By Ed Enright | Published October 2026
The most frightening moments of Halloween Tales unfold on the haunting first track, which finds the goresome foursome of saxophonist Michael Blake, pianist Gary Versace, bassist Ben Allison and drummer Michael Sarin scaring teenaged babysitters witless with their rendition of the haunting main theme to the 1979 movie Halloween. You can’t help but feel a little unsettled as bell-like tolls of doom signal the onset of All Hallow’s Eve and the boys set out trick-or-treating in the dodgy part of the neighborhood where the most gleefully devilish jazz cats dwell. First stop is “Stalking Monster,” the second movement of Duke Ellington’s 1955 symphonic jazz suite Night Creature; after some heavy, slow, syncopated stalking from Versace at extreme ends of the keyboard, this minor-key swing groove is as easygoing as it is unsuspecting, even as the titular monster’s multiphonic roars can occasionally be heard emanating from Blake’s otherwise subdued tenor. The much less foreboding and more optimistic “Great Pumpkin Waltz” (by Vince Guaraldi), with Blake playing dark-timbred tones on soprano, is classic 1966 Charlie Brown music — an swinging autumn stroll in 3/4 through the fields with childhood pals and pets. “Transylvanian Lullaby,” from the 1974 movie Young Frankenstein, is slow-walking and hauntingly beautiful, conjuring the first tentative steps of the film’s newly “born” quasi-human abomination; if you’ve seen the picture (with music composed by John Morris) you won’t be able to keep from laughing at the memory of those classic comedic scenes with character actor Peter Boyle. The gang heads back to Ellington’s house on “Anatomy Of A Murder (Main Theme)” from the triple-Grammy-winning 1959 film of the same name; it’s a minor blues in 12/8 that serves as a soulful study in cinematic suspense. An outing with this lineup of familiar jazz cats wouldn’t be complete without a songbook standard; they play Cy Coleman’s “Witchcraft” much witchier and breathier than Frank Sinatra’s 1957 hit version. Before heading home for the night with their Halloween haul, the merry pranksters conjure up a just-for-fun original, Blake’s “The Creep,” which crawls, then runs, then slows again to a spooky, cautious stroll following a killer bass solo, ending on an unresolved note that just might leave you glancing back over your shoulder once or twice.
