil’s schoolmates for that matter— were Bob Badgley, valve trombone; Dan Patiris, tenor sax; Clyde Pound, piano (who also played with the Rudy Salvini big band); Max Hartstein, bass; and Gus Gustafson, drums. The arrangements were provided by Jerry Cournoyer and Bob Searle. After their first recording session, bassist Max Harstein fell ill and had to be replaced by the excellent Ron Crotty, who previously played with Brubeck. On this album, Gonsalves’ work comes off with inventiveness and flow, and he managed to demonstrate his inherent rhythmas a soloist. The interplay between him and Dan Patiris keeps the swinging level of this set of the so-called San Francisco Jazz Style performances.

On November 10, 1955, Gonsalves’ unit, Rudy Salvini’s big band, and tenorman Brew Moore —a legend among the local jazz crowd since his arrival in San Francisco in the early 1950s— performed at a jazz concert organized by San Francisco State University.

Bandleader Rudy Salvini was another indefatigable Bay Area musician who had begun playing trumpet when he was eight years old and became interested in jazz in 1941 after hearing Stan Kenton’s band at the Oakland Sweet Ballroom. “That was the most exciting band I’ve ever heard,” said Rudy.

Originally from Oakland, where he was born on March 22, 1925, Rudy Salvini attended Clawson Elementary School and Hoover High School. At eighteen, during his senior year at Tech, he put together his first band, a 10-piece orchestra whose members included John Marabuto and Johnny Coppola. They played anywhere they could, including USO dances. “Pretty soon the union got to know who I was and said ‘hey, why don’t you join us?’” recalls Rudy. “So I went down to see the business agent in Oakland and joined.” Like most AFM locals at the time, Local 6 was racially segregated. Local 669, the black local, was a subsidiary of Local 6. It covered the same territory as Local 6 although black musicians were not allowed to play east of Van Ness. The two locals were finally merged by court order in 1960.”

He then went on to San Francisco State University, where he belonged to the same student body as Virgil Gonsalves. In May 1945 he was drafted and stationed at Wiesbaden, Germany with the 761st Army Air Force band. Later, at the recommendation of friends, Rudy joined the 314th Army Forces Band, the top general’s band, which boasted the best musicians from all over Europe. They played at the Wiesbaden Opera house for the Army Air Force Radio Network. It was a big band with a full string section and four singers, including a young Tony Benedetto (later Tony Bennett, of course). Two years later, Rudy returned to San Francisco State University and received his Bachelors in Music and teaching credentials in 1953. After his graduation, Salvini started doing substitute teaching at schools, instructing private pupils, playing casual jobs —and trying to put big band jazz back in the picture in Oakland.

In 1954, Rudy Salvini, the young trumpeter and school-teacher, finally organized his 17-piece rehearsal band, mostly with SF State grads. Each week they gathered on Saturday in a San Francisco hall at 230 Jones Street to play long and arduous but stimulating rehearsals just for the sheer joy of music. “People would bring their music, and we would play it,” said Rudy, “That started me off. During two years of just rehearsals,” Salvini remarked, “there were some dreary moments —though not too many. There also were some changes in personnel, but the nucleus of the band remains the same,” he said in March 1956.

It was preeminently a jazz band, although it devoted a considerable portion of its repertoire to dancing tempo numbers in an attempt to interest whatever group of dancers existed in the Bay Area. The Salvini band was a young, Kenton-Basie derived band which, however, was extremely original in its arrangements, notably by Jerry Coker, Jerry Mulvihill, and Jerry Cournoyer.

On January 14, 1956, Rudy Salvini’s big band made its first public appearance, along with Virgil Gonsalves’ sextet, at the Saturday afternoon dance concert sessions for young people at Oakland Sweet’s Ballroom, organized by Pat Henry, the best jazz disc jockey (at KROW) in the Bay area. They drew 250 patrons for their first date. “I will forever be indebted to Pat,” Salvini said, recalling that Mr. Henry had helped set up his band’s first Bay Area gig. “He really gave us our start. He put himself out on a limb for us.”

Come March, Pat Henry took his show to the Sands, another Oakland dance hall, where he resumed latenight sessions, but this time as “Sunday at the Sands.” Given that big band shows were not having much luck else where in the country, it was encouraging that Henry’s display of Salvini’s great team, along with the Virgil Gonsalves sextet, was being met with great approval.

Meanwhile, the notoriety of the sextet had spread throughout the country with their albums and articles in national publications and also through musicians who had been able to listen to them. Virgil began receiving requests to play outside the Bay Area, and on May 5th he flew his sextet to the University of Colorado for a one niter, and also got a booking for that summer at Lake Tahoe in Nevada.

The famous veteran tenor saxophonist Vido Musso, after years of playing in some of the best big bands (Benny Goodman, Harry James, and Stan Kenton, among others), began his journey as a leader. On May 25, 1956, he opened at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom with a 10-piece band scheduled for a series of weekend dances. Virgil formed the band for Vido, which included the Gonsalves sextet plus altoist Jerry Dodgion and other local musicians.

Meantime, Rudy Salvini’s Oakland band had come a longway since its debut earlier that year, not only succeeding musically, but drawing nearly 400 people on the night of Sunday,October 14, 1956, during their first appearance that season at the Sands Ballroom. Due to the enthusiastic response of the public, the band was able to stay together. And although it was still playing only casual engagements and its members had to support themselves with other jobs, these casual events were becoming more andmore frequent.

Later, in November ‘56 Salvini’s big band recorded five tunes for the new label San Francisco Jazz Records, led by former disc jockey Alan Levitt. Pat Henry, who produced the recording session, explained: “We rented the Sands Ballroom in Oakland. First, it is a big hall, an old hall. We used the smallest possible space to gain the effect of actually sitting inside the band.Only one Telefunken microphone was used for all the reeds, trumpets and trombones. An Altec M-30 microphone system was used for the bassist and the pianist.” With this recording, Salvini’s big band finally got the opportunity to be heard nation-wide. Along with Jerry Coker’s quartet and vocalist Ree Brunell, the band was featured on “Intro to Jazz,” the first LP issued by the label; itwas released in February 1957. It had also been rumored at the time that the Virgil Gonsalves Sextet would record an LP for San Francisco Jazz Records, but this never happened because Levitt died suddenly, and that was the end of the record label.

On the weekend of November 18, 1956, at the Black Hawk, the Calvin Jackson Quartet was sharing the stand with the new Virgil Gonsalves Sextet which included drummer Bob Fuhlrodt and bassist Jerry Good of Oakland, tenor Lloyd Rice, pianist John Baker, and trumpeter Mike Downs, another Oaklander.

Also in November, Rudy Salvini left his orchestra for a spell and brought a quintet to the Chi-Chi Club on 12th St. Clyde Pound was on piano, usually with Virgil Gonsalves, Pete Dovino on tenor clarinet and vocals, Dean Reilly on bass, and Forrest Elledge on drums. They played four nights a week for two weeks.

In December, Virgil’s sextet reconvened for three consecutive weekends at the Black Hawk with afterhours sessions at the small Pond’s club. Then starting on January 11, 1957, they performed four nights a week at the Cable Car Village at California and Hyde streets. The group’s personnel included Mike Downs (tp), Dan Patiris (ts), Clyde Pound (p); Jerry Goode (b), and Bob Fuhlrodt (d). On January 26 they began a series of Saturday afternoon concerts at the New Fillmore theater.

At Berkeley’s Little Theater, the night of May 29, a near-capacity audience of more than 500 people, most of them Berkeley High School students, gave an enthusiastic welcome to a 2 1/2 hour concert by Salvini’s big band with Virgil Gonsalves in the sax section. The concert was amazing in several respects. It was the first, at least in many years, in which a high school student body sponsored big band jazz. The audience was notable for the close attention it paid to the music and for the heart felt applause with which it rewarded the various fine soloists as well as the band as a whole.

On Sunday May 26, the first Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival took place at the Civic Auditorium, presented by promoter Irving Granz and headlined by Salvini’s band, along with Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, The Four Freshmen and Anita O’Day. The festival was a one-night affair and drew crowd of over 3,000 people. According to the press, Salvini’s band played well together and showed a good sense of dynamics. The band opened with five hard picks, four of which were originals by San Francisco songwriters, one of them dedicated to disc jockey Pat Henry called “Wail for Patrick,” was composed by Jerry Coker.

In June 1957, Gonsalves took his sextet into the Moana Surf club —on 467 Broadway— with Eddie Kahn replacing Goode on bass. As for Rudy Salvini, he ended his series of dances at the Sands ballroom on June 16 with the idea to resume come fall.

In July, Gonsalves moved into Fack’s on Market St. and booked it for a weekend, which was extended to four nights a week as the club was running at a good pace. With the arrival of autumn, the club reduced their engagement to three nights a week with the Gonsalves sextet and the Cal Tjader trio.

On Sunday, October 27, 1957, the Eastbay jazz scene began to take off with Rudy Salvini’s big band making their return of the season at the Sands Ballroom. Although some of the individual members of the band —including tenor Jerry Coker, trumpeter Allen Smith, pianist John Marabuto, Jerry Dodgion, and Virgil Gonsalves— were well-known on their own merits, and, despite the support of newspapers and of nationally acclaimed Oakland disc jockey Pat Henry —they had at least $500 worth of plugs a week on KROW— the band never really got off the ground, except on occasion.

In July 1957, Jazz Workshop co-owner Dave Glickman opened the Jazz Showcase (formerly Downtown) as a non-alcoholic nightclub, offering jazz concerts in a European cabaret setting at popular prices for a teenage audience. Glickman was an enterprising lawyer who for a time ran the Jazz Showcase as a hobby, breaking precedent with his innovative nightclub andweekend shows. However, just a few months later, the experiment failed. In February 1958, the Jazz Showcase closed its doors indefinitely on the deficit side of the ledger. The Bud Shank Quartet, The Mastersounds, Chico Hamilton Quintet, Woody Herman’s New Third Herd, and the Dick Mills-Brew Moore Quintet, were some of the notable names that had performed there. Virgil Gonsalves’ sextet also played there on November 3, 1957. The passage of the Jazz Showcase, Dave Glickman’s bold experiment, left a huge gap in the Bay Area teen jazz scene and for C.H. Garrigues of The San Francisco Examiner it posed a big question for serious jazz fans. Garrigues in his “Chords and Changes” wrote: “There is plenty of good jazz in the regular jazz clubs. But the youngsters —they who should be growing up with this natural part of their cultural heritage— have almost no access to serious jazz except by means of the phonograph record, either on their own machines or on Pat Henry’s nightly KROW program.

“Rudy Salvini, who had long been a leader in the effort to bring jazz to people of his own generation, believed that hope lay in the schools; As an SF State alumnus, Rudy had seen jazz become the mode of expression at college after college in the Bay Area: San Francisco, San Jose, College of the Pacific and others. He believed that if jazz could be brought to the universities —as Dave Brubeck, among others, had been— the problem of his future would be solved.”

February 16, 1958 was the last weekly appearance of the Salvini band at the Sands. It was no secret that the band did not cover the expenses. The music was wonderful, but the crowd was not and their sponsors no longer wanted to continue their support. It was a sad blow to this association of Bay Area musicians who were so devoted to big band jazz. Several of themearned their living teaching.

Despite this set back, Rudy Salvini’s big band continued to play casual concerts because the quality of the orchestra and the enthusiasm of its members and leader were unbeatable. In March 1958, baritone sax player Curtis Lowe, a veteran of Lionel Hampton’s band, replaced Virgil Gonsalves in Salvini’s big band while he went to play with the group backing Johnny Mathis at the Fairmont Hotel.

By then, Virgil Gonsalves was perhaps the hardest-working and busiest jazz musician in Northern California, but his break wouldn’t arrive until the spring of 1958 when his sextet was booked for a two week run starting May 13 at the Hollywood Jazz Cabaret, formerly occupied by the famous Jazz City. At the end of June they were hired at the Black Hawk for another two weeks.

The Gonsalves line-up at the time included pianist Arthur Fletcher (replacing Merrill Hoover, another Oakland resident who was hired as a sideman for Anita O’Day), trumpeter Mike Downs, bassist Terry Hilliard, drummer Bobby Fuhlrodt of Oakland, and tenor saxophonist Dan Patiris, who was from San Francisco.

In July 1958, the Gonsalves sextet received much praise while playing at the Blue Mirror, San Francisco’s newest jazz club. C.H. Garrigues wrote in The San Francisco Examiner: “One of the happiest changes to report in the Bay area jazz scene is the improvement the Virgil Gonsalves Sextet showed in its recent engagement at the Black Hawk late June 1958. Potentially, the group is much more complex, much more capable of important serious music, than anything which has yet come out of San Francisco.

“As a result of the improvement, Virgil’s group has been booked into the Blue Mirror on Fillmore, now returning to a four-night jazz policy after a considerable lapse. It was formerly one of the top jazz spots of the area.”

Virgil himself gave credit for the improvement to the almost stubborn persistence with which the group kept rehearsing. “Man,” he said, “we haven’t worked much in the last 12 months, but we sure did practice a lot together, I think it’s starting to show.”

On Saturday, August 9, 1958, the Gonsalves Sextet played a concert at the Booker T. Washington Community Center. He was then invited to the first Monterey Jazz Festival, organized by Jimmy Lyons, the first civic sponsored jazz event held on the Pacific Coast. On the afternoon of Saturday, October 4, 1958, and with Pat Henry as master of ceremonies, Virgil presented his impressive sextet which was a great success, but he was a victim of the overlap. His all-star jazz symphonic performance, scheduled to close the afternoon of October 5, had to be removed from the overloaded schedule. He had been scheduled to play Stravinsky’s Ebony Concerto, with Buddy DeFranco as soloist.

Rudy Salvini’s big band continued to be hailed by jazz critics as one of the most exciting on the Pacific Rim. Salvini’s musicianship and training were most evident at the Monterey Jazz Festival, where his team turned in amore exciting performance than the other big bands of Harry James and Med Flory. His band played the Monterey Festival Suite, written by pianist John Marabuto. Virgil showed up again as the sax section’s anchorman in Salvini’s wailing band.

Early in November 1958, the Virgil Gonsalves sextet appeared in the women’s gymnasium at Humboldt Stale college, and on the 18th, they opened a two-week run at the Jazz Workshop with a new rhythm section that consisted of Merrill Hoover (p), Eddie Kahn (b), and Al Randall (d). At the beginning of December, his successful performance was extended for two more weeks during which he accompanied singer Dakota Staton on two dates. As a result of the goodwork of the sextet, Dave Hubert, producer and owner of Omegatape and Omega Records, proposed to record a stereophonic album as soon as possible and Virgil accepted.

In January 1959, Rudy Salvini joined the Laguna Salada elementary school district of Pacifica, as one of the two music instructors for the district and was just starting on his teaching career. Rudy taught elementary music to kids in the 5th through 8th grade. The new teaching job was not going to mean that Salvini would give up his big band jazz work. The group continued its rehearsals once aweek and had a monthly Sunday dance concert at Sands.

The Virgil Gonsalves sextet had become one of the musical references in the world of jazz in Northern California. But Virgil, always restless and enthusiastic, also organized a big band with trumpeter Jerry Cournoyer that was made up of three trumpets and a flugelhorn, two trombones, a tuba, five saxophones and the rhythm section. They met weekly to rehearse the arrangements and compositions that Cournoyer, Dan Patiris and Gonsalves himself had written for the new band with the purpose of performing at the local AFM Dance Band Contest.

On February 15, at Oakland’s Sands Ballroom, the AFM Dance Band Competition was held, featuring the bands of Rudy Castro, Buddy Hiles, Rudy Salvini, Steve Paul, Amando Paolini, Virgil Gonsalves, Jerry Cournoyer, DC Pinkston, EddieWalker and Johnny Ingram. The orchestras conducted by the trumpeters, Eddie Walker and Rudy Salvini, ranked first and second respectively.

On Monday, May 25, 1959, Gonsalves, just after finishing a successful month at San Francisco’s Mr. Smith club, recorded the LP for Omega. The album title was “Jazz at Monterey by the Virgil Gonsalves Big Band Plus Six”. One side of the disc consisted of five big band songs which included several members of his sextet, such as Downs and Patiris, as well as other fine sidemen including Leo Wright (the young altoist who joined Gillespie), John Coppola, Jerry Cournoyer, Dickie Mills, Junior Mance, and Benny Barth. The other side had four tracks from the sextet. The result of these performances was a clear sign of the development of modern jazz in the Bay Area. The excellent sound of these recordings was the work of John Hall, chief engineer of Omega Records.

Virgil’s sextet then moved into The Cabana club for a month-long engagement. Previously, Virgil’s long-time trumpeter Mike Downs left with Philly Joe Jones for Chicago and Philadelphia, so Stan Foster came in to replace him. Young drummer Dick Berk also played on several Sundays with the Gonsalves Sextet.

In January 1960, Hal Lederman and Peter Ekstein —a new Hollywood promotion team, operating as Omega Enterprises— announced their “Dimensions in Jazz.” It was a jazz weekend featuring Dave Brubeck, Dinah Washington, and the Three Sounds, with one performance Friday night at the Berkeley Community Theater and one on Saturday night at the Masonic Temple in San Francisco. In addition Virgil Gonsalves got the gigs for the standbys at both concerts, being heard in the Berkeley show with his big band and in San Francisco with his sextet. Thanks to the success, Lederman and Ekstein, invited the Gonsalves big band to appear on at the Hollywood Jazz Festival in June.

On the night of St. Valentine’s day, February 14, the Rudy Salvini big band gave its long awaited first dance concert of the season at the Sands Ballroom. He was also a regular attraction on the Monday and Tuesday night bandstand at Castle’s Lucky XIII in San Leandro where Rudy headed a Quintet with singer Ree Brunell, who would become his wife in August.

On Friday night, March 4, 1960, Lederman and Ekstein presented a new “Dimensions in Jazz” concert at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium. Headlining the bill was the Miles Davis Quintet, and rounding out the enticing lineup of the evening, were the Farmer-Golson-Fuller Jazztet, the Paul Horn Quintet with Jimmy Witherspoon, and at the last minute Nina Simone joined the event. Virgil Gonsalves’s big band opened the show Friday night to praise from jazz critics.

Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan and the new Virgil Gonsalves Sextet all performed to the delight of the audience that filled the Civic Auditoriumon June 16. The next day Gonsalves and his big band, which featured three trumpets and a flugelhorn, two trombones, a tuba, five saxophones, and rhythm section, appeared at the Hollywood Jazz Festival.

Late May, the Oscar Peterson trio had to cancel their last three nights at the Black Hawk when Oscar’s mother passed away unexpectedly. The Gonsalves sextet filled in at the last minute with Ray Brown on bass.

After the summer, the Rudy Salvini and the Virgil Gonsalves-Jerry Cournoyer workshop bands stopped altogether.

In November 1960, the Gonsalves sextet, including Stan Foster (tp), Dan Patiris (ts), Kenny Elmore (p), Carl Brown (b) and Lee Russell (d), was held over at San Francisco’s Hungry cellar nitery at 599 Jackson, a bohemian North Beach club that also played a role in the rise of comedians Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce.

In March 1961, Virgil organized a quartet that was booked for eight weeks Wednesdays through Saturdays in the New Plush Room, a dining and dancing San Francisco place located at 946 Sutter St. Then, early in April, Virgil with his sextet, which included several new members, went to Las Vegas to back singer Anita O’Day and in a subsequent Denver engagement. In June he was back working with his sextet on Sundays at Suite 14, an Oakland club.

In October 30, 1961, Gonsalves put together a tentet to appear at “Jazz for Moderns,” a concert with a program ranging from traditional blues to modern music, having two performances at Berkeley University in California.

In the summer of 1962, at a time of little work, Virgil found a foothold in New York in the new Woody Herman’s “Thundering Herd” that worked at the Metropole as a replacement for baritone-saxophonist Frank Hittner. Meanwhile the Rudy Salvini big band continued to work casual dance dates at the Fairmont Hotel ballroom, as well as some clubs.

In May 1963, after more than two years away from the Bay Area, Virgil Gonsalves returned to the jazz circuit when he was booked to play weekends at the Colony Club in Monterey. This time Virgil was fronting a quintet featuring trumpeter Webster Young; Jerry Coker (p); Terry Hilliard (b); and Kenny Shirlan (d). He later worked with a quartet at Maida’s in Bamboo Village, Salinas (returning for New Year’s Eve) and at the Outrigger in Monterey.

In October while still at the Outrigger, Virgil unveiled a new sextet to play Wednesdays through Sundays on a bill that included the great alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, who was living in Carmel Valley. His sextet included pianist Bob Dorough, guitarist Al Shackman from New York, bassist Boshko Vuko from Yugoslavia; the great New Orleans drummer Art Lewis who was then working in San Francisco, and singer Alicia Harby.

After a break of few months, Virgil Gonsalves returned to the club circuit in May 1964, leading a quartet with him doubling baritone sax and flute and joining Don Alberts (p), Don Russo (b) and Art Lewis (d), playing on Wednesdays through Sundays at the Charles Van Damme in Sausalito.

Back with his sextet, Gonsalves played weekend night sessions at Monterey’s Outrigger in September 1964. Shortly thereafter he appeared in a lengthy engagement with pianist Don Alberts at Bustles and Beaus on Powell Street in downtown San Francisco. At this stage, Gonsalves also led a septet that played at the City Civic Center on September 25 at the annual Arts Festival. Rudy Salvini’s big band also gave a free concert the following day.

In October 27, Gonsalves’ quartet opened at Music Cross Roads on Jack London Square. For this engagement, bassist Norman McKay replaced Don Russo. According to Russ Wilson of the Oakland Tribune: “The East bay jazz scene began broadening last night and further expansion is imminent. Virgil Gonsalves has one of the Bay Area’s best modern jazz combos. It iswell rehearsed and features a good many original tunes by the leader and pianist Don Alberts.”

On Sunday, May 16, 1965, Gonsalves played a benefit jazz concert organized by the Children’s Home Society, titled “Capsule of Jazz History.” He was there as a member of the John Coppola big band in the College of Nôtre Dame Auditorium in Belmont. Coppola’s band included Rudy Salvini, Dan Patiris, John Handy, Bill Perkins, and John Marabuto. The ensemble imitated the styles of bigname bands from the previous 40 years. Coppola was a popular trumpeter with 20 years of professional experience. He had been with the bands of Stan Kenton and Woody Herman, as well as in the shows of Judy Garland, Nat King Cole and Danny Kaye, among other activities. He was born in Geneva, NY, a former resident of Oakland, and a student at Technical High School. He also lived in San Francisco, where he appeared in many night clubs and shows.

In March 1966, Virgil again played in Coppola’s band at the Oakland Holiday Inn. He then had a stint with Woody Herman’s band and shortly thereafter left the jazz scene when he joined the horn section (on baritone, soprano & flute), of Mike Bloomfield’s Electric Flag, a notable blues-rock band. When his drummer Buddy Miles broke up with Mike after the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, he organized a new Electric Flag-American Music band, a nine-piece group directed by veteran bassist Harvey Brooke.

Also in 1966, the Rudy Salvini Big Band had the honor of being the first big band to play at the Stern Grove Festival appearing along with pianist Vince Guaraldi, altoist John Handy, and Turk Murphy.

A new experience for Gonsalves was writing the musical score for “Sons and Daughters,” a powerful 1968 film directed by celebrated San Francisco photographer Jerry Stroll. This low budget film was the story of the young people’s protest against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Jon Hendricks composed and sang the title song and a second protest song about the Negro ghetto titled “Fire In The City.” Musical accompaniment was by The Grateful Dead.

In October 1968, Buddy Miles rounded up some of his favorite musicians, including Virgil Gonsalves, Marcus Doubleday (tp), Herbie Rich (org & ts), and Terry Clements (ts) and he started his own band: the Buddy Miles Express. Rounding out the eight-member group were Bill Rich (b), Jim McCarty (g), and Robert McPherson (ts). Virgil recorded with the Express for Mercury and continued with the band for over a year. Also during the fall of 1968, Virgil played flute in jam sessions with Jimi Hendrix.

In the fall of 1970 Virgil joined Bluesberry Jam, an all-star rock-jazz group featuring musicians who had formerly been with name bands. The other members were Al Walton (vocals & harmonica) who was formerly the singer with the Pacific Gas and Electric, Al Gallegos (ts & fl) who had toured with Ike & Tina Turner and played several years with Perez Prado’s orchestra, Ken Klimak (lead guitarist for Mr. Stress), Gerald Olds (b) who had played with Tom Rush and the Greenbriar Boys, Brian Moffett (a top Chicago jazz drummer who had played concerts and club dates with Roland Kirk), and young Hungarian trumpeter Frank Szabo who later became a fixture in the Los Angeles jazz big bands of Louie Bellson, Count Basie, Frank Capp/Nat Pierce, Pat Longo, Don Menza, Bill Holman, Doc Severinsen, Charlie Shoemake, Stan Kenton 50th Celebration band, Tom Talbert, Roger Neumann, and Gerald Wilson, among others. The music of Bluesberry Jam was described as “American funk.”

At 41 years old, Virgil found a new home for a year when the rock-blues-soul band Pacific Gas & Electric Company changed their name to PG&E.

In 1975 he was the baritone saxophonist and ensemble coordinator of the Delta Wires, a very heavy group in the soul and funk Oakland style of Tower of Power that also handled laidback growling blues and occasional pure jazz lead lines over their rockish beat. Delta Wires was a ten-piece group with two trumpets, two saxes and a pair of keyboards, plus bass, guitar, drums, and harpist and leader Ernie Pinata.

After the mid-1970s, Virgil Gonsalves continued working as a freelancer but not much is known about his later activities. He passed away at 77 in Salinas, CA on October 20, 2008.

Until his retirement in 1985, Salvini taught music in Pacifica schools, a career he loved and of which he was proud. He also continued working with an Octet in the 90s and the early 2000s. In addition to Salvini on trumpet, the band included in at various times, Bruce Wolff, Nael Van Valkenburgh or Van Hughes (tb), Art Dougherty (as), Howard Dudne, Tom Hart or Jim Grantham (ts), Chuck Peterson or Ted Thiele (bs), Michael Greensill or John Price (p), Dean Reilly or Frank Pasantino (b), and Tom Duckworth or Eric Thompson (d). Rudy also played with his big band once a month at the Boat House in San Francisco with what Rudy called “the best cats in town.” In October 1996, Rudy’s Octet was chosen to play at the Duke Ellington Exhibit which toured the United States featuring guitarist Kenny Burrell. In his last years Rudy rehearsed once a month at the union with his band and performed once a month at the Alameda Elks Ballroom. He died on June 7, 2011.

Virgil Gonsalves and Rudy Salvini were two very importance driving forces of jazz in the Bay Area in the 50’s. With this compilation CD, we want to pay tribute not only to their talent as musicians and band leaders, but also to their perseverance and their little-remembered musical accomplishments, a true labor of love for jazz.

—Jordi Pujol (From the inside liner notes of FSRCD 1114)