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The Musical Life of Bob Cranshaw

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The Musical Life of Bob Cranshaw University of Northern Colorado Scholarship & Creative Works @ Digital UNC Dissertations Student Research 5-2020 We, Not Me: The Musical Life of Bob Cranshaw Seth Britton Lewis Follow this and additional works at: https://digscholarship.unco.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Lewis, Seth Britton, "We, Not Me: The Musical Life of Bob Cranshaw" (2020). Dissertations. 664. https://digscholarship.unco.edu/dissertations/664 This Text is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Research at Scholarship & Creative Works @ Digital UNC. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholarship & Creative Works @ Digital UNC. For more information, please contact [email protected]. © 2020 SETH BRITTON LEWIS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN COLORADO Greeley, Colorado The Graduate SChool WE, NOT ME: THE MUSICAL LIFE OF BOB CRANSHAW A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Arts Seth Britton Lewis College of Performing and Visual Arts SChool of MusiC Jazz Studies May 2020 This Dissertation by: Seth Britton Lewis Entitled: We, Not Me: The Musical Life of Bob Cranshaw has been approved as meeting the requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Arts in the College of Performing and Visual Arts in the SChool of MusiC, Program of Jazz Studies ACCepted by the Doctoral Committee _______________________________________________________ Erik Applegate M.M, Research Advisor _______________________________________________________ Jim White M.M., Committee Member _______________________________________________________ H. David Caffey M.M., Committee Member _______________________________________________________ Steve KovalCheCk M.M., Committee Member _______________________________________________________ Don Gudmundson Ph.D., FaCulty Representative Date of Dissertation Defense _____________________________________________ ACCepted by the Graduate SChool _____________________________________________________ Cindy Wesley Interim Associate Provost and Dean The Graduate SChool and International Admissions ABSTRACT Lewis, Seth Britton. We, Not Me: The Musical Life of Bob Cranshaw. Published Doctor of Arts dissertation, University of Northern Colorado, May 2020. This study focuses on the career of Bob Cranshaw by examining his musical attributes and his leadership within the jazz community. Cranshaw’s career exceeded sixty years and yielded more than 400 recordings with artists such as Sonny Rollins, Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Paul Simon, Rod Stewart, Dexter Gordon, and numerous others. His career is examined using recordings, interviews, articles, discographies, and other publications. Biographical information about Cranshaw’s upbringing, education, military service, and family dynamic offers perspective on how he established himself as a professional bassist and clarifies certain important decisions regarding his work. A timeline of Cranshaw’s career is constructed using discographies, articles, and interviews to show the development of his professional life. New interviews with Cranshaw, his colleagues, and his students further illuminate the range and scope of his work musically and non-musically. The identification of important events and key elements in Cranshaw’s professional and personal life makes it possible to better understand how and why he achieved success. In so doing, this study recognizes Cranshaw’s significant place in jazz history. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My deepest thanks go to Bob Cranshaw, who changed my life, and, so many other lives with his music and spirit. Also, thanks to my family and friends for their support and encouragement throughout the process working on this project. Thanks to the faculty and staff at the University of Northern Colorado for allowing me to work on this subject, which is so important to me. Thanks to all of the people who shared their time and memories of Bob Cranshaw, without which, this project would not have been possible. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1 Purpose....................................................................................................... 1 Need for Study........................................................................................... 6 Scope and Limitations................................................................................ 9 II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND RELATED MEDIA.......................... 11 Dissertations and other Academic Works.................................................. 11 Interviews and Articles in Music Publications........................................... 13 Other Interviews......................................................................................... 15 Overview Sources...................................................................................... 17 Recordings and Liner Notes....................................................................... 18 III. METHODOLOGY..................................................................................... 20 IV. BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY........................................................................ 27 Part I: 1932-1951........................................................................................ 27 Part II: 1953-1959...................................................................................... 44 Part III: 1959-1060..................................................................................... 57 Part IV: 1960-1962..................................................................................... 69 Part V: 1963............................................................................................... 90 Part VI: 1964.............................................................................................. 126 Part VII: 1965............................................................................................. 163 v Part VIII: 1966........................................................................................... 184 Part IX: 1967-1968..................................................................................... 200 Part X: 1969-1974...................................................................................... 220 Part XI: 1975-1990..................................................................................... 244 Part XII:1991-2016.................................................................................... 267 V. CONCLUSION.......................................................................................... 301 Tributes and Legacy................................................................................... 310 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................. 318 APPENDIX A – INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD APPROVAL................ 350 vi 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Purpose Bob Cranshaw is among the most recorded bassists in jazz history. His credits include more than 400 jazz albums1 as well as numerous recordings in other genres,2 including film and television soundtracks.3 Cranshaw was an active member of the jazz scene in Chicago and New York in the 1950s, and he performed and recorded with many influential jazz artists until his death in 2016. Cranshaw’s body of recorded music contains several of the most significant jazz albums of all time, including Sonny Rollins’ The Bridge. Cranshaw’s work with Rollins spanned more than sixty years: beginning in 1959 until Rollins’ retirement from performance in 2014. During their time together Rollins and Cranshaw played hundreds of live performances and made dozens of recordings.4 Cranshaw also played on several other important and influential jazz albums including Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder, Joe Henderson’s Inner Urge, and Horace 1 Tom Lord, “TJD-Online: Bob Cranshaw,” https://www.lordisco.com/tjd/MusicianDetail?mid=249, accessed 28 August 2019. 2 Ron Wynn, “Bob Cranshaw Discography,” https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bob- cranshaw-mn0000065862/credits, accessed 8 October 2019. 3 David Meeker, “Bob Cranshaw” Jazz on the Screen: A Jazz and Blues Filmography, (accessed 23 February 2020), https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/jots- search?view=thumbnail&query=bob+cranshaw&submit=GO&field=all 4 Ibid. 2 Silver’s The Cape Verdean Blues.5 Much of the repertoire from these and other albums on which Cranshaw performed has been studied by bassists around the world, and Cranshaw’s bass lines are considered to be essential components of the recordings. Cranshaw improvised many of these iconic bass lines during the recording sessions. Since the lines were Cranshaw’s creations, he not only contributed to these albums as a performer, but also as a composer. A good example of this is Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder,” from the album of the same title. Morgan asked Cranshaw to play an introduction to the song,6 and the bass line that Cranshaw created helped the album become the most successful record in Blue Note history.7 There are numerous other examples of Cranshaw’s improvised contributions to recordings presented throughout this study. Clearly, Cranshaw’s body of work has merit, but neither his life nor his musical output have ever been the subject of a thorough study. Though many sources of information about his life exist, those that are available are widely scattered. Most of the information about Cranshaw can be found in personal interviews. Fortunately, he was generous throughout
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