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780.97 Feather Die book of SWS JUfy 2 1 !9?S ~^"\i&cf THE BOOK OF JAZZ foreword by John "Dizzy" Gillespie a guide to its nature and its instruments its sources and sounds its development performers, comj The Book Of Jazz THE BOOK OF JAZZ LEONARD FEATHER Meridian Books, Inc. New fork LEONABD FEATHEB Leonard Feather came to New York In 1935 from London, where he was bom. He became prominent in American jazz Down Beat, circles through Ms contributions to Esquire, In addition Metronome, and many other publications. to his more than two hundred jazz compositions, Mr. Feather has toured with his own show, Jazz Club U.S.A., and has Introduced such distinguished jazz personalities Book as George Shearing. In addition to The of Jazz, he is the author of Inside Bebop, The Encyclopedia of Jazz, Inside Jazz, and The Yearbook of Jazz. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The musical illustrations in Chapter 22 were obtained from the following sources: Trumpet Blues (Roy Eldridge), Bloomdido (Charlie Parker), Confab with Rab (Johnny Hodges) , The Opener (Lester Young) , in Flat Phtinum Love ( Coleman Hawkins ) , Blues B the Oldest ( Art Tatum ) , Blues for Profession and Hattudnations Bud Powell ( Teddy Wilson ) T ( ) are all copyrights from the catalogue of JATAP Music Inc., and are reproduced by arrangement with Norman Granz. Jessica sBay^Jokn "Dizzy" Gillespie) is reproduced by permission of Silhouette Music Inc. I am deeply indebted to Quincy Jones, who worked closely with me in selecting material for the above illustrations, Slipped Dm (Benny Goodman) was copyrighted in 1945 and is reproduced by permission of Regent Music Coxp. Muggles (Louis Armstrong) was copyrighted in 1930 and 1947 and is reproduced by permission of Leeds Music Corp. Up on Teddy's Hill (Charlie Christian) is reproduced by permission of Thornwood Music Co. Blue Indiana Winter (Jay Jay Johnson) , Funk and (Jack Teagarden ) , Monogram (Buddy De Franco) are reproduced by permission of Modem Age Music Co. First published by Meridian Books, Inc., 1959 First printing 1959 Copyright 197 by Leonard Feather library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 59-7183 Manufactured in the United States of America CONTENTS ' FOREWORD by John "Dizzy Gillespie vi PART ONE THE SOURCES 3 CHAPTER 1 Perspectives and Objectives 2 Beginnings 8 2O / ,.-*** 3 Big Towns and Brass Bands **** 4 New Orleans Mainspring or Myth? 3O 39 5 Jazz and Race FART TWO THE INSTRUMENTS, THE SOUNDS, THE PERFORMERS 6 The Piano 57 7 The Trumpet 72 8 The Trombone 79 9 The Clarinet 86 10 The Alto Saxophone 92 11 The Tenor Saxophone 98 12 The Baritone and Other Saxophones 103 13 The Guitar HO 14 The Bass 119 15 The Drums 123 16 The Vibraphone 133 17 The Other Instruments 138 18 The Blues and the Human Voice 145 19 The Small Combos 159 174 20 The Big Bands 192 21 The Composers and Arrangers 1ABT THREE ITS NATURE 209 22 The Anatomy of Improvisation PART FOUB ITS FUTURE 245 23 Horizons: Jazz in 1984 Notes 263 Index 267 <:> 1 t FOREWORD BY JOHN "DIZZY** GELLESPJE Some time I out in a article that in ago pointed magazine spite of all the all the that are excitement about jazz and things hap pening with it in this country, there are still a lot of developments that have to take place before it will be as big, and mean as much over here as it countries overseas where does in some of the they call it our most important export. - As I said then, it seems to me that a big majority of the Ameri can people still think of jazz as music you hear through your feet, not your brains; lowbrow music that's not good enough to listen to and study and get kicks from, the way the serious fan does abroad. I can't remember any experience in America that compares with what happened when my band played in Ankara and Istan the bul, when only way we could stop the show was by playing the Turkish national anthem and closing the curtains when the audience just wouldn't stop screaming for more. And I will al ways remember the fantastic scenes in Athens, where some of the students who were supposed to have been involved in anti- American demonstrations gave us the greatest reception of our lives. I know that Benny Goodman in Thailand, Louis Armstrong in Scandinavia and Ghana, and Norman Granz* Jazz at the Phil harmonic in Europe and Japan have had similar experiences. Even in Iceland and Java and Argentina they have their own publications and jazz clubs. It was in Europe that the first real books on American jazz were published; it was in Europe that the first critics started writing seriously about it 25 years ago when it was almost completely ignored in this country. It is cer time for us to build tainly high up our own monument to the jazz in the form of a national culture, jazz collection, maybe as part of the Library of Congress, with all the music as well as the books and magazines and records under one roof, and tape-recorded interviews with some of the great pioneers while they are still around to tell their stories./For the same reason, I believe this new book by Leonard Feather is a step in the right direction. Foreword *ii In The Book of Jazz he has a lot of information that has never been put together in this particular (and very useful) way. First is the about the of there part backgrounds jazz, which was always supposed to have originated in the bordellos of New Orleans. I Personally, never did go along with that theory. I figure jazz to be a parallel for what happened in, say, the different cultures of the Caribbean. For example, the musicians in Haiti may play their drums one way, and in Jamaica or Cuba another way, but no matter how different they are, there is a basic root for all their music. Maybe in one place they call it a rhumba, some place else it's in a mambo, and Trinidad they have the calypso, but essen tially it all springs from the same thing. the all In same way the different forms of jazz grew up sep arately. Ifs a long distance from Trinidad to Cuba, and a long distance from New Orleans to New York, and people didn't travel much in those days or have the communications we have now, but Tm quite sure that there were the same sort of guys up in the North who had the same influences African influencesthat they had down in the South. I can't see where it could have all in originated any one city. This past summer, when I was teaching at the Music Inn School of Jazz in Lenox, Massachusetts, I was talking to Rex Stewart, the cornet player, who gave a lecture up there. It was very enlightening. He said that when Buddy Bolden and those guys were playing in New Orleans there were plenty of musicians up in the North and the East that were wailing them up some, too. This reminds me of when people walk up to me and try to start an argument by telling me, "Say, Dizzy, Charlie Parker said he invented bebop." And 111 tell them, 'Well, yes, he did; his con is I tribution what he put into it, but wouldn't say that CharHe of or Parker was the originator my style, Monk's style or Kenny Clarke's or any of the guys who were supposed to have had any thing to do with inventing this music," In the same way I think Leonard Feather has pointed out some important misunder standings about the origins of jazz. I found a whole lot of knowledge, in fact many things I didn't know, in the instrumental chapters that show the progress and evolutions of the various instruments. I've never seen a book on Vfll FOREWORD jazz done this way before and it's a very useful approach to the subject. As for the chapter on improvisation, I think this is a very, very wonderful idea. I know that when a musician plays a solo he does some things, some effects, that are so personal that if you write them out for someone who has never heard the original, they would have a tough time duplicating it from just looking at the music. If the solo is by some great individual artist like Charlie Parker or Cootie Williams or Johnny Hodges, it would be very difficult to get the same feeling again. However, when you are studying this music without trying to duplicate it, and particularly if you have the record to listen to along with looking at the music, it becomes very fascinating. It's pretty strange to look at your own solos. When I looked at the solo from Jessica's Day that's reproduced in this book, my first reaction was "Wow! Did I play that?" But then I listened to the record and looked at the music again and I found out it was accurate. You can see and hear all the notes, and Leonard Feather explains all about the passing chords and everything, which is very important, because in jazz you are always using these chords to find a new route to travel. It's like walking into the future. The guy that has the perception to get there more smoothly than another guy, and to reach out in a new direction along this route, is the one who's creating something.